Obert Chifamba Manicaland Bureau
A group of South African and Zimbabwean investors are set to visit Manicaland’s timber plantations to assess possible investment opportunities, it has been learnt. In an interview on Wednesday, Agriculture and Rural Development Authority (ARDA) board chairperson Mr Basil Nyabadza said by the end of February, the revival of the timber industry should be taking shape.

“We are trying to work in line with Government’s 100-day work plan, so we are currently negotiating investment deals with different companies so that the industry quickly gets revived and start producing competitively once again,” he said.

“I will not disclose the companies that we are negotiating with at the moment, but there is definitely a lot of interest from companies both from South Africa and locally. We have extended our search for investors to South Africa because it is reputed for its leading role in timber technology in the region, so we want to tap into their expertise too.”

The envisaged investment will restore viability of the timber industry, which had been grossly compromised through disruptions by settlers doing illegal farming and mining activities and lack of working capital.

“The biggest challenge at the moment is that there is more harvesting than planting at the moment, a situation that if not contained may see us exhausting all the timber in the plantations in less than five years,” said Mr Nyabadza.

“We do not want to import, but export timber. It is important to strengthen research on how the timber can be regenerated to reverse the current scenario in which some people in places like Nyanga, for instance, are buying benches from Harare, instead of them selling to Harare.”

It was critical, Mr Nyabadza said, to rejuvenate the plantations and enable value addition to start in areas like Chimanimani and Nyanga, creating employment in the process. Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs Cde Monica Mutsvangwa said her office was working closely with the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate to resuscitate timber forests and companies that thrived on timber processing.

“The situation has not been well in the industry because of foreign currency shortages and illegal settlers who are doing their mining and farming activities there,” she said.

“There are also some people that are cutting timber illegally at night, so we want to stop that. If we are not careful, we may end up importing, instead of exporting timber.”