Registry anarchy dismays industry

THE shambolic state of Zimbabwe’s company registry and deeds offices has become a major hindrance for both business and the country’s investment drive analysts warn.
This comes as a number of companies have complained about alleged “data tampering and missing deeds” at the two key offices — in worrying developments that also reflect poorly on the county’s ease-of-doing business climate.
Brains Muchemwa, a local economist, said delays in processing inquiries at the company registry, for example, were not only frustrating business, but were also not good for the country’s investment image.
“The integrity and efficiency of the company registry and deeds office is very important in safeguarding proprietary interests, as well as facilitating ease of investing by companies,” he told The Financial Gazette this week.
“These are parts of the soft infrastructure that does not require much capital to implement, yet we so much lag behind where the world has moved on,” Muchemwa said.
In an earlier tweet, the Harare businessman had bemoaned the fact that it had been “almost two weeks now waiting for a name search and these are some of the internal sanctions we impose on ourselves”. On the other hand, businessman and ex-Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) chairman Nigel Chanakira said it was disappointing that these matters remained an issue — years after a process had been initiated to fully computerise the company registry and deeds offices.
“If people were able to do everything online, we would never hear of records going missing and we would not hear of any delays,” he said.
“Such inefficiencies are obvious distractions to the ease-of-doing business which we have been trying to improve for a long time,” Chanakira said.
“When I was chair at ZIA, we had a team that looked at the deeds and registry processes. That team found that New Zealand had the best system for this kind of thing, and we had someone from the New Zealand registry office come to Zimbabwe,” the former banker and ZIA chair said.
“The resolution from that process was that we should computerise everything at the deeds and registry offices. I left ZIA in 2017, and it is a huge disappointment that this has not been done,” he added.
And even though the World Bank had recently upgraded Harare from 155 to 140 — out of 190 countries polled in its latest global ease-of-doing business index — experts say Zimbabwe’s operating environment remains poor, marred by bureaucracy and other inefficiencies.
“We have been moved up the ease of doing business rankings, but Zimbabwe is still one of the most difficult places in the world to invest in,” veteran economist John Robertson told delegates at the Zimbabwe Economic Development and Financial Indaba in Harare last week.
“The investment climate in this country is hostile. The procedures for investment are expensive and time-consuming.
“The list of permits and licenses you have to apply for is very long and this frustrates investors,” he added, saying there remained much red tape for exporting businesses.
“Anyone in the business of exportation has to hire extra staff to handle the documentation needed for the export procedures.
“This adds to the costs and reduces the competitiveness of the products that Zimbabwe is trying to export,” Robertson said.
Speaking at the same event, Buy Zimbabwe chairman, Anxious Masuka, said any improvements in the country’s ease-of-doing business had not really assisted local businesses.
“The focus of our ease-of-doing business has been more on people coming to invest here, rather than a dual focus on enabling local companies to actually transact, to lower the cost of their product so that they become competitive,” he said.

“The ease-of-doing business in Zimbabwe has been misconstrued in many circles. It should be called the ‘impossibility-of-doing’ business and the ‘difficulty-of-doing’ business.
“I work with an exporting company and they have to go to six or seven offices to get export documentation, and some of the documents are not even relevant,” Masuka added.
Henry Ruzvidzo, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president, weighed in saying the government “should focus on reducing the regulatory burden on business”.
“The burden is not only for the investors that are coming here, but even more so the companies that are operating in this environment, which makes doing business difficult.
“In this regard, the efforts to improve the ease-of-doing business will need to be accelerated,” he said.
Still, the World Bank has said that Zimbabwe has improved its ease-of-doing business climate in five key areas — anchored on its online company name search facilities, business licensing by the Harare City Council and the issuance of construction permits, which are now being approved faster by the municipality.
The deeds registry is also said to have implemented an internal tracking system that allows applicants to track their applications throughout the property transfer process.
But as the first ports of call for investors, the systems — specifically relating to data security and integrity at the company registry and deeds offices — still leave much to be desired, observers say.
But President Emmerson Mnangagwa insists that his government is committed to further improving the country’s ease-of-doing business.
“On our part, my government remains committed to ensuring efficiency in our bureaucratic procedures during the processing of our exports.”
newsdesk@fingaz.co