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Kurayi Mapondera Correspondent
The narrative of privatisation is yet again gaining momentum. Indications by the new Government are that it is toying with the prospects of disposing of under-performing State enterprises.

This should naturally interest Zimbabwe’s youths as an important demographic and stakeholders in the country’s economy.

Today, Zimbabwe is home to over 700 youth empowerment groups.

However, these groups are disparate and segregated by numerous barriers and interests. One could argue that, today’s generation of youths in Zimbabwe, divided as they are, are lost to the historical lessons at their disposal.

They should be united in waging a contemporary economic Chimurenga.

During the early 1990s, Ms Mercy Zinyama, God rest her soul, then an employee of Barclays Bank, was faced with a series of challenges as she tried to secure financing from banking institutions for her start-up.

With the bottlenecks that she experienced, she ended up teaming-up with her peers, an endeavour that culminated in the formation of the Indigenous Business Development Centre (IBDC).

The IBDC was the foremost economic empowerment vehicle that brought together the pioneer group of aspiring indigenous entrepreneurs to seek solutions to their individual challenges collectively, in post-independence Zimbabwe.

Founding members of this organisation included John Mapondera, Strive Masiyiwa, Jacob Mudenda, Enoch Kamushinda, Ben Mucheche, Delma Lupepe and Godfrey Chitambo.

These are household names to this day.

On the flip side, efforts of contemporary youths have not accrued into anything meaningful because they have failed to heed the ways of their predecessors, yet the challenges that haunt them are not new.

A new era

History has an uncanny knack of repeating itself. It appears the era of the 1990s is incumbent upon us again.

The chapter has closed on former President Robert Mugabe’s era.

Not only that, it also heralds the end of that era of empowerment forerunners, later turned businessmen/women.

The coming in of President Emmerson Mnangagwa also presents an array of new opportunities for contemporary youths — only if they can unite, identify opportunities and work on programmes that could lead to a new paradigm on empowerment.

President Mnangagwa’s era also requires its own mould of young, ambitious and daring indigenous youths, competent enough to turn themselves into the next generation of Zimbabwe’s entrepreneurs that would eventually define his era.

Today, it is imperative to use the very model that was formulated and applied by the ingenuous luminaries of IBDC; there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

In his latest budget, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Cde Patrick Chinamasa alluded to the fact that State enterprises that exhibit potential will be reformed, while those which cannot be rehabilitated will be privatised or face outright closure.

This is not a new phenomenon in history. It has been done before in many countries with stellar results. However, it is important to note that the setback here lies in the absence of a local currency and overemphasis on foreign direct investment.

It is in this chink that youths must come together and take on the role of helping to scout and secure FDI or generate their own capital to invest in some of the parastatals.

If youths can unite and work together, they stand to benefit immensely from this policy.