Zimbabwe is an exciting place. You can’t beat the way we shoot ourselves in the foot. There has been a lot of debate surrounding the merits and demerits of the targeted sanctions. The sanctions have been blamed for all our economic ills and the absence of foreign direct investment (FDI). Then in one swoop Robert Mugabe removed whatever little chance we had of FDI by threatening to take over companies in revenge for the targeted sanctions.
Any foreign investor watching Robert Mugabe’s speech in Mutare will have deduced that if you invest in Zimbabwe your investment is only safe if your government is in good books with Zimbabwe. This failure to distinguish between individuals and their governments or countries of origin has been our biggest problem. Using business people as a pawn in our fight with western governments is wrong. What the Chinese, Indians and other potential investors will ask themselves is: What will happen when Mugabe is annoyed with their governments? The answer is manifestly clear in Mugabe’s statement to the Zanu PF (ZPF) conference. If we don’t like your government we will take away your business. With hundreds of countries around the world falling over each other to create investor friendly policies one cannot see any serious investors coming to Zimbabwe.
We have been here before. The land reform was another example of a badly thought out policy that was premised on revenge. ZPF and Mugabe had a quarrel with the then British government and they took their ire on all the white farmers. Every white farmer became a pawn in the power game between Zimbabwe and Britain. I leave it to others to judge whether the land reform policy has been a success in achieving its aims. However, the lesson that we should have learnt from our land reform programme is that we should not have policies driven by anger or any other emotion. Policies should be thought through and carefully planned. This has not been ZPF’s strength over the years – war vet payments, farm invasions, murambatsvina, and now this...
Once again ZPF is looking for a populist policy to shore up their falling popularity. Faced with certain defeat in 2000 they came up with the violent land reform programme. This gave them a reason to visit violence on all people on the farms. While the media focussed on the farmers who were killed or savagely attacked, the narrative ignored the suffering of the farm workers. It largely ignored the violence that was visited on them for daring to oppose ZPF in the constitutional referendum. The real beneficiaries of the land reform have been senior ZPF and security people who now have several farms. Now ZPF has come up with another populist policy designed to hoodwink voters into thinking that they care about Zimbabweans. This new policy as written by Mugabe at the ZPF conference will once again benefit the ZPF big fish. They will throw lots and divide the spoils among themselves while ordinary Zimbabweans live in the clutches of poverty. It will be another reason to visit violence on the people of Zimbabwe.
Someone in ZPF should tell Mugabe that he is putting the final nail on Zimbabwe’s coffin. We have had a decade of destroying the economy. The GPA had allowed us to arrest the decline but now that Mugabe believes that power, by any means, is better than protecting our future the little gains are about to disappear. I know some people will accuse me of saying that native Zimbabweans have no capacity to run these companies. I am not suggesting this at all but I am stating that whatever we do, we need FDI if our economy is to grow. The (un)intended consequences of Mugabe’s rant at his party’s conference will be to scare away investors. If the intention is to punish the Americans and the British then inadvertently this policy will scare away foreign investors.
If Mugabe was one who listens to advice then I would have offered my advice but he is stubborn and allergic to advice so I will not waste my advice on him. However, there are those in his party to whom he might listen. These women and men should tell him he is making a mistake. Those in ZPF who love Zimbabwe must act against Mugabe. I wish.
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