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(NEWZIMBABWE) ZAPU slams indigenisation

ZAPU slams indigenisation
by Staff Reporter
11/06/2010 00:00:00

THE opposition ZAPU party has accused President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF of using the recently announced economic empowerment regulations to enrich regime cronies before the country adopts a new constitution and holds fresh elections.

Under the country’s empowerment regulations, foreign-owned firms are required to cede at least 51 percent of their shareholding to locals and the government has warned that those failing to comply risked losing their operating licenses.

However ZAPU, which is led by Dumiso Dabengwa – a former senior member of Zanu PF – accused President Mugabe’s party of using the regulations to enrich senior officials before the party is “kicked out of office” at the next elections.

The party said, while it supported the policy of empowering local people, it was opposed to the manner in which “the Inclusive Government, in particular elements of the Zanu-PF establishment, are going about the exercise”.

“It would appear Zanu-PF functionaries in the Inclusive Government are on a spree to allocate the people’s natural resources to their connections under the guise of indigenization.

“Realizing that the sun is setting on their party, Zanu-PF ministers are clearly on a mission to plunder and mortgage people’s resources to foreign companies fronted by their relatives, friends and party supporters,” ZAPU spokesperson Methuseli Moyo said in a statement.

The party also expressed concern over the granting of mining concessions by the mines ministry amid reports that sections of the security services were being permitted to exploit mineral deposits in the country.

“ZAPU notes with concern the goings-on particularly in the Ministry of Mine and Mining Development, where there is a spree to allocate virtually all mining rights and concessions, without any regard to sustainability and future generations.

“We believe Zanu-PF is on a mission to allocate all key natural resources to their cronies before the adoption of a new constitution and the holding of fresh elections, which everyone knows they have no chance of winning,” Moyo said.

He also accused the two MDC formations who are part of the country’s coalition government of being complicit in the plunder of the country’s resources.

“Zapu is disappointed that the two MDCs have simply become appendages of the Zanu-PF establishment and are allowing themselves to be diverted by so-called outstanding issues in the GPA while Zanu-PF plunders people’s resources.



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“It is sad that the two parties have, in our view, become part and parcel of the problem by failing to deduce what the real issues are, and are busy expending their energies on getting jobs for their boys,” Moyo said.

The empowerment regulations – over which the coalition government appears divided - have also spooked investors with some companies privately intimating that they would hold back on planned expansion programmes.

Meanwhile Moyo also warned that foreign investors which go into partnerships under the current arrangements risk losing their investments in the event there was a change of government.

“Zapu takes this opportunity to warn foreigners who are tempted to team up with Zanu-PF functionaries to pillage Zimbabwean resources that the end is nigh and they stand to lose out in the long term when the next government re-establishes political, economic and social order in the country,” he said.

Labels: INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE), ZAPU

posted by MrK @ 5:25 PM