HARARE - Indigenisation and Empowerment law is in the spotlight again.
But Zanu PF’s fulminating and ruminating against indigenisation critics will surely count for nothing in the wake of revelations by diamond firms mining in Marange that they did not pledge nor commit $50 million to the Marange Zimunya Community Share Ownership Trust (MZCSO).
The five companies — Mbada Diamonds, DMC, Jinan, Anjin and Marange Resources unequivocally on Friday stated to the Parliamentary Portfolio committee on Youth Indigenisation and Empowerment — that the hullaballoo surrounding the $50 million pledge was nothing but a dud.
More tellingly, the revelations left President Robert Mugabe in the cold as he was made to believe that the diamond firms were stumping the hefty figure as part of the empowerment programme to the Marange Zimunya communities.
Mugabe had been misled, the Justice Wadyajena-led committee was told in no uncertain terms.
Instead the firms pledged donations in various forms to the communities, the committee was also firmly told.
Where does this leave former minister Savior Kasukuwere who led the indigenisation and empowerment drive?
Kasukuwere vigorously defended the community share ownership schemes and dismissed talks that they were stage-managed to bolster the drive which was running at full throttle in the run up to the July 31 watershed elections.
We expect the bellicose minister to prove these diamond firms wrong by providing evidence showing they are reluctant to fulfil ‘their’ pledges of $10 million each.
It is also an opportunity for Kasukuwere to allay fears that his tenure was marred by inconsistencies and lapses in as far as the implementation of the Act was concerned.
What the diamond firms have done is to remind all and sundry about the shoddy manner in which the Act has been implemented. This is, by extension, an indictment on Mugabe who has had to take blows for the blunders and inefficiencies of his cronies in the Zanu PF government.
Last year, he admitted to Kasukuwere having made a mistake in the Zimplats deal which caused a furore when details emerged that it had been botched.
Three weeks ago, the nonagenarian president was forced to make an embarrassing u-turn in his allegations that former Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) chairperson — Godwills Masimirembwa — had received a $6 million bribe from a Ghanaian investor.
So we ask: how many times should Mugabe be misled and eventually take action?