Reuters
Sat Apr 8, 2006 9:34 PM IST
By Cris Chinaka
HARARE
(Reuters) - Zimbabweans woke up on Saturday to news of an inflation
figure
that confirmed life in a country already on its knees is getting
worse.
The cost of bread rose by 60 percent overnight after the
southern African
country's official statistics agency announced that the
annual inflation
rate -- already the highest in the world -- was heading
towards 1,000
percent.
Zimbabwe's main state media tucked the bad
news in the middle of bulletins
dominated by what critics call "useless
speeches" by President Robert
Mugabe's government officials.
But the
new 913.6 percent inflation rate still announced itself loudly on
the
streets of Harare where survival remains a challenge even to citizens
well
practiced in the art.
Like the rest of her compatriots, Shamiso Mapanga
said she has learned to
live one day at a time.
The 38-year-old
assistant accountant and her teacher husband have long
stopped trying to
calculate how much money their family of four needs for
groceries every
month.
"It is an impossible and extremely stressful exercise," she said
at a Harare
supermarket on Saturday where she was forced to leave behind one
of the
three loaves of bread she wanted to buy because the price had risen
to
Z$95,000 ($0.958) from Z$60,000 overnight.
"I am sick to the bone
with all these things," she said to a Reuters
correspondent in the same
shop.
"ONLY GOD KNOWS"
"How are we expected to survive, and how
long is this going to last?," she
asked angrily, and without pausing for a
reply, answered her own question:
"I think only God knows how it will all
end."
A man in the same queue said despairingly: "For me whatever
happens. I am
going with the flow but at the same time praying that we
survive the tide."
The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe says an average
family of five requires at
least 35 million Zimbabwe dollars every month but
an average middle class
citizen earns 15 million Zimbabwe
dollars.
Political and economic analysts say many urban Zimbabweans have
so far
survived the country's long-running economic crisis through wheeling
and
dealing and through subsidies from relatives abroad who send money for
groceries.
A recent study by economists at Harare's University of
Zimbabwe says 90
percent of urban families are spending most of their income
on food and
accommodation in the face of the galloping inflation
rate.
Aid agencies have also helped ease the crisis in rural Zimbabwe.
But many
people have simply left the country.
Regional officials
estimate up to 2 million Zimbabweans have sought economic
refuge in
neighbouring South Africa in the face the crisis, which Mugabe's
critics say
has forced a quarter of the country's 12 million people abroad.
Mugabe's
government has branded inflation and corruption as arch-enemies in
its war
to revive an economy which has shrunk by an estimated 40 percent in
the last
seven years.
THREAT OF REVOLT
The crisis has left Zimbabwe
battling chronic shortages of food, fuel and
foreign currency, a crumbling
infrastructure and poor medical services.
The World Health Organisation
said in a report on Friday that life in
Zimbabwe is shorter than anywhere
else in the world, with neither men nor
women expected to live to 40 because
of the affects of AIDS and poverty on
the population.
The opposition
-- along many other critics -- blames the deepening economic
crisis on
Mugabe's policies and expects the public to explode in an angry
revolt
soon.
Mugabe, 82 and in power since independence from Britain in 1980,
has used
tough security laws to clamp down on protests.
Last week
Mugabe warned opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai that he would be
"dicing
with death" if he tries to drive him out of power through mass
demonstrations.
Aljazeera
Saturday 08
April 2006, 17:12 Makka Time, 14:12 GMT
Zimbabweans are struggling to
survive with the world's highest inflation
rate and shortest life
expectancy.
The country woke on Saturday to news of an overnight
price rise that left
bread 60% more expensive than the previous
day.
The southern African country's official statistics agency announced
that the
annual inflation rate - already the highest in the world - was
heading
towards 1000%.
Zimbabwe's main state media tucked the bad
news in the middle of bulletins
dominated by what critics call "useless
speeches" by officials from the
government of Robert Mugabe, the
president.
But the new 913.6% inflation rate still announced itself
loudly on the
streets of Harare where survival remains a challenge even to
citizens well
practiced in the art.
Survive the tide
Like the
rest of her compatriots, Shamiso Mapanga said she has learned to
live one
day at a time.
The 38-year-old assistant accountant and her teacher
husband have long
stopped trying to calculate how much money their family of
four needs for
groceries every month.
"It is an impossible and
extremely stressful exercise," she said at a Harare
supermarket on Saturday
where she was forced to leave behind one of the
three loaves of bread she
wanted to buy because the price had risen to
Z$95,000 ($0.958) from Z$60,000
overnight.
"I am sick to the bone with all these things," she
said.
"How are we expected to survive, and how long is this going to
last? I think
only God knows how it will all end."
A man in the same
queue said: "I am going with the flow but at the same time
praying that we
survive the tide."
Economic crisis
The Consumer Council of
Zimbabwe says an average family of five needs at
least Z$35 million every
month, but an average middle class citizen earns
Z$15
million.
Political and economic analysts say many urban Zimbabweans have
so far
survived the country's long-running economic crisis through wheeling
and
dealing and through subsidies from relatives abroad who send money for
groceries.
A recent study by economists at Harare's
University of Zimbabwe says 90% of
urban families are spending most of their
income on food and accommodation
in the face of the galloping inflation
rate.
Aid agencies have also helped ease the crisis in rural Zimbabwe.
But many
people have simply left the country.
Regional officials
estimate up to two million Zimbabweans have sought
economic refuge in
neighbouring South Africa in the face of the crisis,
which Mugabe's critics
say has forced a quarter of the country's 12 million
people
abroad.
Mugabe's government has branded inflation and corruption as
arch-enemies in
its war to revive an economy which has shrunk by an
estimated 40% in the
past seven years.
Dicing with death
The
crisis has left Zimbabwe battling chronic shortages of food, fuel and
foreign currency, a crumbling infrastructure and poor medical
services.
The World Health Organisation said in a report on Friday that
life in
Zimbabwe is shorter than anywhere else in the world, with neither
men nor
women expected to live to 40 because of the affects of Aids and
poverty.
Women have an average life expectancy of 34 years. On average,
men do not
live past 37, WHO said.
The opposition, along many other
critics, blames the deepening economic
crisis on Mugabe's policies and
expects the public to explode in an angry
revolt soon.
Mugabe, 82,
and in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has used
tough
security laws to clamp down on protests.
Last week, Mugabe warned
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai that he would
be "dicing with death" if
he tries to drive him out of power through mass
demonstrations.
Aljazeera
Thursday 06 April 2006,
13:15 Makka Time, 10:15 GMT
Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president,
hits back at Western critics, saying
that human rights in his country are
better than in the United States and
that Iraq will not have peace until
US-led troops are withdrawn.
In an interview with Aljazeera that
was aired on April 3, the president
defended his land redistribution policy,
which has caused tension between
Zimbabwe and Britain.
Mugabe, 82,
has been Zimbabwe's leader since a guerrilla war led to the
country's
independence from Great Britain in 1980.
He has been accused of rigging
elections in 2000 and criticised over his
nation's rights record, but he
compared Zimbabwe's past with that of the
United States.
"Human
rights here are better than those of the United States. We never ran
a
system of slavery here," he said.
"Look at what happened in New Orleans.
When you had Katrina... what did Bush
do? He just folded his arms, and the
people were drowning and dying."
Iraq invasion
He condemned the US
and Britain over the invasion of Iraq, saying that
instability would not end
until foreign forces have withdrawn.
"Leaving things to the Americans and
the British is actually destroying
Iraq," he said, suggesting the formation
of a UN body made up mostly of Arab
nations to help end
violence.
"Peace cannot come from the Europeans at all," he said. "It
must come from
the non-Europeans, because we of the Third World lost
confidence in Europe.
The Arabs have lost confidence in Europe."
Farm
seizures
"It is better to have Mugabe in control than have
Zimbabwe descend
into chaos and murder"
Alfonso
DeMaio,
North America
More
comments...
Friction with the West openly began in 2000, when Mugabe
ordered the seizure
of commercial farms owned by descendants of white
settlers, who ruled the
country of 12 million before independence and
controlled 70% of the arable
land, although they numbered about
4,000.
But Mugabe said problems had surfaced three years earlier, when
Britain and
the US ended support for a programme intended to distribute land
to black
peasants.
He said that Britain and the US reneged on pledges
- made when the country
became independent - to fund land redistribution and
that Zimbabwe had "no
money to pay for your British farmers if we take the
land."
How to pay for the land programme is the real source of friction,
he said.
Since the confiscations started, the agricultural economy has
been disrupted
and there have been shortages of food, fuel and
imports.
Inflation has sky-rocketed and in February reached
780%.
Mugabe acknowledged difficulties with the land programme, but
blamed
problems with agricultural production on a drought and difficulty in
training and getting equipment for new commercial farmers.
"It takes
time to master the ABCs of farming," he said.
He insisted that the land
is distributed fairly. "The land is given to
anyone who wants it and can use
it. It doesn't matter whether he's an
official or he's a banker or he's a
professor," he said.
Mugabe has been accused of using the programme to
give land to supporters.
Tension
Mugabe, in the past, had blamed
foreign sabotage for his country's economic
decline. He said the US and
Britain were at fault for the tensions with
Zimbabwe.
"We are not
hostile to anyone," he said. "We are open to the rest of the
world, provided
the rest of the world recognises us as equals."
He said that Zimbabwe's
natural allies lay in the East and that the West had
lost credibility among
Third World nations.
"If Europe would want to engage Africa,
and indeed engage the Third World,
including the Arab countries, China,
India, Latin America. they must cleanse
themselves of the past colonial
theories ... that they alone are superior,
they alone are thinkers, they
alone are intelligent," he said.
Mugabe, the leader of the ruling ZANU-PF
party, has been accused of rigging
elections to remain in power since 2000.
He recently said he would not allow
protests by opposition parties to create
upheaval.
In 2005, the African Union adopted a statement criticising
Zimbabwe over the
arrests and torture of opposition members of parliament
and stifling freedom
of expression.
Dear Family and Friends,
Zimbabwe's rainy season has come to an end and now
we start preparing for
winter and 6 long months of dryness. Early in the
mornings the dew lies
heavy on the grass and the evenings have begun drawing
in. Temperatures
are getting cooler and already warning of what we all expect
to be a very
cold winter. According to official reports, almost the whole
country
received above average rain fall this season and nationwide our dams
are
92% full. Everyone is saying that this is the best rainy season we've
had
since 1980 - the year of Independence - and that this is not
coincidental,
it is a sign from the Ancestors: a sign of change. By all
accounts, after
a season like this, we should be in for a bumper harvest,
full silos and
stacked warehouses. On the ground though, on the easy to see
roadside
farms, there is no sign of a bumper harvest waiting to be reaped.
Perhaps
the incessant state predictions of a time of plenty, are from crops
that
are simply out of direct sight. Having just gone through an entire
year
with virtually no fuel for anything but the most essential travel,
few
people have been able to actually get out and see what's happening
on
Zimbabwe's farms, or in fact anywhere off the beaten track.
At the
start of the rainy season we were told that the army was being
deployed into
rural and farming areas to "help" with the cropping. The
government called
this "Operation Taguta" or Operation Eat Well. A church
headed NGO, the
Solidarity Peace Trust, has just released a report on the
impact of army
deployment into rural areas. South African and Zimbabwean
Anglican Bishops
travelled to rural areas in Matabeleland and said that
the army had
"hijacked" plots and maize harvests. The report said that
soldiers insisted
that only maize could be grown and vegetable gardens and
fruit trees had been
destroyed to make more space. South African Bishop
Kevin Dowling said : "This
destruction has turned plot-holders into
paupers overnight." The report also
said that the presence of soldiers in
the rural communities had: "disrupted
the social fabric and left people
angry and afraid." These two emotions are
probably the most widespread
feelings in every sector of Zimbabwe, rural and
urban, and this is how we
approach Zimbabwe's 26th anniversary of
Independence - angry and afraid.
I am taking a short Easter break and
will not write next week. I send love
to family and friends for Easter and to
Zimbabweans, wherever you are in
the world, for a happy Independence Day.
With love, cathy. Copyright cathy
buckle 8th April 2006. http://africantears.netfirms.com
| ||||||||
Property Rights, Land Reforms, and the Hidden Architecture of Capitalism | ||||||||
By Craig J. Richardson | ||||||||
Posted: Thursday, April 6, 2006 | ||||||||
DEVELOPMENT POLICY OUTLOOK | ||||||||
AEI Online | ||||||||
Publication Date: April 6, 2006 | ||||||||
No. 2, 2006 Few countries have failed as spectacularly, or as tragically, as Zimbabwe has over the past half decade. Zimbabwe has transformed from one of Africa’s rare success stories into one of its worst economic and humanitarian disasters. But while culpability for Zimbabwe’s collapse is broadly attributed to the policies of President Robert Mugabe, the intricacies of the country’s unraveling remain poorly appreciated--above all, the importance of property rights in the process. That is unfortunate, because the destruction of Zimbabwe, like that of Nicaragua two decades earlier, offers important, cautionary lessons for other developing countries--as grim natural experiments in the hidden architecture of capitalism. Development economists like to study success: how to pull a country out of poverty, how to spur growth, how to improve living conditions. This emphasis on positive outcomes is even reflected in their vocabulary: “third world” countries are now “developing” countries, regardless of whether they are developing or not. Yet what about a country undergoing a rapid and devastating
economic collapse? Curiously, development economics has devoted little attention
to studying this phenomenon, and there is scant research to explain how it
happens. Certainly Zimbabwe’s problems have been the subject of scrutiny by
the international community. By 2003, real output had already dropped by
one-third, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was determined to know why.
In its yearly Article IV report, the IMF produced a laundry list of potential
culprits, including loose fiscal and monetary policies, a fixed exchange rate
highly out of sync with “street prices,” and price controls. The IMF blamed
these “inappropriate economic policies” for the collapse. President Robert
Mugabe’s land reform program, along with the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic, were
identified as “exacerbating” Zimbabwe’s newfound poverty, but not the primary
reason for it.[1] The IMF’s recommendations were consequently macroeconomic in
nature: they included freeing up price controls, as well as exchange and
interest rates, and clamping down on the money supply. Although the introduction of Zimbabwe’s land reforms coincided with its dramatic collapse (see figure 1), a puzzle remains: the farming sector was only 18 percent of the entire economy. Other sectors, such as banking, tourism, manufacturing, and mining, also shrank dramatically during this time, however. How, then, to explain the discrepancy? In fact, the damage done to property rights by the land reforms caused a series of ripple effects throughout Zimbabwe’s other economic sectors. Studying this “cascade failure” helps better reveal the framework of developing market economies--what economist Hernando de Soto calls “the hidden architecture” of capitalism. In this regard, the destruction of Zimbabwe represents a grim “natural experiment” that illustrates the tremendous negative consequences of ignoring the rule of law and provides a cautionary lesson for what other developing countries should not do in the future. Unfortunately, the rebuilding of an economy after property rights
have been revoked is likely to be contentious and slow, akin to rebuilding trust
in a relationship after a serious betrayal. The case of Nicaragua is
illustrative in this regard as a counterpoint to Zimbabwe, as its history of
land expropriation under the Sandinistas, its resulting collapse, and its long
and difficult struggle toward recovery provide useful clues for what a
post-Mugabe future might hold. With its modern roads, strong education system, low crime rate, and diversified economy, Zimbabwe was once considered one of Africa’s success stories. Economic growth from 1980 to 1989 averaged a robust 5.2 percent in real terms, and while it slowed from 1990 to 1999 due to questionable macroeconomic policies, it still averaged 4.3 percent during this period.[3] A major reason for the country’s prosperity was its sophisticated commercial farming sector. Vast tracts of large-scale farms produced thousands of acres of tobacco, cotton, and other cash crops. About 4,500 white families owned these farms. In contrast, 840,000 black farmers eked out a living on small and relatively infertile plots in the communal lands, producing maize, groundnuts, and other staples. By the late 1990s, a broad consensus had taken shape--including the Mugabe government, the IMF, the United Nations, the British government (the original colonial power in Zimbabwe), Africa scholars, and even many of Zimbabwe’s white commercial farmers--that land reforms were needed. The purpose of these reforms would be to improve agricultural productivity and, simultaneously, increase wealth for the black majority. The sensitive issue was how to redistribute the land, since the commercial farming sector provided much of the country’s foreign exchange, created thousands of jobs, and produced the essential staple of maize. While the IMF and the British advocated that landowners be given adequate compensation, as dictated by Zimbabwe’s own laws, the Mugabe government argued that these lands had been “stolen” from the country’s black inhabitants and thus could simply be taken back. This claim ignored the fact that more than 80 percent of white-owned commercial farms in Zimbabwe had been purchased through the commercial real estate market since Robert Mugabe came to power in 1980, and less than 5 percent of the farmers could trace their ancestry back to the original British colonialists who arrived in the 1890s.[4] At independence in 1980, furthermore, the government had passed a law that gave itself the right of first refusal on any rural land offered for sale. If the government did not desire a farm for resettlement purposes, a “certificate of no current interest” was issued, and the property went up for sale, with a title being issued. Buyers therefore trusted that their property was safe and secure from government expropriation.[5] As late as 1998, in fact, the IMF predicted that the Zimbabwean government’s land reform would unfold in a fair and legal manner:
As it turned out, however, the IMF--along with everyone else who
trusted the Mugabe government--was soon proven wrong. Beginning in 2000, Harare
began seizing control of white-owned farmland, with no compensation for its
owners, and then redistributing it to political cronies in the ZANU-PF political
party, rather than poor rural farmers. Because most of the new owners knew
little about farming, agricultural production dropped sharply. Land titles were
declared null and void, and all contracts and mortgages related to the farmland
were suddenly worthless. The Mugabe government thus recast land reform into a
tool of political patronage, with the renewal of leases left to the whims of the
party leadership. Lavish Spending on Veterans. In 1997, the Zimbabwean government recklessly spent 9.7 percent of its budget on a payout to war veterans from the 1970s battle for independence.[8] This lavish expenditure has been widely cited as the beginning of Zimbabwe’s economic downfall.[9] Yet while the payout caused a large, one-time jump in the inflation rate, a closer look reveals that prices, along with Zimbabwe’s GDP growth, actually remained within a stable band for the next three years (see figure 2). In addition, the payout was not large when compared to Zimbabwe’s total economic output; it consumed only 3.7 percent of GDP in 1997, and dwindled after that (see figure 3).[10] The rapid economic collapse occurred only after 2000 and was not the result of some mysterious multiyear lag, but because this is precisely when the government began rapidly printing money.
Irresponsible Macroeconomic Policies. While the IMF has
blamed Zimbabwe’s post-2000 collapse on a host of bad macroeconomic policies
adopted by the Mugabe government, many of these policies were already in place
in the late 1990s, including “large and protracted fiscal deficits” and an
“accommodating monetary policy.”[11] Despite this, the country’s economy grew by
3.7 percent in 1997, and 2.5 percent in 1998.[12] Zimbabwe was able to weather
the Mugabe government’s poor governance because the rule of law was still
intact, keeping its underlying banking institutions relatively strong. Certainly
lax macroeconomic policies nudged the economy in the wrong direction, but not
enough to provoke an unpreceden-ted collapse. Property rights are analogous to the concrete foundation of a building: critical for supporting the frame and the roof, yet virtually invisible to its inhabitants. In fact, there are three distinct economic pillars that rest on the foundation of secure property rights, creating a largely hidden substructure for the entire marketplace. They are:
How did Mugabe’s destruction of property rights lead to the
collapse of these three pillars, and with it, the country’s economy? In sifting
through the rubble, it is clear that the pillars were not of equal strength.
Trust is the most fragile of the three pillars and was the first to
disintegrate, followed by land equity, and lastly, producer and worker
incentives. Watching Zimbabwe’s economic unraveling is chillingly reminiscent of
watching a building collapse in slow motion after a series of timed explosions.
The case study also reveals how the hidden yet fragile architecture of
capitalism can so quickly fall apart once its substructure is substantially
harmed. Just before Christmas 1997, however, the government announced that 1,471 of the country’s 4,500 farms had been earmarked for compulsory acquisition. This kind of rhetoric had been heard before from Harare, and consequently, the threat of land redistribution was largely dismissed as “callow promises by politicians intent on whipping up support for the next election.”[14] Yet by 1998, the government’s language became even more heated. Speaking to prospective voters in the Matobo district in September of that year, President Mugabe attacked “rich farm lands in former white colonial hands” and argued that expropriation would “cure the economic and social ills bedeviling the nation.”[15] The ZSE began to plunge sharply soon thereafter. News reports indicated that investors were increasingly leery of the government’s plans and losing confidence in its ability to govern. By the end of 1998, the value of stocks traded on the ZSE dropped by a stunning 88 percent. As Christopher Dell, U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, has noted, “Nothing rattles investor confidence more than the prospect of expropriation. The [February 2000] constitutional amendment striking down the right to redress for victims of land expropriation sent a shockwave through the community of investors who keep an eye on the climate in Zimbabwe.”[16] Between 1998 and 2001, foreign direct investment dropped by 99 percent (see figure 4).[17] In addition, the World Bank risk premium on investment in Zimbabwe jumped from 3.4 percent in 2000 to 153.2 percent by 2004. It is hardly surprising that the stock market and FDI collapsed so
quickly, and somewhat in advance of the actual farm seizures. After all, this
type of wealth is the most fluid and therefore the most volatile. With a few
keystrokes tapped out on a computer, investments can instantly move thousands of
miles from Zimbabwe to a more promising country. These markets serve as
bellwethers and at least partially explain why the economy began turning south
prior to the land seizures. With little or no psychological bond to the country,
foreign investors are usually the first to leave. Their trust is difficult to
build, and easy to lose. Before 2000, commercial farmers relied on their land as collateral to secure loans from banks, which they then used to purchase seeds for the coming season, along with tractors and other capital. Secure property titles thus served as a key insurance mechanism for banks and “were the cornerstone to stimulating the entrepreneurial spirit that developed the [farming] sector,” according to Neil Wright, a Zimbabwean economist for the Commercial Farmers’ Union.[18] After the land reforms began in 2000, newly resettled Zimbabweans were assigned plots of former commercial farmland but were forced to lease it year to year from the government. With no means to borrow against their land, the new farmers could not obtain loans. Moreover, their knowledge of farming was often meager, resulting in yields that were a small fraction of previous harvests. As the farm seizures continued, banks became increasingly reluctant to lend to the remaining commercial farmers whose land had been listed for compulsory acquisition by the government or occupied by squatters.[19] A vast constriction of borrowing occurred, which rippled from
business to business, and sector to sector. With the Zimbabwean government
declaring itself the sole owner of farmland, banks and other property owners now
held worthless titles. The land became what Hernando de Soto calls “dead
capital,” because it was unable to be leveraged and used as equity. An estimated
$5.3 billion worth of land value vanished as a result. In 2001 alone, this loss
of financial equity in the farmland sector exceeded all of the World Bank aid
ever given to Zimbabwe by a whopping 242 percent.[20] This drop in wealth also
equaled 65 percent of Zimbabwe’s GDP in 2003, which the World Bank estimated at
$8.3 billion.[21] Zimbabwe’s conversion from productive to dead capital was now nearly complete. Just as de Soto’s work has shown how developing countries can harvest wealth by turning “dead” capital into “live” capital as a result of titling land and using that property as collateral for bank loans, the case of Zimbabwe shows that these ideas work in reverse as well--with grim results. This, then, is the second “pillar” of the economy that crumbles
when land reform movements destroy property rights. Bank investments are
certainly less volatile than stock markets and FDI and have the ability to
withstand greater shocks to the system, when secure rule of law is under threat.
Their movements are defensive in nature: they strive to protect existing
contracts and mortgages tied to physical property, but wait out the storm by
sharply reducing their exposure to risk. Yet banks are not as tied to the land
as the individual farm-holders, who may have put years into clearing out rocks,
nourishing orchards, or laying irrigation pipes. Thus, banks’ exit generally
comes second, after the foreign investors.
What is most remarkable, however, is how long it took for the Buckles and others like them to leave. Even under threat of their lives, displaced commercial farmers took their cases to the Zimbabwean courts, property titles in hand, arguing that the seizures were unlawful. They lobbied the Commercial Farmers’ Union for better representation in government and defended their property with firearms. Eventually, however, most pulled up their stakes and moved to places like Australia, Zambia, or Mozambique, taking their immense knowledge of farming with them. Ironically, they were welcomed with open arms in these countries, and agricultural yields have sharply increased where they settled. Zambia, for instance, has awarded ninety-nine-year leases to former Zimbabwean farmers, whose knowledge and investments have contributed to the country’s recent “exceptional agricultural performance” and 5 percent annual growth rate, according to a 2005 OECD report (see figure 5).[26] Zimbabwe, meanwhile, has experienced a tremendous drop in
agricultural production. Maize, groundnuts, cotton, wheat, soybean, sunflowers,
and coffee production contracted between 50 and 90 percent between 2000 and
2003.[27] While Zimbabwe once produced an export surplus of seed, it is now an
importer, because most of the high-yield hybrid seed production skills have been
lost. To make matters worse, the hard currency lost from commercial farming
output has meant that the new farmers often have no money for inputs like seeds,
fertilizer, spare parts, or gasoline.[28] Unsurprisingly, then, the destruction of Zimbabwe’s farms has created massive social disruptions. It has thrown hundreds of thousands of black farm workers out of work, driving them to Zimbabwe’s largest cities, Harare and Bulawayo, looking for jobs, or into neighboring South Africa and Mozambique. These newly homeless, newly poor refugees have set up makeshift shanties in Zimbabwe’s cities in an effort to make ends meet--squatter settlements that were subsequently attacked and bulldozed by the Mugabe government in the summer of 2005. Although agriculture was only directly responsible for 18 percent of the Zimbabwean economy, 60 percent of the country’s non-farm enterprises directly or indirectly depended on commercial agriculture inputs. As a result, 700 non-farming companies had shut their doors by late 2001. In addition, the agricultural sector of the economy employed 60 percent of the entire population, which meant that millions of unemployed workers now had far less disposable income to purchase the nation’s goods and services.[30] Commercial tobacco and cotton farms also provided about 40 percent of hard currency in the country, necessary for imports like fuel, machinery, and medicine. With the collapse of the commercial agricultural sector, food and other basic goods disappeared from shelves, and widespread fuel shortages paralyzed the country’s cars and planes.[31] Without hard currency in its coffers, the Mugabe government turned
to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to pay its bills. Annual money supply growth
rose from 57 percent in January 2001 to 103 percent by the end of the year,
inaugurating a cycle of devastating hyperinflation.[32] According to the OECD,
the acute food shortages caused by the land reforms meant that the country,
which was once a net exporter of maize, had to print billions of Zimbabwean
dollars to import food.[33] The government even ran out of hard currency to buy
the imported ink needed to manufacture its own money; as a result, bills were
only printed on one side. By March 2006, it took Z$60,000 to buy one loaf of
bread, even as a new Z$50,000 note was being printed to “keep up” with the
demands of higher prices. As in Zimbabwe, government officials rather than poor peasants were the principal beneficiaries of the redistribution. It has been estimated that more than 70 percent of the Sandinista land grants were legally suspect and thus they lost much of their equity value. While the Sandinista government ultimately confiscated approximately 170,000 properties during its eleven years in power, only 55,000 households received private titles, which were of questionable security.[38] The seizing of assets did not end there. Between 1979 and 1981,
decrees were issued by the government that allowed it to expropriate banks,
insurance companies, mining companies, and other enterprises “working against
the state.” Promises were made to compensate the former owners, but this rarely
occurred.[39] Through the next ten years, the Sandinista government nationalized
351 enterprises, which together accounted for nearly a third of the Nicaraguan
economy.[40] These conditions proved paralyzing. There is little point to improving productivity or planning for the future if the result of one’s work may end up in the state’s hands. Not surprisingly, during the first three years of the revolution, from 1977 to 1979, per-capita income declined by more than 35 percent; by the end of Sandinista rule, per-capita income had fallen by half, just as it has in Zimbabwe.[43] Meanwhile, government spending soared through the 1980s, and the central bank printed money to cover the deficits. At its worst, prices grew at an annual rate of more than 14,000 percent.[44] The work of INRA yielded tangible benefits, at least at first. Researchers Rikke J. Broegaard, Rasmus Heltberg, and Nikolaj Malchow from the Center for Development Research in Copenhagen found strong evidence in 2002 that where title deeds have been issued in Nicaragua, the economic productivity of the land has increased. Individuals with deeds invest in long-term land use, growing perennial crops such as coffee and managing their property more effectively.[46] These findings at least partially explain the economy’s positive growth after 1993 (see figure 6). From 1995 to 2000, in fact, Nicaragua was one of the fastest growing countries in the world, with an average annual GDP growth rate of 5 percent. Yet for those looking for clues on to how to rebuild Zimbabwe after Mugabe, the experience of post-Sandinista Nicaragua also shows just how difficult restoring property rights can be. Thousands of current and former property owners in Nicaragua continue to lock horns over property disputes, with no resolution in sight. In 2002 the country was engaged in more than 160,000 title disputes, and the government remains swamped with legal challenges.[47] For one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, this represents an enormous diversion of resources. For every two people in a dispute, one is likely to walk away frustrated and without property, while the other is exhausted by the long and arduous process. To try to settle these disputes, INRA first determines the value
of the land, paying out the resulting compensation to former property owners in
bonds that mature in fifteen years. The bonds trade for about twenty cents on
the dollar, however, so former owners get far less than the value of their lost
property.[48] Many Nicaraguans do not want to wait fifteen years to be paid--not
surprising, given the country’s experience with instability and
hyperinflation--and sell their bonds immediately, getting what they can for
their property.[49] Unfortunately, around the world, several countries continue to ignore this sobering lesson. In South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki expressed interest during his recent State of the Union speech in revisiting the “willing-buyer, willing-seller” principle for land redistribution. The government is expected to begin expropriating farmland at state-determined prices beginning this year--part of a broader attempt to address the economic inequalities inherited from apartheid.[51] Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka agrees that the pace of land reform should be accelerated. “There needs to be a bit of oomph,” she said in a 2005 interview. “That’s why we may need the skills of Zimbabwe to help us.”[52] In Namibia as well, there are longstanding political disagreements
over land reform. Like Zimbabwe, Namibia has approximately 4,000 commercial
farms, the vast majority of them white-owned. The government has announced its
intention to buy and redistribute 9.5 million hectares of farmland to 243,000
landless citizens, but there is little evidence that it can afford to do so at
market prices.[53] In 2004, however, President Sam Nujoma announced his
intention to expropriate 192 “absentee landlord” farms--owned mainly by German
and South African nationals--which together comprise 2.9 million hectares.
Unlike Zimbabwe, Namibia has pledged some form of compensation to farmers who
lose their land, but it remains to be seen to what extent those promises are
honored. Other factors are important as well, such as free markets, stable money supply, good health care, strong educational systems, and ease of starting a new business, but none ultimately matter as much as the individual’s ability to secure and retain property rights. Craig J. Richardson is associate professor of economics at
Salem College and the author of The Collapse of Zimbabwe in the Wake ofthe
2000-2003 Land Reforms (Edwin Mellen Press, 2004). 2. Michael Clemens and Todd Moss, Costs and Causes of Zimbabwe’s Crisis (Washington, D.C.: Center for Global Development, July 2005), available at www.cgdev.org/files/2918_file_Zimbabwe_Crisis.pdf. 3. This excludes the severe drought year in 1992. 4. Geoff Hill, The Battle for Zimbabwe: The Final
Countdown (Cape Town, South Africa: Zebra Press, 2003), 102. 6. International Monetary Fund, “IMF Approves Standby Credit for Zimbabwe,” news release 98/20, June 1, 1998, available at www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/1998/pr9820.htm. 7. See Craig Richardson, “The Loss of Property Rights and the Collapse of Zimbabwe,” Cato Journal (Fall 2005). For detailed information on rainfall in Zimbabwe, see pages 546-547. 8. Calculation by Craig Richardson, based on IMF data and
information from Patrick Bond, “Political Reawakening in Zimbabwe,” Monthly
Review 50, no. 11 (April 1999), available at www.monthlyreview.org/499bond.htm. 11. International Monetary Fund, “IMF Approves Standby Credit for
Zimbabwe.” 13. I have presented the broad contours of this section’s argument in two previous publications: The Collapse of Zimbabwe in the Wake of the 2000-2003 Land Reforms: Studies in African Economic Development, vol. 24 (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), 4-5; and “The Loss of Property Rights and the Collapse of Zimbabwe,” 548-554. Here I present a more nuanced explanation that considers the fragility of each of the three “pillars” of the marketplace, based on updated information. 14. Tor Skalnes, The Politics of Economic Reform in Zimbabwe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 64. 15. Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, The Land Issue in Zimbabwe (Auckland Park, South Africa: EISA, February 2002), available at www.eisa.org.za/WEP/zimland.htm. 16. Christopher Dell, “Plain Talk about the Zimbabwean Economy,” (speech, Africa University, Mutare, Zimbabwe, November 2, 2005), available at www.swradioafrica.com/pages/dell021105.htm. Ambassador Dell is referring to the government-organized referendum in February 2000, which proposed that Zimbabwe’s new constitution empower the government to acquire land compulsorily without compensation. This referendum was soundly defeated, but the damage was done in investor confidence nonetheless.
18. Neil Wright, e-mail message to author, October 28, 2003. 19. Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), African Economic Outlook 2002/2003--Country Studies: Zimbabwe (Paris: OECD, 2003), 358. 20. Calculation by Craig Richardson using information from Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmer’s Union and the World Bank. See Craig Richardson, “The Loss of Property Rights and the Collapse of Zimbabwe,” 551-552. 21. Ibid., 551. 22. World Bank, 2000 Development Indicators (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2000). No information is provided after 2001. 23. International Monetary Fund, Zimbabwe: 2003 Article IV Consultation--Staff Report. 24. OECD, African Economic Outlook 2003/2004--Country Studies: Zimbabwe (Paris: OECD, 2004). 25. Catherine Buckle, African Tears (Johannesburg and London: Covos Day, 2001), 181. 26. OECD, African Economic Outlook 2003/2004--Country Studies: Zimbabwe, 475-488. 27. Calculations made using data provided to the author by Commercial Farmers’ Union, Zimbabwe. 28. Ibid. 29. Data provided by Zimbabwean economist John Robertson. 30. U.S. Department of State, Zimbabwe: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices--2004 (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, February 28, 2005), available at www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41634.htm. 31. Craig Richardson. The Collapse of Zimbabwe, 81-82. 32. OECD, African Economic Outlook 2003/2004, 358. 33. Ibid., 361. 34. Duncan Campbell, “Homeless and Hopeless: Bulldozers Carve out a Bleak New Reality for Poor Zimbabweans,” Guardian, July 5, 2005, available at www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,2763,1521337,00.html. 35. Craig Richardson, The Collapse of Zimbabwe, 119. 36. World Economic Forum, “Nordic Countries and East Asian Tigers Top the Rankings in the World Economic Forum’s 2005 Competitiveness Rankings,” news release, September 28, 2005, available at www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Nordic+countries+and+East+Asian+tigers+top+the+rankings+in+the+World+Economic+Forum’s+2005+competitiveness+rankings. 37. Mark Everingham, “Agricultural Property Rights and Political Change in Nicaragua,” Latin American Politics and Society 43, no. 3 (Fall 2001), available at www.landnetamericas.org/index.asp?documentID=3880. 38. Ibid. 39. United States Embassy in Nicaragua, Nicaraguan Property Law: An Overview (Managua, Nicaragua: U.S. Embassy), available at http://usembassy.state.gov/managua/wwwhe70.html. 40. Mark Everingham, “Agricultural Property Rights and Political Change in Nicaragua.” 41. World Bank, 1979 Development Indicators (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1979), figures for Nicaragua. The figures are nominal U.S. dollars. 42. Ibid. 43. World Bank, Nicaraguan Poverty Assessment: Challenges and
Opportunities for Poverty Reduction (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2001),
available at www.worldbank.org/lac/lacinfoclient.nsf/d29684951174975c85256735007fef12/7920798b86e354f85256afc00785908/$FILE/CHI.pdf. 46. Rikke J. Broegaard, Rasmus Heltberg, and Nikolaj Malchow,
“Property Rights and Land Tenure in Nicaragua” (working paper, Center for
Development Research, July 26, 2002), available at www.econ.ku.dk/heltberg/Papers/landtenure
Nicaragua.pdf. 48. David Gonzalez, “Among Unpaid Wages of a Revolution: Competing
Claims on Land in Nicaragua,” New York Times, September 10, 2000. 50. Ibid. 51. Marian L. Tupy, “South Africa’s Land Woes,” Washington Times, March 6, 2006, available at www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060305-093318-2395r.htm. 52. “South African White Farm to Be Seized,” BBC News, September 25, 2005, available at www.news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4273890.stm. 53. “Namibia: Slow-Paced Land Reform,” IRINnews.org, available at www.irinnews.org/webspecials/landreformsa/Namibia.asp; and “Namibia: Key Step in Land Reform Completed,” IRINnews.org, October 1, 2004, available at www.irinnews.org/report.aspReportID=43457&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=NAMIBIA. 54. “Namibia’s Land Reform Programme is Flawed, Says NGO,” Mail & Guardian Online, September 26, 2005, available at www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=251962&area=/breaking_news/breakingnews__africa/. | ||||||||
Reuters
Sat 8 Apr
2006 5:28 AM ET
By Jack Kimball
NAIROBI, April 8 (Reuters) - Spurned
on recent trips to Africa, the United
Nations' top humanitarian official has
said some African leaders are
hindering the world body's work at the expense
of their own citizens.
Jan Egeland, the U.N. under secretary for
humanitarian affairs, this week
was denied permission to visit Sudan's
troubled Darfur region for a second
time.
And his 2005 trip to see
the impact of a slum destruction programme in
Zimbabwe infuriated President
Robert Mugabe.
"In most countries it's going well, but in some we do not
get neither the
access, the security or the support that we need in
situations where it's
their citizens' lives that are at stake," Egeland said
when asked why some
African leaders were not welcoming the United Nations
into their countries.
Political considerations often get in the way, he
said.
"I think it's because there is this short-term vision where they
think 'I
can't politically survive in my position today'," he told Reuters
in an
interview.
"And the inability for some leaders to stand up to
truth of what's really
happening in their country."
Egeland, in
charge of coordinating the U.N.'s humanitarian and emergency
relief work,
has put a major focus on Africa since taking office in 2003.
Darfur has
been on the top of Egeland's agenda, and Sudan has twice denied
him access.
This time, Khartoum said it had only asked him to delay his
trip.
Tens of thousands have been killed and millions driven from
their homes
during more than three years of conflict, which the United
States has called
genocide.
TRIP TO ZIMBABWE
After
Egeland's Zimbabwe visit, Mugabe accused him of being a "hypocrite and
a
liar."
Egeland was the most senior U.N. official to visit Zimbabwe since
the
government embarked on a slum-demolishing campaign last year. The United
Nations estimated it had destroyed the homes or livelihoods of more than 3
million people.
Egeland said the United Nation's experience in the
Democratic Republic of
Congo, where a peacekeeping force has made it much
easier to deliver aid,
was a model for Darfur.
"It had a massive
positive affect on humanitarian access and ability for us
to facilitate the
return of displaced," he said.
Egeland said a U.N. force in Darfur would
have to be twice the size of the
7,000-strong African Union team there now
and have the mobility to patrol an
area the size of France.
"This is
not a conventional war here. We have cowardly men on horseback or
camels or
pickups who specialise in killing women and children," Egeland
said.
Sudan has refused to bow to international pressure to accept a
U.N. takeover
of the AU force in Darfur, but said it might consider that
after a peace
deal is reached with Darfur rebels.
VOA
By
Carole
Gombakomba
Washington
07 April
2006
The Zimbabwean governments Operation Taguta-Sisuthu, Shona
and Ndebele for
"Eat Well," under which soldiers have taken charge of farms
large and small,
has been a disaster for farmers in Matabeleland, according
to a report
issued by the Solidarity Peace Trust, a nongovernmental
organization based
in South Africa.
The organization issued a report
saying soldiers have mismanaged irrigation
schemes and "systematically"
destroyed market gardens that provided
essential income to the farming
communities, leaving them impoverished and
at great risk of
hunger.
The report on Zimbabwe's program of "command agriculture" said
gardens were
torn up to ensure that only the maize, the country's main
staple, would be
grown. Even then, maize farmers were deprived of the
traditional share of
the harvest that the Grain Marketing Board Act
guarantees them for household
consumption.
The report says soldiers
have beaten people in the fields in Matabeleland,
and that plot holders feel
they are being treated as indentured laborers
with no rights and no claim to
their produce. The presence of soldiers "has
disrupted the social fabric and
left people angry and afraid," said the
report, adding that this atmosphere
brings back memories of the so-called
Gukurahundi operations of the 1980s
when Zimbabwe's Fifth Brigade terrorized
the region in an ethnic-political
purge.
The Solidarity Peace Trust, chaired by Roman Catholic Archbishop
Pius Ncube
of Bulawayo, an outspoken critic of President Robert Mugabe,
urges
nongovernmental organizations and the international community to
demand that
the government make clear its actual intentions in pursuing
Operation
Taguta-Sisuthu. The Trust is urging an investigation into the
destruction of
market gardens and loss of income which has ensued, followed
by prosecution
and compensation for losses.
The organization said the
army should be charged with violating the GMB Act
where troops have seized
the maize of irrigation plot holders or deprived
farmers of maize which they
have grown and need to retain for their family's
survival.
Reporter
Carole Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe spoke with
Solidarity Peace
Trust Deputy Director Selvan Chety about the call for an
investigation.
A senior government official challenged the report.
William Nhara, director
of public and interactive affairs in the office of
President Robert Mugabe,
said such reports are being fabricated to discredit
an operation intended to
improve food output.
But Bulawayo-based
political activist Felix Mafa said that while the
government may dismiss
such reports, that does not change the reality on the
ground.
Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)
April 2,
2006
Posted to the web April 7, 2006
Gweru
A committee set up
to raise funds for the rehabilitation and expansion of
Gweru Provincial
Hospital mortuary has failed to start work after Zanu PF
officials objected
to its composition, The Standard has learnt.
The Midlands Governor Cephas
Msipa, who was involved in setting up the
committee, decided that it was
prudent to co-opt Gweru mayor, Sesel
Zvidzayi, as chairperson of the
fund-raising committee, The Standard
understands.
However, some
ruling party provincial officials, keen to portray the project
seen as a
Zanu PF initiative, decided it was improper to have a Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) member heading the committee. Zvidzayi belongs to
Morgan Tsvangirai's faction of the MDC.
A government official
speaking on condition he was not identified, said
following the objections
by Zanu PF officials, the MDC mayor was then made
the deputy chairperson of
the committee while Gweru businessperson, Enos
Size was appointed the
chairperson of the committee.
However, the committee is still to
meet.
Asked for comment, the Midlands provincial medical director,
Anderson
Chimusoro, referred all questions to the Midlands governor who was
not
immediately available for comment yesterday.
However, Zvidzayi
told The Standard that he was willing to direct all his
energies to the
project despite disagreements over his involvement.
"Unfortunately I
cannot say much regarding the committee but I want to
emphasise that I am
ready and willing to work for the improvement of the
mortuary and on
anything else that benefits our residents," Zvidzayi said.
The Gweru
provincial hospital mortuary has a capacity of 24 bodies but has
over 60
bodies at any given time.
AND
April 8,
2006.
By Andnetwork .com
Police forces in Southern
Africa are waking up to a new threat: gangs
of disciplined, well-armed
former Zimbabwean soldiers involved in high-value
robberies.
South Africa has borne the brunt of a spree
of organised raids on
isolated casinos and cash-in-transit vans, reportedly
conducted efficiently
and with minimum violence.
"We only woke
up to the fact that we could be facing seasoned soldiers
when we arrested a
cash-in-transit gang in the West Rand in late 2004. Many
of them turned out
to be ex-soldiers, and thereafter similar catches were
made in connection
with casino hits in Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal
[provinces]," said a senior
detective in the Serious and Violent Crimes
Unit, who asked not to be
named.
Senior detectives in Polokwane, in Limpopo province on the
border with
Zimbabwe, told IRIN that investigations into a string of
robberies were
ongoing, but well-planned attacks on remote casinos in the
province late
last year were the work of a gang with 15 to 20 members
carrying AK-47
assault rifles - the standard weapon of the Zimbabwean police
and army.
"These people bring all they need ... [provide their own]
transport,
always strike at the right time, and will get away without firing
a single
shot if not challenged. Once they leave the crime scene, they
disappear into
thin air, which is why we think we are dealing with a gang
that comes
occasionally to strike it big, and goes back [home] to spend,"
said the
detective.
Members of the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA)
IRIN spoke to said they
were not surprised that serving and retired soldiers
were involved in armed
robbery, and pointed to an erosion of discipline in
the armed forces as a
result of worsening service conditions.
"It is true that some of these people are now part of the spiralling
crime
wave in South Africa, but they are not an organised syndicate. These
are
small groups who go in to make a raid and quickly dash back," said one
officer.
"The low pay, low morale and the fact that juniors
have been watching
[senior] officers feathering their nests illegally since
the DRC [Democratic
Republic of Congo] conflict has contributed in a big way
to crime in the
service. So we now have retired and serving members who form
themselves into
groups that go around robbing," he remarked.
Shadow defence minister of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change,
Job Sikhala, who sits on the parliamentary portfolio for defence,
said there
was no doubt that elements of the security forces were involved
in armed
robberies in the region.
"Those allegations are true. Even at home
the uniformed forces are
increasingly turning to violent, often armed crimes
that use state-supplied
firearms. However, we do not have any cases of
serving officers being
arrested or suspected, so we believe this could be
the work of deserters or
retired personnel," Sikhala told IRIN.
The ZNA public relations department said it could not comment until it
had
investigated the allegations.
An average trooper earns US $100 a
month, but household expenditure
for the average family is US $353, and
rising.
Source : IRIN
April 8, 2006
By
Andnetwork .com
The National University of Science and Technology
(NUST) has erected a
security fence in order to bar students who have not
paid new fees from
attending lectures.
Disgruntled students say
the fence is a throw back to the apartheid
era in pre-democratic South
Africa, when blacks were barred from designated
areas.
University authorities have also pitched a huge tent near the security
fence. The tent is used as a banking hall for students settling their
outstanding fees before they can enter the campus.
Paid up
students are issued with new identity cards that have to be
produced upon
entering the security fence.
NUST had given its students until 27
March to settle the fees,
increased to $30 million up from $3 million a
semester.
Student Representative Council (SRC) president, Beloved
Chiweshe, said
the SRC was making frantic efforts to contest the move by the
authorities in
the courts.
"We are against the barring of
students from entering the campus on
the basis that they have not paid their
fees. It is a waste of resources. We
will confront that by going to the
courts because we cannot be denied
education," Chiweshe said.
Chiweshe was on Tuesday, with 27 other students, hauled before a
disciplinary hearing for protesting against the new fees and also
"unlawfully and intentionally... demonising and castigating the government
and the Vice Chancellor of NUST".
Contacted for comment, the
Director of Information and Public
Relations, Felix Moyo, defended the
"apartheid" fence saying "it is not
something new and the tent is designed
to provide a shade for the students."
Moyo said: "In fact, in other
universities world-wide, students swipe
their identity cards before entering
the campus. We pitched the tent so that
students can be protected say if
there is a blazing sun or if it's raining."
However, the secretary
general of the Progressive Teachers' Union of
Zimbabwe, Raymond Majongwe,
urged NUST students to "bring down these walls
and cut the fences of
injustice".
He said: "It is a violation of the Universal
Declaration of Human
Rights (1948: Article 26) because it says that everyone
has a right to
education. The nature of creating zones as if we are in the
Ian Smith era is
a negation of fundamental human rights. Students must
confront that system,"
Majongwe said.
The Minister of Higher
and Tertiary Education, Stan Mudenge, told
Parliament last Thursday that
tertiary institutions should not deny students
access to universities and
colleges on the basis of having failed to settle
the newly introduced
tuition fees. His appeal seems to be falling on deaf
ears.
Meanwhile authorities at the Harare Polytechnic continue to bar
students who
failed to top up their fees from eating at the institution's
canteens.
Sources at the college last week said the authorities
have however,
stopped evicting students that have not paid up their
accommodation fees.
But the college is not accepting examination
fees from students who
have not paid up their tuition fees. Tuition fees
were increased from $2.7
million to $14.4 million more than a month
ago.
The suspended students' representative leader, Stephen
Matenga, said:
"As student leaders we applaud the government's temporary
reprieve. But
there is need for a permanent solution. Fee increments must be
realistic and
affordable. It must be sensitive to the plight of parents who
are already
languishing in poverty."
College Principal, Steven
Raza, declined to give details. "I don't
want to talk to you people from The
Standard because you just write whatever
you want," he said before switching
off his mobile phone.signed to provide a
shade for the
students".
Moyo said: "In fact, in other universities world-wide,
students swipe
their identity cards before entering the campus. We pitched
the tent so that
students can be protected, say if there is a blazing sun or
if it's
raining."
However, the secretary general of the
Progressive Teachers' Union of
Zimbabwe, Raymond Majongwe, urged NUST
students to "bring down these walls
and cut the fences of
injustice".
He said: "It is a violation of the Universal
Declaration of Human
Rights (1948: Article 26) because it says that everyone
has a right to
education. The nature of creating zones as if we are in the
Ian Smith era is
a negation of fundamental human rights. Students must
confront that system,"
Majongwe said.
The Minister of Higher
and Tertiary Education, Stan Mudenge, told
Parliament last Thursday that
tertiary institutions should not deny students
access to universities and
colleges on the basis of having failed to settle
the newly introduced
tuition fees. His appeal seems to be falling on deaf
ears.
Meanwhile authorities at the Harare Polytechnic continue to bar
students who
failed to top up their fees from eating at the institution's
canteens.
Sources at the college last week said the authorities
have however
stopped evicting students that have not paid up their
new
But the college is not accepting examination fees from students
who
have not paid their new tuition fees. Tuition fees were increased from
$2.7
million to $14.4 million more than a month ago.
The
suspended students' representative leader, Stephen Matenga, said:
"As
student leaders we applaud the government's temporary reprieve. But
there is
need for a permanent solution."
College Principal, Steven Raza,
declined to comment.
Source: Zimbabwe Standard
From The Daily Mirror, 7 April
Daily Mirror Reporter
National air carrier, Air
Zimbabwe (AirZim), intends to buy five new planes
to boost its fleet as part
of its turnaround programme, acting chief
executive Oscar Madombwe told
Parliament yesterday. Giving evidence to the
Parliamentary Portfolio
Committee on Mines, Environment and Tourism,
Madombwe said the initial stage
of boosting the parastatal's ageing fleet
had already seen the acquisition
of three MA60 planes from China. "We intend
to buy two long haul aeroplanes
(767) and two 737 (medium haul) and one
cargo plane. The funds would be made
available by the government and Cabinet
has already approved the proposals,"
he said. The MA60s were acquired last
year and service short routes. The
airline's interim boss acknowledged that
Air Zimbabwe was suffering from
negative public perceptions locally and
abroad. "The airline is suffering
from negative perceptions from the
traveling public, both local and abroad,
on issues to do with safety,
reliability and service delivery," Madombwe
said. "A result of all this has
been a decline in business. In 1999 we
carried 1 million passengers, but
last year it dropped to a mere 230 000. We
are operating in a difficult
environment," he said.
Strained
relations between Zimbabwe and Western countries have caused a
decline in
airlines flying into Zimbabwe and tourist arrivals. Madombwe
explained that
although their current fleet was old, the planes were still
safe to use.
"The fleet we operate like the 737s are 30 years old. To the
public, 30
years is (very) old. The bigger planes are 15 years old. However,
in terms
of usage, they are not old. Our aeroplanes are underutilised, they
are doing
three hours a day instead of eight hours," he said. He added they
were also
facing problems of foreign currency that had made it difficult for
them to
improve the planes' interior decorations. "The little forex we have
goes to
maintenance. The interior is old, but it's a luxury. We have to
ensure the
planes are safe by buying the spares instead of replacing the old
carpets
and so on," Madombwe said, adding US$2 million was needed to improve
in-flight entertainment. He also said fuel problems adversely affected the
airline's reliability. Madombwe said: "We have problems with reliability,
but some of the problems are beyond our reach, for example shortage of Jet A
fuel. We are not in the business of buying fuel." He said the airline had
put in place measures to ameliorate the problem such as refuelling along the
routes they ply.
Flights had also been disrupted by industrial
action and go slows by
engineers and pilots, the Air Zimbabwe boss said. "We
also have a problem
with our industrial relations. Engineers and pilots are
very critical and
they always slow down things when they want to bargain. If
you do not do
maintenance on time it also affects flight schedules," he
said, blaming some
of the problems bedevilling the airline to the department
of immigration and
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra). Madombwe also
lamented Air Zimbabwe
staff's poor working conditions saying they
contributed to the decline in
hospitality. "People are looking after
themselves and business comes second.
Zimbabwe's hospitality is no longer
there. We have done some training but,
results have not been encouraging at
all," he said. He also said Air
Zimbabwe now gives bottled beverages to its
passengers instead of canned
drinks due to shortages of the commodity
locally. Madombwe said the airline
was using an inferior reservation system,
adding telephone lines to the
Harare International Airport were poor.
From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 7 April
Godwin Gandu
Harare - Court proceedings are
brought to a halt in Harare's High Court D
where two witnesses, flown in
from Switzerland, are to testify in a murder
case. The recording equipment
has malfunctioned and the Justice Ministry is
too broke to replace it. The
Swiss ambassador to Zimbabwe, Marcel Stutz,
leaves the court and returns
moments later with a cable - for which he paid
R15 - so that the case can
proceed. This sorry tale is indicative of the
dire state of Zimbabwe's
courts. But it is not just cables and poor lighting
that are a problem;
state agents and the police stand accused of bullying
the judiciary,
particularly in politically sensitive cases. "Going to courts
is now a
formality. Otherwise, cases are determined over a glass of beer or
at a
restaurant outside town," a senior law officer at the attorney general's
office told the Mail & Guardian. "So worrying is the situation that
there
are few magistrates and police officers with good conscience left in
the
system."
An internal document, compiled by the human
resources department of the
Justice Ministry states that in 2000 and 2003,
30 magistrates and 50 clerks
and interpreters quit. In 2004 and 2005 an
additional 15 magistrates and 21
prosecutors resigned. Last October the
president of the Magistrates'
Association of Zimbabwe, Enias Magate, told
the Minister of Justice, Patrick
Chinamasa, that poorly paid magistrates
were "resorting to taking bribes".
It is not uncommon for magistrates to be
seen hitchhiking to work or
jostling for seats on a bus with people that
will appear before them on that
day. With a salary of R1 200 a month and
constant intimidation by police,
magistrates are prone to corruption.
Attorney General Sobuza Gula-Ndebele
last month alerted President Robert
Mugabe of these "deplorable unbecoming
conducts", in his regular briefing to
the head of state. Gula-Ndebele, a war
veteran himself, has signalled his
intention to tackle the politicians
head-on. An official in the auditor
general's office said: "He told us to
report any politician harassing us. I
think there is a limit to what he can
do."
Just recently, in the
eastern city of Mutare, about 250km from Harare,
provincial area prosecutor
Levison Chikafu had to flee his home after a
heated debate with state agents
over the handling of the arms cache
discovered at the property of arms
dealer Mike Hitschmann. Auditor-general
officials Joseph Jagada and Florence
Ziyambi also had to beat a hasty
retreat to Harare. According to sources in
the office, "state agents wanted
to direct the prosecution" and did not take
kindly to "varying and glaring
loopholes pointed out to them". The police,
they say, "are never thorough
when they conduct investigations" and their
"dockets collapse" when the case
is taken to court. In his ruling, High
Court Judge Charles Hungwe, on
circuit in Mutare, blasted the "shocking,
systematic bullying and
intimidation of the prosecution by state agents .
the behaviour deserves the
highest possible censure".
In August
2002, magistrate Walter Chikwanha was beaten up in Chipinge,
sustaining
broken ribs and a fractured collarbone. He was dragged from his
courtroom by
a group of war veterans in full view of the police after he
dismissed an
application by the state to remand in custody five opposition
officials. In
2001 in Bindura, Mashonaland central province, war veterans
accosted
magistrate Munamato Mutevedzi for ordering the arrest of Zanu PF
supporters.
He has since been transferred to another province. Prosecutors
who spoke to
the M&G also complained that the Attorney General's Bill that
sought to
establish an independent office with its own finances has yet to
be
implemented, despite having passed through Parliament and Cabinet. "The
president himself approved it. Why it's not being approved four years on is
baffling," a prosecutor lamented. The Bill is also intended to usher in
market-related salaries of R6 000 a month for prosecutors. "There is a
feeling in government that we are incompetent hence no need for more
salaries or approval of the Bill," he said.
Toronto, Canada, on the 15th April. Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
CANADA
The Movement for
Democratic Change of Zimbabwe, Canada Province, along with
its sister
Diaspora Provinces in the UK, USA, South Africa, Australia and
New Zealand,
launches its first ever peaceful protest in Toronto, Canada, on
the 15th
April 2006 a few days before Zimbabwe's Independence Day
celebrations due
18th April, 2006. The protest starts at noon and the
registered venue is
Nathan Phillips Square on the City Hall grounds, Toronto
City.
The protest demands:
1. That the corrupt
Robert Gabriel Mugabe Zanu (PF)-led government -
(a) Must
go!
(b) Must stop illegal detentions from arbitrary
arrests;
(c) Must stop torture, intimidation, terror and dehumanising
women by the
partisan security organs, CIO, PISI, ZRP, ZNA, youth militia,
etc;
(d) Must stop corruption, seize illegal depleting mining of
diamonds in
the Republic of Congo;
(e) Must stop muzzling of the
Press and Media;
(f) Must stop coercing, intimidating, patronising
the judiciary
The Zanu (PF)-led government must:
(i) Allow
peaceful protests; political gatherings; freedom of
association; and free
speech;
(ii) Guarantee security of everyone;
2. A free and
fair election to restore meaningful independence in our
country,
Zimbabwe.
3. Intervention of the UN, EU, AU, the Commonwealth, and
the Church to:
(a) Policing of the elections;
(b) Verifying
of the voter's roll;
(c) Peacekeeping well before, during and after
elections for a reasonable
time period.
4. A people-driven
Constitutional reform.
5. Voting as a must by all citizens including
those in the Diaspora.
6. The Honourable Prime Minister Stephen
Harper, and the
Governor-General Her Excellence Jean demand action from the
United Nations,
Commonwealth, European Union and the African Union on
immediate solutions.
North America, UK, Australia, SA.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006 Independence
Day Tuesday,
via Canaan
Mhlanga <surehope7@yahoo.com>
Unique
opportunity for believers worldwide to join together in prayer
"If my
people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and
seek my
face and turn from their sin the I will hear... and will heal their
land"
2Chronicles 7: 14
Tuesday, April 18, 2006 Independence
Day
North America Toll Free 888 387 8686
International
Tel: # 303 928 3281
Conference I.D #
7434952
TIMES:
Pacific time: 1100
Eastern Time:
1400
London: 0700
Australia 1600
South Africa
0800
Please join us as we humble ourselves with one accord in a
unique/innovative prayer service to God as we petition the Highest Throne in
the universe to hear our cry as a result the SUFFERING in Zimbabwe. Confirm
your attendance in advance where possible by e-mailing us at
surehope7@yahoo.com Inquiries call Susan
Roberts @ phone # 604 521 1855
"God will do nothing except in answer to
prayer". "Prayer changes things".
Long distance call charges will apply
if you are calling from outside
Canada/USA
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
The Daily
Mirror Reporter
issue date :2006-Apr-07
CHIEF immigration officer,
Elasto Mugwadi, yesterday said corruption that
has taken root at the
country's points of entry were largely due to poor
remuneration and working
conditions.
Mugwadi said the situation was unlikely to improve if
immigration
officials' remuneration remained unchanged.
He said this when
he appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee
on Mines,
Environment and Tourism."The officers get to be corrupted.
Look at the
paltry salaries the officers are getting. They can't afford to
travel to
work and feed their families.
We urge you as a committee to talk to our
employers to improve our
conditions of service," he said.
Mugwadi said
under-invoicing and receipting were the common acts of
corruption at the
border posts.
"It almost like corruption has been institutionalised. We never
sit back
when a case is reported. Several officers have been found on the
wrong side
of the law and arrested," he added.
Mugwadi, however, refuted
allegations that his department was responsible
for the delays at border
pos, especially at Beitbridge saying the public
were ignorant of the fact
there were many departments that work at the
points of entry.
"We try to
operate on same international standards as applicable elsewhere.
We want to
clear people in three minutes of arrival at the border.
However, it also has
to be understood that you do not leave the border
unless cleared by Zimra
(Zimbabwe Revenue Authority).
Some encounter delays because Zimra has to go
through their bags searching,
but when it is asked people will say it's (the
delay) because of immigration
officials instead of Zimra," said
Mugwadi.
Most travellers spend days at border posts as they wait to be
cleared and
this has been blamed for the decline in business as people avoid
passing
through Zimbabwe.
The country has lost out millions of dollars in
revenue as a result.
Mugwadi added that his department was in the process of
designating entry
points for residents from the Sadc and Comesa regions and
other important
people to expedite immigration processes