Zim: Beware of ‘tenderpreneurs’

standards. Recent statistics sadly confirm that at least 70 percent of Zimbabweans live on less than US$2 a day, thus they are classified as living in abject poverty. Indeed, this is a very sad indictment on the vision of this great nation’s founding fathers and mothers.
The Zanu-PF side of the Inclusive Government has, of late, gone into overdrive with its so-called “indigenisation and empowerment” programme. In this article, I will attempt to interrogate this programme and hopefully, locate where the real solution lies.

It is only around 2007 that the government of Zimbabwe began to craft an indigenisation and empowerment blueprint. Readers will remember that the Indigenisation Act, though passed by Parliament in 2007, was only gazetted less than a year ago after the formation of the inclusive Government.
It is also a fact that the Indigenisation Act, when it was passed by Parliament in 2007, was vigorously opposed by the then opposition MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Nevertheless, because Zanu-PF somehow had superiority in numbers in the sixth Parliament of the Republic of Zimbabwe, the Indigenisation Bill fundamentally flawed as it was, found itself in our statute books.

As a starting point, the Government of Zimbabwe should be thoroughly ashamed of the fact that almost three decades after attaining independence from British colonial rule, the country still had not crafted a holistic and people-centred policy for the empowerment of historically disadvantaged people.
One really wonders what the government had been doing all these years by failing to formulate a policy that, in fact, should have been among the top agenda items upon achieving independence in 1980. About 27 years after independence, the government suddenly woke up from its deep slumber and belatedly but spiritedly attempted to craft an indigenisation and empowerment policy.

Let it be made abundantly clear that the empowerment of historically disadvantaged people is a very serious and crucial issue that, in fact, underpins the very reason why thousands of the country’s gallant sons and daughters paid the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that we gained our independence from British colonial rule on April 18, 1980. Thus, the policy of empowerment is not and indeed, should not be taken as a simple electioneering gimmick by any political party. This is a matter of life and death for it will determine the political and socio-economic trajectory of Zimbabwe for several generations to come.

We cannot empower the poor by grabbing wealth from the rich and dishing it out like confetti at a wedding. You do not empower the poor and marginalised by changing the colour of the new bourgeois class from white to black. Put bluntly, you do not empower the poor by grabbing 51 percent shareholding in Lever Brothers (Pvt) Limited and dishing out that shareholding to politically well-connected individuals.

Instead of grabbing 51 percent of a severely under-capitalised and struggling foreign-owned company, it makes better economic sense to embark on a deliberate blueprint that will create more business opportunities, expand the industrial and financial base and thus create new employment opportunities for the millions of our unemployed youths.
It is a blue lie for anyone to claim that the MDC-T led by Morgan Tsvangirai is just interested in creating opportunities for job seekers and not in creating new indigenous employers. The MDC-T’s policy is to ensure that we create and attract investment opportunities; both domestic and foreign. Once this has been done, inevitably, new business opportunities will crop up and our local entrepreneurs will then be able to establish new business ventures that will create new employment opportunities.

The present indigenisation and empowerment policy will ultimately lead to the pauperisation of the majority of historically disadvantaged Zimbabweans.
It will also lead to unprecedented de-industrialisation and capital flight.
The facts speak for themselves.

Zimbabwe is not the only investment destination in the world. Many countries are competing for foreign direct investment. Even within the Sadc region, there is fierce competition for foreign direct investment (FDI).

Naturally, no serious-minded foreign investor will put his money in an economy that cannot guarantee the security of his investment. No investor will be interested in dishing out 51 perception of his shareholding to local investors who will not have any hope of raising enough capital to secure that 51 perception shareholding. In fact, the present scenario is a recipe for massive corruption. It will not stimulate but stifle the growth of Zimbabwe’s industrial, manufacturing and financial base. It will create cartels who will manipulate who gets what in any foreign-owned company that operates in Zimbabwe.

Inevitably, very few people will eventually benefit from the present chaotic and emotion-driven empowerment programme. We should seriously consider creating new wealth as distinct from grabbing old wealth. Instead of empowering our people by identifying those who had a passion for farming and thereafter, adequately training and capacitating them, we chose to adopt a one-size-fits all approach.

Virtually every black Zimbabwean was identified as a potential commercial farmer and the “results” are there for everyone to see. From being a net exporter of food and Southern Africa’s breadbasket, in a very short ten years we degenerated into a basket case; a net importer of food and a country that literally survives on handouts from donors. The time to refocus and redesign our investment and job creation policy is now. We have to take politics out of this very serious business of empowering historically disadvantaged people.

We have to avoid the mistakes of South Africa, where their BEE (black economic empowerment) policy created a few Tokyo Sexalwes, Patrice Motsepes, Cyril Ramaphosas and Mathew Phosas of this world juxtaposed with the hopelessly poor millions of black people in KwaMashu, Cape Flats, Gugulethu and Mamelodi. In fact, we should beware of the ghost of “tenderpreneurs” in our beloved

Zimbabwe. We should create real and sustainable wealth across the length and breath of our great country. We do not want to create a few billionaires in a sea of poverty and deprivation. In the event that we stubbornly proceed to implement the current poorly thought-out and designed empowerment programme, Zimbabwe is inevitably heading towards economic and socio-political doom. Mark my words.