‘TAKING Back the Economy; Indigenise, Empower, Develop and Create Employment’.
The above were the key words that anchored ZANU PF’s 2013 harmonised elections Manifesto and its subsequent massacre of the opposition MDC and its numerous splinter groups.
Some 27 months after this historic electoral victory, a disturbing trend where there are now seemingly different signals on the indigenisation thrust is emerging.
Ministers and officials are sending different signals on the subject of indigenisation, leaving many confused.
Is the ZANU PF Government still consistent with its approach to the indigenisation drive?
Is the indigenisation agenda scaring away investors as some in Government are claiming?
Is there any need for debate on the indigenisation issue?
These are some of the questions that are emerging in the direction the indigenisation crusade is unfolding in the post-July 31 2013 election.
“The ways and means in the Manifesto are anchored on ZANU PF’s policy of Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment which seeks to enforce the transfer to local entities of at least 51 percent equity in all existing foreign-owned businesses,” said President Robert Mugabe in his foreword to the Manifesto.
And Youth and Indigenisation Minister Patrick Zhuwao says Government is not going to tolerate any debate on the economic empowerment law.
“I am saying this to those who are dreaming and thinking after meeting with the white community at their embassies after being given some glasses of wine and start promising them that we will reverse it (indigenisation),” said Minister Zhuwao during the inaugural Indigenisation Conference held in Harare last week.
“Who are you to reverse it?”
“This is a journey which was started by great leaders like the late Joshua Nkomo and President Robert Mugabe and it’s not like appearing on television and attending conferences.”
Enacted into law in 2007, the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act which ceded 51 percent equity to locals in foreign business ventures has been hailed as the tonic for the upliftment of Zimbabweans, most of them impoverished by the skewed colonial regime policies.
Government has been issuing conflicting statements on the policy until recently when Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa publicly announced to the international financial institutions and the European Union that plans were underway to revise the law, local media reported.
But Minister Zhuwao insists that the programme will go ahead as planned and that nothing will change.
Is Zhuwao right?
If so, on what basis was Minister Chinamasa speaking from?
What of the ordinary ZANU PF who voted for the party on the basis of its election manifesto which gave indigenisation as basis for its victory?
In spite of this confusion, President Mugabe in April said indigenisation laws are generous to foreign investors and will not be compromised to suit the interests of capital over the national interest.
The national interest here is the people, the majority of Zimbabweans who were sidelined by the segregatory policies of the Ian Smith regime.
“What we say, therefore, is we who are owners of natural resources must at least have 51 percent of the earnings of that company and we allow that company 49 percent where it’s a natural resource,” President Mugabe explained during his visit to South Africa in April this year.
“If the resources are brought from outside; you bring your gadgets, you want to manufacture gadgets which we didn’t have before, well that is covered in our 51/49.
“That is negotiated.
“But where its natural resources, no, we must at least have 51 percent of the resources, which is quite generous mind you because its 49 percent.
“You take 49 percent every year of US$500 million, 49 percent of a billion.
“It’s a huge amount.”
As such, President Mugabe further explained, capital could not be said to be more important than the resource it sought to exploit.
“In Africa, natural resources belong to us, we are owners of these resources,” he said.
“I don’t believe-and I have done economics — I don’t believe that capital is of greater value than the natural resource I have.
“So when a company comes and says it has capital to invest, it bringing equipment, the capital that is aimed at mining for example is drawing from my country a resource that cannot be replaced tomorrow, you are leaving holes in my country and want to say capital is more valuable.
“Your machine is more valuable than the gold that you are taking?
“That’s bad economics.
“God-given gold is much more beneficial and important to my country.”
Can someone please bring finality and closure to this issue so that we speak with one voice and follow a common direction on the pursuit of our people’s aspirations for economic empowerment?