Farai Mabeza, Senior Staff Writer 
ZIMBABWE’S manufacturing sector is asking for changes to the country’s duty regime, which it says impedes the importation of critical raw materials and gives an unfair advantage to importers of finished products.
According to local industrialists, the country currently allows the duty-free importation of certain semi-finished and finished products, while local processors of the same merchandise have to pay import duty for some of their raw material requirements.
Kurai Matsheza, CZI president
“We are saying to the government they (raw materials) must not be charged duty because they are raw materials for our production processes, because sometimes we find people who are importing finished products getting them duty free.
“Meanwhile, (we are) penalising those that import raw materials that will then be used in our production processes that create jobs and value addition,” Associated Foods’ operations executive, Joseph Mavu, told The Financial Gazette on the sidelines of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries’ (CZI) annual congress last week in Harare.
“This is an inconsistency that we would like the government to look into. Where we haven’t developed capacity to produce raw materials, these should come in duty free or some concessions must be given to allow industry to access those raw materials and create jobs to grow our economy.
“For example, we (Associated Foods) make products like peanut butter, jams and marmalades. But for peanut butter, our groundnut volumes aren’t enough to support the growing industry and we are still importing from Malawi and other neighbouring countries.
“How then are we expected to pay duty when we are bringing in a material that is in short supply locally and we are using this to create employment, value addition and grow the economy in terms of GDP?” he said.
CZI president Kurai Matsheza, however, emphasised that industry is not looking to impose import barriers, which he said would work against the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“As industry we are not asking for tariff barriers in terms of protection. We will not do that because we understand the markets are getting widened and the coming in of AfCFTA will militate against that effort.
“The protection we are talking about is just to say there are some products that are coming in duty free when other semi-finished products and raw materials have duties, so we were asking that the playing field be levelled,” Matsheza said.
“It’s not that we are asking for particular protection because we are saying when people from certain operations go to certain government offices they get dispensations that others are not getting.”
Meanwhile, Wattle Company managing director, Victoria Jakaza, said local manufacturers must also strive to reduce imports by working with local suppliers to improve production.
“Some of those imports are purchased using money from the auction. It’s just unfortunate that our imports are just too many. Most of those things can be made locally. We are seeing some of those things that are available locally, but we still see imports of those things,” Jakaza said.
She said Wattle Company was in the process of engaging a local producer of creosote, a preservative for transmission poles.
“We are talking to a local supplier and we are in the midst of those negotiations… getting them to certify their products with SAZ (Standards Association of Zimbabwe) so that we move forward and stop the importing. There are other products we are also looking into and are hoping to get locally.
“It is my hope that all companies look at their value chains and see whether they cannot purchase locally rather than importing because the forex that is going into imports should actually be used for more productive things like empowering businesses to grow the economy,” Jakaza said.
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