{"id":10101,"date":"2012-04-20T04:21:20","date_gmt":"2012-04-20T02:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/04\/zimbabwes-business-law-seen-enriching-black-elite\/"},"modified":"2012-04-20T04:21:20","modified_gmt":"2012-04-20T02:21:20","slug":"zimbabwes-business-law-seen-enriching-black-elite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/zimbabwes-business-law-seen-enriching-black-elite\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe&#8217;s business law seen enriching black elite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Lucia Mutikani<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">WASHINGTON, April 19<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; The Zimbabwean government&#8217;s<br \/>\ndrive to force foreign businesses to give 51 percent of their<br \/>\nshareholding to locals will benefit the few black elite and must<br \/>\nbe reviewed, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The controversial so-called empowerment law is already being<br \/>\nimplemented in the mining sector, where South Africa&#8217;s Impala<br \/>\nPlatinum was forced to hand over majority shareholding<br \/>\nin its Zimplats unit to a state fund, employees and<br \/>\nlocal communities.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Speaking at the Atlantic Center, a think tank and public<br \/>\npolicy group, Biti said while he agreed on the need for<br \/>\nZimbabweans to participate in the broad economy, the initiative<br \/>\nbeing spearhead by President Robert Mugabe&#8217;s ZANU-PF party would<br \/>\nonly benefit the black elite.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The transfer is for value, which is good, but in a<br \/>\nsituation where the majority are poor, you are just transferring<br \/>\nshares from a few rich white people to a few rich black people,&#8221;<br \/>\nsaid Biti.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t well thought. Due process not being followed, we<br \/>\nneed to go back to the drawing board and say how can we empower<br \/>\nour people. The best way to empower our people at this present<br \/>\nmoment in time is to expand our economy to create as many<br \/>\nsectors as possible.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The exercise is widely seen as a ploy by ZANU-PF to win<br \/>\nvotes in elections that must be held by next year with political<br \/>\nreforms and a new constitution in place.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mugabe was forced into a power-sharing deal with long-time<br \/>\nfoe Morgan Tsvangirai, now the prime minister, after the 2008<br \/>\nelection, which Western powers said was marred by ZANU-PF<br \/>\nviolence and intimidation.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The government, which plans to have completed the<br \/>\nempowerment program in the mining sector by the end of this<br \/>\nmonth, has given no indication how much it plans to pay for any<br \/>\nstakes in Zimplats.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON, April 19 (Reuters) &#8211; The Zimbabwean government&#8217;s drive to force foreign businesses to give 51 percent of their shareholding to locals will benefit the few black elite and must be reviewed, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said on Thursday. The controversial so-called empowerment law is already being implemented in the mining sector, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}