By Lawrence Mashoko

AS long as people still think that indigenous people are backward or inferior, then there is no economic policy that can transform the fortunes of our people because any such policy will always be resisted by our obscured social wiring.
Having made this concession, it is still important for African governments to continue reviewing and adjusting their black economic empowerment policies in order to make them more effective.
So far, some of them have already taken steps in the right direction.
For example, in Zimbabwe there is the controversial indigenisation law which places an obligation on all foreign owned firms to cede 51 percent of their shares to Zimbabwean citizens.
The law has enabled young entrepreneurs to access loans to start or grow their own business.
In South Africa, the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment Act is quite similar to Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation Act.
Apart from shareholder restructuring, it includes policies such as skills development and preferential procurement from black owned businesses. However, racially favourable laws alone are not enough.
African governments should consider privatisation as a way of empowering young indigenous people.
They should give some thought to the idea of selling utilities such as waste or water management to local private businesses.
Alternatively, private companies could be given contracts by the Government to provide public services.
In light of various service delivery challenges that most African governments face, privatisation will allow for them to kill two birds with one stone.
The process will allow the creation of business while affording enterprising and innovative citizens the opportunity to service their communities.
The policy is favourable considering that private businesses are more financially prudent and effective than parastatals, which serve a more political rather than profit inclined form of management.
Furthermore, our highly constrained public facilities will improve at minimal public cost because the private groups will use their profits to fund research and purchase equipment in their bid to reduce production costs and improve their profit margins.
This has the effect of reducing the debt constraints that most African governments incur when they are developing public infrastructure.
Government will then assume the role of being the supreme regulator of these bodies and protect the people from being exploited or underserviced.
We should avoid a scenario where people think that when blacks talk about being in business, it infers that they are going to grab the wealth of other people. It is risky for any government to declare war on businesspeople be they foreigners or locals because such a political position undermines investor confidence.
Instead, they should create an environment that makes it possible for black and white businesses to interact on an equal footing.
The more exposed other races are to black business and vice versa, the sooner racist attitudes are likely to change.
In addition to creating a racially congenial business environment and providing access to tangible resources, entrepreneurs also need institutional support. Government institutions should be made efficient and free of corruption.
It is troubling to note how long and cumbersome it is for the average person to register a company in Africa.
It is critical for governments to lessen the red tape associated with starting and operating businesses.
If it remains as difficult as it is to start and operate a business, a lot of young people will be obstructed from implementing their ideas which may well benefit the economy.
A balance must be struck between regulating young business owners and investors against assisting them to break through.
As previously noted, the private sector has a role to play in empowering black entrepreneurs.
For instance, our banks need to change their attitude towards young black entrepreneurs and black people in general.
Apart from the inertia that’s crippling them, financial institutions make it difficult for our entrepreneurs to have access to funds or even have standard business bank accounts.
For instance, it costs US$500 to open a business bank account in Zimbabwe.
It just goes to show that they have the old mentality that you need money to make money, which automatically excludes young blacks.
It also deters them from banking their money which is disadvantageous to their business profile and experience.
Financial institutions across Africa should go out of their way to cater for entrepreneurs instead of enforcing this ridiculous bottleneck elitist system, they should be welcoming our entrepreneurs with open hands.
The young generation of businesspeople will not succeed if they do not have access to funds to grow and develop their activities.
Furthermore, the corporate world needs to engage entrepreneurs and not keep them at arm’s length as they do now.
If they are not given business, they will not get the experience they need to up their game and become significant players in the corporate world.
African entrepreneurs have to lead the rebranding of black business.
Apart from displaying the highest levels of professionalism, entrepreneurs need to form partnerships with each other.
There are a lot of young people who are running the same kind of businesses yet they lack resources and skills that other entrepreneurs have.
This blunts their competitiveness.
They need to start partnering with each other instead of just breaking out on their own.
Because of the challenges that entrepreneurs face, they should form groups with other young hungry people in order to share resources and complement each other’s talents.
This will give them a more robust bargaining point.
As diamonds cut diamonds, young people have better chances of strengthening their businesses if they combine their talents and skills and form companies that have better bargaining positions either in acquiring funds, or running a competitive enterprise.
If everyone starts a business that does the same thing as the next struggling person, then none of them will succeed.
Instead if they combine their talents and innovation, they will be able to come up with competent business strategies, and financiers will take them more seriously.
At the same time they must not shy away from engaging and partnering with other races.
The advent of globalisation necessitates racial integration in all sectors of business.
The Millennial generation in Africa has the responsibility to change the fortunes of the continent.
Young and energetic businesspeople will lead the next stage of Africa’s battle for socio-economic transformation.
If they are not given adequate opportunities to start and run their own businesses, the cycle of poverty and social unrest that characterises our continent will continue.