HARARE A Zimbabwean black empowerment pressure group last week said international milk processor Nestle should be forced to sell its Harare subsidiary to local blacks if the firm continued to refuse to buy milk from a farm owned by President Robert Mugabes wife, Grace. (Very few foreign investors will feel welcome to Zimbabwe with the AThe Affirmative Action Group (AGG) whose members are closely linked to Mugabes Zanu (PF) party said Nestles refusal to buy milk from Graces Gushungo farm was part of a foreign regime change agenda and said the firm should not be allowed to continue embarrassing the Presidents family.
Mugabe often accuses Western powers of seeking to oust him as punishment for his controversial land reform programme which saw the government seizing white-owned farmland for redistribution to blacks.
Grace was allocated Gushongo under her husbands land reforms that also saw senior members of Zanu (PF), their friends and allies — including many members of the AAG — handed some of the best farms seized from whites.
This is unacceptable (Nestles refusal to buy milk from Gushungo) AGG secretary general Tafadzwa Musarara told journalists in Harare.
He added: We are going to make sure that Nestle buys Gushungo milk. It is clear that Nestle is perpetuating a foreign regime change agenda. We are demanding that with immediate effect Nestle must be indigenised.
Nestle this month stopped buying milk from Gushungo farm following an international media outcry over the firms business dealings with the Mugabes and threats by consumer watchdogs to call for a boycott of the companys products.
The firms bank accounts were temporarily frozen by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe which said the action was part of a routine check meant to sniff out financial irregularities. But observers saw the move as a warning to Nestle that Harare was unhappy with the decision to stop buying milk from Mugabes wife.
About a week ago Zanu (PF) youths drove a milk tanker to Nestles Harare factory and tried to force company officials to buy the milk but they refused.
However the involvement of the AAG that has over the years led harassment of private firms perceived as anti-Mugabe could mean more trouble for Nestle.
But the AAG threats against Nestle will also dampen investor interest in Zimbabwe especially coming at a moment the countrys coalition government appears in deep trouble following Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai his MDC partys decision to boycott Zanu (PF).
The southern African countrys economy, which has been on a free-fall for the past decade, badly needs foreign investment to recover.
Post published in: News