The ManicaPost
Business Correspondent
HAILING from Checheche Growth Point in Chipinge South, the 2015 Manicaland Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce rural businessman Mr Wilson Khumbula, is a visionary whose business ventures light-up the remote Growth Point. Mr Khumbula’s business acumen was first exuded when he set up a hotel with a casino in a rural area and further went on to start a construction company that has been developing houses and shopping complexes.
Mr Khumbula who trades as Kujokochera Service Station and Kujokochera Multi-Services bounced back in 2015 after at first winning the national rural businessman accolade in 2010.
Over the years since 1989, from humble beginnings as a motor workshop manager in Harare, he decided to venture in businesses in his rural homeland and opened a restaurant.
Today, he now has two fuel service stations, Kujo Superstar Hotel and Casino, a night club, grinding mills and a construction company.
Mr Khumbula who operates his business with his children said as a family they were prepared to grow with Checheche as the Chipinge Rural District Council has since applied for the growth point’s town status, taking advantage of their proximity to Chisumbanje and its promising ethanol project.
He said in 2006, when he decided to invest in a hotel at Checheche, the idea was ridiculed but present-day the concept attracted others and a number of guest houses have been opened in the area.
Mr Khumbula said most of his projects were inspired by his development vision for Checheche, hoping to leave behind a legacy for his children and for the Checheche community.
“For Mutare or Chipinge to grow to become towns there were local businesspeople who made bold decisions to build world class infrastructure.
“That is how I think,” said Mr Khumbula who is also a politician, the leader of the Zanu Ndonga, which early this year rejoined the ruling party Zanu-PF.
“Checheche is slowly growing into a town, of which our construction company that had developed several buildings in the area is now receiving a lot of business.
“One might call us rural businesspeople, but in essence we are no less than our city counterparts in business and very soon this will be realised once Checheche turns into a town just like Chipinge,” he said.
Kujokochera Service Station and Kujokochera Multi-Services before dollarization in 2009 had 150 employees, but Mr Khumbula said the business environment after dollarization came with its challenges.
He said the current liquidity crunch in the country was also affecting them but his vision to develop world class infrastructure in Checheche would never die.
Mr Khumbula will represent the province at the national awards that will be held during the three-day ZNCC congress in Victoria Falls next week Wednesday up to Friday.
