There is nothing new in Finance minister Tendai Bitis remarks in Washington last week to the effect that Zimbabwes indigenisation policy will benefit a few black elite mostly Zanu PF functionaries.
What is new and quite intriguing is the ministers suggestion that the policy should go back to the drawing board.
Even his audience at the Atlantic Centre, a thinktank and public policy group, must have wondered at Bitis suggestion as hollow as it was clearly impractical.
It goes without saying the policy, as the minister said, was not well-thought-out and that due process was not being followed, but which new drawing board is Biti suggesting to take the policy back to?
The indigenisation and empowerment law is already being implemented, is in full flight and Saviour Kasukuwere, the minister in charge, takes every opportunity to remind the likes of Biti that there is no going back so how on earth is Biti hoping to reverse that?
The law was crafted in Parliament where Biti is a member and was passed in its present form warts and all.
Does he then hope to take it back to that drawing board?
It was clear from day one that the law was never meant to benefit the ordinary Zimbabweans and the fight should have been right there in Parliament to have it well-thought-out and not making such suggestions across seas.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Biti knows full well that in as far as the application of that law in the mining sector, Kasukuwere intends to have completed the job by the end of this month, after which nothing will be undone.
What Biti as Finance minister should have fought to do was to push to have money paid for the 51% shares that companies were forced to cede to reject the status quo where shares are just being grabbed by greedy individuals who then seek to convince people the shares would be paid for from dividends gotten from the same seized shares.
While the land reform programme, another huge mess executed for political expediency and which also benefited mostly Zanu PF officials, stands a chance of future correction in the form of taking away under-utilised farms, making right the share seizures would be impossible.
The empowerment drive, ostensibly driven by the need to give land to the landless peasants and mines to the mineless, is set to go into manufacturing and other sectors and what Biti and them should be doing is to work towards ensuring the same does not happen and that the economy is not destroyed in the name of sovereignty.
