Zimbabwe will soon be having a shopping experience of a lifetime in a new shopping mall, as the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Senator Prisca Mupfumira, launched the construction of the $6.5 million National Social Security Authority shopping mall in Chipinge. Mupfumira said the shopping mall was intended to meet the business needs of the Chipinge community. She added that through this new business entity an increase in infrastructure development as well as job creation is expected. “The National Social Security Authority collects contributions countrywide, including from workers and employers in Chipinge. It is the surplus from these contributions that is invested and NSSA has a policy of spreading investments to all corners of the country,” she said. Africa has taken shopping seriously looking at the amount of money they put on it and it is indeed making an impact in the GDP. Take for example in Kenya, The Sarit Centre, the very first shopping mall in Kenya brought a feel of how a shopping mall in the United states felt, it brought forth the springing up of The Yaya Centre. This, however did not shake up the shopping habits of in Kenya because the pricing only took care of the high end shoppers in the country. With the wind of urbanization taking place, there are the budding of shopping malls that are even friendly to the lower middle class, and making the deal even better they are situated in the residential areas like Donholm which holds the GreenSpan mall, Thika Road – TRM, Embakassi –Taj Mall and many more still under construction. This has made shopping a leisure activity which has reality added to the country’s GDP by means of spending as well as creating employment opportunities. This is no wonder the government of Kenya is looking at investing in shopping malls and Zimbabwe is not being left behind on this one. Zimbabawe’s Labour and Social Welfare Senator, Mupfumira , in regards to the new shopping mall said that she has been assured that local labor will be given priority during construction. Construction of the centre should, she said, create jobs for people in Chipinge, even after construction has been completed, since the new shops that will open at the centre would create employment opportunities for people in and around the area. Senator Mupfumira pointed out that NSSA’s involvement in capital development projects had already seen the construction of shopping malls and commercial centres in areas that include Gwanda and Bindura, as well as a hotel in Beitbridge. She said the Chipinge shopping mall is one of the infrastructure development projects that NSSA is embarking on during the 2015 to 2018 lifespan of the current Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset). “The National Social Security Authority falls under the Social Services and Poverty Eradication Cluster and infrastructure and housing development make up part of the contribution to ZimAsset by this organisation,” she said. Senator Mupfumira said that, following a feasibility study carried out by Dawn Properties, formerly CB Richard Ellis, it was expected that space at the mall would be taken up by offices, a major supermarket, a hardware shop, doctors’ surgeries, two banks, hair salons and food outlets, as well as some other shops. Construction of the double storey shopping mall is expected to be completed after 15 months, she added. NSSA general manager James Matiza revealed that the proposed development date for the Chipinge Shopping Mall had originally been 2005 but said a decade of hyperinflation had affected the development timetables set for capital projects. He added that, after the introduction of multiple currencies in 2009, some local authorities had repossessed land that had been identified for development and paid for by NSSA. He commended Chipinge Town Council for not repossessing the land which NSSA is now constructing the mall on.
