Thursday 5 June 2014

After months of promising radical indigenisation changes Politburo fail to deliver - economic meltdown will force it to reconsider!

After months of Mugabe, Chinamasa, Moyo and even the say-nothing, hear-nothing and do-nothing Mai Mujuru coming out against the party’s controversial indigenisation and empowerment policies in which the likes of Chinamasa even dismissed them as “nonsense”; the world expected the Politburo to come up with the decisive coup de grace. What we got instead is slight tweak but otherwise no change.

In the mining sector foreign investor will still have to give up 51% of their shareholding to local blacks (read Zanu PF insiders).

“With respect to the manufacturing as well as financial services sectors, the position has to be negotiated between parties that are going into the joint venture,” the Zanu PF spokesman, Rugare Gumbo announced the Politburo decision.

It is clear why most people had refused to initial public statements promising radical changes in these policies and insisting on seeing the new laws passed confirming these positions. When push came to shove, the Politburo did not have the guts to scrap these offending policies.

Well here are some fundamental truths for Mugabe and the regime to consider; there is nothing here to restore donor and investor confidence that Zimbabwe is now ready a safe place to do business. The $ 27 billion ZimAsset begging bowl will remain empty and no foreign investors will invest in the country. Meanwhile the economic meltdown will continue , more of the few companies still close, government and councils will find it even more difficult to pay wages much less maintain the basic services.

The nation expected the Politburo to swallow the totally misplaced Zanu PF party pride and swallow the medicine required to save the national economy by scrapping these ill-advised policies. The penalty for failing to take the medicine is that the economic meltdown will only get even worse than it is already.


On Monday Pope Francis said the economic suffering the people of Zimbabwe are facing today had “reached human limit”. The Politburo will have to revisit these stupid policies again and the sooner the better because the people cannot endure any more misery! 

No comments: