“Investors Should Help Democratise Zimbabwe”
By Stanley Kwenda
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 23, 2010 (IPS) – While investors need assurances about
property rights and the protection of investments before they will invest in
Zimbabwe’s precarious economy, the state of democracy in the Southern
African country should also be a consideration.
These were some of the opinions of businesspeople and diplomats
participating in a recent summit on Zimbabwe’s future.
Human rights violations and land grabbing shattered Zimbabwe’s democracy and
economy during the past decade as a result of President Robert Mugabe and
his ZANU-PF party’s rejection of democratic process.
Amidst extra-legal killings, detentions, torture and mass displacement of
people, the Zimbabwean dollar crashed, shop shelves emptied and the country
registered one of the world’s worst peacetime inflation rates.
A power-sharing deal between ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) restored relative political stability and led to the dollarisation of
the economy. The country has since exhibited some signs of recovery, both
democratically and economically.
Prime minister and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai sought to assure investors
in highly emotive language at the summit that his country had turned a
corner.
“We chose progress over violence, polarisation, decline and decay. Zimbabwe
is moving forward from the darkness of madness and self-destruction to a new
dawn,” he said at the summit, held on Sep 16 in Johannesburg, South Africa,
and hosted by the international business magazine “The Economist”.
“The Economist” news editor Adam Roberts argued that signs of renewed
interest in the country could be noticed but that it remained unclear
whether the recovery could be sustained.
“For the first time in a long while you have investors seriously considering
if this is the moment to invest in Zimbabwe and you have Zimbabweans in the
diaspora contemplating if this is the time to return,” Roberts said.
“But many serious tests are yet to be passed, and the diaspora, investors,
donors and others need a great deal more assurances,” he added.
Johannesburg-based Zimbabwean businessperson Chris Goromonzi told IPS that,
“it is time Zimbabwe creates opportunities and conditions for companies to
do business. This involves conducive legislation that protects investment.”
German ambassador to Zimbabwe Albrecht Conze acknowledged that progress was
being registered but said change was “millimetre-ing” forward and that real
progress was possible only once a new constitution that guaranteed private
property was agreed.
White commercial farmers’ representatives warned that legal disputes and
claims for substantial compensation for expropriated land could not be
wished away.
“The most important thing is to address issues of property rights and rights
of the individual. The fact that farmers who lost their land have not been
compensated should serve as a warning to would-be investors,” John
Worsley-Worswick from the Justice for Agriculture farmers’ lobby group told
IPS.
Concern was also raised over government plans for “indigenisation” —
transferring majority ownership of companies to black Zimbabweans — which
are seen in some quarters as an attempt by Mugabe to expropriate businesses
for his allies.
Tsvangirai said that the indigenisation measures are being amended to take
investors’ concerns into account.
Zimbabwean minister of economic planning and investment promotion Tapiwa
Mashakada said that the government was working at reducing red tape that
made it difficult to do business and to put in place the necessary
legislation to protect investments.
“We are working on an investment protection bill so that we can lay down the
guarantees for and obligations of investors,” Mashakada told IPS.
But Zimbabwean businessperson Tawanda Nyambirai told IPS that foreign
investors should use their businesses to help democratise Zimbabwe. “The
consideration should be human rights, whether political, social or
economic,” said Nyambirai.
“They have to ask themselves whether they are investing in Robert Mugabe or
in Zimbabwe. Investment should be a strategy that encourages
democratisation,” said Nyambirai. (END)