By Bernard
Bwoni
Zimbabwe has been left frazzled by
the aftershocks of imperialism and the firm hold of capitalism and that is exactly
where the imperial state wants it to be. The squabbling over the flimsy, the soft
and surface issues whilst the core issues are relegated into insignificance
clearly highlights this. Imperialism manifests itself in many forms but the end
goal is always the same. Since time immemorial imperialism has sought to
subjugate, conquer markets, to eliminate competition and to always protect
their own domestic producers and markets. The imperial state has always
protected its areas of strategic importance and still does that through various
ways and in fact frowns upon reciprocity in terms of all economic relationships
hence the constant scrutiny of indigenisation and economic empowerment
initiatives. The imperial state operates in unison with its multinational
corporations and indigenisation conflicts with imperialism. This is not an
argument against Foreign Direct Investment but the never-ending case of
querying the Indigenisation Act by the bearers of FDI and the accompanying
conditionalities illustrates the insidious and deeply-embedded role of
imperialism in the mastery of markets and the accumulation in the former
imperial states like Zimbabwe, neoliberal states and the protection of their
domestic markets.
The country is confronted with
challenge after challenge and the current dumping of imported manufactured
goods from neighbouring South Africa is unsustainable and will never help in
stimulating domestic manufacturing capacity. The South African Rand has fallen
sharply against the United States dollar and the uncontrolled importation of
cheap products is not bringing money into Zimbabwe. There is capital flight as
the stronger dollar is used in South Africa for products that are being brought
into Zimbabwe for resale. The market is saturated with these cheap imports and
the market has seen prices falling down drastically as there is no money in the
country to purchase the products. Prices are going to continue plummeting and
the economy will continue to descend into deflation. It is a vicious cycle of
trying to balance economic efficiency with social responsibility. Zimbabwe is
basically buying more than three times what it sells and hence why we have seen
the trade balance worsen and the economy continue to slide into chaos.
Zimbabwe’s manufacturing capacity
will not be resolved by FDI alone but by reviewing the country’s infant
industry protection and other policies that will encourage home-grown initiatives
for economic growth. Excessive and inessential imports have suffocated the
domestic market and this has seen demand for domestic goods fare poorly as
consumer preferences have been understandably for the cheap imports in the
current harsh economic climate. The domestic producers are left in a quandary
as they are faced with limited choices to either produce less or sell at
reduced prices. This to some extent explains the closure of businesses as they
cannot compete. This state of affairs is just no sustainable at all.
Zimbabwe just like the majority
if not all African countries is handicapped by poverty and economic stagnation
and that is not by accident but by imperial design. It is the aftermath of
imperialism and colonisation and indigenisation and economic empowerment are
some sure remedies of these after-effects. However imperialism and capitalism
by their very nature will always frustrate such initiatives as they thrive on
the back of exploiting the developing world. This exploitation has taken many
forms over the centuries with slavery, colonialism and resource extraction out
of the developing world for the benefit of the imperial powers. Capitalism just
like imperialism specifically works at disabling the developing world’s self-sustenance
potential by putting breaks and blocks on economic progression. The developed
world encourages those countries in the developing world to open up their
markets which in most cases instantly eliminates domestic production and
employment creation.
The problem with imperialism and
capitalism is that they both have monopolies on development in favour of the
already developed countries which makes it impossible for developing countries
to follow the same developmental pattern. Without some form of government initiated
protection, domestic production will continue to suffer. Zimbabwe will need to continue
looking at policies that recognise the importance of managing trade with the
main objective of facilitating and achieving real development and economic
growth. The country’s manufacturing potential lies in putting measures in place
to protect domestic industries whilst gaining strength, absorbing new
technologies and giving local communities enough time to build up capacity and manufacturing
potential to compete on equal terms without the need for extended protection.
Foreign Direct Investment into
Zimbabwe is welcome to augment the indigenisation and economic empowerment
initiatives of the land. However there seem to be this imperial intervention to
neutralise and eliminate indigenisation to “make way for this investment that
will finally bring Zimbabwe out of the economic mud”. The fact of the matter is
that indigenisation and economic empowerment in Zimbabwe is a direct threat to
the economic hegemony that multinationals have enjoyed without question for a
very long time. They have only known guarantees of 100% remittance of profits
and minimal if any restrictions on how they conduct their businesses in
sovereign states. Indigenisation and economic empowerment seeks to review that
and ensure that the home country benefits from this investment into the
country. There is no point of investment into the country that does not benefit
the country surely.
Many of the strong Asian economies
including China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea started off by building up their
international trading strength on the foundations of government protection
strategies such as subsidies, tariffs and significant investment in
infrastructure and skills development. Zimbabwe’s current focus on
rehabilitating and retooling of the country’s infrastructure is a step in the
right direction. The next phase should be focus on developing key human skills
through a thorough re-evaluation of the curriculum. Schools, Colleges and
Universities cannot continue churning out graduates who cannot even make and
package a single product year in, year out. Countries like Mozambique have
registered stable economic growth on the back of high level protection
strategies and similarly Zimbabwe can take the same route.
Imperialism is still very much
alive and the fact that the former colonies have remained exclusively
underdeveloped decades after independence, Zimbabwe’s future can never be
planned without referring to and narrating the colonial past. The development
of Zimbabwe is inextricably linked to imperialism and that is a reality that
has to feature in any developmental dialogue on Zimbabwe. Colonisation reconstructed
and distorted the Zimbabwean development pattern and today the very same system
works clandestinely to continually squeeze the country out of its natural
resources. Indigenisation and economic empowerment seeks to restore the original
patterns that will see the country on the path towards total economic
emancipation.
The indigenisation and economic
empowerment route is the only sure way towards equality and mutually beneficial
coexistence in this global village. This brings about competitiveness and real
development not these many promises of FDI which never seems to materialise.
Developing countries depend largely on exports when it comes to supplying goods
and services anywhere in the world. Technological advances have meant that
noble policies like indigenisation and economic empowerment are forever
ridiculed and gimmicks like globalisation are thrust forward as the panacea to
Zimbabwe’s economic woes. The fact of the matter is that with technological
advances the erstwhile colonisers maintain their advantage whilst the former
colonies continue to lag behind sitting on top of resource abundance. The
government is quite right in allaying fears about the policies and offering
reassurances to would be investors into the country.
For Zimbabwe, indigenisation and
empowerment initiatives have to translate into economic growth and job creation
to be taken seriously by the ordinary man and woman. Capital formation has to
increase as a result of economic empowerment and foreign direct investment. Once
the benefits of the policies start trickling down to everyone then the full
potential of these noble policies will be realised. In this bigger ‘global’
economic village markets can no longer be left to operate alone because the
impact on the poor is devastating as these free markets are often the preserve
of the loaded and powerful multinationals to make quick, easy and
extraordinarily large profits from their investments. The developing countries
will have very little benefit from it all. This is where the indigenisation and
economic empowerment policies in Zimbabwe come in handy. The country has to
effectively manage the markets for the benefit of the ordinary people. The
international lending market used to be solely controlled and managed by the
IMF and World Bank and poor developing countries have struggled with the
conditions put on their lending. Many African economies have been exposed to
economic structural adjustment programmes which have only produced disastrous
results. The emergence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has seen
China offering crucial developmental loans to struggling economies with very
little of the conditions that used to be imposed by Bretton Woods. The
impediments to economic empowerment are many but have slowly been reducing and
hopefully economic recovery will continue.
bernardbwn@aol.com/ bernardbwoni.blogspot.com
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