Mugabe, Tsvangirai agree on Zimbabwe’s black policy

HARARE, Saturday

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai appear to have found common ground on the issue of black empowerment, with both agreeing that the policy should enhance indigenous participation in the economy.

However, they still have to agree on how best to implement the policy as they try to strike a balance between black participation in the economy and the need to attract foreign investors.

Mugabe remains vociferous, to the extent that he has become anti-white, in his bid to implement the policy, while Tsvangirai is taking a cautious approach, lest the policy scares away foreign investment much needed to help turn around the country’s economy.

Since the then entirely Zanu-PF government led by Mugabe moved to promulgate an indigenisation law in 2007, Tsvangirai’s MDC party, then in opposition, and the investor community had opposed it because of lack of clarity on how it would be implemented.

The law requires companies to submit forms declaring their shareholding structures within 45 days from March 1, 2010. The intention is that indigenous people should hold 51 per cent shareholding in all existing and new multinational businesses.

Businesses that do not meet the 51 per cent indigenisation requirement will be expected to submit a plan on how they intend to meet the requirements within 45 days from March 1, and those with acceptable reasons will be afforded an extension not exceeding 30 days.

Also, all existing businesses with a threshold of $500,000 should, within 45 days from March 1, declare their shareholding status to the Indigenisation minister through a prescribed form. Current entities will be given a five-year period from March 1 to comply, while new businesses will also be given five years from the date of commencement of business.

Both existing and potential investors have expressed concern over the new regulations. Mugabe has said indigenisation laws should not be viewed as obstacles to investment promotion but as promoting the greater participation by Zimbabweans in the economy and as a democratisation of economic activities.

When Indigenisation and Economic empowerment minister Saviour Kasukuwere gazetted the indigenisation regulations in January, a war of words erupted between him and Investment Promotion minister Elton Mangoma, with the latter arguing that they would push away investors. Mangoma is a member of Tsvangirai’s party, which also criticised the regulations.

“The MDC views these provocative and anti-investment regulations as a deliberate attempt to undermine the country and its people. At a time when Zimbabwe desperately needs foreign direct investment, it is an affront to recovery efforts for the ministry of Youth and Indigenisation to nocturnally and unilaterally gazette these anti-people and anti-Zimbabwe regulations,” said the party.

It alleged that the people who were intended to benefit from the new regulations were not ordinary people, but those in Mugabe’s inner circle.

Different tune

However, party leader Tsvangirai was this week singing a different tune as he sought to assure investors that there was nothing sinister about the new regulations. “I want to assure you that there is no intention on the part of the government to undermine investment, but to promote broad based indigenisation and empowerment.

“Sometimes, investors get alarmed when a policy is announced without clarification, but I want to assure you that the policy is in the best interests of the people of Zimbabwe. The policy intends to enhance local participation and, of course, not the enrichment of a few people,” he told a symposium on public-private partnerships in Harare on Thursday.