The Sunday News
Vincent Gono
THE National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board (NIEEB) has adopted a new economic thrust for Community Share Ownership Trusts (CSOTs) aimed at promoting enterprise development and spearhead community empowerment around which micro-level entrepreneurs can conduct their business.
The enterprise development thrust is in line with the National Economic Empowerment Strategy crafted in 2015 after widespread public consultations which cascaded to district level. In an interview with Sunday Business in Harare on Wednesday, NIEEB compliance manager in charge of CSOTs Mr Sibanengi Mahobele said the strategy finds its tone in CSOTs as one of the key entities that should spearhead local community empowerment.
“Our new thrust for CSOTs is enterprise development in line with our National Economic Empowerment Strategy crafted in 2015 after widespread community consultations which cascaded to district level. The strategy identifies CSOTs as the key entities that should spearhead local community empowerment and specifically mandates CSOTs to serve their respective communities as business hubs around which entrepreneurs can conduct their activities,” said Mr Mahobele.
CSOTs that have taken the lead in the new economic thrust include Mhondoro-Ngezi, Chegutu and Zvimba which are operating as one with one deed of trust. The three in one CSOT has embarked on a community based market linked poultry production project which is set to enhance the livelihood of hundred of households.
Those that are set to follow in the new enterprise development thrust are Bindura on a tillage project and Bubi on mining services while plans are at an advanced stage for Zvishavane in the Midlands province and Gwanda in Matabeleland South province to start on commercial horticulture and commercial livestock production respectively.
He said some CSOTs were not fully functional because they were not resourced mainly due to the fact that their respective qualifying businesses were reluctant to comply. Mr Mahobele said NIEEB would seize the opportunity presented by the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) to be held next month in Bulawayo to market the new economic thrust of CSOTs in the country.
He added that the communities in CSOTs that have taken the lead in implementing the thrust were thrilled with the development as it was aimed at furthering their business scope and widen their horizontal entrepreneurial space.
In terms of compliance, NIEEB chief executive officer Mr Wilson Gwatiringa said there had been significant enforcement of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act. Its implementation is further being aligned with the clarification done by His Excellency President Robert Mugabe in April last year. The law is being amended to reflect this thrust.
Community Share Ownership Trusts (CSOTs) were launched in 2012 by President Mugabe in terms of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act which requires foreign firms to sell 51 percent of their stake to locals to empower the communities.
The expectation was that the trusts would help transform the lives of the people in communities where the firms were operating, especially in the mineral rich areas of the country.
The majority of the trusts, however, failed to kick off amid allegations of reluctance to adhere to the Act by some companies whose promises to release money and capitalise the CSOTs remain a pipedream.
NIEEB was constituted and given the mandate to administer and see to it that there is adherence by the foreign companies with the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act.
