A businessman's tale

Tichaona Nyikadzino, 36, is a young businessman struggling to stay afloat in a hostile economic environment. He is the director of Millennium 2000, an indigenous retail company that specialises in distributing liquor, wire and nails, and assembles bicycles as well. He also runs a clinic at Harare International Airport. Nyikadzino left full-time employment with a commercial bank seven years ago to run the family business at the invitation of his father. His main market is the high-density areas of the capital, Harare. "Since 2000, the economic environment in Zimbabwe has become increasingly hostile to business, particularly upcoming establishments like mine. It was easier to do business before that, because, even if we also complained then, the operating environment was predictable and relatively stable, making it possible to plan," Nyikadzino tells IRIN. He is concerned with bank lending rates, which he says have jumped from less than 30 percent in 2000 to the current 100 percent. That means he has difficulty in raising money to finance his operations, let alone expand. A big headache is the increasing spate of fraud cases involving his staff. "I am losing a lot of money through high-level fraud and theft. Whereas I had to contend with petty cash thefts several years ago, I now have to live with the painful reality of millions being stolen by my employees." Nyikadzino, who says he can no longer trust his managers, has ended up doing most of the administrative work himself. He believes the rise in theft is because his employees cannot afford to make ends meet, while he is working a 16-hour day to stay in business. The country's acute foreign currency shortage is crippling his bicycle business, since most of the parts needed for assembling the bikes are imported. Nyikadzino has to source foreign currency on the black market due to the shortages at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. But since exchange rates on the black market are unstable, his profit margins fluctuate and at times he has been forced to sell at a loss. Nyikadzino therefore revises his retail prices almost on a daily basis. However, spiralling inflation has hit the pockets of his customers too. Nyikadzino blames the political situation for the depression in business, saying that disruptions in agriculture since the introduction of land reform have led to the evaporation of international investor confidence. "Disruptions of agricultural activities through farm occupations drove away international confidence. Tobacco and cotton output has drastically fallen, and we cannot get enough foreign currency because the two were leading foreign currency earners. In addition, gold and other minerals are experiencing viability problems," he says. The Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions, a pro-government labour body, constantly disrupts his operations, issuing him with threats over "baseless" allegations made by fired employees. "It does not mean that Zimbabwe is incapable of producing foreign currency and making the economy work again. It is just that we have our policies wrong most of the time," he says with cautious optimism. SEE ALSO: ZIMBABWE: A nurse's tale ZIMBABWE: A policeman's tale ZIMBABWE: A veteran's tale ZIMBABWE: A teacher's tale ZIMBABWE: Special Report on rising poverty