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WE welcome the ultimatum that has been given to foreigners operating in sectors reserved for indigenous Zimbabweans who are supposed to close shop and leave indigenous Zimbabweans to take over.
These sectors, among them the retail shops and wholesale businesses, barbershops, hairdressing, beauty salons, bakeries, employment agencies and grain milling, agriculture, transportation, estate agencies, tobacco grading and packaging, tobacco processing, advertising agencies, milk processing and provision of local arts and crafts, marketing and distribution; are not capital intensive and can be easily exploited by indigenous Zimbabweans who were excluded from their economy by the legacy of colonialism.
Unlike in South Africa where citizens end up taking the law into their own hands to vent their frustrations on foreigners running tuck shops and other small businesses; in Zimbabwe everything is legal as captured in the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act that seeks to put the economy in the hands of indigenous Zimbabweans.
Over the past few years, enterprising Zimbabweans who were earning Zimdollar salaries were shut out of the retail sector as hard currency-rich foreigners pushed rentals by offering astronomical rates.
Without the intervention proposed by Government, they will remain on the periphery forever.
The real investment that Zimbabwe needs is not in the capital extensive reserved sectors, but in capital intensive projects that can help grow the economy and develop the nation’s infrastructure.
To this end we hail the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment for reminding foreigners in reserved sectors that their time is up.
We need investment that help keep our money inside our borders as our failure to stem the proliferation of foreigners in these low capital ventures has virtually turned our economy into a consumer market.
No economy can grow out of consuming other people’s products.
To this end we challenge Government to go a step further by ensuring that the money that is being lost to grey imports is used to develop local assembly plants.
Banks can provide loan facilities to enable companies and individuals to buy vehicles from local assembly plants.
The Government can take the lead by decreeing that our legislators buy their vehicles from Willowvale Mazda Motor Industries.
It does not make sense that we spend millions of dollars on imported vehicles while Willowvale Mazda Motor Industries cries for customers.
If we do not buy from Willowvale or Quest Motor Corporation, who do we expect to buy the products?
None but ourselves can save our industries.
Online Reporter