The Simba Makoni-led Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn (MKD) has criticised Zanu PFs indigenisation drive, describing it as a self- preservation tactic employed by a party that has run short of a sustainable election manifesto.
MKD interim secretary for economic affairs, Florence Sachikonye, made the remarks during an indigenisation policy debate organised by the Mass Public Opinion Institute in Harare last week.
Indigenisation is Zanu PFs last political card and it is a ploy to try and win votes, she said.
The policy requires foreign companies worth more than $500 000 to cede 51% of their equity to Zimbabwean blacks by 2015.
Sachikonye said her party became suspicious when Zanu PF, which had largely ignored the indigenisation policy over the past three years, suddenly decided to pursue it as an urgent matter with general elections beckoning.
It is a campaign tool based on self-preservation, yet whatever Zanu PF has touched is broke and parastatals like the National Railways of Zimbabwe, where the government has shares, are now 100% broke, she said. Air Zimbabwe is 100% bust, the Grain Marketing Board has ground to a halt.
Other companies have closed and we now have ghost mines. And all those were government-owned companies.
We can have indigenisation, but without sustainable economic policies, there will not be any success and the role of the government should be to craft legislation for posterity and to put a regulatory framework that is all-encompassing.
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Sachikonye said the word indigenisation sounded politically correct, but was not real and had no meaning in the world of economics.
Speaking at the same function, Affirmative Action Group chief executive officer Davison Gomo defended the policy, arguing it was not a political gimmick.
