Harare - Cafca Limited [JSE:CAC] was named Zimbabwe’s company of the year for 2014 on Wednesday.
The cable manufacturer, which is partly owned by Reunert Limited [JSE:RLO], received the award at the 2015 Central African Stock Exchange (CASE) Handbook launch sponsored by Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed FBC Bank.
The CASE handbook profiles companies listed on the stock exchanges of Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and Botswana.
Announcing the award, CASE Handbook proprietor Jonathan Waters said Cafca had shown that Zimbabwe can still manufacture while failure “is mostly down to poor management”.
Waters said: “No part of the operating environment favours Cafca and almost certainly without the right leadership, it would have gone the way that many others have in this country.”
In its interim results published last week Cafca, the only cable manufacturer in Zimbabwe, turned in an 8.9% increase in attributable earnings on the back of a 41.4% rise in revenue.
Revenue for the six months at US$14.2m was 41% above the comparative period last year, mainly due to exports.
Meanwhile the guest of honour at the CASE Handbook launch, FBCH chairperson Herbert Nkala, said while as a nation Zimbabwe continues to benefit from the fall in average prices, the cost of labour has yet to readjust.
“The reason many of our industries cannot compete in the field of exports is because our wages are too high, given the level of productivity.
“What we see in Zimbabwe today is that productivity is not commensurate with current wage levels,” he said, adding that unrealistic expectations of what people should be earning is the reason why Zimbabwe "is not working".
“If there was a proper realignment of wages to output, I think many of our industries could compete,” said Nkala.