Recently we had a reader reach out to us complaining about the Zimbabwe Investment promotion website being down. Some time ago Zororo Makamba tackled similar issues about websites that are meant to be a resource for potential investors and others interested in Zimbabwe.
The sites are not up to date and we make another call to responsible folks: please it’s very important to have websites that show that indeed the country is serious about business.
Here’s what a reader from outside Zimbabwe wrote us concerning the Zimstat website:
I don’t understand how Zimbabwe keeps saying it is open for business when they make it difficult for investors to find information. We all know that the best source of economic data in any country would be the National Statistical Office. If you go to the Zimstat website, they literally have ancient information that makes it difficult to analyse and get that information. Why do I have to write an email and wait for years to get each variable I want. I tried calling them and it was a nightmare to get the kind of assistance I wanted. The Central Bank is better as they publish Weekly Economic Research Reports. However, They have not done a quarterly report or a monthly report and an investor has to put the pieces together. This only makes me wonder the kind of nightmare I will experience if I come to Zimbabwe and want to open a company and carry out some administration processes. Zimbabwe needs to get the basics right.
They were not done just yet, they wrote us again:
I forgot to mention that if you subscribe to receive updates, you don’t get any, I have been subscribed for almost a month but I then see headlines that show that zimstat does release information to newspapers or at least locally
Hey Government of Zimbabwe and all statutory bodies responsible for investor relations please tipeiwo ma serious.
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Ours is a government run by people without a vision, zero business sense and inability to execute the simplest of tasks. But then again most African governments are that way. Notice how the police fill out paper-work in your presence. Anotanga kunyora then stops wombotarisatarisa kuside. Then starts charting to someone over thereee, then stops, thinks for a while, and carries on writing. This is pathetic, you focus on the job at hand and see it through. Unfortunately this sort of unconcerned and cavalier attitude is prevalent in private businesses as well. Now talk of keeping a website up and functional. The few government web sites I have been to, the design and aesthetics are atrocious. It’s 1998-9 web design when the Internet was still in its infancy, and windows 95 was king of the desktop. Remember those days?