Another great idea....


Zimbabwe: Blacks to control firms
(CNN) -- Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has signed a new law that hands over majority ownership of all businesses to "indigenous" Zimbabweans.


The new law means that foreign- and white-owned companies operating in the country will have to surrender at least 51 percent control of their operations to blacks.

Lawmakers passed the legislation last September. But the presidential "assent" was announced Sunday in the government-controlled newspaper, The Sunday Mail.

It comes just days before Mugabe could face the most serious challenges to his decades-long rule in the March 29 presidential and parliamentary elections.

Under his rule, once-prosperous Zimbabwe has suffered an economic crisis with routine shortages of food, electricity and foreign currency.

Unless the Minister of State for Indigenisation and Empowerment alters the share allotment, the law would mean that several banks, mining companies and phone companies -- among other foreign businesses -- will have to relinquish control.
The bill, when it was put forward last year, described "indigenous Zimbabwean" as "any person who, before the 18th April, 1980, was disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of his or her race, and any descendant of such person."