The Zimbabwe National Venture Capital Fund is revisiting a post-colonial govt project

The Zimbabwe National Venture Capital Fund (NVCF) which was set into motion in 2020 has been revisited after the country’s Deputy Minister for Finance was seeking private players and high net-worth individuals to aid the project at the recently concluded SADC Industrialisation Week in Harare.

The overall goal of the instrument is to offer Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Startups, capital which the government would fund. At the time of its launch, Zimbabwe’s Minister for Finance Prof, Mthuli Ncube said there was ZWL$500 million that would be dispersed to entrepreneurial endeavours across the country. The value of that in United States Dollar terms was around US$6.1 million at the end of 2020 with a median forex auction rate of US$1:ZWL$81.7866.

The size of the pot aside there was no evidence that the National Venture Capital Fund (NVCF) money was set aside, let alone deployed. This was confirmed by Zimbabwe’s Deputy Minister for Finance, David Mnangagwa at the seventh SADC Industrialisation Week in Harare;

“It has been stagnant because we did not have a chief executive officer that has private sector experience and understands the needs of entrepreneurs. We are getting there because now we have the leader who is going to push it forward.”