Monday, March 01, 2010
A Bad Plan
Robert Mugabe continues to find creative new avenues to lead Zimbabwe down a path of self-destruction. He’s talented that way.
Statutory Instrument number 21 was imposed by Robert Mugabe, the president, without any consultation with his partners in the coalition government, notably Morgan Tsvangirai, the prime minister from the Movement for Democratic Change.
The law gives any relevant business with assets of more than $500,000 (€369,000, £333,500) just 45 days to submit a plan for achieving this transfer of ownership within five years. Companies based in Zimbabwe declined to disclose whether they were preparing any such plans.
But economists, business leaders and trade unionists warned Mr Mugabe’s law would wreck any chance of attracting foreign investment and strangle the economy’s weak recovery.
“We are just coming out of a self-inflicted economic crisis,” said Lovemore Matombo, head of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. “This law could create fears that the process could be chaotic, just like the land reform, which will affect the economic recovery of the country. We do not need this right now as we need investment.”
Brilliant.
Comments & Trackbacks
How old is he?
(I, Spammer.)
Now, that’s some sneaky comment spam, not so much for the comment, which is typically dain-bramaged, but for the link text’s unobtrusive use of the name of the spamming site.
Nice job, scumbag.
Damnit. I forgot I needed to go on spam patrol.
And, Virginia, the answer is that normally you’d think he was well past his sell-by date. He seems to be living a sadly charmed and long life, though.