Gono, Mugabe clash over empowerment
in [Physics]
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From: as on 4 Aug 2010 18:04 Gono, Mugabe clash over empowerment http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=28096 March 19, 2010 By Our Correspondent HARARE - Central Bank chief Gideon Gono has clashed with President Robert Mugabe over the country's recently enacted empowerment laws and revealed that there have been attempts to seize foreign-owned banks since the coming into effect of the country's controversial regulations on March 1. Gono's criticism of the law puts him on the side of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai who is currently pushing for its review. Four weeks after Mugabe said there have been "vultures" who intend to stop indigenization; Gono said there wee "vultures" that made moves to seize foreign banks in line with the regulations that stipulate that 51 percent of shareholding in foreign firms must be handed to locals. "Let us face facts. Already, in my own backyard in the financial sector, there have recently been unfortunate incidences of "vulture-style" attempts by some cohorts to wrest stakes in some foreign owned banks," Gono said in a "question and answer" interview published on Thursday in a local newspaper. In celebrations to mark his 86th birthday in Bulawayo last month, Mugabe said: "We know there are vultures, aggressors , imperialists, and neo imperialists who want to interfere with our systems.The policy, like the land reform programme, was designated to redress the historical imbalances in the ownership of the economy." But on Thursday, Gono poured scorn on Mugabe's land reform mantra. "Some people would want to mischievously equate and interpret the land reform type of indigenization as the one that should, must and could be applied to other sectors of the economy," said Gono. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor added that the central bank would not seek to dilute or disrupt the current shareholding, unless it is voluntary in such banks as Stanbic, Barclays Bank, Standard Charted, MBCA and CABS. And in an apparent salvo at Youth and Indigenization Minister Savior Kasukuwere who has maintained that the regulations remain in force even though Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had said they are null and void as they were gazetted without consultation within government, Gono said: "Fellow Zimbabweans, let us avoid falling into the trap of being driven by the shrill war cries and voices of a few who are driving their own private agenda's for personal gain in the name of the empowerment of the masses. We definitely need to sober up." In the interview, Gono repeated the advice he gave to politicians in his October 2007 monetary statement Legislators and government in general must strike a balance between the objectives of indigenization and the need to attract foreign investment, Gono said then
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