http://news.yahoo.com
2 hrs 7 mins
ago
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - A Zimbabwean minister visiting South Africa was
assaulted during an armed robbery while visiting a friend, police said on
Saturday.
"They were having supper when a number of men with guns
entered the house,
tied them up, assaulted them and demanded money,"
national police crime
intelligence spokesman Tumi Golding said.
The
incident took place on Friday night in the posh Bryanston quarter in the
north of the city.
The unnamed minister was visiting a family friend
when the robbers came and
made off with jewellery, money and electronic
goods.
Golding said she could not reveal the identity of the minister or
why he was
in the country as she was waiting for clearance from Zimbabwean
authorities.
South Africa has one of the world's highest crime rates and
is struggling to
clean up its record before hosting the Football World Cup
next year
http://www.voanews.com
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
14 August
2009
Sources in Zimbabwe's long-ruling ZANU-PF party say its
chairman, John
Nkomo, is tipped to succeed the late Vice President Joseph
Msika, while
Zimbabwean Ambassador to South Africa Simon Khaya Moyo is in
line to take
over from Nkomo as party chairman.
ZANU-PF sources said
the two received a major boost with an endorsement by
the party's
Matebeleland South province, home to many prominent figures of
the PF-ZAPU
party which merged with ZANU under a Unity Accord following
extended
post-liberation conflict.
The two are also backed by the three
Mashonaland provinces supporting
retired Army General Solomon Mujuru, said
to wish to block Defense Minister
Emmerson Mnangagwa, a close lieutenant of
President Robert Mugabe thought to
covet the vice presidential
post.
The sources said Mnangangwa plotted to dethrone Vice President
Joyce Mujuru
at a ZANU-PF women's congress in August then remove her as
party vice
president at the full congress in December, but these plans were
frustrated
by the Matabeleland support for Nkomo.
Politiburo sources
said President Mugabe has signaled he is not interested
in renewal of the
ageing leadership and wants Mujuru to stay put to avoid
further internal
party friction.
Political analyst Pedzisayi Ruhanya told reporter
Blessing Zulu of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that hopes of democratic
elections in ZANU-PF are
misguided.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Nokuthula Sibanda
Saturday 15 August 2009
HARARE - The government's Health
Services Board (HSB) on Friday said it had
ran out of cash to provide for
the welfare of doctors who are on strike to
press for more pay and better
working conditions.
The HSB receives funds from international donors
which it uses to pay
allowances to doctors under a programme to help retain
skilled health
personnel in the country by ensuring they are reasonably
remunerated.
The board said it would take up to three weeks before more
funds were
available.
"The delays on allowances from other sources is
as a result that the funds
have run out and it will take to two to three
weeks for (more funds) to
come," HSB chairman Lovemore
Mbengeranwa.
"As Health Services Board we have no control over funding
coming from
sources such as Global Fund or Crown Agency, but the funds will
eventually
be coming," he said.
Doctors downed tools this week
demanding an upward review of their monthly
salary of US$170, reinstatement
of the US$100 monthly allowance from
government, another US$100 that was
coming from Global Fund and US$220 from
Crown Agency.
The Zimbabwe
Hospital Doctors Association that represents all state doctors
is pushing
for a salary of US$1 000 per month plus $500 allowance.
The association
promised to extend the job boycott to all state hospitals
across the country
that are the source of health service for more than 90
percent of
Zimbabweans.
Most of Zimbabwe's public hospitals began operating only six
months ago
after formation of a coalition government by President Robert
Mugabe, Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Premier Arthur
Mutambara.
The power-sharing government has promised to rebuild
Zimbabwe's economy and
restore basic services such as health and education
that had virtually
collapsed after years of recession.
But the
administration, which says it needs US$10 billion to revive the
economy,
could fail to deliver on its promise unless it is able to unlock
financial
support from Western governments that have remained reluctant to
provide aid
until they see evidence that Mugabe is committed to genuinely
share power
with Tsvangirai. - ZimOnline
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Nokuthula Sibanda Saturday
15 August 2009
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF
party on Friday accused its
former opposition foes of reneging on a
commitment to urge Western countries
to lift sanctions on the party's senior
leaders, in the latest flare up of
tensions within Zimbabwe's fragile
power-sharing government.
Mugabe's party said that because its coalition
partners had not met their
side of the bargain it would not make any more
concessions on outstanding
issues from last September's Global Political
Agreement (GPA), adding the
power-sharing agreement "cannot be a one-sided
affair".
"The MDC which urged its international supporters to impose
sanctions has
sole responsibility to ensure that its international
supporters remove the
sanctions forthwith," ZANU PF deputy spokesman Ephraim
Masawi told reporters
in Harare.
"The implementation of the GPA
cannot be a one-sided affair. Therefore the
ZANU PF politburo calls on the
first secretary and president of ZANU PF to
resist any pressures intended to
prejudice the party in a manner that is
contrary to the GPA and constitution
of Zimbabwe," Masawi said.
While Masawi's statement showed growing
frustration within ZANU PF over
Western sanctions against its top officials,
it appeared also meant to show
that Mugabe's party would resist expected
regional pressure that it shares
the two top posts of central bank governor
and attorney general with Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC
formation.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC), which
together with the
African Union is a guarantor of Zimbabwe's power-sharing
pact, is expected
to review the unity government's first six months in
office later this
month.
Tsvangirai and Deputy Premier Arthur
Mutambara's MDC parties have raised a
joint complaint to SADC chairperson
and South African President Jacob Zuma
over Mugabe's unilateral appointment
of top allies Gideon Gono and Johannes
Tomana as Zimbabwe's central bank
chief and attorney general respectively.
South African media reported
earlier this week that Zuma, who met Tsvangirai
last week in Johannesburg,
would try to push Mugabe to let the Prime
Minister's party take one of the
two critical posts.
Masawi, who was addressing reporters following
Thursday's ZANU PF politburo
meeting, said the party was urging Mugabe to
resist any pressure meant to
force it to make further concessions to the
MDC.
He said that ZANU PF had done a lot to implement the GPA, starting
with the
swearing in of Prime Minister Tsvangirai, his deputies and Cabinet
ministers, appointment of ambassadors and the constitution of the national
security council - which he implied the MDC had failed to reciprocate by
calling for lifting of sanctions.
"The constant reference by the MDC
to outstanding matters therefore baffles
us. In appointing the governor of
the RBZ the President exercised his
constitutional right to do so and no
consultation in terms of the
constitution was necessary," Masawi
said.
"It is now six months since the formation of the inclusive
government and
ZANU PF leaders as well as their families are still inhibited
to visit
Europe and the United States as indeed in respect of their children
to go to
school in these countries.
"This does not apply to any
member of the MDC-T and MDC-M who are free to
roam the world while the
country as well as those regarded as sympathetic to
ZANU PF continue to be
subjected to a regime of brutal illegal sanctions,"
the ZANU PF deputy
spokesperson said.
He added that the vilification of ZANU PF and its
leaders by "special
targeted broadcasts continues on a daily basis
unabated".
Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara formed an inclusive
government in February
to try to end Zimbabwe's multifaceted
crisis.
The unity government has done well to stabilise the economy and
end
inflation that was estimated at more than a trillion percent at the
height
of the country's economic meltdown last year.
But doubts
remain about the administration's long-term effectiveness,
fuelled by
unending squabbles between ZANU PF and the MDC as well as by the
unity
government's inability to secure direct financial support from rich
Western
nations. - ZimOnline
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=21137
August 15, 2009
By Our
Correspondent
HARARE - Controversial MDC politician Job Sikhala took time
on Friday to
shred Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara to pieces in front
of
journalists in Harare.
Sikhala, the former legislator for St
Mary's constituency, remains adamant
that he has seized control of the
Mutambara-led Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC).
His former
colleagues in the breakaway faction of the MDC have rubbished
Sikhala's
claims of a coup. Mutambara has however not responded to questions
submitted
to him by The Zimbabwe Times to seek his comment on Sikhala's
claims.
Sikhala says he is on a mission to save the MDC from the
control of
Mutambara and his secretary general, Welshman Ncube, among
others, whom he
accuses of advancing "the enemy's interests" referring to
the interests of
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.
"We have
taken this opportunity to announce our seizure and total control of
the
people's party until our next extra-ordinary congress next year in April
to
shape our struggle against Mugabe's dictatorship," a tough-talking
Sikhala
told journalists on Friday afternoon.
Sikhala was in the company of eight
officials he claimed were provincial
representatives of his new
leadership.
"Our determination to see our people totally free spurs us to
fight to the
best of our ability against all forces of retrogression and
Mugabe's zombies
and yoyos," he said.
"At the moment, I have taken
over. Mutambara only remains president (of the
MDC) in the Herald and on
ZBC."
The Herald and ZBC are government's major media outlets. Sikhala,
who is on
a suspension imposed by the party's disciplinary committee,
insists he
deserves to be in charge of the MDC, which he says he helped to
form in
1999.
He says he regrets having personally invited Ncube to
become MDC secretary
general, before the latter led a split in 2005 from the
mainstream party led
by founding leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai is
now the Prime Minister
of Zimbabwe with Mutambara serving as one of his two
deputies.
Sikhala claims Ncube's role was to provide intellectual impetus
to the MDC.
After the split, Sikhala said he had watched helplessly while
Ncube invited
his old friend, Mutambara, from South Africa to come and
assume leadership
of the splinter group.
Asked why he had endorsed
Mutambara when he assumed leadership of the party,
Sikhala said he had been
overwhelmed by Ncube's influence in the party and
feared becoming "the only
shrill voice in the wilderness".
"You have to understand that Welshman
Ncube was very powerful and
influential at the time," he said, "He could
influence everybody at that
time."
The outspoken politician said he
started questioning Mutambara's credibility
to lead the party when the
robotics professor, during his acceptance speech,
claimed he admired people
like the late Zanu-PF Bindura legislator, Border
Gezi for his
"revolutionary" stance on the land reform.
"I asked myself if this man
(Mutambara) knew that some of these people
committed atrocities against our
people," said Sikhala.
"I started to be worried but when you get into a
marriage where one of the
partners is unfaithful, you simply try not to make
the public know about it
until such a time when you say 'no, your
promiscuity has now become too
much. I cannot afford to be married to a
prostituting husband'.
"And that is what has happened. I cannot
continuously be led by a
prostituting husband."
Sikhala described
Thursday's decision by his party's national executive
council to rubberstamp
last month's expulsion of three legislators from the
party, as a
nullity.
The three, Abednico Bhebhe (Nkayi South), Njabuliso Mguni
(Lupane East) and
Norman Mpofu (Bulilima East), are being accused of
undermining the party's
leadership.
Sikhala said further that the
Speaker of Parliament, Lovemore Moyo, should
refuse to be arm-twisted by
"non-elected" politicians into ejecting the MPs
from
Parliament.
Sikhala said the MDC national executive council was not
representative
enough to arrive at an agreement to dismiss the
legislators.
He claims three quarters of the members were denied entry
into the venue of
the meeting by some Central Intelligence Organisation
agents who got wind of
their intention to pass a vote of no-confidence in
the Mutambara leadership.
MDC-Mutambara spokesperson, Edwin Mushoriwa
said claims of a coup by Sikhala
were of no consequence as long as the
purported takeover was carried out
outside the party's
constitution.
Sikhala also described the unity deal signed by Zanu-PF and
the two MDCs as
a sell-outs' agreement.
"It is our clear belief that
the 15 September 2008 agreement is a sell-out
marriage solemnized in hell by
Satan," he said.
"This is the replica of the 1979 sell-outs' agreement of
Ian Douglas Smith,
Abel Tendekai Muzorewa and Chief Chirau."
He says
he is far from rejoining the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC which he says
has
abandoned the values of its formation in 1999.
"Everybody who is eating
with Mugabe is a puppet," he said.
http://www.inthenews.co.uk
Saturday, 15 Aug 2009
11:29
By Nqobani Ndlovu.
A white South African has been arrested in
southern Zimbabwe facing charges
of illegal poaching that is costing the
southern African nation millions of
foreign currency in wildlife tourism
revenue.
Jan Johannes George Roos, the South African, is languishing at
Beitbridge
prison at a border town separating Zimbabwe and that neighbouring
country
following his arrest on Wednesday.
The Officer commanding
Beitbridge Police, Chief Superintendent Hosiah
Mukombero, said the jailed
South African faces charges of contravening the
Parks and Wildlife Act -
illegal poaching.
"The South African was arrested at the Beitbridge
Border Post and is
believed to be the brains behind the poaching syndicate
that is poaching
zebras and smuggling the hides to South Africa," Chief
Superintendent
Mukombero said.
"He is now in our custody assisting us
with investigations and will appear
in court soon."
Illegal poaching
especially of the endangered rhinos in Zimbabwe - according
to wildlife
experts - continues to undermine the country's economic recovery
programmes
as the poaching of the rhino is putting under threat one of the
key economic
pillars of the nation - ecotourism.
Rhinos are massive tourist
attractions and bring millions of foreign
currency.
Zimbabwe is
currently home to the fourth largest population of black rhinos
in the world
numbering about 490. The country is also home to about 280
white rhinos, the
second largest population of the white rhinos in the
world.
However,
since 2000, over a 100 endangered black rhinos have been killed in
Zimbabwe
in illegal poaching activities: 40 of those in 2008 and 18 so far
in
2009.
When the illegal poaching activities first flared up in 2000, it
was linked
to the unplanned occupations of sections of the conservancies by
President
Robert Mugabe's supporters and war veterans for food
consumption.
Rhino horns have ready ivory markets in Asia. Rhino horns
are used in
traditional Chinese medicine. Elsewhere, ivory is in demand for
carving into
dagger handles and other ornaments.
Zimbabwe's tourism
industry has been in decline since 2000 after most
foreign countries branded
the country as an unsafe tourist destination due
to the political crisis.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Simplicious
Chirinda Saturday 15 August 2009
HARARE - Zimbabwe's few
remaining white farmers want to meet President
Robert Mugabe to ask him to
intervene to stop farm invasions that have
continued despite formation of a
unity government between the veteran leader
and his former opposition
foes.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara
have called
for an end to farm invasions but pro-Mugabe war veterans, ZANU
PF supporters
and officials ignored the call, with scores of farmers
displaced from their
properties since the formation of the coalition
government.
Immediate past president of the Commercial Farmers Union
(CFU), Trevor
Gifford, said the group that largely represents white farmers
was pushing
for a meeting with Mugabe to brief him about farm invasions and
to ask that
he calls a moratorium on all disturbances on farms.
"We
are trying to push for a meeting with the President but he has not yet
agreed to one but we are using various channels . . . different offices to
get this meeting," Gifford said.
Displaced farmers successfully
challenged seizure of their properties by the
government at the Southern
African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal.
But Harare ignored a ruling
by the regional court that found its land reform
programme discriminatory,
racist and illegal under the (SADC) Treaty.
Mugabe's land reforms are
blamed for plunging Zimbabwe into food shortages,
a charge he
denies.
Tsvangirai has called for an audit to establish who owns which
land in
Zimbabwe before an orderly land reform programme can be implemented
but
Mugabe has in the past accused the MDC leader of wishing to return land
to
former white owners.
Critics say Mugabe's cronies - and not
ordinary peasants - benefited the
most from farm seizures with some of them
ending up with as many as six
farms each against the government's stated
one-man-one-farm policy. -
ZimOnline
Associated Press
By
ANGUS SHAW (AP) - 3 hours ago
HARARE, Zimbabwe - A woman pays her bus
fare with 3 trillion in old Zimbabwe
dollars - the equivalent of 50 U.S.
cents. The collector accepts the brick
of neatly folded bundles of a
trillion each without bothering to count the
notes.
"No one seems to
worry, and it works," said the woman, Lucy Denya, a Harare
secretary who
says she's seen police officers using old notes to board
buses.
The
Zimbabwe dollar is officially dead. It was killed off in hopes of
curbing
record inflation of billions of percentage points, and Zimbabwe has
replaced
it with the U.S. dollar and the South African rand.
Yet the role of the
old Zimdollar, as it is known, remains in flux. It is
still used, and has
become another point of contention for the divided
leadership of the
country, now one of the poorest in the world.
President Robert Mugabe has
called for the return of the Zimdollar as legal
tender, complaining that
most Zimbabweans lack the hard currency needed to
buy basic goods. The
central bank under governor Gideon Gono, a Mugabe
loyalist, has acknowledged
printing extra local money to fund government
spending that fueled
inflation.
But Finance Minister Tendai Biti, who joined the government as
part of a
power-sharing agreement between his Movement for Democratic Change
and
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, has declared the local dollar indefinitely
obsolete.
He has threatened to quit if a return to the local currency is
forced upon
him.
"We are putting the tombstone on the corpse of the
Zimbabwe dollar," Biti
told lawmakers in a midyear fiscal policy statement.
In a speech to business
leaders, he said, "We are no longer printing our own
money."
Biti said monthly inflation rose slightly in June to 0.6 percent,
up from
zero the month before. He blamed the rise on price hikes in property
rentals, gasoline and other nonfood items. He also noted that GDP per capita
has plunged from $720 in 2002 to $265 last year, reflecting the shortage of
hard cash in the economy.
That shortage is not helped by the state of
the global economy, on which
Zimbabwe depends.
With the collapse of
the country's agricultural economy after the seizure of
thousands of
white-owned farms beginning in 2000, an estimated 4 million
Zimbabweans -
many of them skilled - left the country to find jobs in
neighboring South
Africa and further afield. The so-called "diaspora dollar"
became by far the
nation's biggest source of hard currency.
But in the global recession,
those inflows are diminishing, bankers say. In
a typical case, a
businessman's daughter in Britain e-mailed him in June
that she was halving
her monthly remittance of $400.
The independent Zimbabwe National Chamber
of Commerce blamed acute shortages
of hard currency on payments to buy
imported basic goods previously
manufactured in Zimbabwe, such as soap and
cooking oil from South Africa.
Without enough cash no matter how they cut
it, Zimbabweans survive on a
mish-mash of currencies.
All the bus
drivers can do with Zimdollars is give them back to other
passengers in
change for American bills. In one reported incident, a
passenger pulled a
gun on a bus driver who insisted on paying change in
local
notes.
Outside the cities, where hard currency can be hard to come by,
Zimbabwe
dollars are used like promissory notes in small transactions. And
trillion
Zimbabwe dollar notes, the world's biggest denomination bills, are
a hit
with collectors, selling briskly on eBay. In Zimbabwe, they change
hands
like tokens or IOUs.
Stores without small change in hard
currency don't offer obsolete Zimbabwe
dollars in change like the bus
drivers do, but routinely provide candies and
chocolate bars or "coupons"
handwritten on check-out slips to be redeemed on
future
purchases.
Irene Gwata, owner of a small trading store in rural
northwestern Zimbabwe,
said hard currency has stopped filtering down to her
customers in recent
weeks. Locals trade goat meat, chickens and pails of
corn for goods, she
said.
She saw a village woman board a bus and pay
with a live chicken trussed in
wire for the 150-kilometer (90-mile) trip to
Harare.
With characteristic Zimbabwean humor in adversity, Gwata said,
"people
wanted to know if she was going to get eggs for change."
SW
Radio
Broadcast:
Journalist Violet Gonda presents the week’s
Hot Seat where her guest is war veteran leader Joseph Chinotimba with his unique sense
of ‘political humour.’
click on link below or copy and
paste to web browser to listen to audio file
mms://swradioafrica.streamuk.com/swradioafrica_archive/hotseat070809.wma
For
http://swradioafrica.streamuk.com/swradioafrica_archive/hotseat070809.wma
From Business Day (Nigeria), 14 August
Siaka Momohi
Stories
about a successful farming project sometimes feel like a bit of
anachronism.
They trace their origin to the days of the groundnut pyramids
of the 1960s
in Kano that Nigeria derived much of its foreign exchange and
was a part of
Nigeria 's riches that existed up until oil took front seat
shortly after
the civil wars that ended in 1970. Somehow the magic of the
groundnut
farming success of the 1960s is replicated in Shonga where the
white
Zimbabwean farmers in Shonga, Kwara State are flying high and their
success
story is drawing investors in agriculture from other parts of
Nigeria and
from outside Nigeria to Kwara State. On ground now in Shonga, is
a beautiful
agriculture project that is largely private sector driven and in
which
government has provided the much desired enabling environment – a
requirement that has remained a sing-song of sort among players in the
industrial sector of the Nigerian economy.
At Shonga Farms, made
up of 13 farmers each of whom has 1000 hectares of
farm provided by the
Kwara State Government, government provided
electricity, irrigation
facilities which are already being enjoyed in four
of the 13 farms. An
irrigation project which costs N2.9 billion was
kick-started by the Kwara
government but the federal government which
promised to underwrite it has
reimbursed the State to the tune of N800
million. Local farmers are also
benefiting from the programme. The white
farmers, whom Business Day visited,
are already producing large quantities
of raw materials for industries –
cassava, Soya beans and the like. They
are also producing banana, pawpaw,
maize, poultry products and dairy
products. The dairy farm however has
problem making its fresh milk
acceptable to local consumers whom, according
to Paul Retzlaff the CEO of
Pineleigh Farms, one of the Zimbabwean farmers,
have traditional fixation
for powder milk. He said his farm is however on a
strong awareness drive for
fresh milk and also plans to diversify into
production of yogurts which has
a large market in Nigeria . The farm has
also pasteurised milk in satchets
that has a six-month shelve
life.
This success story of the Zimbabwean farmers as well as the
incentives being
offered by the Kwara State Government has become a point of
attraction for
agric investors from within and outside the country. Said
Mohammed Yisa,
Kwara State commissioner for Agriculture and Natural
Resources, "Today,
there are many more commercial farms in Kwara State
belonging to Nigerians
most of whom are non-Kwarans. This is because we
encourage Nigerians from
outside Kwara State to come over and invest in
agriculture in Kwara State .
We asked them to come and we facilitate their
getting land as quickly as
possible. As a matter of fact, the governor
frowns at anyone that would
cause delay in respect of the process of getting
land. Now, there is an
American farm that is also here in Kwara State to
invest in the production
of bio-diesel. He has been given 1200 hectares of
land. The company's pilot
factory will come on board early next
year."
"We also have Koga Farms. They are Nigerians from Lagos State
. We have
given them 5000 hectares of land; we have extended electricity to
their
farms and provided them with bore holes so that they can do business.
We
have another farm that wants to produce vegetable oil for their farms.
They
started cultivation this year. They have already cultivated 50 hectares
of
groundnut, 100 hectares of Soya beans, and 100 hectares of maize."
Mohammed
Yisa also cited Olam Nigeria Limited which he said has been in
Kwara State
for two years now. "They have an out grower programme for rice.
They provide
farmers with inputs. What I see from this is that farmers who
were making
1.5 tonnes of rice per hectare before are now making 4/5 tonnes
per hectare.
There are farmers who make about 6.5 tonnes per hectare. The
inputs are
provided on loan. And again, there is market for the rice that is
produced
because Olam buys the rice; the farmers are asked to pay with rice
at the
end of the cropping season. One other gain of the Shonga project is
that the
normal pressure that used to be on our local market on crops such
as corn,
beans, Soya beans, are shifted here. People come directly to Shonga
to buy
trucks of these products. Therefore the market forces at the local
level
remain stable. And our gain is that each of the 13 farmers in Shonga
engages
3000 to 4000 local people every season for harvesting operation,
etc.
The Kwara State Shonga Farms Project is a child of circumstances.
Before the
white Zimbabwean farmers came to Kwara State , in 2004, the
government of
Bukola Saraki had a programme referred to as Back to Land
Programme. This
was a programme that fell in line with the government's
traditional largesse
sharing that had no commercial value tied to it.
Government cleared large
hectares of land, procured agricultural inputs like
fertilisers, herbicides,
insecticides and the like, and distributed land to
farmers and unfortunately
to non-farmers who were only farmers in name. The
effect was that these fake
farmers sold up the inputs they got. At the end
of the day, the project
failed - recording just about 14 per cent success.
With this sad experience,
the Kwara State Government learnt that government
had no business getting
involved in direct agricultural production, that all
it needed to do was to
provide the enabling environment for the private
sector to invest in
agriculture.
Just as the Kwara government was
licking its wounds sustained from the Back
to Land Project in question, the
issue of land redistribution in Zimbabwe
was very hot. Bukola Saraki,
governor of Kwara State , seized the
opportunity to offer the displaced
Zimbabwean farmers land to farm in his
state. This was how the now popular
Shonga Farms Holding came to be. The
State Government provided the initial
equipment that they needed to clear
the land and guaranteed the credit
facilities that these farmers took
initially. Investment in equipment that
government made was captured later
as part of government equity contribution
to the Shonga Farms project.
Government again had to pay compensation to the
traditional owners of the
land and still went further in giving them
incentives in addition to
relocating them to some other lands to farm
because it was important that
the lands given to these white farmers must be
contiguous.
The Kwara government brought in these white farmers to
meet the state's food
requirements and to produce raw materials for its
agro-allied industries on
a large scale and also to produce for export. The
state believed, in the
process, jobs would be created and citizens of the
state would be gainfully
employed. And that has happened. Government decided
from the beginning it
would not go it alone, having burnt its finger once.
It brought banks into
the programme under an agreement. A Special Purpose
Vehicle known as Shonga
Farms Holding was established. This was specifically
established to finance
activities at the farms. In that Shonga Farms
Holding, the banks – five
banks, Guarantee Trust Bank, Intercontinental
Banks, Unity Bank, Fin Bank
and Bank PHB – own 75 per cent equity in the
arrangement and the state
government owns 25 per cent equity to make 100 per
cent of Shonga Farms
Holding. Now the Shonga Farms Holding owns 60 per cent
equity in each of the
13 farms, so that the farmers – the white farmers
own 40 per cent. If you
look at the structure of the farms, the banks own 45
per cent, the farmers
40 per cent, and the state government 15 per
cent.
The Kwara state government has taken a right step if we take
cognisance of
the vital position agriculture occupies in our national
economy. Agriculture
is an alternative foreign exchange earner. It currently
contributes 40-42
per cent of Nigeria 's GDP and employs 70 per cent of the
active population.
Nigeria has about 74 million hectares of fertile land but
only 34 million
hectares are cultivated and more than 90 per cent of Nigeria
's agricultural
output is accounted for by households with less than two
hectares under
cropping. Typical farm sizes range from 0.5 hectares in the
southern part of
the country to 4 hectares in the northern part. The
bottom-line therefore is
that Nigeria is under farmed. We therefore have
untapped potentials,
untapped gold. Moreover on the issue of food security,
the Nigerian food
situation is vulnerable to the changing global trends,
Nigerian being a net
importer of major food items. The Global Hunger Index
by the International
Food Policy Research (IFRI) in 2006 ranked developing
countries on the basis
of their dimension of hunger and located Nigeria with
a score of 20 in the
range of 10-20 for sub-Saharan African countries
labelled as having a
serious state of hunger. The Shonga farms project is
therefore one that
other states of the federation should replicate.
Agriculture commissioners
in other 35 states of the federation are advised
to go to Shonga for a
retreat, feel the beat and go ahead to replicate
Shonga in their home
states. Agriculture is too important for Nigeria to toy
with in these days
when crude oil has began waning as a strategic product.
It is unwise for
Nigeria to continue to depend on oil as key revenue earner
accounting for
over 90 per cent of our export earning. It is a project that
the states must
drive like it is being done in Kwara State.
Dear Family and Friends,
A growing
number of analysts are starting to say that the "honeymoon
is over" for
Zimbabwe's unity government. For the last six months the
very long suffering
Zimbabweans have been patient, very patient. After
living through nine years
of violence, hunger, disease, poverty and
oppression, everyone wanted to try
and make this botched up and
hugely over-staffed government work.
"Its
a transitional" stage, we were told by our MP's in March, April
and May.
"Be Patient!" they urged, " in June and July. "The collapse
is
widespread, the corruption rampant and change is going to take
time."
At a local level services remain largely non existent - garbage
is
still not collected, street lights don't work, roads are full
of
potholes and
water supplies are scarce.
At a business level
conditions continue to be extremely precarious.
For the last three months the
NEC (National Employment Council) have
been announcing new wage levels for
employees in the business sector.
They are demanding increases for workers of
40% in some sectors, 50%
in others and are saying that new wage rates are to
be backdated by
2,3 and even 4 months. Employers are saying that if the wage
levels
are enforced they'll have no option but to make half their
staff
redundant and reduce business by 50%. Employees say they
understand
on the one hand but threaten to strike on the other. It's a
time
bomb.
At a professional level government doctors have finally
reached
tipping point and gone on strike. After a minimum of five
years
university and hospital training and working very long hours
with
negligible equipment and facilities, they've said enough is
enough.
They say they will not continue working for 170 US dollars
(106
British pounds) a month.
Government teachers are very close to
withdrawing their services too.
Three or more years of tertiary education,
teacher training, classroom
experience and every afternoon of every school
day spent supervising
or travelling to one sporting event or another,
teachers are very
disgruntled. In return for their labour they are currently
earning
only 140 US dollars (87 British pounds) a month.
To put all
this into perspective are two pictures:
First is the driver of the truck
which killed the Prime Minister's
wife, Mrs Susan Tsvangirai. The truck
driver was reportedly earning
300 British pounds (US$ 480) a month at the
time of the accident.
(for which he was fined US 200. ) A truck driver
earning almost
double the salary of a doctor?
Secondly are the new NEC
rates for security workers. A man standing
at the gate of a complex lifting a
boom across the road for vehicles
to enter is now earning 140 US dollars a
month, before transport,
lighting and housing allowances. A gate guard
earning more than a
teacher?
Zimbabwe's priorities are confused and
patience grows ever thinner.
Until next week, thanks for reading, love
cathy
Copyright cathy buckle 15 August 2009
http://www.cathybuckle.com/
http://www.cathybuckle.com
GOING HOME: The year is 2004
and Caleb Dube, the former detective with the
Zimbabwe Republic Police has
been in exile in the United Kingdom for two
years. A letter arrives from his
old friend and colleague, Moses Musindo,
alerting Dube to the fact that his
former teacher and friend, Father Hugh
Malloy, is in great danger.
Friendship demands no less and Caleb Dube goes
home to his native land. With
no help from a partisan police force, Dube and
Musindo set out to
investigate. In the course of their enquiries deep in the
rural areas, the
two men meet a host of unforgettable characters, including
Sami the AIDS
orphan and Sami's friend, Tatenda, the hunter. The two boys
are an
indispensable part of the investigation and the search leads them to
an old
adversary of Dube's who holds the key to the mystery of the missing
priest.
Click here to find out more or buy
online
Countdown is a political detective story. It is
fiction but the background
is accurate and verifiable. Set in 2001/2 and the
start of the land
invasions, the book shows how the politicisation of the
police force has led
directly to the breakdown of law and order. In this
hostile environment, two
honest cops attempt to investigate a murder. Click
here to find out more or
buy online
14th August 2009
Dear
Friends.
Listening to Joseph Chintimba being interviewed By Violet Gonda on
SW Radio
Africa this last week was one of those typical 'Zim Moments' when
one simply
didn't know whether to laugh or cry. My first reaction when I
heard that
Violet Gonda was planning to interview 'Straw Hat Man' was
astonishment.
What on earth was Violet thinking about giving airtime to this
clown of a
man, I wondered. My mind went back to the first sight the nation
had of this
so-called war veteran back in 2000. There he was on our TV
screens, complete
with his trade mark straw hat telling a distraught white
farmer "This is my
farm now". From then on Chinotimba was seen regularly on
our screens as he
led the violent farm invasions. Over the years his image
changed, gone was
the straw hat to be replaced by a baseball cap and
sometimes even a smart
western suit. None of that made any difference to the
nonsense that he
spouted or the violence of his actions as he led his bunch
of rabble-rousing
followers into court-rooms where 'Chinos' was seem dancing
on the Judge's
bench, to breaking up legal civil rights demonstrations
leaving blood-soaked
demonstrators on the street. And all of his destructive
nonsense emanated
from Zanu PF headquarters. Chinotimba's latest escapade
was the disruption
of the Constitutional Conference a few weeks ago where he
was once again
seen dancing on the table. "Who told you that?" he demanded
of Violet as she
attempted to have a sensible discussion with 'Straw Hat
Man'. But it was no
use expecting sense from the man; whoever it was who saw
him dancing, he
said, then she must have been dancing with him so he should
marry her!
Violet's utterly infectious giggle burst forth at this point;
like her
listeners she was reduced to hysterical mirth by this clown of a
man. It was
Vi's reference to the MDC at one point in the interview that
exposed
Chinotimba's political thinking, if we can describe such muddled
thought
processes as 'thinking' "What MDC?" he demanded, "We are one
government now"
If the purpose of this Hot Seat interview was to reveal
exactly why Mugabe
and Zanu PF are in this Unity Government, then Violet had
succeeded
admirably. The reason, as we all suspected, despite our hope that
it was a
genuine move in the direction of co-operation, was to swallow up
the former
opposition movement and it was Chinotimba who articulated it so
clearly, "We
are one government now". Laugh as we may at Chinotimba's
antics, he is
telling no less than the truth; in Zanu PF's mind the MDC is
finished. Like
the court jester, the Fool in a Shakespearian tragedy,
Chinotimba's role is
to speak a great deal of nonsense with one key truth
interspersed among the
gobbledegook.
On Heroes Day, it was Robert
Mugabe's turn. They were burying Joseph Msika
at Heroes Acre and, as we all
knew he would, the President used the occasion
to slate the west and Britain
in particular for not supporting the Unity
Government. In fact, Mugabe
claimed, the west was intent on destroying the
six-month old coalition by
failing to give them any money and in a remark
clearly directed at Morgan
Tsvangirai's recent European travels he said,
"Let everyone in the inclusive
government know that our nation will never
prosper through foreign handouts"
- conveniently overlooking the fact that
it is foreign NGO's who are feeding
the population and actually keeping
alive thousands of Zimbabweans who would
otherwise starve to death, thanks
to Mugabe's disastrous Land Reform. "Stop
interfering" Mugabe told the west,
"We can do it alone" The whole MDC team
was there at Heroes Acre to hear
this patently untrue statement; it is
obvious to everyone that Zimbabwe
desperately needs economic help in every
area merely to survive. But for
Robert Mugabe, wrapped in his mantle of
pride and arrogance and unable to
admit his own failures, it is the former
evil colonial power that is to
blame for all the country's woes.
It
was one of his Zanu PF's spokesmen who, speaking at another occasion,
articulated the real nub of the matter. "What is hurting us most are
sanctions" said Ephriam Masawi as he dismissed the Gono/Tomana issue as 'not
serious', this in spite of the fact that President Zuma of South Africa is
supposedly visiting Zimbabwe to sort out that very issue. The inventive
Zimbabwean press is awash with rumours that in return for that rather
sketchy 'salute' Prime Minister received from some of the service chiefs on
Heroes Day, the MDC is prepared to compromise on the issue of the Reserve
Bank Governor remaining in post but will fight to have Attorney General
Tomana removed. If this is true, the reasons were very evident this week.
The trial of the MDC Deputy Minister accused of stealing Chinotimba's
cellphone was postponed by the partisan Attorney General and Roy Bennet's
application for bail was once again refused. In a related development,
Police Chief Chihuri - who did not salute Tsvangirai - has issued
instructions to all his officers, Inspectors and above, to boycott all
political meetings held by the Prime Minister and attend only those
occasions where Mugabe is speaking.
A close friend of mine who writes
a regular blog for ITN was told this week
that her blog was no longer
required because "interest in Zimbabwe had
waned" Perhaps that's not
surprising when we see what is happening in Iran
or the desperate situation
in Burma where my hero Aung San Suu Kyi has been
sentenced to another 18
months under house arrest but as I said to my
friend, "Interest may be
waning in the west but we ain't seen nothing yet in
Zimbabwe." The
photograph on the front page of this week's The Zimbabwean of
a 16 year old
boy beaten to death by Zanu PF members for daring to ask for
his unpaid
wages from his Zanu PF boss suggest to me that Zimbabwe is
nowhere near out
of the woods. The seven assailants of the boy were arrested
and released,
allegedly on the orders of Minister Didymus Mutasa, after
three days in
prison. The horribly mutilated body of the boy, accused by his
attackers of
being an MDC supporter, is testimony to the complete breakdown
of law and
order in Zimbabwe. Salutes or not salutes for Morgan Tsvangirai,
the MDC has
a long hard battle on its hands if it is to restore Zimbabwe to
real
peace.
Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH.