Bulawayo Secretary for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Mr Paul Nyoni

Judith Phiri, Business Reporter

BULAWAYO Metropolitan Province has embarked on a collaborative effort with local colleges and universities to enhance the skills of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) within the leather sector.

This partnership aims to support the growth and development of the sector, which plays a pivotal role in Bulawayo’s industrialisation agenda.

Aligned with the goals of the National Development Strategy 1, the programme emphasises the importance of leveraging value chain approaches to revitalise industries in the city, with a particular focus on the leather industry.

Zimbabwe has a long history of leather production, by the 1990s, the country had one of the most sophisticated leather industries in the region.

Some of these companies were based in Bulawayo G and D Shoes, which, by then was one of the largest in the country, and Conte Shoes.

However, over the years most of these companies shut down, with many individuals previously employed in these various companies within the sector transitioning to informal shoe-making activities as a result of the industry's downturn.

Speaking at a recent provincial skills stakeholder consultation in Bulawayo, the Provincial Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Mr Paul Nyoni highlighted the impact of the decline in the leather industry.

He said they have already engaged Bulawayo Polytechnic and the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) so that they do something in skilling and reskilling those in the sector so that they can produce for big companies like Edgars and also for the export market.

“'Part of the leather cluster revival strategy that we have is to go back to NUST and the Bulawayo Polytechnic, we have had many strategy meetings to say let's go back and train people so that they become SMEs that are acceptable in large companies such as Edgars," said Mr Nyoni.

He said companies like Edgars get some of their products from local SMEs and they want to do the same on shoes but there is a skills gap.

“We said to the two institutions, go back and work on those curriculums for those courses that we used to have to support this industry and they are working on these but we need help to train these people so that they make proper shoes.

“The leather is still there, we still have 90 percent of leather tanners in this city but unfortunately, if we call Zambezi Tanners today, they export 100 percent of the leather to 'Texas, in the United States, Those belts and cowboy hats, its leather coming from Bulawayo and we are not happy about that, it's like exporting income, we want to export belts, leather hats and those boots for cowboys, but we can't do it unless we go back to train the basic workman, said Mr Nyoni.

The Ministry of Skill Audit and Development has recently been on a countrywide skills stakeholder consultation where the emphasis has been on that provinces have different endowments, which need different skill sets.

Speaking at the Bulawayo leg of the consultations, the Ministry's Permanent Secretary, Ambassador Rudo Chitiga said Bulawayo was an industrial hub and to revive the industries there was the need for relevant skills

President Mnangagwa established the Ministry of skills Audit and Development last year to address the 2018 National Critical Skills Audit findings.

The audit revealed a significant shortage of skills in the economy, despite a large number of educated and unemployed individuals, particularly youth.

The shortage underscores the importance of aligning training programs with critical skills needed in different sectors of the economy.

It also highlighted the need to update and modernise existing skills to meet present and future demands, in line with the country's industrialisation agenda.