General Beltings cries foul

Published: 24 June 2018
GENERAL Beltings, the leading manufacturer of conveyor and other belts, says its performance in the first quarter of 2018 was deeply subdued as the Industry, Commerce and Enterprise Development ministry was failing to effectively enforce the statutory instruments [SIs] meant to protect industry.

In a bid to protect local industry from cheap imports, government came up with a number of import restriction measures such as SI 126 of 2014, SI 64 and SI 122 of 2017, among others.

However, General Beltings general manager Joseph Gunda told Standardbusiness that products, which were restricted were still finding their way into the country.

"(There is continuous) violation of statutory instruments… products, particularly conveyor belts that are under prohibition from importation through SIs 126/64/122, are finding their way through our porous borders," Gunda, who doubles as Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries Matabeleland Chapter president, said.

"Of late, some licences of products we manufacture are being issued by the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Enterprise Development to the detriment of local manufacturing.

"This is now an industry-wide problem, which we call upon government to urgently act on as the gains of protection that industry had started to observe are now being reversed."

Gunda said the situation was getting worse now as the ministry, which is the custodian of SIs 126/64/122, was "the one issuing out licences on a large scale for products that local companies can and are manufacturing."

"This is now a serious threat to industry as this will see the closure of more companies including those that had begun to revive.
"We are extremely concerned about this latest trend," he said.

Gunda also said their performance in the first quarter was deeply affected by inconsistent supply of raw materials due to foreign currency shortages.
"Although we almost tracked our budgets on both sales revenue and volumes, traditionally the first quarter budgets are set lower due to effects of the low industrial activity normally experienced during the annual Christmas shutdown," he said.

"However, the company could have performed better had we not experienced raw material stockouts as a result of our failure to pay our foreign suppliers due to non-allocation of adequate forex from the central bank."

Gunda said foreign currency was still a major stumbling block to productivity as allocations had not been sufficient.

He said General Beltings required about $300 000 monthly to import raw materials but the company had been getting an average monthly allocation of $118 000.

Gunda said they were yet to revive exports as they were still struggling to satisfy the local market due to forex shortages.

"We have not revived exports mainly due to two reasons," he said.

"Our inability to produce and deliver products within customer lead times due to raw material stockouts as a result of forex shortages to pay our foreign suppliers."

The other reason, he said was: "Uncompetitive prices due to Zimbabwe's high cost of production making it difficult to penetrate the regional export market."

Industry, Commerce and Enterprise Development permanent secretary Abigail Shoniwa requested questions in writing, but she had not responded by the time of going to print.

Industry minister Mike Bimha's mobile phone went unanswered.
- the standard
Tags: Belting,

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