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Joram Nyathi Group Political Editor
FOR many Zimbabweans it has become almost impossible to expect a positive comment on Zimbabwe from the British establishment. We have literally been at war since Claire Short’s fateful letter of 1998 renouncing responsibility over obligations entered into during the Lancaster peace negotiations leading to Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980.

But when looked at closely, it turns out that we are equally culpable if not more so for perpetuating the misinterpretation of developments taking place in Zimbabwe. They have a major grievance against us, we nurse a rank hatred for ourselves, or against our own in aid of outsiders.

This self-hate has been compounded by people who conflate national issues with party political disagreements, so that anything initiated or advocated by Zanu-PF is inherently evil and must be opposed. The result is a negative attitude towards anything and everything Zimbabwean as Zanu- PF has dominated our public lives for the past 34 years and is likely to do so for a long time given its far-reaching policies.

This attitude problem goes beyond the likes of Biti whose frustration is summed up by his “tongai tione” mantra and for whom the land reform and indigenisation policies are anathema. Together with Eddie Cross they seem to believe our salvation can only come from scrapping off the indigenisation policies from the development agenda. Thus it would be naive to expect any positive comment on these policies from members of a party which believes that our salvation lies in making foreigners happy looting our resources while we should be content to be so many Lazaruses squatting under the table.

But our tragedy is that we have a whole media industry sold to this foreign-gazing ideology. Unquantified and unquantifiable foreign direct investment should be the touchstone informing every policy of the Government. Not only that. That FDI must come from the preferred colonial west. It must be qualified and endorsed by the IMF and the World Bank for it to be taken seriously.

Conversely, any overtures emanating from China or Russia must be viewed with extreme suspicion as there is a risk of second colonization. The two nations are lumped together with Thabo Mbeki where they are lampooned for frustrating the regime change agenda, so they can never do good.

By contrast, nobody questions the fact that the same western investors holding back because of so-called unfriendly policies in fact want to pursue the same exploitative pre-independence policies which made the land reform and black economic and indigenisation unavoidable in the long-term.

Government, and in particular President Mugabe and Finance and Economic Development minister Patrick Chinamasa, has made clear Zimbabwe is open to all for business. We have moved beyond the “Look East” policy which was necessitated by circumstances obtaining at the material time. Zimbabwe looked east after the west imposed sanctions, not before. It was a pragmatic response, rather than surrender to the desire of the British to stop the land reform. The purpose of the sanctions was to make the economy of Zimbabwe collapse to facilitate a change of Government.

Now that they have decided to re-engage, they have been told Zimbabwe is open and ready for business with all those who treat us as equals, not beggars only deserving of pity.

One would therefore expect our mass media to play a key role in conveying and explaining this message, to explain why the land reform was a historical imperative, why affirmative action in the form of indigenisation and black economic empowerment are critical and in what respect indigenisation is a different stage from the land reform.

The Government has been clear on the 51/49 percent ownership ratio for all new investments and established companies valued at more $500,000. Nothing is being “ceded” for free. Terms can be worked out on how local owners can pay for their shareholding.

In the case of community share ownership trusts, the community’s payment doesn’t come in the form of money but as a percentage share of the resource. The foreign investor and local partners then share 49/51 percent of the remainder. Information and Broadcasting Services minister Professor Jonathan Moyo recently talked about an ongoing review of the indigenisation policy, clarifying that the investor would be allowed to recoup his initial investment.

All these efforts notwithstanding, every day one reads the same regurgitated statement about lack of policy consistency, lack of clarity and lack of consistency. This is perhaps a view which was expressed by an individual who genuinely wanted help. But it has been repeated unquestioningly ad infinitum. One would expect an enlightened journalist to seek clarity on what is complained of. If he is able to respond and clarify the matter, the better. If not, he should take it upon himself to seek clarification and include it in his story. Instead of which we seem to have stenographers who merely reproduce the complaint every day without any indication that they know any better than the potential foreign investor.

Minister Chinamasa told delegates at a Herald Business Zimbabwe Trade and Investment breakfast meeting in South Africa last week that it was vital that people clarify any challenges they encounter with the country’s investment policies. One can’t simply complain about indigenisation or black economic empowerment in a generic sense. Zimbabwe is not the first to implement such policies; if anything, it is set to be the torchbearer on the continent.

Let the minister speak: “We rely on you to be predictable and consistent. Come to us with the challenges because they help us to improve the business environment. We will offer a predictable, clear and consistent policy environment in which you can come to invest and prosper.”

Which takes me back to the British. Followers of this column would be aware that twice I wrote a light cautionary for the British lady at their local embassy, Madam Catriona Lang, indicating how it was important to correctly choose her sources of information if she hoped to improve relations between the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe.

I must give her credit. She appears to mean well, and to be a good teacher too if we are to go by the report of the British trade delegation which visited Zimbabwe on October 28 2014. This is how the delegation explained the negative response to indigenisation and black economic empowerment policies in a report they did after their three-day visit to Zimbabwe:

“It (indigenisation) was understood as an extension of the land reform that took place in 2000 which would put off naturally international investors. From our discussion with the Zimbabwean government, the implementation of the law (indigenisation) is rather more flexible than might have initially been understood. The delegation was advised that the policy is more focused on ensuring local involvement in business than in requiring companies to simply give up 51 percent of their company.”

The delegation was told that the 51 percent could be achieved through worker shareholding, listing on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, community shareholding and local partnership, they observed. There are foreigners who here for just three days and are able to clarify what our reporters have failed to do since 2007 when the policy was adopted.

The other day, a contributor to a debate on Facebook on the quality of local journalism offered a charitable view of the predicament faced by our media practitioners, that is, why most of them cannot help the reader make sense of the world around him, let alone clarify and interpret policy issues to foreigners without getting bogged down in partisan political propaganda. He blamed much of this on the quality and standard of education of most of them.

Quote: “The standard qualification in most news rooms is a diploma in journalism. It doesn’t equip local journalism practitioners with the ability to be discerning. All it does is to help them understand the basic journalism technical aspects.

“In most countries, journalists are trained in different disciplines like economics, politics, philosophy, law and then they go into journalism. So they will be intellectually sound.”

If this was an exaggeration, I believe our media practitioners can stand their ground and demonstrate that they are better qualified and have a full grasp of issues. I believe this is a challenge toward better journalism.

Another example. Minister Chinamasa said at the launch of Zim-Asset that $27 billion was needed to fund implementation of the programme from October last year to 2018. Since then that figure has been repeated ad nauseam by our journalists without any variation as the amount needed to fund Zim-Asset.

Does that mean the country has stood still since elections last year and no programmes have already been implemented to reduce the original estimate? In any case, how was the figure arrived at; what needs to be funded? Are the costs fixed even when the exchange rate of the US dollar continues to fluctuate? Where are the faceless analysts?