Business / Companies
Tendai Biti engages Kasukuwere on Bank empowerment
25 Aug 2011 at 00:24hrs | Views
The Ministry of Finance is engaged in talks with Youth Development, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment minister Saviour Kasukuwere to come up with agreeable thresholds for foreign banks for them to comply with empowerment regulations.
The move comes days after Kasukuwere threatened to revoke the licences of Stanbic, Barclays PLC and Standard Chartered, among other foreign-owned firms, if they failed to submit acceptable empowerment plans. Foreign-owned comapnies were recently given between 7 - 14 days to submit acceptable empowerment proposals by Kasukuwere's ministry.
Biti recently dismissed statement made by empowerment minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, who said this week that the war over indigenisation with foreign firms was going to be more intense than the bloody and chaotic land reform.
The vocal Kasukuwere said there was no going back on empowerment and that there was going to be war with foreign firms over their reluctance to comply with the country's laws. "The fight will overshadow the land reform programme as this one is much more sophisticated and is about serious wealth."
The minister said he met on Monday with representatives of Standard Bank, Barclays Bank and Stanbic Bank and they have made submissions to the indigenisation ministry.
"We are still negotiating for thresholds so that we can come up with one view. Banks are different from mines. Mines sit on capital, banks are conveyers of capital. Naturally a different approach needs to be recognised," said Biti.
Last week the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono said threats to the banking sector were damaging as witnessed by the panic caused by the statement.
The move comes days after Kasukuwere threatened to revoke the licences of Stanbic, Barclays PLC and Standard Chartered, among other foreign-owned firms, if they failed to submit acceptable empowerment plans. Foreign-owned comapnies were recently given between 7 - 14 days to submit acceptable empowerment proposals by Kasukuwere's ministry.
Biti recently dismissed statement made by empowerment minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, who said this week that the war over indigenisation with foreign firms was going to be more intense than the bloody and chaotic land reform.
The minister said he met on Monday with representatives of Standard Bank, Barclays Bank and Stanbic Bank and they have made submissions to the indigenisation ministry.
"We are still negotiating for thresholds so that we can come up with one view. Banks are different from mines. Mines sit on capital, banks are conveyers of capital. Naturally a different approach needs to be recognised," said Biti.
Last week the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono said threats to the banking sector were damaging as witnessed by the panic caused by the statement.
Source - AFP
