(SACU) has the potential to impact significantly on the economic and
political stability of Zimbabwe and southern Africa. But now is not the time
for such a move, says a paper published last month by the Brenthurst
Foundation.
The paper's author, Professor Richard Gibb, the Pro Vice-Chancellor at the
University of Plymouth, in the UK, said aligning Zimbabwe with the most
effectively functioning customs union in Africa offered great opportunities
to promote cooperation, coordination and integration with South Africa.
But he described the Zimbabwe-SACU relationship as complex, dynamic and
multi-layered, and concluded that 'now is not the time for Zimbabwe to join
SACU'.
The following are excerpts from his paper:
Zimbabwe's integration with SACU, its major trading partner, could also
lock-in domestic policy reform and, if accepted into SACU, add considerable
legitimacy to the Zimbabwe policy environment.
Aligning Zimbabwe with the most effectively functioning customs union in
Africa offers great opportunities to promote cooperation, coordination and
integration between South Africa, undoubtedly Africa's most powerful
economy, and Zimbabwe. It also has the potential to offer a rules-based and
transparent governance structure to Zimbabwe's tariff and trade regime, and,
albeit to a lesser extent, industrial policy.
Although Zimbabwe's trade data are notoriously unreliable and inconsistent,
and should therefore be interpreted with caution, SACU accounts for
approximately 70 and 45 per cent of all imports and exports, respectively.
Equally, Zimbabwe is a significant export market for SACU.
Throughout the 1990s Zimbabwe was SACU's fifth most important export market,
equal to Germany. Zimbabwe's trade policy regime, either within or outside
of SACU, will play an important part in that country's reintegration into
both the southern African and world markets. In short, Zimbabwe's trade
regime will help determine the future growth and development of the state.
SACU, established in 1910, is widely regarded to be the most effectively
functioning regional trade agreement in Africa as well as the oldest customs
union in the world.
Zimbabwe's extraordinary and extreme economic collapse has been well
documented.
In 2008, Zimbabwe's unemployment rate was estimated to be around
For the majority of its existence, SACU has been a profoundly undemocratic
institution. Historically, it had little positive impact on good
governance and democratisation in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa
and
Swaziland. Hence, following South Africa's first democratic election, the
democratisation of SACU's institutional infrastructure became a key
priority.
Article 2 of the 2002 Agreement sets out eight objectives for the new SACU,
including a desire 'to create effective, transparent and democratic
institutions that will ensure equitable trade benefits to Member States'.
The 2002 Agreement has profound implications for Zimbabwe. At the moment,
Zimbabwe could join SACU as its sixth Member State, sharing sovereignty over
tariff and SACU matters equally with South Africa and all other Member
States.
For the first time in SACU's long history, joining SACU does not necessarily
mean ceding large elements of economic sovereignty to South Africa.
There are, however, serious reservations and disquiet about the 2002 SACU
Agreement amongst the existing five Member States. In reality the
institutional agreement proposed by the 2002 SACU Agreement has, thus far,
not been implemented.
By 2010, the all-important Tariff Board was not operational, with South
Africa's International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC), a South
African national body, undertaking the functions of the SACU Tariff Board.
Furthermore, only
South Africa had an established 'National Body' (the ITAC) making the
operation of the proposed SACU Tariff Board problematic.
The fact that three SACU institutions have not yet been established, several
years after the 2002 Agreement was signed, reflects and raises concerns over
the 'democratic' nature, credibility and effectiveness of the 2002 SACU
Agreement.
There is widespread disquiet in South Africa, throughout business,
government and the third sector, concerning the democratic credibility,
efficacy and practicality of implementing the framework proposed by the 2002
Agreement. Is it democratic for South Africa, with approximately 90 per cent
of SACU's population and GDP, to share power equally with Swaziland, with
just 2 per cent of SACU's population, or Lesotho, with 0.5 per cent of GDP.
Some form of renegotiated
democratic institutional framework is already high on the agenda.
On the issue of Zimbabwe's catastrophic record of poor governance, it is
unlikely that SACU membership alone
could fundamentally redress or address this problem. However, the example of
EU expansion may be of relevance.
Once the states of east-central European decided to embark on economic and
political reform, EU membership provided political legitimacy, policy
credibility and stability, so-called lock-in, to the reform process, both
domestically and internationally. A similar positive outcome could emerge if
Zimbabwe, having chosen to reform its economic and political governance,
then chose to join SACU. It is very unlikely that this process could operate
in reverse, with Zimbabwe first joining SACU and then deciding to pursue
national reform.
The dangers to the existing Member States of SACU, as well as to the
neo-patrimonial state-structure represented by Zanu (PF) patronage, means
that it would not be in the interests of either SACU nor Zimbabwe, as
currently configured, to join SACU.
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