JOHANNENSBURG - The World Economic Forum will welcome Zimbabwe’s new leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa - who has been on a crusade to reassure and draw international capital back into the country - this week, the first such visit by the leader of the country in many years.
As all economic eyes across the world focus on the yearly Davos gathering of global leaders and business leaders, Mnangagwa and his Zimbabwean delegation are looking forward to putting the country back on the map.
This follows engagements with business leaders, youth investors and fund managers back home, ahead of the Davos meeting.
Mnangagwa, who will join Cyril Ramaphosa at the global economic forum, appears to be a hard worker compared to his predecessor, Robert Mugabe.
Mnangagwa said he had heard about Davos and would be attending this year’s meeting with a view to inter-acting and selling Zimbabwe, which was once again open for business and investment.
Toiling
The new Zimbabwean leader arrives at the office at 8am in the morning and burns the midnight oil, and ministers in his cabinet say he is very demanding in terms of results delivery, but it remains to be seen if this will translate into meaningful economic recovery and an improvement in livelihoods for Zimbabweans.
Treasury officials said the government was looking to reform its parastatals, but progress appears to be lagging. Mnangagwa is aware of this and has pleaded for time in this process, after he was accused of stalling.
“We need to realise that there is no need to rush decisions in the area of reforming parastatals. We must have dialogue and make a decision. Some of the parastatals we will abolish, some we will capitalise and some we will privatise,” Mnangagwa said.
Apart from this and other concerns such as selective targeting of officials for corruption arrests, Mnangagwa appears well informed ahead of his first international meeting with global leaders and fund holders at Davos.