Foreign businesses are holding back investment in Zimbabwe because of a split in the Southern African country’s power-sharing government, the industry minister said on Wednesday.
Welshman Ncube told a meeting of local business executives that over the past eight months, several potential investors had made enquiries regarding state-owned businesses, but now they were reluctant.
”For example, investors who were keen to invest in Zisco [Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company] are now phoning asking if it is worthwhile, given the announcements which were made last week Friday,” Ncube said.
His remarks come after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) suspended official dealings with President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF.
Tsvangirai has accused Mugabe of failing to fulfil the terms of a pact that led to the formation of a unity government comprising the country’s three main political forces. That government has ceased to function.
Ncube, who belongs to a splinter faction of the MDC that has kept up its ties with Zanu-PF, said the uncertainty was having an ”an adverse impact on trade and manufacturing”.
”We have to do all over again the work we have done over the last eight months,” Ncube said. ”We are in a fragile country. We have the world’s eyes on us.”
Ncube added that the three political leaders had agreed to address the causes of the current impasse.
”I hope that in the next two to three days there will be a solution,” he said.
On Monday, Tsvangirai left on a regional tour to seek Southern African help to end the stalemate, while his ministers boycotted a meeting with Mugabe.
After years of economic freefall, Zimbabwe is seeking to restore strained ties with its erstwhile trading partners and to rebuild infrastructure and social services that have been in a state of disrepair.
But donors said they want to see more reforms before increasing aid. — Sapa-AFP