Empowerment, idea whose time has come Cde Kasukuwere
Cde Kasukuwere

Cde Kasukuwere

SAVIOUR Kasukuwere (SK) is the Zimbabwean minister for youth development, indigenisation and economic empowerment. He is one of the youthful faces in Zanu-PF. Now he is in charge of one of the most ambitious programmes ever seen in Africa: the indigenisation of the Zimbabwean economy and the economic empowerment of the people. He says after political independence, the next big thing is economic independence without which “we can’t say we have real independence”; here he talks to Baffour Ankomah, editor of New African magazine. This is the interview, in part.

New African (NA): From the smiles on the faces of the young beneficiaries of the Youth Fund that we saw in Gweru, the question that arises is why did Zimbabwe wait so long, 20 years after independence, to implement the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Programme?
Saviour Kasukuwere (SK): I am sure President Mugabe, first and foremost, worked hard to get the people of this country universal education, and that was key. It still remains relevant; human resources development is relevant. After the success on the education front, we embarked on the land reform programme. There was progression in terms of what to do. Of course, we had challenges along the way, but they are part and parcel of progression. And I still say the president had a very clear vision of what had to be done. Yes, 30 years have gone by, we may have waited too long to implement an Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Programme, but we have now started in earnest and there is no going back.

NA: But it is coming in the evening of President Mugabe’s rule, and I bet he would have liked to see this programme become a huge success while still in office. Now time is not on his side.
SK: He is a very intelligent man, and everything of his is on time. Indigenisation and economic empowerment is an idea whose time has come. And what makes us happy is that during his lifetime, he has brought about epochal moments in our nation: the land reform and indigenisation programmes, and in fact he has participated in all these very key programmes himself, and they have changed the lives of our people. Now the young people of Zimbabwe understand the president’s message of self-determination and economic development. They see themselves as economic fighters who are bringing about a new era in our nation, to the extent that today women and the elderly are now part of this growing revolution to build a new Zimbabwe.

NA: If he is not in power, will this programme continue?
SK: Ifs don’t make history. President Mugabe will be in power.

NA: What about if he retires, he is now 89 years old, and nature says he is not going to be there forever. If he retires, will this programme continue?
SK: There is one thing nobody can take away now: his ideas, what I call “Mugabeism”, what the man stands for, the ideology. It is going to be with us forever.  President Mugabe is the founder of our nation, his ideas and values are well understood by Zimbabweans, and because of that whatever we are doing, and whatever generations, will do after many of us have departed this world, including the President, will not stray off course. People can only improve on what he is doing. But to say we would move away from the course that he has charted will be very difficult to do. He is a great man.
If you look at the people who built America, the Lincolns of this world, can the current American generation say they have strayed away from the teachings of the founding fathers, the basic foundations? No. what makes China today is Maoism, the philosophy that Mao Zedong espoused and what he stood for. It remains the same.
What President Mugabe is saying and what he stands for are understood in Zimbabwe, but the impact is far-reaching, it is wider than our own nation, it is an African story. It is what Kwame Nkrumah stood for. It is exactly what President Mugabe is standing for.

NA: Looking at the rationale behind indigenisation — to enable the previously disadvantaged black Zimbabweans to benefit from their God-given natural resources, and enable them to participate in the mainstream economy, which is a very noble cause — why have you and your ministry encountered such heavy national and international resistance along the way?
SK: It is a transformative programme, so it evokes fear in those who have and gives hope to those who have met with the resistance you talk about. They fear the programme because they think it is pushing them away from the benefits they have enjoyed from our economy. But it gives hope to us, the have-nots, and we say now there is a future for us.
The international community has always had issues with our country. It had issues with our independence, it had issues with our land reform programme, and it has issues with the emancipation of the black people. If we say we are abandoning indigenisation today, they will say we are very reasonable people. If we preach reconciliation, they will say we are very reasonable people, though the same words are not preached in their own countries. They will not forgive, and they will not let go. We know how they are treating African leaders in The Hague, at the International Criminal Court. But the same people would not do the same to PW Botha in South Africa despite all that he and his government did to black people under apartheid.  Now what are we standing for? We are very stubborn about indigenisation and economic empowerment. We had to do it! Yes, they will criticise us, but we are cheered by what is happening in our communities.

NA: Is the international community changing its views about the programme? You have been meeting a number of Western ambassadors in recent weeks, are they changing their minds?
SK: I have met both the current and the immediate past American ambassadors to Zimbabwe. Charles Ray (the previous ambassador) came to me and said: “why haven’t you been doing it all these years?” he actually thought we were kind of silly to have allowed the situation to continue to this day.  And the Norwegian ambassador was very kind; he was the top economist behind the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund when they discovered their oil. His predecessor also came to see us, and they said to me: “Young man, you are young, don’t take your foot off the pedal. Keep pushing, they (the foreign companies) will comply.” So increasingly, we are getting Western ambassadors accredited to this country telling us “you are right”. But they say the problem lies with the communication of the message, and I don’t know how better I could have communicated this programme. Whatever we say, they will still say it is badly communicated. It is because of the enormity of what we are talking about. It is not that they don’t understand what we are saying, but they know that if Zimbabwe succeeds, it will have serious implications for the rest of Africa.

NA: Nationally, you have also encountered resistance, even from inside your own party, Zanu-PF. Why?
SK: Well, if you come to think of it, this kind of programme will naturally be contested because of fear.

NA: Fear, from your own party?
SK: Fear from colleagues, some of them were scared. I am pleased that our election manifesto is about empowerment and indigenisation, moving forward. There is clarity now. Everyone now sees where we are going. Remember that success has many fathers, failure is an orphan.
In the past, when they looked at this programme, they said, “we don’t think it is going to succeed.” They thought it was going to be like land reform where our foot soldiers had sticks in their hands, running and chasing people. No, for indigenisation we used the law, we brought the foreign and non-indigenously-owned companies around the table and gave them the facts. They understood and accepted them. We are now tying the loose ends. Within Zanu-PF itself, there is now great understanding of the need to empower people. But I still want to say it is President Mugabe who drives the programme, whose clarity has made everybody understand. Remember, no group of people anywhere sees things the same way from day one.  But as time goes on, some of them will realize that “ah, we must open our eyes”. Land reform was criticised but today everyone wants land. There was even a political party formed to oppose land reform. The MDC was formed to oppose land reform. I think I have not encountered the same level of resistance as land reform encountered because no party was formed to oppose indigenisation.

NA: But the MDC parties still don’t want it?
SK: Well, what do you expect? It is in their DNA, they were born to oppose the people of Zimbabwe, so there is nothing new about it. They were formed to oppose the land reform programme, so naturally they must extend their hatred to indigenisation.

NA: Some people say the indigenisation and empowerment policy is racist, because the definition of an indigenous Zimbabwean under the Indigenisation Act completely cuts out the country’s white citizens from the discourse.
SK: My brother, we are restoring control, and there is nothing racist or racial about it. We the blacks are in the majority in this country, and we shouldn’t apologise for it. Were we not victims of racism at the hands of the white citizens of this country?

NA: So why did you not include your white population in the programme?
SK: In what?

NA: In the indigenisation programme, because the definition you assign to an indigenous Zimbabwean cuts them adrift.
SK: Well, most of them are the owners of the economy we are trying to restructure. They are the beneficiaries of the racist regime run by Ian Smith and his colleagues. It benefited them.

NA: In an era where foreign investors have become sacred cows globally, and a business-friendly environment and packages have become tools of enticement; we have Zimbabwe saying “we will take 51 percent shares of every foreign-owned company that invests here”. If you were a foreign investor, would you come to invest in Zimbabwe?
SK: First of all, your use of the phrase “we will take” is where the communication problem starts. We are saying if you come to Zimbabwe to invest in mines, we will give you our resources, but you can’t own everything. That is not “taking away” from them. We are actually making a contribution to the venture as a senior partner who deserves a shareholding in the company. For example, if a foreign investor can say: “I am coming to invest in Zimbabwe, I am bringing my diamonds and my gold, and also my equipment”, then he can own 100 percent of the venture.
But if he doesn’t come with his own land and gold and diamonds, and is going to work with the gold and diamonds in the soil of Zimbabwe, then he cannot say we are taking away from him if we say to him: “The gold and the land you are going to work with are ours, the diamonds in the land are ours, the platinum is ours; they were given to us by God, these are our natural resources, so let’s form a partnership in which we get 51 percent shareholding because we are bringing to the table more than your Caterpillar and shovel and capital combined.” There is nothing unfair about it. We are simply saying that we might not have the equipment you have, but the national resource you want is ours, let’s share it. As an investor, you make your money, and we also make our money as a nation. But don’t dispossess us of what God gave us because you are investing in our country.
Investors the world over are choosy, yes; but you know what, we have the resources and these resources will not go nowhere. They are ours. And even if the investors don’t come today, they will, for a fact, come tomorrow.

NA: Have foreign investors been coming since the indigenisation programme started?
SK: They have been coming in their thousands, and they have been busy signing approvals and agreements where they are in joint partnerships with stakeholders in diamond and gold mining. The 51 percent is no longer an issue. They just needed us to be clear about it, and they are happy working here. There is too much in 49 percent for them to turn down. As President Mugabe always says, 49 percent is a lot of money in terms of the return on their investment. Imagine if some companies which came into the mining sector invested maybe US40m, and by year-end they had made US$400m. Who is winning?
The point we are making here is that each and every ounce of our resources that is mined or exploited, we must get full value for the bank, in our sovereign wealth fund. We cannot allow a situation where our children end up hungry and suffering because we were irresponsible, because we gave away our national wealth, our God-given resources for zero dollars. No.  Look at the Norwegian sovereign fund model, if you touch their oil you give them the full value to put in their sovereign fund. Their oil is represented by money in their sovereign fund, more than a whacking US$700bn. This means that for every generation of Norwegians who are going to come, they are assured that while the resources have been exploited; the money accrued from the value of the oil has not been lost.  We are doing the same here in Zimbabwe. We are transferring the value of our resources into money that will be saved in our sovereign wealth fund for both the current and future generations.

NA: Does indigenisation also affect the new Chinese companies in Zimbabwe?
SK: It affects foreign investors across the board.

NA: History shows that foreign investment regulation does not reduce investment flows. This happened in the USA in the 19th century and China in the 21st century, where strict regulation of foreign investors did not reduce investment in those countries. What has been the experience of Zimbabwe?
SK: I will give you the example of the banking sector: Ecobank came to invest in Zimbabwe well aware of our indigenisation programme, and they have followed the regulations. Pick n Pay came to invest here, and it is 51-49 percent shareholding. I can also tell you of many other companies in mining and tourism that have come to invest fully aware of the indigenisation programme. So the 51 percent is no longer an issue.

NA: While still on the banks, you are not getting any joy with Standard Chartered Bank, are you?
SK: Standard Chartered Bank and Barclays Bank are what we call colonial establishments. Yes, we have had some challenges. The country has been run since 2009 by a government of national unity, making for a coalition of mixed messages, I should add. So Standard Chartered and Barclays will come to my office here and say: “Yes minister, we are going to comply with the indigenisation regulations”. And then, from here, they get a phone call in the next hour from somebody who tells them: “what are you doing? You are perpetuating Zanu-PF rule. You are empowering Zanu-PF.
So actually the biggest enemy has not been these companies. The biggest obstacle has been our own institutions and people who don’t want to see our citizens benefit from their natural resources because they think that politically, the companies are giving Zanu-PF an advantage.

NA: Can’t central government stop such people from sabotaging the programme?
SK: We will overcome that, I promise. We are very determined to see this programme through, despite the obstacles. We know there are individuals who will do everything in their power to sabotage the collective efforts of the nation. But we will overcome that. It is part of the struggle. During the liberation struggle, didn’t some black people join the Rhodesians against their own people? So what’s new?

NA: Still on the banks, you are reported to have said you will not shut up until foreign banks in Zimbabwe are indigenised, and that as long as you are alive, the banks will follow the regulations. Why are you having such a hard time with some of the banks?
SK: It’s true that some of the banks are giving us a hard time, but watch us as we go for the elections, which will be based on indigenisation versus Juice (the MDC-T’s counter-programme). The elections will be based on moving our people forward, empowering them, transforming institutions, and bringing about total empowerment of our people versus neo-colonial ideas and policies. If they say “no, we don’t want our freedom, we don’t want our resources, we don’t want self –determination”, then let it be. But I can assure you that the people will vote to support us and say, let’s move forward with indigenisation and empowerment.

NA: Apart from Standard Chartered and Barclays, which other banks are giving you a hard time?
SK: Old Mutual has been complying with the regulations, but Standard Chartered, Barclays, and Stanbic Bank are the three that are not quite forthcoming. I must say though that they are keen to comply with the regulations, but it has been our own colleagues who have been sending negative signals to them.

NA: But do these “colleagues” have the power to block a national programme like indigenisation with impunity?
SK: Look at the unique set up that we have had: a government of national unity brings about a lot of creatures. Some have turned against the revolution, and some are now in bed with neo-colonial liberals, and they are trying to be negative and give false comfort to these banking institutions.  But believe you me, the banks want to comply, at least, that is what they tell us. And we are pursuing them. They will just have to do it, and they know they have to. These are the laws of Zimbabwe, and we are all enjoined to respect the laws of the land.  But there are some individuals who think they are above the law, because they are used to thinking that way or they have some position in society that makes them think they are above the law. But we shall see after the elections. We will overcome that tendency.

NA: You are saying all this on the presumption that Zanu-PF is going to win the elections. What makes you so sure that you will win?
SK: Ah, that is a foregone conclusion. So who do you think is going to win the elections? Tsvangirai? On what platform? On what basis? What is he offering Zimbabweans? What has he got? Look at what we have done already, look at the land reform programme, look at indigenisation and empowerment, look at the communities, the workers, go to BAT (British American Tobacco) and see how the workers have been empowered. Go to Schweppes, it is now a company majority-owned by the workers. And their businesses have been growing. BAT’S share price has hit US$9 from just over a dollar. They are now comfortable, and they know that they complied with the laws of Zimbabwe.

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