Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
THE main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) faction
led by Morgan Tsvangirai has
proposed fresh talks with the ruling Zanu PF as
the only way out of the
current crisis ahead of the scheduled 2008
presidential
election.
The Tsvangirai camp, locked in a war of attrition
with a rival
group led by Arthur Mutambara for the heart and soul of the
party, says
inter-party dialogue will help to clear adversities whittling
away the
fabric of the nation.
In a confidential
document, titled MDC proposals for the
resolution of the Zimbabwean crisis:
Sign posts to peace, democracy,
legitimacy, reconstruction, and national
healing, the MDC says talks are the
only way out of this
predicament.
"The opposition and ordinary Zimbabweans suffer
from incessant
political repression and the negative effects of a collapsed
economy, which
cannot be reconstructed under the present political
conditions," it says.
"Therefore, no possible relief is on
offer. Only a negotiated
political settlement provides for a resolution of
the crisis."
The MDC says there is now consensus at home and
abroad that the
current situation was unsustainable and only dialogue would
rescue the
country.
In its document - also termed the
Road Map - the MDC proposes
phased talks, starting with Zanu PF and then
later other political parties
and civic groups.
"Our
proposed road map entails the following:
Stage A:
Negotiations and agreement between Zanu PF and MDC on
the
framework.
Stage B: Negotiations between MDC and Zanu PF on a
transitional
authority.
Stage C: Negotiations between
civil society, Zanu PF, the MDC
and other political formations on the
involvement of civic society in
various transitional bodies including the
constitutional conference.
Stage D: The enactment by
parliament of the constitutional
conference act and the necessary amendments
to the Zimbabwean constitution
to cater for the transitional authority and
cabinet and any other matters
incidental thereto."
The
MDC says Stage E will deal with the drafting of the new
constitution by the
constitutional conference, while Stage F would focus on
the holding of a
referendum on the new constitution.
Stage G will concentrate
on mechanisms for free and fair
elections "for all arms of government under
international supervision in
terms of the new
constitution.
"The two political parties should establish a
legally recognised
bi-partisan negotiating team to meet as soon as possible
to map the route
forward, discuss and agree on key issues to the process and
draft the
constitutional reform agenda for the constitutional conference,"
the MDC
states.
"The two parties in the bi-partisan
negotiating team must agree
to: the composition, structure, terms of
reference; and methods of work of
the constitutional conference. An Act of
Parliament should establish the
constitutional
conference."
It proposes an institutional framework
comprising a standing
committee on political issues, the bi-partisan
negotiating team, a
transitional executive council established by an act of
parliament, national
implementation committee, a security monitoring task
force, international
monitoring committee, independent electoral commission,
and independent self
regulatory media commission to support the
process.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
The MDC is still
pressing ahead with plans for popular protests
to force President Mugabe to
the negotiating table to end the current
economic and political impasse,
party leader Morgan Tsvangirai said
yesterday.
"The main
sticking point in resolution rests with Mugabe's state
of denial that
Zimbabwe is in a crisis," he said.
"The only way he can yield is
to push him through public
expression of discontent pronounced through a
comprehensive programme of
mass action."
A series of
meetings to lobby diplomats in Harare by the MDC
before Tsvangirai's tour
abroad earlier this month had given the impression
that the opposition party
had put protests on the back burner.
Tsvangirai's spokesman,
William Bango, yesterday said the party
was still on course with its plans
to launch Ukraine-style protest and that
the road map crafted recently did
not preclude the party from holding
protests.
Bango said
the popular notion by the public that the MDC had
time-framed the protest
for this winter was mistaken.
"Tsvangirai was speaking
metaphorically. The media has created
wrong impressions that the party has
abandoned its stated course of action,"
Bango said.
"Even
the Zanu PF government itself has failed to grasp the
metaphor (and) they
are in a perpetual state of panic and unsure when the
protests will be
launched." Tsvangirai in March called on delegates to his
party congress to
"heed the calls from your leadership for a sustained cold
season of peaceful
democratic resistance".
Zim Independent
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's proposal to "build
bridges" with
Britain and other Western countries to normalise relations
damaged by a
stand-off over human rights abuses and repression all but
collapsed this
week after fierce clashes between ministers and
diplomats.
This came after United Nations secretary-general
Kofi Annan
confirmed last Friday - as reported in the Zimbabwe Independent
on the same
day - that he would meet Mugabe on July 1 on the sidelines of
the African
Union summit in Banjul, the Gambia.
Annan
said it was important to tackle the Zimbabwean crisis to
avoid a "total
collapse" of the country. Mugabe is also expected to meet
South African
President Thabo Mbeki on the sidelines of the summit over the
deteriorating
local situation.
The meetings could escalate already rising
pressure on Mugabe to
resolve the situation or quit.
Sources said Western ambassadors left a meeting held on
Wednesday "hugely
disappointed" after clashes with top government
officials.
The special briefing was attended by Foreign
Affairs minister
Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, his ministry's permanent secretary
Joey Bimha, State
Security and Land Reform minister Didymus Mutasa,
Agriculture minister
Joseph Made and Western ambassadors and UN
representatives.
Sources who attended the briefing said the
dramatic highlight of
the meeting - which burnt bridges instead of building
them - was an
encounter between Mumbengegwi and Australian ambassador Jon
Sheppard.
Sources said Sheppard and other diplomats were
subjected to a
stinging 20-minute "rant and rave" outburst by Mumbengegwi
which left
diplomats aghast.
"Sheppard asked Mutasa who
was conducting the briefing at the
time if he could guarantee that all those
affected by the land reform
programme would have equal rights under the
law," a source said.
"Mutasa gave a brief answer, but
Mumbengegwi then picked up from
where his colleague had left off to launch a
tirade against the
Australians."
Sources said
Mumbengegwi - who apparently lived in Australia at
some point - angrily
asked how Sheppard could dare ask such a question when
he hailed from "one
of the most racist countries in the world". Mugabe has
also described
Australia as a racist country.
"The minister was very angry
and he attacked the Australians at
length," another source said. "Diplomats
were astonished by the reaction."
Sheppard said yesterday
Mumbengegwi's comments were "unexpected".
"The minister's
comments were unexpected because we were under
the impression that the
meeting was designed to promote dialogue," he said.
"In
contrast to the situation here Australia's political and
legal framework
guarantees all Australians, including indigenous
Australians, equal rights
and the free exercise of their human rights."
After the
meeting, diplomats who spoke to the Zimbabwe
Independent said they had been
left "shell-shocked" by Mumbengegwi's
comments.
"The
meeting only achieved one thing: it ensured Mugabe's
building-of-bridges
project collapsed, at least for now," a source said. -
Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Tendai Mukandi/ Itai
Mushekwe
THE United States has castigated government for
making its own
people vulnerable to human trafficking through its globally
condemned
Operation Murambatsvina, a State Department 2006 Trafficking in
Persons
Report reveals.
Zimbabwe was last year classified
under Tier 2, a watch list of
countries "assessed as not fully complying
with the minimum standards".
According to the latest report released on June
5 by Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, Zimbabwe has since dipped into the
lowest classification
of countries said to have an appalling human
trafficking record in Tier 3
alongside Sudan.
"Zimbabwe
showed little political will to address its
trafficking problem during the
past year," the report says. "Zimbabwean
children are trafficked internally
for forced agricultural labour, domestic
servitude and sexual exploitation.
Trafficked women and girls are lured out
of the country by false job or
scholarship promises."
The report cites government's urban
slum clearance blitz, which
left more than 700 000 people homeless, as
having exposed children to human
trafficking
vulnerability.
"Government placed many of its citizens at
increased risk for
exploitation as a result of Operation Murambatsvina. Tens
of thousands of
people remain homeless in the wake of the operation, which
demolished
ostensibly illegal homes and businesses. An estimated 223 000
children were
affected and left vulnerable to
trafficking."
Trafficking in human beings is the criminal
commercial trade in
human beings, who are subjected to involuntary acts such
as begging, sexual
exploitation or unfree labour. It also involves a process
of using physical
force, fraud, deception, or other forms or cohesion and
intimidation to
obtain, recruit, harbour and transport
people.
The United States annual Department of State
Trafficking in
Persons Report is a comprehensive report covering 158
countries analysing
their efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in
persons or modern-day
slavery. Governments that meet the standards for
elimination of trafficking
established in the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act of 2000 are placed in
Tier 1. Countries assessed as not fully complying
with the minimum standards
but making significant efforts to do so are
classified as Tier 2.
Meanwhile, the US Embassy in Harare
this week unveiled a US$18
000 grant to the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe
to help with its
Anti-Trafficking in Persons Awareness Campaign.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
GOVERNMENT
will soon unveil three land tenure systems under
which A2 farmers will now
be charged rentals for land they lease from
government backdated from the
day they moved onto their properties.
Currently A2 farmers
have resisted paying rentals to councils
which have no mechanisms of
enforcement. In addition to paying rentals the
farmers would be required to
pay all levies, fees and charges as may be
determined by the local
authority.
Through this arrangement government hopes to force
the new
farmers to pay the requisite land taxes, the main revenue source for
rural
district councils.
"The lessee shall pay rental for
the period between the date of
first occupation and the date when this lease
comes to force," the lease
document says. "This amount shall be paid within
three months of signing
this lease."
The rentals would be
determined by the area and situation of the
farm, plus the existing
infrastructure at the time of occupation and
agricultural activities
undertaken at the property.
"An annual rental shall be
payable on or before the 1st January
of each and every year during the
currency of this lease. The rental may be
reviewed and increased annually by
the lessor by such reasonable amount as
the lessor may determine," the
document says.
Officials in the Lands, Land Reform and
Resettlement ministry
said by August resettled farmers will start to sign
tenure of security
documents in tandem with the farm they occupied. The
tenure documents would
be in form of 99-year leases for A2 farms, 25-year
contracts for safaris and
conservancies and permits for A1
farms.
"All land classified as A1 Model scheme would be
governed by
permits," an official said. "The permits would operate along the
same lines
as the communal area type of customary
tenure."
The official said all conservancies, trophy hunting
safaris, and
game reserves would be governed by statutory tenure in the form
of 25-year
contracts.
"A contractual licence would be
issued by the state under the
provisions of some enabling regulations," the
official said.
He said all land classified under A2 or large
scale commercial
would be governed by a 99-year lease.
New land beneficiaries will also go through a rigorous vetting
exercise and
be required to produce a convincing five-year development plan
and a
production plan for a similar period before they could sign the lease
agreement. The new requirements could see a number of non-performing land
grabbers failing to meet set criteria, ultimately forcing them off the
land.
Zim Independent
A FORTNIGHT after the National Economic Conduct Inspectorate
(Neci) raided
controversial business tycoon John Bredenkamp for alleged
economic crimes,
the government has not formally charged him with any crime.
Neci, which is part of the Central Intelligence Organisation,
raided
Bredenkamp's local companies two weeks ago to investigate cases
linked to
economic crimes. He was also being probed on allegations of
flouting
exchange control regulations, tax evasion and contravening the
Citizenship
Act.
The raid coincided with a trip out of the country by the
businessman. The state media reported that he had fled the country while his
office in Harare said he had left for a routine medical trip to the United
Kingdom.
A Breco Holdings spokesman said they had not
received any
statement from the authorities. "We are waiting for the outcome
of the
investigation before we can give a definitive reaction," the
spokesman said.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said it was
not the police
that was dealing with the matter. "We haven't dealt with that
case,"
Bvudzijena said.
Bredenkamp, who was a
sanctions-buster and gun-runner for the
former Rhodesian leader Ian Smith,
switched allegiance to become one of
President Robert Mugabe's most
influential business associates until the
outbreak of the DRC war in 1998.
He is often named as one of Britain's 33rd
richest men, with a fortune
estimated at between £400 million and £700
million. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Reagan Mashavave
THE Harare
commission has increased shop licence fees twice this
year by more than 3
000%, a move that has shocked shop owners and could
result in some firms
failing to pay up, the Independent can reveal.
A letter in
possession of the Independent shows that shop owners
received notification
of increases in shop licences in April 2006, followed
by another increase at
the beginning of this month.
Bakery owners are set to pay $86
250 000 per annum for a baker's
licence, up from $2 850 000; supermarket
owners will pay $37,5 million,
while the licence fee for bottle stores and
butcheries is pegged at
$43,1million.
A baker's licence
that had been increased to $57,5 million in
April was further increased to
$86 250 000 within a space of less than two
months.
An
official at the Rowan Martin building where council receives
licence fees
confirmed the new shop licence fees saying they were in line
with the
prevailing inflation rates in the country. Robert Whyte, a
businessman who
runs a bakery, says the new licence charges were illegal and
not
justified.
"The new licence fees are illegal, immoral and not
justified. I
mean its ridiculous, especially when our businesses are not
operating at
full capacity due to persistent power cuts and low flour
deliveries and that
we are being forced not to increase the price of bread
when we are incurring
huge operating costs", said Whyte.
Businesses are currently struggling to break even as the
macro-economic
environment continues to deteriorate.
Meanwhile, government
is forcing bakeries to sell bread at $85
000 while bakers are demanding that
they sell bread for at least $130 000.
A number of shop
owners have been fined by the police for
increasing the price of bread
resulting in some bakers boycotting bread
production.
A
survey around the city showed that supermarkets were not
selling bread but
were putting flour products like buns, scones and
doughnuts on their
shelves.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
THE
Commission running the affairs of Harare has recommended
sacking suspended
Director of Waste Management Leslie Gwindi for
insubordination and
absenteeism.
The decision, reached a fortnight ago, reverses
an earlier
resolution by the commission's executive committee calling for
his
reinstatement.
The Commission's resolution is in line
with the recommendation
by a three-member independent panel chaired by
Harare lawyer James Mutizwa
that the director be axed.
Other panelists were Davison Kanoyangwa, also a lawyer, and
Zimbabwe Cricket
boss Peter Chingoka.
On Wednesday Mutizwa confirmed that he
had chaired the panel but
could not comment further.
However, the commission's resolution reads: "It is hereby
resolved that Mr
Gwindi be dismissed and the matter be referred back to the
local
board."
Gwindi ran into problems earlier this year for
dereliction of
duty after being promoted from the position of
spokesperson.
During the tenure of fired Harare MDC mayor
Elias Mudzuri,
Gwindi was also fired only to be reinstated by Local
Government minister,
Ignatius Chombo.
Sources on Monday
said members of the executive committee who
recommended that Gwindi be
reinstated are still pushing to bring him back to
Town House saying it was a
"directive from higher up" despite the fact that
he was found
guilty.
Last week Chombo fired all technocrats on the Harare
Commission
and retained Zanu PF members, Sekesai Makwavarara, politburo
member Tendai
Savanhu, central committee member Prisca Mupfumira, and Justin
Chivavaya who
was seconded to the commission by Harare metropolitan
governor, David
Karimanzira.
The fired technocrats -
lawyers Terrence Hussein and Viola Chasi
who is also CBZ bank company
secretary, Professor Jameson Kurasha, and
engineer Noel Muzuva - were
instrumental in reversing an earlier decision to
reinstate Gwindi. The same
commissioners opposed Chombo's directive to sell
a city of Harare house to
Makwavarara for a song.
The technocrats also openly spoke
against suspension of senior
managers: Chamber secretary Josephine Ncube,
Director of Housing and
Amenities Numero Mubaiwa, Works director Psychology
Chiwanga and City
Treasurer Misheck Mubvumbi.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
THERE is
little activity towards developing the Gonarezhou
National Park in the
south-eastern Lowveld and insignificant progress to
merge it into the
proposed Transfrontier National Park despite an allocation
of $100 billion
for the purpose in this year's budget.
Huge financial
benefits projected to cascade into the Zimbabwe
economy from the World Cup
in South Africa in 2010 risk becoming a mere
splash on the panhandle unless
government takes serious steps to put
together a refurbishment package for
infrastructure, a parliamentary report
says.
The report
by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on
Environment and Tourism paints a
gloomy picture of the expected windfall,
and chalets and lodges supposed to
have been built have not been
constructed. Electrification of one of the
prime resort spots at Chipinda
Pools has not started although the Parks and
Wildlife Authority has already
paid $10 billion to the Rural Electrification
Authority.
More than $100 billion was set aside in this
year's budget for
infrastructural development for the expected overflow of
visitors to
Gonarezhou National Park.
A strategic bridge
linking Zimbabwe and South Africa over the
Runde River that was washed away
by Cyclone Eline six years ago has not been
repaired.
"It
is not clear whether the Ministry of Transport has set aside
funds for
reconstruction of the bridge," the report says.
The Great
Limpopo Transfrontier Park is a 30 000 square
kilometre game park which is
in the process of being formed.
It is expected to link the
Limpopo National Park in Mozambique,
Kruger National Park and the Mala Mala
Reserve in South Africa, and Zimbabwe's
Gonarezhou.
The
park will encompass Manjinji Pan Sanctuary and Malipati
Safari Area in
Zimbabwe, as well as the area between Kruger and Gonarezhou,
the Sengwe
communal land in Zimbabwe and the Makuleke region in South
Africa.
Fences between the parks have started to come
down allowing the
animals to take up their old migratory routes that were
blocked before due
to political boundaries.
"On the
aspect of tourism, especially in view of the 2010 games
in South Africa, the
development has been slow if any at all," the committee
said. "This was
being noted by the absence of lodges (and) chalets for
tourists to camp.
There are about 14 developed camps, 17 bush camps and
there has not been any
significant development in the area," the committee
said.
Parks director general Morrison Mtsambiwa told the Portfolio
Committee on
Environment and Tourism that the biggest threat to the project
was rampant
inflation that had whittled away the value of funds provided.
Zim Independent
Mines and Minerals Development minister Amos Midzi has conceded
in court
that he violated the law when he cancelled Bubye Minerals (Pvt) Ltd's
claim
at River Ranch, a diamond mine located in Beitbridge.
High
Court judge Lawrence Kamocha reserved judgment in the
matter on Tuesday in a
matter in which Bubye Minerals is declaring the
cancellation null and
void.
"I agree that in cancelling the concession I failed to
comply
with the requirements of the Administrative Justice Act," Midzi said
in his
opposing affidavit submitted to the court.
The
minister and the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe
are the first
and second respondents while the Masvingo mining commissioner
and River
Ranch Ltd are third and fourth respondents respectively.
Bubye Minerals, the sole applicant, had argued that it had not
been
presented with an opportunity to provide its views or objections prior
to
the cancellation.
Midzi said in cancelling the special grant
he intended to
correct a January 2005 error by the Mining Affairs Board that
ceded the
special grant to Bubye Minerals.
He said River
Ranch Ltd, the original holders of the grant, had
not applied for such a
development as required.
In his submission to the court Bubye
Minerals lawyer Terrence
Hussein said Midzi had accepted that his decision
was wrong and therefore
until and unless the cancellation is done by the
court the grant remains in
their hands.
But River Ranch
lawyer and former director with the same
company, Adrian de Bourbon, said
when the Mining Affairs Board had
transferred the grant to Bubye Minerals in
January 2005 it had also violated
the Administrative Justice Act as his
clients were not consulted.
He said because River Ranch had
never ceded or transferred the
special grant it remains in its
hands.
"The effect was the same. A decision was reached which
was a
nullity, a series of illegalities which must be treated as nullities,"
de
Bourbon said. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Reagan Mashavave
A DANGEROUS
trend of celebrating and rewarding ineptitude is
becoming entrenched in the
"Zanu PF way" of doing things if recent events at
Town House can be cited as
an example.
The predilection lends credence to the old
nostrum of some
people having greatness thrust upon them while others
desperately seek it.
Misuse public funds in Zanu PF's name
and you are most likely to
profit from a fresh lease of life or promotion to
higher office instead of
prosecution.
The Sekesai
Makwavarara-led commission running the affairs of
Harare has become one such
instance rewarded for not being adept in
management but going about business
in the "Zanu PF way".
Her undemocratic tenure was extended
for another six months for
the fourth time.
And
celebrating bungling appears to be in vogue in Zimbabwe
unlike in a
functioning democracy where prospects of admonition prevail for
similar
misdeeds.
Giving Makwavarara an effective two years at the
helm at Town
House has broken all records that Local Government minister,
Ignatious
Chombo, has ever set in making sure that Harare ratepayers remain
disenfranchised.
Chombo's claims that he is satisfied by
the performance of the
commission have baffled many. Political analyst and
University of Zimbabwe
(UZ) lecturer, Eldred Masunungure, contested Chombo's
claims.
Masunungure said he found no plausible reason other
than
political expediency for Makwavarara's reappointment adding: "She is
the
personification of incompetence."
"You have to scrape
the bottom of a barrel to find evidence of
efficiency on the basis of which
government would re-appoint Makwavarara and
her team. It is a grave mistake
and shows government's arrogance,"
Masunungure said.
He
said the decision by government shows its fear of the people's
power to
elect representatives of their choice.
Whatever makes
Makwavarara indispensable, no one knows for sure.
But one former Zanu PF
legislator, Philip Chiyangwa, provided a good
indicator when he urged people
who wanted to enrich themselves to join the
ruling party Zanu
PF.
If there is anyone who is benefiting from Zanu PF's
condescending attitude towards ratepayers, Makwavarara tops the
list.
Makwavarara, a political turncoat who was elected to
the Town
House on an MDC ticket, elevated her status after a fall-out with
MDC
leadership in 2004.
She heeded Chiyangwa's advice
belatedly and joined Zanu PF as
she couldn't resist the lure of benefits
that are associated with the ruling
party.
Although
residents have criticised government for not holding
elections in Harare
since the dismissal of former executive mayor, Elias
Mudzuri in April 2004,
the state appears unruffled. It has crinkled its nose
at such
suggestions.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) appears
to have washed
its hands of responsibility in the fiasco at the Town House
as it has failed
to organise elections for the city by giving reasons that
raise more
questions about the electoral body's
independence.
ZEC spokesperson Utloile Silaigwana said his
commission is yet
to set a date for elections in Harare as it is still
consulting with
authorities where elections are due.
"Councils are the ones that fund elections and so we are still
consulting
authorities. We don't know when we are going to finish the
consultations,"
Silaigwana said.
Makwavarara's recent re-appointment might
result in the
government delaying council elections for Harare until
2008.
But Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA), a
civic rights
group, says it continues to call for residents to boycott
paying rates until
the right to elect leaders of their choice is
restored.
"We continue to call for people to boycott paying
rates until
such a time when our rights are restored to us," CHRA chairman
Mike Davies
said.
The Zanu PF government delayed holding
elections in Harare when
it fired Solomon Tawengwa in 1999, only to allow
council elections to run
concurrently with presidential elections in
2002.
"A time shall come when we will reclaim our rights and
CHRA will
call for a thorough audit of how money has been stolen," Davies
said "Then
we can press for criminal charges to be levelled against
Makwavarara and
commissioners who are complicit in an
illegality."
Makwavarara has been in the news for all the
wrong reasons ever
since she was appointed chairperson of the
Commission.
When in 2004 her official car, a Mazda 626, was
involved in an
accident with her relatives on board resulting in the car
being a complete
write-off, council proceeded to buy her an all-terrain
Toyota twin-cab.
As service delivery continues to deteriorate
in the capital and
the city faces a myriad of problems that include erratic
water supplies,
burst water and sewer pipes, poor road maintenance,
uncollected refuse and
dysfunctional street and traffic lights, Makwavarara
exhibited
headline-grabbing profligacy.
She brought
pressure to bear on the local authority to buy
furniture and curtains for
the mayoral mansion for a whopping cost of $35
billion - enough to purchase
an upmarket residential property.
Her flair for extravagance
outraged ratepayers who could
ill-afford such a luxury when service delivery
is at rock-bottom.
Apparently, she cannot distinguish between
being chairperson of
a commission and being mayor. To show her extravagant
lifestyle, Makwavarara
acquired a satellite dish without going to tender at
a cost of $104 million
and proceeded to spend over $175 million of
ratepayers' money on groceries
at the commission's expense without
approval.
Unsure of her future at the helm of the commission
and bidding
to strip council assets bare, Makwavarara set her sights on
buying an
upmarket house at a give-away price of $780 million with the tacit
approval
from Chombo who approved the sale that could have prejudiced
council of
billions of dollars. The house, which is in the
Highlands/Chisipite area,
was estimated to cost $20 billion by independent
evaluators.
Makwavarara will have to fork out $5,5 billion
for an
undisclosed period after council revised the figure following a
public
outcry.
The Anti-Corruption Commission which three
months ago expressed
an interest in the goings-on at Town House has not said
a thing since,
raising questions about its effectiveness.
Zim Independent
AN industrial arbitrator appointed by the Labour and
Social
Welfare ministry has ordered Zimpapers to pay former Sunday Mail
acting news
editor Matthew Takaona more than $10 billion in damages for
unlawfully
dismissing him in 2004 following an address to journalists of the
banned
Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday.
In axing
him, the newspaper group said Takaona, who made the
address in his capacity
as president of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists
(ZUJ) had made utterances
"whose contents were inconsistent with group
interests" that were however
not defined.
Zimpapers has since appealed to the Labour Court
against having
the award inflation-adjusted among other
things.
The company said the award would have "the absurd
effect of
having Mr Takaona as the only known worker over the past two years
whose
earnings actually matched inflation".
In his
application lodged with the arbitrator the ZUJ president
said his dismissal
was irrational, baseless and vindictive as it was in
violation of the weekly
paper's code of conduct and statutory instrument
130/30.
The violations were evidenced by the fact that he was not
charged or tried
but summarily dismissed, Takaona added.
On his address to
Daily News reporters he said: "I have the duty
to express solidarity with
all journalists in trouble and to guide, lead and
fight for their rights
within the parameters of the law. I have done no
less, no
more."
Although Takaona had sought an alternative of
reinstatement,
Zimpapers was of the view that it was no longer
a
viable option. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
JUSTICE minister Patrick Chinamasa has
censured non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) accusing them of being funded
to destabilise
governments of Third World countries, especially those that
dare take an
independent line in international affairs.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the UN Human Rights Council
in Geneva
yesterday, Chinamasa said NGOs operating in the area of human
rights and
governance issues in Zimbabwe are set up and financed by
developed countries
as instruments of their foreign policy.
"Their objectives
include destablisation and interference with
the evolution of our political
process, undermining our sovereignty (and)
creating and sustaining local
opposition groups that have no local support
base," Chinamasa
said.
"They promote dissatisfaction and hostility among the
local
population against their popularly elected
government."
He said the NGOs were used invariably as
conduits by developed
countries to channel dirty money to destabilise third
world governments.
"Worse is the increasing trend worldwide
whereby NGOs
clandestinely and non-transparently set up in our countries by
developed
countries purport to speak on our behalf but instead of
pronouncing and
advancing our interests they advance those of the people who
set them up,"
he said.
Chinamasa said the new council
should come up with a framework
that prohibits direct funding of local NGOs
operating in the field of human
rights and governance issues by developed
countries and their agencies.
"If any assistance is desired
to be given, this should be
channeled through the UN system in a transparent
and open manner," he said.
He made an undertaking that
government's proposed Human Rights
Commission would "respect the human
rights of all its people without regard
or distinction of any kind as
provided for in the Charter of the UN and the
Zimbabwean
constitution".
"In the past," Chinamasa said, "there has been
a tendency to
falsely allege against targeted countries violations of human
rights and to
use such fabrications as pretext for hegemonic control and
interference in
the internal affairs of those countries. Notions of regime
change should not
creep into any discourse on human
rights."
Zimbabwe was a member of the now dissolved UN
Commission for
Human Rights but did not stand for the new council,
reportedly because it
feared examination of its record.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
THE Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has initiated moves to cancel
the operating licences
of Trust and Royal banks, a move critics said was
meant to pre-empt the two
banks' fight against the amalgamation of their
assets into the Zimbabwe
Allied Banking Group (ZABG).
Sources indicated that the
central bank had written to the two
banks' curators informing them about its
intention to close the two banks.
The RBZ is alleging that
both Trust and Royal banks had ceased
to conduct the class of banking
business for which they were registered and
that they both could no longer
maintain assets which, together with other
financial resources available,
are no longer sufficient to safeguard their
creditors.
The two institutions can also no longer maintain the prescribed
amounts of
capital reserves required for commercial banks, the RBZ said.
Trust and Royal banks, closed at the height of a banking sector
crisis in
2004, had their assets amalgamated into ZABG in what the Supreme
Court
described as a "null and void" transaction with "no force or
effect".
The Supreme Court had urged Trust and Royal banks to
first
exhaust the domestic channels in the resolution of the dispute,
resulting in
an appeal to the RBZ which set up an independent panel that
upheld the
take-over of the two banks' assets by ZAGB.
Trust and Royal have appealed to the Minister of finance against
that
decision.
Trust Holdings company secretary, Tererai
Mafukidze, confirmed
the latest development but said the bank would fight
the central bank's
planned closure of Trust Bank.
He said
the move was a pre-emptive measure by the central bank
to nullify their
appeal against the RBZ to the minister.
"They want to make
the outcome of our appeal against the
take-over of our assets that we
launched with the finance minister
academic," said Mafukidze. "But we will
not allow such malicious actions to
take place. We are going to
appeal."
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
FALCON Gold
Zimbabwe (Falgold), a subsidiary of the
Luxemburg-based Falcon Investments
Holdings Societe Anonyme, has fallen on
hard times due to unfavourable gold
prices and could issue a cautionary
giving notice of closure, businessdigest
established this week.
The gold mining firm, which controls
Venice and Dalny mines as
well as the Golden Quarry & Camperdown
Tribute, has experienced acute
cash-flow problems, raising fears of possible
closure in the absence of
remedial measures by the government and monetary
authorities.
Sources indicated that Falgold's management had
been frustrated
by government failure to address the company's concerns over
insufficient
prices offered to gold producers despite numerous
representations to
government and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) over
the last 10 years.
The gold prices had curtailed any
exploration and development
activities at Falgold's mines and the company's
position had been directly
affected by the poor gold prices paid by the
government over the past 10
years.
The situation has
become so dire that Falgold's finance
director, Garry Perotti, last month
wrote to Fidelity Printers and Refiners,
an RBZ subsidiary exclusively
responsible for the buying of gold in the
country, highlighting fears that
Falgold could halt operations because of
uneconomic prices being offered for
gold purchases by the RBZ.
Perotti's letter, dated May 18 and
addressed to Fidelity's
managing director, Paul Musuka, was copied to RBZ
governor Gideon Gono,
Mines minister Amos Midzi, Finance minister Herbert
Murerwa and the Chamber
of Mines.
The letter, a copy of
which was seen by businessdigest
yesterday, indicated that Falgold had
suffered significantly due to a
"payment regime" discouraging exploration
and development of gold mines.
"I do not mean to pressurise
you, but unless the authorities
revise the gold price immediately, the
company will have to place a
cautionary in the press and give notice of
closure," Perotti said in the
letter.
Although the notice
had been earmarked for publication at the
end of May, Falgold's management
later moved it to the end of next month.
"It would be
appreciated if you could inform the authorities of
the critical situation
our company is in, and that should the company close,
the production of
between 40 to 47 kgs of gold per month will come to an
end," said
Perotti.
Perotti could not be contacted for comment yesterday
as he was
reportedly out of office until next week, but Falgold's operations
director,
Ian McPherson, confirmed the group was going through a very
difficult period
and could issue a cautionary to shareholders
soon.
"You could ask the managing director (David Beatte)
about the
cautionary. I have not discussed it with him yet but it's
something that we'll
have to issue according to stock exchange regulations,"
said McPherson.
Beatte was reportedly on a tour of mines when
businessdigest
contacted his office yesterday.
Cash-flow
lodgings for gold mines are 60% in Zimbabwe dollars
and 40% in US
dollars.
Perotti said electricity outages had affected
monthly production
by approximately 15% or seven kgs of gold amounting to
$17,5 billion.
"The company increased production to 200 kgs
of gold per month
in 1996. Since then, with the payment regime of government
not allowing for
exploration and development expenditure, production has
steadily declined to
the current level of below 50 kgs of gold per month,"
said Perotti.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
ZIMBABWE could be
trapped in a fuel price spiral as neither an
improvement in the exchange
rate nor a significant decline in international
crude oil price is anywhere
near the horizon.
Analysts said movements in the oil price
and exchange rate are
having a significant impact on the commodity's price
in the country - and
the Zimbabwe dollar - the world's weakest and worst
performing currency, was
adding its weight to the fuel price
hikes.
Fuel is now only available on a quasi-official market
and the
black market where private players import after having accessed
foreign
currency on the parallel market.
This has had the
effect of directly influencing the price of
fuel because of the sharp
depreciation of the local unit on the parallel
market.
An
increase in the international oil price, now trading at an
average of US$70
per barrel, had increased the foreign currency requirement
for any fuel
import orders.
International fuel prices had hovered around
US$25 to US$30 per
barrel, but an invasion of Iraq two years ago and
uncertainty over supplies
due to instability in the Middle East have pushed
the oil prices to record
highs.
Fuel prices on the
semi-official market, mainly consisting of
authorised dealers importing
under the direct imports arrangement, have shot
up to between $450 000 and
$500 000 per litre, from around $280 000 per
litre, within a space of less
than a month.
The black market prices are around $500 000 and
$650 000 per
litre.
On the official market, which is
supplied by Noczim and
servicing mainly government and quasi-government
institutions as well as
farmers, fuel is selling for around $48
000.
Evidently, this amounts to a very huge subsidy by the
government, already battling a huge budget deficit six months away from the
end of the current fiscal year.
The price of fuel on the
semi-official market was at around $100
000 per litre early this year, then
increased to between $280 000 and $300
000 per litre in April before briefly
coming down to around $185 000 per
litre.
The price
eventually shot to around $300 000 per litre before
settling at current
levels.
While the fuel price has maintained an upward trend,
the US
dollar rate on the parallel market steadily gained against the
Zimbabwe
dollar.
The US dollar is currently trading at
around $400 000 on the
thriving parallel foreign currency market against an
official market rate of
US$1:101 195.
Local companies and
other importers are currently sourcing
foreign currency from the parallel
market as the official market has failed
to attract meaningful receipts
because of an unattractive rate.
David Mupamhadzi, group
economist with the Zimbabwe Allied
Banking Group (ZABG), said the parallel
market was having a significant
influence on the price of
fuel.
"Zimbabwe is an importer of fuel and requires foreign
currency
(for the imports)," said Mupamhadzi.
Mupamhadzi
said any exchange rate movement on the parallel
market rate was directly
affecting the cost of fuel imports and,
consequently, fuel prices in the
country.
"Because of the shortage of foreign currency and the
parallel
market being the major supplier, the behaviour of the rates on the
market
also has a bearing on the pricing bahaviour," he
said.
Besides the effects of the parallel market activities,
Mupamhadzi said the increase in the international oil price now has a
significant and direct impact on the local fuel price because of the lack of
subsidies.
"In the past, the increase in international
oil prices did not
have a direct effect on fuel price because of subsidies
and the absence of
private players," Mupamhadzi said.
"It
was Noczim in the past," Mupamhadzi said, adding that there
are now numerous
private players importing fuel but having accessed foreign
currency from the
parallel market.
Mupamhadzi said there could be no
stabilisation of fuel prices
in the near future as long as supplies remained
constrained.
Supplies were unlikely to improve because of the
unavailability
of foreign currency, he said.
"The major
problem is the supply side. For price stability to be
achieved, there should
be improvement on the supply side," he said.
Mupamhadzi said
subsidised fuel could stabilise prices but only
if the system was
implemented efficiently.
Subsidies actually resulted in
Noczim, formerly the sole
procurer of fuel in the country, suffering a $1
trillion loss.
Farai Dyirakumunda, an analyst with Interfin,
said there was a
direct relationship between local fuel prices and the
international oil
price.
"If crude oil prices increase,
so should the price of the
refined product," said
Dyirakumunda.
He added that the exchange rate had an effect
on the fuel price,
and this had been worsened by the perpertually
depreciating Zimbabwe dollar.
Dyirakumunda said fuel prices
were unlikely to stabilise without
an improvement in the supply of foreign
currency.
"Fuel supplies can only improve after addressing
the foreign
currency crisis," he said.
A fortnight ago,
government signed a US$50 million fuel deal
with BNP Paribas and mining
concern Bindura Nickel Corporation, involving
mortgaging of minerals but
there has been no improvement in supplies.
Certain sectors of
government operations like the medical
fraternity which have been receiving
subsidised fuel from Noczim have had
their supplies cut off or reduced,
highlighting the depth of the crisis.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
ZIMBABWE has so far
earned US$33,7 million ($3,4 trillion) from
18 million kg of tobacco that
have gone under the hammer since the auction
floor opened on April 25, the
Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB) said.
In its latest
weekly update, TIMB said 18 073 776 kg of
flue-cured tobacco worth US$33 702
853 had been sold at the country's three
auction floors.
During the same period, farmers were paid $1,2 trillion under a
35% early
delivery bonus put in place by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
to entice
farmers to deliver their crops early.
This season's tobacco
production declined from 73 million kg
recorded last year to 50 million kg
due to late disbursement of funds,
rising production costs and excess
rains.
The Tobacco Sales Floor (TSF) auction floors have so
far handled
the largest volume of tobacco, with 4 265 377 kg being
traded.
The Burley Marketing Zimbabwe (BMZ) auction floors
have to date
handled 2 780 891 kg while the Zimbabwe Tobacco Auction Centre
(Zitac)
handled the lowest volume of of 2 070 100 kg.
Zitac usually caters for large-scale tobacco farmers, while TSF
mainly
accommodates smallholder farmers. BMZ attracts medium to large-scale
tobacco
growers.
TIMB said crop deliveries to the auction floors last
week
improved with farmers selling more than 6 million kg of
tobacco.
Since the start of the tobacco selling season,
auction floors
were averaging about 3 million kg a week.
A total of 8 936 368 kg of tobacco worth US$16 829 418 produced
under
contract farming has gone under the hummer since the auction floors
opened.
During the same period last season, contract
farming had fetched
a total of US$14 612 773 from 12 172 840 kg
sold.
This season's earnings are 48% higher than earnings
made during
the same period last season. This is largely a factor of
inflation for the
Zimbabwe dollar component of the
earnings.
Prices during the period under review have averaged
US$1,98 a kg
compared to last season's average of US$1,61 The lowest price
the crop has
fetched to date is US10c a kg.
Meanwhile,
the TIMB has hinted that the 2006 tobacco selling
season could close earlier
than usual due to a decline in crop output.
Traditionally,
business started in March and usually closed at
the end of
October.
This year's tobacco auction had started on a low
note with
farmers unhappy with prices merchants were
offering.
Although activity has improved, farmers are still
advocating an
upward review of the buying price.
Industry
players predict prices to average US$2 per kilogramme
this season, up from a
seasonal average price of US$1,61 last year.
TIMB said in
general there has been strong demand for lemon
tobacco compared to other
forms of tobacco.
The highest price to date is US$2,99 for
strip, A2E grade and
US$2,91 for bundle, L2L grade.
The
prices have generally been firmer compared to last season
and gross earnings
for the first fortnight of sales were US$1,9 million
compared to US$1,2
million for the same period in 2005.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
GOVERNMENT-imposed price controls have posed serious threats to
the success
of Dairibord Zimbabwe's plans to boost milk production and focus
on
milk-based value-added products which increase margins.
This
was said by Dairibord Holdings' chief executive officer,
Antony Mandiwanza,
in an article published in the Zimbabwe Independent's
supplement on the
company published last week.
Dairibord Holdings is a holding
company for the dairy firm as
well as Dairibord Malawi and ME Charhons among
others.
Dairibord Zimbabwe, which used to produce over 256
million
litres a year, had suffered a significant decline in volumes,
producing 60
million litres last year.
Mandiwanza said
although the government appeared to have
loosened its regime of price
controls, the remaining measures still posed
significant challenges to the
dairy firm.
"The company's strategy to focus on value-added
products that
require less milk and are of higher margins should continue to
benefit the
group's profitability," Mandiwanza said.
"However, the company will be faced with challenges of price
monitoring/controls on milk, though these seem to have been loosened," said
Mandiwanza.
The government introduced price controls to
cushion consumers
from high inflation on most basic goods including farming
inputs like
fertiliser. Although government claims that the controls were
phased out,
producers maintain that they are still in
force.
Producers have blamed the controls for causing
distortions on
the market and massive losses as the prices imposed are not
enough to cover
production costs.
Mandiwanza said while
the demand for raw milk was estimated at
an annual 120 million litres, only
60 million litres were being produced.
He revealed that
Dairibord Zimbabwe, which used to be a monopoly
before privatisation, had
apparently lost its market share.
Other players have since
entered the dairy industry. Dairibord
Zimbabwe was once a major supplier of
pasteurised milk to Tanzania and Kenya
where it sold 12 million litres per
year, but the figures have since gone
down to 2,8 million
litres.
Zim Independent
ZIMBABWE bakers yesterday appeared defiant on recent
bread price
increases despite a spate of arrests for overcharging, saying
selling at the
official price would threaten the sector's 20 000
jobs.
President Robert Mugabe's government has said it plans
to boost
wheat output this year to a record 500 000 tonnes amid fears of
bread
shortages, the second staple food after maize.
The
southern African country has experienced food shortages
since 2001, which
Mugabe's government attributes to drought but which
critics blame on his
policy of seizing white-owned land that has hit
commercial
farming.
Police this week arrested more than 282 bakers and
shop
assistants for selling bread above the gazetted price of $85 000.
Bakers
charge between $130 000 and $160 000 for a standard
loaf.
The government accused the bakers of profiteering,
saying the
increases were unfair as the price of wheat has not changed
despite
inflation well over 1 000%.
Wheat is a controlled
commodity sold by the state Grain
Marketing Board. But bread producers say
the price of flour has jumped 60%
in three months as millers imported
additional wheat to meet demand. "It is
important for the consumers to
understand that a loaf (of bread) is not
about flour," the National Bakers
Association said in a statement, noting it
took some 22 ingredients to
produce commercial bread.
Zimbabwe's economy has been in
recession for eight years where
spending power in poor households has been
falling in the face of rising
prices due to shortages in fuel, foreign
currency and food.
Fuel prices doubled this week, forcing a
hike in commuter
transport fares which analysts say would further fuel
inflation, which hit 1
193 percent in May.
Most shops had
no bread yesterday with bakers arguing they would
not produce at a
loss.
"We are not producing bread at the moment until a
number of
issues have been clarified," an official at a Harare bakery outlet
told
Reuters. "But there is not doubt we are not going back to the old
price,"
added the official. -- Reuter.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
GOVERNMENT closed
the year 2005 with a total external debt
outstanding of US$3,9 billion
against export receipts of only US$1,7
billion. This comes on the backdrop
of government recording a revenue of
only $33,4 trillion in the same period
while saddled by a domestic debt of
over $15,9 trillion.
According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's (RBZ) monthly review
of January
2006, which is the latest, the government had an outstanding
external debt
of US$3, 9 billion, equivalent to $402 trillion using the
interbank rate of
US$1:$101 195,41. The RBZ said at the close of 2005,
bilateral and
multilateral creditors were US$1,44 billion and US$1,46
billion
respectively. Private creditors were zero.
The RBZ report
said during the twelve months ended December
2005, government recorded
revenue of only $33,4 trillion.
Out of the revenue, income
and profit tax contributed $16,33
trillion, VAT ($10,55 trillion), customs
duties tax ($3,86 trillion) and
exercise duty income was $1,06
trillion.
In his monetary policy for the fourth quarter 2005,
central bank
governor Gideon Gono said that the country had export receipts
of US$1,7
billion.
"The twelve month period to December
31, 2005 saw foreign
exchange inflows into the formal market amounting to
US$1,7 billion,
compared to a total of US$1,71 billion in 2004 representing
a decline of
0,46%.
Gono reported that total export
shipments for the year 2005
amounted to US$1,43 billion a decline of 9,04%
from the 2004 figure of
US$1,58 billion.
Meanwhile, the
government's domestic debt ballooned to $21
trillion from $15
trillion.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
AIR
Zimbabwe has accumulated arrears amounting to US$24 million
in foreign debt
for parts and service supplies for its Boeing fleet,
businessdigest
established this week.
Sources at the airline said the
arrears were made up of imported
spare parts and services rendered for the
maintenance of the Boeing 767
planes last year.
The
arrears have cast a pall over Air Zimbabwe's turnaround
programme which
started last year.
The turnaround was based on the need to
implement an aggressive
marketing programme, recapitalisation and
restructuring of the airline.
"Air Zimbabwe has continued to
remain in a crisis mode with
areas requiring attention being attended to on
an ad hoc basis," the source
said.
"This has crippled
operations as some international suppliers
and manufacturers are no longer
keen to do business with us," added the
source.
The
sources said the crisis at Air Zimbabwe could be blamed on
the mismatch
between the US dollar cost and the Zimbabwe dollar revenues
derived from
ticket sales.
The airline was last year heavily criticised by
the central bank
for huge "cost structures" made up predominantly of high
finance charges.
Agency and handling fees which are too high
at 8,86% of revenue
and also averaging 5,14% of total cost and labour
related costs of 22,94% to
revenue and 14,24% of total cost showing poor
recovery strategies.
Air Zimbabwe spokesman David Mwenga
could not immediately
comment on the issue when contacted, instead
requesting written questions
which he had not responded to at the time of
going to press.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
ZIMBABWE'S
latest domestic debt level has cast a pall on
prospects for a quick economic
turn-around and sparked fresh fears the
government's profligacy could
splurge ahead of a presidential election
scheduled for
2008.
President Robert Mugabe's government has traditionally
shown a
gargantuan appetite for extravagance ahead of elections, mainly to
appease
state employees.
Latest statistics revealed last
week that public debt, which had
significantly declined since the beginning
of the year, increased to $21
trillion this month, surpassing all records
since Independence in 1980.
The new figure, released by the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ),
came against the background of tightening
inflationary pressures likely to
be worsened by a sharp fall in the Zimbabwe
dollar on a thriving parallel
foreign currency market and significant hikes
in fuel prices over the past
few weeks.
Zimbabwe's debt
has been growing steadily since 1980, and the
government has attributed this
to efforts by the post-colonial era regime of
Mugabe to equitably distribute
wealth among Zimbabweans and the expansion of
the education and health
delivery systems to cater for a larger population.
Domestic
debt levels had, however, been kept under check by
bilateral and
multilateral support to the government, which dried up more
than six years
ago following Mugabe's failure to implement viable economic
reform
programmes.
Following the withdrawal of multilateral and
bilateral support
to Zimbabwe by the international community, the government
has been left
with no other source of funds except the domestic
market.
Huge government borrowings have been compounded by
high real
interest rates driven mainly by a hyperinflationary environment
now
prevailing on the market.
The huge financing costs
and increased domestic borrowings have
resulted in a remarkable explosion of
debt, worsening the poor macroeconomic
performance.
Real
economic growth has suffered significantly as a result.
The
central bank governor Gideon Gono, who was appointed in
December 2003 to
turn around the sickly economy, has so far had to deal with
government
financing requirements in his monetary policy.
Late last
year, he adopted measures making government
securities, especially treasury
bills (TBs), more attractive to private
sector investors in order to attract
funds to finance the large government
deficits.
This has
been achieved by shortening the average maturity of TB
debts and to increase
the real returns on the money market instruments with
the unwelcome effect
of blowing up the domestic debt.
Of the government's $21
trillion domestic debt as at June 2 this
year, $1,6 trillion is in
government securities while $8 trillion in TBs and
$655 million in RBZ
advances.
The interest component on TBs amounts to a
staggering $10,7
trillion, way above the principal outstanding TB debt stock
held by
government.
Clearly, government has remained
unfazed by the ballooning debts
stock.
Last month, the
government awarded civil servants a 300% salary
hike, pushing the government
wage bill to well over 50% of gross domestic
product (GDP) and raising the
prospect for increased money supply growth and
consequently inflation
through unbudgeted expenditure.
This, together with the
latest spike in fuel and other commodity
prices, has raised the prospect of
pushing inflation to breach the 2 000%
mark.
Inflation,
which touched an all-time high of 1 194% year-on-year
for May, appears to be
roaring towards new territory.
The May salary increments for
civil servants, counted among the
least-paid in the struggling economy,
followed another one in January this
year of 230%, slightly above the $30
trillion government had budgeted for
its entire wage
bill.
The increases in civil servants' salaries will push the
wage
bill further up by 300%, raising the prospect of increased money
printing.
Money printing stokes money supply growth which
provides impetus
to soaring inflation.
Money supply
expanded from 177,6% in January 2005 to 590,6% in
April this
year.
There are entrenched fears among economic players that
the money
supply growth figures might be understated, but a number of
factors could
contribute to this.
Money supply is the
generation of new money - in other words, an
addition to the stock of money
already in circulation.
Sources indicated that the national
budget for 2006 had already
been largely spent, and a supplementary budget
was expected in a few weeks
time to cater for new expenditure requirements
arising from new salary
payments.
Since 2005, when the
country experienced a 500 percentage points
decline in inflation, the
inflation rate has soared unabated.
Gono in January made a
rare admission that the central bank had
printed a whopping $21 trillion to
purchase United States dollars for
repaying debt arrears to International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and stave off
imminent expulsion of the country's
membership of the Bretton Woods
institution.
This is
besides cash printed to raise money for grain and fuel
imports, as well as
for other quasi-fiscal operations by the Reserve Bank.
The
government last year borrowed heavily from the central bank
mainly for grain
imports against the backdrop of drought last year as well
as for fuel
imports, implying that cash from the Reserve Bank was used again
to buy
foreign currency.
Although the government projected that the
budget deficit
out-turn for 2005 had been 3% of GDP, the IMF revealed that
the Zimbabwe
government's budget deficit out-turn for 2005 was in fact 60%
of GDP.
Last year, the total domestic debt grew by about 1
000%, but
this could have been understated given the remarks by the
IMF.
And Gono acknowledged that the debt level was
unsustainable.
Economists have often blamed the country's
inflation on
government profligacy.
The cash-strapped
government has resorted to an aggressive tax
collection system many view as
unorthodox, if not investor-unfriendly.
Recently, the
government's tax collection arm, the Zimbabwe
Revenue Authority, ordered
stockbrokers to pay value-added tax on
instruments the tax law had clearly
exempted.
It has raided car dealers and many companies in a
bid to
generate enough revenue for dwindling government coffers, suffering
severely
from a declining individual income and corporate tax base due to
high
unemployment and company closures.
Zim Independent
By Jonathan Moyo
WHATEVER
perspective one takes on the Zimbabwean crisis it is
now clear that the
endgame has come for President Robert Mugabe.
Yet the only
person who does not appreciate this self-evident
fact is Mugabe himself who
is in chronic denial under the delusion that
everyone else is wrong and that
he is right and mistake-free. This more than
anything else now accounts for
the continuation of the Zimbabwean crisis.
It remains to be
seen how Mugabe is going to play his endgame as
the crisis deepens. Will he
continue to put his political interests above
those of the country and will
he continue to blame everyone else but
himself?
However
he plays his endgame, the outcome is certain to lead to
a radical policy
change or regime change failure in which Zimbabwe will be
engulfed by
unprecedented anarchy and chaos.
Because the Zimbabwean
crisis has been left unresolved for too
long since 1997, and because the
ruling party and government have remained
in denial about its causes and
effects, the crisis has now become
institutionalised. This is what has led
to massive economic collapse,
institutional breakdown and the erosion of
public values.
And Mugabe has become the embodiment of the
institutionalised
crisis such that his departure alone would be cathartic
for the country.
An institutionalised crisis is necessarily
beyond the patchwork
of policy tinkering and it will require an overhaul of
one sort or another.
This is why a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe will necessarily
require a fundamental
policy change in terms of a new economic vision and
strategy supported by
the international community and constitutional regime
change by way of a new
democratic constitution endorsed by the electorate in
a free and fair
referendum.
The alternative would be
anarchy and chaos, which is not an
option at all.
Time is
running out for Mugabe to do what Tanzania's founding
president, Julius
Nyerere, did: step aside and let government be run by a
dynamic, competent
and accountable leader from his party while concentrating
on gradually
reduced party responsibilities.
Mugabe needs to show that he
is capable of statesmanship and
that he has the leadership quality to put
the national interest above his
self-preservation. So far he has failed
dismally.
A Nyerere option even at this eleventh hour would
give Mugabe a
face-saving opportunity which he can use to safeguard his
checkered legacy
and to secure the long-term interests of his very young
family. He can do
this by publicly indicating to Zimbabweans in clear and
categorical terms
that he not only accepts that his time is now up but that
he also
understands that Zimbabwe desperately needs a new policy framework
underwritten by a constitutional regime change.
Such a
bold move by Mugabe would be much more meaningful than
his current idle and
misplaced talk about building phantom bridges with the
British to nowhere
from a crisis which he has created. No-one wants to build
bridges with
Mugabe to help him escape consequences of his misrule.
It is
important for Mugabe to clarify his future because so far
he has not been
honest with himself and suffering Zimbabweans. He has been
playing hide and
seek with the nation while dishing out patronage which he
confuses with
patriotism and breeding cronyism and instilling fear all over
the place
which he confuses with respect and loyalty.
Slightly over a
year ago Mugabe hinted, not to Zimbabweans but
to the foreign media in
Malaysia, that he might retire in 2008. He had also
done the same to the
Kenya and Zambia media before that. But since then he
has been sending
conflicting hints through his cronies who keep pretending
otherwise by
telling him what he wants to hear.
Mugabe's blunt
propagandists have flooded the media with
Machiavellian suggestions that,
notwithstanding his old age, palpable
incompetence and growing unpopularity,
he may very well seek re-election in
2008 because the Zimbabwean
constitution does not have presidential term
limits.
Lost
to these propagandists is the writing on the wall that
Mugabe would be
humiliated big time if he dares voters in 2008 by seeking
reelection.
Not to be outdone by the propagandists with
whom they compete
for Mugabe's patronage under the false cover of
patriotism, some security
men have been falling over each other scheming the
enactment of a dubious
constitutional amendment to enable Mugabe to extend
his rule to 2010 by
subverting the electoral will of the people in 2008
through a patronage
election by the two houses of the Zanu PF-dominated
parliament sitting as an
electoral college.
Curiously
what seems to have eluded Mugabe and his supportive
yet divided
propagandists and securocrats is the God-given truth that their
boss is made
of weak human flesh and has a temporary spirit just like the
rest of us and
is therefore not immortal. In view of Mugabe's clear old age,
he can succumb
to the inevitable.
In that case the nation can wake up to a
new day without Mugabe,
just like it happened to Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo and
Simon Muzenda. In that
event, the constitution as it stands would require
the holding of
presidential election within 90 days.
All
present unequal things in Zimbabwe being there, one can only
imagine what
would ensue in those 90 eventful days given the self-evident
fact that
Mugabe has not groomed a widely supported successor because he
does not want
any while he is alive.
Add to this that Zanu PF does not have
any rule-bound,
transparent and democratic succession plan to calm and
inspire the party
faithful who have been made all these troubled years to
think Mugabe is Zanu
PF and vice versa.
Further add that
the opposition MDC is deeply divided and
profoundly weakened by that
division such that it is currently unable to
rally the nation towards a
common purpose. Neither of the factions is strong
enough to win a national
and popular mandate to rule with stability.
Add that
Zimbabwe's state security agencies are classically
prone to the use of
brutality under the cover of law and order and factor in
that the country is
in the throes of an unprecedented economic meltdown that
has rendered many
out there jobless, penniless and homeless while ravaging
business
enterprises.
It is without doubt that, as things stand, all
hell would break
loose and there would be blood on the floor should Mugabe
not wake up
tomorrow precipitating a presidential election within 90 days.
Zimbabwe
would be on fire under these explosive
conditions.
This real possibility of Mugabe not waking up
tomorrow followed
by a 90-day election is much more serious than the glib
hope or wish that
Mugabe will be around to seek reelection in 2008 because
Zimbabwe's
constitution has no term limits.
The same
applies to the sycophantic retort that Zanu PF commands
a two-thirds
majority that can be used to amend the constitution in order to
extend
Mugabe's rule from 2008 to 2010 without a popular vote. What
for?
When made aware that Zimbabwe could slip into anarchy
and chaos
within 90 days of Mugabe meeting his God, his propagandists and
securocrats
take the delusional view that the country's security forces have
an
unparalleled capacity to maintain law and order by nipping any trouble in
the bud as they did during the dreadful Operation
Murambatsvina.
It is shocking that some politically ambitious
security chiefs
believe that it is part of unwritten Zanu PF law that Mugabe
should remain
in office until his death, as happened with Nkomo and Muzenda.
They also
believe that any 90 days of chaos should Mugabe die in office
would be a
great opportunity for them to move from de facto to de jure
running of the
country.
Perhaps the reason the men with
guns believe this is that they
know only too well that they have been
Mugabe's source of power since 1977
when some of them elevated him to the
presidency of Zanu after initially
making him their spokesperson. They also
know that Mugabe consolidated his
power between 1980 and 1990 through the
brutal abuse of the state of
emergency inherited from Rhodesia which was
controlled and run by men with
guns who also held the keys to torture
chambers.
Furthermore, the securocrats know that to this day
Mugabe's
closest and most trusted political and economic advisers are
security
leaders of the Joint Operations Command created by Ian Smith in
Rhodesia to
oppress blacks. In essence, the security men know Mugabe has
been their
hostage president since 1977 and they don't want him to be
replaced, except
by themselves!
What this means is that
there are some delusional security men
in our midst who do not understand
how, for example, the Soviet Union, East
Germany or apartheid South Africa
collapsed when their security agencies
were among the world's most feared
and most notorious in terms of their
brutality.
The one
enduring lesson from these cases of fallen security
power is that in the end
politics always triumphs over the gun. This is why
Mugabe's unchallenged
security strength since 1977 is now his greatest
political weakness as he
now plays his endgame.
The only person best positioned to
deal with this is Mugabe
himself through a much-delayed Nyerere option or
better still a Nelson
Mandela one.
If Mugabe has become
so self-serving that he cannot do what
everyone can see is the right thing
or if his security men have become so
irresponsible that they want him to
remain as their hostage while the
country is bleeding, then the people of
Zimbabwe including those in Zanu PF
should do the right thing by rising up
to the challenge to save the country.
There is just no other
option. Otherwise, chaos is looming.
* Professor Jonathan
Moyo is a political scientist and
independent MP for Tsholotsho.
Zim Independent
THE insurance industry used to have a
Commissioner of Insurance
who to all intents and purposes regulated the
operations of the industry
attached to the Ministry of
Finance.
The government however, after prolonged half-hearted
consultations with the industry, and to be seen to be doing something in the
context of turning around the economy, fast-tracked the establishment of the
so-called Independent Commission to oversee the industry. The reason was
it's
the norm in other countries forgetting that:
* Other
countries have normal operating economies;
* Commissions in
other countries genuinely add value to the
industry; and
* Issues of composition of the commission, terms of reference,
budgets and
funding are discussed and agreed upon before, and not after the
commission
is operational.
In our case, the commission is appointed and
we are told we will
be levied to foot the commission's operations. The
levies, we are told,
should be paid by July 1 as there are capital and
running expenses to be
attended to. Struggling as we are due to the harsh
economic environment
created by the same government, the industry finds
itself asking if this is
the right time to effect these
changeovers.
The industry pays taxes and surely the
government should cater
for this commission. If there are
no
funds, why then the hurry which results in the passing on of
the burden to
already struggling operators?
Besides creating jobs for the
chosen few with the accompanying
huge salaries and perks, what value is the
commission adding to the industry
to justify cowing us to fund
them?
And as is the norm with Zimbabwe's business fraternity
and
public in general, they cry foul amongst themselves but fail to muster
the
guts to resist. - Robbed.
Zim Independent
By Charles
Frizell
THERE are certain words and phrases that we
should be very
suspicious of whenever they are used by politicians and even
more suspicious
when Zimbabwean politicians use them.
Politicians and especially our politicians are masters of
deception as we
have learned to our cost. How many fine-sounding slogans
have turned out to
be no more than words full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing? Or even
worse, these fine slogans have been used to disguise
actions that turned out
to be the exact opposite of what we thought they
meant?
A
glaring example of this is of course the Bill supposedly to
promote freedom
of information that turned out in fact to be intended to
stifle free speech.
Then there was the Suppression of Foreign Terrorism Bill
that was used to
entrench state terrorism against the people and the
opposition.
A little reflection will show that almost
every law enacted was
intended to achieve the exact opposite of the
propaganda spin it was
initially given.
What we should be
particularly suspicious of now is the
increasing use of the words "we" and
"our" by the ruling elite.
First we had the land grab where
there was much made of how "we"
should seize "our" land. This was naked
deception because those from whom
the land was taken were the rightful and
legal owners of that land and those
who called themselves "we" were not. The
vast majority of the real and legal
owners were of course citizens of
Zimbabwe. Why were these people not as
much "we" as anyone
else?
In this particular case, who were the "we"? And who
were the
"they"? It was initially given out that "we" were exclusively black
nationals and "they" were white citizens.
However it soon
became apparent that black and coloured farmers
who did not support Zanu PF
were targets as well. Many foolish things were
said at the time, and
continue to be said by politicians including the
highest office in the
land.
When the dust had settled it became obvious to all that
this had
been nothing but a colossal exercise in looting and vote buying.
When they
had served their purpose the pawns that had been used were in turn
thrown
off the land to make way for the chefs - which was no doubt the
long-term
intention anyway.
So in this case "we" turned
out to be the usual suspects - a
small group of well-connected people in the
hierarchy. But it sounded good
at the time!
Another
deception of some years back was that used by the
Affirmative Action Group
in order to obtain shares in large companies. They
assiduously pushed that
this was "indigenisation" and was supposedly to
"empower the indigenous
people".
Well, as we also know this did not empower anyone
other than
certain members of the elite who obtained large shareholdings in
prosperous
companies for next to nothing. Philip Chiyangwa in particular
springs to
mind here, though of course he was only one of many. "The people"
of course
did not benefit at all and in fact most of these businesses
subsequently
went broke and the workers lost their jobs.
What is of concern now is all the talk of how "we" should
control "our"
mines and "our" mineral resources. This is because agriculture
and
manufacturing have already been looted and destroyed and there's now
precious little left to steal (sorry - acquire in
Zim-speak).
Who does anyone think the "we" is in this case?
The people of
Zimbabwe as a whole? You must be joking!
This "we" is exactly the same "we" as in all the other scams and
that "we"
comprises that small clique of ever-richer hoodlums who have
systematically
looted the country since Independence.
So this fine-sounding,
all-inclusive "we" certainly does not
mean you. You will not benefit at all,
but on the contrary you will suffer
when these mines close, you will lose
your job and the economy will take yet
another dive towards oblivion. But to
the looters that does not matter at
all! They do not give a damn as long as
there's money in it for them.
All this talk about how "we"
should control "our" mines and
minerals is already having a large negative
effect because planned
investment is on hold and future investment becomes
even less likely.
Zimbabwe (and most other impoverished small countries)
does not have the
capital or infrastructure to develop big mining ventures;
therefore we need
large foreign firms to do it for us.
It
is even impossible for the country to nationalise the mines,
as certain
other countries foolishly did in the past. This is because the
government is
broke and cannot afford to legally purchase shares in any
company at
all.
So now of course there is an increasing volume of noise
saying
that "we" don't need to legally purchase these shares because the
resources
are "ours" anyway. It is the disastrous land grab all over
again.
The mining sector provides many jobs for Zimbabweans,
and
generates much foreign currency through mineral and metal exports. It
also
creates a great deal of money within Zimbabwe because all services such
as
electricity, water, salaries, wages and rates are paid
locally.
The government also benefits hugely from the taxes
levied. But
of course it does not generate a huge amount of unearned income
for a small
clique of greedy individuals with connections in the corridors
of power!
Perhaps even more importantly, these mines cannot
be used to buy
support in a corrosive web of patronage - as long as they
remain in the
hands of the rightful shareholders.
*
Charles Frizell is a Zimbabwean based in the UK.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
THERE are
traits of the Chinese system of governance which that
country would like to
be labelled socialist. In fact, the Chinese government
would be very happy
to be described as socialist to distinguish it from
Western
capitalism.
This is a country that has embraced open market
economic
principles, but stands accused of totalitarian governance and human
rights
abuses. The rights of freedom of expression and association of
workers'
representatives continue to be severely curtailed and independent
trade
unions remain illegal. Political and religious activists have been
suppressed and imprisoned while there is no open and direct voting of
national leaders.
Last year Chinese premier Wen Jiabao
pledged to introduce direct
elections at the township level, at least
"within a couple of years".
"China will press for democratic
progress, unswervingly
reestablish democracy, including direct elections,"
he told a news
conference prior to the 8th EU-China summit on September 5.
"If we Chinese
people can manage a village, I believe they can manage a town
in several
years. This system will be realised step by
step."
Amidst apparent state obduracy and repression,
politicians in
China have managed to steer their country towards
market-driven economic
policies practised in Western capitals. They do not
make any apologies about
this because it is working and it has created
wealth.
"Whether a cat is black or white makes no difference.
As long as
it catches mice, it is a good cat," Deng Xiaoping
said.
Deng ridiculed the Cultural Revolution slogan that held
it was
"better to be poor under socialism than rich under capitalism". The
blunt,
practical Deng offered instead: "Poverty is not
socialism."
This is their own blend of a socialist market
economy. The
current mode of socialism in China is therefore different from
the archaic
Maoist collectivisation and state capitalism which failed so
dismally in the
1950s. It is deeply rooted in the government creating an
environment for
individuals and organisations to create
wealth.
In its co-operation with Africa today China is happy
to
advertise the socialist tag to the continent's crocodilian dictators as a
way of winning their outright support.
Our leaders just
love being called socialists or even
communists. Vice-President Joice Mujuru
during her trip to China was given a
dose of this version of Chinese
socialism. But then her hosts were also
quick to advise her that they were
learning from the West. The statement by
Chinese Development Bank boss Chen
Yuan is as revealing as it was confusing
to Mai Mujuru.
"We basically combine the socialist stance of our government
with the
advanced financial market principles we learnt in Washington and
London," he
told the VP. What a dichotomy!
The Zimbabwean government is
gang-pressing the nation to march
East where the inhabitants of that land
are looking West for education.
Yuan, in his willingness to help, advised
Mujuru that his bank was prepared
to teach our authorities. I hope this
includes monetary authorities - on how
to run successful
banks!
Mujuru, while in China said 25 years after
Independence,
Zimbabwe was developing its own brand of a socialist market
economy,
borrowing concepts from China.
My major fear is
that our politicians are likely to adapt the
negatives from the Chinese
socialist concepts. The major worry here is
government justifying repression
in the name of promoting economic reform.
Other than enacting repressive
legislation to silence dissent, our
government has over the past six years
developed a penchant to control the
economy by laying claim to ownership of
resources and controlling industrial
and commercial
processes.
Government is taking us back to the Maoist state
capitalism
which China dumped in the 1980s under Deng. But Zimbabwe is far
from its
quest to achieve the basics of a modern socialist market economy
because the
state has failed to provide an environment which would enable
economic
players to generate wealth.
It is only a
properly structured economy which would enable
government to work out a
proper system of social safety nets like subsidised
health and education,
adequate living allowances for the disabled and the
aged and to provide
affordable services among the poor.
We have however seen a
systemic withdrawal of safety nets by a
government which has for years
claimed to be socialist. Fees at schools and
universities are no longer
subsidised. Those who cannot afford to pay the
high fees charged by state
hospitals will die at home. Pensioners have been
reduced to paupers. What
socialism nhai motherz?
We hope that Mai Mujuru learnt
something on her trip to China
which we can implement here. But she has to
demonstrate a level of aptitude
that should enable her to understand that
governments have never been known
to run businesses
properly.
In fact, when government tries to run businesses as
is the case
in Zimbabwe government debt shoots through the roof and the
private sector
cannot borrow as it is muscled out by the
state.
In China, a big part of state-owned capital was in
time turned
into private capital which has quickened economic
transformation.
We request Mr Yuan to take our rulers through
this lesson,
especially those who believe our salvation is in printing
money! Poverty is
not socialism.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
IT is staggering how gullible and
foolish some church leaders
can be. Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe
general secretary Andrew
Muchechetere says his organisation is "concerned
with the effects sanctions
are having on the common man in
Zimbabwe".
Anything that affected the common man "is not good
and should be
tackled forthrightly", he declared.
This
statement was issued ahead of a meeting with the MDC in
which the churchmen
said they would "examine the ways in which the sanctions
that were imposed
on the country can be removed".
As all the legislation
involving sanctions by the US and EU
clearly stipulates how they can be
removed such a meeting would be a waste
of time. There would have to be a
restoration of the rule of law and an
independent judiciary, an end to
political violence (ie: disbandment of
militias) and electoral manipulation,
and a clear programme for political
and economic reform (ie: not delusional
programmes like NEDPP but something
that addresses macroeconomic
distortions).
How come the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe
doesn't know
this? Why is it not making these issues of social justice
fundamental to its
own ministry?
The answer is
self-evident. This is a coopted and suborned
outfit concerned more with the
government's legitimacy than with Christian
teaching. We sincerely trust the
MDC and civil society will spell out
clearly how sanctions can best be
lifted so we enjoy better governance and
an end to the misery President
Mugabe's sanctions against his own people has
spawned.
Muckraker was fascinated by a "conversation"
Caesar Zvayi had
with Small and Medium Enterprises minister Sithembiso Nyoni
last Saturday.
He asked some useful questions. But the answers unfortunately
were mostly
uninspired and formulaic. Here is an example: "One of the key
objectives of
the recently launched National Economic Development Priority
Programme is
foreign currency generation. What role is your ministry playing
to ensure
the realisation of this objective?"
Answer:
"The policy guiding the ministry from the outset has one
of its specific
objectives being to generate foreign currency through export
of products by
SMEs. With regard to NEDPP, the ministry is involved in the
Growth Point
Resuscitation Programme which envisages redirecting resources
to growth
points for purposes of investment and production of
export-oriented goods.
This would also result in employment creation,
poverty reduction, and
modernisation of rural areas."
Indeed it would - if it
worked. How is the government going to
"redirect resources to growth points"
if there is no "investment"? What
"resources" have been earmarked for this
project?
We have among us a number of Pollyanna publicists
who believe
that in an ideal world it should be possible to attract
investment, boost
growth and generate employment. But none of that is
happening because nobody
will invest in a lawless state where ruling-party
officials loot farms and
threaten businesses.
The
NEDPP has started to "bear fruit", the Herald tells us on
the strength of a
statement by the China Development Bank. Has anybody seen
this fruit? Has
anybody tasted it? Will the Chinese prove more indulgent
with their
investment capital than the Malaysians, Libyans, and Iranians,
all of whom
were greeted as economic saviours but ended up disillusioned?
At least Nyoni has a background in NGO work and knows what is
required for
things to get back to normal in the rural sector. She shouldn't
of course be
sitting in parliament having been rejected by voters. But she
is probably
more useful than certain interactive kwasa kwasa dancers we know
of who
still can't tell us what their ministries do - or indeed what they
are doing
there!
Zimbabwe does not have the greenback or the euro
but it has
loads of minerals, Vice-President Joice Mujuru said during her
trip to China
last week.
"We have some people perceiving
Zimbabwe as a very poor
country," Mujuru was quoted in the Press as saying
on Monday. "Yes we do not
have the greenback or the euro but we have
minerals in abundance. We have
more than 600 minerals in my
country."
There were glaring omissions in this rendition.
Mujuru forgot to
tell the Chinese that Zimbabwe is not a poor country
because inflation is 1
200%, interest rates are more than 500%, more than
half the people live on
less than US$1 a day, the economy has shrunk by more
than 40% in real terms
and government debt is $22 trillion. That is a
picture of the rich Zimbabwe
the Chinese need to know.
On
a point of advice, the 600 minerals in Zimbabwe (where did
she get this
figure?) do not suddenly make us rich as long as they are not
exploited for
the benefit of the populace. Minerals still embedded in the
belly of the
Earth are dead capital. They are capital dead as a dodo just
like
underutilised land. Does she know that the DRC, because of its land
mass and
minerals, has the potential to feed the whole of Southern Africa
but its
people are some of the poorest in the world?
The only
consolation for her though - in case she had not
noticed - is that Zimbabwe
now has its own greenback, albeit a bit
jaundiced. Let's look out for the
next production from the central bank. Our
own euro
beckons.
Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo wants
everyone to
believe Sekesai Makwavarara is doing such a sterling job that
her stay at
Town House needs extending for another six
months.
Chombo reveals arrant contempt of Harare ratepayers'
quest for
an elected administration and a perilous what-can-they-do-to-us
attitude.
The problems with such indeterminate arrangements
are that they
become so entrenched that distinguishing competency and
ineptitude become
extremely hard to accomplish.
Who
knows? The Commission might outlive elected councils to show
how Zanu PF has
completely abandoned the principle of one-man-one vote and
usurped the
people's right to choose.
What criteria did Chombo use to
judge Makwavarara's
incompetence?
He was pleased, we are
told, with the work done by the
Commission as "it achieved targets set for
it".
Really?
One has to literally look for
a needle in a haystack to see
which targets the Commission
met.
He wishfully mentioned the increased visibility of the
city in
areas such as road maintenance, street and traffic lights
management,
improved refuse collection as proof.
Does the
minister live in Harare? If so, which city is he
talking about? Or is he
moving around the city hidden under Sekesai's
skirts? Little wonder he sees
light at the end of the tunnel!
If collusion in executing
Operation Murambatsvina - carried out
with a warped mentality reminiscent of
colonial laws that banished natives
to tribal trust lands - is one of the
criteria, no one would doubt the
Commission's surreal
competency.
Perhaps Makwavarara and her fellow commissioners'
quick uptake
in parroting their handlers' flair for living off the sweat of
others got
them above average marks.
And how a whole
government could sit down and decide to set
targets for a body to surpass
its predecessors in mismanaging ratepayer's
lives boggles even the simplest
of minds.
Chombo has the gall to tell everyone that elections
cannot be
held in Harare due to an outstanding issue of the province's
boundaries that
need to be addressed.
Surely a little
help from Patrick Chinamasa would save him the
trouble.
Chinamasa was able to collapse 100 constituency boundaries into
60 in no
time at all and without breaking any sweat.
Without saying
so, Chombo showed the catatonic fear in the
ruling Zanu PF of losing
democratic elections in Harare if his ministry
dared take the
risk.
Otherwise, how else would one explain Chombo describing
the
Commission as having done a sterling job?
Fear of
an unfettered press does not come cheap judging by the
extreme lengths
Tafataona Mahoso goes to dredge up irrelevant doses of
trivia to reinforce
his paranoid thoughts in his turgid weekly "African
Focus"
column.
Now we are told there is media terror against the
people of
Zimbabwe. This involves newspapers telling people how deprived
they are of
basic necessities such as food, fuel and how a government
comprising former
liberation movement mandarins has messed up their
lives.
Forget about the "War on Terror" in the run-up to the
2000
elections. The disingenuous plagiary of the American version flopped
convincingly.
A new campaign, we are told, is a subtler
mode of terrorising
Zimbabweans, courtesy of the media "to condemn and
abandon the reclamation
of African land stolen by white
settlers".
Mahoso fails to appreciate the obvious fact that
there are still
land-short peasants scraping out a living along hill slopes
and on rocky
infertile grounds nationwide despite government "reclaiming
African land
stolen by the whites".
A new breed of
revolutionaries can safely claim to have
successfully re-stolen that
land.
Mahoso gets entangled when he says the imperialist
media tells
readers of "a brutal former liberation movement in power
that
would abuse the people, disregard and annul the constitution
and
use any and all means to cling to power".
Sounds like
an accurate summary to us! But we had a good chuckle
over the claim that the
government held free elections, respected the
judiciary and obeyed court
orders. Since when, this single-minded apologist
should be
asked?
Predictably, he exonerates Zanu PF of any such
misdeeds and
instead flays the opposition for disregarding the constitution
and rejecting
election results .
How an opposition can
"consistently hold free and fair general
elections" escapes us. And is the
opposition in charge of food and power
supplies?
Surely
it's the government of the day that does that.
But it would
be unreasonable to expect anything rational from
such a fevered brow. Mahoso
claims Anna Tibaijuka's "inflated numbers of
uprooted refugees" is
attributable to "the violence, the evil, the
brutality and
genocide which the terror press has always
imagined and reported to be
happening in Zimbabwe".
Whatever he's been smoking it's time
to quit!
Muckraker again had a good chuckle over an AFP
story on the new
football language invented by two teenagers to bring
universality to the
world's biggest sport. In their book Socceranto: Birth
of a language, they
include: a Maradona, a goal scored by a hand, a Pele, a
bicycle kick, and a
Ronaldinho, a no-look pass. Can we propose an addition
to this dictionary: a
Benjani for a person who can't score from five
yards.
Has anybody been following the delusional scheme
to transform
Beitbridge into a world-class city? If the government is
sincere about this
project why can't it relieve some of the stress
travellers have to go
through when returning to the
country?
On May 31, we are told, there was one lady manning
the Zimra
counter to collect $300 000 road tax.
The queue
went back for several hundred metres, we gather. She
was writing out
receipts in long-hand.
As a result it was taking
people
three hours to reach her.
And then there
are the touts who move around unmolested by
officialdom.
A world-class border post requires some basic organisation. The
Ministry of
Finance should be involved. But we haven't heard from them for
years!
Finally, we loved the following from a Sunday
News interview
with Masvingo governor Willard Chiwewe.
Q:
"As a former civil servant what experience did you bring to
the
administration of Masvingo province?"
A: "Well, I do not know
either."
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
THE National
Economic Development Priority Programme (NEDPP)
very correctly gives some
recognition to the critical importance of Zimbabwe
having an economically
conducive infrastructure, albeit that NEDPP does not
necessarily acknowledge
the very extent to which the existing infrastructure
has degenerated, has
become decrepit and ineffective, and grievously hinders
existing economic
activity, let alone economic growth.
Only the intentionally
obtuse and myopic will deny that the
magnitude of the deterioration in
energy supply services, water delivery,
telecommunications, roads, airport
facilities, and much else, is gargantuan,
causing immense disruptions to the
economy, deterrents to investment (both
domestic and foreign), and great
discomforts and frustrations to the
population at large.
The frustrations have been very considerably exacerbated by the
fact that
all have been very conscious and aware, for an extended period of
time, that
much of the Zimbabwean infrastructure was progressively becoming
less and
less effectual, and that the prospects of cataclysmic collapse were
rapidly
intensifying.
The demoralisation and the distresses have
become greater and
greater as the populace increasingly perceived gross
inactivity on the part
of many of the authorities to acknowledge adequately
the realities of the
circumstances, and on the strength of such
acknowledgement to address the
issues, prevent further decline, restore the
infrastructural resources, and
then develop them sufficiently to meet
national needs.
Probably foremost in the minds of many is the
pronounced
inadequacy of energy supply. For some years it has been publicly
recognised
that by 2007 the southern African region would be confronted with
an
insufficiency of energy supplies as demand increased. However, save for
much
talk, very little appears to have been done to pre-empt such
catastrophic
circumstances, with the only major exception being that
Mozambique has
decided to embark upon another major hydro-electric scheme on
the Zambezi.
Downstream of Cahorra Bassa, Mozambique has sourced the
required funding
from the Chinese Export-Import Bank, and is vigorously
pursuing the project.
However, the earliest that it will be
generating power is 2010!
Zimbabwe has talked extensively of
refurbishing and enhancing
its thermal power stations, of a possible new
thermal power station fuelled
by Sangwa coal, and of enhancement of Kariba's
electricity generation but as
yet, there is naught to be seen of the talk.
Instead, the existing, rapidly
ageing, inadequately maintained, electricity
generation facilities, and the
national distribution grid, has become less
and less able to meet national
needs. The result is a combination of very
pronounced, scheduled
load-shedding and extremely frequent power supply
breakdowns in consequence
of innumerable faults.
Industry, commerce, mining, tourism and residential areas have
all been very
seriously impacted upon. Some have resorted to installation of
generators,
thereby increasing further the demand for limited availability
of petroleum
products. Most have had to suffer the consequences of costly
production
interruptions and domestic discomforts.
The immense courtesy
and attentiveness of those who man Zesa's
telephonic services of faults are,
unfortunately, not matched by
commensurate actions to upgrade appropriately
the electricity network. And
until that occurs, not only will the
discomforts continue (and probably
intensify), but investors will continue
to have great reservations as to the
merits of
investment.
Similar circumstances characterise the production
and supply of
coal. So appallingly limited is the present capacity of Hwange
Colliery
Company to meet national needs that more and more industries are
having to
resort, in desperation, to using scarce foreign exchange resources
in order
to import coal.
Zimbabwe has the largest
deposits of quality coal in sub-Saharan
Africa, and yet it is reduced to
importing ever-increasing volumes of coal
in order to keep industrial
boilers operational. Incongruous and untenable
in the
extreme!
Telecommunication services are yet another major
hindrance to
the effective functioning of the economy. Whether resorting to
land-line
services, or to any of the mobile networks, there is an ongoing
aggravation,
and very considerable constraint upon economic activity, of
endless signals
stating "network busy", matched only by the frequency that
calls are
suddenly terminated by losses of signal, followed by endless
attempts to
reconnect and a multiplicity of calls to complete one
conversation resulting
in massive cost escalations highly beneficial to the
"providers" of the
telephonic services, but a significant, excessive
overhead burden for the
consumers.
Many of Zimbabwe's
major cities and towns now suffer erratic
supply of water or rationing, and
almost all of them have road networks
which are fast becoming horrendous
obstacle courses of gigantic pot-holes,
absence of road markings,
disappearance of road signs and street
name-boards, and inoperable traffic
lights and equally non-functioning
street lighting. In a great number of
those cities and towns, refuse removal
has become increasingly infrequent,
jeopardising health and despoiling the
appearance of the urban
areas.
NEDPP proposes to address these critical issues by
diverse
stratagems. In some instances it envisages privatisation (wholly or
partially) of parastatals, both in order to access capital and foreign
exchange, and in order to achieve technological advances and synergistic
benefits from entry into what is euphemistically described as "strategic
partnerships".
The declared intents have generally been
received by the private
sector as positive, but nevertheless with some
considerable scepticism, for
government's track record of progressing
privatisation is not impressive.
Although privatisation has been an element
of the last five economic
development or recovery programmes, there has been
only one time when its
was progressed with any conviction, when government
very successfully
privatised Dairibord, Rainbow Tourism Group, Zimbabwe
Reinsurance Company
and Cottco, among a few other
parastatals.
Few governments in the world have ever run
commercial
enterprises with any great and continuing success, whilst most
privatisations in Europe, USA, South Africa and elsewhere have been very
successful. Zimbabwe now needs to replace words with deeds, with
prioritisation of privatisation being targeted at Zesa, the National
Railways of Zimbabwe, Air Zimbabwe, Cold Storage Company, Grain Marketing
Board, Tel*One, Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ) and
Zimpost.
Government will be released of innumerable
millstones, whilst
the country will benefit from the motivation of investors
to ensure
investment viability through maximised productivity and
efficiency,
customer-care, sound management, technological upgrades and much
else.
NEDPP also envisages resorting to Build, Operate and
Transfer
(Bot), and Build, Operate, Own and Transfer (Boot) projects to
ensure
development of the infrastructure. This is to be commended, provided
that
the intents become realities, for such projects can provide both
funding and
the technologies not available to the impoverished Zimbabwean
government and
its many near-insolvent parastatals.
Arising out of previous economic programmes, government
established the
Privatisation Agency of Zimbabwe (now defunct) which did a
lot of
constructive work, only to witness its masters disregarding all that
was
done.
This time Zimbabwe must be prepared to follow through
on
declared intentions, failing which the infrastructural decline will
continue, and will be a major contributant to total economic collapse.
Zim Independent
Comment
"I TOOK over the
chairmanship of (ZBC) when wolves were at the
door as the corporation was
living from hand to mouth while the image of the
corporation in the eyes of
the stakeholders was negative.When I left, we had
a very clear vision that
would have made ZBC the pride of the nation."
Gideon Gono in
September last year gave this spirited defence of
his role in the unbundling
of the former Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation
(ZBC) into nine business
units. Gono, who is central bank governor, was at
the time of the
unbundling, chairman of ZBC.
Under his stewardship, ZBC was
then diced into companies which
included Newsnet, Zimbabwe Television,
Sportsnet, Kidznet, Power FM, SFM,
National FM and Radio
Zimbabwe.
In most of the entities, the vision to create
world-class
institutions failed to go beyond just naming them. The entities
were
perennially broke to the extent of failing to pay
wages.
While Gono was confident the scheme would work, we
pointed out
at the time that it was bound to be a monumental failure as long
as the
holding company and its subsidiaries continued to be Zanu PF pet
projects
ran on partisan and not commercial lines. The project was doomed
from the
start and the results of that still-birth were revealed this week
when
Information minister Tichaona Jokonya decided to "restructure" the
entities
into two companies: Zimbabwe Radio Services and Zimbabwe Television
Services
under Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH).
As
in the last restructuring exercise, the results are expected
to be
devastating for media workers, dozens of whom will be shunted aside in
this
inflationary environment when terminal benefits become worthless almost
overnight.
Whatever government is trying to achieve now
at the state
broadcaster, the results are predictable. It is bound to fail
as long as it
maintains a stranglehold on the electronic media. The
knee-jerk reaction by
the ministry then under Jonathan Moyo to enact laws
guaranteeing the state
hegemony in the electronic media and the formation of
a myriad of successor
companies had nothing to do with creating a more
efficient electronic media
in the country - as Gono then wanted us to
believe. It was a project
designed to entrench Zanu PF's ideals. Advertisers
seeing no value in
associating with partisan programming turned to other
media.
The plan this time around could see a leaner
broadcasting
edifice for the same purpose: to churn out propaganda on behalf
of the
state. Jokonya would surely be happy to see the broadcaster taking
this
position judging by his recent statements on the need to protect the
name
and person of the president and to shield the country from attacks by
"traitors" and "unpatriotic media". That means the state is not prepared at
the moment to give up control of the media.
But Jokonya
knows what needs to be done. At the AU
communications ministers' conference
he attended in Addis Ababa last week,
to discuss among other issues the
setting up of continental radio stations,
the issue of private sector
involvement came up and was taken on board.
Is it not ironic
then that Jokonya announced to the nation this
week that "governments must
pay for the project but we would also like the
private sector to be involved
in the project", while he is putting in
measures to ensure the state
tightens its stranglehold on the media?
He should not expect
private companies to readily jump on board
this project when they are being
shut out from participating in the
broadcast media in their respective
countries.
The government is going back on its promise to
ensure there is
private investment in state enterprises by first unbundling
the parastatals
to create the opportunities for new capital. We are now
seeing that this was
never our government's intention.
The whole exercise of unbundling of state enterprises was
ill-thought-out
because there were no support structures to make the
successor companies
viable, there was no capital injection, and, more
seriously, there was no
plan. The government's reversal of the unbundling of
Zesa last month is
another illustration of this maladroit effort.
Jokonya in
announcing the "rebundling" of ZBH this week berated
Moyo for creating nine
companies without putting any money into them. We
wait to see how Jokonya
will make the state broadcaster a profitable entity
and a propaganda tool at
the same time.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Dumisani Muleya
POLITICIANS are generally an optimistic lot. No matter how bad
the
situation, they always put on a brave face and hope like the proverbial
Mr
Micawber in Charles Dickens' novel David Copperfield that something
better
will turn up.
For those who may not have read Dickens's book,
Wilkins Micawber
was modelled on a person introduced to Dickens by his
younger brother Alfred
Lambert.
Micawber's name has
become synonymous with someone who lives in
hopeful
expectation.
This is certainly the case with President Robert
Mugabe and his
ministers these days. As Mugabe and his entourage face the
political exit
doors, they have become like Mr Micawber who always hoped -
against hope -
that something rewarding would
materialise.
They have no clue about how to sort out the
current economic
crisis but are evidently hoping things will change! This is
why over the
past couple of weeks we have been bombarded with propaganda
that the economy
will soon recover under the National Economic Development
Priority Programme
(NEDPP) despite evidence of a worsening
meltdown.
Evidence abounds to show that the current situation
is getting
worse and will deteriorate further until there are fundamental
political and
economic reforms.
The political
superstructure and the economic base are crumbling
under the weight of
extended periods of misrule. Inflation is 1 193% and
rising. Interest rates
are skyrocketing and volatile, while the exchange
rate is falling as the
local currency continues to crash against base
currencies. Unemployment and
poverty are also deepening. There are just too
many problems in Zimbabwe now
and nothing at all to show - even to leaders
who may want have a Mr Micawber
syndrome - that the economy is on the mend.
Yet we continue
to be told by government that the situation is
not all that bad and NEDPP
will soon make things all right. There is even a
denial of the current
crisis by Mugabe's incompetent spin-doctors. The
government-controlled media
recently put on a brave show trying to market a
daft spin that inflation
does not really matter because it's just
statistics.
In
this art of dissembling, we are not told why authorities
think the NEDPP
will suffer a different fate from other failed similar
programmes such as
the Millennium Economic Recovery Plan, New
Economic Recovery
Plan, Ten-Point Plan, National
Economic Recovery Plan and all
other such programmes.
The hard-sell propaganda is pervasive
although it is very
disjointed and incoherent. Mugabe last week told
Beitbridge residents that
their situation will now improve under NEDPP
because massive development
projects were underway.
Vice-President Joice Mujuru spent the whole of last week in
far-flung China
hawking Zimbabwe's minerals resources which she suggested
are now the bait
to raise funds for such programmes as NEDPP. Mujuru said
Zimbabwe was not
"very poor" because it has more than 600 precious minerals.
This can't be good reason to be optimistic. Minerals which are
not mined or
which are not benefiting the people - as is the case now - are
just as
useless as those that are non-existent.
Mugabe and his
officials are in denial and have sought to bury
their heads in the sand
hoping the crisis will go away. They use rhetoric to
pretend the situation
is okay. From defining policy, to policy
implementation, to trying to hide
certain policy decisions or actions, the
regime is clearly locked in denial
and looks off-message all the time. But
it continues to raise false hopes of
recovery.
Instead of embarking on serious reforms, Mugabe and
other
like-minded old-school politicians seem to rather think demagoguery -
spin-doctoring - will change things.
Taking advantage of
their unlimited access to the state media,
Zanu PF politicians are taking a
spin at the media wheel. They seem to be
trying hard to outdo each other in
misleading the people that they will fix
the economy and in the process
perform political theatrics to get hitched to
television stations and be
quoted in newspapers at home and abroad.
But underneath the
sludge of rhetoric that things will be okay,
they betray desperation and
suppressed fear that the centre is now
collapsing. Listen to Mugabe speaking
and the tinge of anger and extreme
anxiety always escapes him. The same
applies to his ministers.
While they pretend to be on top of
the situation, reality always
surfaces to show they are running scared. Idle
talk and reveries about
economic recovery will not help anything. A Mr
Micawber syndrome cannot be a
solution.
Let's press for polls in
Harare
THE Commission running the City of Harare is using
blatanly
extortionate tactics to fund its excesses, a bahaviour which
portrays its
lack of respect for the citizens of the
city.
I am a part-time caretaker of a residence whose owner
is away.
Prior to her departure in April she paid $10 million
at the
local offices which ensured some credit.
A month
later she received a bill for more than $6,5 million (ie
two months rates
and water consumption). On contacting Rowan Martin offices
to enquire about
the payment she had made, she was told that communication
between local
offices and theirs was "slow".
The following month the bill
had reached $13,5 million with
still no credit for the amount
paid.
The owner, whose departure was now imminent, became so
terrified
of the water being cut off that she wrote out a cheque for this
amount to
the vampirish City of Harare treasury department taking her total
payment to
$23 million.
A few days later while I was at
work council workmen gained
access to the property and disconnected our
water supplies.
I would like to inform the City of Harare
that I became the
proud caretaker of a big bobbejaan spanner which I used to
regain our
rightful access to water. It could also prove useful in future at
the gate
to defend the rights of the owner!
Who can fail
to be offended by the opportunistic scavenging that
we face from the
unelected officials at Town House - those who we pay to
provide services for
our social well-being?
We who pay our bills timeously are
instead punished and
portrayed as bad debtors through the incompetence of
the treasurer's
department. Let us lobby for democratic elections and get
rid of these
incompetent men and women.
R
Gunner,
Mount Pleasant, Harare.
----------
Shut up and seek guidance,
Coltart!
THE Bulawayo South legislator, David Coltart,
has actually
been lying when he said he was a neutral party in the MDC split
saga.
Coltart belongs to the pro-senate MDC faction led
by
Arthur Mutambara.
He was being hypocritical by
pretending to be neutral. I
have been closely following and analysing his
comments about the situation
prevailing in the MDC, and concluded that he
was biased and sympathetic
towards the Mutambara
faction.
From his comments in which he has labelled the
Tsvangirai-led MDC violent and dictatorial, one did not need to be a rocket
scientist or professor of robotics to tell which side of the fence Coltart
belonged to, or what he was trying to achieve.
Coltart has continued to use the pro-senate propaganda
that the anti-senate
faction is violent and dictatorial. Since he assumed
his role of
self-appointed referee, I have not heard him speak ill about the
Mutambara
faction.
We have heard about the ills in the pro-senate
faction
only from those who have abandoned it, and not from those claiming
to be
neutral like Coltart.
Coltart, like the rest
in the Mutambara faction, is
refusing to accept the reality that the
Tsvangirai-led faction has the
majority of MDC supporters in Zimbabwe and
abroad.
The pro-senate faction
under-
plays the large support the Tsvangirai faction has
from
its full-house rallies as irrelevant. In fact, they have attempted to
liken
this support to the rented crowds we witness at Zanu PF
rallies.
This is an insult to the intelligence of the
majority of
supporters as it is an approval of the anti-senate's position
regarding the
senatorial election and the overall conduct of the faction
since the split.
The people following Tsvangirai are no
fools and they know
what they want. They have their democratic right to
choose which faction to
back.
Coltart should keep
quiet and stop seeing himself as the
most reasonable voice in the
MDC.
He should go back to his constituency and seek
guidance
regarding the position to take in this MDC split from his
constituents.
Sir Tapera,
Harare.
----------
Kawondera accident: an
eyewitness account
I AM a keen reader of your paper but
I was rather taken
aback by one of your reports headed "Kawondera critically
injures man in
accident", (Zimbabwe Independent, June 16), by Enock
Muchinjo.
While the fact that Kawondera did indeed
injure the young
man on the said day, the report had so many inaccuracies
that set me
thinking; if a renowned paper like this could print so many
untruths in just
one small article, are we to believe anything else that it
carries?
I happened to be present when the incident
occurred. In
fact, I was less than 10 metres away when the whole drama
unfolded.
* First, the incident occurred in the
morning, around 8am
not 8pm;
* The incident did not
occur at a nightclub but at a
bottle store (paGwekwete, Unit L to be
exact);
* Kawondera was never beaten up. He actually
ferried the
injured young man to hospital;
* The
whole Unit L complex comprising bottle stores and
nightclubs (even
supermarkets) do not employ security guards, and where the
alleged security
guards who rescued Kawondera came from is a mystery;
*
What I know is that supermarkets at the complex only
employ shop attendants
who check for reciepts. If this is what Muchinjo
calls security guards then
we need to give a definition of what a security
guard really
is;
* Kawondera did not take off at high speed. I even
wonder
myself how he could have failed to stop the car in time. It was
obvious
Kawondera was drunk. It took him more than 30 minutes to find where
he had
placed his car keys;
* The young man did not
jump onto the bonnet. He was
actually sitting on the bonnet. When the car
started moving, he actually
shouted in joy, shaking his green bottle in
celebration. I don't know
whether in his inebriated state Kawondera saw the
guy or not. When he
applied his brakes after going for less than 10 metres,
the guy fell off. It
beats me how and why he failed to stop because the
distance between where
the car started moving (opposite Gwekwete) and where
the guy fell off
(opposite Katanga) is so short that one could not have
taken off at high
speed without crashing into something. The place is
literally littered with
cars parked there overnight and it was teeming with
shoppers at that time of
the day. You could double check this
yourselves.
I pray that the young man recovers, and
that Kawondera
learns a thing from this
incident.
Museve,
Chitungwiza.
-----------
Batoka Gorge should come first
YOU rightly
conclude that our wish list of
infrastuctural projects on the drawing board
are beyond our means whilst we
are a pariah state "Yet another ruse by
failed politicians", (Zimbabwe
Independent, June
16).
However, when we are able to proceed in
tackling our
serious shortage of electricity generation, I trust that we
will not fall
into the trap of expanding generation capacity at Kariba
before building
Batoka Gorge upstream because this is a "cheaper"
option.
Batoka Gorge will first allow us to run
Kariba and
Batoka conjunctively to best advantage. Batoka as a "run of
river"
hydroelectric dam will generate base load power while Kariba can
store water
for peak power generation.
Extra
generating capacity at Kariba will be sensible
to handle peak demand
decisively. Incidentally, Cabora Bassa similarly
should also be run
conjunctively with Kariba (and Batoka when
built).
Chris
Molam,
Harare.
--------
No relenting on fight for new
constitution
THERE is a serious need for Zimbabwe
to consider the
need for a new constitution as a way of rebuilding the
nation.
Zimbabwe is now in a serious dilemma
emanating from
flawed laws that are being used by the present government to
deny Zimbabwean
citizens their basic rights. The government continuously
uses the Lancaster
House constitution to run controversial elections through
the use of a
partisan electoral body - the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
(ZEC).
During the 2005 parliamentary election,
the ZEC
failed to give convincing explanations in relation to the
discrepancies
between the announced results over the radio and those at
their command
centre.
Flawed elections have
contributed to the legitimacy
crisis of the present government and have
caused the international isolation
of Zimbabwe. Our economic woes are
directly caused by the lack of sound
economic policies to address the
ever-escalating inflation.
Prices of basic
commodities have slipped beyond the
reach of ordinary Zimbabweans who are
struggling to make ends meet. We are
faced with a situation where the
unemployment rate is over 80% yet the
income of more than three quarters of
those employed is far less than the
poverty datum line estimated at $52,5
million.
A new people-driven constitution will
guarantee
Zimbabweans an accountable government that is responsive to their
plight.
The current efforts by the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
need
unwavering support from all stakeholders to push the government to
agree to
constitutional reforms.
The NCA
annual general meeting held on May 27
resolved that there is a need to put
pressure on the government through mass
demonstrations. The civic society
has a task to mobilise the masses to rally
behind the cause for a new
constitution.
There is also a need for political
parties to work
together with civic society, students, churches and labour
to come up with a
working document that will be used as a rallying point
towards
constitutional reforms. Such a document can give priority to the
NCA-proposed draft and the 2000 rejected government
proposal.
Currently, the NCA is collaborating
with all those
who are cognisant of the urgent desire for the nation to have
a new
people-driven constitution. These stakeholders include Zimbabweans in
the
diaspora, the churches, students, labour unions and political parties.
The
NCA urges all Zimbabweans to demand a new constitution without fear of
victimisation by the current regime. As the NCA, we are determined to fight
for a new constitution through protracted mass street
protests.
The NCA believes that the power of the
people comes
first before the wishes of a minority egocentric political
leadership that
we witness today. It is however sad to note that whilst all
progressive
pro-democratic forces are advancing towards getting a new
democratic
constitution, some unruly elements without direction seem to have
been
bought by the government to derail the people's
efforts.
The NCA would like to urge those who
frequent the
media for the sole purpose of undermining the mandate of the
assembly to
instead offer pragmatic ways of urgently getting a democratic
constitution.
As the NCA, we remain resolute in
our agenda for a
new constitution and Zimbabweans should not take seriously
individuals bent
on diverting efforts of the masses towards achieving this
goal.
Madock
Chivasa,
NCA spokesperson.
---------
There are black racists
too!
My white grandniece went for her driving
test in
Harare recently.
During the test the
examiner had another black young
lady, also waiting to take her test,
accompany them in the back seat.
At some point
there was a brief conversation in
Shona, which my niece did not understand,
but at the end of the test the
black lady told my niece that the examiner
had said he always fails varungu
(whites) first time because "they have the
money" .
I wonder...is this the policy of the
whole Driving
Licence Examining Body?
Also in
Zimbabwe does the word "racist" only apply
to
whites?
Puzzled,
Mandara.
--------
Dedicate Sunday to the
suffering
IN a world in which torture is an
everyday
occurrence, the United Nations has set aside one day, June 26 each
year, as
their day in support of victims of
torture.
In Bulawayo in recent years, victims of
torture and
organised violence have been offered the sanctity of the church
in which to
testify, so that others may stand side by side with them and
share their
tales of horror. The current government has been responsible for
tens of
thousands of human rights abuses, including more than 10 000 murders
of
unarmed civilians in Matabeleland in the 1980s, and most recently, the
illegal and heartless evictions known as Operation Murambatsvina, which the
UN itself estimates affected over two million
people.
School children are out of school and go
to bed
hungry in this cold winter because their parents have been driven
into
poverty.
Last week also saw the
commemoration of World
Refugee Day. Again, this day has become one that
resonates for Zimbabweans.
The government itself acknowledges that its
profligate policies have driven
more than two million fellow Zimbabweans out
into the international
wilderness, where they live in great hardship, suffer
discrimination as
makwerekweres and exploitation as
illegals.
It is therefore with a heavy heart that
I react to
the fact that church services will this weekend be held, not in
solidarity
with torture victims and refugees, but in the presence of their
perpetrators.
The church should be a refuge
and a safe haven for
those who have been tortured and abandoned. It is this
government that
continues to torture and abuse people, and to give impunity
to those
responsible. This government has no heart for the suffering of its
people,
and church leadership should be aware that to join in solidarity
with those
who have caused such great suffering leaves many victims feeling
betrayed.
It is not for President Mugabe to
recommit this
country to God, as is being suggested by some church
leadership. God will
judge on an individual basis, who is and who is not
committed to Him; God
will judge us all by our actions and not by our
words.
Those church leaders standing with the
president at
this time, argue that dialogue is necessary for progress and a
return to
normality in Zimbabwe.
But this
government has given no indication of a
willingness to engage in real
dialogue. Church leaders nationally and
internationally and African heads of
state have been trying to talk
meaningfully with this government for years.
Church leadership should be
very cautious therefore in sharing a platform
with perpetrators who so far
have made no concessions and no confessions to
their people. They may
sacrifice their own credibility for no
return.
Here I would like to quote Pope John Paul
II who
reminded us in a message on the World Day of Peace, January 26,
1997:
"Forgiveness, far from precluding the
truth,
actually requires it. The evil which has been done must be
acknowledged and
as far as possible corrected.. Another essential
prerequisite for
forgiveness and reconciliation is justice, which finds its
ultimate
foundation in the law of God.Forgiveness neither eliminates nor
lessens the
need for reparation which justice requires, but seeks to
reintegrate
individuals and groups into society, and states into the
community of
nations."
In my belief, there is
a need for the leadership of
this country to admit the full and honest truth
of the crimes it has
committed against its fellow Zimbabweans, to be
subjected to a process of
justice for these crimes and those who have
suffered must have reparation
for their losses. Only then can Zimbabwe as a
nation begin the process of
reconciliation with the past and look to a
brighter future blessed by God.
I appeal to those
church leaders who feel as I do,
to dedicate their Sunday services this
weekend to the suffering of the
hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans left
homeless a year ago by the
heartless and illegal actions of this government
- and to all the others who
have suffered cruelty and death at their hands
through the decades.
Archbishop Pius Alec
Ncube,
Bulawayo.