Zim Online
Mon 30 January
2006
HARARE - A government-controlled newspaper in Zimbabwe on
Sunday
accused a visiting International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation of
insincerity and "shifting its position" over its dealings with the Harare
authorities.
The IMF team arrived in Zimbabwe last Tuesday on a
six-day visit to
assess the country's progress five months after the IMF
board deferred a
decision to expel the country for non-payment of
debt.
In a front-page report, the weekly Sunday Mail newspaper,
which
normally reflects government thinking, lashed out at the IMF team
saying
Zimbabwe's fate had already been sealed. It urged Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe
governor Gideon Gono to be cautious over his dealings with the
IMF.
Quoting unnamed government sources, the newspaper said: "The
governor
(Gono) seems inclined to please the IMF but he needs to exercise
caution
about these people and these institutions.
"Right now,
we hear that the IMF is shifting its position, saying its
strained relations
with Zimbabwe were not caused by the country's failure to
pay back the money
it borrowed but by the country's fiscal and monetary
policies," the source
said.
Relations between Zimbabwe and the IMF have been frosty since
1999
when the Fund withdrew balance-of-payment support after disagreeing
with
President Robert Mugabe over fiscal policy and other governance
issues.
Last September, the IMF spared the axe on Zimbabwe after
the country
made a surprise US$120 million payment to the Fund. The Harare
authorities
have since made further payments to the IMF to leave the debt at
US$136
million.
The newspaper said Harare should not expect
better treatment from the
IMF despite the payments because the Fund was
bent on expelling the
country. It said the IMF were "insincere
partners".
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party
and Western
governments blame Zimbabwe's economic crisis on Mugabe's land
reforms which
disrupted the key agriculture sector, one of the country's
biggest foreign
currency earners.
But Mugabe denies his land
reforms are to blame for Zimbabwe's
economic woes. He says the problems are
due to sabotage by Britain and
Western governments who are unhappy over his
land reforms. - ZimOnline
News24
29/01/2006 12:45 -
(SA)
Harare - Debt-ridden Zimbabwe may be at risk of being thrown out
of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), whose officials are in the south
African
country assessing its economic policies, a state-run weekly warned
on
Sunday.
Harare won itself a six-month reprieve in September 2005
by making an
unexpected payment of US$120m to the IMF to relieve some of its
outstanding
debt to the world lending body.
But the Sunday Mail
quoted "impeccable sources" as saying the IMF had now
shifted its focus away
from Zimbabwe's debt arrears of $136.7m and onto its
domestic financial
policies.
"Zimbabwe should not be upbeat about the current visit by the
IMF team, amid
revelations that the Bretton Woods institution is now saying
its strained
relations with Harare stems from the country's fiscal and
monetary policies
and not the country's failure to service its debt with the
fund," the weekly
reported.
The team's findings will be submitted to
the IMF executive on March 8, which
will decide whether to stop all future
loans to Zimbabwe.
If this happens, Zimbabwe will become only the second
country to be kicked
out since the former Czechoslovakia in 1954.
The
Sunday Mail warned Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa and Central Bank
governor Gideon Gono not to be too optimistic.
"It has also emerged
that barely 48 hours after meeting representatives from
the ministry of
finance and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the IMF team ...
has already
started compiling the report it is set to represent to the
Fund's board," it
said, quoting unnamed sources monitoring developments
between Harare and the
Washington-based financier.
President Robert Mugabe has had sharp
disagreements with the IMF over its
policy prescriptions, accusing it of
imposing excessively harsh conditions.
For the past six years Zimbabwe's
parlous economy has struggled with
three-digit inflation, now hovering at
about 500%, and chronic shortages of
foreign currency and basic
goods.
More than 80% of the population lives below the poverty line and
more than
two thirds are jobless.
Zim Online
Mon 30 January 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe has begun power cuts to cities and towns lasting
several
hours on end because of an acute shortage of electricity, the result
of
equipment breakdown and also because South Africa is unable to maintain
exports to its neighbour.
In yet another example of how
infrastructure is collapsing in Zimbabwe
after six years of unprecedented
economic decline, the capital, Harare and
the second biggest city of
Bulawayo were on Friday plunged into darkness for
about four
hours.
Officials at the state-run Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority
(ZESA) told the Press that the blackout was part of a load
shedding plan as
they battled to ration the little power available to all
parts of the
country.
"We introduced load shedding in some
parts of Harare and this also
affected other parts of Bulawayo suburbs,"
ZESA spokesperson Obert Nyatanga
said.
Nyatanga
said main foreign supplier, Eskom, was experiencing problems
with some of
its generators forcing it to reduce exports to Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe
imports 40 percent of its power requirements and apart from
Eskom also buys
electricity from Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of
the Congo
(DRC).
Eskom's inability to maintain normal supplies to Zimbabwe
had resulted
in total power imports falling by about 80 percent and this at
a time ZESA
was also having problems with one of its ageing generators which
has now
been put under repair.
As a result, ZESA has been left
with an electricity shortfall of 400
megawatts, Nyatanga said.
The ZESA official said the power cuts will continue for several more
days
but were expected to end by end of the week.
Electricity is only
one item on a long list of key commodities in
critical short supply in
Zimbabwe as the country grapples its worst ever
economic crisis, described
by the World Bank as unprecedented in a country
not at war.
Food, fuel, essential medical drugs, chemicals to treat drinking water
for
urban residents and nearly every other basic survival commodity is in
short
supply because there is no hard cash to pay foreign suppliers.
The
South African, DRC and Mozambican power firms have maintained
supplies to
ZESA despite its erratic payment record more because their
governments will
not allow them to switch off Zimbabwe.
But energy experts say power
firms may not be able to maintain
supplies to Zimbabwe by 2007 because they
will have run out of excess
electricity, a situation set to plunge Zimbabwe
into an unprecedented energy
crisis. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Mon
30 January 2006
HARARE - The World Food Programme (WFP) at the
weekend said it is
stepping up distribution of food to millions of
Zimbabweans following an
agreement with the Harare authorities late last
year.
WFP country representative, Kevin Farrel, said his
organization was
planning to distribute about 300 000 tonnes of food to
starving Zimbabweans
between now and the next harvest in April.
"We have been reasonably successful so far. We need to continue to
mobilise
more food," said Farrell.
The WFP said more than 1.9 million people
in 32 districts in Zimbabwe
had so far received about 20 000 tonnes of food
between November and
December.
Zimbabwe, once a net food
exporter, is battling severe food shortages
after President Robert Mugabe
disrupted the key agriculture sector through
his often violent seizures of
commercial farmland from whites for
redistribution to landless blacks six
years ago.
The farm disturbances slashed food production by 60
percent resulting
in Zimbabweans depending on food handouts from
international donors. Mugabe
denies his land policies are to blame for the
food shortages blaming the
crisis on drought.
Mugabe has also
denied that there were food shortages in the country
insisting Zimbabwe had
harvested enough to feed itself. But last year Mugabe
reluctantly agreed to
allow the WFP to resume food distribution around the
country.
The WFP said at least three million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the
country's
12 million population, were in need of immediate food aid between
now and
the next harvest in April or they would starve. - ZimOnline
African News Dimension
Sunday, 29 January 2006, 8 hours, 45 minutes and 37
seconds ago.
By Gift Phiri
The lack of foreign
currency to buy animal vaccines has led to the
outbreak of a variety of
highly contagious cattle diseases in Zimbabwe that
are threatening to spread
throughout Southern Africa.
The lack of foreign currency to buy
animal vaccines has led to the
outbreak of a variety of highly contagious
cattle diseases in Zimbabwe that
are threatening to spread throughout
Southern Africa.
Controllable livestock diseases like blackwater
fever, heartwater and
tick-borne diseases have drastically reduced
Zimbabwe's national herd
from
around six million in 2001 to less
than 250,000 today.
Despite laws requiring the acquisition of
veterinary service permits
for
people wishing to move livestock
from one place to another, the lack
of
effective monitoring and
alleged bribe-taking by officials has led to
the
unchecked movement
of stock, resulting in the failure of the control
programme, observers
said.
Controllable livestock diseases like blackwater fever,
heartwater and
tick-borne diseases have drastically reduced Zimbabwe's
national herd from
around six million in 2001 to less than 250,000
today.
The government is remaining tight-lipped about an
outbreak of
contagious
bovine pleuro-pneumonia (CBPP), or cattle
lung disease, which was
reportedly
detected in the northwestern
district of Tsholotsho in Matabeleland
North
province two weeks
ago. Joseph Made, Minister of Agriculture said he
had not received any
conclusive information.
The reported outbreak has caused alarm
across Southern Africa. Last
week
Botswana ordered its department
of veterinary services to go on full
alert
to prevent a spillover
of the disease, as has been the case with
previous
foot-and-mouth
disease (FMD) outbreaks in Zimbabwe.
Media reports in Botswana say
the lung disease scare is being taken
seriously, as it follows a
confirmed outbreak in southern Zambia three
weeks
ago.
Philemon Motsu, the Botswana deputy director of Animal Health and
Production, said the country had intensified disease surveillance
patrols
at
border entry points. "We have not detected the cattle lung disease
as
yet,
but we are on full alert and we will do our best to prevent
it from
spreading into Botswana."
Zimbabwe remains under
FMD quarantine. Cattle shows, once a major
attraction at the annual Zimbabwe
International Trade Fair (ZITF), are
banned.
As disease
outbreaks continue to spread, Stuart Hargreaves, the
director of
the Zimbabwe Veterinary Services Department, said that the government
had failed to secure funding for a comprehensive animal disease
control
and
vaccination programme.
"Government has not been able
to secure money for the importation of
all
basic livestock vaccines
from the Botswana Vaccines Institute. I
cannot give
the exact
figure required for vaccination and control programmes, but
FMD
remains a major problem across the country," Hargreaves said.
A
senior disease surveillance and control officer in Zimbabwe's
Livestock
Production Unit, within the ministry of agriculture,
said: "There is
no
improvement - outbreaks are becoming more
rampant. Previously
controlled
diseases are re-emerging, and there
is nothing we can do because there
are
no medicines. The little
money that is there is in local currency, yet
we
need foreign
currency to import vaccines. Communal dipping services
remain
suspended and we cannot promise farmers any help at the moment."
He
added that FMD had become a permanent threat, and encouraged
farmers who
could import vaccines to do so and consult the department for
assistance in
bvaccinating their animals.
Coupled with the collapse of commercial
cattle production due to farm
invasions and acquisitions since February
2000, Zimbabwe's failure to
control diseases has also led to the loss
of a number of lucrative
beef
export deals.
The
European Union stopped importing beef from Zimbabwe shortly after
the
FMD outbreak in 2001, while Malaysia, Libya, Iran, the
Democratic
Republic
of Congo and other emerging markets have also
slapped embargoes on
Zimbabwean beef products.
Repeated
CBPP outbreaks are fast becoming a regional problem. The
cases in Zambia and
Zimbabwe follow a similar outbreak in October last year
at the
Linyanti Park in northern Namibia, but it was quickly controlled.
African News Dimension
Sunday, 29 January 2006, 10 hours, 51 minutes and 22
seconds ago.
By andnetwork .com
SOME service stations
contracted by the National Oil Company of
Zimbabwe (Noczim) in Bulawayo to
sell fuel to some sectors that provide
essential services, are allegedly
abusing the facility by clandestinely
selling the commodity to private
motorists at black market prices, Sunday
News can reveal.
SOME
service stations contracted by the National Oil Company of
Zimbabwe (Noczim)
in Bulawayo to sell fuel to some sectors that provide
essential services,
are allegedly abusing the facility by clandestinely
selling the commodity to
private motorists at black market prices, Sunday
News can reveal.
The well-orchestrated illegal sale of Noczim fuel that allegedly
involves
some petrol attendants, managers and selected motorists, is
clandestinely
done to the extent that ordinary motorists cannot detect it.
At one of
the garages, motorists pay money for the fuel in a
supermarket, get a coupon
and then proceed to get fuel at the pump, while at
another garage money for
fuel was allegedly paid at a surgery and motorists
are given a receipt
written the quantity of fuel only, which they then
proceed to produce at the
service station.
Sources close to a popular garage in Bulawayo (name
supplied) said it
was allegedly selling fuel which it gets from Noczim at
inflated black
market prices of as much as $100 000 per litre instead of
between $22 800
and $23 300 after the inclusion of carbon tax.
Carbon tax is levied at $1 000 of every litre of fuel purchased by the
motorists.
Bulawayo Transport Owners Associations (BUTOA) chairman,
Mr Francis
Malunga said they were not getting fuel from the garages that
were
designated to do that by Noczim.
"We are not getting any fuel
from the garages, in fact what has
happened is that we have been shuttled
from one garage to the other, but
nothing has been coming. The fuel, they
say is meant for us comes once after
two months at some of these garages,"
said Mr Malunga.
He said that they were surviving on the black market
where five litres
of fuel was being sold at about $600 000.
Funeral
parlors said they were getting fuel from some of these service
stations, but
the amount they were receiving has since been reduced, making
it almost
impossible for them to operate their businesses.
"We used to get 60
litres per week per vehicle, but now the amount has
been reduced to 20
litres which can not sustain a funeral, going to Luveve
and coming back,"
said a Farley Funeral Parlor official said.
An official from an
ambulance services in the city said they were
getting their fuel from
different sources at varying prices.
"Right now the fleet manager has
gone out to look for fuel. We have
not been getting fuel from these service
stations," said an official from a
local ambulance service company in the
city who declined to be named.
The fuel that is supplied to these
selected garages is supposed to be
accessed by essential services such as
funeral parlors, ambulances,
bakeries, public transporters and
schools.
However, most of these sectors were only supplied with less
quantities
of the commodity and the rest was reportedly clandestinely sold
to private
motorists at black market prices.
The public relations
manager of Noczim, Miss Zvikomborero Sibanda
confirmed that the said service
stations were receiving fuel meant for
essential services only and that it
was not supposed to be sold to private
motorists.
"We supply the
garages with fuel and it is supposed to be sold to
essential services at the
gazetted price of between $22 800 and $23 300,"
said Miss Sibanda.
However, sources said some Noczim officials are part of the fuel scam,
as
they allegedly make arrangements for their friends to buy fuel from these
designated garages.
The price for petrol is $22 800 while that of
diesel is $21 800 and
the prices have since increased by $1 000 after the
introduction of carbon
tax.
The garages that are supplied with
Noczim fuel in Bulawayo are Luveve
Motors in Luveve, Belmont Motors along
Plumtree Road, Power Fuel in
Saurcetown, Riverside Service Station and
Wedzera.
An official from one of the accused garages denied the
allegations
saying that they were not violating any laws.
"We sell
the fuel to essential services only and there is nothing like
selling to
individuals," he said.
The official said they do not import fuel on
their own, but get all
the fuel from Noczim.
However, motorists who
phoned the Sunday News said they were accessing
the fuel at the black market
price from some of these garages and that they
were not given receipts as
the law demands because the deal was illegal.
Bulawayo police
spokesperson, Inspector Smile Dube said they were not
aware of the
situation.
He said police officers that were members of the provincial
task force
on fuel were supposed to report everything through the
information and
liaison office, adding that no one had done so.
"We
are not aware of such a situation, but we have our fuel task force
on the
ground who will look into that," said Insp Dube.
The Government has
deregulated the sale of fuel and private
individuals are now allowed to sale
fuel at the open market. The majority of
these dealers are selling it for
over $100 000 per litre.
Private motorists are allowed to import up to
2 000 litres of fuel
without import licences, above which they are required
to have import
licences.
Zimbabwe has been facing serious fuel
shortages owing to limited
availability of foreign currency.
Source : Sunday Mail ( Zimbabwe )
http://www.jang-group.com/
HARARE: Peace talks between Zimbabwe's embattled
cricket rulers and their
rebel players, who claim they are owed hundreds of
thousands of dollars,
failed to resolve the crisis on Friday.
But
players representative Clive Field believes that there is the will on
both
sides to hammer out a solution to the chaos which has seen Zimbabwe
suspended from Test matches for the second time in two years.
"We are
pursuing dialogue and we have no option but to try to make
progress," Field
told the respected www.cricinfo.com.
"To do anything else
would signal the end. We respect the commitment given
by the committee and
will try to match it. But we still have many issues to
be
resolved."
The talks were between the players and Zimbabwe Cricket's
Technical and
Player Welfare Sub-Committee but there was no serious headway
made on the
thorny issue of unpaid match fees.
It is understood that
the players want to receive their money in US dollars
while Zimbabwe Cricket
(ZC) insist the deficit is made up in local currency.
On Monday, all 35
of Zimbabwe's professional cricketers told ZC: "Pay what
you owe or we will
not negotiate any new contracts." Their ultimatum was
conveyed to interim
chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket Peter Chingoka.
The players are claiming, in
total, close to US$250,000 in unpaid Test match
and one day international
fees, according to opening batsman Dion Ebrahim,
plus more than 500,000
dollars in back pay and allowances.
The 12 seniors and some of the 23
junior players have not been paid match
fees since New Zealand toured here
in August and India in September.
They claim they also haven't received
their full pay since October. The
dispute over salaries relates mainly to a
volatile exchange rate in Zimbabwe
of the local dollar against the US
currency.
Five months ago it was 25,000 Zimbabwe dollars to the US
dollar; now it is
about 85,000 Zimbabwe dollars - more than treble - which
is the figure they
are demanding before they will resume
playing.
Most of the 35 are already overseas with various clubs, counties
and states
of South Africa, England and Australia. Others have said they
intend giving
up cricket altogether.
Both recent captains Heath
Streak and Tatenda Taibu have resigned in recent
months. Field was
approached by Zimbabwe Cricket through a local businessman
last week with
suggestions on how negotiations might proceed. It appeared
then that
progress might be made.
Steven
Price
January 29, 2006
Two of Zimbabwe's oldest
cricket playing regions, the Mashonaland and
Matabeleland Country Districts
Cricket Association have vowed to keep on
playing despite threats by the
government that the associations will be
disbanded.
However, just
over a month after the government took over the administration
of Zimbabwe
Cricket (ZC) through an interim board, the Country Districts
have not yet
received formal notification regarding their status.
"I don't know what
they are going to do. We cannot do anything about it,"
said Andy Kemp,
chairman of the Matabeleland Country Districts Association.
"But we will
continue playing cricket. We have always played cricket in
Matabeleland
Districts. We have produced world-class players like Heath
Streak and Adam
Huckle. What more can you ask from any association? ZC has
not done any
development here for twenty years. We have done everything
alone. What makes
them think that they can do anything now?"
Kemp added that the game had
suffered a major setback in both the rural and
urban regions of Matabeleland
since the ZC board started clashing with
players.
'Everyone is
disillusioned," he said. "Even the school kids here are
disappointed. There
are a lot of guys who were looking for a career in
cricket, now they
can't."
Kemp said Zimbabwe's withdrawal from Test cricket was inevitable
as the
union would not have managed to raise a side for future assignments
under
the present leadership. "If they don't have a side how can they play?
If the
board had acted in faith two years that dispute would not have been
repeated. The board let down its key assets, the players.
"You can't
replace a cricketer overnight. It takes time and hard work to
nurture an
international player. We have lost Taibu at only 22, when he was
just
starting his international career. We have pushed too many players."
©
Cricinfo
African News Dimension
Sunday, 29 January 2006, 1 hour, 51 minutes and 52 seconds
ago.
By ANDnetwork Journalist
AS rampant corruption
continued to rear its ugly head among Government
officials, Fidelity
Printers and Refiners, both large and small-scale miners
alike, gold worth
US$160 million ($16 trillion) was last year smuggled out
of the
country.
Fidelity Printers and Refiners is a subsidiary of the
Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) and is the country's sole handler of
gold.
RBZ Governor Dr Gideon Gono said such practices in the
private sector
have contributed to the relapse of indiscipline and deflation
of business
confidence in the economy through an observable sense of
indifference and
aloofness to some of the central bank's and Government's
turnaround
programmes.
Dr Gono said the deceleration in gold
deliveries to the RBZ from 21,3
tonnes in 2004 to 13,4 tonnes in 2005 is
largely attributable to the
widespread leakages that were taking place,
engineered and driven by some
players in the mining sector and in some cases
sponsored by some prominent
members of society.
This
development reveals a decline of nine tonnes in the comparative
year.
Gold deliveries to the country's sole gold handlers
Fidelity Printers
and Refiners declined by 37 percent last
year.
Dr Gono said there is a need that greater surveillance be
instituted
at the country's mines, so as to curb the growing incidences of
gold
smuggling and side marketing.
He added that the country
cannot afford to live under a "paradoxical
dichotomy" where miners'
consumption levels of fuel, electricity, spare
parts, explosives, chemicals
and machinery "all imported" is ever rising
suggesting increased productive
activity, whilst in reality, the same mines
are declaring falling output
levels.
"Government surveillance instruments should, thus, be
rigorous, with
each mine submitting detailed reports to the Ministry of
Mines, and to the
Reserve Bank for purposes of accounting for extractions
and exports.
"To this end, the Reserve Bank has over the last
quarter been
investigating this issue with the assistance of Israeli experts
in
collaboration with the Zimbabwe Republic Police," explained Dr
Gono.
Dr Gono added that the introduction of the recommended
systems and
reporting procedures should commence with the gold sector next
month.
The decline in gold production output levels comes as a step
backwards, away from the growth that the sector was projected to experience
over the next few years following the recent surge in gold prices on the
international markets.
In the past few weeks, prices of gold
firmed by 11 percent in the
largest upsurge in recent years.
Source: The Sunday Mail
African News Dimension
Sunday, 29 January 2006, 1 hour, 58 minutes and
39 seconds ago.
By ANDnetwork Journalist
THE
Government does not intend to force students at the country's
universities
to learn Chinese but will work to ensure Zimbabwe and China
continue to
strengthen political, economic, cultural and educational ties,
the Secretary
for the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Dr
Washington Mbizvo has
said.
Dr Mbizvo's statement, made on Friday, comes in the wake of
recent
media reports that suggested Government was planning to soon
introduce
Chinese lessons at universities countrywide as part of its "Look
East"
policy.
The article, carried in The Standard of January
22 this year, made
reference to a speech which the Minister, Dr Stan
Mudenge, delivered at the
International Conference on the transformation of
Masvingo State University
to Great Zimbabwe University earlier in the
month.
Dr Mbizvo said the minister did not mention that the State
would
impose the Chinese language on local universities but had, in fact,
suggested that the university should introduce oriental studies, given its
tradition of preserving cultural trends.
He pointed out that
the "Look East" policy had deep historical
traditions with the Chinese "with
tangible evidence existing at Great
Zimbabwe today".
"The
ministry does not intend to introduce Chinese 'as part of the
Look East
policy' as alleged in the article and never in his key note
address did the
minister talk about offering a 'curriculum that will see
students from all
universities in the country taking Chinese language
(lessons).
"The introduction of oriental studies like Chinese language or history
at
Great Zimbabwe University does not translate to mean all students from
the
university will study Chinese (language) or history, neither does it
imply
all universities will introduce Chinese history or language in their
curricula," said Dr Mbizvo.
The conference, which was held on
January 18, drew distinguished
scholars and academics, who also commended
the Government's "Look East"
policy, highlighting that it had become a
global trend for different
countries to conduct trade with
China.
Source : The Sunday Mail
http://www.thebusinessonline.com/
By John
Blundell
29 January 2006
THERE are endless recipe
books on how to make a soufflé, roast a
pheasant, bake a walnut cake or
create an exquisite salad. But this is the
ultimate recipe book, and it is
very different. It might be entitled The
Wealth of Nations, but someone
nicked that. Instead it carries the unlovely
but apt title, 2006 Index of
Economic Freedom - the link between economic
opportunity and prosperity. It
contains more than 400 pages of detailed
figures and it comes from perhaps
the most influential thinktank the world
has seen, namely The Heritage
Foundation in Washington DC.
I admit I am dazzled. I am intrigued.
Here is the most exacting
analysis of the nature of society of every nation
from the mighty United
States to tiny Cape Verde Islands published. As its
discoveries chime so
perfectly with my prejudices I'm naturally
enthusiastic.
Why do some nations, often in adverse locations,
prosper? Why are
some, with lush soils and huge mineral resources,
destitute?
The answers may be highly complex in detail but they
could hardly be
more plain in nature. Humanity prospers when it has freedom
of trade. This
could also be expressed as freedom of contract - that people
can swap their
goods and wares and services without control, regulations and
taxes.
How do we ensure freedom of trade and contract? The answer
is a
paradox, perhaps because it is: by the state operating the rule of law.
What
is the rule of law? It is that "legislation has to be impartial,
predictable
and capable of generalisation", as Hayek defined
liberty.
Who is top of the league of such virtues? Hong Kong,
Singapore,
Ireland, Luxembourg and Iceland. Who is bottom? Zimbabwe,
Myanmar, Iran and
North Korea. Sudan, Iraq and Congo don't even rank, as
they are so lawless.
The UK, the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are
up there with the best
scores, but short of top marks. Perhaps it is the
speed of rank change that
is most intriguing.
I applaud
Estonia, ranked seventh best in the world after only 15
years from being a
Soviet province. Venezuela, once relatively rich and
placid, is a basket
case tumbling down the league table under Hugo Chavez's
weird perception
that Cuba is a model to emulate.
It is worth being emphatic - there
is no link whatsoever to natural
resources. What has Iceland got? It is
cold, dark and barren. Yet it has
freedom. It thrives.
Russia,
snug between Cameroon and Azerbaijan, is ranked at 122nd. It
has vast
endowments of mineral wealth and rich soils, but its citizens are
not
free.
Hong Kong and Singapore are anomalies of history. They are
city states
of Chinese folk but they still live under the halo of
Anglo-Saxon rules - it
is common law terrain. Myanmar and Zimbabwe used to
be more prosperous but
now are collapsing.
I would love to see
the Index of Economic Freedom as a compulsory book
in every classroom -
except, of course, we do not believe in compulsion.
So, I assert
what we all know intuitively, that prosperity and its
first cousins
productivity, security, clean water, or any other desirable
civic blessing,
is derived from trade. This may be expressed in the great
engine that unites
all of mankind, or at least those open enough to trade.
This is the vast
price mechanism that allows us to learn who wants what and
when and
where.
I think it close to a miracle that I can buy Chilean wines,
Ghanaian
chocolate, Kenyan beans and Australia beef at Tesco's prices, buy
petrol
from Kuwaiti, watch my Japanese television and play on my Californian
keyboard. Expressed individually these are banalities, but in aggregate they
are a marvel.
Archaeologists and DNA analysis seem to confirm
we are all descended
from a once tiny population of homo sapiens probably in
Africa. We were
fragmented by time and geography. Now globalisation is
re-uniting us all. It
is very optimistic.
But the index also
alerts us to the hazard of interest groups always
trying to compromise or
pollute freedom of trade. The EU's agricultural
autarchy is not merely
corrupt. It brutalises those people locked out. The
authors of the Index of
Economic Freedom eschew policy prescriptions, but I
offer the insight Israel
could enjoy greater peace if it adopted free trade
and open borders. China
and Taiwan can liberalise their trade so that
differences would
erode.
Note the migrations of humanity too. Nobody aspires to live
in
wretched lawless nations. We seek out the law-rich
locations.
So here is a perfect birthday present if you know any
aspiring
politicians. They might grasp the crucial lesson, which is to focus
on what
only you can do, such as the rule of law, do it well, and by and
large leave
the rest to the market.
John Blundell is
director general of the Institute of Economic
Affairs. The Index of Economic
Freedom Heritage Foundation, £20