Indigenisation, a personal enrichment exercise
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Wezhira
Sunday, 09 May 2010 18:35
An indigenous miner, who has suffered harassment and torture from senior police officers, questions whether the Zimbabwe’s indigenisation programme is a correction of historical imbalances or just a personal enrichment
scheme. The police officers have allegedly stole gold from his mine in broad day light since last year and the miner says efforts to have them persecuted have failed. His identity cannot be revealed because he fears more
victimisation.
It is interesting to hear how various groups are already jostling themselves to position themselves for the indigenisation programme. Interestingly some of these groups are made up of people who hardly put up anything into the system.
Despite various schemes to support the participation of the indigenous population, only a few have benefited. These beneficiaries and mostly privileged people are the ones running their companies by flouting every
regulation in the book. The simple question I would want to pose to some of our leaders is, who are the people or companies dodging to pay corporate taxes and whose cars, whose raw materials and whose goods cross the border without a dime being paid?
These often pay the lowest incomes and apply the most oppressive laws to their employees. Any further effort to enrich and empower such people would move Zimbabwe towards slavery.
It is a fact of life that oppression of one person by another for whatever reasons is intolerable, unbearable and certainly unsustainable. In ancient history we had slave masters and slaves, and the system was becoming
unsustainable and expensive to maintain. While it may not matter much to know the specific people who were the champions and proponents of its abolition, the bottom line is that these were people of great vision and
knew that the system would crash.
A lesser oppressive system was perceived to enhance the well being of the masters and their workers. History has evidence that as societies became freer they were equally able to improve on their material and social
welfare. Even to this day, the battle rages on between capital and labour, and any compromises that enable the system to meet the needs of both would result in enhancement in the quality of life. The battle between classes or divisions is as old as the history of mankind itself. At some point it was along racial and gender lines.Man does not seem to learn from his past that the earlier the parties recognise the need to work together and negotiate with one another in the spirit of mutual interest, the better it becomes for all. The issue is not about colour or gender but about liberty, equity and common justice. An equitable and just system will be subscribed by many if not all. The oldest constitution on the law of liberty, equity and justice prescribes that an alien who agrees to abide in your land shall do so under the terms and conditions that applies to all the citizens of the land. They in turn shall become part of you forever, and they and their children shall be eligible for benefits pertaining to the citizens of that country for as long as they continue to abide with the laws of the land.
On the surface, Zimbabwe’s land reform and the current proposed blanket indigenisation policy of the economy may look and sound simple and yet the results could be far reaching with very undesirable consequences.
There are a number of questions which our leaders should ask themselves if they desire success for this nation. They should look seriously into the people who are eligible and the terms, the manner and nature of benefits and how these would be spread, how the programmes would benefit the poor and the disadvantaged such as widows, orphans, the disabled, women and children, sustainability of the system and how it would address future challenges.
The Zanu (PF) government did a lot during its early days to address problems of social and economic inequalities. They advanced the rights of women and the workers in general, particularly on remuneration for equal work. They designed one of the most progressive labour laws in the continent. Without taking anything away from them, they did a lot with limited resources.
Significant inroads were made in education, health and social infrastructure. They came up with cheap finance schemes to stimulate participation by the previously disadvantaged groups but these schemes were far from adequate given a demand for them.
During the early years of independence, some benefited immensely by simply putting up project proposals for funding, got allocated foreign currency to import project related equipment only to sell licenses to others who ended up importing finished goods and luxuries. Some of these people have built up their business empires on these faulty structures and yet today they are being hailed as people of great business acumen. Despite the fact that their wealth was ill gotten and should have been prosecuted, the government has taken a blind eye and allowed these people to continue as if nothing ever happened. It would be interesting to find out how this class of people would be treated under the new indigenisation policy.
However, others have built their businesses through hard work and taking serious risks such as disposal of properties or taking mortgage loans. Some people failed in this process, others have died of blood pressure and some have become destitute.
Others have never been employed and will probably never be employed but still one would need to know how they will benefit from the much talked about indigenisation policy.
The first phase of the land reform programme was characterised by the scramble for farm houses, tractors, vehicles, cattle, other animals, crops in the field and other items on farms. Financial institutions also suffered,
they had to find new lines of business to survive. The law of the jungle was in operative.
Yet the government could have legislated for farm sizes in every ecological region and allocated it to deserving black farmers and peasant farmers in highly congested areas. Other well structured and self financing schemes
could have been structured to raise funds to support the new farmers. Land tax could also have been applied to penalise those who wanted to hold more land than was necessary for their use. Use of foreign aid could have been secondary. Infrastructure on the farms could have been preserved and perceived incremental agricultural output that could have been enhanced at a far lower cost. Cross fertilization of ideas and experience could have shortened the learning curve of the new commercial farmers. The old farmers should have been allowed to stay at their houses and choose the first portion of the land for their use as long as they subscribed to government policy. The process could have been less disruptive.
The unfortunate development on the land reform is that we had people who did not believe in spearheading it. As if the problems were not enough, the ugly head of multiple farm ownership showed the lack of faith by the leadership in the process. It was like leaders were saying to people this is the only chance and once one misses it, it is the end of the world.
The result was that a number of genuine farmers got frustrated because they never benefitted from the distribution of inputs and were forced to fund their operations from their own resources. Some of these farmers are already broke and can no longer afford to remain on the farms. Those who abused the free farming inputs from government got away with it.
As a nation we need to carry out a serious soul searching to find out whether we are ready to proceed with such policies on a much wider scale. A hurried policy on a faulty foundation has every ingredient for discontent and instability. So far, most of the beneficiaries of defective schemes and other good intended schemes of government are the ones who have already lined themselves to catch the windfalls and are the most likely to benefit from the new policy. Some of these beneficiaries are the ones steering the hype for indigenisation but mostly for their selfish means.
We are often misled to believe that the West has an obligation to give us funding but what about if they don’t as what is the position currently. What we need is sound and convinced leadership that can take us through the storms. Governments, particularly in Africa, should be convinced of their own people and count on their support because in the absence of such support a government can just be a shell without any meaning. I don’t need to go into the details of the Somali case were people are ruled by warlords. A future under such circumstances is frightening to even contemplate. However, Zimbabwe has all the ingredients of becoming another Somalia.
As a matter of policy we need, to include in the constituition that leaders should concentrate on the business of leadership and governance, and give their best.