adminZimbabwe is a rich country that is endowed with many resources and the Government’s indigenisation policy is aimed at unlocking this wealth in our minerals and other natural resources so that our people enjoy the gains of independence. This is because there can be no talk of political independence without economic empowerment more than three decades after the country unshackled itself from the fetters of colonialism.
Foreign mining giants operating in the country quaked, squealed and protested to whoever was willing to lend them an ear at the launch of the indigenisation programme and a few economists tried to sell us the often repeated statement that taking up 51 percent shareholding in the foreign-owned mining firms would scare away investors.
However, we are happy that the Government, just like in the land reform programme, remained unmoved and stayed its course of empowering the majority. Share ownership schemes have spread across the country in a bid to empower impoverished communities that live next to wealthy mines whose only contribution to the landscape and the community has been open pits and pollution from their operations.
Chronicle yesterday carried a story in which Caledonia Mining Corporation, a Canadian firm that owns Blanket Mine, signed an agreement to sell 15 percent of its shareholding to an indigenous consortium in line with the Government’s indigenisation and economic empowerment initiative.
Under the agreement, Caledonia will sell 15 percent shares in Blanket Mine to indigenous Zimbabweans, 10 percent to the Blanket Mine Employee Trust, 16 percent to the National Indigenisation and National Economic Empowerment Fund while 10 percent will be donated to the Gwanda Community Share Ownership Trust. It has also been reported that Caledonia would also make a donation of $1 million to the trust as soon as it is established.
Gwanda, the provincial capital of Matabeleland South, is surrounded by many disused mines that are home to many gold panners and the open mine pits is all it boasts of since many miners that operated in the area never ploughed back but extracted the minerals and left the people in the area even poorer.
We believe the Government’s indigenisation programme will ensure that Zimbabweans benefit from their mineral resources that foreigners have over the decades used to enrich their home countries. It is our hope that more firms will come on board and enter into agreements with their employees and surrounding communities so that our mineral wealth benefits communities in the surrounding areas in the new effort to redistribute wealth.
We commend the firms that have embraced the indigenisation programme for their foresight since such an arrangement assures them of sustainable operations and urge those that remain defiant that time is running out for them since the owners of the minerals underground and their chiefs will soon claim what is rightfully theirs.
Our plea to the authorities, however, is that the process of taking up ownership of shares should be transparent so that we do not have a few individuals owning shares in many firms across the country.
We need a broad-based empowerment programme whose transfer of wealth will leave us a better people without creating conditions for future disputes due to lopsided redistribution. The community share ownership trusts should be capacitated so that they make the best out of the funds that will come into their coffers since without proper guidelines such money could easily fall into wrong hands, thus defeating the purpose for which it was collected.
Online Reporter