SO here we are calling for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), trying to lure back the same companies whose governments yesterday destroyed our country through diabolical unjustified sanctions; the same people who sabotaged our trade unions in efforts to effect regime change are coming back. Has the leopard changed its marks? We want to create an investor–friendly environment, and that is essential. Our economy is now the equivalent of shark and crocodile-infested waters. Leaders who are looking to get a cut will abandon us to be devoured by these predators that we have allowed back in! It is not about scaring investors either! The genuine ones will continue to come through the door! But are the investors also coming in good faith? Common sense says there is no such thing in business! People will seek to make a fortune by hook or by crook if you let them. So who are our guardians at the door? What, if any, safeguards have we put in place to ensure that the economic exploitation of yesteryear does not recur? That our people will not be left holding empty containers with all the milk and honey gone? Corruption will see us short-changed. So many open questions. We have also adopted the Look East Policy to rope in our all-weather friends from China and Russia. This is commendable and makes business sense as these economies are fast overtaking the tired Western ones. It is only because ‘chakabaya chikatyokera’ that we are bending over backwards to re-engage the West. Or maybe we must trust the International Monetary Fund (IMF) again! The big question is: what measures have we put in place to facilitate our own people to go into joint ventures with the investors that we are inviting from outside? Wave after wave of trade delegations are coming to Zimbabwe. Apart from Government officials, which Zimbabweans are also being invited to meet these visitors? Are we being inclusive? Or is it the same old players who are already well-connected in formal businesses, who are establishing new multiple business connections? Does the Telecel saga provide any lessons? We commend the Zimbabwe Defence Forces for setting up joint-venture companies to partner investors from China in agriculture band mining. The Russians also are working with locals on exploiting our platinum resources. We hope these joint venture initiatives are also happening with other sections of the armed forces and other organised groups of civil servants as part of a broad economic empowerment drive. What about engineers, agricultural scientists, teachers, nurses and other professional groups? Are they also being invited or mobilised to be constituted as consortia that can go into joint venture businesses with foreign investors? One is looking at how we make these new business initiatives inclusive. A few dollars from each member of a professional association or group could provide substantial capital contributions allowing acquisition of shares and hence wide participation by citizens in the ownership of our economy through shares. With good corporate governance and transparency buttressed by tight legislative controls to prevent abuse, we can truly empower the majority. All that is required is the political will and courage to do that which is right, but not contained in current economics textbooks: ‘thinking outside the box’. The proposal is to find innovative ways of giving as many citizens as possible a stake in the economy. Such broad share ownership by different groups of Zimbabweans in the large business corporations will also make for political and economic stability. It would seem that we need to invest in support services for these new business ventures as the majority of our people have limited business experience. Training workshops on how to run businesses or how to handle technical issues will be important. For once, the universities and colleges can be forced out of their ‘ivory towers’ to launch support services initiatives to provide technical and advisory support. The revised school curriculum must incorporate business education so that the new generations can smoothly integrate into the emerging indigenised economy. When will we also invite those who have up to now been excluded, the technocrats, the artisans, the academics, the farmers? All need to also become involved in these business ventures! Our experience with the land redistribution should inform our current efforts to economically empower our people. The danger lies in marginalising a significant portion of the populace and emerging with a minority-owned economy where the majority are still looking in through the invisible but real exclusion fence. There is much talk about economically empowering the youths and women; this is right and proper, but in Zimbabwe the vast majority are still excluded from the formal business sector. What deliberate efforts are being undertaken to bring professional men and women, who may not necessarily have capital to invest in business, into these joint business ventures with outsiders? In the next episode we shall continue to explore some of the strategies that can be used to bring about economic empowerment to the people. We do this from a common sense stand-point not encumbered by academic economics text books; truly without a box.