FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube & Rangarirai Mberi Staff
Reporters
Politburo at loss over action to take
THE ruling party is in a
quandary as to how to deal with Dumiso Dabengwa, a
ZANU-PF politburo member
who threw his weight behind independent
presidential candidate Simba Makoni
on Saturday to end weeks of speculation
linking him to the former finance
minister.
ZANU-PF insiders told The Financial Gazette this week that the
Presidium,
comprising President Robert Mugabe, his two deputies Joice Mujuru
and Joseph
Msika and national chairman John Nkomo, was choosing caution
despite being
pressed by some radical members of the party to take immediate
and drastic
action against the former ZIPRA intelligence chief.
The
Presidium and other top ZANU-PF officials, such as party secretary for
administration Didymus Mutasa, are in a dilemma because the party's
constitution and the standing rules formulated by the Central Committee -
the supreme policy making-body of the party outside congress - are silent on
how to deal with such a case.
Mutasa told this paper yesterday that
ZANU-PF would not be pressured into
disclosing how it intended to deal with
Dabengwa.
"Why should we discuss with newspapers what we are going to do or
are
planning to do with him?" asked Mutasa. "You should be patient until we
come
to you to tell you what we have arrived at. What is the hurry to know
what
we plan to do as a party? We have our own internal procedures and these
have
nothing to do with newspapers."
When Makoni, a former party
Politburo member, announced his presidential bid
on February 5, ZANU-PF was
quick to invoke its rules and regulations to
expel him.
In terms of these
rules and regulations, "any member of ZANU-PF, who, after
due process of
selecting candidates has been done, decides to stand as an
independent
expels himself or herself in terms of section 19.1, which states
such a
member is automatically expelled from the party without any recourse
to any
procedure."
But the rules and regulations are silent on the circumstances
pertaining to
Dabengwa's actions.
Dabengwa, who is not a candidate in the
elections, declared his support for
Makoni at two public meetings in
Bulawayo last Saturday, less than 24-hours
after Msika vouched for his
loyalty to President Mugabe.
Dabengwa's announcement would have therefore
been a major embarrassment,
while also casting doubt on the quality of the
intelligence being passed on
to members of the presidency.
President
Mugabe has referred to Dabengwa as a "sellout", but the former
home affairs
minister said: "I remain resolute, I have nothing to fear. I
will not
respond to whatever is being said about me."
Nkomo has dismissed Dabengwa's
move as a "non-event."
"What happened at White City is good riddance. It is
now clear that we have
infiltrators among us," he said. "We are also not
crying, as we believe
there is freedom of choice. This is a passing phase,
which people should not
preoccupy themselves with," he added.
ZANU-PF
insiders however, said the development has in fact shocked the party's
leadership, which is still battling to win support in Matabeleland,
currently a stronghold of the Arthur Mutambara faction of the Movement for
Democratic Change.
But President Mugabe, despite his attacks on Dabengwa
on Monday, is holding
his fire and not taking any action before properly
evaluating the full
extent of internal opposition to his
leadership.
People in the Makoni camp claim that ZANU-PF officials working
with the
former finance minister were not "coming out" now because they were
"utilising ruling party resources to campaign for Makoni" in their
constituencies.
"Of the 75 independent candidates that are standing under
Makoni's banner in
the polls, about three quarters are using ZANU-PF
structures to reach the
voters," said a source.
Dabengwa's defection has
created further discord in Matabeleland with
several former ZIPRA and PF
ZAPU officials jumping on the Makoni bandwagon,
notably former Speaker of
Parliament Cyril Ndebele, and Roma Nyathi, who was
the deputy of the late
commander Lookout Masuku.
On Saturday, Dabengwa claimed that President Mugabe
refused to meet top
officials of his party, including retired army general
Solomon Mujuru, who
had sought to meet him to discuss discord in the ruling
party over his
decision to cling to power.
Dabengwa makes the claim in an
interview with The Financial Gazette
following his endorsement of Makoni's
candidacy.
"We tried to meet him, several times. Most recently, we, myself
and Cde
(Solomon) Mujuru, asked the Defence Minister, Sydney Sekeramayi, to
arrange
a meeting, and we also tried through Msika, when he was acting
President. Up
to this day, that appointment has not been granted," Dabengwa
said.
Mujuru has repeatedly been linked to Makoni, but he has refused to be
drawn
on the matter. Last Friday, at the launch of the ZANU-PF manifesto,
Mujuru
wagged a finger at a Herald reporter who had approached him for
comment.
However, his wife, has publicly declared her support for President
Mugabe.
Sekeramayi could not be reached for comment.
Dabengwa has also
caused a stir by claiming pressure for President Mugabe to
step aside runs
wider than ZANU-PF cares to admit, naming a host of top
government officials
as having participated in a meeting that agreed on the
need to push for new
leadership for ZANU-PF.
FinGaz
Rangarirai Mberi
News Editor
ZIMBABWE will need to import grain because only 14 percent of
land targeted
for maize had been planted by December, and much of this crop
was adversely
affected by fertiliser shortages, a report co-sponsored by the
government
says.
A joint team comprising the Ministry of Agriculture,
Operation Maguta, a
programme run by the military, the Food and Agricultural
Organisation, the
Famine Early Warning Systems Network and the
Meteorological Office, prepared
the "First Round Crop Assessment
Report".
Government dubbed 2007-8 the "mother of all agricultural seasons",
and
ploughed resources into importing farm equipment, fertiliser and
seed.
But in its executive summary, the report paints a dire picture of the
season, saying the government must prepare for grain imports after its
failure to secure enough fertiliser and seed resulted in only a fraction of
the targeted land being planted.
"Potential yield from mid to late
planted crop is likely to be compromised
by the fertiliser shortage. The
total expected production for this season
might not meet the expected
targets. For this reason, there is need to look
into contingency plans for
food imports," the report said.
The report was compiled after an assessment
undertaken in February this
year.
Government had targeted two million
hectares for maize this season. But the
report says: "Early planted crop (by
the end of November) is at the grain
filling stage and constitutes 14
percent of the total area planted."
The bulk of the maize crop, or 86
percent, was only planted between December
last year and January this
year.
"This crop ranges mostly from early vegetative stages to early
reproductive
stage and is showing signs of severe nitrogen shortage due to
excessive
leaching, compounded by the shortage of fertiliser."
The bulk
of the seed maize had been acquired through Operation Maguta,
"however, some
seed was not delivered on time", the report found.
Total seed maize supplied
by government and non-governmental organizations
was 26 791 metric tonnes,
enough to cover 1.7 million hectares.
But fuel supply was inadequate in all
provinces, the report said, and back
up spares for farm machinery were also
scarce.
Tomorrow, President Robert Mugabe launches a third phase of the farm
mechanisation programme, designed to retool resettled farms, most of which
were stripped of infrastructure during the fast-track land reform exercise,
which began in 2000.
FinGaz
Shame
Makoshori Staff Reporter
GOLD panning activities resulted in the
destruction of 2 000 hactares of
arable land in the Mazoe Valley in 2006 and
many more thousands of hectares
were believed to have been destroyed in
other areas during that period, a
senior government official said this
week.
Environmental Management Agency (EMA) director-general, Mutsa
Chasi, said
with no stringent controls on gold panning, the country's
economy is losing
most of the productive land.
She told a conference in
Harare on Monday that the loss of productive
farmland has far reaching
implications on the success of the economic
recovery programmes the
government is battling to implement.
Apart from the destruction of land, most
of the illegally extracted gold is
sold through the unofficial market,
draining substantial amounts in
potential foreign currency earnings from the
fiscus every year.
"In 2006 they (gold panners) destroyed 2 000 hectares of
arable land in the
Mazoe Valley," Chasi told scientists, who attended a
workshop exploring ways
of mitigating environmental degradation and boosting
crop yields in
Zimbabwe.
"This is just one valley, what about in 30 to 35
other districts where they
are in operation?
"They go into the ground and
dig deep pits, use cyanide and other chemicals.
"All those chemicals will be
washed down into our rivers and drainage
systems. The land where the panning
is taking place is no longer good for
agriculture," she added.
In a
country where about 80 percent of the population is classified as poor,
Chasi said the only way to avoid land degradation and massive cutting down
of trees was to implement projects that would lead to poverty
reduction.
Hungry people, she said, were tempted to exploit the environment
for
survival.
Scientists estimate that more than 5 000 hactares were
being destroyed every
year in regions where gold and diamond panning his
taking place.
Chasi said EMA had fought losing battles against the "vicious"
gold panners
because of the escalating economic crisis in the
country.
"We have (launched) a blitz with the assistance of the police," she
said.
"We have tried these enforcements for a very long time but the police
can
only assist us to a certain extent," Chasi added.
Meanwhile, the EMA
director general indicated that the country was
contributing to the
depletion of the ozone layer through emission of carbon
gases.
She said
the energy sector, contributing 80 percent of the emissions, was
the single
major culprit.
The ozone layer protects the earth from excessive heat from
the sun.
As a result of the depletion of this layer, Zimbabwe has experienced
six
very warm years since 1986, and the trend could worsen if the emissions
continued uncontrolled.
EMA estimates that temperatures have increased by
between 0,5 and two
degrees Celsius since 1986.
FinGaz
Clemence
Manyukwe Staff Reporter
THE government is mulling draconian legislation
to restrict the activities
of the Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ) through the
imposition of leadership
sympathetic to the state.
Currently, the
legal profession is self-regulated, but the government is
working on
legislation that will give it control over the society.
Last week, attacks on
the LSZ and its president Beatrice Mtetwa, escalated
with the government
saying it now viewed the LSZ with suspicion for
allegedly receiving British
government funding.
This week, the state claimed the LSZ had applied to
observe elections on
March 29 on behalf of the European Union (EU) and
Britain. Both Mtetwa and
the British embassy have issued statements denying
these allegations.
Sources this week reported that Justice Minister Patrick
Chinamasa was
considering measures that would enable government to appoint
those
sympathetic to it to lead the society.
The sources said that last
year, Chinamasa held meetings with leaders of a
group of lawyers that
government views as sympathetic to its cause, at which
it was agreed that
the law society was allegedly "unnecessarily obsessed
with human rights
issues".
After the meeting, the lawyers are alleged to have met Mtetwa in an
attempt
to broker a meeting between her and Chinamasa, but the LSZ president
is said
to have turned the proposal down.
Yesterday, Simplicius
Chihambakwe, a top lawyer who was among those who met
Chinamasa, confirmed
that the meeting had indeed taken place, but declined
to elaborate.
"The
meeting was confidential, so I am not entitled to divulge anything. It
was
not for public consumption," said Chihambakwe.
Weeks after that meeting,
Chinamasa appointed Chihambakwe to serve as a
member of the LSZ's council,
replacing the Dean of Law at the University of
Zimbabwe Emmanuel Magadu,
even though the academic had not yet served his
full term.
The second of
the two members the Minister is entitled to appoint to the
lawyers' council
is the ministry's permanent secretary, David Mangota.
Chihambakwe said when
he was appointed to represent the minister, he had not
been aware that he
was "sitting on someone else's chair."
In an interview, Mtetwa confirmed that
the meetings took place but declined
to shed more light on the matter.
On
allegations that the LSZ wants to observe the elections on behalf of the
EU,
Mtetwa said: "The Law Society has always applied to observe elections
and
during the 2005 elections, members of the profession were in fact
accredited
to observe the elections. As a profession with a diverse
membership, the
Council resolved to invite names from all interested members
so that the
diversity of our members can be reflected in the observer team.
If we wanted
to observe the elections on behalf of Gordon Brown, we would
hardly have
invited members in the transparent manner that we are doing."
Mtetwa said in
any event, the names of observers were scrutinised by the
ministry and, from
previous experience, "we are aware that certain names
will be removed from
the list as my name was removed from the list submitted
in 2005. The
decision as to who will observe elections therefore rests with
the
government, whose representatives are clearly interested parties."
FinGaz
Staff
Reporter
THE United Nations is considering a complaint by a lawyer
representing a
Zimbabwean diamond mining company on the conduct of the
Kimberly Process
(KP) team that absolved the country of any wrongdoing in
the trade of
diamonds.
The KP cleared River Ranch Limited, the
Beitbridge mine at the centre of an
ownership dispute, after a seven-member
team assigned to probe allegations
that vehicles registered under the
Zimbabwean office of the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) were
used for diamond smuggling were false.
The KP report claimed that Bubye
Minerals, the company fighting for control
of River Ranch mine, had
withdrawn the allegations against UNDP. However,
Bubye denies that it
withdrew the assertions and accuses the KP team of
falsifying the company's
submissions. On February 25, the director of the
UNDP's Legal Support
Office, Peri Lynne-Johnson, said the matter would be
re-examined.
Bubye
Minerals lawyer Terrence Hussein wrote to the KP chairperson, Karel
Kovander, complaining about the misrepresentation of the report.
"Please
be informed that this matter has been referred to the Legal Support
Office,
Bureau of management and we will revert to you as soon as our review
is
complete," Johnson said.
River Ranch Limited is suing Hussein for $12
trillion for defamation arising
from allegations he made to the UN and
elsewhere that the company was
involved in smuggling. The company says
Hussein's claims are false. Hussein
maintains he stands by his statement and
is prepared to defend himself and
Bubye Minerals in court. "At no time and
in no manner have I ever denied
that the UN vehicles were involved at River
Ranch diamond mine.I request as
a matter of urgency that you delete the
false representation that is
attributed to me as regards the UN vehicles
and/or afford the readers of
your report the benefit of my side of the
story," Hussein told Kovander.
Kovander said Hussein's complaint would be
attached to the KP report.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda Senior
Business Reporter
THE National Incomes and Pricing Commission (NIPC) has
launched a fresh
crackdown on the country's troubled hoteliers after they
unilaterally
increased food and accommodation prices without the approval of
the
state-run pricing body.
Hoteliers at the beginning of the month
hiked prices of food, beverages and
accommodation rates without seeking the
authority of the NIPC, which
sanctions all price reviews in the
country.
Some hotel operators had raised accommodation charges to between
$635
million and $1.2 billion from the $70 million last approved by the NIPC
in
November.
The hoteliers had also increased meal prices to $348 million
up from $30
million, citing rising prices of raw materials and other
operating costs.
But the pricing body on Tuesday ordered them to reverse the
hikes.
NIPC chairman, Godwills Masimirembwa, said the commission had instead
granted the hoteliers a 400 percent price increase on accommodation rates
and food and beverages, which should enable them to operate
profitably.
The 400 percent price increase now means that overnight
accommodation at a
five-star hotel now costs $280 million down from $1.2
billion effected by
hoteliers at the beginning of the month.
Lunch and
dinner served at a top hotel in the country now costs $120
million, down
from $348 million.
Besides cracking down on hoteliers, the NIPC has also
descended on millers
and several entrepreneurs in its latest blitz on
manufacturers and
retailers.
Meanwhile, Masimirembwa on Tuesday accused
the country's business community
of increasing prices in a bid to foment
anger against President Robert
Mugabe's government ahead of crucial
presidential, parliamentary and local
government elections scheduled for the
end of the month.
The NIPC chief said most manufacturers and retailers had
increased prices of
commodities in recent weeks.
"It is naive to say that
things happening here are just happening. You can
certainly feel a wave of
unauthorised price increases.
"The applications flooding our offices for
price adjustments indicate that
there is something amiss. Look at the
parallel foreign currency exchange
rate..the way it is surging.
"What has
suddenly changed in the fundamentals. There is certainly a
political
agenda," Masimirembwa told captains of industry and business at a
meeting
convened by the Zimbabwe Economics Society on Tuesday.
The NIPC charged that
the business sector continued to violate the price
caps even though the
sector had received relief from the commission through
price
reviews.
"The NIPC has been adopting a liberal approach by approving prices.
So we
wonder why business chooses to violate price controls by selling at
prices
that we wouldn't have agreed on.
"It is more than viability
concerns," he said.
Masimirembwa's indictment of the country's business
leaders, whom President
Mugabe frequently disparages for working with
western nations and the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change to unseat
his government, is not
new.
But business leaders deny the accusations and
blame the government for
mismanaging the country through its populist and
ill-advised economic
policies
FinGaz
Staff
Reporter
THE Media and Information Commission (MIC) was given up to
yesterday to lift
its ban on journalist Brian Hungwe, in a development that
constitutes a
major test of the enforcement of Zimbabwe's reformed media
laws.
The outcome of the case will be a test of the sincerity of the
government's
promises to allow more media freedoms.
The case also
challenges the continuing existence of the MIC after the
enactment of new
legislation that replaces it with a new entity.
In a letter dated March 3,
2008, Hungwe's lawyer, Selby Hwacha, said the MIC's
letter of February 26,
2008, notifying his client of a one-year ban from
practicing journalism, is
"clearly not lawful".
Hungwe was banned for allegedly operating without
accreditation.
Hwacha wrote: "We request you to confirm urgently that the
blanket ban on
our client is ineffective and that there is no impediment to
his practice as
a journalist. The denial of means of sustenance is
inherently urgent given
especially that our client had been given to
understand that the ban would
be lifted.
"Should we not hear from you by
or before 10.00am on Wednesday 5th March
2008, we will have little choice
other than take the matter to court
urgently."
Hwacha noted that the MIC
imposed the ban in terms of Section 79 of the
repressive Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA),
which deals with the
accreditation of journalists.
Hungwe applied for accreditation on January 5,
2007. In July 2007, he
received notification to appear for a hearing with
respect to the
application.
On September 18, 2007, following notification
of the hearing for his
accreditation, he received a letter from the MIC to
which was attached a
"disciplinary determination" which found Hungwe guilty
of contravening
Sections 79 (5) and 90 of AIPPA Chapter 10:27. The
determination resulted in
the one-year blanket ban.
Hungwe's lawyers
argue that the ban was not valid or lawfully effective at
any given
time.
It is noted that applications for accreditation are made in terms of
Section
79 of AIPPA while a journalist can only be punished or banned in
terms of
Section 85 (3) of AIPPA.
In the case of a ban, a journalist
should be notified in writing of the
proposed action and be given an
opportunity to show cause within a
reasonable time why the intended
disciplinary measures should not be taken.
Thereafter, the commission must
afford the journalist a fair hearing and
consider representations made
before taking action.
In Hungwe's case, the mandatory disciplinary process
was not complied with.
It is further noted that the AIPPA Amendment Act,
which came into law on
January 11 2008, dissolved the MIC in whose place
should now be the Zimbabwe
Media Commission (ZMC).
The ZMC is yet to be
constituted.
FinGaz
Dumisani Ndlela Business Editor
What
people want is a leader who can deliver
A trio of election manifestos has hit
the electoral campaign trail as the
battle for the presidency hots up ahead
of elections scheduled for March 29.
A trio of election manifestos has
hit the electoral campaign trail as the
battle for the presidency hots up
ahead of elections scheduled for March 29.
The rallying cry among contenders
for the country's top job, especially
those from the opposition camps, is
the revival of the battered economy,
blamed on mismanagement by the
government of President Robert Mugabe, who is
seeking re-election on a
ZANU-PF ticket.
President Mugabe is being challenged by Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni, a former
finance minister who
broke ranks with ZANU-PF to become an independent
candidate on February 5.
Analysts said the election manifestos of the two
opposition candidates were
almost identical because of the issues facing the
country, now in its ninth
year of an economic recession.
Both manifestos
lacked a tangible programme of action that would act as the
road map as the
parties move to rescue the country's economy from the jaws
of a ruthless
recession.
"They look the same to such an extent that they are meaningless,"
said
economic consultant, Daniel Ndlela.
He said the challenge for voters
in the forthcoming polls would be to judge
the people behind the manifestos
to ascertain their ability to deliver the
country out of its current
economic crisis.
Ghana, he said, had consistently churned out economic blue
prints that were
more sophisticated and impressive than those of Malaysia,
but the Asian
country had managed to progress much faster than the African
state because
of its leadership.
"The manifestos are identical, they are
both talking about re-engagement
with the international community," said
economist Witness Chinyama, stating
that the main thrust was the revival of
the country's economy.
"The missing link is the foreign currency aspect and
people will have to
decide on who will re-engage the international community
soon enough to
unlock it," Chinyama said.
James Jowa, another economist,
concurred.
"The issues are the same. The bottom line is the ability of the
candidates
to deliver," said Jowa.
The ruling party candidate looked set
to fare badly, having presided over
the recession, Jowa
suggested.
Makoni, who has only unveiled "elements of the manifesto",
highlights that
Zimbabweans have undergone intense stress due to poverty,
estimated to
affect 80 percent of the population, rampant unemployment,
especially among
the youth, spiralling inflation put at over 100 000 percent
and a plethora
of other problems caused by a deteriorating
economy.
Makoni noted in his manifesto that immediate and urgent tasks to be
dealt
with if he is elected to power would include a resolution of the food,
power, fuel water and sanitation crises facing the country, as well as
restoration of health and education services.
Tsvangirai is proposing to
deal with the same issues, promising to "provide
jobs, bring back food on
our shelves at affordable prices and making sure
that power cuts and water
shortages are a thing of the past".
He also proposes to restore productivity
in the economy, as well as
undertake a comprehensive land audit and roll out
an extensive land and
agrarian reform programme that boosts
productivity.
Makoni promises the same miracles, except in different words,
but stresses
that he will "affirm the necessity of land reform" in the
country.
Both Tsvangirai and Makoni are proposing to restructure the civil
service,
with Makoni stressing that he would "strengthen the civil service
and
provide better conditions of service for a more effective and speedy
service
delivery", while Tsvangirai plans to "cut the number of ministries
to 15 and
to restructure government to establish a civil service that is not
only well
paid but one that is proactive, relevant and
patriotic".
ZANU-PF is inevitably fighting from the corner, and has anchored
its "people's
manifesto" around issues on which it thinks it has done
well.
It has established a theme around its battle to retain power:
"Defending our
land and national sovereignty: building prosperity through
empowerment."
"We are the champions of the national struggle against British
colonialism,
who delivered Independence in 1980, who have remained its
stalwart defenders
and whose pledge each day, as the sun rises and the sun
sets, is 'Zimbabwe
will never be a colony again'," said President Mugabe in
his message
accompanying the ZANU-PF manifesto.
The manifesto, is
directing Zimbabweans to the past, highlighting "what
ZANU-PF has done for
you".
ZANU-PF in history, the manifesto declares, is the empowerment of
Zimbabweans through freedom and national independence, the establishment of
the rights of citizens to vote, peace, national unity and stability,
education, and empowerment through land reforms.
The manifesto
acknowledges people's suffering due to the current economic
hardships, but
places the blame on economic "sanctions and sustained Western
attacks" on
the incumbent regime.
The British, the manifesto alleges, are sponsoring
puppets to unseat the
incumbent regime to make Zimbabwe a colony
again.
The manifesto places huge emphasis on the empowerment of black voters
through land reforms, and is promising to accelerate this into other sectors
of the country's weak economy.
"ZANU-PF says as long as nationally
conscious Africans remain salaried
managers running white-owned industrial
and commercial concerns, prosperity
will continue to elude the people of
Zimbabwe.
"ZANU-PF believes there is a real opportunity for building on gains
already
made through empowerment achieved on land. It must now extend to the
rest of
the economy so that the politics of the country begin to address and
rearrange the economic domain," the manifesto said.
Jowa noted that the
ZANU-PF manifesto was totally ignorant on modern
economic trends, and was
almost drifting the country towards a command
structure economic model,
where government has control of all productive
centres.
In any case, the
party had failed to deliver as evidenced by the
acceleration of the
economy.
"ZANU-PF will be judged by its history, its failure to deliver,"
Jowa said.
But how will voters test the ability of the other two candidates
to
implement policy changes required to heal the country's frail
economy?
Jowa said Tsvangirai, who has been in opposition since 1999, has
managed to
build capacity over the years and has structures within his
party.
"He has gained experience over the years," he said.
Makoni has
previously been attacked for having been part of the ZANU-PF
bandwagon,
which he only deserted last month when he announced his desire to
stand as a
presidential candidate in the forthcoming elections.
However, Jowa said the
fact that he was forced to quit President Mugabe's
cabinet in 2003 over
policy differences with the government, places him in a
good
standing.
Makoni has said those who want to judge him should look at the
three budget
statements he made when he was finance minister in President
Mugabe's
cabinet between 2000 and 2003.
Ndlela said voters are simply
going to rally behind an individual they feel
could save them from a
worsening economic crisis and are unlikely to
scrutinise the election
manifestos.
"It's anyone who can deliver them from the evil one, and that
evil is the
(damaged) economy," said Ndlela. He said the current government
was "totally
unable to move forward and undo the damage it has made to the
economy".
FinGaz
DUMISO Dabengwa (DD) has
revealed how, together with retired army general
Solomon Mujuru, he tried to
meet President Robert Mugabe to press for a
change of leadership in ZANU PF.
In this interview with Financial Gazette
News Editor RANGARIRAI MBERI (RM)
in Bulawayo, following his public
endorsement of Simba Makoni, Dabengwa also
talks about his frustration at
his failure to push for change from within
the Politburo, the top council of
ZANU-PF that President Mugabe says is
packed with cowards. Excerpts:
RM: Why are you backing Makoni?
DD:
This is a rescue operation. We have stood up to rescue the situation, to
rescue our country, lest we leave it to fall into the wrong hands.
RM:
What do you mean by "wrong hands"?
DD: We could slide, and people could vote
with anger, with frustration, for
anybody who would come and plunge the
country into deeper difficulty.
RM: So is this the beginning of the end of
the 1987 Unity Accord?
DD: I remain committed to the unity agreement that we
forged in the
liberation struggle, in Mozambique. This is the unity accord
that was signed
with blood; the blood of those that fell in the struggle. It
was a unity
forged by the likes of Tongo (Josiah Tongogara), (Alfred Nikita)
Mangena and
JZ (Jason Moyo). I remain committed to that agreement of the
Patriotic
Front.
RM: You feel the 1987 agreement was not honoured in some
respects?
DD: It was in danger. After we had agreed we were coming home (at
Independence), before we had even set foot back on Zimbabwean soil, others
were already deciding to break away, to go against some of our agreements.
We should retrace our steps and seek guidance from the principles of the PF
(Patriotic Front).
I am sure that when all is said and done, and when
Makoni has established
the national authority he has talked about, our way
forward will be clearer.
RM: President Mugabe says he is never challenged on
any of these matters in
the Politburo. He says people in there are just, in
his words, not
courageous enough.
DD: I have raised these issues at the
Politburo. Unfortunately it was not
easy to get the necessary support. I
thought we were deviating from the real
objectives that we all longed
for.
RM: But did you ever try to raise your concerns with the President,
directly?
DD: We tried to meet him, several times. Most recently, we,
myself and Cde
(Solomon) Mujuru, asked the Defence Minister, Sydney
Sekeramayi, to arrange
a meeting, and we also tried through (Vice President
Joseph) Msika, when he
was acting President. Up to this day, that
appointment has not been granted.
RM: You are supporting a man your party
says is selling out to the
imperialists.
DD: My view is that Simba Makoni
is not sponsored, there is no evidence of
British or American involvement in
this campaign; and we don't want to see
it either. Only the people of
Zimbabwe are sponsoring this movement. This is
why we are appealing to them,
regardless of their political affiliation, to
support this initiative. When
you fail at political party level, you go back
to the people. The President
is for the people; the people are not there for
the President.
RM: Just
yesterday (Friday), VP Msika said you had nothing to do with
Makoni.
DD:
Yes, he did say that. Unfortunately, my last attempt to brief him on my
intentions was unsuccessful.
RM: Does this all mean you are out of
ZANU-PF?
DD: No, why should it?
RM: You will be at the next Politburo
meeting?
DD: I will.
RM: Should we expect any more ZANU-PF officials to
take your lead?
DD: That's up to each individual.
FinGaz
Charles Rukuni Bureau
Chief
BULAWAYO-The city, which has always played second fiddle to the
capital
Harare, has become a hotbed of opposition
politics.
Independent candidate Simba Makoni, who is now considered
President Robert
Mugabe's strongest challenger in the March 29 elections,
launched his
presidential campaign in the city last Saturday.
Opposition
leader Arthur Mutambara, who has publicly stated that he is
behind Makoni,
took to the stage the following day. But it is this Saturday
that everyone
is watching. Morgan Tsvangirai, founding president of the
Movement for
Democratic Change, the man most people say President Mugabe is
watching,
will be addressing a rally at White City Stadium, venue of the two
earlier
rallies.
President Mugabe has so far not announced when he will be in
Bulawayo. He
kicked off his tour in Manicaland, Tsvangirai and Makoni's home
province,
moved on to Mashonaland East, the only province that publicly
declined to
endorse his presidential nomination in 2006.
Nothing has so
far been heard about the fourth presidential hopeful, Langton
Towungana's
campaign.
Makoni's rally at White City is currently the talk of the town.
Supporters
of ZANU-PF were unnerved by the crowd he attracted while those
sympathetic
to Tsvangirai say they were not impressed.
"ZANU-PF should be
worried by the attendance bearing in mind that Makoni
only announced his
candidacy a month ago," a ZANU-PF insider told The
Financial
Gazette.
"The people that turned up at the stadium are only a fraction of his
supporters. Those who support Dabengwa (Dumiso) were not at the stadium
because they are still within ZANU-PF. The same applies to those who support
Mutambara. They are going to vote for Makoni because Mutambara has endorsed
him. So ZANU-PF should be worried."
Dabengwa, the former ZIPRA
intelligence chief and a politburo member was
among the first senior ZANU-PF
officials to come out openly in support of
Makoni. Dabengwa is, however, not
contesting any parliamentary seat.
Gorden Moyo, executive director of
Bulawayo Agenda, a civic organisation
that promotes dialogue on social,
political and economic issues among
citizens said he was not impressed by
the turn out.
"The turnout was way below my expectation given the hype Makoni
has been
receiving in the local media, the fact that Dabengwa was behind him
and that
he was visiting Bulawayo for the first time as a presidential
candidate,"
Moyo said.
He said Makoni had failed to attract the support
of the grassroots people in
Bulawayo but had attracted that of the middle
class and academia.
"These normally constitute only five percent of the
population. To win an
election you need the support of ordinary people who
would normally flood
White city. In fact, there were more cars outside the
stadium than people
inside," he quipped.
Moyo, however, said this should
not be used as a yardstick to measure
Dabengwa's popularity because he had
just announced his alliance with Makoni
that very same day. "Perhaps the
rally was not given enough publicity," he
said.
Both Moyo and the ZANU-PF
insider, however, said this year's elections would
be different. They are
not really about which candidate will win the
presidency but about who will
controll parliament- both the House of
Assembly and the Senate.
They said
constitutional amendment Number 18 had given powers to parliament
to impeach
the president or elect his successor. They argued that if someone
won the
presidency but did not control parliament, it could impeach him or
her.
"These elections are really about who controls parliament," Moyo
said.
"ZANU-PF has failed to resolve the leadership question, so it is
taking this
to parliament. It does not really matter therefore whether
Makoni wins or
not. What matters is how many of his sympathisers get into
parliament. If
they can gang up with the opposition and outnumber those
loyal to
(President) Mugabe, they can impeach him even if he wins the
elections."
The ZANU-PF insider concurred; adding that what made the whole
thing more
intriguing was that one did not have to cross the floor. One
could simply
vote with the opposition.
"This is one of the reasons why
Makoni and Dabengwa have publicly stated
that they have not left ZANU-PF.
They have not left the party but simply
want to takeover the leadership,"
the insider said. He admitted that there
were deep divisions within the
party and this was one of the reasons why the
party's campaign had been slow
to take off.
Moyo argued that ZANU-PF was concentrating on numbers. It was
working on
ensuring that it won enough seats to make sure that it would
control
parliament. It was therefore not wasting resources on Bulawayo and
Matabeleland because it did not have support there.
"ZANU-PF is looking
only at Tsvangirai, not at Makoni and Welshman Ncube
(secretary of the
Arthur Mutambara faction but generally regarded as the
defacto leader of the
faction)," Moyo said. "Makoni and Ncube will divide
Tsvangirai's vote one at
the presidential level and the other at
parliamentary level."
Asked about
the significance of Dabengwa's alliance with Makoni since he was
not
contesting any parliamentary seat, Moyo said Dabengwa was only
interested in
changing the party leadership, while the ZANU-PF insider said
there was
something for Dabengwa in the longer term if they succeeded in
ousting
(President) Mugabe.
"Right now Dabengwa is not worried about being in
Parliament. He wants to
change the leadership of the party. Everything else
comes later," Moyo,
said.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda Senior Business
Reporter
THE money market maintained its surplus position this week on
intensifying
electoral spending and quasi-fiscal activities.
The
market was up to the tune of $525 trillion on Tuesday but eased
marginally
on statutory reserve payments to the central bank by financial
institutions.
The market opened $433 trillion up yesterday, and was
forecast to close the
day almost unchanged.
The high liquidity levels
were posing deployment problems to the country's
banks, which are still
smarting from a liquidity crunch that ravaged the
sector early this
year.
Bankers said although the surplus has removed the liquidity risk that
grounded most banks in January, the excess funds were not performing for the
troubled financial institutions.
Dealers and investments analysts said
banks had been left in a quandary and
battling to craft strategies to deploy
the high volumes of funds, which are
costing them as they are not fetching
real returns by sitting on their
books.
Analysts said most financial
institutions had been condemned to the margins
of their mainstream business
since the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had taken
over the biggest slice of the
lending market by advancing credit to various
sectors of the economy,
including quasi-government institutions.
Bankers said their plight had been
aggravated by the fact that their main
creditor - the government - was
issuing a one-year treasury bill at a rate
of 340 percent per annum against
an annual inflation rate 100 580.2 percent.
"This instrument is obviously
very unattractive as it is giving a negative
real return of more than 100
percent," Kingdom Stockbrokers (KSB) said in a
report this week.
Market
watchers said some banks were drawing bankers' acceptances to deal
with the
non-performing excess liquidity.
They attributed the surplus conditions on
the market to the injection of
funds destined for the administration of the
joint presidential,
parliamentary and council elections set for the end of
the month,
concessionary advances going towards various economic support
facilities
like the Agricultural Mechanisation Programme, civil servants
salaries and
other fiscal expenditure going towards state-run utilities such
as the
Zimbabwe National Water Authority and ZESA.
Owing to the continued
excess liquidity conditions, investment rates
remained depressed with 7-14
day NCD rates fetching below 50 percent with
most financial institutions
quoting nothing for the same.
The surplus conditions on the money market also
powered equities to break
record levels gaining 69.89 percent last Friday
compared to 56.19 percent
during the previous week.
Analysts expect the
market to remain awash with excess liquidity due to the
resultant campaign
expenditures.
"Furthermore, other quasi-fiscal expenditures are likely to
assist in
increasing money market liquidity thereby sustaining the current
soft
investment rates," KSB said.
FinGaz
Shame Makoshori Staff
Reporter
THE government will not turn back on plans to forcibly acquire
mining assets
using a controversial mining law despite fears that the
planned take-over
could worsen the capital flight being experienced in the
country.
President Robert Mugabe on Friday last week said concerns among
the business
community that Zimbabwe might lose potential foreign investment
if it forges
ahead with the legislation would not deter him because the
crisis-hit
country was already suffering from massive smuggling of minerals
by the
foreign owned companies.
Last year, government initiated moves to
expropriate 51 percent
shareholdings from the foreign-owned mines accused of
illegally trading in
minerals at the expense of the country's
economy.
President Mugabe said the best way to deal with the losses would be
to take
them over and give "trustworthy" local entrepreneurs to run
them.
"Some have said we will lose investors (if we take over foreign owned
mines), but we are already losing from the colonial investments," he told
about 5 000 supporters gathered in Harare to launch his party's election
manifesto. "We want to correct things and prove that, despite the sanctions
we will survive," added President Mugabe.
Reports suggest that major
mines have halted expansion programmes to monitor
the outcome of the
polices.
But President Mugabe said empowerment of the previously marginalised
indigenous people was "absolutely necessary".
"The mining sector has
remained a place that is closed from us," he told the
chanting
supporters.
"We do not know what is happening there and unless we are there
as owners we
will continue to be cheated. We want to restore (the country)
as the leading
gold producer. International prices of gold have gone up to
more than US$900
per ounce, yet our tonnage per year has gone
down."
"They say this year it might fall to 11 tonnes. In a country with huge
gold
reserves, this is just a shame. After the elections, after our victory,
we
must improve our supervision," President Mugabe added.
Apart from
mines, government planned to take over controlling stakes in
foreign owned
financial institutions such as Barclays Bank and Standard
Chartered Bank and
Stanbic Bank, a subsidiary of Standard Bank of South
Africa.
Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Paul Mangwana last year
warned the
foreign owned banks would be "impacted" by the empowerment laws
just like
the mining firms.
"We were colonised by force. We are trying to
correct that, we cannot expect
them to smile," he told bankers who had
warned of an acceleration of capital
flight. "They frighten you that there
will be capital flight, but they are
neo-liberals, these banks are run by
blacks but decisions are made in
London. They want to create white islands
in a liberated Zimbabwe. We are
not going to take that," Mangwana said.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda Senior
Business Reporter
AIR Zimbabwe is moving towards selling air tickets
predominantly through an
e-ticketing system, in compliance with new
international aviation standards,
The Financial Gazette can
reveal.
The move could also significantly reduce costs for the national
passenger
carrier.
The e-ticketing system enables passengers to make
reservations, buy airline
tickets and pay online via the airline's
website.
Air Zimbabwe spokesperson, Pride Khumbula said, e-tickets now
account for
about 80 percent of the national airline's ticket sales. "Air
Zimbabwe
issued its first e-ticket in August 2007, and to date has issued 40
000
e-tickets. "The airline is 80 percent e-ticketing.and recently set up a
help
desk to support users, (who) include airline staff, ground handling
companies, and travel agents. The help desk offers assistance to where users
may be experiencing problems at any point in the e-ticketing process - at
point of booking, check-in, or ticket cancellation," said Khumbula.
The
airline hopes to have become 100 percent e-ticketing compliant by June.
The
system adoption by Air Zimbabwe is meant to conform to the e-ticketing
strategy announced by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for
the aviation sector. An electronic ticket is a paperless ticket, which is
captured in the passengers booking and is stored in the airline's system. At
the point of sale, a receipt is generated, which carries the passengers'
itinerary and booking reference number. A passenger simply presents his ID
or passport at check-in.
The Geneva-based IATA, which represents more
than 240 airlines operating 94
percent of scheduled international flights,
launched its drive for
e-ticketing four years ago, and now more than 80
percent of travellers on
IATA carriers fly without paper tickets. Non-IATA
airlines, mainly low-cost
carriers, already have a paper-free ticketing
system, where travellers only
present an identity document at
check-in.
By of June 2008, the world's airlines will no longer offer paper
tickets to
their customers as they move exclusively into e-ticketing.
Khumbula said
e-ticketing was one of the most significant opportunities to
reduce costs
and improve passenger convenience.
"The benefits of
e-ticketing include stress-free ticketing for customers and
reduced
possibility of lost tickets. Passengers can access their e-tickets
anywhere
and any time.
"Changes to itineraries no longer have to be made in person at
the airlines
sales offices or travel agent but can be simply done over the
telephone,"
Khumbula said.
Air Zimbabwe, Khumbula said, was at an
advanced stage of developing its
Internet Booking Engine (IBE), which will
enable passengers to book and
purchase their tickets online, offering the
traveller convenience,
flexibility and control of their travel arrangements.
"The airline expects
to launch Internet booking by mid year," Khumbula
said.
The change-over from paper will not only save the global aviation
industry
US$3 billion per annum but will also mean the industry, criticised
by
environmentalists for its part in global warming, will save 50 000 mature
trees a year. The airline industry will also realise a total saving of US$9
per ticket because a paper ticket costs US$10 versus an e-ticket, which
costs US$1.
China, one of the fastest-growing markets for air travel and
host to this
year's Olympic Games, could become the first country in the
world to operate
an entirely paper-free ticketing system by the end of this
year.
FinGaz
Lovemore Madhuku
THE
emergence of the Simba Makoni "initiative/project" has raised
justifiable
questions about the direction of the continuing quest by
Zimbabweans to end
the dictatorship of the ZANU-PF regime and usher in a
genuinely democratic
dispensation.
One such question is: how should civic society relate to
the initiative?
More fundamentally, should it be the business of civic
society organisations
to pronounce their preferences among contesting
presidential aspirants?
I have decided to take a few hours from my activist
work and put pen to
paper to address some of the pertinent issues arising
from the Makoni
"initiative/project".
In doing this, I am neither wearing
the hat of an academic nor putting on
the spectacles of the proverbial
analyst. I am here articulating the views
of a civic society activist who,
since 1997, has been part of a movement
that has certain beliefs, values and
principles.
Accordingly, the views and positions expressed herein are
partisan in that
they are controlled by the beliefs, values and principles
for which I have
been an activist in the past 10 years.
The starting
point is to put my cards on the table. Based on the values and
beliefs of
the movement I belong to, the Makoni "initiative/project" is
fundamentally
misconceived. It will fail. It has no grassroots support. It
misunderstands
the nature of the responses required to address our deepening
political
crisis.
The founding stone of the initiative is the March 29 harmonised
election.
The planners believe that on March 29, Makoni will capture power
from
President Robert Mugabe through an electoral process presided over by
none
other than the President himself.
To them, the reason why President
Mugabe is still in power is because those
who have challenged him in
previous elections did it prematurely and lacked
the requisite credentials,
support and strategies.
The time has now come, a person with the requisite
credentials has been
found and the support from appropriate circles is also
available. According
to them, President Mugabe is a democrat who respects
electoral processes and
will hand power to whoever is elected on March
29.
Makoni and his backers believe that peaceful street protests, stay aways
and
grassroots meetings advocating fundamental reforms such as a new,
democratic
and people driven constitution are inappropriate and misguided.
All that
matters is a carefully planned electoral strategy that "ambushes"
(President) Mugabe and takes power away from him through the ballot.
The
response to this approach is simple: the March 29, elections are being
conducted under a defective constitution whose raison d'etre is to preserve
the status quo. Elections under the current constitution cannot deliver
change whatever the credentials of the contestants and however sophisticated
their strategies.
Until Zimbabweans put their energies together and push
the current regime to
embrace a genuine and people-driven reform process
that leads to a
democratic constitution, power will not change hands through
a mere
election. Participation in the elections on March 29 cannot be for
the
purpose of winning power. It can only be for any other good
reasons.
This brings me to the question of the day: if power cannot change
hands
under the current constitution, why are all major civic groups,
including
the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), urging people to go
and vote on
March 29?
Different civic groups may have different reasons
for urging people to go
and vote. For the NCA, March 29 will not deliver a
new President but it
provides a platform for Zimbabweans to make a statement
against the Mugabe
regime's sins, which include being the author of the
suffering of the people
and above all, its refusal to embrace democratic
reforms.
Casting a vote against (President) Mugabe on March 29 is a peaceful
protest
against dictatorship and a key step in the post election agenda of
confronting that dictatorship and advocating for genuine democratic reforms.
But the vote on March 29 is not just against (President) Mugabe. It must be
a statement in support of a set of values, beliefs and principles, which
guide our post-election struggle for change in Zimbabwe.
It is in this
context that the presidential candidature of Morgan Tsvangirai
of the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) gains a windfall.
The MDC was launched
in September 1999 as a result of the deliberations of a
Working People's
Convention of February 1999. That Convention was convened
by the ZCTU and
was attended by most civic groups.
The NCA played a key role at the
Convention. At its launch in September
1999, the MDC had two main parents:
the labour movement and the
constitutional reform movement.
The MDC was
formed as a political wing of these two movements to pursue, as
a political
party, the values and principles that these two movements
represented. For
example, the ZCTU would expect the MDC, as a political
party, to fight for
labour friendly policies. Similarly, the NCA expects the
MDC to advocate for
a new, democratic and people-driven constitution.
Thus, since 1999, there has
existed a family: the labour movement, the
constitutional reform movement
and the political party mothered by these two
movements. Each member of the
family is a separate entity and independent
from the others. The MDC is
partisan.
The other movements are non-partisan. Like every other family,
certain core
family values are shared. In this particular family, the most
important
value is that Zimbabwe's political system must be transformed
through
people-driven processes and that a new, democratic and people driven
constitution must anchor that transformation. The family is convinced that a
"reformed ZANU-PF" is not the answer because it does not seek
transformation.
The family has had its own problems. The MDC has not been
consistent in
defending family values. On many occasions, it has
disappointed the family.
There are two most recent disappointments. The
first is its support for
Amendment 18. It is common knowledge that the other
family members were
outraged by that misguided endorsement of piecemeal
constitutional reforms.
The second disappointment is the MDC's participation
in this election under
a defective constitution. The family's preference is
"No elections without a
new, democratic and people-driven
constitution".
However, notwithstanding these disappointments, the family is
agreed on the
bigger picture of transforming Zimbabwe through people-driven
processes.
Whatever his weaknesses, Tsvangirai's presidential candidature
symbolizes
the founding values of our movement. Elections on March 29, being
held under
the current constitutional arrangements, will not make anyone
other than
(President) Mugabe, the president.
Accordingly, a vote for
either Morgan Tsvangirai or Simba Makoni can only be
for other good reasons.
For our family, our good reason is to support our
kind of politics. It is to
demonstrate that our kind of politics has the
greatest support in the
country and must therefore be vigorously pursued in
the post-election
period.
Our good reason is to use March 29 to set the agenda for the
post-election
period. As these elections cannot deliver a change of
government, the
competition between Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni is, to be
blunt, "for No. 2
position." President Mugabe's "No. 1 position" is secured
by the absence of
a free and fair election. He has no genuine
support.
However, the competition for the "No. 2 position" is serious
business.
Making a choice between Simba Makoni and Morgan Tsvangirai is a
big
political statement, reflecting one's position as to the way forward in
the
current crisis. Morgan Tsvangirai represents the route we have been
following since 1997. He is, as a person, not the answer. He represents the
answer and must be supported.
A vote for Tsvangirai's presidential bid is
a statement against a "reformed
ZANU-PF" agenda. It is important that this
statement be made against Simba
Makoni and his group because their set of
beliefs distorts our post-election
agenda of a total assault against the
system. This group does not believe in
transformation - all they want is to
replace (President) Mugabe. These
ZANU-PF reformists have no post election
agenda because they only have one
plan: to win and govern. They are
irrelevant in a post-election setting
focusing on transformation. They do
not believe in our methods. Fortunately,
because of our grassroots presence,
March 29 will show that the overwhelming
majority of Zimbabweans support a
total transformation of the system
presided over by (President) Mugabe and
not a mere tinkering with it
They will reject the Simba Makoni initiative.
Makoni will be a distant third
in the presidential race. The situation will
remain what it is today with
one solution - pushing for a genuine
people-driven transformation and free
and fair elections under a new
democratic constitution.
Lovemore Madhuku is the NCA chairman.
FinGaz
Economic
Viewpoint with Terrence Kairiza
True hyperinflations, those that satisfy
Cagan's (1956) definition (of over
50 percent monthly inflation), have
occurred more frequently after 1984.
Since then, true hyperinflation
episodes that lasted more than two months
number 20 in 18 countries, with
Zimbabwe being the latest addition to this
infamous club. Zimbabwe
officially ascended to hyperinflation status in
March 2007 when
month-on-month inflation reached 50.54 percent and
year-on-year being 2 200
percent. Though the potency of Zimbabwe's case to
degenerate to levels of
Serbia's spectacular 310 million percent monthly
inflation in January 1994
is disquieting, what is alarming is the fact that,
in documented
hyperinflations, incumbent monetary authorities often became
impediments to
a rapid disinflation programme through a wanton disregard of
sound
economics, resorting to abstruse theorising about cures to
hyperinflation.
The RBZ's departure from conventional economics is best
encapsulated in a
phrase in the 2007 Monetary Policy Statement: ".. those
who wrote economics
textbooks never experienced Zimbabwe's land reform."
Implicit in this
statement, the central bankers purport to be exponents of a
'new economics'
whose fundamentals lie on Zimbabwe's idiosyncrasies, but in
so doing expose
themselves as a prisoners of a particular brand of 'tried
and failed'
unorthodox economics that is omnipresent in most modern episodes
of
hyperinflation. The notion that Zimbabwe's hyperinflation is 'special',
thus
requires 'special solutions' which lie outside the realms of standard
stabilisation programmes is misleading, as analysis of events since 1998
reveals that Zimbabwe's hyperinflation bears the same general roots with
most hyperinflations.
Despite shifting policy pronouncements, the central
theme of the RBZ's 'new
economics' charade is not difficult to sift. It is
that market forces are
defunct and that a rescue package for Zimbabwe
necessitates a cocktail of
high public spending (in the form of Quasi Fiscal
Activities of the central
bank) and cheap money propped by an incomes
policy. The fundamental elements
of this dogma are based on a false belief
that the price mechanism needs to
be supplanted by an assortment of direct
government controls for an
effective synthesis.
This atrocious philosophy
manifests itself in the mirage of supply-sided
interventions (without
concomitant reforms to the operating environment),
which has seen inflation
accelerating from XXX to over 66 000 percent in
December 2007. These supply
sided interventions (ASPEF, BACOSSI, Operation
Food Security, SMEs
Development Programmes, Farm Mechanization Programme
etc) go beyond the
operational realm of a normal central bank of firstly and
foremost,
maintaining the stability of the currency (both in domestic and
external
markets) and soundness of the banking system. To date there has
been no
expansion to the real economy despite protestations from the
monetary
authorities. Actually, the country has seen contraction of an
average of 7
percent since 2003. These figures are by no means trivial; save
for Somalia
(where no reliable data exists). Zimbabwe is the only country
that has an
average contraction in real terms in Sub-Saharan Africa for the
period.
Orthodox economics say that monetary expansion is only
inflationary at the
peak of a business cycle, where there is no idle
capacity. Does this make
Zimbabwe's case 'special' as there is definitely
idle capacity and monetary
expansion is inflationary? NO! Due to the
rigidities that the central bank
is creating especially with its impractical
exchange rate policy, the money
injections in Quasi Fiscal Activities (QFAs)
mostly do not go towards the
intended uses, but rather towards the import of
consumption goods, purchase
of foreign currency and speculative activities,
thus there is no expansion
in supply of goods.
The resultant demand for
imported consumption goods mounts pressure on the
Zimbabwean currency in
currency markets and inevitably leads to continuous
depreciation of the
Zimbabwean dollar vis-à-vis other currencies.
That RBZ's whimsical potency to
create liquidity runs parallel to any
stabilization programme is absolute.
But is this assertion justified in
light of the cash shortages at the end of
2007? Cash shortages are resultant
of lax liquidity management. Once a
central bank embarks on Quasi Fiscal
liquidity injections, it runs the fatal
risk that rates of inflation will
surge ahead of the growth of the money
supply, creating a situation whereby
the real stock of the national money
falls below its normal levels, thus
causing perennial cash shortages, which
cannot be alleviated without
printing more money.
During Germany's 1923
hyperinflation, Reichsbank president Rudolf Havenstein
even boasted of the
installation of new high-speed currency printing presses
that would enable
money growth to keep up with skyrocketing prices. 30 paper
mills were
working overtime just to keep the Reichsbank supplied with paper
for its
banknotes.
The issue of QFAs of the central bank is insidious in modern
episodes of
very high to hyperinflation. In Bolivia (1985-87), Croatia
(1993-94), and
Macedonia (1992-96), QFAs in the form central banks financial
support to
loss-making state-owned enterprises played a major role in
fuelling
inflation, whereas in the cases of Angola (1996-98) and Bulgaria
(1997-98),
the QFAs entailed support to bail out banks in
distress.
Instead of focusing on the price misalignments (especially the
price of
foreign currency) that have rendered monetary policy paralysis, the
central
bankers have taken the nation on a whirlwind of cosmetic projects
embodied
in currency reforms and banking reforms, all of which have been
futile. A
paragon of the erroneous reasoning that permeates the 'new
economics' dogma
is best exposed in the context of some of the theoretical
underpinnings of
these currency reforms as a remedy to hyperinflation.
Looking at Operation
Sunrise I: One of the basis of these reforms was that
the removal of three
zeros would 'effectively have positive psychological
effect on people's
reference points when comparing the relative strength of
the local currency
against regional and international prices, as well as
prices for goods and
services.'
Other dogmatists hold that currency
change-overs are a natural cure to what
they perceive as inertial inflation.
Theoretically, inertia in price
expectations can be seen as path-dependent,
as backward-looking expectations
if the future is uncertain, thus all prices
in an economy are continuously
adjusted in relation to a price index by
force of contracts. A belief in
this theory implies that the problem of
inflation stems from the fact that
no one believes that prices can be
stabilised, so everyone insists on taking
price increases onto their prices
or wages to hedge against next month's
expected rises. Precisely, inertial
inflation theory says inflation only
exists because we had it yesterday. The
answer is to simply halt the
inertial slide upward by inducing a
psychological effect on people's
reference points, either by price freeze or
currency change. Again, this
line of reasoning runs parallel to the
realities of Zimbabwe's
hyperinflation. Firstly, there is very weak
indexation in Zimbabwe as the
trade unions have not been powerful to push
for better wage contracts that
keep in line with inflation expectations and,
secondly, the government
already has price controls.
Currency changeovers
have been natural experiments in most periods of
hyperinflations. Serbia
changed currencies four times within a space of four
months between October
1993 and January 1994, but inflation remained elusive
with prices increasing
by 5 quadrillion percent during the period. The same
experiments had been
carried out earlier in Brazil with the same results
between 1988 and 1992
when they changed currencies five times. In Zimbabwe's
case, inflation
increased from an average of 1017 percent in 2006 after
Sunrise I to over
66,000 percent by December 2007.
On the other hand, the sustained onslaught
on the banking sector by the
central bank which has seen several banks put
under curatorship has not
helped matters, as it has reduced confidence in
the financial sector.
Further, since 2004, the RBZ has not followed a clear
interest rate policy
with the real rate unsystematically oscillating between
positive and
negative, making it difficult for financial institutions to
take clear
positions as a profit making opportunity is reversed to a loss
making one in
the next instance. Therein lies a danger as this might cause
banks to become
overcautious and slow down the economy through a credit
crunch.
What is remarkable about advocates of 'new economics' is their
unshakeable
belief in their own infalliability. In the aftermath of Serbia's
inflation,
the official explanation was that hyperinflation was a result of
illegal
sanctions from the West. The former Soviet Union countries and other
transition economies, which were plagued by hyperinflations in the early 90s
blamed inflation on the inflationary overhang of the command economy (yet
they were the same people who were in charge of the central banks before
transition).
The competing scapegoats in the case of Zimbabwe are
sanctions and
speculation. In Zimbabwe there is a pervasive notion that the
existence of
the speculation and shadow economy in general in tandem with
the official
economy is essentially harmful. However, it is not certain that
all shadow
economic activity should be discouraged or that all its aspects
are
negative. In particular there is need to revisit its contribution to
allocative efficiency.
The situation be that as it may, what is never
mentioned is that the awkward
policies of the central bank particularly with
regards to the exchange rate
have fuelled these activities. Though causes of
hyperinflations do not lie
exclusively with the central banks, central banks
often play a crucial role
in facilitating a clear path to demise, firstly by
their lax liquidity
management and indirectly by providing a theoretical
justification of the
unorthodox acts by other arms of government. The
central bank's ability to
facilitate a hyperinflation rests upon its ability
to mystify the
generality. To advance this fraud central bankers sometimes
resort to all
sort measures including the exploitation of the society's
chronic
superstition and religion.
In Zimbabwe's monetary policy
statements are rife with quotations from the
Bible and monetary policy
issues are reduced to footnote material.
Terrence Kairiza is a member of the
Zimbabwe Economics Society and can be
contacted on tkairiza@yahoo.com.
The ZES articles are
coordinated by Lovemore Kadenge and he can be contacted
on
email
lovemore.kadenge@ gmail.com
Cell 091 2 732 873
FinGaz
Mavis
Makuni Own Correspondent
"There has to be trust and confidence developed
on both sides. It is
important for us to forge a firm foundation for a
united country." The
speaker is Kenya's leader of the opposition and the
country's prime minister
designate, Raila Odinga in an interview with the
BBC.
The interview was conducted after Odinga and the head of state, Mwai
Kibaki,
had finally allowed sanity to prevail by sealing a deal to end a
horrendous
and catastrophic two months that followed national elections held
at the end
of December. It is no small feat that former United Nations
secretary
general, Kofi Annan, handled the difficult negotiations in such a
transparent and honourable manner as to retain the respect and trust of both
sides until the desired outcome was achieved.
This is mediation and peace
brokering at its best and the continent of
Africa, blighted by conflicts
raging in a number of trouble spots, needs to
tap more into the skills of
elder statesmen and technocrats like Annan. In
his interview with the BBC,
Odinga, who signed a power-sharing deal with
Kibaki to end the civil strife
triggered by the disputed December elections,
pledged to help the displaced
and those who had lost jobs and property. He
also undertook to work for
national reconciliation and healing to help
Kenyans put the dark period,
during which 1,500 people perished and more
than 600 000 were forced to flee
their homes, behind them.
Some Kenyans have naturally reacted skeptically to
these pledges, which are
akin to belatedly treating the symptoms of a
chronic disease. These
undertakings to focus on national aspirations come
too late for the almost 2
000 people who died needlessly when hostilities
broke out after the election
results were disputed following voting in
December. Odinga's declaration
during his interview with the BBC that "I
feel confident that the experience
we have gone through has been a teacher
and everyone is going to ensure that
this coalition succeeds" is no
consolation to the thousands who were
displaced, maimed and traumatised when
the crisis assumed ethnic dimensions.
No one can blame those Kenyans who are
not convinced that the deal will
work. A skeptical man in Kibaki's home town
of Nyeri was reported as telling
the BBC: "They're two kings sharing one
power. That can never happen. You
can never have two husbands for one woman
in one house." A displaced woman
living in a camp was reported by the press
to have expressed similar doubts
about the power-sharing arrangement. "It's
become a habit of saying 'peace,
peace, peace' every now and then and after
peace we see flames of fire."
The bottom line of this lack of faith in
politicians and political
dispensations is that in many parts of Africa,
elections no longer serve
their intended purpose. Government by the people,
a favourite phrase of
Abraham Lincoln, is supposed to mean government in
accordance with the will
of the people. The surest way the people can
express their will is through
free and fair elections during which they can
vote for representatives of
their choice and throw out corrupt, inefficient
abusers of power.
However, events in Kenya and those that have surrounded
elections in many
other countries show the extent to which the roles of the
governed and
governors have been reversed . The reality on the ground is
that the main
function of the electorate now is to legitimize corrupt and
tyrannical
regimes by being depicted as voting overwhelmingly to keep them
in power. As
seen in the Kenyan scenario, this cruel feat is achieved
through election
rigging, uneven electoral playing fields and emasculated
electoral
commissions that exist solely to do the incumbent government's
bidding.
All this was confirmed by the disgraceful conduct of the Electoral
Commission of Kenya , which is dominated by Kibaki's cronies and was
therefore liable to the manipulation that obliged it to falsify election
results and arrange a hasty swearing-in of Kibaki before the outcome of the
presidential polls was announced publicly. The commission's only
consideration was to ensure victory for the incumbent at any cost, including
the loss of thousands of lives. More tragically, Kibaki was prepared to
claim victory and to remain un-moved for the next two months of bloodshed,
when he knew the truth.
The comment cited above, made by the woman from
Kibaki's home town about
seeing "flames of fire" assumed more acutely
disturbing dimensions for me
because I read it while contemplating a picture
of members of the Police
Support Unit published on the front page of a
Zimbabwean state newspaper on
Monday. The caption explained that the three
officers silhouetted against a
ball of fire, were passing "through a cloud
of tear-smoke during a mock
battle . staged to demonstrate the police
force's preparedness to deal with
violence" during and after the March 29
elections.
After the reckless and disproportionate show of force by the
police in Kenya
in the aftermath of the disputed elections the preparations
being made by
local law enforcement agents ahead of the harmonised polls
this month are
troubling. The very notion implicit in the caption referred
to above that
elections, which should empower ordinary Zimbabweans to
exercise their
democratic right to vote in a free and safe environment,
should evoke images
of conflagration and combat, is very worrying. The
images imply that the law
enforcement agents are preparing to unleash rather
than prevent violence. It
is not a positive way of promoting the electoral
process as the pictures
only serve as a crude warning that voting is a
dangerous business that
Zimbabweans undertake at their own peril.
That is
certainly the only conclusion to be reached when even in a mock-up,
police
are obliged to use so much tear gas. The reliance on all manner of
impediments such as the over-use of tear-gas unfortunately blinds the
powers-that-be to the expectations and aspirations of the people. Resorting
to tear-smoke to tackle any aspect relating to the staging of peaceful
elections is a contradiction that speaks volumes.
The people expect that
under normal circumstances,there should be no need
for the police to be
anticipating violence on such a scale as to warrant the
kind of combative
rehearsals they are having. This show of force makes the
impending polls
something ominous to be contemplated with foreboding. Why?
In referring to
the need to build trust between the opposition and the
government, Kenya's
Odinga has pointed out that historical injustices need
to be addressed. "It
means we recognise Kibaki as president and he
recognises that there were
some flaws in the elections."
The tragedy is that not a single Kenyan needed
to die for these shortcomings
to be acknowledged. Similarly no single
Zimbabwean needs to lose his or her
life in relation to the elections to be
held at the end of this month.
Promoting fair play, humane practices and
justice for all should be part of
the normal political culture of a country.
Regrettably, this is not the case
in most African countries where elections
are now a millstone around the
people's necks because of the rigging and
fraud that make it impossible to
dislodge unpopular governments.
FinGaz
Mavis
Makuni
In announcing plans to appoint a new
Zimbabwe
National Water Authority (ZINWA) board, Water Resources and
Infrastructural
Development Minister, Munacho Mutezo said it was imperative
for the media to
appreciate the authority's functions and the operational
challenges it
faced.
"Water issues are
sensitive worldwide, hence
the media hype they receive and it is against
this background that the
media, as informers of the society, should be well
informed of the country's
water resources management and development", said
the minister who,
unexpectedly, conceded however, that ZINWA was not beyond
reproach. He
insisted, however, that in writing about ZINWA, media should
also refer to
its achievements.
The
minister must rest assured that as
watchdogs for the public interest, there
is nothing that would please media
practitioners more than knowing that
everything was working properly and no
Zimbabweans were suffering
deprivations and indignities with respect to
performing routine tasks and
accessing services that people in other parts
of the world take for granted.
This is not the case in Zimbabwe these days
and the media cannot be accused
of fabricating stories about this because
the problems are there for
everyone to see. Suburbs go without water for
weeks on end and the sight of
sewage flowing in residential areas has become
a permanent feature of urban
life.
What this means is that these problems
are
affecting and inconveniencing such large sections of the population at
any
given time that propaganda can no longer be effective as a damage
control
mechanism. What is needed is concrete improvement in service
delivery. The
Minister would not need to blame the press if he and officials
in his
ministry cared to listen to the residents' concerns. I agree with the
Minister when he describes water issues as being sensitive. Water is life.
Human beings can live without food for weeks but would succumb after only a
few days when deprived of water.
The
Minister is aware of the link between
water shortages and disease outbreaks.
The United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) estimates that about 80 percent
of all illnesses in developing
countries are linked to poor water and
sanitation. The regular outbreaks of
diarrhoea and cholera that have been
reported in various urban centres in
Zimbabwe, prove that this country is
not immune to these risks. A recent
epidemic of diarrhoea in Mabvuku was not
a pretty sight. In the same issue
that it reported the Minister's plans to
appoint a new ZINWA board, the
state daily, The Herald also carried a story
about a water-linked diasese
outbreak in
Chinhoyi.
What the Minister needs to appreciate
is that
ZINWA's inefficiency stands out like a sore thumb because when local
authorities managed water affairs, residents enjoyed more reliable service
delivery. Water cuts were rare and it was unheard of for suburbs to go for
months without water as is the case now. Under these circumstances, it is
difficult to understand which achievements of ZINWA the minister wants the
media to acknowledge and highlight.
If the
unpalatable truth must be told, most
residents view the imposition of ZINWA
to manage urban water affairs that
city councils were running quite
efficiently as an unnecessarily punitive
move. The Americans have a saying,
"don't fix it if it ain't broken" but
here was central government forcibly
taking over a functioning system and
rendering it dysfunctional. The only
achievement that ZINWA can claim credit
for since its advent is setting up a
burgeoning bureaucracy with hundreds of
new jobs for which consumers have to
pick up the tab. In other words, ZINWA
is delivering jobs rather than
water.
It cannot be amusing for long-suffering
consumers to read about plans to appoint a new board after a restructuring
exercise when all these moves do not result in better service delivery. The
ZINWA chief executive officer, Engineer Albert Muyambo has been quoted as
saying the main thrust of the authority's new management strategy is "the
provision of water on a 24-hour basis to the central business district,
industry and high density areas while making sure that low density suburbs
did not go for seven days without water."
The simple question is what are people in the
low density suburbs expected
to do on the days ZINWA lets them go without
water? A management strategy
that aims for less than 100 percent service
delivery to begin with is an
admission of failure and Minister Mutezo should
not be surprised by the hue
and cry over ZINWA's inefficiency. He must
realise that it is not an
outstanding achievement for the authority to meet
demand in Harare's CBD,
industrial and high density areas. This is what it
must routinely do and
does not deserve a pat on the back for it.
ZINWA has been loud and vocal about its
determination to take over water
jurisdiction from local authorities despite
a disastrous track record and
opposition from municipalities. All that ZINWA
has done since its arrival on
the urban scene is to moan about not having
enough resources. The latest
complaint was reported by The Herald on Tuesday
when it quoted the billing
and revenue manager, Godfrey Kusangaya as saying:
"The problem is that the
authority does not have enough resources like
computers and vehicles and
this impacts negatively on meter reading, bill
processing and revenue
collection."
The question that begs an answer,
Minister
Mutezo, is: Why was it imperative to impose ZINWA in the urban
areas to
replace city councils that had established efficient systems over
the years?
To "fix" urban dwellers?
FinGaz
Comment
ELECTIONS in
Zimbabwe have caused their fair share of controversy,
intrigues, twists and
turns - some of them very nasty. The current one is no
exception.
Interestingly, ever since the emergence of a real
challenge to the ruling
party, a disturbing phenomenon has once again reared
its poisonous head:
that of senior army chiefs openly declaring their
allegiance to the
incumbent, and not to the process of holding democratic
elections as
enshrined in the country's supreme governing law - the
Constitution.
It all started in January 2002 when retired army chief, Vitalis
Zvinavashe -
then in charge of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) - shocked
the nation by
announcing that the military would not accept a President who
did not meet
their requirements such as possessing credible liberation war
credentials.
Zvinavashe's criterion ruled out Movement for Democratic Change
leader
Morgan Tsvangirai, who was, and still is, posing a serious threat to
President Robert Mugabe's rule.
Tsvangirai went on to lose the disputed
Presidential poll by over 420 000
votes.
It seems it is now the norm that
a serving or retired army general must come
out of the shells a few weeks
before elections to drive Zvinavashe's point
home.
Last week, Retired
Major General Paradzayi Zimondi, ordered his officers to
vote for no one
else except President Mugabe, facing a challenge from
Tsvangirai, former
finance minister Simba Makoni and little-known Langton
Towungana, who seems
to be in the race only to enhance his CV.
The state-run daily The Herald
quoted the Commissioner of Prisons as saying:
"If the opposition wins the
election, I will be the first one to resign from
my job and go back to
defend my piece of land. I will not let it go.we are
going to the elections
and you should vote for President Mugabe."
In all fairness, this trend cannot
be allowed to continue.
While we fully subscribe to the right to freedom of
speech as the
cornerstone of any democratic society, guaranteed under
international law,
we feel strongly that Retired Major General Zimondi is
out of order.
His job comes with restrictions. As a public servant, it
forbids him from
issuing reckless and inflammatory statements that betray
his allegiance to
one political party.
If Zimondi wants to become
ZANU-PF's commissar, he must join the field of
politics, but he must
certainly not abuse his authority as Commissioner of
Prisons by openly
campaigning for ZANU-PF.
Manipulating a government function to do the bidding
of one political party
or one candidate like what Zimbabweans witnessed last
week puts the ZDF in
bad light.
It also gives credence to the perception
that some members of the defence
forces, for one reason or the other, have
become sensitive to the interests
of a selected few as the Rhodesian
military did when the oppressive Ian
Smith regime was in power.
The
country has corrupted the important role of some members of the defence
forces by deploying them in strategic institutions outside the military to
the point of allowing some of them to run elections.
Because of huge
salary perks and other rewards such as A2 farms, it is now
doubtful if these
senior army officers are still acting in the best
interests of the
people.
What Retired Major General Zimondi did constitutes abuse of office
and a
violation of his subordinates' right to elect a leader of their
choice.
Such reckless statements are a form of intimidation that might be
used one
day to demonstrate that the atmosphere under which the March 29
elections
were held could not be classified as free and fair.
Security
forces have the responsibility to serve whichever government comes
into
power through democratic means. Otherwise what is the point of holding
these
elections?
Their dedication to a country and its people's sovereignty are
fundamental
roles that cannot be abdicated simply because one is a
beneficiary of this
or that scheme.
Zimondi needs to make a choice
between joining politics and being a public
servant.
Going by what he
said last week, he might as well resign and make room for
others who can
discharge their duties professionally.
Having joined the armed struggle in
his 20s and getting attested into the
army as a colonel in 1980 before
rising through the ranks, Zimondi should
know better.
The army is not a
debating society; it must be apolitical and ready to serve
a democratic and
multicultural nation in line with the wishes of the people.
Office bearers in
such esteemed positions cannot limit themselves to
defending their personal
interests, such as farms, at the expense of the
people who are yearning for
better living standards, jobs and food on their
tables.
Leaders who love
their people respect their choices; they do not impose
their views.
The
liberation struggle was about defending the interests of the majority
blacks
and ensuring the country's wealth is distributed equitably, the land
included.
None of the presidential candidates, President Mugabe, Makoni
or Tsvangirai
has shown the desire to go back on these issues.
Zimondi's
threats, subtle as they may appear, should not be taken lightly.
The
contesting political parties should condemn his utterances in the
strongest
terms possible and press the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to make
its
position known on such unfortunate statements whose timing could be
meant to
intimidate the electorate and swing support in favour of the ruling
party.
But whatever Zimbabweans individually believe in, they have got to
get out
and vote for it, in order to overcome the voter intimidation,
misinformation
and other challenges to their rights.
Zimondi's words futile
EDITOR - What
is the point of having an election when men like Retired
Major-General
Paradzayi Zimondi, who is supposed to be apolitical, coerce
those under them
to vote for ZANU-PF?
This country, which is now called Zimbabwe, is a
European construct. It is
the Europeans who set out the borders in 1889 in
Switzerland.
Before that, people were just drifting from one place to the
other. There
was no recognised authority before the colonialists came. If
the Portuguese
had not occupied Mozambique before the British then perhaps
Southern
Rhodesia would have included Mozambique as Eastern Rhodesia. Or if
the
Portuguese wanted, they could have made Southern Rhodesia part of
Mozambique.
We should all thank the colonialists (British) for setting
out the borders.
General Walls refused to salute (President) Mugabe. Where is
he now? The
same will happen to Paradzayi Zimondi.
All the inhabitants of
this former British colony have an inalienable right
to choose who rules
over them. This is not to be done on their behalf by the
likes of
Zimondi.
Blind faith is what Zimondi is showing here. He and his friends can
support
(President) Mugabe as much as they like but he must leave us to
choose who
rules over us.
I don't think Zimondi got his job as a soldier
on merit. He serendipitously
got into this position by virtue of either
being a school dropout or he was
a fugitive from justice or both when he
strayed into Mozambique. This was
not by design but by accident so he should
not brag about his position.
The fact that General Walls refused to work
under (President) Mugabe did not
stop (President) Mugabe being President and
by the same token Zimondi's
scrappiness will not stop Tsvangirai being
President.
What Zimondi has done is outright intimidation or gangsterism and
he should
be arrested for this offence but then this is a corrupt regime.
Instead, he
will be promoted. Saka (President) Mugabe vachitaura semunhu
akatsika pfuti.
It is quite obvious who runs the show in Zimbabwe - the army.
Zimondi doesn't
even understand what an election is all about; he needs to
be educated on
the do's and don'ts of elections because.
And you expect a
free and fair election in such an environment; perish the
thought.
S. Chimbindi
United
Kingdom
---------------
Each one take 10
EDITOR -
Whatever people do and think about Simba Makoni, he has the backing
of us
ordinary Zimbabweans. Our campaign strategy is simple: We will make
sure
each one of us takes 10 relatives and friends to the polls and the 10
take
10 and 10 take 10.
He is a liberator and, yes, he is the only cabinet
minister who never
grabbed a piece of land. Winning or not, he is the
anointed one to lead
Zimbabwe.
Handei nyati mhenyu. Do you think with the
torture that happened anyone in
ZANU-PF will admit they are behind Simba.
They are big in age and very young
in courage.
I urge Zimbabweans not to
think twice as we have a messiah in Simba.
Email us on votesimbamakoni@yahoo.com and
register your 10 friends and
relatives. The in thing is to be independent
and enjoy the independence.
Who wants to be saluted nemhondi dzapedza
kutorture vanhu.
Shungu Shungu
Zimbabwe
------------
Work
avoidance makes democracy meaningless
EDITOR - The Bantu say
a "leader is a leader because of the people." Nothing
can be truer about the
leadership that comes by way of asking people to vote
for an incumbent.
Leaders are placed where they are because people will have
participated in
the process of putting them into that position.
Election time is time to
employ our public servants who will occupy
municipal, legislative and
presidential offices. Potential leaders come to
the people begging for
employment; this is what campaigning is all about.
Just like potential
employees sell their services by preparing attractive
Curriculum Vitaes, so
do potential leaders promise service delivery, laws
that protect the
citizens and governance and goodwill to all Zimbabweans.
A lot of promises
are made of how good things will be if, the public gives
the incumbent a
chance to work for them. Just like a housekeeper seeks to
impress his or her
boss that he or she can look after babies, cook, clean
the house e.t.c that
is how our potential public servants communicate when
they want to be
elected into office.
Some say elections are an expression of people's
democratic rights.
Democratic rights are linked to obligations that people
should fulfill; to
ensure that the enjoyment of rights becomes a reality.
This obviously
implies that there is work that needs to be done by all
citizens. Such work
might involve registering to vote, inspecting the
voter's roll and inputting
into the delimitation processes to ensure that
people have a say in the
employment of public servants who will be
responsible for service delivery.
It might also mean having the voice to
articulate one's discontent when
people feel the election was not free and
fair without fear of reprisals.
This is still part of exercising one's
democratic right, which in my view is
every citizen's obligation.
The
critical questions are; after the elections, why are people not able to
question their servants when they fail to deliver the goods or services they
pledged to and fire them for incompetence? Why then do citizens allow their
servants to forget that they account to the people? Why is the power of many
people swallowed by one servant- turned- master?
It is, in my opinion, a
question of the public's complacency and
incompetence as employers. Citizens
do what Ronald. A. Heifetz a renowned
writer on leadership calls "work
avoidance".
Citizens know that they should stand up to their public servants
and ask
them to account for their behaviour, but people do not do their
work.
Zimbabweans sit on their potential and expect civil society
organisations to
do the dirty work because they are preoccupied with making
money or looking
for basic goods, goods that would otherwise be available if
they do their
work by ensuring that public servants account to
them.
People know that they do not like power cuts, the stench of sewage,
potholes, queuing for money, bread, and the collapse of the health delivery
system, but they hesitate going to the civil servants in the relevant
offices to ask them to account for the poor service delivery.
Fellow
citizens we are guilty of "work avoidance". You hear people saying,
"something must be done, something must be done." The question is: By who?
People have contributed to giving up their rights to their servants. They
have contributed to the chef mentality that makes those in positions of
power not bat an eyelid in the face of the human suffering we witness,
normalising the abnormal. After voting, people begin to call their servants
"chef", even if they cannot cook nice food. Some citizens say "Zimbabwe
yakanaka", while smelling the 'sweet aroma' of sewage in their homes.
The
councillors, MPs, senators and President we will vote for on March 29
fellow
citizens, are our servants. The leadership style they should adopt is
that
of servant leadership, knowing where their power comes from. They
should
account to the public.
Let me at the risk of sounding ridiculous, say as we
prepare to employ our
servants in the impending elections, let us make sure
that we state our
position as the bosses, and do the work we have to do if
we want the
services we so cry for. Those with the potential of upsetting
the power
scales, 'chefs' who are insolent and arrogant should not be given
the job
because they will refuse to account to the public, a sure case of
failure to
deliver and further dehumanisation in our Zimbabwe.
Our public
servants should respect accountability and dignity of the human
person. A
servant leader should accept criticism without being vindictive
and should
not seek to enrich only him or herself as we have seen with some
office
bearers.
Francisca Mandeya
Development Worker and
Activist
Harare
-------------
Rigging has
started
EDITOR - All police officers have been asked to
submit their voting details.
Not bad because they will be deployed out of
their wards. The catch is that
everyone would be forced, one way or the
other, to vote for a particular
candidate. You know who?
How can you vote
when there are ex-combatant officers seeing where you are
putting your vote?
That is rigging if you ask me. Last time some envelopes
were opened and
officers were victimised when it was seen that they had
voted for the
opposition.
Please highlight this issue in your widely read newspaper so that
our votes
can count. Imagine all 30 000 police votes being stolen. That can
steal a
whole election in someone's favour. The time is
now.
Ngonjo
Harare
-------------
Tsvangirai should not step
aside for anyone
EDITOR - I refer to your comment in your
February 21 issue of The Financial
Gazette under the heading, "It's not
about Tsvangirai." Well, your comment
encourages unity of opposition and
civic society against the ruling party on
March 29 2008 and you propose that
the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai should
step aside for Simba Makoni. It was
unfair on the person of Morgan
Tsvangirai and his top leadership.
My
understanding is that the decision not to join forces with the Mutambara
faction was recommended by a negotiating team and thus it was not an
individual decision by Tsvangirai.
I totally agree with your
recommendation that it will be good for Tsvangirai
to embrace all
progressive forces that include the youth, intellectuals and
the business
community. The break up of the MDC in October 2005 was a very
unfortunate
development in the history of the opposition and Tsvangirai as
the leader
should shoulder most of the blame for the break up.
ZAPU split after its
banishment by the Rhodesian government in 1963 and
hence the formation of
ZANU. In 1989 Edgar Tekere, then secretary-general
for ZANU PF, was fired
from the party after opposing the one party state,
leading to the formation
of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM).
But, Mr Editor, for how long should we
cry over spilt milk- the good old
days of the MDC? The writer still has the
highest regard for Tsvangirai's
former comrades in arms, the likes of Gibson
Sibanda, Welshman Ncube and
Paul Themba Nyathi, as he worked with them
during their trade union and NCA
days. I also have no problems with
Professor Arthur Mutambara opting not to
stand as a presidential candidate
and opting to contest Zengeza constituency
and his support for Dr Simba
Makoni for the presidency.
Your comment on Tsvangirai needs repeating "by
refusing to embrace other
progressive forces, Tsvangirai is no different
from a captain of a losing
team who protests at the entry of a super
substitute for fear that the fresh
pair of legs might steal the
show."
Your analogy is misplaced, suppose Dynamos FC is playing against its
arch
rival Highlanders FC at Rufaro stadium and at half time the scoreline
reads
Dynamos 0 - 1 Highlanders. For some strange reason, some spectators
(Fingaz
Editor included) shout and ask the Dynamos captain Murape Murape to
make way
for Zephania Ngodzo the Highlanders star who is on their bench.
Surely this
does not make sense.
What stops Zephania Ngodzo from scoring
an own goal, and thus help
Highlanders to increase its tally. The norm, in
football, is for the Dynamos
team to use one of the substitutes on its
bench. Simba Makoni should be a
super substitute for ZANU PF and not for the
MDC Tsvangirai. Simba Makoni
has publicly confirmed that he is an
'independent' presidential candidate
and is not a member of the
MDC.
Lovemore Kadenge
Harare
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
6 March 2008
Posted to the web 6 March 2008
Stanley
Kwenda
Harare
Johannesburg will this weekend catch Harare's election
fever when Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition's (CZC) campaign arrives in that
city.
The campaign to be held under the "Rock the Vote concert" banner is
aimed at
encouraging millions of Zimbabweans resident in South Africa to
return home
and cast their vote in this month's general
elections.
CZC has been running a series of voter education campaigns
in Zimbabwe use
the medium of music, in various cities and in rural areas
across the
country.
CZC says it is now taking the campaign to South
Africa because of the large
number of Zimbabweans living and working in that
country.
"There are quite a number of registered Zimbabwean voters in
South Africa
and all we are doing is to entice them to come back home for
just a day and
vote then go back to their bases," said Pedzisayi Ruhanya,
CZC Programmes
Manager.
"We are primarily concerned about South
Africa because we know that there
are people there and we would want to make
them aware of the processes
taking place back home and help in the
democratic process of the country."
A number of local artists, including
Sandra Ndebele, Knox, Snipper, Sam
Mtukudzi, Willom Tight, and dance outfit
Mambokadzi will perform at the show
alongside some of their South African
counterparts.
"All we are saying with the help of these artists is that
Zimbabweans take
your time, come back home to vote and assist in resolving
the problem back
home," said Ruhanya.
A publicity blitz for the show
has been launched at several venues and in
the media in Johannesburg ahead
of the show.
Fahamu
(Oxford)
OPINION
6 March 2008
Posted to the web 6 March
2008
Sehlare Makgetlaneng
Former finance minister and member
of the Zanu PF politburo, Simba Makoni is
challenging Robert Mugabe later
this month for the leadership of Zimbabwe.
Sehlare Makgetlanen tackles the
question of whether he represents a break
from the past or more of the
same.
Zimbabwe under the leadership of Mugabe is facing fundamental
governance,
democracy and development challenges. It has failed to
"legitimately
exercise power and authority over the control and management
of the
country's affairs in the interest of the people and in accordance
with the
principles of justice, equity, accountability and transparency."
Mugabe has
prevented some members of the Zimbabwe African National Union -
Patriotic
Front (ZANU-PF) from expressing their governance, democracy and
development
policy preferences through democratic means to be the president
of ZANU-PF
and the country. He regards himself as the only leading judge of
what best
serves the national interests of Zimbabwe which include
governance,
democracy and development demands, needs and interests of the
country and
its people.
Mugabe has threatened to be the stumbling
block for ZANU-PF to win free and
fair elections and for the resolution of
Zimbabwe's governance, democracy
and development problems. Processes and
issues leading to true national
self-determination should not be left into
the hands of one leader
irrespective of the unquestionable content of his or
her commitment to the
liberation cause and that the political leadership
including the leadership
in the political administration of the society is
the collective process in
which no individual is indispensable. He has in
the process mobilised some
members of ZANU-PF to implement their decision to
use their strength and
resources in challenging him not only as the
president of the party but also
as the president of the country. Those
theirs is hostility to the new
leadership of the party and the country as
required by the present
situation - the struggle fought for under the
pretext of defending the unity
of the party - must be democratically fought
against. It is not in the
interest of the country and its people in
defending the unity of the party
if its president is against the popular
national interests - the governance,
democracy and development demands,
needs and interests of the country and
its people.
Whether they will
use this development to have collective leadership and the
democratic means
capable of adequately appropriating Zimbabwe's problems for
their
confrontation and resolution remains to be seen. These problems have
intensified. This development led Simba Makoni to challenge Mugabe in the 29
March 2008 presidential elections. What is the present state of Zimbabwe's
national situation? "The Zimbabwe of today," according to Makoni at the
launch of his election manifesto in Harare on 13 February 2008, "is a nation
full of fear, a nation in deep stress, a tense and polarised nation, a
nation also characterised by disease and extreme poverty." It is a nation in
which "immediate and urgent tasks to resolve the food, power and fuel, water
and sanitation problems, resolve health and educational services" should be
undertaken.
Highlighting the gravity of Zimbabwe's socio-political
and economic
situation, Makoni in his 5 February 2008 announcement that he
would
challenge Mugabe in the 29 March 2008 presidential elections as
candidate
pointed out that he shares "the agony and anguish of all citizens
over the
extreme hardships we have all endured for nearly 10 years."
Admitting the
role played by the national leaders on the development of the
national
situation, he told reporters that he also shares "the widely held
view that
these hardships are a result of failure of national leadership and
that
change at that level is a prerequisite for change at other levels of
national endeavour." He was denied opportunity to a "renewal of the
leadership in the ZANU-PF and country" to end economic crisis and "national
despair." It is for this reason, among others, that what he is "offering is
the chance for hope" to rid Zimbabwe of fear and poverty. The point is that
"we believe that solving these problems will not be intractable, once we
remove the barriers and impediments that bar the expression and pursuit of
our common interest and common purpose." If elected, he promises that he
would "address national issues that separate and divide us as a nation and
institute a process of national healing and reconciliation." Having been
expelled from ZANU-PF, he is standing as an independent presidential
candidate in the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 29
March 2008. He calls upon Zimbabweans particularly members of the party to
join him in his struggle to prevent Mugabe from winning a sixth term in
office. "I particularly invite those compatriots who have been pushed into
despair and despondency, but have the qualities of leadership, to please
enter the race. I also invite those in ZANU-PF who share our yearning for
renewal to contest the election as independent candidates under our banner."
He is contesting elections under the banner of the movement called Dawn
(Mavambo/Kusile), whose logo features a rising sun. "The time for decision
has come. Jump off the fence, climb out of the false comfort zones."
Contrary to Makoni's position, members of the ruling alliance are not in
"the false comfort zones." Theirs are structures of wealth and
privileges.
There is essentially nothing new Makoni has pointed out since
announcing his
decision to challenge Mugabe in the elections. He has
repeated statements
opposition political parties and their critics have been
saying about the
country's problems and how to resolve them. On the
atrocious abuse of power
and public resources and use of violent measures to
deal with dissent and
opposition including within the ruling party, he
maintains: "Zimbabweans are
experiencing stress and tension because of the
siege mentality in the state,
with the state resorting to violence to
suppress dissent, a lack of respect
for the law and gross abuse of state
resources." He continues: "National
institutions have been corrupted,
privatised and politicised. We are seeing
a scourge of the politics of
patronage and gross abuse of power and a
culture of chiefdom." He has served
as a senior participant in creating and
sustaining this democracy practice.
He continues stating what has been
attributed not only to the ruling party,
but also to two factions of the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). "There
is lack of a national vision
and agenda on the basis which all Zimbabweans
could be mobilised for
national reconciliation and revival." What is his
vision and agenda on the
basis which Zimbabweans could be mobilised to serve
as social agents for
development and progress of their country is the
strategic question which he
has so far failed to answer. Predicting a
landslide victory in the
elections, he is basing his campaign platform on
the revival of the economy
and the restoration of political freedoms and
property rights. He claims
that this strategy will "restore our people's
independence, dignity and
confidence." This strategy will continue, if he
wins elections, in managing
the inequality of power relations between the
rulers and the ruled of the
country.
As it happened in the past,
members of ZANU-PF were denied their democratic
rights and opportunity to
fight for nomination during its December 2007
congress so as to stand as the
party's candidate in the 29 March 2008
presidential elections. It endorsed
Mugabe as its sole candidate. This
decision ensured that he should not be
challenged within the ruling party in
his attempt to be re-elected as the
president of the country. Makoni was
defying this decision in announcing
that he would challenge him as the
ruling party's candidate in the
elections. He maintains that at the December
2007 congress, some party
members including himself were prevented from
seeking nomination as its
presidential candidate. In his words: "I would
have very much wished to
stand as (ZANU-PF) official candidate.
Unfortunately, as we all know, that
opportunity was denied to other cadre
who would have offered themselves to
serve the party and country."
While Makoni's announcement is viewed by
some individuals as a substantial
and welcome addition in the arsenal
against Mugabe, the MDC faction led by
Morgan Tsvangirai and civil society
organisations aligned to it regard him
as the ruling party agent deployed to
divide the opposition vote in the
elections. Tsvangirai dismissed him as
"nothing more than old wine in a new
bottle." Lovemore Madhuku was more
harsh and brutal. He dismissed him as the
part of the ZANU-PF-state
institutional machinery and its project guilty of
many years of its rule. As
usual, the ruling party viewed him as the traitor
and agent of imperialist
interests. Questions are raised as to whether he is
honest and sincere in
his declared challenge to Mugabe. Is he the
intelligence project by
supporters of Mugabe designed to identify senior
members of the ruling party
who are Mugabe's opponents he maintains support
his campaign? Some are of
the view that his aim is to split the opposition
vote - most importantly
urban voters who have supported the MDC in the
previous
elections.
Why did Makoni decide to challenge Mugabe? At what time did he
seriously
convince himself that he should summon his courage to challenge
Mugabe? Why
did he announce his decision so late? Is it because his wish to
be the
ruling party's official candidate was rejected? Was he forced to make
his
decision? If he was forced, who forced him, for what strategic and
tactical
reasons? The announcement of his decision raises the key question
as to
whether he is a shrewd politician capable of effectively challenging
Mugabe.
What are his strategy and tactics to win elections and to effect the
democratic transformation of the state and society? Is his campaign
individual or collective effort? Can the majority of Zimbabweans regard it
as their proud national product? Who within the ruling party are supporting
his campaign? Have they participated in the creation and sustenance of the
current situation? Are they now convinced that Mugabe is threatening their
interests and therefore he should be replaced as the country's president for
their interests to continue being protected? Why they have not publicly
articulated what they stand for - particularly how and for what strategic
and tactical ends Zimbabwe should be governed? He initially stated that he
was standing as an independent presidential candidate within the ruling
party challenging Mugabe. He refused, given his loyalty to the party, to end
his relationship with it. He was embracing leaderless illusion that the
party will not end its relationship with him. As the party correctly pointed
out, he expelled himself from it by making his announcement. He continues,
after expulsion from the party, refusing to provide a critical analysis of
the party and how it ruled the society and articulating this to Zimbabweans
so as to with their support for him to solve problems they have been facing
as he claims to be his key reason why he decided to contest elections. He
continues refusing also to use opportunity to substantiate in practice that
he is independent from the ruling party.
Makoni has so far failed to
provide failed to provide alternative vision and
agenda of the future
Zimbabwe to that offered by ZANU-PF and two MDC
factions. Despite acute
problems confronted by the masses on the daily
basis, his strategy and
tactics have failed to meet their demands and needs.
The consequence is that
they do not recognise them as expressions of their
own experience. Briefly,
they failed to capture their imaginations. Is he
for the authentic national
popular democratisation of the society and the
state for the masses of the
Zimbabwean people to be the main authority in
achieving, maintaining and
expanding their interests? Unless the power to
determine the form and
content as well as the timetable of the change is in
the hands of the masses
of the people through the leadership of those who
have surrendered their
being their representatives to their cause,
unilateral declaration of
independence of leaders from the people will
always be the negation of the
popular principle, "we are our own
liberators."
The strategic tasks
confronting the masses of Zimbabweans are political. Who
should be their
national president and why? How should be their national
problems be
resolved? What should be the nature of the future Zimbabwe's
relations with
its regional and continental African countries and the rest
of the world
particularly developed countries? How best and effectively to
improve the
material conditions of the millions of Zimbabweans? These are
some of the
questions which should be answered to the satisfaction of the
majority of
Zimbabweans.
*Sehlare Makgetlaneng is the head of Southern African and
SADC Desk at the
Africa Institute of South Africa.
**Please send
comments to editor@pambazuka.org or
comment online at
www.pambazuka.org
zimbabwejournalists.com
6th Mar 2008 00:06 GMT
By Blessing-Miles Tendi
IBBO
Mandaza, Claude Mararike, Vimbai G Chivaura, Sheunesu Mpepereki,
Godfrey
Chikowore and Ngugi wa Mirii are key nationalist public
intellectuals who
have legitimised ZANU PF authoritarianism at one point or
another since
2000.
They are or once were part of a cabal of nationalist public
intellectuals
aligned with ZANU PF that pontificated on current politics and
liberation
history, on various ZTV talk shows and prime time news, as
'analysts' and
'experts'.
They resurface in the government-owned
press episodically, penning a
superfluity of articles about Zimbabwean and
African history, national
elections, and hero worshipping Robert
Mugabe.
However, Tafataona Mahoso has loomed larger than any other
public
intellectual supportive of ZANU PF. Through the Sunday Mail, Mahoso
manufactures a weekly outflow of theories of Western conspiracy and
political siege against Zimbabwe.
Mahoso depicts Zimbabwe's
sovereignty as under threat from America and
Britain. In order to defend
Zimbabwe's sovereignty, Zimbabweans are
encouraged to be 'patriotic'. To be
'patriotic' means supporting ZANU PF
because it 'delivered
independence'.
Anything short of this is 'unpatriotic' and renders one a
'sell-out' to the
imperialists. Mahoso's intention is to herd Zimbabweans
under the umbrella
of eternal ZANU PF authoritarianism. His
arguments are
nothing more than a convenient apparatus for absolving ZANU PF
of any
responsibility for Zimbabwe's economic, social and political decay.
When
I interviewed MDC parliamentarian Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga in
2005,
she recounted the following interesting encounter: "I remember
visiting my
Glen Norah constituency in 2003 to keep abreast with needs there
and a very
old man came to see me. He had a copy of the Sunday Mail. I
thought he had
come to ask for food relief or health care assistance. I got
a shock when he
started waving his copy of the Sunday Mail in frustration
and asked me,
'could
somebody please respond to Mahoso'".
Disturbingly, that old
man's plea remains unmet because we have
continued to allow ZANU PF and the
nationalist public intellectuals to
privatize and re-narrate our liberation
history to suit their authoritarian
ends. We have allowed them to define
what it means to be a patriotic
Zimbabwean and what it means to be a
'sell-out'.
We have stood by while the likes of Mahoso have portrayed
human rights and
democracy as unimportant yet the liberation struggle was as
much about land
as it was about human rights and democracy.
Mahoso's
contention that human rights is Western imperialism, as if
human rights has
had no significance in Zimbabwe, independent of
Western-based human rights
campaigners, is divorced from Zimbabwe's
historical and contemporary
political and historical experience. Human
rights is not rented from the
West.
It is an offshoot from the Zimbabwean people's resistance to
colonial
oppression. The West does not have a monopoly on the history of
human rights
being born out of struggles against oppression. 'Without the
experience of
sickness there can be no idea of health.
And without
the fact of oppression; there can be no practice of resistance
and no notion
of rights'. The Second Chimurenga was a struggle by majority
black
Zimbabweans for human rights in the civic sphere and for
self-determination.
Self-determination is one of the
central facets of the human rights doctrine
hence human rights is
engraved in Zimbabwe's historical
trajectory.
Mahoso's writings habitually demonstrate how Western
governments invoke
human rights erratically and hypocritically. He is not
concerned with the
extent of human rights observance in Zimbabwe because his
principal point of
concern is the genuineness of Western governments
championing human rights.
Consequently, Mahoso pays little attention to
the human rights doctrine
itself, the universal strivings for equality and
freedom that have spurred
its proliferation globally, and to the reasons why
ordinary Zimbabwean
citizens, the local human rights community and the MDC,
resort to human
rights language.
In making the unmasking of Western
double standards on human rights a
central pursuit, Mahoso implies that
uncovering Western double standards is
of greater consequence than the ZANU
PF government's human rights abuses.
Nothing could be further from the
truth than this. Struggles for human
rights have had and continue to have a
local history. Zimbabwe's local human
rights community, opposition and
citizens have their own particular and
legitimate reasons for believing in
and invoking human rights language.
They have legitimate reasons
particular to the Zimbabwean historical and
political context - the
emergence of ZANU PF's authoritarian nationalism,
for instance - for
resorting to human rights language and appealing to
external human rights
promoters for support, no matter how selective or
hypocritical that support
may be.
Zimbabweans must reclaim their history from ZANU PF and
its
intellectuals. We ought to speak strongly to the true values of
Zimbabwe's
liberation history in the independent media. Is the state of
affairs in
Zimbabwe today a reflection of the liberation values that we
fought for? Are
we articulating a compelling defence of the validity of
human rights and
democracy in Zimbabwe? Does sovereignty lie with ZANU PF
elites or
Zimbabwean citizens? Who are the REAL 'sell-outs' standing in
contradiction
to Chimurenga ideals - ZANU PF, MDC or civil
society?
ZANU PF and its intellectuals have manipulated ideas and our
history to
legitimise their undemocratic practices since 2000 while many of
us have
been ensconced in the false sense of security that we are 'right'.
Civil
society and the opposition need to absolve themselves of the misguided
belief that because they are 'right' they do not need to confront the likes
of Mahoso.
Any public intellectual who argues, as Mahoso did in the
Sunday Mail in
February 2008, that 'President Mugabe is the future' when
Mugabe has
presided over unprecedented economic and social decline is an
irresponsible
intellectual whose ideas should be challenged robustly. It is
tempting to
state that Mahoso's writings must be quarantined in an asylum
for deranged
ideas but, instead, they ought to be challenged and discredited
for being
the threat to national security that they
are.
*Blessing-Miles Tendi is a researcher at Oxford University.
Email:
tendimiles@operamail.com
The Zimbabwean
Thursday, 06
March 2008 10:12
HARARE - A shortage of blood and its by-products has
hit Zimbabwe, the
country's blood bank said this week, revealing the country
only had a paltry
1,000 units of blood instead of the requisite 3,000
units.
National Blood Transfusion Services (NBTS) spokesman Emmanuel
Masvikeni said the early closure of schools ahead of the March 29 poll was
likely to exacerbate an already dire situation.
The lack of the
vital health product has been precipitated by scarce
fuel and foreign
exchange.
Blood, essential in surgical operations, for haemophiliacs
and for
transfusions after major accidents, is the latest product to join
the list
of shortages in the southern African country.
Among the
basics in short supply so far has been petroleum-based
fuels, water,
electricity and food.
Zimbabwe's opposition blames the shortages on
economic mismanagement,
while President Mugabe says they are a result of a
Western plot to topple
him.
Persistent fuel shortages had also
adversely affected the blood
collection activities.
NBTS mobile
units normally move to schools, factories and commercial
offices collecting
blood from donors, but the lack of fuel has impacted
negatively on the
collection.
The shortages "has led to shortages and intermittent supply
of blood
and blood components to hospitals nationwide," Masvikeni
said.
"The foreign currency shortage has put severe and enormous
pressure on
NBTS, as the import of essential plasma derivatives is no longer
possible,"
he said.
Plasma is essential for transfusion to
haemophiliacs and is imported
because the country does not have the
technology to extract it from donated
blood.
Masvikeni said
everything that is imported, including test kits and
anti-D, administered to
Rhesus-negative mothers shortly after giving birth,
were in short
supply.
The blood bank said donors were also feeling compromised
because the
traditional "donor comforts" or refreshments given to them after
donating
blood were not readily available.
Health and Child Welfare
minister, Dr David Parirenyatwa, told a
visiting Tanzanian delegation last
week that Zimbabwe's blood bank was
certified safe because of its ability to
screen for HIV and Aids and other
non-communicable diseases.
He
said the NBTS was the first institution in Africa to attain an
International
Organisation for Standardisation Certificate for quality and
safe blood. But
said shortages were undoing the gains made by the country.
The Zimbabwean
Thursday, 06
March 2008 10:14
EDITOR,
The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum
was very surprised to see the
alleged interview in Zimbabwe with the UN
Special Rapporteur on Torture,
Professor Manfred Nowak as reported in The
Zimbabwean on 28.02.08.
We do not believe the interview took place
although we cannot be sure.
The Forum hosted an invitation only event
at Meikles Hotel in Harare
on February 23, 2008. Professor Nowak was on a
24-hour private visit to
Zimbabwe. We were honoured to have Professor
Manfred Nowak, UN Special
Rapporteur on Torture join our celebrations as a
special guest. In accepting
the invitation to be the main speaker the
Special Rapporteur made it clear
that he did so on the understanding that
officials from the Government of
Zimbabwe would also be invited as he is
keen to continue pursing the
possibility of an official invitation from the
Government.
The Forum opened the meeting by stating clearly that the
Special
Rapporteur could not talk about Zimbabwe in particular but only
about
torture in general. This was respected by all those who participated
in the
event. The Special Rapporteur made no Zimbabwe specific comments.
During
the event and the subsequent question and answer session, no
journalist from
The Zimbabwean or any other news outlet identified
themselves.
A press release issued by the Forum invited members of the
press
wishing to see Professor Nowak to come to Meikles Hotel on Sunday 24
February. No journalists from The Zimbabwean or any outlet turned up to
this opportunity.
NOEL KUTUTWA, Chair Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO
Forum
Chief Reporter's response: Prof Nowak did not make it clear to me
that
he was on a private visit to Zimbabwe and therefore off-the-record
during
the entire duration of our interview on the sidelines of the 10th
anniversary of the NGO Forum at the Meikles Hotel on February 23.
We apologise for betraying the confidence of Prof Nowak but vehemently
reject any suggestion that we did not follow due process. His remarks were
published with good intentions and in the public interest and this was in no
way meant to malign him.
New Zimbabwe
By Fikile Mapala
Last updated: 03/07/2008
01:32:38
ZIMBABWE'S former information minister Professor Jonathan Moyo has
launched
a withering attack on independent presidential candidate, Simba
Makoni,
describing his election bid as "ridiculous" and
"bizarre".
Moyo, who is the independent MP for Tsholotsho constituency in
Matabeleland
North province, likened Makoni to a "bad doctor" giving a
patient the wrong
medicine after making the correct diagnosis.
Moyo
said: "Simba Makoni is giving the people of Zimbabwe an independent
candidate when what the people want is a united front of all progressive
forces."
The former Zanu PF government spokesman, speaking at the
Harare Quill Club
on Wednesday night, said although he had succeeded as an
independent MP in
Tsholotsho, he thought Makoni would not win as an
independent in the March
29 elections.
He said: "I am an independent
candidate myself and people would expect me to
be saying very nice things
about Simba Makoni. But I have not allowed myself
to get carried away by
that achievement. My situation is different because I
don't intend to form a
government."
Moyo said it is not ideal for a presidential candidate to be
an independent
and not be answerable to a formal political organisation or
institution with
checks and balances.
Moyo explained: "Politics is
about being part of a group. A President cannot
be stand alone. A President
should be a member of a group with formal
structures, obligations and
principles. It's different when you want to be
an MP for a constituency like
Tsholotsho."
Moyo, a former Zanu PF politiburo member and respected
academic, expressed
concern at Makoni's insistence that he did not need a
political party
because he was "in alliance with the people of
Zimbabwe".
He said: "When you say you are an independent and you are in
alliance with
the people of Zimbabwe, saying you will form a national
authority, you scare
some of us."
Moyo said it was practically
impossible for one individual to form an
alliance with all the people adding
that the claim was "ridiculous by
definition".
The Tsholotsho MP said
the only people who were known to claim to be in
alliance with the people
are dictators who did not want to be answerable to
a formal political
grouping.
Moyo claimed that Makoni's presidential bid was an informal way
by
disgruntled Zanu PF members of dealing with the succession issue after
failing to outflank President Robert Mugabe from within the party.
He
said the forthcoming presidential election was going to be a succession
election in which all Zimbabweans would, by default, be involved in dealing
with an issue that Zanu PF members had failed to resolve as a political
party.
Moyo added that Makoni was not an alternative leader to
Zimbabweans but only
another leadership option for Zanu PF members who were
opposed to Mugabe's
candidature.
He said: "Makoni is not much of an
alternative. He is leading another
faction in Zanu PF. Makoni is the leader
of Zanu PF-B and Mugabe is leading
Zanu PF-A.
"Makoni's people have
said they only want to change the bus driver. But
Zimbabweans are saying
they want more than that. They want a new driver and
a damn new bus and
maybe even a new destination."
The political science professor said
Makoni's "third force" should not be
confused with his long advocated "third
way" as there was marked difference
between the two.
He lamented that
the Makoni project was an unaccountable shadowy third force
with no
organisational structures and lacking transparency which
astonishingly
expected to be treated seriously by the electorate.
Moyo said: "To tell
us that you are a third force employing a military
strategy to win elections
in a modern society like ours and expect us to be
impressed is to ask for
too much. It's not only old fashioned; it's also a
bizarre way of doing
politics."
Moyo also said he was concerned that some of the individuals
spearheading
the Makoni project were unrepentant former 5 Brigade operatives
who had been
involved in the senseless killing of innocent people in
Matabeleland and
Midlands provinces in the early 80's during what is known
as Gukurahundi.
Retired Major Kudzai Mbudzi, a top official in the Makoni
project, as a
member of the North Korean-trained 5 Brigade which was
involved in the
massacre of an approximated 20,000 people during the
military incursion, it
is claimed.
Moyo said: "Whoever said the devil
you know is better than the devil you don't
know was speaking from
experience. An opportunity to change things has been
squandered. But I don't
think that an aspiring president standing as an
independent represents much
of an alternative."
Moyo who said he had profound respect for Dumiso
Dabengwa, said it was
"unfortunate" that the former Zipra intelligence
supremo had decided to be
part of the Makoni project.
Makoni is up
against President Robert Mugabe and opposition Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, in key elections on March
29.
Zim Online
by Edith Kaseke Friday 07 March
2008
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe is loosening the purse
strings by parceling
out farm machinery in a desperate bid to overcome the
double threat from a
former ally and an old foe who have promised to defeat
him in elections at
the month-end.
The ageing Mugabe, still adored by
some on the African continent but equally
loathed by many over rights abuse
charges, will at the weekend hand out
tractors, motor cycles, combine
harvesters, generators, small farm
implements and cows to beneficiaries of
his controversial land seizures.
The farm equipment programme is being
funded by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
governor Gideon Gono, who is accused by
critics of raiding the central bank's
coffers to prop up an unpopular
regime.
Traditional chiefs, who have publicly backed Mugabe's candidacy,
have also
seen their financial allowances raised while soldiers woke up last
month to
find billions of Zimbabwe dollars in their accounts. Mugabe on
Wednesday
told striking teachers they would soon get a pay
rise.
"This programme has been going on for some time but I think the
timing
leaves no one in doubt that Mugabe is trying to buy votes. You can
call it
tractors for votes," said John Makumbe, a political science lecturer
at the
University of Zimbabwe and bitter critic of Mugabe.
Mugabe
could face his sternest political test in a presidential race against
expelled ruling ZANU-PF party politburo member Simba Makoni and old rival
Morgan Tsvangirai of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change
party.
Only a month ago, pundits were predicting an easy win for
Mugabe against a
divided opposition but the entrance of Makoni seems to have
re-energised
voters, analysts say, adding that Mugabe was now fighting for
his political
life.
Makoni's bid was boosted last weekend when he won
the backing of ZANU PF
politburo member Dumiso Dabengwa, but it remains to
be seen whether this
would be enough to weaken Mugabe or make Makoni a
serious contender for the
presidency.
"From all this, you can
understand why Mugabe is resorting to the national
purse even as he knows it
has a great cost to the economy. I suppose the end
justifies the means
really. He desperately needs votes," said Makumbe.
Zimbabwe is facing a
devastating economic crisis that has sent inflation
spiraling beyond 100 000
percent, fanned unemployment and resulted in
shortages of food, fuel and
foreign currency.
Mugabe's critics are quick to blame the meltdown on the
seizures of
white-owned farms to resettle blacks, many of who lack
commercial farming
skills and have battled with shortages of inputs in the
past five years.
In the current farming season, the government could only
supply 10 percent
of the fertilizer required by farmers. But some farmers
have in turn sold
inputs like fuel and seed on a thriving black market,
where they realise
quick returns.
Gono has acknowledged the rampant
abuse of government inputs, even blaming
it on Mugabe's senior lieutenants,
but no one has been brought to book.
"We will see again most of this
equipment going down the drain as long as
the sanctity of property rights is
not addressed," economic consultant John
Robertson said.
"No matter
how many tractors or generators we buy, if we do not address the
issue of
land as a free enterprise which can be freely traded using it as
collateral,
we will not achieve growth in the agriculture sector," he added.
Mugabe
has made the emotive land issue the central plank of his election
campaigns
since 2000. While it resonates with Zimbabweans, many are
beginning to ask
whether it was wise to displace established white
commercial farmers and
replace them with either incompetent or inadequately
funded black peasant
farmers.
Zimbabwe has become a net food importer having lost its
breadbasket status
partly because of erratic weather in recent years but
largely because black
villagers resettled on former white farmers failed to
maintain production.
The defiant Mugabe says the land reform programme is
irreversible but Makoni
and Tsvangirai say they will address the critical
issue of multiple farm
holders, repossess non-productive farms and cap the
size of the farms. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Prince Nyathi Friday 07 March
2008
HARARE - Workers at the Zimbabwe Schools Examination
Council (ZIMSEC) have
given the government two weeks to review salaries or
they would join school
teachers on strike, compounding problems for a
cash-strapped administration
that faces voters in month-end
elections.
Public school teachers went on strike last week to press for
more pay saying
recent increases that lifted salaries to more than Z$500
million on average
were overtaken by inflation, which at more than 100 000
percent is the
highest in the world.
In a letter dated March 3, the
National Education Union of Zimbabwe (NUEZ)
gave the Ministry of Labour 14
days to resolve the salary dispute or ZIMSEC
workers would go on
strike.
"ZIMSEC employees cannot bear the position anymore. We are
therefore left
with no option but to declare a dispute," NUEF secretary
general Headman
Mangwadu said in the letter notifying the government of
workers' intention
to strike.
The least paid worker at ZIMSEC earns
$350 million per month, nearly US$12
000 at the official exchange rate of
$30 000 to one American dollar. The
figure is whittled down to a measly
US$15 at the widely used parallel market
rate of one greenback to about $24
million.
Both ZIMSEC spokesperson Ngoni Pasipamire and Education Minister
Aeneas
Chigwedere were not immediately available for comment on the
matter.
Hundreds of professionals among them teachers, engineers, doctors
and nurses
have fled Zimbabwe's economic crisis to seek better paying jobs
and living
conditions in neighbouring countries and as far afield as
Britain, Australia
and New Zealand.
However, analysts say an unfair
playing field guarantees Mugabe victory at
the polls despite clear evidence
he has failed to break an acute recession
marked by hyperinflation, rising
unemployment and shortages of food, fuel
and foreign currency. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Lizwe Sebatha Friday 07 March
2008
KWEKWE - At least 100 people in the Midlands town of
Kwekwe have been hit by
a severe bout of diarrhoea blamed on failure by
local council authorities to
provide clean and safe drinking water to
residents.
According to officials in the Kwekwe city council, diarrhoea
cases that also
showed cholera-like symptoms were recorded at local clinics
in the town that
like every urban area in Zimbabwe has to make do with
broken down sewer
systems and infrastructure as the country grapples
economic recession.
Kwekwe town clerk, Ngwena Musara, told ZimOnline
yesterday that diarrhoea
cases were on the rise due to frequent water cuts
in the town that have
forced residents to source water from unprotected
wells.
"There is an upsurge in the number of people especially children,
reporting
with symptoms of diarrhoea at the municipal clinics. Most of the
over 100
cases reported are those of people who had contracted
diarrhoea.
"Residents are being forced to rely on unsafe and untreated
water from
unprotected places as ZINWA (Zimbabwe National Water Authority)
is failing
to provide clean water," said Musara.
Health and Child
Welfare Minister Edwin Muguti admitted that water borne
diseases were on the
rise in Zimbabwe due to poor sanitation and a shortage
of water that has
seen residents in towns go for days without water
supplies.
"Water,
sanitation and sewage problems are not new things in most of the
urban
centres in Zimbabwe. Water-borne diseases are therefore common," said
Muguti.
On Wednesday, Health and Child Welfare secretary Edward
Mabhiza said four
people had died of cholera in Shamva, about 100km north of
Harare, bring the
number of those of who have died from the disease to 15
since last month.
The water crisis, just one among a plethora of
hardships Zimbabweans have to
shoulder, has seen residents in towns and
cities risk their health by
accessing water from shallow and unprotected
wells exposing themselves to
water-borne diseases. - ZimOnline
VOA
By Blessing Zulu
Washington
06 March
2008
The Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a non-governmental
organization, is
bringing its Rock the Vote campaign to South Africa to
encourage Zimbabwe
expatriates living there to go home and vote in national
elections to be
held on March 29.
An estimated 2 million Zimbabweans
have moved to South Africa in search of
political asylum or economic
survival. The Harare government of President
Robert Mugabe has refused to
allow Zimbabwean expatriates to vote, however.
The Crisis Coalition has
organized a pro-voting concert Sunday in Joubert
Park, Johannesburg, which
will feature such well-known Zimbabwean musicians
as Sam Mtukudzi, Sandra
Ndebele and Willom Tight.
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition Program Officer
Nixon Nyikadzano told reporter
Blessing Zulu of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
that the organization hopes the
free concert will become a platform for
engagement to bring about change in
Zimbabwe.
It is to be the final
concert in a tour that has reached most parts of
Zimbabwe.
VOA
By Jonga Kandemiiri
Washington
06 March
2008
Despite statements to the contrary from other
quarters, the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission insisted on Thursday that police
officers will remain
at least 100 meters from polling stations on election
day, March 29,
dismissing reports that the country's Electoral Act has been
amended by an
executive order.
Commission spokesman Utloile
Salaigwana said the Electoral Act stands as
amended by parliament and that
under the provisions of the act police
officers will not be allowed into
polling places and will be obliged to
remain 100 meters away.
He was
responding to reported statements by the deputy police commander of
Victoria
Falls, named Makhala, saying the law was amended by President
Robert
Mugabe.
The officer was said to have told a meeting of political parties
Tuesday in
Victoria Falls that police would be allowed into polling stations
based on a
presidential amendment to the Electoral Act. VOA reached Makhala
but he
declined to comment.
Victoria Falls municipal council
candidate Paulos Chiliwede of the
opposition formation headed by Morgan
Tsvangirai told reporter Jonga
Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
that such statements will create
confusion among voters and officials.
Mining Weekly
Published: 7 Mar 08 - 0:00
A Chinese business delegation
that visited Zimbabwe late last month said
companies from the Asian giant
were keen to invest in the Southern African
country's gold- and
platinum-mining sector.
China's Deputy Minister of Commerce, Gao Hucheng,
said the Chinese
government was interested in pursuing exploration projects
in Zimbabwe,
especially in the gold and platinum sectors.
He said the
Zimbabwean government "was delighted" after the Chinese
expressed interest
in the country's mineral resources.
Zimbabwe's Mines Minister, Amos
Midzi, confirmed that the country's mining
sector "was heading for better
times" after the Chinese delegation committed
itself to investing in the
minerals sector.
The 22-member delegation consisted of mining,
exploration and trade experts.
"The visit has been very helpful; we have
agreed to what the delegation has
asked for from us. They want gold and
platinum exploration and investment
opportunities and we are willing, as
government, to partner them because
they are sincere investors," he
said.
President Robert Mugabe, who met with the delegation, hailed the
Chinese for
standing by his government, which has been shunned by the UK,
the US and
other Western nations, which accuse him of human rights abuses,
rigging
elections and ruining the economy.
"This friendship is rooted
in a formidable relationship, but we now need to
embark on developing this
relationship of cooperation with programmes that
would enhance and continue
what we have built over the years," Mugabe is
reported to have said during
the meeting in Harare.
There are two producer of platinum in the country
at present, Zimbabwe
Platinum Mines and Mimosa Platinum Mines. The world's
largest platinum
producer, Anglo Platinum, is developing another platinum
mine in the
Midlands, Unki.
The Chinese have already entered
Zimbabwe's mining sector, after Chinese
mining and trading group Sinosteel
bought a stake in Zimasco Consolidated
Enterprises, the holding company for
Zimbabwe's largest ferrochrome
producer.
Zimasco produces 210 000 t
of high-carbon ferrochrome annually, accounting
for about 4% of global
ferrochrome production.
State-owned Sinosteel and Zimasco inked the deal on
Sept. 19 last year.
China's investment drive in Africa's resources sector
has been met with
mixed reactions, with some viewing it as a new form of
colonialism.