Zim Online
Friday 22 December
2006
HARARE - The Zimbabwe government
has been ordered to pay 40
million euro to a German bank after the
state-owned Zimbabwe Iron and Steel
Company (ZISCOSTEEL) failed to service a
loan granted to the company eight
years ago.
The German
bank, Kreditanstalt Fur Wiederaufbau (KfW), took its
case to the
International Court of Arbitration (ICA) in 2004 after hard-cash
strapped
Harare defaulted on repayments.
Under the terms of the loan
agreement signed in 1998, KfW
granted three loans to ZISCOSTEEL amounting to
Euro 59 085 359 with the
Zimbabwe government, which owns the steelmaker 100
percent, acting as
guarantor.
KfW is 80 percent owned by
the German government and its funding
activities are mainly aimed at
promoting Germany's export activities.
Documents made
available to ZimOnline show that ZISCOSTEEL paid
the first installment of
Euro 861 558.01 on 31 March 2000. It also made
further payments of Euro 275
000 and Euro 9 673.04 in August 2002 and
December 2002
respectively.
But attempts by KfW to have ZISCOSTEEL finish
off the repayments
failed forcing the German bank to seek help from the
Paris-based ICA to
recover its money.
According to the
documents, an attempt by KfW to receive an
"explicit Acknowledgement of
Indebtedness" from ZISCOSTEEL on 9 September
2004 had also failed with the
German bank not receiving a response from the
steel firm.
In December 2004, KfW appointed a debt recovery agency,
Commercial
Intelligence SE Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore to collect the debt owed
by
Zimbabwe.
But the debt collector failed to make headway
forcing the German
bank to appeal to the ICA.
In a ruling
delivered last week ICA arbitrator, Dr Wolfgang
Peter, awarded: "claimant
(KfW) as amortisation of the three loans the
amount of Euro 40 312 717.49
altogether with the interest arising under the
loan
agreements."
The arbitrator also ruled that Zimbabwe pay the
legal fees and
related expenses incurred by Kfw over the
case.
While the hard cash-strapped Harare administration is
not seen
able to pay Kfww anytime soon the German bank could use the
arbitration
order to attach Zimbabwean properties outside the
country.
Zimbabwe Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa could not
be reached
for comment on the matter.
Zimbabwe is
grappling its worst ever economic crisis
characterised by the world's
highest inflation rate of 1 098.8 percent and
severe foreign currency
shortages.
The southern African country last year narrowly
escaped
expulsion from the International Monetary Fund after scrambling to
repay
part of its overdue debt to the Fund on the eleventh hour. Harare
stills
owes money to the IMF among several other international lenders. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Friday 22 December
2006
MASVINGO - About 1 500 people who had
occupied farms owned by top
ruling ZANU PF party politicians in Masvingo
province were this week left
homeless after heavily armed police burnt down
their homes to force them to
vacate the farms.
The evicted
people had occupied farms belonging to Higher Education
Minister Stan
Mudenge, traditional Chiefs Council president Fortune
Charumbira and
provincial governor Willard Chiwewe at the height of farm
invasions.
Many of the evictees, some with young children,
could be seen
yesterday camped in the open along the Masvingo-Beitbridge
highway saying
they had nowhere else to go.
Masvingo provincial
administrator Felix Chikovo told ZimOnline that
the government had
sanctioned the eviction of all farm occupiers from
black-owned land or farms
owned by foreigners and protected under bi-lateral
agreements between
Zimbabwe and the respective countries.
A total of about 5 000
people shall be evicted in Masvingo province
alone, according to
Chikovo.
He said: "The evictions were sanctioned by government. In
Masvingo
province alone we are looking at about 5 000 people who have to be
evicted.
The evictions will continue until such a time that we feel all
properties
have been cleared of illegal farm invaders."
Chikovo
claimed that the government had provided alternative land to
resettle those
evicted from farms, adding that some of the evicted families
had already
agreed to be moved to new farms.
But 60-year old Mafena Chapani,
among those evicted in Masvingo,
disputed Chikovo's assertion, saying the
government had not provided
alternative farms.
She said: "I
have nowhere to go. I was allocated a plot in Chikore
farm and this is where
I was now regarding as a home. We have been reduced
to
squatters."
And the Masvingo War veterans Association that led farm
invasions in
the province said it would approach President Robert Mugabe
over the
eviction of the families, who it alleged had been given a raw deal
because
the government had not provided alternative land for
them.
War veterans chairman Isaiah Muzenda said: "We went to war to
fight
for land and some people are being deprived of their God-given right
to own
land. We are going to approach the presidium to ensure that these
people get
help."
But the Masvingo evictions only highlight the
chaos and confusion with
the government's often violent land redistribution
programme that has seen
several black peasant families allocated land by the
government and then
forced off again to pave way for senior government
officials.
Most of the senior government officials own more than
one farm in
violation of the state's one-man-one-farm policy.
The chaotic land redistribution programme that President Robert Mugabe
defended as necessary to ensure blacks also owned some of the best arable
land that they were denied by former white colonial governments is blamed
for derailing agriculture and knocking down food production by about 60
percent.
Once self-sufficient Zimbabwe has survived the past
six years largely
on food handouts from international relief agencies. -
ZimOnline
VOA
By Jonga Kandemiiri
Washington
21 December
2006
Some tension has emerged between Britain and other
European Union nations
over whether the targeted sanctions imposed on
Zimbabwe since 2002 should be
renewed upon their expiration early next year,
as London strongly feels they
should.
Divisions emerged during a
recent EU summit in Brussels at which Portuguese
Prime Minister Jose
Socrates said Portugal, which will host an EU-Africa
summit 2007, wants to
invite President Robert Mugabe along with all other
African
leaders.
France has also indicated its intention to relax travel
sanctions: it
invited Mr. Mugabe to take part in the France-Africa summit it
is holding in
Cannes in February.
On Thursday, two large European
labor organizations weighed in on the
question and urged the EU Commission
to maintain sanctions against Harare.
The International Trade Union
Confederation and the European Trade Union
Confederation said in a joint
letter that "at a time when trade unionists in
Zimbabwe have been so
savagely attacked and as the Zimbabwean economy
descends into disaster, it
would send completely the wrong signal if the EU
backed down on sanctions
now."
EU targeted or "smart" sanctions against Zimbabwe, which include
travel
restrictions on senior officials in the Harare government and other
Mugabe
associates, as well as the freezing of financial assets when located,
are up
for renewal in February.
Portugal, Spain and other EU
countries are reported to be arguing for those
sanctions to be lifted, while
Britain is lobbying for them to be maintained.
British parliamentarian
Kate Hoey, who has been outspoken on Zimbabwe and
highly critical of the
Mugabe government, recently tabled a motion that was
signed by some 100
other members, urging the renewal of European Union
targeted
sanctions.
Hoey told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that the
British government is determined to see the sanctions
renewed because there
has been no change in Harare's policies or human
rights record to warrant
lifting them.
An EU official said members
will meet next month to discuss the Zimbabwe
issue. The official said there
are hopes for progress with Harare at the
EU-Africa summit.
But
program manager Pedzisai Ruhanya of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
said he
does not see Britain succumbing to pressure on the point of Zimbabwe
sanctions.
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
21 December
2006
A dispute over the ownership of a diamond mine in
southern Zimbabwe
threatens to cast a shadow over all diamond exports from
the country, as one
party to the wrangle has alleged that gems are being
smuggled to South
Africa in violation of the so-called Kimberly Process
established to bar the
sale of diamonds from war zones.
Diamonds from
Zimbabwe do not fall into the category of conflict diamonds,
but it has been
alleged that a party to the dispute breached Kimberly
certification
rules.
Bubye Mines of Beitbridge, embroiled in an ownership dispute with
a business
group led by retired army general Solomon Mujuru, husband of Vice
President
Joyce Mujuru, said this week that it is considering an appeal to
Kimberley
authorities on grounds that River Ranch, Mujuru's group, has
illegally
exported diamonds to South Africa.
Bubye has alleged in a
convoluted court case that Mujuru used his political
muscle in 2004 to seize
control of the diamond mine in Beitbridge,
Matebeleland South.
The
Kimberly Process was set up in 2002 to prevent rebels in war-torn
countries
such as Sierra Leone from selling diamonds to finance war. The
scheme aims
to prevent such "conflict diamonds" from entering the
international diamond
market.
Lawyers for the Mujuru group have denied that their clients
smuggled
diamonds and accused Bubye of "political tinkering" by bringing
Mujuru's
name into the conflict.
A high court judge in Harare this
month set aside four other high court
judgements in Bubye's favour in coming
down in favor of Mujuru's consortium.
Bubye has appealed to the supreme
court challenging that ruling as
politically biased. Bubye had asked the
court to bar the sale or export of
gems from the mine pending final
disposition.
Bubye Mine Director Adele Farqhur told reporter Blessing
Zulu of VOA's
Studio 7 that she will not hesitate to lodge a complaint with
Kimberely
Process authorities.
The Harare government, meanwhile, has
been accused itself of ignoring a high
court order supporting the claim of
African Consolidated Resources, a
British company, to a diamond mine in the
Marange area of eastern Manicaland
Province. The company started mining a
claim it held but the army and police
ordered it off the
diggings.
Reuters
Thu Dec 21, 2006 4:20 PM GMT
By MacDonald
Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - As dusk falls, the glimmer of holiday lights
in the main
park in central Harare is a reminder that Christmas is around
the corner.
But for many in this troubled southern African nation,
Christmas this year
centres on fond memories of the past rather than
anticipation of good times
ahead.
"Christmas was good back then, a
time of plenty, but now it is just another
difficult day to get through,"
said 55-year-old Thomas Katsambwa, a driver
with an international aid
agency.
In the past, Christmas would spur a frenzy of shopping and
partying in
Harare, but that seems distant as Zimbabweans grapple with a
deep economic
recession that has plunged the country into grinding poverty
and stoked
political tensions.
The crisis, largely blamed on
President Robert Mugabe's policies, is seen in
the highest inflation rate in
the world at 1,099 percent, shortages of food,
fuel and foreign currency and
rising poverty levels.
Plastic fir trees, the occasional Santa Claus and
banners advertising sales
discounts all mark the arrival of Christmas, but
the fanfare is muted.
"When we compare with the past it is very different
because we don't see
anything happening," said Kenneth Ngwarati, a manager
at Montagu
Supermarket, on the periphery of the city centre.
"You can
see my shop is empty, we have no customers," he said, pointing to a
fully
stocked shop.
That is probably because incomes are low and inflation is
ripping a hole in
most people's pockets.
Government employees, who
make up the highest number of workers, earn 30,000
Zimbabwe dollars every
month, far below the Z$228,133 that an average family
needs not to be deemed
poor.
SCHOOL UNIFORMS, NOT CHRISTMAS
For many shoppers only the
basics such as cooking oil, flour, maize-meal and
sugar matter. But even
these are not readily available, drawing large queues
wherever they are
sold.
The annual trip to rural areas, a tradition among urban
Zimbabweans, to
celebrate Christmas and meet relatives is also a thing of
the past as
transport costs soar. Public transporters blame this on fuel
shortages.
"Who has the time to think about Christmas?" said Tsitsi
Munatsi, a mother
of two. "All the money is going to buying (school)
uniforms, there will not
be any left for Christmas."
It was not all
gloom though, with some people saying they were keeping the
spirit of
Christmas alive.
"I know that things are difficult, but I have just done
a bit of grocery
shopping and we are preparing for a Christmas party for
friends and
relatives. It has been a difficult year," Sheila Mahefu, an
accounts clerk
with a local manufacturer, said.
But nothing could
have summed up the mood than a shop attendant at a
clothing chain store
dozing during mid-morning in a deserted shop in what
traditionally was one
of Harare's busiest shopping malls.
"In the past we would not even have
had time to drink tea, but as you can
see we have all the time," said the
attendant, pointing to an empty shop.
Mail and Guardian
Donwald Pressly | Cape Town, South Africa
21 December 2006
01:26
The Zimbabwean state has started another "blitzkrieg"
-- this
time on businesses, threatening to take 51% of the equity in all
foreign-owned concerns, the country's opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) economics adviser Eddie Cross has said.
In
his Christmas message carried on his internet newsletter and
commentary on
the situation in Zimbabwe, Cross said there are already signs
that foreign
businesses are withdrawing from the embattled state.
Noting
that the Zanu-PF ruling party's argument is that it wants
to turn this
equity in foreign-owned concerns over to the "people" and
ensure that
Zimbabweans are in control of all economic institutions, he said
this merely
boils down to handing them to the ruling party's cronies.
Cross said businesses know "full well what that means and the
signs are
there already as to what their attitude is going to be --
withdrawal".
Cross reported that he already saw Mobil and
BP taking down the
signage on their petrol stations throughout the
country.
"Anglo American, once the owner of 40% of the
country's private
sector, has almost totally liquidated its holdings --
remaining with a
platinum mine in the midlands that is simply too valuable
to relinquish
unless the situation becomes totally
impossible.
"Mines have halted all prospecting and drilling
for new ore
bodies, and have suspended all major maintenance and expansion.
The next
step is closure," he charged.
The International
Monetary Fund team that has just completed its
latest Article 4
consultations warned that unless radical changes take
place, the outlook for
Zimbabwe is grim.
Cross said: "I could not agree more. I see
no sign of change in
the way that Zanu-PF is running the country -- in fact
I can only see things
getting worse."
Painting a grim
picture of the recent political history of the
country -- under the headline
"Walking in the Dark" -- Cross noted: "We have
survived a total onslaught by
the [President Robert] Mugabe regime since the
people first made their
feelings known in 2000.
"Having suffered their first
electoral defeat since 1980 in the
February 2000 [constitutional]
referendum, the regime has launched an
onslaught against the freedoms and
rights of the people of Zimbabwe in an
unprecedented manner. We may not be
at war, but our condition shows all the
symptoms of a nation that is at war
with itself."
Cross reported that the Zimbabwean economy has
shrunk every year
since 1998, total economic output is half what it was in
1997 and exports
are a third. Life expectancy has fallen from 60 years to 34
for women and 36
for men.
His advice to fellow
Zimbabweans is: "Let's enjoy each other's
company and stand together in a
common determination that whatever 2007
throws at us we will manage the
outcome and help each other to do so as
well." -- I-Net Bridge
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
EDITORIAL
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Harare
SINCE independence, Zimbabwe has had a problem of
deficit spending. Thus,
public debt has continued to grow to worrisome
levels on the back of
persistent budgetary shortfalls.
And as
happened elsewhere, the deficits have continued to push up interest
rates,
reduce investment and create a burden of delinquent indebtedness for
the
government and the taxpayers.
Lest we are misunderstood, the problem
is not that the Zimbabwean
government, whose insatiable appetite for cash is
legendary, has engaged in
deficit spending. No. Governments throughout the
world have done the same.
It is however instructive to note that unlike
Zimbabwe, other countries have
run deficits mostly during economic
recessions or times of national
emergency.
But the Zimbabwean
situation is different. Government has sought recourse to
deficit spending
continuously over a long period of time. The budgetary
shortfalls have
persisted against a background of a shrinking economy and
even during a long
period of peace and stability when governments
traditionally pay off debts
and save for the future. And what has been the
upshot of it all? Zimbabwe's
debt burden is growing faster that its ability
to pay it off.
The
International Monetary Fund (IMF), which over the years has impressed on
Zimbabwe the need to reduce the budget deficit to single digit levels, says
while the deficit problems are complex, certain countries have, to a large
extent, plausible reasons for huge deficits. The Fund, which Zimbabwe
accuses of being a self-appointed international central bank imbued with
missionary zeal for fiscal rectitude, justifies deficits in these countries
on the grounds that their governments have entered a costly covenant with
their citizens by offering generous assistance to the poor, unemployed,
disabled and elderly. Which is hardly what one can say about Zimbabwe. There
are no benefits for the unemployed, disabled or elderly to talk about. This
has prompted the question: Why were the debts incurred in the first place
and what happened to a large proportion of the money?
Probably the
most perfect explanation could have been offered by economic
commentator
John Robertson in 1998. He said that the loan funds were used on
projects
that were of little benefit to the country or they were simply
dissipated in
various forms of consumption, adding that "however, the more
important part
of the explanation is likely to be that all too often new
loans were needed
to pay back previous loans".
Eight years down the line, the situation has
deteriorated further and the
outlook is bleak. Zimbabwe remains stuck in the
vicious circle of debt.
Minister of Finance, Herbert Murerwa, a fortnight
ago said the projected
revenue and expenditure outturn for 2007 is expected
to result in an
unsustainable budget deficit of 17.6 percent of the
country's Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) -- a direct result of government
overspending and meagre tax
receipts. And that should set alarm bells
ringing.
For years the government has said it recognises the overwhelming
need to
reduce fiscal deficits. But there has been very little to show for
it. Other
than half-hearted piecemeal policymaking to deal with the
deficits, nothing
much has been done. And it would seem no drastic action
will be taken any
time soon either considering the measures that could be
undertaken to
mitigate the pressing deficit problems.
What are these
measures?
lEconomic growth, which in the short to medium term is all but
a mirage. We
have not seen the bottom yet and there could very well be a
further
deterioration although government does not want to accept this hard
reality.
lThe politically and economically risky tax increases, which for
Zimbabwe
there is very little if any scope given that the economy has been
forced
into historic contraction. Thus funding from domestic tax revenue is
now out
of the question. The reason is simple. Other than the frighteningly
shrinking economy, local tax rates have been driven well into the territory
in which the law of diminishing returns has taken over.
lReining in
government profligacy, which could be more tolerable than
increasing taxes.
The ideal situation is for the government to desist from
borrowing against
the future. This is why it is under such immense pressure
to borrow as
little as possible because the money so borrowed could add
further to the
debt and costs of debt service. But how does it do that when
it has emptied
the national treasury and cannot therefore balance its books?
Thus we see
a very dark debt cloud on the horizon. And no matter what it
says,
government is very much behind the proverbial eight ball in matters
concerning fiscal deficits.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Clemence Manyukwe
Harare
ZANU PF's security department has
attacked the key figures involved in the
intense jockeying for position to
succeed President Robert Mugabe, accusing
them of fuelling factionalism in
their quest for power.
In a blistering report which is believed to have
been pivotal in convincing
President Mugabe to clamp down on debate over his
retirement, the party's
security organ accused the presidential aspirants of
engaging in
counter-productive activities. The document shows that the
ruling party
continues to be apprehensive and wary of tackling the
succession issue
head-on.
"The succession debate has worsened
factional fighting as the various camps
champion the aspirations of some
senior members of the party who aim to lead
ZANU PF in future," says the
report, which was made available to the party's
policy-making body, the
Central Committee, last week.
"These aspirants have remained largely
inactive, but continue to instigate
counter-productive activities, which are
motivated by their selfish
interests and leadership ambitions,"
The
report says the succession battle has serious implications for national
security and poses a real threat to ZANU PF's survival.
President
Mugabe's previous pledges to step down at the end of his current
term in
2008 appear to have been abandoned last weekend after his party
endorsed a
two-year extension of his current term through its call for the
harmonisation of presidential and parliamentary polls in 2010.
Vice
President Joice Mujuru, could be one of the presidential aspirants
targeted
in the thinly-veiled attack in the ZANU PF security report. Widely
seen as
the front-runner to succeed President Mugabe since her elevation to
the
position of Vice-President in 2004, Mujuru -- the wife of retired army
general Solomon Mujuru who is considered the power behind the throne -- is,
post-Goromonzi, the biggest loser of the perceived main players in the
succession battle. By ending the conference as only one of two party
provinces -- the other being Harare -- not to have tabled a resolution
backing the holding of synchronised elections in 2010, Solomon Mujuru's home
province, Mashonaland East, advertised its disapproval of the
arrangement.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, although not always mentioned by name,
is regarded as
another of the major presidential aspirants referred to in
the ZANU PF
security report, while John Nkomo, who has recently come out of
the woodwork
with his own ambitions, is the other.
The Financial
Gazette reported earlier this month that Mnangagwa was suing
Nkomo for
defamation over remarks the ZANU PF national chairman made in the
Bulawayo
High Court while giving evidence in a separate defamation suit.
Nkomo's
remarks linked Mnangagwa to a plot to oust Mugabe and his top
lieutenants.
Perhaps to show why he believed his departure would
leave his party "in
shambles", President Mugabe last Thursday sharply
deplored the legal tussle.
"This going to court, damages -- damages dzei
(what damages)? A colleague
has offended you, then talk to him and get him
to apologise," the President
said.
The Zimbabwean leader has sent
mixed signals over the succession issue, on
one hand saying that the matter
can be debated openly, while on the other
blasting those seeking to replace
him as "witches".
His political brinksmanship has, however not curbed
factionalism within his
party. A central committee report claims that in
faction-riddled Masvingo,
former provincial governor Josaya Hungwe's camp
had adopted a scorched earth
policy dubbed "bhora mudondo" whose aim was to
sabotage ZANU PF wherever the
faction could not have its way.
ZANU PF
has a history of victimising those who make their presidential
ambitions
known.
In 2003, the late Eddison Zvobgo, responding to allegations that
he had
campaigned for the opposition in the 2002 elections told the party's
national disciplinary committee: "I have reason to believe that this heap of
lies was designed to be a pre-emptive strike by those who want the same job
but are too chicken to admit it. We are a republican constitutional
democracy not a monarchy. While I have not yet made up my mind in real
terms, what I have said needed to be said."
Financial
Gazette (Harare)
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Njabulo Ncube
Harare
THE GOVERNMENT says it will undertake
yet another land audit -- the eighth
since 2000 -- to assess the impact of
its chaotic, fast-track land
redistribution exercise.
The latest
audit was announced by Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo,
who
chaired ZANU PF's land committee at the ruling party's annual conference
last week.
"The government will be undertaking an audit starting
next month to check on
what is happening on the farms," Chombo told the
conference.
Information obtained by The Financial Gazette indicates that
since
government began parceling out land to its supporters in 2000, 6 527
farms
with a total area of 12 million hectares had been acquired for
resettlement.
A total of 140 866 new farmers were resettled under the A1
resettlement
model, while 14 500 more were allocated land under the A2
scheme.
The land reform exercise sparked controversy after it emerged
that most of
the fertile land ended up in the hands of a few top ZANU PF
officials, while
most land-hungry peasants were dumped on poorer farms with
little financial
support to undertake any real farming, leading to a sharp
drop in
agricultural output.
International aid agencies that have
consistently criticised the government
for disregarding affordability and
the country's implementing capacity when
it undertook the agrarian reforms,
recently advised it to urgently avail
funds for the importation of up to 700
000 tonnes of grain to avert
starvation.
Chombo said the land reform
exercise would benefit immensely from the
Gazetted Land (Consequential
Provisions) Act, which came into effect
yesterday ( December 20, 2006). The
law repeals the Rural Land Occupiers
(Protection from Eviction)
Act.
"Under the new law, white farmers with eviction letters should go,"
said
Chombo. No person may hold or occupy gazetted land without authority
from
the government or its designated agent. Violation of this law is
punishable
by a fine or imprisonment for a period of up to two years, or
both.
The results of most previous land audits have never been made
public. These
include the Flora Buka Land Audit, which revealed multiple
farm ownership by
ZANU PF chefs.
Chombo said this latest land audit,
which would concentrate on A1 farms,
would help to resolve a pile of
outstanding disputes over land ownership.
ZANU PF officials have been
known to hop from one farm to the other, usually
in time to take advantage
of crops ready to be harvested.
Financial Gazette (Harare)
December 20,
2006
Posted to the web December 21, 2006
Clemence
Manyukwe
Harare
THE Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG),
Mildred Chiri, has unearthed a
suspicious disappearance of large sums of
money from the government's Social
Dimensions Fund, (SDF) The Financial
Gazette established this week.
On Monday, Parliament's Public Accounts
Committee, on which Chiri sits as an
ex-officio member, launched a probe
into the anomaly. However, proceedings
were deferred after the committee
concluded that the Ministry of Labour and
Social Welfare officials charged
with overseeing disbursements to
beneficiaries were ill prepared for the
hearing.
The hearing became imperative after Public Accounts
Committee chairperson
Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga told Parliament on
November 29 that in
February this year alone, the C&AG had failed to
trace the beneficiaries of
$2 billion withdrawn from the SDF
account.
"As way back as February 2006, large sums of money, like $2
billion, were
moved from that account and the Comptroller, even in trying to
find out who
the beneficiary was, has found absolutely nothing," said
Misihairabwi-Mushonga.
"So we have a particular fund with which
somebody in the ministry can do
what they want. Not only have we not found
anything but also there is
absolutely nothing that is going on (by way of
further investigation)," she
added.
On Monday, ZANU PF senator for
Masvingo, Dzikamai Mavhaire, led committee
members in grilling Labour and
Social Welfare Acting Permanent Secretary
Sibusisiwe Zembe and former SDF
director, Sydney Mhishi, on the matter.
Proceedings were, however halted
after Zembe and Mhishi failed to give the
committee satisfactory
explanations on the operations of the fund. They were
ordered to bring along
the ministry's substantive Permanent Secretary and
the SDF board members to
the next hearing, on a date yet to be announced.
Zembe raised the ire of
the MPs after claiming that the reason board members
had not attended the
hearing as directed was that the ministry officials who
were supposed to
invite them had not done so because they were preoccupied
with the ZANU PF
conference held in Goromonzi last weekend.
Zembe later said she wished to
withdraw her statement, prompting the
committee to adjourn the hearing on
the grounds that the officials were ill
prepared to answer the MPs'
questions.
"I now want to tell the truth why the board members were not
invited.
Unfortunately Friday and Thursday were taken up by activities at
the
national conference," Zembe had said.
Before the adjournement of
proceedings, Mhishi told the MPs that the SDF
board last met "a long time
ago" and that the fund's structure, with only
four established posts, was
inadequate for accounting and disbursement
purposes.
According to
Mhishi, the Social Dimensions Fund, which was set up in the
1990s ostensibly
as a safety net as Zimbabwe dabbled with economic
structural adjustment
programmes, at some point received funds from the
African Development Bank
(AfDB) and technical assistance from the
International Labour Organisation
(ILO).
"The money could have been returned (to Treasury) without being
used. Who
was spending the money? You were looking for money, spending
money, when
there were no structures. Who was spending the money?" asked
Mavhaire.
Mhishi said the board members had served since the early 1990s.
Misihairabwi-Mushonga said if that were the case, their tenure had been
illegal as the legal framework for the board's existence only came into
force in 1999.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Harare
A GOKWE magistrate has ordered two state security
agents to return the radio
receivers they seized from teachers in the area
after the Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights (ZLHR) successfully filed an
application for the granting
of a provisional order to that
effect.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) reported this week
that the
provisional order, which was granted on December 16, 2006 also
requires the
officer-in-charge at Gokwe police station to serve the
application and
provisional order on the security agents from the
President's Office
identified as Mlotshwa and Emmanuel
Takadiyi.
Rangu Nyamurundira and Dzimbabwe Chimbga of the ZLHR
represented the
teachers.
According to the ZLHR, Assistant Inspector
Dube of Gokwe Police Station
refused to serve the court papers on the
security agents, insisting that as
a state institution the police could not
subpoena another state institution,
saying this was incorrect and
unlawful.
The ZLHR lawyers were thus forced to serve the court papers
themselves at
Government Complex where they met Mlotshwa. Mlotswa initially
insisted that
the lawyers serve the papers on the Minister of State Security
instead. He
then phoned his superior in Gweru, who also insisted on the
papers being
served on the minister.
The ZLHR lawyers, however,
maintained that only the cited state agents were
to receive the court
documents. The lawyers were subsequently asked to
provide their personal
details, which included their home addresses, contact
numbers and fathers'
names. After filling in a form Mlotshwa then accepted a
copy of the
application and provisional order, but refused to receive a copy
on behalf
of his colleague, Takadiyi, who was away at the time.
Raymond Majongwe,
the secretary-general of the Progressive Teachers Union of
Zimbabwe (PTUZ)
told MISA-Zimbabwe on November 7, 2006 that the radios had
been confiscated
from 17 teachers by persons who identified themselves as
working for the
President's Office.
Majongwe said PTUZ bought the short-wave radio
receivers for teachers in the
area to enable them to keep abreast with
developments in the country because
of poor Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings'
television and radio reception in
the area.
Meanwhile, the ZLHR says
it is deeply concerned by the unlawful conduct of
the two state agents in
forcibly seizing private property from the teachers
without any legal
authority to do so. Such conduct not only violated the
teachers' right to
property but also infringed their constitutional right to
receive
information by denying them the use of their radios.
These two
fundamental human rights were clearly provided for and protected
by the
Constitution of Zimbabwe and other regional and international human
rights
instruments to which Zimbabwe is a signatory, including the African
Charter
on Human and Peoples' Rights and the International Covenant on Civil
and
Political Rights.
"It is indeed regrettable that authorities continue to
engage in unlawful
behaviour in their attempts to prevent the public from
seeking information
from alternative sources", ZLHR said.
It was
alleged that Mlotshwa and Takadiyi, working in the President's Office
at
Government Complex in Gokwe went to Simbe Primary School sometime in
November 2006. They are said to have produced a list with names of teachers
who had been given "Ranger Freeplay" radios by the PTUZ.
The two
state security agents proceeded to demand that three teachers at the
school,
Herbert Chigu, Innocent Mugwagwa and Elijah Maramba, hand over the
radios to
them, claiming that it was a national issue.
Following the demands
and threats of the two agents, Chigu and Mugwagwa
handed over their radios,
while Maramba was told to bring his radio when
schools re-opened as he had
taken it to his village.
On December 2, 2006 the two security agents
proceeded to Njelele Secondary
School to forcibly seize a similar radio from
another teacher, Tadius
Masuka. Masuka's wife, who was at home at the time,
was ordered to hand over
the radio, which she did.
Due to poor
transmission coverage and reception, only 30 percent of the
country receives
radio and television signals from the state-controlled
broadcaster while the
other 70 percent relies on foreign stations.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
OPINION
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Anthony Jongwe
Harare
LAST week's article on corruption by
Tofireyi Sithole of the Zimbabwe
Economics Society made interesting reading.
So much has been said about
fighting the scourge of corruption but much of
the energy has been
dissipated in some kind of lacuna.
In other
words, a lot of heat has been generated around the subject but with
precious
little light
This week's instalment extends the discussion on
corruption by enumerating
the total costs of the scourge. It is based on the
paper entitled "Combating
Corruption: Private Sector Perspectives and
Solutions" that appeared in the
September 2004 issue of Economic Reform, a
Center for International Private
Enterprise publication by John Sullivan and
Aleksandr Shkolnikov.
The key argument shaping this instalment is that
"Corruption, while
benefiting a few individuals, is costly to society, the
private sector, and
governments in the long run". We begin by defining and
characterising
corruption and proceed to enumerate its long run
costs.
According to the World Bank, corruption can generally be described
as the
abuse of public power for private benefit. Types of corruption
include grand
corruption (or kleptocracy), which involves corruption that
pervades the
highest level of national government, to petty corruption, the
exchange of
very small amounts of money or the granting of minor favours by
those in
minor positions.
Regardless of the scope of the corruption,
such acts undermine the
development of civil society and exacerbate poverty,
especially when public
resources that would have been used to finance
people's aspirations for a
better life are mismanaged or abused by public
officials. According to the
World Bank, corruption is "the single greatest
obstacle to economic and
social development." On the other hand,
Transparency International is fully
convinced that "Corruption traps
millions in poverty." (Corruption Journal:
December, 2006)
In their
paper excerpted here, Sullivan and Shkolnikov argue that it is
imperative to
fight corruption because of its deleterious effects on society
as a whole.
This argument resonates well with RBZ governor Gideon Gono's
assertion that
Zimbabwe's stunted economic growth is, to a large measure, a
result of
pervasive corruption in society as manifested in the various
malpractices
cited in Tofireyi Sithole's disquisition. Corruption is an
economic issue
that has harmful long-term effects on society, the private
sector and,
indeed, government. The ensuing paragraphs illuminate this
fundamental
point.
1. Corruption misallocates resources. Resources that otherwise
could be
directed towards production of goods and services are often devoted
to
corruption. This includes direct resources involved in cash transfers and
indirect ones, such as maintaining contacts with government officials or
providing an operation or production licence to a less efficient firm.
Corruption also misallocates resources that could otherwise be used for
provision of public services. Funds for licences or tax income, instead of
contributing to the budget, may simply end up in the pockets of corrupt
government employees. Also, resources are not used most efficiently, as it
is not the most efficient but, rather, the best-connected firm that gets a
government contract.
2. Corruption fosters misguided and unresponsive
policies and regulations.
In the systems that are corrupt, lawmakers will
often generate policies and
regulations that are not intended to improve
overall economic or political
environment. Rather, they benefit a few who
are close to the decision makers
or those who are bribing government
officials to pass a favourable
regulation.
3. Corruption lowers
investment levels. Corruption has negative effects on
the levels of both
foreign and domestic investment. Investors will
ultimately avoid
environments where corruption is rampant because it
increases the cost of
doing business and undermines the rule of law.
Corruption is also often
associated with a high degree of uncertainty,
something that always drives
investors away.
4. Corruption reduces competition and efficiency.
Government officials
demanding bribes for providing or denying services like
licences or permits
limit the number of firms able to enter the market,
thereby creating a
"rent-seeking" environment that forces companies that are
unwilling or
unable to pay bribes into the informal economy. Rent seeking
sometimes leads
to trade protectionism, and also to the fact that bad
quality or
inefficiently produced inputs result, which in turn lowers
effectiveness,
productivity, and competitiveness. Overall, the lack of
competition hurts
consumers, who receive fewer technologically advanced
goods and goods of
otherwise lower quality and pay higher prices for these
goods.
5. Corruption lowers public revenue for essential goods and
services. Tax
evasion, one of the biggest threats to government revenue
flow, is
widespread in corrupt countries because firms that are informal do
not
report their profits and subsequently do not pay taxes. Also, firms that
operate in the formal economy will pay bribes instead of taxes when tax
administration is corrupt or opportunities for abuse of the tax code are
widespread.
6. Corruption increases public spending. Public
investment projects often
offer opportunities for government officials to
get bribes. Simply put,
faced with the possibility to directly benefit from
awarding contracts to
cronies, government officials will promote as many
public investment
projects as possible. In fact, these scandals erupt not
only in corrupt
developing countries, but also in more developed nations
where corruption is
less rampant. In many countries, it is sometimes the
case that projects
awarded to cronies are never finished as funds simply get
stolen.
7. Corruption lowers productivity and curtails innovation. In
corrupt
systems, individuals and firms spend time and resources engaging in
corruption (paying bribes, nurturing relationships with corrupt agents,
etc.) rather than in growth-enhancing activities. Also, corruption
discourages innovation, as corrupt systems lack rule of law institutions
that protect property rights.
8. Corruption increases costs of doing
business. Time and money spent on
bribing government officials and dealing
with complex regulations increases
the costs of doing business. These costs
are either passed on to the
consumers through increased prices or products
of lower quality or serve as
a barrier to market entry by
firms.
9. Corruption lowers growth levels. Corruption hurts small
enterprises
because the high costs of corruption (time and money) are harder
to sustain
for smaller firms than for larger firms. Generally, small firms
have less
power to avoid corruption, and they tend to operate in highly
competitive
environments and, thus, cannot pass on the costs of corruption
to customers.
10. Corruption lowers private sector employment. By forcing
business into
the informal sector, creating barriers to entry, and
increasing the costs of
doing business, corruption essentially reduces
private sector employment.
11. Corruption reduces the number of quality
public sector jobs. Corrupt
governments often offer many low-paying jobs to
patronise key constituents.
Also, the quality of public jobs suffers in
corrupt systems because
government officials spend resources on extorting
bribes rather than
providing services.
12.Corruption exacerbates
poverty and inequality. Corruption lowers the
income-earning potential of
the poor because there are fewer private sector
opportunities. Also, by
limiting spending on public sector services,
corruption facilitates
inequality -- it limits access to such essential
resources as health care
and education.
13. Corruption undermines the rule of law. Corruption
creates a culture
where government officials are not held accountable for
their actions. Also,
in corrupt systems, laws and regulations on paper are
not enforced
consistently and fairly. Therefore, what matters is not the law
but whom you
know and how much you are willing to pay.
14. Corruption
contributes to high crime rates. Corruption fosters a system
with a high
disregard for the rule of law and creates a society where legal,
judicial,
and enforcement institutions are ineffective. In corrupt systems,
it is easy
for crooks to buy their way out of punishment.
In conclusion, it is very
clear that there exists 14 compelling reasons to
tackle the scourge of
corruption head on. It is heartening to note that the
political leadership
of this country has reaffirmed its commitment to
fighting corruption going
forward judging from recent pronuncements. This is
consistent with global
trends. The Global Forum V on Fighting Corruption and
Safeguarding Integrity
will take place in South Africa from April 2-5,2007.
Approximately 1 500
ministers, leaders of international and regional
governmental organisations,
senior anti-corruption officials, academics,
experts and civil society
representatives from around the world are expected
to attend. The focus of
the forum will be the implementation and practical
application of the
various international and regional standards for fighting
corruption at
domestic, regional and international levels.
Anthony Jongwe wrote this
article in his personal capacity.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Harare
ZIMBABWE saw fewer violations of media freedoms in
2006 than last year, but
the media environment remains highly restrictive
and the outlook is bleak, a
new report by the Media Institute of Southern
Africa (Misa) says.
Repressive laws such the Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act
(AIPPA), Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and
the Broadcasting Services
Act have resulted in investors shunning the
sector, according to the report,
titled "State of the Media Report
2006".
Four newspapers, The Daily News, its sister paper The Daily
News on Sunday,
the weekly Tribune and the Bulawayo-based Weekly Times, have
been shut down
since AIPPA became law in 2001.
The papers were closed
under the supervision of the Media and Information
Commission (MIC), whose
chairman, Tafataona Mahoso, the report says,
continues to be pampered by the
government despite a High Court ruling that
he was biased in the way he
handled the closure of The Daily News.
Scores of people have been
arrested for violating the provisions of POSA,
and these have included
leaders of trade unions. The government is yet to
issue a single
broadcasting licence under the Broadcasting Services Act.
"This is
despite the assurances given by the government to the African
Commission on
Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) acknowledging the
restrictive nature of
AIPPA and POSA, in particular that it would seriously
consider revisiting
the laws in question.
"In fact, the state appears determined in its now
predictable predilection
to shut out all forms of dissent as evidenced not
only by the attacks on the
ZCTU leadership but through the contemplation of
additional repressive
legislation," the Misa report
says.
Furthermore, the arrest in May of two Botswana journalists under
AIPPA posed
a new challenge to media freedom, as it defined Zimbabwe as a
no-go area for
foreign journalists.
Western media networks can still
be allowed into Zimbabwe on a temporary
basis, but only to cover specific
stories.
Misa-Zimbabwe also notes that the drafting of the Interception
of
Communications Bill 2006 to spy into telephone and e-mail messages is
retrogressive and repressive.
The revised version of the Bill is
still repressive and has no place in a
democratic environment.
Misa
said although violations of freedom of expression declined compared to
2005,
the pattern and viciousness of the clampdowns on dissenting voices
worsened,
as evidenced by the brutal assault of the ZCTU leaders, the
unwarranted
arrests of journalists going about their lawful professional
duties and the
disruption of peaceful protests, the report says.
The Herald (Harare)
December 21,
2006
Posted to the web December 21, 2006
Joseph
Madzimure
Harare
THE cost of living for a family of six for the month
of December has shot up
to $245 661, an increase of 17,7 percent from the
November figure of $208
000, according to figures released by the Consumer
Council of Zimbabwe.
CCZ said notable increases were recorded in health,
which went up by 160
percent, white sugar 97 percent, salt 86 percent, flour
70 percent, fresh
milk 39,5 percent beef 41 percent, tea leaves 36,5 percent
and transport 22
percent.
The consumer watchdog noted health as
the major mover owing to recent
increases in consultation fees at most
clinics and hospitals in the country.
"Flour and sugar shortages continue
to expose consumers to the brunt of the
parallel market as the two
commodities are readily available in the market,
said the CCZ.
The
consumer watchdog has noted with concern the shortage of sugar saying it
was
more of an artificial shortage as a number of consumers and business
people
have either been hoarding or withdrawing the commodity from the
market in
anticipation of a price increase.
CCZ urges retailers to sell commodities
fairly whenever they are available
and avoid selling in bulk to individuals
as this fuelled the illegal market
and the shortage of the
commodities.
"Prices have continued to increase although at a decelerated
rate, the total
cost of the family basket increased at a increased rate by
47 percent in
November, but in December it has increased at a slower rate by
17,7
percent," added the consumer watchdog.
CCZ said that in
December, prices for almost all goods and services
increased, owing to a
number of factors primarily because of the festive
season.
Most
business people increased their prices to capitalise on the increased
consumer disposable incomes in light of annual bonuses awarded to
workers.
The CCZ said the expeditious setting up of the National Incomes
and Pricing
Commission remains critical to addressing the woes of many
consumers.
It said the incomes of many consumers have lagged behind,
while daily and
weekly price increases wreaked havoc in consumer
pockets.
"At the beginning of the year there had been some hope in most
workers
following the announcements that the Tripartite Negotiating Forum
was going
to sit together and consider the lot of the workers but
unfortunately for
most consumers this remained an announcement," noted
CCZ.
CCZ urged consumers to be alert during this festive season and use
their
money wisely.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Harare
ZIMBABWE needs to back its ending of the central
bank's quasi-fiscal
activities with deeper cuts in state spending, an
International Monetary
Fund (IMF) team that visited the country recently has
said.
The mission said in a statement on Monday that it had "noted the
deteriorating economic conditions since its last visit in January/February
this year."
"Progress on structural reforms has been limited and
uncertainty over
property rights continues to depress investor confidence,"
the IMF mission
said, repeating previous calls for broader economic reforms
in Zimbabwe.
Apart from its backing for Finance Minister Herbert
Murerwa's announcement
of an end to the central bank's extra fiscal
activities, the new IMF
statement repeats previous comments and
recommendations on the Zimbabwean
economy, a sign that it found no evidence
of real reforms on its latest
visit.
"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 IMF said.
The group says key to such
reforms would be strong fiscal adjustment.
"The inclusion in the 2007
budget of substantial quasi-fiscal activity
reported by the RBZ, such as the
provision of subsidised foreign exchange to
the public sector and price
supports to commodity exporters, marks a
positive step towards increasing
transparency," said the IMF.
"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."
Second, the IMF said, fiscal expenditure would need to be
prioritised to
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/AIDS and Operation
Murambatsvina.
The IMF renews previous demands that have already been
resisted by
government, particularly the floating of the exchange rate and
the end of
all controls on pricing.
"Strong fiscal adjustment will
need to be supported by complementary
policies, in particular: unifying all
official exchange rates and moving the
unified rate towards
market-determined levels; remo-ving 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."
The Fund said economic growth and low inflation would require
"comprehensive
structural reforms" and a strengthening of governance over
the medium term.
Such reforms, said the report, would include public
enterprise and civil
service reform, tax and expenditure management reform,
agriculture sector
reforms, and the strengthening of private property
rights.
The IMF also repeated earlier pleas for Zimbabwe to mend strained
ties with
the world. "Finally, we encourage the 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."
Financial Gazette (Harare)
December 20,
2006
Posted to the web December 21, 2006
Clemence
Manyukwe
Harare
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has accused
Finance Minister Herbert
Murerwa of violating the State Loans and Guarantees
Act by exceeding
borrowing limits without parliamentary approval.
In
its latest report on fiscal management, the committee, headed by MDC Glen
Norah MP Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, said the statutory l stipulations
in the Act and according to Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) regulations were
that: government could not borrow more than 30 percent of the previous
year's revenue. In addition, the government's overdraft with the RBZ should
not exceed 20 percent of the previous year's revenue while its guarantees
should not be more than 40 percent of the previous year's
revenue.
The report indicates that during a hearing attended by
Murerwa and the
Finance Ministry's Permanent Secretary, Willard Manungo, the
Minister said
he believed the law allowed him to seek parliamentary approval
in
retrospect. However, the committee pointed out that he had not done so
for
the past six years.
"Your committee is also concerned about the
ministry's failure to observe
borrowing limits as set by section 3.2 of the
State Loans and Guarantees
Act," the report said.
"Observers would
argue that with inflation now standing at more than 1000
percent, it is
virtually impossible for Treasury to keep borrowings below 30
percent of the
previous year's revenue.
The committee between 2000 and 2004, Zimbabwe
had failed to adequately
service its external debt , thereby increasing the
total national debt by
$37 649 378.
The report said as of June 30,
2006, the total external debt stood at US$
2919,43 million, consisting of
arrears of US$1517,78 million and an
outstanding debt of US$1401,65
million.
The report said parastatals were still violating provisions of
the Audit and
Exchequer Act that required them to table audited accounts at
least six
months after the end of each financial year.
"None of 87
listed parastatals, tabled reports for parliamentary perusal
consistently
during the period 2000 to 2006. Your committee further observed
that a
number of key parastatals did not have appointed boards and chief
executive
officers in place," the report also said.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
COLUMN
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Geoff Nyarota
Harare
THREE unrelated events over the past
two weeks have underscored the disdain
and cavalier approach of Zimbabwe's
ruling elite towards press freedom
issues.
In a truly democratic
environment freedom of the press entails the guarantee
by a government to
news-gathering organisations of free access to
information and the freedom
to publish such information without let or
hindrance. The same freedom is
also extended to members of the public to
access that disseminated
information. With such access to information from
various sources the public
is better equipped to make decisions on matters
that affect their
lives.
For any situation approximating the above to be achieved in
Zimbabwe the
media landscape requires a complete overhaul, especially in the
government's
media empire, which has long ceased to inform in the public
interest. The
cause of the poor performance and the attendant decline in
public appeal are
no mystery to those charged with running government's
newspapers and
electronic media. They are appointed, not on the basis of
their recognised
talent or experience, but on their assumed propensity and
obsession with
presenting to the world a positive image of government at all
costs.
Leo Mugabe, the Honourable Member of Parliament for Makonde, is an
extraordinary business entrepreneur. He tries to make a success of the most
unlikely ventures, including where he has no known skills. His term of
office as ZIFA chairman was controversy-ridden. He is the chairman of the
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Communications. Above all
he is a devoted nephew of President Robert Mugabe. His mother, Sabina, the
President's sister is also a Member of Parliament, while his brother Patrick
Zhuwawo serves in his capacity of Deputy Minister of Science and Technology
Development.
In his capacity as chairman of the parliamentary
committee Leo Mugabe had
occasion recently to present before the august
House his committee's report
on the 2007 budget allocations to the Ministry
of Information and Publicity.
There has been much turbulence in this
ministry during the course of 2006.
No sooner had the ministry lost its
minister, Tichaona Jokonya, in rather
tragically peculiar circumstances than
the Deputy Minister Bright Matonga
was embroiled in serious allegations of
grand-scale sleaze when he was chief
executive of the Zimbabwe United
Omnibus Company, Zupco. The case, which has
already claimed the scalp of the
bus company's former chairman, Charles
Nherera, appears set to bag another
scalp -- that of controversial Local
Government Minister Ignatius
Chombo.
Notwithstanding his current ignominious circumstances, Chombo was
appointed
to the ZANU PF politburo over the weekend. President Mugabe has an
uncanny
predilection with appointment to the upper echelons of the
government
machinery officials who sooner or later tarnish the image of our
country
through their involvement in allegations of corruption.
To
ensure that such acts of corruption are kept under wraps, government has
gone out of its way to render useless Zimbabwe Newspapers (1980) Ltd, the
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) and New Ziana through gross
interference in their editorial.
Government media outlets have,
therefore become discredited, unpopular and,
therefore, totally
unprofitable. Successive ministers of information have,
each in their own
unique style, attempted to turn these once profitable
organisations, which
government owns and controls, into commercially viable
operations.
Successive CEOs at ZBC, in particular, have discovered to their
chagrin that
one cannot turn around the fortunes of a media organisation,
unless there is
minimum government interference.
Leo Mugabe told Parliament that New
Ziana, Transmedia Corporation (whatever
that is) and the Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation should join hands to
start a "visual raw footage
distribution service" to international
broadcasters. This initiative would
maximise their revenue earnings, he
said.
I suppose Mugabe realises
that the said visual raw footage must be of a
quality that appeals to the
said international broadcasters. Considering
that the appalling output of
ZTV has driven thousands of foreign
currency-strapped Zimbabweans to import
expensive satellite dishes, the
issue of content rather than any proposed
merger, becomes the major
challenge faced by those trying to turn around the
fortunes of the state
broadcaster.
Mugabe told the House that such a
merger would enhance New Ziana's news
selling status as well, while earning
foreign currency for its own
recapitalisation.
Obviously driven by
what I can only perceive as a burning desire to
countermand Leo Mugabe's
apparent concern for success in the operations of
state-run media, the
acting Minister of Information, Paul Munyaradzi
Mangwana, addressed a
meeting of his own a few days after Mugabe tabled his
proposal. Mangwana
summoned state media editors to his office. He instructed
them to ensure
positive reporting on the major political issue of the day,
ZANU PF's
controversial and acrimonious project to dovetail the presidential
and
parliamentary elections in 2010, as well as on the just passed ZANU PF
congress.
Those who attended Mangwana's meeting, along with permanent
secretary,
George
Charamba, say Mangwana expressed grievous concern
that the said
harmonisation of presidential and parliamentary elections was
not receiving
positive coverage in the state media.
The Herald,
which is arguably the most sycophantic of the state-owned
newspapers, and
its editor Pikirayi Deketeke, equally arguably the most
loyal and
"patriotic" of the editors, are said to have been singled out for
heavy
censure. They had become overly-critical of the government and engaged
in
what the minister described as unnecessary controversies.
By way of
example, the acting minister is said to have suggested that the
harmonisation story could definitely benefit from flavouring with
ingredients such as examples from Zambia and other African countries which
hold presidential, parliamentary, mayoral and council elections
concurrently.
In simple terms, what Mangwana was telling the
assembled editors is that the
dirty linen of government or ZANU PF should
never be laundered in public.
Like his predecessors, he obviously does not
subscribe to any theory of
transparency or accountability in governance. But
it is such issues as the
acting minister's high-handed approach to press
freedom issues and the
content of discredited media outlets, and not
necessarily packaging and
marketing strategies, as proposed by Leo Mugabe,
that should be the focus of
any ministry official with a genuine interest in
the welfare and viability
of the state's media empire.
Given the
lackadaisical state of Zimbabwe's media affairs, any heavy
criticism of
editors or their papers has a bearing on the performance of the
permanent
secretary in the Ministry of Information, who has an inordinate
amount of
influence over who is appointed to edit a newspaper. Therefore,
stung by
Mangwana's denigration, Charamba is reported to have rushed to the
defence
of The Herald and Deketeke.
He apparently pointed out to Mangwana that
too much state interference had
led many Zimbabweans to seek alternative
sources of information,
"particularly hostile online newspapers". So
Charamba knows the truth after
all.
The government has effectively
transformed Zimpapers, ZBC and New Ziana into
a well-oiled machinery for the
dissemination of its own and ZANU PF's
propaganda. Government-controlled
newspapers as well as radio and television
are skillfully employed to attack
perceived opponents of government, the
so-called enemies of the state, both
domestic and foreign. Government foes
are rarely featured in the
state-controlled media, except in a negative
manner.
What Mangwana
clearly has in mind is a return to the situation aptly
captured back in 2002
by the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ).
The MMPZ declared that
ZBC was guilty of bias and distortion "like never
before" in the run-up to
the presidential polls.
An MMPZ report pointed out that between December
1, 2001 and March 7, 2002,
in the run-up to the presidential election, ZTV
carried a total of 402
election campaign stories in news bulletins monitored
by the organisation.
Of these, an astounding 339 (84 percent) had
favoured President Mugabe, the
ruling ZANU PF candidate. Only 38 stories (or
a paltry nine percent) had
covered the activities of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change
(MDC), but "virtually all of them" were used to
discredit the party and its
candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai.
What
Charamba would do well to explain is why Zimbabweans in large numbers
are
attracted to what he calls hostile online newspapers. He could launch
this
exercise by asking President Mugabe why he seems to have now joined the
migration of readers away from the state-owned media to the allegedly
hostile online and regular independent newspapers published in
Harare.
President Mugabe revealed to bemused members of his
central committee last
Thursday what, to all intents and purposes, had been
a closely guarded
secret about his preferred and regular sources of news and
information about
Zimbabwe. He did this while lambasting ZANU PF officials
for feeding online
and other publications with information.
"There is
information, sorry, misinformation . . . daily on the Internet, or
in The
Financial Gazette and The Independent and so on," he said. "We try to
put it
in a way that disguises it a bit, but it's obvious that it's a
colleague of
ours who has written it or sent the information to The
Independent or The
Standard."
I had no idea that the quest for the truth and a realistic
appraisal of
Zimbabwe's current situation has now driven President Mugabe to
frequent the
Internet. I felt a sense of conquest, as managing editor of The
Zimbabwe
Times.com, at this realisation. The editors of New Zimbabwe.com,
Zimonline.com, Zimdaily.com, The Zimbabwean.com, Zimobserver.com,
Zimbabwejournalists.com, Changezimbabwe.com, Zimnews.com and other
Zimbabwe-linked online services, too numerous to list but all spawned by
Zimbabwe's harsh media environment, must have felt the same.
The
government has effectively driven scores of journalists, both Zimbabwean
and
foreign out of the country. Government spin-doctors have tried in vain
over
the past few years to convince citizens that independent and foreign
journalists are motivated by a malicious and unpatriotic craving to paint a
negative picture of or to discredit our still beautiful but once prosperous
country.
The foreign journalists have since returned to their own
countries -- the
United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada and
various other
countries that had correspondents based in Harare. Likewise,
many Zimbabwean
journalists were forced to leave the country of their birth.
They found
refuge in South Africa, the UK, the United States and
Canada.
One would expect that, with the departure of these two groups
of
objectionable or veritable enemies of the state, there would be
celebration
in official circles and that ZANU PF would live happily ever
after. But, as
events over the past two weeks have illustrated, this was
clearly not the
case.
First, President Mugabe grants an exclusive
interview to a Canadian
television station. While the "patriotic" reporters
at ZBC look on in
mortification as their beloved President shares with the
Canadians his
innermost thoughts about his retirement. The Canadians then
make a copy of
their exclusive interview with the President of Zimbabwe
available to the
local hacks.
"You are not good enough to interview
me," seems to be President Mugabe's
underlying message.
As if that
were not perplexing enough, it also transpires that President
Mugabe has
virtually followed the now exiled Zimbabwean journalists all the
way to the
Internet where they have set up online publications.
One would expect the
President to be content with reading The Herald and
watching ZTV, like other
patriotic Zimbabweans. But apparently he surfs the
net in search of online
newspapers.
Then he flips through the pages of The Financial Gazette, The
Zimbabwe
Independent and The Zimbabwe Standard. Curiously, he does not
mention The
Daily Mirror or The Sunday Mirror.
It is not the
attractive packaging or effective distribution stratagems
proposed by Leo
Mugabe that will achieve self-sustainability in the
government's media
empire. It is the accuracy of fact, the news value and
the credibility of
content that draws the likes of President Mugabe to the
Internet, where news
articles are crafted away from the self-serving
fulminations of
Mangwana.
Welcome to the internet, President Mugabe!
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
OPINION
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Bornwell Chakaodza
Harare
AS we say goodbye to yet another
tough year for most Zimbabweans and welcome
with trepidation 2007, it might
be instructive to explore President Mugabe's
game plan in the wake of the
ZANU PF annual conference which ended on a
controversial note in Goromonzi
last weekend.
By all accounts, there was no consensus on the idea of
extending the
President's term of office to 2010 under the guise of
harmonising the
presidential and parliamentary elections in that year
instead of the
scheduled 2008. Clearly, there is no escaping the ghastly
consequences for
the country if this were to happen.
But I do not
believe for one minute that it is going to happen. President
Mugabe has
neither the interest nor the inclination to get to 2010. Neither
will he
have the energy to take the country that far assuming he wants to,
which I
don't think is the case anyway.
The point is that when he said that there
were no vacancies in the
Presidium, the message was aimed at the various
factions jostling for power
rather than a desire on his part to hold onto
office until the cows come
home. Lets face it -- the civil war in ZANU PF
has intensified in recent
months and it does appear to me that President
Mugabe felt compelled to put
a lid on it. Underneath the surface of ZANU PF
something very dangerous for
the party but perhaps not for the country is
happening.
We should not underestimate this man's political skills.
President Mugabe,
whether one accepts it or not, is a man of supreme
cunning. Is it any wonder
therefore that he has lasted for so long. Little
wonder also that Zimbabwe
has remained such a riddle -- its fate hinging on
the life or death of a
single man.
Locked in a fierce row with some
of his lieutenants over his continued stay
in office and wrangling among the
party's factions, a defiant President
Mugabe in his address to the central
committee of ZANU PF last Thursday
said: "Where are the vacancies? Stop it,
what's the problem, there are no
vacancies anyway".
That is what the
whole game was about: to try to stabilise things in his
party rather than
the Handiendi chorus. There was certainly more behind his
address to the
central committee than meets the eye. I do not know whether I
am living in
dreamland or not by saying these things. But there is no harm
in venturing
to give scenarios, however simplistic some people might
consider them to
be.
Consider this: President Mugabe is nearing 83 and by 2010, God
willing, will
be 86. Being President for 26 years must surely take its toll
in ill-health
for anyone. Just the normal daily stress of decision-making
tensions takes
its toll on any president or prime minister anywhere in the
world.
In fact, for all world leaders, all holidays become working
holidays. All
decisions -- even the personal one on the schooling of
children like
Chatunga's -- carry political weight. Whether one is talking
about the White
House in the US, Number 10 Downing Street in the UK or State
House in
Harare, the occupants of those offices simply cannot escape the
duties or
the tensions of those offices.
President Mugabe may be
displaying a robust appearance, exhibiting
high-speed hops onto planes and
walking briskly most of the time but he
surely must be weary of power and
any man in his situation would want to
step down. I do not believe for one
moment that President Mugabe regardless
of whatever genes might be at play,
could survive another four years from
now of the long hours and unrelenting
tensions that naturally a President of
a troubled country like Zimbabwe
undergoes. It will be a kind of an abnormal
life.
This is the reason
why I strongly believe that President Mugabe might spring
a surprise well
before 2010. Of course, there are so many unknowns in our
political
landscape but I would not be surprised in the not-too-distant
future to wake
up one day and -- hey presto! -- shock announcement from the
President
himself that he is calling it a day.
I think we are becoming so obsessed
with the longevity in power of President
Mugabe that we have shut our eyes
to the possibility of such a welcome
development taking place. Indeed, who
knows what tomorrow might bring.
Sometimes we predict disaster whether for a
country when a leader quits or
in an organisation when a chief executive
office leaves but many a time
things turn out for the better for a country
or that organisation.
We have seen many twists and turns in President
Mugabe's succession issue
for some years now but I think that we are now
entering the last lap. Apart
from the wear and tear on his own person
brought about by his many years in
power, President Mugabe must know deep
down in his heart of hearts that,
yes, he used to be a great asset to the
country but now he has become a
great liability.
The frustration and
anger of the majority of Zimbabweans who have grown much
poorer as the tiny
fraction of those connected to the ruling party have
grown richer and richer
is almost reaching breaking point. It is common
knowledge that poverty has
reached alarming levels in this country as a
result of inflation and the
economic hardships that are biting, really
biting.
Zimbabweans look
around and see that for them, conditions are deteriorating
all the time and
they are asking what was all the clapping and ululating
about in Goromonzi
last weekend. Indeed the standard of living for most
Zimbabweans has
plummeted to an all-time low.
At the other end of the political spectrum,
there appears to be no
strategies from the opposition parties to confront
ZANU PF, which leaves the
ruling party occupying all the parking space in
the country. Granted, the
political terrain in the country is overwhelmingly
against the authentic
Tsvangirai-led MDC and other opposition parties. But
for them to think that
they can dine and wine their way into power is no
different from living in
cloud cuckoo land.
The ruling ZANU PF will
not allow that, pure and simple! It is a party which
no longer believes in
democracy anyway. War credentials is all that matters
to ZANU PF. Elections
for them are mere rituals that the country has to go
through. If the
opposition parties continue to play on the suffering that
ZANU PF has caused
to the people of Zimbabwe without offering genuine,
feasible and practical
options, they will go nowhere. Merely complaining
about ZANU PF is not
enough.
A pessimistic picture? But is there any hope? Yes: President
Mugabe
springing a surprise in the not-too-distant future. Foolhardy or
rational on
my part -- it is your take.
Whatever your take, at least,
have yourself a Hopeful New Year!
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
COLUMN
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Mavis Makuni
Harare
I WROTE in this column in April this
year that despite having caused
countless ructions because of her lack of
any demonstrable leadership
capacity and her single-mindedness in exploiting
her sinecure to enjoy a
lavish lifestyle, the Chairperson of the Commission
running the city of
Harare, Sekesai Makwavarara, remained unmoved and
unconcerned as long as she
knew she could keep her cushy job.
I said
then that as far as Makwavarara was concerned, ratepayers and
residents of
Harare could shout until doomsday about her ineptitude and
bungling and she
would not give a damn as long as she knew she could
continue to enjoy the
opulent lifestyle to which she has rapidly become
accustomed. Nine months
down the line, I have to declare immodestly that my
observations were, alas,
spot-on and the seething and hard-pressed residents
of the capital city
should be prepared to be saddled with the clueless but
expensive-to-keep
chairperson indefinitely. Her notoriously impervious and
insensitive boss,
Local Government, Public Works and Urban Development
Minister Ignatius
Chombo, has given her a glowing appraisal and extended her
and the
commission's term of office ad infinitum.
When announcing the
extension of Makwavarara's term a week ago, Chombo
lavished praise on the
ineffectual Commission, saying it had achieved some
targets set for it by
government. Earlier Makwavarara herself had waxed
lyrical about what she and
the Commission had achieved over the past two
years. "If I am re-appointed,
I will be happy to come back and serve the
people of Harare. All we want is
to work", she gushed.
How insensitive and impervious to the wishes of the
people can Chombo and
his protégé be? They both know that they are lying
through their teeth about
anything positive having been achieved under
Makwavarara's leadership. If
they were both honest they would have taken
cognisance of the hue and cry
sparked by Makwavarara's ineptitude, bungling
and shameless determination to
use her undeserved position as Harare's chief
executive officer solely to
upgrade her lifestyle.
Chombo's decision
to extend Makwavarara's term underscores his boorish
determination to ride
roughshod over the residents of Harare and impose his
unpopular will on
them. Makwavarara has been bad news since Chombo
catapulted her to the lofty
post of acting mayor after hounding the
popularly elected incumbent, Elias
Mudzuri, out of Town House. Since then,
she has lurched from one controversy
to another and her conduct has
demonstrated beyond doubt that she does not
care about the interests and
welfare of the residents of Harare. All she
seems to care about is to make
as much hay as possible while the sun shines.
If she had a conscience, she
would tender her resignation rather than accept
an extension of her term.
The residents of Harare have had enough and want
her out.
Not long ago a television crew covered a story about the chaos
in a
high-density suburb where sewage was flowing freely near houses. The
women
who were interviewed for the story narrated how they were finding it
difficult to maintain hygienic and health conditions in their homes when
there was no water to flush toilets and burst sewage pipes were not
repaired. They appealed to Makwavarara to remember that she held her lofty
position in order to serve the people by ensuring the delivery of essential
services.
Everyone knows that service delivery has become virtually
non-existent since
Makwavarara took Chombo's bait to become an accomplice in
ZANU PF's
underhand manoeuvres to bulldoze its way into Harare's local
government
politics after being rejected at the polls. Chombo unilaterally
usurped the
people's right to elect local government representatives of
their choice by
fabricating outlandish reasons to oust the Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC) executive mayor and councillors to enable the ruling
party to come
through the back door to take over the running of the capital
city. And what
do we have after all this commotion to achieve this flagrant
violation of
the democratic rights of the residents of the former "Sunshine
City"?
We have a profligate Chairperson and Commissioners to whom no
price is too
high to pay for their personal comfort. In April while heaps of
uncollected
garbage were rotting on the streets and sewage from burst pipes
was forming
putrid rivers in the high-density suburbs, the cash-strapped
Harare City
Council was deliberating on plans to spend $1 trillion (old
currency) on
luxury vehicles for senior officials. Earlier, Makwavarara had
sparked
outrage with her $35 billion budget for curtains for the opulent
mayoral
mansion in Gunhill. The long-suffering ratepayers in Harare had
learnt
through press reports earlier that the Chairperson of the Commission
running
the affairs of Harare had arranged for a satellite dish and decoder
to be
installed at the mansion at a cost of $100 million without council
authority. Not long before that Makwavarara had blown $650 million on a
junket to Moscow in Russia, the benefits of which the citizens of Harare are
yet to see.
Makwavarara, who was rewarded by the ruling party with a
farm in a prime
farming area for her pliability after deserting the MDC on
whose ticket she
was elected councillor, sparked more controversy at the
beginning of the
year when it emerged that despite living in the luxurious
mayoral mansion,
she wanted another house in the low-density suburbs. True
to character, she
wanted the house to be sold to her at a fraction of its
market value. The
controversy surrounding the sacking of former Town Clerk,
Nomutsa Chideya,
opened another can of worms exposing the corruption and
abuse of authority
that characterised the way Makwavarara and the Commission
mismanaged the
affairs of the capital city.
While this circus was
going on, potholes as deep as canyons proliferated on
the streets of Harare,
the mountains of uncollected garbage threatened to
become higher than Mount
Everest, water cuts became a permanent feature of
urban life and street
lighting became a thing of the past. Against this
background of ineptitude
and non-existent service delivery, the only person
who is impressed by
Makwavarara's performance is Chombo, who has stood by
her come sunshine or
high water. The minister has turned a deaf ear to
representations by the
Combined Harare Residents' Association and even the
Harare Province of ZANU
PF, which has declared Makwavarara a liability. What
is the secret here? The
residents of Harare should not have to pay the price
for Chombo's personal
devotion to Makwavarara who has brought shame to this
once proud city. In a
democratic situation, he would have long facilitated
fresh municipal
elections in Harare. The antics of the inept Makwavarara and
the imposed
commission must be embarrassing even to him if he still has an
iota of shame
and conscience left.
Financial Gazette (Harare)
December
20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21, 2006
Njabulo
Ncube
Harare
Safari operators throughout the country are in a state of
panic following
the launching of a government blitz to expose suspected
corruption and
financial irregularities within the lucrative
industry.
Industry players said teams comprising officials from the
Ministry of
Environment and Tourism, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), the
Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority
(ZIMRA),
had made a series of raids on safari enterprises across the
country.
The sources said the teams are investigating the financial
records of safari
establishments, particularly those on game hunting. The
teams are also keen
to check records on clients. The exercise is in response
to allegations that
safari operators could be prejudicing government of
billions of dollars in
hard currency through illegal hunting and false
declarations of earnings.
"A safari operator recently shipped about 250
elephants to a game park in
Zambia without the approval of the authorities,"
claimed an industry
insider.
Francis Nhema, the Minister of
Environment and Tourism, confirmed that a
team of investigators had been
deployed throughout the country but stressed
that the checks were
routine.
"We are not looking for blood, but checking whether the players
are doing
the right thing," said Nhema.
He said the teams would
submit a report to him on their findings. "At the
moment I can not say if
they have unearthed any irregularities."
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Harare
A GOVERNMENT crackdown on vegetable oil processors has
forced oil producers
to stop the production of pre-packs and concentrate on
bulk oil.
Edible oil manufacturers disclosed this week that they had
switched
production to bulk oil packaging instead of pre-packs. The switch,
producers
said, explains the current shortage of vegetable oil in local
supermarket
and retail outlets.
Government has in recent months
cracked down on manufacturers it accuses of
flouting price controls on basic
commodities in pursuit of super profits.
Despite the crackdown, which has
led to the arrest and interrogation of
several senior businesspeople, the
few manufacturers that are still in
production are breaching the government
regulations by selling a 750 ml
bottle of cooking oil above the gazetted
$775, while black market traders
are charging $3 000.
Oil makers
contend that a 750 ml bottle should retail at $2 500 to recoup
costs in the
current trading environment, marked by foreign currency
shortages and out of
control inflation which at 1 098.8 percent is the
highest in the
world.
"It's just not practical," said one executive with a leading oil
manufacturing company.
Manufacturers told The Financial Gazette that
it was uneconomic to sell
cooking oil at the current gazetted price since
Cottco and Cargill -- the
leading cotton ginners who dominate about 70
percent of the cotton seed
market -- had hiked the wholesale price of cotton
seed by more than 250
percent from $60 000/tonne to $220 000/tonne. They
also say the cost of
procuring plastic bottles and imported raw materials
has also shot up
significantly, hence the increase in the retail price of
cooking oil.
Apart from National Foods, other main edible oils producers
are Olivine,
United Refineries and Agrifoods.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
COLUMN
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Rangarirai Mberi
Harare
IN Sergio Leone's western, The
Good, the Bad and The Ugly -- the best movie
ever made -- Tuco (The Bad),
wanted by the law and with a fat reward on his
head, is in a business deal
with Clint Eastwood, The-Man-With-No-Name
(Blondie, The
Good).
Clint's side of the deal is to "capture" Tuco, turn him in, and
collect the
bounty. But he then also has to shoot the hangman's noose off
Tuco's neck,
help him escape, and share the bounty, which goes up with every
such escape.
"There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend,"
Tuco reminds Clint.
"Those who have a rope around their neck, and those who
have the job of
cutting."
Just the sort of clever-deal structuring
needed in Zimbabwe in 2006.
This sort of deal is based on little else but
raw, blind trust. The trust
that somebody, with a damn good aim, is always
there, ready to shoot the
rope off your neck and save your skin -- and still
make both of you some
money in the process.
So, because Tuco and
Clint's brand of innovation is rather rare, this wasn't
exactly the year of
big deals. No big mergers, no jaw-dropping scandals to
excite the pen. On
the business front, 2006 -- marked by continued decline,
sackings and
wishy-washy deals -- was more or less a carbon copy of 2005.
Reminds one of
what Tuco says in one scene: "One bastard goes in, and
another one comes
out."
But still, the year did produce its own share of The Good, The Bad,
and even
The Ugly. These are just a few of them.
The Good
The
Financial Gazette reports on August 10 that CBZ is to buy Beverley
Building
Society, its second acquisition after Datvest in May 2005.
Shareholders give
management carte blanche to prowl freely on the
acquisition market. A buy
back resolution looks routine, until Reuters
reports last Friday an Absa
sale of its 24.1 percent CBZ stake back to the
bank.
In the only
listing of the year (told you this was a boring year),
wholesaler Red Star
goes public on the first trading day of the year. The
company is to later
announce the acquisition of wholesale old-timer R.
Chitrin and Company,
although Red Star faces criticism over strategy.
South Africa's Tiger
Brands buys Anglo's remaining 14 percent in Natfoods to
lift its
shareholding in the food processor to 41 percent. Anglo, still
shedding
non-mining assets, also sells its share of Hippo Valley to Tongaat
Hullet
for US$36 million, cash that will fund part of Unki's US$200 million
development budget.
Meikles Africa announces it is to partner Tokyo
Sexwale's Mvelaphanda in a
joint venture, and is targeting "a larger
strategic alignment" in Mvela. One
of the JV's first investments is the
upgrade of the Cape Grace in Cape Town.
POSB finally comes out of its
shell. Following its maiden underwriting deal,
which left it with a 14.88
percent stake of CFX, CEO Daniel Kandlela reveals
for the first time, in an
The Financial Gazette interview early October,
that POSB now sees a ZSE
listing by 2008, and is seeking a larger stake in
CFX and other
companies.
Finhold (Ok, ok, we know, ZB Financial Holdings Limited) seals
Intermarket
takeover. Well, nearly, as hurdles remain. The group buys out
RBZ's 51
percent share of Intermarket to raise its stake to 61
percent.
CEO Elisha Mushayakarara announces 10 senior appointments to
head up the
merged entity. Then some bright spark gets the brilliant idea to
change the
bank's name to ZBFHL! Well, you can't get it all right.
In
August, Zimplats gets a government guarantee on security of its
investments
in exchange for claims representing a third of its resources.
This means
Zimplats, which also saw record volumes this year, can now
proceed with a
US$258 million first phase of an expansion plan.
Bindura Nickel
Corporation (BNC) gets concessions that will free up cash
flows and help
working capital in exchange for arranging a US$50 million oil
deal with BNP
Paribas. One of the rewards is that BNC gets VAT rebates
within 15 days of
request, shorter than the usual 90 days. The company also
gets ready access
to US$4 million of its forex at any time.
ABC boss Doug Munatsi tells
this paper that each of the bank's regional arms
would now have in excess of
US$10 million in capital. He also reveals that
ABC Botswana's book will
stand at BWP1 billion this year.
In March, Zimbabwe survives expulsion
from the IMF. But the survival is not
without its controversy. The central
bank reveals Zimbabwe printed quite a
bundle to pay the old Bretton Woods
capitalist.
The Bad
Inflation hits 1000 percent in April, rising
1042.9 percent year-on-year.
The Sunday Mail quickly stitches together a
front page comedy script to make
us all laugh and forget the outrage:
"Zimbabweans should not be alarmed by
the 1 000 percent inflation rate
announced on Friday as the economy is set
to be revived because of a
combination of natural factors and
Government-initiated policies unveiled in
the past few weeks." And we
thought funnyman Mukadota was long gone. That
there was his stuff, surely?
Government announces a bid for the country's
fertiliser firms; ZFC, Sable,
and Windmill. In its first bid, government
offers $1 billion (then a
trillion) for the takeover of all three companies,
but its offer is
rejected.
TA chairman Shingi Mutasa says his
companies are worth much more.
On January 24, RBZ introduces a
volume-based exchange rate system, which
immediately traps the dollar at an
artificial level and reverses an apparent
trend towards convergence that the
previous system had seen.
The exchange rate is $84/USD at the time. The
rate later peaks at $2700.
RBZ introduces a primary dealership system
forcing banks to participate in
TB auctions. Bankers warn of failure unless
the new policy is backed by
safety nets such as repo or a troubled bank
fund.
The policy is withdrawn on February 20, but, in a sign of things to
come,
RBZ increased statutory reserves and hikes rates to 700 percent, a
second
rate hike in five days.
A liquidity drought ensues, lasting up
to early May, blighting many bank
results. RBZ introduces a series of bank
bonds in a bid to tie up liquidity,
again drawing criticism from banks.
These are also later withdrawn.
Judge Chinembiri Bhunu orders Kingdom
Stockbrokers to pay 8.5 million Econet
shares to NSSA in a dispute dating
back seven years. KSB immediately
appeals, but sets aside a provision for
potential damage.
Kingdom also fails to settle a separate dispute with
Jayesh Shah, taking the
dispute to a trial The Financial Gazette reports
will be ranked with
mafia-style intrigue.
There is a lengthy ZSE
stoppage after some idle taxman searches the books
and discovers that
brokers must pay VAT. The matter goes to the High Court,
where a judge rules
that brokers should take their case for arbitration.
In September, police
arrest a few businessmen over price controls. Now, it
was tough deciding
whether to put this in the "good" or "bad" column. Why
good? Well, at the
risk of sounding insensitive, the arrests were a
necessary jolt to the
hindquarter for a business community that has long
thought itself "more
equal" than the rest of us.
You should have heard them at the CZI
Congress -- it was like the Suck-Ups
Anonymous Annual Convention. But then,
well, the arrests were "bad". Let's
leave it there.
In March,
government dreams up a new law giving state phone company TelOne
monopoly
over international telephony traffic. Econet and Telecel appeal
just ahead
of the law's D-Day, October 29, delaying the nonsense.
Chris Gomwe
resigns as MD of FBC Reinsurance (FBC Re), the country's second
largest
reinsurer.
A week after the report, in November, Gomwe is found dead in a
swimming pool
at his home.
The Ugly
This category is for stuff
that either made you laugh or cringe, stuff
that's worser (apologies to
Brother Ken Mufuka) than bad.
Take this whole Global Steel mess, for
instance. Who would have thought? It
sounded good. A US$400 million
"injection" into Zisco to increase output
17-fold. Then someone discovered
there was no signed deal.
Obert Mpofu told Parly that some
unnamed big honchos had drained the old
steel mill dry. He recanted, we hope
not after a fat finger had been wagged
at him. But he only managed to get
himself impeached. Pity, such a nice
chap.
And then there was this
claim about a Chinese firm, MCC, buying 60 percent
of Zisco for US$3
billion. Just as state media were opening their can of
usual analysts, an
MCC spokesman pricked the party balloon: "There's no such
thing." There's a
lot to be said, but enough said already.
There had been other denials
earlier. Eskom had to deny claims by Sydney
Gata that he had signed a US$37
million investment deal with the South
Africans. Said spokesman Fani Zulu,
flatly: "We do not have agreement with
them."
And this thing with the
Rudlands. In March, we reported that Simon
Rudland -- co-founder of
transporter Pioneer -- had paid R8 million bail to
a South Africa court
after he got himself in a spot of bother with the
Scorpions.
The
Scorpions, in a raid on Rudland and associate Ebrahim Adamjee, seized
cigarettes worth R9 million, R600 000 in cash, PCs and laptops and charged
the duo for tax evasion, corruption and money laundering.
And
there was FML. Now here's a bunch that you can always rely on for great
material. You had on one hand a management that clearly didn't quite like
the new shareholder, and a new shareholder over-eager to show everybody they
had more clout than they were credited with.
There were battles over
board seats, and in the end, Patterson Timba took
the chair from David
Murangari -- clear writing on the wall for Douglas
Hoto. He left to "pursue
personal interests", we were told. We wait for the
next chapter.
And
Nick van Hoogstraten is another one to rely on. He lost a quest for an
additional 28 percent of RTG, but not after sending nasty letters to the
likes of CBZ -- telling them not to mess with his money -- and trying to
oust CEO Chipo Mtasa, chairman Ibbo Mandaza, and Ternard Kwashirai, audit
committee chairman. "Mr Nicky", as his car plates announce him, hopefully
has more up his sleeve for the coming year.
What about Time Bank?
After RBZ denied the bank the right to keep calling
itself a bank, its
sponsors started running a series of adverts, under its
logo and a new
banner: "Time Will Tell". We agree.
And have you forgotten Saviour
Kasukuwere? He laid an ambush for Interfresh,
letting them plant and grow
orange trees for a year at Cornucopia farm.
Then, just as they
were about to harvest, the guy moves in, claims the
harvest as his, and
seizes the granary and dryer. Cornucopia was to have
given Interfresh US$345
000 this year. Do you not see Saviour's wide grin?
So that was business
in 2006. What does 2007 have in store? Obviously
Zimbabwe has a noose around
her neck, and needs some partner, with a damn
good aim, to free
her.
Let's end with some hope from Angel Eyes (who is "The Ugly" in the
movie):
"People with ropes around their necks don't always hang. Even a
filthy
beggar like that has a protecting angel." And so we wait for
ours.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Charles Rukuni
Harare
ZIMABWEANS could soon be flocking to
Francistown in Botswana to buy their
favourite drink, Mazoe Orange Crush.
The drink costs just slightly less than
10 pula, which translates to $413.30
at the official exchange rate or at
most $4 000 at the black market
rate.
Mazoe Orange Crush is a Zimbabwean export made by Schweppes
Zimbabwe Ltd.
Bargain hunters could therefore take a train ride to
Francistown which costs
only $3 000 for the return journey and still make a
saving. While
Zimbabweans only have to fork out $1 000 for transport to the
nearest
supermarket, they have to pay anything between $5 300 and $8 500 for
the
drink.
This is the paradox most residents of Bulawayo have to
face. Francistown is
less than 200km from Bulawayo.
Most Bulawayo
residents who work for companies with branches or head offices
in Harare are
paid less than their counterparts in the capital because of
the persistence
of the erroneous belief that life is cheaper in the second
city than in
Harare.
Yet according to the Central Statistical Office, an average
family of five
in Bulawayo needed $278 495 in November just to make ends
meet, while in the
capital the same family needed only $229
070.
Business consultant Eric Bloch justified the higher local price of
Mazoe by
arguing that it was probably attributable to volumes.
The
manufacturer needed to have a higher price locally to meet higher costs
of
production and possibly because volumes were low.
Volumes outside
Zimbabwe were probably higher, enabling the company to lower
its
price.
Previously, cross border traders smuggled the drink out of the
country
because it had a ready market and was cheaper than most orange
drinks.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
December 20, 2006
Posted to the web December 21,
2006
Kumbirai Mafunda
Harare
NATIONAL Foods Limited (Natfoods),
one of Zimbabwe's largest food
processors, has hit out at the government for
dictating the prices of basic
commodities, warning that the old fashioned
regulation could drive the
company into bankruptcy.
Government
imposed price controls in 2001 in a desperate attempt to arrest
rising
prices of commodities. Since the imposition of price controls,
manufacturers
and industrialists have registered low margins of profit and
cut several
jobs.
The enforcement of price controls has escalated in recent
months with the
climax being the jailing of two Lobels bosses and several
raids on
companies.
But Natfoods, whose Bulawayo depot was raided by
the police and price
inspectors last week for flouting government-imposed
price controls on
cooking oil -- which has been in short supply over recent
weeks -- this week
hit out at the government telling The Financial Gazette
that the price
dictates are impractical.
"The present controlled
price levels are completely unrealistic and
unsustainable as they are
presently set far below our production costs.
Under these circumstances, it
is not possible to produce oil viably at the
present outdated selling price
levels which certain price monitors expect us
to do," said Natfoods
spokesperson Linda Musesengwa. "The alternative is to
stop purchasing raw
materials and therefore stop production until these
matters have been
addressed."
Musesengwa said there had been a huge upward movement in cost
pressures on
raw materials and production costs in the manufacture of oil,
hence the need
to align the movement in costs with increases in the retail
prices of
products.
She however said since Natfoods has a
responsibility to ensure the supply of
basic products on the local market,
it will try to keep in production in the
hope that the necessary and long
outstanding price adjustments will be made
by the Ministry of Industry and
International Trade.
Natfoods' principal activities are milling flour and
maize, manufacturing
stockfeeds, edible oils, bakers' fats and malt and
manufacturing polywoven
bags. The group's consumer business covers maize,
vegetable oils, cereals
and wheat flours. The group also packages and sells
other general household
goods. Product brands include Gloria, Safco and Red
Seal.
21 Dec 2006 14:23:00
GMT
Source: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
(IFRC) - Switzerland
Nyasha Kumbawa
Meeting Siphile Makore is
like walking into a pool of sunlight on a chilly
day. I felt an array of
emotions characterized by a strange elation and
familiarity although it was
my first time to meet her.
Her life story and even her demeanor brought
to life words from Scottish
author and dramatist James M. Barrie when he
wrote, "Those who bring
sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it
from themselves". I basked
in her sunshine.
One cannot tell even from
a lengthy interaction whether Siphile has acquired
her motherly quality by
being a Care Facilitator in the Zimbabwe Red Cross
Society's (ZRCS)
Home-based Care (HBC) programme for the last 10 years, or
if it is simply
her nature.
The soft spoken, matronly Siphile (51) is one of the Care
Facilitators for
the HBC project site in the Zvishavane district in the
Midlands province
which started in 1997, and reaches a total of 10
wards.
There are 39 Care Facilitators within the programme who work
tirelessly to
deliver quality care and service to the 315 HBC clients and
771 Orphans and
other Vulnerable Children (OVC) in the
district.
Siphile has under her wing ten clients and 32 orphans and she
visits them
more than twelve times a given month per client.
In a
day, she makes an effort to visit at least two clients, having to walk
a
distance of more that two kilometers, and then works with orphans in the
garden where they get vegetables.
As at the other 26 project sites of
the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society in the
country, a range of services is
offered to clients who are referred to local
clinics and hospitals by the
Red Cross care facilitators.
According to Siphile, the work of a Care
Facilitator on a given day varies
from feeding and bathing a client and
changing bed linen, administering
medication and referring them to the
clinic when the situation demands.
"In a day I visit bed ridden clients
first, because these are the most
vulnerable to neglect, even where there
are care givers within the family.
It breaks my heart that because of the
stigma still associated with HIV and
AIDS, a person can still suffer, often
going without food whilst living in a
house full of people."
However,
Siphile also gives clients and care givers counseling where
appropriate,
especially in situations where there are conflicts in the
family.
Inevitably, due to the nature of HIV and AIDS, the sad
reality is that one
day, the bond formed between the client and the Care
Facilitator has to be
broken.
"In all my ten years of experience I
have never been able to come to terms
with the death of a client. Over time,
you become good friends. You cannot
stop your heart from caring for the
person you are taking care of. That is
human nature," says
Siphile.
Another dimension to Siphile's work is taking care of orphans.
She also
takes them through drama and songs as part of psycho-social
support, as well
as talking to them about desisting from sexual activities,
pregnancy and
abuse.
"I teach these young children to listen to their
grandparents and obey them.
Because of their circumstances, some of the
children end up being abused by
relatives, so it is important for me to use
the time I get to teach them
what I can for them to become good citizens. My
burning desire is for the
Red Cross to mobilize funds to start income
generating activities to support
these children."
According to
Siphile, where grandparents or other relations are present,
this safety net
is often subsisting in squalid conditions, leaving the
orphans exposed to
the ravages of poverty at times coupled with emotional,
physical or sexual
abuse.
The absence of parents has also led to the rise of child-headed
households
in Zimbabwe. In this set up, the children are usually deprived of
their
basic rights such as access to food, shelter, clothing, and education,
hence
the intervention by the Red Cross.
Currently, 45 183 OVC are
catered for within the Red Cross's integrated home
based care programme,
although there are about 1 050 000 children orphaned
through HIV and AIDS
and 115, 182 children who are living with HIV.
Whilst these figures may
show that the Red Cross has biggest and most
comprehensive home based care
programme which is operational at 27 project
sites in 54 districts of the 8
out of 10 provinces in the country, its
efforts are only a drop in the ocean
if one looks at the national figures
and the needs of the
children.
According to the National AIDS Council of Zimbabwe, there are
currently 1
610 000 adults and children living with HIV, and about 600 000
in need of
varying degrees of treatment and care.
Due to this high
demand for the service in the country, home based care has
thus become the
flagship of the ZRCS integrated community-based HIV and AIDS
programme,
which incorporates the food security and livelihoods programme,
orphans and
other vulnerable children, and water and sanitation.
As the entry point
of all programming, HBC has about 1 321 Care Facilitators
who are committed
to "Keep the Promise".
For Siphile, keeping the promise has entailed
often juggling farming
activities at her homestead, time with her husband
and seven children, and
the time she spends with clients and
orphans.
For the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society, such dedication from
individuals willing
to forego personal gains and glory has been instrumental
in ensuring the
success of the home based care programme, which has been
replicated in many
other countries in southern Africa and
beyond.
This amount of effort and commitment from Red Cross volunteers,
and Siphile
in particular, have made the words "We make a living by what we
get, but we
make a life by what we give" my life's creed.
From SW Radio Africa, 20 December
By Lance Guma
State prosecutors
made sure the MP for Glen View Paul Madzore will spend his
eighth night in
custody after telling a scheduled bail hearing in the High
Court that they
needed more time to respond. According to his wife, Madzore
was arrested
last Wednesday and moved from Harare Central Police station to
Harare Remand
prison after being denied bail on Friday by the magistrate's
court. He is
facing accusations of engaging in public violence after
allegedly forcing
people in his constituency to stay home from work to work
to protest the
economic hardships many Zimbabweans are facing. Harare lawyer
Alec
Muchadehama told Newsreel that bail applications are urgent matters
that
decide the liberty of people in custody and the courts should have
treated
Madzore's application urgently. State prosecutors argued that they
received
the MP's bail application papers late and needed more time to
prepare a
response.
The lawyer says there is no reasonable cause for the state
to insist on
keeping Madzore in custody given he is a member of parliament
and could not
be compared to common criminals who could not be trusted if
freed. Newsreel
also spoke to Madzore's wife who expressed worries that the
state might be
intent on keeping her husband locked up over the Christmas
holidays. She
says she does not believe the charges merit the kind of
treatment the MP has
received so far. The Tsvangirai MDC meanwhile issued a
hard-hitting
statement demanding the release of Madzore. The party say the
charges are
unsubstantiated and simply meant to harass their member. They
further
pointed to the fact that Madzore is being detained in a filthy cell
and
moving around in leg irons while wearing tattered shorts that reveal his
entire backside. The statement also mentions the fact that the MP is being
held in a Class D cell alongside hard-core criminals.
Zim Online
Friday 22 December
2006
JOHANNESBURG - A
Zimbabwean student who tried to hijack a South
African Airways plane earlier
this year suffers from a "paranoid delusional
disorder," according to a
South African psychologist.
A report compiled by Cape Town
psychiatrist, Professor Tuviah
Zabow, which was presented in court
yesterday, said the 21-year old Tinashe
Rioga, suffered from "prominent
persecutory delusions and auditory
hallucinations".
Zabow
said Rioga had "fixed delusional ideas", which could have
led to his attempt
to hijack the South Africa plane.
"His behaviour [at] the
time of alleged offence is to be related
to mental illness and that he did
not have the ability to appreciate the
wrongfulness of his actions or to act
accordingly," Zabow said.
Magistrate John Vermaak ordered
that Rioga be sent to Valkenburg
psychiatric hospital for a 30-day
assessment by psychiatrists and
psychologists.
The trial
will resume on January 19 next year.
Rioga was arrested last
June after he attempted to hijack a
Johannesburg-bound plane from Cape Town.
- ZimOnline
Zim Online
Friday 22 December
2006
MUTARE - Veteran
Zimbabwean journalist Farai Makotsi, 48, has died.
Makotsi, died at
his Dangamvura home in Mutare on Tuesday. He leaves
behind two sons and a
daughter.
A family spokesman told ZimOnline yesterday that Makotsi,
who had been
unwell for some time, died on Tuesday after complaining of
severe chest
pains.
Makotsi, a United States-trained
journalist, worked for several
leading newspapers in Zimbabwe such as the
now defunct Daily Gazette, The
Financial Gazette and the banned Daily News
and The Daily News on Sunday.
In a condolence message yesterday,
the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists
said Makotsi's death had robbed the
country of a seasoned professional who
had helped groom and mould several
journalists in Zimbabwe. - ZimOnline
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
21
December 2006
At least 150 junior doctors or residents,
have gone on strike in Harare and
Bulawayo over the low wages they are
paid.The junior doctors are also citing
lack of benefits which include
accomodation and vehicles and what they call
inadequate medical supplies for
patient care.
Salaries of junior residents at the four main government
hospitals in the
capital and in the second-largest city average Z$56,000 a
month - about one
fifth of the Z$270,000 monthly income beneath which a
family of six is
considered to live in poverty.
The junior doctors
said negotiations with the Health Ministry have failed to
yield agreement.
Health Minister David Parirenyatwa could not be reached
immediately for
comment.
Zimbabwe's junior doctors went on strike in July and again in
November of
this year, though those earlier actions focused as much on
working
conditions as pay.However the junior doctors currently on strike,
say they
were not included in the settlement reached between the ministry of
health
and the other group of junior doctors.
Intern Simbarashe
Ndondha told reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7
for Zimbabwe that
he and other junior doctors are concerned with the welfare
of their
patients, but are failing to make ends meet in the present harsh
economy.
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
21 December
2006
A dispute over the ownership of a diamond mine in
southern Zimbabwe
threatens to cast a shadow over all diamond exports from
the country, as one
party to the wrangle has alleged that gems are being
smuggled to South
Africa in violation of the so-called Kimberly Process
established to bar the
sale of diamonds from war zones.
Diamonds from
Zimbabwe do not fall into the category of conflict diamonds,
but it has been
alleged that a party to the dispute breached Kimberly
certification
rules.
Bubye Mines of Beitbridge, embroiled in an ownership dispute with
a business
group led by retired army general Solomon Mujuru, husband of Vice
President
Joyce Mujuru, said this week that it is considering an appeal to
Kimberley
authorities on grounds that River Ranch, Mujuru's group, has
illegally
exported diamonds to South Africa.
Bubye has alleged in a
convoluted court case that Mujuru used his political
muscle in 2004 to seize
control of the diamond mine in Beitbridge,
Matebeleland South.
The
Kimberly Process was set up in 2002 to prevent rebels in war-torn
countries
such as Sierra Leone from selling diamonds to finance war. The
scheme aims
to prevent such "conflict diamonds" from entering the
international diamond
market.
Lawyers for the Mujuru group have denied that their clients
smuggled
diamonds and accused Bubye of "political tinkering" by bringing
Mujuru's
name into the conflict.
A high court judge in Harare this
month set aside four other high court
judgements in Bubye's favour in coming
down in favor of Mujuru's consortium.
Bubye has appealed to the supreme
court challenging that ruling as
politically biased. Bubye had asked the
court to bar the sale or export of
gems from the mine pending final
disposition.
Bubye Mine Director Adele Farqhur told reporter Blessing
Zulu of VOA's
Studio 7 that she will not hesitate to lodge a complaint with
Kimberely
Process authorities.
The Harare government, meanwhile, has
been accused itself of ignoring a high
court order supporting the claim of
African Consolidated Resources, a
British company, to a diamond mine in the
Marange area of eastern Manicaland
Province. The company started mining a
claim it held but the army and police
ordered it off the
diggings.