HARARE - Dumiso Dabengwa's Zapu party has said the ongoing indigenisation drive is "ill-timed, ill-conceived, ill-directed and ill-fated."
Zapu’s statement comes as Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town over the weekend that a law to increase local black ownership of foreign firms would be implemented gradually and without forced sales.
“It is economically suicidal at this time to chase away foreign investment by grabbing what remains of big business in the private sector and handing it to the corrupt elite belonging to or associated with one known political party,” said Zapu national secretary for Legal and Special Affairs, Advocate Steven Sofelilizwe ka Sigwabiselwa Nkiwane. “These elements will run those companies aground, as they have done with so much in the past.
In a Zapu inspired scenario there will be a conducive environment for free and fair buy-ins and buy-outs preceded by proper and full training in corporate governance. Economic empowerment, be it in business or in farming, should never be used as a tool for raising cheap political support. Tsvangirai said the empowerment law would be on a willing buyer, willing seller and ruled out expropriation or nationalisation.
We are trying to model a matrix that will satisfy both the investor and our desire to see people participate more in the economy. We are contributing the mineral resource, you will exploit it and we will exploit it to the benefit of both of us, he said. However, President Robert Mugabe has vowed to forge ahead with plans to transfer control of foreign firms – including mines and banks – to local blacks identified by Zanu (PF).
In an apparent effort at damage control, Tsvangirai insisted: “What’s being implemented now are minimum thresholds. You can’t start with 51 percent. Companies are required to say how, over time, they are going achieve the maximum threshold.” In the more immediate future, companies would have to adopt much lower levels of black ownership while presenting a road map towards ultimate black Zimbabwean majority ownership, he said.
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