Published: 23 April 2014

Indigenisation and economic empowerment policies are not cast in stone and foreigners can hold majority shareholding in any enterprise depending on the nature of their investment, the President has said.

President Mugabe said this during celebrations to mark the country's 34th Independence anniversary at the National Sports Stadium in Harare last Friday.

"Now in implementing the indigenisation programme, there has been some confusion. We have said where big companies have been established mainly on the basis of our natural resources, in mining, in agriculture, manufacturing, we demand that Zimbabweans - either through the Government or through our people - should have 51% or not less than 51%.

"But if a company is established and is getting raw materials from outside and the raw materials are not Zimbabwean, take the case of aluminium, we don't have raw materials for it; if the raw materials come from Tanzania, which has it and if a company establishes itself here in Willowvale, we cannot demand 51%.

"You can negotiate with the company in the usual way what percentage we should have and it's up to the company and yourselves establishing the percentages respectively you should share. But we cannot demand 51% (where) we don't have materials.

"These materials are coming from outside and the machines are also coming from outside and we have no basis on which we can demand 51% except to say the locality of the company is ours," he said.
- The Herald

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