Maravi

(HERALD) Tony Hawkins offside

Tony Hawkins offside

EDITOR — I read with utmost disgust the story about a certain economist called Professor Tony Hawkins comparing the indigenisation laws of this country with apartheid. Are we missing something here?

Wasn’t the current economic dispensation favouring whites and built on the back of the exploitation of indigenous peoples, which Hawkins and his likes want to protect, not predicated on racism and apartheid? We all know what has happened in the history of Zimbabwe and Africa in general.

Did Rhodesian settlers apply any fair laws save deliberate enrichment of the white minority at the expense of the majority blacks?

Did they not rape, plunder, exploit and taint our people and our resources in marching to their present wealth?

The laws of Zimbabwe still gave them such freedom almost three decades after Independence.

True, there are other bona fide investors who might have nothing to do with the heinous act of colonialism, but are admittedly fewer than the rogue racists which Hawkins seems to protect if not embody.

Even in the case of the former, there should be a compelling morality that dictates that the people in whose country they do business should gain considerably from their God-given or human resources. It is only bigots and racists who oppose this.

At any rate getting 49 percent stake in a foreign venture is about the fairest share one can get.

Could we imagine Nigel Chanakira getting the same in Barclays, or better still more than that, had he the capital?

Mercy Matapatira.

Harare.

Labels: INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE), RHODESIANS, TONY HAWKINS

posted by MrK @ 4:00 AM