BARCLAYS Bank Zimbabwe Limited Managing Director, George Guvamatanga, will be the keynote speaker at the annual Zimbabwe Achievers Awards (ZAA) ceremony to be held on Saturday 20th April at the Millennium Gloucester Hotel in South Kensington, London.
He will be joined at the event by Kingdom Bank Limited’s marketing director, Stanley Musara, marking the biggest endorsement of ZAA ever by Zimbabwe’s corporate world.
Guvamatanga, who assumed his current role in January 2008 after more than 18 years of banking experience, hailed the Diaspora as a critical asset that can play a meaningful role in Zimbabwe’s development if properly harnessed.
“The latent but biggest asset that Zimbabweans in the diaspora have is their experience,” he said, “They have opportunities to see, feel, smell, hear and taste different things in the most advanced nations under the sun.”
“My heart bleeds when I see such wealth going down the drain as the diaspora fails to translate these experiences into something meaningful to Zimbabwe, and yet it enjoys some of the best brains that Zimbabwe was once gifted with,” Guvamatanga added.
ZAA chief executive officer, Conrad Mwanza, said it was humbling for the awards event – only in its third year – to receive such high profile recognition from leading financial institutions.
“We’re also particularly happy to see ZAA acting as a bridge to connect Zimbabweans at home and in the UK, cementing the fact that at the end of the day we’re really one nation, one Zimbabwe,” he said.
As part of their efforts to understand the realities of the Zimbabwean community in the UK, Guvamatanga and Musara will meet and network with invited leaders and members of community groups in London on Friday afternoon.
Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Diaspora Focus Group, Lucia Dube, welcomed the visit by Guvamatanga and Musara saying it marks the beginning of much-needed engagement between the community and the corporate sector.
“Everybody [across the world] is now realising that their Diaspora is key [in national development]; I think this is an opportunity for us to set the stage and say these are the things we can buy into, this is what can work for us, and ask such questions as, ‘is security of investments guaranteed?’, and so on.”
Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Christian Men’s Fellowship, Dr Paul Matsvai, said the engagement with Barclays and Kingdom Banks was important in setting the stage for exploratory talks about the vast opportunities that members of the community are interested in.
“For example, many would like to open bank accounts with banks at home, which would be a great help, say, to those receiving rentals on their properties, while others would like to look into the availability of mortgages in order for them to get onto the property ladder in Zimbabwe,” he said.
