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Tichaona Zindoga
THERE have been mixed reactions to the recent announcement that Government had given an ultimatum to foreign businesses operating the so-called reserved sectors of the economy, which the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment law says should be a preserve for Zimbabweans.
The reserved sectors are agriculture (primary production of food and cash crops), transportation, retail and wholesale trade, barbershops, hairdressing and beauty salons, employment and estate agencies and grain milling as well as bakeries, tobacco grading and packaging, tobacco processing, advertising agencies, milk processing and provision of local arts and crafts, marketing and distribution.
A good number of people have welcomed the development, arguing that Zimbabweans have been crowded out by foreigners, mainly Nigerians and Chinese.
The Affirmative Action Group, the black empowerment lobby group, believes this is a step in the right direction for indigenous entrepreneurs.
But others have not been as graceful and someone recently wondered when “this grabbing will ever end”, in her belief that the decision to allow Zimbabweans leverage on the sectors was tantamount to robbing the foreigners.
Still others hear a twang of xenophobia in the measure. It is also un-African and xenophobic, a weekend paper’s editorial would suggest, and Zimbabwe should embrace brothers from Nigeria, Zambia and Botswana from who we have been separated by “colonial” borders.
“If there is a law which says my Nigerian brother is my foe, then that law is unjust and must never be obeyed,” said the editorial’’.
This could rank as one of the most ardent and emotional oppositions to the regulations. There is need to dissect the concept of reserved sectors under the indigenous law which nobly seeks an empowered society of indigenous Zimbabweans who were socio-economically marginalized.
First, the concept of empowering Zimbabweans to complement political independence cannot be gainsaid.
It has been long overdue and the land reform programme which saw the transfer of arable land from a tiny minority of 6 000 whites who controlled 80 percent of the resource to over one million blacks was the first real step of economic empowerment. This has created thousands of jobs and provided livelihood to many previously impoverished hands.
It has boosted the economy, too, and the country may yet become a real agricultural hub, and in less time than what the minority colonial whites achieved over many years.
Suffice to say, the agricultural sector is to become representative of Zimbabwe’s industry because of the participation of the majority.
Just like, for example, Zimbabwe’s success or yet lack thereof, in cricket is a true reflection of Zimbabwean value instead of a situation where a minority race dominates the game and yet purport to represent the country.
It is absurd.
As in one African country not far from Zimbabwe that boasts of being second world when the majority blacks in that country live third world lives.
As agriculture empowered some people but, as has been the argument, not everyone can be a farmer.
No, of course not! This is where the issue of other economic sectors comes in. Zimbabweans must fully participate in the economic activities of their country, and there is obviously a hierarchy of what they can do easiest and most accessibly.
Take barbershops and saloons for example.
These will require very little education, knowledge, experience and capital. They can be run by up to 20 people at a time. What special skills and capital can foreigners bring to hairdressing, except squeezing out locals by snapping up available shops? There have been tales of some foreigners paying huge amounts of money in terms of goodwill, deposit and advance payments just to rent a partition of a building. This is ridiculous.
It is well known that some of these will be legitimate fronts for illegal dealings, and some of the goods being sold in the shops would have been smuggled into the country, evading duty.
This is public knowledge.
The absurdity is worse: the money used to buy the space by the foreigners sometimes would have come from illegitimate means or would have been laundered into the country.
A local doing legitimate, well-meaning business would do a lot of good for their families, communities and country. If the indigene loses out unfairly he becomes destitute and burdensome to the community and country.
As has been argued by some, why should somebody come from China to cook Zimbabwe’s indigenous meals?
Is it because Zimbabweans have suddenly become inept? No.
The increase in informal food processing at the bus termini, shop fronts, hawking and boot selling say a lot about people who can’t afford a proper space especially because the same has become expensive.
Another example: can a Zimbabwean not be able to run an employment agency for Zimbabweans at Zimbabwean companies, operated by Zimbabweans?
A South African, except in the case of him facilitating employment in his own country that he should know better, would bring no special skills in this regard. And even if foreigners were to be allowed to run such agencies, this situation would open way for human trafficking as some unscrupulous foreigners take advantage of desperation and legal laxities to pounce on locals for their own benefit.
These arguments would subsist in most of the so-called reserved sectors. And there is no grabbing of anything to say that tobacco grading and packaging is reserved for black Zimbabweans or that the supply of local art and crafts should be locals’ niche.
Online Reporter