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Kennedy Mavhumashava
The indigenisation and economic empowerment programme is the only viable vehicle to achieving sustainable national development and Zanu-PF says it will intensify the programme once it wins the forthcoming harmonised elections. According to the party’s 2013 election manifesto launched by President Mugabe in Harare on Friday, there are four pillars of the indigenisation and economic empowerment programme which are the founding ideology, the law, the policy and the beneficiaries. The ideology is concerned with the need for indigenous blacks to exercise total independence and sovereignty over their resources while the law looks at enabling legislation and relevant clauses of the constitution.

The policy looks at implementation and beneficiaries are the communities that derive benefits from the programme.
The 108-page document says under Zanu-PF leadership, Zimbabwe has become one of the most deeply indigenised and empowered countries in the developed world.

“There is no alternative (to indigenisation and economic empowerment),” it says. “Therefore, Zanu-PF will unapologetically intensify the implementation of this programme over the next five years in order to meet the goals of the people.”

Opportunities arising from economic empowerment have widened and deepened since independence as a direct result of Zanu-PF’s “pro-people policies such as the hugely successful land reform programme which is now widely acknowledged as a major source of economic prosperity for the country,” the manifesto reads in part.

“Zanu-PF’s empowerment policies have not been diminished by the daunting challenges that have come in the way over the last decade such as the illegal economic sanctions and the illegal regime change machinations of the British government and its allies in the EU, US and the white Commonwealth.  Thanks to the leadership of Zanu-PF, the people’s responses to these challenges have been gallantly exemplary.  Against this backdrop, this people’s manifesto for the 2013 harmonised elections explains why an overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans are voting for Zanu-PF.”

President Mugabe officially launched the manifesto and the Bhora Mugedhi/Ibhola Egedini election campaign at an event attended by tens of thousands of people.  The campaign is being rolled out under the theme “Indigenise, empower, development create employment.”

The manifesto says the revolutionary party has indigenised 12 million hectares of land.  Zanu-PF would also seek to create value of $7,3 billion from the indigenisation of 1 138 companies across 14 key sectors of the economy if it secures victory in the elections.

These initiatives would create 2, 265 million jobs across key sectors of the economy and contribute to export earnings, food security and to the fiscus among many other benefits including urban housing, and construction of peri-urban farms acquired during the land reform exercise.  The party’s indigenisation and empowerment initiatives have potential to see an average Gross Domestic Product growth rate of nine percent by 2018 up from the current 4,4 percent. The indigenisation programme would also unlock as much as $2 trillion in the economy.

According to the policy document, independence empowered the country to reclaim land.  Now that State power was being used to extend land ownership to 14 key sectors of the economy that are still controlled by foreigners.  The existing racial ownership structure of the economy is a direct consequence of colonialism, it adds.

The ideological thrust to indigenise the economy, the party says, is not arbitrary but is based on the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act (Chapter 14:33) as read with relevant regulations released in 2010.  The Act says foreign-owned companies must sell 51 percent of their shares to indigenous blacks.  None of the 14 key sectors of the economy is exempt from the indigenisation law, the party says.  Even the banking sector, whose indigenisation has been contentious between the Reserve Bank and the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment, is covered by sections 5 (1) (b) of the relevant piece of legislation.

It adds that while the law is clear that at least 51 percent of the ownership of foreign-owned companies should be ceded to indigenous people, there has been some confusion on how the threshold would be achieved.  To address this, the revolutionary party says the law would need to be reviewed to clarify that locals cannot be expected to buy back their natural resources.

Over and above the Act, the indigenisation and economic empowerment endeavour, is part of the Constitution.
The manifesto reads:

“Zanu-PF is committed to implementing this law as a matter of policy in a responsible, professional and business-like manner which is fair, transparent and predictable through boardroom negotiations that do not compromise the law or the party’s ideological position.”

It gives the distinction between indigenisation and empowerment.  Indigenisation is using the law to ensure 51 percent of the shares are owned by indigenous Zimbabweans while empowerment is using the value of natural and economic resources to unlock value to capacitate businesses wholly owned by locals in the 14 main sectors of the economy.

Regarding beneficiaries, which is the fourth pillar of the indigenisation and economic empowerment strategy, the manifesto notes that it seeks to empower employees and communities as collectives, which makes it broad-based and not elitist.  This is different from the way the land was acquired and distributed to benefit mainly individuals and individual families.

Employees are benefiting through employee share ownership schemes under which they acquire 10 percent of the relevant shareholding in firms they work for.  Employees are empowered in the sense that they participate in the day-to-day running of companies as well as augmenting their salaries, bonuses and so on.

“The grand strategic goal of the employee empowerment schemes is to move away from the slave-wage worker culture of yesterday to usher in an owner-participant culture to create a national workforce that is patriotic and which espouses and defends Zimbabwe’s national goals while also bringing a general improvement in the quality of life of employees of indigenised companies,” the manifesto says.

Another important beneficiary category is geographical communities that are located where foreign firms are based.  They benefit through the community empowerment schemes.  Communities are entitled to 10 percent of the relevant shareholding as well as receiving a community development grant.  Apart from providing money and other material resources which have been used and would be used to build roads, clinics and other infrastructure in more than 50 community share ownership trusts, this strategy empowers communities by giving them autonomy to make key decisions to enhance the quality of life of community.

The third and final category of beneficiaries covers all Zimbabweans, including communities that lack resources.  This is the sovereign wealth fund, which is presently provisionally housed in the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Fund.

This category collectively benefits by acquiring 31 percent of the indigenised public company or business whose proceeds are used for national development projects such as rehabilitation or construction of physical infrastructure and infrastructure to create employment and stimulate economic growth.

Says the document:
“The crux of Zanu-PF’s indigenisation and people’s empowerment policy is to enable Zimbabweans, especially the youth, women; professionals and entrepreneurs to be empowered with assets from our natural and economic resources to start to develop new business entities whose total equity is in indigenous Zimbabwean hands.”