by NORMA TSOPO
PEPETUAL Guwila, the long-serving regional manager for the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) in Manicaland and Chiredzi, died on Wednesday morning at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals in Harare.
She was 53.
Guwila had collapsed upon arrival at Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport on Sunday, moments after stepping off a flight from China, where she had been on a chamber business trip.
A ZNCC statement spoke of “profound sadness” at her “untimely passing”, noting that she had served the organisation for more than two decades.
For a generation of businesspeople in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Region, Guwila was the face of the chamber.
She joined the ZNCC in 2000 and over the ensuing 26 years transformed the provincial chapter into one of the country’s more active business forums.
She was the driving force behind the annual ZNCC business awards in Manicaland, a fixture on the local corporate calendar that recognised excellence in sectors ranging from mining and agriculture to telecommunications and education.
These gatherings were not merely ceremonial; under her stewardship they became platforms for policy debate, connecting local firms to the national economic conversation.
That she ended up as an institution-builder was perhaps not obvious from her early career.
Before joining the chamber she had worked briefly as a journalist at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, a stint that gave her an understanding of how to shape a message—a skill that would prove useful in her later public-relations and advocacy work for the ZNCC.
She made the leap from journalism to commerce, and then to the business of representing commerce, a transition that spoke to both versatility and ambition.
The ZNCC, as the country’s oldest business membership organisation, acts as the primary bridge between the private sector and the state, lobbying on everything from tax policy and VAT refunds to monetary reform and industrial strategy.