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It is good to hear the new message: Zimbabwe is now open for business. It conjures an image of jobs, instant prosperity and happiness ever after. After a long hiatus, especially after being burnt by IMF fires in the 1990s. Then followed by an economic depression which came on the back of Western sanctions, where undeniably the biggest redeeming feature of our toil was and remains that we have our land back, with its God-given minerals. We can safely say Zimbabwe is open for business, including investing in the land, in addition to everywhere.

A few questions arise: is Zimbabwe ready for business? How far can we open up? How fast can we open up?
We would be remiss and completely tactless and naïve if we allowed a foreign narrative to cloud our judgment and history to convince ourselves that Zimbabwe’s “international” isolation was purely a result of a bad human rights record, lack of democracy and bad economic policies, summarised as Robert Mugabe. It is a disingenuous kind of reductionism which seeks to obfuscate what really lay at the heart of Zimbabwe’s perilous and deadly liberation wars from the period of King Lobengula and Mbuya Nehanda.

Those two and other resistance leaders of the First Chimurenga did not die for luxury of a one man, one vote. They wanted to keep their land. That is why land had to be taken back by the generation which did it, starting in 2000. Whether Mugabe was pushed by the MDC to make the leap it doesn’t matter anymore; it is up to Zimbabweans to record their own history.

This is important in fully appreciating the current euphoria about Zimbabwe being open for business. There is no need to feel a sense of loss when during that period of isolation we were able to achieve the greatest historical mission to complete the liberation war agenda. That is why we should feel even more proud to declare that Zimbabwe is now open for business, and we can volunteer to rejoin the Commonwealth, not by virtue of Monarchical fiat. We make these decisions with a greater sense of dignity than many third world and other African nations which thought and still feel it is too risky for former colonies to reclaim their natural resources. They are afraid to be “isolated” from the international community, and would rather remain perpetual colonies.

In Zimbabwe’s case, President Mnangagwa declared this week that Zimbabwe’s row with the former colonial power, Britain, was over. “Our quarrel with Britain is over,” he told a religious gathering in Madziwa, Mashonaland Central, on Wednesday. “It (quarrel) was hinged on the land reform. We distributed our own land here. The land did not belong to the British, but to us Zimbabweans.”

Restating the reasons for the liberation war and asking the childish questions above are important in tampering the pace and extent of the investment revolution under a new dispensation.

Are we ready for business?
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa in December last year, announced plans to dispose of or restructure some parastatals and State enterprises. These were a drain on the fiscus, but offering very little benefit to the nation, except those they employ. “Our public enterprises remain a drawback through their inefficiencies, with their contribution to the economy down from around 60 percent to current levels of 2 percent”, he said.

That cannot be justified or allowed to go on forever.
But before a decision is taken on how to deal with which parastatal or State enterprise, we believe it is vital to go to the root of its under-performance. In some cases it might turn out that what is required is change of management or management-style. This can be done without losing the entity. We have had a sad culture where every line minister who comes in opts for his own board of directors, an avenue which creates a fertile ground for corruption and cronyism. Meritocracy is sacrificed in the process. This is a malady the new dispensation can cure if it is serious about fighting corruption and building a new Zimbabwean economy.

We raise this cautionary because selling off parastatals and State enterprises appears to be the preferred route for international agencies such as the IMF — privatisation is their one-size-fits all for third world countries.

But are Zimbabweans ready financially and by way of skills to buy into some of this family heirloom? We should not lose valuable asserts in a rush to parade our desperation. The depressed period we are coming from means very few Zimbabweans have money to compete with foreign individuals and companies which can borrow cheaply on the global market or can be subsidised by their governments to rip us off.
We need to tread carefully, not necessarily lackadaisically.

How fast can we open up?
Our period of isolation means we have both a technological and experiential backlog. Very little was done by way of import substitution. The historical imperative of 2000 found us where the depredations of ESAP had left us off in 1996 — gutted and hollowed out. The sanctions only made the economic trajectory worse. Is it therefore prudent to make a headlong leap from this economic abyss to full steam laissez faire when even the homeland of capitalism, free enterprise and chief exponent of free markets — America — is treading with maximum caution, even risking trade wars by going for protectionism to safeguard either strategic industries or those deemed fragile if exposed to naked competition from China, Japan and South Korea?
Our approach has caused of a lot of anxiety in both industry and among retailers. A laissez faire policy is based on the presumption of perfect market conditions and a semblance of fair competition. If Donald Trump, a maverick eccentric though they call him, can’t find such a global environment for a giant that is the United States, who is Zimbabwe to tread where angels fear to stare?

To a limited extent, SI64 of 2016 was meant to bridge the industrial capacity backlog. To allow our people to strengthen their feet, to stand on their own against an acute deficit in resources. We are trying to build an empowered society, and foreign investment should empower the people of Zimbabwe first, as Trump would say.

How far can we open?
The illusion of jobs
Vice President General Constantino Chiwenga (Retired) touched on this matter in his address to the International Business Conference at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair on Wednesday this week. He said Government was not going to tolerate foreigners who come here masquerading as investors. No to schemers, we might add. “We will not take chancers, but serious business people and this time if you want to do business with us you should give us a clear timeline to do that job,” he told the delegates.

Except that a more direct cautionary should have been clear on priority sectors for would-be investors. It is not platinum and diamonds alone which are finite. Moreover we are better off with gold reserves than any other mineral to anchor the launch of a local currency. More than that, Zimbabwe is open for business broadly means an investor can do anything, including launching a car wash or a barber’s shop. Aren’t those hanging fruits for those keen to harvest US dollars from our street pavements!
The point here is that we need a broad plan of where Zimbabwe desperately needs investment, with the biggest, enduring impact. Which in this case are infrastructure, energy, agriculture and mining. These are the major areas where jobs are created. Industry can deal with technology.

The broad investment plan should spell out what we expect the investor to do — it can’t be a one-sided affair about cheap labour, lower tax and royalties and tax holidays. In the euphoria of rapid investment appeal we seem to be downplaying the critical issue of industrialisation. That is to say, we can’t talk of a sustainable economic development when we are inviting foreigners to come and extract our raw materials for processing back in their country. In short, the key issues of beneficiation and value addition seem to be suffocating. But that’s again where and how jobs can be created. Without local processing or manufacturing, we are exporting jobs.

After surviving the crucible of the Third Chimurenga, we should not be afraid to set the most basic of terms for local investment. We are not a French colony; we have no colonial pact with anyone.

So, yes, the question must yet require consideration: Zimbabwe is open for business, but is Zimbabwe ready for cunning global investors? At what cost? We know there are no free lunches on the market. Nobody is coming to Zimbabwe to do us charity.