New Zimbabwe
By Lebo
Nkatazo
Last updated: 03/06/2006 11:21:21
ZIMBABWE'S Finance Minister and
the governor of the country's central bank
are reportedly in the United
States of America, despite a travel ban imposed
by President George Bush
last November, and renewed recently.
Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa and
Reserve Bank boss Gideon Gono left
Zimbabwe Sunday for a meeting with IMF
officials, AFP reported.
President Bush signed an executive order last
November freezing the U.S.
assets of 128 people and 33 institutions in
Zimbabwe. This expanded an
original list of 77 people, including President
Mugabe, whose assets were
frozen in 2003.
Those on the list -- which
includes Gono and Murerwa -- are also barred from
travel in the United
States except to United Nations functions.
In a speech delivered just
last week, Bush said those on the US list were
persons: "contributing to the
deliberate breakdown in the rule of law in
Zimbabwe".
No comment was
immediately available from the US embassy in Zimbabwe Sunday
night, but the
trip will likely weaken the impact of US sanctions against
President
Mugabe's government.
The IMF executive board meets on Wednesday to review
Zimbabwe's arrears to
the Fund.
Zimbabwe is likely to ask the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) for
financial assistance, Murerwa told AFP
on Sunday.
Murerwa said: "Although our voting rights have now been
restored we need
technical assistance and financial assistance.
"We
know this will not be automatically restored but this is something we
hope
to negotiate... We will be meeting the board on Wednesday."
Zimbabwe
survived the IMF axe last month after it settled its General
Resources
Account (GRA) when it made a $9m (?7.4m) payment which helped the
southern
African nation retain its membership of the IMF.
The body had threatened
to expel Zimbabwe from its ranks for failing to pay
back loans since 2001
but the southern African country managed to bounce
back after making a
series of surprise payments since last September.
Zimbabwe is in the
throes of economic crisis characterised by runaway
inflation, soaring
poverty levels, an unemployment rate hovering at over 70%
and chronic
shortages of fuel and basic goods like cornmeal.
However, despite the
settling of the GRA, Harare still owes the IMF's
Poverty Reduction and
Growth Facility (PGRF) account another $119m (?99m).
Murerwa said: "We
still have to settle the PGRF bill to enable us to get
funding from the
IMF.
"We will pay it in due course and all other debts we owe," he added
but
declined to say when.
Business Report
March 6,
2006
Zimbabwe would ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for
financial
assistance at a meeting in Washington this week, finance minister
Herbert
Murerwa said yesterday.
"Although our voting rights have now
been restored, we need technical
assistance and financial assistance," the
minister said.
Zimbabwe survived the IMF axe after it settled its
general resources account
when it made a US$9 million (R55 million) payment.
- Sapa-AFP, Harare
USA Today
HARARE, Zimbabwe
(AP) - Foreign hunters bid a total of $1.5 million to shoot
leopards, lions,
elephants and buffaloes in Zimbabwe this year, state media
reported
Sunday.
In an annual state trophy hunting permit sale Friday, 64 local agents
and
foreign hunters, including bidders from Austria, Germany, Russia, Spain
and
the United States, paid $40 each to kill a lion, the state Sunday Mail
newspaper reported.
Bidding for permission to hunt an elephant
exceeded $20,000 per animal.
The season for hunting in selected areas
runs from May to October.
The state Parks and Wildlife Management
Authority said the hunting revenues
were to be used in conservation programs
across the country, the government
newspaper said.
Illegal hunting by
corrupt officials, military officers and their foreign
guests increased in
many rural areas after the chaotic, often-violent
seizures of thousands of
white-owned commercial farms began in 2000.
In the worst economic crisis
since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe is
suffering acute food shortages, and
poaching of animals for meat has also
risen, conservationists
say.
Zimbabwe says that rural areas are overpopulated by elephants that
cause
environmental damage and destroy crops.
Elephants killed at 12
least people in Zimbabwe last year, mostly by
charging and trampling
villagers trying to protect their crops.
Lions were reported to have
killed 17 cattle belonging to a traditional
leader in western Zimbabwe in
November, but there were no fatal attacks on
humans.
Crocodiles, the
most dangerous species to man in Zimbabwe, dragged away and
ate 13 people -
including children fishing and playing at river banks -
according to the
Communal Areas Management Program, a conservation group.
The Star
March 6, 2006
As a black Zimbabwean, I find the comments of your
American
correspondent, Ceddie Goliati, patronising if not
offensive.
He makes the ridiculous allegation that the Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) believed that black Zimbabweans preferred to be
farmworkers
rather than farmowners!
What nonsense! Today there
is no food in Zimbabwe because the
so-called black farmowners don't know
what to do with their newly acquired
real estate. Most of it is actually
reverting back to wild bush.
"The MDC were said to believe that
Zimbabwe is now worse off than it
was under Ian Smith." That is a fact.
Consider the following:
A dollar buys Zim$100 000. Can that be a
success story?
The unemployment rate is 80%. If that were to happen
in the US, I am
sure the president would be executed for dereliction of
duty. Yet in Africa,
we are expected to applaud the catastrophic
failure.
Inflation in Zimbabwe is about 1 000%. A new world record
I presume?
According to the UN, almost 6-million people (about half
the
population) will need food aid this year.
And by the way,
about 3-million Zimbabweans have fled the country
because of the bleak
economic outlook.
The biggest problem with Mr Goliati's
so-called "intelligent
independent African analysts" (whatever that means)
is that they blame
everybody but themselves.
Zimbabwe became
independent 25 years ago and Mugabe has been leader
all this time, while the
country was rotting away. What did he do to stop
the rot? Nothing but to
blame everyone (Bush, Blair, white farmers, etc .)
Never for one day did he
accept that he probably made some mistakes. Is this
not
madness?
Now here comes Professor Arthur Mutambara: "While we put
the failure
of the land reform programme, squarely on the Zanu-PF
government, we also
acknowledge the complicity of some western governments
that reneged
agreements and the inertia of white farmers in seeking
pre-emptive
solutions ."
What is going on here? Why are we
blaming everyone else? Is 25 years
not enough to put our house in order? Why
did we fight for independence if
we can't hold ourselves
accountable?
It took a rocket scientist to get Zim problem right?
The rocket
scientist got it completely wrong this time. The problem of Zim
is within
Zim itself not outside, Mr Goliati.
Chakanetsa
Magusha
Botleng, Delmas
Zim Daily
Monday, March 06 2006 @ 12:05 AM GMT
Contributed by: correspondent
The country's investment
authority, Zimbabwe Investment Centre
(ZIC), has put the issuance of special
uranium licenses, which fervently
bullish foreign mining companies have
applied for, on ice following
instructions from government. ZIC officials
yesterday were evasive about
progress made so far by the parastatal in
issuing the licenses, which
attracted investors from Australia, Canada,
South Africa and Angola. "At the
moment the issue is still sensitive to
discuss, what I can tell you is that
government is working on it," said an
executive who declined to be named.
"As such Zimbabwe
Investment Center as an arm of the
International trade ministry has been
instructed to withhold any license
issuing because there are a lot of policy
and logistical complications that
need to be addressed." Economic analysts
yesterday said the delay in
licensing uranium miners especially from the
west was detrimental to efforts
to attract foreign direct investment (FDI)
into the country. Uranium mining
is associated with a plethora of positive
consequences ranging from
generating massive forex and employment creation.
President Robert Mugabe
last year announced that the country had discovered
rich uranium deposits
and would process it to beef up its chronic power
supply. Mugabe also said
the country would court foreign investors to tap
into the mineral.
Zimbabwe stands to reap heavy dividends
from the hefty
application and license fees associated with uranium whose
price continues
to firm on the global market due to competing use and its
versatile
properties, which among other things include being used as an
essential
ingredient in the manufacturing of nuclear
bombs.
In an unrelated development, the ruling Zanu PF party
wants to
use its Parliamentary majority to bulldoze through the House
despotic
legislation that will give President Robert Mugabe powers to
eavesdrop,
intercept mail, telephone conversations and any other electronic
telecommunications devices ostensibly because of the "clear and present
danger" from "imperialists."
The Supreme Court last year,
sitting as a full bench, declared
that the legal provision under the Posts
and Telecommunications Act (PTC)
giving Mugabe powers to snoop on e-mails
was unconstitutional. Zimdaily
heard that the ruling party resolved in its
recent cabinet meeting that it
would take advantage of its majority to bring
constitutional amendments that
will give it the powers to bug any form of
communication. Justice minister
Patrick Chinamasa and Security minister
Didymus Mutasa were said to have
lobbied strongly for the amendments that
will empower Mugabe to bug secret
communication even between
citizens.
The Supreme Court last year upheld contentions by
the Law
Society of Zimbabwe (LCZ), a grouping of lawyers who had filed the
constitutional application arguing that the presidential powers provided for
by the Posts and Telecommunication (PTC) Act violated section 20 of the
Constitution. The lawyers challenged section 98 and 103 of the PTC Act,
which gave the president powers to intercept mail, telephones, e-mail and
any other form of communication. The Act also gave powers to the president
to give any directions to a licensee requiring him or her to do or not to do
a particular specified action.
But Section 20 of the
Constitution provides for freedom of
expression, freedom to receive and
impart ideas and freedom from
interference from one's correspondences.
Chinamasa and Mutasa were said to
have convinced Mugabe that the legislation
would be in the interest of
"national security" and "in the maintenance of
law and order." Lawyers who
spoke to Zimdaily blasted the despotic
propositions saying Zimbabwe was
inexorably moving towards a Fascist State.
"In effect, the amendment they
want will give Mugabe an unfettered ability
to intercept mail and
communications with absolutely no safeguard whatsoever
to protect the
innocent," prominent Harare lawyer Adrian De Bourbon told
Zimdaily.
"You see the problem is that there is no arbiter as
to whether a
matter is subject to national security other than the
subjective view of the
president. It is wrong." He further said the
constitutional amendments will
be vehemently opposed as they interfered with
citizens' enjoyment of the
freedom of expression. Zimdaily heard that Zanu
PF wants the "Constitution
to authorise derogation of freedom of expression
in the interest of defence,
public safety, public health, economic interest,
public morality and public
health." "Maintenance or preservation of national
security is sufficiently
important to justify limiting a fundamental right,"
Chinamasa was quoted as
having told Mugabe.
Zim Daily
Monday, March 06 2006 @ 12:05 AM GMT
Contributed by: Ravhumore
Newly elected president of the
pro-senate MDC faction has vowed
to bring down President Robert Mugabe and
end the misrule that has left
millions on the edge of starvation. "We can't
expect the outside world to
bring about change," said Arthur Mutambara, 39,
in his first newspaper
interview since being named leader of a breakaway
faction of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC).
"As a Zimbabwean, I've had enough of seeing my fellow
citizens
suffering. The game's up. I'm going to remove Robert Mugabe, I
promise you,
with every tool at my disposal." Zimbabweans have been
astonished by the
sudden arrival on the political scene of one of the
country's most eminent
expatriate academics.
His last
involvement in politics was in leading the first
student protests against
Mugabe in 1989. Since then he has completed a
doctorate in robotics and
mechatronics at Merton College, Oxford, and worked
on the American space
programme. He has been a professor of robotics at the
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and other American universities and a
management
consultant for McKinsey & Company.
He recently moved to
South Africa, from where he has been
travelling to Zimbabwe as a consultant,
and says he has been horrified by
its deterioration. Violent
"redistribution" of farms to Mugabe's cronies has
caused food production to
plummet so low that people have been fighting with
dogs over scraps in
rubbish dumps.
Inflation is more than 600%. Teachers send
pupils out to sell
sweets to supplement their salaries and students are on
strike after a 700%
increase in fees. "I felt ashamed that my country, which
has so much
potential, has become the basket case of Africa," said
Mutambara.
His decision to intervene was prompted by a crisis
in the
opposition. After contesting three rigged elections the MDC split in
November when its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, decided not to fight for seats
in a new senate, even though the party's national executive had voted to
participate in the poll. "I felt we were going backwards," Mutambara said.
"It's all very well to keep analysing the situation but I decided to walk
the talk and actually get involved."
Last week the
so-called "pro-senate MDC" held a congress in
Bulawayo at which the split
was formalised and Mutambara emerged as leader.
His backers include the
MDC's secretary-general, Welshman Ncube. He claims
the support of 24 of the
party's 40 MPs. The so-called "anti-senate" faction
led by Tsvangirai will
hold its own congress next week and a legal battle is
underway over the use
of the party's name and funds.
The division seems to be
playing into the hands of Mugabe, who
celebrated his 82nd birthday last
weekend with a lavish party while many of
his countrymen went hungry. But
Mutambara insists that the MDC needed to be
overhauled. "How do you talk
about a regime which is criminal and violent
when you yourselves are
carrying out violent acts and violating your own
party rules?" he asked. "We
won't be qualified to fight Mugabe if we are
little Mugabes." Mutambara, the
father of two boys under the age of two,
says he is well aware of the risks
of taking on the president. As a student
activist he jumped out of a window
in a vain attempt to escape from the
police during the unrest that brought
Tsvangirai to prominence as a union
leader.
Zim Daily
Monday,
March 06 2006 @ 12:04 AM GMT
Contributed by:
correspondent
THE Registrar General's Office has increased
passport fees and
penalties by between 500 and 6 000 percent respectively
with effect from 27
February 2006. Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Cde
Reuben Marumahoko, said
the increase were necessitated by the high costs of
processing the document.
"The country's inflation is skyrocketing and
therefore for the passport
office to be able to produce passports, the
prices have to be increased," he
said.
Cde Marumahoko
said that last year the Registrar General's
Office suspended the issuing out
of emergency passports because the country
did not have enough material to
print the documents. The Registrar General's
Office came under criticism for
causing congestion at its premises and
failing to clear the backlog of
people who applied for the documents. The
new passport fees and penalties
are as follows:
Ordinary passport (adults) 500 000 (new fees)
100 000 (old fees)
Ordinary passport (U-12) 250 000(new fees) 50
000 (old fees)
Executive passport 24 hours (adults) 5 000 000(new
fees) 1 500
000 (old fees)
Executive passport 24 hours (U-
12) 2 500 000(new fees) 750 000
(old fees)
Urgent 3 working
days (adults) 3 000 000(new fees) 1 000 000
(old fees)
Urgent
3 working days (U-12) 1 500 000(new fees) 500 000 (old
fees)
Urgent 7 working days (adults) 2 500 000(new fees) 750 000 (old
fees)
Urgent 7 working days (U-12) 1 250 000(new fees) 375
000 (old
fees)
Urgent 14 working days (adults) 2 000 000(new
fees) 500 000 (old
fees)
Urgent 14 working days (U-12) 1 000
000(new fees) 250 000 (old
fees)
Emergency travel document
500 000(new fees) 300 000 (old fees)
Lost passport (penalty) 12
000 000(new fees) 1 500 000 (old
fees)
Defaced passport
(penalty) 12 000 000(new fees) 200 000 (old
fees)
Child
addition (old passport) 250 000(new fees) 20 000 (old
fees)
Extension of validity (old passport) 250 000(new fees) 20 000
(old
fees)
Endorsement (old passport) 250 000(new fees) 20 000 (old
fees)
Failure to declare a lost or
Previous
passport (penalty fee) 3 000 000(new fees) 500 000 (old
fees)
Passport application forms (P1 form) 50 000(new fees) 20 000
(old fees)
Zim Daily
Monday, March 06 2006 @ 12:02 AM GMT
Contributed by: correspondent
Christopher Caridade, the managing
director of Portugal
Restaurant in Harare yesterday threatened to close down
his outlet after
soldiers severely beat up patrons. He claimed he lost about
$30 million cash
during the attack. "Soldiers came in an army tank at around
2am on Saturday
last week and beat up vendors before they came into the
club," a visibly
shaken Caridade said. "The reasons for the assaults were
unclear."
Soldiers countrywide have reportedly run amok
beating up people
they believe participated in the recent mass action called
for by the
National Constitutional Assembly to protest against the throwing
of a lavish
birthday party for President Mugabe amid mass starvation. An
army spokesman,
said: "I prefer questions in writing. But are we in a war
where soldiers
would do what you are saying? We have not received such
reports." Meanwhile,
Caridade said: "I am now seriously considering closing
this restaurant
because I do not understand how revellers can be assaulted
at a legal
outlet."
An unidentified woman, suspected to
have broken her arm during
the pandemonium, was rushed to Parirenyatwa
Hospital. Anderson Robson, a
patron, said: "There were about 15 uniformed
soldiers who beat up people.
One of them beat me up with a metal wire."
About 18 employees sustained
serious injuries, Caridade said. The soldiers
allegedly looted beer after
assaulting patrons.
March 6,
2006
By Andnetwork .com
Government is seeking ways to
make the land-based wildlife policy
effectively operational by banning
extensive cropping that stalls proper
wildlife management in various
conservancies countrywide.
In an interview, the Minister of
Environment and Tourism, Cde Francis
Nhema, said the conservation of
wildlife was being threatened by lack of
knowledge by some people resettled
in the wildlife sanctuaries.
He said to demonstrate their lack of
knowledge, some people were
venturing into cropping near game reserves where
climatic conditions do not
sustain any crop farming activities.
"We are targeting certain areas that we think should strictly be a
preserve
of wildlife farming. What we want is to make wildlife land use
policy
operational and make sure that all those settling in those areas
abide by
what is stipulated in our policy," Cde Nhema said. He said the
policy looks
at how the newly resettled farmers could play a part and
participate in the
development of wildlife by making them aware of the value
of the country's
natural resources.
"Cropping is not a good option in areas such as
the Gonarezhou area in
Chiredzi. We have discovered that after the failure
of cropping, some people
were venturing into illegal harvesting of wildlife,
a menace that we would
like to curb by finding ways of incorporating the
farmers into the game park
activities so that they also benefit from what is
realised from wildlife."
Cde Nhema said when farmers see an animal
like a kudu, they should see
beyond meat as it can generate US$500 if
sold.
"The bulk of farmers are into cropping and because of that
when they
see a baboon, which is going for more than US$700, they see
animals causing
a menace in their fields and are not aware that that species
can immensely
turn around their livelihoods," Cde Nhema said.
He said his ministry has deployed ecologists and game wardens in
targeted
areas where extensive cropping is being conducted, in order to
educate the
farmers on wildlife breeding.
Source: The herald
Miningnews.co.za
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zimbabwean platinum miner Zimplats has issued a cautionary
announcement
after an announcement by the Zimbabwe Minister of Mines on
Friday that the
government has approved proposed amendments to the Mines and
Minerals
Act.
A key amendment involves participation by the government in
all mining
activities.
With respect to the platinum metals
sector, the proposed amendment
provides for 51% of all platinum operations
to be owned by the State, of
which 25% is by way of a non-contributory
stake, and the balance by way of
contribution over a period of
time.
Zimplats is in discussion with government regarding its
existing
Mining Agreement.
This agreement was signed by
Zimplats and Government before the start
of operations and has been fully
honoured by both parties since date of
signing.
Shareholders
will be advised of developments, and should exercise
caution in dealing in
Zimplats shares until further informed.
Washington Times
By Marian L. Tupy
March
6, 2006
The debate about landownership in South Africa is heating
up again. With the
local elections around the corner, President Thabo Mbeki
used his recent
State of the Nation address to revisit the "willing-buyer
willing-seller"
principle for land redistribution. As early as next month,
the government is
expected to start expropriating farm land at
government-determined, not
market, prices.
Such a weakening of
private property rights could have a regrettable
effect on the South African
economy. The government should consider other
means, including the transfer
of state assets, to compensate victims of
apartheid.
The land problem
in South Africa goes back to the earliest colonial
times, when native lands
were expropriated from their rightful owners --
often without compensation.
The 1913 Natives' Land Act codified those
injustices by preserving some 87
percent of the country's land for the
exclusive use of the white minority.
However, only 13 percent of South
Africa's land, much of it in the hands of
white farmers, is deemed suitable
for crop production.
Following
liberalization in the mid-1990s, productivity in the
agricultural sector
rose substantially. Though primary agriculture
contributed only 2.6 percent
to South Africa's gross domestic product in
2005, it accounted for 8 percent
of South Africa's exports and employed 9
percent of the country's formal
employees. The government's apparent
willingness to sacrifice property
rights in land on the altar of populism,
however, could seriously undermine
confidence in its commitment to
predictable and sound public policies,
especially to property rights
generally.
In Zimbabwe, for example,
forced expropriation of the white farmers led
to the collapse of the
country's banking sector, which used farmland as
collateral. Similarly, the
manufacturing sector, which relied on processing
agricultural goods, went
into a tailspin. It is true agriculture was a far
more important part of the
Zimbabwean economy than is the case in South
Africa, but as Professor Craig
Richardson of Salem College argued in his
book "The Collapse of Zimbabwe in
the Wake of the 2000-2003 Land Reforms,"
the violation of private property
rights in one sector of the economy
produced ripple effects throughout the
economy. That could also happen in
South Africa.
Yet the South
African government is in a privileged position to address
past injustices
without compromising the country's economic future. Upon
coming to power,
the African National Congress (ANC) government inherited
immense wealth
locked in the form of parastatals. Those state-owned
companies were built,
at great expense, by the apartheid government in its
drive for economic
self-sufficiency. Many of those industrial dinosaurs are
badly managed and
operate at a loss. Like in the days of apartheid, they
continue to be used
to provide sinecures to government supporters.
Privatization of
state-owned companies, as first proposed by the
Southern African Free Market
Foundation in Johannesburg, would make the
South African manufacturing
sector more efficient and raise substantial
revenue the government could use
to compensate the victims of apartheid.
For example, the assets of the
Electricity Supply Commission (ESKOM) and
Transport Network (TRANSNET) were
valued at $18 billion and $11.5 billion
respectively in 2005 and their sale
could net $842 per every black man,
woman and child -- including those born
long after apartheid ended.
That would not be enough to fully compensate
those harmed by apartheid.
But the sale of other parastatals, such as the
Southern Oil Exploration
Corp. (SOEKOR), Phosphate Development Corp.
(FOSKOR), South African Postal
Service, telephone services provider
(TELKOM), South African Broadcasting
Corp. (SABC) and the armaments
manufacturer (Denel) would enable the
government to raise much more.
The South African government continues to insist land distribution is of
crucial importance to black South Africans, but the evidence is lacking.
Black South Africans, like their Zimbabwean cousins, rightly perceive life
in the countryside as immensely difficult. Most do not aspire to be
farmers.
According to the Center for Development and Enterprise in
Johannesburg,
60 percent of all black South Africans wish to live in the
towns and cities
and work in the manufacturing and service sectors. That is
partly why South
Africa's urban centers, home to 65 percent of the
population in 2005, are
expected to hold 73 percent of the country's
citizens by 2010. Moreover,
those few South Africans who wish to continue
living in the countryside
could be given some of the land currently owned by
the government. Surely at
least some of those 60 million acres -- a
territory 8 times the size of
Belgium -- could be used for
resettlement.
The South African government has the land and money it
needs to at least
partially address the injustices of the past. Then again,
having a
perpetually aggrieved population may be in the African National
Congress'
interest. That way, the ANC can use the landownership issue in the
elections
and divert public attention from the government's failure to
fulfill many
promises made during the last go-round.
Marian L. Tupy is assistant director of the Project on Global Economic
Liberty specializing in the study of Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.