ALL Chinese companies involved in agriculture in the country are immune to the indigenisation law that requires foreign-owned firms with a threshold of more than US$500 000 to cede 51% of their shareholding to black Zimbabweans, a Cabinet minister said last week.
Report by Moses Chibaya Speaking at a public meeting organised by Zimbabwe Economic Society (ZES) last week, Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment minister, Saviour Kasukuwere said Chinese companies that supported agriculture were behind some of the best investments in the country.
He said the companies had made “cash injections and this is the kind of investment that I want and I don’t apologise”.
He added: “The Chinese Company Tianze, we gave them 100 percent ownership, why? This is because they have brought in millions of dollars, sub-contracted our small-scale farmers in this country.”
Kasukuwere accused some American and British tobacco companies in the country of refusing to support or contract black farmers.
“They will not contract black farmers. They are only looking for white farmers who still have land,” Kasukuwere said. “So, one of the key things that this policy must also do is to correct nagging behaviour that is still there.”
Out of the 13 tobacco contracting companies which were operating last season in the country, Tianze Tobacco Company contracted more than 250 growers.
Kasukuwere said the indigenisation policy was not a Zanu PF law but was agreed on by all political parties represented in Parliament.
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On banks, Kasukuwere said his ministry was not going back with the programme.
“If they are thinking that one day they will get out of this problem, then they are like ostriches hiding their heads in the sand thinking that nobody is seeing them,” he said. “We know what they are doing. Why they are refusing to fund the farmers, Why they are refusing to fund the SMEs (Small-scale enterprises).
Can Barclays Bank tell me how many farmers they have supported? Can Standard Bank tell me how many farmers they have supported?”
Britain’s Standard Chartered Bank and Barclays Bank are among the major foreign banks with operations in the country. They could not be reached for comment yesterday.
However, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor, Gideon Gono in July warned government against seizure of majority stakes in foreign-owned banks, saying the move breached the country’s own banking laws.
“There is no law that provides for arbitrariness on the part of anyone and or expropriation of banking assets in Zimbabwe yesterday, today or tomorrow,” Gono said in a statement.
