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Minister Patrick Zhuwao

Farirai Machivenyika Harare Bureau
THE Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment, Patrick Zhuwao, has said the Zanu-PF government will not repeal the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act.

He said a majority of Zimbabweans elected the ruling party on a platform to increase their ownership and involvement in the mainstream economy.

Minister Zhuwao said this at the National Defence College last Thursday while presenting a paper on the country’s indigenisation and economic empowerment policies and their impact on national security.

“Apart from the Act itself, indigenisation is enshrined in the Constitution first and foremost, and secondly, this government was elected on a Zanu-PF manifesto premised on indigenisation and economic empowerment,” he said.

“There are people who believe that the Indigenisation Act will be repealed, but when the President set the legislative agenda of the Third Session of the Eighth Parliament, the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act wasn’t on the agenda.”

Minister Zhuwao said implementation of the law was facing challenges, including false pronouncements by senior government officials that the Act would be revised.

“We’ve national leadership that’s often compromised at international workshops and seminars where they make pronouncements that the Act will be watered down,” he said. “You can’t water the law down like it’s Mazoe (orange crush). It’s either repealed or enforced.”

Minister Zhuwao said it was the mandate of the electorate to safeguard their interests by ensuring that the leadership pursued policies for which they were voted.

He said it would be a threat to national security if the bulk of the country’s resources were left in the hands of a few people, making the empowerment policies necessary to maintain stability.

Minister Zhuwao said over 1,216 empowerment transactions had been approved since the promulgation of the Act in 2008, while $134,5 million in pledges for Community Share Ownership Trusts had been made, with $38,3 million of the money being released.

The indigenisation policy opened doors for wider involvement of Zimbabweans in the formal economy which had since independence remained dominated by whites.