Zimbabwe has many billions of dollars but unless there is a change of mindset, all those billions will amount to nothing in terms of developing the country, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur has said.
By Jeoffrey Ncube
Speaking at the Ease of doing business workshop held in Harare on Tuesday, Chief Executive of Big Time Strategic Group, Justice Maphosa said the answer to Zimbabwe’s economic solutions lies in the natural resources and friends from abroad as well as investors but that will only happen if Zimbabweans change their mind set.
“In Zimbabwe, the answer to our economic solutions lies in our natural resources, friends from abroad such as America and China and also investors from elsewhere, yes they are necessary but they will only come when we develop our country.
“What then is the problem ask why is Zimbabwe not advancing, what happened to our plans that we had, the answer lies with us as Zimbabweans we are our own enemies we pull each other down and always complaining but delivering nothing new we have a self destructive mind.
“I believe that Zimbabwe will turn around a corner when all Zimbabweans begin to have a join discussion about ourselves, with ourselves for ourselves in our own land and the ease of doing business in Zimbabwe will start with that.
“No one will fix potholes for us, no one will assure us electricity if we don’t do that for our selves, in actual fact people are not interested in our problems because problems are there everywhere so we must do whatever it takes to attract investors,” he said.
Maphosa urged local authorities to keep cities and towns clean to attract foreign investors in Zimbabwe.
“l took a tour of Robert Mugabe way and it really made me very sad as a Zimbabwean, it was named after our founding father, l found feces as fresh as they were… now my question is who will invest in such a dirty town, let’s be serious as local authorities and clean up our country.
“Money is a visitor and it does not visit anybody but it selects who to visit so we need to clean up our minds such that investors will come in, goods entry and taxes and some of the charges levied on goods such as cars are a bit exorbitant, electricity which is a challenge, every business needs electricity and generally advertising ourselves as Zimbabwe for a tourist destination and everywhere l go tell people that Zimbabwe is open for business,” said Maphosa.
