Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
THE Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe (RBZ)'s currency changeover
deadline has created turmoil on the
market amid fears that many institutions
will not meet
it.
It emerged this week that the central bank was under
immense
pressure to extend an arbitrary August 21 deadline for banks and
shops to
get rid of all old bearer cheques. The central bank is in a mad
rush to mop
up the old bearer cheques amid revelations that there are still
many people,
especially in the remote parts of the country, still holding on
to large
sums of old money.
The RBZ this week issued a
subtle warning to businesses it
claimed continued to give out large volumes
of old bearer cheques to the
public.
"The Reserve Bank
has noted with concern that some major cash
movers in the economy have
continued to inject large volumes of old bearer
cheques into circulation not
withstanding the bank's call that stakeholders
now move to the new family of
bearer cheques," the RBZ statement said.
"Instances where
some players collect the new cash from the
Reserve Bank and elect to hoard
it at their cash depots, will not be
tolerated, and a bank or non-bank
financial institution, caught doing such
abortive (sic) practices will be
dealt with accordingly."
The threat against banks was seen as
a preemptive strike against
institutions seen as sabotaging Reserve Bank
governor Gideon Gono's currency
reforms that came unannounced and have
caused turmoil in both the banking
sector and the transacting
public.
Banks have been forced to incur huge expenses in
efforts to
configure their automated teller machines to dispense the new
currency while
the RBZ has embarked on an extravagant publicity campaign to
educate a
bemused public.
The statement on Wednesday was
seen as targeted at banks and
retail outlets that continued to disburse old
money. The statement also
raised fears that the new bearer cheques
distributed in the past two weeks
could have been hoarded just like the old
bearer cheques.
The RBZ was yesterday forced to extend the
deadline to remit the
old bearer cheques for banks, traders and parastatals
to Tuesday. A circular
issued yesterday afternoon said banks were allowed to
take deposits of the
old currency from parastatals, traders and retail shops
until Tuesday.
Sources said the RBZ, despite assurances, had
not printed enough
new bearer cheques to meet a huge demand expected around
month-end next
week.
Fears of chaos heightened after
banks announced that they would
shut down on Saturday to convert their
systems ahead of the deadline.
Stanbic, ZABG Bank and FBC Bank have since
confirmed that they will be
closed on Saturday. The RBZ has however ordered
banks to remain open to
allow customers to swap old bearer cheques for new
ones.
Most banks are also planning to switch off their
automated
teller machines (ATM) during the weekend, against an RBZ directive
to
continue ATM services.
The ATM services will resume on
Monday. That means there will be
no banking business tomorrow, leaving
customers with only Monday to offload
their old currency into
banks.
The extension of the deadline - which indicated a
climbdown -
came on the back of pressure from banks which complained to Gono
over the
tight deadline.
With three days to go, some
banks were still issuing old bearer
cheques while retail shops continued to
give customers change in the old
currency. Retail shops have since announced
that they will stop accepting
the old currency on the August 20
(Sunday).
Others have said they will stop accepting the old
currency
today.
"There is panic now that we realise that
the teams that we
thought would cover rural areas have not been
able
to do so," said an official in the central bank's financial
markets division.
TM supermarket personnel said they had
a directive to stop
accepting old bearer cheques on
Sunday.
"Management told us that the cut-off date for
accepting old
notes would be Sunday August 20," an official at TM High Glen
said.
Management at OK and Bon Marche however said they would
be
taking the bearers cheques until the end of day on Tuesday, the deadline
for
the change-over period.
Shop attendants at two
designer wear shops housed at the Kopje
Plaza building said they would not
be accepting old bearer cheques from
tomorrow to avoid losing out if they
fail to bank their takings before
Monday.
"As from
Saturday we will not be accepting old bearer cheques.
If you want to buy
something here with the old bearer cheques that must be
done by Friday
(today)", said a shop attendant at one of the shops.
Another
shop attendant at a leather goods outlet along Jason
Moyo Avenue said the
company was advising people to buy using new bearer
cheques, as they are yet
to get explicit instructions from their management.
Zim's
currency since 1980
* 1980 - Zimbabwe had six coins and four
bank notes. The coins
were: 1c, 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, and $1 in coins and $2,
$5, $10, $20 notes.
* 1994 - the Reserve Bank introduced a
new $50 note followed by
a $100 note in 1995.
* Between
1997 and 1998 new notes were introduced of: $5, $10,
and $20, plus a $2
coin.
* 2001 - a $500 note was issued followed by another
different
$500 note. A $5 coin was also introduced the same
year.
* In 2003 a $1 000 note came into
circulation.
* The RBZ introduced traveller's cheques as
legal tender in 2003
in denominations of $1 000, $5 000, $10 000, $20 000,
$50 000 to $100 000.
They proved unpopular with the public and were quickly
phased out.
* RBZ introduced bearer cheques for the first
time in September
2003 in $5 000, $10 000 and $20 000
denominations.
* A $50 000 bearer cheque came in on February
1 2006.
* RBZ introduced the $100 000 bearer cheque on June 1
2006.
* August 1 2006 RBZ introduced a batch of 13 new bearer
cheques
after knocking off three zeros from the old bearer cheques. The new
bearer
cheques are in the following denominations: 1c, 5c, 10c, 50c, $1,
$10, $20,
$50, $100, $500, $1 000, $10 000, $100 000 - all in paper
format.
* Gono last week said there were plans to introduce a
new
currency in the near future.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
THE alleged
intimidation of magistrates by National Security
minister Didymus Mutasa has
attracted the attention of Chief Justice Godfrey
Chidyausiku who has however
said he will not do anything with it.
Chidyausiku has said he
will not recommend charges against
Mutasa because the incident had no
connection with Justice minister Patrick
Chinamasa's on-going
trial.
Magistrates in Manicaland province recused themselves
from
presiding over Chinamasa's trial on charges of attempting to defeat the
course of justice on August 1, citing intimidation and breach of objectivity
if they tried their boss, prompting Chidyausiku to launch an enquiry on the
matter.
Chinamasa is accused of exerting undue pressure
on would-be
witnesses to withdraw from the state's case against Mutasa's
supporters who
were facing public violence charges.
In an
interview on Wednesday, Chidyausiku said reports submitted
to him revealed
that the alleged intimidation happened in 2002 before he was
Chief Justice.
"I do not see any useful purpose in my office directing the
Attorney-General
or the Police Commissioner over the 2002 incident that
nobody seems to have
considered a breach of the law," Chidyausiku said.
He said
from information submitted to him, it was clear that the
magistrates had
recused themselves for two major reasons; because Chinamasa
was their "boss"
and the alleged intimidation.
Chidyausiku said he would have
made a judge of the High Court
available for Chinamasa's trial had the
matter been brought to him before
going to court.
A 2002
Rusape magistrates court report says Mutasa led a
demonstration by Zanu PF
supporters to protest a magistrate's decision to
deny five ruling party
supporters bail.
"They were demonstrating against our refusal
to grant bail to
five members who are appearing in court for various
allegations of theft,
housebreaking, kidnapping, robbery and assault with
intent to do grievous
bodily harm," the report says.
* In
our story titled "Minister threatens to sue prosecutor"
last week, we
inferred that Mutasa "also threatened to sue James Kaunye". We
have since
established that this is not correct. We would like to apologise
to both the
minister and Kaunye.
Zim Independent
By Phillip Pasirayi
IT was not
surprising to hear that Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
governor Gideon Gono might
have entered the murky political waters of Zanu
PF and is eyeing the most
coveted post - the country's presidency.
While this might
have come as a surprise to many unsuspecting
Zimbabweans and members of the
ruling party, for those of us who have been
following closely the politics
of succession within the rank and file of
Zanu PF, it was self-evident that
the governor was increasingly getting more
fascinated with politics rather
than economics.
Since his appointment as RBZ governor in
December 2003, Gono has
strayed from his role as chief executive officer of
the central bank to
dabble in politics. The governor is too ambitious and
sees his mission as to
serve the Zanu PF presidium in the name of the
suffering people of Zimbabwe.
Gono is obviously biting more
than he is able to chew and only
time will tell.
Addressing business executives in Gweru recently, Gono was
quoted as saying:
"We will not let the presidium and the long-suffering
majority of workers,
the rural folk, urbanites, pensioners, students and
civil servants
down.
"The turnaround of the economy should not be based on
the
politics of patronage, fear or favour. Everyone must participate and
benefit
or burn depending on individual actions."
We
wonder which students Gono was referring to when thousands of
them cannot
afford the recently hiked fees.
We also wonder which workers and
civil servants the governor was
referring to as the majority of them live
below the poverty datum line and
their paltry incomes have been seriously
eroded by inflation.
Since his assumption of office at the
RBZ, Gono has always used
words ostensibly meant to placate the suffering
masses, whereas he should be
condemned for allegedly recommending some of
the most heinous crimes such as
Operation Murambatsvina that left thousands
homeless, jobless and much
poorer than they were before.
It was upon Gono's complaints that the informal sector and
shantytowns like
Matapi in Mbare and other high-density areas where the poor
live were havens
of criminal activities such as money laundering, black
market foreign
currency dealings that the government implemented Operation
Murambatsvina.
The same military tactics reminiscent of
the way Operation
Murambatsvina was implemented have been evident since
Gono's presentation of
the mid-year monetary policy review statement when
hordes of youth militia
and state security agents manned roadblocks and
subjected Zimbabweans to all
forms of torture under the guise of searching
for bearer cheques.
Mutumwa Mawere argues it is "through a
combination of patronage
and intimidation (that) Gono is now a feared man in
Zimbabwe. He is
effectively the CEO of Zimbabwe Inc and has effective
control of the state
machinery and anyone who dares challenge him risks a
lot."
President Robert Mugabe's endorsement of Gono and the
RBZ is
more telling in Zanu PF politics of succession if analysed through
the same
lens that Joice Mujuru became vice-president.
Gono's fascination with politics came about as a result of his
increased
interaction with Mugabe. Gono was always part of "a strong-powered
delegation" accompanying the president on the many foreign trips to either
look for fuel, food, investment opportunities or new friends for the Zanu PF
government in the wake of its increased isolation by the international
community.
The duties of the governor of the central bank
are spelled out
in Section 6 of the RBZ Act which only empowers Gono as the
incumbent "to
look into monetary policy which addresses interest rates,
money supply and
exchange rate".
Since his appointment,
Gono has dabbled in sectors that have
nothing to do with monetary policy,
money supply or exchange rate and has
usurped the powers of Agriculture,
Finance and Home Affairs ministers, to
mention but a few.
In other words, Gono is now a de-facto prime minister whose role
is to
liaise with President Mugabe and implement policies that even some
cabinet
ministers and the two vice-presidents, Mujuru and Joseph Msika, may
not be
aware of. Such is the extent of the rot in the government of
Mugabe.
The fact that Gono could now be gunning for the
presidency must
be looked at within the context of the Mujuru camp having
fallen out of
favour with Mugabe.
At 82, Mugabe does not
know whom to trust and the Mujuru camp
could be one of those groups. But
again Gono has always been Mugabe's
right-hand man or the most trusted
"induna" who has been consistent and
unwavering in supporting the status
quo.
To Mugabe, Gono is an honest, hardworking and loyal
cadre who
has bailed out the ruling party each time it faces financial
problems since
his time at the helm of the Commercial Bank of
Zimbabwe.
In some circles, both within and without Zanu PF,
Gono is viewed
as an untainted and less controversial political figure
compared to Mujuru,
Emmerson Mnangagwa or Simba Makoni because he has kept
his "distance" from
the factional fighting that has characterised Zanu PF's
politics of
succession in the past few years. As such, some see Gono as the
natural
successor of the ageing and tired Mugabe.
The
reason Gono's political project to become the country's next
No 1 after
Mugabe is doomed has everything to do with his lack of political
legitimacy,
his lack of popularity, and the intensity of Zanu PF
factionalism which will
leave the party in a much weaker position as the
2008 presidential poll
approaches.
Gono is a beneficiary of the patronage politics
he blames today
for causing the country's economic woes. His meteoric rise
is one that can
be attributed to patronage politics. Gono derives his
political legitimacy
from Mugabe, not Zanu PF or the people of Zimbabwe in
whose language he
wants to speak each time he appears in
public.
Gono's ambitions to be the next president of Zimbabwe
are doomed
because of his lack of a solid ground in party politics. Although
he has
overzealously defended the policies of Zanu PF, he is not known in
either
cell or branch of the party. His rivals - Mnangagwa, Mujuru and
Makoni -
have leverage over him because they are heavily involved with Zanu
PF and
have a defined constituency.
Even a fragmented
Movement for Democratic Change can easily win
a presidential election
against Gono, whose political career to date is
easily recognisable in
appointed posts rather than ones in which he
contested and was
elected.
Gono comes from a banking background where
principles of
accountability, transparency, integrity and good professional
and ethical
conduct are given prime consideration. These notions are
inimical to the
culture of violence, the politics of fear, corruption and
patrimonialism
that define the way of doing politics in Zanu
PF.
Before his appointment as governor, Gono played a
mysterious
role in government that saw him visiting other countries to
negotiate and
enter into business deals on behalf of government even though
he was neither
a known minister nor a permanent
secretary.
He has in the past headed some of the most
influential boards
such as the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings and the
University of Zimbabwe's
governing council.
But perhaps
Zanu PF could be using Gono in the same manner they
did with Jonathan Moyo
whom they later dumped, disowned and ridiculed even
after he had worked so
tirelessly and intelligently to prop up the party's
waning
support.
* Phillip Pasirayi is a Zimbabwean political
activist.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
AS the cost of
living continues to escalate, it has become
common in most supermarkets to
find piles of abandoned goods at till-points.
The goods are
left by shoppers unable to pay up unexpectedly
huge sums of money for a few
items of groceries.
Prices of basic commodities are increasing
almost on a daily
basis, forcing consumers to restrict themselves to buying
basic necessities
and even cut on those.
The Consumer
Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) recently announced that
the cost of living shot
23,5 percentage points to $75 400 ($75,4 million)
for July, from $61 million
the previous month.
CCZ's low-income urban monthly basket
shows that many people are
increasingly becoming poorer due to rampant price
increases.
Last week the Central Statistical Office announced
that the
Poverty Datum Line (PDL) had surged 24 percentage points to $84 000
($84
million) last month from $68 000 ($68 million) in June for a family of
five.
The PDL represents the cost of a given standard of
living that
must be attained if a person is deemed not to be
poor.
A fresh round of price increases experienced last week
after the
slashing of three zeros from the local currency foreshadows a
worsening
crisis for consumers.
Finance minister Herbert
Murerwa recently increased the tax-free
threshold for income tax to $20 000
($20 million), a figure that has already
been overtaken by the escalating
cost of living before it comes into effect
in September.
Economist John Robertson says if the consumer's basket continues
to increase
by an average of 20% as has been the trend since January, the
same basket
will breach the $100 million mark by September.
Rampant inflation
currently at 993% for July, is set to continue
pushing the consumer basket
beyond the reach of many.
There are indications that shortages of
basic food commodities
are likely to re-emerge due to a host of economic
measures put in place by
the central bank recently, as well as other
measures put in place by the
government despite protests from
industry.
For example, bread, cooking oil and milk prices are
still
subject to price controls. Zimbabwe is expected to face a 60% wheat
production deficit this year, and this could result in acute bread
shortages, and consequently higher prices.
Supermarket
shelves are already replete with products that are
not controlled and very
few of the controlled products.
Many families are being forced to
borrow money from various
sources to make ends meet. As a result, they are
being caught in a debt
trap from which they are failing to escape.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
RESERVE Bank
governor Gideon Gono has resisted attempts by the
National Economic
Development Priority Programme (NEDPP) to delay or reverse
the
implementation of the new currency measures.
Government
sources said this week Gono rejected an NEDPP
decision to suspend or
reschedule the implementation of the removal of three
zeros from old bearer
cheques he announced in his monetary policy statement
on July
31.
The proposal to postpone the new currency was made by
senior
NEDPP policy implementation officials from economic ministries who
rushed
into a meeting shortly after Gono's presentation.
NEDPP officials argued that most banks were not ready for the
new currency
policy and needed time to reconfigure their systems.
Senior
government officials who attended the NEDPP meeting to
discuss the new
currency measures include Finance minister Herbert Murerwa
and his Economic
Development counterpart Rugare Gumbo.
Sources said Murerwa
and other ministers were not happy with the
issue because they were not
fully consulted.
Although Murerwa was said to have been aware
of the move, the
majority of his colleagues were not. The NEDPP is a
government action plan
premised on the need to stabilise the currency in the
short-term through
quick-fix strategies. It is understood that after the
NEDPP meeting it was
communicated to Gono that he should reconsider his move
but he rejected
this.
"The NEDPP met after Gono's
statement at the urging of bankers
and came up with a decision to delay or
reverse the new measures," a source
said.
"The NEDPP then
communicated the decision to Gono who rejected
it outright and instead went
on a nationwide campaign to explain his
currency plan. That is why Gono went
to Bulawayo, Kwekwe and was also
expected to visit Chinhoyi, Bindura,
Marondera, Mutare, Masvingo, and
Gwanda - in other words all provincial
capitals."
Gono went to major banks in Harare on August 1 to
explain his
moves and to secure assurances that financial institutions would
facilitate
the transition from the old to the new bearer
cheques.
The coming of the new bearer cheques is riddled with
controversy
as the central bank, backed by state security agents and police,
seizes
money from individuals and companies. The nationwide crackdown on
alleged
currency stashers has netted thousands and government claims to have
recovered trillions of dollars.
However, there has been
loud criticism of the brash approach of
the law enforcement agents to the
operation which was given legal force by
emergency presidential
powers.
Lawyers have said the operation may well be illegal
in
constitutional terms.
Sources said Gono refused to
accept the NEDPP proposal because
he had agreed with President Robert
Mugabe, army, security and police
chiefs, and Murerwa himself on the
currency initiative.
Sources said Gono had met Mugabe,
security service bosses and
Murerwa on July 30, the day before his monetary
policy statement, to explain
his currency reform plan.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
GOVERNMENT'S
hotly-contested currency reform initiative has
opened a new political front
in the ruling party's power struggle.
Official sources said
Zanu PF factions battling for the heart
and soul of the party had escalated
their power tussle on the new front
line.
The political
infighting is between the two traditional rival
camps widely seen as led by
retired army commander General Solomon Mujuru on
the one hand and Emmerson
Mnangagwa on the other.
The factions are struggling to secure
President Robert Mugabe's
job ahead of the expiry of his term of office in
19 months' time.
Mugabe recently told his party that rival
candidates were
consulting traditional healers on how to become
president.
Remarks by Mugabe this week and statements by
central bank
governor Gideon Gono, State Security minister Didymus Mutasa
and a number of
government officials of late reveal the currency issue has
become the latest
political battleground.
Mugabe on
Monday cautioned those opposed to the currency reform,
urging: "Let us give
support to the currency reform measures recently
announced by monetary
authorities and shun the compulsive tendency to cheat
and engage in
despicable underhand dealings."
The Mujuru camp is said to be
seething with anger at Gono over
the new currency and has vowed to fight him
to the end.
This opened the new front in the Zanu PF power
struggle. The
wrangling on the latest theatre of political war has raised
the stakes and
set the stage for a photo-finish in the Mugabe succession
race.
Zanu PF camps are also fighting on several other
fronts.
Gono and Murerwa, linked to rival Zanu PF camps, are
already
fighting over other policy issues. President Robert Mugabe has so
far backed
Gono, now seen as positioning himself to become state
president.
Mugabe has accused unidentified people of
"unbridled greed,
corruption and self-aggrandisement".
"These economic saboteurs and enemies of our economic turnaround
strategies
should take heed that we are determined to fight the scourge of
corruption,"
he said.
Mugabe has said there are people who want to kill
Gono.
On August 4 Gono remarked in Bulawayo that he would not
be
intimidated by people brandishing liberation war credentials. This was
seen
as targeted at the Mujuru camp.
Zim Independent
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) bought 320 new
vehicles at a
cost of US$5,184 million ($1,296 trillion at the current
official exchange
rate) to facilitate the marketing of the new bearer
cheques introduced last
week.
The RBZ bought a fleet of
Isuzu KB 2.50 LE double-cab trucks for
use by its officials, the police and
government agents involved in Operation
Sunrise. Car dealers say these
vehicles cost US$16 200 each.
The all-terrain pick-ups were
assigned to provincial teams
comprising a divisional manager from the
central bank, a police chief
inspector, a CIO operative, a Zimra officer, a
member of the Zimbabwe
National Army and a graduate from the National Youth
Training centre as part
of efforts to distribute new bearer cheques
countrywide and collect the old
ones.
Part of the fleet
will be surrendered to the Zimbabwe Republic
Police at the end of the
exercise.
Sources say the central bank enlisted the services
of the police
in launching its blitz on old currency holders because it
lacked capacity to
implement the nationwide crackdown. Police were promised
to retain 120
vehicles at the end of exercise.
"Initially
the police were reluctant to cooperate citing lack of
vehicles and fuel to
cover the ground," a source said. "But they were
enticed by the pledge by
the RBZ to donate part of the fleet."
Police spokesperson
Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena
yesterday said he could not provide
details on the issue.
"I cannot comment on anything
concerning the matter. Please talk
to Kumbirai Nhongo at the RBZ," he
said.
Efforts to contact Nhongo, the central bank's public
affairs
executive, were fruitless as his mobile phone was
unreachable.
In addition to the splurge on vehicles, last
week this paper
reported that the RBZ had spent an estimated $1 trillion
bidding to harvest
old bearer cheques from all corners of the country and to
arraign those
trying to repatriate huge sums of cash into the
country.
The central bank is paying $40 million in transport
and
subsistence allowances to each of the 600 Zanu PF militia recruited to
take
part in the exercise as enforcers.
The Zimbabwe
Independent also heard that the RBZ was paying its
senior officials in
charge of distributing the new bearer cheques across the
country and
bringing back old notes a daily allowances of $45 million each.
The senior
officials have been issued with new Isuzu trucks to carry out the
exercise
while more vehicles are being mobilised.
Central Mechanical
and Equipment Department (Pvt) Ltd, a
parastatal, was tasked with finding
vehicles for hire to complement
government and central bank
fleets.
Officials at the CMED said owners of hired vehicles
would be
paid a rate of about $20 million per day for a vehicle and provided
with
fuel and all other lubricants needed to run a vehicle. - Staff
Writers.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe, once the
region's leading statesman, is
fast losing his grip on the affairs of the
Southern African Development
Community (Sadc).
Evidence
of Mugabe's loss of influence mounted yesterday when it
was confirmed
Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis would be discussed at
the Sadc
summit which opened in Lesotho yesterday - clearly against his
will.
Mugabe - who a few years ago was forced to
surrender the Sadc
Organ on Politics, Defence and Security after years in
control - has usually
opposed discussing Zimbabwe's domestic affairs at such
meetings unless he
wants support.
Lesotho's Finance
minister Timothy Thahane this week said
crisis-ridden Zimbabwe and
Swaziland, which are notorious for human rights
abuses, would be discussed
at the close of the summit today.
Problems have forced
millions of locals to flee across borders,
mostly to South Africa, Botswana
and overseas as economic refugees.
"There will be a special
session at the close of the summit to
discuss what's going on ...
specifically in Zimbabwe and Swaziland," Thahane
told reporters on
Wednesday.
Thahane, who is also head of the Sadc Council of
Ministers, said
the issue of former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa's
mediation in
Zimbabwe was not on the agenda, although it might be tabled in
the closed
session.
Sources in Harare said Mugabe's
delegation would try to
introduce the issue to seek Sadc support for Mkapa
to become the official
envoy of the regional body on
Zimbabwe.
Mkapa was confirmed as the mediator at the recent
African Union
summit in Banjul, The Gambia, ahead of United Nations
secretary-general Kofi
Annan who was widely expected to deal with the
issue.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said recently he
expected
Annan to tackle the Zimbabwean issue during his anticipated visit
which has
since been cancelled.
Mbeki, who met Mugabe and
his Mozambican counterpart Armando
Guebuza on Wednesday to open a key border
post on the trans-frontier
national park, has been trying to resolve the
Zimbabwean crisis for the past
six years. The three leaders reportedly
discussed Zimbabwe and the Sadc
meeting.
Mugabe has said
he supports Mkapa to deal with the alleged
"bilateral dispute" with Britain
over Zimbabwe's chaotic land reforms.
Mugabe wants to speak to British Prime
Minister Tony Blair about the issue.
However, London has
rejected Mugabe's claims, saying the
problems in Zimbabwe are about human
rights and poor governance. It has been
suggested that Blair will not talk
to Mugabe. Britain says Zimbabweans must
talk on their own to sort out the
problems besetting their country. Mugabe
is today expected to use Sadc to
salvage the Mkapa initiative because he
thinks it will buy him more time in
power.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
SAFARI
operator Inyathi Hunters has threatened to sue the winner
in last week's
auction of Matetsi Unit Three hunting concession for failing
to comply with
an urgent notice warning people not to participate in the
auction.
Klaudius Hove was the highest bidder with a
whopping $710
billion during the auction conducted on Friday last week. He
is expected to
pay the full amount within seven days.
More than 16 prospective buyers submitted bids but could not
match the $710
billion mark set by Hove.
Sources confirmed to the Zimbabwe
Independent that Inyathi
Hunters was among the bidders but could only raise
$400 billion.
A lawyer representing Jacob Mudenda, who ran
the concession
before the auction, told the Independent this week that he
was awaiting
details of the winning bidder before filing papers with the
High Court
challenging the auctioning of the concession.
Mudenda had earlier applied to the High Court seeking an
interdict blocking
the auction. The action is premised on the fact that he
has challenged a
decision by the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife to
withdraw an offer
letter extending his lease of Matetsi Concession.
Mudenda, in
the High Court papers, challenged the Parks
Authority's rescission of the
decision to give him an extension at the
concession.
Hunting safari conditions allow only locals or representatives
of
wholly-owned Zimbabwean companies to bid for the concession for five
years.
Zim Independent
Itai Mushekwe
OUTSPOKEN Roman
Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, has
scoffed at President Robert
Mugabe's overtures to church leaders to help him
rally the people behind
government's efforts to turn around the economy.
Ncube, a
fierce critic of Mugabe's policies, also dismissed the
veteran politician's
Heroes Day message which extended gratitude to
faith-based organisations for
their role in helping disseminate a positive
image about his
regime.
"His talk is mere empty talk and we will not bow down
to that
nonsense," Ncube said on Wednesday.
"It's all
part of his (Mugabe) slyness. He is a very
manipulative man, I know so
because I have been to his house once. He served
us hot tea and greeted me
in my mother's tongue, most probably to placate
me."
The
archbishop, who has crossed swords with Mugabe on several
occasions about
his misrule, added that his problem with government is
rooted in its tactics
aimed at enticing the church to peddle lies on its
behalf while the masses
suffer.
"My problem with these people is that they want us to
be
hypocrites and tell lies that the situation is normal when it is not.
There
is hunger, inflation is very high and school fees continue to rise.
How will
the people survive?" Ncube said.
He said the
only positive thing to date was the resilience of
Zimbabweans because they
"are peace-loving and have had to put up with
government
nonsense".
Speaking at the Heroes Acre this week, Mugabe paid
tribute to
churches for conveying a message of solidarity with
government.
"I wish to applaud the well-intended efforts of
our churches,
represented by the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, the
Evangelical Fellowship
of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference
for helping to
disseminate the all-important message of Pamberi neZimbabwe,
Phambili
leZimbabwe, Forward with Zimbabwe," said Mugabe.
Zim Independent
Tendai Mukandi
THE quality of
education at the National University of Science
and Technology (Nust) came
under the spotlight from practising architects
following revelations of
mismanagement and corrupt activities at the
institution's Faculty of
Architecture.
A July 21 letter to the university's
Vice-Chancellor Lindela
Ndlovu and the faculty dean of Professional Design
Studio (PDS), highlighted
six major concerns that authorities at Nust needed
to address without delay.
PDS is a company of registered
architects, interior designers,
project managers and planning consultants
based in Bulawayo.
Their first major concern was the changing
of results after an
examination deadline in three courses, namely AAR6061,
AAR6102 and AAR 6202.
PDS questioned the professionalism of
placing a deadline for
examination material to be handed in when other
students "are given the
opportunity of improving their work after the final
presentation".
"What was the point of the open critic or
presentation when the
final marks are to be based on an arbitrary system or
decision?" the
organisation said.
"The approved results
of AAR6061, AAR6102 and AAR6202 are
disputed/distorted and of
professional/public concern. These results if
published as approved, would
cause a public concern. The university needs to
investigate before they are
published."
PDS, in the same letter, questioned the
recruitment of staff in
the faculty. The company alleged that the faculty
was recruiting staff who
possessed a Bachelor of Architecture degree with
less than five years of
experience as lecturers. This is despite
internationally-accepted practice
that the minimum requirement is a Masters
in Architecture degree before
being appointed junior
lecturers.
The letter alleges that students were being asked
to raise hands
as a process of determining those to
graduate.
When contacted, Peter Sibanda, an architect with
PDS, said the
matter had since been clarified. "The issue was resolved two
weeks ago and
all the issues were explained. It was just one of the internal
problems like
a bedroom issue."
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
SWIFT action by state
security agents averted a potentially
explosive public clash between two
feuding factions of war veterans in
Bulawayo during the Heroes Day
celebrations.
The former combatants clashed over which
faction should
represent the province during official
proceedings.
The latest public outbursts by the former
freedom fighters
underline deep-rooted divisions in the war veterans
association. The swift
action by state security agents and Zanu PF
provincial executive members at
the Nkulumane Heroes Acre prevented a
serious public clash between the two
camps.
The Bulawayo
chapter of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War
Veterans Association is
split into two groups after deposed chairperson
Themba Ncube refused to
recognise the new provincial chairperson, Thoriso
Phiri, as the legitimate
leader of the province.
Ncube alleges that Phiri was imposed
on Bulawayo province by a
committee comprising Dumiso Dabengwa and Retired
Army Commander Solomon
Mujuru that was tasked by President Mugabe to
reorganise the war veterans
association.
However, trouble
at the Nkulumane Provincial Heroes Acre in
Bulawayo started when Phiri, who
was sitting at the high table, stood up to
lay a wreath on the tomb of the
Unknown Soldier. She was blocked by Ncube
who rose from the public gallery
where he was seated.
Ncube said he was the right person to
perform that task. Efforts
by the Zanu PF leadership to cool down Ncube
failed as he insisted that he
should lay the flowers on the tomb of the
Unknown Soldier.
Fearing a disruption of the day's
activities, Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO) agents, who were part of
the protocol team,
and the Zanu PF provincial leadership, convened a haste
meeting by the
sidelines and resolved that both Ncube and Phiri should not
take part in the
proceedings.
After the private
consultations Ncube's deputy, John Sibanda,
was allowed to lay the wreaths
on behalf of Ncube.
When interviewed by the Zimbabwe
Independent after the incident,
Ncube said he was still chairman and was in
charge of Bulawayo province.
"I have asked my deputy John
Sibanda to officiate on my behalf.
There are some problems in the
association that I cannot reveal to you at
this moment but we will resolve
them," Ncube said.
Phiri also charged that she was still in
control of the province
and said she backed off to avoid embarrassing the
government. "There is a
problem that has to be sorted out, but as for now I
am in charge and we did
not want to embarrass the government on this
occasion. That is why I backed
off," Phiri said.
Phiri
and her executive were elected into office in
controversial circumstances in
March following a vote-of-no-confidence that
was passed on Ncube over his
participation in the Tsholotsho debacle.
Ncube commands a lot
of support in the province due to his
allegiance to former war veterans
national chairman Jabulani Sibanda, who
was dismissed from the association
and the ruling Zanu PF earlier this year.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
GOVERNMENT
imported nearly a million tonnes of maize and wheat
from South Africa over
the past year in a desperate move to cover up huge
food deficits likely to
hit the country before the 2006/7 harvest.
In its latest
report for July, the US-based Famine Early Warning
Systems Network
(Fewsnet), said Zimbabwe imported more than 900 000 tonnes
of maize to close
the food deficit gap for that period.
Data gleaned by the
organisation from the South African Grain
Information Services (Sagis)
indicate the importation was carried out during
the period April 2005 to
March 2006.
"Commercial and food aid maize imports from South
Africa to
Zimbabwe continued in February and March 2006," the report
said.
"According to Sagis, 114 292 tonnes of maize were
exported to
Zimbabwe between February 10 and March 31, 2006, bringing the
cumulative
official maize exports to Zimbabwe to 993 472 tonnes for the
period April 2,
2005 to March 31, 2006. This represents about 93% of the
total maize gap
estimated at the beginning of the 2005/6 consumption
year."
Fewsnet said Zimbabwe would harvest about 135 000
tonnes of
wheat, an increase from last year's 120 000 tonnes. The harvest
still falls
short, as it will be enough to cover only about 34% of the
country's
requirements.
"Wheat production for 2006 is
expected to be about 135 000
tonnes, which is 13% higher than the 2005
production level of about 120 000
tonnes," Fewsnet reports
says.
"The 2006 production still falls far short of national
requirements estimated to be around 400 000 tonnes."
The food
monitoring international agency also warned that rising
costs of food would
impact negatively on the food security situation of most
households in the
country.
It said while the national level of cereal
availability seemed
satisfactory, sub-national and household level food
availability was going
to be heavily dependent on the efficiency and
effectiveness of sub-national
grain redistribution systems and the
purchasing power of deficit and
non-food producing
households.
Fewsnet said: "Projected cereal deficit of about
22% for the
2006/7 marketing year is concentrated in the southern districts
as well as
the western and eastern margins of the country."
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
PRESIDENT Robert
Mugabe in June rejected Finance minister
Herbert Murerwa's proposal to
introduce a $250 000 bearer cheque when
Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono
was away in Russia.
Highly-placed sources said Murerwa and
acting RBZ governor at
the time, Edward Mashiringwani, had suggested that
government introduces a
$250 000 bearer cheque, citing surging inflation
which was at 1 193,5%.
Mashiringwani is the RBZ deputy
governor responsible for the
Financial Markets, Banking Operations and
National Payments Systems.
Sources said the two argued that
due to galloping inflation, the
largest denomination then - a $100 000
bearer cheque introduced on June 1 -
was no longer convenient for daily
transactions.
Prices of goods and services were escalating
across the economy
at an alarming rate, forcing customers to carry large
sums of money in bags
and car boots.
However, sources
said Mugabe blocked Murerwa and Mashiringwani's
plans, querying why they
wanted to do it in Gono's absence.
Mugabe confirmed on Monday
he had rejected the $250 000 bearer
cheque.
He told
supporters at Heroes Day cerebrations that a number of
suggestions had been
put forward, including the introduction of a $250 000
bearer cheque, but he
turned them down.
Gono travelled to Moscow on May 31 hunting
for a financial
lifeline to save Zimbabwe from headlong economic
descent.
On his return, Gono, despite his earlier
pronouncements that the
RBZ would not hesitate to print higher
denominations, opted to knock off
three zeros from the old bearer cheques
before introducing new ones.
When Gono introduced the $100
000 bearer cheque on June 1, he
said it was more convenient to the public
since the $50 000 "had been
overtaken by events".
"It is
not the first and last time to see us introducing bearer
cheques and we will
not hesitate to introduce higher denominations," Gono
said.
Mashiringwani by last night had not responded to
questions sent
to him earlier in the day.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
GOVERNMENT is soon
expected to seal two deals with Russian
investors that could see the
country acquiring five commercial planes and
securing a telecommunications
technical partner, the Zimbabwe Independent
heard this
week.
Sources privy to the developments said government was
expected
to seal a US$500 million deal for the supply of five Illyushin and
Tupolev
commercial planes and a US$300 million telecommunications technical
partner
arrangement.
The telecommunications deal involves
Net*One and Tel*One
partnering Russia's State Foreign Trade Company,
Tyazhpromexport, in two
weeks' time.
Sources said a
Zimbabwe delegation led by Transport and
Communication permanent secretary
George Mlilo was expected to travel to
Russia next week where they would
meet officials from Voronezh Aircraft
Construction Company (Vaco), to
conclude the deal.
The aircraft supply and telecommunications
deals were brokered
by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono and
Transport minister
Chris Mushohwe during a visit to Russia about two months
ago.
Air Zimbabwe officials confirmed the airline was talking
to "a
Russian supplier" as part of a wider search for a possible source of
new
aircraft.
"Yes, we do need new equipment for our
operations. For
aircrafts, we are exploring various possible suppliers and
there has been
contact with a Russian supplier," the official
said.
Sources said the deal was as good as sealed, saying the
delivery
of the Russian planes was expected to start in
2008.
But the sources said pilots and engineers were unhappy
with the
Russian planes because of what they say is a high record of
accidents of
airplanes made from the east European
country.
Initially, Tyazhpromexport had turned down
government's proposal
to get into partnership with the unbundled parastatal
citing its huge
indebtedness.
Instead the Russians had
proposed the setting up of a parallel
company in which the two companies
would be shareholders.
Zimbabwe has adopted a "Look East"
policy over the past few
years in response to what government views as
sabotage by Western countries
opposed to its widely-condemned land
reform.
As part of the "Look East" policy, government has
entered into
at least 15 deals worth trillions of dollars with Chinese,
Iranian and other
Asian companies.
Most of the deals
revolve around fuel supplies, mining,
electricity and
communications.
Last year, government acquired two MA60
planes from China and
received a third one for free.
Zim Independent
Itai Mushekwe
ZANU PF youths rampaged
through Mbare suburb on Monday forcing
residents on to buses to attend
Heroes Day commemorations to boost numbers
at the National Heroes
Acre.
Sources told the Zimbabwe Independent yesterday that
members of
the youth militia ordered residents to go to the Heroes Acre with
Mbare
residents being the most affected.
"Business came
to a standstill at Mupedzanhamo, Mbare-Musika and
Siyaso," said a resident
who declined to be named. "We were forced into
buses while a register was
being marked for those attending. It was more
like a
roll-call."
The resident said a Zanu PF Mbare district
secretary only
identified as Mutowe warned that those who refused to join
the nation for
the Heroes Day celebrations were sell-outs from the
opposition MDC.
On Tuesday the ruling party youths again
stormed Mupedzanhamo
where they barred traders whose names did not appear on
their register from
entering the premises to do business, accusing them of
being "traitors".
Contacted for comment, Zanu PF Harare
provincial spokesperson,
William Nhara, said he was in a meeting and could
only attend to the press
once he was done. Efforts to get back to him proved
fruitless as his phone
kept ringing without being
answered.
An analyst said the development was a taste of Zanu
PF's own
medicine by its staunch supporters in Mbare as the bulk of traders
at
Mupedzanhamo were beneficiaries of the party's patronage
system.
"It's payback time for Zanu PF supporters who
benefited from the
widely-condemned Operation Murambatsvina and the chaotic
land reform," said
the analyst.
"Many stalls were
allocated on patronage lines. You needed to
produce a Zanu PF card to be a
beneficiary."
Other than being force-marched to the Heroes
Acre, residents
were also asked to make contributions towards the
commemorations.
Beneficiaries of the land reform were
reportedly asked to
contribute a minimum of $3 million towards the
celebrations.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
THE Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe (RBZ) is understood to have used
2,8 million shares from
financial behemoth Old Mutual to settle a US$30
million debt sourced from a
local financial institution under an arrangement
seen as highlighting the
country's default risk on external loans.
The shares,
understood to have been valued at $3,9 trillion (or
US$39 million) when the
transfer of the shares was consummated in mid-July,
had been used as a
guarantee for the loan from the banking institution.
Sources
indicated that the Old Mutual shares had since been
hived off to the
Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) where they could be
disposed of to
raise foreign cash to liquidate the debt.
However,
businessdigest understands that corporate institutions
were effectively
barred from trading in Old Mutual shares outside the
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange
(ZSE) under measures put in place by the bourse in
2003 to protect the
counter from massive share flight into foreign stock
markets.
The ban was part of stringent measures
introduced by the ZSE to
regulate trade in fungible Old Mutual shares. The
Old Mutual shares can be
bought from one bourse and sold on another where
Old Mutual is listed.
The measures to protect the counter's
shares were also meant to
ensure that all foreign currency realised from the
trade of Old Mutual
shares offshore was brought into the country through
official banking
channels.
The measures also bar
Zimbabweans from buying Old Mutual shares
from external registers using the
scarce foreign currency, unless they have
"foreign free
funds".
Zimbabwean companies and corporate bodies were
outlawed from
purchasing shares externally.
Old Mutual
has a multiple listing on the ZSE, the JSE, the
London Stock Exchange, the
Malawi Stock Exchange and the Namibia Stock
Exchange.
But
sources said the financial institution had been granted a
special
dispensation to move the shares out of the country to allow
repayment of the
loan to its principal by selling the shares on the JSE to
raise foreign
currency for the debt repayment.
The deal between the central
bank and the dually-listed
financial institution, described by a source as
part of intricate
transactions structured by the central bank with local
financial
institutions to raise cash for foreign obligations, had raised
questions
over the source of the Old Mutual shares used to pay off the US$30
million
debt.
Old Mutual shares on the Zimbabwe register
amounted to 83
million before the transfer, but the share register seen by
businessdigest
this week indicated that the register now had slightly over
80 million
shares.
Many companies that have failed to
repatriate dividends to their
foreign shareholders had also resorted to
buying Old Mutual shares on the
ZSE only to sell them on other foreign
registers where they earn foreign
currency for dividend payments.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
COMPANY
consultants and corporate secretaries were this week
grappling with the
impact of central bank measures re-denominating the local
currency as it
emerged that the nominal value of issued shares could fall
below levels
prescribed by law.
Several firms, including top chartered
accountants Ernst & Young's
secretarial services department, have
written to the Registrar of Companies
seeking clarification on the
issue.
There are fears that should the nominal value of share
capital
be re-denominated in line with recent measures by the central bank,
the
nominal share price could fall to less than a cent for most
companies.
The least currency denomination in the country is
a cent.
"It looks like when the central bank put in place the
new
measures, they only considered the effect on consumable goods and money
paper but it is now evident that this extends to anything that forms part of
the valuation process," an analyst with a transfer secretary told
businessdigest.
Stockbrokers said they had been inundated
with enquiries from
foreign investors fearing the new measures could have an
impact on their
local portfolio of shares.
Zimbabwe's
central bank governor Gideon Gono lopped three zeros
from the country's
currency, ordering that old bearer cheques be replaced by
re-denominated
notes and the old family of bearer cheques cease to be legal
tender by
Monday next week.
The move has forced companies to re-price
their securities, but
sources indicated this week that a problem had emerged
in the revaluation of
the nominal value of securities as this was re-pricing
issued share capital
to non-existent currency
denominations.
While officials at the Registrar of Companies
said the
department would not accept subscription for shares at a "nominal
value of
less than a cent or a fraction of a cent", a statutory instrument
released
by the central bank said companies could do so.
The central bank said one dollar of the revalued currency would
be
equivalent to one hundred cents, corresponding to two decimal
places.
Whenever the decimal part resulting from the
conversion of old
bearer cheques to the revalued currency or new bearer
cheques contained more
than two digits, and the third decimal digit
resulting from the conversion
was equal to or above five, the central bank
said the effect of rounding off
would be that the second decimal digit
remained the same.
"Where the nominal value of any security
is denominated in units
of less than four dollars and ninety cents of the
old currency system, the
nominal value shall be expressed in fractions of a
cent of the new
currency," reads part of statutory instrument 199 of
2006.
Where the nominal value of a share was $5 under the old
currency
system, the value would now be 0,005 or 1 cent when rounded
off.
However, for prices less than $5 under the old currency
system,
the price cannot be rounded off to a cent when converted to the new
currency
system.
An accounting consultant spoken to by
businessdigest on the
issue said there was no reason to revalue the nominal
price of shares as
these had historically remained unaffected by
inflation.
"The capital of companies have remained unaffected
by inflation.
If companies have to revalue the nominal value of their
capital, they will
have to seek shareholder approval first," the consultant
said.
The nominal value of shares is used in the valuation of
share
capital on the balance sheet.
Zim Independent
By Trudy Stevenson
I HAVE watched
with interest over the past few years as civil
society organised itself into
interest groups - residents, journalists and
women as well as constitutional
and human rights groups - joining the
traditional trade and student unions
and churches. Indeed, some of the
first civil society groups I had dealings
with were obviously in bed with
government, with ministers etc as their
patrons and trustees.
During the '90s the phenomenon of new -
ie post-Zanu versus
Zapu - opposition politics became established, first
with the Zimbabwe Unity
Movement, then the Forum Party, the Zimbabwe Union
of Democrats and United
Parties while there was also the revival of
Zanu-Ndonga and the UANC. In
1999 the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
was formed.
Meanwhile stronger and more confrontational
civil society groups
made their voices heard. Some were born long before but
took on a new life,
such as the Catholic Commission for Peace and Justice
(CCJP) which had stood
up for the majority and against human rights abuses
during the Smith regime
but now stood up for the same majority against the
Mugabe government when
the abuses of Gukurahundi were
perpetrated.
CCJP's publication of Breaking the Silence -
Building True
Peace, about the atrocities in Matabeleland and Midlands
during Gukurahundi,
was a milestone for civil society. It caused serious
conflict among those
who had carried out the research project, and the
Catholic bishops tried to
avoid publication, in the end, probably fearing
retribution by the state,
but it was much too late to put a lid on such
well-grounded and widespread
research.
Mike Auret, later
MP for Harare Central briefly until hounded
into ill-health by the Zanu PF
government he had originally championed, was
director of the CCJP during
this period, and to his eternal credit, stood up
for the tenets of his faith
and the CCJP motto: if you want peace, fight for
justice.
Other non-governmental organisations were more or less
successful and more
or less straightforward.
ZimRights started off well but had
problems under the
chairmanship of Nick Ndebele, with accusations of both
corruption and
vote-rigging in the organisation
widespread.
The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) was
one of the first
"umbrella" civil organisations launched with tremendous
hype and enthusiasm
in the UZ Great Hall, with Margaret Dongo, then an
independent MP, as the
guest of honour.
In retrospect,
the platform given to an "opposition" politician
certainly sowed the first
seeds of strife within the NCA, and planted the
idea in the minds of the
general public that it was OK and indeed desirable
to have opposition
politicians actively participating in NGOs either
directly or behind the
scenes. After all, this is what Zanu PF officials did
with their own set of
NGOs. Thus it was that NGOs and civil organisations
became politicised
without anyone really questioning the wisdom of this.
It may
even have continued to work fairly well, with the
"government" set of NGOs
and the "opposition" set, except that government
soon became jealous even of
its own NGOs, which commanded more resources and
more influence among donors
than government itself!
I recall overhearing two former Zanu
PF women MPs bemoaning the
fact that NGOs were more powerful than government
some 10 years ago. This
was around the time some powerful women politicians
tried to take over the
Association of Women's Clubs, resulting in a court
battle and a section of
the Private and Voluntary Organisations Act being
declared unconstitutional
by the Supreme Court.
As the
"opposition" NGOs expanded and became increasingly
militant and
well-resourced, government's reaction was predictable: they
must be
controlled and if possible closed down. Thus we had the NGO Bill
presented
to the last parliament and even adopted at the third reading,
despite
vigorous resistance and all-night debate. Yet strangely, President
Robert
Mugabe never signed that Bill into law. We now hear rumours that it
will be
modified (strengthened, or weakened?) and represented - this remains
to be
seen.
Meanwhile NGOs continue to operate on both sides of the
political divide, and while many manage to remain truly apolitical, others
try unsuccessfully to camouflage their partisanship in various
ways.
The "Save Zimbabwe" convention hosted recently by the
Christian
Alliance highlighted the problem of partisanship. On the programme
to make
presentations were the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the
Zimbabwe National Students' Union, the NCA, Crisis and Women's
Coalition.
The ZCTU presentation began with Lucia Matibenga,
vice-president
of the labour movement but also national chairperson of the
MDC-Tsvangirai
Women's Assembly.
Elizabeth Marunda,
formerly spokesperson for Crisis and also a
member of the MDC-Tsvangirai,
made the Women's Coalition presentation.
Lovemore Madhuku of
NCA conducted elections at the
MDC-Tsvangirai congress earlier this year,
and many NCA structures comprise
the very same people as the MDC-Tsvangirai
structures.
A similar situation prevails in the Combined
Harare Residents
Association, which ostensibly changed its constitution
earlier this year to
ensure non-partisanship, but whose new structures are
in many wards led by
MDC-Tsvangirai office-bearers. Its representative on
the national Zimbabwe
United Residents Association is the MDC-Tsvangirai
organising secretary for
Harare North, while its representative in the NCA
is or certainly was until
recently MDC-Tsvangirai secretary for Harare
Province.
This politicisation of civil society does not go
unnoticed, nor
is it likely to strengthen civil society. Indeed, it is
already causing
disaffection.
More seriously, it has
become such a widespread incestuous
relationship that instead of civil
society organising itself more widely,
its organised members are actually
dwindling, since the same person holds
positions in several organisations at
the same time!
Furthermore, someone will chair one
organisation one year and
then move to another a year or so later, round and
round the circuit.
We should remember that incest is
forbidden in the Bible and in
most cultures for the very scientific reason
that the product of incest is
often weak in some way, if not also physically
deformed. Let us save our
civil society from a similar
fate.
* Trudy Stevenson is MDC legislator for Harare
North.
Zim Independent
By Everett Scott
WHEN the only
serious commitment among the ruling elite is to
personal enrichment
regardless of the negative impact on the wealth-creating
capacity of the
economy, it really doesn't matter very much what new fiscal
and monetary
policies are periodically announced.
All the
pseudo-intellectuals pontificating about the latest
monetary, fiscal and
supposed economic turnaround strategies would do well
to remember that the
fundamental purpose of any economy is the creation of
wealth.
For as long as the productive base continues to
be destroyed and
the prime purpose of the ruling elite - not just the
political elite - is
personal enrichment the broad mass of the population
will continue to suffer
ever more marginalisation.
The
ruling elite knows very well that it is only through market
distortions of
the thoroughly distorted economic system that they have
created their
personal journeys to further self-enrichment.
Their wealth is
not the result of entrepreneurial talents,
professional qualifications or
talent diligently applied, but rather through
the application of the
strategy of reaping where they did not sow, and
"wheeling and dealing"
inside the corridors of power and influence.
The fuel problem
only exists for the mass of ordinary
Zimbabweans. It is an opportunity, not
a problem, to those of the elite who
have supplanted the traditional
multinational operators in the fuel supply
business. Why resolve the problem
when to do so would kill the goose that
lays the golden
egg?
For the ordinary Zimbabwean prevailing shortages are a
problem
but for the elite they are merely opportunities to be exploited.
This is
why, under the present political dispensation any so-called
"economic
turnaround" strategy is doomed.
Inflation is
not the "number one enemy", but destruction of the
country's productive
capacity. And we all know what has caused that to
happen.
What hope do we have when our supposed economic saviour still
believes he
can defeat the fundamental forces of the market?
Does Gideon
Gono not yet understand that parallel markets exist
because of
shortages?
If he truly wants to eliminate all the various
parallel markets
then he must address the issue of
supply.
When Zimbabwe earns enough foreign currency, when it
grows
enough maize, when it meets its fuel needs, etc then, and only then,
will
the parallel markets disappear.
He might also note
that all the distortions in the economy were
created by ridiculous
differentials in the price of fuel.
The price of foreign
currency, among others, only exacerbates
the problem of parallel markets. To
seriously tackle these fundamental
distortions would deprive all the
wheelers and dealers of their ability to
get ever richer.
One suspects that Gono's verbosity merely disguises his
knowledge of these
simple truths.
One suspects that he too knows what really
needs to be done. As
mentioned in recently published letters: "It's
politics, stupid!"
* Everett Scott writes from Harare.
Zim Independent
News Analysis with Clemence
Manyukwe
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's Heroes and Defence Forces
commemoration addresses on Monday and Tuesday were an attempt to divert
public attention from problems he created, critics say.
In the absence of forward-looking policy pronouncements,
President Mugabe
resorted to using threats against perceived opponents in
order to entrench
his policies and rule.
As has become the norm in his public
addresses, Mugabe heaped
blame on scapegoats his government has created
which he says have caused the
economic and political crisis that the nation
finds itself in, analysts say.
In his Heroes Day speech on
Monday, Mugabe said the economy had
collapsed because of greed, sanctions
and an opposition he said was
sponsored by Western
powers.
He said economic saboteurs were worshipping the "god
of wealth".
"These economic saboteurs and enemies of our
turnaround
strategies should take heed that we are determined to fight the
scourge of
corruption and do honour to the integrity and dignity of our
nation," he
said.
President Mugabe said the opposition
MDC should play a more
positive role. "Instead of calling for sanctions that
have hurt our ordinary
people, the so-called opposition should play a more
responsible role that is
supportive of national development," he
said.
But critics say his remarks betray a realisation that
his
political jingoism has failed to yield economic dividends that his party
presumed would flow from frequently criticising the
opposition.
Mugabe's now familiar speech about foreign
conspiracies revealed
deep paranoia that Western countries are out to
re-colonise Zimbabwe,
further indicating the political bigotry that all
other parties, except Zanu
PF, are bound to play puppet and acquiesce to
dominance by Western powers.
"This is the message we pay
obeisance to and dismiss any that
seeks to re-colonise and enslave our
people," Mugabe said in a speech
analysts dismissed as bereft of national
sentiment or guidance.
"Those who were looking for policy
directions in the president's
speech were disappointed as it did not contain
much," political scientist
and UZ lecturer, Eldred Masunungure, said on
Monday.
"Heroes Day speeches by Zimbabwean standards have
become an
emotional event meant to appease."
Mugabe
rewound to previous warnings to the opposition that his
government would not
"brook any of their illegal challenges to lawful
authority".
Mugabe also repeated his claims that Zimbabwe
was under threat
of recolonisation.
A social commentator
and human rights activist, David Chimhini,
dismissed Mugabe's blame on
groups within Zimbabwe as being responsible for
the economic
collapse.
"I would not take it as true. There has not been
any proof of
any organisation in Zimbabwe working to bring the country
down," Chimhini
said.
"What we need to do is rather to
look at the fundamentals and
see how we can get everyone on board," he
said.
On corruption, Chimhini said people were raising the
question:
"Is this not a smokescreen where the small fish will be caught in
the net?"
He added that the solution was going back to
fundamentals.
Mugabe also issued warnings to those he said
were opposed to the
so-called economic turnaround initiative and those not
utilising the land
they were given by government.
Lately
the economic initiatives launched by Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe governor
Gideon Gono have faced intense opposition from members of
the ruling
party.
On Tuesday, while marking the Defence Forces day,
Mugabe also
issued threats against those planning protests against his
government.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of one of the MDC
factions,
earlier this year threatened mass protests to force Mugabe to
accept a
people-driven constitution, fresh elections under international
supervision
and a repeal of draconian laws.
"We want to
remind those who might habour any plans of turning
against the government:
be warned, we have armed men and women who can pull
the trigger," Mugabe
said during his Defence Force address.
Nelson Chamisa,
spokesperson for the MDC faction led by
Tsvangirai, said Mugabe's speech
showed that he had the wrong diagnosis for
the country's
problems.
Chamisa said Mugabe should have offered solutions
or apologised
to the nation for problems such as power blackouts and the
fuel crisis
instead of promoting acrimony in his speech.
"The problem we have is that we have a leadership that is in
denial. A
leadership that is failing to own up," Chamisa said.
"What is
needed is the rule of law, freedom of assembly and
democratic elections to
restore legitimacy. These things are visibly and
glaringly absent," said
Chamisa.
He also criticised Mugabe's message insulting those
in the
diaspora whom he said were now being rounded up like cattle by the
British
government.
"The way he has run down the country
does not resemble a
patriot," he added.
Still wedded to
the belief that unemployed youths could be
temporarily pacified by attending
state-sponsored political reorientation
courses instead of creating an
enabling environment for employment-creation,
Mugabe said youths should be
sufficiently reoriented.
"The national youth service
programme still needs
re-organisation in order to make it more comprehensive
and sufficiently
reorient the youths towards national values and the gains
of our
Independence," he said.
"This development will see
Zimbabwe producing graduates who are
more patriotic, self-confident and
conscious of their national interest and
identity."
This,
critics said, would not put a dent on unemployment which
is estimated at
over 75%.
Zim Independent
By Frank Matandirotya
IN his
book, The Story of My Life, the late Vice-President Dr
Joshua Nkomo,
describes a meeting of nationalists representing different
political parties
they held in Tanzania with the late Julius Nyerere.
The Zanu
PF delegation at the meeting had come with no civilian
leadership, but was
represented by its military command led by Rex Nhongo
(now Solomon
Mujuru).
When Nyerere asked the Zanla commander who their
leader then
was, Nkomo wrote that Mujuru handed him a piece of paper, and on
it was
written Robert Mugabe.
So Mugabe became the leader
of Zanu PF courtesy of the Zanla
command led by Mujuru who today continues
to wield so much power in the
military, government, business and political
spheres of this country.
Besides being godfather of one
faction in Zanu PF fighting for
control of the party, he is also husband to
Vice-President Joice Mujuru.
The general comes from Chikomba
which is also home to Perence
Shiri, Commander of the 5th Brigade during the
Gukurahundi era, who is now
Air Marshal of the Airforce of
Zimbabwe.
* Frank Matandirotya is an MDC activist writing
from Polokwane,
South Africa.
Zim Independent
Comment
GOVERNMENT has now decided to upgrade
corruption as a prime
source of our economic misery, joining Gideon Gono's
perceived enemy number
one - inflation - and President Mugabe's political
alibi in the form of
so-called illegal sanctions by the
West.
In the past, the list of saboteurs has included
dispossessed
white farmers, bankers, exporters and hoteliers not remitting
forex to the
central bank, and to some extent the private media which the
late
Information minister Tichaona Jokonya at one time said constituted
"weapons
of mass destruction".
But government for now has
settled on corruption. President
Mugabe in his speech to mark Heroes Day on
Monday warned that "wrongful
self-enrichment will not be allowed to go
unpunished".
Finance minister Herbert Murerwa and central
bank governor Gono
in their mid-term fiscal policy and monetary policy
statements respectively,
last month also raised the stakes in the
anti-corruption fight.
President Mugabe said government had
decided to raise the bar in
the fight against corruption by expediting the
creation of an economic
crimes court to try and punish
offenders.
The government has already appointed an
Anti-Corruption
Commission - a largely inert entity which is yet to justify
its very
existence, let alone demonstrate an ability to fight the scourge of
corruption. The anti-corruption drive has also been given fresh impetus by
the military-style blitz called by Gono to seize trillion-dollars' worth of
cash from people who cannot account for the money.
While
we support moves to rid society of corruption, we would
like to remind our
rulers that the current high levels of graft,
profiteering, dishonesty and
money-laundering have their roots in the
breakdown of the rule of law
wrought by the land reform programme and inane
government and central bank
policies.
Government has since 2000 created an environment
that has
allowed grand corruption to flourish and is now reaping the fruits
of its
tolerance for malfeasance and lawlessness.
Five
years ago we pointed out in editorials that the breakdown
in the rule of law
was a harbinger for a culture of impunity which the
nation would one day
live to regret. At the time, those who murdered and
assaulted farmers and
opposition supporters and those who looted equipment
and crops on farms were
regarded as the revolutionary vanguard of the Third
Chimurenga.
They were immune from prosecution even when
the courts ordered
the police to act. Two years ago we heard sworn
testimonies of how a dozen
policemen stood akimbo at Murehwa police station
as a white farmer was
abducted from under their nose and shot dead. The
police could not act
because this was deemed a political
crime.
Those who were looting and selling farm equipment and
crops from
commercial farmers soon grew into a cadre of rich people without
breaking a
sweat. This greedy lot, which has politicians among its ranks,
continues to
wreak havoc on the economy to this day - conducting fresh farm
invasions,
stealing crops and extorting money from productive farmers. These
are the
economic saboteurs whose activities can be linked directly to state
policy.
But the most egregious act of abetting corruption was
the state's
decision to avail concessionary funding to farmers in the name
of supporting
land reform. The taxpayers' money became the fastest way to
get rich by a
few politicians and those connected to the
system.
A majority of the people who got farming loans bought
luxury
cars and properties while others invested in government instruments
on the
stock exchange and on the money market. The government even had the
temerity
to announce debt forgiveness to those who failed to repay the loans
on the
pretext of a drought.
The self-enrichment
activities continue, abetted by the state's
availing of free or heavily
subsidised seed, fertiliser and fuel to farmers.
The bulk of the inputs have
found their way onto the black market where
traders get huge profits. When
Gono last year said prisons should be
expanded so that prisoners convicted
of corruption learn how to raise
chickens and pigs, he had not realised how
the freebies given to farmers had
given rise to the need for more
penitentiaries.
Government is now battling to deal with a
baby of its own
creation.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
IN
Zimbabwe's political warren, it is oftentimes forgivable to
overlook
statistics provided by officialdom especially when they do not mean
anything
to the politics of the stomach.
But when President Mugabe at
the Heroes Acre on Monday
regurgitated Finance minister Herbert Murerwa's
claims that the agriculture
sector would grow by 23% this year, I felt
compelled to question the
veracity of this forecast.
The
statements by Mugabe and Murerwa on agricultural growth are
part and parcel
of the spin by government which has told us that there is no
crisis in
Zimbabwe. In that respect therefore, there can only be positive
growth.
The statements discount the fact that there has
been a steep
decline in production in key sectors such as agriculture,
mining and
manufacturing over the past six or so years.
Economist Dr Daniel Ndlela, writing in our Quoted Companies
Survey in May,
aptly captured the decline in the agricultural sector by
bringing to the
fore the low levels of maize production.
He said: "The
average commercial maize crop produced in 1981-83
was 1 223 852 tonnes
(communal harvest - 626 666 tonnes) this including the
drought of the
1982-83 season. Twenty years later, the average 2001-03
commercial maize
crop was only 199 056 tonnes - 9% of the 1981-83 period."
Government has this year said farmers will produce 1,8 million
tonnes of
maize, but there is scant evidence of that, as demonstrated by the
absence
of maize at GMB depots. The silos are empty!
We are
struggling to achieve 1982 production levels, hence any
talk of growth is a
jaunt into dishonesty. It should be put on record that
in 2000 Zimbabwe
produced two million tonnes of maize.
The so-called 23%
growth - reflected by 1,8 million tonnes - is
still less than our peak
production level. It gets even more intriguing when
we consider that Murerwa
said in his mid-term fiscal policy statement that
agriculture had fallen by
12,1% last year "due to delayed availability of
some
inputs".
Basic calculus denotes that growth is calculated
from a
standpoint that the new figure reflecting expansion is larger that
the
previous one. When a country has experienced a 10% growth in its GDP in
12
months, it means exactly that: that the new GDP is equal to that of the
previous year plus 10%.
Thus the simple mathematical
formula for growth is: Growth in %
= (GDP now minus GDP previous)/(GDP
previous) X 100.
This simple mathematical principle can
therefore not be used to
calculate growth in our agriculture because we have
not been told what
Murerwa's growth margin is comparative
to.
Is it comparative to the peak production period prior to
the
disastrous years of land reform? For a government that has espoused the
success of the land reform, I would like to assume that the 23% growth is
comparative to last year's production levels.
To our
rulers it does not matter if production figures of last
year represented
less than 50% of the country's peak production level.
If
government is to be honest, it should be talking of recovery
and not growth
because these are two different issues which politicians love
to twist to
mean the same thing.
Just as an illustration, the US under
Theodore Roosevelt
(1933-9) experienced average growth of 5,2% during the
Great Depression.
This was significantly higher than Ronald Reagan's 3,7%
growth during the
so-called Seven Fat Years!
This however
does not necessarily mean that people had it better
during the Great
Depression than the Seven Fat Years. The moral of the
example is that
recessions and depressions matter. Often, growth is simply a
return to
normalcy, not an objective measure of economic health. In the case
of
Zimbabwe, our economy is grossly incapacitated.
So by
conveniently omitting a recession here or including one
there you can prove
just about anything you want to prove. In the case of
Zimbabwe, politicians
are painstakingly trying to prove that good times are
nigh because of the
anticipated 23% "growth" in agriculture.
This is the mirage
born out of the government's appetite for
quick-fix remedies to the crisis
as evidenced by assumptions that the
NEDPP - a six-month crash project -
will lead to full economic recovery.
The recovery of this
economy is dependent upon getting the
politics right. Various studies on
countries that have experienced an
economic rebound have found that there is
a correlation between policy
adjustments and politics.
A
study by economists Valerie Cerra and Sweta Chaman Saxena
published in an
IMF report, Growth Dynamics: The Myth of Economic Recovery,
revealed that
"change to a more democratic government system. improves the
rebound from a
recession".
They also concluded that "recoveries are weak
when the output
contraction is associated with a financial crisis. Both
banking crises and
currency crises lead to significantly lower growth in the
aftermath of a
recession linked with them".
They said
"political change toward autocracy leads to weak
recoveries".
Zimbabwe is a typical example of this
observation.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Ray Matikinye
FOR more than two decades President Robert Mugabe and the state
media have
reminded Zimbabweans of the sacrifices made by "our gallant sons
and
daughters" towards liberation from racism and colonialism.
They have jolted our memories about deprivation, oppression and
restrictive
laws associated with settler colonialism.
Monday's event at
the National Heroes Acre was no exception.
Those 71 heroes
interred there had professions ranging from
academics, medical doctors and
philosophers to the not-so-well-educated.
Others, during
their lifetime were luminaries in different
fields.
Borrowing a Shakespearean nostrum: "The evil that men do lives
after them,
the good is often interred with their bones" would be
instructive as a way
to revisit the advice and legacies that our heroes
bequeathed to
us.
First to enter the stage would be Josiah Magama
Tongogara,
exalting the virtues of liberation war and telling the world that
the war
for national Independence was not a fight against
whites.
"We are fighting a system and we are going to smash
that
system," General Tongo said.
Tongogara's remark has
been immortalised in film clips screened
frequently on national television.
It could have been a befitting epitaph on
his grave.
But
years of unfulfilled promises of a better future and the
economic woes most
Zimbabweans are enduring compel them to doubt whether the
inequities of the
colonial era have been removed.
They witness a majority
wallow in abject poverty while a few
drink upstream of the rest of the
herd.
If any of the heroes in the mould of veteran
nationalists like
Tongogara, Jason "Ziyapapa" Moyo, Lookout Masuku, Herbert
Chitepo, Morris
Nyagumbo, Rekayi Tangwena and Willie Musarurwa were to
resurrect, they would
find President Mugabe still harping on the evils of
colonialism, imperialism
and neo-colonialism.
"Our heroes
believed in the principles of freedom, justice and
self-determination. They
endured colonial repression and suppression and
refused to surrender to the
vicious colonial enemy," Mugabe said on Monday.
"On this day,
let it be known that wrongful self-enrichment will
not be allowed to go
unpunished."
But those buried at the national shrine would
find time has
remained at a standstill with Mugabe still frothing at the
mouth about the
British as if two decades of Independence have done nothing
to change the
set-up.
Seeing ubiquitous poverty in a
country that the late Tanzanian
president Julius Nyerere termed a jewel,
Eddison Zvobgo would take the stage
next with his: "We are spending as if
the world owes us a living," to warn
of government profligacy. That
extravagance has spawned an economic crisis
that has left Mugabe thrashing
his hands about, exasperated by elusive
solutions.
The
heroes will be taken aback by the surreal black-on-black
repression that has
replaced white repression which they laid down their
lives for. In place of
the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act they will find
Posa.
Musarurwa would find it quaint that years of arduous struggle
for freedom
have allowed, in Zvobgo's words, "a law that poses the greatest
assault on
individual freedoms and liberties" on the statutes religiously
enforced by a
coterie of obscurantist party ideologues.
He would probably
find it surreal that the Tafataona
Mahoso-chaired Media and Information
Commission defends this obnoxious law
that symbolises the dearth of free
expression firmly embedded in the rule
books. That, together with the
recently enacted Criminal Law Codification
Act section 33 (2a), takes
Zimbabwe to the 1950s and beyond.
If Nyagumbo, at one time
the most powerful man after Mugabe,
were to resurrect, he would probably be
needled by Mugabe's benign talk
about ending corruption.
Nyagumbo took his own life because he could not withstand the
shame and
ignominy of being fingered in a car-racket.
He would be
surprised that years after he was interred, Mugabe
is still groping about
and has an unwinnable battle on his hands because all
his pledges to fight
corruption have been more bark than bite.
Among the heroes
buried at the national shrine, the hard-nosed
Tangwena would wince over the
fact that Operation Murambatsvina, still
pursued with unmatched vigour by a
people's government, made his
tribulations at Gaeresi Ranch look like
child's play.
He would wish he walked the face of the earth
again to lead his
subjects back to their razed homes.
The
headstrong Ernest Kadungure would chip in with his joke
about a fisherman
who threw a huge bream back into Lake Manyame to
illustrate annoying
shortages of basic commodities that presaged the current
economic
morass.
The angler was rankled by his failure to find
paraffin to light
a stove, cooking oil to fry his huge catch, or petrol to
drive and buy the
paraffin to cook a meal. After a short while the fish
resurfaced and
sloganeered: "Pamberi neZanu" for saving it from the
pot.
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
THERE are
diverse levels of the prophecies of doom and gloom.
Some of the Zimbabwean
populace are convinced that the economy is beyond
recovery, and that the
future has naught but further economic decline and
collapse, poverty and
hardships for all.
There are others who also enunciate little
but prophecies of
doom and gloom, contending that an economic turnaround is
improbable in the
extreme, but nevertheless acknowledging a remote
possibility that it may
occur.
However, in admitting that
an economic transformation could
materialise, albeit that they perceive the
prospects thereof to be very
unlikely, they qualify their admission of the
possibility of an economic
recovery by stating that if it does occur, it
will be extremely long and
slow.
As recently as a week
ago, one of Zimbabwe's leading economists
foreshadowed that, if an economic
metamorphosis did lie ahead, some time in
the future, it would be an
extremely prolonged one in coming, requiring 10
to 15 years before it could
be authoritatively contended that the economy
had
recovered.
Professor Tony Hawkins is indisputably one of
Zimbabwe's
foremost economists, with a near unchallengeable depth of
knowledge and
expertise of economic issues in general, and Zimbabwean
economics in
particular (even though he scathingly attacks that which he has
dubbed
"Blochenomics", notwithstanding that he attributes to this columnist
opinions or principles which I have not stated, and of which I am not
possessed - but it is his absolute right, as it is of all others, including
RES Cook, PRN Silversides, and the so-called economic experts of the MDC, to
differ with me and my views, even when he and they misinterpret
them).
That he and I must sometimes agree to differ does not
necessarily reflect negatively upon either of us, or upon both of us, and
conflicting views can provoke dialogue which in turn can enhance
understanding and the development of solutions.
As was
evident when we addressed a seminar last week, we have
very different
perspectives as to the period of time that will elapse, if
and when an
economic recovery commences, and that recovery will be
complete.
Hawkins was outspoken that at least 10 years will
be required,
and very possibly as much as 15 years. In contradistinction,
although I am
not hopeful that the commencement of recovery is imminent, I
believe that
once it does begin, it will be attained in a period of six
years.
In expressing that view, I foreshadow that it will
take three
years after recovery commences to restore the economy to the
levels that
prevailed in mid-1997, which was shortly before government
embarked upon its
vigorous paths of economic destruction.
Thereafter, it will require at least a further three years to
achieve that
which would have been Zimbabwe's economic well-being, had the
path of
immolation of the economy not been pursued by government for nine or
more
years.
The prophets of doom and gloom focus their depressing
predictions upon diverse factors, all of which have undeniable relevance,
such as the ravaged state of the agricultural sector, whose infrastructure
has been decimated, upon the magnitude of the national debt in general, and
the state's vast fiscal deficits in particular, upon the pariah status of
Zimbabwe within the international community (and especially insofar as the
investor populace is concerned), upon the marked lack of substantial success
of Zimbabwe's greatly heralded "Look East" policy, upon the overwhelming
loss of skills occasioned by the very pronounced "brain drain" of recent
years, and upon very many like, negative factors.
None of
these negatives can be denied, and all must impact
adversely upon the
progress of economic recovery, once that recovery
commences.
However, there are also numerous positive
factors which can aid
and enhance economic development, once a
recovery-enabling environment comes
into being.
Zimbabwe
has vast potential economic wealth in a number of very
material
respects.
These include a tremendous treasure trove of
minerals, most of
which are as yet barely exploited. It has very
considerable, commercially
exploitable, gold reserves, but its present
mining of those reserves is
relatively minimal.
The same
is fact in respect of platinum, uranium, diamonds,
coal, chrome, nickel,
other precious and semi-precious minerals, metals and
methane gas. Provided
that Zimbabwe can assure investors of security of
investment, political and
economic stability, economic deregulation,
international acceptability
(inclusive of preservation of law and order, a
free and independent
judiciary and respect for human rights), much capital
and technological
expertise will pour into Zimbabwe's mining sector.
That will
generate great employment, considerable downstream
economic benefits,
invaluable foreign exchange inflows and fiscal revenues.
The
same holds good for the presently embattled, ravaged,
agricultural sector.
Its potential is indisputable, as evidenced by its
decades of provision of
food self-sufficiency to not only Zimbabwe, but also
neighbouring states,
its considerable, quality production of tobacco,
cotton, sugar, citrus, tea
and coffee, beef and much else.
The sector can recover and
can be a major economic contributant,
if the same positive factors as
necessary for the mining industry would be
put in place, together with the
provision of security of tenure of land,
harmony and co-operation between
farmers of all races and removal of
governmental
confrontationalism.
Zimbabwe can also have one of the world's
foremost tourism
economies.
It has an almost overwhelming
array of attractions to offer the
tourist, ranging from the incomparable
Victoria Falls and the great Zambezi
River to an amazing wealth of wildlife
(provided that poachers are prevented
from destroying that wealth), to the
grandeur of the Matopos, the mystic of
Great Zimbabwe and
Khami.
The splendour of Nyanga, Bvumba and Chimanimani, the
breath-taking Lake Kariba and much, much more.
And,
despite the very considerable harm inflicted upon the
manufacturing sector
in recent years by dogmatically destructive
governmental policies,
nevertheless Zimbabwe still has the second most
advanced industrial
infrastructure in southern Africa, and is geographically
poised to serve a
central, eastern and southern African population of over
320 million
consumers.
The magnitude of the Zimbabwean "brain drain" in
the last few
years has been horrendous, resulting in a very great lack of
skills.
That lack can be a major constraint upon economic
recovery, for
the reality is that most who have left will not return, even
though that had
been their intent when they left.
In
practice, they have developed new lives, embarked upon new
career paths,
sunk new roots and most will not come back to Zimbabwe.
But,
when the fundamental elements required for economic
recovery are put in
place, the need for skills can be transitionally
addressed by facilitation
of expatriate employment, pending the development
of a new, permanent skills
base.
The imponderable, however, is when will the recovery
commence?
It cannot occur until the necessary enabling
environment is
created and that can only occur when government has a
genuine, unlimited
will to make it happen.
In theory, the
National Economic Development Priority Plan
(NEDPP) is supposed to do so,
but it is yet another economic recovery
façade, for that will does not, in
practice, exist.
That will can only come about when there is
either a change of
government to one that has the will or, in the
alternative, there is a
transformation within the present government to one
able to acknowledge the
very great deal that it has done wrong, able to
learn from such
acknowledgement, and therefore willing to undergo genuine
change.
Until then, it is inevitable that the economy will
continue to
decline, economic recovery will be nothing other than wishful
thinking, and
Zimbabwe will continue to blame the international community,
non-existent
economic sanctions, climatic conditions, and the
like.
But, as was the case in Russia, China, Yugoslavia,
Serbia,
Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Zambia and innumerable other countries,
eventually economic desperation, and the need to survive, bring about the
necessary changes.
Then economic recovery will commence
and, with its very great
potential wealth, the Zimbabwean economy can well
transform, positively and
substantially, within six years.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
WHAT should have been the biggest
story of the year turned out
to be no more than the fevered imagination of
an overly patriotic reporter.
The Herald claimed last Wednesday that $10
trillion in old bearer cheques
had been seized at Harare International
Airport.
The money, it was claimed, belonged to three
financial
institutions and was being "smuggled back into the
country".
There is no doubt this would have been the biggest
haul of the
RBZ's Operation Sunrise if the report had any basis in
fact.
We had our reservations from the moment we saw the
figure of $10
trillion. One would most probably need an empty cargo plane to
load the
"huge boxes" containing that kind of money.
Given RBZ governor Gideon Gono's excitement about his
anti-corruption
crusade, he would have made a point of personally showing us
the containers
and shaming the financial institutions concerned - the true
enemies of the
state in the Hitlerite sense.
The biggest weakness of course
was that the reporter could
neither identify the plane nor the country where
the money was coming from.
What fool would hope to "smuggle" that quantity
of contraband through Harare
International Airport
undetected?
The lie the following day that police had
intensified their
probe into the seizure and claims that two financial
institutions had owned
up to the money were no more than a shameless
face-saver.
The banks referred to owned up to their money
seized by
overzealous officials on its way from their branches in Victoria
Falls and
Bulawayo, not money being smuggled into the country. In any case
the figure
was nowhere near $10 trillion even if the foreign currency
involved were
converted into old bearer cheques.
Having
said that, we were still hopeful that somehow something
might just
materialise when we saw Newsnet's Reuben Barwe huffing and
puffing at the
airport. We expected him to reveal the "huge boxes" through
another Cain
Nkala theatrical.
That was not to be. Instead he revealed to
us "the dead Mugabe
returning as a ghost" from Malaysia. A veritable damp
squib if there was
ever one.
President Mugabe this
week thanked Zimbabwe's international
partners for supporting us through a
time "of undeserved ostracism and
unjustified smear campaigns". He told
people gathered at the Heroes Acre on
Monday that this support had helped
the country realise one of its goals
this year, "our socio-economic
turnaround".
In this respect, he said, Zimbabwe "had embarked
on a positive
turnaround of its economic fortunes".
Apart
from his acknowledgement that the country is ostracised,
whatever it is he
imagines to be the cause, the whole baloney about a
turnaround, whether
negative or positive, must be one of the mirages only
visible to deluded
politicians. We doubt that even his most romantic
optimist, Gideon Gono, can
point out to us the mirage that the president
sees.
Mugabe scoffed at civil society and NGOs who condemn government's
human
rights record from neighbouring countries, saying he doesn't pay
attention
to such people, whom he said they were "unhelpful".
The
groups include the Botswana Civil Society Coalition for
Zimbabwe that has
held several demonstrations in Gaborone to support
"victims of political and
socio-economic repression".
While Mugabe was dismissing these
assertions as unfounded, his
police officers were stripping people of their
dignity in search of
soon-to-be-worthless bearer cheques along the country's
highways as if the
country was under a state of emergency or civil
war.
In fact, the Herald reported on Monday that 19 women had
been
arrested after being beaten by riot police at Metallon Gold in Mazowe
for
demonstrating against the non-payment of their husbands' back pay and
"poor
wages".
An apparently ignorant police spokesperson,
Oliver Mandipaka,
callously claimed the women were arrested for "unlawful
conduct" as they had
not "applied for a peaceful demonstration in line with
our laws". What law
is that?
The one we know of requires
only that police be notified of an
intention to demonstrate. Does the same
law say a "peaceful demonstration"
is unlawful?
So poor
people can't demonstrate for better pay, worse still, to
get money they have
been promised?
Meanwhile Mugabe was telling his hungry
listeners that the
heroes who died for this country had given us a "legacy
of freedom, peace
and democracy".
"Our heroes", he
declared in his speech, "believed in the
principles of freedom, justice and
self-determination . . ."
It all sounds so hollow and eerily
unreal on the ground.
One of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces'
greatest accomplishments was
their outstanding role in defence of Operation
Sovereign Legitimacy in the
DRC, state media insisted on Tuesday. We have
nothing to say on that.
What we however fail to understand is
why they want to insist on
the lie that the so-called Ugandan and Rwandan
rebels were trying "to topple
the democratically-elected government of
Laurent Kabila".
We have tried many times to disabuse them of
this lie. It is
clear they want to believe their own lie although they can't
tell us who
elected Kabila and the year of that election.
To prove their own contradictions, over the past two weeks
following that
troubled country's recent elections, the same media have been
talking of the
DRC holding its "first democratic election in four decades".
Which is which?
We enjoyed some interesting piece of
investigative journalism in
the Herald this week. This was a story about one
Tendai Gahamadze of Mbira
dzeNharira who was allegedly found in possession
of mbanje along Mazowe Road
on Monday. His brief arrest allegedly caused a
delay in his trip for a
performance in Chiweshe.
Tendai
denied all the claims.
The reporter, one Wonder Guchu, then
"confronted him with
information that Chiweshe is only an hour's drive from
Harare" yet it took
Tendai and crew about five hours. This was
proof-positive that Tendai had
been found with mbanje and that he had been
fined presumably? Tendai had
every reason to be angry and to cut the
call.
What is the distance between Harare and Chiweshe Cde
Guchu? Is
it not possible that one can in fact be delayed because of
RBZ-instigated
roadblocks?
By what mode of transport and
at what speed does one take one
hour to get to Chiweshe? Is it a fixed legal
requirement that anybody
driving from Harare to Chiweshe, regardless of the
type or condition of the
vehicle used, must take one
hour?
Who gets the benefit of the doubt here, the musician or
the
presumptuous investigator?
We read with interest
a report that charges of "incompetence and
mismanagement" levelled against
suspended Harare town clerk Nomutsa Chideya
by commission chair Sekesai
Makwavarara had been dropped.
The lawyers for the council and
Chideya, we were told, agreed
that the grounds for Chideya's suspension
raised by Makwavarara were
"unfounded and without
substance".
What does all this mean? That the charges were
motivated by
malice? Will Chideya get his job back? Could it be that the
charges of
"incompetence" were dropped after it was clear Chideya's
replacement is not
faring any better?
Muckraker reckons
it's time we examined the fish's head.
President Mugabe
must have been miffed by the low attendance at
Heroes Day festivities after
mainly uniformed forces and rented crowds
"thronged" the Heroes Acre to hear
him deride diasporans as "mvana
dzenguruve".
Mugabe
should however derive solace from Zanu PF secretary for
security in
Bulawayo, one Sikhululekile Ndlovu who was quoted by the Sunday
News
complaining that people were wedding and partying on Heroes
Day.
She suggested that government should come up with a law
that
will ban weddings on Heroes Day.
Another Zanu PF
cadre, Molly Mpofu, said: "Radical steps should
be taken to address this sad
development. People are no longer taking Heroes
Day seriously and I urge our
leaders and legislators to come up with a law
that will prohibit weddings
and parties on Heroes Day holiday."
The Sunday News, which
carried the sentiments of Sikhululekile
(which ironically means "we are
free") and Molly, did not appear to
subscribe to this as the paper splashed
pictures of people partying at the
Heroesplush musical gala in Masvingo.
That is how the event is celebrated in
Zimbabwe.
Sikhululekile and Molly should be reminded that the idea of
galas came up
after government realised that presidential speeches and other
officious
events would keep people at home.
The two ladies should
direct their discontent to the Ministry of
Information which organises the
galas. One piece of advice the two ladies
should pass to George Charamba at
the ministry is: please keep artists like
one Joylin at home. There is
nothing heroic or solemn about her uncontrolled
gyrations.
This week Musorowegomo Mukosi read a news
clip in which he
claimed the army had achieved "a very much resounding
success" in producing
maize under Operation Maguta.
Obviously he didn't read reports of VP Joice Mujuru expressing
disappointment at what she saw of the wasteland that has become Kondozi
Estate after it was taken over by the army as a model for the operation. He
has not heard anything about the ruined irrigation projects she found in
Masvingo after she was lied to that everything was a huge
success.
The man in charge of Operation Maguta, Colonel
Augustine
Chipere, was at least modest about their
achievements.
He said although they had "done their best"
they didn't produce
much maize because the project "was launched late into
the season". Which is
a world of difference from Musorowegomo's "resounding
success" as seen from
a soundproofed broadcast studio.
It's like Joseph Made speaking from a helicopter.
Not to
be outdone, Tendai Tagara, who led the Zimbabwean team to
the Africa Games
in Mauritius, said our athletes had performed impressively
after winning a
single bronze medal.
The medal, he said, proved that the
country's athletes were
ready for the World Athletics Championships in
Beijing, China, next year. Is
this how low we have sunk?
But at least we can understand the source of his delusions. He
is in charge
of "talent identification" and therefore must sound upbeat to
protect his
job.
Still on sport, disciplines such as rugby and
cricket are
specialised and need knowledgeable and informed reporting. In
this respect,
Tawanda Karombo's pieces in last week's issue of the Financial
Gazette left
a lot to be desired.
In the story headlined
"No glory in Zim victory", Karombo
laments, quoting a "supporter", Prosper
Utseya's suitability for the
Zimbabwe team's captaincy. Most likely it is
not known to Karombo: Utseya
has been the most consistent performer in the
team over the last year or so.
In fact, he is now ranked the second best
economic bowler in the world!
Perhaps we shouldn't expect too
much from a reporter who doesn't
know the difference between "bawl" and
"bowl".
In his rugby preview, Karombo refers to Zimbabwe
Rugby Union
president Bryn Williams as "Moses Williams" - unless the Motor
Action
footballer who goes by that name is now in charge of
rugby.
Karombo describes the Madagascar and Zambia rugby
national teams
as "lightweights".
Madagascar are ranked
higher than Zimbabwe on the IRB world
rankings, and going by their 22-22
draw with Zimbabwe in Bulawayo last week,
a result the local boys should be
happy with, the islanders are by no means
"lightweights".
African rugby teams are improving at a time Zimbabwe is not
doing well, and
as such, even the Zambians will be no pushovers for Zimbabwe
when they meet
next month.
Finally Muck had a good chuckle after reading
the latest
rendition by a reader who is definitely not amused by the new
family of
"burial cheques". The ode goes:
Tea-boy
Mentally I can't link
A brew of
Burial and Sunrise.
A Zuva ravira,
instead,
Don't you think?
Restore
Value
Kindles in me a plea
A Bearer,
please,
To drag THIS man back,
To the
room
Where he brewed up tea!
You were right, Gono's theatrics unhelpful
CONGRATULATIONS on your Candid Comment, "Gono's best can only be
a Pyrrhic
victory", (Zimbabwe Independent, August 11) as you awakened to the
grave
realities of the false and tragic theatrics of central bank governor
Gideon
Gono on the collapsed economy.
An excerpt of the column by
Joram Nyathi: "The bottomline is
that you cannot turn around an agro-based
economy without robust commercial
agriculture", summed up the ultimate
failure by our governor.
Previous RBZ governors stuck to
their traditional terms of
reference and quietly worked out things basing on
the economic realities.
They could - and did so persistently
- only advise government
that the economy of Zimbabwe (since the creation of
the modern economy in
the 1890s) is based on the soil - agriculture and
mining. Period.
Gono's acquisition of extra powers of seeking
the services of
the counterproductive Green Bombers is tragically
astonishing. He knows that
agriculture and mining's restoration to their
previous status will put the
economy back to Zimbabwe's hegemony in southern
Africa.
The trillion dollar question is: why not use the same
energies
of the CIO, army, Green Bombers etc, to restore the agricultural
and mining
fortunes?
This is better than using these
groups to terrorise the already
downtrodden citizens in the name of a false,
expensive and failing economic
turnaround plan of ambushing and
criminalising people for possessing their
own national
currency?
After all, are these not the very same terror
institutions (with
help from Joseph Made's Agriculture ministry and Jonathan
Moyo's Information
department) that actively and zealously destroyed and
wiped out the once
prosperous agricultural and mining activities in
Zimbabwe?
I stand to be corrected if my opinion is wrong.
Gono should wake
up to these realities rather than unleash Operation
Murambatsvina II on the
majority.
I hope the Independent
will hit on this line more frequently to
show that barbaric theatrics will
not work.
However, to his own advantage, Gono will certainly
get a
handshake for shifting the blame for this man-made economic decline
onto the
back of the majority and also "get tough" on the same impoverished
populace.
Indeed, this has been consistently the hallmark of
President
Mugabe's political stance since 2000.
Denford Moyo,
UK.
------------
Diaspora should help build
Zim
NEIGHBOURING South Africa and Botswana are not as
highly-developed as they think. It's the Zimbabweans that are making these
two countries tick.
The highly-influential
Zimbabweans in these two countries
should stop thinking only of themselves,
but repatriate their earnings back
to Zimbabwe for the betterment of their
beloved country.
It's high time Zimbabweans pushed for
a healthier economy
and embark on the trek back
home.
To be pushed into holding camps as animals is
inhuman.
Zimbabwe is an asset which we ourselves have to appreciate first
and work
hard to serve and preserve.
Zimbabweans
are a highly-educated people which does not
appreciate itself, hence the
burden it has become to its neighbours.
We have to get
our priorities right at home and work to
turn our economy around to be
respected. No-one will do it for us.
There is a time
when differences have to be put aside for
the betterment of our beloved
country. Whether it's war veterans,
born-frees, rural or urban people,
industrialists, business people, workers
or politicians, we should all come
together to develop our country.
When one Zimbabwean
suffers we should all feel for him. It's
up to us to regain our position of
influence.
We achieved the breadbasket of Africa tag
not because of
the white farmers' capability. It's not about colour, it's
about people
working together to develop their
country.
The inflation rate is high and politicians
should refrain
from being wasteful, stop the corruption which has become a
norm to them
and start to work together for the development of the
country.
The number of productive people who
contributed their
labour has fled the country, little wonder then that the
economy has
undergone a downturn.
War veterans'
contributions are appreciated but we should
move forward to liberate the
economy and develop it for posterity.
We should desist
from squandering both the future savings
and the seeds which should be used
to develop our country.
We should not forget who we
are.
Zimbabwe is a great country with great people with
great
potential.
There are some among us who
believe this country should
only be ruled by those who went to
war.
Investors relocate to countries that encourage
their
participation and contribution to the economy. We all need one
another,
therefore no-one is above the law.
If as
business people, workers, teachers, farmers, farm
workers, all contribute to
the economy, all are important ingredients that
make the country great. Not
just those who went to war or the politicians
should enjoy the fruits of
freedom.
Freedom is not just for a handful, but
everyone. Let's
therefore examine ourselves and find solutions to our
problems. It's only
the people of Zimbabwe that can chart the course of
recovery for our beloved
country.
Our neighbours
are benefiting from our problems, getting
highly-educated manpower at the
fraction of the price.
Despised, lowly paying dirty jobs
have become a preserve
of degree-holding
Zimbabweans.
I personally refuse to be labelled a
failure because of
the colour of my skin. The same should apply to
everyone.
If things worked fine under white rule, we should
do just
as good, if not better.
Zimbabwe should
stop spending so much money on military
weapons if the Security Council is
to respect the African men. Our
challenges are many but we can overcome them
through reasoning and strategic
planning.
The
future looks bright as long as we visualise things
using our own eyes,
knowledge, ideas and human resources.
We need to use
wisdom and keep our mouths shut at
appropriate times when action is needed
most.
Surely, the Zimbabwean ship will not sink. It's
not
everybody though, itching to celebrate with us.
Some sections of the populace are preparing for the
funeral of the
Zimbabwean economy.
Let's prove them wrong for the pride of
Africans.
Praying Parent,
UK.
---------------
Why not
shut up VP Msika?
VICE-PRESIDENT Joseph
Msika's claim that
Matabeleland people are "cry babies" carried in the
Chronicle issue of July
31 cannot go
unchallenged.
Far from being cry babies, we have
been, and are
still telling the truth that Matabeleland is being
marginalised.
What kind of evidence does he want
to believe
besides all that we have been "crying" about? How long has the
Matabeleland
Zambezi Water Project been used as a campaining tool during
elections?
Is it not more than 10 years that the
Bulawayo/Nkayi
Road is being constructed at a "normal" pace yet roads in
Mashonaland are
done "fast track?"
How many
companies have relocated from Bulawayo to
Harare and vice-versa? Did not the
media reveal recently that construction
of Lupane University and the
government offices there are grounded because
of lack of funds, yet various
insignificant projects are being carried out
in Mashonaland and
Manicaland?
Perhaps Msika should keep quiet
rather than annoy us
further by his baseless utterances. Things change,
okwakuyiziziba kuzoba
ngamazibuko!
Lizwelibolile Ncube,
Bulawayo.
---------------
Why spare Gono in anti-graft
drive?
SO the owners of our country have
decided to
trample on our property, human and economic rights all in the
name of
"revolutions"?
Of late there
has been a national crackdown on
"unscrupulous traders" and those who have
made "mini-central banks" at home.
However, it seems there is a lot of
hypocrisy in the whole thing.
Former
Finance minister Chris Kuruneri was
arrested and kept in remand on the basis
of a Sunday Times report on his
property investments in Cape
Town.
That same report also mentioned
central bank
governor Gideon Gono as the one who authorised the transfer of
large amounts
of foreign currency to South Africa on Kuruneri's
behalf.
Gono also sourced foreign currency
for the
First Family's trips abroad, presumably on the black
market.
Another Sunday Times report
detailed how Gono
lost tens of thousands of US dollars and British pounds to
his domestic
workers.
In fact, it was
reported that he kept hundreds
of thousands of US dollars and British pounds
purchased on the black market,
as well as Zimbabwe dollars stashed in
drawers at his Borrowdale home at a
time when the country was going through
its worst foreign currency crisis.
Needless to say, Gono was never arrested
or even questioned after
publication of the
reports.
Are we to assume that he is above
the law? Why
didn't our parliament pursue these matters? Where were our
independent
journalists when all these stories were being published? Were
they afraid?
In their zeal to end
corruption, the
authorities have used extra-legal measures, some of which
have seen ordinary
people losing their hard-earned money while the corrupt
ones dictated
policy.
How come those
alleged to have stolen
equipment from Kondozi Farm were sitting at the high
table during Gono's
address?
If the
government wants to be taken seriously
in its anti-corruption drive, all
those who engaged in corrupt activities -
including Gono - should be
arrested and investigated. Society must never
create demi-gods and saints
out of mere mortals.
Those dabbling in
criminal activities must
face the
music.
Michael
Chifamba,
Bulawayo.
-----------
Let's unite to oust this
commission
I WONDER how many other
residents have
received a letter about having to replace their own stuck
water meters from
the city of Harare.
Not only are we required to buy a new meter,
we are also supposed to take it
to council for caliberation (sic)!
No doubt
we will also have to pay for this
and the installation
too!
If we do not comply with this order
there
are threats of being charged a
penalty.
The letter states that no
further
communication will be entered
into.
In view of this, I feel that we,
the
aggrieved rate-payers, should begin our correspondence on this illegal
move
by the commission supposedly running the city of Harare through the
media
and consultations with lawyers.
We mustn't allow the commission to get away
with
it!
I say this in the strongest of terms
as we
also recently had our water supplies disconnected when our account was
in
credit and were charged a $2,3 million re-connection fee. We have to get
rid
of them.
Let us all please rally
together to achieve
this.
Could the
Combine Harare Residents'
Association be contacted for their comments, I
wonder?
R
Gunner,
Mount
Pleasant.
-----------
Time army, police defected to
humanity
IT'S common knowledge that the
Zimbabwe
Republic Police has chosen the side they wish to
follow.
While the majority suffers under
the
tyrannical misrule of President Mugabe, the police force is out to
ensure
that its children also have no future
here.
The force goes to great lengths and
seems to
derive great pleasure from carrying out "orders" from the master
himself
through his cronies.
I cannot
see why it's necessary to beat up
people for minor infringements of the
Mugabe law. The police will even beat
up their own relatives to keep Mugabe
in power.
This shows the "intelligence"
required to
become a policeman in the first place. Are they not suffering
the same as
the people they are arresting and beating
up?
Their children must be proud to say:
"My dad's
a policeman and he helped make sure Zimbabwe was completely
destroyed. And
Mugabe even gave him a pay increase to ensure he was bought
properly!"
It's time we all realised
which side these
unintelligent puppets are on. I use the word unintelligent
because of the
pains they endure in writing or typing out
statements.
We must all stick together
and ostracise
them from our society. Don't speak to them unless forced to,
and refrain
from socialising with
them.
They live among us and some are our
neighbours, but ignore them as you would someone you consider your mortal
enemy.
They can be considered enemies
of the state
as is Mugabe. It's unforgivable what he has done to this
country and he
must be held
accountable.
It's not too late for the
police force and
the army to see the light and get onto the right side of
humanity.
Next time we protest, let them
know that we
are doing it for them as well. They should join us and not beat
us.
This way we can fix this rotten
problem
sooner than you think. Otherwise God help
us.
Peter
Macklyn,
Harare.