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Harare Bureau
ABOUT 1 000 foreign owned firms have submitted plans to comply with the indigenisation policy, but less than half have so far been approved, outgoing Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Savior Kasukuwere said yesterday. He told an indigenisation and empowerment conference at the University of Zimbabwe that a total of 1 119 plans had been assessed with 496 having been approved. The approved plans are mainly from manufacturing (155) and mining (135) sectors.
Minister Kasukuwere said the Government would ensure foreign companies complied with the law.
President Mugabe also told thousands who attended the Defence Forces Day main celebrations at the National Heroes Acre on Tuesday the next Government would do everything in its power to ensure the objective of total indigenisation was achieved.
Under the broad based empowerment programme, foreign companies are supposed to turn over their majority stakes to indigenous black Zimbabweans.
Black economic empowerment was a major campaigning tool for Zanu-PF, which saw the revolutionary party convincingly win the 31 July harmonised elections.
“It has been labelled as a plan to empower the elite, but if the communities (that have benefited from the Community Share Ownership Trust) are described as elites, then that kind of group (of people) should be supported,” said Minister Kasukuwere.
He said people would have not voted for Zanu-PF if indigenisation was meant to empower a few.
To ensure the broad based participation, several CSOS and employee share ownership schemes were established countrywide.
The National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Fund, which holds shares on behalf of Zimbabweans was also put in place. Plans are underway to establish a sovereign wealth fund.
Minister Kasukuwere said indigenisation was not meant to nationalise foreign controlled firms but an “affirmative action programme, requiring that no investor can conduct business in Zimbabwe without partnering with indigenous Zimbabweans.”
Contrary to perceptions that the programme was discouraging foreign investment, Minister Kasukuwere said “we believe, it instead guarantees the security of foreign investment by insisting on mutually beneficial partners between indigenous and non indigenous.”
He also dismissed some claims that businesses from “friendly” countries were exempted from compliance as the law was being applied “consistently.”
Speaking at the same occasion, UZ lecturer in the Department of Technical Education Dr Peter Kwaira told delegates that efforts should be directed towards changing the mindset of youth to appreciate and adopt a feeling of economic ownership.
UZ political science lecturer Shakespeare Hamauswa emphasised the need to adopt business incubation, programmes designed to support the successful development of entrepreneurial companies through business support resources and services.
“Therefore, the majority of new enterprises will be able to survive and grow into competitive environment,” he said. Success stories of the concept can be drawn from the United States, Japan, China and Nigeria.
The workshop was organised by Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa in partnership with the UZ and was attended by academics.
Its objective is to promote dialogue and interaction between researchers and policy-makers in Eastern and Southern Africa with a view to enhancing the impact of research on policy-making and development planning. Its headquarters is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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