By Tawanda Musarurwa

HARARE – The World Bank says the Rapid Results Approach (RRA) will help Zimbabwe find an expedient solution to the current cash shortages.

The RRA is an increasingly popular method for improv-ing performance within large organisations and multi-sec-toral partnerships, which util izes specially structured, 100-day goals to accelerate change and capacity devel-opment.

And Government has just completed the second phase of an RRA programme focus-ing on improving the coun-try’s ease of doing business

climate, which has recorded a number of major mile-stones.

World Bank country manager for Zimbabwe Ms Camille Nuamah said the country can expedite a much-needed

transition to e-commerce if they use the methodology.

“One of the outcomes of (the

News Update as @ 1530 hours, Friday 17 June 2016

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Apply RRA to deal with cash shortages: World Bank

rapid results approach) is the broad linkage between the private sector and the Government, and across the Government between the agencies.

“As you go forward you can take this beyond the doing business, you can take this, for example, what is the big challenge of today? The big challenge the country is fac-ing today is the cash short-age and an issue with moving gradually towards electronic payments,” she said at a recent workshop.

Local banks have been forced to limit the amount of cash they supply to customers to cope with the cash short-ages, which have arisen out of a cocktail of factors including capital fl ight, money laundering and low exports and rising imports.

Among some of the meas-ures that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has done to limit the impact of the cash

shortages is to reduce bank charges and costs associ-ated with usage of electronic money.

The central bank has also placed a limit on daily cash withdrawals to curb money laundering. It will also introduce a $200 million bond note facility backed by Afreximbank in the fourth quarter of this year, aimed at incentivizing exporters.

But the World Bank coun-try manager for Zimbabwe believes more can be done:

“There is nothing stop-ping the Government from taking this kind of collabo-rative exercise through to the banking sector, to the util ities, to the retailers to understand how to build and move quickly and doing business on linking electronic payments.

“This is something, we are hopeful, that you can take this kind of energy and attack other problems espe-

cially that are really current in our society today.”

Meanwhile, Ms Nuamah said results from the country’s first 100-day Rapid Results Action Plan (in respect of the ease of doing busi-ness reforms), which was launched in September last year was well received by the World Bank.

“That first round of effort was a very remarkable feat and was noted in the bank and in our senior man-agement as a really good example of an effort to pull together a whole Government around these reforms.”

The RRA was developed by Schaffer Consulting, a management consulting firm based in the United States. The model has since been adopted by the World Bank, and a number of national programmes under it are largely funded by the bank’s Institutional Reform and Capacity Building project.●

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HARARE -The Zimbabwe government will soon table before Parliament the draft National Competitiveness Bill, which Cabinet approved recently, a senior official has said.

The Bill seeks to establish the National Competitive-ness Commission (NCC), which will replace what used to be known as the National Incomes and Pricing Com-mission (NIPC).

Industry and Commerce Deputy Minister Chiratidzo Mabuwa said: “Cabinet has now approved the draft bill which will come to Parlia-ment.”

“It (the Bill) has just gone back to the Attorney Gen-eral’s office for a clean-up before it comes to Parlia-ment,” she added.

The NCC is part of several initiatives the government is carrying out to improve

the ease of doing business in the country. Zimbabwe was last year ranked number 155 out of 189 economies in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business report and has for years been stuck in the bot-

tom half of the rankings.

The NCC will be responsible for reviewing all new Govern-ment business, continuously scanning the environment, monitoring the cost drivers

and advising on measures to be taken to address emerg-ing challenges.

The Government, with sup-port of institutions such as the World Bank, is imple-menting a comprehensive “ease of doing business reform” process.

This week, the government marked the end of a 200-day stretch since the beginning of the program, a process which is continuing and has so far registered noticeable results. Achievements made so far include reduction of the number of days it takes to invest, register and oper-ate a company from 90 days to 13 days, with targets to further reduce the process to less than 24 hours.

Cutting of bureaucratic red tape has also been fast-tracked through adoption of information communication technologies.- New Ziana.●

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National Competitiveness Bill to be brought before Parly

Deputy Minister Chiratidzo Mabuwa

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BH24 Reporter

HARARE –Former managing director of British American Tobacco (BAT) Zimbabwe Mr Lovemore Manatsa has been appointed as the cigarette maker's new chairman.

Mr Manatsa retired from BAT Zimbabwe earlier in January. He now comes in to replace former chairman Mr Kennedy Mandevhani whose resignation took effect last month.

In a statement BAT Zimbabwe said Mr Manatsa’s appointment would provide a seamless tran-sition in view of his knowledge

on ongoing projects.

“During his tenure as MD, Mr Manatsa was involved in various key strategic initiatives and projects. Some of these

initiatives and projects are still ongoing. It is expected that the appointment of Mr Manatsa to the position of board chair-man will assist in a seamless leadership change management

and transition,” said BAT.

Meanwhile, the exit of Mr Mandevhani from BAT Zimba-bwe’s board of directors was also accompanied by that of non-executive director Mr Gary Fagan.

BAT Zimbabwe manufactures, distributes and markets ciga-rettes to a network of inde-pendent distributors, wholesal-ers and retailers.

Earlier in February, the com-pany reported a $13, 4 million after tax profit for the full-year to December from $3, 7 million in prior year.●

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Manatsa appointed chairman of BAT Zimbabwe

Mr Lovemore Manatsa

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By Funny Hudzerema

HARARE -The retail sector has welcomed the soon-to-be-in-troduced bond notes and usage of plastic money to reduce the current cash shortages, Confed-eration of Zimbabwe Retailers (CZR) president Mr Denford Mutashu has said.

Recently the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe slashed charges for electronic payment transac-tions.

Mr Mutashu said the use plastic money is increasing in the retail

sector which shows that the sector is increasingly becoming compliant with Government’s move towards the use of elec-tronic payments.

“The retail sector is geared up to embrace the bond notes as soon as they are introduced and also the multicurrency sys-tem where Government wants to promote the use of plastic money.

“In most of the retail shops there is an increase in the use of plastic money from about 3 percent to 55 percent.

“We are facing challenges with the fuel industry as far as the use of plastic money is con-cerned; some fuel dealers are refusing the new measure in their businesses,” he said.

He said this in an interview after meeting the Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa during a courtesy call to his offices.

“One of the areas that we discussed is the retail sector’s commitment on supplier devel-opment, most of the retailers under the CZR have got a local supplier development pro-

gramme where they are supply-ing local firms to improve the capacity of the local industry.

“We are geared up to ensure that we regularise the retail sector.

"We want the tuck shops, all the retailers to be accountable somewhere so that we know the producers of goods, we know what they sell and also for them to meet certain mini-mum retail standards that will protect the interest of the gen-eral public in terms of health,” he said.●

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BH2413

HARARE -The mainstream industrial index was down by 3, 23 percent from prior week as the equities market closed today.

In today’s session, industri-als dropped 0.27 to 93.39 after telecoms giant Econet and CFI Holdings shed $0, 0097 to $0, 2000 and $0,

0070 to $0, 0730, respec-tively.

On the upside, giant insurer Old Mutual, TSL and BAT Zimbabwe added $0, 0001 to $2, 3126, $0, 0005 to $0, 1455 and $0, 1000 to $11, 9500, respectively.

The mining index was flat at

26.24 as Bindura, Falgold, Hwange and RioZim were unchanged on previous price levels at $0, 0120, $0, 0050, $0, 0300 and $0, 1700 in that order.

On a week-on-week basis, the mining index was unchanged - BH24 Reporter ●

Industrials slide 3,23pc in week

14 ZsE

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MovERs CHANGE TodAy PRICE UsC sHAKERs CHANGE TodAy PRICE UsC

BAT 0.84 1,195.00 CFI -8.75 7.30

TSL 0.34 14.55 ECONET -4.62 20.00

OLD MUTUAL 0.00 231.26

INdEx PREvIoUs TodAy MovE CHANGE

INDUSTRIAL 93.66 93.39 -0.27 points -0.29%

MINING 26.24 26.24 +0.00 POINTS +0.00%

17 ZsE TABlEs

ZsE

INdICEs

stock Exchange

Previous

today

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19 dIARy oF EvENTs

The black arrow indicate level of load shedding across the country.

PoWER GENERATIoN sTATs

Gen Station

17 June 2016

Energy

(Megawatts)

Hwange 360 MW

Kariba 565 MW

Harare 30 MW

Munyati 0 MW

Bulawayo 22 MW

Imports 0 - 400 MW

Total 1193MW

22 JUNE 2016 -- Zimre Holdings limited 18th Annual General Meeting; Place: NICoZdIAMoNd Auditorium, 7th Floor Insur-ance Centre, 30 samora Machel Avenue, Harare; Time: 1430 hours...

22 JUNE 2016 -- GB Holdings limited Annual General Meeting; Place: Cernol Chemicals Boardroom, 111 dagenham Road, Wil-lowvale, Harare; Time: 11.30 hours...

23 JUNE 2016 -- Zimpapers 89th Annual General Meeting; Place: Zimpapers ltd Boardroom, sixth Floor Herald House, Cnr. G. silundika/sam Nujoma street, Harare; Time: 1200hrs…

24 JUNE 2016 -- dawn Properties Annual General Meeting; Place: Great Indaba Room, at the Monomotapa Hotel, 54 Parklane, Harare on Friday; Time: 10:00 hours...

22 JUNE -- lafarge Cement Zimbabwe Annual General Meeting; Place: Manresa Club, Arcturus Road, Harare; Time: 10:30hrs

30 JUNE -- African Sun Annual General Meeting; Place: Inyangani Room, ground floor at Holiday Inn Harare, Corner 5th street and samora Machel Avenue; Time: 12:00hrs

THE BH24 dIARy

WASHINGTON - The Inter-national Monetary Fund said on Thursday it welcomed the decision by Nigeria's central bank to abandon its cur-rency peg and adopt a flex-ible exchange rate policy, saying this was important to reduce fiscal and external imbalances.

IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told a weekly news brief-ing the Fund wanted to see how effectively the naira exchange market functions once the new float system is put into effect next Monday.

Nigeria's central bank governor said in a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari the bank expects the naira to settle at around 250 to the dollar after it aban-dons the peg of 197 to the dollar it has supported for 16 months.

"I think the announcement yesterday to revise the guidelines for the operation of the Nigerian interbank foreign exchange market is an important and welcome step," Rice told reporters.

"It will provide greater flex-ibility in that market, the foreign exchange market."

Senior IMF officials, includ-ing Managing Director Christine Lagarde, have urged Nigerian officials to allow the naira to fall to absorb some of the shock to the economy from a plunge in oil prices and revenues. OPEC member Nigeria is a

major oil producer. IMF offi-cials have said that Nigeria has not requested IMF finan-cial assistance, but has been in consultation with the Fund on dealing with budget shortfalls.

"As we have said before, a significant macroeconomic adjustment that Nigeria urgently needs to eliminate existing imbalances and

support the competitive-ness of the economy is best achieved through a credible package of policies involv-ing fiscal discipline, mon-etary tightening, a flexible exchange rate regime and structural reform," Rice said. "Allowing the exchange rate to better reflect market forces is an integral part of that." - Reuters●

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IMF welcomes Nigeria's decision to end currency peg

REGIoNAl NEWs

TOil pared the biggest weekly decline in more than two months as the dollar extended its retreat, increas-ing the appeal of commod-ities priced in the US cur-rency.

Futures rose as much as 1,1 percent in New York, trim-ming a 9,8 percent drop the previous six sessions. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropped for a third day, heading for its second weekly decrease in three weeks. There’s no need for Russia and Saudi Arabia to cooperate on influencing crude markets right now and low prices may persist for 10 to 15 years, Russian Oil Min-ister Alexander Novak said in a Bloomberg television interview.

Oil’s advance from the lowest level in more than 12 years in February has stalled on speculation higher prices will encourage more US output just as global disruptions ease. ConocoPhill ips has restarted almost three-quar-ters of oil-sands wells at its Surmont facility in Canada

after wildfires forced produc-ers to halt output.

“With Canadian production returning, prices may have climbed as far as they could for now,” Ric Spooner, a chief analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney, said by phone. “It’s likely the correction will be shallower than it would have been earlier in the year because the market is seen as being closer to balance.”

West Texas Intermediate for July delivery rose as much as 49 cents to $46,70 a barrel on the New York Mercantile

Exchange and was at $46,68 at 8:05 p.m. London time. The contract slid $1,80 to $46,21 Thursday, the lowest close since May 13. Total vol-ume traded was 16 percent above the 100-day average. Prices are down 4,9 percent this week after rising above $51 on June 8.

supply disruptions

Brent for August settle-ment gained as much as 74 cents, or 1.6 percent, to $47,93 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The con-

tract on Thursday fell $1,78 to $47,19, the lowest close since May 10. Prices are down 5,2 percent this week. The global benchmark crude traded at a 60-cent premium to WTI for August.

There are risks that oil prices will fall if production in Canada, Libya or Nigeria rebounds after supply dis-ruptions in those countries, Russia’s Novak said Thursday in St. Petersburg. At current prices, US shale output will probably start recovering early next year, he said. – Bloomberg●

21

oil pares biggest weekly drop since April as dollar extends fall

INTERNATIoNAl NEWs

We have over the past seven years provided extensive coverage of the growth and importance of the geopolitical and commercial relationship(s) between the BRICS and Africa.

In the main our coverage of these relationships has emphasised the positive attrib-utes that they have offered for Africa. The BRICS have unambiguously contributed towards a repositioning of Africa’s long-term commercial promise.

Recently, however, and induced by waning economic prospects in many of the BRICS, as well as the tell-ing impact on Africa (and, as such, on the “Africa Rising” narrative) of the recent and precipitous decline in commod-ity prices, the “thrill” behind BRICS-Africa engagements appears to have tapered off, in some instances quite pro-foundly.

Much of this has to do with trade: as we know, flourish-ing trade levels have been

largely responsible for the post-2000 dynamism of BRICS-Africa engagements. Indeed, between 2000 and 2014, BRICS-Africa trade lifted by a seismic 1 250 percent. The trends driving these flows were such that, five years ago, we predicted that BRICS-Africa trade would reach US$500bn by 2015.

However, a consideration of 2015 trade levels shows this forecast to have been too opti-mistic: last year, BRICS-Africa trade stood at US$299bn, a 21 percent y/y decline, reflect-ing the slump in commodity prices, and the moderation of demand brought about by slowing BRICS economic growth.

However, though this trade slippage is important, and will have lasting implications for many African economies, it is critical to view these recent developments in context.

Despite trade with Africa declining last year, China easily remains the conti-

nent’s largest trade partner; while Africa’s relationships with India and South Africa continue to display robustness and diversity.

Further, it has not only been trade that has defined the BRICS-Africa relationship: indeed, burgeoning BRICS investments in Africa, ushered by stronger geopolitical ties, have been equally important in driving the BRICS-Africa narrative and reframing the competitive terrain across the continent. And in this regard, with the exception of Russia and Brazil, it is clear that pro-found and high-level engage-ments, with commensurate economic influence, continue. In this report, we pause within the general clamour around the BRICS and Africa’s ongoing challenges and prognoses to offer insight into the status and future of the BRICS-Africa relationship(s). We find that, while to quote American Blues legend BB King, “the thrill is gone”, it is certainly not “gone for good”.

Put simply, the pivot from the belief in Africa’s unequivocally positive and linear path (as was the underlying assumption behind “Africa Rising”) to the assumption that the conti-nent’s prospects are implod-ing, is simplistic and false.

And, to broaden this analogy, it is unsound to suggest that the moderation in the pace of BRICS-Africa trade and invest-ment growth is suggestive of the fundamental dashing of the promise these relation-ships appear to so clearly hold.

The BRICS, but more specif-ically, the “ICS” continue to present formidable pillars of competition and cooperation across Africa.

While the narrative behind the BRICS and Africa, as with “Africa Rising”, may now be less breathless, in the main the relationships and struc-tural trends that they refer to are no less important. – Mme-gionline●

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BRICs – Africa: The hype is gone, but much remains