Buy Zimbabwe a noble effort

Obel, a brand with a tender passion for engines, salutes the Buy Zimbabwe initiatives and is a proud member. We agree with their criteria that a member has to adhere to quality standards (SAZ standards), environmental awareness and adherence to labour laws of Zimbabwe, which will result in wealth creation to the nation as opposed to externalisation.

The above criterion essentially sets apart the genuine and fake products in our market.

For us in the oil industry this is essential because this will send a positive message that locally produced oil is better than

oil imported from the United Arab Emirates.

We have in the past outlined that this oil's quality is questionable and that the containers have no traceability apart from an email address that is written in an unfamiliar language with no equivalent English translation.

In order to differentiate between competent local goods and imports we would like to take a journey in the past during the liberation period precisely 36 years ago.

There were countries that were recognised as Frontline States by virtue of their proximity to Zimbabwe and subject to air raids by the then settler regime such as Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana and Angola.

Nigeria sought to be recognised as part of this by virtue of the support it was giving to the cause of Zimbabwe.

Nigeria never qualified as a Frontline State because all the bombings were done in Frontline States and because it was far away in West Africa it was never affected.

Our point is that all the fake products and counterfeits doing the rounds in the country don't help Zimbabwe but rather the individual who imports it.

So not all and sundry can automatically qualify to be Buy Zimbabwe members without undergoing the criteria mentioned above.

It was recently announced in South Africa that at least 75 percent of purchases in that country should be proudly South African.

Imagine the turnaround that can be created here by ourselves if we were to improve the quality and supply of our own products.

At a recent Buy Zimbabwe cocktail held at SAZ complex one member brought to our attention an invoice he had received for work done to change the oil for his car at a cost of US$180 excluding changing brake pads.

We did some arithmetic together based on the fact that the latest cars have a sump capacity of 3,5 litres against that of the older cars which had 5-litre sump capacity.

We further looked at the oil prices in town and those of an oil filter, hour labour and the sundries and we came up with about US$60.

We worked with the cost of five litres for an expense brand of US$35 and if we divide by the money charged this would translate to about 29 litres of oil used.

The question that we threw to him was that if the sump capacity was five litres where was the 24 litres used?

We also tried to work with a mark-up of, say, 20 percent the selling price of oil and this would give us US$42 and again will translate to about 10 litres used.

It is our belief that something is wrong in the computation as there are a lot of hidden charges.

With the advent of more people joining the Buy Zimbabwe such practices should be a thing of the past.

We believe there is need to approach the garage due to extenuating circumstances that we have highlighted above.

We await the outcome of the inquiry that we agreed to pursue.

We will advise through our next articles

One reader requested that we revisit ATF change. We will endeavour to do so in our future articles.

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Contact us through cellphone numbers or through Greenfield Mbeya 0774 215 505