The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
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Business Day
MDC wins court bid to launch economic
plan
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THE
Zimbabwean High Court issued an eleventh-hour ruling late yesterday
that
allowed opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to hold
a
meeting in the evening to launch its proposed economic rescue
plan.
Judge Charles Hungwe granted the MDC the order to go ahead with its
meeting
after police barred the opposition party from gathering to launch
its
reconstruction, stabilisation, recovery and transformation
(Restart)
economic blueprint.
The MDC said it had applied twice, once
last Friday and again on Monday, for
police approval as required under the
controversial Public Order and
Security Act. "The police claimed the
application was left in the wrong
office and was thus not processed," MDC
spokesman Paul Temba Nyathi said
yesterday.
This latest attempt to
constrain the MDC comes days after President Thabo
Mbeki said talks between
the ruling Zanu (PF) and the MDC were to restart.
But the MDC denies there
are any signs of willingness from Zanu (PF). The
thrust of the MDC's Restart
is aimed at bringing economic stability to
Zimbabwe by reducing
inflation.
Financial Times
Zimbabwe police try to delay opposition
manifesto
By Tony Hawkins in Harare
Published: January 30 2004
4:00 | Last Updated: January 30 2004 4:00
Zimbabwe police tried
yesterday to delay the launch of an economic
policy manifesto by the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change, by
refusing permission for a
public meeting.
But the launch of the detailed economic
programme, designed to
demonstrate that the MDC offers a serious alternative
government to that of
President Robert Mugabe, went ahead after the
opposition group obtained a
court order overturning the police
ban.
Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC leader, said Zimbabwe's crisis was
too
deep-seated to allow a quick-fix solution. But he said Restart - an
acronym
for Reconstruction, Stabilisation, Recovery and Transformation - was
the
best chance for a return to normality "within a bearable
time-frame".
Mr Tsvangirai said that almost 25 years after
independence,
Zimbabweans were as poor as they had been in 1970. Life
expectancy was at
its lowest for more than 40 years.
The 70-page
Restart document details measures to reverse this by
creating millions of
jobs in the formal and informal sectors, improving
incomes, restoring
relations with the international community, investing
heavily in health,
education and poverty reduction and encouraging local and
foreign
investment.
The policy has already been attacked by the state-owned
media, which
have claimed the MDC has no policy on land beyond returning
confiscated
areas to white owners.
But economists say Restart
will resonate well with the donor community
and agencies such as the World
Bank and International Monetary Fund, because
it sticks closely to orthodox
stabilisation policies and focuses on good
governance, anti-corruption
measures, institution building and poverty
reduction.
On the
controversial land issue, Restart calls for comprehensive
agrarian reform
extending well beyond the large-scale commercial farms,
formerly owned by
some 6,000 white farmers, that have been the sole focus of
recent government
policy.
The opposition says the 42 per cent of the country
classified as
communal land must also be the target of measures to raise
productivity and
incomes. It argues that while land reform is an important
element of
agrarian reform, it must be underpinned by support services
in
infrastructure, credit, marketing, hospitals and schools, plus
farmer
training and extension services.
In contrast to the
Mugabe government, which has no formal economic
plan, the MDC sets out
detailed targets for gross domestic product growth of
more than 5 per cent
annually after it takes office, supported by
projections for inflation,
savings, investment, employment, the balance of
payments and foreign
debt.
One leading economist, who declined to be named, said the
key
difference between the government's stance and that of the opposition
MDC
was that the international community would support the MDC programme
with
aid and debt relief, neither of which is available to Mr
Mugabe's
administration.
The Herald
Aids levy rakes in $15bn
Herald Reporter
THE
National Aids Council has since inception so far collected $15
billion
through the Aids levy and out of this $8,9 billion has been disbursed
to
beneficiaries, Health and Child Welfare Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa
said
yesterday.
"Of the $8,9 billion, $136 million was disbursed in
2000, $544 million in
2001, $1,6 billion in 2003 and $6,5 billion last year,"
he said.
Dr Parirenyatwa said this in a ministerial statement in
Parliament while
updating MPs on the progress made so far in the utilisaton
of National Aids
Trust Fund.
He said there have been a lot of queries
in the manner in which the funds
were being disbursed.
The minister
said among the beneficiaries of the funds were aids service
organisations,
tertiary institutions, and government ministries.
"At least 1,4 million
children orphaned with HIV and Aids benefited from the
fund which was used to
pay their school fees," Dr Parirenyatwa said.
The NAC, he said, had
decentralised the distribution of Aids funds with the
view to improve on
transparency and also to make sure that the resources
reached the intended
beneficiaries.
He said some of the aids service organisations were in the
habit of abusing
the money allocated to them.
"For instance, the
Zimbabwe National Network for People Living with HIV and
Aids abused $96
million allocated to it and part of the money was used to
buy property of
which 10 houses that were bought with the money were
recovered by the
ministry in various towns of the country," Dr Parirenyatwa
said.
The
NAC, he said, had internal auditors that oversee the administration of
the
fund and external auditors complimented their work.
The minister said the
council had been selected to be the principal
recipient of the Global Aids
Fund since it administered the Aids levy.
Zimbabwe was allocated more
than $19 million from the Global Fund.
Responding to concerns from MPs,
Cde Parirenyatwa said the system that was
used for one to qualify to benefit
from the Aids fund was not perfect
although the main intention was for the
money to reach the grassroots level.
"We believe the decentralisation of
the distribution of the money to
District Action Aids Committees (DAAC) is
the best way," he said.
The Herald
Independent journalists further remanded
Court
Reporter
Four journalists at the Zimbabwe Independent who are facing
allegations of
criminal defamation for writing that President Robert Mugabe
had
commandeered a plane from the national airline to travel to the Far East
on
personal business were yesterday further remanded to April 5 this
year.
The paper’s editor Iden Hugh Wetherell, news editor Vincent
Kahiya,
reporters Dumisani Muleya and Itai Dzamara appeared before Harare
magistrate
Mr Tavaziva Sibanda.
The four, who are represented by
Advocate Edith Mushore, are out of custody
on $20 000 bail
each.
Charges against the four arise from a defamatory story the paper
published
on January 9 this year headlined "Mugabe grabs plane for Far East
holiday".
In the story, the paper claimed that President Mugabe
commandeered an Air
Zimbabwe plane to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend a summit
last month.
The Zimbabwe Independent, the State alleges, also claimed
that President
Mugabe had again took advantage of the national airline’s
depleted fleet to
ferry him around the Far East.
The State alleges
that the story, which is criminally defamatory to the
President, the
Government and the whole community alleged that the President
took possession
of the same Boeing 767-200 plane while in Malaysia to travel
to Indonesia and
Singapore.
The State said the President did not in any way commander an
aircraft to
Switzerland or call Air Zimbabwe so that it takes him to
Jarkata.
It also said the President does not personally make his travel
arrangements.
Mmegi, Botswana
Report about Zim investors coming, not
true
KABO MOKGOABONE
Staff Writer
1/29/2004
11:32:48 PM (GMT +2)
THE Botswana Export Development and Investment
Agency (BEDIA) said
yesterday that media reports that Zimbabwean textile
investors are planning
to invest in the country are not
true.
The companies, which were not named, were reported to be
moving to
Botswana in an attempt to bolster trade relations between the two
countries
and also because of the de-industrialisation in Zimbabwe due to
political
turmoil.
BEDIA’s Public Relations Manager Shandukane
Mpoloka said that it is
not true that Zimbabwean investors are coming to
Botswana.
“We have had discussions with investors in Zimbabwe, but
nothing has
been agreed upon yet,” Mpoloka said yesterday.
However, he said should these investors come into the country, they
would not
be a threat to Botswana firms, as their products are not meant for
the local
market, but are destined for export.
One textile firm owner said
the investors should not be seen as a
threat.
“There is no need
to worry about the competition coming as this would
bring more customers,” he
said.
He said that the concentration of investors in the textile
sector
would increase demand for their products in the US
market.
Most of the local textile factories export their products
to the
greater US market under the duty free Africa Growth and Opportunity
Act
(AGOA II).
De-industrialisation in Zimbabwe’s agricultural
sector was brought
about after the controversial land repossession exercise,
which left most
white farmers without land and compelled them to leave the
country and go to
neighbouring countries like Mozambique.
Recently, it was reported that white farmers in Mozambique and Zambia
have
created massive job opportunities.
Meanwhile, BEDIA, which promotes
joint venture opportunities, will be
hosting Indian businessmen next month as
part of promoting industrialisation
in the country.
The
delegation from India will represent the Information Technology
(IT) sector
like computer software development.
One local businessman who is in
the IT industry, Phuthego Chere of
Data Link Systems, a company dealing in
software said that he expects to
learn more from the Indians.
“I
think the Indians would help me develop my software move from the
small scale
to the larger scale,” Chere said yesterday.
Chere said that the
elevation to a large scale would help his company
tender for bigger projects
unlike at the moment.
“We encourage joint ventures with the Indian
companies,” Mpoloka said.
VOA
7 Million Zimbabweans will Need Emergency Feeding, says WFP
Peta
Thornycroft
Harare
30 Jan 2004, 16:31 UTC
Regional crop
forecasters say Zimbabwe's coming grain harvest will be the
lowest ever, and
at the same time the United Nations says the number of
people in need of food
aid has increased to its highest level ever.
Crop plantings in Zimbabwe are
down between 20 and 30 percent compared to a
year ago, according to Fewsnet,
the U.S. Agency for International
Development's Famine Early Warning System
for east, west and southern
Africa.
Uncultivated farm near
Harare
Last year, the maize harvest produced less than one million tons.
Zimbabwe
needs at least 1.2 million tons for human consumption
alone.
Fewsnet says the even lower level of planting this season was
caused in part
by a lack of seeds and fertilizer.
There is a seed
shortage because few of the new farmers who have taken
formerly white-owned
land have had success growing the difficult and
expensive seed
crops.
Overgrown farm in Zimbabwe
Economists say fertilizer
factories needed imported ingredients and there
has been little foreign
currency available to buy them.
The World Food Program says seven million
Zimbabweans, more than half the
population, will need emergency feeding
before the harvest in April and May.
Officials say there has been a slow
response to Zimbabwe's food shortage
this year. Some experts say part of the
reason is that the main donors the
United States, Britain and the European
Union, see the crisis as a result of
bad policy, rather than bad weather or
some other natural disaster.
For generations Zimbabwe was the breadbasket
for the region, both feeding
itself and exporting its
surplus.
Agricultural economists say small-scale communal farmers
traditionally
produced slightly more than half of Zimbabwe's summer grains,
and white
commercial farmers produced most of the export
crops.
Communal farmers have been weakened by the high cost of
agricultural inputs,
when they are available, and by HIV and AIDS. The
commercial farming sector
has been largely wiped out by the seizure of more
than 90 percent of
formerly white-owned land. Most of the new farm owners do
not have the
skills or the financing to cultivate the land.
Fewsnet
has launched an alert on the deepening food crisis in Zimbabwe and
has noted
that the urban population, which receives minimal assistance,
cannot afford
to buy enough food. Zimbabwe's inflation rate is more than
600
percent.
The World Food Program recently asked the Zimbabwe
government to release
240,000 tons of maize from last season to fix the
shortfall over the next
three months. So far, the government has not
responded.
Washington Times
Mugabe moves against landowners'
holdouts
LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH
HARARE, Zimbabwe —
President Robert Mugabe moved against Zimbabwe's last
handful of white
landowners yesterday when a new law allowed the seizure of
large plantations
and estates.
Among those stripped of all protection from confiscation are
the huge
Hippo Valley sugar estates, owned by Anglo American PLC, and
the
British-owned Eastern Highlands Plantations.
Mr. Mugabe's regime
has already taken more than 90 percent of land
belonging to individual white
farmers, a few hundred of whom remain.
The way is now clear for the
seizure of several large plantations
growing tea, citrus fruit and sugarcane
simply by publishing a notice of
intent in the government's Gazette, a
publication sold by government
printers.
Earlier in the week, the
Zimbabwean Parliament passed a law that will
allow the government to take
land more easily from white farmers.
Parliament, which is dominated by
lawmakers from Mr. Mugabe's ruling
Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic
Front (ZANU-PF), passed an
amendment to the Land Acquisition Act after
intense debate Wednesday, the
Zimbabwe Inter-Africa New Agency
reported.
The new law allows the government to acquire white-owned farms
by simply
publishing a notice of intention to take over the land.
It
eliminates the old requirement that a preliminary notice of
acquisition by
the government should be served personally on the farm owner.
Some 4,500
whites used to own a third of the country's land — 70 percent
of prime
farmland — before the government launched a "fast-track" land
reform program
in 2000.
Fewer than 400 white farmers now remain in Zimbabwe and own 3
percent of
the land.
VOA
Zimbabwe's Grain Harvest Forecast As Lowest Ever
Peta
Thornycroft
Harare
30 Jan 2004, 16:41 UTC
Regional crop
forecasters say Zimbabwe's coming grain harvest will be the
lowest ever, and
at the same time the United Nations says the number of
people in need of food
aid has increased to its highest level ever.
Crop plantings in Zimbabwe are
down between 20 and 30 percent compared to a
year ago, according to Fewsnet,
the U-S Agency for International
Development's Famine Early Warning System
for east, west and southern
Africa.
Last year, the maize harvest
produced less than one million tons. Zimbabwe
needs at least one-point-two
million tons for human consumption alone.
Fewsnet says the even lower
level of planting this season was caused in part
by a lack of seeds and
fertilizer.
There is a seed shortage because few of the new farmers who
have taken
formerly white-owned land have had success growing the difficult
and
expensive seed crops.
Economists say fertilizer factories needed
imported ingredients and there
has been little foreign currency available to
buy them.
The World Food Program says seven million Zimbabweans, more
than half the
population, will need emergency feeding before the harvest in
April and May.
Officials say there has been a slow response to Zimbabwe's
food shortage
this year. Some experts say part of the reason is that the main
donors --
the United States, Britain and the European Union -- see the crisis
as a
result of bad policy, rather than bad weather or some other
natural
disaster.
For generations Zimbabwe was the breadbasket for the
region, both feeding
itself and exporting its surplus.
Agricultural
economists say small-scale communal farmers traditionally
produced slightly
more than half of Zimbabwe's summer grains, and white
commercial farmers
produced most of the export crops.
Communal farmers have been weakened by
the high cost of agricultural inputs,
when they are available, and by HIV and
AIDS. The commercial farming sector
has been largely wiped out by the seizure
of more than 90 percent of
formerly white-owned land. Most of the new farm
owners do not have the
skills or the financing to cultivate the
land.
Fewsnet has launched an alert on the deepening food crisis in
Zimbabwe and
has noted that the urban population, which receives minimal
assistance,
cannot afford to buy enough food. Zimbabwe's inflation rate is
more than 600
percent.
The World Food Program recently asked the
Zimbabwe government to release
240-thousand tons of maize from last season to
fix the shortfall over the
next three months. So far, the government has not
responded.
EU Business
Zimbabwe more democratic than most of Africa:
Mugabe
30 January 2004
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
Friday said the European Union should not
target his government, arguing that
his embattled country was more
democratic than the majority of African
nations, state media said.
"We are a more democratic country than most
African countries and there is
really no case the European Union should hold
against us," the ZIANA news
agency quoted Mugabe as saying.
Mugabe was
speaking when he met outgoing French ambassador to Harare, Didier
Ferrand,
just weeks ahead of the proposed renewal of sanctions by the
European
Union.
The EU in 2002 imposed travel restrictions on 72 of Zimbabwe's
top
government and ruling party officials, including Mugabe, accusing them
of
human rights abuses and electoral fraud after controversial elections
that
year which saw Mugabe return to power.
Opposition parties and
rights groups have said those polls were marred by
violence, intimidation and
fraud.
The 15-member EU is due to decide on February 18 on whether to
maintain the
sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.
Western diplomats here say
the sanctions are likely to be renewed and even
widened to include more of
President Mugabe's aides.
Zimbabwe's opposition leader in parliament and
vice president of the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Gibson Sibanda,
on Wednesday urged the
EU to extend the sanctions.
Sibanda said during
a visit to Paris that France and the EU needed to slap
sanctions on Mugabe
"in order to put an end to this desperate situation"
in
Zimbabwe.
France last year came under fire from Britain, the EU and
human rights
activists, for inviting Mugabe to a two-day Franco-African
summit after
President Jacques Chirac obtained a waiver to the EU travel ban
on the
Zimbabwean leader.
The French leader defended the invitation as
a way to confront Mugabe
face-to-face over human rights abuses and
lawlessness in his famine-ridden
southern African country.
Financial Times
Mbeki passes land expropriation bill
By
Nicol Degli Innocenti in Johannesburg
Published: January 30 2004 18:56
| Last Updated: January 30 2004 18:56
Thabo Mbeki, South
African president, has signed into law a
controversial bill that gives the
minister of agriculture the power to
expropriate land for restitution
purposes without a court order or the
farmer's agreement. Some commercial
farmers have slammed the new Restitution
of Land Rights Amendment Act as a
violation of property rights and the
prelude to a Zimbabwe-style land grab.
But the government insists the Act
will speed up the restitution process,
thereby preventing the kind of land
invasions and lawlessness witnessed under
Robert Mugabe's regime.
"The Act does not give the minister the
power to expropriate land in
an arbitrary manner," Pretoria's chief land
claims commission said in a
statement on Friday. "No person, group or
institution including an organ of
the state will be allowed to deprive
landowners of land in an arbitrary
manner."
The Act applies only
to land from which blacks were forcibly removed
under the colonial and
apartheid regimes, and the minister will only use her
power to expropriate
land in cases when farmers are "unreasonably opposed"
to selling or when
negotiations have dragged on for too long. The
expropriated farmer will
always be given "just and equitable" compensation.
South Africa has
until now had a strict "willing seller, willing
buyer" policy which has
slowed down the land restitution process, government
says. Over 45,000 out of
70,000 urban and rural land claims have been
settled, but the government is
determined to settle the rest within two
years.
Nearly 10 years
after the end of apartheid, less than 3 per cent of
farmland has been
transferred to black owners. Government's initial deadline
of 2005 for the
transfer of 30 per cent of white-owned land to black farmers
has been
extended to 2015.
In stark contrast to South Africa, Zimbabwe this
week passed an
amendment to its expropriation law, which removes the need for
a preliminary
notice of acquisition to be served on the land owner,
effectively making it
easier for government to confiscate land, including
farms, sugar
plantations, forests and wildlife sanctuaries.
Gmb Starts Paying Farmers: Made
The Herald
(Harare)
January 30, 2004
Posted to the web January 30,
2004
Harare
THE Grain Marketing Board is now paying farmers who
were not paid after
delivering their maize to GMB depots last season, the
Minister of Lands,
Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Cde Joseph Made told
Parliament on
Wednesday.
"We initially had problems of securing the
money to pay the farmers since
financial institutions were lending the bonds
to us at very high rates but
now we have the money because of the low
interests rates," he said.
The minister said this in response to a
question by Chief Jonathan Mangwende
during a question and answer session in
the House.
Chief Mangwende had asked the minister why it had taken long
for the
Government to pay farmers for their proceeds in view of the fact that
they
wanted to use the money to buy inputs for this season.
Cde Made
said the erratic rains had affected farmers' produce during the
last three
years hence the Government had not asked them to repay the loans
advanced to
them.
He denied some Press reports that the Government was withholding
240 000
tonnes of maize while some people were starving in the
country.
"It is not correct that we are withholding maize because the
maize which we
have in stock was either purchased from the farmers or we
imported it," he
said.
"We will continue to buy maize and wheat from
local farmers as well as
importing and we will continue to distribute maize
to needy families."
Cde Made said this while responding to a question by
Bulilimamangwe MP Mr
Moses Mzila Ndlovu (MDC) who had asked him to confirm
Press reports alleging
that the Government was withholding 240 000 tonnes of
maize while some
people were starving.
The Minister of Energy and
Power Development Cde Amos Midzi said the
deregulation of the fuel industry
has seen positive developments as the
price of fuel was going
down.
"This has made it possible for indigenous players to take part in
the fuel
procurement industry and more than 60 applications of companies that
want to
procure fuel are being considered right now," he said.
Cde
Midzi was responding to a question from Seke MP Mr Tumbare Mutasa (MDC)
who
had asked whether the deregulation of the fuel industry had so far
yielded
positive results.
The Minister of Rural Resources and Water Development
Cde Joyce Mujuru said
the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project was estimated to
cost about Z$500
billion and most of the money would be required in foreign
currency.
She said this was the reason why the idea of a build, operate
and transfer
(BOT) was mooted to encourage private investors to participate
alongside the
Government to develop the project.
Cde Mujuru said this
while responding to a question from Matobo MP Mr
Lovemore Moyo (MDC) who had
asked about the progress made on the project.
She said the first step in
the implementation of the project was the
construction of the Gwayi-Shangani
Dam where water for the region would
initially be withdrawn from the Zambezi
River.
"The contractor has already started some work on the site under
the
supervision of the Zimbabwe National Water Authority," Cde Mujuru
said.
"Progress has been hampered by the shortage of foreign currency for
bringing
in the plant and as a result work on the actual dam wall has not
started."
The minister said if the dam and the pipeline were constructed
concurrently,
the project could be operational by the end of
2006.
Foreign Affairs Minister Cde Stan Mudenge said Zimbabwe was still
studying
the New Partnership For Africa's Development peer review mechanism
for good
governance and democratic practices before committing itself to
it.
He said out of the 53 countries in Africa, only 16 had signed the
Nepad peer
review mechanism as the rest were still studying the
issue.
Cde Mudenge was responding to a question from Nyanga MP Mr
Leonard
Chirowamhangu (MDC) who had asked why Zimbabwe had no yet signed the
peer
review mechanism.
The minister said the Sadc Organ on Politics,
Defence and Security had asked
foreign ministers to draft electoral standards
both for the Sadc and the
African Union.
"The opposition parties in
the Sadc region refuse to accept defeat. When you
take part in an election
you should be prepared to accept defeat and if not
so you are an enemy of
democracy," Cde Mudenge said.
Nepad is a programme in which the West
promises financial assistance to
developing countries in exchange for good
governance and democracy.
Health and Child Welfare Minister Cde David
Parirenyatwa said the Premier
Medical Aid Society had reached an agreement
with the Zimbabwe Medical
Association on the use of medical aid
cards.
"I understand the two have reached an amicable agreement and the
problem is
with the National Medical Society and I will be meeting with Namas
today
(Wednesday) to see how we can resolve the issue," he said.
Dr
Parirenyatwa said this while responding to a question from Makoni East MP
Cde
Shadreck Chipanga (Zanu-PF) who had asked him to enlighten the House on
the
wrangle between Zima and Namas on the use of medical aid cards.
Some
private doctors are demanding cash up-front from patients
following
allegations that the medical aid societies were taking long to pay
them.
Cde Parirenyatwa said major hospitals such as Harare Central, Mpilo
and
Parirenyatwa were now distributing anti-retroviral drugs to patients
while
some local companies that were manufacturing the generic drugs were
donating
them to the Government.
The Minister of Industry and
International Trade Cde Samuel Mumbengegwi said
Zimbabwe had two trade
attaches in South Africa and Geneva and would appoint
six other attaches this
year.
He sad this while responding a question from Murehwa North MP Cde
Victor
Chitongo (Zanu-PF) who had asked the position of the ministry in
regard to
trade attaches.
Local Government and National Housing
Minister Cde Ignatius Chombo said the
ministry was contemplating appointing a
commission of inquiry to look into a
number of issues relating to traditional
leaders. These included
resuscitating positions abolished by the former white
regime.
Cde Chombo said this in response to a question from Makoni West
MP Cde
Gibson Munyoro (Zanu-PF) who had asked why it had taken long for
some
headmen in his constituency to be officially installed.
The
minister said Government wanted to build 2,5 million housing units in
urban
areas for the next five years.
He said the Government had identified
several farms that had been earmarked
for development in urban areas with the
view to ease the housing shortage n
urban areas.
Cde Chombo said this
while responding to a question by Mbare East Tichaona
Munyanyi (MDC) who had
asked what the Government was doing to alleviate
overcrowding in
Mbare.
Cde Chombo said additional flats would be constructed in Mbare and
the
Harare City Council had identified land behind George Stark School for
this
purpose, while current flats would be renovated to accommodate
more
families.
The council, he said, was also developing the
Hopley/Tariro housing project
that would provide stands to people living in
the Joburg lines of Mbare who
were likely to be displaced by the construction
of the new Mbare Musika Bus
Terminus.
New Zimbabwe
Moyo sells R1,5m South African getaway
By Dumisani
Muleya
30/01/04
INFORMATION minister Jonathan Moyo has sold his
controversial R1,5 million
luxury home in Johannesburg to prevent an auction
which was due Thursday
after he fell into arrears in his mortgage bond
payments.
André Croucamp, director of the legal firm Findlay &
Niemeyer, which was
handling the disposal said Moyo recently sold the house
to prevent the sale.
The sheriff of Lenasia North had been expected to
conduct the auction.
"The auction was cancelled because Moyo sold the
house," Croucamp said. "It
now means that we will get paid in due
course."
He had bought the house through a mortgage obtained from Nedcor
bank,
according to reports published in South Africa. The bank, however,
recently
placed an advert in the newspapers saying the house would go on the
block on
January 29 as Moyo had failed to meet his mortgage
repayments.
It was said Moyo had an outstanding balance of R1,2 million
on his bond.
He also reportedly owed the Johannesburg council more than
R115 000 in
unpaid rates and service charges for the house located at 15
Engelwold Drive
in the posh Saxonwold suburb.
City of Johannesburg
invoices reportedly showed that Talunoza Trust, under
which the house was
registered, owed R69 064,07 in unpaid rates, while R48
961,98 was owed for
electricity and water. The total - R118 026,05 - was
said to have been due on
January 15. Talunoza Trust was named after Moyo's
children.
The house
has seven bedrooms, a large modern kitchen, a double garage,
Oregon pine
floors and underfloor heating. Most of the home is hidden behind
a high wall
which has an electric fence at the top.
But reports said the house - in
what was described as a metaphor for the
economic ruin in Zimbabwe - was
allowed to become rundown. A blocked drain
was said to have been spilling
sewage into the front yard and the lawn had
not been cut for months.
Flowerbeds were said to be overgrown with weeds
while the swimming pool
contained green slime.
Last year, Moyo’s wife Betsy, spoke fondly of the
home - though her husband
earlier denied to the South African Sunday Times
that he owned the property.
While on holiday in Johannesburg, she had
insisted it won’t be sold: "It is
a wonderful place and my six-year-old
misses the house.
"But we have no present plans to sell . . . we will be
keeping it."
But Moyo had denied that he owned the Saxonwold property.
"There is no
evidence whatsoever that I own a house there . . . the trust
does not link
me as an owner. I used to live there two years ago . . . the
house is owned
by a trust and I am not a trust."
He added: "The trust
is a children's trust and they are not going to talk .
. . and even if I
owned that house, I would not be interested in talking.
"I don't think it
makes sense for people to be talking about their
properties," Moyo
said.
Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University, where Mr Moyo once worked
as a
researcher, claims he absconded with thousands in research money and a
South
African television company says he owes £10,000.
A legal writ
has been issued in the Kenyan High Court against Mr Moyo by the
Ford
Foundation, an American educational trust that claims he stole £70,000
of its
money in the late 1990s - Zim Independent
Business Day
Mbeki assassination plot' weird even by Hefer's
standards
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
THE
Hefer commission was a great spectacle and now, alas, it is over. But
just
one little thing before we finally bid it goodbye.
In the course of the
commission, former intelligence officer Mo Shaik made
the claim that several
people associated with the Scorpions would be
arrested in connection with a
shadowy plot to kill President Thabo Mbeki.
Even by Hefer standards, this was
a dramatic claim.
The allegation was linked to the arrest the weekend
before of peripatetic
intelligence operative Bheki Jacobs, also known as
Uranin Vladimir
Dzerzhinsky Joseph Solomon. Jacobs was arrested in connection
with a
controversial document: Report to the Honourable Patricia de
Lille.
Jacobs was arrested first on fraud charges and then on a list of
conspiracy
charges in connection with a plot to kill the president. Actually,
the
document was not so much a conspiracy to kill the president, but a
warning
of a conspiracy to kill him. If Jacobs was the author of the
document, and
if it contained any logic, it might have made more sense to
question him
about it rather than arrest him as a co-plotter.
Jacobs
was arrested at 6am on November 22, after police arrived at his
parent s'
house at 3am. He was held for two hours until an arrest warrant
was obtained,
taken to Ysterplaat air force base in Cape Town, and held
there before being
transported by private jet to Pretoria. The South African
Police Service jet
is the one used for official functions by police
commissioner Jackie
Selebi.
Jacobs was charged on Monday November 24 with conspiracy to
murder, among
other charges. Later that day, Shaik made his dramatic
claims.
Jacobs stayed in custody the whole week while police went through
his
computer hard-drives and questioned him. By Friday he was released,
but
still faces a charge in connection with holding several
passports.
What happened in those five days to convince police that the
case was
suspect? And why the rush to get him to Pretoria? How did Shaik know
about
all of this and get to make his dramatic statement? And, more
intriguingly,
why was Jacobs arrested in the first place?
Jacobs
himself provides some clues to these questions, in his final
statement to the
court. Apparently, the reason he was released was simply
because the police
discovered the document was not written on his computer.
Instead of being the
originator of the document, he was merely one of the
dozens of people
involved in its dissemination.
Jacobs claims the first he heard about it
was on November 17 or 18. A
ThisDay reporter, Chiara Carter, phoned him to
ask whether he was the
author. He subsequently got hold of the document from
a journalist friend,
Ace Mxolisa, on November 18.
There was a frantic
round of forwarding e-mail versions of the document for
a week, and it was in
this round of e-mails that Shaik got hold of the
document, by a convoluted
route.
Shaik confirms that he passed the document to someone in the
police, who
passed it to senior police intelligence officer Raymond Lalla, an
old
associate of Shaik's from Operation Vula days.
Jacobs seems
philosophical about his arrest, but he and Economists Allied
for Arms
Reduction chairman Terry Crawford-Browne have asked police for
an
explanation, which has not been forthcoming.
Jacobs makes the
telling point that far from being a conspiracy to murder
the president, it is
a warning he could be the subject of a murder plot.
This is hardly the basis
for a conspiracy charge, although making the claim
frivolously is obviously
dangerous.
More dramatically, the duo claim they have now learned a list
was compiled
and that just as Shaik claimed about 30 people were on the verge
of being
arrested, including CrawfordBrowne himself.
The list
constitutes a sort of who's who in the cast of characters involved
in the
arms deal. Crawford-Browne is known as an ardent campaigner against
the R50bn
procurement deal, and is launching a court case to challenge
the
constitutionality of the purchase. Others on the list include the
strident
arms deal contractor, Richard Young, CEO of arms company C²I², who
is also
involved in a civil case claiming he was fraudulently excluded from
certain
contracts. Interestingly, several journalists were also apparently on
the
list, including occasional Business Day contributor Paul
Kirk.
Shaik claimed several members of the Scorpions were on the list,
but who
they were is not clear. However, it seems the list did include former
Weekly
Mail journalist and now Scorpions member Ivor Powell. At the top of
the
list, however, was parliamentarian Patricia de Lille, to whom the
document
was addressed.
Jacobs says Shaik was involved in a "brilliant
diversionary tactic"
involving smoke and mirrors. Young says those targeted
were the
"counterrevolutionaries" who were considered troublemakers
or
whistle-blowers.
The remaining questions are: who on earth was the
policeman who thought the
document was a sufficient basis on which construct
a criminal charge against
30 people, and whether this person still has a
job?
Cohen is editor at large.