FinGaz
Clemence Manyukwe Staff
Reporter
Retired Army chief sucked into Mushore saga
IN a fresh twist to
the suspended Attorney-General (AG) Sobusa Gula-Ndebele
saga, police have
widened their investigations and are weighing the
possibility of pressing
obstruction of justice charges against Retired Army
General Solomon Mujuru
for allegedly shielding banker, James Mushore.
The Financial Gazette
established this week that the police might level
allegations against Mujuru
for using his political clout to shield Mushore
from the law, in a
development widely seen as part of the intense factional
fighting within
ZANU-PF in the battle to succeed President Robert Mugabe
when he leaves
office.
Whereas previously the police levelled allegations of misconduct
against
Gula-Ndebele over the former NMBZ Holdings deputy managing director,
it has
been established that the investigating officer, Alison Nyamupaguma,
now
claims that at one point the AG and Mujuru met Mushore together and that
the
retired army general had vowed that the astute banker would not be
prosecuted even though he was on the police wanted list.
Mushore, on bail
on allegations of flouting exchange control regulations and
breaching
immigration laws, was arrested in October last year after spending
close to
three years in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom.
In November, police
quizzed Gula-Ndebele for meeting the former NMBZ
director, and a close
associate of Mujuru, who was on a police wanted list,
at a Harare
restaurant.
President Mugabe subsequently suspended the AG in December to
pave the way
for an inquiry chaired by High Court judge Justice Chinembiri
Bhunu.
Justice Bharat Patel has since been appointed acting
AG.
Nyamupaguma, who is currently working on other cases in Bulawayo, is
expected to testify against Gula-Ndebele during a probe by a tribunal led by
Justice Bhunu, which began on Monday.
Sources said chief law officers
Joseph Jagada and Florence Ziyambi and the
new deputy AG in charge of legal
drafting, Nelson Dias, among others, would
be called as
witnesses.
Gula-Ndebele has acknowledged meeting Mushore during lunch, but
said this
was purely “by chance” and the meeting did not last more than a
minute.
He also denied giving Mushore any form of assurance although he did
not say
whether the banker was alone or in whose company he was.
Police
national spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena yesterday professed ignorance
over the
Mujuru link.
Bvudzijena said: “I am not aware of that. It (investigations)
only concerns
Gula-Ndebele. We are investigating his (Gula-Ndebele) conduct
in relation to
Mushore and I don’t know where (Retired) General Mujuru comes
in.”
Sources however, said the obstruction of justice charges against Mujuru,
who
together with the late Josiah Tongogara led the ZANLA forces when
President
Mugabe languished in prison for 10 years from 1964 to 1974, could
be viewed
as part of the war of attrition against the former legislator for
Chikomba.
Widely seen as the kingmaker in ZANU-PF’s succession politics,
Mujuru left
government in 1995.
The “Mujuru camp” is linked to attempts
to block President Mugabe from
seeking a fresh mandate at the ruling party
congress held in December.
President Mugabe was however, endorsed
unanimously.
It remains to be seen how Mujuru, who sits in ZANU-PF’s
supreme-decision-making body, the politburo, could be dragged into the
imbroglio and whether the allegations would stick.
Efforts to get a
comment from Mujuru were fruitless.
The infighting in ZANU-PF has spilled
into the AG’s office, with rival
ruling party factions vying to control the
department. The tensions have
resulted in some recently appointed top
officers being accused of
corruption.
A complaint seen by The Financial
Gazette, lodged with the Presidency,
accuses newly appointed Deputy AG
Johannes Tomana of allegedly resolving
that a Harare lawyer, Puwayi Chiutsi
would be prosecuted only to backtrack
for no reasonable grounds.
The
document also says the Harare Messenger of Court Smart Moyo should be
investigated for misconduct.
The complainant, one Jean Sano, confirmed in
an interview on Tuesday that he
had lodged the complaint. He was yet to get
a response.
Sources said the complaint was another aspect of the factional
fight for the
control of the AG’s office.
This week the tribunal
investigating the AG deferred proceedings to
tomorrow. The matter will be
held in camera in line with directives issued
by President Mugabe.
The
leading figures involved in this feud, Gula Ndebele and Justice and
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa are said to belong to rival
factions within the ruling party.
In 2006, Chinamasa was charged by
obstructing the course of justice by
attempting to block the prosecution of
ZANU-PF supporters who were accused
of political violence. He was
acquitted.
Last year, the police linked Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Rural Housing
and
Social Amenities Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa and the alleged leader of
the
other political camp in ZANU-PF, to a plot to overthrow President Robert
Mugabe’s government.
“The other faction is now hitting back. It is now
survival of the fittest,”
a source said.
It has emerged that the head of
state suspended Gula-Ndebele after he had
made recommendations to Cabinet
following deliberations that took place late
last year.
The AG, who is an
ex-officio member of both Parliament and Cabinet, was
absent during these
deliberations.
Sources this week said at the Cabinet meeting, some expressed
the view that
Gula- Ndebele did not have a case to answer, but members of
the rival
faction drowned their voices.
FinGaz
Shame Makoshori Staff Reporter
Banking,
accounting systems stretched by resurgence of high denomination
currency
BANKING and other key economic activities have been crippled by
the
resurgence of zeros on the country’s beleaguered currency, from which
the
central bank lopped off three zeros in August 2006.
Rampaging
inflation has caused prices to surge sharply, driving prices of
basic food
commodities past the million-dollar mark and those for household
products
like television sets and lounge suites to billions of dollars.
Even minimum
purchase amounts for shares on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange,
whose market
capitalisation breached the quadrillion-dollar level last year,
are now
heading towards the $10 billion mark.
Pardon Gorova, president of the
Computer Society of Zimbabwe, said
accounting systems had been stretched and
businesses were becoming creative
to account for the large number of zeros
on the country’s currency.
“Most companies have resorted to over-accounting,
where, whenever the table
is full of invoices, the new entries are not
accounted. This poses a serious
challenge for transparency in the industry,”
Gorova told The Financial
Gazette.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor
Gideon Gono recently told bankers that he
was not removing any zeros from
the country’s currency, saying if systems
failed, they could resort to
manual means to deal with the situation.
He said experience from the past
exercise had revealed people now had a
psyche for higher denominated amounts
and would feel robbed if zeros were
lopped off the currency.
They would,
therefore, increase prices to come back to millions and other
higher
figures.
Gono last month introduced a set of new, high denomination bearer
cheques to
deal with a cash shortage that had ravaged the country, resulting
in long
queues at banks as depositors battled to withdraw their
money.
Already, the multiplication of zeros has proved to be a daunting task
for
the government.
Finance Minister Samuel Mumbengegwi said during the
presentation of the 2008
national budget in November they had faced serious
problems in coming up
with allocations.
Galloping year-on-year inflation
reportedly surged past 24 000 percent in
October and could have breached 50
000 percent by December, although the
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
estimates inflation at 150 000
year-on-year for December.
Gorova said
some companies had formulated stopgap measures to deal with
failing
accounting systems.
Zimbabwe is battling an economic crisis now in its ninth
year characterised
by high inflation and foreign currency
shortages.
Foreign currency reserves have been shrinking since 1999, when the
IMF and
other multilateral donors withdrew balance of payments support to
the
country over human rights violations.
President Robert Mugabe’s
government alleges it is being punished by the
West for embarking on an
agrarian land reform programme that resulted in
white farmers being forcibly
driven off their farms in order to resettle
blacks.
The reforms have
largely benefited ruling party big wigs and their cronies,
and left a trail
of destruction on infrastructure built by the former white
landowners.
This has resulted in a poorly performing agricultural sector
whose effects
have cascaded across the entire agro-based economy.
Under
the first phase of the currency reform programme Gono struck off three
zeros
from the currency after computers failed to handle large numbers that
had
been caused by an increase in inflation.
FinGaz
Dumisani Ndlela Business
Editor
FORMER finance minister Simba Makoni last week threw into a
conundrum
reports linking him to a now foiled split in the ruling party
after
submitting his curriculum vitae (CV) for primary elections to choose a
ZANU-PF representative for Makoni Central in the forthcoming
elections.
But sources indicated that his bid for the seat, which he is
likely to lose
to Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, was merely a symbolic
gesture to
demonstrate to President Robert Mugabe's loyalists, baying for
his blood,
that he does not intend to break ranks with the party.
The
politician, who met President Mugabe over a week ago to dispel reports
linking him to a planned split within the revolutionary party, has
previously been approached to lead initiatives aimed at dislodging ZANU-PF
from power.
But Makoni took advantage of his meeting with the President
to "clear his
name" and to hint he might not be available during the
elections period due
to consultancy work that would take him outside the
country.
The Financial Gazette, which broke the story of the planned split,
is
informed by its sources that the former finance minister would indeed be
unavailable for the elections because of pressure of work.
Makoni was
touted to lead the breakaway group of largely reform-minded party
cadres,
which was being spearheaded by Ibbo Mandaza.
Herald columnist (Nathaniel
Manheru) widely believed to be President
Mugabe's spokesman, George
Charamba, admitted that the planned breakaway has
been brewing in ZANU-PF,
but trashed the credibility of the characters
behind the
initiative.
Manheru said the organisers of the planned split had in their
corner figures
that "do hold positions in both the party and government",
and a "contingent
of ex-servicemen…high officers of the ruling party,
including some
controlling provinces and with business interests".
The
group, he wrote, also included "politburo members who are convening
unilateral meetings" and stirring up opposition to President Mugabe's
leadership.
The Financial Gazette can authoritatively report that
President Mugabe has a
list of all players behind the planned break up, and
met some of them
individually after returning early this month from his
annual holiday in
Asia.
The split was expected to take place early in
February, and had the backing
of international capital mobilised by a former
cabinet minister now
domiciled abroad.
There was no option for an
internal rebellion to unseat President Mugabe,
The Financial Gazette's
sources indicated.
The disintegration of the reformists' plans to break away
from the ruling
party is said to have severely weakened the Mujuru faction,
already said to
have lost key members soon after the 2002 Presidential
election.
This is despite the fact that the the entire party presidium,
except
President Mugabe, allegedly supports the Mujuru faction.
Sources
indicated that President Mugabe had been "overwhelmed" with
apologies from
those initially linked to the break away initiative, who had
pledged support
for his candidacy and vowed to give up factional politics
threatening to
tear away the party.
The weakening of the Mujuru faction has meant the
strengthening of the
Emmerson Mnangagwa faction, currently said to have the
backing of President
Mugabe.
Apparently, Makoni will be pitted against a
Mnangagwa faction member,
Chinamasa, in the primaries for the Makoni Central
seat.
Chinamasa has the backing of State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa,
also
the ZANU-PF secretary for administration and the most senior politician
in
Manicaland Province.
Mutasa, who doubles up as the Lands Minister, is
seen to be closer to
Chinamasa than Makoni and might use his clout to swing
votes in favour of
the Justice Minister.
Interestingly Makoni was not
present at the Mutare meeting, which
successfully vetted his CV, but
Chinamasa was in attendance.
FinGaz
Staff Reporter
INDUSTRY and
International Trade Minister Obert Mpofu’s conviction for
contempt of
parliament has fallen away following the legislature’s failure
to conclude
the matter before the dissolution of parliament to pave the way
for
elections to be held on March 29.
Mpofu was found guilty of
“prevarication” by the parliamentary privileges
committee, which was chaired
by Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi. The
charge pertained to evidence the
Industry Minister submitted to the
Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Industry and International Trade,
which was probing a management contract
between the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel
Company (ZISCO) and a potential investor
in the giant steelworks — Global
Steel Holdings Limited of India.
The
Minister was charged under section 21 of the Privileges, Immunities and
Powers of Parliament Act, which stipulates a maximum fine of $40 000 or two
years imprisonment or both for anyone found guilty.
However, in a ruling
delivered on May 10 last year Sekeramayi’s committee
recommended that Mpofu
be fined $40 000, but soon afterwards the process
stagnated.
The motion
on Mpofu lapses with the dissolution of parliament on March 28, a
day before
the elections.
To cloud matters further, although parliament will now be
dissolved next
month, two weeks ago it was adjourned to April 8, meaning
that it would not
meet before the elections.
Sources said there was a
possibility that the legislature might be called to
deal solely with urgent
matters arising from the ZANU-PF/Movement for
Democratic Change talks
brokered by the Southern African Development
Community.
In an interview
last week, the chairman of the Parliamentary Legal
Committee, Welshman
Ncube, said in terms of the law, even if parliament had
endorsed Mpofu’s
conviction and he had paid the required fine, there would
have been no
effect on his status as a Minister.
Ncube also served on the six -member
privileges committee - an ad hoc body -
that was constituted after Speaker
of Parliament John Nkomo ruled on
November 30, 2006 that there was a prima
facie case against Mpofu in
connection with evidence he submitted to the
trade committee chaired by
ZANU-PF Chipinge legislator Enock
Porusingazi.
Nkomo’s ruling was made after Porusingazi’s committee moved a
motion
imploring the Speaker to rule on allegations that the Minister had
falsified
information during the Zisco hearing.
When Mpofu first appeared
before the parliamentary committee on September
20, 2006, he was said to
have alleged that there was a file containing
“shocking” information, which
implicated some Members of Parliament and
high-ranking government officials
in corrupt dealings at Zisco.
On September 27 the same year, the minister is
said to have made a sudden
U-turn, denying having made the earlier
statement.
In its ruling on May 10 last year the privileges committee said
“It is the
committee’s observation that this is what amounts to evasion and
avoidance
and consequently prevarication.
“Accordingly, the committee
finds the Honourable Minister to have been
contemptuous of the Portfolio
Committee on Foreign Affairs, Industry and
International Trade and therefore
Parliament by prevaricating as a witness
within the meaning of section 21 of
the Act.”
FinGaz
Staff
Reporter
THE government has apparently bowed to the demands of Air
Zimbabwe engineers
for their salaries to be paid in foreign
currency.
Sources at the national airline told The Financial Gazette this
week that
the government gave the management the green light to pay
engineers in
foreign currency following an exodus, which saw 16 experienced
engineers
leaving the national carrier in 2007.
“We have information that
the government has given management the go ahead
to pay salaries for
engineers in foreign currency starting this month,” said
the source who
asked to remain anonymous.
Air Zimbabwe Corporate Affairs Manager, Pride
Khumbula, could neither
confirm nor deny that engineers are to be paid in
foreign currency but
emphasised that a deal had been struck with the
government.
“The airline has put in place retention packages for pilots and
engineers,
in accordance with recommendations from government and the
central bank,”
said Khumbula without elaborating.
Air Zimbabwe boasts a
team of 50 pilots and 220 engineers. When the airline’s
chief executive
officer Peter Chikumba took over the reins in February last
year he made it
clear that staff retention was one of his major goals.
Chikumba said
experienced and well-trained professionals were one of Air
Zimbabwe’s
greatest assets.
FinGaz
Shame Makoshori
Staff Reporter
BILL Champion, the managing director for Rio Tinto
Diamonds will jet into
the country on Monday for a four-day tour of the
group’s local operations
and high-level meetings on the planned
indigenisation of the mining sector.
While details of the tour were still
sketchy at the time of going to print,
The Financial Gazette has it on good
authority that Champion will tour
Murowa Diamonds in Zvishavane and engage
government thereafter, on the
impending expropriation of mining resources
from foreign owners.
Jill Day, the spokesperson for Rio Tinto Zimbabwe
confirmed the visit
yesterday, but requested further questions in
writing.
Murowa registered a drop in diamond output from 251 301 carats in
2005 to
240 000 carats in 2006. But output was projected to increase this
year
pending the completion of a US$250 million expansion project announced
last
year.
The project will increase output by 10 fold to about two
million tonnes per
annum.
Champion’s predecessor, Andrew Mackenzie, was
however, quoted last year
saying the US$250 million investment had been put
on ice pending the outcome
of the planned indigenisation of the mining
sector.
“I believe the best way forward would be for the government to
consider
indigenous empowerment at a similar pace and scale to the South
African
process,” Mackenzie, was quoted saying.
Government is planning to
take over at least 51 percent shareholding in all
foreign-owned mining
companies under a controversial empowerment plan aimed
at addressing
colonial-era imbalances in the ownership of economic
resources.
Reports
have indicated that government might take over at least 25 percent
of the
targeted shareholding in the foreign-owned mining companies for free.
The
planned expropriation of mining resources from foreign owners has
grossly
affected investment in the sector at a time when the country is
battling
hyperinflation and foreign currency shortages that have had far
reaching
implications on the mining industry.
Rio Tinto, which has been in Zimbabwe’s
mining sector for 50 years, has
spent $100 million expanding its Murowa
Diamonds since the discovery of
diamonds 14 years ago.
The operation,
which is 77,8 percent owned by Rio Tinto Plc, is capable of
producing
300,000 carats of diamonds per year.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda
Senior Business Reporter
THE newspaper industry was this week left facing
an uncertain future after
the country’s largest manufacturer of newsprint
warned of severe shortages
of the essential input owing to intermittent
power cuts, coal and foreign
currency shortages.
Executives from ART
Corporation — the owners of paper manufacturing concern
Mutare Board &
Paper Mills (MBPM) — have since last week been shuttling from
office to
office, highlighting the desperate situation at the Eastern
Highlands-based
plant where scores of jobs are on the line.
MBPM, according to the
executives, has lost significant man-hours due to
frequent power outages.
Erratic coal supplies and unviable prices for
newsprint have also affected
operations.
Richard Zirobwa, the ART Corporation group chief executive
officer, is said
to have indicated that capacity utilisation at the Mutare
factory had
nose-dived to 30 percent, resulting in the division freezing all
newsprint
exports.
Zirobwa is said to have told officials at the
Information Ministry and
executives in the newspaper industry that the
latest power outages had
resulted in a no-stock situation at MBPM, with
output falling to levels that
cannot even satisfy the domestic
market.
“Everyone who cares to listen has been appraised of the desperate
situation
at Mutare Board, but the silence has been deafening,” said a
source. “There
is suspicion that someone, somewhere is deliberately
squeezing Mutare Board
in order to make way for some political vultures who
want to take-over the
company. The strategy is simple; Mutare Board must be
seen as failing to
deliver to warrant a forcible take-over,” added the
source.
Insiders at Mutare Board said even if ZESA Holdings was to restore
power at
the company’s factory, the shortages of foreign currency needed to
import
pulp would still hinder the production of newsprint.
They said
Hwange Colliery Company indicated to them that it was only able to
supply a
few wagons of coal, which is not even enough to power the plant for
a
day.
The newsprint shortages could affect the publication of both state-owned
and
privately controlled newspapers at a time when the electorate requires
to be
informed about the forthcoming harmonised elections pitting the
fractious
opposition Movement for Democratic Change against the ruling
ZANU-PF.
There were fears the private press could be starved of newsprint as
ART
could come under political pressure to divert all supplies to the state
newspapers, which are expected to spearhead the ZANU-PF election
campaign.
Justin Mutasa, the Group CEO for the Zimbabwe Newspapers revealed
on
Wednesday that the state-run concern has had to reduce the print-run for
the
daily Herald due to depleted newsprint stocks.
“Since last week (the)
Harare branch has been getting 14 tonnes (of
newsprint) a week and Bulawayo
four tonnes. This is totally inadequate. We
are therefore, printing very few
copies of newspapers under our titles
because of the acute shortages,” said
Mutasa.
Publishers this week warned that in the absence of an immediate
improvement
in newsprint supplies, newspapers may be forced to cut down
print orders or
reduce their pagination, which either way, would mean heavy
losses for the
companies.
The quality of products on the market will also
suffer as publishers resort
to mopping up inferior newsprint on the market
in order to remain in
business.
“Either way, we are in deep trouble. We
are all in a no-win situation, MBPM,
subscribers, readers, employees and
owners of the businesses alike. We are
all hoping for divine intervention to
save the situation,” said an industry
executive.
The education sector,
which relies on paper products from MBPM, could also
suffer as a result of
the newsprint shortages.
Zimbabwe’s embattled newspaper industry has had to
effect regular cover
price increases to keep up with frequent increases in
the price of newsprint
and other production costs, which are threatening the
publishing industry
with bankruptcy.
But the National Incomes and Pricing
Commission has of late starved MBPM of
a viable price, compounding the
foreign currency shortages, inadequate coal
supplies and power outage
problems plaguing the ART group.
Critics this week questioned the
authorities’ reluctance to prioritise the
allocation of power to ART, which
is at the fulcrum of the newspaper
industry.
FinGaz
Clemence Manyukwe Staff
Reporter
FORMER finance minister Chris Kuruneri is plotting a political
comeback
after submitting papers to stand on a ZANU-PF ticket for the Mazowe
West
House of Assembly seat after a three-year legal ordeal that threatened
to
end his public career.
Kuruneri, who has previously represented
the same constituency, lost his
parliamentary seat following his arrest in
2004 on charges of corruption as
well as contravening the country’s
citizenship laws.
He was freed last year by the High Court in a case in which
the odds seemed
to be overwhelmingly against him after nine previous bail
applications had
been dismissed.
Sources told The Financial Gazette that
Kuruneri submitted his curriculum
vitae last week, for the parliamentary
seat currently occupied by ZANU-PF
legislator Margaret Zinyemba — who is
also the chairperson of the
parliamentary committee on local government,
public works and national
housing.
The ex-finance minister, who became
the most senior government official to
be prosecuted in an anti-corruption
drive launched by the government ahead
of the 2005 general elections, has
previously blamed factional fighting
within the ruling party for his legal
troubles.
Kuruneri was accused of illegally channeling more than US$500 000,
£37 000,
30 000 euros and R1, 2 million to South Africa on various occasions
between
2002 and 2004 as well as using a Canadian passport to travel on six
occasions. It is illegal to hold dual citizenship under Zimbabwean
law.
In 2005, Kuruneri was fined $12 million after being found guilty of
contravening the Citizenship Act but was acquitted on the foreign currency
externalization charges.
If he is elected Mazowe West Member of
Parliament, it remains to be seen
whether Kuruneri can reclaim his post at
the Finance Ministry, where he is
one of three ministers to fall out of
favour with the authorities- Simba
Makoni before him and Herbert Murerwa
after him.
FinGaz
Clemence
Manyukwe Staff Reporter
A POSTER hanging in the office of a prominent
Harare lawyer reads: “Justice
must not only be done, but it must be seen to
be done.” Another one at the
far end of the wall says: “Justice delayed is
justice denied.”
At the end of my interview with the legal practitioner,
it is apparent that
apart from grappling with the question of the separation
of powers and the
independence of the judiciary, which should guarantee that
court decisions
are impartial and not influenced by the other branches of
government and
private or political interests, a new headache has emerged —
judges taking
too long to deal with matters before them.
The reasons vary
from dereliction of duty, fear of dealing with sensitive
cases to outright
laziness.
In recent years some judgments have been handed down months after
accused
persons have served the sentences against which they may have been
appealing.
One example is the case of former Movement for Democratic
Change Chimanimani
Member of Parliament Roy Bennett in which the Supreme
Court delivered a
judgment in 2006, months after his release from prison
after serving a
custodial sentence.
Of all the cases I have followed as a
court reporter, the worst example was
a murder case heard in the High Court
in 2006, involving some ZANU-PF
supporters. Sometime in the middle of that
year, the prosecution and defence
parties were told that the presiding judge
was ready to deliver his verdict.
When judgment day finally came however, the
judge did not turn up and the
matter was subsequently deferred on four more
occasions. On the last
occasion, a relative of one of the accused told me:
“I weep everyday,
waiting for the wheels of justice to turn.”
The
judgment was eventually passed the following year, convicting the
accused
persons of culpable homicide months after the judge had first
indicated the
verdict was ready.
Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) president Beatrice Mtetwa
said the society had
lodged complaints with the Judge President, Justice
Rita Makarau over the
conduct of some judges.
“From time to time we have
complained to the Judge President,” Mtetwa said.
“However lawyers have not
complained as much as they ought to because they
believe that if you
complain too much your client will be prejudiced. There
are some judges who
are known for not keeping time.”
One appeal case currently before the Supreme
Court confirms Mtetwa’s claims
about lawyers’ fears of being punished for
demanding that their cases be
dealt with expeditiously.
In that case, a
Harare lawyer claimed in an affidavit that the manner in
which a High court
judge dealt with his client’s trial was suspicious.
According to the lawyer,
after waiting for judgment for six months, he
complained to Justice Makarau
and the judge in question prepared the
judgment in a day.
Explaining the
effects of these delays, Mtetwa said: “Obviously clients are
prejudiced
through paying lawyers for loitering.”
There is nothing unusual anymore about
a Judge reporting to work after
mid-morning or not turning up
altogether.
Because some of the judges benefited from President Robert
Mugabe’s land
reforms, it is suspected that a lot of time is now being spent
on the farms.
Critics have raised concerns of conflict of interest, saying
this puts the
judges in a difficult position when dealing with land
cases.
It has always been people seeking justice who pay the ultimate price,
as
legal fees continue to escalate under the nose of the National Incomes
and
Pricing Commission.
The non-attendance of court by judges and delays
in concluding trials have
also worsened the backlog of cases yet to be
heard, the LSZ president said.
In cases involving financial aspects,
claimants receive any compensation
they are awarded long after the money has
lost value due to galloping
inflation, now estimated by the International
Monetary Fund to be 150 000
percent.
Mtetwa said sometimes judges fail to
deliver sound judgments because by the
time they start working on a ruling,
they would have forgotten some of the
important submissions made during
hearings due to the time lapse.
A Harare lawyer said some judges had a
tendency to drag their feet when
dealing with cases deemed to be
“political.”
When such cases are brought before judges as urgent matters,
they are often
dismissed on the grounds of there being nothing urgent about
them.
The lawyer cited the example of a case last year in which a judge
dismissed
an application by some farm workers who had been evicted from
their lodgings
by a top government official.
The judge said the matter
was not urgent even though the workers had no
alternative shelter.
“If a
judge comes to court on time, it establishes judiciary authority. The
authority of the judiciary officer is asserted by himself. Coming on time
tells the public at large that justice is always there at the designated
time,” the lawyer said.
He added that sometimes when a judge does not
show up, there are whispers
that he/she is attending to his/her
farm.
“The public and lawyers have no problem with losing cases provided it
is a
well reasoned judgment based on law. A rushed, poorly thought out
judgment
unfortunately leads the public to have misgivings about the
judgment,” the
lawyer said.
FinGaz
Zhean Gwaze Staff
Reporter
Who is to blame for nation’s ambivalence towards calls for
protests?
IT was 13:00 hours and 33-year-old Lifanah Nyoni had been standing
in a long
and winding bank queue since 08:00 hours when the institution
opened its
doors to the public.
Tired and weary, he saw them
approaching — a group of more than 50
opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) youths, clad in casual wear,
chanting, “Chitonga zvako Morgan,
ZANU yakonewa, tonga zvako.” (You can now
rule Morgan Tsvangirai because
ZANU-PF has failed.”
The youths were mobilising supporters to attend an MDC
rally at the City
Sports Centre in Harare after police had banned, at the
last minute, a
protest march in the city centre.
The demonstration had
been intended to highlight MDC demands for free and
fair elections, a new
constitution, jobs, restoration of health care
delivery, provision of drugs
in hospitals, resuscitation of the education
system and the end of the cash
crisis.
Realities on the ground should have stirred enough emotion in any
average
human being to join the youths, as the week leading up to last
Wednesday
when the MDC rally was held, had been characterised by an
unprecedented
nationwide power blackout that had crippled households and
industry, an
un-abating cash crisis and the spiralling cost of basic
commodities and
transport.
“Vatirege zvedu, vanotikonzeresa (They should
leave us alone because they
will land us in trouble),” retorted Nyoni when
nudged by someone else in the
queue to heed the youths’ call.
Such has
become the resigned response of most Zimbabweans to any suggestion
of
participating in demonstrations over the past few years.
Such a reaction,
according to political analysts, is a culmination of
processes from the
colonial era that demanded obedience and subordination to
authority.
University of Zimbabwe political scientist Eldred Masunungure
says
Zimbabwean culture does not train ordinary people to question authority
and
this is further compounded by the element of fear.
“The state is
known to deal severely with any protesters, so naturally,
people tend to
ignore anything that is anti-state,” he said.
The police banned the MDC march
despite having sanctioned it earlier and
then proceeded to release tear gas
and to beat up MDC supporters who were
making their way from the city centre
to the City Sports Centre to attend
the rally that a magistrate had ruled
should go ahead despite upholding the
police ban on the protest
march.
Last week’s clashes occurred while memories of the events surrounding
the
Save Zimbabwe Campaign rally last year when MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
and
at least 50 members of his party and civic leaders were brutally
assaulted
by state security agents, were still fresh in the minds of most
Zimbabweans.
That rally, which was organised by a coalition of churches,
civil society
organisations and opposition groups to discuss ways of
resolving the country’s
woes, degenerated into skirmishes between the police
and unarmed civilians
in which MDC activist Gift Tandare lost his
life.
Dozens of activists were arrested and detained over the following three
months on “terrorism” charges. A High Court judge subsequently ruled that
the police fabricated the charges to nail President Robert Mugabe’s
political opponents.
The battering, especially of Tsvangirai, attracted
worldwide condemnation,
leading to Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa likening
Zimbabwe to a “sinking
Titanic”.
Since the enactment of the Public Order
and Security Act (POSA) in 2002, the
police have descended on any gathering
organised by civic society and
opposition parties
ruthlessly.
Tsvangirai’s call to Zimbabweans to march to State House in July
2003, which
was dubbed the “Final Push” and National Constitutional Assembly
calls to
march for a new constitution have, in various degrees, been
thwarted by the
police.
Attempts by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU) to call stayaways
and demonstrations organised by Women of Zimbabwe
Arise to highlight the
plight of women have been neutralized by similar
police heavy-handedness.
Although the MDC and President Mugabe’s governing
ZANU-PF have agreed on
amendments to POSA under talks mediated by President
Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa, the events of the past week show that the state
is yet to reform.
The predicament of Zimbabweans was evident even in poignant
events like
Operation Murambatsvina, which courted international
condemnation, but whose
execution the people watched helplessly.
This was
contrary to the countrywide food and bread riots of the late 1990s
that
broke out after the ZCTU had called for demonstrations. Shops were
looted in
the mayhem in the same way as they were ransacked when the
government
ordered the slashing of prices last year.
Although cultural norms play a role
in such situations, political
commentators say during an acute economic
crisis such as the one Zimbabwe is
currently experiencing, political
participation becomes a luxury.
“I am personally not surprised by what is
happening in the country. People
are more preoccupied with making ends meet
and as a result tend to weigh the
benefits of participating in a political
march against those of engaging in
economic activities that put sadza (food)
on the table. This explains why
turnout for public marches is very low
whether they are organised by labour
unions, political parties or pressure
groups,” says Masunungure.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of a severe economic
crisis manifesting itself
through hyperinflation, shortages of most
essential commodities and a
rapidly contracting gross domestic product, the
fastest for a country not at
war according to the World Bank.
The
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe says a family of six now requires $1.1
billion
per month to survive but most workers earn below $500 million, the
maximum
daily cash withdrawal limit for individuals.
A severe foreign currency
squeeze since 1999, when the International
Monetary Fund pulled the plug on
aid to the country has seen the nation
struggling to import fuel, power,
spare parts and food.
Against this background, one political commentator
insists that the blame
for the failure to register any disgruntlement over
this state of affairs
should not be placed on ordinary Zimbabweans but on
the organisers of
demonstrations.
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
chairman Lovemore Madhuku said the
problem was that organisers were not
doing enough to mobilise their
constituencies.
“We have talked to many
Zimbabweans that are willing to participate in
marches but those organising
them have not done enough. As NCA our calls for
demonstrations have only
reached a pool of our activists and we need to
reach out to more
Zimbabweans,” Madhuku said.
FinGaz
Dumisani
Ndlela Business Editor
IT is common that most companies in Zimbabwe
occasionally close down because
of power outages. Machines stop running,
supermarket tills cannot be
switched on, and office computers have that dark
screen staring at you as if
suggesting you should not rattle the
keyboard.
If management so decides that you hang around regardless of the
blackout,
you are forced to start doing everything manually, unless there’s
a
generator roaring to supply back up power.
But something else is now
sending workers home early: a crippling water
crisis that has affected the
use of ablution facilities at work and caused
workplaces to stink.
And
it’s getting Jane Mutasa, president of the Indigenous Business Women’s
Organisation (IBWO), extremely irritated.
“We can’t carry on running
businesses without water,” Mutasa said during an
interview at her offices
this week. “What do we think we’re doing?” she
asks, almost demanding an
answer.
Talking to her, one would wish to have brought Munacho Mutezo, the
Minister
of Water Resources.
Indeed Mutasa’s anger is aimed at Mutezo,
under whose ministry the Zimbabwe
National Water Authority (ZINWA), which
has taken over water facilities in
most local authorities and turned them
into a monumental disaster, falls.
“He (Mutezo) is always on national
television highlighting problems (faced
by the authority) every time. When
is it going to be right?” Mutasa, asks.
Her point: Despite millions of
dollars being pumped into the water supply
system by both the government and
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, ZINWA has
never been the bearer of good news.
It is always this problem, that problem,
another one and many
more.
Mutasa, also the chairperson of the gender taskforce of the National
Economic Consultative Forum, says ZINWA has a national obligation to restore
water and sewerage reticulation systems and prevent company closures as a
result of ablution facilities that cannot work because there’s no running
water.
At the end of September last year, she wrote to Mutezo as
president of IBWO,
highlighting “the plight of women of Zimbabwe who are
facing life
difficulties due to poor water supplies and burst
sewers”.
“The two scenarios have risen higher among the women and children
now face a
great danger of diseases such as cholera, scabies and diarrhoea,”
she wrote
to Mutezo.
The women, she said, had approached IBWO with the
urgent matter.
Mutasa said their businesses, had been negatively affected by
the water
supply crisis.
“Most of the manufacturing companies had to send
their entire workforce home
due to lack of water. Production has been
halted. It is not clear when the
situation would be addressed. For instance,
Kadoma Spinners and Weavers and
David Whitehead Textiles cannot supply
fabric due to lack of water. That
will stop the manufacturing sector and
(this means) no employment,” she
wrote to Mutezo.
Reports this week
indicated that some workers in industrial areas had
resorted to the bush to
relieve themselves because company toilets were
sealed off because of lack
of water supplies.
Other companies were hiring mobile toilets, the reports
indicated.
And while Mutasa is aggrieved by the plight of businesses as a
result of the
critical water supply situation, she noted to Mutezo that she
also had the
concern of a mother.
“As a woman, I feel very touched when I
see such things happening to the
nation, especially to the young children.
We fear that more diseases will be
(caused by the) failure of the water
supplies to most houses.”
During her interview with The Financial Gazette,
Mutasa said by allowing the
water crisis to continue, the Ministry of Water
Resources was in turn
burdening the health delivery system due to an
outbreak of illnesses that
could otherwise have been avoided.
“We want
things to be restored…the sick need water, the hospitals need
water. It’s a
human right to have clean water.”
Mutezo recently said government was
tackling Harare’s water crisis though a
multi-faceted strategy “already in
full swing”.
Most Harare suburbs continue to go without water, and sewage
flows in most
residential areas like a river.
One of the Harare suburbs,
Mabvuku, has been going for days without water
due to what one reporter
described as “ZINWA’s operational deficiencies and
incompetence”.
Several
deaths have been reported this year due to cholera outbreaks.
“The women of
Zimbabwe are complaining about these issues as they do not
know where to go
or who to complain to because they have complained for a
long time but no
answers have been forthcoming from the responsible
authorities. We feel that
action should be taken now,” Mutasa said in her
letter to Mutezo.
But
then, is Mutezo listening?
FinGaz
Staff Reporter
ZIMBABWE’S cash
shortages, which subsided last week after huge cash
injections by the
central bank, began resurfacing during the week with
several banks again
failing to dispense cash to depositors.
A few banks reported having run
out of cash after failing to secure notes
from the central bank.
A dealer
said some of the banks did not have sufficient collateral to secure
accommodation from the central bank to enable them to pay depositors, and
were trying to avoid borrowing under the unsecured facility because of the
penal interest rates.
Reports recently indicated that banks were facing
liquidity problems because
they could not secure cash applications from the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) and had failed to pay their statutory
reserves to the central bank
because of a liquidity crunch.
RBZ governor
Gideon Gono last week gave banks up to this week to clear long
queues of
depositors failing to withdraw their money, accusing them of
having diverted
depositors funds into illiquid assets like equities.
He said the central bank
had up to $800 trillion to alleviate the cash
shortages but banks were
failing to collect their cash requirements due to
lack of security.
The
situation had somewhat normalised since Gono’s angry reaction to the
crisis,
which has seen even the Real Time Gross Settlement facility, meant
to abate
the use of cash in the economy, being gridlocked and banks failing
to make
depositors’ transfers because of a liquidity crunch.
One commercial bank in
Borrowdale was said to have run out of cash on
Tuesday, and was still not
allowing withdrawals yesterday.
FinGaz
Charles Rukuni Bureau
Chief
Bulawayo — The United Front has been caught flat–footed after its
proposed
leaders chickened out last week and President Robert Mugabe set a
nomination
date that does not allow it to look for alternative
candidates.
President Mugabe has set the elections for March 29 with
February 8 as the
nomination date, a move that caught nearly everyone
napping as the
opposition was pressing for elections to be postponed so that
the parties
could craft a new constitution.
The two factions of the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which was
supposed to be part of the
proposed front, have decided to go it alone. They
are now talking about
unity and fielding a single candidate to challenge
President Mugabe who will
represent the ruling ZANU–PF.
The MDC split in 2005 with one faction
remaining loyal to founding president
Morgan Tsvangirai and the other
electing former student leader and robotics
professor Arthur Mutambara to
lead it.
One of the lawyers who was supposed to draft legal documents to
formalise
the front said he had not been approached up to now and with the
nomination
date only a week away, he felt this was a dead horse. The party
had proposed
to seek the help of three lawyers, one from Buulawayo and two
from Harare to
prepare its documents.
A member of the MDC who has been
keeping tabs on the front said one of the
organisers had conceded that it
was dead because the proposed leaders had
chickened out.
Former finance
minister Simba Makoni was initially the frontrunner but the
organisers had
put forward former ZIPRA intelligence chief Dumiso Dabengwa
to lead the
front because of his liberation war credentials.
A political observer said
the organisers had gone about the whole issue in a
very amateurish way. “It
looked like they were just name-dropping to test
the waters without
consulting the people whose names they had brought
forward. Now everyone
seems to be running for cover,” the observer said.
Eddie Cross, economic
adviser to the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC, said the
declaration of
February 8, as nomination date was part of a strategy worked
out 10 months
ago to shut out the opposition because it was almost
impossible for the
opposition to get candidates registered for the poll by
that date.
Cross
said ZANU–PF adopted the strategy when it was confronted by South
Africa in
March last year to hold “free and fair” elections on schedule in
March 2008.
The strategy was to smash the organisational structures of the
MDC; go along
with the demands of President Mbeki and the Southern African
Development
Community (SADC), but in the conviction that they could
manipulate this
process and avoid dismantling the system they had built up
over the past
decade, which had enabled them to determine, in advance,
whatever result
they thought they needed from the election itself; and
finally reduce the
urban vote. But analysts say President Mugabe had no
option but to hold the
elections now because his biggest enemy was the
economy rather than the
opposition and dissidents from his own party. They
argued that given the way
things are going he was not going to last until
June.
The document
circulated by the United Front clearly showed that it was out
of sync with
political reality. It proposed for example that it would do all
the
groundwork before the end of this month.
This included attending to issues
unique to the two MDC factions and ZANU-PF
elements “that would be the
backbone of the front”.
It also wanted to assess the reaction of President
Mugabe and his
securocrats so that it could design an effective mass
mobilisation and
election campaign before launching the new party as well as
to inform the
international community and SADC that “there was a new
nationalist and
therefore indigenous, democratic, patriotic and progressive
opposition to
President Mugabe”.
The organisers had proposed to launch
the new party on February 18. With the
two MDC factions agreeing to unite
and field Morgan Tsvangirai, it looks
like this year’s elections will be a
repeat of 2002. While there are likely
to be some spoilers, the battle will
be between Tsvangirai and President
Mugabe, if the former trade unionist
decides to participate.
He lost narrowly to President Mugabe in 2002 polling
1 276 10 votes against
President Mugabe’s 1 689 219. Three other candidates
vying for the post got
a total of only 55 245 votes.
But even the
document prepared by the United Front admits that the odds are
in favour of
President Mugabe because the country will be holding council,
House of
Assembly and senate elections at the same time. Apart from the
advantages of
incumbent head of state, each ZANU–PF candidate will also be
campaigning for
President Mugabe.
FinGaz
Stanley Kwenda Staff
Reporter
Demonstrations have become the order
of the
day at universities
ONCE hailed as a
beacon in Africa, the
Zimbabwean education system has crumbled in tandem
with the collapse of the
economy, which took a turn for the worst in
2000.
Many African countries once
considered
Zimbabwe the educational hub of the continent because of its
highly trained
professionals and the conducive environment in which they
were educated.
Attending the University of
Zimbabwe, then one
of the best higher learning institutions in Africa, was
considered
prestigious.
But only 28 years
down the line, the economic
collapse coupled with the government’s, need to
espouse populist policies,
Zimbabwe’s education system is now a shadow of
its former self.
Once hailed as the pride of
Africa, Zimbabwe’s
education system has now been overwhelmed from top to
bottom by the
deepening political and economic
crisis.
The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) was
once the
pinnacle of an efficient system bequeathed by colonial rule but it
is now
almost dysfunctional.
At the same
time, across the country,
schoolteachers live hand to mouth, worrying less
about their obligation to
teach and more about what they and their pupils
will eat at break.
Most students studying at
the UZ are there
only because they have no
choice.
Most government officials send their
children
to universities in the western world although they blame the same
countries
for Zimbabwe’s problems.
But they
shun local institutions of higher
learning precisely because of these dire
and untenable conditions.
But invariably,
clouds of tear gas and police
heavy-handedness are the official response to
any protests by students
against the falling standards of
education.
Despite police ruthlessness,
demonstrations
have however; become the order of the day at universities in
the country as
students press the government to meet its
obligations.
Budgetary allocations for
education have
declined over the years. At independence in 1980, the vote
for education was
37 percent of the national budget but today this important
sector is getting
less than 26 percent.
A
recent Zimbabwe National Student Union
(ZINASU) congress report put the
crisis in this sector into perspective.
“A
review of pertinent data shows that
Zimbabwe is facing a sharp decline in
public expenditure on higher
education, deteriorating teaching conditions,
decaying educational
facilities and infrastructure, perpetual student
unrest, erosion of
university autonomy, a shortage of experienced and well
trained teaching
staff, lack of academic freedoms and an increasing rate of
unemployment
among college graduates,” said former ZINASU president and UZ
student,
Promise Mkwananzi.
Although the
government never misses an
opportunity to pat itself on the back for
ensuring in the early years of
independence that every Zimbabwean child
received a decent education, things
have drastically deteriorated over the
years when reduced expenditure has
not tallied with higher
enrolment.
“Funding education has traditionally
been the
responsibility of the government as is the case in other African
countries.
But due to gross economic mismanagement and to a lesser extent,
demographic
pressures over the last decade, the government is now turning to
poverty
stricken parents to bear the astronomical costs of education, “ said
Mkwananzi.
The government has increasingly
resorted to
the use of brute force to shirk its
responsibility.
Last year the State took the
unprecedented
step of forcing students out of the UZ campus at midnight
before shutting
residential halls for good following
demonstrations.
Although the government blamed
the students
for the move, by then standards at the university were at rock
bottom.
Some of the halls of residence had
become
inhabitable due to years of neglect. Burst water and sewage pipes had
become
a common feature and students had resorted to using
candles.
The salaries of lecturers and
professors are
so low that almost all have to find other jobs to make ends
meet. So many
university posts are vacant that every alternative weekend,
the state–run
weekly Sunday Mail carries advertisements inviting
applications. The same
applies to all other state institutions of higher
learning.
The prevailing environment is a far
cry from
that of the 1980s when being a teacher was prestigious and a ticket
to a
better life.
Then, a mere primary or
secondary school
teacher could afford to buy a house and a car. The
profession was highly
regarded but now being a teacher invites
ridicule.
One teacher jokingly said that he was
quitting
the profession because he had sold all the books in the library and
thus had
no reason to remain at the school.
In 1980, primary education was almost free and
secondary education was
accessible to everyone in urban and rural areas. The
country achieved
impressive literacy rates, first of 80 percent and then
above 90 percent,
making Zimbabwe’s education system one of the best in the
developing
world.
“When I graduated from Gweru Teachers’
College
in 1995, I managed to buy my parents a lot of items most of which
still
adorn their living room today, but now if I had not made a decision to
leave
this thankless profession, I would not even be able to buy them a loaf
of
bread,” said a former teacher now working in a warehouse in Johannesburg,
South Africa.
According to research
conducted by ZINASU in
2006, 31,5 percent of students in tertiary
institutions were forced to drop
out due to exorbitant
fees.
This highlights the government’s failure
to
uphold the 1948 Universal Human Right Declaration, which stipulates the
right of every child to education.
ZINASU
has given a shocking overview on how
the government has not only destroyed
the education system but more
seriously has ruined the lives of
students.
“It is worrying to note that at
Midlands State
University, 95 percent of the blood donated by students
contained HIV,”
claimed a ZINASU bi–annual report for 2006 to 2007,
FinGaz
Austin
Chakaodza
THIS article is an attempt to address the political, economic
and social
problems Zimbabwe is experiencing today. It is also aimed at
advancing
possible solutions to these problems.
It is argued here
that the major problem Zimbabwe is facing is largely
political. The
economic, financial and social dimensions are simply and
purely by-products
of the crisis. There is also a psychological dimension to
it.
Against the
foregoing background, it is important to explore a series of key
questions:
What exactly are the underlying causes of the problems Zimbabwe
is facing
today? How are these problems affecting political and economic
development
in the country? What impact are economic pressures likely to
have? Is a
government of national unity in the aftermath of the impending
general
elections the answer to Zimbabwe’s problems?
A major underlying cause of the
Zimbabwe’s crisis can be traced back to the
1980s. In the aftermath of a
violent conflict that led to Zimbabwe’s
independence, the new government
failed to determine how the economic
challenges of state building intersect
with the political challenges of
development.
Psychologically, the
ZANU-PF government failed to effectively transform
itself from a military to
a political organisation.
The party failed to re-orientate its goals and
practices towards legitimate
political activities.
The notion that
ZANU-PF liberated the country is still a hangover from the
past and has
therefore impeded the government from implementing effective
rule. This also
explains why President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party
wish to cling to
power at any cost including overseeing the economic
collapse of the
country.
Ever since ZANU-PF came to power, it has been incapable of playing
its role
in ways that fastern rather than betrays the public
interest.
The Party’s impact on government efficiency, stability and
democratic
legitimacy has been found wanting. Most government officials lack
analytical
rigour, depth of insight and full understanding of what makes a
democracy or
economic development.
Austin Chakaodza
THIS article
is an attempt to address the political, economic and social
problems
Zimbabwe is experiencing today. It is also aimed at advancing
possible
solutions to these problems. It is argued here that the major
problem
Zimbabwe is facing is largely political. The economic, financial and
social
dimensions are simply and purely by-products of the crisis. There is
also a
psychological dimension to it.
Against the foregoing background, it is
important to explore a series of key
questions: What exactly are the
underlying causes of the problems Zimbabwe
is facing today? How are these
problems affecting political and economic
development in the country? What
impact are economic pressures likely to
have? Is a government of national
unity in the aftermath of the impending
general elections the answer to
Zimbabwe’s problems?
A major underlying cause of the Zimbabwe’s crisis can be
traced back to the
1980s. In the aftermath of a violent conflict that led to
Zimbabwe’s
independence, the new government failed to determine how the
economic
challenges of state building intersect with the political
challenges of
development.
Psychologically, the ZANU-PF government failed
to effectively transform
itself from a military to a political
organisation.
The party failed to re-orientate its goals and practices
towards legitimate
political activities.
The notion that ZANU-PF
liberated the country is still a hangover from the
past and has therefore
impeded the government from implementing effective
rule. This also explains
why President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party
wish to cling to power at
any cost including overseeing the economic
collapse of the country.
Ever
since ZANU-PF came to power, it has been incapable of playing its role
in
ways that fastern rather than betrays the public interest.
The Party’s impact
on government efficiency, stability and democratic
legitimacy has been found
wanting. Most government officials lack analytical
rigour, depth of insight
and full understanding of what makes a democracy or
economic
development.
Zimbabweans are suffering today at the hands of a regime that
has been
pursuing failed policies since the early 1990s. The Shortage of
foreign
currency in Zimbabwe is due to economic mismanagement over the
years.
Intervention into the DRC crisis drained whatever foreign currency
reserves
there were in the Reserve Bank.
Frequent travels to conferences
abroad in large delegations by the President
and his government officials
was another source of foreign currency deficit.
The failure to address
macro-economic policy issues was another cause and
effect of the current
crisis Zimbabwe is facing
The key policy areas of failure lie in employment
creation, health and
education and social services.
The economic policy
of structural adjustment and trade liberalisation killed
the Zimbabwe
economy. These policies favoured markets over institutions and
the
international economy over the domestic – to the detriment of the
working
people in Zimbabwe.
The failure by the government to balance market forces
and policy
intervention in the interest of economic growth was the major
tragedy of it
all.
Unprecedented levels of corruption and crime are
inhibiting the economy from
growing. In fact corruption in Zimbabwe is
bubbling like stew in high
places. It is also corroding all layers of
society. The high prices of basic
commodities are a by-product of
corruption. These prices amount to extortion
and are contributing to the
destruction of the economy.
The question is: Where are we now in Zimbabwe? In
political terms, democracy
has failed to take root. Democracy is in trouble
in Zimbabwe.
Democratic governance has failed to establish itself because it
is unable to
survive the challenges of the corruption, cronyism and what can
be described
as ‘electoral authoritarianism.’ The latter phenomenon should
be understood
within the context of the interaction between rulers and
opposition parties
in Zimbabwe.
First, the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) played into the hands of the
ruling party – ZANU-PF when they
misguidedly campaigned for a ‘NO’ vote in
the 2000 new draft constitutional
referendum. This author wrote in this
paper in 2000 that as a consequence of
this act, Zimbabwe was going to be
lumbered with a ZANU-PF administration
for the next 10 years or more.
This has since proved to be the
case.
Widespread dissatisfaction in Zimbabwe in the 1990s set the stage for a
new
constitution aimed at enhancing representation and accountability. The
government had yielded to the demands of a new political dispensation only
for these to be scuppered by the ill-advised actions of the MDC and its
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) allies.
The outcome of the
referendum revealed the lack of a sound political culture
and judgment as
well as lack of democratic credentials, and shortfalls of
both the
government and the opposition.
Ironically, the current constitutional demands
made by the opposition were
in fact provided for in the draft constitution
of 2000.
So, where do we go from here? It cannot be over-emphasized that
Zimbabwe is
currently a weak and failed state both politically and
economically.
The people of Zimbabwe are in quest of an innovative democratic
design that
will foster greater enthusiasm for democratic participation.
However, as
long as there exists an electoral authoritarianism the dynamics
of free and
fair election in Zimbabwe will never be realised.
An
electoral authoritarianism regime is where the government of the day,
rigs
and manipulates the election and voting process for its own benefit.
Despite
the repellation of POSA, AIPPA and other electoral laws, the ZANU-PF
government will find other avenues of frustrating the opposition from
campaigning freely and without fear.
The impending elections will mean
nothing unless new democratic structures
are put in place. A ZANU-PF victory
means that nothing will change
politically and economically. In fact, the
economic and financial situation
will worsen.
An MDC victory is highly
unlikely given the division that prevails within
the movement.
This
writer proposes that Zimbabwe should develop its own distinctive brand
of
democracy based on the creation of a government of national unity after
the
elections.
Even if there is a party that has won a clear majority of seats in
Parliament, this proposed government of National Unity is still a
necessity.
This author proposes that the government of national unity should
be headed
by a Prime Minister who should be chosen and appointed from
outside party
political circles. This might mean amending the constitution
the 19th time
in order to facilitate the creation of the position of Prime
Minister. Part
of the reason why Zimbabwe is a failed state is the lack of a
strong head of
government who should co-ordinate ministerial activities at
every level.
President Mugabe has been detached from his ministers for too
long hence
some of the problems afflicting the society today. There is need
for a Prime
Minister to whom ministers will be accountable for the day-today
running of
their ministries.
Similarly, there is need for a Finance
Minister who should be chosen outside
political party circles so that he or
she might regenerate the economy
without executive interference.
The
rationale behind this proposed structure is that there is need for
building
a new confidence into the political and economic system of
Zimbabwe. A
government headed by a technocratic Prime Minister together with
a selfless
Finance Minister outside the party system might bring new
democratic
credentials necessary for political and economic change in the
country.
Their community building activity might in fact signal the birth
of a “New
Zimbabwe.” With an agreed programme of action, the new government
of
national unity, might create and use new opportunities to bring about
changes at national, local and grass-root levels.
This author is
proposing this new concept of democracy as a challenge and an
alternative to
the electoral authoritarian regime that exists in Zimbabwe
today. There is
need for a new political culture that will enhance economic
performance.
This writer is willing, together with other interested people,
to explore
further elements that will likely shape particular political
dynamics that
may lead to the ‘Redemocratisation’ of Zimbabwe.
Professor Austin Chakaodza
is a Political Analyst of African Affairs and is
Professor of International
Relations at Regents College – London.
FinGaz
Chido
Makunike
MEDIA reports now seem to indicate that all the recent
speculation and
excitement about ZANU–PF insider Simba Makoni challenging
President Robert
Mugabe in the upcoming election was much ado about
nothing.
Either there was never any substance to the speculation or
Makoni simply
chickened out. I wonder if we will ever know which it was for
sure.
According to the reports over the last few weeks, Makoni was either
going to
resign from ZANU–PF and head a new party, or he was going to lead a
spirited
anti–Mugabe reform effort from within the ruling party.
One
report went so far as to say he had actually tendered his resignation a
few
days ago but that President Mugabe had declined it, as if one has to get
permission to quit an organisation. But then other reports said the plot was
in disarray, with the reformist–minded co–conspirators rushing to pledge
loyalty to President Mugabe. The whole thing sounded bizarre. The timing of
it just weeks before the election is just one obvious aspect, although one
news report weakly suggested that this may have been a deliberate ploy to
ambush President Mugabe.
But I also find it hard to believe that Makoni
would have the guts and the
courage of convictions to be involved in
anything like this. And if he was
involved, I think it is entirely in
keeping with the man he has shown
himself to be over the years to chicken
out at the last minute. The pulling
out would have been more in character
than the initial standing up to be
counted. He is a ZANU–PF team player and
follower far more than he is a
dissenter and leader. Whatever disagreements
with the direction of economic
policy he has tentatively and ambiguously
expressed on a few occasions, they
have been mildly stated echoes of what
the general public had long been
saying.
He has always given the
impression of someone who could see as clearly as
the ordinary person that
the country was going to hell, but was simply too
beholden to the ruling
dispensation to make a break with it. It has long
been obvious that whatever
anguish it may have caused him, he was a kept
man, not his own man.
He
never appeared free and bold enough to state things as he saw them and
then
stand by his statements. When he has been probed to elaborate on his
occasional mild criticisms of the system, he has tended to soften them and
pull back. When he differed with President Mugabe over currency devaluation
and left his then position of minister of finance, it was after the
President had called him a saboteur for his suggestion. Makoni did not
resign at that insult on principle, but appeared to have been cast aside by
President Mugabe. He gave the impression that he would have continued to
suffer the indignity of serving a president who had effectively accused him
of being against the national interest for his ideas.
When he headed
Zimpapers, the governments stable of propaganda publications,
he clashed
with the then editor of The Sunday Mail, the most rabidly
“Mugabe-can–do–no–wrong” of the group’s papers. The since deceased Charles
Chikerema was also a close relative of President Mugabe’s. Makoni
humiliatingly lost the battle against his junior and had to leave his job in
a way that was not exactly dignified. It is things like these that cemented
his reputation as a like-able bureaucrat and chair–warmer with no strong
convictions and little backbone. These are not the qualities of a leader. A
leader rather than a bureaucrat at its helm is what Zimbabwe is most in need
of now.
Bureaucrats like Makoni are a dime a dozen in Zimbabwe. There
will come a
time of reconstruction when good bureaucrats will play an
important role
again. But what is required to move the country out of its
prolonged crisis
period is the quality of leadership in the classic
sense.
Zimbabwe needs a President Mugabe challenger and successor who is a
“leader”
in the sense of inspiring the people to think beyond their present
depression.
We need a leader who can give us hope that we can return to a
time where it
is possible to imagine a tomorrow that is better than
today.
Under President Mugabe, everyone is resigned to more misery being in
store.
The country is depressed and dispirited about its prospects. We need
a
leader who can bring out the spirit of being prepared to make sacrifices
for
one’s country in building a better future.
Under President Mugabe
there has become a deep cynicism and a sense of
everyone–for–himself. This
has been fostered by how the rulers show in their
behaviour that they
believe the country to be on a course of
self–destruction, with them being
in the forefront of plundering whatever
they can from the crumbling
shell.
We need “leadership” in the sense of courage borne of conviction, akin
to
the “principles” that the current government has so awfully corrupted. We
need a leader who can inspire us to do more than we would normally do. I’m
sure Makoni is as “nice” as people say he is, but “nice” don’t cut it in
this situation! “Nice” Makoni has shown none of these leadership qualities
that are called for in a prospective president at this juncture in
Zimbabwe’s
nationhood.
Because of his characteristic wishy-washiness, he
has further ruined his
reputation by the way he has mishandled the
speculation about his possibly
challenging the President. By not denying
them, he gave the impression that
the rumours were true. One would think
that perhaps he was still working out
the logistics of his bid against
President Mugabe. For things to simply
fizzle out without any public
statement from him after weeks of public
speculation not only makes him look
like a coward, it makes him also look
like a cynical, shallow opportunist.
The impression one gets is that he was
indeed considering a bid. If he
weren’t, one would reasonably surmise that
he would have come out strongly
denying the substance of the speculation
early on. By not doing so, and then
not saying anything at all later, he
gives the impression that he had done
his calculations and decided not to go
ahead with the plan.
But if that
is what happened, the way he has handled it sends all the wrong
signals.
Leaving such a crucial decision until so late does not suggest any
element
of a sneak attack on the President just before the election. It
instead
makes him look like a careless last–minute planner. If he had made
all these
public-relations “mistakes” but then still dramatically announced
that he
was indeed standing against President Mugabe, his tactical errors
would have
been forgotten and forgiven in the uproar and shock of his
announcement.
But “thinking about it” silently for weeks while the
fevered public
speculation was going on makes him look particularly weak and
indecisive,
now that it seems pretty clear he is not challenging him. The
overall
impression left by Makoni not making any effort to manage the
speculation is
that of somebody who was indeed thinking of it but developed
cold feet.
What is worse, all the reports of his making clear overtures to
“prove” his
loyalty to President Mugabe will only further taint his
reputation.
The meeting he is confirmed to have had with the President at
State House on
January 21 makes him appear like a little boy who was
summoned to be spanked
for being wayward, or a coward who went grovelling
for forgiveness. Neither
does Makoni’s reputation any good.
This
political sideshow has not been a complete waste of time. Hopefully it
permanently removes Makoni from the long–speculated list of contenders for
the presidency. He does not have what it takes – he is a follower, not a
leader. The best position for him is a safe, well–paying routine job with a
prestigious title and a fashionable car, a nice big corner office and a
pretty secretary There will surely come some bureaucratic opportunity for
which he is well suited, but for now we need the kind of leadership, which
people like Makoni cannot provide.
We have made considerable progress in
our politics just by getting the
ridiculous “Simba Makoni–for–president”
sideshow out of the way, hopefully
for good.
Now that the brief circus is
out of the way, perhaps we can go back to more
serious explorations of how
we are going to fix the awful mess Zimbabwe is
in.
FinGaz
Mavis
Makuni
“Government ready for March polls”, announced a headline in the
state daily,
The Herald in its issue of January 22, stating the
obvious.
The story quoted Information and Publicity Minister, Sikhanyiso
Ndlovu,
lashing out at United States Ambassador, James McGee, for expressing
reservations over the readiness of Zimbabwe to hold elections successfully
in March. The American envoy expressed his doubts in an interview reported
in the Sunday paper, The Standard issue of January 20 in which he said most
of the logistics necessary for the holding of free and fair elections were
not in place.
Fumed Ndlovu: “McGee and the American government are not
qualified to
criticise human rights and our elections or polls. His comments
on our poll
preparedness show that he is totally ignorant of our electoral
system. We
have held elections since 1980 without fail and for 2008, all
mechanisms are
in place after the 18th Amendment for harmonized
elections.”
The Zimbabwean government did not need “American CIA funds” to
organize
elections, Ndlovu stressed. He then pointed out that the American
government
was not qualified to comment on Zimbabwe’s human rights
performance because
President George Bush “stole elections” from the
democrats and disallowed
nearly six million black votes eight years
ago.
Delivering his punch line, Ndlovu asked: “Where is America’s human
rights if
they imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe and McGee is not lifting even a
small
finger to stop the sanctions on Zimbabwe?”
It is interesting to
note how in criticising McGee for commenting on current
affairs in Zimbabwe,
Ndlovu proceeds to do the same himself with respect to
the U S, the only
difference being that the Minister harks back to events
that took place
eight years ago. Even more incongruously, Ndlovu finds it
necessary to cite
the slave trade, which ended about 150 years ago to
explain aspects
pertaining to elections to be held in Zimbabwe in two months’
time.
The
“stealing” of an election by Bush is a reference to the hard-fought
American
presidential poll of 2000 in which the American leader narrowly won
with 271
electoral votes against the democratic Candidate, Al Gore’s 266. In
the US,
the electoral vote system determines the winner and Bush won this
count
although Gore received more popular votes. What is important is to
look at
how the dispute, the fourth in American presidential polls since
1824, was
tackled in a transparent and ethical manner.
The crucial aspect is that the
American system has a functional mechanism
for tackling such disputes and
indeed, after the Supreme Court ruled in Bush’s
favour, Gore and the
American people accepted the outcome and were able to
move on and to hold a
subsequent undisputed presidential election four years
later. It is
ridiculous therefore for Zimbabwean government apologists to
take it upon
themselves to be still so angry on behalf of the American
electorate over
the Florida controversy as to regard it as a legitimate
point of reference
when refusing to address issues of legitimate public
concern about local
elections.
It is clear that Ambassador McGee has fallen victim of the
Zimbabwean
government’s archaic tactic of evading issues by shooting the
messenger
rather than offering a blow by blow rebuttal on the points raised.
It is
redundant for Minister Ndlovu to state that the government is ready
for the
elections that are to be held in an atmosphere whose conduciveness
has been
questioned in many quarters. It is precisely because only the
government is
ready and has a vested interest in ignoring the glaring
shortcomings being
pointed out by other stakeholders that the matter is a
bone of contention.
This is where the Minister of Information and Publicity
should shed light
instead of resorting to incoherent tirades about American
events.
The most crucial question that has been raised about the forthcoming
elections is whether they should go ahead in conditions widely perceived to
be grotesquely tilted in the government’s favour. Complaints have been
voiced by opposition parties and other stakeholders about the shambolic
state the voters’ roll is in, the partisan manner in which the delimitation
and voter registration exercises have been conducted and the use of state
resources and programmes to buy votes for the ruling party.
The Zimbabwe
Elections Support Network (ZESN) has expressed concern about
the
intimidation of voters that is already underway as well as the
politically
partisan distribution of food aid in the rural areas.
As happens in every
election some chiefs are reported to have declared their
areas no-go zones
for the opposition. All these tactics are designed to
instill fear and
obligate the electorate to vote for the ruling party.
Ndlovu should direct
his energies towards addressing all these issues for
the benefit of
Zimbabweans. It is wrong for the Minister to revel in
brandishing the fact
that only the government is prepared to go ahead in
these unfair
circumstances to silence critics.
In addition to the perennial anomalies
cited above, the MDC has complained
this time around about the government’s
unwillingness to honour and
implement agreements reached under the
inter-party talks mediated by South
African President, Thabo Mbeki. These
pertain to the levelling of the
electoral playing field and the allowing of
enough time for the proposed
changes to take effect, to the satisfaction of
all stakeholders. These are
the points that Ndlovu should be expounding on
rather than the hitches in
the 2000 American presidential election that have
no relevance to the
Zimbabwean scenario. It is stretching things a bit to
quote foreign events
from almost a decade ago to justify glaring anomalies
in Zimbabwe’s
electoral system but invoking the slave trade so as to avoid
facing
prevailing realities is to be caught in a terrible time
warp.
Government propagandists and spin doctors insist on keeping their
blinkers
on so as to avoid acknowledging local realities. Under this
self-deceiving
modus operandi, journalists, political analysts,
businesspeople, opposition
politicians, trade unionists and all those who
have expressed opinions that
are at variance with the official view have
been labeled saboteurs, sellouts
or agents and puppets of the West. These
crude attacks are illogical and
implausible enough when directed at fellow
citizens who are as entitled as
the government apologists to call Zimbabwe
their motherland.
It becomes more than excruciatingly embarrassing, however,
when the same
convoluted reasoning is employed in a bid to establish a
tenuous link
between slavery and Ambassador McGee’s views on the forthcoming
elections,
simply because he happens to be black. “Definitely, he should not
be used,
otherwise we will be bound to conclude that he is only a house
nigger,”
Ndlovu is quoted as saying.
This is an unwarranted hit below the
belt that serves to confirm the failure
of government officials and
apparatchiks to observe the barest minimum
standards of common decency,
courtesy and civility in dealing with different
stakeholders. The minister
and his fellow spin doctors are practicing a
rabid form of bigotry, which
obliges them to disparage anyone, but
especially fellow blacks, who disagree
with the government.
It is of course a mechanism they resort to in a bid to
defend the
indefensible. As far as they are concerned, no black person is
capable of
seeing the omissions, commissions and abuses perpetrated by the
Zimbabwean
government without being put up to it by the West. By this
twisted way of
thinking, a black ambassador representing a Western country
cannot be taken
seriously because his ancestors were slaves 150 years ago.
Please!
FinGaz
Comment
NOW that the dust
has settled over the cash crisis, it is time for the
country’s financial
sector players to quickly find ways of restoring
confidence in this critical
sector. Banks are central to the well-being of
any economy, and so any whiff
of bad news in the sector greatly impairs
growth.
Over the past three
months, the sector was mired in a severe cash crunch
that disrupted normal
business transactions, while compounding the country’s
economic
woes.
Banks said they were not getting enough cash from the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) to meet the daily requirements of the public. The RBZ blamed
the banks for hoarding cash in their vaults and accused them of being in an
unholy alliance with “cash barons” moving huge sums of money from the
banking sector to fund illegal black market transactions.
Huge sums of
money injected into the system were said by the central bank to
be
unaccounted for.
The ordinary folks bore the brunt of the cash crisis, as
they were unable to
withdraw money for day-to-day transactions. This made
them fume at the
country’s banking system as it created enormous
inconvenience and wasted too
much of their precious time.
The situation
had been made even more desperate by the fact that the
electronic payment
system, overstretched by an unexpected surge in demand,
had crumbled.
All
these problems only helped to entrench public discomfort with banking,
and,
as newspaper reports suggested, a large number of people have vowed not
to
deposit their money into banks again owing to the pain they endured to
get
it out in the past three months.
As a result, money will only trickle into
personal bank accounts when
employers pay individuals their monthly
salaries. But once that money is
withdrawn, it might not find its way back
into the system.
The Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system is reportedly
grid locked and
users of this electronic method of settling transactions
complain that it is
now taking weeks for money transfers to get into
receiving accounts.
RTGS transactions should indeed be real time, and in
other countries, it
takes the moment the transfer is made for the other
account to reflect a
deposit.
In Zimbabwe, it used to take a single day,
but the situation is
deteriorating as fast as the economy is
tumbling.
Many have had to watch close friends and relatives die because they
could
not withdraw money from their banks because of the cash
shortages.
Service providers, including retailers, have started declining
RTGS
transfers because of the breakdown in the system.
Cheques have also
ceased to be a mode of payment of choice due to the
unrealistic limits on
their face value. This is besides the fact that
cheques can bounce and
result in the payee incurring a heavy penalty for the
dishonoured
cheque.
Retailers are increasingly demanding cash for goods, and the
unreliability
of the point of sale (POS) terminals has worsened the demand
for cash.
Moreover, most retail outlets do not have POS terminals for
electronic
payments.
The power and telecommunications crisis has also
meant that POS terminals
are down most of the time.
Telecommunications
link the POS terminals with banking institutions and this
also depends to a
large extent on the availability of power. This
essentially means that the
demand for cash will remain high, and as long as
the banking public is not
assured that they will be able to withdraw their
money when they require it,
there will be no incentive to join the long
queues for deposits to surrender
their money into the banks’ vaults.
Besides, it is not worth the trouble to
put money in the banking system when
inflation is on the rampage, and the
economy largely informal.
Interest paid for deposits while being too
insignificant, pales against the
hefty service charges levied on accounts by
banks. In fact, if it will cost
someone to deposit cash into his or her bank
account, why bother make the
deposit?
The truth of the matter is that
people are only going to keep their accounts
to enable them to transact in
situations where they cannot use cash, or
simply to receive income from
their employers.
Banks would need to reassure the public that the situation
has improved
permanently, with no possibility for a relapse. With inflation
northward
bound, the RBZ’s money printing machine will soon be overwhelmed
by the
excessive demand, thereby plunging the sector into another cash
crunch.
The central bank cannot afford being caught flat-footed again. The
choices
are simple: either to continue printing higher denominated bearer
cheques,
lop off zeros or dollarise the economy.
Banks should also ensure
that depositors are able to withdraw their money
when they need it, without
queuing for long hours. The banks should start
paying reasonable interest on
deposits to encourage people to keep their
money in the banking
system.
There are issues they need to agree on with their regulators to
ensure this.
Some of these issues include lowering of thresholds for
statutory reserves
so that the banks have a wider pool of resources to sweat
on the market and
earn enough to pay depositors meaningful interest.
As
it were, the ball is in the bankers’ court.
FinGaz
Matters Legal with Vote
Muza
Force has transformed itself into
instrument
of violence
Writing about events
on the legal front is not
easy business because there is just so much to
report and comment about.
Legal news is bountiful
indeed.
What with so many dramas daily
unfolding in
our courts, in business, our bad national politics, corruption
scandals and
the unofficial award winning ‘newsmaker’ of recent times — the
Zimbabwe
Republic Police?
However, what is
disturbing is that with each
subject that I choose to write about, I always
find myself with very little
or no positive news and comment to pass chiefly
because there is hardly any
good happening across the entire spectrum of our
legal world. Invariably,
and in one way or the other, I always find myself
indulging in some form of
repetition each time I state the common evils
besetting our erstwhile
reputable and credible legal system. For a columnist
like me, the danger of
falling into episodes of repetition may lead to
monotony and ultimately —
reader alienation, to the obvious detriment of
one’s literary reputation.
Therefore, balancing the competing interests of
satisfying reader’s
expectations and at the same time remaining relevant in
one’s writings is a
delicate process that needs to be handled
carefully.
Given that there is very little good
to talk
or write about due to our bad politics that have given birth to bad
economics and a wide array of other nasty things manifesting themselves
everywhere, getting repetitious becomes unavoidable. After all, as in poetry
and music repetitions may at times sooth and thrill the mind and
body.
Under this column however, revisiting
important subjects may be done to archive better understanding and possible
cooperation of those we have entrusted with power but have a tendency to
abuse it and indulge in embezzlement if not properly
monitored.
The manner in which senior ruling
party
politicians, who the public have entrusted with power to lead and who
articulate government policy refuse to give in to the majority’s demand for
the return to normalcy is evidence that they are insensitive and deeply
engrossed in their power retention schemes. Accordingly, under these
circumstances, it becomes necessary to be repetitive, monotonous and
sonorous for, who knows, maybe one day they will lend an ear to our pleas
for economic and social justice. If need be, and for as long as space
provides , I shall continue to lament and expose the decadence now deeply
rooted in our legal system that has to a large extent undermined people’s
long cherished dream of a rights conscious and corruption free
society.
This week, it is my intention to
revisit the
subject of our Bill of Rights albeit in a brief manner to
register my
disgust with the manner in which the Zimbabwe Republic Police
continues to
work hard to frustrate the public’s right to freely associate
and express
themselves as enshrined in our constitution. A deeply worrying
event that
happened last week, where the MDC’s attempt to protest
government’s failures
was violently crushed by ZRP — a force that has lately
transformed itself
into a notorious instrument of violence, left me in no
doubt that the road
in search of our long lost rule of law shall be long,
painstaking, bruising
and with many casualties. And for as long as those
entrusted with power
continue to abuse it keeping justice and prosperity
locked in their pockets
and dishing it when it suits them, then again, we
should forget about any
chance of getting a properly functioning country any
time soon.
Two months ago, a portion of
liberation war
veterans affiliated to the ruling party began a populist orgy
of countrywide
marches in support of the so called “endorsement” of
President Mugabe as the
ruling party’s candidate for the forthcoming
presidential elections. With
full support of law enforcement agents and
unhindered by any force, their
marches went ahead with gusto, culminating in
the so called “million man
march”. The marchers were simply doing what the
constitution of Zimbabwe
allows them to do — and that is to freely associate
and express oneself
within the confines of law as an expression of freedom
that every human
being deserves. In other words, it is a fundamental human
right that
everyone, and especially legitimate political organisations
should be
allowed to freely exercise in a country with a modern constitution
like
ours.
Given that this right is well
enshrined in our
constitution’s Bill of Rights, itself a sacrosanct
component of the supreme
law, citizens intending to exercise this right must
not be denied such a
right, unless it is more than necessary to do so. By
saying this, I am not
attempting to introduce a new lecture in
constitutional law to our esteemed
politicians, but am talking about
something they are fully aware of, but
that they deliberately perpetuate in
furtherance of their otherwise
dwindling political
careers.
In a clear case of converting this
basic right
into a privilege, and selective application of the law, a few
months later,
the MDC’s attempt to launch its own march, dubbed the “freedom
march” was
thwarted by the Zimbabwe Republic Police for reasons that are to
say the
least extremely absurd and grossly malicious. The manner in which
marchers
were violently dispersed leaving a good number of them nursing
injuries
reminds me of the March 11, 2007 events, as well as the bashing of
legal
practitioners in the same year.
What
these well recorded events confirm is
that our government is not ready for
true democracy. It does not stomach any
criticism of its policies and is
only happy to have a society that is docile
and conformist. Yet, the natural
order of things, and also the legal systems
deliberately put in place
dictate that the dialectics of dissent and
conformism must be essential
ingredients that drive society’s anywhere.
With
elections looming and also within the
context of the SADC brokered
negotiations, the public’s expectation for a
free and fair election that had
begun to rise together with renewed
confidence for a return to normalcy this
year was all futile hope. The
government has to do much more to convince the
world that it is committed to
the ideals of true freedom that those who
fought in the liberation struggle
sacrificed their lives
for.
Vote Muza is partner at Muza &
Nyapadi Legal
Practitioners
Email: muzalaw@yahoo.co.uk
Financial
Gazette (Harare)
COLUMN
31 January 2008
Posted to the web 31
January 2008
Terrence Kairiza
Harare
Current discourse on
Zimbabwe's monetary problems seems to be skewed towards
official
dollarisation as a policy prescription.
This reflects the growing
sentiment that the RBZ lacks the wherewithal to
remedy the collapse of the
monetary system characterised by hyperinflation,
local currency
overvaluation and growing unofficial dollarisation, which
renders monetary
policy paralysis. The impulse for official dollarisation
stems from a
general loss of confidence in the RBZ, thus some analysts feel
that the RBZ
can only obtain monetary and economic stability by importing it
from another
country.
Though mainstream debate is fairly comprehensive about the
purported
benefits and costs of official dollarisation, the fundamental
constructs
that underlie official dollarisation as a policy prescription for
Zimbabwe
still remain to be made clear.
Official dollarisation
implies the scenario whereby foreign currency is
granted the exclusive or
predominant status as legal tender. Essentially, it
involves the institution
of only two things. Firstly, the domestic monetary
base has to be redeemed
for foreign currency at some predetermined
conversion rate; secondly, all
standing contracts that are denominated in
domestic currency also have to be
converted to foreign currency at some
predetermined
parity.
Theoretically, official dollarisation is very easy to implement.
Three
questions arise however, (without going into the merits and demerits
of
dollarisation) pertaining to the feasibility of this scheme for
Zimbabwe.
Firstly; Does the Zimbabwean government posses sufficient
foreign reserves
to undertake official dollarization? This question is
critical if Zimbabwe
seeks to dollarise unilaterally. If Zimbabwe wants to
enter into a
negotiated solution with the anchor country the issue will not
be very
relevant because the anchor country can provide the initial foreign
currency
endowment for dollarisation (as the ECB did for Kosovo). The latter
route
however, is unlikely to materialise in practice as any prudent anchor
country is bound to impose political pre-conditions, which are most likely
to be rejected by the Zimbabwean government.
It is apparent to all
and sundry that the RBZ does not have sufficient
foreign currency reserves
to convert all its liabilities (the domestic
monetary base) into foreign
currency. This factor alone rules out unilateral
official dollarisation as a
policy option for Zimbabwe. To stretch the
debate, say the country could
somehow get the initial foreign currency
endowment from somewhere (say from
a multilateral financial institution),
this begs the question: Which
currency should be adopted as the anchor
currency?
Though official
dollarisation is open on the number of foreign currencies to
be awarded the
status of legal tender, it is reasonable to adjudge that the
currency that
is most likely to be an anchor is the one that already enjoys
widespread
circulation unofficially as this limits conversion costs. The two
currencies
that enjoy the highest circulation unofficially in Zimbabwe are
the USD and
the ZAR. In this consideration, it is imperative to examine the
history and
robustness of these two currencies.
South Africa maintains a floating
exchange rate regime and from 1994 the
Rand has been subject to periodic
crises. Between April and August 1998, the
Rand depreciated 28% in nominal
terms against the USD and in 2001 it
depreciated 26% against the USD. Though
the inflation history of the Rand
has been admirable (by developing country
standards), averaging 5.4% for the
period to 2004, the Rand remains unstable
though maturing. Bearing this in
mind Zimbabwe would be advised to adopt a
more stable anchor currency, any
negotiation pertaining to the Rand has to
revolve around some form of
currency union.
This brings us to the
greenback. Little doubts exist over the reputability
of the USD: Over the
past 30 years there has not been very large currency
depreciations or high
inflation in the US.
Thus given, it would be advisable on economic
grounds for Zimbabwe to adopt
the USD as the anchor currency, however it
would not be impudent to
conjecture on the basis of the political relations
between the two
countries, that the US would not give Zimbabwe the initial
USD endowment to
undertake official dollarization. The source of the initial
endowment
notwithstanding, what is the attitude of the anchor country about
the
adoption of its currency?
Theoretically there is nothing that can
prevent a country with sufficient
reserves from dollarizing if it so
desires. There is a possibility, however
remote, that the anchor country can
force Zimbabwe into a liquidity squeeze
if it so desires as some sort of
political pressure. In 1987 Panama was
virtually demonetised and banks went
bust when the US Fed cut all the
liquidity lines into Panama as part of the
Reagan administration punitive
measures against the country's de facto
leader General Manuel Noriega.
These questions rule out official
dollarization as a policy option in terms
of feasibility. That
notwithstanding, debate on official dollarization
should progress from the
standard benefits and costs to the idiosyncrasies
of the Zimbabwean
meltdown. The fact that official dollarization cannot be
disbanded after
implementation indicates that it should only be instituted
after fully
exploring other alternative solutions like comprehensive
(monetary, fiscal
and institutional) reforms that took place elsewhere in
countries that
successfully ended hyperinflation like Brazil, Israel etc.
The fact that
dollarization is akin to union of two countries also indicates
that it is
pertinent that such an undertaking be discussed in the light of a
political
alternative. How is the governance of this 'suprastate' going to
be like?
What will be the role of national governments? How will the
monetary policy
be conducted for the whole region? And how is the banking
supervision going
to be conducted? These are just some of the very relevant
questions that the
political alternative would seek to answer.
The issue of insufficient
reserves and the current political climate makes
it impossible to
unilaterally implement official dollarization in Zimbabwe
even in the short
run analysis. If this scheme is going to be implemented it
has to be through
dialogue with the anchor country. In the final analysis it
will have to be a
political outcome, wherein this brings in a vexation; how
can a government
that has displayed a wanton disregard of its own policies
to turn around the
economy import discipline from another?
Terrence Kairiza is a member of
the Zimbabwe Economics Society.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
31 January 2008
Posted to the web 31 January
2008
Kumbirai Mafunda
Harare
MOZAMBIQUE'S Hidroelectrica de
Cahora Bassa (HCB), which cut power supplies
to Zimbabwe on January 1, has
agreed to resume supplies after government
agreed to settle the outstanding
debt through weekly payments of US$500 000.
ZESA Holdings chief executive
officer Ben Rafemoyo, said US$10 million of
the debt had been paid off, and
was hoping "to resolve our issues with the
supplier to restore supplies"
into the country, which he said was currently
producing half of its own
power requirements.
ZESA currently owes HCB US$16 million for power
imports. The latest
agreement means it will take ZESA at least eight months
to fully settle the
debt to HCB.
HCB suspended power supplies to the
country early this month after ZESA
failed to settle an outstanding US$26
million debt by December. The payment
problems had made it difficult for
Zimbabwe to negotiate a fresh power
supply contract with HCB for the current
year.
It was however, still unclear if the new deal had resulted in the
renewal of
the power supply agreement.
The impasse over power
supplies had been broken after a
government-to-government discussion between
Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and
payment guarantees from the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe.
"We have already agreed to ring fence it (debt). We are already
servicing
it," a source told The Financial Gazette.
HCB has now
agreed to increase its power exports to Zimbabwe to 200MW from
100MW.
ZESA, which as of last week was receiving 100MW from HCB,
would begin
accessing the other 100MW once the vandalised towers, which link
Harare and
Mozambique, have been repaired.
The same grid is also used
for power supplies from Mozambique to
neighbouring South Africa and
Botswana.
A ZESA official was optimistic that the power utility would
start "wheeling"
the 100MW from HCB "soon".
Nation-building impossible when some are marginalised
EDITOR
— Since its December 27th general election, Kenya has been
experiencing a
wave of political conflicts that should serve as a lesson to
Zimbabwe’s
pro-democracy movement, as these problems are rooted in the same
democratic
deficit our leaders are accused of.
Much of the media coverage on Kenya seems
to have been devoted to focusing
on the ensuing violence with very marginal
efforts being made to investigate
issues at the centre of this conflict:
absence of political democratic
institutions and the shortfalls of
‘executive’ fundamentalism.
With Zimbabwe facing harmonised elections in
March, a look into the Kenyan
scenario would be helpful in order to build
urgency, around a proper
constitutional reform process, whose outcome will
insulate Zimbabwe from the
problems Kenyans are going through and those
experienced in past elections.
Since the Kenyan election, over a thousand
people have lost their lives and
250 000 more have been displaced. As in
most post-colonial conflicts, these
tensions have taken an ugly ethno-tribal
character.
The US ambassador to Kenya, Michael Rannesberger, was quoted
saying whoever
won the election, did so by a margin of between 23 000 to 100
000 votes. And
that is where part of the problem lies and why building
constitutional
frameworks that harness the spirit of nation building is
important.
Kenya, like Zimbabwe, had its ‘Lancaster House’ Constitution drawn
in 1963
as a settlement document when the British colonists were withdrawing
from
the territory to allow for Kenya’s independence.
Consequently, this
constitution, now with its fair share of amendments, has
not fared well for
a transformational state, thus allowing dictatorial
tendencies to set
in.
The Daniel Arap Moi regime mastered repression under the shoulder of
constitutional righteousness. In relation to elections, state administration
and governance, Kenya has a winner-takes-all electoral system.
This
system is what we have in Zimbabwe. What this means is that, even if
one
wins an election by one vote, the opinions of the section of the voters
who
would have lost will not find political representation or expression.
It is a
system that excludes ‘losers’ and, as we are learning from Kenya, a
base for
fuelling other deep-seated tensions and questions to do with the
legitimacy
of the winner as a representative of all interest groups, if
voting patterns
are also put into consideration. Its Presidential
parliamentary system
places more power in the executive, including power to
legislate.
The
executive has a monopoly over national resource distribution, with the
legislature being reduced to a powerless club of sessional critics or
patronage driven loyalists.
With a Constitution that bestows enormous
powers on the executive and
because there are no constitutional provisions
to ensure equitable
distribution of the country’s resources, perceived loss
of the vote carries
a heavy meaning for those who lose.
In regions and
among groups perceived to be less prioritised by the victors,
this
arrangement fuels anger. It means another five years of being isolated,
another five years of exclusion, another five years of poverty.
The
disproportionate powers the executive has, compromised the others arms
of
government. The legislature and judiciary become overly dependent on the
executive, undermining their role of providing checks and
balances.
Executive accountability is eroded. Corruption and its attendant
defence
systems set in; with regionalism and identity cleavages taking
centre stage.
Regions or communities without a “representative” in power
suffer.
Democratic transformation in Kenya, as in Zimbabwe, gained its
momentum
through the demands for Constitutional reform, with Kibaki
defeating Moi on
the banner of ‘a people driven Constitution’. Kenyans are
yet to see it, two
Presidential terms down the line.
Most of those in
civil society would be absorbed into the luxurious benefits
of the State and
soon forget the principled demands of institutionalising
democracy, and
facilitating the writing down by the people of a framework
under which they
want to be governed — a Constitution.
The consequences are the disasters seen
today: those who feel excluded and
watching their vote becoming meaningless
are resorting to “all means
necessary” to reclaim the vote from the gutters.
The death toll keeps rising
as neighbour turns against neighbour, and
identity replaces value in
deciding who is a friend or foe.
The primacy
of identity politics becomes breeding ground for the most
depraved
tendencies. It fosters an identity-based nationalism, which
regresses
democratic values necessary for nation building.
As we have seen in Kenya,
electoral loss/victory soon takes the form of one
identity grouping having
defeated the other and the nation dividing along
ethno-tribal lines. Ethnic
identity is now equated with political identity.
Is Zimbabwe the next
Kenya?
A similar threat confronts Zimbabwe, risking the negation of genuine
national debate on democratic transformation.
Given our history, and the
need to foster a common identity in our
diversity, a political system and
Constitutional framework, which allows for
this is critical.
The
incumbent ruling party has set the country back into the
socio-psychology of
identity in determining who can participate or not in
national discourse.
Our white population has been effectively wiped out from
being Zimbabwean.
Even in the most liberal of opposition spaces, they are
regarded with
suspicion and are politely censored from making public
representations.
Zimbabweans of Indian descent have been purged from
public political
participation. Among the black population, it has begun to
matter whether
one is Zezuru, Karanga or Ndebele. As if this is not enough,
gender, even
within these clusters of divisions, has been so entrenched as
to qualify as
exclusion, with our women compatriots having to endure
structural abuse to
assert the mere fact that they to are citizens.
Human
character is secondary in the estimation of man and women. These
identities
have also informed people’s perceptions of who is excluded or
included in
the economic, social or political benefit — be they in the
patronage of the
State, or in civil society and opposition or business.
The violence that is
manifest in Kenya, though based on identity, is
reflective of failures in
the country’s Constitution and institutions to be
responsive to the crises
of nation building. Many Kenyans have doubts about
the validity of the
country’s Constitution, especially the process under
which it was
written.
This is of relevance to Zimbabwe, where sadly as in the Kenyan case,
history
could be vengefully repeating itself. The MDC has consistently
argued that a
new Constitution must be put in place before the
elections.
Yet it seems to be doing everything to confirm its participation
in the
electoral process before this key demand has been met. Gabriel
Chaibva,
spokesperson of one faction of the MDC, in an interview with VOA is
categorical about participating in the March elections.
Nelson Chamisa,
the spokesperson for the other faction, suggested the same
in his widely
condemned rally speech where he threatened Kenyan style
protests should
President Mugabe manipulate the vote.
Despite this grandstanding and
pontificating about a new Constitution, the
MDC — in itself a product of the
Constitutional movement — does not seem to
place value in the importance of
a democratic, public participatory process
of Constitution making.
The
Constitution MDC is fighting for in the talks is a product of ‘four wise
men’, determining the permanent fate of 13million of their fellow citizens!
The Constitution they are proposing has not been seen or shared by
Zimbabweans. Speaking during a visit to the US late last year, leader of one
of the factions, Morgan Tsvangirai, is quoted in an interview suggesting
that ‘we have graduated from process’, in deviation from the
principles.
Welshman Ncube in his speech to Parliament in support of the
widely
condemned 18th amendment to the Constitution of Zimbabwe explained at
length
that the principles of an ‘open, transparent and participatory
approach in
Constitution making were not a ‘fundamentalist decree’.
On
January 3, Morgan Tsvangirai published an opinion piece suggesting that a
Transitional Constitution had been finalised, with the sticking point being
that of implementation. The nation or even members of the MDC are yet to see
it. Our experience has been a bitter one: reforms made in the dark,
excluding national dialogue are partly the reason why we are where we are
today: a reason for us to be very afraid of the Kenyan ‘demons’ or better
still of being ‘kibakised’.
But what is even more frightening, if it is
to be believed, is the
revelation by Nathaniel Manheru a columnist for
government controlled Herald
who wrote in last Saturday’s edition that the
so called ‘transitional’
constitution agreed by ZANU-PF and the MDC is
nothing more than the 2000
government draft that was voted against in the
referendum.
Countries such as South Africa do offer learning curves on
national
reconstruction. Emerging from its brutal past, like the rest of
post-colonial Africa, South Africa underwent a process of Constitutional
building that pitched public participation at the centre of Constitutional
development.
Public opinion and debate would take place, with its
Constitutional
Assembly, civil society and political parties opening the
nation to dialogue
with itself. What resulted was amongst other things, an
electoral and
political system that is modestly inclusive, guaranteeing
proportional
representation, and allowing all views brought to an electoral
contest and
receiving electoral support, to find a measure of
expression.
Greater devolution of power in provinces and local authorities
have created
a system of greater accountability and service delivery. There
is freedom of
electoral contest and democratic expression.
The result has
been limited violent contestation of election results and a
harmonious
existence of political formations and civic groups despite their
competing
ideologies or perspectives. Those who lose an election will still
salvage
their proportional representation of the vote.
The National Constitutional
Assembly (NCA) has advocated for a similar
system of Constitution making
based primarily on the principles of ‘public
participation, openness and
transparency’. Its 2001 draft addresses some of
the key issues of
proportional representation and institutions that
safeguard
democracy:Electoral Commission, Human Rights Commission, Gender
Commission
etc. The draft also argues for a strong legislature and judiciary
and the
effective separation of powers between the varying arms of the
State.
Parliament, elected through a mixed system of constituency based and
party-proportional based representation would elect the leader of government
who would account to it.
This system was drawn out of views gathered from
ordinary Zimbabweans, by
both the NCA and the Constitutional Commission. The
government draft
presented to the referendum in 2000 ignored all these
views, and was wisely
rejected.
In arguing that elections should be
deferred until such a time as there is a
Constitutional and electoral
framework, the NCA aims to pre-empt the
possibility of national
degeneration.
The Kenyan scenario points to the things we can avoid and
toward the
importance of working on developing and putting in place
structural systems
that ensure barbarism and exclusion are not part of our
politics and
national life.
The democracy movement must also learn that
shortcuts to freedom lead to
spurious regimes and the entrenchment of
anti-democratic practices. The MDC,
carrying with it the mantle of the
nation’s hope for change, must rethink
its options.
The current
opportunism and intellectual laziness that is becoming so
pervasive should
be stopped and give way to the principled call for a just
and free
nation.
Tapera Kapuya
Harare
-------------
Tsvangirai the only
brave man in Zim
EDITOR – The letter on last week’s Readers’
Forum “Broad coalition, not
Makoni, only hope for winning polls,”
refers.
It is quite disturbing to learn that people still do not realise and
cannot
see what Morgan Tsvangirai has done to change for the better the
political
situation in Zimbabwe.
All the attention Zimbabwe is getting
and all Tsvangirai’s contributions
towards restoring democracy in Zimbabwe
are still not being recognised.
Whether you like him or not, that man has
managed to keep the politics in
Zimbabwe in the spotlight, which is helping
in preventing (President) Mugabe
from declaring himself a life
President.
In my opinion, Tsvangirai is the only brave man in Zimbabwe.
Change is
coming soon, through Tsvangirai’s efforts, whether he is president
or not.
Jean
USA