ON innumerable occasions over the last 30 years, various Zimbabwean governments have declared intents to privatise many of the country's parastatals, wholly or partially.
This was a policy statement in the first National Economic Development Plan in the immediately post-Independence era, in the 1990 Economic Structural Adjustment Programme and in various subsequent programmes. But, save for a few privatisations in the late 1990s, the intents have never converted to action, notwithstanding that those few privatisations of a little more than a decade ago were most successful. Declarations of privatisation intentions have largely been naught but empty words, wholly devoid of requisite action.
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