Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
THE office of the UN Secretary-General has
refuted President
Mugabe's claims that Kofi Annan pulled out from mediation
in the Zimbabwe
crisis because he did not want to be sullied by undue
influence from the
British government.
Annan, whom
President Mugabe said had pulled out of the
mediation because he was "an
African secretary-general", denied this
assertion. His press officer, Yves
Sokorobi, also refuted the claim that
Annan promised at their meeting in the
Gambia that he would use his office
to deal with the West's sanctions
against Zimbabwe.
The denials by Annan's office this week put
paid to Mugabe's
attempt to portray the Gambia meeting as a diplomatic
victory for Harare
against Britain.
At the meeting in
Banjul, held on the sidelines of the African
Union Summit earlier this
month, Annan endorsed former Tanzanian president
Benjamin Mkapa as mediator
in what Mugabe has depicted as a dispute between
Britain and
Zimbabwe.
Annan said his trip to Harare was no longer
necessary in the
light of Mkapa's diplomatic initiative.
Since the brief Banjul encounter, Mugabe has tried to put a spin
on what
transpired at the meeting, portraying it as a major victory against
the
West's attempts to put Zimbabwe on the agenda of the Security
Council.
The presidential assertions are however being denied
by Annan.
Sokorobi, in response to questions from the
Zimbabwe Independent
on Tuesday, said from New York that Annan's withdrawal
from mediation had
nothing to do with him being "an African
secretary-general".
He also denied that Annan had made an
undertaking to use his
office to get the EU and the United States to lift
their sanctions.
Asked whether it was true that Annan
withdrew from the mediation
because he is an "African secretary-general",
Sokorobi answered: "No."
Mugabe told the ruling party's central committee in
Harare on Friday: "He is
an African, a secretary-general from our continent.
We reminded him that we
did not want him to be tarnished and he added: 'I am
also your in-law.' It
would have been sad, very sad indeed, if he had obeyed
the bidding of the
Blair government on Zimbabwe."
Mugabe
applauded Annan for refusing to be reduced to a tool of
British manoeuvres
over the land issue that has been blamed for economic
decline over the past
seven years.
"We have always respected the office of the UN
Secretary-General," Mugabe was quoted as saying, "which is why we protected
it and its African incumbent by blocking a mission which would have
compromised its integrity."
While Mugabe's spin on the
Annan meeting is looking increasingly
threadbare, there are also problems
with Mkapa's mediation efforts which are
being dismissed by European
countries and the United States as based on a
false premise. They have said
the mediation efforts are not necessary as
what is required is for Zimbabwe
to deal with its own internal problems
while the international community can
only assist.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
GOVERNMENT is
set to slash three digits from the local currency
in a bid to facilitate
transactions in the purchase of goods and services
which has become
cumbersome in a hyperinflationary environment.
Sources said
government was working around a proposal submitted
by a local accounting
firm which suggested striking out the three zeros from
the local currency as
an alternative to Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
governor Gideon Gono's
initial proposal for an outright currency change.
Government is in a fix
over whether to introduce a new currency or change
the
denominations.
The decision means that government will drop
three zeroes from
the local currency to introduce a kilo-dollar. A
kilo-dollar will be
equivalent to the $1 000 currently in
circulation.
Galloping inflation has resulted in
unprecedented money supply
growth, forcing consumers to carry huge volumes
of bearers cheques of little
value. The inflated figures are causing
computer accounting systems to fail
to transact, store or
process.
Accurate financial information has also been
compromised due to
large transaction values which most accounting systems
are not able to
capture.
Supermarket tills have been
overwhelmed by the number of zeroes
resulting from the drastic drop in the
value of the local currency due to
inflation, now around 1 184%. Zimbabweans
now carry large bags of money
because of the number of notes needed for
minimum transactions.
Minister of Finance Herbert Murerwa is
considering a proposal to
drop three zeroes from the $1 000 note to make it
a one kilo-dollar. In
other words, a $100 000 note will become 100 kilo
dollars. The proposal
submitted to the minister by the Institute of
Chartered Accountants of
Zimbabwe (ICAZ) on June 30 said this would help
companies' computer
application systems which were failing to cope with the
number of
overflowing zeroes.
"All payments made by RTGS,
cheque or cheque card after midnight
on August 31 is made in kilo-dollars,"
said the proposal from the ICAZ. "If
payment is made in cash, it will be
made with notes in circulation. Thus a
bill of $127,32 kilo-dollars would
require cash of $127 320."
It said financial results and
evaluation of company assets had
become vulnerable to fatal inaccuracies.
The ICAZ said companies, especially
banks, did not have the foreign currency
to acquire new software to cater
for the number of zeroes. Some software in
Zimbabwe cannot support a $10 000
000 000 (11 digits) figure. Almost all
software fails at $1 trillion which
is 15 digits. It said dropping the three
digits would ensure that the
existing software remains in use.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
THE Zimbabwe
government is planning to block an International
Monetary Fund (IMF) Article
IV consultation mission to Zimbabwe scheduled
for September after failing to
reclaim its membership of the Bretton Woods
institution, the Zimbabwe
Independent established this week.
The move comes as reports
swirled in the market that the country
was about to consummate multi-billion
dollar deals with Chinese and Russian
investors. The deals could result in
the injection of at least US$1 billion,
three months' worth of import cover
in an economy scraping for foreign
currency, before the end of the
year.
Details of the deals were not immediately available at
the time
of going to press, but sources indicated they involved Chinese and
Russian
firms prepared to pour large amounts into greenfield mining
projects.
Nor was information available on how the government
would
resolve its cat-and-mouse relationship with the
IMF.
An indignant letter has been sent to Washington, the
Independent
understands, demanding an explanation. To date no reply has been
received.
Sources indicated that ministers were fuming over
failure by the
IMF to restore Zimbabwe's membership after the country
cleared arrears to
the IMF's General Resources Account (GRA) in
February.
Zimbabwe cleared its overdue financial obligations
to the GRA
but still has substantial arrears amounting to US$119 million
under a
separate facility.
While the clearance of its
arrears under the GRA removed the
basis for its compulsory withdrawal from
the fund, the country remained
suspended from exercising its voting rights
as a member of the Bretton Woods
institution.
There was
speculation in the market that Zimbabwe's intention
was to forestall pending
measures against the country regarding remaining
arrears.
Zim Independent
Tendai Mukandi/Reagan
Mashavave
STRIKING junior doctors have appealed to
President Robert Mugabe
to consider removing Health and Child Welfare
minister David Parirenyatwa in
his next cabinet
reshuffle.
The doctors blame the minister for the stalemate
in their work
boycott that has paralysed major health institutions, accusing
him of being
too autocratic and overbearing in his approach to important
issues.
In an open letter to President Mugabe, the doctors
pleaded with
him to consider their grievances when he reshuffles the
cabinet.
"We believe this issue is now beyond the
comprehension of your
minister who should be trembling now, what with the
impending cabinet
reshuffle. We wait with anticipation for the fate of this
man, who has let
you down in all ways," says the letter.
"Your Minister of Health and Child Welfare has been your biggest
let-down.
As one appointed to such a critical ministry, we would expect him
to be
astute, quick-witted, resourceful and keen, all traits of which are
missing
from the honourable minister," the letter says.
"His
autocratic and overbearing approach to important issues is
immensely
disconcerting. In his many years as minister he has failed to
address the
issue of brain drain especially of the doctors."
The doctors
say the shortage of doctors will continue to haunt
the country if their
current "paltry" salaries are not revised.
"Your Excellency,
your doctors are getting a paltry salary of
$56 million. Your doctors are
getting a vehicle loan of $50 million, a
figure that would incense even the
most neutral of observers," the letter
says. The doctors want their salaries
raised to at least $250 million.
It adds: "Right next door,
in our neighbouring region, they are
giving their doctors salaries of R20
000, decent vehicles, numerous
allowances and boundless opportunities for
further personal and career
development. These startling revelations, your
honour, then make it obvious
why your sons and daughters are deserting their
own country."
The doctors blame the minister and his deputy
Muguti for issuing
malicious and false information to the public and calling
them students
despite all their work.
"Instead of
striving to improve remuneration he perpetually
inflames and angers the
well-meaning doctors by labelling them students.
Surely your honour, it
would be a first in the world for a health system to
be run by
students."
The striking doctors say they have lost faith in
deputy minister
Edwin Muguti and Health secretary, Edward
Mabhiza.
"The permanent secretary Dr ET Mabhiza has not been
very
helpful, Your Excellency. He, like his minister, has dismally failed to
address critical issues affecting the health delivery system in Zimbabwe. He
still thinks he is running a province and yet he takes claim to a very
important seat in the equation of health delivery
system."
The doctors said they would not return to work until
their
demand for better salaries and improved working conditions were
met.
Hospital Doctors Association president Dr Kudakwashe
Nyamutukwa
confirmed the strike was still on.
"We will
only go back to work once our demands are met and we
are prepared even to
get fired if our demands are not met," Nyamutukwa said.
The
doctors are also demanding an increase in their car loan
allowances to a
level that makes it possible for them to buy a car.
"Honestly
you cannot have a car loan that can't buy a car. We
want a car loan that can
buy a car not these meagre allowances," said one
doctor.
The junior doctors currently number about 270 and are employed
at the main
referral hospitals, that is Harare Central, Parirenyatwa and
United Bulawayo
Hospitals.
A terse notice at Parirenyatwa Hospital's casualty
department
reads: "All junior doctors are on strike, only dire emergencies
are being
attended to."
Patients were being treated in
the outpatients department where
there was a long queue while others could
be seen lying on lawns in the
hospital yard.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
THE bid to
oust Harare Commission chairperson Sekesai
Makwavarara turned
confrontational this week with residents' representatives
resorting to
street protests demanding her removal.
The residents'
protests complement Zanu PF Harare province's
vote of no confidence in
Makwavarara two weeks ago.
The Combined Harare Residents
Association (CHRA) organised a
demonstration on Wednesday demanding an
immediate reversal of the
re-appointment of the Makwavarara-led commission,
an improvement in service
delivery and the holding of mayoral elections in
Harare. But the protestors
were attacked and arrested by
police.
"About 300 members of CHRA from the ward leadership
gathered in
the city centre along Chinhoyi Street and peacefully marched
towards Town
House," CHRA spokesman, Precious Shumba, said
yesterday.
"They had placards with messages demanding
improvement in
service provision, return of water supply and the immediate
reversal of the
re-appointment of the illegal commission running the affairs
of Harare,"
Shumba said. They also demanded the holding of mayoral and
council
elections.
Shumba said before they could proceed
to Town House, armed riot
police intercepted them and started beating the
demonstrators, injuring
three and arresting 19 people, among them two
journalists.
"Among the arrested was the acting CHRA chairman
Israel Mabhoo,
who was leading the parade, and journalists Ndamu Sandu and
Godwin
Mangudya."
Sandu is a reporter with The Standard
while Mangudya was with
the banned Daily News. They were released yesterday
after paying admission
of guilt fines.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
A FRESH
probe into Zanu PF's crumbling business empire -widely
seen as an attempt to
scuttle Emmerson Mnangagwa's bid to succeed President
Robert Mugabe - has
taken a new twist following the engagement of external
auditors.
An audit report prepared by Kudenga & Co
chartered accountants
has since been submitted to the party's politburo, it
emerged this week.
The party's politburo has in the past set
up two different
committees chaired by Zanu PF's secretary for finance David
Karimanzira.
Their mission was interpreted as a bid to
incriminate Mnangagwa
and thus take him out of Zanu PF's succession
race.
Once touted as Mugabe's heir apparent, Mnangagwa
presided over
the ruling party's investments before he was replaced by
Karimanzira.
Zanu PF spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira
confirmed that there was
an audit but said "the report has not been
presented yet either to the
central committee or the politburo". He referred
further questions to
Karimanzira.
Prodded to comment on
allegations that the probe was meant to
scuttle Mnangagwa's presidential
ambitions, Shamuyarira said: "I have no
comment on that."
Karimanzira refused to comment, only saying the audit was a
private issue
that could not be discussed in public.
Ngoni Kudenga, a
senior partner at Kudenga & Co chartered
accountants, said his
organisation was bound by ethics not to divulge
confidential client
information.
"We do not give out information on our clients
otherwise we
would be sued and forced to close. What you are doing is like
asking a
doctor to divulge someone's HIV status," said
Kudenga.
The first probe team into Zanu PF's financial empire
unearthed a
number of irregularities in the running of the party's
companies. Among the
companies that were said to have virtually collapsed
were M&S Syndicate,
Zidco Holdings and Zidlee Enterprises.
Zim Independent
A GWANDA man accused of insulting President Robert
Mugabe has
been remanded out of custody to July 28 for sentence after the
presiding
magistrate threw out an earlier application for
discharge.
Bassanio Chikwiriri, a builder by profession, is
alleged to have
insulted President Mugabe by saying that he was the
"architect of the
country's economic crisis".
Chikwiriri
appeared before Gwanda magistrate, Douglas Zvenyika,
on Tuesday and was
remanded out of custody to Friday for trial. The lawyer
representing
Chikwiriri, Thompson Mabhikwa, applied to the court for
discharge arguing
that the state had no prima facie case against his client.
However, the magistrate dismissed the application and set a date
for
trial.
"The application we filed to have my client discharged
was
thrown out by the magistrate and we now have to return to court for a
trial
on 28 July," Mabhikwa said.
The state's case is
that on September 24 last year at the Talk
of Gwanda restaurant and
nightclub, Chikwiriri made derogatory remarks about
Mugabe in Shona.
Chikwiriri was arrested in October last year. He denies
uttering the said
words and also denies the charges against him.
In his
defence, Chikwiriri said the allegations were false and
that they emanated
from local Zanu PF officials whom he said were at
loggerheads with
him.
In Zimbabwe it is a crime punishable by either
imprisonment or a
heavy fine to insult the president.
Under provisions of the draconian Public Order and Security Act
it is also
an offence to make gestures at the president or his
motorcade.
Chikwiriri said he was arrested after he refused
to be part of
builders in the government-funded Operation Garikai/Hlalani
Kuhle exercise,
a move he says angered Zanu PF officials in the district and
led them to
fabricate the insult story. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
PRESIDENT
Robert Mugabe has failed to oppose a court application
within the stipulated
time seeking reinstatement by a former senior police
officer Senior
Assistant Commissioner Simbarashe Gambiza, whose sacking he
sanctioned.
Mugabe, who had 10 days to respond to the
lawsuit, was cited as
the first respondent while police commissioner
Augustine Chihuri is the
second respondent.
Gambiza, a
former head of the Police Internal Investigations
Unit, said he cited Mugabe
as the first respondent "in his capacity as
employer (and) disciplining
authority in respect of all commissioned
officers as provided in Section 14
of the Police Act".
He added that Mugabe had no legal right
to adopt the
recommendations of a probe team that called for his dismissal
as he had not
sanctioned the enquiry.
"The decision to
institute any disciplinary proceedings against
a commissioned officer in
terms of Section 50 of the Police Act should be
preceded by strict
compliance with Section 14 of the Act. In effect, the
president must
sanction any intended disciplinary action against any officer
before it is
implemented," Gambiza said.
He said he fell out of favour
with his colleagues in the police
force after he unearthed rampant
corruption at the Criminal Investigation
Department's Vehicle Theft Squad
section.
Law enforcement agents also wrongfully accused
Gambiza, his
affidavit claimed.
Despite Mugabe not
opposing the application, Chihuri filed
papers with the High Court praying
for the dismissal of the reinstatement
sought.
Chihuri
said Gambiza's sacking was above board as he had "become
unsuitable for
police duties".
He also accused him of lying that he had
participated in the war
of liberation resulting in him being
promoted.
On Tuesday the head of the Civil Division in the
Attorney-General's Office, Fatima Maxwell, could not immediately comment on
the case saying the lawyer handling it was not available.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
LEADER of the
splintered Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
Morgan Tsvangirai has turned
down an invitation to a public discussion with
other opposition leaders
where he would have come face-to-face with the
faction led by Arthur
Mutambara.
The meeting of five opposition parties takes place
in Bulawayo
tomorrow.
Issues pertaining to the split in
the MDC were expected to take
the limelight at the public meeting convened
by a local think-tank, Bulawayo
Agenda, to discuss the country's mounting
problems.
Other opposition leaders invited to tomorrow's
meeting are
Daniel Shumba of the United People's Party (UPP), Paul Siwela of
Zapu,
Pearson Mbalekwa of the United People's Movement (UPM), and Leonard
Nkala of
the Patriotic Union of Matabeleland (Puma). Siwela, Mutambara,
Shumba and
Nkala all confirmed they would attend the meeting while Mbalekwa
was not
reachable for comment.
Spokesperson for
Mutambara's camp, Gabriel Chaibva, confirmed
that their leader would attend
the meeting.
"The president is aware of the invitation and he
is arriving
from the United States on Friday. Definitely he will be in
Bulawayo on
Saturday for the meeting," Chaibva said.
Tsvangirai faction spokesperson, Nelson Chamisa, said Tsvangirai
had other
commitments on Saturday.
"It's unfortunate that President
Tsvangirai is not going to
attend this meeting because he has other prior
arrangements. But as a party
we realise the importance of creating platforms
of interacting on the new
Zimbabwe we want," Chamisa
said.
He however said Tsvangirai would avail himself at
future fora to
discuss problems afflicting Zimbabwe.
Sources in the Tsvangirai camp said the faction was irked by the
invitation
to Mutambara, a move viewed at Harvest House as legitimising
Mutambara's
group.
The sources said Tsvangirai decided not to attend the
meeting
after consulting with national executive members on Wednesday
evening.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
ZIMBABWE'S tourism industry recorded zero
growth during the
first half of the year due to lack of efficient marketing,
cost structures
and negative perceptions of the country, the Zimbabwe
Council for Tourism
(ZCT) has said.
ZCT chief executive,
Paul Matamisa, told the Zimbabwe
Independent this week his council was
seriously looking into the stagnation
in the tourism
industry.
"When we talk of growth we refer to arrivals and
revenue and the
industry has not recorded any growth since the beginning of
the year,"
Matamisa said.
He attributed the stagnation to
poor marketing and the country's
cost structure that has made Zimbabwe's
prices expensive in international
terms.
"While most of
our tourists have been from the Far East, it is
important for the industry
to maintain our European market," Matamisa said.
"You cannot
afford to ignore existing markets at this stage
because it can take long to
lure them back once they are gone," he said.
He said what was
needed to increase growth in the industry in
the short-term were roadshows
locally and abroad to market the country.
Figures made
available by the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority for the
first quarter of the
year show that the industry recorded marginal increases
of 2%, earning the
country close to US$22 million.
However, the rise in arrivals
did not translate into improved
revenue as the sector saw a decline of 31%
in receipts, down from US$30,5
million achieved last year to US$21,2
million. A total of 495 976 tourists
visited the country, up from 452 683
recorded during the period under
review.
Zim Independent
By Nobukhosi Ndlovu
IN an age
when cyberspace has taken over communication, most
institutions,
organisations and even political parties have resorted to
using the Internet
as a mode of communication to reach a wider audience.
Zanu
PF, which launched its official website -
www.zanupfpub.co.zw -in 2002 has failed to
take advantage of this useful
medium.
The party last
updated its web page on November 7 2005 just
before the senate election. As
if stuck in a time warp, the site currently
shows news stories from 2002 and
debates on the 2003 national budget.
Likewise, the list of
cabinet ministers has not been updated.
The vice-president of Zimbabwe is
still given as Simon Muzenda who died
three years ago and the deputy
Secretary for Information and Publicity is
still Jonathan Moyo although he
left Zanu PF before the March 2005
parliamentary
election.
President Robert Mugabe's last address on the
website is from a
speech given at the burial of Bernard Chidzero at the
National Heroes' Acre
on August 12 2002.
At the launch of
the website, the party said it aimed to inform
individuals of events in the
nation and the party, as well as giving
historical background on its
formation.
By contrast, South Africa's ruling African
National Congress
(ANC) appears to be using this tool of communication to
best advantage.
The ANC's official website, www.anc.org.za, includes a letter
from
President Thabo Mbeki based on the soccer World Cup set to take place
in
South Africa in 2010, as well as access to previous documents and
publications about the party.
The website also offers
news items, links to other related
websites, opportunities to join the party
or subscribe to mailing lists and
mobile news alerts.
In
the same way the MDC website, www.mdczimbabwe.org, provides
up-to-date information on the events taking place within the party, offering
forums for people to air their views and comments.
Why
then is Zanu PF failing to raise its standards by making the
most of this
cyberspace tool?
People are not able to access the
information they need online
from the ruling party and therefore resort to
spending time on other
websites. Discussions in chat rooms on the Internet
have also shown that
people are noticing the need for improvement of the
website's presentation
and content.
After the closure of
the party's newspaper, The Voice, in
February this year it would be expected
that there would be an immediate
need to revamp the official
website.
Gadzira Chirumanzu, assistant director in the Zanu
PF Department
of Information and Publicity, said they were currently working
on a new
detailed website to replace the existing one.
It
is not only the Zanu PF website that requires an urgent
makeover and an
injection of life but also the official government website,
http://www.gta.gov.zw, the Parliament of
Zimbabwe website,
www.parlzim.gov.zw, the Zimbabwe Tourism
Authority website,
www.zimbabwetourism.co.zw, and the
Air Zimbabwe website,
www.airzimbabwe.aero.
The Zimbabwe government website may have a few pictures to
brighten it up
but it offers no links and appears to be under construction
even though it
says it was last revised in June.
President Mugabe has
donated computers to schools in a
nationwide campaign to thrust a large
number of people into the information
age. Parliament, with the help of the
United Nations Development Programme
is set to establish 120 constituency
information centres for the benefit of
the electorate. The failure to update
its website is a serious indictment on
parliament's commitment to greater
use of information technology.
Once again by contrast the
South African government website,
www.gov.za, offers current information on events
within South Africa as well
as background information on the government and
other services.
The Parliament of Zimbabwe website also shows
no signs of
development as it gives information on the pre-budget seminar
for 2004 under
the "What's new" section and a diary of forthcoming events
for September
2004. The links to the guest book, parliamentary polls and
government of
Zimbabwe likewise do not work.
As expected
with most websites promoting a country, tourists
would expect to be dazzled
by bright images of the country they are planning
to visit. Unfortunately,
the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority website does not
exhibit these kinds of
images or any other intriguing features. It offers
information in
preparation for the Travel Expo 2005 instead.
The Air
Zimbabwe website also needs updating.
Unlike other airline
websites Air Zimbabwe's website does not
offer the luxury of online
bookings, check-in or lost-baggage traces.
Similarly some of the links do
not open, particularly the one for the
airline's
schedules.
There is therefore a concern with Zimbabwe's
inability to join
the rest of the world in developing through cyberspace.
This mode of
communication should be making
life simpler for
consumers of goods and services but it appears
to be far from being a
priority.
Perhaps there is still a need for government
departments and
parastatals to learn more about technology in order to apply
it to every day
life, following trends that have already been set across
cyberspace.
* Nobukhosi is a Rhodes student who was on a
week-long
attachment at the Zimbabwe Independent.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
FOUR years after
First Lady Grace Mugabe collected keys to Iron
Mask Farm to establish a home
for street children, the project has not yet
taken off, fuelling speculation
about who was benefiting from its output.
Reports that Iron
Mask had delivered 300 tonnes of maize and
soyabean to the GMB's Concession
depot has generated interest.
But the First Lady's
spokesperson, Lawrence Kamwi, dismissed
questions about the ownership of the
project saying there would be a
groundbreaking ceremony this Sunday at Iron
Mask.
"Zimbabwe Children's Rehabilitation Trust (ZCRT) is the
beneficiary of all proceeds from Iron Mask Farm," Kamwi
said.
"We will give you the breakdown of all produce sold
from the
farm and the amounts it has generated so far."
He said over the past four seasons proceeds from the farm had
been going to
a trust fund to enable it to start building the children's
home.
Information obtained from the GMB's Concession
depot in
Mashonaland West province revealed that Iron Mask would be paid
more than
$8,5 billion for the five consignments of grain delivered to the
depot this
season.
It could not be established who was
the beneficiary as the
cheques are still to be collected.
"Five cheques valued at $8 521 738 000 have been issued to Iron
Mask and are
yet to be collected," a source said. The cheque numbers are:
36630; 36631;
36634; 36698 and 36714.
Iron Mask has been delivering produce
to the GMB over the past
four seasons.
In August 2002 the
Zimbabwe Independent revealed that Grace
Mugabe had collected the keys to
the then $100 million, 27-room mansion at
the farm, which had been acquired
by government for resettlement.
Authorities were quick to defend the
acquisition saying the farm would be
used for charity
purposes.
The then Jewel Bank chief and now Reserve Bank
governor Gideon
Gono was quoted as saying the farm had been allocated to the
ZCRT of which
Grace Mugabe is a founder and patron.
Gono,
the ZCRT chairman, went on record saying the trust had as
of August 2002
mobilised about $50 million to kick-start charity projects on
the
farm.
To date, there are no indications of any developments
relating
to a children's home. However, the farm is being fully
utilised.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
AIR Zimbabwe has
been struggling to service its routes with its
remaining Boeing 767 after
its other Boeing 767 has been grounded for the
past 60 days in
Frankfurt.
This followed an engine problem due to excess oil
leakage on its
way to London last month. It leaves the national airline with
the one
aircraft to service long distance routes such as London, Dubai,
China and
Singapore.
Air Zimbabwe flies to London three
times a week on Wednesday and
Friday evenings, and has a day flight on
Sunday.
The same plane also flies to Dubai on Tuesday,
returning the
following day.
Sources at the national
carrier said the Boeing 767 was
consuming about 9 quarts (18 pints) of oil
per nautical mile instead of the
stipulated six quarts (12 pints) by the
manufacturers.
The increase is consumption, according to
information at hand
meant the plane had reduced oil being pumped into its
engine bearings and
other parts which could adversely affect its
engines.
"High consumption of oil meant there was an engine
problem which
needed to be attended to urgently," a source told the Zimbabwe
Independent.
When the plane landed in London on June 15
Boeing experts in the
UK requested that it be grounded as it was unfit to
fly back to Harare.
A message was relayed to Harare for the
other long-haulage
Boeing 767 to come and fly passengers from
London.
The plane was later flown to Frankfurt by Zimbabwean
pilots to
be attended to by Lufthansa Technic Company, who have a contract
with Pratt
& Whitney, the manufacturers of Boeing
engines.
"The plane is expected to be back in the air on
August 24," a
source said.
Air Zimbabwe acting chief
executive officer, Captain Oscar
Madombwe, confirmed that the plane was
being attended to after developing an
oil leak.
"Everything regarding the servicing of the plane is under
control. Flights
are continuing as normal and we expect the plane to be back
in the air next
month," said Madombwe.
Meanwhile on Monday Air Zimbabwe
entered a code-share
arrangement with Air Malawi for the
Harare-Lilongwe-Dubai route and expects
passengers to increase
twofold.
The partnership is part of the airline's turnaround
programme
which is expected to enhance operations.
Since
May last year, the airline carried 7 850 passengers on the
route, with the
load factor increasing to 68,72%.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
RESERVE Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono this week
sought to gain the confidence
of distrustful financial sector executives by
extending a raft of
concessions to the banking sector, amending US
dollar-linked capital
requirements and further reducing statutory reserve
ratios.
Banking sector sources said Gono, who held a
meeting with bank
chief executives on Wednesday, revised earlier policy
announcements forcing
financial institutions to match capital levels with
prescribed United States
dollar equivalents at exchange rates ruling at any
given period.
This meant that the capital levels had to be
continually
adjusted in line with the depreciation of the defenceless local
currency.
The sources said banks will now have to match their
capital
levels with prescribed US dollar equivalents at the current exchange
rate,
and will not be compelled to adjust the levels upwards should the
local
currency depreciate.
It is widely expected that
Gono will devalue the dollar when he
makes his monetary policy review or put
in place measures that would allow
the local currency to depreciate on the
interbank market, where rates have
remained almost unchanged since his
policy statement in January.
The sources said the reduction
in the statutory reserve
thresholds follows a similar measure three weeks
ago made by the central
bank to curtail a financial sector crisis first
reported by the Zimbabwe
Independent in May.
Another
reduction in statutory reserves thresholds was made on
June
19.
High statutory reserve ratios put in place earlier this
year had
pushed banks, mainly the top five commercial banks, to the brink of
closure
as they were effectively paying out 58% of all their deposits to the
RBZ
without earning interest.
Of the balance from the
deposits, 76% was being locked into
two-year treasury bill (TB) instruments
with poor yields.
The central bank has since abandoned the
penal two-year TBs, and
hiked yields on those already on financial
institutions' portfolios to
curtail bank failures.
During
his meeting with bankers, Gono reportedly announced that
statutory reserve
ratios for all classes of deposits would be further
reduced by 2,5
percentage points.
Gono earlier this month reduced statutory
reserve ratios for
commercial and merchant banks from 50% on demand or call
deposits to 47,5%
and from 40% on savings or time deposits to
37,5%.
Statutory reserve requirements on demand and time
deposits are
now pegged at 45% and 35% respectively following Wednesday's
decision.
Another reduction in statutory reserve ratios had
been made on
June 19, and Gono had indicated then that he deemed the
measures to be
"critical for strengthening financial stability" in the
banking sector.
A source said Gono had also requested bankers
to assess the
impact of removing three digits from the country's currency
after the
bankers said they could be forced to draw off huge sums of money
to replace
software because current software could not accommodate the high
number of
digits on the country's currency.
The source
said Gono had during his Wednesday meeting with
bankers displayed a "highly
conciliatory tone" to sector players he had
hounded when he took charge of
the central bank over two years ago.
"He seems to now want to
carry the bankers with him," a source
said.
Gono's
concessions to bankers are expected to form part of
wide-ranging monetary
policy measures expected before the end of this month.
Zim Independent
BRITAIN'S ambassador to Zimbabwe has voiced grave
disapproval of
President Robert Mugabe's economic policies, saying the
country was at a
crossroads and needed a radical policy shift to rescue it
from a six-year
recession.
"If it (Zimbabwe) continues to
take its current course, it will
put itself beyond rescue," Ambassador
Andrew Pocock warned in an article
published in the British Embassy's latest
quarterly journal, Britain and
Zimbabwe, the first since he arrived in the
country in February.
"But Zimbabwe has a choice; it can
change track, change policies
and give its people the life, prospects and
future they deserve," Pocock
said.
Zimbabwe has withered
under a six-year economic crisis critics
blame on mismanagement by Mugabe's
government, in power since Independence
from Britain in
1980.
Mugabe blames the economic recession on what he
describes as
"machinations" by imperialist Europe abetting Britain's scores
against his
regime for expropriating white-owned farmland for redistribution
to landless
blacks.
Various audits of the land reform
have revealed gross abuse by
ruling party and government chiefs and their
cronies who have emerged as the
biggest beneficiaries of huge tracts of land
parcelled out under the
agrarian reforms.
Most of them
took over fields ready for harvesting, selling farm
yields and making huge
sums of money but later leaving the farms lying
derelict.
Hundreds of Zimbabweans have fled mainly to Britain and South
Africa to seek
economic opportunities and escape the crisis, characterised
by run-away
inflation and food, fuel and foreign currency shortages.
"Policy in Zimbabwe needs to evolve in a new direction for the
people and
the future of Zimbabwe, and because it is the right thing to do,"
said
Pocock, discounting government allegations of a British conspiracy to
unseat
Mugabe by instigating the crisis.
"Let us be clear: only the
Zimbabwean government can make this
choice. It can be done and is being done
in other African countries which
have faced recent difficulties," said
Pocock.
He said countries like Rwanda and Tanzania were
demonstrating
that it is possible to have economically sustainable,
market-friendly
policies while working closely with international
donors.
"Sovereignty and co-operation are not mutually
exclusive," said
Pocock, making a veiled criticism of government's constant
refusal to budge
in response to international censure of its policies under
the claim of
sovereignty. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
THE Government
Telecommunications Authority (GTA) has discounted
claims that the
Interception of Communications Bill was repressive and would
negatively
impact on the sluggish telecommunications industry if passed into
law.
"The intention of the government is to allow
law-enforcers to
track criminals and deal with subversive material," said
Charles Hwekwete,
who represented GTA at the Postal and Telecommunications
Regulatory
Authority (Potraz)'s Internet and Voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP)
consultative workshop held in the capital last
week.
The GTA provides telecommunications services to the
government
and its various organs.
"The Bill is necessary
for security reasons. There are a lot of
security concerns and the Bill will
allow the government to address those
concerns," Hwekwete
said.
He said Zimbabwe will not be the only country to have
such a
law.
"Besides, manufacturers of modern telecoms
equipment are
manufacturing in a way to allow lawful interception," Hwekwete
said.
According to the Bill, government would establish a
communication centre to intercept and monitor certain communications in the
course of their transmission, through a telecommunication, postal or related
service system.
The Transport and Communications minister
would also be granted
authority to issue an interception warrant to state
agents, "where there are
reasonable grounds for the minister to believe,
among other things, that a
serious offence has been, is being or will
probably be committed or that
there is a threat to safety or national
security".
Telecommunication service providers would also be
compelled to
install devices to enable interception of phone conversations,
faxes and
emails.
The telecommunications industry
currently has a single
state-owned fixed-line operator, Tel*One and three
mobile network operators
namely Econet, Telecel and Net*One which is owned
by the government.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
THREE months
into Zimbabwe's ambitious economic blueprint, the
National Economic
Development Priority Programme (NEDPP), the country's
economy is still
experiencing a steep decline.
Inflation, which had reached an
all-time high of 913,6% when the
programme was launched in April, is now
sitting at close to 1 200%, with
interest rates hovering at over 900% - an
insolvency alert to businesses,
particularly those sitting on high
borrowings.
According to private sector-commissioned studies,
60% of
manufacturing companies have experienced significant decline in
output
volumes.
More than 15% of manufacturing companies
are operating at less
than a third of their capacity, with another chunk of
a similar fraction
operating at between 30% and 49%
capacity.
Nearly nine out of every 10 manufacturing companies
are unable
to cover their costs and make full use of their standing
capacities.
Government's domestic debt last month touched an
all-time high
of $48 trillion, and there are fears this could bloat further
due to growing
fiscal profligacy.
Economic commentators
are forecasting a budget deficit of over
10% during the
year.
What government ministers had sold as a panacea to
Zimbabwe's
economic depression is failing to provide the required cure,
creating a deep
sense of disillusionment among business leaders. Those who
welcomed the
programme with glee are beginning to realise the government
sold them a
dummy.
In fact, government had, during the
launch of NEDPP, said that
the project was a joint effort between the
government and the private
sector.
"There is a very low
confidence level across the board," said
Luxon Zembe, the immediate past
president of the Zimbabwe National Chamber
of Commerce, speaking at a recent
Institute of Personnel Management of
Zimbabwe convention.
Zembe said despite the hullabaloo about an economic turn-around,
the
"reality on the ground" was a forbidding image of a distressed
economy.
There is an acute shortage of foreign currency, with
the country
only managing to provide 10% of national
requirements.
Economic distortions are prevalent in the
economy, creating
arbitrage and corrupt business
practises.
Multiple fuel and maize prices as well as fickle
exchange rates
are fuelling the corrupt tendencies.
"There is a food crisis due to poor agricultural productivity by
incompetent
farmers," said Zembe.
Prices of basic commodities are
doubling every month, and the
rich are getting richer while the poor are
getting poorer "by the day", he
says.
"The dollar value
is now a joke," said Zembe. "The highest note
in Zimbabwe ($100 000) cannot
buy bread or a bottle of Coke."
He said Zimbabwe had lost 50%
of its key skills base to the
diaspora.
Zembe, who was
part of the business delegation at the launch of
NEDPP, said government had
in the past ignored recommendations from
business, resulting in dire
consequences for the country's economy.
Zimbabwe's gross
domestic product has contracted by a cumulative
40% over the past eight
years, and it has the largest budget deficit in the
world at
10%.
The country has experienced the steepest fall in foreign
currency earnings of 60%.
Life expectancy has been
rapidly falling, as well as the
standard of living.
Over
70% of the country's population is considered poor.
Zembe
said the NEDPP was a result of government's dismissal of
past economic
recommendations from the business sector.
Although not saying
whether or not the programme was failing, he
pointed out that business
confidence was at its lowest since 2000.
"Levels of
confidence (in business and the economy) dropped from
50% to 9% between 2000
and 2005," said Zembe.
Since Independence in 1980, Zimbabwe
has had no less than 10
economic growth and poverty reduction related
programmes.
These include Growth with Equity (1981), the
Economic Structural
Adjustment Programme (1991), Poverty Alleviation Action
Programme (1994),
and Zimbabwe Programme for Economic and Social
Transformation 1996-2000.
Since then, there have been identical economic
blueprints such as the
Zimbabwe Millennium Economic Recovery Programme
(2001), the Ten Points Plan
(2002), the National Economic Revival Programme
(2003); and Zimbabwe:
Towards Sustained Economic Growth - Macro-Economic
Policy Framework for
2005-2006.
None seems to have
sustained business confidence, forcing most
entrepreneurs to either give up
or scale down.
The NEDPP was expected to create economic
stability within six
months to October 2006.
Zimbabwe has
experienced a major humanitarian emergency due to
the deteriorating economy,
immense policy constraints and the devastating
effects of HIV/Aids since the
crisis set into the economy in 2000.
In a paper delivered at
the University of Pretoria's Institute
of Strategic Studies, Professor Tony
Hawkins of the University of Zimbabwe's
Graduate School of Management, said
Zimbabwe had in recent years "relied on
the international community to help
feed a country that seven years ago was
a substantial net exporter of food
and agricultural produce".
"This is merely the tip of the
iceberg - the start of a
protracted process of donor dependence that will
last for decades," Hawkins
said.
Although inflation
marginally declined from its peak of 1 194%
in May, economists say the
situation remains gloomy.
The government through the Zimbabwe
National Security Council
chaired by President Robert Mugabe formulated the
NEDPP. Mugabe announced
what he described as "evident revival of our
economy" during his state of
the nation address in July
2004.
Under the NEDPP, the government seeks to mobilise
US$2,5 billion
within the next three months, boost efforts to stabilise the
economy, reduce
inflation and increase agricultural
production.
The programme also aims to help enhance savings
and trigger
investments inflows into the country.
Mugabe
said last week that policies the government had
introduced were beginning to
bear fruit.
He said foreign currency inflows were beginning
to increase
through foreign investments.
"I won't say much
now, but between now and December a lot is
going to happen. We cannot fail
and we cannot collapse," Mugabe was quoted
as saying in the state
media.
Clearly, the NEDPP has failed to deal with the basic
reasons
behind the country's spectacular economic
decline.
These include skewed economic policies, a breakdown
of the rule
of law, and the government's destruction of the commercial
farming sector,
previously the bedrock of the country's
economy.
Zembe said there was a "worrying level of pessimism
towards the
recovery process", and that positive changes in agricultural
productivity
and political and economic policies were
needed.
He said the government should embrace a "nationally
shared
economic vision" and embrace market economy policies which are
coherent and
consistent.
Hawkins maintained: "The social
and economic damage in
instances - certainly to agriculture and
manufacturing - is not just
long-term but permanent. It will take at least a
dozen years to regain the
living standards of the 1990s."
Zim Independent
THIS is the third and final part of a letter
written by the late
Vice-President Joshua Nkomo 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.
It is known through
information given by the masses in the
affected curfew areas that, in fact,
the people who go about killing,
maiming, raping and burning government
property are, in fact, agents
provocateurs planted by Zanu PF in the form of
undercover pseudo-dissidents.
It is further known that
government property destroyed by
dissidents was property used by district
councils who were made up of 100%
Zapu members, who were known to have
worked hard to use this equipment for
developing their areas vigorously and
with great enthusiasm.
It is known that about 90% of the
victims killed by dissidents
were either top Zapu officials, Zapu
businessmen and teachers, Zapu local
government officials and generally Zapu
supporters. The remaining 10% appear
to be white people. Not a single Zanu
supporter was killed during this
period. Does not this fact speak for
itself? One does not know what the
position is or would be after the Fifth
Brigade's bloody escapade in the
Western Province of
Matabeleland.
It can be said without hesitation that to have
used the police
as if they were Zipra officers in the Dr Bertrand case was
an abominable and
fascist-like attempt to portray to the country and the
world at large that
former Zipra combatants had plotting tendencies so as to
blemish the name of
Zipra.
I believe that the notes that
were purported to have been sent
by former "Zipra dissidents" to the police,
when foreign tourists were
abducted near Bulawayo in July 1982, were in fact
an effort to show Zapu and
former Zipra combatants in bad
light.
Having said that, I would like to make it clearly
understood
that former Zipra combatants are not the responsibility of Zapu
but of the
Zimbabwe government, like anybody else. Despite this I found it
necessary to
activate and involve the masses in the areas where it was
thought kidnappers
may be hiding with the tourists, but before I concluded
the exercise
government declared a curfew in those areas, making them no-go
places,
causing an abrupt end to that effort. Why that was done I do not
know to
this day.
I now understand why you have
maintained legislation such as the
Law and Order (Maintenance) Act, the
Unlawful Organisations Act, and the
Emergency Powers Act which was enacted
by former regimes specifically for
the suppression and oppression of the
black population of Zimbabwe, and for
use against their effort to struggle
for independence, social justice,
enjoyment of freedom and human rights. You
now seem to enjoy and justify the
use of these notorious laws to deny your
own people that which they fought
and died to achieve.
What is it that makes you believe that this independence, which
you and I
and indeed the masses of Zimbabwe fought for, for so long, should
now be
maintained and protected by this type of legislation? Don't you think
there
is something wrong?
I am not surprised that you have decided
to maintain a state of
emergency which was declared by Ian Smith on the 5th
of November 1965 in
preparation for his illegal action to declare, control
and protect his type
of independence.
During the
protracted war our people were subjected to every
kind of cruelty and
oppression. No man's life was safe, it was the frequent
fate of an innocent
villager to be shot out of hand, to be arbitrarily
arrested and often to be
tortured, to suffer the burning of his village, the
massacre of his women
and children, the destruction of crops and livestock,
to suffer long years
of imprisonment or to endure the pangs of long exile.
The legal basis of
this campaign of terror was the "state of emergency".
You
well know that in point of fact the Law and Order
(Maintenance) Act was used
to undermine and subvert law and order to quite a
horrendous degree, and the
declaration of a "state of emergency" itself was
instrumental in creating an
acute state of emergency by unleashing forces
which inflicted a wave of
murder and brutality upon our people which, in its
savagery and disregard
for humanitarian considerations, had no precedent
among our
people.
Taken together, these facts indicate clearly that for
many years
an unparalleled campaign of barbarism and terror was waged
against the
masses. Yet this campaign failed; our people did not submit,
they fought
back until finally victory was won and independence
achieved.
But what in fact has been achieved? It is painful
to ask this
question, for it springs from events which have increasingly
darkened the
horizons of Zimbabwe over the past year or more, events I am
trying to
summarise in this letter.
You knew that having
created the confusion, you would then be
able to take military and legal
action against deliberately created
"political and armed dissidents"; hence
the arrest of men like Lookout
Masuku, Dumiso Dabengwa and others, and
decided to charge them with treason.
It is a shame to all of us who fought
for liberty, freedom and the rule of
law, to see Dumiso, Masuku and others
being immediately arbitrarily detained
after acquittal by the High
Court.
It is a well-known fact that in Zimbabwe today, there
are more
people detained without trial than in fascist South Africa. Most of
these
people are also without formal detention orders and the next of kin
have no
idea as to whether they are alive or dead.
These
people are not enemies of Zimbabwe, but patriots who have
suffered, like us
and many others, in the struggle to free their country,
Zimbabwe, peasant
men, women as well as young men and women who only happen
to be caught in a
conflict the government itself created.
The double tragedy of
Zimbabwe today is, firstly, that the
routine and administrative use of
detention, torture and arbitrary
repression has been adopted by an
independent government and, secondly, that
this government uses the very
same mercenaries and torturers as the former
regime used against the
struggling people.
In fact the situation today is in some
respects even worse, as
our government has abandoned even those standards of
bourgeois legality
which the Smith regime generally attempted to hide their
repression behind.
Under that regime you could be detained but at least you
were more likely to
be issued with a detention order. You were therefore,
less likely to simply
disappear as is the case today.
The
mercenaries and torturers used by the former regime are
known and are very
few, and therefore their exclusion from our security
organs could not have
disrupted those organs.
There are, in Zimbabwe today, so many
different groups of armed
men with power to do virtually anything to
people.
People get arrested by the CIO, the Law and Order
Section of the
police, the so-called Zimpolis, the so-called Zanu
Intelligence Service
(which is not an arm of government), the military
police of the Zimbabwe
National Army, the Fifth Brigade (which seems to
regard execution as the
most effective method of arresting people), the
Youth Brigade (which is also
an arm of the party, but used as if it were
part of the machinery of
government), the militia, by Zanu party officials,
by undercover
pseudo-dissidents - the list is endless.
In
fact, the rights of the Zimbabwe citizen as defined in the
constitution are
meaningless.
One of the most disgraceful and shaming aspects
of our
independence which is difficult to defend is that we have taken the
methods
and men used to oppress, torture and kill our people and tried to
use them
to consolidate our "independence". You cannot take weapons, methods
and
people designed to defend colonial fascism and try to use them to defend
the
people. It is just not possible.
Today in Zimbabwe
the same torturers that Smith used against the
people are back in business
"defending a people's government". They must
smile to themselves when they
are ordered to continue their torture of
patriots by an independent
government.
The methods of torture are also the same:
electric shocks,
beatings, burning with cigarettes, suffocation using wet
sacks, and
psychological torture. In the recent case of the State vs
Dabengwa and
others, the government must surely have been embarrassed when
the activities
of Fraser, Arnold (of CIO) and DSO Kaurayi were revealed in
court. These men
whose record of torture and atrocities against the people
during the
liberation war are well known, were brought into this case by our
government
to use their same techniques against the heroes of the liberation
struggle.
In court it was revealed that Fraser assaulted,
tortured and
threatened Zipra men to tell lies against their commanders. DSO
Kaurayi did
the same to workers on the Nitram farms. Arnold, the so-called
chief of the
investigation, offered bribes and threats to witnesses to try
to get them to
change their evidence. Fraser has now run back to his masters
in Pretoria.
Arnold and Kaurayi remain to be used again to prostitute
justice and bring
disgrace on the memories of the fallen heroes of our
struggle.
Under the terms of the Indemnity Act, which we
condemned as
barbaric and fascist during the liberation struggle, a citizen
has no right
of appeal or redress against those who illegally torture, maim,
kill,
destroy property or do any illegal act on him or against
him.
I am sure you realise that the result of this use of
Smith's
laws and torturers has been to create in an independent Zimbabwe a
climate
of terror and fear even more discriminate than that created by the
Smith
regime. Remember, there is no war in Zimbabwe
today.
As it is in Zimbabwe, everyone faces this fear. It is
a fear
created by the fear the government itself obviously feels. What the
government is in fear of is not very clear, but the fact that our government
lives in daily fear cannot be doubted.
Ministers fear to
walk the streets without armed men around
them, roads are sealed off,
convoys of armed men race through the streets
sirens wailing announcing this
fear.
The real victims of this climate of fear are the people
themselves. How can the people get on with the vital task of building the
nation when all around them they feel this insecurity and fear? At any
moment they know that this machinery of fear and repression may be turned
against them.
The people of Murewa may have not yet felt
the bayonets of the
Fifth Brigade, but they have already heard the stories.
In their faces is
the fear that one day this party army may be turned
against them. It is
certain that some Zanu members fear that the Fifth
Brigade may be turned
against Zanu and that it may even turn against its
creators.
Is this the climate of a confident, free, proud and
independent
people and government? You do not teach young people to be
contemptuous of
human life and expect them to respect
yours.
Mr Prime Minister, as I have mentioned above, the way
the
security organs of government in their generality are being used has
created
fear and despondency in the minds of a wide section of our people.
But, let
me stress that the activities of the Fifth Brigade in particular
are
something I never expected could happen in Zimbabwe. I could not make
myself
believe that such activities could have been carried out with your
knowledge
and approval.
It was when you were reported to
have given an astounding
declaration at a rally in Zhombe that I realised
you support what the Fifth
Brigade has done and continues to do in
Matabeleland; quote: "When men and
women provide food for dissidents, when
we get there we eradicate them. We
do not select who we fight, because we
cannot tell who is a dissident and
who is not." - Financial Times, Telegraph
and The Times, 15/4/83).
Comrade Prime Minister, you know
that about two weeks before
election day in March 1980, then Governor of
Southern Rhodesia, Lord Soames,
called all leaders of political parties
contesting in the election and told
them that "because of the security
situation in the eastern districts of
Zimbabwe there could be no free and
fair election there", which meant
election would in fact not take
place.
You will remember, I am sure, that about four or three
days
before polling day, Lord Soames unilaterally and without consultation
announced that elections will take place in all districts in the country,
including the eastern districts. I am sure you will agree with me that, with
all the goodwill in the world, the Good Governor could not have made the
"security situation" in the eastern districts so stable in less than two
weeks, to be able to conduct "free and fair elections".
You know as well as I do that the unstable and dangerous
security situation
in the eastern districts was caused by your party, Zanu
PF, which maintained
armed former Zanla combatants throughout that area who
terrorised by
beatings, tortures and even killing anyone who did not comply
with Zanu PF
directions. It was made impossible for any party other than
Zanu PF to
operate in the eastern districts area.
We in Zapu tried to
canvass support for elections in those
districts, and ended up with two
candidates killed, 18 party workers killed
and several others severely
beaten up, some of them permanently maimed, and
while others disappeared to
this day. I approached you and told you what
your party was doing with
little or no effect at all on the situation there.
Now that
the 1985 elections are approaching Zanu PF has begun
using the same tactics
as were used in the eastern districts before and
during the 1980
elections.
This time the Fifth Brigade is being used as state
machinery to
terrorise and coerce the people in Matabeleland. Some believe
that you are
doing all this not just for electoral advantage, but that your
aim is
genocide.
As an effective coercive stunt, the
Fifth Brigade was deployed
in the area ostensibly to root out dissidents but
in fact to terrorise the
masses by beatings, torture, killings, rapings,
looting, burning of
villages, and literally doing anything atrocious on such
a large scale as to
instil fear into the people, not only in the affected
areas, but that the
effects of the action would pervade the entire
population of Zimbabwe.
This has been followed by maintenance
in every area sizeable
groups of the Fifth Brigade and reinforced by armed
Youth Brigades in areas
like Gokwe and Zhombe to organise forced pungwes
(rallies held from dusk to
dawn) at which the old and the young are forcibly
given doses of Zanu PF
indoctrination.
This group has
continued to carry out selective beatings,
torture, killings and kidnappings
in their respective areas. In areas like
Nkayi, Lupane and Tsholotsho only
sizeable groups of the Fifth Brigade are
maintained. It is general practice
during these pungwes that young women,
schoolgirls and residents' wives are
forced to have sexual intercourse with
brigadiers.
District councillors, chiefs and headmen are ordered by these
armed young
men to give numbers of people under them, and then given a
corresponding
number of Zanu PF membership cards and told to return with
cash and lists of
names on a given day.
These are the methods used for
organising rallies for Zanu PF
ministers and other
officials.
I know and accept that the Fifth Brigade was
deployed in these
areas after the murder of about 200 people in about a year
and the
destruction of thousands of dollars worth of government equipment by
dissidents. But Mr Prime Minister, I am sure you appreciate the absurdity of
trying to protect people who have had 200 of their number killed in 12
months by dissidents while the Fifth Brigade in the process of that
protection kills 3 000 to 5 000 people in six weeks.
I
know that you have denied that any such things have taken
place in
Matabeleland, but the fact is that the evidence of this is
irrefutable and
based on the testimony of numerous first-hand witnesses, not
least on that
of many of the victims who survived. These victims include
teachers, nurses,
district councillors, etc.
Apart from victim witnesses, there
are among others well-known
international aid organisations who were friends
of Zimbabwe during the war
and after independence, who came to work with our
people on the ground
level. Added to these witnesses are different churches
which work in the
affected areas. I would refer especially to the testimony
of no less than
six Catholic bishops who were moved to issue a joint signed
pastoral
statement at their Easter 1983 conference. They did this, I would
remind
you, after I made my own disclosure at a press conference and in
parliament
late in February.
It has to be appreciated
that a bishop of the Catholic Church,
indeed any Christian bishop, is a
person who has devoted his life to the
service of God. In order that his
ministry shall be effective, he has an
obvious interest in maintaining
friendly and cordial relations with the
government of the day. It is
certainly not in his interest, or that of his
flock, to act in any way which
will make such relations difficult or
discordant. We may conclude therefore
that when he is so moved he acts from
a deep sense of personal conviction
and from motives which can scarcely be
said to spring from
self-interest.
The following is an extract from their
statement: "We entirely
support the use of the army in a peace-keeping role.
What we view with
dismay are methods that have been adopted for doing so.
Methods which should
be firm and just have degenerated into brutality and
atrocity. We censure
the frightful consequences of such
methods.
"Violent reaction against dissident activity has, to
our certain
knowledge, brought about the maiming and death of hundreds and
hundreds of
innocent people who are neither dissidents nor collaborators. We
are
convinced by incontrovertible evidence that many wanton atrocities and
brutalities have been and are still being perpetrated. We have already
forwarded such evidence to the government."
I would
remind you of the basis on which this testimony is made.
It stems from the
first-hand reports of numerous parish priests, priests who
are articulate
and responsible officers of their church and who are in close
daily contact
with the people of their parishes.
Again in the interest of
their work they have everything to gain
from maintaining good relations with
the government of the day, and much to
lose from a failure to do
so.
Hence their testimony is surely to be judged to be
disinterested, just as their motives for offering it can spring from nothing
but a desire to serve their people. In this light is it possible for anyone
in a position of authority and hence responsibility for these outrages, and
possessed of the merest sense of human sensibility and compassion to feel
other than a deep sense of shame and a desire to make amends for all this
grievous suffering?
I was amazed and bewildered when Dr
Nathan Shamuyarira dismissed
the Catholic bishops' statement as
"irresponsible, contrived propaganda".
But I thought because as Minister of
Information, he would swallow what the
bishops in their well-considered
statement said about his
government-controlled mass media which has, to
quote the same pastoral
statement, "singularly failed to keep the people of
Zimbabwe properly
informed of the facts which are common knowledge, both in
areas concerned
and outside them through the reports of reliable
witnesses.
"The facts point to a reign of terror caused by
wanton killings,
woundings, beatings, burnings and rapings. Many homes have
been burnt down.
People in rural areas are starving, not only because of the
drought, but
because in some cases supplies of food have been deliberately
cut off and in
other cases access to food supplies has been restricted or
stopped. The
innocent have no recourse or redress, for fear of
reprisals."
I was shattered when you as Prime Minister said
of the bishops'
well-thought and constructive pastoral letter: "The seven
Catholic bishops'
pastoral statement sermonising my government on the
morality of our military
operations in Matabeleland as they affect human
rights and our policy of
reconciliation is the latest pronouncement on the
subject."
You further said the bishops were playing to the
international
gallery and are mere megaphone agents of your external masters
- "this band
of Jeremiahs".
"In these circumstances, your
allegiance and loyalty to Zimbabwe
becomes extremely
questionable."
Considering that the church in general and the
Catholic bishops
in particular on the question of human rights were very
outspoken during our
war of independence, one wonders where we are being
headed to.
Looking at your attitude towards this most serious
occurrence in
your country, it appears that for many of our people the
result of a 15-year
armed struggle has not been to achieve the liberties for
which they fought,
but an increase in the oppression against which they took
up arms in the
first place.
I agree completely with the
bishops when they declare: "These
brutal methods will have the opposite
effect to what the government is
intending to achieve." And we would add
that terror did not work under Smith
and it will not work today under
us.
As a direct result of government terrorism thousands of
people
have fled into neighbouring territory and many, many more have left
their
villages and gone into hiding. In keeping with the worst excesses of
the
Smith era there has been the burning of villages and other barbarities
referred to in the report, as well as the widespread practice of extortion
and attempts at compulsory indoctrination as stated in preceding
paragraphs.
This is not government, it is the abuse of
government, an abuse
which transforms the rule of law into the law of rule.
As such it cannot
lead to a free, united, peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe.
But to one in
which oppression, division, violence and poverty will shadow
all our hopes,
and make a mockery of the freedom struggle in
which so many heroes gave their lives.
In the final section
of their statement the bishops appeal to
the government to use its authority
to stop these excesses and call for the
establishment of a judicial
commission. We fully support this call. But I
feel that the problem facing
us in Zimbabwe today requires an approach much
more resolute, much more
embracing than ever
attempted by Zanu and Zapu
before.
A judicial commission as proposed by the bishops
should be a
part of wider machinery composed of a wide spectrum of our
society, who
should examine our composite problems together with government,
seek and
find solutions which should be implemented jointly by the people
and
government.
If the people of Zimbabwe and their
government fail to find a
solution to this serious situation in which we
find ourselves, our enemies
will exploit the situation and destroy
us.
Remember, Prime Minister, Zimbabwe and the people have to
defend
the country from these enemies. But today Zimbabwe is defenceless
because
the people live in fear, not of these enemies, but of their own
government.
What has happened to the brave and determined,
confident and
fearless people of Zimbabwe and their soldiers of liberation,
who showed the
world that no power on earth could prevent us from achieving
our freedom?
That was a time when even our enemies had to admire us for our
courage and
determination.
Today our enemies laugh at us.
What they see is a divided,
confused and frightened people, led by a
divided, confused and frightened
government.
A government
which has the love, respect and confidence of the
people does not have to
use the laws and weapons of colonial regimes to
protect itself. The people
themselves will protect their government if they
have full trust in it. Fear
is a weapon of despair, used by those who fear
the people. This is the time
and opportunity to rebuild trust, find the
solution to our problems and
defend the country as a united people.
Yours
sincerely,
Joshua M Nkomo.
Zim Independent
By Craig Richardson
FEW countries
have failed as spectacularly, or as tragically, as
Zimbabwe has over the
past half-decade. Zimbabwe has been transformed from
one of Africa's rare
success stories into one of its worst economic and
humanitarian
disasters.
But while culpability for this collapse is broadly
attributed to
the policies of President Robert Mugabe, the intricacies of
the country's
unravelling remain poorly appreciated - above all, the
importance of
property rights in the process.
That is
unfortunate, because the destruction of Zimbabwe offers
important,
cautionary lessons for other developing countries.
Development economists like to study success: how to pull a
country out of
poverty, how to spur growth, how to improve living
conditions. Yet what
about a country undergoing a rapid and devastating
economic
collapse?
Curiously, development economics has devoted little
attention to
studying this phenomenon, and there is scant research to
explain how it
happens.
Consider Zimbabwe, a state which
since 2000 has been in an
economic tailspin. Today, it is shrinking faster
than any other country that
is not at war. Zimbabwe's currency is nearly
worthless from hyperinflation,
its financial institutions are in disarray,
its world-class farms sit idle,
and its manufacturing, mining and export
sectors are declining steeply. The
informal exchange rate is $450 000/US$1;
six years ago it was $55/US$1.
In fact, the collapse can be
traced to a single policy: the
fast-track land reform programme, under which
the Mugabe government,
beginning in 2000, seized thousands of white-owned
commercial farms, leading
to a sharp drop in agricultural output. The other
"inappropriate" policies
adopted by the government added to the damage, but
they were not the
underlying cause.
Yet a puzzle remains:
the farming sector made up only 18% of the
entire economy. Other sectors,
such as banking, tourism, manufacturing and
mining, also shrank dramatically
during this time. How to explain the
discrepancy?
In
fact, the damage done to property rights by the land reforms
caused a series
of ripple effects throughout Zimbabwe's other economic
sectors.
Studying this "cascade failure" helps to reveal
the framework of
developing market economies - what economist Hernando de
Soto calls "the
hidden architecture" of capitalism. The destruction of
Zimbabwe represents a
grim "natural experiment" that illustrates the
consequences of ignoring the
rule of law.
Unfortunately,
the rebuilding of an economy after property
rights have been revoked is
likely to be contentious and slow, akin to
rebuilding trust in a
relationship after a serious betrayal.
Zimbabwe was once
considered one of Africa's success stories,
with its modern roads, strong
education system, low crime rate and
diversified economy. Economic growth
from 1980 to 1989 averaged a robust
5,2% in real terms, and though it slowed
from 1990 to 1999 because of
questionable macroeconomic policies, it still
averaged 4,3% during this
period.
An important reason for
the country's prosperity was its
sophisticated commercial farming sector.
Vast tracts of large-scale farms
produced thousands of hectares of tobacco,
cotton and other cash crops.
About 4 500 white families owned these farms.
In contrast, 840 000 black
farmers eked out a living on small and relatively
infertile plots in the
communal lands, producing maize, groundnuts and other
staples.
By the late 1990s, a broad consensus had taken shape
- including
the Mugabe government, the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
the United
Nations, the British government (the original colonial power in
Zimbabwe),
African scholars and even many of Zimbabwe's white commercial
farmers - that
land reforms were needed. The purpose of these reforms would
be to improve
agricultural productivity and, simultaneously, increase wealth
for the black
majority.
As it turned out, however, the
IMF - along with everyone else
who had trusted the Mugabe government - was
soon proven wrong. Beginning in
2000, Harare began seizing control of
white-owned farmland, with no
compensation for its owners, and then
redistributing it to political cronies
in the Zanu PF party, rather than to
poor rural farmers.
Because most of the new owners knew
little about farming,
agricultural production dropped sharply. Land titles
were declared null and
void, and all contracts and mortgages related to the
farmland were suddenly
worthless. The Mugabe government thus recast land
reform into a tool of
political patronage, with the renewal of leases left
to the whims of the
party leadership.
Mugabe's
government, the UN, the IMF, international aid agencies
and non-governmental
organisations have offered many excuses for Zimbabwe's
collapse, all
downplaying the impact of the land reforms and Harare's
malfeasance. Among
these excuses have been droughts, foreign sanctions and
lavish spending on
war veterans. None is plausible as an alternative
underlying explanation for
the country's unravelling, however.
If the usual explanations
for Zimbabwe's implosion are
insufficient, why do the country's land reforms
provide a better
explanation? The argument here is straightforward: the
expropriation of land
without compensation destroyed property rights - the
foundation of the
economy - and set off a chain reaction, which was
intensified by additional
actions of the Mugabe
government.
Property rights are analogous to the concrete
foundation of a
building: critical for supporting the frame and the roof,
yet invisible to
its inhabitants. In fact, there are three economic pillars
that rest on this
foundation:
* trust on the part of
foreign and domestic investors that their
investments are safe from
expropriation;
* land equity, which allows wealth in property
to be transformed
into other assets; and
* incentives,
which improve economic productivity by allowing
individuals to capture the
fruit of their labours.
How did Mugabe's destruction of
property rights lead to the
collapse of these three pillars and with them
the country's economy?
In sifting through the rubble, it is
clear that the pillars were
not of equal strength. Trust is the most fragile
of the three pillars and
was the first to disintegrate, followed by land
equity and, lastly, producer
and worker incentives. Watching Zimbabwe's
economic unravelling is
chillingly reminiscent of watching a building
collapse in slow motion after
a series of timed
explosions.
In 1993, the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) was
opened to
foreigners for the first time. Investors were bullish and, by
1996, Zimbabwe's
equity markets were surging.
More than
half of the growth in the top 35 sub-Saharan companies
(excluding South
African groups) came from Zimbabwe. The number of
Zimbabwean companies in
the region's top 35 rose from nine to 11 in one
year, but more importantly,
their combined market capitalisation more than
doubled from US$1,2 billion
to US$2,6 billion.
Zimbabwe was one of the top performers in
the world's emerging
markets and a new favourite of
investors.
Just before Christmas 1997, however, the
government announced
that 1 471 of the country's 4 500 farms had been
earmarked for compulsory
acquisition. This kind of rhetoric had been heard
before from Harare and was
largely dismissed as
electioneering.
Yet by 1998, the government's language became
even more heated.
Speaking to prospective voters in the Matobo district in
September of that
year, Mugabe attacked "rich farm lands in former white
colonial hands" and
argued that expropriation would "cure the economic and
social ills
bedevilling the nation".
The ZSE began to
plunge soon thereafter. News reports indicated
that investors were
increasingly leery of the government's plans. By the end
of 1998, the value
of stocks traded on the ZSE had dropped by a stunning
88%.
As Christopher Dell, US ambassador to Zimbabwe, has
noted:
"Nothing rattles investor confidence more than the prospect of
expropriation. The constitutional amendment striking down the right to
redress for victims of land expropriation sent a shock wave through the
community of investors who keep an eye on the climate in
Zimbabwe."
Between 1998 and 2001, foreign direct investment
dropped by 99%.
In addition, the World Bank risk premium on investment in
Zimbabwe jumped
from 3,4% in 2000 to 153,2% by 2004.
It
is hardly surprising that the stock market and foreign direct
investment
collapsed so quickly, and somewhat in advance of the actual farm
seizures.
After all, this type of wealth is the most fluid and therefore the
most
volatile. With a few keystrokes tapped out on a computer, investments
can
instantly move thousands of kilometres to a more promising
country.
As the farm seizures continued, banks became
reluctant to lend
to the remaining commercial farmers whose land had been
listed for
compulsory acquisition by the government or occupied by
squatters.
A vast constriction of borrowing occurred, which
rippled from
business to business, and sector to sector. With the Zimbabwean
government
declaring itself the sole owner of farmland, banks and other
property owners
now held worthless titles. The land became what De Soto
calls "dead
capital", because it was unable to be leveraged and used as
equity.
An estimated US$5,3 billion worth of land value
vanished as a
result. In 2001 alone, this loss of financial equity in the
farmland sector
exceeded all of the World Bank aid ever given to Zimbabwe by
a whopping
242%. This drop in wealth also equalled 65% of Zimbabwe's GDP in
2003, which
the World Bank estimated at US$8,3 billion.
With banks now holding worthless titles and unable to foreclose
on
properties, 13 of Zimbabwe's 41 banking institutions were in financial
crisis by late 2004. The amount of credit sharply contracted, affecting all
sectors of the economy. Gross fixed capital formation, heavily dependent on
loans, fell by 43%, from US$1,1 billion in 1999 to US$0,6 billion in
2001.
Before 1997, on average, 1 600 tractors were sold
annually
throughout Zimbabwe, with farmland typically used as collateral. By
2002,
total national sales dropped to only eight tractors, according to a
2003 IMF
report. The OECD reported that gross private capital formation, a
healthy
20% of GDP in 1995, fell to -6,7% in 2002, as farming equipment was
looted,
destroyed or sold.
Zimbabwe's conversion from
productive to dead capital was now
nearly complete. Just as De Soto's work
has shown how developing countries
can harvest wealth by titling land and
using that property as collateral for
bank loans, the case of Zimbabwe shows
that these ideas work in reverse as
well - with grim
results.
This, then, is the second pillar of the economy that
crumbles
when land reform movements destroy property rights. Bank
investments are
certainly less volatile than stock markets and foreign
direct investment and
have the ability to withstand greater shocks to the
system when secure rule
of law is under threat.
Property
owners have the most to lose and the least to gain by
uprooting their
livelihoods and moving to another country. Their departure
signals the final
stage of economic collapse.
The loss of Zimbabwe's 4 000
farms has had an impact on every
aspect of the country's economy, as noted
by economist John Robertson. Each
of these farming companies employed 100 or
more people, paid taxes to the
government and generated incomes for others
that also yielded taxes.
In addition, the farms provided
housing, clinics and schools;
more than 1 million Zimbabwean children
received an education from farm
schools. Communal farmers also benefited
from the farming companies,
sourcing their demands for seed, fertiliser,
chemicals and expertise to
them.
Though agriculture was
only directly responsible for 18% of the
Zimbabwean economy, 60% of the
country's non-farm enterprises directly or
indirectly depended on commercial
agriculture inputs. As a result, 700
non-farming companies had shut their
doors by late 2001. In addition, the
agricultural sector of the economy
employed 60% of the entire population,
which meant that millions of
unemployed workers now had far less disposable
income to purchase the
nation's goods and services.
Commercial tobacco and cotton
farms also provided about 40% of
hard currency in the country, necessary for
imports like fuel, machinery and
medicine. With the collapse of the
commercial agricultural sector, food and
other basic goods disappeared from
shelves, and widespread fuel shortages
paralysed the country's cars and
planes.
Without hard currency in its coffers, the Mugabe
government
turned to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to pay its bills. Annual
money supply
growth rose from 57% in January 2001 to 103% by the end of the
year,
inaugurating a cycle of devastating hyperinflation.
According to the OECD, the acute food shortages caused by the
land reforms
meant that the country, which was once a net exporter of maize,
had to print
billions of Zimbabwe dollars to import food. The government
even ran out of
hard currency to buy the imported ink needed to manufacture
its own money;
as a result, bills were printed on only one side. By March
2006, it took $60
000 to buy one loaf of bread, even as a new $50 000 note
was being printed
to "keep up" with higher prices.
Zimbabwe now vies for a
number of depressing world records: most
orphans per capita, highest number
of Aids cases per capita, and lowest life
span, at 38 years. It was recently
rated by the World Economic Forum as the
world's worst place to do business
out of 117 countries surveyed.
The prospect of land reform
can be appealing, even seductive, to
developing countries with large
disparities in wealth - a simple matter of
extracting resources from a "less
deserving" rich minority and
redistributing them to a "more deserving" poor
majority. Yet as seen in
Zimbabwe, the outcomes of fast-track land reform
have enormous potential to
backfire, leaving everyone worse off than
before.
Unfortunately, several countries continue to ignore
this lesson.
In South Africa President Thabo Mbeki expressed interest during
his latest
state of the nation speech in revisiting the "willing buyer,
willing seller"
principle for land redistribution. South Africa is expected
to begin
expropriating farmland at state-determined prices this year, part
of a
broader attempt to address the economic inequalities inherited from
apartheid.
South Africa Deputy President Phumzile
Mlambo-Ngcuka agrees that
the pace of land reform should be accelerated.
"There needs to be a bit of
oomph," she said in a 2005 interview. "That's
why we may need the skills of
Zimbabwe to help us."
South
Africa and other countries considering land reforms should
pay heed to the
disastrous experiences of Zimbabwe before plunging ahead. As
the market's
foundation, property rights serve many purposes: they bind
together work and
rewards, expand time horizons from days to years, allow
wealth to be
transformed into other assets, and encourage foreign
investment.
The speed at which an economy can develop
ultimately depends on
the ability of the government to inspire trust among
citizens, banks, and
investors that it will fairly enforce the rule of
law.
Other factors are important as well, such as free
markets,
stable money supply, good healthcare, strong educational systems
and ease of
starting a new business. But none ultimately matters as much as
the
individual's ability to secure and retain property
rights.
* Craig Richardson is an associate professor of
economics at
Salem College, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is author of
The Collapse
of Zimbabwe in the Wake of the 2000/2003 Land Reforms.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
EVER heard of a condition called
cognitive dissonance? It is an
expression used to describe a personal state
of detachment from reality.
Which is why it is often applied to
politicians!
You can observe it in the guy at a party who
tells terrible
jokes. Everyone laughs uncomfortably while he proceeds to
tell another one.
President Mugabe's address to the central
committee as reported
in the state media at the weekend was as confusing as
it was intriguing.
There were traces of cognitive dissonance and outright
fantasy which
underline the ruling party's inability to engineer an economic
turnaround.
Mugabe said people were suffering and the cost of living was
continuously
going up.
"Life is difficult, yes, but
freedom can never be negotiated,"
he said. He then went off at a tangent to
say our freedom did not come about
because the British wanted it but because
Zimbabweans wanted it.
There are two issues raised here: the
people are suffering and
freedom cannot be negotiated. Are these two
related? Perhaps the message is
that Zimbabweans cannot have it both ways -
having full stomachs and being
free.
I am confident party
leaders listening to the president, if they
were listening at all (I will
come back to this later), were not only
enjoying their freedoms but
labouring on full stomachs too.
More dissonance. President
Mugabe said given the good rains this
season, Zimbabwe had demonstrated to
the world that it could produce enough
food to feed its people. But in the
same address, we hear "there has not
been enough food, we do not have all
basics." What is the actual position
regarding food in this
country?
This is the hallmark of cognitive dissonance.
Politicians
afflicted by this condition are not aware of complete
self-contradictions or
the utter lack of logic. The ideas are rooted in
confusion at best, delusion
at worst.
Then we were told
that mining firms which were not interested in
the government policy of
indigenisation should get out and allow others to
come in. The president
said it was the party which made policies and gave
directions. But then he
provided useful disclosures on the composition of
the party. He told us
every time the party meets they are talking about
"restructuring,
restructuring and restructuring... Do you people listen?" he
wondered.
Mr President, if they do not listen to you,
what about poor
villagers in Musambakaruma?
Worse still
this party which is supposed to come up with
"policies and directions" on
crucial issues like mining legislation is not
only ridden with "divisions,
disunity, selfishness (and) individualism" but
it also has among its senior
members makorokoza (illegal gold panners) and
men and women of loose morals
who do not listen to serious warnings on HIV
and Aids.
"Zviiko zvamuri kuita (what are you doing)?" Mugabe asked of his
lieutenants. But he has faith in them. They will lead the turnaround. They
are expected to bring down inflation to single digit levels, revive closed
companies, etc.
Meanwhile, I was happy to receive news
this week that our news
editor Dumisani Muleya had landed the prestigious
Free Press Africa Award at
this year's CNN/MultiChoice African Journalists
Awards in Mozambique.
I am sure you will agree that this is a
fitting honour for
arguably the best political news writer in the country
today who has proved
to be a courageous fighter in the battle for a
democratic society in
Zimbabwe.
As noted by British
Speaker of Parliament Michael Martin last
year when Muleya was awarded the
House of Commons Speaker Abbot Award: "One
day we hope Zimbabwe will have
its freedom like the cousins you have in
South Africa. And when that freedom
is won, people will make the observation
that you (Muleya) were at the
forefront of the fight and struggle for
democracy, justice and peace in your
country."
I have always believed that real fighters for media
freedom will
demonstrate their struggle in their works. Dumisani has done
this through
thoughtful and well-researched articles, something young
political reporters
should emulate instead of cheering on makorokoza,
multiple farmers and
multiple spouse owners and those who stand for every
moral wrong in society
today.
Well done Dumi and
congratulations to another great Zimbabwean
son, Desmond Kwande, for winning
the Mohamed Amin Photographic Award.
Zim Independent
PRESIDENT Mugabe
seems worried about the wayward behaviour of
his colleagues in the party. He
told the party's central committee meeting
last Saturday that senior
officials were abusing their positions to amass
wealth and
properties.
He promised to launch a campaign to weed out such
people.
"We shall now be bound to have a cleansing in the
central
committee," he said.
We would be surprised if
anybody was moved by these threats. In
the past they have been just that,
empty threats which have been met with
sniggering
contempt.
How many multiple-farm owners have returned the
surplus
properties taken during the orgy of looting dubbed fast-track land
reform?
He has launched several land audits, ostensibly to verify who owns
what land
or who has more than one farm. The results have remained a closely
guarded
secret as if Zimbabwe were government's private
property.
We have no doubt that the failure to name and shame
is
responsible for people ignoring his threats. Let's have the names and
people
will change. As it is, the only "collectivity" we have is about
looting
national resources.
While we are at it, is it not
an abuse of authority when Lands
minister Didymus Mutasa cancels a land
offer letter simply because there is
an ownership dispute between a private
individual and a senior party
official?
The wrangle
between Zanu PF national chairman John Nkomo and
Langton Masunda over the
ownership of Jijima Lodge is getting more and more
sordid, with Mutasa
trying to circumvent the courts in favour of Nkomo. It
doesn't portend well
for Mugabe's campaign of cleansing.
President speaks on
successor," the Sunday Mail told us. But in
fact he said very little apart
from the claim that the succession issue
would not be decided by
witchdoctors but by the people of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe called the
succession a "nonsensical thing". This is
despite the fact that he told a
Zanu PF congress in Masvingo in 2003 that
people were free to debate the
issue so long as they did not cause divisions
in the
party.
Did the people of Zimbabwe choose Joice Mujuru? Is
that what
happened?
We recall the promise of a free
debate being thwarted by
presidential fiat in November 2004. Those who
disagreed with the imperial
decree were denounced and
suspended.
Come Saturday, he accused unnamed people in the
party of
consulting "witchdoctors" so that they could succeed him. Quite
strangely,
he seemed to imply that he was surrounded by unsuitable people
because they
lacked dignity. He regretted government having built flats in
the Avenues
where his ministers and party officials had set up so-called
"small houses"
and had many children scattered around
town.
All these are startling revelations from a head of
state about
his subordinates. Doesn't this reflect badly on the leader
himself for
selecting unsuitable people as his
ministers?
The French Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Michel
Raimbaud, has called
on Zimbabweans to discuss their problems among
themselves before trying to
engage foreigners. New Ziana quoted Raimbaud as
saying at an event to mark
Bastille Day: "If you accept to discuss with
foreigners as we are, why not
talk among Zimbabweans as you
are?"
He urged government to re-engage in political dialogue
with
traditional partners which would allow for the resumption of bilateral
relations.
"Why not re-engage in a political dialogue, as
we propose, which
would allow for the resumption of links which have been
broken or slackened,
to clear up misunderstandings, perhaps to recognise
responsibilities in the
times or years gone past, to make up for missed
opportunities?" he said.
There is certainly nothing new in
these calls. What is strange
is why something so obvious has eluded our
political leadership.
When it comes to the issue of internal
dialogue, even President
Mugabe appears to pay only lip service to
sovereignty and Zimbabwe's
internal affairs and believes aliens like
Benjamin Mkapa will solve our
problems. It smacks of hypocrisy. Which is
perhaps what the French
ambassador was saying in a nicer
way.
'We'll soldier on," President Mugabe told a group of
what seemed
to be largely silent journalists at Zimbabwe House last
week.
"We decided to soldier on, seeking assistance from our
friends,"
he said after claiming the economy was "under siege" by Britain
and its
allies.
The government was working "flat out" to
turn the economy around
through programmes like the National Economic
Development Priority
Programme.
This would be the panacea
to the problems the country was
facing, he claimed.
We
await evidence of that. As for his "soldiering" on, what sort
of soldiering
does he have to do? Are there any power or water shortages at
State House?
Does he have to queue for food? What hardships is the Mugabe
family having
to sustain?
The truth is the country is having to soldier on
in the face of
the hardships his policies have imposed. And he is still
claiming it is all
somebody else's fault. He even managed to resurrect the
story about Britain
intercepting oil tankers on the high
seas.
But don't worry, it's all about to get better, he
claimed.
"Government has been aware of the hardships in the
food area,"
he said. Everything had been going up in price. "But inflation
is now going
down and it's the start of the turnaround of the
economy."
So, a marginal decrease in the rate of
inflation is interpreted
as inflation going down!
Needless to say the president failed to provide any other
evidence of the
"turnaround" which only he can see. There was now more
production of goods,
more foreign currency and greater investment, he
claimed.
But the strangest part of his homily came when he spoke about
political
violence.
"It worries us that some people are violent," he
said.
Since when? And where is Joseph Mwale? The see-nothing,
say-nothing journalists present didn't ask.
How in all
seriousness can a self-respecting reporter let a
politician get away with
something like that? And when the president talks
of the good life not
coming from the British, didn't it occur to anybody to
ask what sort of a
good life he has brought us!
Why have a million Zimbabweans
chosen Blair's Britain in
preference to Mugabe's
Zimbabwe?
We noted the reference to "people engaging in gold
deals". Does
this mean the one-time anointed heir, who fell out of favour
but was
reported to be creeping back in, is now out of favour once
more?
Back to witchdoctors, Nathaniel Manheru thinks that
because
Jonathan Moyo contributes the occasional op/ed piece to the Zimbabwe
Independent he is therefore editing the paper. Does the same apply to
Manheru at the Herald?
Manheru didn't used to be so
unkind to his former boss. Indeed
he was slavish in his devotion cheering on
every depredation by Moyo against
the independent press. Now he sings a
different song.
But we can be assured that if Moyo was
editing Manheru's column
he would know that it was Harold Wilson, not Harold
Macmillan, who was
British prime minister in 1965. He would also be able to
locate the Aswan
Dam!
Geoff Nyarota also needs some
editorial assistance. Malawi
became independent in 1964, not 1963, and a
republic in 1966. Many
Commonwealth countries chose not to become republics
at independence
preferring to wait a few years.
Geoff
should also know that "Highfields" should read Highfield.
There is only one
of them! Finally, Robert Mugabe was released from
detention in December
1974, not 1975.
Meanwhile, Muckraker is looking forward to
receiving a copy of
Nyarota's book, Against the Grain. Arthur Mutambara has
already discovered
two errors, Geoff reported in his column last
week.
Geoff returned the favour by finding a major error in
the
professor's CV.
At a conference in Aspen, Colorado,
attended by a number of
prominent Zimbabweans, Geoff says Mutambara was
"wrongfully described" as
president of the MDC, "which quite clearly he is
not"!
Geoff claims David Coltart concurred and improbably
agreed to
inform the conference convenors of Mutambara's "correct status".
But Geoff
was mortified to discover that no "correction" was made to the
programme.
Mutambara, we are told, spent the rest of the
conference
avoiding Nyarota!
little article on
Tuesday claiming the United States and its
European Union allies were
"riled" by China's inroads in Africa caught our
attention. The writer tried
in vain to present Africa as a homogeneous
entity where the Chinese
premier's visit to seven African countries means
Zimbabwe has not been
"snubbed".
But that is the plain, painful truth. Why would he
skip Zimbabwe
when we have been all over the world pretending that China was
the kingpin
of our "Look East" policy?
China has been
trying to "help", yes but probably on the basis
of tenuous historical ties
dating back to the liberation struggle. But the
Chinese must be aware that
they are trying to help a country that is
hell-bent on ruining
itself.
For diplomatic purposes, there was therefore nothing
to be
gained by soiling their name by getting too close to a leper. Hence
Chinese
premier Wen Jiabao, president Hu Jintao and foreign minister Li
Zhaoxing all
gave Zimbabwe a very wide berth indeed during their recent
tours of Africa.
Having said that, there is no denying that
Kwame Nkrumah must be
turning in his grave watching the balkanisation of
Africa in its scramble
for new colonisers. His dream of a United States of
Africa appears to have
been sacrificed by petty-minded megalomaniacs
entrapped in the throes of
neo-colonialism.
Finally,
the Sunday Mail carried a picture last weekend of
people fast asleep at the
Umdala Wethu Gala in Bulawayo. Not just one or two
but dozens
of
them!
Evidently a good time was had by
all!
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
OVER
the last five years inflation has soared upwards almost
continuously, the
only exception being in the latter part of 2004. It
reached an all-tine high
of 1 193,5% in May 2006, before allegedly falling
to a miniscule extent in
June 2006 - but that fall must be viewed
circumspectly considering the
absence of any adjustment to the Consumer
Price Index for increases in
school fees since February, in domestic workers'
wages since September 2005
and in diverse other prices and charges.
As inflation has
surged higher and higher, it has impacted with
intensifying effect upon the
practicalities of Zimbabwe's currency. Coins
and low-denomination bank notes
became of no effective value and totally
meaningless as an exchange
medium.
The costs of production of those coins and notes
vastly exceeded
the nominal value, and usage of such denominations for
commercial
transactions is impractical in the extreme. Continuing use would
have
necessitated the replacement of wallets and purses with wheelbarrows or
even
bigger containers. Bank tellers would be unable to cope with volumes or
weights of deposits and withdrawals, and retailers would have had to replace
cash registers with vault-sized cash boxes.
The central
bank first addressed the problem with the issue of
$500 and, thereafter, $1
000 banknotes and, as the problem endured and grew
exponentially, with the
issue of bearer cheques, first having values of $5
000 and $10 000, then $20
000, subsequently $50 000, and recently $100 000.
Even that
has not sufficed to address the handling problems (and
the concomitant
exacerbation of security problems), for just the purchase of
a small trolley
of groceries can require a "brick" of 250 or more $100 000
notes, if one is
fortunate enough to obtain such notes, or two "bricks"
aggregating to 500
notes if only $50 000 notes are available.
Businessmen have
to carry briefcases full of currency to meet
business travel expenses such
as taxi fares, porters' gratuities, restaurant
entertaining of clients and
the like. If not resolved in some other way,
Zimbabwe now desperately needs
a $500 000 bank note, and could well need a
million-dollar note in the
not-too-distant future.
However, that is not the only
problem. Most of Zimbabwe's
computer programmes were designed without
expectations of having to cope, at
a future date, with a multitude of
zeroes.
Cash registers, accounting machines, petrol pump
pricing meters,
desk calculators, and the like, all coped very adequately
with monetary
calculations and recordals until inflation went berserk, but
can no longer
do so. They just don't have the capacity to deal with
transactions which
can, in many instances, encompass ten or more digits
(exclusive of cents
but, being programmed for cents, nevertheless using
three fields - two
digits and a decimal point, plus 10 or more quantitive
digits).
Accounting records, invoices, cash register till
slips and the
like do not have the space to accommodate a myriad of digits.
Disarray is
becoming more and more pronounced throughout commerce and
industry.
Many argue that the time has come for Zimbabwe to
issue a new
currency, contending that doing so will address the problem. It
had been the
intent of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to do so, and it has
publicly
foreshadowed the launch of a new currency in 2006. But that intent
was
formulated when inflation was falling (unfortunately, however, the fall
proved to be temporary in nature). It then made sense to plan to issue a new
currency. At present that is not so; it would be an exercise in the
pointless for, so long as hyperinflation continues to prevail, the new
currency would soon become as ineffectual as that which it would be
replacing.
As a result, within a relatively limited short
period of time,
it would become necessary once again to issue a new
currency, and so on ad
infinitum until inflation falls to very low,
sustainable levels. Moreover,
the cost of a new currency is immense, for it
is not only the cost of
production that must be sustained, but also of
withdrawal of the old and
issue of the new, and of education of the urban
and rural populace.
But Zimbabwe cannot do naught other than
await the day when a
new currency can be issued, for chaos is intensifying
due to the growing
"zero" problem confronting the handling of cash and
accounting.
The interim solution is to eliminate the zeroes,
as has been
done over the years by many other countries, including Italy,
Brazil and
Argentina. Most recently, and very close to home, Mozambique has
done so,
only a few weeks ago. It has eliminated three zeroes from the
metical. MZM1
000 000 became MTn 1 000, effective on July
1.
Mozambique did this by enacting in its legislative
assembly a
Bill to simplify its currency by establishing a conversion rate
of one to a
thousand. As a result the 1 000 metical coin is now worth one
metical, and
the highest denomination banknote, being for 500 000 meticals,
is now worth
500 meticals.
Concurrently, all prices,
charges, salaries and wages and so
forth were correspondingly modified. The
new legislation was enacted in
December 2005, and provided for a series of
processes to accommodate the
transition to the redenominated currency. These
included that the former
metical would by symbolised MT, while the
redenominated metical would be
denominated MTn and that, for a period of
nine months, from March 31 to
December 31 2006, all prices of goods and
services had to be indicated
simultaneously in MTn and MT, thereby assuring
consumers and others of
equitable price conversion.
To
give effect to this, all "economic agents" and other entities
supplying
goods or services were mandatorily obliged to procure that their
computer
programmes, stationery and other trading prerequisites would
accommodate the
double indication of prices.
The new law included provision
that the conversion of the MT to
the MTn would not impact adversely upon the
existence, enforceability and
tenure of any contracts which had provisions
encompassing the MT, such
provisions being deemed to be automatically
converted to MTns, effectively
by the elimination, in all instances, of
three zeros. Taxpayers are required
to render two income tax returns for
2006, one being for the first six
months of 2006, completed on the basis of
the MT, and the other being for
the second half-year of 2006, completed on
the basis of the MTn.
New bank notes, being MTn, are being
issued but, transitionally,
both old and new notes are valid, the old merely
being discounted by three
zeroes to arrive at the MTn value, and
progressively as a sufficiency of MTn
notes come into circulation, the old
MT notes are to be withdrawn.
Mozambique has demonstrated a
capacity to apply a practical,
viable solution to a critical, economically
debilitating problem. Zimbabwe
needs to do likewise, and to do so promptly
and dynamically, with total
disregard for misplaced, ego-preservation
related, fears that doing so can
be construed as admission of economic
failure or mis-management.
Succumbing to such fears can only
compound the immense problems
that are confronting the information
technology industry, the financial
sector, the distributive trades, the many
other economic sectors and the
populace as a whole.
Zimbabwe must stop dragging its feet, and must act positively,
for the
present monetary chaos can only worsen and contribute further to
economic
disorder, if the already long overdue need for action is not taken
forthrightly and convincingly. Zimbabwe must eliminate the excess zeroes
now.
Zim Independent
ZIMBABWE is in its
third month since the launch of the National
Economic Development Priority
Programme.
At its launch in April, government promised
momentous changes in
our economic fortunes by mobilising critically-needed
foreign currency
resources of US$2,5 billion and employment creation. This
was supposed to
coincide with Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono's projected
decline in
inflation in the second quarter of the year, which is to say, to
resolve the
dislocation between fiscal and monetary
policies.
Zimbabweans, having seen similar policies in the
past
experiencing a stillbirth, were sceptical about the magical efficacy of
the
new policy. Since then we have had to be even more
sceptical.
The zeal with which the marginal fall in inflation
in June was
seized upon as a sign that the elusive economic turnaround was
nigh suggests
that there is something fundamentally
wrong.
A possible explanation for the slowdown in the rate of
inflation
could be relative availability of maize, meaning that fewer people
are
buying mealie-meal, or simply that they are going hungry because they
can't
afford it.
There has been no change in fundamentals
or the pricing
distortions in the economy caused by a multiplicity of prices
for fuel and
foreign currency for manufacturers. If anything, intermittent
and
unscheduled power disruptions by Zesa Holdings have caused further
collapses
or reduced production.
Reports from the recent
ZNCC congress indicate that government
borrowing for recurrent expenditure
has virtually crippled the productive
sector. There is little that can be
done for heavily borrowed companies in
the light of suffocating interest
rates.
Despite numerous trips by Gono and Vice-President
Joice Mujuru
to the Far East and Russia, there haven't been any significant
deals to slow
down the economic slide. Apart from a few buses and tractors
from China, the
response has not been encouraging. That we can posture about
choosing who we
want to do deals with only exposes our political and
economic naivety, for
there is nothing like aid without
strings.
The best that Gono and his political masters can
achieve is to
flood our markets with substandard products and at worst to
mortgage the
country's natural resources in the name of so-called
"leveraging".
China can only sign deals that are in its own
interests, for
there can be no objective complementarity between an economy
in such steep
decline as ours and a booming one such as
China's.
Despite loud claims that government was working
closely with the
private sector on the NEDPP, there is no evidence of that
harmony in
practice. Witness the lack of progress in TNF discussions where
the parties
can't agree on "reasonable" wage levels for workers,
"reasonable" pricing
mechanisms for producers and the desirability or
otherwise of price controls
by government.
In the past
government has accused private sector players of
being reluctant to buy into
its programmes because they are influenced by
opposition politics and
therefore trying to sabotage its policies. If this
were so, there would be
more saboteurs in Zanu PF itself than outside.
At a meeting
last week with party provincial chairmen, Mujuru
was at pains to stress what
should have been obvious: that party decisions
informed government policy,
including NEDPP.
She was therefore shocked when the chairman
for Matabeleland
South Rido Mpofu, informed her that until that meeting,
they also did not
know what the NEDPP stood for and what was expected of
them. How are
outsiders expected to know what party insiders
don't?
There have been so many policy changes and
inconsistencies that
even Zanu PF structures appear confused. They say
policy inconsistency is
worse than no policy at all.
The
general view of industry and commerce is that an immediate
economic
turnaround is almost inconceivable in the absence of a marked rise
in
production on the farms which constitute the major source of raw
materials
for industry. This should in turn increase capacity utilisation to
create
jobs and raise exports. But that is not a view shared by President
Mugabe
who recently said if those allocated land chose to dance on the land,
"it is
ours. Why should that worry anybody?"
The chaos on the farms,
the looting of crops and equipment,
wrangles over boundaries and farm
ownership and lack of urgency in issuing
lease agreements are all emblematic
of this philosophy in the echelons of
government. And the NEDPP is bound to
become another victim of the same.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
IS the debate on the succession in Zanu
PF exhausted or have
those debating it exhausted themselves on the subject?
President Mugabe
reckons the debate about his successor is a "nonsensical
thing", suggesting
that it is either premature or that those vying for the
presidency are not
fit to do so.
Last week he said most
of the presidential aspirants lacked
"dignity" and did not enjoy the support
of the people. Instead, he said,
they had resorted to consulting
witchdoctors.
But first things first.
The
debate about who will succeed Mugabe can't be exhausted or
be superfluous so
long as he remains at the helm of both government and the
party. That there
is such a debate suggests a realisation in Zanu PF that he
has become a
serious liability to the country and it is time to hand over
the baton to
someone with fresh ideas.
When Dzikamai Mavhaire first made
that famous "Mugabe must go"
call in the late 90s, things were not this bad
for the country and the
party. There were not many people who had the
courage to stand up to Mugabe
then.
Things haven't
changed. Only a number of senior party officials
have passed on, leaving
Mugabe feeling that he is indispensable to the
survival of Zanu PF and
leadership of the country. This explains his violent
reaction to the
challenge by the youthful Tsholotsho group who were opposed
to Joice
Mujuru's elevation to the presidency and wanted to position
themselves
strategically in the event of Mugabe quitting in 2008.
In
Mugabe's language, this amounted to a plot to oust him from
power. The party
chairmen who attended the indaba were immediately lopped
from the branches
of the party. They have been scattered far and wide to
make sure they cannot
achieve their goal as members of Zanu PF. It is this
apparent success in
crushing all dissent in the party that enables Mugabe to
give the impression
of supreme power and declare the debate on succession
"nonsensical".
But the debate itself has always been
badly couched in servile
terms as if the presidency were a disputed
chieftaincy where Mugabe is the
arbiter.
Surely Mugabe is
not a chief nor are Zimbabweans interested in a
Mugabe dynasty. Why should
he pick and choose who should succeed him to a
post that should be openly
contested?
There has never been a robust challenge to his
hold on power on
the basis of policy or his government's economic
performance. Hence his
declaration that no one could have run this country
better than he has done
despite overwhelming evidence of collapse of all
social services and
diabolical actions such as Operation
Murambatsvina.
It is as if those who want to lead expect
Mugabe to point a
finger at them. On this score he has outwitted them all by
a simple rebuttal
that it is not his role but the people's to choose who
will lead them.
This is where senior members of his party
have been found
profoundly wanting. Most of them are so terrified they are
not able to lobby
their constituents beyond the periphery of province or
district. Thus Mugabe
has never been challenged either at the people's
conference or at party
congress. The issue is decided clandestinely by a
cabal.
The post of first secretary is never open to contest.
In fact,
we only get to hear scornful remarks from Mugabe himself during
such
proceedings that there are people who are consulting witchdoctors in
the
hope of succeeding him.
Instead of waiting to be
nominated as his "successor" by Mugabe,
the Tsholotsho group chose to be
different. They called Mugabe's bluff and
appealed to the people through the
party structures, hence the overwhelming
support for the camp from six
provinces out of eight.
Mugabe promptly amended the party
constitution to forestall the
incipient democratic process. It was his turn
to contradict himself by
proclaiming Mujuru the second vice-president,
pointing out that there was
nothing to stop her "moving
higher".
But the purge of the Tsholotsho gang was still too
fresh in
people's minds for anybody to challenge him on this contradiction.
He had
become the people and the party. In a single deft stroke of the pen
he had
bought himself a fresh lease of life.
The tragedy
for Zimbabwe is that that amendment to the Zanu PF
constitution was not an
isolated incident. There have been 17 amendments to
Zimbabwe's basic law
since Independence and very few of them are in the
national interest. The
result has been to create a cult called Mugabeism
that is fast replicating
itself like a virus in all facets of life.
The leader of the
National Constitutional Assembly, Lovemore
Madhuku, recently manipulated the
NCA constitution to give himself another
term on the spurious grounds that
his was a lobby group and therefore its
constitution was not
important.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was "retained
unchallenged" at the
party's March congress, a phenomenon spawned by Zanu
PF. Those who have
followed the attack on Trudy Stevenson and her colleagues
in Mabvuku two
weeks ago will recall that their biggest crime was "going
against
Tsvangirai". He has become the other face of Zanu PF, including the
use of
its tactics. These are the people clamouring for
change!
The culture is cascading down.
Matthew Takaona, despite serving as ZUJ president for seven
years, was at
the weekend "retained unopposed" for another three years,
again after the
constitution was amended in Kadoma.
Church leaders are having
similar fights for longevity. It is a
disease that will take long to cure
because people are no longer guided by
principles or delivery but by the
love of money and power for its own sake.
As for being
indispensable, Charles de Gaulle had a humbling if
macabre retort when he
observed that graveyards all over the world "are full
of indispensable
people". And the world's axis is still turning.
Stop this childish game of deception!
AS we await with
eager anticipation Gideon Gono's latest
monetary policy review, is it not
time for economic and financial analysts
to cease their spouting of pious
platitudes and tell it like it is?
Eric Bloch endlessly
repeats what needs to be done in terms of
economic policy to revive the
economy.
He constantly advises government as if he is
addressing a regime
that gives a damn about the destruction for which it is
directly
responsible.
Bloch's latest column (Zimbabwe
Independent, July 14) is as
repetitive as ever, telling government of the
need to contain its profligate
spending habits, telling it to reform its
land reform programme by halting
continued land invasions and telling it to
restore relations with the
international community, etc.
True to form, in the same column he sings the praises of Gono
and suggests
that the next monetary policy review together with the
government's fiscal
policy review, "if realistically aligned to the NEDPP,
could become the
launch pad for the economy to begin an upturn once again".
Really Mr Bloch, what dreamland do you inhabit? You certainly
cannot be
living in the land inhabited by the vast majority of suffering and
struggling Zimbabweans.
Are you not aware that the chefs
profit from the very crises
that they create? Are you not aware that the
Mercedes-driving,
mansion-building kleptocracy care for nothing except their
own enrichment?
Are you not aware that the fundamental economic policies
that have driven
this country to the edge of ruin are based on two simple
principles: steal
or destroy it?
Bloch's latest article
ends with the statement: "History is
there to be learnt from." Absolutely,
Mr Bloch!
But when will he learn that Zimbabwe's economic
transformation
will not happen until there is a complete transformation of
the political
environment?
The transformation entails the
removal of this disastrous regime
which, although not of itself a solution,
is a necessary precondition to any
solution being
implemented.
History should have taught Mr Bloch that certain
regimes, by
their very nature, cannot be reformed. They have to be
removed.
One of the realities that adversely affects many of
those in
positions of power is their willingness to be surrounded by
praise-singing
sycophants. Perhaps Gono has fallen into this same
trap.
May I suggest that when he presents his next monetary
policy
review, he does so before an audience of ordinary suffering
Zimbabweans,
rather than the usual gathering of chefs.
Perhaps an audience of unemployed residents from Mbare might be
a more
discerning and honest one than the chefs of the political and
corporate
worlds from Borrowdale. During one of his presidential election
campaigns,
former United States president Bill Clinton was famously
associated with the
remark: "It's the economy, stupid!"
May I suggest that
commentators such as Bloch and policy
formulators such as Gono put up
posters in their offices which read: "It's
politics,
stupid!"
I'm sure the residents of Mbare understand this,
even if
economic commentators don't.
RES
Cook,
Harare.
---------
Power,
water woes: buck stops at govt's door
ZIMBABWE is engulfed in
electricity and water shortages of
unprecedented proportions. Fuel is also
critically short. Providers of
services, domestic power and water supplies
unilaterally cut them off for
hours or days without
explanation.
Below are some of the outages' serious
repercussions:
* Unavailability of electricity reduces the
production of goods
and provision of services. Production targets for
domestic consumption and
exports are not met resulting in shortages of goods
and foreign currency;
* Households lose perishable
commodities such as meat, milk,
butter, etc. Their electrical equipment is
damaged due to frequent surges.
Imagine the impact of outages on
cooking
and water heating for bathing in winter. Increased use of
firewood affects the environment. Paraffin is in short supply and/or
expensive;
* Government departments now provide services
for only a few
hours a day, either because there is no electricity or water
or both;
* Lack of water in households threatens occupants'
health.
Imagine using toilets in a home without running water. Leaving for
work or
business without bathing or washing clothes appears difficult to
imagine.
But this is happening in Zimbabwe;
* School
heads are forced to send children back home due to lack
of either
electricity or water or both. Will the teachers catch up with
their
syllabuses?
* Some businesses close for the day because there
is no water
for toilets, drinking or production;
*
Without electricity, local authorities fail to pump water into
reservoirs
for residential and industrial consumption. Shortage of water can
also
affect the generation of electricity;
* Essential services
such as hospitals have to depend on power
generators to maintain health
services. Some patients have died due to power
outages as hospital
authorities have to suspend services when water supplies
are
cut;
* Entertainment is also affected. Zimbabweans were
frustrated
during the World Cup games in Germany when there were major power
blackouts;
* The entire economy is groaning due to the
critical shortage of
fuel. In addition, the price of available fuel, at
between $400 000 and $500
000 a litre, is beyond the reach of most
motorists. Commuters now pay
between $80 000 and $100 000 per
trip;
* There are two prices for fuel. Commuter omnibus
operators pay
just less than $23 000 per litre while the rest of the
motorists pay between
$400 000 and $500 000 a litre. The two-tier pricing
system encourages
corruption and punishes political opponents;
and
* Commuters now report for work late due to the reduced
number
of buses. The reduction results from the critical shortage of fuel.
Going
back home after work is a nightmare.
Who is
responsible for this state of affairs?
Although Zesa and
Harare City Council for instance have brought
the nation and Harare
residents to their knees because of their
incompetence, government has
defended the managers of these institutions.
Sydney Gata
(Zesa) and Sekesai Makwavarara (Harare) have
presided over the demise of
their respective institutions. This is a
microcosm of what is happening in
the whole country.
Therefore the buck stops at the
government's doorstep. It is the
executive's duty to ensure that the nation
has electricity, water, fuel,
food and other essential goods and services,
or creates a conducive
environment that will enable business to produce
goods and provide services
in abundance and at competitive
prices.
The present national leaders have dismally failed to
shoulder
their responsibility. They have demonstrated unparalleled
incompetence which
is riddled with corruption. Nonetheless, they do not
concede failure, which
is a crucial step in resolving a crisis. Instead,
they blame someone else
for their failure. They will obviously prescribe the
wrong medicine for the
disease.
If government conceded
failure, it would solicit solutions from
the people. Listening to the
electorate distinguishes a genuine leader from
a dictator. In a democracy,
political parties which listen to the electorate
perform better and remain
in power longer. But in a dictatorship, leaders
stay in office through
intimidation, threats, repression, and brute force.
Those who
have ears please listen: the present state of affairs
is definitely
unsustainable. Employing the former spin doctor's strategy of
defending the
indefensible will not help the situation.
The Zimbabwe
Liberators Platform calls for an urgent and
comprehensive resolution of the
national crisis. This includes a national,
all-stakeholders conference to
hammer out a negotiated settlement, repeal of
such draconian legislation as
Posa, Aippa, and BSA, and the establishment of
a transitional authority to
prepare for, and conduct
internationally-supervised, free and fair elections
under a new democratic
constitution.
Zimbabwe
Liberators Platform,
Harare.
----------
Police should understand its
role in a democratic society
THE behaviour that was portrayed
by police at Harare Central
police station when they arrested National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
members should be condemned in the strongest
terms.
NCA members were arrested on Wednesday last week and
illegally
detained by the police who released them to court on Saturday.
During the
detention, the police brutalised them.
A
senior police officer in the PISI department by the name of Mr
Mhondoro gave
instructions to the junior officers to beat them up and was
also personally
involved in the assaults.
It is unfortunate that senior
police officers behave in a manner
characteristic of a military
state.
As a civic body we also question how the system gets
such people
in senior posts. What justification is there for police to
detain in custody
mothers with babies less than 12 months
old?
At Harare Central police station, an NCA member,
Evidence Johns,
collapsed due to uninhabitable conditions in the cells and
our lawyers were
denied access to ferry her to a private doctor after the
police had decided
to take her to Parirenyatwa Hospital where she could not
get treatment
because doctors were on strike.
In Mutare
police subjected our members to inhumane and brutal
treatment. One of our
members is still battling for his life following an
assault over an
unspecified charge.
Police accused our members of
compromising the gains of
Independence and selling out Zimbabwe to the West.
Who is selling to the
West: NCA members who are rejecting the use of a
constitution crafted in the
West, or the police who beat up these people for
rejecting the continuous
use of the flawed document?
The
role of the police is not to unleash terror on people they
arrest under the
cover of safeguarding peace. Neither should they serve the
interests of a
select group of people.
The police are among the most
poorly-paid civil servants and it's
pathetic that they defend and protect a
collapsed system of governance.
The demonstrations that we
staged as the NCA are also meant to
liberate the police officers because as
citizens of Zimbabwe they are
languishing in poverty.
Police should not vent their frustrations over economic
hardships on
ordinary Zimbabweans who are simply calling for an end to
problems which
directly emanate from misgovernance that gets all its moral
support from a
defective constitution.
It's shocking that the police were
still battling to find a
charge for our members two days after they had
arrested them, only to settle
on the new Criminal Law Codification and
Reform Act.
The specific section prevents people from
blocking roads or
pavements. This kind of law might be constitutional but
very undemocratic
and a threat to the institution of democracy. Such a law
is a mockery to
those who sacrificed their lives to liberate Zimbabwe from
white minority
rule.
The law is a duplication of the laws
used by Ian Smith to
perpetuate white minority rule in
Zimbabwe.
As NCA we believe that a new home-grown
constitution will have
checks and balances for the police force and will
totally eradicate unruly
elements. Instead of having hooligans as senior
police officers, Zimbabwe
needs professionals who understand the role of a
police force in a
democratic society.
Police brutality is
uncivilised, it undermines the gains of our
Independence and tarnishes the
image of our nation in the eyes of strategic
partners.
Madock Chivasa,
NCA
spokesperson.
------------
Thank God we're a
docile lot
HAVING grown up in the rural areas, how many of us
have ever
heard any old man or lady say, while walking alone along the rural
paths: "I
am not a witch, I am not a witch, I didn't kill
anyone."
Even if one was accused by neighbours of witchcraft,
does he
stand on top of an anthill or mountain and proclaim to the world his
innocence?
In Shona they say ndiko kubvotomoka (these are
hallucinations).
A typical example was a story in one of the daily papers:
"No foul play
suspected in Jokonya's death".
Whoever
suspected what and why? And as if that was not enough,
we had President
Mugabe telling the nation Zimbabwe will never ever
collapse!
Whoever said it was collapsing? It can't man!
It's so strong we
now have a $100 000 bearer cheque! Why the
hallucinations?
Then we read in the Standard that there was
rioting in
Bangladesh when power went off during the World Cup match pitting
Germany
and Argentina.
The authorities here must thank
God Zimbabweans are not a
violent lot. It could be the reason they are
taking advantage of us. What
with the incessant water and power disruptions
that did not only occur
during the World Cup matches, but are a daily part
of our lives!
James Chabata,
Gweru.
-------
Prayer for our own
Madiba
ON Tuesday Zimbabweans resident in South Africa were
in unison
in congratulating Madiba (former President Nelson Mandela) on his
88th
birthday.
Madiba is a true son of South Africa and
we proudly joined hands
with SA citizens in celebrating the birth of this
incredible leader, at the
same time mourning that the man who rules our
country has abused our people
and destroyed their future as a
nation.
Whilst we celebrated, we hoped that one day we too
would have a
statesman like Madiba to lead us out of the violence, thuggery
and
debauchery of Mugabe's dictatorship.
Makorokoto Madiba,
Bayete Madiba, Nkosi sikelel' iAfrica!
Concerned
Zimbabweans Abroad,
South Africa.