AT the conclusion of his proposed 2014 National Budget in December last year, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, agreed with assertions that the economy was ‘dead’.
But the minister quickly pointed out that it was the old economy that was ‘dead’ since his policy-driven National Budget marked the emergence of a new one.
The economy, which former Finance Minister Tendai Biti had on the eve of the proposed 2014 National Budget statement predicted was on the verge of collapse was the old economy, which is on its way out anyway.
This was an economy controlled by white foreign capital with the indigenous folk mere providers of labour.
This is the economy which, if one tries to analyse without realising the paradigm shift alluded to by Minister Chinamasa, one will see a ‘disappearing’ economy.
What one might describe as a zero economy.
Already gone, is the dominance on the farms by 4 000 white farmers to be replaced by over 400 000 black indigenous families.
Also rapidly disappearing are 100 percent owned foreign entities be it in mining or other sectors of industry to be replaced by companies with a 51/49 percent share ownership structure in favour of the indigenous people.
This is overly generous to someone who would have come into this country from New York with his hands in his pockets only to find himself getting 49 percent of the gold mining company he would have formed.
The assumption by economists like John Robertson that the indigenisation policy discourages investment is clearly an old thinking that believes blacks should remain appendages in the economic structure.
President Robert Mugabe has also emphasised on a number of occasions that Zimbabweans should form their own companies without necessarily waiting for shares from foreign owned entities.
The closure of industries as foreign capital connives to sabotage the economy together with the destruction of infrastructure on farms by some disgruntled replaced white farmers are all part of the process of ridding the country of the old economy.
Thus the old economy controlled by white is no more – gone forever and a day.
We are starting from scratch, from zero so to speak.
Trying to visualise our economy on the basis of what once was, should be left to the Bitis of this world and regime change advocates.
The Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim- ASSET), a brainchild of the ruling ZANU PF, is the basis of the new economy.
It is an economy which seeks to empower the indigenes in the process of stimulating development and creating jobs.
Minister Chinamasa projected that the new economy would grow by 6,4 percent and this growth will mainly hinge on the performance of agriculture (9 percent) and mining (11,4 percent).
The provision of a US$100 facility to assist now legalised artisanal small-scale miners (makorokoza) further empowers a significant number of indigenous people in this crucial sector of the new economy.
This coupled with the Presidential inputs scheme to assist small-scale farmers should go a long way in increasing productivity with the indigenous folk going to feel proud of their contribution to the new economy.
In recognition of this new economic set-up, Minister Chinamasa has urged the banking sector to give financial support to the new indigenous clientele in the farming and mining sectors and industry in general.
For our new economy to succeed, the indigenes who are being empowered have the fate of their country in their own hands.
Naturally, we should expect birth pangs as the old economy dies, but this does not mean a new healthy bouncing baby will not be born.