Indigenisation core of the economic sector

Charles Chiponda
PRIMARY elections are gone and we are heading for harmonised elections on Wednesday. As with any contest, there are winners and losers; some candidates finding out that they are not as popular as they imagined. I would like to offer my congratulations to the former and the deepest commiserations to the latter.  My commiserations on the latter are only natural as it is a group I strongly identify with after having recently been made a member involuntarily.

As Zanu-PF and MDC-T, the main rivals in this election battle for the mandate to exercise power on our behalf on the 31st July, their respective campaign platforms diverge on their plans for the economy, among other things.

Due to a number of reasons, the turbulent economy has become one of the major issues for voters. The bias towards local ownership, influence and participation is the Zanu-PF message with MDC-T leaning towards free market liberalism at its most liberal.

Liberalism and free markets may sound appealing, but there is another side to them. One has to only look into one of the earliest trade deals signed in our country that was meant to be “mutually beneficial,” to understand this concept better. The deal is the Rudd Concession of 1888. The treaty, that Ndebele King Lobengula was tricked into signing gave the British South African Company carte blanche rights over the mineral riches in the country. In turn, King Lobengula was promised some weapons, a monetary stipend and little things that were never delivered.

The MDC-T argument is generally that mass unfettered investment into Zimbabwe will create growth, productivity and employment. This may be valid to some extent, but it is not specific enough policy-wise as to the nature of economic growth that we should expect versus one that may result.

Most Zimbabweans have grown accustomed to the concept of self-determination and so the prospect of handing the reigns of the economy over to large foreign-owned multinationals is not much of a vote-winner, as of late.

The success of all the land reform exercise only adds weight to that argument. Ironically, the imposition of illegal economic sanctions has forced us into exploring increasingly innovative approaches to stimulating economic growth, activity and participation. One can only imagine how many locally-owned banks would exist if foreign banking giants competed in the same market, with all their inherent advantages. Yes, the cost of banking might be lower due to the competition, but the power to influence the economy would be concentrated in the hands of a few foreign firms.

“Let me control a nation’s money and I care not who writes its laws,” said Mayer Amschel Rothschild in 1790. He is incidentally an uncle to the Rothschild who funded one Cecil John Rhodes in the development of the British South Africa Company.

The importance of indigenisation and other programmes that encourage the participation of indigenous Zimbabweans in core sectors of the economy can be to an extent reflected in statistics such as the following: in 2001 Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product was just under $10 billion.

Exxon Mobil, an oil company in 2012 made a net profit of about $44 billion. It is an American multinational oil and gas corporation headquartered in Irving, Texas, United States.

Over the past few years, the illegal sanctions have definitely made Zimbabwe feel a lot less a member of the global family and having to interact considerably more with the local family. So we need to be wary of the consequences of our choices and the future we will then inevitably bind generations of Zimbabweans to.

The choice on 31 July then becomes whether or not to economically swing the doors of Zimbabwe fully open in an area we ourselves have not even begun to fully appreciate, take stock of and take part in ourselves.

Looking at the dismally regressive results of what Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen have in common after the so-called Arab Spring; it is clear to see that some encouragement in the wrong direction by entities with foreign interest can have dire consequences for millions of people.

These entities unfortunately exist in Zimbabwe today as well but unlike those countries mentioned earlier we fortunately are still yet to make our choice. Either we show confidence in ourselves, what we are capable of as a nation and continue to have ultimate say in the of kind country we would like Zimbabwe to be, or begin to relieve ourselves of the responsibility to self- determination some of us lost their lives for.

Charles Chiponda is Zanu-PF Provincial Secretary for Indigenisation for Bulawayo. He is also a businessman and past president of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, Matabeleland region. He can be contacted on [email protected] or 0712978098