First Mugabe took the farms now it is white-owned firms

First Mugabe took the farms now it is white-owned firms

Published Date: 13 February 2010
By Jane Fields in Harare
WHITE people will no longer be able to open hairdressers, advertising agencies or bakeries in Zimbabwe under black empowerment regulations hastily signed into law by president Robert Mugabe's side of the government.
Morgan Tsvangirai, Mr Mugabe's estranged prime minister, described the new law as "null and void" because he had not been consulted. But analysts say he will likely be unable to reverse it.

The Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Regulations force executives of white-owned companies with assets of more than £320,000 to commit to hand over 51 per cent of their shares to black Zimbabweans within 75 days of 1 March – or face five years in jail.

The executives cannot choose their new shareholders: they must pick from a database set up by the empowerment ministry, headed by former secret service operative Saviour Kasukuwere, who has vast business interests of his own.

"This says to investors: Don't you dare come here," said political analyst John Makumbe, of the University of Zimbabwe.

The new regulations will affect several London-listed banks and mines: Barclays Bank and Old Mutual have a significant presence in Zimbabwe. The law also sets out an impressive list of traditionally lucrative smaller sectors now reserved for black Zimbabweans.

Among the "sectors reserved against foreign investment" are hairdressers, beauty salons, employment and advertising agencies and bakeries. Whites and foreigners will no longer be allowed to open estate agencies or valet services, nor will they be allowed to engage in the retail trade or grow cash crops.

"This comes down to loot and pillage," a Tsvangirai aide said.

"It disqualifies a lot of black-owned foreign companies, including ones from South Africa, which shows it has nothing to do with black empowerment. They (Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party] just want things for free like the farms."

Mr Tsvangirai, the head of the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, met Mr Mugabe to register his disapproval of the new law. The 84-year-old president made the astonishing claim that he "knew nothing about it".

The regulations were passed by the Zanu-PF-dominated parliament in 2007 but put on ice, leading many to believe they'd been permanently shelved. They were quietly published last Friday, exactly a decade since Mr Mugabe launched a violence-riddled land reform programme that has turfed about 4,000 white farmers off their land and seen Zimbabwe's agricultural production plummet. The first white farm invasions were in February 2000.

South African lawyer Willie Spies, who has fought to protect white farmers from Mr Mugabe's land grab said: "The new development calls for more drastic measures by the South African government to assist its citizens affected by Mugabe's controversial policies."

Mr Tsvangirai said: "The regulations would have scared off foreign investors, already jittery about Zimbabwe, as well as disenfranchising citizens."

Only this month the former opposition leader assured the World Economic Forum in Davos that "confidence has returned" to Zimbabwe's battered economy.

Analysts said the regulations represented another slap in the face for the premier from his rival, who has been bolstered by South African president Jacob Zuma's recent taking of sides during negotiations to revive a stalled unity deal signed in September 2008.

Mr Zuma told Mr Tsvangirai he should be "more flexible" in what looked like a plea for the MDC leader to drop his demand that Mr Mugabe's central bank governor and attorney general be replaced.

Mr Mugabe insists he will make no concessions until western sanctions on him and 200 close associates are removed.