Mutapa Investment Fund to boost empowerment of locals

Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter

The new Mutapa Investment Fund, an upgrade and new name of the country’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, will be a game changer in the country’s quest to allow Zimbabweans benefit from their natural resources including future generations, a round table meeting heard on Wednesday.

This was said by Mr Walter Chimene, the chief executive officer of the Vision 2030 Squad, an empowerment organisation established to rally Zimbabweans in support of the Government’s initiative of achieving an upper-middle income society by 2030.

“The Mutapa Investment Fund will be a game-changing paradigm to allow Zimbabweans to think and exploit for their benefit, their God given natural and human capital resources.

“The Fund implementation model will ensure that empowerment initiatives are activated so that resources can be unlocked, opportunities created while indigenous innovations will be turned into solutions,” he said.

In a Statutory Instrument gazetted last month, President Mnangagwa invoked his Presidential Powers to temporarily amend the Investment Laws to rename and upgrade the old Sovereign Wealth Fund and transfer the shares in 20 State-owned enterprises to the Mutapa Fund.

The entities include major mines like Kuvimba Mining House, major power stations, the National Railways of Zimbabwe, Air Zimbabwe, NetOne and TelOne, Cottco and Zupco.

The original Sovereign Wealth Fund, created in 2014, was designed to build up a portfolio of State-owned investments for the benefit of future generations. These could be in companies owned entirely by the State, or in joint ventures with outside or private shareholders.

Mr Chimene said the leadership structure of the Fund will ensure that Zimbabweans with trackable profiles are given the opportunity to lead and allow Brand Zimbabwe to adjust, adopt and evolve in line with other regional and global wealth creation funds.

“The ecosystem to be created around it will promote the upscaling of a knowledge-based economy which will inspire financial inclusion of the once neglected resource rich communities especially in rural areas,” he said.

“The essence of the Fund will allow Zimbabweans to take full control of their destiny in line with the President’s mantra that ‘Nyika inovakwa ne vene vayo’,” he added.