Maravi

(HERALD) Let our resources benefit us

Let our resources benefit us
By Tichaona Zindoga

Government recently announced it would own 100 percent of all alluvial diamond mining activities in the country under the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act. As required under the indigenisation laws of the country, Government would assume a controlling stake of 51 percent in all future mining ventures involving other minerals including gold, platinum and non-alluvial diamonds.

(Indigenised and indigenous companies would not be affected by this latter provision.)

Under the envisaged dispensation, 10 percent of gross profits would be for the uplifting of the communities through the development of health, education, roads, agriculture and any other sector desirable to the particular community and approved by the Government.

As expected, critics of black empowerment immediately latched onto this "nationalisation of mines" (smacking of inherent Western fear of the empowerment of the majority) and portended failure.

It was one way to further enrich the fat cats, remarked some.

One critic was even more emotional in opposing the envisaged provisions, prescribing that Youth, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere should be "called to order", taken through "a course in elementary economics".

One can guess that these critics believe that global "fat cats" in the mould of De Beers should benefit from the country’s resources while the nation, with its own small fat cats, should not have access to their God-given resources.

In their opinion, upsetting the capitalist order of big multinational corporates of De Beers kind, natural winners if Government, on behalf of its people, does not deliberately take steps to own its resources, constitutes a breach of economics.

The big multinational companies represent global best practice, the self-annointed economists believe.

Yet it is known that they, in the same breath, represent the worst kind of exploitation, dishonesty, plunder and profiteering.

For instance, what did the people of Zimbabwe, and of Marange in particular, get when De Beers shipped out diamonds for 15 years in the name of exploration?

The theft, dishonesty, plunder and degradation that follow multinational companies also deprive home peoples of social security.

That is, where Government today will set aside 10 percent of gross profits for the uplifting of the communities through the development of health, education, roads, agriculture and any other sector desirable to the particular community and approved by the Government, multinational companies are there for profit, and profit only.

One scholar, Horace Campbell, notes that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares everyone’s right to social security via national efforts (and international co-operation) in areas such as the economy.

However, these are negated by "the individual rights of capitalists to accumulate wealth (at the expense of the economic, social, and cultural well-being of human beings).

On the other hand, Western capitalist philosophies tout such a cannibalistic negation as the essence of the totality of human dignity, peace, and freedom, notes Campbell.

Considering the United Nations General Assembly resolution 1803 (XVII) of 14 December 1962 which declares "Permanent sovereignty over natural resources" by states should put paid to depravities of capitalist interests for whom some of the critics of Zimbabwe’s indigenisation and empowerment drive work.

The resolution recognises that it is "the sovereign right of every state to dispose of its wealth and its natural resources" and that it is the "inalienable right of all states freely to dispose of their natural wealth and resources in accordance with their national interests".

It, inter alia, therefore declares that:

l The right of peoples and nations to permanent sovereignty over their natural wealth and resources must be exercised in the interest of their national development and of the well-being of the people of the State concerned.

l Nationalisation, expropriation or requisitioning shall be based on grounds or reasons of public utility, security or the national interest which are recognised as overriding purely individual or private interests, both domestic and foreign . . .

That Government, mainly through the revolutionary Zanu-PF party, has sought to consolidate its existing indigenisation and empowerment programmes not only represent a desirable and justifiable good but also marks commitment to the development of its people who otherwise would be at the mercy of Western corporates.

That Government deploys the space of sovereignty guaranteed it by the UN where its resources are concerned naturally should not only inspire confidence and pride in it but also lay the ground for individuals and communities’ sovereign pride and confidence as deriving from owning the resources.

In essence, whereas the communities would feel powerless in the face of global corporates, they can put their heads up with the knowledge of guaranteed participation and thus development.

In the latter case, the communities cease to become charity cases.

It is common cause that faced with the ravages of sanctions-induced economic hardships plus inclement weather resou-rce-rich Manicaland has over the years become something of an alms basket, which situation foreign donor organisations have exploited for political ends.

Naturally, the one party that is also bankrolled by the pseudo-philantropists in the donor agencies has reaped huge scoring directly and proportionately to the alms given to the people.

It goes without saying, as has been feared all along, that the party that thrives on the benevolence of the foreigners that gave us the predatory global corporates, plus hurtful sanctions, has its allegiances to its masters first and foremost.

In this regard, the people can be assured of continued deprivation.

By contrast, a political dispensation that upholds a people’s sovereignty over natural resources and promises total control of our resources through indigenisation and empowerment seeks to rehumanise a people dehumanised by deprivation and pseudo-philanthropism.

Thus the holding of the Zanu-PF’s conference this year has large symbolic value.

The conference, with the watchwords of indigenisation, empowerment and control of resources demonstrates the party’s commitment to bettering the lives of its people especially so in the face of foreign adversity.

It is likely that the conference will come up with a sound resolution effecting to the country’s permanent sovereignty over her resources.

This in turn should give permanence to the province’s status as a naturally rich region not deserving of alms, handed out by those who instill pain and bereavement in the first place.

The rich resources that the eastern region is endowed with should provide a hedge over inclement natural phenomena, just as it is on record that they can more than satisfy Zimbabwe’s fiscal requirements.

In this regard, Zanu-PF must champion people’s access to the resource.

That also means, in all pragmatism, seeing that Zimbabwe’s own fat cats however small should not deprive communities and the country at large.

Labels: INDIGENIZATION AND EMPOWERMENT ACT (ZIMBABWE)

posted by MrK @ 5:19 PM