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I hope you know what this place called Jersey means in the British scheme of things.

For those new to the column, or who might have missed previous instalments on the matter, Masawara is purportedly led by our own Shingi Mutasa, backed by a well-known global fund manager of British extraction, a man called Neil Woodford who is also associated with the US$26 billion Invesco Perpetual.

In the Masawara equation, he is said to own a 29,5 percent stake.
The name “Masawara”, I am told, is Shingi’s late grandfather’s name. I cannot ascertain that detail which in any event does not stop us from reading this new corporate phenomenon bearing an indigenous name but whose motive force is Caucasian.

Masawara is listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market, a development sure to create real headaches for those men and women serving on the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board.
Its mission is to make rich pickings on Zimbabwe’s distorted valuations, thanks to the British-led assault on the Zimbabwean economy.

Stealing behind the maxim gun
I disclosed that Masawara had picked its first bundle of assets — British Petroleum and Shell — well ahead of many indigenous firms involved in the fuel business, a number of which were actually leasing these assets, making them sitting tenants.
These included Sakunda and Comoil, the other one being Redan which I know to be white-owned but also with very healthy connections to some political players in the Zimbabwean political equation.

I am sure today Shingi can cynically say of his competing brethrens: “Whatever happens, I have the Maxim Gun, and they have not!”
Remember that saying from history?
Clearly the British gun was brought to bear on this one matter and, as was predictable, millions of half-clad impis were blown to smithereens, their little bows and arrows, little, howling fortitudes notwithstanding.

The return of the native
But the natives have sneaked back from the rear, and may have gained on the gunner whose mighty muzzle is trained to discharge the other way, set to spit its might, felling projectile in a forward parabola.
Yet the enemy is now behind the gun, very near the gunner.

We are nearing the phase of hand-to-hand combat and, hey, only real men shall be men.
The once beaten ones have constituted themselves into what is termed the Indigenous Petroleum Group of Zimbabwe, a vehicle through which they now seek to challenge the deal as “flawed”.
They want the deal to incorporate indigenous peoples, most probably themselves.

Philip Chiyangwa has asked the same of the Zisco deal and let us not kid ourselves, he is making a case for himself too.
In both cases I do not find that side too sexy. But I suffer it, support it even. I will explain that later.

The seller who bids
What for me is most interesting in this whole sage is the Group’s request that the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board (NIEEB) conducts ” a forensic audit” to establish who Masawara is, why it is listed in the UK and why it is specifically interested in the BP&Shell assets here.

The Group charged: “Our view is that the invested funds are the seller’s funds,” asking: “Is this not warehousing by BP&Shell as they try to get back into Zimbabwe when sustainable volumes (sales) are reached?”
Of course they also make much out of the fact that they were the sitting tenants and thus should have been given the right of first refusal.

The face of the Group is one Crosby Mashiri, its secretary general.
I have little information on him. I am not sure I need any more information than the role he plays in this matter.

The indigenisation law says all such deals have to fall within the 51-49 percent shareholding target of the law, to advance the ideals of that same law.
That means all such deals will have to be approved by the Minister in charge of the law, in this case Saviour Kasukuwere, whose Comoil was one of the sitting tenants of BP7Shell. Chirega uwone iwe-ee!

NIEEB bite
And the NIEEB which falls under the Minister has already barred its sharp teeth on the same matter, this time in respect of a similar bid for the same assets by the Mauritius-based Engen Holdings International and another, by Kenya-based KenolKobil.

In both bids it blocked the transaction and one wants to see what its verdict will be for Masawara.
Double loss for us?

The important point to note is that blacks are beginning to wake up to the stupendous stakes ranged against them as they seek a place in the economic sun, indeed as they seek to materialise the indigenisation policy.
And with that is coming the realisation that they need the laws and institutions of their country as extra strings on their already taut bows.
Above all, they appear now to have grasped the value of numbers, the power of combinations in bidding for assets on offer.
All of which creates a very interesting scenario in the marketplace.

If Masawara sought easy pickings from sanctions-induced distorted valuations, the indigenous masawaras (with a small “m”) can certainly reap even more from indigenisation law-induced distorted valuations.
A bit of evening, isn’t? They only need to get organised. I mean we cannot suffer the sanctions and lose benefits in our market depressed and distorted by those same sanctions, surely?
If there is anyone who must make rich pickings of British assets depressed and distorted here by the same British through their vengeful sanctions, it must be us the indigenes, not Masawara and his mighty, taller guests.

Rhodesia’s “independence” bonds
Equally, the usually slow-learning, slow-acting institution of Government appears now to have kicked in, ad is peddling furiously.
It would appear that there is now a realisation that not all battles against imperialism are fought politically, or always by standing armies wearing party regalia.
The response to challenges of imperialism must be richer and deeper, preferably fought through measures which involve and benefit the citizenry.

The Rhodesians knew this vital lesson, which is why they floated “independence bonds” soon after UDI, bonds through which commitment to UDI was turned into savings and financial rewarding investments through Banks, principally Founders, Rhobank and POSB. But that is only done by an economically literate Government and I am happy that the Zimbabwe Government is beginning to show that literacy, evidenced by the sheer depth of its responses nowadays.

If there is one lesson we drew from March 2008, it is that a hungry people may be tempted to gnaw at their ideals, indeed to act against their own interests for short-term gains, for one plate of sadza.
This is why imperialism chosen a moment of acute hunger to grow the MDC.
You defend a revolution by defending the people’s stomach, indeed by making that revolution yield tangible opportunities and benefits to the led.
This factor has a bearing on what class alliances — whether lasting or tactical — are possible at each stage in the revolution.

Where was Mangoma?
But the deal also shows how dangerous this monster we call the Inclusive Government is. I never liked it from the beginning and I made no secret of it.
BP&Shell fell under the ministry of Energy and Energy Development, itself a portfolio under MDC-T.

It took a decision to compound out fuel woes then by pulling out, completing what the Adam Smith International termed the three Fs Molotov: Forex, Fuel and Food shortages sure to trigger a downfall.
A good number of MDC-T officials came from FML, itself a Masawara subsidiary, which has been handling this take-over bid. The MDC-T has deep connections with FML, the same way that it has deep connections with a number of British and American corporates, Enterprise Zimbabwe of Richard Bronson included.
By the way, MDC-T is trying to launch its own investment vehicle and we shall talk about that some day.

Paying lip service
But the same party, as part of the Inclusive Government, has endorsed the indigenisation law.
In fact so active was this endorsement that a number of changes to the law and regulations were introduced at the behest of its representatives in Government.
Why would Mangoma allow such a deal so contrary to the ideals of indigenisation happen in his sector?

Was dismissing Rafemoyo and plunging half of Zimbabwe in darkness more urgent than upholding principles he is sworn to defending and realising?
Whose interests is he serving?
Or has he joined the bandwagon of salesmen-ministers who think they came into Government to root for foreign interests, to strip public assets in order to reward their foreign political benefactors?

Thank God there is a way within the structures of that same monster to stop all that.

Book of Revelations
What is more, the issue of indigenising the economy is fast evolving from being a matter of lawmaking to being an everyday issue in business.
Many stand to be hurt; many stand to gain. Whether hurt or “gained”, the law is no longer an abstract matter, and that takes all of us one giant step forward.

In the long and vicious fight set to follow, a fight whose flying fragments we are just beginning to see, we will all get to know what is what and who is who in this economy.
Mutumwa Mawere recently made a very facile, knee-jerk response to one of my pieces he did not find too pretty.
I had called him and his ilk “the privileged proletariat” bereft of any national sentiment.

I say so again here and now, whatever chagrin I sow in his bleeding heart.
But he is a troubled man trying a nimble walk on eggs. It is not too fair to engage a man in such delicate circumstances, a man so distracted. But just a small pinch is not too much.
It keeps him awake, well away from the reverie of buffeting circumstances.

In front or mere fronts?
He, of all people, cannot pretend not to know who in this economy is in front; who in this same economy is a mere front.
Whatever scars he bears, whatever bitterness he harbours and whatever sympathies he courts and seeks to cull, he should never hope to get away with false solidarity built around cheap notion of persecution.
No one persecuted him and all he got was just desert.

When he eventually gets back his empire — and I know he shall not too long from now — he shall be made to atone for the sins that won him scars and hurts.
But let him not fool readers of New Zimbabwe.Com.
He is no Zanu-PF hater, only a Zanu-PF man angry against individuals in his party, whatever little sojourns and detours he may have made under a spell of bitterness.
Secondly, he believes in indigenisation and worked hard to shape the thinking in Government on this one matter.

He is indigenisation’s proponent and let him not register false hates for the sake of the company whose succour he needed in adversity.
He made dossiers that spelt out who was fake, who was genuine, dossiers detailing the ever-changing subterfuges of foreign capital as it sought its survival and entrenchment.
We are all grateful to him and do look forward to working with him on the same.

Zanu-PF, through then minister of Mines, the late Eddison Zvobgo, did a lot for him to be what he is today, both in better and in worse senses.
The only issue is that he is a bad cadre who cannot take merited disciplinary action in his stride.
And he knows he actively courted disciplinary action.

No matter how educated you become, how big or taller you become, you can never be older, wiser than your father.
He must know that. I am happy he has made his first tentative steps back into the Zanu-PF fold and before long, Mawere will be an indigenisation “mutumwa” once more, always sending copious vital notes and tips to the authorities as befits a true nationalist I know him to be, a true Zanu-PF functionary he has always been from his days at the University of Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, not to talk about his family history which politically predispose him in one political direction, however he may vote, assuming he is now eligible.

Beyond ornaments
Let me not abort my point through this digression.
The indigenisation debate has now succeeded in dividing indigenous business actors and spectators in this country, a rift so vital to sifting seed from chaff, indeed to getting Zanu-PF and the nationalist section in Government to know a little more about the national marketplace.

An abstract law has now become a potent stopper to bad deals that retain foreign preponderance in our economy.
That same law has become a potent weapon in the hands of patriotic businesspersons seriously intend on being in front, and not fronts. President Mugabe is not inviting blacks to be an ornamental colour emblazoning hostile white interests.

Deferring internal contradictions
But let us be clear on one issue, and this takes me to the point I deferred early on.
The Mutasas, the Chiyangwas, the Masiiwas, the Chingwenas, the Maweres, the Nyambirais are not the answer Zimbabwe is looking for.
They are a stage, a mere phase in our long drift towards a real, lasting answer.

It is so fundamental to grasp this point which the President made at some forum at the beginning of our land reforms.
At that forum, a case was being made for a resettlement model that would accommodate what we now term A2 farmers.
The President was not terribly impressed, at all enamoured of the idea.

But arguments and illustrations kept coming: there were a number of highly capitalised going farming concerns which could not be subdivided into small plots for A1 users; there were estates involved in specialised agriculture, most of them linked to our agricultural exports to Europe; Zimbabwe’s agricultural model should still have room for estate-sized commercial agriculture to allow for farming as business, etc, etc. Powerful, well reasoned arguments which resonated with the majority in the room. Still the President was not impressed, but was balanced enough to see that the arguments had found favour with many in the room.

In politics, running too far ahead of your times not only can be risky; it can amount to poor leadership.
In politics only those ideas whose time has come do move mountains. A good leader matures circumstances for a progressive, far-sighted idea to become cognisable, graspable and thus persuasive.

Is that not why Nkrumah paid the ultimate price? The President knows that all too well, and will suffer the triumph of a wrong idea for a while, until circumstances ripen for its demise and the ascendancy of the correct one. He did the same with ESAP.

Prophecy of the master
He relented, but not before extracting fall-back concessions from the powerful group. He wanted and insisted that A2 model be pursued well after the A1 model had been fully implemented, or at the very least, will have reached advanced stages, which is what in fact happened.

Secondly, he wanted a tenure system which would allow Government to recall and revisit those same estates under the A2 Model for further subdivision should any new cases of land hunger show themselves in the supposedly de-congested communities.

That is how the issue of long leases came about, with the State being the Super landowner.

A third concession which simply consolidated what was already in the relevant law gave the State the prerogative of first refusal, what we now call a obtaining “a certificate of no present interest”, ahead of any land sale. But history did not subsist in these concessions. It lay in two points the President made by way of closing the meeting. First, “vanhu venyu ivava (maA2), vazhinji vacho havana shungu dzekurima. Zvichoni, maspeculators who will not hesitate kutengesa ivhu ratavapa kana kuberekana nevarungu vatatanda zvekare to make easy money.” Second, “Take care, take great care, for the next fight on land shall pit A1 farmers against these same A2 farmers. We have decided to regain land to decongest communal areas, not to create black settlers.”

Important half-commas

I will not elaborate on both points whose meaning is self-evident, whose validation appear to have visited us sooner than even the President could have ever expected or predicted. The land reform while marking an end to formal settler occupation, is not the end of African history, to adapt Fukuyama’s popular but mistaken phrase. Rather, it marks the beginning of Zimbabwe’s social revolution. But a major step has been taken, namely that of localizing land-based contradictions so the issue of class will once again take precedent over race. But my piece is on business, and to business I return. I make cross-references. The same warning the President made in respect of land, obtains for the current business thrust of indigenisation. One day we shall have contradictions between a national black bourgeoisie we hope to create through indigenisation and the masses. This is what makes the Chiyangwas, the Maweres, mere half commas, never full stops in Zimbabwe’s process of social change. But important half-commas and to say so is not to be their apologist.

Capital’s obese fronts

It is simply to place contradictions within their proper, long-term perspective. It is also to guard against dissipating national energies on non-decisive issues whose time shall come some day when current challenges are resolved in a way that promotes national goals. Much as you and I know that indigenisation policy is a veritable hatchery for “zvigananda” – the African petty bourgeoisie – at this stage in our history this sub-class is nevertheless set to play a limited important and progressive role in helping us dilute and even oust foreign capital, thereby localizing contradictions. A social revolution which is class-based and class-led can never find clear expression in circumstances in which the foreign hand confuses and complicates matters. Direct State action against white interests or their lackeys, as in land reforms or crackdown on black externalisers, gives imperialism an excuse to appear to occupy morla high ground, indeed to pose as the defender of our people’s rights. The stratum of nationalist business indigenous business interests is thus important in denying foreign capital its false black jacket by way of the privileged proletariat we currently have in the form of CEOs of Swedish, British, American or Jewish capital, in reality mere workers made obese enough for foreign capital to hid behind.

To oust or to convert?
So we need the Chiyangwas to oust the Rwodzis, the Nyambirais who do not believe in being their own CEOs, real owners. Or to re-baptise them into Chanakiras after they are badly scalded by the same fire they thought was enkindled for their warmth. I will be the first one to admit that not all beneficiaries of indigenisation will be righteous. Some are, may be, will be, bad men and women. Some are, may be, will be poor, business men and women. Many will cost us. But they can never be worse than a collaborating pseudo-middle class which keeps foreign and non-indigenous interests in our home. Besides at their worst, they still mark a forward stumble for our race which must pick itself up, dust itself and try again, again and again until it succeeds. The land is beginning to flower, is it not? Would we have taken it if we sought a perfect revolution, with perfect outcomes? Even England’s industrial revolution was a messy affair. The State was mugged; bad men thrived. Even the Church succumbed whilst sin reigned, unchallenged. Ask Charles Dickens. How about colonization which yielded what we falsely call our economy today? Are we not evidence of its messy side, you and me? What can be messier than what we have endured? The nationalist business class, with all its myriad foibles, must be suffered for now, encouraged and supported even.

Learning from the Chinese
We must be able to define and determine which contradictions are real and antagonistic, which ones are unreal and non-antagonistic. The Chinese did it when faced with Japanese invasion and occupation. Once the Japanese occupiers had been ejected, hitherto non-antagonistic contradictions were re-issued, this time as antagonistic ones pitting the retrogressive Koumitang against Mao and his Communist Party. It was the same in respect of our land reforms. Many went on farms who did not deserve to be there. But they were important in reassert black sovereignty on that hitherto occupied land. The white man had to go; a black man – good or bad, agricultural or not – had to come in to replace him, even creaking under a million foibles. There is a difference between asserting ownership rights and vindicating them through ability to utilize the regained and redeemed asset productively. The latter follow after occupied land has been liberated, beyond which you then deal with the productivity issue. In this waited until Deng came along. In our case we are beginning to see the turnaround. Three cheers to ourselves!

When CEOs become politicians
There is a political dimension to the need to deal with the nearly men of our economy. In the run-up to the March elections of 2008, and later between that election and consummation of the GPA, one issue which became very clear was that once threatened, foreign capital would not hesitate to redeploy its CEOs into politics. We all saw that if these managers were not running for office directly, they ran with those doing so. The greater part of the business community in Zimbabwe was either MDC or Mavambo, including the Masawara people who went with Simba Makoni, buttressed by corporate players like SAB Miller and Citibank. Yes, the same SAB Miller which last week restored to full membership its once ring-fenced Zimbabwe subsidiary brewer. We ululated, we who think SAB Miller has done us a great favour by returning us to the status of the exploited, after deserting us in our hour of need. Is that not the difference with local companies?

Inclusion as containment
I can count for you erstwhile company men who are now office holders in these political parties, or who are still angry and embittered that they did not make it. What is more – and very few people know this – after the June elections, secret contacts between the two rival parties were done through leading business people at the helm of well known conglomerates. After June, so tired and exhausted was foreign capital that it sought an unconditional break by brokering peace, in the process relying on its black surfaces to secure this much needed respite. The nearly men of business became princes competing or seeking to remake power in a given direction approaved by foreign capital, away from their traditional identities as CEOs. Having failed to defeat Zanu (PF), they now sought to compromise it through an inclusive settlement meant to dilute its nationalism. This is where we are now and a reading of what America frantically sought to do in 1958/59, just before the bearded men and steely women of Cuba soon took charge of Havana, will show that forcing agenda-diluting coalitions is an integral strategy of containment by imperialism.

Give it time to take root
The above experience clearly showed us that these so-called managers are a political reserve force for foreign capital and thus a potent threat to the revolution. And in an environment where the call for indigenisation gets shriller, their political assignments can only deepen. A real counterpoint to this is building local indigenous entities controlled by cadres driven by a national sentiment. A few may come from the current generation which is agitating for takeovers; many shall be born in this new ethos where the youths and those in the diaspora are being challenged daily to stop being vain and well-dressed slaves of foreign capital to become brave owners who dare begin. Which is why for me the issue of who gets what under indigenisation pales into insignificance for as long as African ownership is guaranteed. Give time, let the idea take root; let resources and control transfer kuvanhu vekwedu, murungu asuduruke. Tinozogadzirisana pave paya.

Sobering statistics
Let me shock you a bit. Here are interesting statistics showing deposits and loan ratio in three foreign banks operating in Zimbabwe as in September this year. I shall leave out names of these banks until someone challenges me to reveal them. But little shall be left tom imagination. One bank collected US$151million by way of deposits. It gave away about US$35,7million by way of loans and deposits. Another collected US$275,7million by way of deposits. It gave away US$93,3million by way of loans. Yet another collected US$201,8million from depositing Zimbabweans and gave back US$99,5million to Zimbabweans looking for loans. And these small loans attracted interests of anything between 7% to 15%, against deposit interests of between nil to ,00something%. We are depositing what we are neither rewarded by way of interest, nor given back by way of affordable loans. As a people, as a country, we are a deficit unit. Yet these banks we give our deposits are surplus units which do actually extend loans to outsiders. Would this have happened if we were local institutions with local commitment? Think about it.

Oil in the Zambezi?
Houno mukwende wekupedzisira. The South Africa media reported extensively on Masawara. I was fascinated by one report done by our own Barnabas Todhlana. The report wondered whether Masawara’s bid for BP&Shell would have been prompted by the more than 70 retail outlets, an oil processing plant and the 60-million litre storage facilities in the country. Or, speculated the writer, are we likely to see monstrous rigs boring into the entrails of the Zambezi basin for some precious, slimy liquid unknown to exist? Only time shall tell. Icho!