Indigenisation and empowerment: Which way Zimbabwe?

It is pointless to be politically independent but economically poor and downtrodden. It is also pointless to be in power but without real power, both politically and economically.


Thirty years after independence, the average Zimbabwean is still classified as poor judging by world standards. Recent statistics sadly confirmed the fact that at least 70 per cent of Zimbabweans live on less than US$2 a day, thus they are classified as living in abject poverty.

This is a very sad indictment on the founding mothers and fathers of this otherwise great nation. If I may ask this pertinent question: why are we poor in the land of plenty?
As a starting point, the government of Zimbabwe should be thoroughly ashamed of the fact that three decades after independence, the country still has not crafted a holistic, progressive and definitive policy to empower previously disadvantaged people, the majority of whom happen to be blacks and other non-Caucasian people such as Indians, Greeks and people of mixed blood.

One wonders what the government has been doing all these years by failing to formulate a policy that should have been amongst the top agenda items upon achieving our independence in 1980. 30 years down the line, the government has suddenly woken up from its deep slumber and it is now, belatedly but spiritedly, attempting to craft an indigenisation and empowerment policy.

What a shame! Instead of using the concept of indigenisation and empowerment as an electioneering gimmick, the government should appreciate that this very important and crucial exercise that will determine the political and socio-economic trajectory of Zimbabwe for several generations to come.

We cannot empower the poor by grabbing wealth from the rich and dishing it out like confetti at a wedding. You do not empower the poor and marginalised by changing the colour of the new bourgeois from white to black.

What Zimbabwe needs, and needs urgently, is a complete dismantling of this bourgeois mentality whereby people, across the racial and political divide, want to accumulate wealth as an end in itself.

We have created a nation of thousands of struggling peasant farmers who can hardly fend for themselves. Instead of empowering our people by identifying those who had a passion for farming and then adequately training and capacitating them, we chose to adopt a one-size-fits -all approach.

Every black Zimbabwean was classified as a potential commercial farmer and the '' results'' are there for everyone to see. From being a net exporter of food and Southern Africa's breadbasket, in a very short 10 years we degenerated to become a basket case, a net importer of food and a country that survives on handouts from donors. Some amongst us will argue that Zimbabwe is in this perilous state because of '' sanctions'' imposed by Britain and her Western allies. What a blue lie. Sanctions....what sanctions?

The time to re-focus and re-design our indigenisation and empowerment trajectory is now. We have to introspect and stop treating the empowerment issue as a simplistic electioneering gimmick. This is a matter of life and death. We blundered big time with the emotionally-charged, violent and chaotic so-called land reform program. A repeat exercise is not an option. Once bitten twice shy.