Business Day
Amy
Musgrave
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Political
Correspondent
MEMBERS of government had been provided with evidence of
human rights abuses
in Zimbabwe and they needed to speak out against these
atrocities, the
Institute for Justice and Reconciliation said
yesterday.
"Where there has been evidence of abuse, the South African
government has
not spoken out.
"At the very least we don't want to
see any active solidarity with the
Zimbabwean government when there are
clear human rights abuses," the
institute's Prof Brian Raftopolous told
reporters in Johannesburg.
He was speaking at the release of a report by
the institute and the
Solidarity Peace Trust, a human rights body that
documented nearly 2000
political arrests in Zimbabwe between 2000 and last
year.
Raftopolous said the SA government should speak out
against human rights
abuses where there was evidence.
The report,
Policing the State, is based on lawyers' records.
It also shows that
police routinely pick up activists ahead of planned
protests, knowing that
they neither need nor intend to prove that these
people have committed a
crime. Almost 90% of these arrests do not result in
a trial and 1% of
arrests result in a conviction.
Raftopolous said it was hoped that by
recording police brutality, the
outside world would take more notice of the
human rights abuses occurring in
Zimbabwe.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya/ Ray Matikinye
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's
attempt to extend his term of office
to 2010 under the pretext of
harmonising elections and saving money has
triggered an uproar in his party
and outside, setting the stage for an
explosive Zanu PF conference
today.
Inside sources said although Mugabe had managed to
railroad the
contentious proposal through party structures, Zanu PF's main
factions are
still unhappy with the move as they fear it is designed to
ensure Mugabe
remains in office for life.
Mugabe claims
he cannot go now and leave his party in a
shambles.
Sources said there was dissent over the issue during a heated
Zanu PF
politburo meeting on Wednesday. Zanu PF members were worried about
endorsing
a proposal whose details are unknown.
However, the central
committee, the party's key decision-making
body, endorsed the proposition
yesterday amid resistance.
The proposal, which will see
Mugabe's term extended from 2008 to
2010, is now set to be adopted as part
of resolutions of the Zanu PF
conference which officially opens today in
Goromonzi.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC)'s factions
are also opposed to the idea of extending the president's
term. They said
they would counter the bid when it comes to parliament in
the new year.
Secretary-general for the Arthur Mutambara-led
MDC faction,
Professor Welshman Ncube, said his group would fight the
proposal in
parliament. "The problem is that this so-called harmonisation of
elections
will give us an unelected and illegitimate president for an extra
two years.
Coming as it does against a background of the disputed 2002
presidential
election, it will only help to compound this regime's
illegitimacy and
worsen the economic crisis," he said.
"Besides that, this unilateral idea is also a coup against the
constitution.
Naturally, we will oppose it in parliament. What we need to
recover from
this situation is a constitutional reform process which will
address these
issues holistically."
Spokesman for Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC
group, Nelson Chamisa,
said Zanu PF's gathering today was a "conference of
evil ideas" with
"satanic motives".
Diplomats also said
they were opposed to the idea, which seemed
to mark the beginning of a
process to sort out Mugabe's entangled succession
and the concomitant power
struggle. The process is also said to be
calculated to sideline
Vice-President Joice Mujuru from succeeding Mugabe.
Sources said yesterday
the Americans and European Union member states were
alarmed by Mugabe's
attempt to hang on to power, but were open to any
proposal that would lead
to a resolution of the current crisis.
"We are watching the
situation closely, but I must say this is
an alarming proposal. The devil
lies in the detail," a diplomat said.
Civil society
organisations also said they did not want Mugabe's
plan.
Sources yesterday said the plan was to hold the polls in 2010
under a new
dispensation which would take the country back to the pre-1987
era.
Before 1987, Zimbabwe had a titular president who
was head of
state and an executive prime minister who was head of
government. Mugabe was
elected president by parliament in 1987 until 1990
when he won the first
presidential poll.
Although Mugabe
has of late been opposing a return the
Westminster-style premiership,
sources said he was now convinced it would
guarantee him a better exit
strategy. It would also ensure his continued
immunity from possible
prosecution for accusations of human rights
violations.
This means that the constitution will be changed so Mugabe
becomes a
ceremonial president and there will be a prime minister who will
be
appointed by the majority party in parliament, Zanu PF in this
case.
The president will be elected by parliament. The prime
minister,
according to sources, will appoint a government of national unity
in a bid
to end the current political impasse and economic
problems.
It is hoped the international community will
support the
government of national unity to help the country to recover from
extended
years of political instability and economic
recession.
After this the parliamentary poll will then be
held
simultaneously with the election of the president by parliament in 2010
for
a period of five years. The Senate will be abolished and a new
constitution
introduced.
According to Justice minister
Patrick Chinamasa's memo to Zanu
PF in May last year, the senate, which
appears to be part of the mechanisms
to manage Mugabe's succession, will
only last from 2005 to 2010.
Eight out of 10 Zanu PF
provinces have adopted the controversial
proposal. Harare and Mashonaland
East provinces - strongholds for retired
General Solomon Mujuru's faction -
had not yet embraced the issue by
yesterday.
Mashonalad
East chairman Ray Kaukonde, a Mujuru faction
stalwart, angrily refused to
explain why his province had not supported the
idea to postpone the
presidential election to 2010 when the parliamentary
poll is
due.
"I don't discuss my party's confidential matters in the
press.
What has that got to do with you?" he said before hanging up the
phone.
Asked later about the same issue, he said in an agitated tone: "I
said I don't
talk about confidential issues of my party in the press, full
stop!"
Zanu PF Harare provincial chairman Amos Midzi said he
could not
talk about the issue as well. "I'm in a central committee meeting,
I can't
speak to you."
The other eight provinces which
have endorsed the proposal
supported the Zanu PF camp led by politburo
member Emmerson Mnangagwa in
2004 in the run-up to the party congress before
Mugabe intervened on Joice
Mujuru's behalf.
Mujuru and
Mnangagwa were fighting for the post of
vice-president. The lines of
endorsement of the issue raised fears that the
pattern of support for
factions has not changed since 2004.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
GOVERNMENT has ordered all parastatals to
exhibit at this week's
Zanu PF conference in Goromonzi at a cost of $6
million per institution,
despite most of them teetering on the verge of
collapse due to financial
problems.
Information to hand
indicates Zanu PF could pocket more than
$100 million if all major
parastatals take part in the Import Substitution
Exhibition which is running
concurrently with the party conference.
The exhibition is a
way through which Zanu PF wants to raid
parastatals for funds. The ruling
party's own companies have largely
collapsed because of corruption and
mismanagement. Recent investigations by
the party into its business
operations have confirmed this.
If all parastatals and a
chain of quasi-government enterprises -
about 78 of them - exhibit Zanu PF
could raise nearly half a billion for
party business. Zanu PF was looking
for $280 million for the conference.
Sources said originally
the exhibition, co-ordinated by deputy
Information and Publicity Secretary
for Harare, Goodson Nguni, was supposed
to be free, but the party later
decided to cash in to raise money for the
conference that officially opens
today.
"Everything regarding the exhibition is being handled
by the
party (Zanu PF) accounts department at their headquarters including
how the
money is being paid. All cheques are being paid to Zanu PF," an
insider
said.
When the Zimbabwe Independent visited
Goromonzi yesterday
several parastatals were setting up their stands in
preparation for the
exhibition.
Those that had already
taken up stands include Zimbabwe United
Passenger Company, Zimbabwe Iron and
Steel Company, Zimbabwe Post, National
Oil Company of Zimbabwe, People's Own
Savings Bank, Civil Aviation Authority
of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe
Electricity Supply Authority Holdings. A
refurbished bus displayed on the
Zupco stand appeared to have been hastily
painted for the occasion. Zupco
buses are often used to ferry Zanu PF
supporters to rallies and
meetings.
Senior parastatal appointments, whose positions are
not
advertised, are made on the basis of political affiliation and
connections.
This has resulted in state enterprises becoming breeding
grounds for
corruption and incompetence.
The Reserve Bank
says parastatals remain an impediment to
economic growth and a drain on the
fiscus. Their debts were $76, 4 billion
(in old currency) by June
30.
Ministries such as Small to Medium Enterprises and Youth,
Gender
and Employment Creation are also taking part in the exhibition.
Private
companies that are exhibiting include Clarson and Company, Smart
Hydraulic,
Allied Conveyers, Trium Corporation and the Forestry
Commission.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
UNITED Nations
special envoy James Morris on Monday urged
President Robert Mugabe to ensure
food security and relax the conditions
under which NGOs work in the
country.
NGOs told Morris that there was a lot of uncertainty
over
legislation governing their operations and that some of them could not
make
long-term plans as they were still battling to get
registered.
"It is important for steps to be taken to
safeguard the
operating environment for humanitarian agencies," the NGOs
said.
"In principle there is no food aid in Zimbabwe, rather
there is
targeted feeding of vulnerable groups. However, the reality is that
the
majority of the population is fast becoming vulnerable and in need of
humanitarian support," they said.
"It's difficult to have
focused programmes in a context in which
the entire system is on the verge
of collapse," the NGOs said. "There is
need to make recourse to
multi-sectoral approaches and to strengthen
coordination of interventions
and collaboration between humanitarian
agencies and the
state."
Morris, who steps down as head of the World Food
Programme (WFP)
in January, is in the Southern African region to assess the
food situation.
Last year, Mugabe blocked Morris, who was on
a similar trip,
from visiting Zimbabwe, claiming he was busy. Mugabe said
the country was
expecting a bumper harvest of a record 2,4 million tonnes of
the staple
maize.
But it later emerged that government
was worried Morris would
meet with opposition parties and civil society
groups who would give a
different account of the food
situation.
Morris visited South Africa and Zambia before
coming to
Zimbabwe. He is also expected to visit Malawi.
"President Mugabe and I had a very cordial conversation," Morris
told
reporters after the meeting in Harare. "We talked about issues of food
security and how important that is to a country's ability to sustain itself
and to be economically strong."
Morris is the third most
senior UN envoy to visit Zimbabwe after
the controversial Operation
Murambatsvina last year, which left about 700
000 people
homeless.
Mugabe defended the campaign, which he said was
aimed at rooting
out crime, and branded UN Humanitarian and Relief
Coordinator Jan Egeland a
"hypocrite and a liar" for criticising what the
official described as a
military-style blitz with "no regard for human
suffering".
Morris, whose own agency has had strained
relations with Mugabe's
government, said UN agencies will continue to work
with Zimbabwe.
"I affirmed the commitment of UN agencies to
be partners with
Zimbabwe, to be as helpful as we can in matters related to
food security and
matters related to the HIV pandemic across the region," he
said.
Mugabe has in the past accused aid groups of using food
to turn
the people against his government.
Morris is on
his final tour of Southern Africa, hoping to
highlight the region's twin
humanitarian crises of regular food shortages
and the world's worst HIV/Aids
pandemic.
Zimbabwe is particularly hard hit, with crippling
shortages of
food, fuel, foreign currency and a surging unemployment
rate.
Critics say Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms to
give to
blacks has gutted the key agricultural sector and accelerated the
crisis.
Zim Independent
Itai Mushekwe
THE High Court
yesterday ordered Education minister Aeneas
Chigwere to stop interfering
with private schools in the setting of tuition
fees.
The
court granted a provisional order setting aside government's
fees structure
imposed recently.
The order was granted after the Association
of Trust Schools
(ATS) challenged Chigwedere's sub-economic fees for private
schools in
court. Justice Bhunu ordered Chigwedere to set aside his fees for
ATS
schools for next year's first term.
"It is hereby
ordered that the directive by the first respondent
(Chigwedere) setting fees
for ATS schools for term one of 2007 be and is
hereby set aside," said
Justice Bhunu.
Justice Bhunu also restrained Chigwedere from
meddling with the
functions and responsibilities of Education secretary,
Stephen Mahere, when
undertaking his duties. Mahere was cited as the second
respondent in the ATS
application.
"First respondent is
hereby restrained from unlawfully
interfering with the functions and
responsibilities of the second respondent
by issuing directives, publicly
purporting to set or prescribe fees, or
otherwise interfering with or
encouraging or permitting interference with
the second respondent in the
discharge of his duties under Section 21, save
unless and until the relevant
responsible authority lodges an appeal with
the First Respondent in
accordance with Section 22 of the Education Act."
Chigwedere,
under whose stewardship the country's educational
standards continue to
decline, had threatened to arrest private school heads
who defied his
directives on fees.
He was ordered by the High Court not to
request, instigate or
effect any arrest on a charge under Section 21 (7) of
the Education Act
before the publication of the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
for November and
December 2006.
Justice Bhunu interdicted
Chigwedere from "seizing or purporting
to confiscate to the state any fee or
other money that may be paid by or for
the parents to any member of the fist
applicant for fees or levies for the
term one 2007."
ATS
chairman Jameson Timba said they were pleased with the court's
decision.
"We are pleased that the rule of law in the
management of our
private education system has been reinstated and the alarm
and despondency
among parents and staff that the minister had created
removed," said Timba.
"We sincerely hope that the minister
will in future resist the
temptation of willfully violating the Education
Act that he presented to
parliament and under oath undertook to
uphold."
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
BRITISH
journalists who fled the country last week had been made
to sign a contract
barring them from reporting on land reform, Gukurahundi
massacres or
Operation Murambatsvina.
The four journalists assigned to
make a television documentary
on Zimbabwe for Britain's Channel 4, found
themselves locked up in their
hotel room after their host Nicholas van
Hoogstraten - a close ally of
President Robert Mugabe - reported them to the
police for trying to produce
a negative script.
The team
from Objective Productions was invited by Van
Hoogstraten to "explore the
country and get first-hand information about the
situation".
Zanu PF spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira
together with acting
Information minister Paul Mangwana facilitated their
accreditation.
It emerged this week that government agreed to
allow the newsmen
into the country on condition that they produce an upbeat
documentary on
Zimbabwe, including investment prospects. Van Hoogstraten and
Shamuyarira
hoped to be in control of the content of the
documentary.
The conditions set by government and Van
Hoogstraten included
that the team does not use any archival information
pertaining to land
reform or anything dealing with the history of the
country.
This included footage of the violent eviction of
farmers or
toyi-toying on occupied farms.
The idea was
that the documentary would support government's
contention that all was well
in Zimbabwe.
The government was angered when it was
discovered that the
journalists were not going to produce a favourable
report.
"The government agreed that they should come but I
said I must
control their product," Van Hoogstraten said in an interview
this week with
the Zimbabwe Independent.
"I told them
that if they step out of line I would deal with
them personally," he
said.
"I put an overriding clause in that contract which said
the film
would not have voice-overs or extraneous information about
President Mugabe
or the history of the country."
Van
Hoogstraten had agreed with the government that he would
have control over
what the team could or could not film or broadcast.
The
government was also angry that the documentary would make
reference to the
Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland in which an estimated
20 000 people
were killed.
Journalists from Russia, Kenya, Indonesia, and
Canada have been
invited to Zimbabwe on state-funded trips purportedly to
report
"objectively" on the Zimbabwean situation.
"I
started getting irritated when during an interview with
owners of a Chinese
restaurant the crew started talking about the
relationship between Zimbabwe
and China," Van Hoogstraten said.
"Then I saw that in their
script they were also proposing to
show Mugabe holding a gun. I hit the
roof."
The British mogul who claims to have been friends with
Mugabe
since the 1970s said after seeing the script, which had been left in
his
car, he went to Shamuyarira to report the matter.
"I
told Shamuyarira they were crooks. They were put under house
arrest."
The four were detained in a room at the Rainbow
Towers where
they had been staying.
"If I had my way we
would have made a case out of it and put
them in prison because they were
coming here with evil intent in their
hearts," Van Hoogstraten
claimed.
People close to the issue said an angry Van
Hoogstraten tried to
force the leader of the team, Jerome Lynch, a black
British barrister, to
sign an admission of guilt form before locking them in
the hotel room.
Van Hoogstraten denies that he locked them up
at the hotel where
he is a shareholder but said: "Even if I did, so
what?"
The fallout led to government's claims that Britain
was
preparing the ground for the renewal of sanctions in the new year. But
observers note this reflects the government's sensitivity to its growing
isolation from the rest of the world rather than any serious claim that the
British government controls the UK press.
"Van
Hoogstraten would be the first to know that Channel 4 is
hardly a
pro-(British) government outfit," a local diplomat commented.
Zimbabwe government officials have accused the visiting
journalists of being
intelligence officers.They eventually left the country
in a hurry leaving
their valuable equipment behind.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
DOES a new
commission have the aptitude to normalise operations
or turn around the
fortunes of Harare?
This is the question uppermost in the
minds of many Harare
residents following the expiry of the Sekesai
Makwavarara-led commission's
term of office and the subsequent announcement
that a new commission would
be appointed soon.
Although
Local Government minister Ignatious Chombo last
Wednesday said that a new
commission would be announced soon, there is
simmering discontent among his
colleagues in Zanu PF.
He said a decision would be made on
whether to reappoint the
outgoing commissioners in the new commission,
taking into consideration
factors such as individuals' expertise in various
fields like law or
engineering.
But observers said as
much as Chombo might want to reappoint or
even retain Makwavarara as
chairperson, her fallout with Zanu PF's Harare
province over her role in
party structures should put him under immense
pressure to justify her
continued stay at Town House.
The unparalleled failure of the
commission could be difficult to
defend as is the widening rift in
government over the general collapse of
city infrastructure and
Makwavarara's extravagant lifestyle at the expense
of service
delivery.
With Chombo's handpicked commission at Town House,
residents
over the past two years have watched Harare, once one of the
cleanest cities
in Africa, degenerate into a cesspool of waste and
decay.
The provision of clean water has become erratic,
refuse has not
been collected while frequent bursts of raw sewage pipes have
resulted in
the outbreak of water-borne diseases.
The
outbreak of cholera in the Epworth area, which claimed 14
lives, was just
one clear testimony of how Harare - once dubbed the Sunshine
city - has
degenerated at the hands of the Makwavarara-led commission.
A
survey by the Zimbabwe Independent showed that virtually all
the capital's
infrastructure is in a free fall, characterised by
unavailability of water
in a number of suburbs, raw sewerage flowing in the
high-density suburb
streets, roads almost inaccessible because of potholes
and decomposing
refuse mountains posing threats of disease outbreaks at
street
corners.
Where water was available, most of it was lost
through burst
pipes, which went for months unrepaired.
Critics say the city's mounting problems mark a grim new phase
of Zimbabwe's
long-running political and economic crisis, which many blame
on President
Robert Mugabe's government.
Repulsive sites of uncollected
garbage piling on street corners
are common in both high and low-density
areas with residents saying that
rubbish had not been collected in townships
and some suburbs for months.
The lame excuse from council is
the national shortage of fuel
and the expiry of contracts for private
garbage collectors and of course
lack of foreign exchange to purchase
equipment.
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA)
chairman Mike
Davies said the commissioners lacked the skills, mandate and
financial
resources to transform Harare into a habitable
place.
"The commissioners' calibre is suspect," Davies said.
"None of
them has any experience in governance of urban authorities. Theirs
is
literally a trial and error exercise."
He described
the commissioners as "political stooges" who lacked
technical know-how and
financial support.
"The commission has no capacity at all.
They are not
technocrats," he said. "Their major qualification is that they
are Zanu PF
members. Apart from that they have no idea of what they are
doing.
Makwavarara has no relevant professional qualification. Jameson
Kurasha is
an academic and the rest are Zanu PF functionaries, what would
you expect?"
The residents' umbrella body has blamed the city
infrastructure's
collapse on political meddling and the commission's failure
to involve
stakeholders.
Davies said Makwavarara had
dropped the stakeholders'
consultation system resulting in council coming up
with absurd rate
increases and policies that are often resisted by
residents.
"Council is no longer consulting residents in
matters of
budgeting as was the norm but simply imposes its views," Davies
said.
"Last year council was forced to revise its budget
downwards, a
situation likely to happen again this year because it has not
followed the
procedural consultation process," he said.
"Half the time Makwavarara has been fighting to keep her
position instead of
taking the city ahead by getting feedback from residents
and responding to
their concerns."
Davies said the one-man band attitude which
Makwavarara has
adopted, resulted in the city deteriorating in both
infrastructure and
financial position.
"Council has been
reported bankrupt on two occasions during
Makwavarara's two-year tenure
because residents have been refusing to
recognise her and holding back rate
payments, council's main source of
revenue," he said.
The
opposition MDC said residents deserved nothing short of an
elected and
accountable leadership to replace the corrupt and dysfunctional
Makwavarara
commission that was imposed by Chombo two years ago following
the dismissal
of an elected MDC council led by Elias Mudzuri.
"It appears
Chombo is determined to stifle democracy by
extending the term of the
Makwavarara commission," the MDC's point person on
Local Government affairs,
Trudy Stevenson, said.
"This is despite overwhelming evidence
of poor service delivery,
rampant looting of council property, corruption,
mismanagement of council
property and carefree attitude coupled with
downright arrogant behaviour
towards the plight of the ratepayers exhibited
by the commission. This is
totally unacceptable and it must be
stopped."
Stevenson said the opposition party had joined
Harare residents
in resisting Chombo's "obnoxious, stinking and hypocritical
machinations by
demanding their right to elect leaders of their choice to
run the affairs of
the city".
Makwavarara, a political
turncoat who rode to Town House on the
coattails of the opposition MDC,
back-stabbed Mudzuri before defecting to
Zanu PF. The Zanu PF Harare
provincial executive passed a no-confidence vote
in her six months
ago.
The spectre of a divisive showdown pitting Chombo
against
members of the Zanu PF Harare province over the extension of her
term became
inevitable forcing the politburo to
intervene.
Zanu PF Harare province was seeking to oust
Makwavarara,
alleging that she had undermined the position of the party in
Harare because
of her lack of capacity to lead the city.
Zanu PF Harare provincial spokesman, William Nhara, this week
said their
position has not changed as Makwavarara was still unsuitable to
lead the
city since she lacked the professional and leadership skills to
deliver on
ratepayers' expectations.
"Service delivery is not improving,
contrary to minister Chombo's
claims," Nhara said.
"We
want to be educated on where there are improvements. Maybe
the minister is
measuring the city's improvements using growth-point
standards."
Zim Independent
Ray
Matikinye
MISA-Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human
Rights (ZLHR) say
the revised Interception of Communications Bill is no
different from the
original draft that was thrown out by legislators in
October.
Misa says the Interception of Communications Bill,
2006, even in
its revised form, is a retrogressive piece of legislation that
has no place
in a democratic society.
It says the Bill is
an illustration of government's
determination to criminalise matters that
should ordinarily be dealt with in
civil courts.
In
October, the Parliamentary Legal Committee, chaired by MDC
legislator
Professor Welshman Ncube, sent back the Bill to its authors for
revision
after making an adverse report on it.
In an analysis of the
revised Bill, Misa-Zimbabwe said it still
carries unconstitutional
provisions that threaten citizens' fundamental
rights to privacy, freedom of
conscience, expression and association.
"It goes without
saying that the negative aspects of the
proposed law outweigh the positive
ones. The Bill fails to disclose the
solid objective behind the proposal for
interception of private
communication," an analysis carried out by the media
freedom advocacy group
last week said.
Misa said the
consolidated version of the Bill still attempts to
overturn a Supreme Court
ruling in favour of the Law Society of Zimbabwe
made in 2003 against the
Communications minister and the Attorney-General.
In a
landmark judgement, the Supreme Court struck down a
provision of the Post
and Telecommunications Act from which the current Bill
was cloned, saying
that freedom of expression includes freedom from
interference with
correspondence be it electronic or postal.
Misa-Zimbabwe says
the Bill makes very little provision for
citizens to respond to the
allegations that led to warrants being issued
against
them.
That is contrary to the principles of natural justice,
it says,
which require that both parties to an issue must be given a fair
chance to
present their respective accounts. Under the proposed law,
private,
confidential and personal information may be intercepted and abused
by the
system.
"The Bill is also flawed in its failure to
provide for
compensation or damages in cases of the issuance of wrongful or
malicious
warrants," Misa says. "The protection granted to authorised
persons is
unjustifiable," Misa says.
Human rights
lawyer, Otto Saki of ZLHR, said on Wednesday
although the consolidated
version attempted to incorporate input from civil
society, there was nothing
to celebrate.
The reasons for intercepting and monitoring
communication still
remained too wide, he said.
"There is
nothing new and nothing to celebrate. Some provisions
are still the same and
subject to abuse by people assigned by the minister
to monitor and intercept
communication between individuals," Saki said.
Zim Independent
MEDIA stakeholders are set to launch an independent,
self-regulatory media council next month after getting endorsement from
government, publishers, civic society organisations, political parties,
church groups and the business community.
The
self-regulatory body, which will be known as the Media
Council of Zimbabwe
(MCZ), will be officially launched in Harare on January
26 at a ceremony
that will be preceded by the election of nominees onto the
11-member media
council and a five-member ethics committee.
The nominees, 90%
of whom have already accepted the nominations,
were drawn from the
judiciary, media, legal fraternity, civic society
organisations, church
groups and the business community.
Among the nominees are
retired judges, renowned newspaper
publishers, professors, doctors, lawyers,
journalists, editors and respected
citizens who have served Zimbabwe with
integrity. The publishers, editors
and journalists have been drawn from both
the private and state media.
The setting of the launch date
comes in the wake of extensive
nationwide consultative meetings that were
led by the Zimbabwe Union of
Journalists (ZUJ) and Misa-Zimbabwe under the
auspices of the Media Alliance
of Zimbabwe. MAZ comprises ZUJ, Misa-Zimbabwe
and the Media Monitoring
Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ).
Strategic planning and report-back meetings were held with key
stakeholders,
namely the Zimbabwe National Editors Forum, the Zimbabwe
Association of
Editors, MMPZ and the Federation of African Media Women in
Zimbabwe. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Itai Mushekwe
A VISITING
Canadian delegation of tour operators and journalists
that visited some of
the country's tourist resorts last week left government
with egg on its face
after a television journalist said Zimbabwe's tourism
woes were wholly
political.
The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) had invited
the delegation
to tour Zimbabwe in an event arranged by Zimbabwe's
ambassador to Canada,
Florence Chideya.
Jonathan Rooth, a
senior producer with Omni Television, told
Chideya and ZTA authorities who
had bargained for positive feedback that
Zimbabwe needed to resolve its
political crisis if there was to be a change
in tourism
fortunes.
"I'm going to be frank with you," Rooth
said.
"Your problems here are political. You need to start to
talk
with the Western media. It's about time you opened your doors to them.
Inviting them to come over to shoot some reality and nature shows can do a
lot of good."
Rooth said currently there was no
documentation of Zimbabwe's
tourism products in Western markets making it
difficult for prospective
clients to visit Zimbabwe.
The
television producer also cited an array of problems, which
he said hog-tied
the growth of the sector.
Rooth highlighted fuel shortages,
deserted resorts, poor
telecommunications and Internet services and a skewed
foreign exchange
regime as enfeebling tourism operations
potential.
ZTA chief executive officer, Karikoga Kaseke, said
government
was mulling a plan to twin the Victoria Falls with Niagara Falls
to entice
tourists from the West.
Kaseke said government
was going to rectify pricing distortions
in the tourism sector. "We have
just concluded an arrangement with Noczim to
eradicate the fuel problem," he
said. "It's a situation that can be
normalised but as I speak as ZTA CEO I
can assure you that government has
made it a priority to solve the
problem."
Government of late has been courting Western
markets to
resuscitate the tourism sector, which came to a near collapse
last year.
Kaseke was recently barred from attending the
World Tourism
Markets Summit in the United Kingdom, a move thought to stem
from his
membership of the ruling party.
Zim Independent
Lesley Moyo
ZANU PF youth
militia hired by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) to enforce price
controls have intensified raids on shops flouting
controls ahead of the
festive season.
The blitz on shops follows a recent spate of
price increases by
shop owners taking advantage of the festive season and
end of year bonus
payments.
The youths were spotted this
week conducting raids in major
retail outlets enforcing price controls on
selected commodities in Bulawayo.
Party militias from the
National Youth Service training are
accused of beating up and harassing
businessmen for inflating prices.
Police Chief Superintendent
Oliver Mandipaka referred this paper
to the central bank for
comment.
The police, initially in charge of enforcing price
controls,
were replaced by the overzealous youth militias following
accusations that
they were soliciting bribes from shop owners selling their
commodities above
the gazetted prices.
The militant
youths are believed to be earning around $300 000 a
month to perform police
duties.
They are reportedly operating under the Crime
Prevention Unit at
the Bulawayo central police station.
Analysts say the raids on shops and major retail outlets are
contributing to
widespread shortages of basic commodities.
Industry and
International Trade minister Obert Mpofu has in the
past vowed he would deal
with shops that are flouting price controls and
arbitrarily increasing the
price of controlled commodities in violation of
the Controlled Goods
Act.
A week after his declaration, a swoop on major retail
outlets
followed resulting in managers and workers of these shops being
hauled
before the courts.
National Bakers Association
chairman, Burombo Mudumo, was
sentenced for six months for hiking the price
of bread.
But economists have criticiced the raids as an
admission by the
government that it has failed to revive the failing economy
characterised by
widespread shortages and galloping inflation.
Zim Independent
Lesley Moyo
HUMAN rights
activists have condemned the ongoing operation
launched by the Zimbabwe
Republic Police (ZRP) to hunt down alleged gold
panners as another assault
on human rights.
The raids, dubbed Operation Chikorokoza
Chapera/Isitsheketsha
Sesiphelile, have witnessed police mounting roadblocks
on major highways to
intercept suspected gold dealers destined for
neighbouring countries to sell
their alluvial gold.
Three
major highways leading to Zambia, South Africa and
Botswana in Matabeleland
have been sealed as police mount roadblocks meant
to recover the precious
mineral.
But human rights activists have hit out at the body
and luggage
searches by police on travellers as violating basic human
rights.
Kucaca Phulu, a human rights lawyer, lambasted both
the police
and the government for the disregard of human
rights.
"The whole operation shows total disregard the police
and the
government have for the people of Zimbabwe," Phulu
said.
"The searches show a disregard of human rights. The
searches are
not even conducted in a civilised manner. People are being made
to queue
like goats and cows and the police don't show any respect for the
people."
Phulu said it was illegal for police to search
people without
any reasonable suspicion. "We were not even notified that the
police would
be conducting those searches."
Jenny
Williams, leader of the militant Women of Zimbabwe Arise
activists, said the
police had subjected travellers to inhuman searches.
"We are
disturbed by the police who are being used to perpetrate
inhuman treatment
on ordinary citizens."
Contacted for comment, Chief Inspector
Andrew Phiri professed
ignorance of the presence of
roadblocks.
Condemnation of the searches come against a
Zimbabwe Human
Rights NGO Forum report released this week accusing the
police of numerous
human rights violations between 2000 and
now.
The report titled Who Guards the Guards - Violations by
Law
Enforcement Agencies in Zimbabwe, fingered state security agents as the
biggest violators of human rights who are used by the ruling party to
"suppress opposition and retain power".
President Mugabe
has denied allegations of human rights abuses
and has accused civic groups
like the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions,
Woza and the National
Constitutional Assembly of provoking the police.
Zim Independent
STRIKING workers at Zimbabwe's major museums have forced the
galleries to
close their doors to the public since Monday this week,
demanding better
salaries and working conditions.
The workers are protesting
over low salaries that range between
$30 000 and $50 000 a
month.
According to the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) a
family of
five needs about $300 000 a month to survive.
The regional director for the National Museums and Monuments,
Rudo Sithole,
however expressed ignorance over the strike when contacted for
comment.
"I am not aware that there is a strike going on.
All our workers
reported for work today," she said.
But
acting executive director of Museums, Praude Rogers,
confirmed that the
workers had not reported for work but was quick to
dismiss reports that it
was connected to salaries.
"The whole thing had nothing to do
with salaries but was about
their transport allowances. We are a parastatal
wholly funded by the
Treasury and there is no ways we can pay the workers,"
Rogers said.
"We raised the issue about transport and housing
allowances with
the parent ministry and the matter was then forwarded to
Treasury. At the
moment the matter is still under discussion." - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
THE Zimbabwe
Independent last week took its investigation of
looting at the
government-owned steelmaking company, Ziscosteel, to Botswana
where senior
officials at related companies dodged questions.
Although the
trip yielded important leads into the deep-rooted
corruption at the company,
key players ducked and dived.
Ramotswa/Tswana Steel &
Iron Co MD Jemister Chininga and former
director at the companies, Subhash
Kapur, avoided interviews to explain the
disappearance of US$500 000 in a
deal involving the buying by Zisco of
subsidiaries in
Botswana.
Zisco is the biggest government-owned company with
a number of
local subsidiaries and others in South Africa, Zambia,
Mozambique, Namibia
and Botswana.
Searches at the
Registrar of Companies in Gaborone showed
Chininga is still a director at
the Botswana subsidiaries, while Kapur has
resigned. Initially there were
four directors with the surname Kapur. The
Kapurs all live at the same
address, Plot 80 Sebina Close, Gaborone.
The other directors
are David Murangari (Zisco chair), Michael
John Harris, Eustace Alphania
Wright and Albert Dube. Former Zisco MD
Gabriel Masanga has now
resigned.
The US$500 000 scandal was found by the National
Economic
Conduct Inspectorate (NECI) to be one of the most blatant cases of
corruption ever unearthed in Zimbabwe.
Ramotswa and
Tswana were bought by Zisco in 2001 for US$3
million from Kapur. However,
US$3 535 287,07 was paid in the deal. This
means there was an overpayment by
US$535 287,07. It is not clear who were
the end-beneficiaries but the money
went to Kapur.
Zisco's finance department has failed to
explain the overpayment
and this has raised fears the money was illegally
transferred to Botswana as
part of the Ramotswa/Tswana deal and later shared
among company officials.
The subsidiaries are now being
clandestinely sold without
government's approval, showing there were major
efforts to strip Zisco of
its assets and rip off the public in the process.
Although Zisco has refused
to identify the buyers, sources say top
politicians were behind the secret
move.
Senior
government officials and ministers, including
Vice-Presidents Joseph Msika
and Joice Mujuru, and ministers Samuel
Mumbengegwi, Stan Mudenge, Patrick
Chinamasa, Sithembiso Nyoni, Olivia
Muchena and former Zanu PF MP Tirivanhu
Mudariki have been named in the
Zisco affair. Muchena and Nyoni denied their
involvement in the saga. Msika
has claimed there was no looting at Zisco.
Top Zisco managers are also
involved.
While the
Independent tried to interview Chininga and Kapur
during a week-long visit
to Botswana, the two flatly refused. Interviews
with them would have been
key in unlocking the US$500 000 disappearance
puzzle.
Chininga, named in the NECI report on Zisco as a key player in
the graft,
said he was just a "small fish" and advised the Independent to
deal with the
"big fish" in Harare.
"Talk to our chairman in Harare, we are
just 'small fish'. Talk
to the 'big fish'," Chininga said in a telephone
conversation. "I don't
think I can be able to talk to you about this. I
think you should talk to
the chairman. When you phoned I was actually
thinking it's a friend of mine
who also has a similar name as yours.
"
After a protracted attempt to persuade him to accept the
interview, the line cut in the middle of the conversation. Efforts to call
back did not succeed as his secretary quickly claimed Chininga had gone out
of the office despite the fact he was on the phone just a few seconds
earlier.
"He is now out of the office," she said. "You
can't talk to him
because as I speak he has gone out."
Prior to that Chininga's office had the whole of last week said
he was not
in the office and would not come back until Friday. However, he
was found in
the office on Thursday after repeated calls. He only took the
call by
coincidence because, as he said, he was expecting a call from a
friend with
a similar name to the reporter.
Kapur was hostile went
contacted over the issue.
"I don't want to talk to you
because I'm no longer at Ramotswa.
I was there about six or seven years, so
I don't want to discuss history,"
Kapur said. "Don't even come to my office,
I don't want you here."
Although Kapur claimed to have
resigned as director more than
six years ago, documents show he was still a
director in 2004, meaning he
resigned last year. An updated list of the
directors for 2005 no longer
shows him as one of the
directors.
The trip to Botswana also revealed other
interesting issues. The
Botswana government and the media are increasingly
getting involved in the
issue. Government, according to inside sources, is
worried about a whole
range of issues, including the clear "sneaking" into
Botswana by Zimbabwean
officials involved in Zisco and the apparent
corruption at Ramotswa and
Tswana companies.
The media is
also interested. This week the press was pulling
out all the stops to find
out which Botswana MP, police officers,
immigration and Customs officers,
labour officials and politicians received
money from Ramotswa in the name of
dubious "donations".
Efforts to interview Koy Travel &
Tours officials who bought air
tickets for Zimbabwean officials who
travelled to Botswana also hit a snag
as the company has since closed.
Another travel agency, Skylink, has now
taken its offices. Skylink officials
were unable to shed light on the
whereabouts of Koy
members.
Managers of the plush Grand Palm Hotel Casino &
Convention
Resort where Zimbabwean government officials used to stay, wine
and dine
were also unhelpful. They claimed they have a new computer network
and all
records before July have been lost.
But
unofficial interviews with different sorts of people at the
hotel were very
useful. They confirmed that Zimbabwean officials frequented
the hotel and
enjoyed food and drink at the hotel's several bars and
restaurants, the
Kalahari bar, Oasis bar, Caesar's bar,Livingstone
restaurant, the Beef Baron
Grill and Rib Room and the Fig Tree restaurant
and bar on public
funds.
In the end, the trip showed that the corruption
exposed so far
at Zisco is only the tip of the iceberg. Graft runs deep at
the company.
Investigations into the Zisco scandal will
continue until the
public get the answers they are entitled to.
Zim Independent
Dumisani
Ndlela
AN International Monetary Fund (IMF) team has
backed Finance
minister Herbert Murerwa's decision to end the central bank's
quasi-fiscal
operations which sparked off bitter attacks on the minister
from Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono and President
Robert Mugabe.
The IMF's position, said by treasury sources
to have been
highlighted during consultations between the IMF team, led by
Sharmini
Coorey, and Ministry of Finance and central bank officials in
separate
meetings, is likely to form the core of the team's report which
will be the
basis of deliberations on Zimbabwe by the IMF board meeting in
January.
The position had been reiterated by the mission
during the
presentation of its preliminary findings at the RBZ on Monday
afternoon.
The presentation had been attended by Gono, the
three deputy
governors, Gono's policy advisor Munyaradzi Kerere, divisional
chiefs and
the central bank secretary as well as officials from the
ministries of
Finance and Economic Development which is headed by Rugare
Gumbo.
The IMF team was expected to give a concluding
statement for
distribution yesterday afternoon. Coorey said this had already
been made
available to Murerwa and Gono who had the discretion to distribute
it to the
media.
"We will make a report available (to the
public) on Tuesday,"
Coorey said yesterday.
Murerwa
announced an end to the central bank's quasi-fiscal
operations during his
budget proposals two weeks ago, saying all resource
allocations would now be
made through the national budget under a "credible
anti-inflation
programme".
But sources from both the treasury and the
central bank said
Coorey and her team had clearly backed Murerwa, insisting
the RBZ's
quasi-fiscal operations had to be terminated.
Murerwa's decision, which appeared to have been precipitated by
increasing
discord between government ministers and Gono over what cabinet
members view
as Gono's overbearing influence on government ministries and
departments,
has received backing from the budget, finance and economic
development
committee of parliament which suggested that the quasi-fiscal
operations
were "evidently inflationary".
Murerwa said during his 2007
budget presentation that a
comprehensive package to reinforce policy
measures to restore macroeconomic
stability had to encompass the "phasing
out of quasi-fiscal operations and
allocating resources through the national
budget".
His decision received an angry response from Gono
who criticised
Murerwa for "deliberately distorting the facts on the ground
for other
grandiose reasons" after Mugabe backed Gono and publicly condemned
Murerwa
for pursuing "bookish economics".
The IMF team
maintained there had been no comprehensive policy
package to address the
economic crisis in the country, and expressed concern
at the exchange rate
regime and the lack of fundamental structural reform
like price
deregulation, public enterprise reform, strengthening of property
rights,
and general improvement in governance.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
AN
International Monetary Fund (IMF) team said Zimbabwe was
under no obligation
to pay US$200 million to avert suspension from the
Bretton Woods institution
after facing a barrage of criticism from civil
society over the morality of
payments made against the backdrop of an
escalating crisis in the
country.
Sources in the non-governmental organisation (NGO)
sector said
Sharmini Coorey's six-member team said the IMF had not compelled
Zimbabwe to
clear outstanding arrears but had pushed for a holistic
implementation of
sound policies to arrest the country's worsening economic
crisis.
NGO officials, who met Coorey's team during its
10-day visit to
the country to conduct routine Article IV consultations,
said the team had
acknowledged that Zimbabwe's economy had continued to
decline despite
payment of outstanding arrears.
Civic
society expressed concern over Zimbabwe's payments to the
IMF when
government was failing to secure medicines and food for its sick
and
starving populations and fuel for critical economic
activities.
Coorey refused to comment when contacted by
businessdigest
yesterday, referring all questions to the IMF's external
affairs department
in Washington DC.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
GOVERNMENT
domestic debt, which had taken a downward spiral
between October and
November, has significantly increased to a record $178,3
billion, according
to an update on the central bank's website this week.
The
government debt profile had not been updated since
businessdigest's report
last month in which the debt stock had been reported
to have touched a two
month low of $107,1 billion in October after another
decline in September
that put the debt stock at $119,4 billion.
Domestic debt had
peaked to a high of $127,4 billion in
mid-September.
But
according to latest statistics, the debt had moved upwards
since October,
reaching $156,6 billion by the end of November.
It had grown
to $157 billion on December 1, and further to
$178,3 billion by December
8.
Government's domestic debt consists of government stocks,
treasury bills and central bank advances.
Since January
this year, domestic debt had been on an upward
trend until the sudden trend
downward in September.
Government's domestic debt stock
opened the year at $14,1
billion and has been consistently rising since
then.
Government has said its debt has been bloated by food
and fuel
imports in a country facing its worst economic crisis in history
since
Independence in 1980.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
ECONOMIC
analysts this week warned that Zimbabwe, battling an
unprecedented economic
crisis in its 26-year history, had gloomy prospects
for economic recovery
next year despite government assurances of a surprise
turn-around.
Inflation, they said, was likely to climb
higher, beating
conservative forecasts made by Finance minister Herbert
Murerwa in his 2007
budget proposals earlier this month.
Inflation, described by both government and the central bank as
the
country's worst enemy, is currently at 1 098% year-on-year after topping
1
200% in August.
Economists said with no prospects for foreign
direct investment
inflows, there was little prospect of an economic miracle
and unemployment,
which has soared to record highs, would continue to
increase in the coming
year.
Independent economist John
Robertson said 2007 was unlikely to
present any hope to the long-suffering
poor in the country as the economic
crisis was likely to
accelerate.
"The increase in the rate of inflation will have
serious effects
on the lives of the poor because they will continue to lose
their jobs and
income," Robertson said.
"There will be no
prospects for foreign investment inflows
because of government's stringent
policies. Investors are the only people
who can create employment but they
are unlikely to invest in an environment
where government controls prices or
where government wants to take up 51% of
mines. This will be bad news for
the unemployed," Robertson said.
In the budget statement
presented two weeks ago, Murerwa
introduced a $24,2 billion Social
Protection Fund to cushion restive
citizens from the effects of escalating
costs caused by high inflation.
Independent analysts estimate
that over 60% of the country's
population live below the poverty datum
line.
They said Murerwa's allocation to the fund was too
little for
people already surviving on handouts from the donor
community.
"A detailed analysis of the figure shows it is
grossly
inadequate, considering that at least 60% of Zimbabweans are living
in
poverty," said Isaac Kwesu, a lecturer in the Graduate School of
Management
at the University of Zimbabwe.
"The $24,2
billion translates to about $3 361 per person per
annum for each of the
Zimbabweans living under the poverty line," he said.
The
Central Statistical Office, which compiles inflation
information, said the
Total Consumption Poverty Line in remote provinces was
now hovering between
$193 172 and $298 425, from about $175 000 in October.
The
cost of key commodities had been shooting up daily in the
past two
months.
Analysts predicted the trend to continue into
2007.
The cost of a 500 ml pint of milk, which cost $550 last
month,
now costs between $600 to $1 000, while the price of a 2kg packet of
fine
salt increased from $300 last month to $1 000. A 750 ml bottle of
cooking
oil now costs $2 600, from about $800.
The price
of bread, whose quality has drastically deteriorated,
went up this week to
$720 a loaf, from $295.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
OIL importers are
mulling a hike in the retail price of
petroleum products, a move likely to
spur another round of commodity price
increases in the economy,
businessdigest established this week.
The planned hike in the
retail prices of petroleum products,
which have however been spiralling
weekly on the unofficial market, is a
response to an increase in the
National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim)
debt redemption levy from $25 to
$60 per litre.
Last month, Noczim requested government to
review the levy in
line with price fluctuations.
The levy
was introduced through an amendment of the Finance Act
in 2003 to assist
Noczim in the payment of accumulated foreign debts.
"Noczim
must be assisted to liquidate (its) debts. So the debt
redemption levy
should be adjusted according to price fluctuations," Noczim
CEO Zvinechimwe
Churu said.
He said the fuel imports that had precipitated
the rise in the
foreign debt stock had been made "in the national
interest".
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) said
last week it
feared that the tax concession Finance minister Herbert Murerwa
had offered
to workers would soon be wiped out as a result of the adjustment
of the
levy.
"This will result in the increase of the
cost of fuel which will
in turn have a knock-on effect on the retail price
of goods and services,"
the ZCTU said.
"It will further
increase inflationary pressures, it is also
tantamount to subsidising
corrupt tendencies and mismanagement within the
parastatal," the union said
in a statement.
The ZCTU added that the increase in fuel
carbon tax from $5 per
litre to $100, which represented a 1 900% increment,
would also have harmful
effects.
This would further erode
workers' disposable incomes, the ZCTU
said.
Apart from
the Noczim levy, government also made upward
adjustment in the presumptive
tax in a bid to increase revenue inflow.
Commuter transport
operators' presumptive taxes were also
increased by between 900% and 1
400%.
There were fears in the market that this would ignite a
rise in
commuter fares, already considered too high.
Presumptive tax for commuter omnibuses with a carrying capacity
of 15 to 24
passengers were raised from $6 000 to $90 000 per quarter while
those with a
carrying capacity of between 25 and 36 passengers were
increased from $12
000 to $180 000 per quarter.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
PRESIDENT Robert
Mugabe's failure to attend the inauguration of
Joseph Kabila as president of
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the
clearest evidence yet that any
love there might have been between the two
leaders has started to sicken and
decay.
Mugabe assigned Speaker of the House John Nkomo to an
event
which to some extent owed its existence to Zimbabwe's military
intervention
in 1998 to save Laurent Kabila's government from
overthrow.
Analysts say this is confirmation that Mugabe's
pool of friends
is drying up. While most will not comment publicly, they
appear to be
distancing themselves from him.
The analysts
say Mugabe, who used to miss no opportunity to
flaunt Joseph Kabila as his
close ally, is bitter that Kinshasa has shifted
its loyalty to Pretoria that
is more helpful economically and not as tainted
as
Harare.
The flourishing political and economic friendship
between the
DRC and South Africa makes Zimbabwe probably the biggest loser
in the bloody
Congo war.
As South African companies swoop
on lucrative business contracts
in the central African country it is
becoming clear that Zimbabwe has
benefited little from the billions in
foreign currency it sunk and the toll
in human lives incurred during the
four-year expedition in the DRC named
Operation Restore Sovereign Legitimacy
- Osleg.
The DRC now has the first democratically elected
leader in 36
years while South Africa is reaping the profits courtesy of
Zimbabwe's
adventurous folly. Mugabe has been left to lick the wounds of his
ruinous
war.
Conservative estimates show the war was
costing nearly US$10
million a week - a huge figure for a poor country like
Zimbabwe. An
estimated 1 000 Zimbabwean soldiers were lost in the war.
Military equipment
worth billions was also lost including fighter aircraft.
The economy, whose
decline Mugabe pushed to the edge by raiding state
coffers to fund the war,
is still reeling eight years on.
The frustration was apparent when the state media went into a
mourning last
week with stories complaining that Zimbabwe was not reaping
the benefits of
the peace that it brought to the DRC.
Analysts say the war in
the DRC was designed to prop up Mugabe's
waning image of regional strong
man, a role South Africa's Nelson Mandela
was usurping.
The DRC intervention was Mugabe's opportunity for him to show
the region who
was boss. Laurent Kabila had been anointed by Mugabe by
virtue of his role
as chairman of the Sadc organ on defence, security and
politics.
Sadc members were piling pressure on Mugabe to
surrender the
organ to Mandela who was the Sadc chairman.
A Swedish writer and journalist Per Wastberg who has been
friends with
Mugabe for 30 years, told the Zimbabwe Independent two years
ago that at
that time Mugabe was indeed worried about the rise of
Mandela.
"I reminded him that he should have stepped down
after serving
at most two terms. A deeply worried Mugabe opened up and told
me that he
felt anxious about the rise of Mandela, particularly the status
he had
gained," said Wastberg.
"He was clearly
uncomfortable with the direction Mandela was
taking."
Angola and Namibia who also participated in the war had genuine
security
fears because they shared borders with the DRC. Mugabe's argument
of
national interest is further weakened by the fact that other countries
that
share borders with the DRC such as Tanzania and Zambia did not
participate
in Osleg.
Analysts say apart from being a tactic to regain
regional
influence, Mugabe went head first into the DRC on the basis of his
personal
friendship with Kabila whom he had supported as he led Banyamulenge
rebels
towards Kinshasa to topple Mobutu Sese Seko.
Kabila's fall would have greatly embarrassed Mugabe in the
region.
"Fearing that his project would fail, Mugabe used
his
chairmanship of the Sadc organ to intervene to save Kabila's
government,"
said a political lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.
Perhaps the only
benefits that came from the war are those that accrued to
army generals who
had diamond mining claims. Senior politicians are known to
have benefited in
the blood diamonds. Army personnel ended up working as
personal security
guards at the bosses' mines while their salaries and
allowances were being
paid by taxpayers back home.
The
disastrous impact of the war is still being felt to this
day. Less than 20
months into the DRC, Zimbabwe experienced the most biting
fuel shortages
since Independence.
Hundreds of families are still mourning
their loved ones who
perished in a war whose benefits to Zimbabwe have not
materialised.
The country still owes money to soldiers who
took part in the
operation. Government is battling to replace the equipment
lost in the DRC.
It is not a coincidence that the country's foreign currency
reserves started
drying up in 1999 when the country was still enmeshed in
the thick of things
in the DRC.
Zim Independent
By Jonathan Moyo
IS Zimbabwe
finally set to return to the pre-1987 constitutional
dispensation in which
executive power and authority was exercised by a prime
minister as head of
government appointed from the party that commands a
majority in parliament,
while the head of state is a ceremonious president
elected by parliament?
And will this take effect in 2008 and thus trigger
the eagerly awaited
political transition in Zimbabwe that would pave the way
for the critically
needed economic recovery?
The writing on Zimbabwe's political
wall seems to suggest an
affirmative response to both questions for the
reasons that follow.
With only 15 months left before the
expiry of his much troubled
tenure as head of state and government, it has
become inevitable that when
President Robert Mugabe opens the Zanu PF annual
people's conference in
Goromonzi today he will finally be kick-starting in
earnest the formal
process of his much delayed and now deeply acrimonious
succession whose
disastrous toll on the country's politics and economy have
created a state
of emergency.
The essence of this
extraordinary state of emergency is that
Zimbabwe has virtually ground to a
catastrophic halt and is simply not
functioning anymore as a normal country.
This ruinous situation will
continue for as long as Mugabe remains in office
with executive power and
authority.
Aware and terrified
that this state of emergency has been
largely engendered by Mugabe's delayed
succession, not to mention his failed
policies, national security agents and
political schemers steering Mugabe's
succession will almost certainly get
Goromonzi conference delegates to
endorse the widely publicised but scarcely
debated proposal to harmonise the
presidential and parliamentary elections
in 2010.
No important difference will be made by the fact
that the
majority of the delegates will not understand the import of this
proposal.
After all, Zanu PF works on the basis of ignorance and
deceit.
Yet the 2010 proposal is what the Goromonzi Zanu PF
conference
will be all about effectively. The Zanu PF official line - or lie
as it
were - would be that the proposal to harmonise presidential and
parliamentary elections in 2010 is necessary because of a number of
bureaucratic reasons, including the need to "save the country's limited
financial resources", while also enhancing the administrative efficiency of
the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
But this simplistic,
and frankly false, reasoning will not
convince even the most hopeless
dunderheads in or outside Zanu PF. If the
real issue at stake that warrants
the harmonisation of presidential and
parliamentary elections in 2010 is
about bureaucratic or administrative
issues, it should have been instigated
by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
and not Zanu PF.
What we have here is a political, not bureaucratic or
administrative,
proposal coming from a beleaguered ruling political party
that is led by an
equally embattled president trapped in the convoluted web
of his delayed
succession and presiding over an internationally isolated
regime practically
unable to halt the country's economic meltdown to inspire
the nation to
greater heights commensurate with the full potential of its
human and
natural resources.
While there have been propaganda
suggestions that the proposed
harmonisation of presidential and
parliamentary elections could be done in
2008 or 2010, one does not have to
read too much between the lines to see
that it is all about 2010, the year
of the World Cup soccer finals south of
the Limpopo.
Zanu
PF is not prepared to have any popular elections for
national office,
especially a presidential one, in 15 months. This is partly
because of the
fear that such an election would give opposition forces a new
lease of life
to rally around a common cause or allow the emergence of a new
opposition
from Zanu PF itself. The biggest political opposition to Zanu PF
now resides
in the party's own divided and crumbling structures. Of course,
the economy
is the biggest effective opposition at the moment.
But the
real main reason why Zanu PF is not prepared for a
popular national election
to choose a president in 2008 is that it does not
have a presidential
candidate who can win in 2008 given the current collapse
of the economy and
the decay of social services underwritten by the failure
of just about any
Zanu PF policy one cares to mention.
As things stand, Mugabe
himself cannot be re-elected in 15
months were he to be daring or reckless
enough to run again in March 2008.
This is because he should know only too
well that 2002 was an extremely
difficult re-election campaign for him such
that the 2008 poll would be
almost impossible for him to win. Mugabe would
not want a repeat so soon of
the awfully bruising electoral battle he
suffered in 2002.
Neither of Mugabe's two vice-presidents is
electable
presidential material. Joseph Msika has himself stopped pretending
that he
could ever be president someday. This is good for him and the
country.
This leaves Joice Mujuru who this time only 24
months ago
following the Tsholotsho saga was riding high on the gravy train
of
patronage politics and dreaming of succeeding Mugabe by March 2008.
Mugabe
himself at the ill-fated 2004 congress either deliberately misled the
country or took her for a ride by seemingly suggesting she was now the
anointed successor.
But things have changed dramatically
against her ambitions and
the snake-oil schemes of those who engineered her
sudden rise in November
2004 by manipulating rules to the detriment of the
Zanu PF constitution.
So dramatic have been the changes of
fortune for Mujuru that, in
addition to blindly endorsing the proposal to
harmonise presidential and
parliamentary elections in 2010, the Goromonzi
conference will be remembered
for putting paid to her unsustainable
presidential ambitions. This is
because one clear and direct intended
consequence by ruling party schemers
of the proposal to harmonise
presidential and parliamentary elections in
2010 is to eliminate whatever
little chance Mujuru ever had to become
president of
Zimbabwe.
It is therefore no wonder that the Mujuru camp is
the most
depressed over the 2010 proposal from what we hear. The camp's
loyalists and
advisors are now desperately jumping around like headless
chickens looking
for ways to derail the 2010 proposal. It appears they have
little chance of
success - not winning the presidency - but throwing a
spanner in the works
of the 2010 schemers.
But if the
truth were to be told without fear or favour, Mujuru
does not have any
presidential qualities to talk about and it was foolish
hope for anyone to
think otherwise. Since her unconstitutional elevation 24
months ago, she has
proven to all that the very best she can do is to come
up with an incoherent
chicken and pigs manifesto. No one can really tell
what Mujuru's vision and
political programme are.
What is her ideological paradigm
(not paradigim as she says) and
policy framework? Does she have a genuine
grasp of what needs to be done to
ensure economic recovery? What's her
understanding of international
relations and Zimbabwe's place in the current
world order? If she has the
ideas it means she has never articulated them,
but it is doubtful because
she can't even properly articulate her chickens
and pigs manifesto.
This partly explains why many who
pretended to support her in
2004 have now deserted her. The Mujuru camp in
Zanu PF now seems politically
dead and awaits burial on the 2010 proposal
graveyard at Goromonzi tomorrow.
It will take a dramatic performance for
them recover.
While the primary beneficiary of the
controversial 2010 proposal
will of course be Mugabe, there is a real
possibility that it could also
open a rare window of opportunity for
Zimbabweans who are desperate for a
political settlement of the ongoing
crisis.
Up to now, a sticky point in Mugabe's delayed
succession within
Zanu PF politics, national security and among interested
sections of the
international community has been how to secure not only his
legacy as a
founding leader with respected liberation war credentials but
also how to
guarantee his immunity as a probable if not certain prosecution
target of
not only his successor but also victims of his leadership
excesses.
Events in Zambia and Malawi around the prosecution
of former
presidents Fredrick Chiluba and Bakili Muluzi by their respective
successors
have rung alarm bells within Mugabe's inner circle and family.
The lesson
from these events is that he and his family cannot and will not
trust any
successor to protect them from possible prosecution should he
retire. The
way Charles Taylor was handed over by Nigeria for international
prosecution
after solid guarantees to the contrary by the Nigerian
government with
support from the African Union means that Mugabe has no
reason to trust any
international arrangement to secure his
immunity.
With these cases of failed immunity, Mugabe and his
handlers are
left with one option: to find a national solution that would
guarantee the
protection of his national and international immunity while
also allowing
for a substantive change of executive power and thus a real
political and
constitutional transition in Zimbabwe.
It
turns out that, upon critical reflection, the 2010 proposal
might do just
that if, as it now appears, it is implemented in such a way as
to
effectively dismantle the executive presidency established in 1987 with
the
return of the office of the prime minister after the expiry of Mugabe's
term
in March 2008.
What this means is that the implementation of
the 2010 Zanu PF
proposal will entail a constitutional amendment abolishing
the executive
presidency and bringing back the office of prime minister and
titular
president to take effect after the expiry of Mugabe's term in
2008.
Such a scenario, which now appears the most likely,
would not
require popular national elections in 2008 but only in 2010
because an
executive prime minister is produced by a party that commands the
majority
in parliament while a titular president is also elected by
parliament.
In the circumstances, and as a direct outcome of
the 2010
proposal to be made into a resolution by the Zanu PF Goromonzi
conference
tomorrow, Mugabe could emerge in 2008 as a titular president with
an as yet
to emerge executive prime minister to be appointed by the
president and
confirmed by parliament. Both the president and prime minister
would serve
until the general elections in 2010 when the current terms of
both the House
of Assembly and the senate will expire. Thus, Zimbabweans
might never again
elect a president, directly through a popular vote! This
appears to be the
main agenda at Goromonzi.
* Moyo is
independent MP for Tsholotsho.
Zim Independent
By Taungana Ndoro
ZIMBABWE'S
policy makers continue to hesitate opening the
Pandora's box where a
haunting catastrophic economic crisis is intensifying
its parasitic
dimension, as they perpetually confront a futile economic
solution instead
of the political domain that bred the calamity.
Western
governments and monetary institutions such as the World
Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) have carefully orchestrated
an
ill-conceived problematic political conditionality insisting that
Zimbabwe
pursue democracy and the rule of law in exchange for aid but the
integrity
of their "virtues" is extremely questionable given the extent of
the human
rights abuses presently predominating in the scandalous Iraq war -
the
brainchild of the "democratic" west.
While other African
countries contain formal acknowledgements of
democracy in their
constitutions, Zimbabwe has been overt about its own
needs and has set out a
democratic agenda at its own realistic pace specific
to the desires peculiar
to it as a sovereign country. The result of the West's
demands has been
brutal retribution disguised as economic sanctions targeted
at the hierarchy
of the ruling party but in effect bloodsucking on the
ordinary citizens
regardless of their political affiliation.
We often hear that
Zimbabwe's problems emanate from years of
maladministration, poor
governance, lack of democracy, human rights abuses,
unwise spending and
risky disregard for tomorrow but let us pause and take a
long hard look at
desperate efforts made towards rectifying these
allegations and what reward,
if any, has come out of the pains encountered
in an attempt to create the
Utopian society fertile in the imagination of
the west's so-called
democracy.
The move in Zimbabwe, to launch an Anti-Corruption
Commission,
increase political pluralism and introduce a cut-throat monetary
system, no
matter how noble the intentions, the price of fuel still went up,
the price
of food and basic commodities still skyrocketed with reckless
abandon and
neither was there significant reduction on external dependency
for essential
services such as health facilities. The cruel paradox of all
this is the
injustice of Zimbabwe and other third world countries
subsidising the
western countries and their ignoble monetary institutions
through reparation
of huge debt deficits that impact heavily on the
Zimbabwean men and women on
the street.
Without
prejudice, Zimbabwe's policy makers have been miserable
subjects of gross
political manipulation perpetrated by western governments
to ensure that
even though we obtained Independence on April 18, 1980 after
a bitter
struggle the annoying strategy was to ensure that economic muscle
remained
with Anglo-American conglomerates and former colonial powers.
It is therefore crucial to realise that the present crisis in
Zimbabwe has
deep roots. The political manipulation succumbed to by the
policy makers was
an appropriate circumstance for the emergence of
incompetent civil servants
who fed fat on a convenient opportunity to breed
corruption.
The political manipulation included fostering
experimental and
unrealistic Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes
(Esap) that led to a
decade of rising interest rates and falling export
revenues from the late
1980s onwards. The malady of Esap made Zimbabwe a net
exporter of vital
foreign currency subsiding the rich western governments
and institutions
while at the same time the very same organisations
mockingly blew the horn
in apparent concern for the horrible decline in
standards of living for the
poor third world countries in general and
Zimbabwe in particular.
Esap, no matter in which country it
is implemented, can only be
enforced through barbaric means that require
undemocratic and totalitarian
measures. Only a cold-blooded capitalist would
expect a resemblance of
democracy in a country writhing from the wounds of
IMF and World Bank
erroneously recommended structural adjustment programme.
The fact of the
matter is that the IMF and the World Bank operate as
commercial banks and
are boldly and shamelessly making profits from Zimbabwe
and Africa as a
whole.
The demands of these institutions
are blatantly undemocratic in
conception and consequence as they hinge on
the threat of depriving Zimbabwe
of dearly needed loans and grants and the
denial of a certificate of
creditworthiness that would encourage a financial
rescue for Zimbabwe by
other international financial institutions. In
effect, this signifies
deliberate and vindictive assault on Zimbabwe's
sovereignty and autonomy.
Democracy and sovereignty in
Zimbabwe have been under threat
from the very day the constitution for an
independent Zimbabwe was
negotiated at Lancaster House in 1979 in the United
Kingdom. By the time
Independence was finally proclaimed in 1980 the once
brave and
uncompromising revolutionary politicians had cooled-off and had
been
manipulated into more accommodating positions such as leaving a
generous
amount of fertile land in the hands of a minority white race at the
expense
of the majority black race. The subdued policy makers called for
calm and
order, not to mention reconciliation. The popular democracy
promised earlier
had conceived a stillbirth.
The ugly
consequence emerged with the Third Chimurenga in 1998
that sought to redress
the land distribution imbalances as the failure to
promptly improve the
quality of life of the ordinary people soon brought
disillusionment and
shattered hopes with the policy makers and in due course
the serious
political crisis triggered the creation of a spontaneous
opposition
political party in 1999.
In spite of its surprising
popularity however, the opposition
was simply not organised enough to a
degree where it could benefit from the
unforeseen opening of political
space.
Zimbabwe had become a democracy at the expense of its
sovereignty and is to this very day still trying to clutch at the straws of
its autonomy given the wretched erosion of the value of its currency, the
deplorable deterioration of its democracy and the pathetic denial of its
sovereignty. Maybe the time is ripe for reflection and not
reaction.
* Ndoro writes from Harare in his personal
capacity.
Zim Independent
By Trudy Stevenson
THE
homily at last Saturday night's mass in Mt Pleasant, being
the second Sunday
of Advent, was on the need to recognise the wrongs we have
done to others if
we wish to be reconciled with them and live together in
harmony as a united
family, community and nation.
This struck a deep chord within
me, all the more so since we
have two ongoing national efforts at
reconciliation and reunification at
present: the draft National Vision
document called The Zimbabwe We Want, and
pressure around possible
reunification of the two MDCs.
The priest was at pains to
insist that each one of us needs to
recognise the wrongs we have done to
those closest to us, both members of
our own family and members of our local
community, and to ask those people
to forgive us if we are even to think of
national reconciliation and unity.
It is no use simply asking God to forgive
us, he insisted, we need to
reconcile with individual people, especially our
nearest and dearest.
Interestingly, he referred to the draft
National Vision document
presented to Robert Mugabe and the nation a few
weeks ago, and revealed what
some of us had already worked out, that the
document presented was not the
version signed by the Catholic bishops.
Indeed, the bishops have written a
letter stating that this was not the
document they signed, and complaining
that "the teeth have been taken out",
in other words, that the document has
been severely toned down and important
sections left out altogether.
He pointed out that in order to
build the Zimbabwe we want and
to come together as a nation, we all need to
say out the wrongs we have done
to others and we need to say out the wrongs
that others have done to us. It
is true that only such recognition can start
to heal our wounds, and we all
have wounds of some sort, whether still
smarting from pre-Independence
wrongs or more recent wrongs which are fresh
in our minds.
We may believe that we have not done any wrong
to anyone, but we
will be surprised when someone says that we have done them
wrong. We should
then try to see from their perspective in an effort to
reconcile with them
if that is what we really want to do. To refuse to
recognise our possible
guilt is to admit that we are not really interested
in reconciliation. Truth
commissions, such as the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission in South
Africa, are based on this premise.
Thus, coming to the draft National Vision document, the fact
that certain
passages have been removed and others severely toned down by
"government"
without the approval of at least one of the churches which
authored it is an
admission by the Zanu PF government that it is not really
interested in
reconciliation or building true unity within our nation.
Government intends
to sweep certain issues under the carpet in the forlorn
hope that people
will forget about them and start to believe that government
is really
serious about starting again and building a united Zimbabwe where
every
person counts.
Zanu PF is very badly mistaken because people
do not forget the
wrongs done to them. Surely the regime knows this.
Therefore one is forced
to deduce that their objective is simply to paint
over the unpalatable past
with a thin veneer so that gullible foreigners
believe their empty noise
about democracy, human rights and national
unity.
No veneer, however, will be thick enough to hide
Gukurahundi,
Murambatsvina, bad governance or the severe economic decline of
our country
with the resultant poverty, hunger, rampant HIV/Aids and the
suffering of
the majority of our citizens.
Until those
issues are stated clearly and openly recognised by
this government, and
until government genuinely asks the people for their
forgiveness, we cannot
even begin to build the Zimbabwe we want, at least
not with them as part of
the solution. I believe the other church authors
should take up the Catholic
bishops' lead, highlight the duplicity of
government over their draft
National Vision document and insist on reverting
to the version they agreed
to present to the nation. Accepting the
bastardised version as theirs is
hypocritical in the extreme - and they will
fast lose credibility, both as
true Christians and as church leaders.
As for reunification
efforts between the two MDCs, the same
principle applies. The wrongs that
have been done need to be recognised and
forgiveness sought. Indeed, after
the fateful meeting on October 12 2005, my
own group, then led by
Vice-President Gibson Sibanda, seeking
reconciliation, insisted that Morgan
Tsvangirai admit that he did wrong by
contravening the party constitution,
both in overturning the result of the
vote and in lying to the international
community, and ask the national
council for forgiveness. Had he done so soon
after that meeting, I believe
that we would now be a united MDC which could
hold up its head as a genuine
principled and democratic party which the
people trust to bring the positive
change our nation so badly
needs.
Sadly, Tsvangirai could not bring himself to take this
vital
step. Indeed, his reason: "I know what the people want, and I am doing
what
they want" (that is, refusing to take part in the senate election) is
the
classic excuse of those who do not really believe in
democracy.
Nor is it even true that the people, at least the
people in
Harare, wanted the MDC to boycott the senate election. The
anti-senate
sentiment, which built up to an aggressive publicity campaign by
early
October, was driven by a number of civil society organisations whose
core
business is not to take part in elections, in any event, so they have a
different agenda and perspective.
Yet there is also
another fact which has been little-publicised.
In September 2005, two months
before the senate election, the Mass Public
Opinion Institute, which was
preparing the "Democracy Barometer" poll in
Zimbabwe, conducted a snap
survey in Harare to find out whether people
thought the MDC should
participate in the senate election or not. Eldred
Masunungure informed me in
February this year that around 75% of respondents
said the MDC should
participate in that election. Therefore it is certainly
not true that the
majority of people in Harare wanted the MDC to boycott the
election.
Be that as it may, the chances of
reconciliation and
reunification of the two MDC groups is most unlikely
until these and other
wrongs have been properly recognised and dealt with by
both sides.
For both The Zimbabwe We Want and the MDC,
attempting to sweep
issues under the carpet in the hope that people will
forget and move forward
together will simply not work. But for both the
party and the nation, if we
can recognise our wrongs and seek forgiveness
from each other, then
reconciliation and reunification can occur. Then, like
Jerusalem in the Book
of Baruch, we will be able to "take off our dress of
sorrow and distress,
and put on the beauty of the glory of
God!"
* Stevenson is the MDC secretary for policy and
research and MP
for Harare North.
Zim Independent
By Survivor
IT'S very sad to
hear that Didymus Mutasa, without consulting
the electorate, wants to make
Robert Mugabe president for life (Zimbabwe
Independent, December
8.)
We hear Mutasa spewing things like "he has done so much
for
Zimbabwe and he is not even tired yet".
Poor,
misinformed Mutasa obviously has not learnt that before
1980 Zimbabwe had
the strongest second economy in Africa - even stronger
than countries
endowed with oil reserves.
If Mugabe has done so much, why
are we the biggest failure in
the whole world? We have to brand a man who
destroyed the country like him
and his cronies as "enemies of the state". We
are doomed if we allow this to
happen.
We also have to
look at the police, those poor brainwashed
fellows who, whilst they and
their families are starving, break the arms and
legs of citizens who dare to
demonstrate for change.
Mugabe has already brainwashed the
present police and army lower
ranks into blindly supporting him, even to the
extent of beating up their
own family members. That is expected anyway
because their "entry
qualifications" are questionable.
Disturbing is the fact that Mugabe now wants to brainwash the
young
generation by insisting they go to re-orientation camps before being
allowed
into colleges or universities.
He is scared that this
educated generation will not take the
nonsense their parents take
today.
I hope the young people won't succumb to this
influence. They
should go to the camps if they have to, but let all the
propaganda that is
rammed into their heads go in through one ear and out the
other. They owe it
to themselves to save their country because their parents
have failed.
In the meantime, let's ostracise both the police
and the army,
those sadistic pawns who choose to be on the opposite side of
civilised
society, preferring to support Mugabe even when they are starving
themselves.
* Survivor is a pen name for a
Harare-based writer.
Zim Independent
Comment
IF we are agreed that inflation is the country's
number one
enemy, why is so little being done about it?
With the news this week that inflation has nudged 1 098,08%, a
"marginal"
rise of 28,8 percentage points according to the official media,
there is
growing evidence that the upward surge is unstoppable given the
absence of
political will to contain it.
When Finance minister Herbert
Murerwa recently attempted to
caution against quasi-fiscal operations which
require printing money, he was
slapped down by President Mugabe, who
evidently sees nothing wrong with
printing money, and confronted with
evidence by Reserve Bank governor Gideon
Gono that much of the pleading for
the RBZ to find funds for a variety of
projects came from Murerwa's
ministry.
Not only have these handouts been wasteful in terms
of the
unaccountable parastatals into which they have been poured, they are
also of
course inflationary in terms of the amounts printed and
distributed.
We don't expect Mugabe to offer solutions to the
challenge of
soaring money supply. He is part of the problem and tends to
see all efforts
towards economic reform as subversive. Murerwa on the other
hand is a
prisoner of the political establishment who is sadly unable to put
his foot
down. He is a decent fellow. But for three consecutive years he has
got it
wrong on just about every number that counts.
What
this leaves is Gono who should have a plan but doesn't. At
least not one we
can see! Shouldn't the Reserve Bank governor be setting
targets and
advertising them to the country? Shouldn't he be leading the
fight against
government waste that includes Chinese jet fighters, a new
parliament
building, and a Ministry of Public and Interactive Affairs that
has yet to
interact with the public to the extent of explaining what
precisely it
does!
Everywhere you look there is over-expenditure and waste
because
Mugabe believes that fiscal discipline is "bookish" and anyway he
needs the
money for electoral persuasion. Gono is paralysed because his
special
relationship with the president is the key to his political
fortunes.
Instead of cracking a whip he is feeding the beast. Inflation is
surging and
the latest figure will seem like a gross underestimate to those
who actually
shop and pay the bills.
It is the single
most corrosive factor, apart of course from
damaging ruling party policies,
in the country today. It eats at bank
accounts and thereby discourages a
culture of savings. It encourages
corruption and bad behaviour by business.
It wrecks planning. And it leads
to a hand-to-mouth existence that erodes
the whole monetary system.
But you wouldn't know this from
any of those charged with its
elimination. Zanu PF attempts to divert
attention from its delinquency by
blaming business, which mostly is
struggling to recover the costs of
production.
Business
in turn pathetically wrings its hands and says as
little as possible for
fear of provoking the economically illiterate
opportunists who constitute
Mugabe's inner circle and deal with the problems
they have spawned by
arresting first bankers and then bakers.
The only way out of
this mess is to provide political leadership
for the tough measures that
Gono needs to adopt to halt rising expenditure
and to increase production,
especially that geared to exports. But given the
refusal of the regime to
stop seizing farms, stop subverting the rule of
law, stop giving this
country a damaging reputation abroad, and stop
behaving badly towards those
who, unlike the government, do have solutions
to offer, there will be no end
to the fiscal chaos and therefore no
recovery.
If Gono
and Murerwa are genuinely committed to working together
to bring sanity to
the current situation, why on earth can't they spell out
what needs to be
done? Or is the answer: in the present circumstances,
nothing. It will just
go on getting worse?
This depressing conclusion, obvious to
most, should be driven
home to the party faithful in Goromonzi this weekend
who evidently think we
need more of the same.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Dumisani
Muleya
THERE is an expression for describing deceit and
mischief. It is
called "monkey business". Looking at the Zanu PF conference
which officially
opens today in Goromonzi, we may find that there is a great
deal of monkey
business going on.
The political
shenanigans of the embattled Zanu PF regime are
being advertised in
Goromonzi via the proposal to postpone the presidential
election to 2010
under the pretext of holding it simultaneously with the
parliamentary
poll.
The background to this Zanu PF monkey business is
interesting.
President Robert Mugabe is currently in a rat's cage because of
his
leadership and policy failures. He has become a hostage to his overstay
in
power and is just hanging around even if he may want to leave. He is in a
cul de sac.
In the meantime, his beleaguered regime is
reeling from the
current political and economic meltdown. Mugabe and his
government cut
lonely figures in the international arena. This explains why
Mugabe now has
to align himself with communist and former communist
countries. Although he
had always tried to be close to them, he also used to
enjoy the benefaction
of Western countries, Britain in particular, which he
no longer does.
Russia, China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea -
some of them
outposts of tyranny, at least according to the Americans -
feature
prominently in his roll call of friends. Mugabe is also trying to
play close
to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as well.
In Africa, Mugabe has lost his friendship with Libya's Muammar
Gadaffi,
apparently over failed fuel deals and Gadaffi's shift towards the
West.
Among neighbours, there is no love lost between
Mugabe and South
African President Thabo Mbeki. The leaders of Zambia,
Mozambique, and
Botswana are at best indifferent, at worst
frosty.
In fact, in the Sadc region Mugabe seems to have lost
most
friends. The recent Lesotho summit was instructive. Mugabe had to beat
a
hasty retreat from the meeting after his regional counterparts tabled
Zimbabwe, alongside Swaziland, Africa's remaining absolute monarchy, as hot
spots which deserve special attention.
At the African
Union meeting in July, Zimbabwe was also an
issue. In September at the
United Nations General Assembly in New York,
Mugabe took pot shots at
Western countries over their role in the current
global order, but his
undiplomatic comments - even though they may have had
some merit - failed to
win new friends. Chavez did it better.
It is against this
background that Zanu PF is going to adopt the
2010 proposal in an attempt to
rescue its leader from the hole he has dug
for himself. The idea of the 2010
initiative - which the Zimbabwe
Independent first revealed in May last year
- was to begin with a very
simple issue.
Initially, the
proposal was meant to postpone the presidential
election to 2010 by amending
the constitution to ensure that when Mugabe
quits in 2008 (he had promised
to do so although he is now backtracking), an
interim president (Joice
Mujuru) was appointed by parliament to act from
2008 to 2010 when elections
would be held together. This was premised on the
assumption that Mujuru was
Mugabe's anointed successor.
As part of this Mugabe
succession agenda, the senate was revived
to manage the issue. The original
intention was to have the senate for five
years between 2005 and 2010. A new
constitution crafted by the current
parliament would then be introduced
before the 2010 polls.
Mujuru would then be the Zanu PF
candidate after consolidating
herself as interim president for two years. It
was assumed in that case she
could win. Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa
was in charge of the project.
But now it seems there are new dimensions to
the succession monkey business.
Mugabe appears to have a new game plan.
Mujuru no longer seems to be the
anointed successor. Some say Mugabe took
her for a ride when he made it
appear she was going to be the next president
during the 2004 Zanu PF
congress.
This happened to
Emmerson Mnangagwa before. He was led to think
he was the anointed one, but
in 2004 things changed dramatically. In the
aftermath of the Tsholotsho
episode, Mugabe supported Mujuru and even asked
his party congress whether
it wanted her to only end up as vice-president,
suggesting she deserved
ascendancy to the top.
New dynamics have emerged. Zanu PF
chairman John Nkomo has come
out in the open to declare his presidential
ambitions. Nkomo's remarks
appear sponsored for a purpose. It appears
Mugabe's political handiwork was
at play here.
The
Reserve Bank governor is now also being touted as a possible
candidate. He
is straddling the political arena as a gladiator due to his
central role in
the economy. But Zanu PF hawks must be anxiously watching
his moves.Simba
Makoni, who recently fired a salvo of sharp comments
criticising African
leaders apparently to try to remain visible from
Botswana, may well still be
in the picture even though some think his
chances are too slim. Sydney
Sekeramayi is still hanging in there. But he is
so inscrutable as to be
virtually invisible. This creates a puzzle.
Mugabe seems to
be the main beneficiary of the 2010 project
because it is understood he will
become ceremonial president in 2008 when he
re-introduces the post of prime
minister. But will Mugabe not end up as life
president through such monkey
business?
Zim Independent
Muckraker
THE implementation period of the
National Economic Development
Priority Programme (NEDPP) is to be extended,
it has been announced. This is
to ensure meeting "some" of its
targets.
"We had a number of targets that we have set," an
unnamed
government official told the Herald. "Some were achieved but some
were not
achieved fully."
So the programme will be
extended before the latest blueprint,
the Zimbabwe Economic Development
Strategy, is launched early next year.
This is all very
curious. Which targets have not been "achieved
fully"? Indeed, what targets
have been achieved at all?
NEDPP was designed as a quick fix
that would guarantee a
turnaround in six months. It did not happen. The
US$2,5 billion in
investment did not materialise. None of the public
corporations slated for
sale was offloaded, and there was no fall in
inflation.
NEDPP was a failure by any definition. Above all,
captains of
industry whose cooperation was sought were sidelined and in some
cases
imprisoned for conducting their businesses.
Now we
face ZEDS which will be touted as another miracle cure
which, given the
absence of sound policies, is likely to meet the same fate.
The macroeconomic environment is as unstable as ever, forex
revenues are
drying up, and just to show how committed it is to attracting
investment the
government plans to help itself to 51% of those companies
that have stayed
the course. It is a severe assault on the private sector
and will be seen as
such abroad. Nothing more clearly indicates that the
regime is not serious
about economic recovery. And meanwhile we will be told
that all will be well
next year, just as we were told all would be well this
year!
Just how urgently Zimbabwe needs to reform its
public media was
indicated by an advertisement placed in the Herald on
Monday by Zimpapers'
advertising department. The Sunday Mail, it said, would
publish a special
supplement on the ruling party's National People's
conference to be held in
Goromonzi. It is that time of the year when the
ruling party deliberates on
economic and political issues, we are
told.
"We therefore call upon all patriotic companies,
organisations,
and individuals to place congratulatory messages in support
of the people's
party."
This, let us remind ourselves,
was not Zanu PF buying space in
the national press. It was the state media
offering free advertising to one
political party and inviting companies and
organisations to pay for it.
This represents a serious abuse
of power by the ruling party and
the public media that needs placing on
record. The public media, as the name
suggests, is a publicly-owned
enterprise. It should not be placed at the
disposal of any single party or
the state. Above all, it should not be used
for partisan
claims.
What "congratulatory" messages can we expect? That
inflation of
1 098% is a world record? That unemployment at 80% is the worst
ever in the
country's history? That investors are staying away in droves?
That
agricultural production is 40% of what it was in
2000?
It's not likely. Instead we should expect a pattern of
dishonesty that is already evident in the state media. The country will be
told that the invisible "turnaround" is just around the corner and that
"recovery" can be expected in 2007.
How gullible do you
have to be to swallow these claims?
The question should
be put to our colleagues in the state media.
How can you believe a minister
who for four straight years has got his
forecasts for the economy completely
wrong, who knows perfectly well that
there will be no growth or recovery so
long as this government is in power,
yet stands up in the House and makes
unsustainable claims for inflation and
agricultural
production?
Is it not the duty of a journalist to be
sceptical, rather than
gullible, about official claims, especially those
that prove to be wrong
time after time?
How often does a
minister have to get it wrong before government
reporters stop seeing
sunshine at the end of his tunnel?
How many workers do you
see walking around with smiles on their
faces?
"Hard-pressed workers had reason to smile", we were told, after
government
"injected more money into their pockets" by raising the tax-free
threshold
to $100 000.
Can the author of this fantasy please produce a
worker who
thinks this is going to make one iota of difference to his
miserable life!
Can we find a single serious economist who thinks the
economy will grow by
0,5%-1%.
Zanu PF apologist
Jonathan Kadzura was on Monday claiming in the
Herald that we have "a media
regime in this country that with all purposes
and intent is bent on
destroying the good (sic) party".
It was unfair to talk about
corruption, he wrote, unless facts
on the ground supported the allegations.
"Our people must at all times
demand to know the truth."
And are they getting "the truth" about the economy from
ministers and party
spokesmen, from the Herald and Sunday Mail, from the ZBC
and The Voice? Are
these media eunuchs of the regime's arthritic sultanate
telling the people
that corruption is now endemic in the country, that this
regime has been
stoking the fires of inflation by failing to curtail its
incontinent
expenditure, that international agencies are having to come to
the rescue
because the country can no longer feed itself? And that all this
is due to
the delinquency and dead-end policies of a regime that rules by
brutality
and deceit?
We agree with Kadzura. There is an absolute need
for the media
to tell the truth about the mess we are in and who is
responsible. No more
lies!
One of Zimbabwe's
achievements, Kadzura claims, was to deliver
democracy to the
DRC.
Zimbabwe, we need to remind ourselves, intervened in the
Congo
in 1998 to prop up the dictatorship of Laurent Kabila. It was
supported by
Angola and Namibia but opposed by South Africa and every other
Sadc state
despite helpful statements from the grouping's Organ on Defence
and Security
which was manipulated, as the South Africans feared it would
be, by
President Mugabe to provide an impression of
solidarity.
Mugabe was noticeably absent from last week's
swearing-in of
Joseph Kabila. Instead he was attending an ACP meeting in the
Sudan. While
the ACP meeting was important, it produced little of value for
Zimbabwe: no
resolution of solidarity, not even any resonance for Mugabe's
posturing on
Iraq. So why not go to Kinshasa instead and bask in the
gratitude of the
Congolese nation? Why send a representative who was not
even a
vice-president?
Muckraker's information is that
Mugabe is less than pleased with
Kabila. Not only has there been no public
recognition of the role Zimbabwe,
Angola and Namibia played in propping up
his father, there has been no
dividend on Harare's political and military
investment. Instead the pesky
South Africans have been gorging themselves on
the Congo cake.
Worse still, we gather, Kabila has adopted
the advice of his
Western backers to have nothing to do with the polecat
regime in Harare.
Which is why we haven't seen much of
him.
It is all extremely galling for a leader whom Walter
Mzembi
insists journalists should regard as a hero.
The
Zimbabwe story would never be complete, he told the Masvingo
Press Club,
"without the due portrayal of President Mugabe as a hero with
the interests
of his country at heart".
It is good to see some MPs have
retained their sense of humour
in these trying times! Mzembi claimed that
"miracles" like land reform were
not getting the attention they deserved
from the media. This media
delinquency, he appeared to suggest, had led to
Aippa.
So all is clear. We need to say more about
government's miracles
or else!
Has anyone told the
Daily Mirror yet about the difference
between to wreck and to wreak? It is
the latter that usually causes havoc.
Mirror subs have
perhaps been attending the Gweru private
college which recently advertised
for "lectrurers". It wanted "part-time
academis and professional". Phone
"bedrore" 12 December, it urged.
We understand their need for
urgency!
Meanwhile, Muckraker acknowledges that we got it
wrong on
Pollyanna. It was written by Eleanor H Porter, not Mark Twain as an
alert
reader pointed out.
We would in turn like to point
out to Caesar Zvayi that
President Bush is not a candidate in the 2008 US
presidential poll (Herald,
November 29). The Herald's political editor
should know that ever since
Franklin Roosevelt, US presidents cannot serve
more than two terms. So Zvayi's
entire article, "Bush abusing Luther King's
memory" in order to secure
re-election was based on a false
premise.
News reports suggest senior Zanu PF leaders in
Manicaland nearly
traded punches last weekend over whether to hold
simultaneous presidential
and parliamentary elections in 2010 or to bring
the polls forward to 2008.
Provincial chairman Enock Porusingazi came in for
some abuse when he
suggested holding the polls in 2008.
"Who sent you, who is your master?" delegates shouted. He was
accused of
"plotting against the president".
Porusingazi is associated
with the faction supporting Emmerson
Mnangagwa.
But the
hostility didn't stop there, ZimOnline reported.
Provincial heavyweight and
party secretary for administration Didymus
Mutasa, who is not aligned to
either contestant in the current power
struggle, came in for his share of
abuse.
He had to flee the venue of the meeting after a group
of
officials threatened to beat him up, the online news agency reported. A
visibly angry Zanu PF Senator Mandi Chimene told Mutasa: "You are a good for
nothing man, you are divisive and you don't carry the wishes of the province
with you when you are at headquarters. Today we will teach you a
lesson."
As other female officials ululated and urged Chimene
to finish
him off, the elderly security minister beat a hasty retreat, we
are told.
While Zanu PF has a reputation for being vicious
towards its
opponents, what we sometimes forget is that the party's members
can be even
more vicious towards each other! But at least its apologists
admit that it
is intellectually moribund.
"When a party
does not deviate from its vision 31 years down the
line and when it
consistently implements resolutions reached three decades
ago, its members
have every reason to celebrate," Zvayi tells us.
Every reason
to celebrate a structural inability to respond to
the imperatives of a very
different world to that obtaining in 1975? To
celebrate being left behind by
the rest of the region in terms of
development and progress? What sort of
celebration is that?
We should feel sorry for the infirm and
the blind. But not this
lot!
Zim Independent
By Eric
Bloch
IT is becoming evermore apparent that the
Zimbabwean
presidential advisors are either grossly ill-informed (and
therefore do not
inform the president correctly), or misguidedly or with
ill-intent
deliberately mis-advise the president.
Admittedly, this is not a totally new phenomenon, for it has
prevailed to
some extent ever since Independence, but it appears to be
becoming more and
more pronounced, with increasing frequency. Regrettably,
not only does that
occasion potential embarrassment for the president all
too often, but it
also impacts very negatively upon policy formulation to
the potential great
prejudice of all Zimbabweans.
Last week, if the
state-controlled media is to believed, there
were two prime examples of the
president having either been the recipient of
disinformation, or having been
given appallingly poor advice, or both. The
first evidenced itself when he
spoke at Lupane where he launched a vicious
attack upon his Minister of
Finance, Dr Herbert Murerwa.
In his 2007 budget statement,
the minister had intimated
agreement between the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) and government that the
central bank would discontinue engagement in
quasi-fiscal activities, and
that the state would now, belatedly, meet its
obligations by engaging in
such activities.
However, he
made it clear that government's undertaking of
quasi-fiscal activities would
be continued to the extent that would avoid
recourse to borrowings from the
RBZ, and would not necessitate the printing
of money, as such funding
strategies are highly inflationary.
Undoubtedly on the back
of advice received, the president
vitriolically attacked Murerwa for
qualifying the governmental expenditure
intents by stating that they would
be limited to available funding without
resorting to the printing of money.
The president accused the minister of
adhering to "bookish" economics, for
many of the world's leading economists
have oft written in their books that
governmental printing of money fuels
inflation. Instead, the president
contended that printing of money is fully
justified if the printed money is
used to create productive resources. It
would appear that he, or more
probably his advisors, are resorting to
"bookish" economics, for that
concept is straight out of the misguided,
ill-conceived, and destructive
economic philosophies of Karl Marx, Lenin,
Mao-Tse-Tung, Fidel Castro, and
others of that ilk, all of whom very
successfully destroyed their countries'
economies.
In contradistinction, countries that have pursued
the economic
theories enunciated by Keynes, Friedman, and other renowned
Western
economists, have had more economic successes than failures, and
those
economists have been outspoken as to the devastating consequences of
uncontrolled, excessive printing of money.
They have been
equally critical of central banks being engaged
in quasi-fiscal activities,
for such activities are the responsibility of
governments and not of
monetary authorities. Over the last three years the
RBZ was so engaged out
of desperation for the essential operations of the
economy in the absence of
government fulfilling its duties and obligations,
but has energetically
sought to have government do so, and one of the few
positives of the budget
speech was the minister's declaration that the state
would now do that which
it should have done, but not to a counterproductive
extent as would result
from irresponsible printing of money.
But, instead of
recognising the positivness of the minister's
statement, the president
contends that productive usage of excessively
printed money justifies such
printing. Unfortunately, he was evidently not
informed by his advisors that
the consequential hyperinflation created by
the over-money supply would
wholly negate the benefits of the funded
productivity and worsen further
Zimbabwe's distraught economy.
There was so much that was bad
in Zimbabwe's 2007 budget that it
is tragic that one of its few positives
should be so resoundingly condemned
by one so authoritive as the president
for, if his stated wishes are
pursued, the world-record hyperinflation that
is fuelling endless misery for
most Zimbabweans can only become ever
greater, and his Minister of Finance
can only become totally demoralised and
demotivated, in contradistinction to
his present undoubted wish to halt and
reverse the Zimbabwean economic
demise.
The president
also launched a scathing attack upon the
Zimbabwean business community. He
castigated the captains of commerce and
industry for the endless price
increases which are so manifest in the
Zimbabwean economy. He accused them
of profiteering, of exploitation of the
helpless populace, and of intense
avarice in complete disregard for the
consequential hardships suffered by
the masses.
Clearly his advisors are telling him that
Zimbabwe's inflation
is a direct result of greed on the part of producers
and retailers. That
their costs are rising exponentialy and continuously has
nothing to do with
price increases if the presidential attack upon the
business community is
accepted.
The reality is that
industry has suffered monumentally increased
costs of production. First of
all, volumes of production have unavoidably
contracted immensely, in part
due to lesser domestic market demand, and in
part due to non-viability in
export markets, but to the greatest degree due
to inadequate availability of
manufacturing inputs. But fixed costs and
overheads do not decline when
volumes of production fall, and hence the
costs per unit produced
unavoidably increase considerably.
Concurrently, the same
inflation that impacts upon consumers
also affects the manufacturer. Zesa
regularly increases its charges for
electricity. Local authorities similarly
increase charges for rates, water,
sewerage and refuse removal, and other
services. Wages rise quarterly, or
more frequently. Input costs soar upwards
and especially so in the case of
imported inputs. Wholesalers and retailers
are similarly affected by
continuously rising costs.
Thus, the alternatives available to business enterprises are
either to
increase prices, and to do so with very great frequency, or to
close their
businesses. The latter means not only great losses to the owners
of the
businesses, but unemployment for their personnel, prejudice to their
suppliers, scarcities to the populace, and even lesser inflows to the
fiscus. But government does not accept those realities. Instead, it persists
with price controls, with the imprisonment of businessmen for doing that
which is necessary for the survival of their businesses, and essential if
the populace is to obtain essential commodities, and with its foolhardy
intent to establish, at unaffordable costs, a national Prices and Incomes
Stabilisation Commission.
All these negative,
economically destructive, government
policies are reinforced and intensified
by presidential statements which
fail to recognise economic realties (and
does so discriminately, for he did
not criticise parastatals for their
equally endless raising of prices, or
his own government for its increases
in charges for health services, tourism
fees and so forth. When the private
sector raises prices, it is driven by
greed, according to the president, but
by implication if the state does so,
it is driven by legitimate
need!).
It is time that the presidential advisors start
giving the
president facts, instead of that which they believe he wishes to
hear, and
that they advise him appropriately. In the alternative, it is time
for the
president to recognise, insofar as their advices are concerned, that
it's
not so, and the realities are totally different to that which he is
told.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
THE people of Zimbabwe should be
grateful to Finance minister
Herbert Murerwa for forcing a disclosure of the
murky operations of the
cabinet. It's not a pretty
picture.
After Murerwa called for an end to the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe's
"quasi-fiscal operations", RBZ governor Gideon Gono was forced
to make a
detailed rebuttal saying he was following instructions issued by
Murerwa
according to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Act.
The truth is that Gono was not acting unilaterally nor was he
doing anything
illegal. He was obeying instructions from Murerwa which,
based on the
principle of collective responsibility, means Gono was
following cabinet
instructions regardless of whether Murerwa supported them
or not. It is a
picture of a government in total disarray.
What we find
astounding is that both Gono and Murerwa authorised
the financial
disbursements which they were fully aware were outside the
national budget
and therefore against all known principles of accounting.
These are
aberrations that go beyond legality. There are things called
principles in
every field.
The disbursements expose a government that has
run out of
resources but will not admit its policy failures. From the
correspondence
between the RBZ and the Ministry of Finance one is left in no
doubt that we
are a country facing a dire national emergency yet in public
an illusion is
created that there is no crisis, only
"challenges".
The land reform programme was badly executed
and is the biggest
cause of the negative supply side response that has hit
every facet of the
economy - from capacity underutilisation in industry to
food shortages. The
demands for winter wheat financing and the repair of
irrigation equipment
only confirm this. But there are no resources and the
Reserve Bank is forced
to literally "pluck dollars" from trees to meet
executive orders to provide
money - hence Gono's painful observation that
"quasi-fiscal operations are a
necessary and unavoidable feature of crisis
periods".
What we still find unbelievable is that while
cabinet was making
these irrational demands on the Reserve Bank, Gono
pretended it was still
possible to meet his fantasyland inflation targets.
How do you achieve that
when you fund the Grain Marketing Board's purchase
of wheat from farmers for
$237 913 per tonne and then sell it to millers for
a paltry $12 339? True,
this might not be "bookish economics" but it looks
worse in terms of
attaining the Reserve Bank's own targets for inflation and
the Ministry of
Finance's estimates of expenditure. Populist policies are
the enemy of
financial prudence and we have become past-masters at spending
what we don't
have.
Murerwa might have suddenly realised
that what cabinet was doing
was making the economy worse but the truth is
that it was him and Gono who
played truant, for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
Act is very clear on the
role of the central bank and the powers of the
governor. The Zimbabwe dollar
has lost all integrity as a medium of exchange
under Gono and Murerwa.
More than that, the public spat
between Gono and the Minister of
Finance has only strengthened the
perception of a dysfunctional government.
While Gono must take his orders
from the minister, President Mugabe had no
hesitation in supporting the
governor against his cabinet minister by
attacking as "nonsensical" and
"bookish economics" Murerwa's criticism of
the RBZ's quasi-fiscal
operations. In other words Gono can print as much
money as government wants
and debase our currency as much as he wants so
long as these activities
purchase government another day in power. Where has
devaluation ever worked
when you have nothing to export and a million things
to
import?
At the national level, these policy contradictions
have been
more damaging. They expose the need for an autonomous Reserve Bank
whose
operations are not subject to the caprices of delinquent
politicians.
There is a clear case of Gono "conforming
against conviction" in
most of his quasi-fiscal operations because they are
all against his
inflation targets, his turnaround aims and prudent
government expenditure.
There is no point in holding a principle if you
can't say "No" to wrong
instructions even if they are legal. Which is why
failure has become more
than just a perception.
In
response to Murerwa's strictures on the RBZ's quasi-fiscal
operations, Gono
said there was no point in "conforming without conviction",
which I took as
a rebuff of Murerwa's position. But that is what he has been
doing printing
money to support government's over-expenditure which feeds
his number one
enemy - inflation. Unless he wants to tell us he is
"convinced" that is how
the best economies are run, in which case we plead
for God's
mercy.
The result is that the nation has been subjected to a
lot of
duplicity and political mendacity characterised by a bewildering
rapidity of
policy changes. The aim is to confuse the nation while selling
the charade
that somebody is dealing with an economic crisis that has left
Zimbabweans
poorer than has ever been recorded.
Gono's
implausible excuse for his interventions is that he doesn't
want to play the
"blame game". He says he wants to get the job done and
avert a national
disaster. But that assumes that the nation has limitless
resources, a
negation of the foundation on which economics as a study is
based.
The philosophical basis of that position is
amoral. It is to
invent a blanket excuse for failure to perform, a form of
blackmail to
others that if you expose me I will expose you. It is a refusal
to account
for the use or abuse of national resources. How is such a
principle
compatible with his position that as a bank they require borrowers
to
account for all the money they get from the RBZ?
Probe rot at Gateway
I WRITE to urge the Minister of
Education to investigate Gateway
Schools forthwith.
On
December 5 I attended what I thought was going to be a
meeting between
parents and representatives of Gateway Schools. But alas!
the riot act was
read to us in no more than 10 minutes, wherein costs
estimates were
highlighted - 73% of the costs were in respect of staff
expenses while only
5% related to teaching expenses (whatever this means).
All
along I thought the core business of schools is to teach and
not support an
extravagant staff complement that awards itself
inflation-adjusted salaries
each time fees are reviewed. All costs,
including salaries, were projected
after adjusting for inflation.
How many people in this
country are getting inflation-adjusted
salaries? Isn't this one of the
hidden causes of inflation in view of the
fact that we don't see signs of
productive activities at the schools?
Quizzed on how the
imposed figures of $897 000 for sixth form
and slightly lower amounts for
other classes reconcile with the recent
published fees list for all schools
by the minister, we were advised that
the minister's list was of no
consequence.
We were also advised that the fees were not
debatable before we
were quickly dismissed.
During a
prize-giving ceremony on the same day, prefects for
2007 were shown to the
parents. To my utter amazement, 75% of the prefects
are of a particular
race.
Further, why is it that the head-boy is always from the
same
race while a ceremonial head-girl is of the other race, just to pacify
the
discriminated?
Teachers from the high school recently
expressed concern at
alleged racism in the form of salaries for one race
being pegged at higher
levels than the other race.
This
nonsense must stop, minister!
We as parents do not mind
footing all the bills that add value
to the development of our children, but
we need to be respected.
We need disclosure of adequate
information. We are prepared to
pay fees that are higher than your
stipulated levels if the above issues are
addressed following an
investigation.
Maybe Anti-Corruption minister Munyaradzi
Mangwana should get
involved as well.
Gateway teachers
must understand that they are in Zimbabwe and
that some of us are not
prepared to foot bills for external holidays for
some senior members of
staff!
The school could do itself good by appointing a person
with
public relations expertise.
Utterly
Disgruntled,
Harare.
--------
Where's parly when Gono gets this
loose?
ON December 3, we were treated to another of
those
attention-seeking antics by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor,
Gideon
Gono, in the Sunday Mail and Sunday Mirror ("mirror" to the Sunday
Mail and
the Herald).
Just imagine a national
newspaper like the Sunday Mail
carrying an ordinary announcement as its lead
story on the front page - that
another monetary statement will be in January
2007!
Is it not obvious that it should come at the end
of each
quarter?
Has the editor gone bananas to
stroke Gono's ego by
allowing him to waffle on two
pages?
Have you also discovered that the stories on and
about the
governor, whenever covered by the Sunday Mail, are always by the
political
desk headed by Munyaradzi Huni instead of the business
desk?
Related, in October he took up two pages of the
Herald to
talk to himself about everything and
everyone.
Following his closure of money transfer
agencies (MTAs),
some of which he is relicensing now without reasonable
cause, the governor
once more flip-flopped.
It is
now apparent that he was either seeking attention or
out to fix some people
whom he would not re-license.
Ordinarily, if he has
good reasons, he would have closed
those MTAs which he is now not
re-licensing without behaving like a bull in
a China
shop.
But no, he acts like a heavily armed
child-soldier. Is it
not amazing that those closed MTAs did not approach the
Administrative Court
for redress?
Gono has too much
unbridled and unconstrained powers
beyond his monetary role! Where did he
get them and where is our parliament
when we need it
most?
L Mhaka,
Harare.
---------
Mugabe a
principled leader
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is the
symbol of a
revolutionary and could be compared to Fidel Castro of
Cuba.
Even when the economic turf is
characterised by
suffering of the country's citizens, principle should
always be the factor
to determine the leader's
course.
Mugabe has always shown that he is a real
nationalist by standing firm and refusing to be swayed by sanctions imposed
by Western imperialists.
Land should never be
exchanged for a few dollars or
any conditional investments. What happens
when you at some point don't play
to their
tune?
African leaders begging for Western
investments
should be cautious never to sell their land. Western
imperialists have the
propensity to drive Africans to unfertile land where
eventually they are
labelled squatters.
Aubrey Chindefu,
Lusaka,Zambia.
--------
Mutambara will guide MDC to promised
land
IT is true that most of the
anti-senate poll
supporters have urged Morgan Tsvangirai to swallow his
pride and join MDC
president Professor Arthur Mutambara and his powerful,
focused, determined
and steadfast leadership of Gibson Sibanda, Professor
Welshman Ncube,
Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Fletcher Dulini Ncube,
Esaph Mdlongwa and
other tried and tested leaders in the mould of Job
Sikhala and Gabriel
Chaibva.
Tsvangirai
and Tendai Biti made their
positions clear on unity and any genuine democrat
should embrace their
position on unity.
As the MDC we are not desperate for Tsvangirai
because we already have
Mutambara as Zimbabwe's next president after
Mugabe.
The MDC is not opposed to unity as
long as it
is done in good faith. Mutambara has a working game
plan.
The anti-senate's Stone Age strategy
of
dancing and singing (politics dzokudzana nekuimba dzegore remhashu
hadzishandi) will never work.
We
settled for Mutambara because he has the
vision and strategy to take the MDC
to the promised land.
Kurauone
Chihwayi,
Harare.
---------
Shun this bogus
body
BOGUS trade unions such as the
Zimbabwe
Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU) are an appendage of Zanu PF,
created to
derail people's projects.
Workers should not recognise the existence
of the ZFTU or its affiliates led
by Nicholas Mazarura.
Mazarura and
Kennias Shamuyarira are
registered Zanu PF officials whose bogus trade
unions are sinking at the
same time as Zanu
PF.
Demonstrations by the combined Harare
Residents Association (CHRA) and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
should mark the beginning of mass resistance in
Zimbabwe.
No amount of intimidation shall
stop the
people of this country from expressing themselves. We shall
continue to give
President Mugabe a good run for his
money.
Informed,
Harare.
---------
We're being taken for a
ride
I STILL cannot believe Gideon Gono
maintains
that he has not yet drawn a cent of his salary and that he is
working for
the "national good".
This
means several things. Even the
president draws a salary, and what he does
with it is his business. By
saying he is working for the national interest
is this upstart hinting that
taking a salary means that one does not have
the nation at heart?
So Mr President,
your golden boy is calling
you a money lover who is only serving the state
for money.
The man has children in
school, he eats, he
lives somewhere, he buys clothing (we hope), where does
he get the money to
fund all that?
We
hear through rumours he has a child in
Australia! Is he trying to tell us
that his children are destitute, that his
daughters have to sell their
bodies to get food perhaps?
Girl Child
Network where are you, you have a
public figure admitting to neglecting his
daughters "for the national good".
We are
in serious trouble if the man who is
trying to fix the economy is doing so
without a letter of appointment. This
shows that he has no mandate from
anyone to run the central bank or anything
else and I believe parliament can
rightly call him to book over his
statement as he has not been
appointed.
His statement is a clear
revelation that no
one is in charge anymore. If a man can hold a job for
three years with no
remuneration how is he expected to remunerate his own
staff? Or are they
also on national
duty?
If the people will believe this,
you will
believe anything!
And if it
is true, the IMF might just have
got it wrong that inflation will be over 4
000% next year, they probably
meant 5 000% or more, because clearly there is
no idea on how to run a
normal economic system
anymore.
David
King,
South
Africa.
--------
Robertson is
right
I REFER to the opinion article
titled "New
farmers require subsidies from government" by John Robertson
(Independent,
December 8).
I
congratulate Robertson for his extremely
well-researched document that gave
an accurate reality check to what is
obviously a very poorly constructed
lease document.
It is clear that anyone
with sound, rational
business sense would never enter into such a risky
venture. No responsible
bank would lend finance unless security was
available in other off-farm
assets.
Security taken over machinery attracts a
much higher interest rate than the
rates offered on freehold land.
To borrow
money at these higher interest
rates is often uneconomic in crop or
livestock farming.
It is a well-known
fact that large sums of
money are required to operate an economically
sustainable farm unit.
Not in a thousand
years will this lease
document have the security to attract the borrowings
necessary to
efficiently run a good farming operation. In fact, this
document will only
attract those with bad judgement or more money than
sense.
In addition to what Robertson
says, any
potential lessee must realise that the document is not worth the
paper it is
written on.
The
"certificate of no interest" issued by
this same regime comes to mind. A
substantial proportion of farms in
Zimbabwe changed hands after
Independence.
Firstly, the vendors had to
offer the farm
to the government. If the government did not want the farm,
they issued this
"no-interest" certificate and the owner was free to sell
his/her farm to
anyone in the market
place.
Holders of this certificate soon
found out
the hard way once the government- sponsored land invasions began.
The
"certificate of no interest" was not worth the paper it was written
on.
So, no matter what the terms of the
lease
are, this regime never honours any agreement. For those who take up
the
99-year lease, don't say you were never
warned.
Peter
Nyoni,
Harare.
---------
Reject Zanu PF
ploy
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's latest
ploy to
extend his term of office to 2010 must be rejected by all patriotic
Zimbabweans who want a new Zimbabwe characterised by freedom, prosperity and
democracy.
The Zanu PF mouthpieces
have now confirmed
the people's suspicions that Mugabe's term, which expires
in 2008, will be
extended to allow him to continue ruining the country until
2010.
This is unadulterated
constitutional fraud.
Presidential terms are six-year terms; even under the
current defective
constitution, and Zimbabweans demand to know on whose
mandate Zanu PF seeks
to extend an illegitimacy that will mete out further
punishment on the
people.
The MDC
reiterates its position that only a
new people-driven constitution and not
piecemeal amendments by Zanu PF, is
the panacea to the crisis of legitimacy
and governance facing this regime.
Mugabe
should not be allowed to abuse a
controversial and technical majority in
parliament to buy himself a safe
exit. He is an illegitimate president whose
incumbency is being challenged
in court. He now wants to use his
parliamentary technical majority, which is
being challenged through several
electoral petitions that are yet to be
heard, to buy himself a further two
years in office.
Zimbabwe cannot have an
illegitimate
president using an illegitimate technical majority to seek
further tenancy
at State House. The regime simply wants to buy more time to
handle its
contentious and divisive succession drama that has turned out to
be a
real-life "soap opera".
The MDC
believes that seeking a further
extension of his term through parliament is
tantamount to Zanu PF turning an
internal succession squabble into a
national crisis. Zanu PF is unelectable,
leaderless, divided and
candidateless. In short, Zanu PF is a party in
crisis.
The MDC leadership,
supporters and the
people of Zimbabwe shall not allow a unilateral
declaration of a Zanu
PF-imposed coup on the wishes of the majority. The
country is bigger than
Zanu PF. Zimbabwe belongs to all its people who are
the ultimate authority
in the governance of the
country.
All political parties, the
churches, labour
unions, students, civic groups and the generality of
Zimbabweans must demand
that Zimbabwe adopts a people-driven constitution
that should lead to free
and fair elections under international supervision.
We believe that Mugabe's
time is nigh and that all patriotic Zimbabweans
must heed the call to save
our
country.
Change demands action. Our
country deserves
better. A new Zimbabwe is
inevitable.
Nelson
Chamisa,
MDC Secretary
for
Information and
Publicity.
----------
Confidence in police force at
lowest ebb
By Ndini
Zvangu
WITH all due respect to the
senior police
officer in charge of Harare Central district, I just want to
know: "What do
the cops really do?"
Police in the Avenues area are fast asleep.
They have been for a while, and
if they continue neglecting their duties, it
will be difficult for the
public to take the entire institution
seriously.
A Zesa sub-station in the
Montagu area was
vandalised in the past two months. Approximately 120
families were without
electricity for a
month.
The rate of proliferation of
prostitution
which has spilled over into daytime, gives the impression that
the law
enforcers have practically given up, totally out of
control!
Touts have taken over Fife
Avenue shopping
centre and fights are the order of the
day.
On Sunday a week ago, I witnessed
two fights
in one hour - and guess what - no cop was in sight. One incident
involved a
drunken youth harassing the proprietor of a business at the
shopping centre.
Legitimate business is now under
threat.
Public drinking at Montagu and
Fife avenue
shops goes on unchecked. Vegetable vendors have taken over the
intersection
at Mazowe Street and Josiah Chinamano at the Travel Plaza, and
drivers have
to take extra caution to avoid hitting their customers standing
defiantly
right in the street at that junction as one
approaches.
These are the observations of
one person and
if you opened a direct hotline to your office you would be
inundated. In
fact, an opinion survey among people living in this district
would reveal
that confidence in the force is at its
lowest.
What should residents do to
regain peace of
mind? We also expect effective representation on these
concerns from the
"responsible" MP.
*
Ndini Zvangu is a pen name for a writer
based in Harare.