Business
Zimbabwe: Gov’t takes over majority stake in foreign-owned mines
Zimbabwe has taken majority ownership of all foreign-owned mining companies, Zimbabwe’s black empowerment minister said Thursday, a move the prime minister told companies to ignore, saying it could create “anarchy in the industry” in the already ruptured economy.
Minister Savior Kasukuwere said in a statement that all companies that did not meet a late 2011 deadline to submit proposals to cede a controlling stake to blacks have forfeited 51 percent of their shareholdings and are now “deemed to be owned by the state.”
Zimbabwe has large Australian, Canadian and South African mining interests — including giants Rio Tinto, Canadile and Anglo American, and with scores of small white-owned gold mines.
The empowerment drive has split the shaky three-year-old coalition government. Critics says it has scared off much-needed investment and is being used as a political ploy ahead of elections President Robert Mugabe wants this year.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the former opposition leader, immediately urged the nation to ignore Kasukuwere and said the empowerment laws did not allow him to “unilaterally nationalize private entities.”
“There is no reason to create panic among investors by projecting the image of a voracious government keen to grab compulsorily people’s companies without compensation,” he said. “It is not the policy of this government to nationalize the mining businesses or any other business.”
Tsvangirai said he took a serious view of attempts to incite the public to act unlawfully against mining businesses.
