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NO WAYS: Zimbabwe Finance Minister Tendai BitiPhoto: Sunday Times

CRITICISED: Zimbabwean President Robert MugabePhoto: Kevin Sutherland

 Banks given a year to hand over stakes. 

HARARE - Zimbabwe has given foreign-owned banks one year to hand over 51% stakes to locals, according to a government notice, as President Robert Mugabe ramps up a drive to force all foreign-owned businesses to surrender majority control to blacks.

Agovernmentnotice released last week said all foreign-owned banks with a minimum net value of $1 had one year to reduce their shareholding to 49%.

The country has already forced mining companies such as Rio Tinto and Impala Platinum to turn over majority stakes in their local units to black Zimbabweans.

Emboldened by his success against mining companies, Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere is now targeting banks.

Kasukuwere, a 41-year-old member of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, has clashed with centralbankgovernor Gideon Gono and Finance Minister Tendai Biti over the banking sector.

Biti, a senior member of PrimeMinisterMorgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change party, and Gono, a Mugabe ally, have opposed Kasukuwere, arguing Zimbabwe only has four foreign banks out of 26 financial institutions.

Kasukuwere has previously vowed to pursue foreign banks, which he accuses of refusing to provide loans to the agriculture industry and small black businesses.

Standard Chartered Bank, Barclays Bank and South Africa's Standard Bank and Nebank all have operations in Zimbabwe and would be affected by the regulations.

Zanu-PF has been criticised over the past decade for patronage when seizing white-owned farms. Critics say many farms are now in the hands of party loyalists instead of the landless black peasants who were supposed to benefit.

Critics of the takeovers of mines and banks say Zanu-PF is using the policy to try and win votes ahead of elections which will be held in the next 12 months.

The government notice also said private schools, which used to be a preserve for whites but are now largely multiracial, should in the next year be majority owned by blacks.

The energy, tourism and telecommunications industries also have to comply with the empowerment law in the next year.