Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Entrepreneurship ZANU PF style

Here’s an interesting excerpt from News Day

"Zanu-PF Harare province has vowed to get rid of foreigners operating in the city centre and replace them with party supporters ahead of possible elections. Zanu PF Harare district coordinating chairman Jaison Pasadi had a meeting with Christopher Zvobgo the city’s acting town clerk last week to lecture him on the need to override the by-laws and “empower the people”. During the meeting, Pasadi was said to have stressed that there was no turning back on utilising open spaces, particularly along Park Street and taking over shops run by foreigners in Harare and handing them over to locals. Pasadi confirmed meeting with Zvobgo and his party’s intention to seize foreign-owned premises to hand them over to Zanu PF supporters. Pasadi said the party was targeting open spaces and shops occupied by foreigners in the city to give to “deserving people”. “It starts from the grassroots and as Zimbabweans, we can penetrate into those shops,” said Pasadi. “We are not talking of factories only but we are also talking of shops so that people can sell their goods from those shops. These foreigners are selling cell phones but can’t we also do the same and have our people selling cell phones?” he said. “We cannot talk of empowering our people when we don’t have somewhere to run our business from. Which country in Africa has foreigners flooding the capital city? We want that to be corrected as a matter of urgency.” Sources reported Pasadi said Zanu PF was not happy that people were finding it difficult to get space to operate from while foreign traders flooded the city. He is also reported to have told Zvobgo the move to take over shops run by foreign nationals had the backing of senior party officials – NewsDay, Monday January"

Who are the ‘foreigners’ referred to here? The Chinese and Nigerians!! It’s not only South Africa where xenophobia is on the rise.

Here is yet another reason why Mugabe is unable to create the conditions for entrepreneurship.

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