THE remarks by President Emmerson Mnangagwa that his government was “working hard” to create a conducive environment for foreign direct investment (FDI) cannot go unchallenged.
Speaking at the official opening of the Varun Beverages water and closures project in Harare, on Thursday, Mnangagwa said the government was trying to create a sustainable investor friendly business environment.
“This in turn should attract more foreign direct investment into our economy and generate employment in all sectors of the economy,” Mnangagwa said.
His remarks are in stark contrast to what is happening on the ground.
One only needs to look at the remarks of Finance minister Mthuli Ncube when he presented the 2023 National Budget in November last year.
He revealed that investment has plummeted and admitted that the government had fallen short on that front.
Foreign direct investment had plummeted from US$717,1 million in 2019 to US$259 million last year, he said.
Figures from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe also show FDI further declined during the first half of 2020 to US$71,2 million compared to US$111,6 million in the same period in 2019.
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There are simple things that we can get right.
The continued suspension of the Old Mutual and PPC shares from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange is a stain on the country’s image and raises questions on the seriousness of the government to engender the trust of investors.
They have been suspended from trading since June 2020. Old Mutual Zimbabwe’s shareholders
Making it worse was Ncube’s rather careless remarks that the affected shareholders — over 30 000 in the case of Old Mutual Zimbabwe — should treat the prolonged suspension as a long holiday.
Such remarks only increase the perception that the country is a banana republic.
Even the ZSE chief executive Justin Bgoni told an investment forum last year that the continued suspension was an embarrassment.
Old Mutual and PPC, along with Seed Co International were suspended because of their fungibility, or tradability in other countries.
Authorities feared that their external share prices were being used to gauge the true value of the depreciating Zimbabwe dollar.
Well, the continuing fall of the Zimdollar on both the official and parallel markets has shown that assertion to be hot air peddled by panicked authorities bereft of ideas to tackle economic problems of their own making.
As a country, the setting up of the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (Zida) showed that indeed, the country was open for business, with the agency tasked with the promotion, entry, facilitation and protection of investment.
The government must get its act together if it is to attract substantive meaningful investments.
As the adage goes, actions speak louder than words.
