VOA
By
Blessing Zulu
Blessing Zulu
20 April
2006
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change said
suspected members
of the Central Intelligence Organization aiming to
suppress protests
abducted provincial officers of the party's youth wing
along with members of
their families, beat them and threatened them with
worse if they organized
protests against the government.
In
interviews, several victims of the crackdown said the apparent government
agents threatened them with death if they tried to mobilize people to
demonstrate in keeping with a call by MDC founding president Morgan
Tsvangirai for mass protests. Some said they were warned against speaking
with Studio 7, a Voice of America program broadcast to Zimbabwe in three
languages for 90 minutes on weekday evenings..
Those abducted and
beaten asked not to be identified for fear of suffering
reprisals.
The alleged official violence against the opposition in
Zimbabwe's eastern
provinces came on the heels of a stern warning by
President Robert Mugabe on
Independence Day - April 18 - that the government
will come down hard on
those who challenge it. Tsvangirai has said he won't
be intimidated, setting
up a potential confrontation.
Spokesman
Nelson Chamisa of the MDC faction led by Tsvangirai provided
details on the
provincial violence to reporter Blessing Zulu of VOA's Studio
7 for
Zimbabwe.
The National Constitutional Assembly, meanwhile, said its
coordinator for
Harare, the capital, was abducted and severely beaten by
suspected militants
of the ruling ZANU-PF party, then dumped 50 kilometers
outside Harare on the
highway to Bindura.
Studio 7 correspondent
Irwin Chifera filed a report on the attack on the NCA
official.
Security forces were also reported to be active. Residents
of the Harare
satellite city of Chitungwiza said heavily armed police were
patrolling
streets and dispersing those gathering in groups of more than
four people,
and also pursuing street vendors.
Studio 7 correspondent
Ben Chaleka filed a report from Chitungwiza.
In other political news, the
leader of the MDC faction that has challenged
Tsvangirai's leadership,
Arthur Mutambara, issued a statement saying faction
members who have
"developed cold feet or doubts about the efficacy of our
values" should
resign.
The MDC has been divided into so-called pro-senate and
anti-senate factions
since October 2005, when the leadership of the
country's main opposition
party fell out over the question of participating
in or boycotting the
senate elections held in November. Mutambara, a former
student leader who
has spent much of his adult life outside Zimbabwe, was
recruited to lead the
pro-senate faction early this year.
Mutambara's
statement came after the resignation of his faction's national
chairman,
Gift Chimanikire, the third top official to jump ship. Studio 7
reporter
Patience Rusere asked Chimanikire why he decided to abandon the
Mutambara
faction.
IOL
Reuters
April 21 2006 at 05:54AM
Zimbabwe's main opposition party has vowed
to press ahead with mass
protests against President Robert Mugabe, saying it
will not be derailed by
his threats to crush the
demonstrations.
Movement for Democratic Change secretary-general
Tendai Biti said on
Thursday: "We are unmoved by the ramblings of an
82-year-old geriatric. We
are not deviating from the course we have
taken."
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, whose party has come closest
to
unseating Mugabe at the polls, last month threatened a campaign of
peaceful
mass protests, prompting warnings from the veteran leader that the
MDC was
"dicing with death".
MDC officials said anti-Mugabe
protests were still on, and that
Tsvangirai would address weekend rallies in
Harare and the eastern border
city of Mutare to mobilise support for the
drive, which comes as Zimbabwe
teeters on the brink of economic
meltdown.
Political and economic analysts say rising prices of
basic foodstuffs,
public transport and housing is stoking anger in an urban
population already
struggling with breaking sewerage systems, water and
electricity cuts,
uncollected garbage and roads full of
potholes.
But they say the MDC still needs to shore up support for
a unified
stand against Mugabe's forces, with the military, police and
security
agencies still believed to be firmly behind the long-time
president.
"Zimbabweans are moving away from collective action in
preference for
individual action to solve their problems, so they need to be
convinced to
buy into the MDC's programme," said political analyst Heneri
Dzinotyiwei.
Previous MDC protests have been met with tough tactics
by Mugabe's
security forces - the last, in June 2002, being dubbed "the
final push" to
drive Mugabe from power. It failed, and led to Tsvangirai's
arrest on
treason charges.
The MDC has not given a timetable
for new protests, but Tsvangirai
told supporters at a congress last month
they should save money and stock up
on food ahead of a "cold season of
peaceful democratic resistance".
MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa
said: "There has never been a
revolution with a timetable, but it is the
pressure on the ground and the
momentum from (the MDC) congress that will
determine when such action will
start."
Political analysts say
the MDC is keeping information about
demonstrations to a minimum to keep the
government guessing.
"They are keeping their plans close to their
chest probably because
they are borrowing from the military strategy of a
surprise attack," said
Eldred Masunungure, chairperson of the political
science department at the
University of Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai,
who has led the MDC since 1999, has been constantly
out-manoeuvred by
Mugabe, but analysts say he has emerged from his party's
recent split intent
on taking the battle to the veteran leader.
On Wednesday, a rebel
MDC faction which this year formally broke ranks
with Tsvangirai over how to
tackle Mugabe's Zanu-PF, announced that its
chairperson had joined three
other senior officials who had quit and
defected to Tsvangirai's
camp.
This article was originally published on page 6 of
The Star on April
21, 2006
Independent, UK
By Basildon Peta in Johannesburg and Cahal Milmo
Published: 21 April
2006
The father of Prince Harry's girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, is facing
financial
disaster and possible imprisonment after the Zimbabwean government
announced
that it was investigating him for illegal currency
dealing.
Charles Davy has accumulated a multimillion-dollar fortune
through his big
game hunting business, HHK Safaris, which survived the
wholesale seizure of
white-owned farms and game reserves under the regime of
Robert Mugabe.
But any protection once extended to Mr Davy's company
through his business
relationship with Webster Shamu, a senior minister in
the Zimbabwean
government, seems to have evaporated. The country's
anti-corruption
minister, Paul Mangwana, announced yesterday he was placing
the South
African-born entrepreneur under investigation for the illegal
export of
large sums of foreign currency.
Mr Davy's close links to Mr
Mugabe's government have been the cause of
unease in Britain after the
two-year relationship between his 20-year-old
daughter, an undergraduate at
Cape Town University, and Prince Harry was
made public. Officials are known
to have expressed concern that, if the love
affair heads towards marriage,
any links between the Royal Family and the
Mugabe regime would be
unthinkable.
Mr Davy, whose company has prospered from charging mostly
American clients
£17,000 for a 24-day shooting expedition in the Zimbabwean
savannah, has
recently distanced himself from HHK by selling his holding in
the company.
The Zimbabwe investigation is thought to have been sparked
by an HHK
employee, who alleged much of the firm's foreign currency earnings
were
being channelled outside Zimbabwe and traded illegally.
It
follows remarks made to an undercover reporter for a British Sunday
newspaper this month by another HHK worker in which he appeared to confirm
the vast majority of the company's earnings were diverted away from Zimbabwe
into American bank accounts.
Ade Langley, a professional hunter
working for HHK, told the Mail on Sunday:
"Less than 20 per cent of your
dollars will ever enter Zimbabwe. All the
money is kept offshore."
It
also appears that Mr Davy's contacts within the Mugabe government, mainly
Webster Shamu, the minister for policy implementation, are unhappy with how
he has run the affairs of the company.
Mr Davy has been the subject
of questions about how his business has
survived during a purge which has
seen the number of white-owned businesses
in Zimbabwe fall from 4,500 to 350
in the last decade.
The safari owner recently issued a robust defence of
his relationship with
Mr Shamu, a long-term ally of Mr Mugabe and a
shareholder in HHK, saying he
considered him a personal friend and denying
that he had any political
input.
An HHK official, Graham Hingeston,
claimed that Mr Davy was no longer a
shareholder of the business after
disposing of the equity that has helped
him earn an estimated £20m. And Mr
Hingeston also claimed to an American
hunting magazine that Mr Shamu was
never a joint venture investor but just a
"front man".
The father of
Prince Harry's girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, is facing financial
disaster and
possible imprisonment after the Zimbabwean government announced
that it was
investigating him for illegal currency dealing.
Charles Davy has
accumulated a multimillion-dollar fortune through his big
game hunting
business, HHK Safaris, which survived the wholesale seizure of
white-owned
farms and game reserves under the regime of Robert Mugabe.
But any
protection once extended to Mr Davy's company through his business
relationship with Webster Shamu, a senior minister in the Zimbabwean
government, seems to have evaporated. The country's anti-corruption
minister, Paul Mangwana, announced yesterday he was placing the South
African-born entrepreneur under investigation for the illegal export of
large sums of foreign currency.
Mr Davy's close links to Mr Mugabe's
government have been the cause of
unease in Britain after the two-year
relationship between his 20-year-old
daughter, an undergraduate at Cape Town
University, and Prince Harry was
made public. Officials are known to have
expressed concern that, if the love
affair heads towards marriage, any links
between the Royal Family and the
Mugabe regime would be
unthinkable.
Mr Davy, whose company has prospered from charging mostly
American clients
£17,000 for a 24-day shooting expedition in the Zimbabwean
savannah, has
recently distanced himself from HHK by selling his holding in
the company.
The Zimbabwe investigation is thought to have been sparked
by an HHK
employee, who alleged much of the firm's foreign currency earnings
were
being channelled outside Zimbabwe and traded illegally.
It
follows remarks made to an undercover reporter for a British Sunday
newspaper this month by another HHK worker in which he appeared to confirm
the vast majority of the company's earnings were diverted away from Zimbabwe
into American bank accounts.
Ade Langley, a professional hunter
working for HHK, told the Mail on Sunday:
"Less than 20 per cent of your
dollars will ever enter Zimbabwe. All the
money is kept offshore."
It
also appears that Mr Davy's contacts within the Mugabe government, mainly
Webster Shamu, the minister for policy implementation, are unhappy with how
he has run the affairs of the company.
Mr Davy has been the subject
of questions about how his business has
survived during a purge which has
seen the number of white-owned businesses
in Zimbabwe fall from 4,500 to 350
in the last decade.
The safari owner recently issued a robust defence of
his relationship with
Mr Shamu, a long-term ally of Mr Mugabe and a
shareholder in HHK, saying he
considered him a personal friend and denying
that he had any political
input.
An HHK official, Graham Hingeston,
claimed that Mr Davy was no longer a
shareholder of the business after
disposing of the equity that has helped
him earn an estimated £20m. And Mr
Hingeston also claimed to an American
hunting magazine that Mr Shamu was
never a joint venture investor but just a
"front man".
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
The Daily
Mirror Reporter
issue date :2006-Apr-21
CRIMINALS are taking
advantage of the on going land reform exercise to
vandalise and loot
property on acquired farms to tarnish the progress of the
agrarian reform
exercise.
Billions of property has been looted and vandalised on
farms throughout the
country with the police saying they were on high alert
for such acts of
sabotage.
Recently, an attempt by three heavily armed
men from Harare to rob a
Midlands-based com-mercial farmer, Joe Ferreira, of
his property resulted in
a fatality when the intended victim gunned down one
of
the assailants, police said yesterday.
Midlands police spokesperson
Patrick Chademana, identified the deceased as
Ignatius Shindiro (27).
He
said his two accomplices were still on the run.
The police spokesperson said
three men were armed with AK47 assault rifles.
But before they pounced on
their victim, the police said, the suspects
poisoned three of the farmer's
vicious dogs to gain entry onto the premises.
"They proceeded to the Redcliff
farming area just after Kwekwe where they
poisoned three vicious dogs
belonging to a commercial farmer, Joe Ferreira
(42) and broke into his
house," Chademana said.
Upon entering the victim's home, Chademana added, the
three were confronted
by another dog, (a Chihuahua) that the farmer kept
as a house pet.
"When the robbers entered the house, the dog raised alarm and
the farmer
immediately woke up. He knew something was amiss and on setting
foot in the
corridor the robbers ordered him to surrender," narrated
Chademana.
Ferreira resisted the suspected robbers' orders and allegedly
opened fire,
hitting one of the suspects in the head, killing him
instantly.
Chademana said the other two robbers fled from the scene
immediately.
"The deceased's body was taken to a Kwekwe mortuary," he said
and advised
people to be careful when dealing with robbers.
He said: "One
just has to be very careful when dealing with armed robbers as
it would be a
matter of life or death."
There have been several other incidents of
criminals who attempt to rob or
vandalise equipment to the detriment of farm
owners. In some of the cases,
farmers have been injured or killed.
On
March 18 2002, a Norton farmer, Terry Ford of Gowrie Farm, who was in his
mid-50s, was beaten to death by some unknown assailants after he was found
alone in his farmhouse.
Last year, armed police were deployed to two
farms in
Stapleford, Harare, following
theft of potatoes and farming
equipment worth billions of dollars at the
farms.
The thieves, who were
believed to be from Dzivaresekwa high-density suburb,
attacked guards and
farm workers before looting equipment and farm produce.
Early this year, the
police in Manicaland recovered nine cattle in
Mozambique believed to have
been stolen from Chikukwa Village in
Chimanimani. The loot was recovered
during a joint operation between
Zimbabwe and Mozambique police.
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
s
The Daily
Mirror Reporter
issue date :2006-Apr-21
VICE-PRESIDENT Joice Mujuru
yesterday slammed members of the police and
prominent members of society who
indulge in corrupt activities saying it was
saddening they had turned into
champions of deceit.
Mujuru was speaking at a pass out parade of
488 police officers at
Morris Depot in Harare.
"It is, however, saddening
to note that when police officers and prominent
members of society are
supposed to be the repository of hope in our quest to
restore our social
integrity have turned into champions of deceit," Mujuru
said.
She said
the government would not hesitate to prosecute those who abuse
strategic
facilities and resources meant to sustain efforts to turnaround
the
country's fortunes.
Mujuru challenged the police force to ensure that
agricultural inputs were
put to good use for the effective revival of the
economy.
"Government has noted with concern the abuse of agricultural inputs
such as
fuel and fertiliser. I would like to challenge the police force to
ensure
that inputs are put to good use for economic turnaround," Mujuru
said.
"As key instruments of development the police should thrive to create
an
environment that is safe and conducive to doing business through curbing
criminal and corrupt activities."
Cases involving corruption by some
members of that force have been prominent
in the courts of late.
Police
Commissioner Augustine Chihuri is on record castigating such
behaviour and
has since warned his subordinates that no stone would be left
unturned in
uncovering cases of corruption within the police force and
elsewhere as no
one is above the law.
The vice-president then bemoaned the ever-increasing
cases of gender-based
violence directed against women and the girl child in
the country.
"It is saddening to note the escalation of gender-based violence
directed
against women and the girl child in our society. Of late, the media
has been
awash with cases of serious violence against women, which sometimes
degenerated into murder that is, more often than not, perpetrated by their
spouses.
"I am convinced that the efforts made by the police to establish
Victim
Friendly Units at police stations will be buttressed by the much
awaited
legislation that reflects our resolve to stem the tide of
gender-based
violence," Mujuru said.
However, she praised the ZRP for
being one of the pioneers of gender equity
that has witnessed the elevation
of female officers to the top echelons of
the police force.
Mujuru said
what was pleasing to note was that the female police officers in
positions
of
authority had not been found wanting.
The Nation
(Nairobi)
April 21, 2006
Posted to the web April 20,
2006
Nation Correspondent
Nairobi
Ten former African presidents
are participating in a two-day roundtable
discussion at Wits University, on
issues that impact on US-Africa relations.
The former heads of state
include: Nic phore D. Soglo of Benin; Sir Q.
Ketumile J. Masire of Botswana;
Pierre Buyoya of Burundi; Aristides Maria
Pereira of Cape Verde; Jerry J.
Rawlings of Ghana; Daniel arap Moi; Karl
Auguste Offmann of Mauritius; Ali
Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania; Benjamin
William Mkapa of the United Republic of
Tanzania; and Dr. Kenneth Kaunda of
the Republic of Zambia. Students from
African universities, the United
States and representatives of the African
Diaspora will contribute to the
discussions.
The presidents were on
Wednesday night hosted by the US Consul General
Steven P. Coffman at a
reception in his residence before the start of the
two-day session
yesterday.
During yesterday's session which was closed to the media, the
ex-presidents
discussed Africa's image in American Media as well as how to
engage the
diaspora n the continent's development.
Today, the
ex-presidents are expected to discuss how to facilitate private
capital
flows into the continent after which they will address a press
conference
and take part in a public forum.
The African Presidential Archives and
Research Center (APARC) at Boston
University provides former democratically
elected African leaders with a
forum to share their insights and expertise
in the democratisation and free
market reforms in Africa.
According
to David Monyae of the Wits International Relations Department,
"The aim of
the event is to provide former leaders, who constitutionally
retired from
the presidency seat as required by democratic rule, with a
platform to
discuss issues pertaining to Africa, to share and reflect on
their
experiences during their term of office with the continent and
upcoming
leaders on issues of economic and political governance. "
The Center
offers an exceptional opportunity to see the present phase of
Africa's
development through the eyes of the "architects of that change,"
according
to the centre's website.
The centre provides such former leaders with a
two-year residency programme
during which they are expected to write,
lecture and engage the Boston
University and the wider community on the
African issues and matters of
interest relative to Africa.
The Lloyd
G. Balfour African Presidents in Residence Program gives former
democratically elected African leaders to spend up to two years in residence
at Boston University.
The programme provides such ex-presidents with
an opportunity to transition
to civilian status by providing a venue that
will value and utilize their
experience and expertise.
The program
also serves as an inducement for leaders to fully support
democratic
transitions of power. As one of the few internationally
recognized and
prestigious forums available where they can continue to
contribute to
Africa's growth and development, the residency programme
serves as an
incentive for positive political change.
The programme also provides the
university and broader community with access
to these leaders who have a
unique perspective on the political and economic
dynamics in
Africa.
Some of the ex-presidents who have attended the residency
programme include
Sir Q. Ketumile Masire who in July 1980, succeeded the
late Seretse Khama as
the second president of Botswana .In 1984, Mr Masire
won the presidential
elections with a landslide oand served as head of state
until March 1988.
President Karl Auguste Offmann served as president of
the Republic of
Mauritius from February 2002 to October 2003. Throughout his
political
career he contributed greatly to the economic development and
social harmony
that is known some ten years later as the "Mauritian
Miracle".
Madam Ruth Sando Perry led Liberia from September of 1996 until
August 7,
1997 when she provided for the smooth and peaceful transfer of
power to a
democratically elected government.
Former Zambian
President Kenneth David Kaunda was the first African
President in residence
at Boston University. Dr. Kaunda led Zambia to
independence and served as
the first President of the Republic of Zambia. He
served as the president of
Zambia from 1964 to 1991.
The rationale behind the establishment of the
centre was to provide the
continent's democratically elected leaders with a
credible forum to
articulate their aspirations for the continent as well as
influencing the US
policy.
During the Cold War years, US interest in
Africa increased, for the
continent had become an ideological and actual
battleground with the former
Soviet Union and its surrogates. It changed
under the Clinton Administration
with the President's Africa Growth and
Opportunity Initiative and a $500
million commitment to combat
HIV/AIDS.
Presently, there are signs that Africa's importance to the
United States has
increased beyond the particular interest of any one
administration as the
continent's potential and important role in
international trade and
investment grows.
Please send any job opportunities for publication in this newsletter to: JAG
Job Opportunities; jag@mango.zw or justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 16 March 2006
VACANCY
FARM MANAGER, HARARE SOUTH -
TOBACCO/MAIZE. TO START ALMOST IMMEDIATELY.
MUST BE CONSCIENTIOUS AND
COMPETENT.
CONTACT be1371@mweb.co.zw
with
C.V.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 23 March 2006
Positions Vacant
Maintenance Manager wanted
for busy dairy & cropping farm 30kms outside
Harare. Position includes
maintenance of tractors, boreholes etc, running
of workshop and buying of
spares. Office work available for spouse. Small
house available on farm
with other company perks. Suitable applicants
please phone 091 202692 or
email account@kefalos.co.zw
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 23 March 2006
Farm Manager
Farm located 12km from Gweru
city centre. We are looking for a horticultural
manager with experience in
flowers mainly roses. Will also be required to
assist in
potatoes,
tomatoes, cabbages and paprika. Good accommodation is provided on
the farm,
also good perks for the right candidate.
Interested qualified persons
should contact Evans/Bongi +263 9 889420 fax
+263 9 889421, goldsoil@adtech.co.zw.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 23 March 2006
Wanted
Looking for a maid/cook to work in
the Ballantyne Park area. Must be able
to read and write and have some
cooking experience. Duties also, include
general housework and
childminding. Accommodation is offered and would suit
someone without any
dependants.
Please contact on jonskill@mweb.co.zw or 494404 or 091
248460.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 30 March 2006
Tobacco Manager
If you were a successful
former Tobacco grower now sitting in town but
wanting to get back into
Tobacco, please make comms and write to:
agri.joe@hms.co.zw
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 30 March 2006
DOMESTIC HOUSEWORKER REQUIRED AS SOON AS
POSSIBLE.
Preferably a single woman who can speak English well and who
can assist with
the cooking and undertake general housework, i.e. ironing,
cleaning, etc.
The person must have contactable references.
Single
quarters will be provided on site with very good conditions.
Contact
884270
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 30 March 2006
Vacancy - Citrus Farm
We have a vacancy for
a managerial couple on a well-established citrus farm,
good package for the
right couple with usual farm perks. Please send C.V to
fergs@netconnect.co.zw
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 5 April 2006
POSITON AVAILABLE - MOZAMBIQUE
Assistant
farm manager wanted for farming set up in Mozambique 60km from
Mutare
border, growing 60ha tobacco and 15ha paprika. Position would suit a
school
leaver with farming background or Blackfordby leaver. US$ package,
medical
aid, vehicle and usual farm perks.
PHONE LISA- 011
420805
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 5 April 2006
Wanted
We are looking for the impossible....
someone to fulfil a job that can be
hectic, boring, frustrating, inspiring,
and humorous, depressing,
challenging, tiring, easy and impossible. We have
a small camp and bar in
Kariba.
The applicant will be coordinating 6
staff. Sometimes they are outstanding;
sometimes they are comatose.
Sometimes we can get stock; sometimes we can't.
Sometimes we can afford
repairs; sometimes we can't. Sometimes we're busy;
sometimes we're not. We
always have fun. Ideally the applicant will be
single and (semi-) retired and
wanting to keep him/herself busy. A handy man
would be fantastic and the
ability to socialize with all and sundry is
imperative. Salary will be
commission based, according to sales/profit. We
provide food and very basic
accommodation, beautiful surroundings,
elephants, zebras and hippos.
Email
relax@warthogs.co.zw
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 5 April 2006
Job opportunity
I am looking for a retired
farmer to help oversee my small dairy and do odd
jobs whilst I am away for
two months at a time. Accommodation available, in
a
lovely
setting.
Replies to email: gillian@zol.co.zw or telephone for
an
appointment on 073 2737 or 011 607
275.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 13 April 2006
WANTED: JUNIOR BOOKKEEPER
Preferably an
enthusiastic school leaver who has done a Pitmans course or
Accounting to
"O" level, willing to learn. We are a new, growing group who
need staff to
take up accounts clerk positions. Successful candidate could
start
immediately.
Contact Jean at 369800 or jean@westfoods.net
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 20 April 2006
Wanted
To: A Special Lady somewhere out
there
Position exists for a Personal Assistant
If you are able to
honestly answer YES to these questions, we ought to be
talking...
Are
you -
computer competent in MSWord, Email (MSOutlook),
MSExel, File
management, Address Book & Distribution Lists, an exceptional
office
administrator?
Self-motivated, resourceful and able to work both
independently and with
others
Do you -
have a working knowledge of
the Internet
have a basic knowledge of accounts
possess a compassion
for the elderly in our country, and want to make a
difference in their
lives
It goes without saying that you will answer YES as to being a
special person
with the attributes of confidentiality, integrity, a pleasant
disposition
and exceptional telephone manner.
We operate a small but
growing office located in Alexandra Park whose
activities comprise, in the
main, varied para-legal advisory services and
charity programmes for the
elderly.
This could be a full, or part day position - flexi - let's
talk.
Contact
Thomas Vallance ACIArb
Commissioner of
Oaths
PARADiGM TRUST (Pvt) Ltd
Para-Legal Advisory Services
Trust
Executives & Administrators
Tels: (B) 744 648 (M) 011 617
161
Emls:[paradigm@zol.co.zw]
[paradigm@mango.zw]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Employment
Sought
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 16 March 2006
SEEKING CONTRACT
WORK
ZAMBIA/MOCAMBIQUE/MALAWI
I am a specialist in tractor
service/repairs, with 32 years experience,
having worked for several years
in hands-on and management positions, for
such companies as Bain New Holland
and Duly's. After leaving Duly's, I
become self-employed (since 1990) with
similar work. Our work has consisted
of repairs/service work carried out at
our workshops in addition to field
service work as and when required. In
addition to the above my business
includes the sourcing of spares and
organising outwork such as injector
pumps, clutches, brakes and engine
machine work being carried out by those
companies offering the best
service. One department of our business
specialises in the service/repair
work of all tractor steering related
components such as steering boxes,
orbital valves, rams, hoses, etc.
I would like to stress that I wish to
work on a contract basis, preferably
for a farming syndicate or a large,
well established farm set-up as I have
been self employed for 16 years and
have a commitment towards children who
are being schooled locally. I am
seeking such work outside of Zimbabwe as
we feel the economics of our
country have made it impossible to continue a
viable business. My wife and
I wish to keep our home as a base for the
stability of our children. We
would like to travel back to Zimbabwe every 3
to 4 weeks to be with
them.
We hope the above meets with the approval of those looking for a
contractor
for this type of work.
For further information contact
Doug or Tracy Edwards - tracspray@zol.co.zw
or 068-22463 /
011212454
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 5 April 2006
Employment Sought
Tania (Aged 27). She has
finished her IATA course & is waiting for the
results. She has completed
her schooling up to "O level standard, with
Executive Secretarial Pitman's
Qualifications which include.... English for
business communications, Level
one and two Book-keeping & Accounts, and
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several different companies in the past; her
experience was as a personal
assistant to various persons in different
companies, secretarial and
receptionist. Her most recent employment was as a
Trainee Travel
Consultant.
Daniel (Aged 22). He has completed his schooling up to 'O
level standard,
doing various studies. Previous employment experience
includes, Supervisor,
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Surveillance operator,
Product manager and administrator. His current
employment is as a part time
Headwaiter until he finds full time employment.
He is very arty and business
minded. Social, motivated, hard worker and
willing to learn.
Ron (Aged 19). he has completed his schooling up to 'O
level standard, doing
various studies. Previous employment experience
includes, Trainee
Computer/printer technician, Control room operator,
Trainee motor mechanic,
vehicle Surveillance operator, Floor
manager/supervisor and administration.
His current employment is as a
vehicle Surveillance operator (After hours).
He is hard working, willing to
learn and social.
These three young people are looking for well paid
jobs, and are willing to
give it their all given the right employment
opportunities that so fit their
experience, or in companies that are willing
to take them on and train them
as to how it would best suit the companies
needs. They are hard working,
fast learning, and social, Independent and
motivated. Please could you let
everyone know as it is a necessity for them
to find employment as soon as
possible.
Please contact Miss Carmen
VanWyk for further details or to view their cv's
using the following
details.
cell: 091 615 656 Tel: 575 431 - 3 E-mail: carmen@avis.co.zw
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 13 April 2006
Anyone seeking a Cook
I have an old cook
who has been with me for 8 yrs; he is a family cook and
can cook any thing
from pie's to pan cakes.
We have to leave, is there any one out there who
would like to take him. He
has done every think from house washing and
ironing. we are sorry to let him
go, but been born bred Zimbo's and with out
a job we have to. May be there
is somebody out there who is looking for an
couple to manage their farm or
lodge, have been in farming all our lives,
well it was worth a try.
You can contact Tony at 091 404
449
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 20 April 2006
Employment Sought
Very knowlegeable and
experienced ex-commercial agricultural representative
with farming
experience in Zimbabwe and Mozambique seeks position,
preferably external,
Mozambique or further afield. Contact Stu Taylor Odzi
2288 (0204), cell 091
- 650997, or (Mozambique)
00258-8240407490.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad
inserted 20 April 2006
Handyman Wanted
IS THERE AN EX FARMER WHO IS A
HANDYMAN - I HAVE SEVERAL SMALL JOBS TO BE
DONE AROUND THE
HOUSE?
PLEASE CONTACT MRS. D"Elia 303056 or email
sherrols@zol.co.zw
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
For
the latest listings of accommodation available for farmers, contact
justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
(updated 20 April 2006)
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
ZANU PF's plan to amend the constitution to
delay the 2008
presidential election until 2010 to facilitate Vice-President
Joice Mujuru's
succession to President Mugabe appears to have collapsed in
acrimony after
its designated architect, Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa,
confirmed it
is no longer on the cards.
This came amid
reports yesterday that Chinamasa, who is still
viewed with suspicion by
those linked to the Zanu PF faction led by retired
army commander General
Solomon Mujuru because of the 2004 Tsholotsho power
struggle, was facing a
backlash over the issue by those who think he might
have torpedoed their
plan.
Sources said the strategy was to introduce a
constitutional
amendment delaying the 2008 presidential election to 2010 to
assist Mujuru
in her bid to become president. The plan would ensure
President Robert
Mugabe goes in 2008 and Mujuru takes over as an interim
president, elected
by a two-thirds majority of both houses of parliament,
between 2008 and
2010.
Mujuru was expected to become the
Zanu PF leader when Mugabe
steps down during the 2009 party congress. In
2010 she would then become the
party candidate in the presidential
poll.
Sources said Chinamasa's adversaries were planning to
arraign
him over an unclear case of alleged interference in due process
regarding a
sensitive political violence case which was recently in the
courts as
retribution for his perceived failure to manage the succession
plan.
Chinamasa, who was linked with a camp led by Emmerson Mnangagwa,
yesterday
said he was not aware of any manoeuvres to arrest or summon him to
court.
"Certainly, I don't know what is going on about that.
I wish I
knew," he said. Efforts to get comment from the Attorney-General's
office
failed as everyone ducked the issue.
While the
ruling party was known by insiders to be working on
the plan to smooth the
way for Mugabe's problematic succession plan and
facilitate Mujuru's entry,
Chinamasa said the item was not on the agenda.
"The 18th
amendment is about the Zimbabwe Human Rights
Commission and that is what is
coming because it has been approved by the
party and cabinet," Chinamasa
said.
"I'm not aware of the other issues to do with
harmonisation of
elections. There was never any consideration to make that
part of this
amendment.
"As you will recall, I only
raised the issue for brainstorming
and debate. It was never considered by
the party at any time and I hope the
party will come to it sometime and
clarify issues."
Although Chinamasa said Zanu PF did not
table the issue,
well-placed ruling party sources insisted the plan was
initially the main
reason for the expected amendment, not the proposed Human
Rights Commission
which is an afterthought to save the already announced
amendment.
"The election postponement, with a succession
handling
mechanism, was initially part of the 18th amendment agenda but was
dropped
for specific reasons," a source said. "Apart from the fact that the
issue
had already been made public by the press before the politburo and
cabinet
discussed it, it had no sufficient support inside and outside Zanu
PF."
It is understood Zanu PF MPs linked to the Mnangagwa
camp wanted
to block the plan in parliament. Opposition parties and civil
society
groups, as well as the international community also wanted to build
resistance to it.
Sources said after last year's general
election, Mugabe tasked
Chinamasa to look into the issue when he was working
on the 17th amendment
which dealt with the senate and land acquisition
matters. However, the
election issue was not supposed to be publicised. When
Chinamasa, said the
sources, reported on progress in his assignment to the
politburo in May last
year, he was told to leave the succession issue which
was earmarked to be
tackled in the 18th amendment.
On May
27 last year, Chinamasa presented a memorandum to the
Zanu PF central
committee which dealt with the proposed 17th amendment. In
the process he
said another amendment was coming.
"Further and above the
constitutional proposal referred to
above, I wish to alert the central
committee to the fact that during the
course of the sixth Parliament of
Zimbabwe I intend to bring further
comprehensive constitutional proposals to
address, in a holistic manner, the
constitutional changes that we need to
put in place to take effect from
2010," Chinamasa said.
He also said the senate - which was part of transitional and
succession
management mechanisms -would last from 2005 to 2010. Sources said
the idea
was to manage Mugabe's volatile succession and Mujuru's takeover.
But
mounting opposition appears to have scuttled it, at least for the time
being.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
THE Mutambara faction of the opposition MDC
appeared to be
gradually collapsing this week amid defections by senior
officials to the
rival camp led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
The
party has been hit by a spate of resignation with the most
notable being
that of chairman Gift Chimanikire who jumped ship on
Independenence Day.
Last week Kwekwe MP Blessing Chebundo also moved across
to join the
Tsvangirai camp.
Other prominent opposition activists who
have left Mutambara's
faction include Silence Chihuri, Givemore Chindawi,
Frank Mamvura, Ignacio
Mushoperi and Nyasha Munjoma.
In a
letter to the Mutambara faction's secretary-general
Welshman Ncube, Chihuri
and colleagues said they were no longer able to work
in that
group.
"We have come to the conclusion that our aspirations
and
contributions to the Zimbabwean political process will not be realised
by
our affiliation to that grouping," Chihuri and colleagues said. "We will
no
longer act, speak, or engage in any activity on the supposed behalf of
that
group.
"We have notified our colleagues accordingly.
We wish you well
in your endeavours to enhance the democratic process in
Zimbabwe."
However, Ncube last night said the camp was not
crumbling due to
the defections. He said they had already filled the
vacancies and "we will
emerge stronger" from the crisis.
"We are not bothered by the resignations," said Ncube. "That is
why we have
openly issued a statement to say 'please go if you do not
believe in our
principles'.
"We are not in politics for self-aggrandisement
and we are not
marketing numbers but principles which will be assessed by
the people at
elections."
The Zimbabwe Independent
yesterday heard there could be further
defections from the Mutambara
camp.
Other senior officials alleged to be making moves to
rejoin the
Tsvangirai camp include Dzivarasekwa MP Edwin Mushoriwa, Hwange
West MP
Jealous Sansole and Thembinkosi Sibindi.
Although
they dismissed the claims, the Independent has it on
good authority that
they are seriously considering crossing the floor.
Zim Independent
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe, who claimed he didn't
know of the
November 2004 Tsholotsho meeting called to decide the Zanu PF
succession
issue, calling it a "clandestine" affair, was in fact fully
briefed on it,
former government spokesman Jonathan Moyo has
said.
In his disclosures about the ruling party's power
struggle
published in this newspaper today (See Page 13), Moyo said Mugabe
was kept
fully informed of the developments around the
issue.
In the wake of the Tsholostho meeting on November 18,
2004
designed to block the ascendancy of Vice-President Joice Mujuru, Mugabe
lashed out at members of the Zanu PF faction led by Emmerson Mnangagwa for
acting unprocedurally and trying to stage a palace coup.
This was followed by a ferocious purge which affected a number
of high
profile Zanu PF politicians, including Moyo.
However, Moyo
said Mugabe was aware of the Tsholotsho plan. He
said Zanu PF national
commissar Elliot Manyika chaired meetings in Harare
and Mugabe's rural home
area of Zvimba where the plan was discussed in
August 2004. Mugabe was kept
abreast of events through briefings by Manyika,
he said.
"What is particularly significant is the fact that the
principles of the
Tsholotsho Declaration and their procedural implications
were the subject of
three joint meetings of Zanu PF provincial chairmen and
provincial governors
under the chairmanship of Elliot Manyika, the party's
national commissar,"
Moyo said.
"This is very significant in so far as it proves
that there was
nothing clandestine or untoward about the application of the
principles of
the Tsholotsho Declaration on November 18, 2004 because it was
the
culmination of properly constituted party structures with the knowledge
of
the top leadership, including President Mugabe."
Zanu
PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa yesterday
refused to comment
on the Tsholotsho drama, saying he preferred
"constructive dialogue" rather
than "such kind of things".
"I want to discuss something
constructive rather than these kind
of things like Tsholotsho," Mutasa
said.
Moyo said after the Zvimba meeting on August 30, where
what
became known as the Tsholotsho plan was adopted, Manyika briefed
Mnangagwa
about the outcome of the deliberations of provincial chairmen and
provincial
governors, "an outcome whose essence was to adopt the principles
of the
Tsholotsho Declaration".
"On the same day, August
30, 2004, Mnangagwa sent a letter to
provincial chairmen advising them to
notify all party structures under them
about the convening of the 4th annual
people's congress due in December 2004
and the business of that congress
including the election of the party
leadership and the procedures thereof,"
Moyo said.
"Also by this time, through the formal structures
of the party,
a circular from Mnangagwa had already gone out on August 30,
2004 advising
provincial chairmen to prepare for the December 2004 congress
in terms of
the party's constitution which did not have a provision
reserving one of the
positions of vice-president and second secretary for a
woman."
Moyo said subsequent communications in the aftermath
of the
Tsholotsho agreement were entirely procedural and approved by
Mugabe.
"On November 11, 2004, in consultation with Manyika
as the
political commissar and with the specific approval of Mugabe,
Mnangagwa sent
another letter to provincial chairmen, as a follow-up to his
August 30, 2004
letter as required by the party's constitution, informing
them about the
procedures for the nomination of the top four leadership
positions of the
party," he said.
"By this time everyone
in the party knew that the nominations
for the top four leadership positions
in the party and central committee
members would be nominated by provincial
executives on November 21, 2004.
"More specifically, it was
common knowledge in the party the
principles of the Tsholotsho Declaration
would apply as supported by at
least seven and possibly eight provinces of
the party."
All these things, Moyo said, would not have
happened, especially
in a party like Zanu PF, without
Mugabe's knowledge. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
POLICE have
stopped River Ranch Ltd from carrying out further
mining activities at a
diamond mine in Beitbridge whose ownership is in
dispute, in line with a
High Court order.
The freezing of mining activities at River
Ranch Mine follows
the issuing of two court orders, one in February
nullifying Mines and Mining
Development minister Amos Midzi's cancellation
of Bubye Minerals' claim to
the mine that had been approved by the mining
board in January 2005, and the
second one the following month interdicting
him from presiding over the
matter.
Midzi was barred from
adjudicating in the matter in the second
court order after he had invited
submissions for purposes of determining the
case despite being prevented
from doing so by the first court order.
On Wednesday, Bubye
Minerals director Adele Farquhar said police
had finally taken action on the
matter.
"The continued unlawful exploitation of Special Grant
1278 and
the looting of stones therefrom have been reported to the CID
Minerals
Division. The case number is DR 32/03/06," said
Farquhar.
"We are informed that Chief Superintendent
Nyamupaguma visited
our claim last week in the company of officials from the
Ministry of Mines
and finally took action against the unlawful occupants by
ordering them to
cease operations."
Contacted for comment
on Wednesday, Nyamupaguma, who heads the
CID Serious Fraud Squad (Minerals
Division), referred all questions to the
police public relations unit which
could not immediately comment.
The dispute over the mine was
triggered by a January 2005 mining
board decision to cede the mine's special
grant, previously held by River
Ranch Ltd, to Bubye Minerals.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya/Paul
Nyakazeya
ECONOMIC analysts yesterday described as
wishful thinking claims
by President Robert Mugabe that the economy will
grow by 1-2% this year in
the midst of an unprecedented
meltdown.
Speaking at Independence Day celebrations on
Tuesday Mugabe said
the economy would grow by 1-2% this year. He said the
anticipated growth
rate would be driven by a 9% expansion in agricultural
production.
Last year government claimed the same sector
would grow by 28%
but all signs are that output continues to
slide.
"The economy is expected to grow by between 1-2% this
year,
underpinned by agriculture with a forecast growth rate of 9%," Mugabe
said.
He referred to the National Economic Development
Priority
Programme (NEDPP) launched on Wednesday. As first revealed by the
Zimbabwe
Independent two weeks ago, NEDPP was formulated by the Zimbabwe
National
Security Council, chaired by Mugabe, and is supported by the
National
Economic Recovery Committee and the Technical Team of
Experts.
There has been a series of failed similar programmes
before
this.
Analysts said there was no way an economy
whose real gross
domestic product has contracted by a cumulative 35% in the
past five years
could bounce back overnight to register a 2% growth rate
when a number of
functioning economies are struggling to achieve
that.
Last year government claimed - against all reasonable
forecasts - that the economy would grow by 5% before it climbed down to a
figure of 3,5%, then 3%, and finally 2-2,5%. The International Monetary Fund
predicted a 7% contraction before revising it to 4% but independent
economists maintained 7% was about right. The government later admitted
during its annual budget presentation that the economy had in fact
contracted by 3,5%, a figure deemed a conservative estimate by
many.
Zimbabwe's economy has been rapidly declining over the
past few
years - by 10% in 2003, 4% in 2004 and 7% or 3,5% (depending on who
you
believe) last year - earning itself the dubious distinction of being the
fastest shrinking economy in the world outside a war
zone.
Zimbabwe's social and economic conditions have
continued to
deteriorate, reflecting a weakening base.
In
particular, the disorderly implementation of the land reform
programme has
left agriculture in ruins. Current threats to grab mines
compounds an
impression of a country where policy is unpredictable.
Concerns about governance, the rule of law and human rights, and
the
continued violation of property rights have severely damaged investor
confidence and promoted capital flight and emigration, thus contributing to
further decline.
Unemployment is nudging 80% and
increasing, social indicators
have worsened, and the widespread HIV and Aids
pandemic remains largely
unchecked. Food shortages have necessitated massive
food imports and donor
assistance.
Arguably the most
damaging dimension to misrule, the economy is
plagued by a record 913,6%
inflation rate which is fuelled by money
printing, interest rates of above
500%, a yawning budget deficit, and a
worsening fiscal
crisis.
There are also shortages of foreign currency due to
poor export
performance, lack of balance-of-payments support, freezing of
donor aid and
drying up of direct foreign investment critical to economic
growth. Lack of
forex has in turn caused the shortage of fuel, electricity,
spares,
machinery, inputs and basic commodities. Thousands of companies have
closed,
worsening the unemployment situation.
Independent
analyst John Robertson said Mugabe's projection of
economic growth was
"bizarre". He said there was no way an economy could
grow when there was no
investment.
"What the president is effectively saying is that
the economy
will this year grow by over 35%, from a negative of 35% in the
past seven
years, which is not possible," Robertson said. "You cannot
achieve growth
where there is no investment."
A review of
economic recovery programmes adopted by government
since 2000 shows that
their policies, content and objectives are all
similar. The names of
individuals tasked to implement the blueprints are
virtually the same. The
only difference is the packaging and the current six
to nine months
timeframe, which is likely to make NEDPP's failure even more
spectacular
than its predecessors.
Otherwise, the rest is the same, save
for the fact Mugabe -
whose policy and leadership failures are blamed for
the current crisis - is
now part of the team preparing to plaster over
cracks in the dam wall.
In 2000, government adopted the
Millennium Economic Recovery
Plan, followed by the National Economic Revival
Programme in 2003, the
Macroeconomic Policy Framework last year and now
NEDPP. There have also been
initiatives by the central
bank.
Prior to that government has tried to introduce
economic reforms
through the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme and
the Zimbabwe
Programme for Economic and Social Transformation. All these
programmes,
including Vision 2020, failed dismally because of a mixture of
insincerity
and incompetence.
The epitaph of failure is
written all over NEDPP due to the
current political and economic
circumstances which - without fundamental
reforms - will not allow a
policy-driven approach to work.
Analysts say the recycling of
unworkable economic blueprints
shows a terrible policy paralysis in
government. They say current problems
in Zimbabwe can no longer be resolved
by the incumbent using the same policy
approach as he is the author of the
problems in the first place.
An economist with a commercial
bank who requested anonymity,
said the only way Zimbabwe can pull itself out
of the morass is through
adopting sensible policies and rebuilding good
relations with the
international community.
"Mugabe's
remarks are just empty rhetoric tinted with calculated
political newspeak
which will not change anything, except making the
situation worse," the
economist said.
Zim Independent
LEADERS of both factions of the MDC were unrelenting
this week
in their calls for President Robert Mugabe to step down despite
his
statement that he would crack down on any attempts to remove him from
power.
In messages to mark 26 years of Zimbabwe's
Independence, the
leader of the anti-senate faction, Morgan Tsvangirai,
threatenened mass
protests saying Mugabe should "be nudged" into leaving
office while
pro-senate president, Arthur Mutambara, said the country was
ripe for
revolution and demanded that the president
resign.
"There is no point in continuing to watch with
trepidation a
small nationalistic class, aided by a corrupt and parasitic
bureaucracy and
supported by desperate opportunists wreak havoc on the
national cake. We are
ready to pay the prize to liberate ourselves," said
Tsvangirai.
His rival in the opposition camp said the country
was in a
revolutionary mood emanating from Zanu PF's suicidal policies and
called on
Mugabe to step down.
"There is a revolutionary
mood pregnant with expectations in the
country. The people of Zimbabwe will
not accept anything short of a
revolution," said
Mutambara.
He added: "We demand an end to the national
economic crisis
today. We demand the immediate resignation of the entire
Zanu PF government
today. The people of Zimbabwe must rule themselves
again".
Both Tsvangirai and Mutambara claimed that since
Independence in
1980, Zanu PF had worked against the ideals of the
liberation struggle
resulting in large-scale suffering.
Delivering his speech on Tuesday to mark Independence Day,
Mugabe warned
against protests aimed at pressuring him out of office.
He
also said the country's security forces would be used to
"mercilessly" deal
with the opposition leaders and their supporters.
"I want to
warn them that they are playing with fire," said
Mugabe. The president has
previously warned those calling for his removal
that they would be "dicing
with death".
Tsvangirai and Mutambara bemoaned the migration
of Zimbabweans
to other countries to work under harsh conditions as they
escape their
country's economic collapse.
"The people are
desperate to get out. There is too much poverty
and too little growth," said
Tsvangirai.
Mutambara went on to demand the vote for all
those in the
diaspora. He said there is need for investor
confidence-building measures
through working with strategic partners in
Western countries for the economy
to recover. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
THE launch of
the eagerly-awaited Blue Train service linking
Zimbabwe and Botswana has
failed to take off after it emerged that the
National Railways of Zimbabwe
(NRZ) could not mobilise enough resources to
resume the once popular rail
service.
The Blue Train passenger and goods train service
between
Francistown and Bulawayo was suspended seven years ago due to
viability
problems. The service was set to resume at the beginning of this
month.
However, NRZ management has postponed the relaunch to
a later
date after a meeting held by
officials from Botswana
Railways and the NRZ before the Easter
holidays failed to come up with a
timeframe for the resumption of the rail
service.
Sources
at the NRZ said the parastatal could not harness enough
locomotives needed
to resume the rail service, leading to the shelving of
the
project.
NRZ public relations manager, Fanuel Masikati,
however refuted
claims that the plans had been shelved and said
deliberations on the matter
were still ongoing.
"As you
are aware, since this project also involves the
governments of Zimbabwe and
Botswana, there are also deliberations at that
level. We expect all the
loose ends to be tied up soon," said Masikati.
Pressed to
commit a date for the resumption of the project,
Masikati said the service
could be up and running by mid-May this year.
"We expect to
do a test run of the route before we resume
service but that is likely to be
done by May and everything will be on
course after that," Masikati
said.
He however dismissed claims that the NRZ had no
resources for
the project and said the involvement of the two governments
meant that
things had to be done above board.
"The
cross-border train service has not been abandoned
altogether but there are
still deliberations at government-to-government
level. We expect to launch
the service soon," Masikati said.
Zim Independent
POLICE in Bulawayo at the weekend rounded up homeless people and
vagrants in
an operation that appears targeted at removing street people
ahead of the
Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) which begins in the
city on
Tuesday.
The weekend exercise has seen hundreds of homeless
people and
vagabonds being rounded up and detained at Bulawayo central
police station.
Police have since Tuesday last week been
rounding up vagrants
and illegal foreign currency dealers from the
streets.
Police spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner Wayne
Bvudzijena,
however refuted claims that the arrests were linked to the trade
fair but
said this was a routine exercise aimed at eradicating crime around
the
country.
"This is a routine exercise we are carrying
out and illegal
vendors and vagrants who are caught committing crimes are
arrested, it has
nothing to do with the ZITF," Bvudzijena
said.
Questioned on the fate of the vagrants, the majority of
whom
have failed to pay admission of guilt fines, Bvudzijena said if people
are
found to be guilty they either have to pay a fine or challenge their
arrest
in court.
"The vagrants will have to pay an
applicable admission of guilt
fine unless they opt to go to court and stand
trial for whatever crime they
would have been arrested for," Bvudzijena
said. Police have been working
hand in hand with the municipal police in the
exercise that has seen the two
teams invading sanitary lanes and dragging
out vagrants and homeless people
who use the backstreets as temporary
homes.
Bulawayo City Council spokesperson, Pathisa Nyathi,
confirmed
the involvement of the municipal police and said the council was
only giving
a helping hand to the police in the exercise. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
THE MDC team that inspected the disputed 2002
presidential poll
has produced a report alleging that at least 490 000
fraudulent votes were
stuffed into ballot boxes to give President Robert
Mugabe his fifth term in
office.
In an interview on
Tuesday, the party's former secretary for
legal affairs, David Coltart,
said: "After analysing 12 constituencies we
arrived at the conclusion that
490 000 votes were fraudulently added. We
submitted our report to (Morgan)
Tsvangirai."
Coltart, who lost an executive post in the
opposition party
after refusing to attend either faction's congress,
referred further
questions to Innocent Gonese, the anti-senate's faction
secretary for legal
affairs, saying he was no longer handling the
matter.
On Wednesday Gonese said he could not comment as he
wanted to be
briefed first by the lawyers who are involved in the matter. He
could also
not say when the inspection would re-start following adjournment
of the
process indefinitely last November.
In the vote
that was characterised by intimidation and violence
against the opposition,
Mugabe won by almost 400 000 votes after polling 1
685 212 votes against
Tsvangirai's 1 258 401 votes.
Tsvangirai described the
outcome as a "daylight robbery" while
Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa
labelled it a well-deserved "run away
victory" for
Mugabe.
The inspection of the election materials started last
year after
Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede surrendered them at a time a
contempt of
court charge was hanging over him for defying several court
orders to do so.
The first order had been issued in September
2002.
* Meanwhile, Gweru Rural parliamentary losing candidate
Renson
Gasela has complained that Justice Mafios Cheda's delay in releasing
a
written judgement on his election petition has affected the hearing of his
appeal in the Supreme Court.
Justice Cheda dismissed
Gasela's petition seeking to nullify the
result of the election in October
last year but is yet to produce a written
judgement.
Correspondence by Gasela's lawyers, Coghlan & Welsh, to the
former MP
says "it would appear that until the 24th March 2006 Justice Cheda
was still
sitting on the judgement and the court record. This explains why
the record
was never transcribed."
The judgement in the case was handed
down on October 15 last
year and in terms of the Electoral Act an appeal
must be determined within
six months from the day of
lodging.
"When we tried to uplift the judgement we were told
that it was
still being typed," another letter dated March 17 to Cheda's
clerk said.
"The writer had to request to be allowed to peruse the
handwritten judgement
in order to file an appeal."
The
letter says the appeal was subsequently filed in the Supreme
Court and
served on the Electoral Court on November 1, 2005 with a special
request
that the appeal record be transcribed urgently given that there are
time
limits within which the Supreme Court must dispose of a
matter.
"We have made several efforts through the registrar's
office to
uplift the judgement without success," the letter says. - Staff
Writers.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
MORGAN
Tsvangirai has written to the Attorney-General Sobusa
Gula-Ndebele demanding
the prosecution of a Central Intelligence
Organisation officer, Joseph
Mwale, fingered as the principal offender in
the death of two MDC activists
in the run up to the June 2000 election.
The two, Tichaona
Chiminya and Talent Mabika, were burnt to
death when five Zanu PF
supporters, including Mwale, allegedly hurled petrol
bombs into a car the
deceased were travelling in.
The incident occurred at
Murambinda growth point while
Tsvangirai was campaigning in the Buhera North
constituency that the MDC
claims was won fraudulently by Zanu PF's Kenneth
Manyonda.
In a letter addressed to Gula-Ndebele dated April
14 on
Tsvangirai's behalf, Harare lawyer Sheila Jarvis requested that
justice be
done in the murder case which she said was riddled with political
interference.
She also expressed concern that instead of
being brought to book
the CIO operative had been promoted when he was the
ringleader of the
alleged murderers.
"It seems imperative
that very real public efforts be made
urgently now to locate the missing
accused from this case, Joseph Mwale,
before the murder trial and to
establish also whether any of his superiors
has been involved in covering up
his whereabouts or is in any other way
still trying to obstruct the course
of justice and then to also prosecute
those suspected of the crime," said
Jarvis.
Last year three other accused persons, Webster Gwama,
Bernard
Makuwe, and Morris Cainos, alias Kitsiyatota, were indicted on two
counts of
murder but their trial has not yet started. At the time
prosecutors said the
other accused, America Mudzvinyiriri, who was driving
the vehicle used in
the ambush and killings, had died while Mwale was said
to be on the run. Two
MDC witnesses have also since died.
Jarvis said there was need for Mwale to be apprehended and tried
with the
others to avoid having separate trials for the same offences that
may
prejudice the case.
She added that if the state decided to
split their prosecution,
the AG "risks being seen as bringing a token
prosecution calculated to
confer future impunity by facilitating acquittals
rather than ensure
justice".
She said although the
Attorney-General's office had directed
police commissioner Augustine Chihuri
to investigate the matter and submit a
report to his office which was to be
tabled in parliament, this had not been
done.
Also, "a
record of evidence (heard by Justice Devittie in an
electoral petition) was
not transmitted to your office as the tapes were
stolen from a locked room
at the courthouse", Jarvis said.
"The judgement confirmed
that the killings were particularly
cold-hearted, brutal and politically
motivated - in the judge's words 'a
wicked act'."
But
despite the fact that Mwale was ostensibly a fugitive from
justice no
warrant of arrest was sought, she said.
"The conduct of the
whole prosecution surrounding these deaths
is so unusual," Jarvis said,
"that it is difficult to escape the conclusion
that the same acknowledged
political interference still continues and that,
in violation of the
constitution, instructions are still being given and
being followed by your
office in this matter."
Zim Independent
ZIMBABWEANS marked 26 years of independence on
Tuesday with
little to celebrate as the African state plunges into deep
economic
hardship, personal tragedies and a rapidly widening gap between the
elite
rich and the majority poor.
President Robert
Mugabe's ruling party said on Monday it was
"disturbed" that young
Zimbabweans in particular showed no pride in their
nation's Independence
from colonial-era white rule after a bitter seven-year
bush war in which at
least 40 000 fighters died.
But Linda (22), an unemployed
former office clerk, was not
interested in the lavish celebrations
throughout the country.
Linda, who wouldn't give her last name
for fear of reprisals,
now hangs out in a seedy Harare bar, looking for
customers.
She said she was aware of the dangers of
prostitution in a
nation where at least 3 000 people die of HIV/Aids-related
illnesses each
week.
"What can I do?" said Linda in a
voice breaking with desperation
and typical of the fear felt among many
Zimbabweans at Mugabe's clampdown on
civil liberties. "I have to
eat."
Mercedes limousines were parked outside a posh
restaurant and
bar across town. Half a dozen of its patrons, drinking
doubles, consumed
within 90 minutes a bottle of the finest 12-year-old
Scotch whisky for a
total cost of about US$280, at least four times the
monthly salary of the
bartender and other average wage
earners.
The vast and growing disparity between the poor and
a rich elite
of about 5% of the population is blamed largely on corruption,
black-market
profiteering, favouritism in official contracts and land deals
and the
peddling of political influence.
Unemployment
exceeds 70% and inflation is the highest in the
world at 913,6% on basic
goods.
Scarcities and black marketeering have sharply eroded
the
spending power of the Zimbabwe currency in the past few
years.
An estimated 3,5 million Zimbabweans, mainly skilled
professionals, are living outside the country.
Disruptions in the agriculture-based economy after the often
violent
seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms since 2000
have led to
acute shortages of food, fuel and medicines.
The weak
Zimbabwe dollar, plummeting in the worst economic
crisis since Independence,
has hit health, education and other public
services. Absenteeism from
schools has soared in the wake of frequent fee
increases. - AP.
Zim Independent
ZIMBABWE'S leading abattoir, Carswell Meats, has been
hit by a
foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak, forcing it to temporarily
suspend the
slaughter of animals indefinitely.
Unconfirmed reports last night said there was also another
outbreak at an
abattoir along Mutare Road and measures had been put in place
to quarantine
the farm. Private abattoirs have become the major suppliers of
meet to urban
areas after the collapse of the government-owned Cold Storage
Company.
Carswell Meats' Nyabira branch, 30 kilometres
out of Harare
along the Chinhoyi highway, stopped slaughtering cattle three
weeks ago
following the discovery of FMD among cattle in the feeding
paddocks used to
fatten cattle before slaughter.
A
Carswell Meats farm general manager who refused to be named
confirmed that
an FMD outbreak was discovered three weeks ago at the farm
and that
government had deployed a team of veterinary experts to stop the
spread of
the disease.
"A veterinary team led by Dr Josphat Nyika has
been based at the
farm for the past three weeks," the general manager
said.
"They have been treating some of the affected animals
and
controllers have been put at all farm entrances to quarantine vehicles
at
the point of entry."
He said another team of assessors
would be visiting the farm
today (Friday) to check on
progress.
"We will need up to three weeks to make sure the
disease is
eradicated before we can resume the slaughter of
animals."
The general manager referred any further questions
to Nyika whom
he said was in charge of the operation.
FMD
outbreaks have increased in different parts of the country
over the past six
years due to the uncontrolled movement of animals during
the chaotic land
reform programme. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
ZESA Holdings last year picked up a staggering $32
trillion
loss, blamed by the utility on a three-year freeze on tariff
increases, a
document seen by businessdigest indicated.
The loss followed another one to the tune of $2 trillion by the
power
utility the previous year, which came against the backdrop of a $230
billion
loss in 2003.
The figures, part of a comprehensive document
to President
Mugabe and his cabinet responding to harsh allegations of
mismanagement at
Zesa by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which prompted a
reversal of tariff
increases by Mugabe, indicated "the death of a sector"
hounded by "a
crippling three-year tariff moratorium", said
Zesa.
Zesa recently took flak from RBZ governor Gideon Gono
over plans
to increase tariffs, which Gono said would spur
inflation.
Gono, in a letter to President Mugabe and cabinet,
said an
analysis of Zesa's domestic debt had revealed "glaring imprudent
commitments
through short-term Zesa bonds and Megawatt Bills, which were
largely
financing consumptive outlays".
Gono alleged that
Zesa had adopted a "costly superstructure"
swallowing 65% of Zesa's total
revenue through salaries and wages at the
holding
company.
But Zesa hit back in its reply to Gono addressed to
Mugabe and
his cabinet, accusing Gono of failing to tackle the inflation
scourge and
reneging on promises to provide foreign
currency.
Zesa recently came to the market to raise $500
billion through
180-day Megawatt Bills, for which it is expected to fork out
a hefty $2
trillion to pay back investors.
The interest
charge on the bills amount to $1,5 trillion over
the 180-day period. -
Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Itai Mushekwe
LEADING textile
producer, David Whitehead Textiles Ltd, has
presented President Robert
Mugabe with a comprehensive report of its
operations and the way forward in
what appears to be a move to stop
political interference by Zanu PF
heavyweights in Chegutu.
The move comes amid media reports
that government is
contemplating taking a 25% stake in the firm. The report
said politicians in
the area were fomenting industrial unrest in the company
to effect a "
regime change". This has adversely affected plans to
resuscitate the
company which was suspended from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange
last year.
Contacted for comment yesterday David Whitehead
acting chairman,
Willie Muringani, could not disclose the names of the Zanu
PF politicians
said to be interfering with the company's operations but said
"some local
political heavyweights in Chegutu" were causing instability by
pushing for
worker unrest.
He however could not confirm
that the company had presented a
turnaround report to Mugabe. Muringari said
although the firm was facing
economic challenges it had devised contingency
measures aimed at turning its
fortunes around.
He
dismissed as "speculative talk" reports that government
wanted a 25% equity
in the firm.
According to the report, titled 2004-2006
Turnaround Strategies
and Update, which was leaked to businessdigest this
week, the textile
manufacturer gives detailed information pertaining to its
turnaround plans
and an analysis of their strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats as
it steps up efforts to remain
viability.
The document says that continued meddling in the
affairs of the
company by "influential" politicians who have been
instigating labour unrest
has seen workers downing t tools thus cutting
productivity at a David
Whitehead fabric factory in Chegutu and a spinning
factory in Kadoma, which
are currently operating at below
capacity.
In giving reasons for the company's distress, the
report
stresses that: "Admittedly we are not operating at full capacity at
two of
our three factories, with only the Gweru plant working to
capacity.
"This is primarily due to foreign currency
shortages. Without
foreign currency we cannot import required spares,
dyestuffs and chemicals
to process the local and export fabrics." The report
also rests blame on
coal shortages, which have contributed to the loss of
about $50 billion in
turnover in the last 12 months; cotton lint supply
problems and sour labour
relations.
It adds that the
workers committee and the trade union have
filed two failed High Court
applications for judicial management of the
company, raising a lot of
slanderous falsehoods against the company and its
management.
"There has recently also emerged sinister
collusion between the
same divisive unions and influential politicians. This
has become the only
factor preventing the company from completing its
turnaround and moving on."
On the proposed way forward to
rescue the company, the report
said David Whitehead would implement a zero
gearing position concept as
"this is the only way to survive in
manufacturing during volatile
hyperinflationary times".
The company intends to boost its export potential currently
averaging US$50
000 to US$100 000 per month. The report also proposes two
solutions to raise
productivity.
The first is to among other things "identify
and facilitate the
remittance of owed funds to the relevant and respective
principal companies
of local suppliers for these requirements", while the
second requires
"advance utilisation of expected export proceeds, but still
following all
submission regulations of required
documentation".
This entails adhering to all export FCA
utilisation and RBZ
cession percentage proportions applicable at the
time.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
MILK production has declined by 60,4% since government embarked
on the land
redistribution exercise in 2000 because many new farmers who
went into dairy
farming lack the required expertise.
A senior Dairibord
Zimbabwe Ltd official told Businessdigest
that milk production declined from
about 245 million litres in 1999 to 97
million litres last year. This was
after government and farmers' unions
failed to adopt a strong policy
initiative to train the new dairy farmers.
The new farmers
were given dairy farms to rear cows and produce
milk during the fast-track
land redistribution exercise, but have found it
increasingly difficult to
continue with milk production because the number
of cows are dropping due to
lack of stockfeeds and vaccines.
According to DZL, the
national dairy herd has declined from 104
483 milking cows in 1994 to 35 000
in 2005. Per capita consumption of milk
declined from 25 litres in 1990, to
10 litres in 2002 and an estimated seven
litres in 2005.
"The major obstacle in (the dairy) industry was the scarcity of
inputs. The
new farmers realised that there was much more to dairy farming
than leading
cows into a milking pen," said one farmer last week.
Stockfeeds were highly-priced because they were in short supply
after
reduced production caused by the disturbances on the farms and two
successive droughts in 2003 and 2004. Dairy farmers say more than half the
costs in dairy farming are from stockfeeds.
"Some dairy
farmers were failing to access financial support
from the banks, as their
businesses had become too risky," a farmer said.
He said over
the past three years many cows had died after
succumbing to diseases such as
foot-and-mouth as the farmers could not
afford to buy
vaccines.
Figures made available by DZL revealed that milk
production has
been on the decline since 1990. National milk production
increased from 150
million litres in 1980 to a peak of 256 million litres in
1990 and declined
to 97 million litres last year.
DZL
group director (manufacturing) Theodre Nyamande acknowledged
the decline in
milk production saying DZL would this year buy 450 cows from
South Africa to
boost milk production under the Build Operate and Transfer
(BOT)
model.
"There is potential to increase milk production to 140
million
litres by the end of 2006 through concerted efforts by key
stakeholders.
There are regional opportunities for exporting," said
Nyamande.
The BOT programme entails rebuilding dairies,
transfer of dairy
management skills to A2 dairy farmers, increasing the size
of the dairy herd
through importation of heifers and access to the
Agriculture Sector
Productive Enhancement Facility funds.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
SAVE for
public posturing, Zimbabwe authorities have not moved
an inch to avert the
pending regional power crisis expected at the start of
next year. Instead
they have expended their efforts fighting petty wars over
tariff increases -
something that will not stop the country plunging into
darkness when the
regional power shortages start taking effect next year.
While
other countries are preparing for the eventual "blackout",
authorities in
Zimbabwe have for the past four months been at each other's
throats.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon
Gono says Zesa
Holdings and the Minister of Energy and Power Development,
Mike Nyambuya,
are conniving to mislead the cabinet and President Robert
Mugabe to justify
tariff increases, accusing them of trying to sabotage his
war on inflation.
He does not explain why inflation has been
galloping despite the
absence of a significant tariff increase in the last
three years.
Zesa executive chairman, Sidney Gata, accuses
Gono of
misrepresenting facts to justify his
interventions.
Nyambuya, although bitter at being overruled
by Gono, seems
boxed into a corner.
While adding flavour
to the drama, the accusations and counter
accusations will certainly not
provide Zimbabwe with electricity when the
shortages hit the region next
year.
The country is already facing serious power shortages
that have
badly affected both domestic and industrial
consumers.
As things stand, Gono seems to have the upper hand
after
convincing cabinet and Mugabe that Zesa only needed a 95% increase
instead
of the 560% it had proposed.
Not accepting
defeat, Gata has vowed to take the matter to
another level - this time to
the president.
After failing to make headway in cabinet, Gata
last week pleaded
for direct access to President Mugabe to present his side
of the story and
counter Gono's allegations.
Indications
are that he is bracing for an all-out fight with
Gono.
But whoever wins the battle would only have achieved a pyrrhic
victory
because the key challenge to ensure consistent power supplies in
2007 will
remain untackled.
The situation on the ground shows that none
of these exchanges
and accusations will save Zimbabwe from the pending
black-out next year.
The reality is that the power outages
currently wreaking havoc
in industry will intensify next year unless
something dramatic happens
between now and year-end.
Despite this pending danger, the authorities look
unperturbed.
There are now fears that Mozambique, South
Africa, Zambia and
the DRC, which supply Zimbabwe with 35% of its
electricity, might not have
enough to spare for us next
year.
Even with enough foreign currency to pay for the
imports, there
is no guarantee that regional suppliers like HCB
(Mozambique), Eskom (South
Africa), Snel (DRC) and Zesco (Zambia), have the
capacity for exports.
Revelations this week that Zesa is
still to extend contracts
with some of its power suppliers only make
Zimbabwe's situation more
precarious.
The supply contract
with Mozambique's Electricidade de
Mocambique (EDM) hangs in the balance as
Zesa still owes the Mozambican
company about US$8,4
million.
Zimbabwe now risks losing the contract unless it
makes an urgent
payment; it also needs to raise millions in foreign currency
to finance the
proposed extension of Hydro Cahora Bassa (HCB) to increase
generation.
Zesa still owes about US$7 million to Snel of the
DRC and looks
set to lose the contract unless an urgent payment is made. The
payments
would however not save the country from the looming
crisis.
While the contract with HCB says it can supply 200mw,
HCB is
however obliged to supply only 100mw, while the remainder can only be
made
available "as and when available".
Eskom's
commitment is also heavily limited during peak hours.
Snel's
100mw supply is erratic especially at peak, while Zesco's
140mw is also not
firm and can only be available during off-peak hours.
Despite
all these insecure contracts with suppliers, Zimbabwe
has failed to improve
its own generation capacity because of foreign
currency, coal and diesel
shortages.
Poorly performing generators and ageing equipment
have made the
situation worse.
Zesa's capacity to supply
power is dwindling by the day. The
three small power stations - Bulawayo,
Harare and Munyati - which can supply
a combined 150 megawatts, have since
shut down due to shortages of coal and
spare parts.
Unconfirmed reports this week said the power utility has been
"cannibalising" the three stations to repair Hwange thermal power
station.
Hwange station, which is capable of generating 780mw
when at
full capacity, is currently producing 400mw due to perennial
equipment
breakdowns.
Shortages of coal (8 000 tonnes per
day) and diesel have also
hit the stations.
To return to
full capacity, Zesa would have to pump out US$90
million in overhauls, mill
refurbishments and spares.
While the obvious challenge at the
moment is the availability of
foreign currency to repair the 22-year-old
plant, the real crux of the
problem is the time it will take to finish the
refurbishments.
It will take 18 months to rehabilitate Hwange
station, by which
time the economy would have bled.
Assuming that work starts next month, full capacity would only
resume in
December next year.
Kariba, which can supply 750mw, is
currently generating 720mw.
Its generators are however ageing and full
supply is subject to the level of
water at that time.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
THE
filing of opposing papers to Associated Newspapers of
Zimbabwe's bid to get
registered by the Minister of Information Tichaona
Jokonya has exposed
government's determination to uphold repressive media
laws and keep the
Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday closed.
Despite
promising to consider proposals to amend the Access to
Information and
Protection of Privacy Act (Aippa) by removing its
restrictive clauses -
assurances of which were given to the African
Commission on Human and
Peoples' Rights in Banjul by government law
officers - Jokonya is showing
signs of a hardening position to maintain laws
that were spearheaded by his
predecessor, Jonathan Moyo, to suppress the
media and shield government from
scrutiny.
In the process Jokonya and government show that
regardless of
their attempts to distance themselves from Moyo's projects,
they are still
part and parcel of them. Jokonya revealed his intention by
filing opposing
papers to the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ)'s
application in the
High Court in which the newspaper group wants to be
deemed registered.
The ANZ is arguing that the Media and
Information Commission,
chaired by Tafataona Mahoso, and Jokonya violated
the law by failing to deal
with their case within a month from a February 8
judgement that nullified a
July 2005 MIC decision not to grant their
application. The High Court also
ruled that the MIC was disabled from
presiding over the latest case due to
perceived bias.
Analysts this week said Jokonya's assertion that he stands by
the MIC and
Mahoso shows he has failed to change government thinking in
dealing with the
media. In opposing the ANZ registration bid, Jokonya
however admitted that
Aippa has flaws.
"It is also my submission that matters of
public policy and
interest are best served only when a party is heard on the
merits and not by
orders obtained on a technicality arising from a lapse or
otherwise in the
provisions of a piece of legislation," said Jokonya in his
papers.
On the MIC, the former diplomat said: "I submit that
I still
retain confidence in the entire membership of the first respondent
and
therefore I do not wish to remove it. as no member of the first
respondent
has done anything in respect of this matter which I consider to
be in breach
of the law, otherwise to dissolve the current commission would
set a bad
precedent as it would mean that whenever a commission is accused
of bias it
would have to be dissolved."
The head of
research and monitoring at the Media Monitoring
Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ),
Nhlanhla Ngwenya, said: "We think that despite
the departure of the former
Information minister Jonathan Moyo, the
authority's pathological hatred of
the independent media still remains. For
instance, the MIC is still in place
despite the fact that the court found
its chairman Tafataona Mahoso to be
biased."
He added that another indication was that apart from
maintaining
the repressive laws, the government intends to add legislation
to the
statutes, like the Interception of Communications Bill that would
hinder the
free flow of information.
Ngwenya said
although Jokonya and his deputy Bright Matonga had
promised to look into
Aippa and the Broadcasting Services Act, they have not
come up with a
timetable to do so.
"It would be naïve to think that he has
any intention to
democratise the media because the same culture is still
with us," added
Ngwenya.
The director of the local
chapter of the Media Institute of
Southern Africa (Misa), Rashweat Mukundu,
said from the look of things,
media reforms may take some years to be
effected.
"We do not see any changes in the immediate
future," said
Mukundu. "It will take a lot of struggle to remove the
entrenched repressive
legislation although we are saying the first step must
be now."
Mukundu said Jokonya, who promised to break with
government's
confrontational stance against the private press, also faces
constraints as
a result of people in his ministry and government in general
who are opposed
to reforms.
"There are people within the
ministry who believe that the law
(Aippa) is a good law. He is also a Zanu
PF person through and through. He
is a ruling party member of parliament and
is answerable to Mugabe," said
Mukundu.
George Charamba,
Jokonya's permanent secretary, has persistently
defended the Act and has
hinted that it will not be amended.
In the court documents
Jokonya said while the ANZ accused the
MIC and the minister of inaction
following the February 8 judgement, he was
not to blame as the matter had
been stalled by the fact that Aippa does not
empower him to do
so.
"The relief sought unfairly suggests that I have not been
able
to resolve the problem faced by the applicant, which problem is not of
my
own making. In fact the non-availability of powers in the Act to appoint
an
ad hoc commission has affected progress."
David
Chimhini, the head of the Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust
(Zimcet), on
Tuesday said the way the government was handling the issue had
become a
circus.
"As a nation we need to be given reasons that are
satisfactory,"
said Chimhini. "It must not appear as if a newspaper is being
denied
registration for political reasons. A decision must be taken once and
for
all."
He added that when Jokonya came into office he
gave the
impression that "he would want to see newspapers flourishing under
freedom
of expression" but it would seem that the Daily News will take some
years
before hitting the streets.
Unlike his predecessor,
Jokonya met editors from both the
private and the public media,
representatives of media organisations such as
Misa, the MMPZ and the
Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ).
"I think it may take
time to come back. One needs to look at the
Econet saga. It took patience,"
said Chimhini.
Notwithstanding his stand in court papers that
he has confidence
in the MIC, last year Jokonya suggested that the present
media body was on
its way out.
In a letter dated November
22 to ZUJ, Jokonya said he had
delayed "the reconstruction of the MIC board
of governors deliberately to
ensure that the new board for this vital arm of
the industry can be more
representative".
In another
letter last December to extend the tenure of
commissioner Jonathan
Maphenduka, the minister said:
"The extension also takes into
account the on-going
consultations between the ministry and stakeholders in
the media regarding
the future of the industry."
Chimhini
said the case is intertwined with other cases where
government has to look
at amending other laws hindering freedom of assembly,
association and
speech.
"It is not a question of dealing with freedom of
expression
only. We need to look at other laws such as Posa that do not
promote
participatory democracy," he said.
Zim Independent
By Eddie Kwaramba
IT was
sad to wake up in a foreign country to realise that
Tuesday was Zimbabwe's
Independence Day, marked in commemoration of freedom
from the rule of Ian
Smith some 26 years ago.
My mind started to wonder about and
threw me back to the
much-awaited Independence Day in 1980, reflecting on
how my parents and
everyone else celebrated. I still recall it very vividly
although I was just
a little boy.
I was also happy that
our prime minister would be a black man
called Robert Mugabe and the
president a black man too called Canaan Banana.
I also
started to evaluate the progress that this Independence
brought to my
well-being and the freedom that we gained for ourselves as a
black
nation.
It is unfortunate to note that this Independence
hasn't meant
anything encouraging at all, only suffering, corruption, misery
and hunger.
If the truth be told, I am not ashamed to say
that the Smith
regime, despite the inhuman treatment of the black people,
had a very sound
economy and corruption-free governance.
Bob Marley was invited for our Independence bash where he sang
about the
African liberation
in celebration of a new, free
Zimbabwe.
He preached about tolerance and respect for each
other and
congratulatory messages poured in. Little did we know that this
was the
beginning of an end for our beloved country.
It's high time we reclaimed our Zimbabwe and start rebuilding
with a new
leader at the helm. Those who have failed us should refrain from
dreaming
they will rule forever, or die in power.
We have had enough
and need change to be able to enjoy our
motherland without fear of reprisals
if we open up our mouths to express our
feelings. Hopefully, the next
Independence celebrations will bring joy and
real freedom.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari/Augustine
Mukaro
THE government last week ordered all major fuel
companies to
freeze prices in a move that analysts believe is part of the
ruling party's
efforts to lure voters in the upcoming parliamentary poll.
The companies had
raised fuel prices in response to the sliding value of the
local currency,
which has been in a free-fall for the past seven months both
on the auction
floors and on the parallel market. The energy importers were
also reacting
to the upsurge in international fuel prices that have been
galloping since
last year.
In its ultimatum, the
government indicated that it would not
tolerate any fuel price increases
before the election.
In a letter to petrol retailers, the
Petroleum Marketers of
Zimbabwe (PMZ), acting at the behest of government,
demanded an immediate
reversal of the price hikes arguing that this could
tarnish Zanu PF's image
ahead of the month-end election. "Your actions of
increasing pump prices
are, inter alia, contrary to the central bank's
economic turnaround strategy
and will tarnish the government's image ahead
of the forthcoming elections,"
said the letter.
"There
are in fact paradoxical to the government's deregulation
of the fuel
sector." (Quote is verbatim.)
The letter also directed that
prices be pegged at $3 600 per
litre for petrol and $3 650 for diesel. It
further pegged the prices in the
southern region at $3 800 and $3 850 for
petrol and diesel respectively.
"May you please refrain from
any pump price increase in future
without the express and written authority
of the PMZ," the letter said.
All fuel procured through the
National Oil Company of Zimbabwe
(Noczim) has already been reduced to $3 350
and $3 400 per litre for petrol
and diesel respectively. Analysts view this
as an overt case of vote-buying,
especially among the urban electorate who
are largely pro-opposition. In the
last parliamentary election government
lost all urban seats in Harare and
Bulawayo to the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC).
They say the move reflects government's
desperation, which also
characterised the previous elections. Over the past
25 years, the Zanu PF
government has been known to spring populist policies
just before an
election such as the farm invasions and price controls. This
has resulted in
temporary reprieve for the electorate, which later suffer
when the
government fails to sustain these piece-meal measures. The private
sector
has in the past borne the brunt of price controls instituted under
the guise
of consumer protection but are actually meant to bolster Zanu PF's
electioneering.
The fiscus has also been raided to
finance hefty salary hikes
for civil servants. Government recently increased
civil servants' salaries
by between 250 and 600%. It is probably the biggest
salary review in the
history of public sector negotiations.While government
insists that these
are genuine measures to improve the welfare of the
workers, analysts say
there is a worrying trend where these popular measures
are introduced just
before the elections. Analysts say civil servants'
salaries are heftier in
election years.
However, the move
to control prices of basic commodities and
essential services is tantamount
to forcing the private sector to
participate indirectly in the government's
campaign and pre-election public
relations stunt.
"It is
a vote-buying tactic. The salary hikes, the fuel price
freeze are part of
that scheme," said Eric Bloch, a Bulawayo-based economic
commentator. "But
that is abuse of power which will eventually hit the
customer because the
manufacturers will hike the prices after elections to
cover the losses, "
Bloch said.
He said the vote-buying tactics included
increases in allowances
for the war veterans. The government recently
increased war veterans'
allowances by about 200%. There are also plans to
compensate the war
collaborators to the tune of $10 million one-off payment
per individual and
allowances thereafter. The one-off payment will gobble in
excess of $60
billion from the fiscus, which has not been budgeted.Chiefs
and village
headmen have also received a 150% increase in their allowances.
Most chiefs
have been given subsidised vehicles, had their homes electrified
and
boreholes sunk in their homesteads.
All these
beneficiaries have in the past been crucial to the
Zanu PF election
machinery. The war veterans played an important role during
the 2000
parliamentary and 2002 presidential elections, which the ruling
party won
narrowly.
They have also been used to intimidate the
electorate. The
chiefs and headmen have also been used in the campaign, with
recent reports
of some of them threatening to evict opposition supporters
from their areas.
Analysts said the payouts to chiefs, civil
servants and war
veterans create a large hole in the fiscus that will have
to be filled by
printing more money or raising taxes. "It is just not
sustainable and the
government knows that it does not make economic sense,"
Bloch said. The
controls on industry and commerce have however taken a new
dimension with
government roping in the central bank to dictate the prices
of goods and
services. Recently the RBZ instituted a blanket ban on price
increases for
services offered by parastatals and local
authorities.
RBZ governor Gideon Gono has put 70% as the
ceiling of increases
that can be instituted by any service provider. A
proposed 120% hike on
energy by Zesa was recently blocked by the central
bank on the basis that it
would stoke up inflation. Local authorities have
also been forced to revise
downwards their budget proposals in line with
Gono's dictates. Dr Alex
Magaisa, a lecturer at Nottingham University in the
UK, said the policy was
bound to boomerang.
"If state
intervention in setting prices fails to reflect market
realities, the result
might be that business will become too costly to run,"
said Magaisa.
"Eventually businesses will have to close - which affects not
just the
supply but employment and has knock-on effects on related entities.
The
fixing process may be convenient for political expediency, but it may
have
dire consequences for industry in the long-run," he said
Harare
city council is however still seeking to increase rates
by between 300 and
600%. The city treasury department has described Gono's
70% benchmark as not
feasible considering the state of the economy.
Bulawayo and
Chitungwiza on the other hand are seeking rate
increases of not less than
250%.
Gono has said hefty increases will not be tolerated since
local
authorities should benefit from a $10 trillion seed fund as bridging
finance. Local authorities have described the fund as a drop in an ocean.
Analysts say Gono's moves are short-term appeasements geared to hoodwink the
electorate. "They say it's part of the anti-inflation drive but it's a clear
campaign strategy," said Brian Kagoro, a political
commentator.
"That has been their system of offering
piece-meal measures that
in the end destroy the economy," Kagoro
said.
He said the government was penalising manufacturers and
service
providers. "There is every reason to view this as a blatant
vote-buying
tactic."
Zim Independent
Comment
TO say there is corruption in
Zimbabwe is a banality bereft of
any national significance. The subject is
easily displaced from the core of
national priorities as Zimbabweans have
trained their focus on survival
issues: the cost of basic commodities,
rentals, health and education.
Attempts by government to
elevate the scourge of corruption to
the same level as other ills like
inflation have failed. The government has
set up an Anti-Corruption
Commission as a bulwark against graft and Reserve
Bank governor Gideon Gono
also raised the stakes in his 2005 last quarter
monetary
statement.
On Tuesday in his Independence Day speech,
President Mugabe
spoke at some length on corruption, imploring the nation to
help him to
catch the thieves.
This presidential
rendition is not likely to stir the nation
into corruption-busting. In fact
if Zimbabweans were to heed the call and
immediately act, we would have seen
mobs storming the VIP tent at the
National Sports Stadium to effect
citizens' arrests. The president does not
need to look far for the corrupt.
They are there in high office and the
manifest failure of government to act
has killed the fight in the ordinary
man.
Last Thursday
we reported that Vice-President Joice Mujuru had
been told of senior
government officials who had looted equipment from the
once productive
Kondozi Estate in Odzi. The state-controlled Manica Post
also published
details of how 40 hectares of maize grown by the army wilted
when a
government minister commandeered a pump being used for irrigation for
use on
his farm. Other senior officials helped themselves to tractors and
motor
vehicles from the farm.
Kondozi is a microcosm of the
widespread looting of farm
infrastructure involving ministers and senior
civil servants.
This culture is a direct product of the
fast-track land reform
programme where lawlessness was allowed to prevail in
the name of correcting
the injustices of our colonial past. Even when the
government says the land
reform has been "concluded" Zanu PF functionaries
continue to invade farms,
even those belonging to fellow
blacks.
Last week we reported new invasions of sugar estates
in the
Lowveld. The sugarcane on the affected properties is due to be
harvested at
the end of the month. Some of those involved have just
abandoned land that
they have been occupying for the past three or four
years. They obviously
felt it was time to move on to something fresh to
plunder.
Two senior Zanu PF officials from Manicaland, Enoch
Porusingazi
and Esau Mupfumi, have been arrested on charges of corruptly
acquiring maize
and cheap government fuel respectively. They are the only
ones on the list
despite clear evidence of maize and fuel being diverted by
new farmers for
resale on the black market.
The fuel saga
is an undisguised illustration of government's
role in aiding and abetting
corruption. A situation where the same commodity
is sold at three different
prices can only breed corruption. There is fuel
for the farmers and public
transporters at about $20 000 a litre, fuel for
parastatals and other
quasi-government agencies going for $100 000 and the
rest of us buy it for
$200 000. We have seen the same happening in
fertilisers which farmers have
been getting for free or paying $300 000 for
a 50 kg bag and then reselling
it for $2 million. Everyday newspaper
classified sections have adverts of
dealers selling expensive fertiliser
most probably diverted from government
stocks. The police have told us they
are investigating. Like the president
we do not know where they are
searching.
This all sounds
commonplace now because the ordinary citizen has
over the years been groomed
to participate in corruption rather than expose
it. But the real tragedy in
all this is our government's failure to
articulate the cost of corruption to
the nation. There is no need for
forensic audits here. One only has to look
at the trillions pumped into
agriculture and the output from the fields. The
reason we are importing
maize has very little to do with drought, Tony Blair
or sanctions but
hemorrhaging from corruption by those who are shielded from
prosecution by
patronage.
We all remember TV footage of
white farmers labelled saboteurs
because they were not watering their wheat
or maize crop. If these were
saboteurs what then do we call those who steal
irrigation pumps, maize seed,
fertiliser and fuel? Heroes of the Third
Chimurenga? They are thieves,
imbavha!
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
Vincent
Kahiya
LAST month I wrote in an editorial that the real test
of
Tichaona Jokonya's credentials as a progressive Information minister
rested
in his handling of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ)'s
application
for a licence to reopen the closed Daily News and the Daily News
on Sunday.
The jury was not out for long before coming back
time with a
verdict. Jokonya appears to have been railroaded to walk the
same path as
his predecessor, the butcher of the media, Jonathan
Moyo.
Jokonya, in an affidavit filed in the High Court two
weeks ago,
said he had confidence in the Media and Information Commission
(MIC) despite
a High Court judge's assertions that that statutory body,
especially its
head Tafataona Mahoso, was tainted with bias in deciding the
registration of
the ANZ.
Jokonya said dissolving the
commission "would set a bad
precedent as it would mean that whenever a
commission is accused of bias, it
would have to be
dissolved".
Jokonya also raised another technicality in
defence of the
Mahoso regime at the commission. He said there was a no
provision in the
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Aippa)
for him to
appoint an ad hoc committee to deal with the ANZ registration
even though
the MIC had shown demonstrable bias in handling the
application.
How convenient?
Jokonya would
rather keep the biased commission because he is
powerless to dissolve it. He
does not have the powers to dissolve the
commission because Aippa, which he
has always told us is a good law, is
silent on what the minister can do in
the current impasse. He said in the
affidavit that the "way forward" would
be to amend Aippa "to provide me with
powers to appoint an ad hoc
committee."
It is ironic that despite the vast powers
bestowed on the
minister to appoint the commission, which is answerable to
him and not
parliament, he is still incapacitated to deal with the body even
when it
takes obtuse decisions.
But for a minister who in
December last year branded journalists
working in the private media
"character assassins, malinformants to the
point of having become embedded
warmongers or. weapons of mass destruction"
(straight from Moyo's book of
insults), the omission in Aippa could not be
bad after
all.
Jokonya's statement was a departure from his
jolly-good-fellow
face he showed us at the historic meeting at his
Munhumutapa offices last
year. The gullible among us thought that the evil
veil of the Moyo era had
been lifted by the coming in of the ambassador. But
the corrosive statement
by the end of the year confirmed my worst
fears.
Jokonya could be caught in the same rut of bias
against the
privately owned press as Mahoso who in the last edition of the
Sunday Mail
described the Zimbabwe Independent as "one of the few racist
papers in the
region".
He obviously took exception to our
plucked rooster! And this
coming from a man vested with quasi-judicial
powers discloses a dangerous
partiality which should disable him from being
a fair superintendent of the
media industry.
More
dangerously, Jokonya says he still has confidence in Mahoso's
commission.
When he took office last year, Jokonya gave
the impression that
he would behave differently from Moyo who is credited
with crafting laws
unfriendly to the media and the arbitrary arrest of
journalists. He invited
recommendations from the media on possible
amendments to Aippa and appeared
to entertain journalists proposing the
setting up of a voluntary media
council.
But only a
fortnight ago he told journalists from Indonesia that
there was nothing
draconian about Aippa compared to the US's Patriot Act.
That
is the best he can do in defence of this egregious law! We
have in the past
heard lame attempts to compare Aippa to Swedish media laws.
The Swedish
ambassador has managed to demonstrate that this is tantamount to
comparing
chalk and cheese.
"There has never been an agenda in Sweden
to shut down
newspapers, big or small because they cannot raise the required
capital to
publish nor the simple reason that they have changed shareholding
structures
without informing the government or a quasi-governmental
department," he
said in an interview with the Standard
recently.
What do Jokonya and Mahoso have to say to
this?
Zim Independent
Muckraker
UNDER the heading "Let's celebrate
Independence together", the
Herald on Monday carried a front-page appeal by
Elliot Manyika for
Zimbabweans to put aside their political differences and
attend the
celebrations held on April 18.
Significantly,
his appeal included the following observation:
"It was disturbing to note
that some Zimbabweans, particularly the youth,
were no longer honouring such
national events as the Independence Day
celebrations and Heroes' Day
commemorations under the misguided belief that
these were for the ruling
party."
At least Zanu PF now recognises that it is the party
of the
past, not the future. And in bold contradiction of Manyika's claim
that
Independence Day was a national, not a partisan event, the Herald
carried on
its editorial pages a vicious character assassination of MDC
leader Morgan
Tsvangirai penned by Caesar Zvayi.
Nothing
could be more calculated to signal to MDC followers that
April 18 is not for
them than this crude, clumsy attack on the MDC
leadership repeating a whole
raft of lies about Tsvangirai and dragging in
Arthur Mutambara for good
measure. The article was locked in the mindset of
the
past.
What Zvayi seems to resent more than anything is the
MDC's
promise of "a new Zimbabwe and a new beginning".
That is the last thing the political dinosaurs in Zanu PF want.
They want to
continue feeding at the trough of the old Zimbabwe, the country
they have
failed with their ignorant posturing and bankrupt policies but
which they
insist still owes them a living.
Zimbabweans have voted with
their feet against that Zimbabwe
where inflation is 1 000%, unemployment 80%
and the right to protest
trampled under foot.
Manyika is
correct in his understanding that the youth of today
are not buying his
party's silly excuses for failure.
Blaming the MDC for the
country's problems (Zvayi had to say
"challenges" because he is not allowed
to say failures) is an exercise in
delusional dishonesty. And those in the
state media who aid and abet this
dishonesty are equally culpable as their
failed political masters.
William Bango had to write to the
Herald last week to rebut some
of the more pernicious lies being told about
Tsvangirai. But Herald
columnists continue to repeat
them.
Recently Swedish ambassador Sten Rylander gave an
interview in
which he said he had never called for the lifting of EU
sanctions. His
remarks on relations between Zimbabwe and the EU had been
"distorted" in the
official press, he said.
But Campion
Mereki in the Herald last week wrote a whole opinion
piece based on the
false premise that Rylander had indeed made a call for
the lifting of
sanctions and was therefore at odds with other EU members.
Mereki completely ignored Rylander's denial.
In his interview
Rylander said the government media had failed
to adhere to basic principles
of media ethics and professionalism which was
self-defeating since it was
crucial for the country to convey the correct
message to well-wishers who
may want to assist the country in its recovery.
While we are
on the subject of media ethics, Tafataona Mahoso
should be asked how
professional it is for the MIC chair to attack
newspapers whose political
views he doesn't like in his weekly column when
he is expected to preside
over the registration of those papers with a
measure of fairness and
impartiality? And he should tell us why he considers
the jongwe a Zimbabwean
national symbol. He refers to "Zimbabwe's jongwe
symbol".
He earlier states that it is the symbol of the united Zanu
PF.
We are not sure that even that claim is true. Did Zanu PF
and PF
Zapu not agree on the Great Zimbabwe site's conical tower as their
united
party's motif? Could somebody involved in those talks please
clarify.
We were intrigued by a story carried in the Mail
& Guardian on
the systematic looting of Kondozi Estate by Zanu PF
chefs.
Vice-President Joice Mujuru was visiting the farm in
the company
of six ministers. Col Ronnie Mutizhe, deputy commander of 3
Brigade charged
with running the farm, told her that the maize crop had
wilted because it no
longer has irrigation equipment.
Mujuru demanded to know what had happened to the equipment.
"It's not something I can say in public, Your Excellency,"
Mutizhe was
reported as replying. "I need to discuss it with you in
private."
Mujuru would have none of that. "Let the
cameras roll," she
ordered. "I want you to tell me now what happened to that
equipment. I'm the
vice-president."
Mutizhe reluctantly
admitted, we were told, that the pump was
taken by Christopher Mushohwe who
had "not returned it since". He added that
another minister, Nyathi, took
the tractors.
When Mujuru demanded to know who Nyathi was, he
replied: "It's
the Minister of Intelligence, Didymus Mutasa, Your
Excellency."
The M&G reports Mutizhe as alleging
provincial governor Tinaye
Chigudu had also removed
tractors.
"It's for that reason that we are unable to do much
on this
farm," the paper reports Mutizhe as saying.
Isn't
this story emblematic of Zimbabwe's land reform programme:
chefs helping
themselves as good productive farms go to waste?
Not long
ago there was huge excitement in official circles at
the prospect of Al
Jazeera setting up shop in Zimbabwe. This would tell the
"true story" of
Zimbabwe to the outside world, we were told, and correct
Anglo-American
"lies".
Well, Muckraker checked out the Arab broadcaster's
website over
the weekend. Prominently displayed was a story headed
"Zimbabwe's curse of
Independence".
"Zimbabweans mark 26
years of Independence on Tuesday with
little to celebrate as the African
state plunges into deep economic
hardship, personal tragedies and a rapidly
growing gap between the elite
rich and the majority poor," it
said.
And there was Zvayi on Tuesday telling us "our country
is
evidently a success story in Africa". Not so evidently, it
seems!
We pointed out last week that Zanu PF is crafting
a
hagiographical account of Mugabe's role in the liberation struggle. This
week the Herald's Isdore Guvamombe told us that "the turning point in
Zimbabwe's liberation war was on April 4 1975 when Cde Mugabe crossed into
Mozambique with Cde Tekere to start the armed struggle".
Can we expect a North Korean-style tableau to this effect?
We
can safely assume from this that Cde Tekere has now been
fully rehabilitated
after his little indiscretions. And we liked the way
Lord Soames and Bishop
Abel Muzorewa have been airbrushed out of the
following: "On April 18 1980
the vehemently cruel and illegal Rhodesian
regime led by Ian Smith collapsed
and paved way for a democratically elected
Zimbabwean government led by Cde
Robert Mugabe."
Lancaster House has
disappeared!
Those few tourists who do brave the "negative
publicity" to
visit Zimbabwe may be in for a rude welcome. Passengers
arriving on BA153 at
06:30 from London on April 13 were still standing in
queues to be cleared by
customs at 12:30. It appears that passengers who
arrived minutes earlier on
an Air Zimbabwe flight from Dubai were carrying
huge quantities of goods and
as a result customs forced all passengers to go
through the red route.
Our informal business sector, it would
seem, has taken a tad too
literally the invitation to do business with the
Middle East. And ordinary
travellers are paying the
price!
Air Zimbabwe is proudly joining the league of
parastatals that
are being forced to unbundle. It is being transformed into
five strategic
business units. The Business Herald reports that this has
been necessitated
by a huge salary bill and reduced business. As a result
the company plans to
retrench about 360 workers.
But you
need time to follow the logic. The airline's acting
chief executive officer
Captain Oscar Madombwe recently told a parliamentary
committee on tourism
that the airline only managed to transport 230 000
passengers last year from
a peak of 1 000 000 in 1999.
Ordinarily one would expect
those in charge to think of
downsizing from the top down. Instead, Air
Zimbabwe has created five
so-called strategic business units and is inviting
applications to engage
five general managers for each of
these.
From our experience with the former Zimbabwe
Broadcasting
Corporation, more general managers mean more expenses on
salaries and other
perks. How they plan to do it this time around for less
with reduced
passenger traffic remains a mystery. Does somebody understand
the logic
beyond creating jobs for the boys?
Still on
Independence Day celebrations, President Mugabe on
Tuesday repeated the
flyblown claims about the causes of poverty in
Zimbabwe. It was the usual
scapegoats: drought and unjustified sanctions
that caused shortages of food,
drugs, electricity and other essential
commodities.
In
the fashion of all propaganda fairytales Mugabe said nothing
about the havoc
wrought on commercial agriculture by the unplanned land
reform and how this
had undercut the supply of essential raw materials to
industry. Where he did
mention the abuse of fuel, seed and fertilisers by
some of the beneficiaries
of the land reform, it was as if he had to
apologise instead of demanding
punishment for the offenders. Even his
comments on the levels of corruption
in the country did not sound
convincing. It was as if he was mentioning a
pardonable aberration by junior
officials in his government filching petty
cash.
Those involved must have had problems trying to
suppress a
belly-laugh.
But he was not done yet. The
speech had to end with a positive
prophesy. We were told government had
dreamt up a new "priority programme"
that would turn around the economy in
the next six to nine months. The
miracle programme would increase food
security and generate more foreign
currency. The result? Economic growth of
between 1 and 2% this year on the
back of a 9% growth in
agriculture.
How will this be achieved in the face of
so-called "unjustified
sanctions"? It sounds like a poor rendition of one of
Aesop's many fables.
Harare council has splurged a
mind-numbing $280 million on two
cellphones for its officials, one of whom
has been on suspension for the
past three years with full benefits.
According to a Herald report on
Wednesday, the fancy cellphones were not in
the capital budget for 2006.
Instead Harare residents had to foot the cost
of this obscenity by having
money diverted from allocations for chairs and
office desks.
What is shocking is that this is the same
council that is
charging ratepayers swingeing rates but is failing to
collect refuse. It is
the same council that cannot repair potholes, burst
sewerage and water pipes
because it claims it has no money. It is the same
council that recently
splashed $1,1 trillion on vehicles and was having a
fun day arguing about
commission chair Sekesai Makwavarara's request for $35
billion to buy
curtains for the mayoral mansion.
Having
been thwarted on that front, she dribbled past the
bemused town clerk
Nomutsa Chideya and installed a satellite dish in the
same mansion without
going to tender.
What else can we expect from these big
spenders? At least now
Muckraker understands former Zanu PF MP Philip
Chiyangwa's exhortation: If
you want to get rich join Zanu PF. Makwavarara's
timing can't be faulted.
Finally, we were rather amused
by a story in the Sunday Mail's
business section. It proclaimed that
Zimbabwe was back in ARSO and had even
attended an ARSO meeting in Cairo
last month. The meeting was hosted by
Egyptian ARSOs.
In
case you are wondering, ARSO stands for the African
Organisation for
Standardisation, according to the Sunday Mail. The acronym
would more likely
suggest the African Regional Standards Organisation.
Whatever the case, it
is rather unfortunate that this august body did not
contemplate the
consequences when it devised its appellation.
Meanwhile,
David Coltart may have been alarmed on Tuesday to
hear ZTV referring to "Cde
Coltart Chimurenga".
Zim Independent
By Eric
Bloch
ALTHOUGH, on the face of it, Zimbabwe is still governed
by Zanu
PF after the party won the parliamentary elections in 2005, and
therefore
claims to be constitutionally and democratically ruled, there is
increasing
evidence that the country has to a significant extent been
subjected to a
military coup.
De jure, President Robert
Mugabe, his cabinet - inclusive of
many inept ministers - parliament and a
senate in which the ruling party
holds a majority govern
Zimbabwe.
However, de facto, its defence forces are
increasingly governing
Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe National
Security Council (ZNSC), which comprises
various arms of Zimbabwe's armed
forces, inclusive of the army and the air
force, supplemented by the Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and the
Zimbabwe Republic Police, is being
vested with an ever-greater authoritarian
role in the governing of the
country or, at the least, in fulfilling the
functions of
government.
That first became apparent when the ZNSC was
empowered to pursue
the ill-fated programme of command agriculture under
Operation Maguta. As
yet, that programme is still to yield any significant
recovery for the
agricultural sector.
Admittedly, the
2006 maize harvest will be somewhat greater than
any of the harvests in
recent years, although still only about half of that
produced prior to the
disastrously implemented land reform programme.
However, command agriculture
can claim little credit for the improvement,
which has mainly been
forthcoming from those outside of the programme.
But the
enhanced maize crop is counterbalanced by ongoing
decline in almost all
other crops, including a catastrophic fall in tobacco
production to an
estimated 45 million kgs, or less, reduced production of
sugar, coffee, tea,
citrus, grains other than maize, and by minimal change
in volumes of other
agricultural outputs.
Then, following upon Operation
Murambatsvina in which hundreds
of thousands had their minimal sources of
livelihood and makeshift housing
destroyed, the ZNSC became actively
involved in Operation Garikayi/Hlalani
Kuhle.
Having been
indirectly involved in Operation Murambatsvina,
which was perpetrated by the
police and abetted by the army, the ZNSC was
then charged with much of the
implementation of the programmes of housing
reconstruction. The fox, having
invaded the chicken coop and having wrought
havoc therein, is mandated to
develop the new chicken coops!
But the ZNSC's penetration
into the role of government has now
extended markedly further, as evidenced
by statements by State Security
minister Didymus Mutasa and Economic
Development minister Rugare Gumbo that
the ZNSC has been mandated to achieve
Zimbabwe's economic recovery.
The mind boggles at the concept
that those trained in warfare
and defence should become the supremos of the
economy. What on earth does
their background, training and experience
include that has any bearing on
formulating, guiding and driving the diverse
elements of an economy, ranging
from agriculture to mining, from
manufacturing to tourism, from trading to
finance, and much else? How can
expertise in national defence be
constructively applied to facilitating,
enabling and motivating economic
well-being?
Although
Zimbabwe has pronounced scarcities of many items,
ranging from petroleum to
maize meal, medications and consumables in state
hospitals, it has an
overwhelming surplus, and that is of rumours, many of
which are wholly
without foundation, and most of the others being greatly
exaggerated, but
nevertheless a few that are of substance. Among the rumours
currently in
circulation is one that the ZNSC is now overseeing the
operations of the
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra). Should that be so, it
is incongruous in
the extreme.
What on earth does the army know about taxation,
internal
controls, audit and the like? Surely the responsibility for
oversight of
Zimra should vest in the Ministry of Finance and the
Auditor-General and, if
necessary, the Ministry of Anti-Corruption and the
National Economic Conduct
Inspectorate.
If the ZNSC has
been charged with the task of overseeing Zimra,
that is as far-fetched as
has been the appointment of military personnel to
head the Grain Marketing
Board and the National Railways of Zimbabwe, as has
recently occurred, over
and above like appointments to top posts in a number
of other parastatals,
while many very senior governmental posts are also
filled by ex-army and air
force personnel.
Another rumour in circulation, albeit
uncorroborated, is that
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has also been
placed under the
surveillance of the ZNSC. If that rumour has any
foundation, that would be
appalling in the extreme.
The
RBZ is accountable to the Ministry of Finance and,
therefore, any monitoring
that may be necessary should be the function of
that ministry. Moreover, the
RBZ is subject to an annual, independent audit
of its financial statements
by registered public auditors. How then can any
ZNSC involvement be
justified?
The realities are probably two-fold. On the one
hand, the
government has never been able to recognise or accept that any of
Zimbabwe's
economic ills could conceivably be caused by it, whether by acts
of
commission or acts of omission.
It cannot recognise
that it set Zimbabwe's economy cascading
downwards by granting compensation
pensions to war veterans far beyond the
means of the exchequer. The
government then accelerated the downward cascade
by embarking upon a grossly
mismanaged and abused programme of land reform,
and the economic decline was
compounded by gargantuan fiscal mismanagement,
excessive and unproductive
state expenditure, immense misdirection of
parastatals, gross corruption,
and alienation of the international community
by endless disregard for the
fundamental principles of democracy, justice,
law and order and human
rights.
Because it could not accept that it was in any way
culpable for
the economic destruction, the government convinced itself that
others were
responsible and intently focused its attention and its ire upon
those of the
international community who criticised it.
The government has probably resolved that it requires a new
vehicle of
surveillance, monitoring and economic management and control.
That resolve
may well have activated it to disregard the established
governmental
surveillance and controls infrastructure, and to resort to the
ZNSC, albeit
that the body is devoid of the requisite financial and economic
skills
necessary to fulfil a supervisory control effectively, and to bring
about an
economic turnaround and recovery.
On the other hand, it is
also possible that the government is
intentionally increasing the authority
and national involvement of the ZNSC
through fear that the ever-increasing
poverty and misery pervading Zimbabwe
could ultimately provoke a military
coup. With such a fear, it cannot be put
past a government, which has long
demonstrated Machiavellian skills at
survival to determine that the best way
to avoid a coup is to give those who
could resort to such an action
increased authority.
However, the government overlooks that
in so-doing, to a very
major extent, the very coup that it wishes to avoid
is, in fact,
materialising for, to all intents and purposes, the ZNSC will
progressively
have ever-greater control of Zimbabwe by virtue of its control
of the
economy.
The alternative, of course, is for the
government belatedly to
recognise the real causes of the demise of the
economy and, based upon that
recognition, to adopt constructive new
policies.
These must include economic deregulation and
liberalisation,
fiscal probity and prudence, meaningful containment of
corruption at all
levels of society, equitable land reform, facilitation of
productivity,
creation of an investment-conducive environment and
reconciliation with the
international community.
The
government can still reverse the developing military coup,
but has it the
will to do so?
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
TUESDAY this week was a day like no other. Early in the morning
as I was
getting into town I was touched by the sight of hundreds of youths
heading
for the giant National Sports Stadium. Herein lay the future of
Zimbabwe.
This was our Independence anniversary and they were ready for the
celebrations.
All these positive thoughts were quickly
dispelled. Most of
those youths wore all manner of tattered pieces of
clothing and footwear. I
had no doubt most of them had been mobilised to
make up the numbers. The
police escort duly confirmed my suspicions. One
also couldn't miss the
waving of the trademark fists at passing
motorists.
I quickly recollected all this as I listened to
President Robert
Mugabe addressing the crowd later in the stadium. He was at
pains to stress
that this was a national occasion - not a Zanu PF function -
but there was
nothing to excite people. I was left wondering if most of them
understood
what he was talking about. The few instances he got a round of
applause was
when he made gratuitous attacks against Morgan Tsvangirai in
Shona.
The crowd was made up of mostly students or
school-leavers
desperate for entertainment or the supporters of Caps United
and Masvingo
United football clubs. Most poor Harare residents were
elsewhere fighting
for survival.
The only group that
appeared solidly represented were members of
an apostolic sect resplendent
in their white regalia in a corner of the
stadium. Members of the Zanu PF
Women's League always take it as a party
event. For the uniformed forces it
is a national duty.
This is a major shift. In the past it was
elders who attended
such occasions. The youths were left out or did not see
what was in it for
them. They were accused of lacking patriotism or an
appreciation of the
liberation history of this country - hence the much
derided "born-free"
brigade that needed political orientation. Perhaps that
is how the idea of a
national youth service was
conceived.
That notwithstanding, there is no denying that
there has been a
rupture between the ordinary citizen and the Zanu PF
political leadership.
It is more than a few opposition rebels weighing what
Mugabe is saying
against what is on the ground just to score points. There
is palpable
incongruity between what political leaders say and what people
are
experiencing for themselves. It is naïve to imagine that people still
buy
into empty slogans about the success of the land reform when they can't
afford the staple maize meal and the prices of basic commodities skyrocket
every day.
People have stopped believing the sincerity of
Operation Garikai
as most of the 700 000 left in the open since May last
year by the
ill-conceived Operation Murambatsvana destroyed their homes are
still
stranded. Hundreds lost their shelter and sources of livelihood after
their
informal businesses were destroyed. Promises of a new beginning have
largely
remained a mirage.
Some left for their rural
homes in despair while those with
nowhere to go have been reduced to
destitution in towns. They can't run the
old-fashioned tuckshops and are not
allowed to sell their wares in public
places.
The trouble
is that President Mugabe has become so far removed
from the reality of our
daily lives one wonders how far he is misinformed
about the state of the
nation. This is evident in the way he harps on about
the schools and
hospitals and clinics government constructed soon after
Independence.
A fleeting tour of the countryside would
show him that most of
that infrastructure has collapsed. He will be shocked
to discover that
classroom blocks either don't have windows or roofing
sheets. A majority of
the schools don't have desks, books, piped water or
qualified teachers.
Instead of a consolidation of the early gains, there has
either been
stagnation or deterioration all around.
Vice-President Joice Mujuru was shocked after a recent tour of
what was
touted as a major irrigation project in Masvingo and what has
become of
Kondozi Estate in Manicaland. Instead of which Mugabe predicts 9%
growth in
agriculture this year!
Equally misplaced is Mugabe's anger
directed at people perceived
as less patriotic or Zimbabwean than those who
died for the liberation of
this country. Few need to be reminded of those
sacrifices. The
disillusionment comes from worsening poverty and quality of
life for both
those born before or after Independence.
After the "golden era" of the past few still have faith in
Mugabe positively
changing their fortunes, hence his own preoccupation with
liberation war
credentials. All that people can see around them are mounting
problems, from
food to transport and accommodation.
Life expectancy has
almost halved from 67 years at Independence
in 1980 to 37 years today. Aids
is seen as only accelerating what was
already a steady decline in the
quality of life. For the first time perhaps
since Independence a majority of
parents can't afford the fees for their
children at secondary schools. The
cost of university and tertiary education
has turned it into an elitist
pursuit like a game of golf. This is a
betrayal of the ideals of the
liberation struggle.
You then ask yourself as you watch these
poor and hungry
children trooping into the National Sports Stadium whether
they carry the
future of the country on their emaciated limbs and tattered
dreams. Are
these the leaders of tomorrow?
Tafataona
Mahoso would do well to examine the quality of our
education each time he
talks about mission schools which produced the
intellectuals who spearheaded
the liberation war. Most of those leaders did
not need lessons in
patriotism. What has gone
wrong? Independence Day celebrations
should not be merely a time
for self-adulation about past achievements but
also a time to reflect
seriously about where we are
going.
There is a limit to what propaganda can
do.
With advisors like Bloch there's cause for fear
I WOULD like
to correct a perception created by Eric Bloch in
his article, "Achieving
tourism turnaround", (Zimbabwe Independent, April
13), that Zimbabwe is an
"extremely expensive destination" without
mentioning any concrete figures to
back this up. This, coming from someone
who is an advisor to the Reserve
Bank governor, makes me extremely sceptical
of all the so-called turnaround
efforts.
For example, comparison of rates charges for hotels,
lodges and
related services across Sadc would show that Zimbabwean rates are
very much
on the lower end. Even at Victoria Falls, Zambian charges are much
higher
than on the Zimbabwean side.
When Bloch says
National Parks is charging massively, what is he
comparing
against?
It seems he is quite happy to pay hundreds of rands
in South
Africa but wants the paltry charge at the entry points removed, my
foot!
He even complains about the minute tax of $1 000 per
litre! With
this bush economics and the inflation sliding towards 1 000%,
while
purporting to be doing a turnaround like a merry-go-round, Zimbabweans
need
to be very afraid about the experts in whom they are putting their
faith to
deliver them to the promised land.
With such
advice being dispensed, it is no wonder that the
Reserve Bank can justify
printing trillions of dollars with a straight face
to pay the
IMF.
Instead of using the US$210 million to create economic
value to
fund essentials such as fertiliser and petrol to create economic
benefit
which could be used to pay off debts, it was flushed into a
bottomless pit.
For example, increasing road tourism from
South Africa does not
require a large capital outlay. It can start by making
sure that Zimra does
not treat every person entering Beitbridge as a
potential criminal who needs
to be sent around in circles from one queue to
another by abusive officials.
It can start by putting up
proper rails so that there can be
orderly queues. It can put some officials
on the floor who can talk to
customers and ensure that people do not waste
hours in wrong queues.
This can be augmented by making sure
that unemployed youths
paint the correct road signs such as how far the next
town is, directions to
the next police post (assuming the police are there
and not at the farms!),
hospital, petrol station, etc.
It
may also be useful to warn motorists about humps on the road
before one is
three-quarters way into the undulating humps (or better still
level them
off!).
I spent the Christmas period in Cape Town where I kept
bumping
into many Zimbabweans. The major reason why someone would spend
their
holiday at a crowded beach 1 500 km from Johannesburg instead of the
nearer
shores of Lake Kariba is probably because they are terrified at the
prospect
of spending frustrating hours at the border. It is not because it
is more
expensive in Zimbabwe.
It may be useful to put
proper toll gates on the major highways
and ensure that the money is used to
maintain roads. We do not want to turn
Zimbabwe into a paradise for
parasitic backpackers and hitch-hikers who are
looking for the rock-bottom
prices being suggested by Mr Bloch.
Real tourists must be
prepared to pay for a proper service and
that is the market the Zimbabwe
Tourism Authority should target as they
generate real economic
benefit.
Another Zimbabwean problem that has created the
"Mafioso"
economy is having two prices for the same thing. Even primary
school
economics will tell you that it is folly to sell diesel at $12 000
for one
group while the correct price is $200 000.
Surely, agriculture has not become more profitable than a profit
of $188 000
per litre realised in a few days rather than waiting for nine
months for a
harvest that may not be realised?
If the desire is to support
agriculture, is it not more
effective to give a rebate of the same amount to
the people who deliver
their harvest to the GMB after they have procured
their requirements on the
open market?
Why is this common
sense evading these so-called experts
presiding over this economy? Or
perhaps they are all beneficiaries of
mafioso economics and do not care
about the hard-working struggling working
class?
Tafirenyika Wekwa Makunike,
Midrand, South
Africa.
------------
Media is
fuelling divisions
AFTER the MDC was affected by
the current divisions
I, like every other responsible citizen, had to stop
and decide which of
the two sides to give my
vote.
I wanted to make a
choice.
As an ordinary citizen, most of the
information that
I can use to make that choice comes from the grassroots
and the media both
in and outside Zimbabwe.
The political problems we are facing in Zimbabwe
today are more complicated
than the divisions in the MDC, with the media
being the major culprit in
this situation.
Someone once asked a weekly
newspaper to
investigate and tell the nation who among our opposition
members owns two
farms, who among them has a house guarded by soldiers, why
Zanu PF released
the political parties' funds just in time for one of the
factions' congress
and who was absent on the day of voting to pass the Bill
that brought back
the senate? What did we
get?
Only deafening silence from the
media.
Can someone please tell me where Dumisani
Muleya's
survey results are so I can update
myself?
Muleya told us: "While Tsvangirai was
able to
attract 15 000 delegates, the danger remains if the MDC fails to
reunite,
his faction will lose an important power base: the south-western
region
(Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands) where the Mutambara camp is
dominant."
How does he know this camp is
dominant in this
region?
Some sections of the
media are fanning these
divisions which unfortunately some of these learned
guys swallow, believing
that because they are Ndebele, then they should be
happy to be led by
anyone. I find this contemptuous of people from the
region.
Like any other people from all over
Zimbabwe, people
from Matabeleland want social and economic
justice.
Was it necessary for Muleya to tell us
about
Lovemore Moyo's mother-in-law and that Morgan Tsvangirai comes from
Masvingo etc?
Because of the refusal of the
media to report it
like it is, we will meet Mugabe in the streets. My choice
is made.
Original
Masendeke,
Saucetown,
Bulawayo.
--------------
Stop the carnage
DRIVING along Harare Drive from
Rolfe Valley towards
Enterprise Road is extremely dangerous! I will tell you
what happened to me.
The time was about 9.55pm
recently and there was no
power in Glen Lorne, meaning the lights on
Enterprise Road were out.
A stretch at the
intersection of Enterprise Road and
Harare Drive with no halt sign or white
lines looks like a straight road and
I overshot it, only to suddenly realise
what had happened as I went over
humps meant to protect school
children.
I stopped, shaking like a leaf and
thanked God that
there was no traffic travelling along the road that
night.
I survived by the grace of
God.
Several drivers who do not know the area
well have
gone through this experience.
I
have been using the Enterprise Road since 1979 and
at this intersection I
have witnessed many accidents.
Surely it wouldn't
cost much to put up visible stop
signs and re-paint the white lines clearly.
The responsible authorities
should spare a thought for the valuable lives
they will save.
We pay rates and council should
meet part of its
bargain by giving us service that tallies with what we
pay.
Very Scared,
Harare.
-----------
Victory for Zanu PF
THOSE with historical records
will know that certain
European and Scandinavian countries aided and abetted
the killing of
innocent civilians of local and European origin in
Zimbabwe.
This they did by fuelling evil, murder
and
corruption - all ostensibly in the cause of the eradication of emerging
civilised values, alleged racism and mainly in sponsorship of the then
predominant evil of communism.
Later they
even sent their children to Zimbabwe to
purportedly build house for the
comrades.
A later time of sobriety came when a
realisation
fell over most parts of Europe about the realities of
Africa.
Now new blood from a generation of
blinkered
woolly-minded do-gooders suggest that all past and current evils
in Zimbabwe
should be accommodated and
forgiven.
Buckets of aid should be put under the
snouts of the
hierarchy to forage in to sustain their control and
suppression of all
things normal as per the norms of civilised
values.
Many of those that aspire to be diplomats
would know
that a posting in Siberia was not a promotion while being
assigned to
Zimbabwe has only one better benefit - being treated to
sunshine.
To some recently delegated European
diplomatic
deadbeats, it appears that a fundamental requisite for the
assignment was to
be an invigorated bootlicker towards the ongoing
propagation of evil.
Walter
Hurley,
Pretoria.
--------
Let's not mix
issues
I HAVE been reading some articles that you
publish
in your paper and it is so dismaying to note that you give the
impression
that problems obtaining in the country have to do with what is
happening
within the MDC.
More time and
energy is being wasted on talking
about the MDC
factions.
Zimbabwean politics have been
characterised by
tribalism and nepotism and power-hungry people eager to
take advantage of
the situation.
A lot of
politicians have emerged from nowhere to
make empty promises to the
masses.
These people do not have the people at
heart, but
are just vultures ready to pounce on every slight opportunity
that comes
their way.
Who knows if the
Mutambara faction does not have its
fair share of
vultures?
Why are they still fighting to retain
the original
MDC symbols?
Why are they still
fighting in court to be
recognised as the main party yet in actual fact the
decision lies with the
people?
Let's not mix
personal gains with national issues.
Observer,
Harare.