Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
IN an
unprecedented move, Zanu PF MPs have secretly launched a
"Stop Mugabe
Campaign" in a bid to prevent President Robert Mugabe from
extending his
current six-year term by two more years to 2010.
This is the
first time since Mugabe came to power 26 years ago
that Zanu PF MPs - who
are notorious for rubber-stamping their leader's
unilateral decisions - are
standing up to him.
The sources said Zanu PF officials have
now decided to mobilise
their own MPs to block Mugabe's controversial plan
to amend the constitution
to extend his tenure by two extra
years.
The bid to block Mugabe bears the hallmarks of events
which have
happened before in Zambia, Malawi and Kenya within founding
ruling parties
due to their leaders clinging on to power.
Sources said the initiative - dubbed the "Stop Mugabe
Campaign" - which
followed the party's ill-fated Goromonzi conference last
weekend where the
election proposal was effectively blocked - was calculated
to secure the
support of at least 10 Zanu MPs to work with the opposition
MDC in
parliament to thwart the plan.
Blocking the plan would stop
Mugabe from extending his already
lengthy term to 2010 and force him to quit
in 2008. If he decides to offer
himself for re-election, sources say, he
could face an open internal revolt.
The MDC factions have 41
MPs in the lower house of parliament
where there is also one independent
legislator. To prevent Mugabe's proposal
which needs a two-thirds majority -
or 100 votes - from passing in the lower
house, at least 51 MPs must vote
against it.
Zanu PF currently has a technical - not numerical
- two-thirds
majority in the lower house of parliament. However, the party
enjoys the
support of 12 appointed MPs, 10 hand-picked governors and eight
chiefs.
The ruling party has a clear two-thirds majority in
the senate
although the amendment would not go to the upper house if blocked
in the
House of Assembly.
Zanu PF claims it wants to
harmonise the presidential and
parliamentary elections in 2010 to save money
and simplify electoral
logistics. This has been rejected as self-serving by
senior Zanu PF members
who want elections in 2008. Zanu PF camps led by
retired army commander
General Solomon Mujuru and politburo bigwig Emmerson
Mnangagwa are opposed
to the proposal. Mujuru openly voiced his protest
during last week's
politburo meeting on Wednesday.
Two
Zanu PF provinces - Harare and Mashonaland East - well-known
to be Mujuru's
strongholds, have rejected the proposal. While eight party
provinces
initially supported the idea, Manicaland and Midlands opposed it
at the
conference.
Senior Zanu PF officials who sat on a committee
to deliberate on
the state of the party at the conference opposed the plan,
although
committee chair Elliot Manyika claimed it was
endorsed.
The conference itself for the first time failed to
come up with
resolutions. Sources said Mugabe was forced to abandon plans to
get the
conference to endorse the proposal due to fears of a looming
internal party
rebellion. Issues on the agenda were referred back to
provinces. Sources
said this was a change of strategy by Mugabe in his bid
to manoeuvre the
proposal through party structures and later through the
central committee.
The plan was largely supported by loyal
women at the conference
and during last week's central committee meeting on
Thursday at which Mugabe
angrily railed against those with presidential
ambitions, warning them to
"stop this nonsense!" He said there were "no
vacancies" for top posts. But
Zanu PF party officials say they will create
the vacancies.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
A COMBINED
opposition MDC, together with 21 civic groups under
the auspices of the Save
Zimbabwe Campaign (SZC), yesterday said it would
lead a nationwide campaign
to oppose President Mugabe's plans to extend his
stay in office until 2010,
saying the move undermined the right of voters to
elect their
leaders.
The campaign led by the two MDC factions is a major
test of the
opposition's ability to lead national resistance to Mugabe's
project.
Observers say this could be an opportunity for the two groupings to
find
common ground after their acrimonious split last year. This is also a
key
test of civic groupings' capacity to mobilise a critical mass to
confront
Mugabe's regime.
Sources said the coalition was
expected to meet in early January
to come up with a strategy to lead the
charge against Mugabe's plan to cling
to power for two more years after his
six-year tenure has expired in 2008.
Welshman Ncube,
secretary general for one of the MDC factions,
called Mugabe's proposal a
"civilian coup". "No person should run the
country without being
constitutionally mandated to do so through an
election. The decision to
unilaterally amend the constitution without
national consensus amounts to a
civilian coup," he told Reuters.
"We will oppose all forms of
coups. The national council of the
MDC will meet in the New Year to decide
on what course of action to take."
Morgan Tsvangirai, who leads the other
faction, on Tuesday issued a
statement in support of the civic groups' move
"to deal with this tyranny".
"We are not going to let this
affront to the people's destiny go
unchallenged," Tsvangirai
said.
SZC, which comprises opposition parties, churches,
student
organisations and civic groups under the chairmanship of the
Christian
Alliance, said it was dismayed by Mugabe's
move.
The coalition of 23 organisations said in a joint
statement that
it would do everything that is "permissible in a democratic
society" to
challenge Zanu PF's intention to deny people the right to elect
leaders of
their choice under a democratic constitutional
dispensation."
The coalition said people should reject
Mugabe's plan to manage
his succession crisis using state
institutions.
Zim Independent
By Andrew Meldrum
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is determined to uphold his repressive
actions using
uniformed forces to thwart any decent.
In his state of the
nation address yesterday, Mugabe told
parliament that he would use state
machinery to crush any voice opposed to
him.
"The country
continues to enjoy peace and tranquility despite
attempts by some misguided
elements to fuel anarchy under the guise of
freedom of expression and
association," Mugabe said. "While the country
respects and affords everyone
the right of assembly and association, the use
of such platforms as tools to
advance the British inspired regime change
agenda cannot be tolerated. Our
law enforcement agents will continue to
thwart such ill-conceived
maneouvres."
Mugabe's statement comes barely four months
after he unleashed
riot police on the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU) leaders, which
left more than a dozen people with
multi-fractures.
His statement yesterday comes as two recent
hard-hitting reports
by human rights groups fingered the police as the
perpetrators of human
rights abuses Zimbabwe.
"The police
have been named as torturers and police premises as
places of torture in
hundreds of cases," stated the Human Rights NGO Forum,
in a report released
earlier this month.
The escalation of police brutality and
the use of arrests as a
political weapon by the government were also
documented in a separate report
by the Solidarity Peace Trust, which was
released in Johannesburg last week.
The torture by police is
often carried out by senior officers,
it is claimed. Since 2000, officers of
the rank of sergeant or above have
been named as perpetrating torture in 59
cases while constables have been
identified in 91 cases.
"This refutes government excuses that occasional abuses are
carried out by a
few 'over-zealous' low-level officers," states the Human
Rights
Forum.
A total of 20 624 human rights violations have been
recorded
since July 2001, when the forum first began compiling statistics.
These are
the number of cases, and in many there are several people abused,
so the
number of individuals suffering abuse could be considerably
higher.
The annual totals of abuse have steadily increased,
the Forum
says, from 2 656 in 2004 to 4 170 in 2005 and 5 063 in 2006. The
2006
figures do not include cases from October, November or December, so the
year-end total is expected to be even higher.
"2006 may
record nearly 7 000 violations by the end of the
year," warned the Forum's
report. "Most disturbing is that in 2006 torture
has again increased
markedly."
More than 3 200 cases of torture have been
recorded since 2001.
The highest number of torture cases, 1 172, was
recorded in 2002, the year
of presidential elections. Reported cases of
torture increased from 136 in
2005 to 335 in 2006 through
September.
The Solidarity Peace Trust came to similar
conclusions using
lawyers' records from 38 legal firms in
Zimbabwe.
"State repression escalated in all respects," said
the
Solidarity report. "The Zimbabwe government has reverted to patterns of
state control established under colonialism, including mass arrests in terms
of repressive legislation combined with brutality against
civilians."
The Solidarity report looked at 1 981 police
arrests deemed to
be political.
"These records indicate
that police routinely pick up activists
ahead of planned actions, knowing
that they neither need nor intend to prove
that the arrestee has committed a
crime," said the report.
Nearly 90% of politically motivated
arrests do not result in a
trial and of those that do go to court, only 1,5%
have resulted in
convictions, according to the Solidarity report. Police
brutality has become
routine, with lawyers reporting torture in 33% of the
cases of political
arrest, it says. Defending lawyers often risk assault,
harassment and
incarceration themselves.
Both reports
urged action by regional and international groups
such as the United
Nations, the African Union and Sadc to examine the
allegations of torture by
police and other human rights violations.
Zim Independent
Lucia Makamure
THE much-hyped
Miss Tourism Zimbabwe last weekend in Harare
failed to live up to
expectations amid indications Zanu PF has now hijacked
the
pageant.
The event, marred by poor organisation and
controversy over the
winner, is now widely seen as a political contest due
to interference by
Zanu PF and government officials anxious to extract
mileage from anything
that seems popular.
In recent
years, the increasingly unpopular Zanu PF has been
trying to use popular
social and sporting events such as beauty contests and
football to drum up
support for its failed policies.
The Miss Zimbabwe pageant,
now being run by the Zimbabwe Tourism
Authority (ZTA), has virtually become
a political affair instead of a beauty
contest as the government appears
determined to use the show as an
aggressive marketing tool to revive the
collapsing tourism industry.
Contestants were made to recite
hyperbolic lines on Zimbabwe's
tourist attractions in a bid to revive the
tourism sector that has been
damaged by government policies. Even though
their statements were rehearsed
most contestants failed to relate their
lines as they mumbled incoherent
things due to stage fright. This almost
turned the event into a circus.
ZTA CEO Karikoga Kaseke, a
Zanu PF member, was very active in
putting together the Miss Tourism
Zimbabwe show. Tried and tested beauty
pageant pundits were
sidelined.
The heavy presence of Zanu PF officials such as
Tourism minister
Francis Nhema, President of the Senate Edna Madzongwe,
Deputy Information
minister Bright Matonga, Policy Implementation minister
Webster Shamu, and
Guruve South MP Edward Chindori-Chininga made matters
worse.
Madzongwe was the Guest of Honour at the function,
while Nhema
presented the prizes to the winners. Some disgruntled people
told the
Zimbabwe Independent that they saw the whole function as a waste of
time and
money after failing to get value for their
money.
As if to confirm the pageant was a political carnival,
Chindori-Chininga handed over a birthday present to his wife at the event.
This left many surprised as to why the former minister chose to hand over a
present to his wife at the contest when it was entirely their private family
affair.
To compound matters, there were claims the
pageant - like many
other events where Zanu PF is involved - was rigged.
Finalists who spoke on
condition of anonymity alleged the winner was chosen
in a fraudulent manner,
raising fears that the event has become a murky
affair.
Contacted for comment, Kaseke only said: "Come to my
office on
the matter."
Zim Independent
THE
year 2006 is one which Zimbabweans will not forget in a
hurry due to
economic woes wrought by run-away inflation and political
instability. To
remember the year in retrospect, we provide quotable quotes
from prominent
political, business and religious leaders.
"I even asked
Msika (Vice President) about the issue because it
is giving us a headache,
and he (Msika) told me that some of the people
wanting the position now
wished me dead. There are no vacancies at all...so
let's stop debate over
the succession issue for the moment." - President
Robert Mugabe on silencing
the succession debate in his ruling Zanu PF
party.
"To quote the wisdom of General C Chiwenga, Commander of the
Defence Forces:
'A hungry man is an angry man', and as Zimbabweans, we must
pull together to
ensure full productivity in agriculture so that hunger is
alien to every
Zimbabwean. General Chiwenga told me: 'Make sure agriculture
is revived and
make food available so we (soldiers) will not be forced to
turn our guns on
hungry Zimbabweans'." - Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono
on disclosures
that the army feared a mass revolt due to biting food
shortages
"Some of them are colleagues of mine in
this chamber, in
parliament. People with certain interests do not want to
lose. People have
been making money out of Zisco. Zisco is the only steel
company in the world
that is making losses yet its clients are making a
profit." - Industry
minister, Obert Mpofu on involvement of cabinet
ministers and MPs in the
looting of assets at the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel
Company.
"I stand here representing God Almighty. Women
are not equal to
men. It is a dangerous Bill and let it be known in Zimbabwe
that the right,
privilege and status of men is gone. I stand here alone and
say this Bill
should not be passed in this House. It is a diabolic Bill. Our
powers are
being usurped in daylight in this House." - Mabvuku MP, Timothy
Mubhawu
protesting the passing of the Domestic Violence Bill in
parliament.
"Our investigations have shown that a monkey
caused damage to a
transformer, thereby sabotaging our preparations for this
coming season." -
Agriculture minister, Joseph Made blaming a monkey for
damaging a
transformer at Sable Chemicals, the main supplier of fertilisers
used in
Zimbabwe.
"It was a frank discussion contrary
to what some people are
saying. The first issue raised by Pastor Gatsi at
the meeting was that
President Mugabe was surrounded by useless people." -
Bishop Trevor Manhanga
on details of a meeting Church leaders had with
Mugabe.
"Your book is replete with numerous cases of what
comes across
as deliberately distorted and misrepresented facts out of
unmitigated
malice. In the same vein, and maybe for the same reasons, the
book has a lot
of tribal nonsense. In general, your book is amazingly badly
written in
terms of its syntax and style." - Tsholotsho MP Jonathan Moyo
reviewing
Geoff Nyarota's book, Against the Grain
"Well ask him, I don't know why he gave it to me. I said to him
'thank you
very much'. He knows best why he did that and I had no right to
ask my boss
why he was doing what he was doing. It is his right to do
that." - State
Security Minister Didymus Mutasa responding to questions on
SW Radio why he
was given a Cabinet post
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
PRESIDENT
Robert Mugabe's proposal to extend his current
six-year term by two more
years via a controversial constitutional amendment
could precipitate the end
of his rapidly deteriorating 26-year rule,
insiders say.
Zanu PF officials who are closely monitoring Mugabe's proposal,
which was
blocked at the ruling party's conference last weekend by fears of
an
internal revolt, said the issue has become so contentious that it had
further divided the party leadership, provinces and
structures.
They warn the hotly-contested issue could in the
long run mark
Mugabe's Waterloo. Zanu PF MPs are now campaigning to counter
the bid when
it comes to parliament. Opposition MDC members have already
said they will
oppose it. This means that parliament could force Mugabe to
go in 2008 or
seek re-election, which is very unlikely in the face of a
looming internal
uprising.
The ruling party's protracted
power struggle over Mugabe's
succession has intensified to new levels after
the plan to postpone the 2008
presidential election to 2010 under the
pretext of harmonising polls seemed
to backfire at the National People's
Conference in Goromonzi last weekend.
Mugabe wants to hold the presidential
election in 2010 together with the
parliamentary poll. He claims this would
save money and simplify logistics.
Zanu PF commissar Elliot
Manyika and spokesman Nathan
Shamuyarira are leading the campaign to extend
Mugabe's term.
However, influential Zanu PF politicians fear
Mugabe is trying
to become life president via the back door of a term
extension. Mugabe's
remarks last weekend that God would determine his stay
in office have only
served to deepen their concerns. The officials say they
want Mugabe to go in
2008 and have elections at the same time. Zanu PF
members are also afraid of
adopting a proposal whose details are not
known.
Both factions led by retired army commander General
Solomon
Mujuru and politburo luminary Emmerson Mnangagwa are generally
opposed to
Mugabe's proposal. Two Zanu PF provinces - Harare and Mashonaland
East -
Mujuru's strongholds, have openly refused to vote for the
idea.
Sources said two more Zanu PF provinces - Manicaland
and
Midlands - also opposed the proposal during the watershed National
People's
Conference. Initially eight provinces endorsed
it.
Mugabe, who claims he can't quit now and leave his party
in a
shambles, said this week suggestions that he wants to rule forever were
"rubbish" because he was mortal, but this was widely interpreted to mean
that he would only leave office in a hearse.
Events over
the past two weeks escalated the Zanu PF power
struggle and sparked an
uproar within party ranks which later culminated in
the unprecedented
failure by the party to come up with any resolutions at
the Goromonzi
conference.
The excuse given was that some of the party's 13
committees did
not finish their deliberations and there was no time at the
closing ceremony
for the decisions to be taken.
Zanu PF
chairman John Nkomo, who was chairing the conference,
said there were six
committees which did not finish their deliberations.
Seven committees had
finished their business. Nkomo then referred committee
matters to provinces
which will later feed their resolutions to the central
committee, the
supreme decision-making body of the party in between the
conferences and
congresses.
But insiders said the real reason why no
resolutions were
adopted at the ill-fated conference was that Mugabe feared
a rebellion
against him over the 2010 proposal.
Sources
said Mugabe advised Nkomo to postpone the resolutions
because delegates who
were seething with anger over the 2010 bid might have
either openly
protested during its adoption and thus embarrassed Mugabe in
the process or
rejected it outright.
The sources said Mugabe was warned by
his security advisors that
there was a groundswell of discontent among
delegates who could have openly
challenged his leadership if he tried to
railroad the proposal through the
conference. This would have had seismic
repercussions in the party that
could have led to Mugabe's early departure.
It would also have caused a sea
change in local politics.
Fears of a revolt followed clashes in the committee on the state
of the
party chaired by Manyika over the 2010 plan.
Some members of
the committee said they did not want elections
in 2010, but in 2008. This
view was first openly voiced by Zanu MP Enock
Porusingazi speaking at the
party's Manicaland provincial conference ahead
of
Goromonzi.
While Mugabe initially appeared to have succeeded
in bulldozing
the matter through the politburo and central committee last
week amid
undercurrents of protest, fears of a political mutiny at the
conference
blocked any further progress of his proposal.
Mugabe had used threats at the politburo and central committee
meetings to
instil fear in the hearts of party members. But there were open
protests in
the politburo, especially by the Mujuru faction.
Sources said
during the explosive central committee meeting last
week, Mutasa-Mutare
senator Mandi Chimene shocked Mugabe and party officials
when she stood up
to say while women still supported Mugabe, most central
committee members
and provinces no longer did.
Sources said the 2010 proposal
was supported by women in the
central committee, although Webster Shamu
stood up to say men also backed
the plan.
Shamu was later
rewarded with a politburo appointment.
During the same
central committee meeting Mugabe, who has
attacked presidential aspirants
for behaving like "witches" and for
allegedly seeking supernatural powers to
secure the presidency, angrily said
there were "no vacancies" in Zanu PF for
new leaders.
Dissenting delegates at the conference were
heard saying if
there were no vacancies in Zanu PF, they would create them.
They also said
they would fight Mugabe's plan to the bitter end. This sets
the stage for a
Titanic battle in parliament in the New Year, which Mugabe
is unlikely to
win despite his residual iron-grip on the party and use of
instruments of
coercion.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari/ Itai Mushekwe
WHILE President Robert Mugabe and family prepare for their
annual holiday,
possibly in Asia again, one of his soldiers, Nathan Mlambo
(not his real
name), is still pondering what his family of four will eat
over
Christmas.
Nathan, a father of three, has nothing to show for
this year's
work or the slightest chance of having a decent meal this
Christmas.
While the First Family will stay in presidential
suites in a
five-star hotel somewhere in the Far East, Mlambo's family will
spend the
holiday in their shack in Epworth.
Mugabe
worries about his shrinking number of destinations
because of the targeted
sanctions. Mlambo worries about his next meal and
school fees when schools
open early next month.
Granted Mugabe's kids will obviously
get designer clothes -
Gucci perhaps - Mlambo's three kids will be lucky to
get the imitation
leather shoes that rarely last a month from the Chinese
shops.
At dinner on Christmas day Mugabe's kids will probably
have
burgers and fries yet Mlambo's kids will consider themselves extremely
lucky
if their parents manage to put bread on the table.
There is yet other striking difference: Mugabe and family will
spend United
States dollars while Mlambo's family will have to fit their
needs into his
$60 000 salary that he got this month.
Once they have scraped
the barrel, they will scrounge as usual.
"It will be back to
the usual scrounging and God knows how I
will pay the fees and buy the
uniforms," Mlambo said.
Ironically, Mlambo enlisted in the
Presidential Guard where his
job is to protect Mugabe and keep him out of
harm's way. It has been six
years now since he joined the Presidential Guard
- an elite army unit.
The thought of Christmas churns his
stomach. Mlambo's plight is
shared by thousands of other soldiers, policemen
and civil servants for whom
Christmas promises to be miserable despite the
bonuses from their employer -
the government.
Teachers,
clerks and prison officers share a similar
predicament. All these people are
expected to make do with salaries that
range between $33 000 and $60 000
minus the allowances. They are expected to
have a "Merry Christmas and Happy
New Year" from bonuses that cannot fill
the smallest shopping
basket.
"The bonus and the salary are already finished but
the next pay
day will come on the 14th of January. How we will survive the
next three
weeks I don't know," said Mlambo, who says he has not seen his
aged mother
in Silobela for the past two years.
But how
does he get by with such a pittance?
Mlambo says he has
taught his children to make do with two meals
a day. "I have taught them to
accept what they have," he says.
"If it's bread then they
have to thank God for it; even if it
comes without butter. They eat
everything that we manage to put on the
table."
The
burden of thought is also experienced by Lucia Nhema, a
teacher and single
mother with four children to feed.
Nhema got her pay slip
this week and immediately despair set in.
Her oldest son Thomas will need to
go back to Dadaya High School in rural
Zvishavane for his Form Four. The
school is demanding $290 000 next term.
Nhema's so-called
bonus plus the December salary goes nowhere
near half of
that.
"I will have to pull him out," she says. "He will go to
the day
school here in Kuwadzana because I can't afford it
anymore."
Nhema is not embarrassed to show her pay slip
because "even if I
keep it a secret nothing will change".
The pay slip tells a sad story for a holder of a BA degree and a
Diploma in
Education. She has been teaching for a decade and a half. Rarely
are sad
stories told in such pitiful style.
For December Nhema had a
basic salary of $33 807.
Her take home salary miraculously
"leapt" to $76 488 because of
the housing and transport allowances which are
not taxed. About $53 000 of
her salary comes from allowances. She paid
$848,09 in tax to the government.
"You see the real net
salary can't even buy a decent dress,"
said Nhema pointing at the figures on
the slip.
It's surprising that from that meagre salary Nhema
has been
managing to look after her four children.
"Well,
I do part-time teaching for those children whose parents
can afford it.
(Minister Aeneas) Chigwedere says it's not allowed but that
is the only way
I can survive."
The stubborn seven-year economic recession is
set to dim the
sparkle of Christmas celebration for millions of other people
in Zimbabwe.
Macro-economic fundamentals continue on their
dislocation path
rendering Christmas a luxury only for the
elite.
The situation is even dire for the low-income earners
who need
to conjure up miracles to put sirloin or chicken in their pots this
Christmas from meagre remuneration, which falls way shy of the poverty datum
line (PDL).
This is a phenomenon now common for all
workers in Zimbabwe.
Latest Central Statistical Office (CSO)
figures show a steep
rise in the breadline. It shows that the Total
Consumption Poverty Line
(TCPL) for an average household of five persons is
now perched at $228 133.
The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) breadbasket
for a family of six is
pegged at $208 714.
Tinashe
Rujeko, a junior clerk in the government offices, said
he had devised ways
to supplement his salary in order to survive.
"I've to
devised other strategies of making money. So I'm into
buying and selling to
supplement my income. What we're earning is a mockery
of our service my
brother asi sevarume tinobatabata twakawanda kuti mhuri
irarame (but as a
man I'm into other projects to fend for my family)."
The
central business districts across Zimbabwe are no longer a
spectacle of
shoppers. In essence, there are actually more subsistence
traders trying to
eke out a living or moonlighting to augment inadequate
salaries than
shoppers.
Major shopping malls, which before the recession
would be abuzz
with shoppers at this time of the year, lie subdued and
deserted, as
business has sunk to new depths.
"Business
in the past used to be brisk," said a shoe shop
manager in
Harare.
"At this time you wouldn't find any worker sitting
down without
a client to serve. But that is now the sad reality in
Zimbabwe."
Shoes at one outlet were ranging between $100 000
and $174 000.
Mlambo and Nhema are most unlikely to visit this shoe boutique
this
Christmas.
Mlambo's military-issue boots and canvas
shoes will suffice.
Nhema will be heading for the Market Square area for a
zhing-zhong bargain.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro/Shakeman
Mugari
RAIN-SOAKED blankets dangled on virtually all
household washing
lines at Hopley Estate as families battled to scoop out
water from dams and
puddles that had formed from Sunday night's downpour at
the Operation
Garikai township near Harare.
The majority
of the structures are incomplete, without doors,
windows, floors and even
roofs, but have already been allocated to people.
Government's much-publicised rebuilding exercise has failed to
remedy the
plight of victims of the controversial Operation
Murambatsvina.
The houses built under the Garikai programme
are no better than
the alleged slums that were razed to the ground in May
2005.
"Christmas Day will find us still battling to patch our
leaking
roofs," said Mavis Mukondiwa, one of the beneficiaries of the scheme
who was
moved from Porta Farm.
Mukondiwa stays with her
four kids and husband in an incomplete
two-roomed structure allocated to her
by government last year.
"This house as you can see, does not
have a roof, neither does
it have doors or windows," she
said.
To describe this structure as a hovel would be an
understatement. A plastic tent donated by the United Nations' International
Organisation for Migration serves as a roof, a metal sheet as a door,
plastic sheets picked from the dumping sites are windows in a roughly-built
brick wall.
The floor is still a rough quarry concrete
slab laid during the
initial stages of the construction
work.
"I wonder how these walls were built," she said. "When
it rains
heavy water comes through the wall, that is how this pool of water
formed.
All blankets, clothes and the rest of our belongings got soaked from
last
night's rains. We had to huddle together in one corner for
warmth."
When the Independent visited the settlement on
Tuesday, wet
blankets from the previous night's rains were still hanging on
the lines so
they could be used at night. Utensils had been taken out of the
houses so
that they could dry.
The people here do not
know when their houses will be completed.
They are bitter with government
for its failure to deliver on its promises.
Their despair is
made worse by the fact that most of the
completed houses have been allocated
to civil servants, soldiers and prison
officers.
"All the
houses that have been roofed or even completed were
allocated to civil
servants," Jameson Jawi, one of the residents at the
settlement
said.
Jawi said because of the rate at which rains were
flowing into
the house, he had to send his wife and his newly-born baby to
his parents'
home in Mbare fearing that the baby might get sick from living
under
dumpsite conditions.
"We have been sleeping in wet
blankets for the past three days
and that was not good for our newly-born
baby so I sent my wife to Mbare
until the conditions here
improve."
Jawi said living conditions at Hopley were
deplorable,
especially the health conditions.
"We use
public pit latrine toilets which are often filling up
because they are very
shallow," he said. Observers say the situation on the
ground shows that the
majority of the victims of Murambatsvina have not
benefited from the
rebuilding exercise, with only 3 325 houses having been
constructed compared
to the 92 460 homes destroyed in the Operation.
"Operation
Garikai is a wholly inadequate response to the mass
violations of 2005, and
in reality has achieved very little," one human
rights lawyer
said.
"Hundreds of thousands of people evicted during
Operation
Murambatsvina have been left to find their own solutions to their
homelessness. Very few houses have been constructed. The majority of those
designated as "built" are incomplete - lacking doors, windows, floors and
even roofs."
She said many of the few houses that have
been built are
uninhabitable especially in this rainy season.
Zim Independent
BRITISH businessman and ex-convict
Nicholas van Hoogstraten, who
has interests on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange,
is never far from controversy.
Last year he was quoted as saying he had
loaned President Robert Mugabe
US$10 million. He claims to be a close friend
of Mugabe.
SHAKEMAN MUGARI speaks to him about this and other
issues.
Mugari: You describe President Mugabe as a
true English
gentleman in previous interviews. Can you tell me about your
relationship?
Van Hoogstraten: Of course he is a true
gentleman. Our
friendship dates back to pre-Independence. I met (the late
Vice-President
Simon) Muzenda first in 1973. I met Mugabe in the early 1970s
because at
that time he was based in Mvuma where we have an estate -
Willobeans
Estates. It was a Lonhro subsidiary and I was the second-biggest
shareholder
after them.
Mugari: And you are still close
friends?
Van Hoogstraten: I am friends with almost all
important people
here. Of course I am still friends with Mugabe. Why
wouldn't I be? I wouldn't
be sitting here if I was not his
friend.
Mugari: We hear you also funded Zanu during the
liberation
struggle.
Van Hoogstraten: Oh! Yes. We have
been working with them even
before Independence. We were helping with hotel
accommodation, travel
expenses and food.
Mugari: What
else did you give them?
Van Hoogstraten: There were a lot of
meetings prior to the
Lancaster House Conference and we were assisting with
the logistics but that
is well-documented. We were giving them moral support
in their fight for
independence.
Mugari: Is that why your
farm was spared during the land reform?
Van Hoogstraten: Oh,
you have been properly briefed. I
voluntarily donated two-thirds of all the
land that I owned to the
government right at the start of the land reform
programme.
Mugari: How big was your land?
Van Hoogstraten: It was just under a million hectares, about 900
000
hectares. The biggest single block was Central Estates which was 380 000
hectares. I am now left with 140 000. Ask (Midlands governor) Cephas Msipa
if you think I am lying. I have always supported the equitable distribution
of land to the majority.
Mugari: So you agree with
Mugabe's land-grab policy?
Van Hoogstraten: No, not
everything. There was a genuine need
for reform but it was badly and wrongly
implemented. Land should only have
been given to people who are capable and
have a genuine interest in
agriculture. I don't think anybody agrees with
the way the land reform has
been done. We shot ourselves in the foot here.
It badly damaged the economy.
The whole thing was
mishandled.
Mugari: Did you give US$10 million to Mugabe or
the government
as you were quoted as saying in an interview last
December?
Van Hoogstraten: Why is that
important?
Mugari: It is important because you said it and
people want to
know if the country has become so desperate as to borrow
money from
individuals.
Van Hoogstraten: I can't tell you
anything because you are a
journalist. But it was not a loan to President
Mugabe.
Mugari: It was to the government?
Van Hoogstraten: I prefer that we leave it there at the
moment.
Mugari: But it's on record in that interview (London
Sunday
Times).
Van Hoogstraten: That lady is a liar. She
is a damn liar. I did
not give any interview to her. In fact, the day she
said she talked to me I
wasn't anywhere near that place. That's all fiction.
That lady is well known
in journalistic circles for lying. By the way, this
is also the case with
the Herald. Some three weeks ago they did the NMB
story and said they spoke
to me in my London office. The truth is that I was
not in London but here
and did not speak to any of them.
Mugari: There has been speculation that you donated a 40% stake
in Hwange to
the government?
Van Hoogstraten: We donated the whole
shareholding that the
government has in Hwange at Independence. The entire
government shareholding
of 38% was donated by the shareholders of the
company. Myself and Anglo
American Company were the major shareholders of
that company. We put
together a deal to give the government a stake but it
was a gift to the
people of Zimbabwe and not the
government.
Mugari: You say it was a gift to the people of
Zimbabwe but
there is speculation that the government wants to sell the
stake to Chinese
or Russian companies.
Van Hoogstraten:
You mean selling? No, that will not happen. I
will resist any attempt by
anybody to sell the stake or erode the
shareholding. It was donated to them
so they cannot sell it.
Mugari: Why are you coming to
Zimbabwe when other investors are
running away?
Van
Hoogstraten: Because I love this country. I fell in love
with it when I
first came here. The other reason is that according to my
fellow white guys,
I am in bed with black people and that is true even
literally. The mothers
of my children, my three wives, are all black and
obviously my children are
also black. I don't agree with everything that has
been happening here. I
will be a fool if I did, but I believe the country
needs assistance. We need
help in this country.
Mugari: Tell us about a team of British
journalists who fled the
country after you reported them to the police and
authorities.
Van Hoogstraten: They approached me to assist
them enter this
country and get media accreditation. We agreed that they
would focus on
mining and tourism which are my particular interests. So I
had meetings with
(Zanu PF information secretary) Nathan Shamuyarira and
(Media and
Information Commission chairman) Tafataona Mahoso. We agreed on
conditions
of their stay here. I said they are not coming here unless I have
control of
what they are doing and filming.
Mugari: What
were the conditions?
Van Hoogstraten: That under no
circumstances was there to be any
voice-overs, no extraneous material. Under
no conditions were they to use
any archival information. The film was about
me and a promotion of tourism
here in Zimbabwe. In fact I made it stronger
than that. I said if you step
out of line by trying to damage the country
and His Excellency, I will deal
with you personally.
Mugari: So after you discovered they had stepped out of line you
reported
them to the police and detained them in their room?
Van
Hoogstraten: Me? You are jo-king. It's a lie. I reported
them to the
security services and they were put under house arrest. Anyway,
even if I
did, so what? They were intent on committing treason. They should
have been
arrested immediately, put into prison and charged. They were
coming here
with evil in their hearts. An example should have been made. I
am not a very
tolerant person.
Mugari: You refer to poor people as
riff-raff but here you are
in Zimbabwe where 80% of the population are
extremely poor.
Van Hoogstraten: In London there are serious
riff-raff. The
whole point in making money is so that you put a line between
you and
riff-raff. That is why I built a palace and put up a barbed-wire
fence. But
I cannot say that here in Zimbabwe. This is not my country. That
is why I
mix with everyone. That is why even street kids know me.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
DELEGATES to
last week's Zanu PF conference in Goromonzi had a
whale of a
time.
Indigent peasants from rural Zimbabwe who thronged the
event
might still be wishing the annual gathering could be held more often
than
just once a year. They had their Christmas early.
"It's even better than last year's conference," commented a
villager leaning
against a small enclosure housing a number of goats and
picking his teeth
after lunch.
Picture a scenario where each hosting province
pledges to go one
better that the previous one in all departments - the
food, the ostentatious
consumption.
Picture too how the
impulse to cling to youth at all cost in a
vain spin to preserve physical
attraction precariously established itself
among the well-heeled and the
not-so-well-heeled.
Watching more than 3 500 people hog
through 80 beasts in 96
hours beats any orgy records.
"We
raised more than 140 beasts for the occasion," chairman of
the fund-raising
committee and Murewa South legislator, Joel Matiza, said.
He could not say
what happened to the remainder.
Matiza said the province
raised $220 million in cash for the
three-day event that was dubbed a
"tourist excursion" by some delegates for
lack of any serious business that
would ameliorate the nation's poverty.
How else can one
explain a resolution by the party Youth League,
that young male midwives be
barred from attending to groaning mothers during
child birth because that is
culturally sacrilegious?
"We could not have done it alone
without assistance from the
community - the farmers, the business community
and party members who made
generous donations," provincial chairman Ray
Kaukonde said.
The delegates at Goromonzi returned to their
impoverished
communities quite amazed that the basic commodities which they
battle to get
every day were in abundance at Goromonzi - enough cooking oil
to drown a
duck, more than 12 loaves of bread to pull off a miracle and feed
the
multitudes.
They lounged in comfort for the three
days away from their
villages.
"And please make sure you
don't take away with you the towels,
blankets, plates or soap from your
sleeping quarters," Thokozile Mathuthu
pleaded with the delegates towards
the end of the bash as items grew legs.
Some of the villagers
tasted meals they have never dreamt of -
chicken, snow-white sadza and
dessert to boot.
The obvious beneficiary was Goromonzi high
school.
Government pulled out all stops in refurbishing the
institution,
spending a whopping $600 million to refurbish nine classroom
study and
laundry blocks. It put up a brand new incinerator, dug new septic
tanks and
spruced up the headmaster's toilet as well as providing furniture
for the
60-year-old school.
"Chikoro ichi changa chaora
(This school had become derelict).
Government must think seriously why state
institutions should be reflecting
on such a state of dereliction," he
commented.
Government shamed the parents who complained about
the premature
closure of the school: "It's a scandal. It looks like our
schools are now
political theatres...politics now takes precedence over the
education of our
children," said one.
But party members
were not going to allow any complaints to rain
on their parade. A good time
was had by all, including the chefs motoring
out from the Rainbow Towers
every day. This was the new Zimbabwe and those
presiding over it were in no
mood for criticism.
Zim Independent
By Admire Mavolwane
OVER the last
two weeks while everything on the surface looked
very serene, it appears a
lot was happening in the background.
The ruling party's
National "People's" Conference, resolutions
tabled and passed thereof and
the visit by the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) officials for Article IV
consultations were some of the events to
note.
On
December 10, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor
surprised, and at
the same time excited, political and economic commentators
by publishing a
supplement to the Sunday Mail titled "The Truth about the
RBZ's Quasi-Fiscal
Operations".
The booklet, not in full-colour gloss this time,
makes
interesting reading indeed and gave the stock market something to
discuss
seeing it has in the past weeks become lethargic after being
cautioned to
trade "normally" as the monetary policy would only be announced
in January.
To placate exporters who had been crying for
currency
devaluation, the RBZ, on the December 5, announced the setting up
of an
Export Support Facility, meant to exclusively address their working
capital
requirements.
Under this scheme, funds will be
made available by the RBZ for
on-lending through banks at a concessionary
interest rate of 50%, of which
16% will be for the account of the central
bank and 34% for the lending
bank. The would-be borrowers are expected to
meet certain minimum conditions
as set out in the
document.
With prime lending rates in excess of 400% the new
initiative
would, in a way obviously depending on the import content of the
product
produced, compensate for the delayed devaluation. The only
difference is
that the devaluation would have applied to all and sundry
without the strict
conditionality attached to the current
facility.
Unlike in the past the current visit by the IMF
team has not
generated as much interest from the investment markets as it
used to. On
February 15 Zimbabwe made a final payment of US$9 million to the
IMF,
thereby fully settling its remaining overdue financial obligations to
the
General Resources Account. By so doing, Zimbabwe fended off possible
compulsory withdrawal of membership from the lending
institution.
A few weeks later, on March 8, the executive
board of directors
of the Bretton Woods Institution agreed to uphold
sanctions against
Zimbabwe, notwithstanding the clearing of outstanding
arrears. This meant
that the country could not access any lending facilities
from the IMF and
would not regain its voting rights.
This
action by the directors to all intents and purposes reduced
all future
annual Article IV consultation visits by the institution's
officials to a
rather academic and diplomatic engagement. It also meant that
the Zimbabwean
authorities would not bother to consider the application of
the IMF
recommendations.
So, in essence, the latest team was in the
country just to
assess how much more damage has been inflicted on the
economy since their
previous visit.
After their two-week
stay, they issued what has become a
standard recommendation - worded
slightly differently - that the country
needs a comprehensive policy package
comprising several mutually reinforcing
actions in the area of macroeconomic
stabilisation and structural reforms.
In September this year,
the IMF published a paper titled "World
Economic Outlook Report". In that
report Zimbabwe stands out as the only
basket case in any otherwise vibrant
sub-Saharan African (SSA) region.
The region is this year
expected to record aggregate real gross
domestic product (GDP) growth of
4,75%, while Zimbabwe will record a decline
of 5,1%. The official extent of
the decline in 2006 is, however, a watered
down 2,75%.
In
2007, output in the SSA region is expected to rise by a
further 6% and
annual inflation (excluding Zimbabwe) is projected to fall to
6%. The table
above shows how Zimbabwe stands in the region, just looking at
one variable,
real GDP.
The question that then begs an answer is why
Zimbabwe should be
the odd one out? As the table shows, it is the only
contracting economy in
the region. Other nations are growing from strength
to strength.
The fact that most of these countries are our
neighbours with
whom we share geographical and climatic similarities rules
out geography as
a determining factor.
Neither does it
have anything to do with mineral endowments, as
outside the DRC and South
Africa, Zimbabwe has quite a lot of commercially
exploitable mineral
resources.
We shall not delve into human capital issues, as
Zimbabwe is
evidently superiorly gifted. So what is wrong with our beloved
country?
Zim Independent
NICHOLAS van Hoogstraten, arguably one of the
biggest individual
investors on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, has been mired
in controversy
since last year. He is currently fighting with the RTG board
of directors
over shares he claims were "stolen" from him by the board
during a rights
issue undertaken this year. Business reporter, SHAKEMAN
MUGARI, spoke to the
tycoon about his investments in the country and his
problems with RTG.
Mugari: There is a pending court
case between you and the
Rainbow Tourism Group board of directors over
shares in the company. Can you
tell us more about the issue and why it ended
up in the courts?
Van Hoogstraten: I was the underwriter of
their right issue. I
put in $60 billion as a cash deposit to underwrite $40
billion worth of
shares which was half the rights issue. That money was put
into a CBZ
account.
Mugari: But why would you put $20
billion more than what was
required?
Van Hoogstraten:
Because I wanted to pick up more shares if
other shareholders failed to
follow their rights. I put in more money to get
more
shares.
Mugari: So what went wrong?
Van
Hoogstraten: While I was in the US, Boston, the board, led
by Ibbo Mandaza,
had a meeting on the day the rights issue was concluded.
The board and their
financial advisors deliberately - it wasn't an
accident - set out to defraud
me of my proper allocation of the shares. They
subsequently defrauded me of
14% of the company.
Mugari: How did they do
it?
Van Hoogstraten: The reason given at that time came from
Ibbo
Mandaza who told the meeting that being in bed with Van Hoogstraten was
as
bad as being in bed with Zanu-PF. So that is why I was deprived of my
proper
allocation of the shares. And at the same time the government was
deprived
of their proper shareholding as well. They had 16% before the
rights issue,
now they are down to 5%. Can you imagine such fraud from
government
appointees?
Mugari: But how could they defraud
the state when they are
government appointees?
Van
Hoogstraten: It's true those guys on the board were
appointed by government
when it had a majority shareholding before it issued
some of the shares to
the Libyans. Those people there are government
appointees, I don't know why
they are working against government.
Mugari: So what are you
going to do?
Van Hoogstraten: I have 39% of that company
and it's going
nowhere until I get my proper share allocation. I am standing
up for what is
right. I am surprised that some mere employees (board
members) are trying to
pinch my shares. But they are not going to
win.
Mugari: But the register does not show that you have 39%
of the
company.
Van Hoogstraten: Well, it doesn't have to
because some of the
shares are owned through my son's names. We got 35% from
the rights issue
plus the 4% we had before that.
Mugari:
Are you going to push the Mandaza- led board out?
Van
Hoogstraten: Just wait and see. The last thing you would
want to do as an
employee is to antagonise the majority shareholder. I can
afford to wait.
There are things happening at the moment. The matter is with
the courts and
we have engaged the government on the issue.
Mugari: Who do
you blame for all this?
Van Hoogstraten: I blame Mandaza. He
is the one who presided
over that meeting.
Mugari: But
the argument is that government did not follow its
rights. That is why its
shareholding has been whittled down.
Van Hoogstraten: Well if
it didn't follow its rights why was it
deprived of its rights. Why? It's all
skulduggery.. It's a pack lies.
Mugari: What more do you want
in terms of percentages?
Van Hoogstraten: I want the shares I
was deprived of which
amount to 14%. All I want is my legal rights, nothing
more. If I want to buy
more shares, I will get them from the market. I just
want what I am legally
entitled to.
Mugari: What
shareholding of the company will you own if you get
the
shares?
Van Hoogstraten: That will get me to 53%. But I will
then
dispose off 7%.
Mugari: Why would you do that when
it gives you total control of
the company?
Van
Hoogstraten: Who told you that I want to control the
company? I don't want
to control the company. I would be content with my 38%
had I not been
defrauded. The issue here is that I have been defrauded..
Those guys will
not get away with it.
Mugari: How about the recent reports on
your shareholding in
NMB?
Van Hoogstraten: That was a lot
of rubbish. I just took a
deliberate decision to reduce my stake from 18% to
about 11%. I sold 7% in
NMB because I was too exposed. I was not sleeping
well at night so I
disposed some shares to reduce my exposure so I could
have peace of mind. I
am still the single largest individual shareholder in
that company.
Mugari: So you are not going to increase the
stake?
Van Hoogstraten: Why would I want more of NMB shares?
I have
enough of those.
Mugari: What is the size of your
portfolio on the ZSE?
Van Hoogstraten: Why does that matter?
I step into companies
where I see that I can be of assistance. For example
CFI was a struggling
company so it needed my support because it had been
ripped off by that crook
who has run off to South Africa.. He had loads of
connected companies he was
ripping off.
Mugari: How did
you assist?
Van Hoogstraten: I consistently bought shares on
the market
until I became the second largest shareholder. That means between
me and
government, we own more than 50% of that company. I make investments
in
areas I can be of benefit to the economy. I have got no personal interest
in
making money. I already have enough. My money is in London and New York,
not
Zimbabwe. Also in 38 years of investment here I have never removed any
cent
from here.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
A
PARLIAMENTARY committee has come out in support of Finance
minister Herbert
Murerwa's plans to limit the use of quasi-fiscal
instruments outside
budgetary allocations to ministries and parastatals.
The
Budget, Finance and Economic Development committee's
position flies in the
face of President Robert Mugabe who recently ridiculed
Murerwa's "bookish
economics" and promised more quasi-fiscal spending during
a speech at a
party rally in Lupane.
The committee said in its report on
the 2007 budget that current
inflation levels were creating a
highly-volatile economic environment which
made it difficult to plan and
make economic decisions that lead to increased
production.
"It is the view of the committee that these
objectives are the
core of the whole nation and as such any policy that
seeks to achieve this
objective should be fully supported," the committee
said.
The committee said the quasi-fiscal operations were
"evidently"
inflationary whether the funds were from statutory reserves with
the central
bank or through seignorage. The committee said the fact that
such
expenditure figures were not approved by parliament brought into
question
their legality.
Central bank governor, Gideon
Gono, has over the past three
years used quasi-fiscal instruments and
printing of money to pay
international creditors such as the
IMF.
Gono has said printing money was not his initiative but
that of
government.
Last week he released confidential
memos from Murerwa
instructing him to provide money for state
operations.
The printing of money has resulted in a $400
billion outlay
being made in quasi-fiscal operations, which have seen the
government
deficit ballooning to more than 40% of collected revenue. The
committee said
this had become a "cause for concern".
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
ANNUAL broad money
supply continued on an upward trend, driven
by an increase in domestic
credit which grew by 1 515,2% to $481,9 billion
during the
period.
Analysts said the high money supply growth and
increased credit
expansion was going to continue fuelling inflation -
currently at 1 098,8% -
the highest in the world.
Money
supply is the generation of new money - in other words an
addition to stock
of money already in circulation.
While the major reason for
such growth in Zimbabwe has been
credited to government, banking
institutions have become major contributors
to government debt through
statutory reserve requirements and recently
introduced financial
stabilisation bonds.
The large chunks of money from banking
institutions at the
Reserve Bank have largely been lent to the government to
meet its expenses
or used by the central bank in quasi-fiscal operations
propping up ailing
parastatals or the struggling agricultural
sector.
Statistics from the Reserve Bank this week indicated
that the
country's money supply, which opened the year at 520%, had
increased by 890
percentage points inside 10 months to a record 1
430%.
"Annual broad money (M3) growth increased marginally to
1 430%
in October from 1 429,8% in September," the Reserve Bank
said.
"The slight increase reflected a deceleration in claim
on the
private sector which contributed 51,2% of the domestic credit, mainly
in the
form of loan and advances from deposit money banks which included
offshore
financing," the Reserve Bank said.
The bank said
narrow and quasi money for October also declined
from 1 510,1% and 1 515,1%
to 1 304,5% and 1 430% respectively.
"Reserve money continued
to rise recording an increase of $405,5
billion from $149, 9 billion in
September to $190,5 billion in October. This
growth was a result of increase
in excess reserves and other deposits
required. Reserves however fell by
$18,9 billion to $27,03 billion," the
bank said.
Zimbabwe
is currently going through its worst economic crisis in
history,
characterised by runaway inflation and food, foreign currency and
fuel
shortages.
Market watchers blame increased money printing and
the central
bank's quasi-fiscal operations for fuelling the
crisis.
The quasi-fiscal expenditure is expected to top $373
billion by
year-end.
Announcing his 2007 budget proposals
on November 30, Finance
minister Herbert Murerwa said he was putting a stop
to the Reserve Bank's
quasi-fiscal operations as part of a "credible
package" to rein in
inflation.
The Reserve Bank governor,
Gideon Gono, has, however seen
Murerwa's decision as a personal attack on
his integrity.
Soon after Murerwa's pronouncements, Gono
issued a 16-page
statement insisting that all quasi-fiscal operations were
authorised by
Murerwa and were, in fact, sought by members of his
ministry.
He did not, however, deny that these quasi-fiscal
operations
were inflationary.
Murerwa has come under
attack from President Mugabe for his
views which have, however, won support
from the legislature as well as the
International Monetary
Fund.
Gono has previously said high growth in money supply
had been
occasioned by money printing to buy foreign currency to settle
foreign debts
or pay for critical import bills.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
AN
International Monetary Fund (IMF) team has hailed the
termination of the
central bank's contentious quasi-fiscal operations but
warned that economic
recovery would remain elusive without drastic cuts in
fiscal
spending.
"Without a fundamental change in policies,
prospects are for a
continued deterioration in the economic situation," the
IMF team said in its
report released Monday following a 10-day consultative
visit to the country.
"A crucial element of this package will
be strong fiscal
adjustment," the team said in its
report.
The report noted that the addition in the 2007 budget
of
substantial quasi-fiscal activities by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ),
such as the provision of subsidised foreign exchange to the public
sector
and price supports to commodity exporters, marked "a positive step
towards
increasing transparency".
"Going forward, the key
will be first to ensure that sharp cuts
are made in real terms in fiscal
spending, including quasi-fiscal activity
previously undertaken by the RBZ.
This will mean that the government should
aim to stay within the current
2007 budget envelope," the team's report
said.
It noted
that the economic crisis had worsened since the team's
previous visit
between January and February this year, with inflation
accelerating while
shortages of food, fuel, basic consumer goods, and
essential agricultural
inputs remained acute.
Progress on structural reforms had
been limited and uncertainty
over property rights continues to depress
investor confidence, the report
said.
Although recent
data on social indicators was not available
during the time of its mission,
the team said high inflation and falling
output were "likely to have
polarised incomes and increased poverty".
"As emphasised in
previous rounds of discussions last year and
January/February this year,
Zimbabwe's economic crisis calls for the urgent
implementation of a
comprehensive policy package comprising several mutually
reinforcing
actions. Without a fundamental change in policies, prospects are
for a
continued deterioration in the economic situation," the team
warned.
The team said government had to prioritise fiscal
expenditure
needs; it had to particularly ensure adequate food imports, an
urgent
improvement in health infrastructure, and well-targeted social safety
nets
to protect the poor and address the needs of those affected by HIV and
Aids
and "Operation Murambatsvina".
It said strong fiscal
adjustment needed to be supported by
complementary policies, in particular
the following:
* Unifying all official exchange rates and
moving the unified
rate towards market-determined levels;
* Removing restrictions on current account payments and
transfers;
* Liberalising price controls and imposing
hard budget
constraints on public enterprises, whose losses have been
largely
responsible for quasi-fiscal activities; and
*
Establishing a strong monetary anchor, with the RBZ focusing
on its core
function of ensuring overall price stability.
"Achieving
sustained economic growth and low inflation will
require comprehensive
structural reforms and a strengthening of governance
over the medium term.
Such reforms include public enterprise and civil
service reform; tax and
expenditure management reform; agriculture sector
reforms; and the
strengthening of private property rights," the report said.
The team said it encouraged authorities to improve relations
with the
international community in order to support the government's reform
policies
and facilitate progress towards the Millennium Development
Goals.
"We hope the authorities will work more closely with
the IMF to
design and implement a policy package that would help achieve
macroeconomic
stability and growth and improve the welfare of the Zimbabwean
people," the
team said in the report.
The teram indicated
that the IMF board meeting on Zimbabwe was
likely to be held next March. It
had been tentatively set for January. The
board is likely to review
Zimbabwe's membership based on the team's report.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
CAPTAINS of
industry said this week the year 2006 had been the
worst in the country's
six-year recession, with industrial volumes plunging
to fresh depths and
corporate executives being prosecuted by the state for
pursuing
profit-oriented pricing systems.
Government, they said, had
failed to handle the country's
worsening economic crisis, forcing inflation
to escalate to record levels,
eroding incomes and plunging millions into
abject poverty.
"(We) survived by the grace of god," said
Jane Mutasa, president
of the Indigenous Clothing Manufacturers Association
(ICMA), reflecting on a
difficult year. "The prices of raw materials like
dyes, fabric, lint and
polyester shot up on a weekly basis. This made
Zimbabwean textiles
uncompetitive," Mutasa said.
Zimbabwe
is going through its worst economic crisis in history,
characterised by
acute foreign currency and fuel shortages which have
disrupted industrial
operations.
Foreign currency shortages have hampered the
importation of
critical industrial inputs as well as capital
equipment.
Industry experts said this had been compounded by
the increasing
shortage of manpower due to an exodus of skilled people to
neighbouring
countries and abroad in search of greener
pastures.
Industry players blamed government, which they said
had failed
to implement sound policies to deal with rampaging inflation,
which touched
an all-time high of 1 204% in August.
"The
challenge of under performance as a result of foreign
currency shortages
continued in 2006," said Callisto Jokonya, president of
the Confederation of
Zimbabwe Industries (CZI).
"Industry did not perform to
expectation as volumes continued to
decline. Zimbabwe also continued to lose
labour to neighbouring countries,"
he said.
During the
year, government fought running battles with company
executives accused of
fuelling the black market or charging prices higher
than those stipulated by
government on their products.
This led to shortages of basic
commodities, a factor that
fuelled rising prices during the
year.
"Government should regulate rather than control
industries
because stringent controls will not motivate investors," Jokonya
said.
He said the mining, agriculture, manufacturing and
tourism
sectors still had the potential for growth.
OK
Zimbabwe chairman, Eric Kahari, said in a commentary
accompanying his
group's financial results that the retail sector continued
to suffer from
the erosion of disposable incomes.
Operating margins remained
under pressure from rising fuel costs
and other overheads like repairs and
maintenance, while Robbie Mupawose, who
sits on various corporate boards,
was worried about the continuous foreign
currency
shortages.
Mutasa said employment in the textile industry had
declined
significantly due to the collapse of several sector companies
during the
year.
"This was the largest exporting sector
in Zimbabwe, but exports
have declined because our products are too
expensive and cannot compete on
the international markets," Mutasa
said.
Finance minister Herbert Murerwa this month said
manufacturing
would decline by 7% in 2006 in the absence of balance of
payments support,
foreign credit lines and foreign
investment.
The inability by manufacturers to source foreign
exchange from
the official market to import raw materials had forced
manufacturers to
resort to the thriving parallel market, where rates
higher.
This consequently increased the input
costs.
Critics say corruption and mismanagement in high
office had
worsened the country's crisis and in the absence of strong
commitment by
government to deal with the scourge, the economy was likely to
remain in
free fall.
Murerwa admitted during his 2007
budget proposals that many
industrial companies were operating at less than
30% capacity.
Agriculture, seen as key to the country's
economic turnaround
programme, is experiencing a host of problems which
include skills
shortages, shortage of farm implements and
fertilisers.
The mining industry is projected to contract by
14 % owing to
viability problems particular at the gold mining
operations.
Gold deliveries declined to 7 991,57 kilogrammes
during the nine
months to September 2006, from 10 552,04 kilogrammes during
the comparable
period last year.
Gold miners this year
complained that Fidelity Refineries, the
sole buyer of gold in the country,
had precipitated huge losses due to
delays in paying for gold
deliveries.
Zim Independent
By Maxwell Kanemanyanga
EVER-ESCALATING inflation, corruption, mismanagement and
incompetence, brain
drain and foreign currency shortages have all become
major challenges facing
our country. A lot of measures have been put in
place to curb these
''challenges".
Right now the man at the helm of most of these
measures is the
Reserve Bank governor, Gideon Gono.
Many
have lambasted him for the measures he has implemented. The
poor and
voiceless regard him as an angel of mercy; to the rich and powerful
he is
the devil's disciple.
"Nothing I do these days is interpreted
innocently or
professionally but is classified or analysed for perceived
political
connotations or whether it benefits one political party/faction or
undermines it. The only place I can nowadays visit without political
interpretations is the back of my garden," Gono was recently quoted
saying.
Saying Gono has failed is wrong. He has tried his
best under
very difficult conditions. He has tried to be just where there is
no
justice, to be truthful where there is no truth.
Of
all the vital measures that he has put in place, there is one
which is
lacking but beyond his control. Our country does not lack
intelligence, but
it needs moral salvation.
Our sons and daughters are
enriching the world. From Botswana to
South Africa, the UK to America,
Canada to Australia. What we urgently need
now is moral salvation. I do
agree with Maurice Maeterlinck who wrote:
"There comes a moment in life when
moral beauty seems more urgent, more
penetrating than intellectual beauty,
when all that the mind has treasured
must be bathed in the greatness of
soul, lest it perish in the sandy desert,
forlorn as the river that seeks in
vain for the sea."
This is the stage we have reached. Gono
cannot achieve it on his
own. Moral salvation requires everyone's effort.
Sovereignty and
consoloditating our resources have become the main theme at
rallies and
campaigns. I don't have any problem with that but I think
treachery and
loyalty to Zanu PF have become the new definition of
patriotism. We have
lost a lot as a result of people who say they fought for
the country. Yes, a
lot of blood was shed for Zimbabwe but while I
appreciate that, I think some
of the good friends we had are those we lost
along the way - the late
Herbert Chitepo, Edison Sithole, Josiah Magama
Tongogara. Who are the true
patriots then? Judge for
yourself.
The million-dollar question is how do we attain
moral salvation?
The first and most important step would be
to fire the whole
cabinet. Only President Robert Mugabe can do that, but can
he fire his loyal
revolutionary cadres and introduce new blood. No
ways!
We cannot put new wine in old wine skins and expect
results. How
can we fight corruption with ministers who have been recycled
since
Independence? Remember the late Border Gezi saying: "Nyika haifambe
nekutengerana doro".
Ministers are corrupt. They have
destroyed virtually all
parastals - Noczim, Ziscosteel, Zesa, the GMB and
Zupco among others.
Arresting people like Charles Nherera and
Chris Kuruneri is
simply a mockery in the eyes of the majority. The
anti-corruption commission
we have is made up of political appointtees. That
is just as good as setting
a thief to catch a thief. No wonder why there is
no real anti-corruption
drive to talk about.
The truth is
we do not have a competent anti-corruption
commission at the moment. The
cabinet we have has ruined everything that had
been rich and glorious, it
has changed order to chaos, turned abundance into
want, leaving behind them
the glory of their own past. Things continue to
worsen as they continue
amassing wealth and yet they keep on urging the
majority to pay any price,
bear any pain, meet any hardship, support any
friend and oppose any
foe.
Some members of the uniformed forces have been elevated
to high
positions. Most of them think they work for Zanu PF. They do not
know that
they work for the public - and Zanu PF is not the
government.
Zanu PF simply wants people who are loyal to them
and easy to
manipulate. Most people in the party are related, they know each
other from
somewhere, somehow. If an outsider joins them, he or she will not
stand the
heat. Ask Kuruneri and Nkosana Moyo for better advice. So how can
they throw
stones at each other? These people are really loyal to each other
and no one
can break this loyal family, even the judges are
afraid.
For anything new that has to be implemented for the
benefit of
the majority there would be some ministers fighting against it.
The land
redistribution exercise has become a disaster. Land was snatched
from the
whites only for a black elite to share it among
themselves.
New farmers were given subsidsed fuel which they
sold on the
black market leaving weeds to thrive in fertile soils. Our
country, once the
breadbasket of southern Africa, has now become a house of
hunger. Alleged
corruption has since been unearthed at Ziscosteel but no
action has been
taken so far.
The land redistribution
exercise, NEDPP and other programmes
being initiated are simply well-cooked
cakes on paper that will never
satisfy our hunger.
The
more things change, the more they remain the same. Even Gono
once said:
"Often central government has come up with noble projects and
policies but
the same have fallen flat at the implementation stage or have
suffered from
policy reversals, indecision and contradictions as ministers
and parastatals
fought turf wars at the expense of the nation at large. As
long as these
vices are not dealt with effectively, all our efforts at
turning around this
economy will count for nothing."
* Kanemanyanga is a
journalism student at CCOSA and can be
reached through
mkanemanyanga@
yahoo.com.
Zim Independent
By Otto Saki and David Hofisi
FOR anyone who cared to follow the events that presaged the
release of 100
inmates on bail from Harare Central Prison, the remarks made
by Home Affairs
minister Kembo Mohadi exhibited a wanting understanding of
the principles of
granting bail, the concept of presumption of innocence and
situations that
warrant pretrial incarceration.
The remarks clearly smacked
of rancour and contempt of the
express provisions of the law and legal
principles.
The minister stated how he was "disturbed" by the
fact that
"armed robbers" arrested by the police are granted bail to further
"terrorise" the public, before being re-arrested and going through the
process over again, warranting, in his view, suspicion of complicity on the
part of the judiciary with the accused persons and the crimes they are
alleged to have committed.
Prior to this political
posturing by the minister, the Right
Honourable Judge President Rita Makarau
had expressed concern over the
conditions of detention of inmates, the
lengthy pretrial incarceration and
the near-collapse of the remand
system.
The minister in his veiled attack on the judiciary
deliberately
or negligently failed to address several fundamental questions
such as: Do
convicted criminals, accused persons and persons detained occupy
any place
within the broad matrix of human rights?
With
the loss of their fundamental right to liberty do they
consequently lose
other inalienable and inherent rights?
What is the relevance
of bail and does it have any safeguards to
inhibit material miscarriages of
justice?
In considering an accused person as a suitable
candidate to be
remanded out of custody, the judiciary is guided by
Subsection 7 of Section
116 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act which
lays down a criterion
upon which a judicial officer can deny bail, in the
absence of which a
categorical grant of bail is required. The limits to this
are cited as:
likelihood to abscond; likelihood to interfere with evidence;
and the
likelihood to commit another offence.
Quite
clearly, the minister's concerns were contemplated by the
legislature in the
provisions of the criminal procedure.
It was the mission by
the judge president to Harare Central
Prison that sparked off events which
led to the minister's broadside
castigation of the actions of the judiciary
which conspicuously failed to
make reference to the macabre findings of the
parliamentary portfolio
committees on Justice as well as Defence and Home
Affairs which visited
prisons.
So abhorrent were the
conditions to basic human rights that the
judge president on her visit
extended an apology to accused persons, some of
whom had spent up to nine
years without trial.
Subsequent to such horrid conditions,
the judge president
rightly ordered the Attorney-General's office to deal
with the matters,
leading to their release on bail. It is these events which
the minister
referred to as a "vicious cycle" inciting suspicions of
complicity.
However, it should be borne in the mind that the
principles upon
which the concept of bail is founded represent a
constitutive compromise
between the competing interests of the state and
that of the individual.
Whereas the administration of justice
requires the attendance of
the accused at trial, individual rights require
that liberty should not be
wantonly denied an accused person unless proven
guilty by a competent court
of law.
The interests of the
individual, no matter how serious the
charge, are neither non-essential nor
peripheral but are in fact cardinal to
the interest of justice and therefore
bail is meant to afford the accused
his freedom while securing his
attendance at trial without prejudicing the
state's investigations. The
Constitution of Zimbabwe succinctly places a
presumption of innocence in
favour of the accused.
Such presumption goes beyond mere
cursory reference to "innocent
until proven guilty" but in fact places a
positive obligation on the courts
to act in favorem libertatis. The
preponderant prejudices and
presuppositions as regards accused persons are
therefore beyond the scope
and spirit of the
constitution.
It is true however that the courts, through an
unfortunate web
of judgements, have laid down a precedent placing such onus
on the accused.
Notwithstanding such, the constitution by its very nature
remains the
supreme law of the land, nullifying any other law to the extent
of its
inconsistency with the constitution itself.
Such
legal position is attested to by Article 9 of the
International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights which Zimbabwe acceded
to in 1991 which makes it
clear that it shall not be the norm that persons
awaiting trial be held in
custody.
The law therefore makes a clarion call to the
minister showing
that one can literally ride a horse and coaches through his
argument and
still emerge unscathed. Such inarticulate premises as the wish
to detain
persons for marathon periods or to lock them up before trial do
not fall
within the circumscription of bail or its edified
efficacies.
In spite of such abundantly clear provisions of
the law, accused
persons continue to endure unconscionable delays awaiting
trial. How ten
inmates could remain without curial attendance for up to nine
years is
truly, as the judge president put it,
inexcusable.
It would appear that once an accused person is
locked up with a
charge either of murder or robbery, they are completely
obliterated from the
system's memory. Clearly, no psychological or social,
and legal machinations
can be conjured up to defend such an immense
abrogation of one's individual
rights.
A staggering
number of prison inmates awaiting trial have
already been imprisoned for
periods longer than the highest sentence if
convicted of that offence, in
blatant violation of their right to a trial
within a reasonable time which
interpretatively includes the time from
arrest until completion of
trial.
Such a situation is not only deplorable in light of
its
vitiation of inviolable and sacrosanct rights, but is undesirable in
light
of the sordid conditions that have become the hallmark of Zimbabwe's
prisons.
The groundbreaking Supreme Court ruling in the
matter of
Chibebe, Kachingwe and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights versus
the Minister
of Home Affairs, Commissioner of Police SC 145/05 accentuated
the state of
prison cells in Zimbabwe in general and at Matapi and Highlands
police
stations in particular.
The Supreme Court held
that the conditions of detention centres
were unconstitutional as they
constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading
punishment. Such abominable
conditions as lack of drinking water, soap,
toilet paper or showers,
overflow of human excreta and urine, inadequate
clothing, lack of bedding
and inadequate lighting have become something of
an emblem of Zimbabwean
prisons.
Despite this ruling the Minister of Home Affairs and
the
Commissioner of Police have failed to implement the findings of the
Supreme
Court only to respond with a retort on the judiciary in pursuing its
mandate.
This unequivocally contravenes provisions of the
United Nations
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatments of Prisoners and
Basic Principles
for the Treatment of Prisoners which state that except for
those limitations
that are demonstrably necessitated by the fact of
incarceration, all
prisoners shall retain the human rights and fundamental
freedoms set out in
the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Due to the squalid conditions of detention, inmates
are exposed
to chronic illness, respiratory infections, skin diseases,
malnutrition and
most significantly HIV and Aids. A report by the
Correctional Security
Studies estimates that 52% of the country's prisoners
are HIV-positive.
It is abundantly clear that prisons in
Zimbabwe would not
exactly fit into one's imagination of a correctional
facility.
* Saki and Hofisi are with the Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human
Rights.
Zim Independent
By Chege Mbitiru
PRESIDENT Robert
Mugabe likes Mass. The octogenarian might ask a
priest to read interesting
verses in the book of Ecclesiastes. In the fourth
chapter, the president
would read this: "Better is a poor and wise youth
than an old and foolish
king, who will no longer take advice, even though he
had gone from prison to
the throne in his kingdom and had been born poor."
Mugabe
would also find something about the king and the living:
He was all over
them. Then a sobering conclusion: "Yet those who come later
will not rejoice
in him".
Foolishness isn't a preserve of the uneducated and
Mugabe is
highly-educated. It's about obsession with self. Mugabe has been
on that
road far too long.
Saturday proved it. He isn't
retiring.
Two issues dominated Zimbabwe news last week. One
was former
Ethiopian president Mengistu Haile Mariam's asylum in Zimbabwe.
The other
issue was Mugabe's machinations to extend his term by two years, a
round-about way to life president.
He will be 86 in
2010.
Last Wednesday, the Federal High Court in Addis Ababa
reached a
guilty verdict against 57 genocide defendants, including Colonel
Mengistu.
The lot faced 211 counts. Over 720 witnesses testified. The trial
lasted 12
years.
In 1977, Mengistu emerged as the
strongman in a clique of
military officers who deposed Emperor Haile
Selassie, a rather unenlightened
ruler.
While working his
way up, Mengistu rehearsed the infamous Red
Terror. He shot his way up. The
body count during Mengistu's rule varies.
The figure in the Red Terror
campaign goes up to 150 000. Famines and other
catastrophes occurred during
Mengistu's rule while the number of the dead
goes to 1,5
million.
The truth is nobody knows how many Ethiopians died
because of
Mengistu's policies. It's said he personally dispatched a few
fellows to
demonstrate how killing is done. In short, Mengistu outdid former
President
Idi Amin and Emperor Jean-Badel Bokassa. At worst they considered
some of
their victims worthy meals.
To Mengistu, victims
wasted bullets.
Zimbabwe's response to the verdict in Addis
Ababa was vintage
Mugabe. Acting Information and Publicity minister Paul
Mangwana said
Mengistu applied for and was granted asylum. Actually, the
United States and
Canada brokered it. With hindsight, Mengistu should have
been left to
Ethiopians who had chosen trees from which to string him up
with piano wire.
Mengistu, said the minister, "remains our
guest". That's pretty
much out of step with the current international norms
of having the likes of
Cambodia's late Pol Pot tried. That can be done in
their own countries, a la
Saddam Hussein, or at the International Criminal
Court at The Hague.
Mugabe has nothing to lose by handing
over Mengistu to Ethiopia.
If anything, he stands to gain internationally.
But then Mugabe is out of
step with present day Africa. He simply can't even
see that the era of l'etat
c'est moi, the state is me, is
gone.
The plan to extend his tenure by two years indicates
this.
Actually, he let the cat out of the bag in June last year. Joking
about
rumours of being near-to-death, he said: "I still have a lot of vigour
despite all the deaths I have suffered."
Amid the talk of
tenure extension, Mangwana said: "He is agile,
he is lucid, and he has a
clean bill of health."
More than once in the past, Mugabe
said he would retire at the
end of his current term. He will have governed -
evidence suggests
misgoverned - Zimbabwe for 28 years. But the l'etat c'est
moi syndrome
reigns.
The rationale for tenure extension
doesn't wash. Its supporters
in the ruling Zanu PF - including Mugabe -
argue the switch will save money
by having presidential and parliamentary
elections take place at the same
time. That's silly.
If
saving money was such a big deal, bringing parliamentary
elections forward
would make more sense. After all, for all practical
purposes, Zimbabwe as a
state is broke. -The Nation (Kenya).
Zim Independent
Comment
PRESIDENT Mugabe and his Zanu PF party
have just come back to
mother earth after a weekend of song and dance at
Goromonzi. The 4 000
delegates attending the party conference ate 80 head of
cattle, scores of
chickens and tonnes of sadza and rice in between political
grandstanding by
their sabre-rattling leader who is never short of threats
and intimidatory
remarks.
Consumed in the frenzy of
feasting, ululation and toadying
praise for their leader, the delegates in
typical fashion failed to focus
their thoughts on the crisis around
them.
They had apparently been summoned to endorse Mugabe's
pet
project of extending his stay in office until 2010. Mugabe says he
cannot
leave office if that would mean leaving the party in
shambles.
"I will retire, of course, someday, but it all
depends on the
circumstances. I can't retire if my party is going to be in
shambles. But
any day we feel we are ready for that retirement, that is we
as a party feel
we are ready for it, sure."
Only the very
gullible will believe that Mugabe is capable of
reforming the party and
breathing life into the wheezing economy. With more
than a quarter of a
century at the helm of the country, Mugabe has nothing
more to offer to this
country - except perhaps more of the same. It was
however emblematic that at
this juncture in the history of the party, the
Goromonzi conference provided
us with a perfect picture of a party deep in
crisis and fighting among
itself. The propaganda of unity, cohesion and
unanimity does not wash as
Mugabe's own statements in the run-up to the
conference and at the weekend
gathering betrayed gaping crevices in the Zanu
PF
edifice.
Mugabe has told us of leaders going to consult
witchdoctors to
gain a foothold in the succession race. He has since
declared that there is
no vacancy in the presidency in a bid to kill the
zeal of the ambitious
ones.
In Goromonzi he attacked
corrupt and greedy leaders who grabbed
farms and were positioning themselves
to lay claim to diamond mines. He
likened some of them to satans standing on
top of a mountain and declaring
all within sight to be theirs. Mugabe has
told us there is indiscipline
among party leaders which has resulted in
factionalism in the provinces.
The party has been preoccupied
with its own internal dynamics as
leaders have trained their attention on
either trying to rehabilitate Mugabe
or replacing him altogether. Zanu PF is
fighting itself and Mugabe who
considers himself to be the glue holding the
conflicting groups together is
losing his grip and now resorts to using
threats to achieve harmony which he
badly needs to prolong his shelf-life as
president.
Blaming the country's economic meltdown on the
West is hogwash.
His party is culpable. The Zanu PF government has long
ceased to work for
the development of this country. It has degenerated into
mafia groups lining
their pockets as fast as possible and political
opportunists aligning
themselves with factions on the ascendent. Despite the
presidential bluster,
the looting is likely to continue because the great
one no longer commands
respect. No one is listening to
him.
The current feuding and indiscipline - one would surmise
- makes
Zanu PF unfit not only to lead this country to recovery but to rule
in an
orderly way. But, alas, the political misfits' survival has been
guaranteed
by the absence of a coherent opposition movement which can take
advantage of
the chinks in Zanu PF's armour to thrust home their sword. The
divided MDC
is too engrossed in internal feuding of its own to care about
the implosion
taking place in the ruling party.
The MDC's
response to Mugabe's current project to give himself a
longer mandate is
crucial for the future of this country. Supporters of the
opposition have
for extended periods been waiting for leadership from Morgan
Tsvangirai and
Arthur Mutambara to challenge Mugabe's obduracy, and now his
constitutional
coup.
This is a major issue: a leader elected by popular
mandate -
whatever the irregularities - in 2002 is now dodging that mandate
to extend
his term by central committee fiat and parliamentary vote in a
House packed
with his supporters. This runs a coach and horses through the
Sadc electoral
protocol. The opposition should be waving a red card but
apart from a few
tame statements it is business as usual for the MDC.
Reunification is now an
urgent matter and they must not continue to ignore
it as Mugabe clings to
power.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
IF there is one thing on which I totally agree with Dr Tafataona
Mahoso, it
is on the inefficacy of currency devaluation. It is an issue that
President
Mugabe was vehemently against. That is until Gideon Gono came on
to the
scene some three odd years ago.
In his article in the Sunday
Mail last week, Mahoso aptly
summarised the claimed merits and imperatives
of devaluation. Key among
them, which is what is lacking in Zimbabwe, is the
stimulation of production
and increased exports. We have very little to
export.
Unfortunately, although Mahoso is aware of the causes
of
Zimbabwe's failure to produce, he can't name them because that would
contradict government policy on the land reform as a tool of black
empowerment.
By its own admission, government knows that
agriculture is the
foundation and backbone of Zimbabwe's economy, yet the
unplanned land reform
has undermined that foundation. The effect has been to
undercut the supply
line to industry to a point where most companies today
operate at less than
40% of capacity. Many have shut
down.
The source of discord between Gono and Mahoso is simple
- Gono
is responding to sectoral demands from underperforming companies to
devalue
the currency to stimulate exports and earn foreign currency. It
turns out
that there is very little to export and the devaluation only adds
to
inflation through expensive imports.
My understanding
of currency devaluation is that it should be
for a very short period. It
should work like a promotional sale where a
company is seeking to push a
product line fast in order to introduce a new
brand.
To
devalue a currency is to offer a discount on the selling
price of
merchandise and this cannot be done for long without causing
serious damage
to the enterprise.
The reason we can't benefit from
devaluation is because Zimbabwe
has very little to export and that little is
often exported at a huge
discount in the form of a devalued currency. In
other words, the value of
our foreign currency earnings does not increase in
relation to what we want
to import. All this is made worse by lack of a
coherent policy.
Tobacco farmers call for currency
devaluation at their own time.
Miners believe every monetary policy
announcement entitles them to a
currency devaluation while manufacturers
think every one of their product
lines needs a separate devaluation for them
to survive or to generate
foreign currency for imports like machinery,
spares, drugs and fuel. They
have all found in Gono an indulgent listener
while there has been little by
way of benefit to the
country.
Devaluation is useful in a country with a strong
work ethic like
Japan whose vehicles can be found in virtually every
country. The Japanese
yen is one of the weakest currencies compared to the
US dollar, yet Japan is
one of the strongest economies due to vehicle
exports.
In Zimbabwe every worker has become a merchandiser
in his own
right. The workplace provides facilities like telephones and
computers to
conduct personal business at no cost to oneself. The claim that
Zimbabweans
are hard-working is now no more than a political legend. I am
talking about
both the public and the private sector. Workers spend most of
their time
hawking anything they can lay their hands on just to feed their
families.
When President Mugabe called former Finance
minister Simba
Makoni an "economic saboteur" after he proposed a devaluation
of the
Zimbabwe dollar, I felt sorry for him because he is such a nice
fellow, very
committed to the welfare of his country. But then at that time
Zimbabwe had
a lot to export and our isolation still less
pronounced.
Today even our neighbours in the Sadc region are
erecting an
iron curtain around us by trying to find alternative trade
routes. I cannot
find any reason for currency devaluation which daily makes
us very poor
millionaires.
According to Mahoso, the
Zimbabwe dollar has fallen 1 760 000
times since Independence in 1980. At
Independence, he says, one Zimbabwe
dollar purchased three American dollars.
Since then it has been on a slide.
While he is quick to blame IMF structural
adjustment programmes of the early
1990s, he is reluctant to rap
government's policy failures including the
unbudgeted $4 billion offer to
war veterans in 1997 and the vote-buying land
chaos starting in 2000 when
the MDC threatened its power riding on the wave
of disenchanted Zimbabweans.
Two points need clarification here.
One is that what Mahoso
calls the Zimbabwe dollar in 1980 was in
fact the Rhodesian dollar. It was
the Rhodesian dollar that was stronger
than the American dollar. This was
due to the country's robust industrial
productivity fed by a vibrant
agricultural base despite UN sanctions.
Even the raging 1970s
war left that foundation intact. That is
what the ill-conceived land reform
has managed to dismantle in a terrible
short seven years. In the cause of
our current problems lies their solution.
Without agricultural recovery we
can expect more damaging devaluations. And
those who call for devaluations
keep calling for more while the nation gets
poorer.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent
Kahiya
LAST week Local Government minister Ignatious
Chombo extended
the tenure of the Sekesai Makwavarara-led Harare Commission
on the pretext
that it had started to improve service delivery in the
capital.
In extending its term indefinitely, Chombo heaped
praise on the
commission, saying it had managed to achieve some of the
targets set by the
government.
This by any stretch of
imagination, is dishonesty of the highest
order and a slap in the face for
Harare ratepayers who have over the years
been forced to pay rates and
charges which are not commensurate with the
poor services rendered by the
local authority.
Chombo's summation that Makwavarara and her
gang of
underachievers at Townhouse are doing a splendid job underlines a
very
unfortunate aspect of governance in Zimbabwe.
Our
rulers have lowered the bar to levels where a mere hop is
equated to an
Olympian's high jump. Excellence in service delivery has been
subverted by a
system of patronage in which the quest for political
continuity has taken
precedence. Under this practice, the country's
aristocracy has employed huge
resources in a propaganda onslaught to
convince us that there are
improvements all around us. But efficient service
providers would love to
get the kudos from the publics they serve. In the
case of the Harare
Commission, the compliments have only come from Chombo
and, ridiculously,
from themselves.
In an environment where there have been more
brickbats than
compliments from ratepayers, Makwavarara had to scrounge for
self-consolation-her commission has of late been able to pay salaries on
time. That is what Makwavarara cited as an achievement in a television
interview. Is this all she has to show for riding to work daily in a
Mercedes Benz S320? Paying salaries has become a core business for the
commission, and how embarrassing!
It is however important
to remind Makwavarara that she is
bragging about being able to pay a bloated
workforce that has over the years
been schooled by the dozy commission in
the art of malingering and
inefficiency. That they are being paid when their
salaries are due does not
make them conscientious workers as they labour
under a system that is
insensitive to public needs.
What
Makwavarara cites as an achievement was therefore as
obvious as the nose on
her face. She would not talk about the decaying
infrastructure in the
capital, especially the ever-failing street lighting
along major roads. She
would not mention streams of sewerage in Budiriro,
Glen View and Kuwadzana.
Noone expected her to discuss council's
"efficiency" in dealing with refuse
collection, filling potholes, repairing
pavements and kerbs and maintaining
neglected parks and open spaces.
Government, as noted above,
has come up with a different
benchmark of determining achievement and
success in local governance. This
dubious standard is very different from
public expectations and has resulted
in the lowering of standards in the
city.
The lower benchmarks are largely inspired by
government's
comical paradigm that seeks to bribe the nation's conscience
that there is
social and economic progress. We have all heard about the
"success" of the
land reform programme although the country has become a net
importer of
food.
NEDPP has achieved "phenomenal success"
but the country is still
short of foreign currency and fuel. President
Mugabe, who brags about his
democratic credentials, does not allow the
opposition and workers to
exercise their democratic right to demonstrate on
the streets. The nation is
oftentimes implored to celebrate non-existent
success and achievements. Our
rulers have become desperate performers who
ask their audiences to laugh or
applaud at their dreary antics. And they
have a whole media industry to lead
the ovations.
This is
the really funny part of their performance: when they
laugh or applaud their
own on-stage feats. Makwavarara is fast learning the
art of applauding her
own comedy of errors. But, as any ratepayer will tell
you, we have seen her
act before and its hilarity is fast diminishing.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
If President Mugabe is encouraging "open
debate" on the
succession issue as the state media claims, why does he jump
on anybody
raising it?
"Stop it. What's the problem?" he
remonstrated at last week's
central committee meeting. "We have no vacancies
here."
This hardly sounds like an invitation to debate the
issue. In
fact it sounds more like "Don't you dare".
He
told the Omni Canadian television network that it would be
"improper" for
him to retire, leaving his party in "a shambles".
Why does he
always save important policy announcements for
foreign TV stations? And why
does he think that after 26 years of "shambles"
he can suddenly make a
difference now?
We liked the bit in the Sunday Mail
report that "delegates would
be going back to their homes reinvigorated and
determined to make Zimbabwe a
success".
When did they
decide to make Zimbabwe a success?
"They said they had been
delighted to hear the calls for unity
in the top leadership as divisions
were beginning to trickle down to their
levels."
Really?
We had been told there were no problems in the party.
That all was well. And
we were surprised to hear of "irregularities" in the
land reform programme.
How much coverage has been given to this topic?
But let's not
lose sight of the big issue here. The extension of
Mugabe's term is nothing
less than a constitutional coup designed to keep in
office a leader who
cannot hold on by democratic means and needs more time
to provide for an
uncomplicated exit. The problem is the more he delays, the
more complicated
things become.
And as for God deciding when his term will
end, that sounds
suspiciously like a life term!
We
were intrigued to hear the president's remarks about Malawi,
Zambia,
Mozambique and Angola not being able to dictate to Zimbabwe. Where
did that
come from? Has Sadc been quietly expressing concern about the
arbitrary
extension of the presidential term? There seems to be a story
hiding
there.
We can be sure that while the constitutional amendment
may
liberate Mugabe from a number of heavyweights breathing down his neck,
it
will create more problems in the region and further
abroad.
And we were interested to note the Zimbabwe Prison
Service among
those congratulating the president on his new lease on
power!
The Herald, quoting the London Independent,
reported that
Portugal, among others, want sanctions lifted next year. The
Herald doesn't
appear to understand that presidents helping themselves to
seemingly
unending terms in power is not the sort of thing that goes down
well in
European capitals, especially when those presidents are presiding
over
unprecedented policy failures and brutal repression.
Fingers are being pointed at British diplomacy directed against
Zimbabwe
including a rather lightweight Channel 4 documentary. But Britain
doesn't
need to lift a finger in support of sanctions renewal. Mugabe will
look
after that all by himself - with a little support from Didymus of
course!
As for the Objective Productions team,
commissioned by Channel
4, what a shower! Can you imagine a programme
presenter leaving his script
notebook in the predatory Nick Van
Hoogstraten's car; a QC contemplating
signing an admission of guilt, being
so terrified of the man that he couldn't
even issue a public statement, even
to his colleagues in the media; and at
the end of the day this team
producing a documentary so crass as to defy
description?
The Zanu PF HQ café may be pretty dire but is it really torture
to eat
there?
And then the state, in all seriousness, tries to
portray this
comic opera as part of a British plot to renew sanctions. It is
difficult to
know whether to laugh or cry.
Meanwhile,
President Mugabe needs some help from his advisors on
the ancestry of
Commonwealth secretary-general Don McKinnon.
The Voice
reports that Mugabe said, when opening the National
People's Conference,
that McKinnon's ancestors were sent to Australia
because they were
criminals.
"Himself a progeny of criminal descent, his
ancestors were sent
to Australia by Britain to perish because they were
criminals," Mugabe
declared, evidently ignorant of the fact that McKinnon is
a New Zealander
and was for several years that country's foreign
minister.
Perhaps that's why the Herald kindly left those
remarks out of
its coverage!
We were amused to see
Zimbabwe's electoral bodies moving quickly
to get into line behind the Zanu
PF proposal to extend Mugabe's term. The
Herald reported last Friday that
supposedly independent electoral bodies had
in a position paper declared
their preference for harmonisation of elections
in 2010.
Any attempt to bring elections forward to 2008 would meet with
stiff
resistance from MPs, we are told. "Instead they prefer the
postponement of
the presidential elections to 2010 to coincide with
parliamentary and
senatorial elections."
How convenient. Isn't that exactly
what the president wants? And
the timing was perfect too. Where is the Sadc
electoral protocol in all
this?
At last a confession!
Economic Development minister Rugare Gumbo
has finally admitted that NEDPP
has failed to achieve the sort of economic
growth projected for it. We said
in this column last week that NEDPP was a
failure.
"Issues of growth have not materialised," Gumbo said. But he
remains
delusional about agricultural growth, forecasting that it will
expand by
6,4% this year. There had been a number of enquiries by potential
foreign
investors, Gumbo said. The economy was now heading for better times
if
"Zimbabweans fight for the same cause".
Policies are in
place, Gumbo said. "All that is needed is to
take the necessary collective
measures."
Asked whether it was possible to achieve recovery
without
external support, he said the country had enough resources to
generate its
own foreign currency. There was no need to fall back on
external funding, he
said.
Now is that the view of the
Reserve Bank? Is it the view of the
business community? Gumbo expects the
country to rally around go-it-alone
policies that have failed to serve the
country's needs. This means there
will be no turnaround so long as the
current regime remains in office.
As one commentator said
recently, "I have heard so much about
turnarounds that I feel positively
dizzy."
Last week we carried a letter from Mweb chief
operating officer,
Nikki Lear, in response to criticism in this column about
service delivery.
Although there were a number of service
delivery problems
resulting from Mweb's recent move to PaSangano building,
formerly the George
Hotel, she said, "these were resolved very quickly and
the benefits of the
move already outweigh these initial
disadvantages."
Data was flowing in abundance, we were
told.
Up until Saturday, that is, when Mweb services were
brought to
another grinding halt. This of course was all the fault of ComOne
(the
Internet service arm of Tel*One) which was working on its lines. That
apparently extended to Monday and Tuesday when Mweb still couldn't provide a
service to its subscribers. In fact its customer service personnel hid once
their phones started ringing.
We know exactly what the
problem is here: an incompetent,
unaccountable parastatal that doesn't
hesitate to disrupt services when it
feels like it. But Mweb is also to
blame for putting up with this "service"
without saying a thing either to
Tel*One or to its subscribers!
We have always argued that
there is one thing worse than a
ruling-party politician dishonestly blaming
the West for all Zimbabwe's
woes, which are in fact generated by damaging
policies adopted closer to
home, and that is a state media that attempts to
mask this trail of misrule.
Here's a good example from the
Sunday News last weekend: "It
should always be borne in mind," the newspaper
said, "that the economic
storm that has hit our country can largely be
blamed on the illegal economic
sanctions that the British-backed MDC courted
against the country."
It would be difficult to find anything
more dishonest than this.
Are the "British-backed" MDC responsible for the
collapse of commercial
agriculture, for inflation of over 1 000%, for the
chaos in Marange,
incompetence at AirZim and for the corruption at Zisco?
Are they responsible
for the assaults on trade unionists and seizure of
farms covered by
Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements
that have tarnished
this country's reputation abroad? Are they responsible
for Joseph Mwale's
"disappearance" which demonstrates the absence of the
rule of law?
The Sunday News should stop trying to deceive
the Bulawayo
public with comments of this sort. In two general elections
Mugabe's threats
and blandishments have failed to make an impression on the
people of
Zimbabwe's second-largest city. The same goes for his newspapers,
it would
appear.
But we did like the picture of the man
sitting outside the
Chronicle and Sunday News offices whose "bladder let him
down while he took
a nap" after having one too many.
There was a large puddle in front of him.
Many will feel the
same when reading the Sunday News.
While still on the
subject of partisan editorials, we were
interested to see the Daily Mirror
slamming those who seek assistance abroad
in dealing with Zimbabwe's
problems.
"What are these people looking for in these foreign
lands?" the
editor asks.
The answer to that is very
simple. They are looking for
precisely the same solidarity Zanu PF sought
and secured against an
oppressive regime in the 1970s. And why doesn't the
Daily Mirror name its
editor in the way other papers do so we know who is
responsible for the
kow-towing, boot-licking commentaries this emasculated
organ is responsible
for churning out?
It's time for a
change. Let's have no more puddles on the
editorial page!
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
WHEN Finance minister Dr Herbert Murerwa delivered his 2007
Budget Statement
to Parliament on November 30, he said that MPs would " be
aware that, in the
light of the scarcity of resources within the budget
envelope, some of the
funding requirements for public and private sector
projects were taken up by
our central bank over the last three years. The
emergence of some new
priorities soon after the approval of the 2006 budget,
which could also not
be met within the budget envelope, exacerbated the
situation."
He continued by recognising the awareness of
the MPs of the fact
that "the quasi-fiscal expenditures directly linked to
price distortions and
government developments will ultimately be serviced by
the taxpayer" and
hence "the need to fully reflect such expenditures in the
budget.".
The minister continued by noting, with very evident
concern,
that "such quasi-fiscal expenditures have risen to levels that are
now
undermining our turnaround efforts by systematically increasing the
growth
of money supply and therefore fuelling inflation, in addition to
other
negative effects on the economy. These negative effects include
instances
where the quasi-fiscal expenditure did not achieve the desired
supply
response, owing to the abuse of availed facilities by some
beneficiaries and
the lack of deterrent measures".
Bearing these considerations in mind, the minister declared that
"combating
inflation will require the phasing out of all quasi-fiscal
operations and
adequately providing resources for prioritised expenditures
within the
budget", suchactions being "consistent with accountability and
transparency
over the allocation of public resources," and would"also assist
the nation
to appreciate the totality of public-sector expenditures and
borrowing".
In view thereof, the minister made two very
powerful commitments
and undertakings.First of all, he said that "beginning
2007, all such and
any other additional public expenditures will be strictly
and adequately
reflected through the budgetary process" and, secondly, he
stated that
"quasi-fiscal expenditure interventions by the Reserve Bank on
behalf of the
fiscus will be regularised through the budget by absorbing, on
a phased
basis, amounts due from government", being "amortised through the
fiscal
budget over the next three fiscal budgets".
And,
in order to give substance to these declarations of intent,
the minister
stated that "government borrowing requirements will be met from
resources
outside the Reserve Bank, and no government ministry, department,
parastatal
or local authority will seek funding directly from the Reserve
Bank" and
that, therefore, any such "funding requests to the Reserve
Bank..., will be
rejected". Moreover, he undertook that "Treasury will stay
within its
statutory limits".
The numerous critics and detractors of the
Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ), in general, and of Gono, in particular,
readily and joyously
read into the minister's statements much that not only
was not there, but
was totally devoid of foundation. Whilst the minister's
statements deserved
to be welcomed, for they reflected that, albeit
belatedly, the state was
intending to fulfil it's national functions and
obligations, instead of
abdicating them to RBZ, they did not, as so many
gleefully sought to
suggest, allege that RBZ had been acting illegally, and
beyond its authority
and legally prescribed rights and
duties.
They conveniently ignored that, in terms of the
Reserve Bank
Act, RBZ is required to address divers matters, including
advancing the
economic policies of government, action as the state's banker
and, when so
required by the state, to engage in transactions and economic
financing
activities as requested (or, in practice, as directed), by the
state. As
evidenced by copy documentation reproduced by RBZ in a press
supplement,
there were at least eleven instances, between March and October,
when the
Ministry of Finance specifically required RBZ funding for
quasi-fiscal
purposes, over and above prior like directives, and very
possibly many more
which have not been published.
Those
quasi-fiscal activities, addressed by RBZ at the instance
of the Ministry of
Finance, included funding of inputs for winter wheat
production and for the
2006/7 summer crop programme, for purchases of
imported and domestically
produced maize to feed Zimbabwe's starving masses,
for parastatals required
to provide essential services to the Zimbabwean
population and the economy,
for fuel projects, dam construction, and much
else.
The
vociferous critics, rejoicing at an apparent "hobbling" of
the Reserve Bank,
believed that RBZ had, to all intents and purposes, been
engaged in a coup
or a palace revolution, usurping from government its
governmental rights.
They unequivocally suggested that RBZ, and especially
its governor, had
delusions of grandeur, and sought total authority and
omnipotence over
Zimbabwe in all respects, be they monetary, fiscal,
economic or
sociological. The reality, although the obduracy of some of the
critics is
such that they will not be dissuaded therefrom, is that, on the
one hand had
RBZ not provided much of the funding that it did for
quasi-fiscal purposes,
Zimbabwe's very derelict economy would be even more
devastated, and the
pronounced hardships and poverty that afflict so many
would be even greater,
and impacting upon even more.
Of course, not all of the
monies were well spent. Not all of the
quasi-fiscal operations should have
been embarked upon, and inevitably when
corruption is as pronounced as is
the case in Zimbabwe, some of the funding
will have been abused,
misdirected, and unproductively expended. There is
not a government in the
world that is blameless, when it comes to
exclusively constructive and
productive expenditures, and on its track
record to date, the Zimbabwean
government must be a front-runner in the
blame stakes. But that should not
detract totally from the very great
necessity for many of the quasi-fiscal
operations. More particularly, it
should not detract from the fact that RBZ
had little option but to engage in
those operations, primarily because it
was directed and instructed to do so,
and because of the magnitude of the
need for many of such operations.
However, much should be
learnt from the experiences of the last
three years. Government must
recognise, no matter how reluctant that
recognition may be, that for full
transparency, accountability,
responsibility, international acceptability,
and good and sound monetary
policy and management, its central bank should
be genuinely independent.
Did Gono not violate Official Secrets Act?
RESERVE Bank
governor Gideon Gono published a 16-page supplement
to all three Sunday
newspapers on December 10 defending his practice of
making payments outside
the national budget totalling $400 million.
In a budget
presentation last month, Finance minister Herbert
Murerwa said government
ministries would no longer be allowed to continue
accessing funds from the
RBZ but would have to make do with what they were
given under his
budget.
Murerwa said quasi-fiscal expenditures by the RBZ
were boosting
money supply growth and fuelling Zimbabwe's
inflation.
In the process of trying to exonerate himself from
the attacks
over quasi-fiscal activities, we need to find out whether Gono
might have
broken the law as provided for by the Official Secrets Act
Chapter 11:09 (as
amended at December 31 2004).
On the
one hand, we have a minister who has not denied
instructing the central
banker to print money willy-nilly. The minister has
now realised his folly
and then asked all public bodies to seek funding
through the line
ministries.
On the other hand, we have a governor who is
happy to print
money to supply it cheaply for political reasons. Because he
has been asked
to stop and is being informed publicly not to expect such
instructions, he
gets offended and panics.
He rubbishes
his political principals by telling the whole world
that he was such a fool
of a central banker that he was just printing money.
He is just too affected
because the leverage that he was exercising over a
number of public
officials is gone. He enjoys much publicity and he cannot
remain
quiet.
The Official Secrets Act also sets strict limits on
the
disclosure of government information without permission. While I hold no
brief from the government of Zimbabwe nor Gono, I painstakingly went through
the Official Secrets Act.
Has Gono broken the law by
releasing the correspondence between
his office and that of the Vice
President(s) and ministries? What is "high
level" or "confidential"
information, as defined by the relevant Act?
Are these people
fully agreeable to the nature of the Official
Secrets Act, which has been
described as draconian? We need to balance a
need to promote accountability
of our "governors" and the integrity of the
public institutions by limiting
what information is necessary for citizens
to be
informed.
Gono's biggest mistake rather than crime is to
defend himself
publicly against or rather ridicule his political principals.
He lacks
"corporate" public decency.
A person of Gono's
stature should behave like a judge as far as
public conduct is concerned.
The personal temperament or whims or emotional
affiliation of judges and
central bankers must remain very private.
His emotional mood
can affect the value of a national currency.
You wonder why there are people
who would take it upon themselves to study
the body language of Alan
Greenspan, the former US Federal Reserve banker.
He was employed to
administer the national currency and not to express any
other issues
directly to the public.
While Gono's defence seems to be
watertight from an academic
point of view, it smacks of an ulterior motive
in that it targets the
general public about an issue that belongs to the
establishment. He is
always behaving like a trade
unionist!
Recall what he did and said on camera the last time
he visited
Beverly Building Society during his so called "Operation
Sunrise"? Very
dramatic. He could have been more successful in theatre than
in banking.
Here is a brilliant person without a decent
public personality.
He is thorough but not thoughtful. Clever but not
wise.
Gono is in the same league as Jonathan Moyo, the late
Edison
Zvobgo, Edgar Tekere, Thomas Mapfumo (compare with Tuku) and Philip
Chiyangwa. They all lack decorum. Such people are usually flamboyant and
such people do not go very far.
L
Mhaka,
Harare.
------
Enjoy Xmas by candlelight
Shortages of fuel, no problem
we'll hire a donkey cart.
Power outages, enjoy Xmas by
candlelight.
No flour for cake or bread, use sorghum
mixed with a bit
of cement, as this mixture will keep our stomachs full.
Cooking oil in short
supply, improvise and use old car
oil.
No gas, produce your own by eating lots of beans.
No soda
water for your whisky, mix one tot to two tots of contaminated
water. No
more tobacco for your pipe, mix dry kraal manure with
mbanje.
Don't chop a tree down for Xmas, as Zimbabwe
already
resembles Sudan in certain places where many trees were destroyed by
new
farmers. Rather plant a tree.
Phones out of
order, send a messenger with a cleft stick,
although he might not find the
destination for your message as most
signboards indicating towns, rivers and
streets were stolen.
In your travels around the country
do not stop at a layby
to rest. Almost every layby has been turned into what
we call "mopani
garages" selling illegal fuel, obtained by vagrants from
passing trucks.
Accommodation might be freely available
anywhere now that
all the land has been nationalised. Maybe it's okay to
squat wherever you
like or even claim a vacant house or farm for
yourself.
Game viewing is rare as most plains game were
killed by
settlers accompanied by packs of mangy, starving dogs. However,
there are
many stray cattle, donkeys, goats, sheep, chickens and dogs on
view along
the main roads.
If your friends or
relatives left the country due to
unforeseen circumstances, make new
friends, help the old-aged people and
enjoy your festive season. One day we
will all be happy and well-off again,
God
willing.
Don't Worry, Be
Happy,
Mwenezi.
---------
Harare expensive for who?
Nonsense!
ACCORDING to the Independent (December
8) a report
by ECA International, a human resources firm, claimed that
Harare was now
the world's most expensive city for expatriates (up from 57th
in 2005).
What
nonsense.
Presumably this report based its
conclusions on the
official exchange rate of $250 to US$1. In which case of
course the report
is about as realistic as Finance minister Herbert
Murerwa's budget forecasts
or Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono's monetary
policy statements.
Using the official exchange
rate of $250 to US$1, it
is obvious that in US dollar terms the prices of
goods in Zimbabwe are
ridiculously expensive.
To give just a few random examples of grocery
items:
* a 2 litre bottle of Mazoe orange crush:
US$22;
* a loaf of half-decent bread:
US$2,4;
* a T-bone steak: US$72 per
kg;
* economy beef: US$34 per
kg;
* a 2kg packet of rice:
US$33;
* a 500g packet of breakfast oats:
US$7;
* a 300g packet of local cornflakes:
$13,50;
* a 500g tin of mixed fruit jam:
US$5;
* a packet of 100 tea bags:
US$5,20;
* a 100ml tube of toothpaste:
US$10;
* a 500g packet of washing powder:
US$16;
* a packet of six candles: US$11;
and
* a pack of four toilet
rolls:US$10,20.
Total cost so far: about
US$240.
And if our free-spending expatriate
ventured from
the supermarket to purchase a few ordinary off-the-rack
clothes, there would
not be much point if he or she did not have at least
US$500 available.
And if from the clothes store
one wanted to obtain a
few of life's little luxuries (essentials in the
expatriate's own country)
one would need to start thinking in thousands:
about US$6 000 for a fridge
freezer, about US$4 000 for a CD system, about
US$5 200 for a stove and
about US$3 000 for a smallish
TV.
And if one is hungry and thirsty after all
that
shopping, make sure that you've got at least US$30 left to buy a cold
drink
and a takeaway - assuming that you are
alone.
And finally you want to read the
Independent when
you get home, make sure you've still got US$6 in your
pocket.
However, it's just possible that our
expatriate
community, and others lucky enough to be paid in US dollars,
don't always
change their money at 250: 1.
If, for the sake of argument, they were to change
their money at the
parallel market rate then the above prices can be divided
by 10 - in which
case I have no doubt that Harare is near the top of the
list of the least
expensive cities for expatriates.
Their
lifestyles have much more in common with the
obscenely extravagant and
ostentatious lifestyles of Zimbabwe's corrupt
kleptocracy than those of
ordinary working Zimbabweans for whom Harare is an
extremely expensive place
to live.
Is Harare the most expensive city in the
world to
live in?
Quite possibly. But only
for ordinary Zimbabweans
without access to the precious US dollar or other
foreign currencies;
certainly not for
expatriates.
As for me, I've never been worse
off, and no doubt
the same is true for most
Zimbabweans.
Everett
Scott,
Harare.
---------
Mugabe, please
go
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe must go now. I
don't
think Mugabe is the only person who can save Zanu PF from collapse as
he is
saying.
The problem is with the
people who subscribe
to the dictatorship. Why don't they stand up and say
please may you go, we
want change? The obvious thing is that they are not
happy with him as well
but they are scared to tell him the
truth.
Mugabe is now too old with no new
ideas for
the nation. We are running away from our beloved country because
of him - no
jobs, no food and the list is
endless.
Lovemore
Maseko,
Durban,
SA.
--------
Stop it
Bloch!
IT is surprising that people
of Eric Bloch's
calibre are so gullible as to believe that the president is
ill-advised.
He is definitely not so and
knows what he is
doing and the effects of his actions. No one in their right
minds would be
ill-advised for decades and not know
it.
The reality is that Bloch, like most
other
Zimbabweans, is scared to call a spade a
spade.
The president has led the country
to where
it is now and any blame should be placed on him. The buck stops
with him.
We should not look for excuses
to shelter
him. It only perpetuates the sacred cow - or cock in this case -
syndrome.
The president is a mature and
educated
politician. If Bloch believes it is the advisors to blame, then we
should
hold him accountable for all the failures at the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe,
seeing he is an advisor
there.
Put the blame where it belongs -
on the
president - and no one else, and stop being his
apologist.
Francis
Mangwendeza,
Harare.
--------
Defence of Mugabe
sickening
THANK you for all the years
that you have
produced a first-rate newspaper under extremely trying
conditions.
You are truly incredibly
brave men and
women!
I am sick and
tired of hearing the same old
apology for President Robert Mugabe from the
likes of Eric Bloch and all the
other apologists that Mugabe is
"ill-informed" regarding the disastrous
policies of his ministers and
government!
Give me a
break!
Either he's probably the most
stupid
individual in the world or, as I suspect, the most cruel, or he just
couldn't
give a damn.
I think Mugabe
is simply an avaricious
dictator with a lust for power. The looting
continues, but don't apologise
for the actions of the chief
protagonist.
Charles
Cochrane,
New
Zealand.
--------
Only a political solution will
salvage Zim
ZANU PF zealots met in
Goromonzi over the
weekend for yet another muppet show disguised as a
people's conference while
ordinary Zimbabweans continued to wallow in abject
poverty and starvation.
Pronouncements by
Zanu PF's bigwigs show
that they are far removed from the real concerns of
the people. The regime's
fixation with extending President Robert Mugabe's
term to 2010 shows that
Zanu PF is mainly preoccupied with imposing itself
on the people while the
nation plunges deeper into an unmitigated
crisis.
Zanu PF and Mugabe have become a
national
liability and a burden to the people of Zimbabwe. In a classic
manifestation
of their satanic motives, they have chosen to ignore the
haemorrhage of the
national economy, the acute shortage of foreign currency
for critical
imports, the governance crisis, the stratospheric inflation and
the
collapsing health and education
systems.
They have instead chosen to
focus on
manipulating the people and the defective constitution to extend
their
tenure of looting national resources and raiding state
coffers.
Goromonzi was definitely another
talk show.
It provided the Zanu PF elite with another perfect opportunity to
feast
while ordinary Zimbabweans face another season of starvation due to
bungling, corruption and
misgovernance.
Goromonzi was another
platform for the
regime's top brass to heap their praises on Mugabe whose
term they have now
decided to extend by another two years without the
people's mandate.
Goromonzi has proved to be yet another monumental display
of how Mugabe
imposes his will on the people while pretending that the
people are
speaking.
Nothing at
Goromonzi will improve the sordid
lives of penury and deprivation for the
lot of our people in Masvingo,
Manicaland, Matabeleland, the Midlands and
even Goromonzi itself.
For the past nine
years, the country has
plunged deeper into crisis and these grand
conferences have failed to
alleviate the people's misery. Instead they have
been breeding platforms for
the people's misery and
agony.
The MDC believes that these lavish
congregations at the taxpayers' expense will not mitigate the national
crisis. Whether they meet in Goromonzi, in Umzingwane, in Rushinga, in
Lupane or in Tsholotsho, no bolt of wisdom will ever strike the Zanu PF
geriatrics because of evident bankruptcy. Ours is a crisis of governance
that needs an urgent political
solution.
The people are tired of lavish
talk shows
that have no bearing on their
lives.
The old men and women bussed from
all over
the country to these conferences are tired of going back home to
face the
stark reality of ever-increasing prices of basic commodities and a
collapsed
health delivery system.
Even the Zanu PF delegates are tired of the
annual temporary lives of
affluence and lavish feasting, only to go back
home to live their ordinary
lives of crushing poverty and starvation. Zanu
PF must come out of Cloud
Cuckooland and admit to the people that it has
failed.
The people want a new
Zimbabwe. They want
food and jobs. They want good governance, prosperity and
freedom. Nothing
will come between the people and their vision of a new
Zimbabwe. The people
are always
winners.
The real conference that will be
of
significance to people's lives is an All-Stakeholders' Conference being
demanded by the people where a political solution should be hammered out to
resolve the national crisis.
This
includes a new, people-driven
constitution, free and fair elections under
international supervision as
well as a reconstruction and stabilisation
programme in a post-transitional
era.
* MDC Information and Publicity department.