**5.3 Decision-making processes in Mhondoro-Ngezi**

The dominance of corporate power in the stakeholder engagement process is not only limited to the firm choosing and identifying the legitimate stakeholder with urgent claims, it is also manifested in the decision-making process. Discussions of CSR without an analysis of the decision-making process are flawed and have many inconsistencies. The idea of understanding CSR processes also calls into focus the need to analyse the decision-making process. It has been noted that community members barely feature in the crucial meetings of CSR and their voice is only heard through the community leaders. However, despite having the opportunity to sit and dine with the mining executives on matters of CSR, community leaders and other stakeholders indicated that decisions on priority matters and budgets for CSR in the


#### **Table 1.**

*CSR activities and stakeholder consultations.*

#### *Between Outcomes and Processes: Revisiting the Discourse on Corporate Social Responsibility… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94476*

community are made by the company. Despite being powerful stakeholders in their accord, community leaders, politicians and the RDC indicated that the mining company controls the decision-making process on CSR matters. The following interview excerpts clearly show stakeholders coming to a conclusion that Zimplats has the sole decision-making power in terms of its voluntary CSR approaches:

*However you have to understand that the most important decisions are made by the company as they are the ones who are in control, especially its leading role in the decision making, the disbursement of funds and the identification of contractors. (Semi-structured interview with RDC official, April 2013).*

*There are a lot of projects the mining company has been involved in. I can't exhaust everything to you but we have documents to prove that. They have made a contribution although we are not happy with some of the projects and processes involved. What I can say is that the company controls those discussions. It determines what it wants to do and how much it is willing to commit. (Semi-structured interview with Mhondoro-Ngezi MP, April 2013).*

The RDC is the closest stakeholder that works with the mining company on most CSR and development issues. As the community's development planner and administration body, the RDC is in constant partnership with the mining company in the execution of community projects. The RDC acknowledged that Zimplats dominates the decision-making processes as it controls the disbursement of funds meant for community initiatives and also the selection of contractors and supply chains to undertake any work on behalf of the mining company. Zimplats confirmed its role in the decision-making process by stating the following issues:

*Based on the priorities indicated by the community, a 3 year development plan has been drawn up and approved by the company's board. The board makes resources available through the company's annual budget. Status reports are submitted to the board every quarter on progress made on the development plan. (Semi-structured interview with corporate services management, April 2013).*

The above interview excerpt shows that it is the prerogative of the company's board to approve funds and the priorities for CSR. While the community expected Zimplats to make CSR funds available and then make its own decisions about the use of the funds, the interview extracts shows otherwise. Although MNCs are mandated to make decisions, the limiting factor is that their decisions are primarily based on issues that could have an impact on their corporate activities rather than impact on stakeholders. Newell and Frynas ([29], p. 676) argue that the focus on CSR processes help to explore the deeper political and structural roots of CSR failures. They advocate for the engagement of the intended beneficiaries of CSR through participatory processes of design, formulation, decision-making and implementation. The process of decision-making has been the sticking point in company-community relations.

From the study it was generally accepted that the question of decision-making on CSR issues in Mhondoro-Ngezi community is dominated by the company and is beyond the reach of community members. Results from the mini-survey confirm the findings from the qualitative interviews about the mining company being the sole decision-maker. From **Table 2** it can be seen that 70.2% of respondents collectively agree that community members are not part of the decision-making process. Only 14% of the respondents believe that community members are decision makers on CSR related projects in Mhondoro-Ngezi. The remainder, 15.8%, remained neutral on the issue.


**Community members are part of the decision making board on matters relating to community development?**

#### **Table 2.**

*Decision making on community development matters.*

## **5.4 Lack of local partnerships between Zimplats and its stakeholders**

CSR initiatives are not carried out exclusively by corporations but partnerships with stakeholders such as the community, government, and NGOs and other private companies are vital for the success of these initiatives [18]. Warhurst ([16], p. 59) posits that "the idea of multi sector or tri-sector partnerships is to tackle the areas of concern by establishing commonly agreed goals, monitoring and reporting systems and collaborative activities". The success of community development initiatives is guaranteed when stakeholders come together and contribute to a common goal. From the study, it was noted that for a long time Zimplats had forged ahead with CSR initiatives without substantial assistance or contribution from stakeholders such as national or local government. For all its CSR activities, the mining company has always partnered with the RDC in Mhondoro-Ngezi community. Despite controlling the stake in CSR activities, Zimplats has always maintained cordial relations with the local government body that is concerned with local planning and development. The major talking point though is that such partnerships are dominated by the company with decisions coming from the company's management. The corporate management department lamented the lack of collaboration or assistance from other stakeholders as a sticking point in community development. With Mhondoro-Ngezi covering a large geographical area and with an estimated population of 110,000 people, this seemed a tough assignment for the company to go it alone. In one of the interview extracts the company indicated the need for other stakeholders to contribute towards community initiatives by making resources such as financial capital available. When asked what could be done to improve the effectiveness of CSR projects/initiatives in the community, one company representative said that the solution lay in:

*Continued dialogue, robust partner participation, continued planning together and evaluation. Perhaps the involvement of other funding partners beyond the company's budget would also result in bigger projects with a broader base in terms of impact. (Semi-structured interview with corporate services management, May 2013).*

From the company's perspective, reciprocal behaviour from other stakeholders is the best possible way for CSR activities to be more effective and cover a wide section of society. Although stakeholders such as the government have received taxes and royalties from the mining company nothing has been contributed towards the

*Between Outcomes and Processes: Revisiting the Discourse on Corporate Social Responsibility… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94476*

development of the local community. The widely held assumption from the government, politicians and community members is that foreign companies accrue large sums of profits from exploiting local natural resources with the bulk of it repatriated back to their mother countries. Therefore foreign companies are expected to go it alone when it comes to community development.

#### **5.5 The politics of power in Mhondoro-Ngezi: understanding governance complexities**

The ideas of power hegemony and control of processes are key issues in the discussion of the CSR agenda, because the relationship between stakeholders and business is often characterised by power struggles. CSR and development are arenas of political contestation with stakeholders seeking to leverage their control over resources and decision-making. The relationship between the government and business is often characterised by power struggles. Whilst some scholars believe that over the years MNCs have amassed enormous power to control even the governments in their countries of operation, this assertion is somehow a fallacy if contextualised in Zimbabwe. While stakeholders such as community members were often neglected in CSR processes and with other stakeholders failing to make inroads into the decision-making process, the law on community empowerment ushered in a new era of company and community engagement processes. Company-driven CSR initiatives failed to address the community's needs in Mhondoro-Ngezi and the government as the guarantor of society moved in to address these issues.

The admission by the state that voluntary CSR activities had failed to meet the developmental expectations of the local communities saw the enactment of the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act which was signed into law in 2007. From the government's position, the main idea for the implementation of this law was to ensure empowerment of local Zimbabweans in a manner that would immediately reduce poverty for the majority of the people, and enhance societal welfare [30]. It ushered in a new way of CSR in which foreign companies were now regulated to undertake their CSR projects, whereas the previous set-up supported voluntarism. 1980–2007 was the period of voluntary CSR while 2007–2013 was the period of regulated CSR. Before the regulation of social responsibility activities in Zimbabwe, CSR was monopolised by the corporations with government playing a passive role in advocating for meaningful development.

The idea of threats and coercive use of power has been a powerful tool used by government in its attempt to claim what it calls "resources sovereignty". Foreign companies are not the first group to experience such unequal transfer of resources, but in the year 2000 the government forcefully repossessed land from white commercial farmers who occupied most of the arable land while the black majority resided in poor areas. As a way to readdress the colonial imbalances, the government removed about 90% of commercial farmers from the land without any compensation for their lost land and all the investments and development that had been done on those farms. Despite lacking legal backing, the government continued with its controversial land reform and later amended the laws governing land ownership and repossession. This is one of the reasons why the international community instigated sanctions against the ZANU PF led government.

With such an aggressive style of transfer of resources still fresh in the memory of foreign companies their only option is to comply with the stated law despite the fact that some of the actions demanded by the government are not backed by the law. The idea of threats to revoke the operating licences of foreign companies or to prosecute them became a hallmark of the hostile relationship between government and business. Several public spats in the local media were recorded, with the government maintaining its position of taking over non-complying business entities. In one of his strings of attacks on foreign companies, the former Minister in the YDIEM said the following with regard to Zimplats's indigenisation issues:

*Zimplats continues to defy the laws of this land, continues to abuse the process. We would like Zimplats to continue mining but if they continue to disregard the laws of the country we are left with no option but to invoke the provisions of the law. Zimplats will have to live with the consequences of their actions. (NewZimbabwe, 6/9/2011)*

*With the new law, every corporate citizen is expected to comply with the laws of the country, the companies have no choice. We negotiate, we persuade and we threaten. I can also concede that we might be doing some things which may also not be in the law. We can say to them that we will go to the licensing authority and request for the cancellation of the business operating licence. Therefore the methods are persuasion, threats, coercion and arm twisting. (Semi-structured Interview with the Director in the YDIEM, April 2013)*

Such a direct attack is an indication of some of the actions that government takes when it forces companies to comply with its laws. That is why the Northern-centred CSR agenda advocates for refraining government from regulating CSR initiatives, with their position being that corporations must voluntarily choose when and what to contribute to CSR. The implication of use of force by government on community development and empowerment issues towards companies is that relationships are strained and in most cases local communities suffer in the end. Newell ([6], p. 555) posits that in instances of extreme and repeated negligence by corporations, governments have resorted to the tool of power with threats to revoke operating licences. This has been the powerful tool that government has used to force mining companies to comply with the new law.
