No Place For Fragmentation

BASED on feedback received, last week’s column hit a raw nerve among novices to business.

The column highlighted resistance by some corporate firms and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to facilitate entry and to warmly welcome newcomers into the business arena.

Attention was drawn that there are captains of business and heads of SOEs who still do not support industrialisation initiatives, such as Namibia’s Growth at Home economic development strategy, and other programmes that promote entrepreneurship and enterprise development.

From feedback, it seems the problem goes beyond an absence of local merchandise on supermarket shelves, on racks of building material and hardware stores, and in outlets of foreign-owned clothing and footwear retailers. Or domestic furniture made locally on the shop floors of local and foreign furniture chains.

To share two, in a discussion, an entrepreneur from Swakopmund bemoaned how challenging it is for him and other emerging entrepreneurs at the coast to even get to talk to foreign film producers to gain an opportunity to show them (filmmakers) what they make, or to introduce services offered.

Apparently, emerging enterprises looking to benefit from a share of the filmmaking business are deliberately precluded by local agents from even speaking to international film production firms. A ring-fencing arrangement exists, leading to a misplaced notion that goods and services are unavailable locally. Business then goes to suppliers situated south of the Orange River, the aggrieved entrepreneur claims.

In another concern spotlighted, an entrepreneur in the capital says she continues to struggle to get her range of consumer products on the shelves of a large local supermarket chain. This is despite providing proof that funding support from her banker is in place to upscale production to cope with seasonal or fluctuating demands.

The entrepreneur adds that she diligently attended to mountains of paperwork, thereby complying with the supermarket chain’s health and safety standards, product liability safeguards and in-house accounting needs. Packaging is up to international standards, and she even interviewed potential staff and put training programmes in place in readiness to access shelf space. The wait continues.

Imagine how soul-destroying these and other blockages by corporate captains and heads of parastatals must be for local entrepreneurs eager to grow and hungry for business, as well as fledgling entrepreneurs across Namibia who harbour a common desire to help broaden the country’s industrial base and grow its economy.

Fortunately, there seems to be a glimmer of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Spearheaded by the business sector’s representative body, the Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI), there is a move to entice other business sector organisations (BSOs) into forming a united body.

The chamber’s move aims to rid the country’s private sector of fragmentation by creating Business Namibia, a united and enlarged single BSO that speaks with one voice and is poised to partner government and other roleplayers on an equal footing.

A BSO that achieves unity of purpose, deed and action in a manner that does not erode but incorporates sectorial interests, is crucially important. After all, the concerns, challenges, needs and wants of miners differ from enterprises in the hospitality and tourism sector. The same applies to small retailers versus large chain stores, and manufacturing to commerce, not forgetting service providers.

The NCCI was created by merging BSOs divided along racial and linguistic lines, so the current membership is broadbased. Because of its diverse membership, the NCCI is accustomed to dealing with a plethora of matters and varying opinions, and reaching compromise and consensus.

On Tuesday, 21 March, Namibia will celebrate 27 years of nationhood. It really is high time business speaks with one voice, and places enterprise and entrepreneurial development on top of its work programme.

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