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PRESIDENT Mugabe has calmed investors’ nerves by clarifying the confusion over the interpretation of the indigenisation law. The Head of State and Government moved to calm the squabbles pitting Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa and his Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment counterpart Patrick Zhuwao pertaining to the financial services sector.
This, he said, was undermining market confidence at the same time increasing the cost of doing business, with potential to weaken all efforts Government is putting into improving the doing business environment in Zimbabwe.
Of late, Government has been seized with improving the business environment to enhance the country’s competitiveness.
Part of these efforts included engagement with the business community, development partners and the investor community.
Indeed, some milestones have been achieved, but confusion over the interpretation of the indigenisation law threatened the work that had been put in. Principally, the President’s intervention puts to rest the discussion about how the law should be implemented.
The intervention provides clear pathways on how the law should be implemented, sector by sector. In other words, it charts the direction that all of us should follow.
The Head of State and Government has spoken. We are pleased that he has provided the direction that business, investing public, Zimbabweans and international co-operating partners have been clamouring for.
The President has always been consistent that the indigenisation law is not about disenfranchising anyone. It is not about robbing Peter to pay Paul. The law is about equality, sharing the finite and infinite resources our country possesses.
It is not about antagonism and war, but just a law to be complied with, just in the same way other laws are obeyed. It has never been the intention of Government to make the indigenisation law superior to any other law. Neither was the law promulgated to have sting because it is not intended to bite. In that regard, we are heartened by His Excellency’s resolute stance that the law must be implemented fairly and clearly. It clarifies certain grey areas that the Act had not clearly provided for.
Critically, President Mugabe made it clear that the banking sector shall continue to be under the auspices of the Banking Act, which is regulated by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, and the insurance sector under the auspices of the Provident and Insurance Act.
The banking sector is central to the functioning of any economy.
Stability of this sector is a critical indicator as to the state of an economy. Shaking this critical sector by making unprincipled policy pronouncements could be detrimental to the country.
Hence the President’s intervention to show Zimbabweans, business and investors that Zimbabwe is not about ripping people of their investment.
Zimbabwe is a signatory to international conventions particularly relating to the protection of private property.
We are a country that co-exists with many others in the global village. A signatory to many bilateral agreements and a member of the international financial system through the Bretton Woods institutions.
We therefore cannot be seen to be waylaying investors. That is not who we are.
And the President has made it abundantly clear. What remains now is for business to play its part. We need the machines to be running again now that it has been made clear that Government will not sanction wanton attachment of private businesses.
We do not need a sheriff. Sheriffs attach, uplift and sell by their nature. But we need Zimbabwe to be working again. A sheriff cannot help us attain the two million jobs by 2018.
Online Reporter