Sechaba ka’Nkosi
Embattled Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe snubbed this week’s gathering of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), sending only a junior Cabinet minister and a diplomat to represent his country.
Mugabe, a founder and senior SADC member, failed to attend this year’s SADC World Economic Forum currently taking place in Durban despite expectations from the business community that he would address questions on the Zimbabwean turmoil.
Mugabe heads one of the SADC’s important arms – the security organ, which is tasked with administering peace and stability in the region.
By Thursday there was still no official explanation on Mugabe’s conspicuous absence from the meeting despite earlier reports that he had been booked into one of the local hotels.
Instead, Mugabe’s Minister of Local Government and National Housing, John Nkomo, flew in on Thursday afternoon, presumably to attend the summit.
Nkomo was accompanied by Zimbabwe Barclays Bank chief Isaac Takawira and high commissioner to South Africa Nelson Moyo.
There were also a handful of other – mainly white – Zimbabwean businessmen and trade union leaders, all of whom expressed frustration at the current political developments in their country.
The SADC sought to downplay the impact of Zimbabwe’s absence in a meeting attended by more than 1E000 delegates including heads of state.
British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Peter Hain summed up the mood by outlining a gloomy picture of how conflicts in the region have discouraged investments. Hain said 20 of the 45 sub-Saharan African countries were involved in conflicts that have led to an estimated 4E000 deaths a week.
”The events of the last few months in Zimbabwe have been damaging. The crisis in Zimbabwe has hit investor confidence across Africa.”
Mugabe’s absence and Zimbabwe’s crisis have sparked widespread pessimism on the future outlook of the region.
President Thabo Mbeki told the conference that while the rest of the world was sympathetic to Africa and its cause, endemic conflicts have undermined rapid economic growth and development.
Meanwhile, the second edition of the Africa Competitiveness Report released this week ranked South Africa seventh out of the 24 countries surveyed. Zimbabwe was ranked the third least-competitive country on the continent.
The report, which was drafted by the World Economic Forum and Harvard University’s Centre for International Development, is likely to prove yet another setback to South Africa’s so far unsuccessful efforts to attract foreign investment.
One of the main reasons foreign companies have not committed capital to the country is that their local counterparts – and consumers – are also wary of saving, and investing in the local economy.
A survey by the Bureau for Economic Research of 1E000 South African manufacturers released this week showed half of the respondents planned to cut down on their investment plans because of the political crisis in Zimbabwe.
Earlier in the week, Hain told a briefing of journalists that he felt South Africa – and other Southern African states – had underestimated the damage caused by the Zimbabwean crisis to their prospects of attracting investment.
But Zimbabwe’s plight has not only hit confidence in South Africa. Countries such as Namibia have begun to feel the pinch as well. Namibian businesses joined their local counterparts at the conference in calling for urgent measures to restore confidence in the region.
”The problem is not so much what the governments say,” said a Namibian businessman. ”It is that the investor community looks at Africa as one.
”They think that whatever happens to Zimbabwe can happen to other countries.”