Zimbabwe's government has withdrawn a controversial law that would have seen foreign firms forced to cede 51 percent of their shares to locals, an official said Tuesday. Speaking after a cabinet meeting Tuesday, a spokesman for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said the government had declared the so-called indigenisation law "null and void". "Cabinet is directed that the directives as announced in the law are null and void," James Maridadi told AFP. "Cabinet has also instructed all the parties involved to go and consult more on the issue," he said. The law, which came into force on March 1, would have affected foreign-owned firms valued at 500,000 dollars (369,000 euros) or more.

They had been given 45 days to report their efforts at complying. The biggest targets included local subsidiaries of British banks Barclays and Standard Chartered, as well as mining companies such as Impala Platinum, AngloPlatinum and Rio Tinto. Long-time President Robert Mugabe had argued the law was necessary to correct the economic imbalances created by Zimbabwe's colonial past.

 

Under President Robert Mugabe's land reform programme, some 4,000 white farmers have been driven away and their land given to black farmers. The BBC's Dan Isaacs talks to Zimbabwe's new farming class. Endy Mhlanga, a war veteran of Zimbabwe's war of independence, sits with me in the garage of his recently acquired farmhouse. A pot of maize meal bubbles on an open fire beside us.

It is getting dark, but there is no electricity. Power cuts - often lasting days - are a regular feature of life here. And the mosquitoes are descending. "As war veterans we are satisfied that the programme of land reform has succeeded," Mr Mhlanga tells me. "It might not be 100%, but now the land is with the people of Zimbabwe."

 

Police officers in Bulawayo have lashed out at fellow officers, for arresting two members of the pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), who were taking part in a public meeting on electricity tariffs. The WOZA members were discussing unrealistic tariffs from Zimbabwe’s Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) on Tuesday, in a public meeting organised by parliament’s Competition and Tariff commission. Two hundred WOZA members attended the public meeting in order to present their views on ZESA. As the commission was getting ready to answer questions two WOZA members, Million and Mavis Sibanda, took the opportunity to go to the toilets. But they were grabbed by two plain clothed police officers who searched their bags, confiscated WOZA posters and then insisted the two accompany them to Central Police Station. They were briefly detained and thoroughly questioned, before finally being released. But in a move that is completely unlike the police’s usual treatment of WOZA members, the arresting officers were lambasted by their colleagues. It’s understood the officers came under fire for detaining the pair, with their fellow officers saying “we are also suffering from ZESA cuts.” Meanwhile, other WOZA members marched out of the public meeting in anger over the arrests, only returning to the meeting when the two were released.