Zanu (PF) is banking on its Indigenisation policy while the MDC-T is confident its Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and the Environment (JUICE) programme will move the economy forward.
The Indigenisation policy compels foreign-owned firms with a minimum capital of $500,000 to cede 51% of their shareholding to locals. Under the Act, an indigenous person is described as anyone who before April 18, 1980 was disadvantaged by imbalances on the grounds of race and any descendant of such a person.
In May 2010, the MDC-T National Council dismissed this policy as being “for the elite, selective and a vehicle for further enrichment of the rich few, self-aggrandisement, patronage, clientelism and further destruction of the economy”.
The party claims that its JUICE programme is a more effective and equitable framework to create decent employment opportunities for all Zimbabweans while creating an enabling environment for citizens to acquire entrepreneurial skills.
It aims to create an enabling environment for Foreign Direct Investment and at the same time restructuring the ownership and control of the economy through a broad-based economic empowerment programme.
Management of foreign data is among the policy’s objectives as well as greater integration with regional and global markets to facilitate sustainable growth. It also aims to provide good quality social services such as education and health care in a way that is affordable to all.
Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere has dismissed JUICE as a half-baked political gimmick aimed at canvassing support ahead of the forthcoming elections.
He is on record blasting the MDC-T for opposing the empowerment of ordinary Zimbabweans. The Zimbabwean interviewed economic analysts to compare the two policies.
Analysts expressed serious reservations about the indigenisation policy,saying it was poorly crafted and had the potential of scaring foreign investors away while at the same time leading to a proliferation of the looting of the country’ resources by a small political elite.
Eric Bloch said: “Basically, it means that foreign investors will only be allowed to have a minority stake and so they are not prepared to put their capital where they will have absolutely no authority. We need to work on realistic percentages and create equity between local and foreign investors so that the policy can at least work. JUICE will at least see some improvement. We should try to modify both policies so that they can work together and attract investment.”
Innocent Makwiramiti said: “You cannot capitalize an economy by taking something from Peter and giving it to John. What we need desperately is an injection in the form of external capital. We need external capital to jumpstart our economy then we can make use of local resources”.
“We do not need to indigenise when the economy is performing at a low level because we will continue to face the same problems. Direct Investment will help to create jobs by resuscitating the ailing industrial sector. We cannot do without external capital and so to me the MDC’s JUICE makes more sense.”
John Robertson said: “We are having a huge liquidity crisis and we can’t look to local investment because we need external money to end that liquidity crisis. On the JUICE policy, I think they have many good ideas there which include assurance of ownership and control to foreign investors. The major provision of JUICE is that property rights will be respected.”
Last month, Norwegian Ambassador Ingebjorg Stofring told The Zimbabwean that guaranteeing the protection of foreign investments would help boost confidence in Zimbabwe among international investors.
Post published in: Business