They have fought over Zimbabwe’s best farms, and now senior figures in Zanu-PF are limbering up for a new battle — this time over an array of foreign assets that will be put up for sale with the enactment of a controversial new empowerment law.
Zimbabwe’s Empowerment Minister, Paul Mangwana, has tabled the proposed legislation before Parliament and expects to push it through within the next two weeks. “This is a revolutionary Bill that I think is more revolutionary than the land reform programme,” Mangwana said.
Should President Robert Mugabe decide to pursue this new drive as aggressively as he did the seizure of white-owned farms, control of a range of foreign assets will be there for the taking.
The wording of the proposed law makes it plain that even white Zimbabweans will not be allowed to hold majority shares. It defines an indigenous Zimbabwean as “any person who was disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of race before independence in 1980”.
The law is vague on how assets will be valued and Zanu-PF officials, seeing the loophole, plan to use their influence — and threats — to take over assets cheaply.
“The whites know they will have to find some accommodation. And it will have to be with people acceptable to the government,” a senior Zanu-PF official, declining to be named, said this week.
Mugabe has publicly showed his anger at the aggressive accumulation of assets by his top lieutenants.
In February he claimed in an interview with state television that there was “an insidious dimension where ambitious leaders [in Zanu-PF] have been cutting deals with the British and Americans”.
“The whole succession debate has given imperialism hope for re-entry. Now we are seeing our officials — senior Politburo officials — joining up with white people, all in the name of making money,” Mugabe has charged in the past.
Retired army general Solomon Mujuru, one of the two main players in the battle over Mugabe’s succession, has nosed ahead in the new race for assets. Last week he struck a deal with the white owners of the country’s largest private security firm, giving him control of half of the company, an associate disclosed.
According to the proposed law, black Zimbabweans will hold at least 51% of “every business that is being transferred, merged, restructured, unbundled or demerged and in any new investments of a prescribed value”.
The minister will have the power to withdraw the operating licences of companies that do not meet the shareholding requirements and can bar transactions by them.
Ahead of the enactment of the Bill, large, white-held corporations have aready begun selling shares to existing business partners or staff. Old Mutual officials said in Harare this week that the company would sell 20% of its shares to black staff.
Earlier, Meikles Africa, the country’s largest hotel group, with business links to Tokyo Sexwale’s Mvelaphanda Group and Pick ‘n Pay, announced a merger with a black-owned bank, Kingdom, in a deal that will hand black investors management control and a significant shareholding.
Observers said the Old Mutual and Meikles deals allow foreign and white businesses to designate shareholders of their choice, avoiding the mounting pressure that business people report is coming from politicians seeking a way in without having to pay.
Economic commentator Eric Bloch said the effect of the empowerment proposals on the economy would depend on “how vigorously the government enforces the new law”.