TODAY NewsDay gives an insight into the proposed jobs plan of the MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai commonly referred to as Juice and the indigenisation and economic empowerment policy promoted by Zanu PF and President Robert Mugabe.
Report by Business Reporter
Juice is described as a broadbased citizen upliftment strategy that is “people-centered” focusing on entrepreneurship, job creation, rural development and poverty alleviation.
According to Juice, if growth continues at double-digit rates under conditions of greater political and economic freedom, it is possible to achieve a “firstworld” economy by 2040, the way many Asian economies did over a similar time span.
The following policies will drive the strategy;
- Transformation to a democratic developmental state
- How the state should do business
- Political governance
- Creating Sustainable Jobs & SMEs Development
- Entrepreneurship
- SMEs development
- Formalising the informal sector
- Enhancing skills development
- Sector specific job creation potential
- Creating an enabling environment for inclusive economic Participation
- Social dialogue and social contract
- Respect for property rights and rule of law
- Mainstreaming gender
- Upliftment and poverty reduction
- Creating a safer and more stable macroeconomic and financial system
- Fiscal reforms
- Tax reforms
- Reforming the financial sector
- Debt sustainability and debt relief
- Reforming public services to deliver quality social services
- A performance driven civil service
- Sustainable growth strategies
- Private sector development and industrial transformation
- Rescusitation of industry
- Increasing productivity
- Value addition
- Infrastructural development
- Public-private partnerships to deliver infrastructure
- A broad based economic empowerment agenda
- The Pitfalls of the current indigenisation policy
- Tenets of a broad based empowerment strategy
- Creating a more balanced economy
- Cluster based development
- Rural transformation
- Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
- Opening Zimbabwe for business
- Investment promotion and facilitation
- Regional and global integration
- Environmental responsibility
- Resource governance
- The environment
- Juice key benchmarks
As a direct result of juice we expect to achieve the following;
- One million new jobs to be created between 2013-2018
- Projected average growth rate of 8% per annum between 2013-2018.
- Macro economic stability anchored by single digit inflation.
- Deepening and strengthening the role of SMEs.
- Domestic savings mobilization.
- Normalisation of Zimbabwe’s international relations.
- Implementation of a Natural Resources Charter.
- Running a green economy.
- A $100 billion first world economy by 2040.
- An increase in power generation capacity to 6,000 Megawatt by 2018.
- Reconstruction of the country’s infrastructure.
- Building a social contract and ensuring sustainable and decent wages.
- Attracting FDI that is at least 30% of GDP.
Former University of Zimbabwe economic history lecturer Brian Ngwenya argues that despite the noble intentions of the empowerment programme the way it was being implemented slowed down economic growth.
“Economic indigenisation is a plausible option for economic redistribution and has been tried in various countries with varying degrees of success worldwide,” Ngwenya said.
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“However, government policies in recent past, with the glaring example of very clear bungling that has come to be associated with the unsatisfactory performance of most resettled farmers, make it difficult for one to comprehend how the idea of economic indigenisation without the relevant support from a state with very little capacity to sustain or support this development policy can be a panacea to economic problems at the moment.”
He said Zimbabwe’s extension of the indigenisation policy in the mining and industrial sectors may not only be mistimed, but also be affected by greed and opportunism.
“Penultimately, this will have the effect of retarding economic recovery while increasing the problems associated with political patronage and clientelism,” Ngwenya added.
