By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
Harare – Zimbabwe’s private sector has thrown its weight behind the objectives of Statutory Instrument 215 of 2025, but warned that the success of the Reserved Sectors Policy will hinge squarely on implementation discipline, legal clarity and calibrated transition measures.
Speaking at Wednesday’s high-level dialogue in Harare, Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) Vice President for Mashonaland, Mr Ephraim Chawoneka, said there was “clear and overwhelming support” for the principle of economic empowerment.
“The debate is not about whether empowerment is necessary,” he said. “It is about how empowerment is implemented.”
SI 215 of 2025 establishes a framework for foreign participation in sectors reserved for indigenous Zimbabweans, targeting industries where local capacity already exists and where policymakers believe large, well-capitalised foreign firms could crowd out domestic entrepreneurs.
Implementation Takes Centre Stage
While participants endorsed the policy objective, business leaders, legal experts and sector representatives consistently emphasised that policy success would be determined by execution.
“The devil is in the implementation,” emerged as the defining sentiment of the dialogue.
Zimbabwe’s business community, shaped by years of regulatory shifts and policy reversals, expressed sensitivity to implementation risks, policy ambiguity and unintended consequences.
Several participants warned that poorly sequenced or inconsistently applied regulations could undermine investor confidence and disrupt markets.
A key concern centred on legal and definitional precision. Although SI 215 contains definitions, stakeholders argued that some terms require technical, sector-specific clarification to avoid discretionary interpretation.
“Ambiguity invites inconsistency,” one participant noted, warning that unclear provisions could generate uneven enforcement and compliance disputes.
Predictability and Transition Concerns
Businesses also raised alarm over emerging compliance requirements not explicitly stated in the Statutory Instrument, arguing that administrative predictability is fundamental to ease of doing business.
For companies with long-standing investments — including those protected under bilateral investment agreements — regulatory certainty is critical.
The issue of transition timelines featured prominently. Stakeholders urged government to adopt a gradual, economically realistic sequencing model, warning that compressed deadlines could inadvertently trigger capital withdrawal, non-compliance, or operational disruption.
“Gradualism is not policy weakness. It is policy discipline,” Mr Chawoneka said.
Capacity Before Reservation
While broadly supportive of reserving sectors for citizens, business leaders cautioned that reservation alone would not guarantee competitiveness.
Participants identified gaps in:
Access to affordable finance
Equipment and technology
Specialised skills
Infrastructure support
Without complementary reforms, they warned, the policy risks creating structural bottlenecks rather than unlocking enterprise growth.
There were also calls to shift emphasis from ownership metrics to productivity outcomes, with stakeholders arguing that empowerment must translate into efficiency, innovation and sectoral deepening.
Way Forward
The dialogue outlined several practical steps:
Issuance of sector-specific guidelines and harmonised interpretation frameworks
Carefully calibrated transition arrangements
Whole-of-government policy alignment across ministries and regulators
Enterprise capacity-building through financing and skills development
Strong governance systems to curb proxy ownership and corruption
Participants also stressed the importance of continuous public–private engagement to refine implementation.
“The Reserved Sectors Policy will ultimately be judged not by its intent, but by the quality, consistency and credibility of its execution,” Mr Chawoneka said.
If implemented with precision and coordination, stakeholders agreed, SI 215 could stimulate domestic value chains, formalisation and indigenous enterprise growth — advancing Zimbabwe’s Vision 2030 ambitions.
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