Mugabe has Zimbabwe steal mineral wealth

Times:

President Mugabe unleashed a devastating new blow to Zimbabwe’s mortally wounded economy yesterday, announcing a new law giving the state a controlling stake in mines operating in the country.

Under the Mines and Minerals Amendment Bill, the Government can take over 51 per cent of companies mining strategic fuels and minerals, taking 25 per cent without paying.

The balance of 26 per cent it needs for a majority shareholding will be paid for, it said. However, the Bill brazenly asserts that payment will come from dividends earned from the state’s shares in the companies it takes without having to pay. It gives the state seven years in which to do it.

The Bill justifies its seizure “in virtue (sic) of its original ownership of all useful minerals in its subsoil”. Companies mining other minerals will be taken over by indigenous Zimbabweans. The method of payment is not specified.

Much of Zimbabwe’s mining industry has been wrecked by Government interference but the ripe plum remaining is the fast-growing multibillion-dollar platinum industry. The largest company with such interests is Zimplats, the local subsidiary of South Africa’s Impala Platinum, which is the world’s second-biggest producer of the precious metal.

Already producing $10 billion (£5 billion) of platinum a year, Zimplats is carrying out a billion-dollar expansion programme to double its output and make the mine one of the world’s biggest. It is by far the biggest foreign investment in Zimbabwe since the country’s independence in 1980. Also in the Government’s sights is the London-based Rio Tinto’s Murowa diamond mine, which has cost $78 million to set up and is on the verge of starting a $270 million expansion.

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I guess he wants to do for the mining industry what he did for farming. How is it that Keith Olberman has never heard of Robert Mugabe. He seems much worse than all those conservatives he keeps naming the worse person in the world. None of those conservatives have created a famine that has starved the population and at the same time made its currency worthless. Keith obviously lacks perspective.