Zim Independent
Dumisani
Muleya
SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has made a major
breakthrough in
his bid to wring a solution to the Zimbabwe crisis via a
negotiated
settlement between the ruling Zanu PF and the opposition Movement
for
Democratic Change (MDC).
Against political odds, Mbeki on
Monday managed to persuade the two
parties to agree on a consolidated agenda
for the critical talks which were
difficult to get off the ground due to
widely divergent positions.
The two rival parties started the talks
on Sunday worlds apart in
terms of what they wanted to gain. However, 24
hours later, Mbeki's team had
managed to bind them to a common agenda,
setting the stage for serious
dialogue.
Zanu PF was represented
at the negotiations by Justice minister
Patrick Chinamasa and his Labour
counterpart, Nicholas Goche, while the MDC
had Welshman Ncube and Tendai
Biti, supported by two other officials. South
African Local Government
minister Sydney Mufamadi chaired the talks.
After a consolidated
agenda was crafted, Mbeki demanded that the two
parties should make further
submissions on the issues they would like to pay
special attention to by
Wednesday next week.
The 2003/2004 draft constitution produced by
Zanu PF and the MDC will
form the basis of talks, it was heard, while the
proposed Constitutional
Amendment Bill (Number 18) will also be tabled for
discussion.
The final consolidated agenda for the direct talks
between Zanu PF and
the MDC includes the constitution, electoral laws,
security legislation,
communication laws, and the political
climate.
Under the first item on the agenda - the constitution -
the process of
constitution-making will be discussed. Other issues such as
the electoral
system, devolution of power, constitutional appointments and
citizenship
would also feature.
The electoral system and
legislation debate would focus on the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission,
Delimitation Commission and voter
registration. There would also be debate
on the voters' roll and how best to
resolve all these contentious
issues.
On the security legislation, the Public Order &
Security Act would be
a major issue, while on the communication laws the
Broadcasting Services Act
and external radio stations would be discussed. In
its submissions to Mbeki,
Zanu PF complained about the Voice of the People
which it says is
Dutch-funded, SWRA, described as British-sponsored, and the
State
Department-financed Voice of America's Studio 7.
The
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act was removed
from the
final draft agenda, apparently because it was voted for by both
parties in
parliament and also on the understanding constitutional reform
would
enshrine press freedom anyway. The controversial law was on the draft
agenda
which was revised. The MDC denies having voted for Aippa.
Zanu PF
refused to accept "repressive legislation" as an agenda item,
preferring to
call it "security legislation". Both parties however managed
to get into the
final agenda their main issues: for Zanu PF land reform and
sanctions and
for the MDC the constitution and electoral laws.
The final item of
the consolidated agenda - the political climate -
deals with
demilitarisation of state institutions, hostile rhetoric by
political
parties, the use of militias, abuse of state aid, and traditional
chiefs,
sanctions and land reform.
The economy is not part of the talks
agenda because it is being dealt
with by the team led by Sadc executive
secretary Tomaz Salamao. The team was
recently in Zimbabwe to assess the
state of the economy and put together an
emergency economic rescue package
largely dependent on progress in political
negotiations.
Mbeki's mediation team was forced to use maximum influence to secure
the
agenda because Zanu PF and the MDC were said to have been as far apart
as
the North and South Poles when they started the talks. Zanu PF was
demanding
in its position paper that the MDC must first recognise the
significance of
the anti-colonial struggle; accept President Robert Mugabe's
disputed
legitimacy; attend national events; support land reform; respect
the
country's sovereignty and independence from Britain; campaign for the
lifting of sanctions; and urge Western powers to stop interfering in
Zimbabwe's domestic affairs.
By contrast the MDC wanted a new
constitution and electoral law
reform; impartial and transparent management
of elections; all citizens
above 18 allowed to vote; free campaigning; quick
resolution of electoral
disputes; elimination of political repression and
violence; an end to the
abuse of state resources by the ruling party for
electoral purposes; and a
stop to the manipulation of the state apparatus -
including police,
intelligence and army - by Zanu PF.
However,
Mbeki's team pushed the delegates to formulate a consolidated
agenda from
their respective position papers, finding a quick breakthrough
on one of the
most difficult stages of negotiations.
In 2002, the talks between
Zanu PF and the MDC failed to even start in
earnest. The 2003/2004 informal
talks between Chinamasa and Ncube succeeded
in coming up with a draft
constitution derived from the rejected
government-sponsored draft of
1999/2000 and the National Constitutional
Assembly document. This has become
the basis for current negotiations.
Zim Independent
THE
alleged coup against President Robert Mugabe's government - in
which Rural
Housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa is implicated - is part of
the
cut-throat power struggle in the ruling party, it has emerged.
Official sources said the purported coup plot reflects the fierce
infighting
within government and Zanu PF currently reeling from deep
divisions. Sources
said events which occurred during this past weekend
reinforced fears the
internal strife in Zanu PF has reached dangerous
proportions.
It is understood that government wanted to arrest Mnangagwa over the
alleged
coup during the weekend while Mugabe was away in Libya and later
Egypt.
Vice-President Joice Mujuru was the acting president during the
weekend.
Mnangagwa and Mujuru are bitter rivals in Zanu PF.
Sources said
Vice-President Joseph Msika intervened and demanded that
government should
not arraign Mnangagwa until Mugabe had returned.
Sources said
Mnangagwa - who last week described the coup allegations
as "stupid" - was
very anxious as word spread that he could be arrested. It
is understood
Mnangagwa reacted by seeking through the President's Office to
see Mugabe
soon after his arrival on Sunday. It is not clear if he succeeded
in meeting
Mugabe.
However, lawyers say Mnangagwa is not going to be called to
court as a
witness, further throwing doubt on the matter.
The
coup is now seen as a contrived diversionary tactic - both from
internal
Zanu PF politics and the economic crisis - as well as a strategy to
manage
the succession issue. To underline this, sources said the state
security
structures - the army, intelligence and police - were briefed about
the
issue after the arrest of six alleged plotters and their accomplices in
the
army at the end of May, but were not put on alert. There were no changes
in
terms of the "security situation" in the country.
"We were told
about the issue but no changes in levels of alertness in
the security
services were made," a state security officer said.
Besides,
government has largely ignored the plot, save for Information
minister
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu's remarks that the "intelligence is on top of the
situation". Mugabe has even travelled out of the country twice since the
alleged coup plot was unearthed.
Observers say the plot bears
the hallmarks of familiar state security
operations designed to manage
politics. There have been several coup plot
claims in Zimbabwe since 1982
involving political luminaries like Dumiso
Dabengwa, Lookout Masuku,
Ndabaningi Sithole, and MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, but in none of these
cases was anyone convicted.
Ironically, Mnangagwa was State
Security minister when Dabengwa and
Masuku were falsely
accused.
Sources said state security services and top politicians
were trying
to deal with Mugabe's conflict-ridden succession by undermining
the two
rival Zanu PF faction leaders, retired army commander Solomon Mujuru
and
Mnangagwa.
It is said those behind the coup have calculated
that the Mujuru camp
has been significantly weakened by Mugabe's remarks in
February that it was
trying to oust him and was no longer seen as a decisive
factor in the power
struggle. Mugabe blasted the Mujuru group and
practically snuffed out its
succession prospects in just one interview. -
Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Constantine
Chimakure
THE state is today expected to oppose a bail
application in the High
Court by six alleged coup plotters arguing there was
substantial evidence
that they intended to overthrow President Robert
Mugabe's government.
In an affidavit lodged with the High Court,
police Superintendent
Simon Mundondwa said the overwhelming evidence would
be an incentive for
Albert Matapo, Emmanuel Marara, Pattison Mupfure, Nyasha
Zivuku, Oncemore
Mudzurahova and Shingirai Webster Mutemachani to skip bail
once granted.
Justice Tedius Karwi will hear the application in
open court.
Mundondwa said the court should turn down the
application on the
grounds that the accused were facing a very serious
charge on which if
convicted would be sentenced to death or life
imprisonment.
He said the accused would interfere with witnesses or
abscond to avoid
prosecution, other suspects were at large and
investigations were
continuing.
"I do pray that the accused be
denied bail so that the ends of justice
could be realised without
prejudice," Mandondwa submitted.
In the affidavit, Mundondwa
claimed that from June 2006 to May 29 this
year Matapo, Marare, Mupfure,
Zuvuku, Mudzurahona and Mutemachani and others
at large, conspired to
organise and coordinate activities of a "group of
persons for the purpose of
and with the intention to overthrowing the
government of Zimbabwe through a
military coup".
The six, Mandondwa averred, recruited and
approached serving members
of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces at various
military institutions, among them
Thornhill, Manyame and Field Air Force
Bases, 3 Brigade and One Commando
Barracks to stage the planned
coup.
"(The suspects) organised, planned and financed activities to
carry
out or caused to be carried out reconnaissance by infiltrating and
entering
several military establishments such as 1 Commando, Manyame
Airforce base
and other strategic military institutions, which institutions
they planned
to seize at 1940hrs on 15 June 2007 - the day of the proposed
coup detat,"
Mandondwa alleged.
He claimed that the coup
plotters intended to make announcements of a
new government through
distribution of fliers by a helicopter.
The plotters were arrested
on May 29 and since then have been in
custody.
The six stand
accused of plotting to topple Mugabe and install Rural
and Social Amenities
Minister Emmerson Mnangangwa as president.
Matapo was allegedly
going to be the prime minister.
Meanwhile, three people who claimed
to have been illegally detained
and tortured by the police in connection
with the foiled coup on Wednesday
have issued a letter of demand to Home
Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi seeking
compensation to the tune of $22,5
billion.
According to the letter sent by lawyers Warara &
Associates, Edmora
Gapare is claiming $5 billion for assault and torture and
a further $14
billion for illegal detention and deprivation of liberty for
14 days after
his arrest on June 7 in Ruwa.
Zvinemi Museye -
who claims to be Matapo's wife - is demanding $1,5
billion for assault and
torture and a further $1,5 billion for illegal
detention.
Rangarirai Mazivofa wants to be compensated to the tune of $4,5
billion for
torture, assault and illegal detention.
The three were arrested and
later released without being charged. The
government was given 60 days to
pay the damages.
Zim Independent
Itai
Mushekwe
THE European parliament has exposed as untrue Speaker
of Parliament
John Nkomo's assertion that Zimbabwe had pulled out of the
African,
Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)-European Union (EU) Joint Parliamentary
Assembly
because the German Embassy in Harare had denied Zanu PF MPs
visas.
Nkomo cancelled the Zimbabwe delegation's trip to the forum
arguing
that ruling party lawmakers Forbes Magadu and Godfrey Chipare who
sit in the
ACP-EU assembly had been denied visas.
This comes as
Portugal's Foreign minister Luis Amado on Monday said
President Mugabe would
not be welcome in Lisbon to attend the Europe-Africa
Summit scheduled for
November.
"Personally I have no interest in Mugabe coming to
Lisbon," said
Amado. "It is a question of principle for the EU, in the same
way that for
the African Union the presence of the presidents of all the
member states is
a question of principle."
Michael Gahler, a
Member of the European Parliament on Wednesday in a
statement to fellow
ACP-EU/JPA colleagues said Germany had not denied the
Zimbabwean delegation
visas, as they had not made any formal applications
for the visas. Gahler
dismissed Nkomo's statement as an "attempt at
manipulation" by the
Zimbabwean regime.
"Germany has not denied to any Zimbabwe
delegation the opportunity to
participate in ACP- and ACP-EU meetings in
Wiesbaden," said Gahler.
"No formal visa applications have ever
been submitted. It is therefore
not true to claim that they were refused.
The usual informal preliminary
contacts did take place.
"Obviously, this is yet another attempt at manipulation by the
Zimbabwean
regime." Yesterday, South Africa's deputy Foreign minister Aziz
Pahad
criticised attempts to bar Mugabe from the Lisbon Summit.
Zim Independent
By
Donwald Pressly
DONOR countries, including Britain, have drawn
up a list of Zimbabwe's
needs, including about US$3 billion over five years
to stabilise the country's
economy and cope with what is described in a
secret report as "the day when"
President Mugabe leaves office.
A key point the International Monetary Fund (IMF) makes to the donor
community - dubbed the Fishmongers Group - is that "a big bang approach" to
liberalising the exchange rate will send the Zimbabwean dollar "into a
free-fall for some time".
Liberalisation would have to be
managed carefully, the IMF says.
Foreign assistance of US$650 million would
be required in the first year to
support an economic reform programme that
is part of a five-year, $3 billion
package, the international donors have
been told.
This package would include: $150 million in food support
in the first
two years, including $125 million in the first year; $500
million agrarian
reform over five years; $325 million for health services
and education; $550
million for infrastructure; $1,7 billion for various
emergency aid
programmes; and $13 billion for balance-of-payments support
and budgetary
support.A report by the Institute for Democracy in South
Africa (Idasa),
released by deputy executive director Ivor Jenkins, notes
that a national
economic and land reform programme would be necessary to
lift Zimbabwe out
of its economic crisis. This programme must be accompanied
by the gradual
lifting of sanctions and the generous injection of
international relief aid
and development assistance, says the Idasa
report.
Rapid disbursements of development assistance, in the form
of
balance-of-payments and budget support, are also necessary. The IMF's
donor
community report emerges as Zanu PF last weekend held talks in
Pretoria with
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC).
Sadc leaders in March appointed President Thabo Mbeki the
facilitator
of talks between Zimbabwe's main political parties.
Meanwhile, the UK Department for International Development (DFID)
recently
briefed a meeting of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office
and
officials from governments active in donor co-ordination in Harare,
including Sweden, the European Commission, Australia, the US, the
Netherlands, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and Germany.
In
response to a DFID paper entitled Zimbabwe - Economic Recovery,
focusing on
macroeconomic stabilisation in the country, participants said it
was clear
the country would need "hundreds of millions of US dollars per
annum".
They noted that IMF studies showed that countries could
move from
hyperinflation - now believed to be more than 4 000% in Zimbabwe -
to 450%
within a year, provided these countries received significant
support.The
group of donor countries is reported to be "increasingly
focused" on
improving its readiness to play an effective and co-ordinated
part in
Zimbabwe's recovery process.
The report says the
devastated farming community is likely to require
donor-funded compensation
for evicted farmers, while the distribution of
agricultural inputs and
produce "must be market-driven and involve the
private sector".
The report notes that the UK government will be expected to play a
major
role in the development of the communal farming sector, in terms of
funding
"and other support".
The report mirrors a comment by World Bank
chief economist John Page
at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town last
week. Page said that while it
"will be difficult" to reach the necessary
social consensus to implement
wide-ranging economic reforms in Zimbabwe
under the current political
circumstances, there were many factors to ensure
that when an economic
turnaround began, it would be "rapid".
The Fishmongers' report notes that much of the prognosis for
agriculture -
which has had a decline in production of more than 40% between
2000 and 2006
- is tied up with broader political questions around when
Zimbabwe "will
transition" to a rational, technocratic government. The
report notes that a
constitutionally guaranteed, saleable form of land
tenure must be set up.
"This does not need to equate to freehold title," it
says. "Land could
remain in black hands, with a multiracial farming
community obtaining access
by means of long leases."
The Idasa report suggests Mugabe wishes
to stand down about a year
after being re-elected next year. Reserve Bank
governor Gideon Gono and
Rural Housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa seem to
be favoured as possible
successors.
Zim Independent
Constantine Chimakure
ZIMBABWE Union of Journalists (ZUJ)
president Mathew Takaona and
former Standard deputy editor David Masunda
have bought a controlling stake
in a Masvingo weekly newspaper, The
Mirror.
Sources this week said Takaona and Masunda recently bought
the shares
from the newspaper's founder, Alderman Doug Hill - a former mayor
of the
country's oldest town.
Hill confirmed to the Zimbabwe
Independent this week that he entered
into a shareholding agreement with
Takaona and Masunda, but insisted the
deal was yet to be
clinched.
"We have come to some agreement, but I have not allotted
them shares
as yet," Hill said.
Pressed to reveal the finer
details of the agreement, the businessman
said: "I don't want this matter to
be publicised. He (Takaona) asked me to
keep this undercover at the
moment."
Hill was the owner of another provincial weekly, the
Masvingo Star,
which he sold to the government's Community Newspaper Group
in 1989. The
Mirror was launched in May 1992.
Sources said
Takaona was now in charge of editorial issues with the
newspaper's editor
Kennedy Murwira reporting directly to him.
But Hill denied this
saying: "I am still running the newspaper. I
started this newspaper many
years ago with other shareholders."
Takaona, sources said, last
Friday attended The Mirror's launch of a
weekly insert on Masvingo's 2010
World Soccer Cup tourism campaign dubbed
Takeoff in his official capacity as
a shareholder.
The ZUJ boss was reportedly the brains behind the
insert being
published as a joint venture between the newspaper, Hospitality
Association
of Zimbabwe, Masvingo Publicity Association, and Masvingo 2010
World Soccer
Cup sub-committee.
The insert highlights tourism
attractions in the province of about 1,3
million people ahead of the soccer
extravaganza to be hosted by South
Africa.
Efforts to get
comments from Takaona or Masunda were fruitless this
week as they were said
to be out of the country. Both are expected back in
the country
today.
Takaona, who had an inglorious exit as acting news editor of
the
government run Sunday Mail in March 2004 is expected to quit ZUJ since
he
has become an employer.
The ZUJ constitution bars newspaper
shareholders and editors from
holding offices in the union.
Takaona was fired from the Sunday Mail following a meeting he held in
January 2004 with workers from the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ)
after the government closed The Daily News and The Daily News on
Sunday.
ANZ were the publishers of the two titles.
Masunda is current chairperson of the Voice of the People (VOP) radio's
board of trustees.
Takaona is also a board member of
VOP.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya/
Constantine Chimakure
COALITION talks between the two
opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) factions have collapsed
after fresh disagreements emerged on
ways of securing an electoral pact,
especially how to select parliamentary
election candidates for each
group.
This has left the two camps facing the prospect of
contesting next
year's crucial joint presidential and parliamentary
elections as a divided
front battling against each other.
Both
factions agree that fighting the elections as opponents would
almost
certainly hand Zanu PF a victory by default. Sources say another
opposition
formation might emerge ahead of the elections, something that
could further
undercut the MDC factions.
Sources said the MDC talks - led by
Morgan Tsvangirai faction
secretary-general Tendai Biti and the Arthur
Mutambara camp
secretary-general Welshman Ncube - collapsed on May 19 when
the last meeting
was held. The sticking point was the revision of the
Coalition Agreement
which had become the basis of negotiations. The
selection of parliamentary
candidates for each faction was also a divisive
issue.
Initially the two groups had agreed that Morgan Tsvangirai
would be
the candidate for the presidential poll and if they win Mutambara
would
become his deputy in a coalition government, while they would
equitably
share government posts. They had also agreed not to field
candidates against
each other where they currently have sitting MPs. The
Tsvangirai group has
21 MPs, while the Mutambara group has 20. When the
split occurred the
Mutambara faction had 21 MPs and the Tsvangirai camp had
17, but four - Gift
Chimanikire, Lovemore Moyo, Blessing Chebundo and Joel
Gabuzza - later
defected to the Tsvangirai side.
In addition to
Lower House MPs, the Mutambara faction also has seven
senators. The
Tsvangirai group boycotted the senate poll in 2005, leading to
the damaging
split in the party.
Sources said before May 19 it appears the MDC
factions were agreed on
almost everything. They had agreed on the
presidential election candidate
and how to select candidates for all
constituencies. While Tsvangirai would
have been confirmed candidate without
opposition, the two factions would not
contest against each other where they
have sitting MPs. Where they do not
have MPs, they would divide the
constituencies using the result of the 2005
general election into three
categories - winnable, possible and unwinnable -
and then share them
equally. This was meant to ensure that no faction gained
an advantage over
the other to maintain the spirit of coalition.
However, during the
last meeting the Tsvangirai faction sought a
revision of some of the initial
agreements. The camp wanted Thokozani
Khuphe, Tsvangirai's deputy, to also
become a second Vice-President with
Mutambara. The Mutambara camp rejected
this saying the Tsvangirai group was
trying to maintain its structure in the
coalition while neutralising them in
the new arrangement.
Furthermore, the Tsvangirai group suggested a new formula of having
primary
elections between the factions to select parliamentary election
candidates.
This would be based on a method in which both factions selected
50 voters
from the structure each to determine the candidate through a
secret ballot.
The Mutambara faction said this would create deadlocks
because those voters
were most likely to vote for their faction candidate
and this would become
divisive. Apart from that, it was argued that the
method would destroy the
spirit of the coalition if one faction won in
almost all
constituencies.
The new disagreements led to the collapse of the
talks, although both
factions agreed that negotiations could be resumed as
and when the situation
changed. The Tsvangirai faction is currently
consulting its structures on
the issue of having a coalition and would
proceed on the basis of the
outcome of the exercise, sources
said.
The other issue which led to the breakdown of the talks
between the
MDC negotiating teams, which have at least four officials on
each side, was
the initial agreements secured for the formation of the
Movement for
Democratic Change Coalition (MDCC). The two factions could not
agree on the
revision of the original accord last month.
In
addition, the other problem was that the MDC factions have failed
to respect
their own code of conduct for "peaceful co-existence", leading to
mutual
suspicion and lack of trust. The code of conduct barred the use of
"hate
speech, derogatory, defamatory, false, insulting, inflammatory and
threats"
against each other. The factions had also agreed to refrain from
tribal
remarks which had become characteristic of their rhetoric, but the
two
groups remain rigidly tribal in structure and orientation despite their
threadbare efforts to camouflage that.
"Each formation shall
practise and exhibit zero-tolerance to all forms
of violence, intimidation
and harassment and shall instruct its members and
supporters not to use
violence or threats of violence," the code of conduct
says. The factions had
also agreed not to campaign against each using
illegal or unorthodox means.
However, the camps have not adhered to the code
as there have been
intermittent verbal or physical clashes between them.
This has made it very
difficult to secure a coalition.
Mutambara faction spokesperson
Gabriel Chaibva said the factions'
talks were yet to yield anything as the
Tsvangirai camp was dragging its
feet. What has been disappointing is that
the others (Tsvangirai faction)
continue to bring up trivial
issues.
"The one-candidate philosophy was flatly rejected by the
Tsvangirai
camp," Chaibva added.
Tsvangirai camp spokesman
Nelson Chamisa declined to comment,
referring all questions to
Biti.
Political analyst Eldred Masunungure said while unity between
the two
factions was desirable, it was, however, improbable given that the
camps
have personality and ideological differences.
"The
difference gap between the factions is very wide from
personalities to
ideology. It is good for people to yearn for unity, but the
reality on the
ground militates against reunification of the two factions at
this
stage."
National Constitutional Assembly head Lovemore Madhuku was
of the
opinion that there was no need for reunification or an electoral
pact.
"What would be the motivation for the unity? There is nothing
pushing
them to unite. The grassroots are already used to having the two
political
parties," he said.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
THE ruling Zanu PF position paper on the
inter-party talks with the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
submitted to mediator
President Thabo Mbeki has a long list of
pre-conditions to dialogue.
The 23-page document, titled
Sadc-Initiated Dialogue: Government of
Zimbabwe/Zanu PF Position Paper,
dated June 1, contains a string of issues
which the ruling party says the
MDC - described as a "puppet party" - must
first address to build trust and
confidence in the talks.
The paper covers historical events dating
back to 1896 during the
second major anti-colonial uprising in newly
established Rhodesia to the
present-day situation. Zanu PF outlines nine
pre-conditions to negotiations
which it says should be part of the initial
steps in the talks.
"As an initial step in this dialogue and in
order to restore trust and
mutual confidence between Zanu PF and MDC, the
MDC has to demonstrate
commitment to the shared values and ethos of the
liberation struggle," the
document says.
Zanu PF then goes on
to demand that the MDC must:
* Accept the legitimacy and
significance of the liberation struggle;
* Declare its acceptance
of the president and government's legitimacy
and act accordingly in both
language and actions;
* Drastically re-orientate its attitudes
towards national events;
* Stop forthwith its promotion of
violence;
* Publicly and unequivocally commit itself to the
irreversibility of
land reform;
* Respect the country's
sovereignty and independence, respect all
national laws;
*
Publicly and unequivocally call for the lifting of sanctions and
*
Stop calling for outside interference in Zimbabwe's domestic
affairs.
"The quest for a genuine, viable, workable, permanent,
sustainable and
nationally acceptable solution to the Zimbabwe situation,"
Zanu PF says,
"must of necessity address root cause/s of the problem and not
symptoms as
the MDC and its Western allies purport to do."
Zanu
PF says as far as it is concerned the problem in Zimbabwe is
land.
"The root of the Zimbabwean situation is the land
question, the tail
end of decolonisation. Land and its repossession was at
the heart of the
armed struggle," the Zanu PF paper states.
"The two liberation movements, Zanu PF and PF Zapu, which liberated
this
country from colonialism agreed to lay down their arms on the promises
and
undertakings given by the US and British government to make sufficient
funds
available .for land taken for redistribution to the landless black
majority.
The British government must be called upon to honour that
commitment."
Zanu PF urges the MDC and its allies to call upon
the British
government to provide funds for land reform.
"The
opposition MDC, white settler farmers, Western-sponsored NGOs,
and media
houses who lobbied the British government not to honour its
Lancaster House
obligations and to impose declared and undeclared
comprehensive sanctions
against Zimbabwe," the ruling party says, "must act
in unison and call upon
the British government and its allies to honour the
Lancaster House
compensation obligations, lift all forms of sanctions and
stop forthwith the
campaign to effect regime change in Zimbabwe."
The Zanu PF
documents list further demands. "Western interference in
Zimbabwe's domestic
affairs through sponsorship of opposition forces must
stop forthwith," it
notes.
"In equal measure, the opposition forces operating in
Zimbabwe must
publicly and unequivocally commit themselves to the
irreversibility of land
reform."
Zanu PF starts its report by
citing resolutions of the Sadc
extraordinary meeting in Tanzania in March,
especially on the 2002
presidential poll that regional leaders said was
"free and fair", land,
sanctions, diplomatic relations and
mediation.
It then goes on to talk about colonialism, the Lancaster
House talks
and the role of the US and Britain, land acquisition after 1990,
British
Prime Minister Tony Blair's alleged refusal to honour Lancaster
House
obligations, the Land Donors' Conference of 1998, constitutional
reform in
1999/2000 and the rejection of the draft constitution in the
national
referendum, NGOs, Speaker of Parliament John Nkomo's visit to
London in
2002, land invasions, Constitutional Amendment (Number 16) on
compulsory
acquisition of land, the reaction of Western countries to farm
seizures and
the role of the international and local private media in
reporting events
after 2000.
"The Western world went on a
demonisation campaign in which, through
CNN, BBC, Sky News, events taking
place in Zimbabwe were misreported,
distorted, misrepresented and
exaggerated," Zanu PF says. "Alleged human
rights violations were made the
pretext for opposing the land reform
programme. In other words the land
redistribution programme was to be
opposed and vilified not directly but
through fabricated human rights
violations."
The ruling party
further complains about the bombed Voice of the
People, which it says is
Dutch-funded, SWRA, described as British-sponsored,
and Studio 7, seen as
American-financed. Zanu PF says government was as a
result forced to come up
with Posa and Aippa to safeguard national security.
Zim Independent
Lucia Makamure
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has
failed to provide details of the steps
that his government is taking to
ensure that his administration upholds its
obligations under the African
Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other
international instruments
including the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The Special Rapporteur on
Freedom of Expression in Africa, Advocate
Pansy Tlakula, in March wrote an
urgent appeal letter to Mugabe asking him
to ensure that his government
upholds the rule of law and desists from
arresting journalists.
Sources at the Pretoria office of the Special Rapporteur this week
told the
Zimbabwe Independent that they have not received a response from
Mugabe's
office.
"President Mugabe has not responded to the urgent appeal
letter sent
to him in March by Advocate Tlakula," said the
sources.
Rashweat Mukundu, the Director of Media Institute of
Southern Africa
(Misa) Zimbabwe Chapter, said government's delay in
responding to the letter
shows its lack of respect for the African
Commission on Human and Peoples'
Rights (ACHPR).
"Government's
delay in responding to the Special Rapporteur's urgent
appeal letter shows
its lack of respect not only for Zimbabweans but all
other human rights
bodies," said Mukundu.
She added: "Government should take the
letter seriously and address
the concerns which were raised in
it."
Tlakula in the letter appealed to Mugabe to provide details of
the
steps that his government was taking to ensure that the rights of
journalists Tsvangirai Makwazhi, Tendai Musiya, Ndamu Sandu, Godwin Mangudya
and Mike Saburi are respected in compliance with the provisions contained in
international and regional human rights instruments.
"In this
regard I would like to bring to your attention complaints of
harassment,
intimidation, unlawful detention and assault of media
practitioners and
journalists that have been submitted to me against
government agents in
Zimbabwe. In particular, I would like to bring to your
attention the arrests
of Tsvangirai Mukwazhi, Tendai Musiya, Ndamu Sandu, a
journalist of the
Zimbabwe Standard, Godwin Mangudya, a journalist of the
The Daily News, and
Mike Saburi, a freelance cameraperson," said Tlakula in
the
letter.
Tlakula called upon the government to uphold provisions of
Article 9
of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, to which
Zimbabwe is a
state party, and which guarantees every individual's right to
receive
information and express and disseminate their opinions within the
law.
President Mugabe was in the letter also reminded to uphold
Article 6
of the African Charter which provides that every individual shall
have the
right to liberty and to the security of his person and that no one
may be
deprived of his freedom except for reasons and conditions previously
laid
down by law.
Tlakula is supposed to submit a report on the
violations of freedom of
expression in Zimbabwe which should include the
contents of her appeal
letter and the response from Mugabe to the next
Ordinary Session of the
African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in
November.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
OUTGOING US ambassador to Zimbabwe
Christopher Dell says Zimbabwe is
closer to political change than at any
other time in the past 10 years.
Dell, who concludes his term as US envoy to
Zimbabwe next month to take up a
posting in Kabul as deputy chief of
mission, addressed a media roundtable on
Monday during a farewell tour in
Bulawayo.
"We are closer to seeing change in Zimbabwe today
generated from
within than at any time since Independence. The first phase
of Zimbabwe's
post-Independence history.defined by the liberation struggle
and
anti-colonialism, (and) sadly increasingly in the last few years the
phase
characterised by ethnic hatred and racism is coming to an end as the
economy
collapses around us," said Dell.
In a wide-ranging
discussion Dell said he was not leaving Zimbabwe a
disappointed man or
feeling lost as he had performed his duties effectively
during his tour of
duty. He said his government supported programmes that
inculcated democracy
in Zimbabwean society.
He said the country's inflation rate could
plunge to 1 500 000% by
year-end and said the economic downturn "if the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
continued to print money" could produce a situation
which will force
political change.
Dell said independent
estimates from the private sector indicate that
Zimbabwe's actual inflation
rate was nearly 20 000%, noting that the rate
has doubled every month since
February. "If this trend continues, the rate
of inflation will reach 1,5
million percent by the end of the year," said
the US envoy.
"The real crisis in Zimbabwe today is generated by the fact that a
handful
of people have arrogated unto themselves the right to speak on
behalf of
everybody and have excluded anybody who does not think or talk or
act like
them from that discussion about their own future," said Dell. "I
think this
period is coming to an end."
"The acceleration of the economic
collapse signifies an end-game for
President Mugabe. The country's inflation
has doubled every month. In
February independent analysts revealed that
inflation was at 3 000% while in
March it doubled to 6 000%. In April it was
at 12 000% and currently it's at
20 000%. By year-end the inflation rate
will be at 1,5 million percent,"
Dell said.
He said worldwide,
quoting research from international bodies such as
the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank, there is no government
that has survived
presiding over inflation that had hit over seven digit
levels.
Turning to targeted sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, Dell said there was
nothing illegal about the sanctions as often stated by the government and
state media.
Dell defended the targeted sanctions and said the
US government had a
right to use its vote on the boards of the International
Monetary Fund (IMF)
and other financial institutions as it deemed
fit.
"The sanctions we imposed on President Mugabe and his ruling
elite are
not illegal. The US government has 17% voting rights in the IMF
and we can
use them in any way we deem fit. If the US government decides to
use its
vote to deny a government like that of Zimbabwe lines of credit, so
be it,"
Dell said.
Asked how he would describe President
Mugabe's rule, Dell said it was
"sad".
"Mugabe did not see his
expiry date. He stayed too long and overstayed
his welcome. He is a man who
played a large historical role from
Independence through the first quarter
of a century: it's a legacy someone
should have been proud of but he has
overstayed," Dell said.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
THE NMB Bank fraud scandal this week deepened
with information that a
forensic audit done by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) has uncovered more
holes in the bank's books than initially
reported.
The forensic audit shows that a further US$1,5 million
was siphoned
from the bank between January 2006 and March 2007.
The latest findings bring the total prejudice to US$6,3 million.
Initial
investigations had put the figure at US$4,7 million.
The audit also
found that the money was siphoned from NMB Bank through
210 fraudulent
transactions. Initial checks had established that 65
transactions were used
to siphon the funds.
The money was transferred into an offshore
company called Cardinal
Finance (Pvt) which holds an account with AKB Bank
of Switzerland.
Sources said investigations were continuing but
indications were that
the figure could increase as the central bank traces
the other transactions
that the chief suspect, Shame Mandara, who was an
assistant manager in NMB's
treasury department, could have
made.
The investigators believe that Mandara could have been
working with
officials from other commercial banks.
"We confirm
that our investigations have established some additional
United States
dollar payments totalling US$1 474 242,72 which were made by
NMB Bank Ltd to
Cardinal Finance LLC account number 16701690347," reads the
report seen by
businessdigest.
The report shows that the fraudulent transactions
were made between
January 10 2006 and March 2 this year.
"Preliminary investigations have also established that fraudulent
documents
were used as source documents by the NMB Bank Ltd treasury staff,"
the
report said.
"The reason for the remittance stated in each of the
payments is 'RBZ
loan 251'.
"Investigations are continuing to
determine the source of the Zimbabwe
dollars used to pay for the amounts and
to establish if Exchange Control
approval was obtained by NMB Bank
Ltd."
It also emerged last night that more than 10 commercial banks
also
made transactions that are somehow related to a company called Haus
(Pvt)
Ltd which is now at the centre of the investigations.
Haus, investigators say, was the conduit company that was used to
siphon the
money.
Haus holds account number 0140074412101 with Stanbic
Bank.
According to the documents, foreign currency would be
transferred into
Cardinal Finance's account. Haus would then pay the
equivalent of local
currency to NMB.
Some local companies would
then get foreign currency from Cardinal
Finance which they would exchange
with Zimbabwe dollars paid to Haus through
other banks. The United States
dollars would be wired directly from Cardinal
Finance's account in
Switzerland into the accounts of the local companies.
The amount
transferred between local companies was $8,1 trillion.
The central
bank is talking to nine local commercial banks and one
building society
whose clients participated in the transactions.
The audit shows
that the beneficiary companies held accounts with
Kingdom, Barclays,
Stanchart, Zimbabwe Allied Banking Group, MBCA, Premier
Bank, CBZ, ZB and
Stanbic Bank.
Clients from CABS, the biggest building society in
the country, also
participated.
Investigators believe that
although the banks might not necessarily
have been aware of the fraudulent
activities their explanation is crucial in
efforts to get to the bottom of
the matter.
"Given that the transfers translate to foreign currency
receipts by
Zimbabwean companies, the question that immediately comes to
mind is whether
the banks through which the funds were received dealt with
the same in terms
of the standing Exchange Control surrender requirements,"
the report read.
"Specifically, there is need to check that the
receiving banks
properly accounted for the money and surrendered the
relevant portion to the
Reserve Bank on time."
The report shows
that 58 local companies and 10 individuals made
transactions which the RBZ
believes were linked to the scam. The list of
beneficiaries also included
churches, wholesale shops and private schools.
For instance, on
March 14 this year the Diocese of Mutare remitted
US$7 328 into Cardinal's
account.
"Transaction number 21 relates to the only remittance made
by a local
entity (Diocese of Mutare) to Cardinal Finance for US$7 328 on
the 14th of
March 2007. It should be prudent to establish what services were
rendered by
Cardinal Finance to the Diocese of Mutare," the report
said.
RBZ governor Gideon Gono could not be reached this week but
he told
businessdigest three weeks ago that he was not willing to comment on
ongoing
investigations.
Zim Independent
Shakeman
Mugari
NMB Bank has appealed to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to
reverse the
decision to cancel its foreign currency dealership
licence.
The RBZ last month cancelled NMB Bank's licence after
investigations
found that the bank was defrauded of US$4,7 million by an
assistant manager
in its treasury department.
Further
investigations have since revealed that a further US$1,5
million was also
siphoned from the bank bringing the total amount in the
fraud to US$6,2
million.
Sources said the appeal was logged last week after it
emerged that
more banks could have been part of the scandal. A forensic
audit shows that
nine commercial banks were used to facilitate the
fraudulent transactions.
The audit shows that the beneficiary
companies held accounts with
Kingdom, Barclays, Stanchart, Zimbabwe Allied
Banking Group, MBCA, Premier
Bank, CBZ, ZB and Stanbic Bank.
A
few clients from Cabs, the biggest building society in the country,
also
benefited. The RBZ says although the banks might not have been aware of
the
fraudulent activities of their clients, their explanations will help the
investigation.
NMB Bank is arguing that they are not the only
bank involved in the
issue.
"They believe that it would be
unfair to cancel their dealership
licence when new evidence shows that other
banks were used in the
transactions," said a source close to the
issue.
NMB Bank wants the RBZ to carry out thorough investigations
into the
whole foreign currency system in order to establish how the other
banks were
involved. "NMB Bank feels it would be unfair for the central bank
to deal
with their licence in isolation because there are also other banks
whose
clients made transactions that are related to the case."
The RBZ is likely to make a decision on the appeal in the next two
weeks but
sources said the new evidence has put RBZ governor Gideon Gono in
a
dilemma.
"He will either have to reconsider the cancellation or
apply the same
punitive measures to other banks that were involved," the
sources said.
"The problem is that if he chooses to go the hard
way, he will have to
cancel dealership licences for nine commercial banks.
The whole system would
collapse if he does that."
Gono's
problems are worsened by the fact that police are still
dragging their feet
on the issue. No arrests have been made since the
scandal was unearthed in
April this year. The RBZ team of investigators
submitted its findings to the
police together with the names of the
directors of companies that are at the
centre of the fraud.
The RBZ has also submitted statements from
NMB's management to the
police. In their statement officials from NMB denied
any involvement saying
the transactions were approved in error. The evidence
was submitted to the
police early last month.
"The case has not
moved. Right now the investigators and Gono himself
are shocked that no
arrests have been made. The investigators are livid that
their efforts are
being undermined," said the source.
l Meanwhile businessdigest can
reveal that the RBZ has for the past
two months been using a special
financial tracking system it recently
acquired from South Africa to trace
the funds that were siphoned from NMB
Bank over the past 18
months.
The system called Anti Money Laundering and Foreign
Currency Tracking
system will be launched early July as the central bank
moves to plug the
holes in the country's foreign currency
system.
Zimbabwe is the first country in the region to use the
system which is
expected to be installed in all banks by mid July. The
software was designed
by Sandbox, a South African based company. It is being
marketed in the
region by a company called Perago.
The system
tracks down the source of funding, bank used and the
receiving bank. It also
tracks the name and address of the beneficiary.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
ZIMBABWE is planning to launch a campaign aimed
at persuading
international airlines that have pulled out of Harare to
resume their
services in anticipation of growth in demand for air transport
during the
2010 World Cup to be held in neighbouring South Africa,
businessdigest can
reveal.
Major airlines pulled out of
Zimbabwe in 2000 due to reduced demand
for their services after government's
controversial land reforms that
affected the country's image and its
potential as a tourist destination. The
airlines also complained of high
landing, handling and navigation costs.
The announcement will come
as Zimbabwe claimed it will put in place
programmes to attract at least 30%
of about three million tourists that are
expected in Southern Africa during
the World Cup.
Austrian Airlines, Quantas, Germany's Lufthansa,
Swissair, KLM of the
Netherlands, Balkan Airlines, Air France and Portugal's
TAP were some of the
major airlines that abandoned the route.
They argued that they were no longer generating enough revenue to
continue
servicing the route.
Most international flights have now diverted
to Johannesburg.
But according to the World Soccer Cup Strategy for
Zimbabwe, a
document that was prepared by the Sport, Tourism, Image and
Communications
Taskforce, several organisations have been assigned to open
discussions with
some of these airlines this year to resume flights into
Zimbabwe by the end
of the year.
"Our roads and railways should
also be in a condition that is
acceptable in order to attract visitors," the
document reads.
Aviation experts this week warned it would be
difficult for Zimbabwe
to regain the confidence of the major airlines
considering the deteriorating
economic environment driving the continued
fall in demand.
Tourist arrivals from Europe, the traditional
source for Zimbabwe,
declined by 14% from 112 608 in 2005 to 96 849 in 2006,
according to the
latest Zimbabwe Tourism Authority annual
report.
The document says the Civil Avian Authority of Zimbabwe
(CAAZ), Air
Zimbabwe, National Handling Services and the Ministry of
Transport and
Communications will in the next six months also look into the
possibility of
code sharing deals between the national airline and foreign
carriers.
There are also plans to introduce incentives for
international
airlines that fly into Zimbabwe.
Analysts say it
will be very difficulty to convince the foreign
airlines because of
Zimbabwe's bad image, poor infrastructure and a
freefalling economy.
Zim Independent
Shame
Makoshori
ZIMBABWE will this year plead with South Africa to
encourage its
companies to outsource Zimbabwean skills and services during
preparations
for the 2010 World Cup in a bid to thwart the massive skills
flight that is
threatening to hit the country.
Qualified
Zimbabwe have already started crossing into South Africa to
participate in
the construction boom in that country as it prepares for the
World
cup.
Civil engineers, electricians, builders, accountants,
architectures
and other professionals have joined the race to join the more
paying South
African industries fleeing Zimbabwe's escalating economic
crisis.
A team of professionals engaged by government to conduct a
thorough
research on the potential economic benefits of Zimbabwe from the
2010 Word
Cup said in a report presented to cabinet last month that to stop
the brain
drain, Zimbabwe should talk to South Africa government to
"facilitate
systemic and legal provision of these services."
The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority has been given until the end of the
year to
develop and implement a human resources plan.
"There is need for
Zimbabwe to have an agreement with South Africa in
order to facilitate
systemic and legal provision of these services to the
mutual benefit of both
countries," the report, prepared by the Sport,
Tourism, Image and
Communications Taskforce says.
"With a lot of infrastructure
developments currently taking place in
South Africa in preparing for the
event, there is also an opportunity for
Zimbabwe to supply some of the
materials, technology and skills needed for
these infrastructural
developments. Zimbabwean businesses can outsource
their skills and services
to South Africa during the preparations and the
actual event.
Many South African companies have been advertising for manpower in
Zimbabwe
and many more professionals are expected to leave the country to
take up
more lucrative job offers in that country.
Apart from the
manufacturing related jobs, several Zimbabweans have
taken up top positions
in banking, insurance, agricultural media and other
sectors of the South
Africa economy.
Recent reports indicate that there has been
shortages of science
teachers in South Africa and the government in that
country has indicated
that it is targeting Zimbabwe to recruit
teachers.
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
AT least 30 million kg of flue-cured tobacco valued
at US$67,9 million
($16,9 billion at the interbank rate) has gone under the
hammer at the
country's three auction during the first 37 days of
trade.
Figures obtained from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing
Board (TIMB)
yesterday revealed that the deliveries were 59,54% more than
the 18,8
million kg which went under the hammer during the same period last
year.
In monetary terms last year's sales for the same period were
373,6%
less at $3,5 billion in Zimbabwe dollar terms due to hyperinflation.
Inflation which reached 4 530% at the end of May, was 1 193,5% during the
same period last year.
In US dollars terms the value of tobacco
sold is 91,7% more than
US$35,1 million sold during the same period last
year.
A total of 328 183 bails have so far been sold, 49,64% more
than 219
311 bales which were sold during the corresponding period last
year, the
TIMB said.
Of Zimbabwe's three auction floors, Burley
Marketing Zimbabwe (BMZ)
has sold 3,9 million kg worth US$8,7 million ($2,1
billion). Tobacco Sales
Floor (TSF) sold 4,2 million kg valued at US$9,8
million ($2,4 trillion).
Zimbabwe Industry Tobacco Auction Centre (ZITAC)
accounted for 3,5 million
kg worth US$8,2 million ($2 billion).
Contract tobacco farmers accounted for 18,2 million kg valued at
US$40,7
million ($10,1 billion).
A total of 80 million kgs are expected to
go under the hummer during
the current tobacco selling season.
The current season has also witnessed an increase in the selling price
that
has averaged US$2,25 compared to US$1,87 which prevailed during the
corresponding period last year.
Government has disbursed a
support price amounting to $1,8 trillion
compared to $1,2 billion during the
same period last year.
The support price is currently pegged at $40
000 for every kg of
tobacco that fetch US$1,50. Tobacco that fetches prices
below US$1,50 will
attract a support price calculated on a downward pro-rata
basis to the $40
000 while prices above US$1,50 will attract an upward
pro-rata to the $40
000.
Government also put in place a 20%
Foreign Currency Retention facility
for tobacco farmers. This facility
allows tobacco farmers to retain 20% of
their earnings in foreign
currency.
Zim Independent
Shame
Makoshori
THE Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) this
week lashed out at
government's economic policies which have "triggered a
wave of despondency"
among companies.
CZI denied government's
allegations that companies were profiteering
saying businesses were being
forced to increase their prices because of high
interest rates and exchange
rate movements.
"We must remember that capital is very timid," the
CZI said in its
2006 manufacturing sector survey 2007.
The
survey shows that the manufacturing sector declined by 7% in 2006.
It said
the sector grew by 3,2% in 2005.
"In this environment, the interest
rates are highly volatile and
negative," the CZI Survey said. "Exchange
rates are unpredictable and
treated with stigma. Prices are being driven on
non-economic fundamentals
and suppliers are viewed with suspicion and a high
degree of mistrust.
Investors are forced to take a very short view of their
investment
profiles," the survey said.
The survey report said
as a result of the volatile economic
environment, the rate of investment in
the manufacturing sector was "well
below that required to keep pace with the
wear and tear and obsolescence of
the existing capital stock." About 54,2%
of companies that participated in
the survey said they had made investments
for expansion purposes with 45,8%
citing capital replacements as the reasons
for their expansion.
New investment was low.
On
international trade, the survey said Zambia remained the main
destination
for Zimbabwe's manufactured products. The industrial body
expressed serious
concerns on the surrender requirements for export proceeds
saying they were
not viable.
"The surrender requirement at a low market rate of 30%
of the export
proceeds at Z$250 to the US$ remained a major business
disincentive. About
2, 1% of the respondents stopped exporting in
2006."
"Consequently, there was a significant decline in foreign
currency
inflows noted by exporting companies."
Zimbabwe has
been facing serious challenges in the procurement of
fuel, medicine, food
and critical industrial inputs due to the foreign
currency shortages.
Corruption, as viewed by 68% of the companies that were
interviewed remained
highly negative to business.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
THE government says it is
worried that the Zimbabwe's collapsing
infrastructure and its bad-boy image
will scuttle its chances of benefiting
from the tourism boom expected in the
region during the 2010 World Cup in
South Africa, businessdigest can
reveal.
Zimbabwe has estimated that it will generate at least US$50
million
through tourism related activities.
According to an
ambitious business plan written by the Sport, Tourism,
Image and
Communications Taskforce titled World Soccer Cup 2010 Strategy for
Zimbabwe,
the country plans to attract at least a 30% market share of
visitors during
the month-long tournament and reduce the unemployment rate
by about
5%.
But the 2010 Strategy, expected to be launched next week,
clearly
shows that the government is worried that these targets might not be
reached
because of the country's bad image, the economic crisis and poor
infrastructure in the tourism industry.
The government is also
worried by the poor administration of football
in Zimbabwe.
The
document said "travel warnings and lack of investor confidence"
was one of
the major threats to government's plans for 2010.
Chronic power
cuts, limited knowledge of foreign languages and
declining product and
service standards in the sector are also mentioned as
some of the major
threats to the project.
"There is urgent need to put in place
appropriate strategies to
exploit this opportunity," the document
says.
"Air transportation system needs to be addressed to provide
adequate
access from the 2010 source countries and the host nation/cities
before,
during and after the event. Facilitation of the smooth movement of
visitors
at our ports of entry, as well as availability of fuel is
critical," says
the document.
Although the 23-page business
plan says most of these hurdles will be
cleared by the end of 2008, analysts
this week said with inflation reaching
alarming levels, activities like the
construction of stadia and the
improvement of accessibility to the country's
major destinations could be
difficult to accomplish.
Some
government officials are however adamant that despite all these
problems
tourists will be forced to come to Zimbabwe because of lack of
capacity in
the region.
Addressing a press briefing last month, the minister of
Education,
Sports and Culture, Aeneas Chigwedere, who is also part of the
2010
taskforce, said the tourists had no choice but to come to
Zimbabwe.
"Tourists have two options. Either to come for the 2010
World Cup or
they do not come at all. South Africa, Swaziland and Botswana
can only
accommodate a limited number of tourists. Namibia is far away,
while
Mozambique only has hotels in Maputo," he said.
"Those
who are suggesting that tourists will shun us for political
reasons when
there is no option for accommodation are not informed,"
Chigwedere told
journalists in Harare.
South Africa has also confirmed that it does
not have the capacity to
accommodate all the tourists during the World
Cup.
But another hurdle, according to the World Cup Strategy, is
that
Zimbabwe is one of the most expensive destinations in the region and
this
could drive potential business to other countries.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
THE proposed empowerment
bill which compels government to procure 75%
of its goods and services from
locally owned companies could meet resistance
from multilateral trade
organisations like the World Trade Organisation
(WTO) because of its
non-tariff barrier.
Zimbabwe is a signatory of an agreement by WTO
on government
procurements that was signed in 1994.
The
agreement sets out an "agreed framework of rights and obligations
among its
parties with respect to their national laws, regulations,
procedures and
practices in the area of government procurement."
The cornerstone
of the rules in the agreement is non-discrimination.
The Attorney
General's office is next month expected to complete the
drafting of the bill
whose salient clauses were heavily borrowed from The
Revised Policy
Framework for Indigenisation of the Economy document written
by the
Indigenisation and Empowerment ministry last year.
The Bill could
be brought to parliament next month and government
expects it to become law
by September.
The Bill will compel companies to sell 50% of their
shareholding to
locally owned firms or risk losing their licence and
registration.
This means government's tender process will be
changed to comply with
the Act.
"Government itself should
arrange to secure or procure at least 75% of
its goods and services from
indigenous companies," says a document the AG is
using to draft the
bill.
Government will be required to deal with indigenous banks and
accounting firms only to show its commitment to the empowerment
process.
Foreign owned banks that want to do business with
government will have
to sell 50% shareholding to the local
investors.
"How is government going to reconcile this protocol
which we signed,
with the impending Bill?" a lawyer said this
week.
"There is however a precedent of the existence of similar
laws in
other countries. I've come across the Buy American Act (1933) which
however
sets out waivers on local procurement under specific circumstances.
Maybe
our own bill will also set out similar waivers," the lawyer
said.
Trade analysts said the fact that Zimbabwe was still a
signatory to
the WTO means that it will face punitive measures if it
violated the
violates the provisions of the agreement.
The Bill
will also compel private companies and parastatals to get
their banking and
accounting services from locally-owned financial
institutions. Government
will also be compelled to set aside 50%
shareholding in the parastatals it
plans to privatise or commercialise for
local investors.
It
also says government should make it mandatory for all companies
merging or
unbundling to set aside 50% for local investors.
Companies seeking
to list on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange will have to
comply with the law or
they will not be allowed on the bourse.
Analysts said contents of
the proposed Bill promoted anti-trade.
"Compare this with the
experience of the Export Processing Zones Act,
which sets out quotas for how
much a licensee may trade locally and
externally. Has the EPZ quota system
been successful? How does the bill
affect companies which rely on foreign
currency for their operations? Does
government have the capacity to monitor
this provision," asked the lawyer.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube
INVESTMENT inflows to Bulawayo dropped 30% since
January this year due
to volatile economic conditions, a government
investment body has said.
A Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA)
survey shows that the city has
lost vast investment opportunities due to
water shortages and shrinking
productivity.
The report said
that the textile industry - which used to account for
a huge proportion of
companies in the second largest city has been the worst
affected by the
investment dip.
"Bulawayo has lost vast investment opportunities.
Investment has sunk
to below 30% since January this year," ZIA
said.
"Most of the companies are operating at an average capacity
utilisation of below 40% while others had gone under voluntary liquidation
with some placed under judicial management."
ZIA chairperson,
Mara Hativagone said the drop in investment was
worrying. She said
government should implement proper policies to attract
foreign direct
investment.
"There is a need to come up with a new strategy to
improve investment
inflows into the country's major cities," said Hativagone
who is also the
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC)
president.
Experts and independent economic analysts however say
foreign
investment to the country will continue on a downward spiral because
of the
deteriorating macro-economic situation.
The drop in
investment is not unique to Bulawayo alone. The whole
economy has been hit
by a massive capital flight since 2000 when the
government embarked on the
controversial land reform programme.
The threats to investors
capital have also mounted over the past seven
years due to fuel and foreign
currency shortages and government's
retrogresive policy on
investment.
Meanwhile, a World Bank report titled Doing Business
2007 found that
Zimbabwe was one of the most difficult countries to do
business in. The
report released early this year ranked Zimbabwe number 153
out of 175
countries included in the survey.
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
THE Zimbabwe Stock Exchange's (ZSE) industrial index
has surged 260,2%
since the beginning of this month as the bulls continue to
run riot on the
market.
The industrial index closed at
45 396 556,69 million points on Wednesday from 12 600 948,39 million
points
recorded on June 1. The market is being driven by inflation. The
mining
index rose by 254% to 24 080 049,79 million points from 6 788 525,014
million points during the same period.
The mining index surged
47 369,34 (0, 20%) points to close at 24 080
049,79 points owing to
increases by all resource counters.
The industrial and resource
indices had opened the year at 583 760,42
points and 354 464,10 points
respectively. Daily turnover since June 1 has
been averaging above $6
billion, latest figures from the market showed on
Wednesday.
An
investor who bought 500 Hippo Valley shares on June 1 at $28 000
valued at
$14 million could have pocket $50 million if he sold the same
shares on
Wednesday, making a profit of $36 million inside 20 days.
Although
the share price for Pretoria Portland Cement is out of reach
for many
individual investors, someone could pocket $950 million from 100
shares sold
during the period under review. The same shares were going for
$320 million
on June 1 at $3,2 million a share.
The share closed at $9,5 million
on Wednesday.
Genesis bank group economist Brains Muchemwa said the
stock market
still had a good life to run in 2007, although it might prove
very difficult
to match regional performance in real terms.
"Excessive liquidity in the economy will continue to see more cash
available
to place orders on the stock market," Muchemwa said.
"The liquid
conditions on the money market are being propelled by
tobacco and grain
purchases as well as other related fiscal expenditure," he
said.
Muchemwa said the stock market was expected to slow down
next week due
to corporate tax payments due on June 25.
"This
will drain the money market and probably keep it short for a
week or two,"
Muchemwa said.
He added: "Only six months ago, the whole market
looked curiously into
the future, imagining how the market would manage with
the glut of CPI
maturities. Now the CPI maturities are a non-event when
evaluated to other
inflows coming into the markets."
"It just
shows the extent to which monetary bases in the economy have
grown in the
past six months to render what looked like huge mountains of
cash to just
small pebbles on the river bed," said Muchemwa.
Kingdom Bank
economist, Witness Chinyama, said the medium to long-term
outlook of the
equities market depended on the movement of real interest
rates which were a
function of the behaviour of nominal interest rates and
inflation.
"Currently interest-bearing assets are yielding
negative returns due
to the existence of low nominal rates and high
inflation, a situation that
favours non-interest bearing assets such as
equities and property. Given
that property investments require huge capital
outlays, they are too
expensive for the ordinary investor who has no choice
but to go for the
share market," said Chinyama.
Zim Independent
IF
Western powers can do all the damage to Zimbabwe that President
Mugabe and
his government claim, then surely they are very clever people,
able to do so
much from so far away. Mugabe is here, on the spot, and yet he
has been
unable to do anything about it, which he so often admits.
He says
the West wants to recolonise Zimbabwe. What a laugh! Common
sense will tell
any half-literate person that if a country like this one was
handed over as
"the jewel of Africa", it is now hardly likely that any
country in the West
would want it in the condition it has been reduced to.
As for
sanctions on Zimbabwe, it must be emphasised that they are only
on travel
for members of government and others responsible for the mess. The
government harps on about sanctions which do not exist, in order to hoodwink
people. The present sanctions, in fact, benefit Zimbabwe as they save
foreign currency which would otherwise be spent by these people on overseas
jaunts.
As for degrees held by our president and government
officials, what
good have any of them done for the country? The only proof
we have of any of
them is the degree in violence. The most important assets
necessary to run a
country, or anything else for that matter, are know-how,
common sense and
honesty. Our present government has shown none of these
attributes.
The children of our ministers being educated elsewhere
will probably
not benefit this country as they will see the actions of their
parents and
accept such as being the norm. Unless, of course, some aspects
of the way of
life they have seen elsewhere, have washed off on them. I am
thinking of
such things as clean towns and cities, unpotholed roads, honesty
and
consideration for others.
P de Simone,
Harare.
Zim Independent
Orirando Manwere
THE Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No18)
Bill has been crafted to
ensure President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu
PF party stay in power
until 2010 and also gives him and a partisan
parliament exclusive powers to
manipulate the electoral system and decide on
critical national issues
without involving the majority, an electoral
monitoring body has said.
A detailed analysis produced this week by
the Zimbabwe Election
Support Network (Zesn)'s lawyers says clause 2(2) of
the Bill allows Mugabe
to remain in office until parliament is dissolved in
2010.
The clause states that "the amendments made by sub-section
(1) apply
to the president in office on the date of commencement of this
Act,
notwithstanding anything contained in Section 29 before its amendment
by
this Act".
However, according to Zesn, the amendments made
by subsection (1) of
clause 28 provide that an election to the office of
president must take
place at the same time as a general election of members
of parliament.
"So the effect of (2) is that President Mugabe (who
will be the
president in office when the Bill comes into force as an Act)
need not
subject himself to re-election until the next general election is
held in
2010.
"This applies notwith-standing the current
Section 29 of the
Constitution, which states that the presidential term is
limited to six
years. His term, in other words, is extended to the next
general election.
So President Mugabe will not have to face the voters until
2010, unless he
chooses to dissolve parliament before then in
2008.
"The true import of clause 2(2) needs to be clearly
understood," reads
the Zesn statement.
On the proposals to
allow parliament to elect a new president in the
event of the incumbent's
death, resignation or removal, Zesn says this was
undemocratic because an
executive president must be elected by a popular
vote.
According to the new section 28 (3) (b), if the president dies,
resigns or
is removed from office, the Senate and the House of Assembly must
sit
together within 90 days and elect a new president. A president so
elected
will hold office for the life of the current parliament
"The Bill
does not specify any particular majority by which a new
president must be
elected, so one must assume that a simple majority of the
Senators and MPs
present and voting will suffice.
"This change has been foreshadowed
by discussions in the press. It is
widely believed that President Mugabe
wants to contest the next presidential
election and then, if he wins, steps
down in favour of a chosen successor
who will be duly elected by a grateful
party using its majority in
parliament.
"This proposed change
is undemo-cratic, because if it is accepted that
an executive president must
be elected by popular vote, which the
Constitution does in Section 28(2),
then his or her successor should be
similarly elected," says
Zesn.
Zesn says the fact that elections are expensive cannot
justify a
provision that would allow an executive president to hold office
without a
popular mandate.
It says the only exception might be
if the president died or resigned
shortly before his or her term of office
was due to expire within six
months. In that event a successor could be
chosen by parliament, but even
then it would be better to allow one of the
vice-presidents to act until the
next presidential election.
On
the proposed expansion of parliament Zesn says the increase is
undesirable.
"Parliament is an expensive institution, and
increasing its membership
will increase the expense. The only discernible
reason for the increase is
to extend the government's power of patronage.
This is unjustifiable,
particularly in the current economic
environment.
"Ten members of the Senate will be provincial
governors, 18 will be
chiefs and six will be appointed by the president.
Since the president
appoints provincial governors and chiefs, he will have
34 appointees in the
Senate; at present he has only 16.
"Under
the Bill, the House will have 210 members of whom 200 will be
elected on a
constituency basis and 10 will be appointed by the president.
"So
far as presidential appointees are concerned, what the House of
Assembly has
lost the Senate will gain. The total number of presidential
appointees in
parliament will be reduced from 46 to 44.
Zesn argues that both
Houses of Parliament, except for the Chiefs,
must be elected.
It says chiefs should be outside politics and can remain as an
advisory
council such as the case in Lesotho and other countries to ensure
that they
are non-partisan and embrace all citizens without favour or bias
due to
political affiliation.
On the Delimitation Commission and its
functions, Zesn says the
proposed commission is partisan as it is appointed
by and reports to the
president. It says an independent electoral body
should play that role.
Clause 10 of the Bill will replace Section
60 of the Constitution.
According to the Bill's memorandum, the replacement
is "consequential to the
provision for the increase in the number of elected
House of Assembly seats
to make the delimitation commission responsible for
determining the
boundaries of the senatorial constituencies."
Zesn notes that the memorandum is not entirely frank as it makes at
least
one amendment, which is unrelated to the increase in the number of
seats.
Under the present Section 60(4) the commission may allow
the number of
voters in each constituency to vary by up to 20%. Under the
Bill the
permissible variation is increased to 25% which is a significant
increase.
Zesn also notes is that while the delimitation commission
must take
into account such factors as community of interest between voters,
physical
features and so on when fixing the boundaries of House of Assembly
constituencies, it will be allowed to disregard all such factors when
delimiting senatorial constituencies according to the new Section 60(5) of
the Bill.
The president, who needs merely to consult the Chief
Justice or the
chairman before appointing them, appoints all the members of
the commission.
With such a potentially biased commission, any relaxation of
rules regarding
delimitation must be viewed with suspicion, says
Zesn.
The increased number of seats in the House of Assembly will
necessitate the creation of 80 new constituencies. The delimitation
commission will also delimit five senatorial constituencies in each province
consisting of groups of contiguous house of assembly
constituencies.
"Before the 2005 parliamentary elections, a number
of constituency
boundaries were redrawn to give the ruling party an
electoral advantage,"
said Zesn. "Certain constituencies dominated by Zanu
PF like Gokwe were
split to create individual constituencies without any
justification of
demographic changes.
"On the other hand, some
urban constituencies, which are the
stronghold of the MDC, were redrawn to
incorporate abutting rural areas
where Zanu PF had support."
Zim Independent
HEAVILY armed police last Wednesday stormed the Bulawayo Arts Theatre
and
stopped the premiere of the controversial play The Good President,
written
and directed by seasoned playwright Cont Mhlanga of Amakhosi Theatre
and
produced by Daves Guzha of Rooftop Productions. The police alleged that
the
play was political and the organisers needed to seek permission under
the
Public Order and Security Act (Posa) to stage it. Below is Mhlanga's
response.
By Cont Mhlanga
AFTER sitting in
the High Court chambers for about an hour over the
matter, Justice Francis
Bere gave the two lawyers 10 minutes to go out and
discuss the matter before
bringing to him what they could not agree on.
After some 15 minutes
or so the lawyers called the two parties in and
informed us of their common
position: to remove the matter from the roll and
discuss the issues and come
to an agreement with the police over the banning
of the play in an
out-of-court settlement.
What was being cited by the police now
were the lines of the script
that they said were not only contravening
sections of Posa but also sections
of the Criminal Law (Codification and
Reform) Act by "undermining the
authority of the President" (whatever that
means in art). For them it was
not just about stopping a play from taking
place at a theatre but also about
questioning the script.
What
does the out-of-court settlement with the police mean to me as a
playwright?
It means that I have to take my script of The Good
President to the
police officer commanding Bulawayo district and allow him
to edit and censor
it for me before he can lift the ban and allow the play
to run in Bulawayo.
The big question for me is: do I want to do
that?
Even if I want to, just picture this scenario: the first
scene begins
with the officer commanding riot police chasing after street
protesters who
have run into the theatre and joined the audience. The riot
police with
their usual bad language demand permission letters under Posa
and disperse
the crowd at the theatre.
This is what police
officers did at Bulawayo Theatre last Wednesday,
Thursday and
Friday.
They will ask me to delete this scene for sure to protect
the police
force image.
The second scene takes place at the
police station where the police
officers have caught one of the protesters
who happens to be an elected
leader of the opposition and are beating the
daylights out of his head. This
is what happened in Harare in
March.
Again, he will ask me to remove this scene or change it to
say that
they offered him water at the station while they questioned
him.
The third scene is about the president celebrating and
defending state
violence on TV. This happened in March and that is what
inspired me to write
the play The Good President.
The officer
commanding will say this undermines the authority of the
president (whatever
that means in art) and must be deleted.
The fourth scene is about
historical facts that a grandmother gives to
her grandson on how and why his
father and other villagers were shot by
soldiers and tells him the president
was the commander-in-chief of that army
and the killings were tribal and
politically motivated.
The officer commanding will ask me to delete
this scene or even
suggest that I give other causes of death as this
undermines the authority
of the president so that they may not prosecute me
under the Criminal Law
(Codification and Reform) Act.
Given the
above situations, it is clear that this is a negotiation
that I cannot win.
The police ban will have to stay banishing The Good
President into the
drawer.
I have two more options to consider since I want the play
to be staged
as it has been written: to ignore the ban and present the play
at other
venues and through DVDs and a published script.
However, if I take this route the officer commanding will move a step
higher: arrest and get me prosecuted (if he can get his hands on me) for
undermining the authority of the president.
The final option
would be to water down the script and make the script
fictitious, taking
place in some fictitious country out of this world.
The big
question once more is: do I want to do that?
In my belief and
conviction, The Good President is protest theatre and
I want it to remain
like that. I don't want to turn it into some flowery
poetic
theatre.
In my opinion, there is nothing flowery and poetic about
the current
situation the country is facing. There is nothing flowery and
poetic about a
corrupt political leadership that celebrates state
violence.
There is nothing flowery and poetic about millions of
people in the
country who cannot afford to put a single decent meal on the
table for their
families on a daily bases. There is nothing poetic and
flowery about an
economy whose inflation is at 5 000%.
There is
nothing poetic and flowery about living in a country whose
governing leaders
are under travel sanctions. There is nothing flowery and
poetic about living
in a country where you send your child to school to find
the head of a
school with half the staff having left to work in another
country.
The situation in the country is desperate for the
majority of the
population and it demands some urgent action by all
concerned.
In my culture sector, in performing arts, the current
situation in the
country demands not poetic theatre, not romantic theatre,
but protest
theatre.
It is for this reason that I find myself
in a dilemma if I have to go
and negotiate with the police for the lifting
of the ban on the play. I
however have learnt one clear lesson: that there
is no room to practise the
art of protest theatre in our democratic
Zimbabwe.
Before I can make a decision on what to do, the producer
and myself
will this week sit with the legal representative, Kucaca Phulu,
and visit
all the scenes and legally inform myself about what lines and
content of my
script possibly contravene sections of Posa and the Criminal
Law
(Codification and Reform) Act. Only after the exercise will I be in a
position to make an informed decision on what to do next.
The
play must play in Bulawayo and I will make sure the biggest
changes in the
script will be commas and full-stops.
Zim Independent
By Pedzisai
Ruhanya
EVENTS relating to an alleged military take-over of the
government
need a thorough interrogation in order to explain the continued
deterioration of the political and economic crisis that Zimbabwe has been
grappling with for the past seven years.
While the ingredients
for a military take-over are there for everyone
to witness, the question is
whether indeed such a plot was foiled or whether
there are other
explanations such as the possibility of a coup, the raging
succession war in
Zanu PF or the party's usual diversionary tactics when
faced with critical
national issues such as the continued freefall of the
economy.
It is important to understand that the military by nature, composition
and
design is authoritarian, in most cases extremely undemocratic. Such
qualities help soldiers to serve their constitutional mandate which includes
defence against foreign enemies. The role of the military is to destroy
threats, not to apprehend them for processing through a system that presumes
them innocent until proven guilty.
In most cases elsewhere, the
military have cited economic decay, the
prevalence of anarchy or
lawlessness, corruption, nepotism and the
possibility of a collapsed state
as some of the reasons for taking over the
government from the civilians.
The soldiers argue that they are a
mechanised, technical lot with abundant
capacity to redress the situation.
One is therefore tempted to
argue that a military coup could have been
foiled given that the most
critical elements for a military takeover are
currently prevailing in
Zimbabwe. This is so because for the past seven
years, Zimbabwe has been
experiencing negative economic growth, a shrinking
industrial base and
consequently lack of production for the critical export
sector which is very
important for securing foreign currency needed to
import necessities such as
electricity and fuel.
As a result of the freefall of the economy,
people's wages continue to
be eroded to the extent that civil servants
including the military are now
receiving pocket-money wages that they are
being paid every fortnight. These
people do not have disposable incomes to
pay for basic necessities such as
schools and hospital fees as well as
groceries for their families.
The military also cites corrupt
tendencies by the incumbent government
as one of the reasons for army
takeovers.
Zimbabwe's history under the administration of President
Robert Mugabe
is littered with numerous cases of corruption ranging from the
Willogate
Scandal, the War Victims Compensation Fund, the DRC war and the
diamond
looting associated with the adventure, the Pay-For-Your-House
Scheme, the
fast-track land reform programme and the piling of farms on Zanu
PF leaders,
the Zupco saga, the Ziscosteel plunder, the Noczim fuel fiasco
and more
recently the Operation Garikai scheme where senior public officials
benefited from a project that was meant for the poor after their houses were
destroyed during Operation Murambatsvina.
Associated with these
cases is the issue of nepotism where relatives
of government and Zanu PF
officials benefit from the looting of national
resources. Such cases invite
the military to take over purportedly to rescue
the nation from
decay.
Cases of lawlessness that form the cornerstone of Zanu PF's
role are
also important in explaining the causes of military coups. Usually
the army
comes in order to restore law and order after the failure of
civilians to
maintain law and order in the country.
The
invasion of courts by war veterans, the attack against lawyers,
journalists
and ordinary citizens without any recourse to justice have
become endemic in
Zimbabwe's political psyche under Zanu PF. Attendant to
this is the glaring
selective application of justice where there is one law
for Zanu PF
supporters and sympathisers and another law for the rest of the
population.
Such unjust and inequitable application of the law also forms
the bedrock of
army involvement in civil matters.
Having noted the existence of an
environment conducive for the army to
be tempted into violating the
constitutional order of the country, it is my
contention that attempts to
overthrow the government of Mugabe are close to
remote or somewhere
nearer.
It is therefore plausible to argue that the attempted coup
plot was
pre-emptive. This seems so given that the establishment through its
secret
services such as the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO)
operatives is
aware that the situation on the ground can create such a
scenario. It could
have been the strategy of the government through the CIO
to warn those
harbouring such unconstitutional ideas that Big Brother was
watching them.
One of the reasons a military coup is next to
impossible in Zimbabwe
is the geo-political location of Zimbabwe. The
Southern African Development
Community - bar the former Zaire, now the DRC,
and the failed coup in
Lesotho - does not have a history of military
coups.
This factor is important to make the military aware of the
difficulties it faces in the event of such an unlawful misconduct. Most
important, the countries that Zimbabwe share borders with are administered
by civilian governments and some of them such as Zambia, Botswana and South
Africa are fairly democratic.
Also crucial is the composition
of the military in Zimbabwe where both
high and middle-ranking officers are
former liberation war fighters with an
umbilical cord with Zanu PF. To
infiltrate such an establishment needs a lot
of courage and
planning.
More so the big people in the army are part of the
patronage system of
Zanu PF. They have amassed a lot of wealth through the
allocation of farms
and luxury vehicles to the extent that they have become
part of the problem
and cannot overthrow themselves from power.
The other hindrance is the ubiquitous nature of the CIO among the
country's
repressive state apparatus including the army to the extent that
any such
ideas can be nipped in the bud.
In most cases, such as what happed
in Chile when Augusto Pinochet in
1973 overthrew the Socialist government of
Allende, there was the heavy
involvement of foreign forces or governments,
just as what happened when
Mobutu Sese Seko took over in the
Congo.
In the current Zimbabwe scenario, there are no indications
that a
foreign power is involved, which further gives credence that the
so-called
coup was a child's play at best and imaginary and hallucinatory at
worst.
This leaves us with at least two possible explanations for the
alleged coup.
The alleged involvement of Housing minister Emmerson
Mnangagwa gives a
political dimension to the whole saga. Mnangagwa, like
retired general
Solomon Mujuru, leads a Zanu PF faction that wants to
succeed Mugabe.
The mentioning of Mnangagwa in the court papers and
the failure by the
security agents to arrest him for such a serious crime
gives an impression
that the alleged coup plot is bogus. It seems that the
whole issue is part
of the infighting in the ruling party between the two
feuding factions.
One of the remote explanations which cannot be
ruled out given Zanu PF's
desperation is the idea of trying to create a
state under siege that
requires huge funding for the security forces for
them to be able to
maintain law and order.
In my view, behind
this plan could be the ruling party's intention to
deploy the military in
the country for its election campaign as it did in
2002. Zanu PF has
realised that without the assistance of the military and
other repressive
state apparatus such as the CIO, their chances of winning
the 2008 poll are
next to nothing.
* Pedzisai Ruhanya is a human rights
researcher.
Zim Independent
Comment
IF
ever President Mugabe thought he could reverse the current headlong
decline
of Zimbabwe's economy, events since the beginning of the month have
all but
confirmed that he has completely lost control. In charge of the
levers of
this economy now are exogenous factors which have overwhelmed the
octogenarian leader and his Zanu PF government.
There was a
time two years ago when policy measures by Mugabe's
handyman Gideon Gono
were designed to contain the slide through measures to
limit money supply
and with it inflation. The measures, albeit temporary in
nature, gave the
semblance of a government trying to improve the country's
economic fortunes.
This is all gone now and the deafening silence from the
central bank and the
Finance ministry this week on the rapid slide of the
dollar is emblematic of
a management that is bereft of solutions.
Government has deferred
the official announcement of inflation
figures, due last week. The official
figures no longer matter now because
evidence of the decay is abounding. The
Zimbabwe dollar was this week
trading at $250 000 to the greenback and has
propelled the price of fuel in
sync with its decline. The price of a whole
range of goods has more than
doubled since the beginning of the month while
transport operators are
raising fares almost daily.
There is no
evidence in sight of any serious attempt by the
authorities to stem the
tide. The people can no longer accept the usual
facile explanations that the
country is under sanctions or silly stories
about saboteurs. Zimbabweans
know where the problem originates. They have
pointed to poor government
policy as the cause of this malaise.
Our rulers should have seen
this coming as they were given early
warning of the tornado now wreaking
havoc across the land. In January when
inflation was 1 539%, economists
warned that it was heading for the 6 000%
mark by year-end. This projection
was greeted with the usual disdain by
government which continued to talk of
single digit-inflation by year end.
The 6 000% projection is a huge
understatement as last month year-on-year
inflation was conservatively
estimated at 4 500% and is heading north at
lightning speeds which should
take it past 20 000% by year-end.
In light of this, the Cabinet
this week set up a ministerial taskforce
to monitor and stabilise prices
under the auspices of the dubious National
Incomes and Prices
Commission.
There were the usual threats this week that the
taskforce would deal
ruthlessly with companies that profiteer. The taskforce
has also been given
the job to deal with black market activities in foreign
currency and fuel.
This is where our government has always gotten it wrong.
This economy will
never be put right through threats and controls. This has
failed before and
will fail again this time. The rampant black market
trading in foreign
currency has always been supply- and demand-driven. This
economy requires
aid from outside, in particular balance-of-payments
support, and it will not
come as long as there is no political
settlement.
It is as elementary as that. Police raids at forex
trading centres
only result in dealers relocating to other centres. The
raids do not address
the issue of foreign currency availability to industry
which has continued
to source the commodity on the black market. How will
the ministerial
taskforce stabilise the dollar without making foreign
currency available in
the first place? This is a government planning in
order to fail. In the
past, crackdowns have resulted in basket goods
disappearing from shop
shelves. Manufacturers will switch off machinery and
send workers home. They
will not be moved by government's threats to take
over businesses.
By the day, it's becoming clear that Mugabe's
biggest nemesis - the
failed economy - is prevailing over him. Evidence of
failure is now
impossible to conceal. In major urban centres, electricity is
cut for more
than half the day in a loadshedding exercise prompted by
inadequate
generation. The same residents have to endure days and in cases
weeks
without potable water because the purification plant is too antiquated
to
meet demand. Sewerage flows in deadly rivulets in the townships. Then
there
is the hunger in the countryside spawned by a failed maize crop and
poor
farming policies.
There is no solution in sight to improve
this situation before the
polls scheduled for March. How will Mugabe explain
this to the electorate
next year? When he was re-elected in 2002 the price
of bread was $60. Now it's
$30 000. If we factor in the three zeros excised
from the currency last
year, the real price of bread is $30 000 000. That is
Mugabe's legacy today.
Zim Independent
by Teldah
Mawarire
THIS week, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) invited a
group of
German, Austrian and Italian journalists on a whirlwind tour of
Zimbabwe. It
was also reported this week that the ZTA is searching for
international
artists to serve as Zimbabwe's tourism ambassadors in their
various
countries. All in a bid to market Zimbabwe.
The ZTA
website says the authority is, among other things, mandated to
promote the
country as a leading tourist destination in regional and
overseas
markets.
In the current environment all of ZTA's energy will
continue going to
waste as long as it fails to realise that due to bad
politics and overall
economic mismanagement Zimbabwe will remain a hard
sell.
Government blames the international media's "negative
reportage" for
its bad-boy image. It is twaddle of the highest order that
this impression
is a creation of international media machinations. What
stands true is that
the media, especially those in distant lands, have never
come to Zimbabwe
and grabbed farms, enticed high ranking officials to be
corrupt, crafted the
malevolent Posa, Aippa or its latest cousin, the
Interception of
Communications Bill. They have not emasculated the judiciary
and stuffed its
benches with Zanu PF sympathisers, neither have they come
and closed five
newspapers. Nor did they beat up Morgan
Tsvangirai.
It is a stark reality that inflation is well over the
official 4 500%
mark. This is the highest in the world! The only tourist
that would want to
come here at the moment is one who wants to sight-see
this inflation
hobgoblin and an economy on its knees, coupled with a
government that is
clueless on how to get us out of this
quagmire.
Who in their right mind wants to come and marvel,
photograph and go
and tell fellow countrymen that they had a restful holiday
meeting and
chatting with a populace that has been reduced to beggars?
Pathetic.
Sightseeing poverty is depressing and is certainly not most
people's idea of
a holiday. Pot-holed roads, dry Zinwa taps and dark cities
switched off by
Zesa are the norm here and these cannot be advertised as
part of packages to
attract tourists. Neither are images of battered
opposition leaders.
All the ills that have chased away investors,
donors and the same
tourists that ZTA is now trying to court are the direct
result of the
actions of the government of the day. The problems in the
international
media about the endless woes that have besieged Zimbabwe are
not imaginary
creations but are bona fide facts on the ground.
The exchange rate is another sore tooth. A five-star hotel
three-course meal
in Germany's capital, Berlin, costs around US$80. Back in
Harare, a tourist
must fork out around $1,5 million for a similar meal. At
the current
official exchange rate of US$1:250, this translates to US$6 000!
It makes no
economic sense whatsoever for a tourist to "come to Victoria
Falls, come to
Zimbabwe". They might as well go to Zambia, see the same
Falls, pay their
hotel bill, eat countless meals and even get change to buy
a memento or two
to take home on the same amount. It doesn't make sense to
come to
Zimbabwe.
A family whose culture is violence is the black sheep of
the
neighbourhood. When we grew up (and even now) our mothers would implore
us
to keep our distance from such families. As long as government's culture
of
bashing, abducting and killing opposition members, arresting Woza women
for
singing and seizing citizens' passports persists, no one from the
region,
other continents or even the moon will want to pay us a visit, least
they
suffer the same fate.
The soccer 2010 World Cup hosted by
South Africa beckons and so does a
harmonised presidential and parliamentary
2008 election that we can only
hope will not resemble the one we witnessed
in 2002. Anything reminiscent of
that violent election will certainly be a
disaster for the tourism industry
and will not translate into any benefits
spilling over the Limpopo from our
neighbours.
The ZTA can shed
tears or scream till they are blue in the face for
tourists to come but the
truth of the matter is ZTA must first lobby its
master - government - to put
its house in order before any visitors start
knocking at our
doors.
Anyone who makes an attempt at attracting tourists or
investors is to
be commended. We badly need those currencies that bear the
Queen or Andrew
Jackson's portraits. But the ZTA must be told point blank,
plane loads of
hired journalists to advertise the country or artists paid to
sing Zimbabwe's
praises will not yield a sudden influx of tourists. It is
just a waste of
taxpayers monies.
Tobaiwa Mudede says he has no
money to print passports or put the
voters' roll in order. There is no forex
to stock drugs in hospitals.
Children spend days playing as teachers and
lecturers perennially strike.
Police now survive on bribes and soldiers are
simply hungry. The judiciary
has to beg for sustenance, yet Karikoga Kaseke
and his ZTA circus think an
unsolicited junket for journalists will gloss
the country's image. The mind
boggles!
Zim Independent
Editor's memo
by Vincent Kahiya
AFRICAN leaders
always make it their business to think big. Whenever
they gather, they give
themselves monumental tasks just to appear to be
freeing themselves from the
bonds of colonialism. This fascination with
building institutions to fight
the ghosts of imperialism is an intriguing
undertaking that has oftentimes
reduced the rulers to comical characters
fond of toying with replicas and
not the real thing.
In the townships, children push bricks in the
sand and pretend to be
driving an F1 car. The same can be said of
continental projects to which
vast resources have been committed, only to
come up with caricatures of the
real thing.
President Mugabe
left a country gripped by a "coup" last week to
attend two consultative
meetings in Libya and Egypt on the modalities of
setting up an African Union
government. The AU website says "the ultimate
goal of the African Union is
full political and economic integration leading
to the United States of
Africa".
The meetings attended by Mugabe, we were told, are in
preparation for
next week's AU summit in Accra, Ghana, whose major
pre-occupation should be
the "Grand Debate on the Union Government". What a
crowd!
These are leaders whose countries are riddled with
inflation, famine,
wars and gross underdevelopment. They will next week pack
their bags and
travel to Ghana to discuss the formation of an African Union
government. I'm
disgusted.
The idea of an African government is
without doubt heavily borrowed
from the European Union where the continental
bloc has set up a unitary
system that has seen the establishment of a free
trade zone. Europe also has
a parliament, a common currency and a human
rights commission. African
leaders have been talking about all these and
have to some extent taken
steps to set up their own versions.
It is this fascination with such unitary systems that saw the African
countries changing the Organisation of African Unity to the African
Union.
The concept of an African continental government today is a
waste of
time because African leaders have become notorious for their
disregard of
regional and continental protocols they have appended their
signatures to.
The ACPHR stands out as one body which at its inception was
well meant but
whose task has now been made difficult by governments which
disregard its
recommendations with impunity. African governments in their
wisdom set up
the commission in 1986 to ensure that human rights issues on
the continent
were dealt with from an African standpoint.
They
had earlier signed the African Charter on Human and Peoples'
Rights in 1981
and promised to live by its dictates. Very few do. Our own
government is
culpable here. It has violated the very basic precepts of the
charter with
impunity. Our press and security laws are in direct violation
of the
charter. Our government has allowed torture of victims by police and
other
security arms of the state. These activities have been condoned and
celebrated by the highest office in the land.
Another African
project, the New Partnership for Africa's Development
(Nepad) has been in
abeyance because there are governments on the continent
that have thumbed
their noses at the initiative. They do not want to subject
themselves to the
programme's peer review mechanism. In short they do not
want to be part of
the partnership because it will subject their corrupt and
debauched
practices to scrutiny. But they want to be part of a continental
government
in which they can conceal their misrule under the veil of African
solidarity.
African leaders' quest to form a continental
government should be
premised on shared values and principles such as human
rights, rule of law,
and minimum standards in the holding of elections.
There is no common
understanding of democracy on this vast continent where
systems of
governance are as varied as its flora and fauna. Africa's
democracies range
from South Africa's modern and progressive constitution to
outright
demagoguery in West and North African states where elections are
banned and
opposition politics is illegal. In between there is an absolute
monarch in
Swaziland, war mongers in the central interior and a comical but
dangerous
dictator in the Gambia. Other than incarcerating and murdering
journalists
and opponents, he also claims to cure Aids.
The
challenge for African leaders is for them to first run their small
territories properly before wanting to form a continental government. In
fact there are African leaders who are banned from visiting certain regions
in their own countries. What value can these men add to an AU
government?
Imagine South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, Zimbabwe's Robert
Mugabe, Gambia's
Yahya Jammeh and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi poring over
documents on media
freedom and best practice in the holding of elections.
After a lengthy
closed-door session, presidents Mugabe and Jammeh are asked
to share their
governments' position with the other two leaders.
Zim Independent
MuckRaker
EVIDENCE that Zimbabwe is becoming a totalitarian state could
be
clearly seen in a Herald report that government would soon be monitoring
the
Internet and phones to "sift" for information it deems
subversive.
This follows Senate approval of the Interception of
Communications
Bill, a snooper's charter.
As government
currently deems just about everything to be subversive
it will have no
difficulty obtaining the "warrants" it requires to spy on
citizens. This of
course presupposes that the state has not already been
listening in to phone
calls and reading e-mails. Most sensible people in
Zimbabwe today assume
when they make a call that a third party with big ears
is sharing the
information. That's why the Supreme Court in 2003 ruled
against state
intrusion in private communications in the first place. The
Bill seeks to
circumvent that ruling.
But there is a new dimension to the
legislation, the Herald tells us.
It is now an offence to tell lies on the
phone.
"The Bill was crafted after realisation that some organised
criminals
and other rogue elements were deliberately communicating lies in a
manner
that posed a serious threat to public decency and state security,"
the paper
reported.
"The advent of the cellphone and the
Internet in particular has been
abused by many people to communicate
information that is subversive or that
has caused national alarm and
despondency."
So there you have it. Causing alarm and despondency
over the phone or
Internet is an offence under the law. So what will happen
to all those
"rogue elements" in the ZBC newsroom who tell lies on a daily
basis
communicated to them by phone or e-mail by Big Ears himself? And can
you
imagine the number of prosecutions likely to arise from individuals not
being absolutely honest on the phone about their whereabouts on a Friday
night!
But it does at least tell us about how insecure this
regime feels.
Then there is the matter of electoral reform.
Ministers have been
hanging tough saying they are marching to a different
drummer from Thabo
Mbeki and the 18th Amendment will therefore proceed
regardless.
But they don't seem to understand that the whole point
about electoral
reform is that it must derive from a national consensus.
Mbeki has spoken
about outcomes that are accepted by all participants. And
this approach is
fundamental to Sadc's Mauritius protocol.
The
Mozambican prime minister made it clear last year when debating
electoral
laws in parliament that it was essential for Renamo to agree with
government's plans so nobody could say they were cheated at the end of the
day.
Zimbabwe's ruling party still thinks it can plough ahead
on its own
without first securing agreement with other political players.
And it is on
this rock that Mbeki's diplomacy is likely to
founder.
Following our story three weeks ago on public funds
being wasted on
public relations supplements in Baffour Ankomah's New
African magazine,
somebody in the know has supplied some useful
details.
Ankomah and his family went on a whirlwind tour of
Zimbabwe's holiday
resorts between May 19 and June 2, we are informed. They
travelled on Air
Zimbabwe. So not only do the long-suffering Zimbabwean
public have to
subscribe to a hugely expensive campaign to polish Mugabe's
image, they are
also required to pay for the editor and his family to take a
free holiday.
How does Ankomah explain to his readers that his
publication has
become a bought vehicle of Zimbabwe's profligate leadership?
Does he tell
them it's all in the interests of Pan-African solidarity? And
do they
believe him?
Indigenisation and Empowerment
minister Paul Mangwana says that
foreign investors will need to cede 51% of
their shares to "appropriate"
business people under the provisions of the
new Empowerment Bill.
If that weren't enough to scare off
investors, here's the next catch.
Mangwana said if the investor fails to
identify "an appropriate partner",
the government would provide the investor
with a "database" of business
people from which it could select a
"partner".
Do they really need a "database"? Can't we guess who the
potential
"partners" are before we've even looked? It's cronyism writ large.
The list
has already been drawn up. Remember the beneficiaries of
tractors?
Does Mangwana not realise the damaging implications of
his Bill?
Nobody will be investing here any time soon because they will not
want to
share their capital with business predators linked to the ruling
party.
This is another entirely locally inflicted wound. Just as
developing
countries in the rest of the world are opening up their economies
to
investment on attractive terms Zimbabwe is doing the
opposite.
We were surprised to read that a Harare doctor, Paul
Chimedza
(president of the Zimbabwe Medical Association) is mulling whether
to
challenge Shuvai Muhova for her Gutu South seat. He will be guided by the
Zanu PF provincial leadership, he said.
What an extraordinary
situation: A doctor pledged to the care of the
sick and suffering plans to
stand for a party that has systematically
wrecked the nation's health
infrastructure, driven thousands of medical
practitioners into exile, and
inflicted grievous injuries on people who
disagree with Zanu PF. This is a
case of another doctor leaving the
profession to join David Parirenyatwa,
Sydney Sekeramayi and Edwin Muguti in
the Zanu PF government. This sort of
brain drain is unacceptable in a
country with a doctor to patient ratio of
1:12 000.
Why have Chimedza's colleagues not tackled him on some
ethical points,
like why he thinks we need more of the
same?
More generally, why aren't Mugabe's opportunist ad-mirers
asked why
they think the president is able to achieve with another term what
he has
manifestly failed to achieve during his current term? That obvious
question
should be put to every single Zanu PF candidate as inflation climbs
towards
five figures.
Does he have a clue? Does Vice-President
Joice Mujuru or
Vice-President Joseph Msika have any idea how to get us out
of the hole they
have dug for us? All Zanu PF politicians can do is spout
mantras about
Britain and sovereignty while the country goes to hell in a
hang-basket. One
reason they attack Britain and Australia so often is that
those countries
have successful economies!
The first thing any
government should do is curb inflation and ensure
macro-economic
fundamentals are attended to. That is not happening right
now. And Gideon
Gono can't help because he is paralysed by political
ambition.
This is what we mean by misrule: individuals unable or unwilling to
fulfil
elementary tasks while the country sinks and their cronies benefit
from the
chaos engulfing us.
Zim Independent
Eric Bloch column
AFTER almost 10 years of massive economic
mismanagement, exacerbated
by a never-ending recourse by government to
grossly counterproductive and
immensely destructive economic policies, one
must inevitably conclude that
government is not merely economically inept,
incapable of addressing
national economic needs and oblivious to realities,
but that it is actually
dogmatically determined upon the total destruction
of the Zimbabwean
economy.
It is almost inconceivable that any
government could not only make
such a great number of foolhardy economic
policies, but could be so
obdurately deaf to the advice and representations
of leaders from all
sectors of the economy as to the devastatingly adverse
consequences of those
policies. It defies credibility that any government
can be so devastatingly,
myopically blind to the disasters it is afflicting
upon the economy, and to
the pronounced miseries it subjects the populace
to.
Any and all people inevitably make errors, without exception,
but if
the Zimbabwean government is only guilty of error, and not of
deliberate
destructive intent, it must be vying for an all-time record for
both the
number of errors, and for the magnitude of the disastrous
repercussions
therefrom.
Instead, as government persistently
continues with policies, measures,
actions and disregard for advice, all
impacting negatively upon the economy,
day after day, month after month and
year after year, one has no alternative
but to conclude that it has ulterior
motives for the destruction it has
caused, and continues to cause. In all
probability the principal motive is
self-enrichment, for there are always
some who can benefit from an
economically-troubled environment.
In such an environment black market and like activities thrive,
enterprises
collapse and their assets can be acquired for minimal amounts
and government
introduces subsidies and other assistances, most of which are
received by
the favoured few (for example, the recent distribution of
agricultural
equipment, the bulk of which was given to politicians, chiefs
and others
well-connected).
An indisputable fact is that, almost without
exception, those in
government, and those closely associated to them, are
possessed of up-market
houses (many being possessed of several), a variety
of executive motor
vehicles, one or more farms, diverse investments, and
substantial financial
resources (with some of them having much of those
resources outside
Zimbabwe).
In contradistinction, an
overwhelming majority of the population
struggles to survive at below the
poverty datum line PDL, housed with up to
15 people in two small rooms
(while others sleep under bridges, in culverts,
sanitary lanes and on street
curbs). Most are grievously undernourished,
emaciated with malnutrition,
unable to access healthcare, and having to
withdraw their children from
schools.
The contrast between the "haves" and the "have-nots" is
extremely
pronounced, and the extent that the "haves" comprise the
politically active,
or politically favoured, is astoundingly
great.
Government's endless recourse to policies economically
implosive has
included the vastly unaffordable distribution of
"compensatory" largesse to
war veterans, actual and pseudo, a land reform
programme so appallingly
implemented that agricultural production is less
than a third of that of
seven years ago, state expenditures incredibly
greater than revenues, with
resultant intense recourse to unaffordable
borrowings and unsustainably
great, inflationary, printing of money, and the
almost total alienation of
the international community.
Its
failures to honour its debts, compounded by endless criticisms and
abuses of
that community, and its disregard for fundamental principles of
respect for
human and property rights, has created a vast divide between it
and the
world at large.
Those failures constitute Zimbabwe as a poor credit
risk and,
therefore, understandably, few will advance Zimbabwe the lines of
credit
that it desperately needs. Incapable of acknowledging its own fault
or
error, the Zimbabwe government speciously attributes the withholding of
those lines of credit to alleged "illegal sanctions", thereby compounding
that divide.
A consequence of all these catastrophic government
policies has been
progressively to lessen the desirability of the Zimbabwean
environment for
investment, whether foreign or domestic. Investors seek to
invest where they
consider that their capital will be secure, and where they
can anticipate a
fair return on that capital. They wish to invest where the
success, or
failure, of the investment is primarily due to their own
endeavours, and not
impacted upon by dictatorial actions of
government.
When an economy is in decline, it is an unattractive
investment
destination, and when governmental policies are suggestive of
nothing other
than further decline and little or no prospect to recovery,
then it is even
less attractive.
That lack of attraction is
intensified when government espouses the
concepts of a command economy,
instead of allowing market fundamentals to
drive the economy, and when
government is the greatest single cause of
never-ending soaring inflation
(now at levels exceeding 4 600% per annum,
being greater than anywhere else
in the world).
However, government's absolute inability to learn
from, or
acknowledge, error continues unabated.
Despite the
near total failure to achieve agricultural empowerment for
the Zimbabwean
people, through the abysmal and unjust manner of embarking
upon much-needed
land reform, government is now determinedly intent upon
doing the same to
other economic sectors. For several years it has declared
an intention to
promulgate indigenous economic empowerment legislation, and
this is now
imminent.
Instead of constructively addressing how to stimulate and
facilitate
indigenous development of economic ventures, thereby enhancing
the economy
as a whole, government is determined upon naught other than a
transfer of
wealth and economic control, founded upon racial considerations
only. That
this will probably cause a collapse of mining, industry,
commerce, and other
economic sectors commensurate with that experienced by
agriculture is
contemptuously dismissed as naught but self-centred
endeavours of the
private sector to frustrate governmental
intents.
The reality is that none are willing to invest (be they
domestic or
foreign) if they are going to be dispossessed of much of that
investment.
That unwillingness is compounded when they can only anticipate
that
recompense, for the investment of which they are divested, will not
reflect
fair value, and that even that inadequate recompense will only be
forthcoming from the investment's future earnings, if any.
In
other words, in practice, he who is mandatorily forced to disinvest
must, to
all intents and purposes, pay himself, the payment emanating from
profits as
would otherwise have been his.
An intending investor wishes to know
that not only will the investment
be secure, and likely to give satisfactory
return, but also that he has the
choice of his co-investors, being ones with
compatible investment criteria,
philosophies and operational policies, able
to make commensurate
contributions and inputs to the success of the
investment.
But government is not prepared to accept this. Any
non-indigenous
investors must be willing to be subordinate to the indigenous
ones, the
latter having at least 51% of the investment.
Moreover, indications are that in some sectors, such as the mining of
strategic minerals, the controlling partner will be government or a
parastatal. With the dismal performances of government and parastatals to
date in almost all economic endeavours, this does not bode well for the
future, and is yet another investment deterrent.
Although not
unreservedly perfect, South Africa's Black Economic
Empowerment legislation
is markedly more constructive than the legislation
intended by the
Zimbabwean government, but clearly emulating it, albeit with
some necessary
modification, would not address the ulterior motives behind
the intent.
Instead, further economic destruction is assured.
Zesa fleecing its customers
I AM
disturbed by the way Zesa is stealing money from loyal and
unsuspecting
consumers. They are trying to raise money through very
unorthodox
means.
They are deliberately delaying sending bills to their
clients so that
they then raise unnecessary charges through what they are
calling "extra
deposits" and "reconnection fees". Please just let all
consumers be warned
and pay their bills before month-end to avoid being
subjected to ridiculous
charges.
What makes the matter worse is
that even if you try to enquire over
the phone they do not answer the
phone.
My bill was four times higher than the previous bill while I
was
subjected to 20 hours without electricity daily.
Lets all
unite against this Zesa monster.
Robbed,
Glenview
3, Harare.
-------------------
Will Zim ever
know peace?
AS an ex non-racist white Rhodesian it
saddens me to see the
country go to such ruin. What puzzles me, and perhaps
you can ask readers is
why did the population revolt against the Ian Smith
government and they don't
against the current government?
I'm not for once saying the Smith government was right because
it failed the
people too, but surely things are much worse so why are the
people
silent?
It broke my heart to leave Zimbabwe aged 18 but I was
made to
feel like it wasn't my home even though I and my parents were born
there.
My heart goes out to the people and I so wish things
had been
different. As humans we often miss the beauty and value under our
very nose
until it is too late.
The people of Zimbabwe
have got a very beautiful country with so
much potential. My only hope
before I die is that the country is restored to
a place of beauty where all
cultures can co-exist peacefully. Will that ever
happen?
grant.glover@talktalk.net
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Tsvangirai needs Mutambara
ANTI-SENATE leader Morgan Tsvangirai cannot win presidential
elections
without a strong back-up team like that of Arthur Mutambara and
Welshman
Ncube.
Results of rural council elections indicate that the
majority of
people in Matabeleland south, north and Midlands province have
confidence in
Mutambara, Gibson Sibanda and Ncube while Tsvangirai has made
inroads in
Mashonaland Central, Manicaland and Masvingo.
The two MDC leaders should swallow their pride and recognise
each other in
the fight for social justice.
The spirit of Joshua Nkomo is
in Ncube and whoever believes they
can do wonders without him can proceed at
his or her own peril.
As an MDC supporter, I shall continue
to rally behind Mutambara
whose loyalty to Zimbabwe is not
debatable.
The only credible person on Tsvangirai's side is
Tendai Biti.
Hence they should embrace Mutambara and
Ncube.
Kurauone Chihwayi,
Harare.