Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro/Ray Matikinye
PROMINENT Zanu PF financier in Mashonaland West province, Tom
Beattie, is on
the verge of losing his citrus-exporting Chigwell Estate near
Chegutu as
government has resolved to subdivide his land to resettle A2
farmers.
Documents in the possession of the Zimbabwe
Independent show
that Zanu PF has turned its back on Beattie for his
"intransigence" and
subdivided Chigwell into 16 plots for A2 farmers as
punishment for "failing
to recognise the authenticity of offer
letters".
Six of the beneficiaries are listed as being
employees in the
President's Office.
Beattie is also set
to lose proceeds from his crop, worth more
than $50 billion, to deputy
Information minister Bright Matonga.
In a letter to the
director of the Civil Division of the AG's
office, dated March 26, the
secretary for Lands directed that Chigwell
Estate be subdivided into small
plots with Matonga as the main beneficiary.
The decision to
completely dispossess Beattie was arrived at
after a follow-up visit to
Mashonaland West by a high-powered Lands ministry
entourage.
The letter says: "The Ministry (of Lands)
would like to advise
that following a follow-up visit to the province that
was undertaken on
February 13 by the honourable ministers (Didymus) Mutasa
and (Flora) Buka,
the secretary, principal director, director resettlement,
national taskforce
and land inspectorate, the provincial lands committee and
the district lands
committee directed that:
l "Mr Beattie
only recovers input costs incurred on the current
crop;
l
"all profits realised from the crop be allotted to Mr Matonga;
and,
l "that there be peaceful co-existence whilst Mr
Beattie's
future was being decided."
Beattie has been
embroiled in a long legal battle with Matonga
over the occupation of the
farmhouse and workshop. Beattie has taken Matonga
to court for harvesting
and selling 200 tonnes of soyabeans Beattie had
planted.
Matonga pocketed the proceeds estimated at $50 billion as the
Lands ministry
directed that Beattie only recover input costs incurred on
the current crop
and all profits realised from the crop be allotted to
Matonga.
The letter says the decision was taken after it
was established
that Beattie had been resisting the presence of Matonga and
other A2 farmers
allocated land on the farm.
Beattie
however dismissed the documents as fake and claimed they
were the work of
corrupt officials in the Lands ministry.
He said Lands
minister Mutasa had given him assurances of
continued tenure on his side of
Chigwell Estate.
"Mutasa told me to respect Matonga's offer
letter because it was
a government document and that the soya and seed maize
crop was mine and
that I could give a portion of the proceeds to the deputy
minister," Beattie
said yesterday.
"He (Mutasa) also said
the workshop was mine but I could share
it with Matonga or repair his
equipment when he asks me to."
But Matonga denied any
wrongdoing and scoffed at Beattie's
assertions saying the farmer had no
reason to remain at Chigwell.
He produced several official
letters from the Civil Division of
the AG's office and Lands ministry
relating to the legal wrangle over
ownership of the estate, the disputed
boundary, and ownership of other
assets including the workshops dating back
to October 2005.
On the issue of the crop he is said to have
sold to the GMB,
Matonga said he had written to Beattie to invoice him for
the cost of inputs
that he had incurred as directed by the lands committee
and was yet to get a
response.
"I have followed every
official and legal route possible to
resolve the issue," Matonga said. "But
Beattie seems unprepared to let go
despite overwhelming evidence against
him."
Matonga denied that feuding Zanu PF factions in
Mashonaland West
were using him as a pawn in the succession
battle.
"People have said I am being used by Minister
(Ignatious)
Chombo," Matonga said. "I have heard those claims before but why
would I be
used by someone when I am a deputy minister?"
Beattie, who has been on the property since 1983, donates
generously to
community projects and financed campaign programmes for Zanu
PF candidates.
He has a framed letter from President Robert Mugabe
prominently displayed in
his office.
"On behalf of my wife and family, and indeed my
own behalf, I
wish to express my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to you
for a handsome
gift of three beasts and two sheep given to us during our
wedding ceremony.
The gift would certainly constitute part of the founding
herd of our family's
future livestock," the letter reads. It is signed:
"Yours Sincerely RG
Mugabe, President of the Republic of
Zimbabwe".
Mugabe wed First Lady Grace in
1996.
Beattie also said he had donated 13 000 hectares to the
government for resettlement since 1983, well before
the
fast-track land reform started in 2000.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
TWO former NMB
Bank directors have resolved to return to
Zimbabwe to face trial over
allegations of externalising foreign currency.
James Mushore
and Francis Zimuto, who fled the country to the
United Kingdom in 2004 at
the height of the banking crisis, have agreed to
return home once a trial
date is set.
Their lawyer, Martin Makonese of Makonese &
Partners, said the
two would return once the Attorney-General's Office sets
a trial date.
They are wanted in Zimbabwe on allegations of
externalising
foreign currency and money-laundering that almost sank the NMB
Bank in 2003.
"My clients have said they will come back once
the trial
starts," Makonese said.
"Once we agree on the
trial date, Mushore and Zimuto will come
back."
Their
pledge to return follows government's decision to lift its
specification of
former NMB managing director Julius Makoni who also fled
the country after
the police launched a manhunt for him.
Government appears to
have failed to sustain its allegations
against Makoni who is currently in
the United Kingdom.
Makonese, who also represents Makoni,
told the Zimbabwe
Independent yesterday that his client would soon come back
to Zimbabwe.
"I spoke to Makoni and he said he was anxious to
come back,"
Makonese said. "I can confirm that it (Makoni's return) will be
sooner
rather than later."
Sources said Otto Chekeche,
who was among the four former NMB
Bank directors, would also return as the
state has not preferred charges
against him.
Three years
after the banking crisis, government is yet to
prefer charges against some
of the bankers who fled the country after they
were accused of engineering
the collapse of their banks.
This has triggered fears that
government's allegations against
the runaway bankers, now in self-exile in
the United Kingdom and South
Africa, were trumped up to justify the
crackdown on individuals.
Observers say the state's failure
to come up with charges shows
that the 2003-4 crackdown on the banking
sector could have been another of
government's attempts to shift the blame
for the country's economic crisis.
Another source said the
state had also failed to garner
sufficient incriminating evidence to charge
former Trust Bank directors -
Nyevero Hlupo, Christopher Goromonzi and
William Nyemba - who were specified
two years ago. The three, now based in
South Africa, have since written to
the Minister of Justice Patrick
Chinamasa to lift their specifications.
They have also
written to the Attorney-General's office to clear
them of any wrongdoing.
They want government to confirm that they are not on
the police's "wanted
list".
The source said letters had been flying back and forth
between
the bankers' lawyers and the Attorney-General's office over the
specifications. The Attorney-General's office is understood to have informed
Nyemba, Hlupo and Goromonzi that it was still analysing their cases before
it could clear them and lift their specifications.
One of
the bankers confirmed that they had applied to government
to lift their
specifications but said the case was "moving slowly". The
government has
also failed to get evidence to charge former Barbican Bank
owner Mthuli
Ncube who the Reserve Bank blames for the collapse of the
bank.
There have also been no charges against former chairman
of
Intermarket Holdings, Nicholas Vingirayi, accused of leaving a $90
billion
hole in the institution in 2004.
Zim Independent
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe said yesterday his government
was "very
worried" about the economy, but predicted Zimbabwe would ride out
an
escalating crisis he blamed on former colonial ruler
Britain.
In an interview with a group of journalists, Mugabe
rejected
charges Zimbabwe was in trouble due to state mismanagement, bad
governance
and human rights abuses - blaming instead what he called illegal
sanctions
championed by London.
Asked whether he was
worried about constantly rising consumer
prices which have left many
Zimbabweans struggling and increasingly angry,
Mugabe said: "Sure, very
worried."
"But this is because of the circumstances in which
we are ...
circumstances of an economy under siege, an economy which should
have had a
political environment to protect it from the action of our
enemies led by
Britain, imposing sanctions on us," he
added.
Mugabe said his government could have imposed a state
of
emergency to protect its economy from what he calls sabotage from both
domestic and Western opponents, but had not done so because this would have
sent a "wrong political signal".
"We decided to soldier
on ... seeking assistance from our
friends," he said.
Although Britain had the highest number of foreign companies
operating in
Zimbabwe, Tony Blair's government had isolated the country's
economy over
Harare's seizures of white-owned farms for redistribution to
black
Zimbabweans, he charged.
Mugabe said although Zimbabwe's key
agriculture output had been
lower than expected over the last few years due
to drought and economic
factors, he expected production to rise on the back
of better preparations
by both farmers and the
government.
"We expect therefore 2007 to be a good year," he
said, adding,
"inflation is now going down, starting a new turn". --
Reuter.
Zim Independent
PRESIDENT Mugabe will seek the support of regional
heads of
state to fund mediation efforts led by former Tanzanian President
Benjamin
Mkapa between Zimbabwe and Britain.
Diplomatic
sources this week said Zimbabwe was lobbying the
region to endorse the
initiative when it is tabled at the Sadc Maseru Summit
in Lesotho, scheduled
for next month.
The sources said regional heads were keen to
have Mkapa's terms
of reference spelt out as the mediation initiative
currently appears to be
Mugabe's private project.
"There
is already a buy-in from South Africa and Namibia that
this should be a
Sadc-funded project but money will only be released after
Mkapa's job
description and a structure he will be working with have been
clearly
enunciated," a diplomat said.
President Mugabe has said Mkapa
will mediate in the dispute
between Harare and London stemming from
differences over Zimbabwe's
controversial land reforms launched in 2000 and
electoral abuses.
He has said Mkapa will also address the
issue of targeted
sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe's political
leadership.
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, at
the recent
African Union Summit in the Gambia, announced that he was no
longer coming
to Zimbabwe in light of the Mkapa
initiative.
Sources yesterday said Zimbabwe had been lobbying
the Sadc Organ
on Politics, Defence and Security for the regional bloc to
bankroll the
initiative as the UN has indicated that Mkapa was not their
mediator. The
Sadc organ is led by Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba.
Wire reports on
Tuesday quoted UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe in New York as
saying the UN would
eventually have contact with Mkapa, but she stressed
that he was not a UN
mediator.
The sources said the
non-involvement of the UN suited Mugabe as
he fears the involvement of the
world body would see Zimbabwe's problems
placed before the Security Council.
The West has pushed for a Security
Council resolution in its quest to get
the international community to be
more active in addressing the Zimbabwe
crisis.
A source said Zimbabwe had already made
representations for
Mkapa's budget to be drawn up before the Maseru Summit
where the regional
leaders are expected to ratify it. The source said Sadc
heads however want
Mkapa's terms of reference to be tabled prior to the
ratification of his
operational budget. Mkapa's terms of reference have been
unclear since the
announcement of his mediation efforts. President Mugabe
though has been keen
to portray Mkapa as his ally.
However, prospects for the success of his mediation efforts in
the dispute
with Britain are already dim as Britain has said Zimbabwe's
problems are of
its own making. It is also unlikely that the European Union
and the United
States will lift sanctions so long as Mugabe pursues his
present
course.
Contrary to government press reports, Annan has given
no pledge
to have sanctions lifted as the UN was not instrumental in
imposing them. -
Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
OPPOSITION
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan
Tsvangirai says his
party's proposed Ukraine-style protest against President
Mugabe is on course
and he has urged party leaders to ensure a "resounding
public expression of
discontent".
He said the party was preparing to launch the
much-awaited "cold
season of discontent", dispelling his critics' doubts
that the MDC would go
ahead with protests as promised in
March.
Tsvangirai told party chairmen at an evaluation
meeting on the
party's preparedness to roll out anti-regime protests that he
was ready to
lead people into the streets.
"We are on our
own," Tsvangirai told delegates on Tuesday. "All
indications show that we
have to slog it out alone before we can expect any
assistance from
elsewhere. I am ready to lead the people into that decisive
era."
Tsvangirai said public expression of discontent
would help force
Mugabe and Zanu PF to the negotiating table for a
constitutional conference
that would lead to a transitional
government.
He challenged provincial chairmen to "ensure that
the minimum
numbers we expect to come out are ready".
"Strengthen the structures right to the last hamlet and growth
point.
Knit-up the weak ends and plug up possible fissures. Assure the local
leaders that the nation is fully behind them in this endeavour. The MDC
leadership is ready for a comprehensive roll-out effort," Tsvangirai
promised.
The leader of the splintered MDC has been
criticised recently
for failing to set a date for the protests but has
always defended the
delays saying the party could not afford to
fail.
Sources say the MDC is auditing its corps of marshals
for crowd
control, educating them on the need for a non-violent protest to
ensure the
nationwide parades are not infiltrated by ruling party- sponsored
thugs to
disrupt proceedings.
"Beware of the Zanu PF
militias in your communities as you
select and train your marshals for our
main programme. Their brief, as I
said earlier, is to destabilise the MDC.
They are keen to sabotage the
people's project and to infiltrate the party,
taking advantage of the
October 12 split in the leadership," he
warned.
An earlier threat to march on State House in 2003,
dubbed the
"Final Push", fizzled out, although sources in Zanu PF say the
mere threat
of protests had seriously unsettled the ruling party
leadership.
Government has been edgy since March's MDC
congress when
Tsvangirai threatened to roll out mass protests to press home
demands for
solutions to the deteriorating economic and social situation in
Zimbabwe
over the last decade
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
BONNEZIM
(Pvt) Ltd, an agro-processing arm of the
government-owned Industrial
Development Corporation (IDC), is set to take
over the controversial Kondozi
Estate in a move designed to bolster Zanu PF's
grip on the former
horticultural concern.
Bonnezim, a former subsidiary of
diversified industrial group
Murray & Roberts, was taken over by IDC
last year and is expected to lead a
consortium of indigenous businessmen in
reviving Kondozi.
Bonnezim, based in Chegutu, is currently
exporting fresh produce
to a number of international
markets.
Bonnezim managing director, a Mr A Mangena, was not
available
for comment. His mobile phone went unanswered the whole of
yesterday.
Sources at Kondozi said in mid-June Bonnezim
management was at
the estate to assess what would be needed to revive the
project and called
in former Kondozi employees to ascertain the skills base
that still remained
in the Odzi community.
"Bonnezim
announced that they were inviting potential employees
as the new developers
of Kondozi," the source said.
"Former Kondozi employees
thronged the estate management
complex, seeking re-engagement," the source
said.
Government has made the revival of Kondozi estate one
of its
priority areas under its National Economic Development Priority
Programme.
The IDC has been granted the authority to revive
Kondozi and
will be monitored by the Foreign Exchange Mobilisation and
Utilisation
taskforce.
Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono
chairs the task force.
Highly-placed sources said government
opted to cede Kondozi to
the IDC after the former owners spurned overtures
to return.
Kondozi, a major horticultural exporting
enterprise in the Odzi
district of Manicaland, was taken over by government
on Christmas Eve in
2004. Since then, much of the equipment has been looted
allegedly by senior
government officials. Much of the infrastructure has
collapsed.
Previous efforts to revive Kondozi through the
Agricultural and
Rural Development Authority and the army have
failed.
Government deployed the army under the command
agriculture
programme - Operation Maguta - to till the land. Out of the 224
hectares of
prime land, the army planted a mere 40 hectares this
season.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
THE
controversy surrounding the acquisition of Gletwyn Estate in
Harare has
taken a new twist with government expressing interest in
acquiring the farm,
after serving it with a Section 8 notice.
Gletwyn owner,
Alexander Stuart Ross, who forced government to
reverse plans to acquire the
farm through the courts, received a Section 8
notice on July 4. Nineteen
other farms around Harare have also been listed
for
acquisition.
Among the listed farms are Saturday Retreat
owned by Crest
Breeders and initially occupied by Border Gezi Housing
Cooperative, Eyecourt
owned by Mashonaland Holdings, Lochnivar registered in
the name of Rothmans
International and Carrick Creagh, owned by the Newmarch
family and initially
occupied by the Sally Mugabe Heights Housing
Cooperative.
Previous settlements on the listed properties,
some of them
dating back to the year 2000, were demolished under Operation
Murambatsvina
in May last year.
Government's retreat on
Gletwyn Estate in May had exposed policy
inconsistencies and the
shortcomings of laws hastily promulgated to
facilitate land
seizures.
Analysts said the fresh acquisition initiative was
to correct
the irregularities caused by the fast-track land reform
programme. Under the
fast-track land reform programme, government encouraged
people to invade
white-owned commercial farms purportedly to correct
colonial land ownership
imbalances. Most of the dispossessed farmers have
challenged the
expropriation in courts.
Last August's
constitutional amendment Number 17 bars citizens
from contesting the seizure
of their land in the courts. But it also makes
it clear that government
cannot take urban land for purposes of
resettlement.
"If
the state were to start seizing urban land by 'selective
nationalisation',
it is possible the property market, upon which the state
depends for many
revenues and many people depend for their livelihoods,
would collapse," Ross
said in a court application.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
GOVERNMENT has
splashed nearly $400 billion on luxury vehicles
for members of the
Anti-Corruption Commission chaired by former Comptroller
and Auditor-General
Eric Harid.
Sources said the cash-strapped Zimbabwe
government bought nine
Mercedes Benz vehicles for the commissioners at a
cost of $44 billion each.
The purchase follows reports that
the government is spending
more than $500 billion providing loans for
senators to purchase all-terrain
vehicles. The Anti-Corruption Commission is
currently without a secretariat.
Nor does it have a departmental
head.
In an interview this week, Harid referred all questions
to the
Minister of State Enterprises, Anti-Corruption and Anti-Monopolies,
Paul
Mangwana.
Mangwana defended the move to acquire
vehicles for the
commissioners who include lawyers Johannes Tomana and
Kuziwa Nyamwanza,
retired brigadier Elasto Madzingira, Alice Nkomo and
Rungano Wutaunashe.
"Do you want them to walk on foot? Are
you sure they should be
pedestrians?" Mangwana asked.
"They must drive. Their position is equivalent to judges. They
are a
constitutional commission," Mangwana said.
He said the
commission was doing a great job, recently
initiating a public education
programme and performing a system audit at the
Grain Marketing
Board.
"They came up with certain findings at the grain
utility and
government is studying them," Mangwana said.
He said the commissioners had interviewed people for various
posts who
should have started last week.
"They even recruited heads of
department. Government had been
seconding a secretariat from other
ministries."
In 2004 and 2005 government launched a crusade
against
corruption in high places, viewed by many people as an election
gimmick that
has since lost steam.
Senior politicians and
high-ranking business executives who
include former Finance minister Chris
Kuruneri and one-time Zanu PF Harare
aspiring mayoral candidate and Telecel
boss, James Makamba, were arrested on
charges of externalising foreign
currency.
Both Makamba and Kuruneri's cases still remain
unconcluded.
Kuruneri is currently under house arrest while
Makamba has fled
the country.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
ZANU PF's central committee is set to
make a decision on Harare
commission chairperson Sekesai Makwavarara's
future today.
The ruling party's secretary for Information
Nathan Shamuyarira
yesterday told the Zimbabwe Independent that Makwavarara
was one of the top
issues at the central committee's meeting today
considering the concerns
raised by the party's Harare province and
ratepayers.
"It's one of the issues we are going to discuss
in the central
committee tomorrow (today)," Shamuyarira said yesterday.
"Phone me on
Saturday, I will be in a position to comment on the
matter."
Divisions amongst Zanu PF loyalists over the mayoral
issue have
widened over the past month, with party cadres questioning
Makwavarara's
qualifications and party credentials, particularly for someone
who abandoned
it to join the opposition MDC nearly six years ago.
Highly-placed sources in
the ruling party said the Zanu PF Harare provincial
executive's vote of no
confidence in Makwavarara had forced the politburo to
intervene by setting
up a committee to probe her on the allegations brought
up by Harare.
"The central committee will consider the
findings of the
committee and make a decision on Makwavarara's future," a
source said.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
THE loneliness of
security guards protecting factory premises
used to be confined to weekends
when most firms closed.
Now there appears to be little or no
difference what day of the
week it is.
Cynics say nothing
is as boring as protecting an empty factory
except guarding an old
grave.
A guard along Craig Allen Road in the Ardbennie
industrial sites
who was twiddling his thumbs to avoid dozing off summed up
the serious
presence that Zimbabwe industry used to exude and the pervasive
economic
decay that has replaced it over the past half
decade.
Economic analysts have attributed the resilience of
Zimbabwe's
economy to a legacy of a robust industrial base bequeathed to
President
Robert Mugabe's government by Ian Smith's Rhodesian
regime.
They blame President Mugabe for failing to keep the
family
silverware intact.
Five years ago economic
analysts predicted the Zimbabwean
government faced a deepening economic
crisis and expressed apprehension that
it was a matter of time before the
economy slid down the tubes.
And the International Monetary
Fund predicted a further hurtle
towards collapse unless harsher fiscal
measures were urgently adopted.
Overly optimistic politicians
dismissed the predictions as
imperialist distractions.
But if any one doubted the predictions, the current derelict
state of
industrial premises and factories in Zimbabwe's capital provides
ample
proof.
Industrial premises that have been left to fray at the
seams now
show signs that the rot has finally settled in.
The country's economic performance is summed up in commonplace
factory
closures due to a hostile economic climate in which firms have been
forced
to operate.
Walk along some of the railway networks that
branched into
factories delivering raw materials or finished goods and see
normal glint of
metal grinding on metal replaced by accumulating freckles of
rust for lack
of anything to roll in or out.
A grinding
shortage of foreign currency has assumed such
desperate proportions that
foreign firms are very reluctant to trade with
the
country.
"We used to export tractors and agricultural
implements to
Zimbabwe and bought tobacco in return," said Australian
ambassador to
Zimbabwe, Jon Sheppard, in response to government accusations
that the
country's economic problems emanated from sanctions imposed by
Western
governments.
"Zimbabwe no longer has the foreign
currency to buy equipment
nor sufficient tobacco to export to generate hard
currency," he said.
Many businesses have been compelled to
trade on the parallel
market at almost double the official exchange rate in
order to obtain the
foreign currency they need to replenish raw materials
and continue operating
at full strength.
Some have been
forced to reduce working hours either due to lack
of raw materials or thrown
in the towel and shut shop altogether.
Contrast this with
desperate retrenchees who clutter the
counters at the Registrar of Companies
offices daily in a heroic bid to
register companies but invariably turn
subsistence traders and one begins to
appreciate the economic rut that
Zimbabwe's skewed economic policies have
firmly stuck the country
in.
More significant is the impact the economy has made on
the lives
of ordinary Zimbabweans given the dependence ratio of each
worker.
"We still expect employers to contribute to the
social security
fund as long as the workers have a contract with the
employer," says
Philemon Shereni, spokesman for the National Social Security
Authority
(NSSA).
Shereni admits retrenchments affect
NSSA's revenue base but
added that this would be counterbalanced by revenue
from new farmers.
However, the new farmers play hard ball
when it comes to meeting
their obligations.
Studies have
concluded that for every worker formally employed,
he or she supports seven
to eight people on average.
Wellington Chibhebhe,
secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress
of Trade Unions (ZCTU), agreed
that retrenchments adversely affected the
labour body's operations due to a
shrinking membership base.
He says at its peak the ZCTU
membership stood at 500 000 but has
shrunk to 143 000 due to factory and
farm invasions.
Production of gold - one of the main foreign
currency earners -
dropped drastically, forcing mining companies to suspend
mining explorations
because of the harsh economic conditions. Several of the
country's gold
mines are facing closure.
The tourism
sector, which produces 6% of gross domestic product
and used to generate an
estimated US$400 million a year is gradually falling
to
pieces.
Analysts say 100 tour operators have shut shop,
disgorging at
least 5 000 workers onto the streets.
Thousands of Zimbabwean nationals have fled from economic
hardships to live
abroad.
Still the Zimbabwean economy limps
on.
Leader of the splintered MDC faction, Morgan Tsvangirai,
says
Mugabe's intransigent defiance of local and international opinion has
become
the primary cause of Zimbabwe's economic collapse. Other critics
point to
disregard for the rule of law, ministerial outbursts directed at
the
business sector and macroeconomic distortions which show no sign of
improvement.
One way or another it spells
ruin.
Zim Independent
SOUTH African platinum producer Impala Platinum says
output at
its concerns in Zimbabwe rose in the first half of this year and
that plans
for further expansion at the mines are on
track.
In an investor presentation posted on its website and
seen by
Reuter yesterday, Implats said production at Zimplats, in which it
has a
majority shareholding, was at 45 000 ounces of refined platinum in the
first
half of 2006, up 15% over the same period last
year.
Its Mimosa mine, Zimbabwe's second largest platinum
producer
after Zimplats, accounted for 35 000 ounces of the metal in the
first six
months this year, compared to 28 000 ounces during the same period
in 2005.
Implats jointly owns Mimosa with Aquarius
Platinum.
The presentation said a transition to underground
mining
operations was underway at Zimplats with a feasibility study on
expanding
platinum output to 145 000 ounces per year to be submitted to the
board.
The planned expansion of production at Mimosa to 80
000 ounces
of platinum, compared to 61 000 ounces in 2005, was on track, and
the mine
had potential for a further increase to 130 000 ounces, it
said.
In May, Mimosa's managing director Alex Mhembere said
the firm
would start exploration for a new mine next year to complement its
existing
one, which has a lifespan of 20 years.
Zimbabwe
has the world's second-richest resources of platinum
after South Africa, the
biggest producer of the metal.
But the country's mining
sector was shaken after President
Robert Mugabe's government said earlier
this year it planned to acquire a
51% stake in foreign-owned mines to
advance its black empowerment programme.
However, Implats
said last month Zimbabwe would give it credit
for building roads and houses
to count towards the local ownership rules,
which analysts say could chase
away much-needed foreign investment.
Implats also sealed a
deal to get credits towards the
requirements which have not yet come into
law by giving up some unused
mining claims in Zimbabwe.
This means only a modest equity stake would have to be
transferred to the
government or local investors. -- Reuter.
Zim Independent
By Admire Mavolwane
THE
upcoming monetary policy review statement is definitely the
talk of the
town. The big question is; what is the governor going to say?
Almost every
section of the economy has drawn up a wish list of measures and
initiatives
they expect from the governor. In more normal economies, such an
event would
only arouse speculation on whether interest rates would be
raised or reduced
and by how many points. In this instance interest rates
will be used as a
tool to address inflation/deflation pressures; exchange
rate movements; and
a mechanism to poke, or put brakes on the economy. Our
scenario is unique
because the governor is expected to address a whole
plethora of issues, some
of them of a quasi-fiscal nature.
Gold miners through the
Chamber of Mines are reported to have
written a letter to the governor
seeking, or appealing for an immediate
review, possibly in the statement, of
the gold price from its current level
of $2,5 billion/kg to $6,8 billion/kg.
The request came against the
background of a 24,7% decrease in gold
production during the period January
to April, with a variety of factors
being cited as major causes of the fall
in production.
Chief amongst these were intermittent power outages with Zesa
being accused
of not sticking to load-shedding schedules thus affecting
production
planning, as well as the unfavourable gold pricing structure.
Exporters are obviously calling for a review of the exchange
rate which
since January 24 has been more or less stagnant at roughly $100
000 to the
US dollar. Had the local unit followed the inflation trends, it
would be
trading at approximately $277 000 to the US dollar on the official
market.
This calculation is based on the compounded month-on-month inflation
rates
from February to June of 178%.
At the beginning of the year,
the premium of the parallel market
rate over the interbank exchange rate had
reduced to less than 25%, but has
since widened to over 300%. The difference
between the official exchange
rate and the parallel market rate, the latter
being the rate used by
suppliers for pricing goods, is deemed to be an
unofficial export tax.
Industry and the generality of the real economy are
also hoping for a return
to one economy for all through the removal of all
multiple exchange rates,
interest rates, fuel prices and other distortions
which give rise to
arbitrage opportunities.
The
agricultural sector will as usual be lobbying for cheap
funding and inputs.
Already the tobacco farming sector is on record as
demanding roughly between
$15 and $18 trillion for inputs for the coming
season. The justification
being that the cost of producing a hectare of
tobacco has increased from
$200 million last year to $1,4 billion, a figure
arrived at using official
fuel prices.
Using non-subsidised fuel the cost would be in
excess of $2
billion per hectare, they say. In the meantime the CEO of
Agribank was
quoted in a daily newspaper on June 29 as saying that the
agriculture
lending bank had disbursed $4,5 trillion under the Agriculture
Sector
Productivity Enhancement Facility since the beginning of the year. So
in
adding to the $5,62 trillion, a total of over $10 trillion has been
disbursed under the facility whose limit was initially set at $7 trillion.
For all intents and purposes though, subsidised agriculture lending and
fuel, under whatever name, looks set to be with us for a long time to
come.
The common man will be hoping that the 8,9 percentage
points
decline in the year-on-year inflation rate for June to 1 184,6% from
the
previous month's rate of 1 193,5% signals the beginning of a sustainable
downward trend in inflation. A further dip in the inflation rate for July is
anticipated, mainly for mathematical reasons rather than anything else. July
last year with a then unprecedented 47% month-on-month jump heralded the
commencement of the inflation spiral that we are in the midst of right
now.
We do not expect a similar leap, hence the decline
expected in
July. What the populace is also appealing for is a concrete and
comprehensive package of measures to "tackl"' inflation. When the enemy is
down, even when it is not out of our own making, we may as well make the
most of it.
Although the three-month target for the
mobilisation of US$2,5
billion is not yet up, various interest groups will
be eagerly waiting for
an update on the successes and failures of the
National Economic Development
Priority Programme. As of June 11 US$350
million is reported to have been
raised. On its launch, the programme was
described as "action orientated and
results based". The nation thus eagerly
awaits an update on the progress
towards the targets and the fate of those
taskforces who appear to be facing
challenges in meeting their deadlines, as
would be expected in any
results-based scheme of
assessment.
Investors will be hoping that the arbitrary and
frequent policy
changes, especially regarding interest rates, will soon be a
thing of the
past. They would be praying for a well thoughtout and
enunciated interest
rate policy, which hopefully will be in force for the
remainder of the year.
Interest rate policies have in recent times exhibited
a high degree of
perishability, with huge losses and/or profits being
incurred or realised as
a result. Those caught wrong-footed always cry foul,
a situation which does
not augur well for the smooth operation of the
markets.
However, since the beginning of the month, stock
market
speculators seem to have reached a conclusion that there will be no
surprises in the monetary policy review statement. They have already started
taking positions in the blue chip stocks Old Mutual, Delta, PPC, Innscor,
Econet and Meikles, thus in a way revealing their anxieties on the future of
the economy and the exchange rate.
The big pull factor of
these counters has seen the industrial
index gaining 13,1 percentage points
in the past eight trading days to close
this Wednesday at an all-time high
of 62 038 655,76 points. It is now only a
matter of time before we know
whether the speculators have, this time
around, accurately second-guessed
the governor. In the meantime the bulls
are on a rampage, but no doubt some
will be caught out like what happened at
the end of January this
year.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
THE industrial index
breached the 60 million point mark on
Tuesday as bulls raged on the equities
market after discounting reports
inflation had eased from an all-time high
touched in May.
The key index surged to 60 110 638,05 points
on Tuesday after
having surpassed a 50 million-point all-time high the
previous week.
The index gained a further 1 928 017,71 points
to reach 62 038
655,76 points on Wednesday, and analysts said sentiment was
likely to remain
bullish on the equities market after the central bank began
rejecting
treasury bill bids asking for high interest
rates.
The mining index also breached the 20 million-point
psychological barrier, pushed by gains in Rio Tinto and
Bindura.
Rio Tinto gained $135 000 (27,0%) to $635 000, while
Bindura
added $5 000 (25,0%) to close at $25 000.
The
mining index gained 2,99% or 26 189,02 points on Wednesday
to reach 21 587
530,40 points on Wednesday.
Analysts said the money market
had been awash with cash,
prompting short-term rates to fall and forcing
investors to move funds into
other investments like property and
equities.
The money market was in surplus to the tune of $875
billion on
Tuesday.
"Interest rates are currently low on
the market due to TB
maturities which left the money market awash with
money," said Farai
Dyirakumunda, an analyst with Interfin
Research.
Consequently, he said, this triggered aggressive
buying on the
bourse, pushing the equities market to higher
levels.
Investments on 30-day paper declined to around 100%
from around
350%.
The index reached the 60 million-point
mark a day after the
announcement of inflation figures by the Central
Statistical Office.
The June year-on-year inflation rate
decelerated by 9,5
percentage points from 1 193,5% to 1
184%.
Dyirakumunda said the stock market's stellar
performance over
the past two weeks had also been caused by the sharp
depreciation of the
local currency on the parallel
market.
"Movements of the Zimbabwe dollar exchange rate is
also a
factor," he said.
Whilst the greenback is
currently trading at around $450 000 on
the parallel market, it is pegged at
$101 195 on the official market.
Dyirakumunda said
dually-listed counters had gained
significantly from the local currency's
loss of value on the parallel
market.
"Dually-listed
counters have benefited because the ZSE share
price reflects the exchange
rate difference," he said.
The ZSE, one of the few remaining
secure investment options in
the country, is gaining momentum after a recent
dispute between stockbrokers
and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority over payment
of Value Added Tax.
The ZSE is planning to establish a
secondary market for small
and medium-scale enterprises , a move that will
enhance activity and create
cheap cash-raising avenues for small
enterprises.
The bourse provides a platform for raising
capital for both
Zimbabwean and international companies through the issuance
of equity,
debentures and depository receipts.
A number
of listed companies have embarked on rights issues to
raise cash for
re-capitalisation or expansion.
Zim Independent
Tendai Mukandi
ZIMBABWE'S domestic business climate remains the most
unfavourable both in
the region and beyond, an Institute of Development
Studies (IDS) report has
revealed.
The report, prepared to investigate business and
other
stakeholders' perceptions on the country's regional integration, was
prepared by Benson Zwizwai, deputy director of the IDS at the University of
Zimbabwe.
"The Zimbabwean business climate was rated
second to last.. Not
a single response rated the domestic business climate
as very favourable,"
the report said.
Zimbabwe is
currently experiencing its worst economic crisis
since Independence from
Britain in 1980.
Hundreds of companies have closed shop due
to acute foreign
currency and fuel shortages, leaving thousands of people
jobless.
Unemployment is estimated at over 80% by independent
economists,
but the government is adamant the independent forecasts are
exaggerated and
puts unemployment figures at 9%.
A host
of problems, including inflation currently at over 1 000%
and dwindling
agricultural production, have added to the woes afflicting the
economy,
forcing some companies to relocate to stable economies like South
Africa,
Botswana and Zambia.
The report said southern neighbour South
Africa had the most
favourable business climate.
Asia,
with which President Robert Mugabe's government has
decided to develop
economic ties to spite the West which has imposed
targeted sanctions against
him and members of his regime, was noted as the
second major competitor
after South Africa.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
GOVERNMENT'S
decision to borrow funds from the domestic market
is crowding out the
private sector, resulting in falling productivity
levels, property
consultants, CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), have said.
In a report
on the central business district's property market
for the first quarter of
2006, CBRE said reduced production had affected
exports earnings, worsening
the foreign currency shortages in the country.
Government,
which borrows for non-productive purposes to finance
recurrent expenditure,
has increased its recourse to the domestic market,
swelling domestic debt to
over $48 trillion in June.
"Without any technical assistance
from the Bretton Woods
institutions.government has resorted to financing its
budget through
borrowing from the banking system thereby crowding out the
private sector
from accessing finance for production resulting in less goods
being
produced," said CBRE in the report.
The report said
the immediate implication of reduced production
was the country's inability
to generate adequate foreign currency required
to meet its import
requirements.
"Production of most goods for export entails
the importation of
raw materials and liquid fuels using foreign currency,"
said the report.
It said foreign currency was required to
acquire spare parts for
refurbishing existing
infrastructure.
The report further said the situation had
been further worsened
by the withdrawal of credit lines by foreign banks and
the suspension of
donor aid to the country.
"With an
ever-increasing budget deficit in the face of reduced
foreign currency
reserves, the balance-of-payments support remains critical
if the country is
to attain macroeconomic stability," the report said.
The
report said as a result of these developments, the country's
gross domestic
product (GDP) had experienced negative growth, while interest
rates on bank
lending had soared.
Since the year 2000, following the
introduction the land reform
programme, Zimbabwe's GDP has been
deteriorating.
GDP last year contracted by about 4,1% from
2,1% in the previous
year. The report said these negative developments in
the economy had led to
the unprecedented depreciation of the Zimbabwe dollar
against major
currencies.
Zim Independent
Tendai Mukandi
SERIOUS
disagreements have emerged among white farmers after
government this week
refuted earlier claims by the Commercial Farmers Union
(CFU) that the
organisation was collaborating with the state to bring back
some of the
farmers who lost their properties since the start of the land
reform
programme six years ago.
The CFU had claimed that it had
changed its stance towards
government's land reform initiative and submitted
up to 200 applications on
behalf of its members for consideration as A2
farmers.
The claim by CFU president Doug Taylor-Freeme and
his deputy
Trevor Gifford has attracted serious criticism from some of the
affected
farmers, who have said it was a "great betrayal to all the people
who have
suffered, died and been murdered in the past six
years".
Ministers of Lands and Agriculture Joseph Made, State
Security,
Lands and Land Resettlement, Didymus Mutasa and Special Affairs
Responsible
for Land, Flora Bhuka, have been widely quoted in recent media
reports as
confirming that farmers would be invited back.
But Mutasa this week denied ever issuing such a statement on the
issue.
"Vanondinyepera (They are lying) I have never
spoken to any
foreign journalist and all their claims are wrong." Mutasa
said.
"No white farmer is being invited back. And why should
we offer
them such long leases?"
Mutasa said all
government was doing was rationalising the sizes
of properties still
occupied by the remaining white farmers.
If the state
considers that the farm is too big then it is going
to be reduced, Mutasa
said.
"For instance farmers in Region 1 such as those in
Nyanga will
have slightly smaller farms than those in Region 2 and farmers
in Region 3
will also have slightly smaller farms than those in Region 4.
The biggest
farms are expected to be in Region 5."
Mutasa
said the remaining white commercial farmers were expected
to stay on the
property long enough to satisfy government of their
commitment and may,
after getting offer letters, be invited to apply for
leases
later.
"That is what is happening. All the other claims that
you heard
are wrong."
Bhuka was quoted by the state media
as saying: "So far about 500
of the remaining 927 white farmers have applied
and their applications are
being considered."
Similarly,
Mutasa reportedly said: "We hope that these white
farmers will refrain from
doing agriculture in a political way, they must
just be farmers and desist
from politics on the farms."
Mutasa's denial throws the CFU
into a quandary as other farmer
representative organisations have distanced
themselves from the initiative.
Last week, Mac Crawford,
president of the Southern Africa
Commercial Farmers Alliance lashed out at
the CFU labelling the organisation
a "Zanu PF puppet" for failing to protect
the interests of the remaining
farmers.
Zim Independent
HWANGE Colliery Company's Chaba open cast mine has
significantly
improved its coal production over the past three months, the
company
announced last week.
Coal output from Chaba went
up to 117 000 tonnes in June from 22
000 tonnes in April.
The beleaguered coal miner said in an update to its customers
that Chaba and
the 3 Main underground mine were "fully operational".
"Both
should see improved production as two shuttle cars are
delivered to the
underground mine and 10 haulage trucks delivered to Chaba
open cast mines
during the months of July and August," said Hwange in the
update signed by
Clifford Nkomo, the marketing and public relations manager.
"Thereafter production is expected to increase (to) levels which
exceed
national demand," the company said.
Zimbabwe has been
battling acute coal shortages that have forced
many companies - the bulk of
which are involved in industrial and
agricultural processes - to resort to
imports from Botswana and South
Africa.
Inadequate coal
supplies have affected the country's winter
wheat crop, and power utility,
Zesa, has complained that power generation
had been heavily affected by
inadequate coal supplies from Hwange.Steel
maker Zisco also recently said it
was working at 50% capacity because of
poor coal supplies. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Lesley Moyo
ECONOMIC analysts
this week said delegates to the forthcoming
two-day Confederation of
Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) congress should press
government to adopt
market-driven reforms and seek the resolution to the
country's six-year
economic crisis.
The analysts said the captains of industry
had to tackle issues
affecting the country's economy and constrain
productivity.
Industrial operations have been heavily
constrained by an
economic crisis precipitated by record inflation levels
and acute shortages
of fuel, foreign currency and basic food
items.
Economic commentator Eric Bloch said the
industrialists should
come up with policies that address issues affecting
industry.
"The congress must provide solutions that help
bring down
ever-escalating inflation, improve labour relations and push for
a
market-driven economy," Bloch said.
John Robertson
agreed, saying: "Issues such as the scarcity of
foreign currency, limited
supply of electricity, clean water, telephone
services and new investment
opportunities should be clearly articulated
during the
congress."
The CZI congress will run from July 26 to 28 July
at the
Bulawayo Rainbow Hotel.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
ALTHOUGH the
property market remains the best hedge against
inflation, escalating
construction costs spurred by galloping inflation
continue to dampen
home-seekers' dreams and threaten the success of
government's housing
projects.
Since January construction costs have increased
three-fold.
According to a report on the performance of the
Harare property
market in the first quarter of 2006, produced by a leading
property firm,
the high building costs have become an obstacle to property
development,
particularly residential.
"The fact that
there are only a few residential developments is
largely due to the costs of
construction," said the report.
While houses in high-density
suburbs cost between $10 billion
and $15 billion, the report said the cost
of building the same house now
stood at between $50 million and $65 million
per square metre.
The report said the cost of building a
house in the
medium-density residential areas ranged from $90 million to
$110 million per
square metre and constructing a house in the low-density
now costs between
$125 million and $130 million per square
metre.
Property analysts said this development would
negatively impact
on government's housing projects, particularly Operation
Garikai/Hlalani
Kuhle, hastily put up by the state in a vain effort to undo
untold damage it
had inflicted on the urban poor.
Under
Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle, government projected
constructing 20 000
housing units nationwide by December last year.
But so far it
is struggling to complete the first 2 000 units
due to lack of funds. It has
been compelled to hand over the houses without
floors or
windowpanes.
"The increase in construction costs simply means
that government
should budget more," said Boysen Mutembwa, a director at
Bard Real Estate.
He said government might not be able to
complete the projects
because of rising costs.
Mutembwa
said there were now serious distortions in the property
market. He said
unlike in the past, costs of building a property were now
equal to its value
and are threatening to surpass it.
"People chose to build on
their own and this was cheaper than
buying a standing property. Now the
values are at par," he explained.
Mutembwa added that the
Homelink housing scheme had failed to
perform to
expectations.
Government, through the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe, had launched
Homelink to persuade !Zimbabweans living in the
diaspora to invest their
foreign currency earnings in property development
back home.
However, due to the poor official exchange rate,
the initiative
failed to bear fruit.
"Homelink will not
work because of the poor exchange rate,"
economic analyst John Robertson
said.
He said Zimbabweans working abroad chose to send their
money
through other channels because of the huge disparity between the
interbank
and parallel market exchange rates.
Major
currencies like the US dollar and British pound are
trading at US$1:$450 000
£1:$700 000 respectively on the parallel market
compared to US$1:$101 195
and £1:$186 000 on the official interbank market.
"Yes,
Zimbabweans in the diaspora are building houses, but not
through Homelink,"
said Robertson.
While home-seekers have traditionally
purchased or built houses
through accessing mortgage loans, the gap between
mortgage loans currently
on offer and the prevailing property prices make it
unwise to borrow.
"Sorry sir, but you only qualify for a
mortgage of $2,3
billion," an executive earning a $500 million monthly
salary is told by a
mortgage officer at a local building
society.
At another mortgage lending institution individuals,
mostly
executives, earning a monthly salary of $1 billion, qualify for a
$4,6
billion mortgage at an annual interest of 68%.
The
loan is repayable over a 25-year period.
In the low-density
suburbs house prices range from $75 billion
to $100 billion and between $15
billion and $75 billion in the
medium-density areas.
When
asked how the mortgage lending business was performing, a
mortgage officer
said they had experienced a major decline in business and
were now lending
only to corporates.
"Corporates are now borrowing from us.
They are running away
from commercial banks' exorbitant interest rates," the
officer said. Another
mortgage lender gives a mortgage of $1,4 billion to an
individual earning a
salary of $1 billion per month with monthly repayments
of $118 million.
However, a majority of ordinary workers earn
far less than $50
million per month.
Robertson said it
was difficult to fund property purchases
through
mortgages.
According to a property expert report, mortgage
loan
qualifications have deteriorated.
"Mortgage loan
qualification has significantly diminished,
especially for individual
borrowers due to high prices of houses, high
building costs, high interest
rates and the high cost of living," said the
report.
It
said that according to information from the Association of
Building
Societies, default on mortgage repayments averaged 5,5% of total
residential
mortgage accounts on a month-on-month basis in 2005.
The
report said the three major building societies advanced
approximately $476
billion to 1 275 residential property applicants.
It added
that the high costs had become a disincentive to
investment in the office
market.
"Investment in the office market had been stagnant
throughout
the year 2005 due to the high costs."
Building
costs for properties in the office market continued to
escalate rapidly,
rising from $17,5 million per square metre in January 2005
to between $70
million and $100 million per square metre as by December
2005.
Apart from the threat posed by the high building
costs, the
property market remains sluggish due to lack of investment in new
projects.
Investors are reluctant to venture into the
property market, as
there are no meaningful returns. This has led to serious
shortage of
accommodation. "It has become too risky for institutions to
undertake new
building projects," property market experts
say.
"In the short- to medium-term there is likely to be very
few, if
any, new developments in the industry due to the harsh macroeconomic
environment," the report said.
Apart from the high input
costs, another major obstacle to
investment in this sector has been the
government controls that impose
limits on rentals.
While
properties like the Joina Centre have remained unfinished
for more than five
years, there has not been any significant investment in
residential property
over the same time.
Although most leases are based on the net
leasing concept, where
the tenant pays for all the operational costs,
property owners have not been
able to increase rentals at the same pace as
that of inflation.
Zim Independent
By Bridget Sibanda
IT is
a show that would make the devil smile.
Beautiful young
ladies who would enter without any debate if
looks and dressing were a
passport to heaven prowl Tropicana Club in the
capital city of
Zimbabwe.
Their mission is only complete when they have cash
in their
pockets.
Clad in skimpy outfits, one would be
forgiven for believing this
to be a fashion show. The majority wear bouncy
body tops and flesh-hugging
hipster jeans, while others put on transparent
blouses.
It's a tight contest.
Scratch the
surface of this façade and you discover that below
is a female student
trying to fight above her weight to attract customers in
the smoke-filled
nightclub.
It's hard to pick one as the best but it's easy to
tell that
these are business-minded people.
Shimmy-shammying their lower backsides in suggestive movements
or
intermittently freshening their make-up, they chatter as if
absent-mindedly
about nothing in particular.
Discuss the price of sex and
faces suddenly light up.
This is the dilemma of college
students who engage in the oldest
profession of hawking sex to meet or
augment inadequate financial grants at
tertiary
institutions.
It takes more than just a hard look to convince
one that these
are hard-pressed students the way they
dress.
Chipo Machenjedza, a second year human resources
student at the
University of Zimbabwe, whose parents perished in a car
accident in 2000,
explained how she got entrapped in commercial
sex.
"I came to Harare three years ago without any intention
of
joining prostitution."
Chipo says her uncle adopted
her and two of her siblings,
sending them all to school.
"I passed 'A' level and secured a place at UZ," she explains.
But tragedy struck again for Chipo.
"Last year my uncle died
after a short illness and my aunt could
not afford the fees for the three of
us as well as for her own children
because she is unemployed," Chipo
says.
"Naturally I risked dropping out of college until a
friend at
college introduced me to this profession."
Chipo says she finds it worth the risk since she is able to pay
her fees and
those of her two brothers.
But she admits her conscience is
permanently in turmoil.
"Prostitution is a disreputable
profession. But what else could
I do when I was on the verge of starvation
and dropping out of college?"
Chipo asked. "And business is not bad at all,"
she adds.
Chipo reveals that most of her clients are
businessmen.
"Businessmen are good clients because they pay
handsomely for
services. At times they give me more than I would have
charged. Besides they
take us to expensive hotels for the
night."
She stops and takes a long sip from a bottle of
beer.
"Life is difficult for us and the loans that government
gives us
at college are meaningless. The money is not enough to sustain one
for a
month. So we have to find alternative sources," Chipo
said.
Other female students in similar predicaments
interviewed at the
UZ said men pay "huge amounts of money for unprotected
sex".
Both male and female students at tertiary institutions
are
reportedly involved in transactional sex for luxury
goods.
"It is common knowledge that students live on
shoestring budgets
and are likely to be tempted by any monetary inducements
from older lovers,"
said Tatenda Muloyi, a student at Harare
Polytechnic.
A new phenomenon, known in the students'
language as the "slave
trade syndrome" has also arisen.
Male students are used as "procurers" of female partners for
older men in
return for money, tickets to live shows or nightclubs, as well
as
food.
And because most universities and colleges cannot
provide
accommodation for all students, many have to rent accommodation in
nearby
working-class suburbs.
A room costs between $2
million and $3 million a month and often
four students are forced to share a
room at $2 million each.
Female students have resorted to
cohabitation with older men who
rent them a flat or a house in return for
sex.
Karen Takaro (22), a business studies student from
Midlands
State University, says she needs about $2,5 million for rent a
month, money
for food and transport from town to college every
day.
She says her parents cannot afford to pay all this plus
tuition
fees.
"Last semester we paid $28 million and next
semester I'm told we
will be paying about $120 million."
Karen openly admits: "To help myself I engaged in prostitution
so that I
supplement the grants we are given at school. For a two-hour
session I
charge $2 million and for the whole night I need about $6
million."
Despite the great risk of contracting the HIV
virus, the
students are prepared to engage in unprotected sex when clients
insist.
The number of girls who are engaged in prostitution
is
increasing, reflecting the deepening economic and social crisis gripping
Zimbabwe since 2000.
Recently concerned parents met at
Stodart Hall in Harare for
public discussion on the rising cost of education
in Zimbabwe and its
implications on national development. Speakers agreed
that government had
lost its moral legitimacy by increasing tuition fees to
levels that prohibit
a majority of students from attaining professional
academic education, a
reversal of a fundamental tool for
development.
In a report presented to parliament recently,
the portfolio
committee on Education, Sport and Culture chaired by MDC
legislator for
Seke, Fidelis Mhashu, noted that a number of both female and
male students
had quit their studies over the past few months because they
could no longer
afford to pay their fees.
The committee
said 34 students had dropped out of their studies
at Midlands State
University as they could no longer afford the fees.
Economic
hardships brought about by the recent increase in
tuition fees at state
universities and colleges have driven female students
into prostitution to
make ends meet, the committee heard.
"Some female students
have been forced to resort to cohabiting
and prostitution to raise money.
Education is now a preserve for the rich,"
says the parliamentary
report.
Zim Independent
By Phillip Pasirayi
THE
appointment of former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa to
mediate in the
Zimbabwean crisis has produced mixed reactions regarding his
terms of
reference, the definition of the crisis and the sincerity of
President
Robert Mugabe in resolving the political impasse.
For the
past five years, Zimbabwe's international relations have
been in a sorry
state resulting in some players within the international
community - notably
the European Union (EU) and the Commonwealth -
ostracising the country for
human rights abuses and the absence of the rule
of law.
In an interview with a government mouthpiece last week, Rtd Wing
Commander
Cletus Mafongoya, who teaches international relations at the
University of
Zimbabwe, argued that the origins of the Zimbabwean crisis lie
in
differences between Britain and Zimbabwe over the land reform
programme.
Mafongoya told the Sunday Mail: "We are not
surprised by the
stance taken by Britain. They don't want to accept that the
land issue is at
the core of our problems and they want to shift the debate
to issues of
governance and the rule of law."
Mafongoya
was referring to a statement that had been issued
earlier in the week by the
first secretary at the British Embassy in Harare,
Gillian Dare, who said
that the problems facing Zimbabwe were about "bad
policy" and not bilateral
problems between Britain and Zimbabwe.
Another lecturer,
Simon Badza, who was quoted in the same Sunday
Mail story, contends that
there is no consensus regarding the origins of the
Zimbabwean
crisis.
"There is no common perception of the problem between
the two
countries, so it's difficult to agree on the mediation process.
Zimbabwe
says it's a bilateral issue but the British will find ways of
evading the
issue," Badza argued.
Although the Zimbabwean
crisis is widely reported, it is perhaps
the most mistold. Part of the
problem has been a deliberate process that the
government embarked upon to
formulate its foreign relations around the land
question in the past few
years. The land issue since the colonial days has
been used as a rallying
point to whip up people's emotions in Zimbabwe.
In the
post-colonial era, the land debate has been hijacked by
the selfish and
corrupt ruling elite that monopolises land and the debate
about the nature
of land problems that the country is facing in a bid to
gain political
mileage over the opposition and the so-called agents of
neo-colonialism.
There is always a problem of failing to
articulate that the
problems of governance and the rule of law that Zimbabwe
is being ostracised
for by the EU and the Commonwealth are indivisibly
linked to the land issue.
Even with the fast-track land
reform programme that the
government embarked on in 2001, there is evidence
of what I want to term the
boomerang effect, whereby the chaotic land reform
exercise triggered or
exacerbated the human rights and governance problems
that the country is
grappling with.
A more sober
reflection on the ever-deteriorating situation in
Zimbabwe will then lead
one to conclude that as much as the ill-conceived
land reform exercise is
responsible for the crisis, issues of governance and
the rule of law are key
and interwoven with the land issue.
The Zimbabwean crisis is
multi-layered and cannot be
sufficiently articulated through the land issue
alone. That the land issue
is central to the problems facing Zimbabwe is no
point of disputation but it
is the Zanu PF government that must be blamed
for implementing an
ill-conceived and unsustainable land reform programme
that was largely
motivated by the need to appease the electorate as opposed
to achieving
economic prosperity.
The problems enveloping
our country are of our own making and
have everything to do with abuse of
power and public office by the ruling
elite.
The chaotic
manner in which the land reform programme was
implemented and the human
rights abuses, including the murder of commercial
farmers and the failure by
government to provide technical support and
resources to the newly resettled
farmers, only made the situation worse.
This, contrary to the arguments of
some academics, makes the Zimbabwean
crisis man-made and domestic rather
than bilateral.
Britain adopted a hands-off approach when it
realised that the
manner in which the government of Zimbabwe proposed to
implement the land
reform programme was not in any way meant to achieve
economic prosperity.
This is the sort of background that must
inform any process of
mediation aimed at averting further collapse in
Zimbabwe.
Since the crisis has everything to do with the land
reform
programme, governance, human rights abuses and the rule of law, it is
imperative for the ruling Zanu PF party to abandon the rhetoric of empty
pan-Africanism and resuscitate dialogue with the opposition, the church and
civil society in order to put in place a transitional mechanism that will
steer the country on an interim basis until such time there are put in place
respectable institutions to replace the current abusive
ones.
The government must not spurn this golden opportunity
as it has
done before by refusing to work with former Mozambican president
Joachim
Chissano who had been appointed by the African Union to mediate in
the
Zimbabwean crisis.
The mediation terms of reference
for Mkapa must be premised on
the basis that while the international
community has a role to play in
Zimbabwe's national question, the onus is on
Zimbabweans to show maturity
and define a framework within which such
mediation must take place.
There is need to urgently put in
place a transitional government
whose mandate must be to collate evidence
from the people and draft a new
constitution, restore investor confidence
and forge new bilateral and
multilateral relations with Western countries,
while cementing the existing
relations with China, Iran and Malaysia,
countries that are helping us in
our time of quarantine and moments of
madness.
The starting point would be for President Mugabe to
agree that
there is a problem that needs to be solved and that the problem
is domestic
rather than one to do with Britain. The problem that Zimbabwe is
facing is
one of governance and the absence of the rule of law, precipitated
largely
by the land reform exercise and the launching in 1999 of a strong
opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, which threatens to wrest
power from Zanu PF.
Academics like Mafongoya must not
selectively analyse the
problems that emanate from the land reform
programme. It is because of the
violent farm seizures and murder of farmers
and their workers that have led
to Zimbabwe losing support from the
West.
There is urgent need to overhaul Zimbabwe's foreign
policy that
is barren and sterile and its domestic policy that is
characterised by
sordidness, rapaciousness and smugness. There is need to
inject life in the
public sector so that people can have access to social
goods and services
such as food, health, education and social
security.
One of Mkapa's terms of reference must be to work
out a
framework within which a transitional government can be established.
This
must be followed by a reform of the current abusive state institutions
such
as the police, the Registrar-General's Office, bodies that run
elections and
the judiciary so that elections are held in a freer
environment in which the
electorate is not subjected to
intimidation.
There is need to dismantle the infrastructure
of violence that
was put in place by Zanu PF to maintain its grip on the
disillusioned
masses, as well as a need to free the airwaves, repeal all
colonial-type
legislation and the opening of all newspapers that were shut
down on
preposterous grounds.
* Philip Pasirayi is a
Zimbabwean political activist based in
the UK.
Zim Independent
THE following is a continuation from last
week of a letter
written by the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo (in the
picture) to
President Robert Mugabe on June 7 1983 condemning the way the
then prime
minister had treated him after "discovering" arms that saw the
government
unleashing the Korean-trained Fifth Brigade on the Matabeleland
and Midlands
provinces that left 20 000 people dead:
A meeting between us was accordingly held at State House,
Bulawayo, early in
January 1983. The meeting did not go as well as I had
expected because it
appeared to me that you were averse to what I discussed
with President
Banana and Enos Nkala. However, despite that, we agreed
between ourselves to
form a committee of six, comprising three Zanu and
three Zapu
representatives.
Although nothing much was achieved at the
meeting between us, I
believed nonetheless that moves towards an
understanding between Zapu and
Zanu were making progress.
Yet on Tuesday, the 25th of January (1983), I received
information from
people who were fleeing from Mbembesi that mass beatings
and killings were
being perpetrated by young men in camouflage uniforms who
were calling
themselves the "Fifth Brigade".
By the 26th of January, the
numbers had grown and the
information given us was that more people were
being brutally beaten and
killed by these young men.
On
the 27th of January, I decided to take 12 of the people, who
had themselves
experienced violence at the hands of members of the Fifth
Brigade, to Harare
so that they may themselves explain to government what in
fact was talking
place.
When I arrived in Harare, I presented the matter to
Comrade
Muzenda who, in the absence of the prime minister, was acting prime
minister. After I informed him of the situation in Mbembesi, which by that
time had spread to Bubi and Tsholotsho, the acting prime minister delegated
his Minister of Home Affairs, Herbert Ushewokunze, who had expressed
ignorance of these happenings, to go and meet the afflicted people in
Highfield.
When Ushewokunze failed to turn up until
Friday afternoon, I
decided to call a press conference and informed the
conference of the mass
killings by the Fifth Brigade; by that time the
numbers reported killed by
the Fifth Brigade had risen to
95.
The following week a government spokesman made much play
of the
fact that Josiah Gumede; who I had told the conference that I
understood by
reports from Mbembesi was among those who were killed; but
because he had
survived his ordeal, the spokesman completely ignored the
fact that many
more other people were killed, a fact Gumede himself had made
known to you
and President Banana.
During the first week
of February a censure motion was presented
to parliament by the chief whip
of Zanu PF against Zapu and its leadership
because of exposure of the
carnage by the Fifth Brigade. Almost every Zanu
member who spoke abused and
scorned Zapu, and more particularly myself, for
having exposed the killings,
which now had spread to Nkayi and Lupane.
It was quite
evident that Zanu PF had full knowledge of what was
happening but was not
prepared to intervene or call a halt to those most
barbarous actions which
the Fifth Brigade, in the name of security,
perpetrated against fellow
citizens of Zimbabwe in the so-called "curfew"
areas.
On
Saturday February the 19th, I was prevented from travelling
to Prague to
attend an executive meeting of the World Peace Council (which
your press
called Soviet-sponsored) and which was to take place on the 21st
and 22nd of
that month.
My ticket and passport and those of my three
colleagues who were
travelling with me were seized by the police when we
were arrested. When I
was released seven hours later, my three colleagues
remained in custody and
were later issued with detention orders which remain
in force to this day.
On the 19th of February, I was taken to
the Bulawayo Charge
Office where the police demanded that I make two "warned
and cautioned"
statements to the effect that they were investigating the
possibility that I
had committed certain crimes: under the Law and Order
Maintenance Act,
because they had found on me, two sets of notes containing:
(a) a statement
I made in parliament in connection with the serious
situation in
Matabeleland province created by killings and other atrocities,
and (b)
notes prepared for a meeting I was to have had held with you about
the same
situation but did not come off.
That they were
investigating a possible contravention of the
Currency Exchange Control Act
because they found on me $300; meant for my
wife, but in the packing rush
was forgotten in my briefcase.
Later that day, I was called
back to the charge office and told
that they (the police) had received a
telegram from the Harare police to the
effect that I should make another
"warned and cautioned" statement in reply
to a possible charge that the
police in Harare were investigating a possible
contravention of the Precious
Minerals Act in that the police had found
emeralds in my Highfield residence
when they were searching for arms in that
house on the 5th of October
1982.
About three weeks earlier, I had been made to make a
"warned and
cautioned" statement by the Harare police to the effect that
they were
investigating a possible breach of the Law and Order Maintenance
Act when I
addressed a press conference in Harare, in which I had revealed
the killings
of people in Mbembesi, Bubi and Tsholotsho.
I made those "warned and cautioned" statements denying those
possible
charges. It was clear to me, as it could be to any responsible
person, that
these were trumped-up possible charges designed by your
government to harass
and embarrass me.
Is it reasonable for anybody to believe
that possession of a
copy of a speech made in parliament and unpublished
notes to be used in a
meeting with the prime minister could be a breach of
the Law and Order
Maintenance Act?
Is it reasonable for
anyone to believe that I would export from
the country $300? To what
purpose? Is it reasonable to believe that the
so-called possession of
emeralds in early October 1982 could still be for
investigation by the
police in mid-February, 1983? What investigation after
four months of
physical so-called "possession of emeralds"?
On Sunday the
27th of February 1983, I received a letter from
the police informing me that
before leaving my house for any place, I should
report to the police
station. I refused doing this because I had no charge
preferred against me,
and could not understand why the police should have
been so interested in my
movements.
About the 1st or the 2nd of March 1983, security
forces,
including the Fifth Brigade, were deployed in Bulawayo western
suburbs and
on the 5th of March 1983 my house was raided by the Fifth
Brigade. Three
people were killed and property, including three cars, were
vandalised by
the raiders. It was after this act that I realised why the
police were
interested in my movements.
I then decided to
leave the country for the time being as it was
clear to me that my life was
threatened.
During the weeks that followed the deployment of
the Fifth
Brigade in the western province of Matebeleland, right up to the
day I
departed from Zimbabwe, hundreds of brutally assaulted people from the
so-called "curfew" areas of Mbembesi, Nyathi, Nkayi, Lupane and Tsholotsho
had come to my home and related horrible accounts of brutal beatings, mass
rapings, mass killings, maiming of hundreds of innocent unarmed, unresisting
men, women and children as well as looting and burning of villages and
houses.
Before leaving my house and finally Bulawayo on
the 8th of
March, 1983, reports had come to me of untold brutalities and
inhuman and
degrading treatment of people within Bulawayo itself and of
people being
marched in their hundreds to the adjacent bush areas on the
outskirts of
Bulawayo, to be shot and their bodies left rotting and some
taken away to
unknown destinations and never to return.
Now that I have attempted to give an account of some of your
publicly
expressed opinions and beliefs about me and Zapu, and have also
tried to
summarise the more important events that took place as well as
actions or
non-actions during the course of the three years since our
Independence, and
have some bearing on your attempt to impose a one-Zanu
party state on the
people of Zimbabwe, I give hereunder my reactions.
In
retrospect, I now believe that I and Zapu were deceived and
cheated by you
and your party when you talked of unity, reconciliation,
peace and security.
I now honestly and sincerely believe that when you
invited us to take part
in your government you believed that we would reject
your offer and set
ourselves up in strong opposition to you and thereby
label us disgruntled
rejected plotters.
I can now see that your insistence on
establishing assembly
camps in Bulawayo and Harare, and of your ministers
Nkala and others coming
to Bulawayo to make inflammatory statements which
sparked off the first
Ntumbane incident was all part of a plan and strategy
to destabilise the
country, especially the western province of Matabeleland,
so that you could
use incidents there as an excuse for using military action
to crush me and
my party.
It is now obvious to me that
when you demoted me from the
Ministry of Home Affairs which you knew was
negotiated for a purpose at the
time you invited us to take part in your
government; that while you knew
that we felt it was necessary for us to take
part in one of the security
ministries (Defence or Home Affairs) so that the
former Zipra men drafted
into the ZNA and ZRP may feel confident, thereby
solidify both the army and
the police, you deliberately took that
action.
It is clear you wanted us to pull out of your
government at that
time so as to destabilise the army and the police, create
dissidents out of
the deserting Zipra men and then call us plotters against
your government.
It is clear you thought you had struck a
political bonanza by
the arms caches fiasco and you handled it the way you
did, to achieve the
following: to make the country believe that I and Zapu
wanted to overthrow
your government; that the world at large should view us
as a group of people
who had lost the elections and now wanted to wrest
power from you and your
government; to polarise the population into bad guys
and good guys and so
destabilise the country; to polarise the former Zipra
and Zanla combatants
both inside and outside the army and police, so as to
create a former Zipra
grouping to be labelled dissidents; to create within
Zapu a group that would
believe there was a group within the party that, in
fact, was plotting to
overthrow the government; and, as a pretext, to use
discredited and archaic
settler imperialist legislation, the Unlawful
Organisations Act, to
confiscate Zapu supporters'
property.
When you announced the confiscation of Zapu and
Nitram
properties, property belonging to companies of individual Zapu
members and
to me and my family, you said it was because all these
properties were
acquired for hiding arms. Now that it is known no arms were
found on any
property other than the two farms belonging to Nitram, Ascot
and Hampton
Farms, how do you justify the blatant and arbitrary forced
acquisition of
all these properties?
Even the
confiscation of the two farms on which arms were
discovered is questionable.
Nitram as a co-operative company, whose
membership was more than 4 000
former Zipra combatants, who had contributed
towards the purchase of these
farms, and therefore, could not be held
responsible for action or actions of
a few people, who have not been
identified even at the High Court trial that
ended in the acquittal of six
of the seven people accused of treason and
caching arms.
With regards to properties owned by Zapu-formed
companies as
well as those formed by us individuals, I can only say your
action against
them was even much more obscure. I do hope, Mr Prime
Minister, you realise
the harm inflicted by your ill-considered action on
these properties
including those owned by Nitram.
Thousands of people were thrown out of resident-employment; this
includes
former combatants as well as former employees of those farms, who
had become
members of co-operatives established there.
The Herald of
17th February 1982 says about projects at Mguza:
"The co-operative venture
and secretarial training centres for women
ex-combatants have been hailed by
several people, including the Minister of
Finance, Enos Nkala, as a model of
its kind."
All this is gone; with hundreds of thousands of
dollars worth of
movable property of all types including overhead irrigation
equipment worth
$700 000 (Zimbabwe dollars) is ruined and some of it
missing.
Other movable property which was looted from Mguza
Complex is
what Dr Sekeramai referred to as: "The other equipment, such as a
very
modern operating theatre lamp with its own generator, and a
sophisticated
dental unit, in excellent condition and not used at all, was
found."
This equipment was meant for the college and
co-operative farm
inmates and people who attended a co-operative clinic
there.
Among the most important properties of Zapu that were
taken away
by the army and the CIO from the Nitram farms, ie Nest Egg, were
Zapu
archives which were stored there for safe-keeping. They contained all
Zapu
records covering the whole period of our struggle outside and inside
the
country, including the list of all Zapu and Zipra war casualties. As a
result of this, no names of Zipra dead were available for inclusion at the
Heroes' Acre Roll of Honour list on the 10th and 11th August,
1982.
This, you will agree, is a very serious
matter.
What disturbs me most is that when you banned the
companies that
ran various properties and projects you said: "Zapu had
bought more than 25
farms and more than 30 business enterprises throughout
the country. We had
now established they were not genuine business
enterprises, but places to
hide military weapons to start another war at an
appropriate time." (The
Sunday Mail, 7th of February 1982.) This was a
deliberate distortion.
At the time you made the above
statement Zapu had only two
farms, one near Harare and the other near Gweru;
and had only five business
enterprises, two in Harare, two in Gweru and one
in Masvingo.
If by Zapu you meant farms and businesses run by
companies such
as Nitram and those owned by individual members of Zapu, the
position is as
follows:
Nitram had only four farms and
four business enterprises.
Companies owned by individual members of Zapu had
three farms near Harare,
two near Bulawayo and two business enterprises in
Bulawayo and one in
Mbalabala. All these ventures, Mr Prime Minister, cannot
be said to be
"throughout the country", nor "more than 25 farms and more
than 30 business
enterprises" as you said in your
statement.
You deliberately gave the impression to the
country that
projects on those properties were run clandestinely; and yet
you knew I had,
without success, several times invited you to visit Nijo
Products, a $1,2
million Zapu composite agricultural project, just outside
Harare. I said
your visit to that particular project was important and
necessary because I
felt it could be used as a model for resettlement
purposes.
You were aware further that the Mguza Secretarial
Training
College was officially opened by Minister Shaba and that that
college and
the Mguza Co-operative Farming Project were visited by President
Banana and
Enos Nkala a few weeks before your banning order was issued. I am
certain
you must have been aware that the Lido Motel in Queens Park,
Bulawayo, was
being used as a hostel for over 300 former Zipra war disabled,
as government
had failed to house them anywhere.
You will
remember when I met you in your office in August 1982,
you made known to me
that the involvement of my family property Walmer
Ranch, where we built our
Makwe home, would be revealed in evidence during
the (Lookout)
Masuku/(Dumiso) Dabengwa trial at the High Court. The trial
has come and
gone, Masuku and Dabengwa acquitted.
However, I was told by a
defence lawyer of a bizarre story about
some military training supposed to
have been conducted at Makwe Farm which
was presented by the prosecution and
was later unconditionally withdrawn by
them without argument. You will know
that our home at Makwe has been
surrounded by the army and police ever since
you made your announcement on
the 16th of February 1982. All meaningful
activity came to a complete halt
and incalculable damage was done to all we
were trying to do there.
I am certain you should recall what
I told you when we met in
your office in August, that what I had at Makwe
outside the working of the
farm was a big gathering where I met members of
the Gwanda Community
Co-operative to discuss a grand settlement scheme in
which the Makwe
Irrigation Scheme and our Makwe Farm would be the core of
the project.
White farmers had been approached to either
donate or sell at
very reduced prices their farms within the area, and the
response was
promising. This scheme had been forwarded to the Ministry of
Lands and
Resettlement by the Gwanda Co-op through the local district
council
machinery. It was hoped that the scheme would be presented to
government
through appropriate channels for funding through
Zimcord.
You must have known through your respective
government
departments, local authorities and your various devices of
information
collection, that Kennellworth-Carisbrook Farm near Harare,
Lingfield near
Gweru and Mbalabala Village near Esigodini were all being
processed to be
handled in the same way as above, and as the Mguza complex
had shown, be it
in a small way, that it was feasible to implement such
schemes, it was
believed that the Makwe project would
succeed.
All these schemes were in the spirit of what I had
discussed
with you in December 1981. I had made it plain to you, Prime
Minister, when
I met you in your official residence that your resettlement
policy was a
national disaster, and you agreed with me. These schemes were
meant to
present practical approach models, to both rural and peri-urban
resettlement, that would embrace everybody and not just a few who are said
to "qualify".
But, with full knowledge of all this, you
chose to tell a crowd
of more than 18 000 people at Rudhaka Stadium in
Marondera on the 13th of
February 1982: "We desire a new richer life for all
. . . and we wish to see
changes in people's way of living standards and
economic status. But in the
midst of all our endeavours our colleagues in
government were stockpiling
and building enough weapons of war to arm 20 000
men."
What baffles me even more is that you said all the
above when
you knew that less than two months prior to your Marondera
meeting, I had
offered myself to take over your Ministry of Lands and
Resettlement in an
effort to assist you and, through you, the country to
make a success of its
most vital development programme. You turned down my
offer, saying I was too
old to handle that ministry. However, you said you
would invite me to be one
of the members of a resettlement ministerial
committee you were about to
institute. To you all this meant
plotting.
You also had knowledge that on December 29 1982,
while I was on
holiday, I was requested by Brigadier Chinenge to assist him
to demobilise
more than 5 000 former Zipra combatants at Gwaai River Mine
Assembly Point
and willingly drove over 150 miles to
help.
How could I have done all these things if I was bent on
overthrowing you? Who do you think I would have called on to use all those
arms after assisting to integrate some Zipra combatants in the ZNA and ZRP
and assisted in dispersing others to their respective
homes?
It is now very clear to me that you were very unhappy
with the
extent of my cooperation and that of Zapu because you did not want
peace and
tranquillity. You did not want stability, progress and
development, because
such conditions would not give you the turmoil and
instability you required
for your political-military action to liquidate
those you chose to, and
thereby impose your one-Zanu-party
state.
It is obvious to me why you decided to form the Fifth
Brigade
outside the structure and command of the national army, so that you
may use
it as a party and tribal brigade for eliminating and liquidating, as
you
have many times said, those you chose to destroy.
As
a matter of fact, when I questioned the formation of the
Fifth Brigade
outside the Zimbabwe National Army without consultation, you
angrily replied
and said: "Who are you to be consulted? This brigade," you
said, "has been
formed to crush those who try to subvert my government, and
if you attempt
that, they will crush you too."
You took action against what
you called Zapu-sponsored
dissidents. But because you wanted to maintain
this show of subversion, you
have not, for almost one year and four months,
arrested and put on trial a
single dissident. Yet you have continuously, for
all this period,
persistently accused the Zapu structure and those who
support that structure
of organising, maintaining, feeding and directing the
dissidents so as to
justify an armed attack on the
masses.
* To be continued next week.
Zim Independent
By Victor Z Mtau
I READ these
excerpts: "The Zimbabwe government itself is
conceding liability for the
perpetration of gross human rights violations";
"State agents fingered in
human rights abuse", (Zimbabwe Independent, June
30).
The
Human Rights Forum said it would send its report to the
United Nations to
press for further action against the government. Police
were cited as the
most common perpetrators.
"People in detention are generally
at a much greater risk of
abuse unless there are extremely strong safeguards
in place governing the
process of detaining people," reads the
report.
"People in custody are likely to be beaten
irrespective of their
alleged crime, political or criminal, and are commonly
subjected to
falanga - the excruciatingly painful practice of beating the
soles of the
feet, which leaves little obvious bruising."
Police had "adopted torture as a means to eliciting confessions
on a
widespread basis", the report says.
Harare Central police
station was cited as the worst station
where people have suffered severe
torture.
At first I thought this was an exaggeration by a
non-governmental organisation until I saw a police officer at Mzilikazi
Police Station, Bulawayo, beat up two young ladies in full view of his
colleagues and the public on June 29 at precisely 13:50hrs in the charge
office.
I had gone there with my daughter to have copies
of her school
certificates stamped. Funnily enough, my daughter wants to
join the ZRP and
what she saw that day shocked her.
I
heard another plain-clothes officer refer to an alleged thug
as Marabishi
(trash) as the terrified girls were led up the stairs to a
first floor
office. In the office, whose windows face 6th Avenue Extension,
and in full
view of officers in the courtyard, Marabishi slapped and kicked
the two
hapless girls, branding them prostitutes.
The fact that
Marabishi had started assaulting the girls in the
charge office showed that
it is normal procedure at the station. And to
think that not even one police
officer, including the female officers
present, lifted a finger in defence
of the two poor girls, is appalling. Not
suprisingly, my daughter no longer
wants to join the force.
* Victor Z Mtau writes from
Mzilikazi, Bulawayo.
Zim Independent
Zivai Vusimbe
THE struggle for
democracy and political discourse does not
belong to an individual or group
of individuals but to the people of
Zimbabwe.
Leaders
will come and go as they should, but the spirit of
democracy will remain
anchored in our minds.
It is therefore disconcerting to hear
some people ascribing the
success of the struggle against Mugabe's regime to
certain individuals. Some
people have come up with theories that give rise
to the perception that
without these perceived "gods" the struggle is
doomed.
We must shun the personality cult syndrome which has
brought us
to where we are today.
In the 80s, people took
Mugabe to be incapable of sinning. He
never erred, if he did, it was because
"he had been misled by his
ministers".
When he behaved
angrily, it was because he had been angered by
unpatriotic citizens who had
no appreciation of his liberation war
credentials. He was a
"saint".
Today the country is in a mess because we did not
take the
leadership to task when it became evident that the country was
being run
down.
We witness the importation of the same
thinking in the
opposition that Morgan Tsvangirai can never go wrong - he is
founder of the
struggle against the government and should not be subjected
to democratic
scrutiny, he is irreplaceable and in fact, owns the struggle.
The national
project cannot survive without him.
Those
who try to oppose him must be taken to some "concentration
camps" for some
lashing and political orientation because they are wrong and
should not be
allowed to challenge the dear leader.
We hear people making
careless remarks such as: "What did they
want in Tsvangirai's stronghold;
they deserve it!" referring to the
unfortunate incident in which MP Trudy
Stevenson and some members of her MDC
faction were
attacked.
My fear now is that we might be cultivating the
same intolerance
that has been sown by Zanu PF and allowed to pervade the
nation during the
past 26 years. Some people may be tempted to ask why it is
taboo to venture
into Tsvangirai's political domain when all along we have
been crying foul
over Zanu PF's strategy to litter all the rural
constituencies with hordes
of militia with orders to terrorise, intimidate,
attack and shut out the
opposition?
If indeed the rural
constituencies belong to Zanu PF, why do
they become nervous each time the
opposition tries to penetrate in search of
support?
In
the same vein, why does Tsvangirai feel threatened by a group
of people that
have no support?
The opposition is exposing itself to
manipulation by Zanu PF and
if it does not wake up now, it will pay for its
political blunders.
* Zivai Vusimbe writes from
Harare.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
LAST week,
our attempt to get a comment from Grain Marketing
Board acting chief
executive officer Retired Colonel Samuel Muvuti on grain
deliveries to the
parastatal provoked this response: "Handitauri
nemareporters ekuIndependent,
takarimirana kudhara (I don't talk to
reporters from the Independent; we are
enemies)".
It is obvious that the colonel has not heard
anything called
public accountability. Muvuti's response is symptomatic of a
serious cancer
of arrogance in government stemming from a clear failure to
appreciate the
role of the media.
The colonel, a recipient of
the Award for Excellence in Products
and Services from Spanish-based Trade
Leaders Club - whatever that was for -
regards us as enemies and as such not
entitled to receive government
information from his
office.
He is wrong. Like a number of his colleagues in
government, he
needs to be educated on his role as a public servant and why
newspapers ask
questions. Progressive governments today articulate basic
priorities as
three core businesses - people, prosperity and
preservation.
People need information and not bureaucrats,
worse still an
insincere one. Therefore, when newspapers ask questions, they
do so on
behalf of the people which a government is set up to serve. In the
case of
Muvuti, we intended to ask why millers were not getting maize and
why
farmers delivering maize to the GMB were not getting paid on time. The
farmers want to know when the $500 billion recently allocated to the GMB
will percolate down to their pockets. The money is simply not getting to
them on time.
But one way to avoid accountability is
super arrogance and
declaring hostilities with the media.
Muvuti finds it easier to talk to "friendly" media who do not
challenge him
to account for his actions, thereby glossing over issues,
rather than
responding to enquiries from inquisitive media. Farmers sleeping
at GMB
depots waiting for their monies cannot live on promises that their
problems
will be solved because government has released $500 billion.
By the way, at $31 million a tonne, $500 billion will only
purchase 16 130
tonnes of maize. Muvuti has an obligation to explain to the
nation where
government will get the $27,9 trillion to purchase 900 000
tonnes of maize
expected to be delivered to the GMB.
A public official does
not give information to the media on the
basis of his affection for them. He
is duty-bound to provide information
because he is paid by the taxpayer to
whom he must be accountable. Public
officials are not accountable to their
inflated egos or to their partisan
sponsors.
Muvuti's
diatribe last week also brings to the fore what we have
always highlighted -
that the Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act is a bad law
and it is made worse by unprofessional public
officials. There is all the
evidence that they are not aware of their
obligation under Aippa to provide
information to the public. This is ample
proof that access to information
was never the real inspiration behind the
enactment of Aippa. It was
manifestly designed to abridge freedoms and to
shield public officials from
scrutiny. Can we trust the Information ministry
to organise seminars to
coach public officials on the value of public
information management? This
is an arduous task, especially changing the
culture of hostility to
information dissemination through the media.
This explains
why despite promises that Zanu PF was moving into
the Information Age, its
website was last updated last year while the
official government website is
a silly caricature of cyber media.
James Madison, the fourth
president of the United States,
captured the importance of this information
dissemination in governance in
his often quoted warning: "A popular
government without popular information
or the means of acquiring it, is but
a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or
perhaps both." That is where we
are.
Zim Independent
Muckracker
IT has been fascinating to watch the
government and its media
celebrating Kofi Annan's decision not to mediate in
the Zimbabwe crisis and
instead hand the poisoned chalice to Benjamin
Mkapa.
What exactly is it that they are
celebrating?
That there will be no UNDP support for
reconstruction following
the depredations of Operation Murambatsvina? That
there will be no
balance-of-payments support because economic policy remains
profoundly
flawed? That despite this week's figures, inflation will continue
to
skyrocket and jobs will be lost?
It is of course
misdirected nationalist zeal that celebrates not
being hauled before the
Security Council. We can understand that. But does
that mean things are
going to get better now Mkapa is mediating? Do things
look as if they are
getting better?
The fact is Zimbabwe has lost the opportunity
to have a
settlement of its myriad problems and instead its leaders are
happy to
wallow in the mire for at least another two more years. Then they
can rant
and rave at the West and spout endlessly about "sovereignty" as the
country
sinks further, businesses fold and political divisions become
unbridgeable.
What sort of victory is
that?
The British embassy spelt out the situation which even
the most
die-hard columnists know to be true: this is a self-made crisis
that will
not be repaired without a comprehensive solution. Why should the
British
government, which has problems of its own, help pull President
Mugabe out of
the hole he has dug for himself? Lesson number one: if you
want to get out
of a hole, stop digging!
Can you imagine
a government desperate for normalisation
insulting the country it wants to
deal with on a daily basis sounding like a
child of five; a leader who has
sabotaged nearly every facet of national
production waving his fists at a
leader whose country has increased its GDP
to overtake France, according to
the OECD?
What sort of logic is that?
The
truth is there is no longer any logic at work. The British
will give Mkapa a
polite reception and then gently explain the facts of life
to
him.
There will be no help for Zimbabwe so long as the author
of its
decline continues to make life intolerable for his people. Everybody
appears
to understand that except Zanu PF and its captive press. Zimbabwe's
headlong
decline is not a defeat for the British!
What a
field day the state media has had with the Trudy
Stevenson affair. This was
truly an own goal for the MDC.
They have enabled every
apologist to ignore Zanu PF's
well-established record of political violence
to claim the MDC is the
trouble-maker.
And to some extent
they are right. There are elements in the MDC
who are profoundly intolerant
of dissenting views and who see it as their
mission to impose one-party rule
in the townships. Trudy was the victim of
the MDC's own
Murambatsvina.
But then Nathaniel Manheru came to the rescue
by setting the
record straight. Zanu PF was the true party of violence and
proud of it, he
suggested last Saturday.
"Here is a
princess of the Aryan race, one Dame Trudy Stevenson,
pounded by the evil
hand of a native, much the same way a few Aryan princes
were justly
sjamboked at the height of the land reforms for refusing with
our
land."
Will all those claiming that human rights abuses in
Zimbabwe are
opposition "lies" please take note of this.
Women's groups have reacted enthusiastically to the Domestic
Violence Bill
gazetted last week, which they believe is "comprehensive"
enough to deal
with any form of violence in the home.
"The effectiveness of
the law will depend on its
implementation," was all the caution there was
from Musasa Project
director, Ednah Bhala. Her plea was for the "police and
judiciary officers"
to be well informed about issues of domestic violence to
ensure a happy
outcome.
Women's Action Group director
Edinah Musiyiwa told the Herald on
Wednesday that women in the past found it
difficult to "get recourse on
domestic violence" as it was treated "as a
private affair".
Muckraker is less sanguine about the
effectiveness of the
proposed legislation. The issues at stake are much
bigger than the
legislation no matter how good and comprehensive. It is an
issue of
intolerance for dissent in both the home and the political spheres
that is
the biggest problem, not the absence of a law.
Surely the attempted murder of Harare North MP Trudy Stevenson
by political
rivals has nothing to do with domestic violence or the absence
of law or
male chauvinism. It is not as if there was no law to protect her.
It will be
the same with the proposed law - so long as we don't want to
tolerate
opposing views and treat our rivals as "enemies" we are doomed as a
nation.
Unfortunately this scourge knows no tribe nor race.
In case
we are not making ourselves clear, law on its own is
simply not enough
unless we learn to debate issues openly and agree to
differ with sufficient
levels of tolerance. Armed robberies, murder and rape
are on the increase
despite very clear laws. Child abuse cases have not
abated for being
severely punished.
A law against domestic violence is of no
use to a woman or man
who has been killed by a spouse during a family
dispute. Look at how many
local films beamed on national television during
prime time in front of
children appear to glorify physical violence as a
natural response to
provocation to understand what we
mean.
Our leaders need to set the right tone by condemning
violence in
all its facets and in every sphere of life. The law can only be
there to
reinforce what society is doing right. It cannot change our culture
on its
own. If my political opponent is an "enemy" to be beaten why should
my
opponent in the home be not my enemy to be beaten also? Where do we draw
the
line?
Incidentally, how come there was almost
funereal silence from
both Musasa Project and Women's Action Group following
the brutal attack on
Stevenson? Could this have something to do with trying
not to put the wrong
spotlight on the infallible Morgan Tsvangirai or is she
excluded from
protection on the basis of "racial barriers" that Manheru has
erected?
Gentlemen, let's get real. This hypocrisy and
double-standards
won't get us anywhere as a nation. We are already a bad
enough example for
Africa without making it worse.
Does
David Chapfika feel a compelling need to advertise his VIP
credentials?
Every afternoon at the Harare Sports Club's Red Lion bar a
worker comes
along with a broom to sweep up the cigarette butts and other
detritus of the
day's proceedings between the customers and the bar. Most
people step aside
to let her get on with her job. But not our Deputy
Minister of
Finance.
"No one tells me what to do," he declared last
weekend as the
hapless sweeper was made to sweep around his feet while he
propped up the
bar.
We thought you would like to know
this as an indicator of the
sort of people we have leading this great nation
of ours!
Then we had Mugabe's clown prince, Didymus Mutasa,
declaring
that nobody from Makoni North would be participating in mass
action. It
would not be tolerated, he said.
What he meant
was not so long as they are under his heel. Then
he had a brilliant
thought.
"In fact you should counter it and our action should
be bigger
than theirs."
So mass action is OK so long as
it comes from Zanu PF!
Does this person think before engaging
the mouth?
We should ask the same question of GMB's
long-acting CEO, Rt Col
Samuel Muvuti.
Asked last week
why the parastatal was unable to supply
sufficient maize to millers and paid
farmers less than private buyers, he
said he does not talk to the Zimbabwe
Independent.
"Handitauri nemareporters ekuIndependent
takarimirana kudhara (I
don't talk to reporters from the Independent. We are
enemies)," he declared
before hanging up.
The GMB, he
needs reminding, is a public corporation, not a
partisan utility. That means
he is accountable to all Zimbabweans. Childish
and hostile statements made
for political purposes constitute a serious
dereliction of
duty.
Muvuti should be told that in no uncertain
terms.
One can't fail to feel a deep sense of shame reading
Nathaniel
Manheru's "Other Side". It's a pity. The fellow sounds like he
went to
school and did some serious reading. What does he do with that
education?
Much of the time he wastes tonnes of space in the
Saturday
Herald trying to show off his learning instead of giving readers
clear,
straightforward opinions and not playing some latter-day obscurantist
of the
Dark Ages.
They say it's better to keep it simple.
Words are meant to
illuminate ideas, not to draw attention to the
affectations of the author.
But it is evident that what he
doesn't have are positive ideas
to propagate. There he was last week lapsing
into the favourite pastime of
those with nothing positive to contribute to
national discourse - tribalism
and racism.
This time the
target was his new nemesis, Professor Jonathan
Moyo.
Moyo
explained in an article in the Independent last week that
the land reform
was chaotic, which is what every sane person will tell you -
from the
peasant on the farm to President Mugabe who has launched several
land audits
to get things back on track.
The squabbles over ownership and
the continuing looting of both
crops and equipment are further evidence of
the same. Low productivity is
another as the nation fails to feed itself and
tobacco output has collapsed
from a record high of 236 million kg in 2000 to
50 million kg this year.
Hence all the lies about sanctions because we can't
earn enough foreign
currency.
Instead of Manheru proving
Moyo wrong, he went for the person.
Moyo should be forever
grateful to Mugabe for getting a farm in
Mazowe in the "heartland of
Mashonaland", fulminated Manheru, his tribal
spleen overflowing with venom.
Moyo was made to "jump racial, tribal and
geographical barriers to have land
in the choicest part of Zimbabwe", raved
Manheru enviously, without telling
us where in the context of the Unity
Accord Moyo was supposed to get a
farm.
What is the less sophisticated, easily manipulated
reader to
make of these clearly xenophobic sentiments from those who should
espouse
government policies and act as role models for the youth, we wonder?
Isn't
this the hypocrisy of state bureaucrats that has been the bane of
African
governance since the end of colonial rule?
For
you cannot be honest and be a tribalist at the same time. It
is a unique
quality of Manheru alone. How
depraved, how petty, how low can
one so high get?
'The poor dump city life," announced the
Herald of Saturday.
Without reading the story, one could easily tell
something was terribly
wrong from the verb "dump". You dump something you
don't like, something
without value. You don't dump a diamond ring in a
jewellery shop simply
because you can't afford it.
Which
is what the Herald wanted to say but found politically
incorrect. The
sub-head exposed the fraud: "High rentals, low wages force
people out." How
does one reconcile such incongruities?
By Tuesday the whole
truth, nothing but the truth, was there for
all to see: it was the city that
was chasing away the wretched of the earth.
The same paper
reported that a family of five now needs $68
million to see it through the
month, which very few Zimbabweans can afford.
So who is dumping who
here?
Isn't this part of the fallout from the diabolical
Operation
Murambatsvina that destroyed the informal sector that had proved
such a
useful safety net for retrenchees, small entrepreneurs and
school-leavers?
At times the truth forces itself out from the
under the sludge
of sunshine journalism.
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
AFTER six continuous
years of economic decline, the Zimbabwean
economy embarked upon a tentative
recovery and upturn in the course of 2004,
mainly attributable to the
monetary policies introduced by the then newly
incumbent governor of the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), Gideon Gono.
Admittedly the
turnabout was, inevitably, a very slow one, the
economy continuing to be
extremely distressed, but nevertheless there were
the first positive changes
since 1997.
Inflation began to fall, exchange rates commenced
to stabilise
as exports grew and greater, albeit still insufficient, foreign
exchange
became available in a slightly more orderly foreign exchange
management
system, there were indications of investment being forthcoming,
interest
rates were falling and much else.
A sliver of
hope and optimism began to develop among the
populace in general, and the
business community in particular, although
guardedly so in the light of the
preceding six appalling years, and
continuing signs of vacillating
governmental policy.
Then, as Zimbabwe progressed into 2005,
and particularly in the
second half of that year, the economic gains were
speedily reversed, and the
economy fell into greater depths than ever
before. Nothing effective has
been done to halt the free-fall of the
economy, despite fairly vigorous
efforts by RBZ, for the government
obdurately refused to recognise the
causes of repeated economic
regression.
Instead, the economy has plummeted to its lowest
ever depths,
with year-on-year inflation to May 2006 amounting to almost 1
200%. Despite
frequent forecasts to the contrary, much of agricultural
production has
continued to fall - as evidenced by a 2006 tobacco harvest of
less than 50
million kgs, against 237 million kgs in 2001. The 2006 crop is
an all-time
low in the last 60 or more years!
Zimbabwe
continues to be without self-sufficiency of food, sugar
remains in short
supply, and much other agricultural production is well
below 20th century
levels.
Mining production is also shrinking. Utilisation of
industrial
production capacity is believed to be at less than 25%. In four
years the
poverty datum line for a family of five has risen from less than
$4 million
to over $61 million. Unemployment has soared
upwards.
The list of characteristics of a collapsing economy
is endless
and undeniable, and the need for dynamic economic reform measures
is
immense.
Over and above the fact that the government
has launched yet
another programme for economic reform and recovery (the
seventh in 26
years) - the National Economic Development Priority Programme
(NEDPP) - the
government is due shortly to undergo and present its 2006
mid-term fiscal
policy review and the RBZ will be presenting its 2006 first
half-year
monetary policy review.
Those reviews, if
realistically aligned to NEDPP, could become
the launch pads for the economy
to begin to upturn once again, and if NEDPP
is pursued in a genuine
consultative mode with the private sector, instead
of the façade of
consultation that has prevailed for much of the years since
Zimbabwe's
Independence, and if the reviews enact courageous measures for
change,
notwithstanding that implicitly some of those measures may be
irrefutable
confirmation of causes of the pronounced economic ills that
afflict
Zimbabwe, that upturn will materialise.
In 2005, Gono
included in a quarterly monetary policy review a
frank assessment of what
had gone wrong in the years up to and including
2003 and what had been done
right in 2004. He identified 19 challenges that
faced the economy in 2003,
being:
* hyperinflation;
* shortage of
foreign currency and diminished export
competitiveness;
*
price and exchange rate distortions;
* under-capacity
utilisation and reduced corporate sector
viability;
*
contraction in economic activity;
* low savings and
investment;
l declining levels of both foreign and local
investment;
* high and recurring budget
deficits;
* domestic debt overhang;
*
unstable energy supplies;
* supply side
bottlenecks;
* growing incidence of private and public sector
corruption;
* financial sector
indiscipline;
* strained international
relations;
* high perceived country risk and reduced
international credit
rating;
* deteriorating and over
burdened infrastructure;
* weak economic empowerment and
worsening poverty;
* accumulation of external payment
arrears; and
* high incidence of brain
drain.
Each and every one of those characteristics that
prevailed up to
2003 have resurfaced in 2005/2006, save and except that
there has
undoubtedly been a significant reduction in financial sector
indiscipline,
as a result of the determined controls introduced by the RBZ
over the last
two-and-a-half years. And yet, almost all of those
characteristics had been
meaningfully addressed in 2004 and early 2005,
setting the economy on the
road to recovery, only to be deviated
therefrom.
Therefore, in formulating the mid-term policy
reviews, the
government and the RBZ need to reflect upon history,
identifying
realistically what had been the causes of the barrage of
economic ills and
what had been the measures which had begun to reverse
them, only to be
negated by policy reversals or lack of
commitment.
Politically, although there is much that is
needed, the three
overriding priorities are that, first and foremost, the
land reform
programme must be reformed to restore agricultural wellbeing,
including an
absolute halt to farm invasions, belated respect for Bilateral
Investment
Protection and Promotion Agreements, equitable and just
redistribution, fair
compensation, assured tenure, and timeously available
inputs, with realistic
producer prices.
Secondly, the
government must determinedly contain its spending.
The days of fiscal
profligacy must be assertively ended.
Thirdly, the government
must resolutely pursue reconciliation
with the international community,
abandoning its convictions of omnipotence
and inability to err, and
discarding its misplaced persecution complex.
The monetary
policy review will also need to cover much ground,
but foremost must be a
focus upon the exchange rate system and foreign
exchange generation.
Viability for exporters must be restored rapidly,
thereby not only enhancing
the inflows of critically necessary foreign
exchange, but also being a major
tool in containing inflation, for increased
industrial productivity flowing
from export growth would substantially and
favourably impact upon
inflation.
However, the most critical need is for the fiscal
policies to be
synergistic with, and supportive of, the monetary policies
and vice versa.
One of the greatest reasons for the reversal of the economic
upturn,
commenced in 2004, was the magnitude of the conflict in 2005 and
2006
between fiscal and monetary policies.
The state
cannot expect economic redemption if its policies
recurrently conflict with
the monetary policies, if it continues to isolate
Zimbabwe from most of the
world, if it only listens to the private sector
when it says what the
government wants to hear and if it does not learn from
its errors. History
is there to be learnt from!
Zim Independent
Comment
THE decline in the rate of
inflation from 1 193,5% to 1 184,6%
has been greeted with ecstatic relief by
the government which immediately
attributed the slowdown to the efficacy of
the National Economic Development
Priority Programme.
For
a government with very little success to demonstrate to a
largely despondent
populace, the new inflation figure will be feted as a
masterstroke and an
act of genius. We wait for the spin from central bank
governor Gideon Gono
when he presents his Mid-Term Monetary Policy Review
statement later this
month.
But amid the din of celebration, our rulers continue
to miss the
bigger picture that our inflation is still the highest in the
world. Those
entrusted with leading the war on inflation have seen all their
targets
missed by the rampant scourge. The rate of inflation has in the past
advanced by margins of over 30 percentage points. A small retreat of nine
percentage points therefore is no cause for celebration. It could merely be
a mathematical aberration as there is no respite for consumers of basic
commodities and pensioners who today do not have anything to show for
decades of gainful employment before retirement.
While
the economic situation continues to deteriorate,
government spin doctors are
quick to tell us this is a passing phase. We are
told that Zimbabwe still
has some of the best infrastructure on the
continent, that the country is
endowed with immense natural resources and a
well-educated and skilled
labour force. But this is a lullaby to a dying
soul.
As
we focus on our troubles and tribulations at home, another
sad scenario has
been the unravelling on Zimbabwe's status in the region.
Economist John Robertson in a presentation at the Zimbabwe
National Chamber
of Commerce congress in Victoria Falls earlier this month
illustrated the
declining influence of Zimbabwe in the Sadc region where it
was until 2002
the second largest economy after South Africa.
It is now
ranked 10th, only larger than the economies of Malawi,
Lesotho and
Swaziland.
Zimbabwe's share of the regional GDP has slumped
from 3,6% in
1996 to 1,4% today. Robertson says our economy is headed in the
wrong
direction when compared to the trend in the region.
He said between 1995 and 2000 - before the Zimbabwe crisis - the
Sadc region
(excluding South Africa) grew at less than 4% a year.
Since
2000 the regional economy has grown by over 11%. In
comparative terms, our
economic indicators have been heading south fast with
40% of GDP lost in
eight years as a direct result of a massive decline in
agriculture. Zimbabwe
is also losing its market share in all industrial
sectors - mostly, of
course, to South Africa. It has lost ground in tobacco
production and
horticulture to Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.
The
manufacturing sector has lost its share mostly to South
Africa and Botswana.
Tourists are now opting to go to Zambia to see the
Victoria Falls while
those looking for big game are choosing Botswana.
KM
Financial Solutions, in a manufacturing sector survey
commissioned by the
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries last year, said the
country's
manufactured products were losing competitiveness in the much
bigger world
out there as exports were now confined to the region.
These
are grim statistics which will not be addressed by
piecemeal measures like
the NEDPP or appeals to regional fraternal bonds.
Zimbabwe is
fast losing its hold on the pedestal of relevance
and influence in the
region. As Robertson pointed out, regional economies
are not floundering in
the mess that has been created by the Zanu PF
government. They are actually
cashing in on our misery.
They have seen an "opportunity for
vultures to pick the bones",
he said. More than half of our skilled workers
have left the country and are
driving economic growth in the region. Our
road network is transporting
goods from South Africa to Malawi, Zambia and
the Democratic Republic of
Congo. South African companies are cherry-picking
bargains among local
companies writhing in intensive care and we call it
investment. It's not.
It is the mad rush of vultures to
carrion. Even politically, we
are headed the same way. South Africa and
Namibia in their efforts to woo
investors only need to reassure them they
will not behave like Zimbabwe when
implementing land policies in their
respective countries. Hence recent
strong statements from Pretoria and
Windhoek saying they will not be
following Zimbabwe's
example.
Yet our leaders still attend international
conferences and
engage in old-style demagoguery when given a
platform.
Watch this space: the Sadc Summit in Maseru
beckons.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
I AM
enjoying the debate about UN secretary-general Kofi Annan
and his chosen
mediator between Zimbabwe and Britain, or more specifically,
between
President Mugabe and prime minister Tony Blair, Benjamin
Mkapa.
Comments are flowing fast and thick for and against
Annan's
decision not to visit Zimbabwe as a follow-up to Anna Tibaijuka's
damning
report on Operation Murambatsvina last year.
The
more delusional opinion-makers go so far as to suggest that
Annan is a
coward - he should have told Mugabe to go. It is not said from
what platform
he would have been able to say that. Whether Annan should have
visited
Zimbabwe is immaterial now.
I have a problem with the whole
proposition about mediation. The
way it has been so easily spun smacks of
another bid at "quiet diplomacy" -
an attempt not to provoke a violent
reaction by Mugabe and keep lines of
communication open but without
achieving anything.
Secondly, people are buying into
government's propaganda about a
"bilateral" dispute with Britain and not
misrule and damaging economic
policies as being at the core of the current
crisis. But we all know that
Zimbabwe's problems were already getting out of
hand well before the land
invasions started in 1999 - a point at which
everybody now wants to locate
the source of our national crisis. You would
expect the opposition to see
through this threadbare
ruse.
The reckless financial splurge to war veterans in 1997
and the
foolish adventure in the DRC the following year were signs of a
desperate
government trying to put the nation off the spoor. But at least
then the
country could still feed itself.
The violent
nature of the land invasions was meant to spite
Britain for refusing to do
what it is our responsibility to do as a
sovereign state - fund it. If the
purpose were to empower landless blacks, a
planned, equitable reform
programme was possible and a legitimate and
transparent taxation mechanism
on commercial farmers could easily have been
crafted to fund a more orderely
"transfer" of commercial farms to
interested, skilled and competent black
farmers. That only outsiders could
fund such a process is outright duplicity
by politicians and bureaucrats who
can't think
creatively.
It is easier for them to dream up Posa, Aippa and
Constitutional
Amendment No 17 than plan a sustainable land reform despite
all the goodwill
in the world. After all there were a lot of white
commercial farmers already
sharing skills and equipment with their poor
black neighbours.
Instead, Mugabe turned the whole programme
into a racial contest
of egos between himself and Blair as eloquently
dramatised in his famous
"Blair keep your Britain and I will keep my
Zimbabwe" protest.
Mugabe had by this time embarked on
dangerous unilateralism that
would brook no impediment by consensual issues
of legality. For in the final
analysis, it is to insult our intelligence to
expect us to believe the myth
that it was necessary to destroy our entire
commercial agriculture and
trillions of dollars' worth of infrastructure to
drive out a motley 4 500
unarmed white farmers. It's like using a sledge
hammer to swat a fly on your
baby's face.
My other
problem is not whether Mkapa will be impartial or not,
but what he will be
taking to London. Is Mugabe demanding to be recognised
as the legitimate
president of Zimbabwe? Is the issue about Britain's
support for the
opposition? Is it about Britain's alleged interference in
Zimbabwe's
internal affairs? Does Mugabe want to go back to the terms of the
1998 land
donors' conference or Abuja 2002? Does he need compensation for
dispossessed
white commercial farmers? Just what is this "bilateral dispute"
that Mkapa
is expected to resolve? In short, what will be Mkapa's terms of
reference?
Unfortunately, Britain may not have the power
to resolve any of
the issues raised if our Independence is no more than
juridical. There is
politics at play here. Mugabe is trying to buy himself a
few more months in
power on the pretext of resolving the cause of Zimbabwe's
economic ruin. The
effort now is to locate that cause externally in the name
of so-called
"illegal" sanctions without dealing with why they were deemed
necessary in
the first place.
It would be naïve in the
extreme for anybody to even hope that
the British government might fall for
this infantile subterfuge, and Mugabe
knows they won't. Which is what he
wants, for it gives him a perfect alibi
to blame Britain for intransigence,
negotiating in bad faith or making
unreasonable demands while the nation
implodes. But at the rate things are
deteriorating all round, he might not
enjoy playing his lyre for long.
Conditions in the country might soon force
him to face the reality of the
crisis he created which he now seeks to leave
unresolved. Which is what the
British will tell Mkapa.
Mugabe says he won't have dialogue with opposition parties and
civic society
groups in Zimbabwe because they represent British interests.
Instead, he
wants to talk to their master directly. But once he gets to
Lancaster House
for the second time he will find that he is in Ian Smith's
awkward position
of 1979.
He will be told that people want a new constitution,
free and
fair elections, a restoration of the rule of law and respect for
property
rights. Above all he will be told people want a reversal of the
economic
decline that he precipitated. They want food, jobs and reliable
health
services. That is what Zimbabweans are demanding without having to go
via
Lancaster House. It is hard to see how even a partial, pan-African Mkapa
can
avoid this incontrovertible reality. The rest are simply deceptive
diplomatic niceties to avoid wounding egos and to appear to have hit a
win-win situation without causing too much royal embarrassment.
Barbaric attacks are uncalled for
I READ with great sadness
reports of the attack on Harare North
MP Trudy Stevenson, Linos Mushonga,
Simangele Manyere and others by youths
suspected to be loyal to the MDC
faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
Such a barbaric attack is
really uncalled for.
I would however like to commend the
Tsvangirai faction
leadership for the commitment they have demonstrated by
appointing a
commission of inquiry made up of people outside the party
structures.
This is the first time in Zimbabwean politics I
have heard a
commission composed of lawyers who are not senior officials in
a political
party being appointed to investigate an incident involving
violence.
While officials from Stevenson's faction have been
quick to
accuse the Tsvangirai faction, it is sad to recall that when
activists from
Tsvangirai's faction were assaualted in Bulawayo by youths
suspected to
belong to Professor Arthur Mutambara's faction, we didn't hear
that party's
leadership condemn violence in the same manner MPs Tendai Biti
and Nelson
Chamisa have done.
Not only have they
condemned the act, but a commission of
inquiry comprising a lawyer from
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has been
put in place to investigate the
incident.
I am also happy that Zimcet has also pledged to
investigate the
incident. Any claims by anybody that the Tsvangirai faction
condones
violence is therefore very unfortunate, especially juxtaposed to
the
deafening silence by officials from the Mutambara faction when
Tsvangirai
narrowly escaped an attack.
I may not have
first-hand knowledge of the situation prevailing
in the country today
following the attack on Stevenson and others, but media
reports remind me of
the atmosphere that pervaded Zimbabwe in December 2001
following the murder
of Cain Nkala.
The Mugabe regime was very quick to accuse the
MDC, whose youths
and officials were arrested, only to be acquitted by a
court of law.
The best officials from Stevenson's party can
do is to
co-operate with the police, the commission that has been put in
place,
Zimcet and other organisations interested in the probe. It is sad
that they
seem intent on seizing such an unfortunate incident as an
opportunity to get
publicity.
Whoever the culprits are,
and whichever party they belong to,
they should be brought to book and
punished.
Political parties should condemn and discourage
their youths
from violent activities, even by their own
activists.
I wish Stevenson and her injured colleagues a
speedy recovery.
Benjamin Chitate,
New
Zealand.
-------------
Act the same on
real murderers
I WOULD like to congratulate the ZRP for
a quick reaction
in arresting the perpetrators of
violence.
It is inhuman and very much unAfrican to
attack and injure
someone for his/her belief.
Trudy
Stevenson's attackers should, as happened, be
arrested and punished. Well
done to Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri
and his spokesperson Andrew
Phiri for the timely reaction in bringing to
book such undesirable elements
in our society.
However, I would like to urge the
police to act with the
same speed in accounting for other well-known
culprits who did not only
attack, but killed some innocent souls expressing
their feelings.
In case Chihuri has forgotten, some
crimes were committed
way back in 2000, yet the culprits still roam around
free.
I am referring to hooligans who forced a
Zvishavane man to
sit on an electric stove and the well-known Kitsiyatota
and his CIO
colleague who murdered Tichaona Chiminya and Talent Mabika in
Buhera, just
to mention a few.
I implore Chihuri to
show the efficiency he has done on
the Stevenson case. Crime remains crime
regardless of who commits it.
If the attackers of
Stevenson warranted armed police to
man the Mabvuku road, what of mhondi
chaidzo nhai vaChihuri (real murderers)
who are still walking around
free?
Should we cohabit with murderers? What would we
say when
the so-called enemies of the state start claiming there is
selective
application of the law in Zimbabwe?
Concerned MC,
Harare.
-------------
Worry not about the cameras, be wary of the
guards
CONTRARY to what Tony Namate thinks is right, "A
warning
to ATM users," (Zimbabwe Independent, July 7), cameras are part of
the
security system at ATMs.
Don't trust those
guards, not even a bit. Neither should
the public trust the next person in
line trying to help out when one's card
gets stuck.
We have witnessed on a number of occasions (there is video
footage to show
that) connivance between the guards and conmen who put
papers or card
jammers into ATM slots (beware of those).
About 99% of
the time an ATM has been tampered with, the
guard would have left his post
for a few minutes. The whole process of
jamming ATMs can take as little as
one minute.
After the conmen have manipulated the ATM
the guard
returns and pretends that all is well. You come and insert you
card and it
is stuck, the next thing you have the guard and a "good
Samaritan" trying to
assist you.
One of the things
they will tell you is punch in your Pin
and press cancel then your card will
be ejected. In the meantime they will
be cramming your
Pin.
After you surrender the conmen come to pull out
your card
and then withdraw cash from a different machine altogether.
Several people
have lost money this way. Beware of card jams and tampered
with ATMs, not
the cameras, which are part of security and have helped us
see what our dear
"security guards" are up to after
hours.
HM,
Harare.
-------------
Great shame that
greed, deception have permeated church
YOUR coverage of
developments between the church and the
state reminds me of a conversation I
had with a local cleric aboard a
domestic plane flight a few months
ago.
I felt particularly proud to be sitting next to a
man of
the cloth and looked forward to a thoughtful and blessed
discussion.
The conversation started off with the usual
introductions
and then veered towards the inevitable these days: the
economic and
political problems afflicting our
country.
"Until we sort out Tony Blair and the West in
general,
things will not get better in Zimbabwe. Those people hate our guts.
What
they want is many more 9/11s (referring to the attack on the New York
Twin
Towers)," the cleric said, adding that suicide bombers had their places
set
up in heaven because they were attacking the evils of the
West.
Phew, what an
aberration!
I thought I had not heard him well and
pretended just as
much, thinking this could silence the cleric but no, he
kept on harping on
the virtues of land and enquired whether I was the owner
of any business or
an employee of the white man.
This encounter lingered in my mind for many months but had
almost
disappeared until a few weeks ago when, to my utter surprise, I saw
the
cleric lunching and smooching with Zanu PF and President Robert
Mugabe.
As your correspondent Ben Freeth said,
collusion between
the church and the state has been recorded many times in
the history of
mankind. The most damning aspect of this collusive
relationship in Zimbabwe
is that church leaders are supporting a political
leadership that is using
violence and threats to cow other sections of the
church in Zimbabwe.
But then again when you combine the
wanton greed and
deception that has permeated the church together with the
increasing levels
of poverty, one can't be surprised at seeing these men of
the cloth
competing and jostling to be fed from the top table. It is a great
shame!
Nervous
Madekufamba,
Harare.
--------------
Let's engage Mugabe locally to break
impasse
ZIMBABWE should never look outside for
solutions to its
problems which are easy to solve if people understand the
background to how
we have come to this point.
Blaming the leadership will not break the impasse and we
should try to make
leaders accountable to contribute to the betterment and
development of the
country.
President Mugabe and his lieutenants should
also be
applauded for their role in bringing freedom to Zimbabwe and Africa
as a
whole.
Their contributions are beyond question
but they should
remember to pass on the baton.
The
harassment of former leaders in other African
countries should not be
repeated here.
When blacks assume power they are told
to forgive and move
forward to build a democratic nation using
reconciliation as a tool to
manipulate them.
But
President Mugabe has shown the world that blacks are
human too. We cannot
continue to cry for foreign currency as if we cannot
survive without
it.
If the West does not respect our money and
undermines our
economies using blackmail, we should unite as a people and
continue with our
own programmes, with or without their
aid.
The country that needs development is ours and the
products the West needs are ours. Why then should we beg for what is
rightfully ours?
The aid that they purport to give
us was stolen from our
forefathers. Zimbabweans should negotiate with Mugabe
to break the stalemate
for the sake of the economy.
Questions that linger however are, who is going to move
first? What is going
to be done to the agricultural sector?
The land issue
has to be solved once and for all because
if people are not certain about
the security and stability of the country,
no new investment will flow
in.
The Chinese are out to benefit from the situation
but
their interests lie in looking after their own people. Zimbabweans
should
therefore plan for the development of their own
country.
Praying Parent,
UK.