Legal plunder crumbles Zimbabwean businesses
Last Updated: Sunday, 31 July 2011, 13:53 GMT
By Rejoice Ngwenya, Harare
For the second time in my life since 2000, I am about to experience another
nasty bout of State-sponsored private property plunder under some nefarious
law purportedly meant to ‘empower’ me – the black Zimbabwean. It comes with
devastating implications to the future of my children – catastrophic
unemployment.
Zimbabwe’s indigenisation law is being brandished at mining companies as an
excuse for expropriating their property. Cast a critical glance at the fate
that has recently befallen commercial farmers Mike Van Royen and Koos Smit,
real estate investors Khalil Gaibie and the Di Palma family then you will
appreciate how we are a nation at war with ourselves. I want to ask myself:
what kind of a country is Zimbabwe where even the Constitution cannot
protect individual right to own legitimate property? What on earth have we
done wrong to deserve such a vicious, unforgiving and savage government in a
century where a habited space ship is a mere 200 kilometres above us?
Completely oblivious of the natural laws of justice, drunken by forces of
vindictive partisan idiocy, Indigenisation, Youth Development and
Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere , himself a beneficiary of farm
invasions, pontificates: “By the end of September, any mining company that
doesn’t comply with the law, we’ll kick them out. We’ll ask them to hand
over their assets to government.” I wish I could approach the Supreme Court
of Zimbabwe and ask why the Constitution is failing to protect business from
this Kamikaze crusade. Companies in Zimbabwe have a legal persona. Like
every other Zimbabwean citizen who is [supposed to be] protected by the law,
no one – including a government minister – must have an excuse of walking
into a private company and violating its rights.
The basis of my argument is simple. Whenever a resident of this country or
for that matter a citizen, has legal right over a property – through a lease
agreement, title deed, trade mark, patent or share certificate, the
Constitution must protect them. There is no law, regulation, statutory
instrument, decree or pronouncement violating this constitutional right that
must be accorded recognition. In other words, could there be a ‘common good’
law that can allow homeless vagrants or squatters to go and ‘occupy’ or
‘acquire’ Saviour Kasukuwere’s Borrowdale house on the basis of ‘a right to
shelter’? According to the ‘indigenisation’ law – yes! My point: whenever a
law violates my right to own property, such a law is bad and
unconstitutional – even if it is meant for ‘common good’.
Tinyiko Sam Malulele, M & G blogger asks a very pertinent question: “What
should we do with leaders who work for their stomachs and inspire disunity?”
And at one time, we understand Professor Jonathan Moyo did explain how such
leaders behave. Based on his experience “… the 2000 land reform programme
was itself a hasty, brutal and chaotic response to serious national problems
that were already present.” He argued that this “was not a sustainable
policy action … [but a] brutal and chaotic response [was] more about Mugabe’s
political survival than about redressing historical injustice.”
There is more recent evidence why the Constitutional Court needs to revoke
Kasukuwere’s law of racial hatred. Afaras Gwaradzimba and Patrick Chinamasa
are at the centre of what analysts term ‘the plunder of Shabani Mashaba
Mines’. Mines and Energy Portfolio Committee is reported to have proclaimed:
“The Anti-Corruption Commission and police should be directed by appropriate
authorities to investigate allegations of abuse of office, theft of mining
material, vehicles, building material, mining equipment, mining claims,
unauthorised sale of assets and mismanagement of resources at the two mines
and associated SMMH companies.” This is not the first time these hastily
assembled laws have caused chaos. There is record that Kondozi Farm – a
highly sophisticated agro-industry entity now occupied by Christopher
Mushowe – has been reduced to a shell to the detriment of thousands of
families.
I want to conclude that while Zimbabwe grapples with her conscience as to
why she is not being quickly accorded a status of recognition by the
civilised world, we cannot continue to allow ourselves to be subjected to
legislative ‘mood swings’ that pander only to the whims of Robert Mugabe and
his cronies. This “cheerful enthusiasm, relaxed warmth, depressed
sluggishness, and hostile irritability” behaviour of ZANU-PF as described by
Emotional Intelligence expert Cary Cherniss is symptomatic of institutional
instability. Our judiciary is highly credible. As we now approach a new era
of democratic legitimacy, men and women of honour must approach the Supreme
Court Bench and humbly request that all laws that violate the constitutional
rights of commercial farmers, industrialists, miners and prospective
investors are struck off our statutes.
Rejoice Ngwenya is President of COMALISO, a think tank in Zimbabwe and an
affiliate of AfricanLiberty.org.