Zimpapers Logo

Minister Bimha

Nduduzo Tshuma Senior Political Reporter
THE government will soon issue clarification on the country’s indigenisation laws to reassure investors, the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Cde Mike Bimha, said yesterday.Speaking at a Chronicle breakfast meeting at the Bulawayo Rainbow Hotel, Cde Bimha said the government has been consulting various sectors including business associations.

Cde Bimha was responding to a participant, Qhubani Moyo, who asked whether the government could be realigning the indigenisation laws to suit the recent deals brokered by the government with investors from Russia and China. The minister acknowledged that there was lack of clarity in terms of what the law says in sectors outside mining.

“The relevant ministry is working on the issue and should be bringing clarity soon,” said Minister Bimha.

“There’ve been consultations on the matter including the business world. We had a meeting in Mutare and business people gave their input over the matter. We’ll have that clarity.”

Cde Bimha said there was hope for Zimbabwe’s economy with renewed investment interest from China and Russia, but called for patience as the results would not be immediate.

He predicted that the turn-around will start being felt by the beginning of next year.

Cde Bimha said a lot of investors, some that previously did not want to be associated with the country, ware making a lot of inquiries around investment opportunities.

The Zanu-PF politburo in June endorsed the proposed re-alignment of indigenisation laws to boost investor confidence while retaining the 51/49 percent equity structure on the exploitation of natural resources.

Party spokesperson Cde Rugare Gumbo at the time said the politburo had discussed a number of issues around reviewing the indigenisation and empowerment model.

Whereas the 51/49 percent ratio remained unchanged in the mining sector, the politburo resolved that the manufacturing, financial and other sectors of the economy would be negotiated.

Cde Francis Nhema, the Youth Development, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Minister, was directed to take the issue to a legal committee and come up with a legal position for fine-tuning of the policy.

The re-alignment of the indigenisation policy could see indigenous people owning 100 percent of their natural resources, with investors recovering their initial investment and operational costs before the sharing of profits.

The reforms are set to usher in a new dispensation of a sectoral approach in the implementation of the indigenisation policy in line with the economic blue print Zim-Asset by removing bottlenecks from the previous “blanket approach”.