HARARE, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe has signed a new law requiring foreign- and white-owned businesses in Zimbabwe to hand over 51 per cent control of their operations to blacks.
The new law is part of Mugabe's election campaign strategy of what he calls "economic empowerment.''
The strategy also includes plans to distribute tractors, generators, gasoline and cattle to black farmers who have resettled on white-owned land seized by the government since 2000.
The moves comes three weeks before Zimbabweans vote in crucial presidential, parliamentary and local council elections.
Mugabe, 84, is running against former finance minister and ruling party loyalist Simba Makoni, 57, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, 55.
The March 29 vote takes place amid an economic meltdown _ including a shrinking economy, rocketing inflation, shortages of most basic goods and collapsing public services _ in a country once known as Africa's breadbasket.
Since the government began ordering the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000, production of food and agricultural exports has slumped drastically. Zimbabwe has the world's highest official rate of inflation: 100,500 per cent.
One-third of the country's 12 million people received emergency food aid in January, according to UN agencies.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization predicted shortfalls in local harvests in coming weeks and said just 10 per cent of fertilizer needed in the last planting season is available to farmers.
Since December, the Central Bank has spent at least $43 million to import corn, Zimbabwe's staple food, from neighbouring countries, bank Gov. Gideon Gono said Saturday.
The state-owned Sunday Mail said the new government program will put Zimbabwe "back at work'' with state-of-the-art generators, buses, tractors, 300 buses, motorcycles and some 3,000 cattle.
"This equipment and implements now form a critical mass that should be deployed effectively so as to meaningfully uplift productivity levels,'' the newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying at a ceremony in Harare on Saturday.
No details about the cost of the equipment _ funded by the state central bank, much of it in scarce hard currency _ was provided. In the past, similarly free equipment mainly has gone to supporters of the ruling party.
Mugabe blames the crisis on economic sanctions imposed by Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial power, and its allies, to protest his land reforms.
"This hate program by Britain and her fellow racists imposed unjustified sanctions on Zimbabwe in futile attempts to frighten us off our land,'' he said. "They should remember we are not that easily scared away,'' he said.
The Economic Empowerment Act requires "indigenous Zimbabweans'' to hold a minimum 51 per cent stake in every business and public company, and to have a controlling stake in every investment or company merger.
