Policy discord repel investors, says ZIA

Published: 02 July 2014

Conflicting policies on investment and indigenisation by different government ministries and departments is confusing and scaring away both local and foreign investors, Parliament heard on Tuesday.

Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA) chief executive Richard Mbaiwa told the portfolio committee on Foreign Affairs on Tuesday that government needed a clear investment policy that should be articulated by all government ministries and departments.

"What we get when we engage investors is that they want consistency and clarity of policy and particularly on the Indigenisation, Economic Development and Empowerment.

"We hope there will be efforts from government to bring some clarity in this respect. Investors are getting confused when conflicting policy statements are made from government."

He also said that there was need for the country to have one policy that all government institutions can articulate.

"There is need to have clarity by everyone concerned in terms of the policy framework itself so that we all have the same understanding and can talk to investors with the same understanding," he added.

The ZIA boss said issues undoing foreign direct investment included Zimbabwe's poor rating on the Cost of Doing Business surveys and competitiveness index, perceived high risk, perceived foreign ownership restriction.

He said these gave a negative perception that Zimbabwe was not a place to do business.

Mbaiwa said that there was need to review the ZIA Act and adopt compulsory registration of investors as there was no law that compels investors to register businesses before starting up.

"There is need and importance to have buy-in and ownership by stakeholders for buy in and ownership by all stakeholders in this reform process," he said.

Mbaiwaa said all regulators were charging different fees to investors, a situation that was making the cost country of doing business very high, especially for start ups because one needs a lot of permits to start up.

"EMA, Immigration, Registrator of companies, just about everyone just wants a piece of the cake from investors even before they start operating. We need friendly investor regulations," he added.

He added that ZIA was poorly funded and required optimum funding to be able to carry out its mandate to go out and market the country's investment opportunities, to showcase various projects in the country as the country is operating below potential and other behind regional countries.

In 2013, Mozambique attracted $6 billion worth of foreign direct investments while Zambia attracted $6bn and South Africa $8bn.
- Zim Mail