EFFORTS by the Government to assist maximum participation of indigenous Zimbabweans in all aspects of the economy are encouraging.
This is as opposed to leaving foreigners doing simple things that deny the country of revenue, when locals are capable of doing the same.
This is the very essence of promoting the ethos of indigenisation, which should be the bedrock of ZANU PF’s policy that guaranteed it resounding approval at the July 31 polls.
That is why we support unreservedly the recent 30-day ultimatum given to foreigners to leave their shops to Zimbabweans.
This ultimatum refers to reserved sectors of the economy covered by the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act.
Some of the reserved sectors include retail and wholesale businesses, hairdressings, beauty saloons, bakeries and barbershops.
Towns throughout the country have been flooded with shops dealing with motor spares and electrical goods among others, owned by foreigners.
The problem with most of the foreigners running these shops is that, they tend to spend whatever profits they get outside the country.
They use their profits to order more cheap goods from outside the country, probably their native homes, and the remainder is repatriated back to their home countries.
Because they make so much profit from their businesses, they are not prepared to abandon them.
Since most of these businesses are run on rented buildings, property owners have taken an unfair advantage of this by charging exorbitant rentals.
This has put aspiring indigenes at a disadvantage.
We are happy to note that the Government is already in the process of identifying those who will take over the foreign owned shops.
This has to be so, for some of these foreigners in a desperate bid to keep their cash cows will come up with all sorts of tricks.
A common one is coming up with marriages of convenience.
No doubt, by now they must be having even more sophisticated tricks.
It must be incumbent upon the locals who take over that we don’t suddenly see a slump in business.
We have seen it in the agricultural sector where some people have seemed keen to own a farm, only to leave that land derelict once they secured ownership.
We are not against all foreign businesses per se, for we welcome those foreigners who would like to invest in productive ventures that need huge capital investment with downstream employment benefits to the indigenous.
We are also pleased to note that the mining sector is also all out to stop the leakages that have been seeing us unconsciously ‘repatriate’ millions outside our country.
We have the case where diamonds are fetching little because they are being sold without being polished.
And yet the process of cutting and polishing is very simple and does not need foreign experts.
We are also repatriating big sums of money by refining our platinum ore outside the country since platinum is a group metal that contains several other minerals released at smelting.
There are, however, assurances that after President Mugabe recently expressed his displeasure at this set up, it won’t be long before a ban on platinum ore exports is implemented.
These and other reforms in the mining sector will ensure more indigenous Zimbabweans are involved in checking the leakages in this sector.
This is the way to go.
For the new economic blueprint, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset) to succeed, indigenes must be involved as much as possible in the mobilising of their resources to turnaround our economy.