Minister’s ‘absurd’ proposals flung out of parliament
by Irene Madongo
21 June 2011
Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere has been forced to eat humble pie
after his ‘absurd’ proposals to radicalise indigenisation laws were flung
out of parliament, a legislator has explained. The ZANU PF minister has now
accepted that they went overboard and will have to come up with a new plan,
it has been revealed.
Among his plans, Kasukuwere wanted all individuals who don’t inform his
department that they are majority shareholders of companies to be jailed for
five years or be fined US$1000, or both. He also proposed that when a
businessperson declares the investment they made, and his ministry evaluates
and finds that they undervalued their assets by 10%, then they should also
be imprisoned for five years. It has also been revealed that he wanted the
laws to be applied in a discriminatory manner, for example, companies which
are in a partnership should be sent to jail, but sole traders should not be.
However, his proposals were rejected by the Parliament Legal Committee (PLC)
on the grounds that they were discriminatory and against the laws of the
country.
On Tuesday, Chairman of the PLC and Mazowe Central MP, Shepherd Mushonga,
said: “This is unnecessary heavy-handedness on the part of the Minister in
the following respects – that the law is trying to create offences which are
really absurd and the sentences are really abnormal; and we parliament
representatives feel that that is not the objective of the law – threatening
people, to create criminals out of non-criminals.”
Mushonga told SW Radio Africa that Kasukuwere has accepted that his plans
were overboard and have been sent back to the drawing board.
“He has written to us a letter wherein he accepted that he has gone
overboard and that he was going to remove all the items we have put on our
adverse reports,” Mushonga explained.
Mushonga blamed Kasukewere’s overzealousness on a drive by ZANU PF to come
up with what it perceives to be ‘populist policies’. He added the pursuit of
such policies was akin to the devastating land invasions of the last decade.
“I think it’s more about (election) campaigns. You have talk of an election
in this country and people tend to go overboard,” Mushonga explained.
ZANU PF has spear-headed the country’s controversial indigenisation law
amidst much criticism. The law forces foreign-owned companies to cede more
than half of their shareholding to locals, which analysts say is putting off
much needed foreign investment to rescue Zimbabwe’s struggling economy.