(AFP) – 7 hours ago
HARARE —
A public servants' strike in Zimbabwe jerkily resumed Thursday
after failed
talks on doubling basic wages, as some teachers held classes
while others
left students on their own.
The strike, which has hit public schools the
hardest, resumed after unions
Wednesday rejected a $240-million
(185-million-euro) blanket offer from
government.
If spread evenly
among government's 230,000 employees, they would each
receive an $87 a month
increase, far less than their demand for basic wages
to rise from $200 to
$538 a month.
Government workers began the five-day strike on Monday to
press for a
doubling of their salaries, medical insurance and an allowance
for workers
based in rural areas.
Unions suspended the strike on
Wednesday to allow the talks to proceed, but
said their action would
continue for the rest of the week after negotiations
failed to reach a
settlement.
Government departments have continued to work as usual, with
unions accusing
bosses of intimidating their employees to keep them from the
joining the
strike.
Raymond Majongwe, leader of the Progressive
Teachers' Union, said workers
who ignored the strike were supplementing
their pay with corrupt activities.
"Those who are not on strike are
vehicles of corruption," Majongwe told AFP.
"They are there to make an
extra dollar by stealing from people who are made
to pay extra for
services."
Zimbabwe's books are plagued with irregularities. Finance
Minister Tendai
Biti estimates that one-third of the people on the
government's payroll do
not actually exist, meaning corrupt workers are
siphoning off extra
salaries.
Civil servants, particularly teachers,
nurses and doctors, have been
striking on and off for better pay since
2007.
The crisis peaked in 2008, when staff shortages forced state
hospitals to
close some units and teacher strikes left only 50 days of
classes in the
whole year.
Zimbabwe's economy has begun recovering
after a decade-long downturn,
following a power-sharing agreement by
long-time rivals President Robert
Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai in the wake of failed 2008
polls.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
26 January, 2012
One of Zimbabwe’s most outspoken union
leaders has accused the government of
forcing desperately underpaid public
sector workers into corrupt activities,
by failing to take care of their
needs.
The Secretary General of the Progressive Teachers’ Union of
Zimbabwe (PTUZ),
Raymond Majongwe, on Thursday blasted the coalition
government, including
the MDC formations, for failing to work out a plan to
increase the basic
wages for struggling civil servants.
Talks between
the workers’ Apex Council, and government broke down Wednesday
after it was
revealed that $240 million is all that was available for
government workers.
This meant $7 per month more in wages, when they are
asking for at least
$288 more. The offer was described as “an insult.”
“We cannot pretend
like we don’t know there is money in this country. The
gold, platinum
chrome, diamonds,” Majongwe explained, adding: “And who else
is better
placed to know. We have people here who are working at the
treasury, working
in government setups. We know.”
Majongwe blasted the MDC-T for being part
of a coalition government despite
having no control over anything. He
explained that this is not what
government is all about and no-one should
put themselves in such a position.
“Nobody controls anything. Even all
these MDC ministers. They’ve got
positions but don’t control anything. We
don’t want people masquerading as
ministers when they are not,” Majongwe
fumed.
He criticized Finance Minister Tendai Biti for statements he made
last year,
claiming that millions of dollars in diamond revenue were not
making it to
the treasury.
“It’s not our job to resource track. Biti
is accepting that there is money
and we don’t care whether it comes from his
coffers, his pockets or the
treasury,” Majongwe said.
He added: “You
cannot become part of government then say this is outside my
hands, I have
no control. We don’t want figureheads who drive flashy cars
but don’t
control anything.”
Majongwe then turned his criticisms to the Public
Service Minister, Lucia
Matibenga, who reportedly failed to attend crucial
meetings scheduled for
Wednesday, as she was attending to other ministerial
duties.
“We have always criticized every other minister using exactly the
same
words. And we have not had kind words for people who are lazy. We’ve
not had
kind words for people who don’t want to consult us,” Majongwe
said.
Contacted for comment, Minister Matibenga would not conduct an
interview but
said she had released a statement because people were
attacking her
personally.
Meanwhile more public sector workers are
expected to join the ongoing strike
by Friday. Another round of negotiations
is scheduled for next Tuesday.
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com
NEWS24 5 hours 12 minutes
ago
Cape Town - Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has
called for an
urgent address to civil servants’ plight after a strike
resumed following
failed talks on doubling wages.
A newsletter
published in the prime minister's office quoted Tsvangirai as
saying that
transparency in the accounting of diamond revenue remained key
to civil
servants’ remuneration.
“The plight of civil servants is a critical issue
that requires urgent
government attention and transparency in the accounting
of diamond revenues
will go a long way in mitigating the conditions of civil
servants,”
Tsvangirai said.
The strike, which has hit public schools
the hardest, resumed after unions
on Wednesday rejected a $240m blanket
offer from government.
If spread evenly among government's 230 000
employees, they would each
receive an $87 a month increase, far less than
their demand for basic wages
to rise from $200 to $538 a
month.
Government workers began the five-day strike on Monday to press
for a
doubling of their salaries, medical insurance and an allowance for
workers
based in rural areas.
Unions suspended the strike on
Wednesday to allow the talks to proceed, but
said their action would
continue for the rest of the week after negotiations
failed to reach a
settlement.
Government departments have continued to work as usual, with
unions accusing
bosses of intimidating their employees to keep them from the
joining the
strike.
http://www.swradioafrica.com/
By Tichaona Sibanda
26 January
2012
The inquest into the death of retired General Solomon Mujuru took a
dramatic
turn on Thursday when it was revealed that two firearms and a
magazine of
bullets were found next to his charred remains.
Police
Chief Superintendent, Crispen Makedenge told the inquest in Harare
that one
of the weapons discovered was an AK 47 rifle. He did not disclose
the
details of the second weapon. Both guns were however badly burned from
the
fire that engulfed the house.
SW Radio Africa correspondent Simon
Muchemwa said that on further inspection
of the burned out house, Makedenge
discovered 13 more weapons in a gun
cabinet in the general’s bedroom. The
inquest is being held before Harare
Provincial Magistrate Walter
Chikwanha.
Muchemwa said Makadenge’s brief testimony raised more
questions than answers
during his 10 minute appearance. The senior police
officer will take to the
witness stand on Friday to continue with his
testimony before cross
examination.
“We have information that either
Makedenge or a ballistic weapons expert
will testify that three spent bullet
cartridges were also recovered near the
general’s remains,” Muchemwa
reported.
He added: “Questions are also being asked why those two guns
were near the
general and not in the gun cabinet. Was he protecting himself
from some
danger…is what people were asking after Makedenge’s
testimony.”
Two witnesses have already told the inquest that they heard
sound of gunfire
moments before they were alerted to a fire that destroyed
the former
Zimbabwe National Army commander’s farmhouse.
Rosemary
Short, a maid at the farmhouse and Clemence Runhare, a private
guard at the
property also told the inquest they heard gunshots before they
rushed to the
house to try and douse the fire.
Meanwhile, a ZESA employee testified on
Thursday and ruled out an electrical
fault as the cause of the
fire.
Giving evidence during the inquest Douglas Chiredza Nyakungu, ZESA
Consumer
Services Officer for Beatrice area, said he noticed that there were
two
circuit breakers that had tripped on the Meter Circuit Board situated
along
the passage.
He however could not ascertain which breakers had
tripped because the labels
had been badly burnt.
“Circuit breakers
distributing power to the geyser, water pump, tobacco
barns and kitchen
remained sound, ruling out fears that an electrical fault
inside the house
could have caused the fire,” Nyakungu said
He added that the circuit
breakers could have tripped as a result of the
socket outlets and lamp
holders, which were badly burnt.
He explained that Mujuru’s house had
metal electrical pipes, which, in the
event of a fault, would have exhibited
some holes or damage due to a short
circuit. But an inspection of the wiring
system found no evidence of damage.
Nyakungu stated that on further
investigations he concluded that there were
no high currency carrying
appliances such as heaters at the time of the
fateful
incident.
Evidence by Nyakungu who is the 27th witness came after the
Fire Brigade
Station Officer Clever Matoti, had suggested that a fire such
as the one at
Mujuru’s farm could have been caused by an act of
arson.
He said it was rare for a fire in a house to start in two separate
rooms at
the same time unless it was an act of arson.
Matoti said a
combination of oxygen, hydrogen and heated ceiling dust can
explode leading
to a house fire especially in hot seasons.
He said the type of fire in
which Mujuru is believed to have died could have
been caused by petroleum
substances because it was extensive, leading to the
collapse of the roof of
two rooms.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
By Tendai Kamhungira and Xolisani Ncube
Thursday, 26
January 2012 12:30
HARARE - Key evidence relating to the death of
retired army General Solomon
Mujuru is missing with an arson attack
remaining a possibility, a fire
expert told a Harare magistrate
yesterday.
Clever Mafoti said this while giving evidence in the
ongoing inquest into
Mujuru’s death, which enters its eighth day
today.
Mafoti, a station officer at Harare fire brigade, said crucial
evidence that
could have assisted in ascertaining the cause of the fire
believed to have
killed the general beyond recognition, was
missing.
“During the time that we eventually arrived most of the leads
had been
destroyed by the people who were present,” said Mafoti to a packed
courtroom.
Mafoti said this while responding to a question asked by
Clemence Chimbari
from the Attorney General’s office on whether it was part
of the fire
brigade’s roles to determine what could have started the
fire.
Mafoti said it was impossible as people who moved in and out of the
house
had destroyed the evidence that could have enabled them to ascertain
what
started the fire.
He, however, told the court the fire could
have started in the bedroom and
the main lounge as the two rooms were
severely damaged.
“The bedroom could have been the starting point of the
fire because of the
peeling off of the plastered wall and cracks on the
wall. That signifies
fire would have remained burning in the room for a
fairly longer period. The
same aspect was also identified in the dining room
(main lounge),” said
Mafoti.
Asked whether it was possible for fire
to start from two different points at
the same time, Mafoti said this was
possible in cases involving arson,
especially when the arsonist was of an
unsound mind, or if an electrical
fault occurred or when electrical sockets
were overloaded.
“If fire breaks out in a room and rages on for a long
time without being
noticed it ends up consuming the entire oxygen. So in the
event that there
will be an opening for example in the ceiling, dust in the
ceiling will
start expanding,” Mafoti said.
“There will be a mixture
of dust and air. Dust will expand like gases that
will lead to explosion
forcing fire to leap from one end to the other.”
Mafoti told the court
that at the time Mujuru died the fire brigade had no
capacity to travel
outside Harare as they had no reliable vehicles.
He said that they
received the fire report around 3am but it took them 30
minutes to prepare
for the journey.
“The vehicle which we had could only ferry 400 litres of
water and was
leaking to such an extent that we would not have managed to
reach Beatrice
with water,” said Mafoti.
Mafoti’s revelations come
after the late Mujuru’s nephew James Mushore on
Tuesday asked police
inspector Simon Dube whether senior government
officials who were allowed in
the house where Mujuru’s body was found could
have tempered with crucial
evidence.
Mushore was referring to government officials who were allowed
into the
house to view the general’s body before it was taken to the
mortuary.
“Don’t you think the guided tours might have helped in
destroying valuable
evidence?” Mushore asked to which Dube answered
“no”.
Yesterday’s proceedings were delayed after Thakor Kewada, the
Mujuru family
lawyer requested time to study statements given to the police
officers by
experts during their investigations so that he could prepare
enough
questions to examine the experts.
“There are certain aspects
that I am looking at and there is someone
researching for me and I made a
request to the state to accord postponement.
When you are calling experts
there are certain aspects that you need to look
at. I also want to question
or consider before I question aspects that I can
within myself say I have
done everything
possible and that needs to be done and satisfy myself,” said
Kewada.
Mujuru died last August in a suspected inferno, at his Beatrice
farm about
60 kilometres out of Harare.
Mafoti was the 26th witness
to testify in one of the country’s highest
profile court cases since
independence in 1980.
Today, Mafoti is expected to wind-up his evidence
before a police expert
from the ballistic unit and a Zesa official take the
stand to testify.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com
Tragic ... The late army
commander General Solomon Mujuru
26/01/2012 00:00:00
by Phyllis
Mbanje
AN ELECTRICAL fault has been ruled out as the cause of a fire
which killed
the former army commander General Solomon Mujuru at his farm in
Beatrice on
August 16 last year.
An inquest into the Zanu PF power
broker’s death entered its eighth day on
Thursday with an official from the
Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority
(ZESA) and the CID’s lead detective on
the case taking the witness stand as
the 27th and 28th
witnesses.
Douglas Chiradza Nyakungu, who is a Customer Services Officer
at ZESA’s
Beatrice office, told the inquest their investigations had
disproved the
possibility of an electric short circuit as the cause of the
fire.
General Mujuru’s charred remains were found in the 14-room
farmhouse after
an inferno swept through in the early hours, destroying
everything in its
path. The general's wife, Vice President Joice Mujuru, was
in their Harare
home at the time.
On Wednesday, the Fire Brigade said
its investigations were inconclusive,
but a fire expert said they had
identified what they thought were two
sources of the fire in the main
bedroom and the lounge. Fires with two
sources, said Clever Mafoti, the
Chief Fire Officer at the Fire Brigade HQ
in Harare, usually point to arson
or an electrical fault.
But taking the witness stand on Thursday,
Nyakungu effectively quashed the
electric fault theory – leaving arson as
the only likely cause of the fire.
Nyakungu, who was one of the last
people to see Mujuru alive after enjoying
an evening drink with the general
at a local motel, told the inquest:
"Actually, the fire burnt electrical
appliances and gadgets.”
Explaining his conclusions, Nyakungu said when
he checked the distribution
box which receives power from the transformer
and in turn distributes it
throughout the house it had been extensively
burnt and the fire seemed to
have started from the ceiling.
He said
even though two breakers – which protect the plugs for the various
electrical sources like geyser or lights – were down, after analysis they
ruled out that they could have tripped due to an electrical
fault.
"We also checked if there had been a high currency appliance which
uses a
lot of power but there was none. That meant the issue of overloading
was
out," he told the inquest being held before Harare magistrate Walter
Chikwanha.
The ZESA official said the power cables in the
house were enclosed in steel
pipes which would have cracked and left holes
if there had been an electric
fault.
Turning to the night of August
15, Nyakungu remembered meeting the general
around 7PM at the Beatrice
Hotel, a few miles from his farm.
"He bought me a beer at the motel and we
chatted for almost an hour before
he indicated that he was leaving," he
testified.
The general had left early, he told the court, indicating that
he needed to
be up by 2AM for a road trip to Polokwane, South
Africa.
"We escorted him to his car but he received a phone call and for
five
minutes he spoke on the phone after which he waved goodbye and drove
off,”
Nyakungu added.
He told the inquest that early next morning, he
had been contacted by Grant
Nakhozwe, whose Blackstone Farm is adjacent to
Mujuru’s, informing him about
the fire.
Nyakungu said he cancelled as
trip to Kadoma and headed for the farm where
he found the general
dead.
The last witness for the day was Chief Superintendent Crispen
Makedenge, who
is the Deputy Commanding Officer of the Criminal
Investigations Department
and also the lead investigator into Mujuru’s
death.
He told the inquest that they had recovered 17 firearms – 15 from
a gun
cabinet which had been blasted opened due to the heat – and two in the
bedroom in a fitted wardrobe. Magazines and ammunition were also recovered
both from the cabinet and the wardrobe.
Superintendent Makedenge was
asked about Mujuru's condition when he arrived
at the farm at daybreak on
August 16.
http://www.radiovop.com
Victoria Falls, January 26,
2012–Zimbabwe Human Rights (ZimRights) NGO Forum
director, Abel Chikomo said
Zanu-PF activists, police and army are the worst
torturers in
Zimbabwe.
Addressing an anti-torture training workshop for Members of
Parliament in
Victoria Falls on Tuesday , Chikomo said it was discovered
that Zanu-PF
activists are the worst torturers in the country followed by
police and
army.
“Zanu-PF activists are leading in terms of torturing
Zimbabweans followed by
police and army.
People who are being
tortured by Zanu-PF activists will be having opposing
views.
“We also
discovered these torturers will be mostly working with state
security agents
when dealing with their political rivals,” said Chikomo.
Chikomo added,
“Police are the second worst torturers in Zimbabwe because
almost all people
arrested will be subject torture in order to make
confessions on crimes they
would have allegedly committed.”
He said most methods of torture used by
Zimbabwe torturers are beatings on
the soles of the feet, electric shocks,
burning, rape and others.
The ZimRights boss also said Harare province
has the highest number of
people tortured by Zanu-PF activists and police
since year 2001 up to now
standing at 49 percent followed by Manicaland at
15 percent,Mashonaland
East province 12 percent, Mashonaland Central seven
percent ,Midlands five
percent ,Masvingo three percent, Bulawayo two percent
and Matabeleland North
at one percent.
He said Matabeleland South
province has the least number of torturers at 0,
4 percent because Zanu-PF
has given up on that province since it has been
losing elections in that
area for long time.
“There are more torture incidences reported in
Harare, Manicaland and
Mashonaland provinces because in 2008 after Zanu-PF
lost more parliament
seats in those areas which used to be their
strongholds , they started
torturing people in revenge,” said Chikomo
.
The anti- torture training workshop was attended by parliamentarians
from
MDC formations after Zanu-PF parliamentarians snubbed it.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Tichaona Sibanda
26
January 2012
MDC-T spokesman and Nyanga North MP Douglas Mwonzora and 23
other party
activists have been removed from remand almost a year after they
were
charged with public violence.
During a routine court hearing in
Nyanga on Thursday, law officers from the
Attorney General’s office conceded
to an application by Mwonzora to be
removed from continuous placement on
remand.
Mwonzora and the MDC-T activists were arrested in February last
year in
Nyanga and spent more than a month in remand prison in Mutare. The
MDC-T
legislator told SW Radio Africa that they felt very ‘aggrieved’
because they
were subjected to gross injustice.
The state will
however continue with the case by way of summons. The MP and
others were
arrested in connection with alleged violence at Chatindo School
in
Nyamaropa. Mwonzora was addressing a constituency meeting when a group of
ZANU PF youths starting disrupting the proceedings, leading to clashes
between the two groups. But no one was arrested or charged from ZANU PF
after the fracas.
“We are being charged with public violence and
fighting in public. We don’t
fight alone…no person from ZANU PF is being
charged with us, we are being
charged alone as if we fought ourselves,”
Mwonzora said.
He added: “It’s unfair and unjust. We were put in prison
for 25 days over
nothing. But as a community of Nyanga North, we will
continue to persevere,
we will continue with our struggle for justice. We
will continue with our
struggle for equality and we will never go back to
ZANU PF.”
The COPAC co-chairman complained that this matter was a typical
case of
extreme injustice, taking into consideration that one of their
activists, 82
year-old Rwisai Nyakauru died after spending a month in police
cells.
“He died because he was not supposed to be in prison in the first
place and
we were also not supposed to be in prison as well. When we were
set free we
were happy to a certain extent because one of us is no more,”
the MP said.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
By Gift Phiri, Senior Writer
Thursday, 26 January
2012 15:17
HARARE - Finance minister Tendai Biti has been forced to
take steps to slash
the shock 25 percent hike of surtax on imports of food
and other basics.
Biti admitted at a news conference in Harare yesterday
that he had come
under withering pressure from “various stakeholders” after
publication of
the new import tariff regime in the January 14 edition of the
Daily News.
The new tax regime came into force on January 1,
2012.
The 25 percent surtax was imposed across the entire range of goods
from
basics to luxuries, with the new import regime affecting almost
everything
from second-hand vehicles to food, even beer and
cigarettes.
The new duty regime was announced in the 2012 national budget
presented by
Biti to Parliament in November last year as a measure to
support increased
domestic production and level the playing field with
regards to some of the
imported commodities.
When the new tariff
regime was gazetted last week by the Zimbabwe Revenue
Authority, they
torched a storm, which has forced the minister into a
dramatic
climb-down.
“Concerns have been raised by stakeholders over some of the
tariff measures
government implemented from the 1st of January 2012,” Biti
told reporters
yesterday.
“Here there are two things. First is the
expanse of those tariffs, the
expanse of the goods that are affected by
those tariffs, there have been
concerns about those.”
The 25 percent
surtax covers literally everything from beauty products to
electrical
household appliances such as refrigerators, ovens, cookers and
other
reception apparatus for TVs.
The surtax more importantly affects a wide
array of basic foodstuffs such as
fresh as well as frozen whole chickens,
frozen cuts and offal, milk and
cream, yoghurt, fermented milk, buttermilk,
cheese, bird’s eggs, potatoes,
tomatoes, onions and shallots, garlic,
carrots and turnips, mixtures of
vegetables, peas, beans, sausages, uncooked
pasta, jams, fruit jellies,
marmalades, soup and broth preparations, sweet
biscuits, tomato ketchup and
other tomato sauces.
The new regime also
affected alcoholic beverages such as malt beer, wine,
ciders, brandy,
whiskey, vodka, spirits as well as Virginia flue-cured
tobacco and burley
tobacco.
Biti said he had taken heed of concerns from economists and
other
stakeholders that the hike will trigger a massive inflation surge and
that
it could ignite shortages of basics given depressed local supply side
constraints.
“We have listened to the way they are affecting basic
commodities and so
forth,” Biti said.
The tough-talking minister
blasted the manner in which the new tariff
measures were being implemented
by tax collector Zimra.
“We have women being asked to put on new shoes,
bags being opened (at the
border) and so forth. We don’t accept that, it is
not the law,” Biti said.
“Public servants, parastatals, have got a duty to
respect the public; they
have got a duty to respect citizens of this
country. We will not accept
that.”
The inhuman treatment of
travellers by Zimra officials at several border
posts including Harare
International Airport was exposed by the Daily News
through a series of
articles.
Biti admitted there was overwhelming national condemnation of
the 25 percent
hike in surtax of second-hand cars and basics.
“Given
the huge representations that have been made to us as a ministry, we
have
embarked on the process of stakeholder consultation so that we review
or
adjust those statutory instruments, the appropriate measures to review,
and
some of the measures therefore will be instituted in the next few weeks
or
few days if we are lucky,” Biti said.
“But I want to appeal to the
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, I want to appeal to
all government bodies that
provides services to the people whether it’s the
passport office, whether
it’s the death certificate office, whether its VAT,
the government is there
to serve the public, public servants are there to
serve and not to be
islands of fascism where we harass people and so forth.
“So we don’t
accept what certain officials at the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority
have been
doing.”
Biti said he had received several complaints from trans-border
traders and
other stakeholders of intrusive searches and other bizarre
methods of
enforcing his new regulations at the border.
“That is not
the policy of this ministry, that is not the policy of this
government,” he
said. “The long and short of it is that we will review and
adjust following
a process of consultation. We will make announcements
through the relevant
statutory instrument.”
Biti has also introduced a controversial ban of
imports of second-hand
underwear that has also attracted massive criticism.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
By Reuters
Thursday, 26 January 2012
15:09
HARARE - Zimbabwe is having to bolster its $4 billion 2012
budget with $110
million from an 2009 emergency IMF fund, a measure of the
extent of an acute
foreign exchange shortage in the southern African
nation.
Finance minister Tendai Biti, who has previously opposed using
money from
the $500 million IMF emergency facility, said “liquidity
challenges and the
need to address our infrastructure deficit” now
outweighed the need not to
take on more debt.
In all, Harare owes
multilateral lenders including the IMF and World Bank
about $7 billion and
is in arrears on its repayments, precluding it from
accessing any credit
beyond the special financial crisis fund.
The money would be used for
infrastructure, credit lines for manufacturing
and support for agriculture,
he told reporters.
So far, the government had used $150 million of the
funds for agriculture
and infrastructure projects, and $142 million to pay
off a debt to the IMF’s
Poverty Reduction and Growth Fund (PGRF), he
added.
Biti also said Zimbabwe was unlikely to meet a target of 1,8
million tonnes
of maize in its 2011-2012 harvest due to late rains, but
insisted the nation
of 13 million people would not need significant imports.
://www.swradioafrica.com
By Alex Bell
26 January 2012
An audit of an
estimated US$7 billion worth of debt owed by Zimbabwe is
critical for future
transparency, according to a political analyst and
former diplomat.
A
campaign for an audit of the multi-billion dollar debt was launched last
year after reports that some of the money could have been used by the then
ZANU PF government to fund repression. Last December, the Zimbabwe Europe
Network, the Jubilee Debt Campaign Coalition and European Network on Debt
and Development called for the immediate audit of the loans, offered to
Zimbabwe since the 1990s, detailing how some of the money was
used.
“At least US$750 million of debt came directly from structural
adjustment
loans from the IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank which
lowered
economic growth and increased unemployment,” reads the report by the
three
organisations.
The report revealed, among other things, that
Zimbabwe’s £210 million debt
to the UK included loans from Tony Blair’s
government to Zimbabwe’s police
force. According to the report, police were
loaned money in the 1990s to buy
1 500 Land Rovers, backed by ‘UK Export
Finance’, a unit of the Department
for Business.
Finance minister
Tendai Biti last year started negotiations to have Zimbabwe’s
debts
cancelled by being declared a heavily indebted poor country (HIPC), an
initiative managed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the African Development Bank (AfDB). Biti has said that Zimbabwe’s debt
was blocking the country from getting fresh lines of credit and HIPC status
would ensure the debts are written off.
But the international civic
bodies who released the report last year have
not supported this plan,
urging instead for Zimbabwe’s Parliament to first
create a “Debt Audit
Commission” which would investigate how the debt was
run up and who
benefitted.
A UK Minister has since reportedly rejected an audit before
admitting
Zimbabwe into the HIPC initiative. The Daily News newspaper this
week
reported that it had seen a letter in which UK Development Minister
Andrew
Mitchell rejects calls for the audit, saying that international
donors were
not the primary cause of Zimbabwe’s economic
decline.
“President Mugabe’s reckless economic mismanagement bears the
major
responsibility for the crisis that reached its nadir in 2008,
with
hyperinflation, the near collapse of basic services and a
humanitarian
crisis that affected more than seven million people,” Mitchell’s
letter
reportedly says.
The letter also reportedly says: “Attempting
after the fact to distinguish
between legitimate and illegitimate debts
could cause lenders to refuse to
provide further loans and would be
catastrophic for developing countries
attempting to strengthen their
economies and reduce poverty through
accessing international
financing.”
Political analyst and former Zimbabwean diplomat Clifford
Mashiri told SW
Radio Africa on Thursday that this position by the UK
minister is
“regrettable.”
“Whenever an audit is resisted, it
inevitably raises eyebrows. Some suspect
those against the audit have
something to hide because of the potentially
embarrassing revelations,”
Mashiri said.
He added that an audit is critical is Zimbabwe is to learn
lessons from its
past and proceed down a transparent economic
path.
“Transparency is a principle that needs to be applied universally,
and
Zimbabwe needs to move forward in this way,” Mashiri said.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
By Gugulethu Nyazema, Senior
Writer
Thursday, 26 January 2012 15:04
HARARE - Health authorities
have started investigating several deaths at
Parirenyatwa Hospital, as the
number of typhoid cases continue to increase.
Harare City Council public
health director Prosper Chonzi said authorities
opened the investigations
after realising they could have overlooked the
causes.
“We suspect
that the issue of typhoid was overlooked regarding the deaths
that occurred
at Parirenyatwa earlier,” Chonzi told the Daily News
yesterday.
He
said the city continued recording a spike in typhoid cases.
“As we speak
we have over 700 typhoid cases from the 300 reported earlier,”
Chonzi
said.
“More people are being admitted at Beatrice Infectious Hospital and
we are
currently trying to contain the disease to prevent it from
spreading.”
The typhoid outbreak first struck in Kuwadzana Extension,
Dzivaresekwa,
Tynwald South and Good Hope hospitals.
Residents had blamed
the city’s hazardous and erratic water but authorities
say illegal vending
of foodstuffs had worsened the situation.
Dr Chonzi said the city would
combat the deadly infection by reinforcing
council by-laws against illegal
vendors and raising awareness about the
hazards of consuming food sold at
road sites and other unsafe areas.
“Enforcement of power is the action we
are going to take to ensure that
those illegal vendors are kept off the
streets and to educate the public by
raising awareness of the people not to
buy food stuffs from these illegal
vendors,” said Chonzi.
He said 20
patients had been discharged from the Beatrice Road Infectious
Diseases
Hospital but the numbers admitted continue to grow as new patients
were
admitted.
“We are comfortable with about 60 patients. We do not want to
overstretch
the hospital,” Chonzi said.
While all TB patients have
been transferred to Wilkins Hospital, part of the
hospital is under
renovation, making it difficult to accommodate more
patients. Residents’
organisations fear that the situation could become
worse because of the
water situation.
Chonzi urged residents to boil all water for domestic
use as well as use
treatment tablets. The tablets are available for free at
all council
clinics.
According to expert information on typhoid, most
people show symptoms one to
three weeks after exposure.
The symptoms
are fever, headaches, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, constipation,
poor
appetite, lethargy and delirium.
The typhoid outbreak follows a 2008
cholera epidemic blamed on the collapse
of water and sanitation
infrastructure.
Both cholera and typhoid can easily spread through dirty
water with women
and children being the most vulnerable.
Harare City
Council has since 2006 consistently failed to provide clean and
safe
drinking water to its residents.
The shortages have forced residents to
source water from unprotected and
unsafe sources.
Groups of women and
children carrying buckets of water have become a common
sight across the
city as they move from one unprotected water source to the
other.
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Alex Bell
26
January 2012
Zimbabwe’s co-Minister of Home Affairs, Kembo Mohadi has
raised hopes that
more Zim citizens could get permits in South Africa, after
stating that he
could reengage his counterparts on the issue.
In late
2010 South Africa launched a special dispensation period, allowing
Zimbabwean nationals to apply for work and study permits. This process
resulted in an estimated 275 000 Zimbabweans being approved for permnits by
the end of last year.
The end of the documentation project also
effectively ended the moratorium
on Zim deportations, which had been in
place since 2009. Those deportations
have since seen thousands of
undocumented Zim nationals being sent back
home.
But ZANU PF’s
Mohadi, who shares his ministerial position with the MDC-T’s
Theresa Makone,
told the Chronicle newspaper this week that the
documentation process should
not be a one-off event because Zimbabweans are
still crossing into South
Africa on a daily basis. He insisted there is
still room for reengagement on
the issue.
South Africa has been reluctant to consider repeating the
process, with the
country beginning to clamp down on its immigration
policies. Most recently,
the government has faced criticism for appearing to
be actively preventing
asylum seekers from seeking protection in the
country.
According to the Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) group, a recent
policy
change has made it mandatory for new applicants for asylum to produce
an
‘Asylum Transit Permit’ when they submit an application for asylum at
refugee reception offices, located in Musina, Pretoria, Durban and Cape
Town. These permits, despite not being part of the Refugees Act, are meant
to be made available at the border.
But the LHR has found that this
Permit is not being issued at the main point
of entry at Beitbridge,
potentially leaving hundreds of Zimbabweans at risk
of arrest and
deportation.
At the same time, police road blocks are also being set up
in the Limpopo
Province to screen the immigration status of all foreigners
travelling out
of the area. The LHR said that most asylum seekers have to
travel through
this province if they’ve come into South Africa at the Musina
border. The
group said that the police are arresting people who may be
trying to seek
protection as asylum seekers. These persons are then being
summarily
deported.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
By Everson Mushava, Staff Writer
Thursday,
26 January 2012 15:29
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe’s government
struck a deal with British
mercenary Simon Mann to buy his Boeing 727
aircraft for a $1 as a condition
for his release from prison, court papers
have revealed.
Mann was arrested in Zimbabwe in 2004 together with 69
other people when his
Boeing 727 landed at Harare International Airport on
transit to Equatorial
Guinea where the mercenaries intended to overthrow
President Teodoro Obiang
Nguema and install his rival, Severo Moto as the
new leader of the West
African country.
Moto had promised Mann a
share of the country’s oil wealth in return for the
botched coup
plot.
Mann was nabbed following a tip-off to Zimbabwean authorities by
the foreign
intelligence services privy to the coup plot.
He was
convicted of attempting to contravene Section 4(2) (b) of Firearms
Act
Chapter 10.09 and contravening section 13(1) of the Public Order and
Security Act (Posa) for attempting to buy fire arms without a firearms
licence and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Mann however
maintained at the time that the 69, all of whom are alleged to
be former
South African soldiers were heading for the Democratic Republic of
Congo to
guard a mine, and not to the West African state. But in the book,
Cry Havoc
which Mann released recently, he admitted that his group wanted to
stage a
coup in Equatorial Guinea.
According to court papers, Mann could have
tested freedom earlier had the
deal to sell his aircraft for Z$100 000 to
the Zimbabwean government in
return for his freedom materialised. The Z$100
000 was equivalent to $1 at
that time.
“I was convicted and sentenced
to both counts for seven years imprisonment.
In addition, the Court ordered
the forfeiture of my US$180 000 being the
money for the purchase of the
weapons, the subject matter of both accounts.
“A further forfeiture order
of a Boeing 727 aircraft allegedly brought into
the country at my behest to
ferry the weapons was made by the trial court,”
read the court
papers.
Lawyers from Venturas and Samkange Legal Practitioners yesterday
secured a
High Court order from Justice Nicholas Mathonsi to appeal against
his
conviction at the Supreme Court.
Jonathan Samkange from the law
firm yesterday told the Daily News that he
was optimistic that his client
will get back his plane and the $180 000 that
was confiscated by the
Zimbabwean government upon Mann’s arrest in 2004.
“The order of
forfeiture was improper. Firearms were not in the plane and it
is clear that
there was no intention by the Zimbabwean government to sell
the firearms to
him. It was just a trap,” Mann’s attorney, Jonathan Samkange
told the Daily
News yesterday.
In his papers, Samkange said he could not appeal against
his conviction in
time because he was still negotiating with the Attorney
General over the
deal to sell Mann’s plane for his freedom.
Under the
deal, the Zimbabwean government would have ensured Mann’s release
and fly
him straight to London and not hand him over to Equatorial Guinea
where he
faced a lengthy jail sentence.
According to Samukange, the Zimbabwean
government failed to meet the
agreement and since Mann later served his full
sentence, he is now entitled
to get his plane and money back.
“……the
appeal was inadvertently silent to the issue of conviction due to the
fact
that negotiations were taking place with the Attorney General and
myself for
my release on condition that I would sell my aircraft for a
nominal charge
of Z$100 000.
“At that time, I could not proceed to challenge the
conviction,” said Mann
in the court papers, adding, “I reiterate that this
was part of the
negotiations.”
Mann said he was simply representing
the Military Technical Service (MTS)
who had a deal with the Zimbabwe
Defence Industries for the sell of
firearms. MTS had a firearms licence,
according to Mann and “the contact of
purchase and sale aforesaid was above
board and legitimate in all the
circumstances”.
According to
Samkange, Mann’s plane was still in the country, lying idle at
Manyame Air
Base after the country’s efforts to possess the plane using the
court orders
by magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe, who presided over the matter
failed.
He said in 2006, the government sent representatives to
America to verify if
the plane was registered in Mann’s name.
They
tried to change the ownership of the plane in Geneva using Guvamombe’s
forfeiture orders but they were turned down on the basis that it was a
municipal order (an order that will only apply in
Zimbabwe).
Following the failed attempt to change ownership, Zimbabwean
authorities
then entered into negotiations to buy the plane for a nominal
charge.
“They took him to the Equatorial Guinea hoping that he was to get
a lengthy
jail sentence or even a death penalty paving the way for easy
taker over of
the ownership of the plane and the money,” said
Samkange.
But Mann, Samkange said, was charged with crimes against the
head of state,
government and peace and independence of Equatorial Guinea in
July 2008 and
was sentenced to 34 years and four months in prison and was
released on
November 2, 2009 on humanitarian grounds.
Mann is now
back in his native Britain and is challenging his conviction in
the
Zimbabwean Supreme Court.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
By Godfrey Mtimba
Thursday, 26
January 2012 13:06
MASVINGO - Five Chinese nationals who entered the
country just before
Christmas and have been working illegally as engineers
are languishing in
Masvingo remand prison awaiting deportation.
This
was after a Masvingo magistrate yesterday convicted them of working in
the
country without legal documentation.
Masvingo magistrate Patrick Mapiye
fined the Chinese nationals $300 each for
contravening the Immigration
Act.
The five, Chen Caijan, 45, Peng Erming, 37, Zhang Hong Yuan, 42, Shi
Jiahua,
38, and Lin Guibin, 37, were convicted of misleading immigration
officials
that they were visiting the country on holiday but were later
caught working
as engineers at a local mobile phone service
provider.
Immigration officials nabbed the five after tracking them to
Bikita where
they were working at a station for a mobile phone
network.
Appearing for the state, Silivaziso Mupome told the court that
the Chinese
men entered the country on December 23 last year and were given
60 days to
stay in the country on holiday.
The court heard that
immigration officials followed them to Bikita on
January 16 this year where
they were caught working at a network booster in
Village 9 Mbuyanehanda,
Bikita.
The immigration officials demanded their passports and discovered
that the
Chinese were engaged in activities contrary to the conditions of
their
permits.
Mapiye said the Chinese would remain in remand prison
until the immigration
department deports them to their home country.
http://www.voanews.com
25 January
2012
Gabon
sent Budget Minister Emmanuel Issoze Ngendet to Harare to lobby for
Ping,
but President Mugabe's ZANU-PF party accused Gabon of being backing
Prime
Minister Tsvangirai's MDC formation
Blessing Zulu
The
competition to head the African Union has become the latest issue to
divide
the chronically troubled Zimbabwean government of national unity.
The
contest for the post of the AU commission chairperson pits incumbent
Jean
Ping of Gabon against South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma.
Gabon sent
Budget Minister Emmanuel Issoze Ngendet to Harare to lobby for
Ping, but
President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party has accused Gabon of
being
sympathetic to the Movement for Democratic Change of Prime Minister
Morgan
Tsvangirai.
Issoze Ngendet was send by Gabonese President Ali Bongo ahead
of the African
Union summit to be hosted by Ethiopia next week. The AU
summit opens Monday
with ministerial meetings. Heads of state gather on
January 29 and 30.
ZANU-PF also said it was not amused that the envoy
after meeting with Acting
President John Nkomo also met with Mr.
Tsvangirai.
Issoze Ngendet met Mr Tsvangirai in the company of Gabonese
Ambassador Jean
Yves Teale at the prime minister’s Strathaven residence on
Tuesday. The
envoy even praised Mr Tsvangirai, saying he is “a key person in
the
transition process in Zimbabwe.”
He added: "Zimbabwe is in an
interesting period of political reform and
transition. We want this
country’s leaders to show the best commitment and
stability,”
Tsvangirai spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka said the envoy
had brought a
confidential message from Mr. Bongo to Mr.
Tsvangirai.
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, which tends to favor
ZANU-PF in its
coverage, took a swipe at Gabon accusing it of being a French
conduit to
transfer funds to the MDC in violation of Zimbabwean
law.
VOA could not reach Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi for a
comment.
MDC International Relations Secretary Jameson Timba called ZBC a
ZANU-PF
propaganda machine.
London-based international affairs expert
Clifford Mashiri said ZANU-PF's
attack on Gabon was unwarranted.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
By Roadwin Chirara, Business
Writer
Thursday, 26 January 2012 10:52
HARARE - Finance Minister
Tendai Biti says that government is withdrawing
$110 million from the
Zimbabwe General SDR Allocation from the International
Monetary Fund to ease
the current liquidity crisis inmarket.
Of the amount,only $20 million
will be availed to the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) to enable it to carry
out its function as lender of last
resort with the balance being allocated
as agricultural support, offering
lines of credit to industry and
infrastructure support.
He said festive season expenditure pressures,
high volumes of high
transactions compounded by civil service salary
payments had caused the
challenges.
“It will be necessary that given
the high volumes and high value of Budget
transactions that Government plays
its part with regards to supporting
orderly transactions within the
financial system,” Biti said.
He warned banks from dragging their feet in
remitting payments owed to
treasury collected on behalf of the Zimbabwe
Revenue Authority (Zimra).
“Zimra has already given each of the concerned
banks the necessary initial
written warnings, and had demanded immediate
remittance of all overdue
revenue pay-overs to the Exchequer, as well as
written guarantees of timely
remittances,” the minister said.
He
announced that high value transactions shall be staggered to allow banks
sufficient time to plan and introduce a notice period for high value
withdrawals from banks.
“Notice periods will be related to the value
of the transaction, up to a
maximum of seven days,” he said.
He said
his ministry would however offer financial instruments in exchange
for $83
million owed to banks in statutory reserves by the RBZ, which he
said was
also contributing to challenges in the sector.
“To facilitate transaction
in the money market, Treasury is introducing
Discounted and Tradable Paper
against Reserve Bank statutory reserve
liabilities to banks willing to
participate," he said.
“Introduction of this instrument will overcome
some of the security
challenges banks have been facing with regards to
accessing the $7 million
Lender of Last Resort funds at the Reserve Bank,”
he added.
He said the country had recorded a budget surplus of $30
million for 2011
attributed to increased revenue inflow that surpassed
projected figures of
$2,7 billion for the period.
“The preliminary
annual statements for financial performance for the year
ended 31 December
2011 indicates total revenue at $2,921 million and the
total expenditure at
$2,89 million, resulting in an overall 2011 Budget
surplus of
$30,4
million,” Biti said.
“This outturn allowed for Government to post a small
positive opening
balance which became available for supporting Budget
expenditures in January
2012, mainly salaries and pensions payments, at a
time when revenue inflows
are seasonally low,” he said.
Zimbabwe’s
SDR account with the IMF stands at $212 million after drawing
down $50
million in December 2009 and a further $100 million in February
2010 in
support of various infrastructure projects.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com
26/01/2012 00:00:00
by Business
Reporter I New Ziana
TALKS between the government and an un-named
strategic partner interested in
taking over Air Zimbabwe have collapsed, a
senior government official
confirmed Wednesday.
The government
announced late last year that it was engaged in negotiations
with a
potential suitor to take over the struggling parastatal which is
among ten
entities earmarked for privatisation and commercialisation.
However,
Transport and Infrastructural Development permanent secretary,
Patson
Mbiriri told New Ziana the discussions had collapsed.
"Unfortunately that
did not succeed due to certain reasons. At this point in
time I cannot go
into details of that," he said without naming the potential
investor.
Officials revealed that President Robert Mugabe met
executives at a Chinese
airline during a visit to the country last November
to discuss a possible
investment in Air Zimbabwe which is faces a myriad of
challenges including
an ageing fleet and huge debts.
Air Zimbabwe
owes various creditors about US$140 million and also faces
possible
liquidation after restive workers – said to be owed US$35
million -- sought
to have the airline placed under judicial management.
Two of the
company’s aircraft were briefly seized by creditors in South
Africa and the
United Kingdom last year forcing the airline to pull out of
the lucrative
Johannesburg and London routes.
Meanwhile, Mbiriri said efforts would
continue to finding another strategic
partner for the airliner.
He
added that the government had also not yet finished offloading the
National
Handling Services (NHS), a subsidiary of Air Zimbabwe which
provides
passenger and cargo handling services
"We are currently going through the
necessary legal processes that have to
be done to take it out of Air
Zimbabwe," he said.
"We are guided by the indigenization laws of the land
in looking for a
partner in NHS," said Mbiriri.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
There have been several attempts to
stop the drafting of the constitution to
the extent that the Parliamentary
Constitutional Select Committee,
comprising MPs from Zanu (PF) and the two
MDCs, have had to move the
drafters from one secret location to
another.
25.01.1209:16am
by Dewa Mavhinga
The reasons put
forward by Zanu (PF) supporters for seeking to stop the
drafting process are
baffling. They argue that, from a ‘leaked’ version of
the draft, they do not
agree with the contents because they do not reflect
the views of the people.
They also argue that the drafters are coming up
with their own views
unrelated to the wishes of ordinary Zimbabweans and
that the views of Zanu
(PF) supporters are not reflected. Therefore
constitutional reform must be
set aside, COPAC must be dissolved and the
inclusive government ended to
make way for fresh elections.
Firstly, the three experienced and
professional drafters are Zanu (PF)
nominees agreed to by the main political
parties involved. Surely they
deserve to be left to do what they know best
without political interference.
Secondly, the process has a clear provision
for ordinary Zimbabweans to give
their input at the stage of the
referendum.
Perhaps these ridiculous attempts to stop the drafting of the
constitution
are driven by fear that the Supreme Law in the making will seek
justice for
past human rights abuses. That fear is well-founded because any
serious
constitution must surely provide a framework to address past
injustices and
abuses. Those implicated in these abuses must know that
justice will soon
prevail.
Another hidden agenda could be to render
the inclusive government totally
dysfunctional and so provide an excuse for
early elections in the absence of
critical reforms. This is made worse by
SADC leaders who are taking their
time to appoint Troika representatives to
work directly with the Joint
Monitoring and Implementation Committee in
monitoring the full
implementation of the GPA. SADC should be closely
monitoring the
constitutional reform process in order to expose any
machinations or
attempts to stop the process in favour of sham elections. -
Dewa Mavhinga,
Regional Coordinator, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/
Staff Reporter 2 hours 31
minutes ago
HARARE - Zimbabwe's most disliked political prostitute,
Emmerson Mnangagwa's
campaign manager Professor Jonathan Moyo says a
critical assessment of the
current political situation has shown that the
drafting of a new
constitution has become what he says "a dead donkey" which
calls for
Zimbabweans to start preparing to hold general elections this year
under the
Lancaster House Constitution.
Presenting a public lecture
on the political situation in the country at the
Joint Command Staff Course
Number 25 held in the capital, Professor Jonathan
Moyo who is Defence
Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa's campaign manager in the
race to succeed
Mugabe, told delegates drawn from 13 African countries that
a geo-political
survey of Zimbabwe showed that 2012 provides an inevitable
platform for the
country to have its plebiscite.
Moyo, who failed to address the issues
relating to blue flames from the
burning body of General Mujuru who was
murdered and his body dosed with
petrol, dismissed the contentious issues
and reforms as fallacy, said the
prevailing political stability being
experienced even after the GPA had
outlived its lifespan is a true indicator
that Zimbabwe should move to the
next logical step which is the holding of
elections.
Turning to the drafting of the new constitution, Moyo took a
swipe at the
three drafters whom he accused of subverting the views of the
people and
rendering the whole process dead.
The remarks by Moyo for
Zimbabwe to go for elections comes at the same time
Zambian President,
Michael Sata has made interesting revelations that Prime
Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai is a stooge of the West who has no power to stop
President Robert
Mugabe from calling for general elections in Zimbabwe.
The branding of
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai ‘as a Western stooge’ by
the new Zambian
President Michael Sata has raised diplomatic eyebrows
between the two
countries.
Political aides to Tsvangirai reacted with fury to Sata’s
disparaging
remarks about the MDC leader, in his interview with the UK
Telegraph
newspaper. In the interview published by the paper on Tuesday,
Sata, known
as ‘King cobra’ for his sharp tongue, indicated that he would
not block
Robert Mugabe’s push to abandon the unity government.
In
the same article, the 74 year-old Sata made comments likely to have irked
pro-democracy movements in Zimbabwe. He first dismissed Tsvangirai as a
‘stooge’, and described calls for security, electoral and constitutional
reforms in Zimbabwe as ‘unnecessary’.
Analysts said it is
incomprehensible that Sata can trivialise and denigrate
constitutional
reforms and clean voters’ roll which are vital pre-conditions
for free and
fair elections. Other commentators believe Sata could be
‘isolated from
reality’.
MDC-T officials who spoke to SW Radio Africa on the condition
of anonymity
agreed that Sata seemed to go ‘off the rails’ in the Telegraph
interview,
admitting that he showed extremely poor judgment.
‘We
don’t know the policies of Morgan – he has other people speaking for him
rather than speaking for himself. There will be elections and Mugabe will go
and someone else will take over but not someone imposed by the Western
countries,’ Sata said
London based academic and former diplomat,
Clifford Mashiri roundly
condemned the Zambian leader’s undiplomatic
remarks, warning that his sharp
tongue could turn out to be his Achilles
heel.
Mashiri told SW Radio Africa on Wednesday that Sata has exposed one
of his
major weaknesses as lack of good diplomacy.
‘One would have
thought Sata would exercise extreme caution when commenting
about fellow
leaders of other countries especially when they are his
neighbors,’ Mashiri
added
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Paul Rukanda, the MDC Organising
Secretary for Glen View South in Harare was arrested on Wednesday on allegations
of murdering a police officer in Glen View 3, nine months ago.
Rukanda
was arrested in central Harare, bringing to 29 the number of MDC members who
have been arrested on false charges of murdering the policeman. Rukanda is
detained at the Harare Central Police Station, Law and Order
Section.
Among those arrested over the cooked up murder case is the MDC
Youth Assembly chairperson, Solomon Madzore and the MDC National Executive
member, Last Maengahama.
Madzore and seven other MDC members are in
remand prison, while the rest have been granted bail. Last week, a Harare
magistrate ordered the State to investigate complaints by those in remand prison
that some of them had been assaulted by prison guards, denied medical attention
and that the two ladies in custody are being held in solitary confinement in the
male section of Chikurubi Prison in cells that had raw sewage passing
through.
The people’s struggle for real change!!!
--
MDC Information & Publicity Department
http://www.swradioafrica.com
By Darlington Gama
Zimbabwe
signed and rectified the United Nations Convention Against
Corruption
(UNCAC) as part of its commitment to effective prevention of
corruption. The
country also signed the African Union Convention on
Preventing and Combating
Corruption and Related Offences (AU anti-corruption
convention). However, as
a result of inadequate anti-corruption legal
framework and a culture of
corruption, efforts to deal with corruption’
achieve nothing in Zimbabwe.
For example, in 2011 Zimbabwe ranked 154 out of
182 countries of the world
in terms of corruption rate. In fact, there have
been a countless number of
reports on corruption cases involving public
officials, civil servants or
politicians since the 1980s to date. Abuses of
public power, bribery and
embezzlement of public funds have beyond any
reservations been apparent.
Therefore, it is expected of the government to
formulate and implement
mechanisms that will deal with such levels of
institutionalized corruption
to assist the economy, given the country’s
ranking and economic
quagmire.
However, the police force in Zimbabwe has been found to be the
worst corrupt
institution in the country, a point which was recently
cemented by the
Transparency International-Zimbabwe study. Institutions such
as the police
force, however, give character to the government and the
public sector in
general. Therefore, the police should always strive to
maintain their
integrity and that of the public sector. If corruption is to
be fought in
Zimbabwe it should start with the police, for the simple reason
that they
are the major culprits and secondly they are the ones expected to
root out
corruption. Consequently, measures should be put in place to deal
with
corruption within the police force and I propose asset declaration as a
starting point.
Declaration of assets by police is a means through
which police officers are
required to disclose their income, wealth and
liabilities in order to
document increases or decreases of their assets.This
is because it obliges
police officers to make full, regular and public
disclosures of their
assets. This means it does not only promise to offer
accountability and
transparency in the force and improved service
provisionbut can also enhance
the integrity in the public sector. However,
in order for it to be effective
in achieving suppression of corruption
within the police in Zimbabwe, it
ought to be supported and backed by legal
and institutional means. Actually,
Zimbabwe should learn from the AU
anti-corruption convention that the
country is a signatory to, which makes
it mandatory for its signatories to
require declaration of assets by
designated public officials.
Therefore, by mandating assets declaration
by all the police officers and
their families, the Zimbabwean government
will not only be deterring the
police from corruption but it will be keeping
track on their financial
activities. For example, in an unexplainable manner
many police officers in
Zimbabwe have acquired riches beyond what their
remuneration can offer and
it is known that police in Zimbabwe take bribes
from citizens to enrich
themselves. Zimbabweans have a challenge of having
to pay bribes to obtain
almost all services provided by the government
institutions, the police
force included. Therefore, monitoring the wealth of
the police would be of
assistance to deal with corruption.The police should
declare their assets
when they come into office, while in office and when
leaving office or when
being promoted and this ought to apply to police
officers of all ranks in
the country. With the level of corruption in the
police force, the
government should emulate the Indian government that
recently directed
police officers in India to declare assets and of their
family members to
curb corruption within the police service. The Indian
government did this
through its Public Servants Declaration of Assets and
other Provisions Act
of 1983 which stipulate that
In Ghana, there is
the Public Office Holders (Declaration of Assets and
Disqualification) Act
that functions as a tool to prevent corruption. Such
legislations also exist
in Zimbabwe’s neighbouring countries such as South
Africa and Botswana. As
an example, South Africa has implemented conflict of
interest codes
requiring disclosure of financial interests by public
officials. Elected
officials and senior managers in the civil service and
their spouses,
publicly disclose all their financial interests. These
include shares and
interests in companies, land and property owned, paid
outside employment,
directorships and partnerships. The situation in
Zimbabwe’s police force
needs the top officials like Commissioner General
Augustine Chihuri to
disclose their financial interests in terms of shares,
land and property to
avoid conflict of interest in their occupation of
public offices. Such
measures if applied to the police have a preventive
function, as they can
help anticipate potential conflicts of interest before
misconduct occurs and
have an investigative function also, as they provide
information that may
help uncover misconduct and illicit enrichment after it
takes
place.
For that reason, a legal framework to mandate the police and other
public
office holders should be formulated and implemented. It should be
understood
that a credible asset disclosure initiative must clearly
establish a number
of important elements of the process. This is because
while asset
declaration laws can be of importance in stemming abuses of
power and
looting of public resources, their impact can be hampered by
shortcomings of
the regulatory framework just as seen in Zimbabwe’s
anti-corruption laws and
institutions. Flaws in legislations that are likely
to threaten the
effectiveness of asset disclosure as a tool against
corruption may include
the lack of clarity about what assets, liabilities
and interests public
officials are to disclose, the absence of a legal
requirement for the
verification of asset declarations the lack of effective
prohibitions and
clarity over the prosecution of offences and the lack of
public access to
officials’ asset declarations. This therefore should be
considered during
the formulation process of legislation to do with assets
declaration by
police officers.
However, for corruption to be rooted
out in Zimbabwe there is need for not
only the legislations and institutions
to be set up. There is also need for
political will to be present to make
sure the legislations are formulated
and implemented, and should apply to
every public official from the highest
level in order to deal with the
effects of the human factor. Most of the
challenges Zimbabwe faces today are
not necessarily as a result of bad
policies or lack of policiesbut are a
consequence of human agents that
deliberately twist the laws to suit
themselves. Hence, mechanism should be
put in place to avoid the effects of
the human factor. It is important to
prevent corruption which is an
impediment to development and in any case, a
culture of corruption is
unhealthy for the economic growth.
In terms of effectiveness of the
statutes made on assets declaration, a
study done by Transparency
International in 2006, seeking to establish how
effective officials’ asset
declaration laws are in reducing corruption
established thatcountries which
had asset declaration by public officials
for a longer time had lower levels
of corruption than other countries. The
study also found out that perceived
levels of corruption were lower in
countries whose declaration laws
permitted prosecution of the offending
officials.
Although, three
years have passed since the formation of the inclusive
government in
Zimbabwe there is still lack of a clear framework to fight
corruption at
various levels of governance in the country. A clear legal and
policy
framework for eradication of corruption is one deliverable which is
fundamental in this transitional phase, if Zimbabwe is to return to
normalcy. Besides, closing leaks at various government agencies, thereby
increasing the financial reserves of the country, the framework shall also
ensure that services are provided in an effective and transparent
manner.
Darlington Gama is the Youth Coordinator at Bulawayo Progressive
Residents
Association. He writes in his personal capacity. He can be
contacted at
gamadarlington@gmail.com
Rejoice Ngwenya’s Xtreme Opinion this Thursday
While in Botswana
last Christmas, I meticulously explained to my cynical
uncle why we
Zimbabweans, for thirty-two years, have tolerated President
Robert Mugabe’s
unrelenting dictatorship. I noted if Mahatma Gandhi was a
proponent of
passive resistance, then Zimbabweans take the honours in
‘passive
resilience’! We carry this strain of lethargic, unquestioning
docility – a
compelling attachment to mediocrity. Consider the retinue of
pathetic
service delivery at all levels – supermarkets skimming us of
change, traffic
police molesting us for the flimsiest of all reasons at
numerous roadblocks,
municipalities that ‘treat’ us to sewage bursts and dry
taps. We are tossed
like ping-pong balls at passport offices, detained for
hours on end at
fidgety Beitbridge Border Post while ZESA – the public
electricity authority
utility – switches of power at will. Like the biblical
lamb at the
proverbial altar of sacrifice, Zimbabweans are tender,
forgiving, silent,
apologetic, subservient and submissive. We are the
epitome, a caricature of
the ‘Jesus Man’ who willingly gives the other
cheek. Hey, Mr. Mugabe can
snooze all he wants. No midnight shadows will
show up under his
door!
Now that information is a ‘human right’, I have long
mourned of poor
internet and telephonic connectivity from local ISPs ECONET,
Telecel and
NetOne. Scream all you want, Rejoice; they wouldn’t be bothered,
really.
Imagine a five-star hotel in New York with a dysfunctional Wi-Fi
service? It
would be virtually closed! What we lack, as Zimbabweans is an
aggressive
service boycott culture. We could connive and ignore these
pretenders to the
technological throne for only 24 hours, but just like the
rest of you,
thirty years of oppression have conditioned me to be
pathetically lethargic.
Bad service is now such a … privilege that we even
look forward to!
Every modern-day professional worth their salt
must dread living, even for
an hour, in a place devoid of connectivity. We
surely deserve better.
Elsewhere in ‘civilised’ Africa, technology has moved
on. It only seems like
yesterday that lawyers, judges and PR practitioners
were proud owners of
Olivetti typewriters and telex machines! Psychedelic
coloured receivers on
oak ‘telephone tables’ and sleek black ‘VHS’ video
players adorning ‘room
dividers’ were the epitome of finesse! Today, I feel
Zimbabwe’s internet and
telephony is a relic of those ‘swinging’ 1980s.
While the rest of ‘civilised’
Africa has leapt ahead, our local version of
the Three Musketeers - ECONET,
Telecel and NetOne - all shiny masts and no
bandwidth - propagate a plethora
of empty promises.
For
example, I received an SMS reminder from NetOne, that ‘your account is
less
than US$0.06’ yet a mere thirty minutes earlier at 8:00am, I had
‘hashed’
several units of USD$5 ‘airtime’, immediately getting an
acknowledgement of
USD$4.89 credit. For two days, the other ISP provider
ECONET laboured to get
my SMS platform functional. I am currently doing some
work from a tenth
floor hotel room in the centre of Harare, but cannot
sustain a decent
minute-long cell phone conversation without feeling like am
calling from
Saint John’s windswept biblical Patmos Island! Hounded by
technological
misfortune, my ‘new’ ECOWEB-supplied hotel Wi-Fi network
struggles to
respond despite numerous attempts at passwords.
South Africans
and Nigerians would not tolerate this sort of inept arrogance
from service
providers. No doubt ECONET, Telecel, NetOne and supermarket
chain executives
- in the insulated comfort of their ivory towers - have
convinced themselves
that no single customer will rock their ‘Titanics’.
Perhaps they are right.
After all, I may groan and mourn but am
lethargically docile, just like
you.
http://www.ipsnews.net
By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO , Jan
26, 2012 (IPS) - From downtown shops that stock cheap
clothing and shoes
that fall apart after one wear, to mining concessions in
platinum, gold and
diamonds - the Chinese finger is now in virtually every
Zimbabwean
pie.
From city sidewalks to low-income suburbs, the Chinese have become
part of
the local population, and if some senior government bureaucrats have
their
way, the country could soon find itself adopting the Chinese Yuan as
its
official currency.
For some influential monetary policy czars,
the massive assailing of the
Zimbabwean economy by the Chinese now only
requires the Yuan to strengthen
these economic reconstruction
efforts.
Invited by President Robert Mugabe as part of his infamous 2004
"Look East"
policy to participate in driving the economy and employment
creation, after
relations with former traditional investment partners the
European Union and
United States soured, China has been able to create its
own little sphere of
influence and establish an ubiquitous presence in
Zimbabwe.
This is despite being unpopular with Zimbabwe’s industrial and
commercial
players, and general members of the public who accuse the Chinese
of poor
labour practices and shoddy goods and services.
Late last
year, Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono, seen by many as a close
ally of
Mugabe, announced he was in favour of having the Chinese Yuan as the
country’s official currency. After the Zimbabwean dollar was suspended in
2008, the country has been using a multi-currency regime, which includes the
use of the U.S. greenback, the South African Rand and the Botswana
Pula.
According to Gono, the Chinese Yuan would be introduced alongside
the
Zimbabwean dollar. Mugabe’s political supporters have been calling for
currency reforms to bring back the Zimbabwean dollar.
"With the
continuous firming of the Chinese Yuan, the U.S. dollar is fast
ceasing to
be the world's reserve currency and the Euro-Zone debt crisis has
made
things even worse. As a country, we still have the opportunity to avoid
being caught napping by adopting the Chinese Yuan as part of consolidating
the country's "Look East" policy," Gono told state media in November last
year.
"It’s only recently when we had the startling revelations with
Angola
offering to bail out her former colonial master Portugal from her
debt
crisis. This can also happen with Zimbabwe if we choose the right
path,"
Gono said.
He continued: "If we continue with our "Look East"
policy, it will not be
long when we will also be volunteering to bail out
Britain from her debt
crisis and I will not wait for my creator's day before
this happen. There is
no doubt that the Yuan, with its ascendancy, will be
the 21st century's
world reserve currency."
Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African
National Union – Patriotic Front officials see
huge potential in using the
Yuan, citing the growth of the Chinese economy
under BRICS, which brings
together emerging global economic powerhouses
Brazil, India, China and South
Africa.
But not everyone is as upbeat about such prospects.
There
are concerns that this could mean "handing over" the country to the
Chinese
who already have been offered huge mining rights by Mugabe despite
protests
from his coalition government partners. The country’s Finance
Minister
Tendai Biti has said that Mugabe is forfeiting state resources to
China,
whom critics are calling Africa’s new coloniser.
Economist Eric Bloch
told IPS "it is not practical" for Zimbabwe to adopt
the Chinese
Yuan.
"Zimbabwe won’t have any interaction with international markets as
the U.S.
dollar remains the standard currency in international trade," Bloch
told
IPS.
With China increasingly being touted to overtake the U.S.
as the world’s
largest economy, the temptation to embrace all things Chinese
has proven too
much to resist for poor economies across the globe, contends
Tafara
Zivanayi, an economics lecturer at the University of
Zimbabwe.
"There has been false hope given to Chinese economic growth
with many
African countries imagining they can transfer this growth to their
own
economies," Zivanayi told IPS.
"Such decisions (to adopt a
foreign currency) as usually based on
international trade indices and
monetary policies of the country where the
currency is domiciled. Even if
there have been projections that the Chinese
economy will surpass the U.S.
economy, this won’t happen overnight,"
Zivanayi told IPS.
"There are
still concerns about Chinese penetration of international,
especially low
income, markets and creating wealth for itself and not host
countries,"
Zivanayi said.
Even traders who have long ridiculed cheap Chinese
products and have no
grasp of international trade intricacies find
themselves offering opinions
about the prospects of adopting the Chinese
Yuan.
"As long as things have worked fine for us using the American
dollar, why
change that formula?" Thabani Moyo, a commuter omnibus driver.
His
colleagues, who are struggling to handle giving change in the varying
currencies of the dollar, the South African rand and the Botswana Pula,
nodded in agreement
Zimbabwe does not have coins of the various
currencies and shops and
retailers struggle to give their customers
change.
Gono and other opponents of the US greenback cited this lack of
change in
coins as a reason why Zimbabwe needed to adopt a single currency
or revert
to its own, useless dollar.
However, during the
presentation of the national budget for the 2012 fiscal
year, Biti told
parliament that Zimbabwe would continue using the dollar
until the economy
stabilised.
Not everyone supports the introduction of the Chinese Yuan.
"We want real
money, not zhing-zhong," taxi driver Jourbet Buthelezi told
IPS, referring
to the pejorative term Zimbabweans use for sub-standard
Chinese goods.
