Zim Online
Sat
12 November 2005
BULAWAYO - Tension has gripped Zimbabwe's second
biggest city of
Bulawayo ahead of a weekend rally to be addressed by
opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai to denounce senate elections scheduled
for later this
month.
The opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) which has provided
the biggest challenge to President Robert
Mugabe's 25-year stranglehold on
power, has been split into warring factions
following differences over
whether it should participate in a senate election
set for November 26.
A faction backing Tsvangirai in his
anti-senate stance yesterday
accused the pro-senate faction in Bulawayo
headed by secretary general
Welshman Ncube of threatening to disrupt the
weekend rally.
Tsvangirai is scheduled to address a
star rally at White City Stadium
on Sunday after meeting the party's
grassroots structures today.
The rally is crucial in gauging
grassroots support for Tsvangirai who
has met fierce opposition from the
party's senior leaders in the three
Matabeleland provinces.
A
spokesman for the pro-Tsvangirai group in Bulawayo, Getrude
Mthombeni, said
the pro-senate group held a meeting earlier this week to
plot ways of
disrupting the rally on Sunday.
"We are living in fear of these
people who have started threatening
our members for supporting Tsvangirai. I
personally have been threatened by
some top officials.
"The
situation has been worsened by the President's (Tsvangirai) rally
to be held
over the weekend, which they unsuccessfully tried to block,"
said
Mthombeni.
But MDC spokesman, Paul Themba Nyathi, who is
backing Ncube in the
pro-senate lobby, denied that their group was planning
to disrupt the
weekend rally.
Nyathi said: "That is nonsense.
Ask even the police they know who is
going around the country threatening
party members with violence; it's very
clear that it is the so-called
Tsvangirai-led faction that is causing all
these problems.
"In
any case we are not worried about him coming to Bulawayo, what we
are worried
about is our preparations for these (senate) elections. Anyone
who thinks he
can stop us must be dreaming," he said.
Tsvangirai is fiercely
opposed to participation in the election which
he says is a waste of
resources in a country where at four million are in
need of food aid while
Ncube and his faction insist a boycott of the poll
would surrender political
space to Mugabe and his ruling ZANU PF party.
The six-year old
opposition party is on the verge of a split along
ethnic lines after
Tsvangirai received support in his position from the
northern Shona-speaking
regions of the country while the Ndebele speaking
southern region has backed
Ncube in his pro-senate stance.
Yesterday, Nyathi said the
pro-senate group was going ahead with
preparations for the election despite
an ultimatum by Tsvangirai last week
for candidates who had registered to
take part in the election to withdraw.
Tsvangirai fell out with
Ncube and five other senior leaders of the
party after he refused to accept a
narrow vote by the party's National
Council last month to participate in the
controversial November 26 senate
election.
Twenty-six MDC
candidates went on to defy Tsvangirai when they filed
their nomination papers
to stand for the party in the poll.
Meanwhile, Nyathi on Friday
attacked Tsvangirai over his comments to
diplomats that the opposition party
had embarked on an internal process to
resolve their differences threatening
to split the party.
"He is posturing. How can he talk of healing
the wounds while at the
same time threatening to expel people who are ready
to take part in the
senate election?" said Nyathi.
Tsvangirai
told the diplomats in Harare on Wednesday that the party
had already begun a
"healing process" to reach out to colleagues in an
attempt to address their
differences. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Sat 12 November 2005
HARARE - Terarai Chitambira is
an enterprising fuel black market
trader. Each night he drives his 15-seater
minibus to a spot along the main
Harare-Bulawayo highway.
With
the patience of an angler waiting for the big fish to come along,
he lingers
at his "trading spot" waiting for the cross-border haulage trucks
that ply
the route in the hope any one of the passing drivers might be up
for some
business.
For 20-litres of diesel, Chitambira pays the equally
enterprising
truckers Z$1.5 million. In turn he sells the fuel on Zimbabwe's
streets -
where it is hard to find - at Z$120 000 a litre or $2.4 million per
20
litres, which translates to a cool $900 000 profit.
"This is
how I have survived since the police demolished my (informal
business) kiosk
in July," said Chitambira, as he confidently showed
ZimOnline around his
trading spot, he actually calls it his "oil depot".
Warming up to
our news crew after having initially refused to speak to
us for fear we could
be working with the police to get him arrested,
Chitambira, added: "It is a
tricky business because you can easily get
arrested by the police but it pays
handsomely."
Welcome to Zimbabwe's illegal but thriving fuel black
market - the
only reliable source of fuel in the country.
As is
the case with nearly every other basic survival commodity in
crisis-hit
Zimbabwe, the black market is the source of fuel for most people
in the
country, government officials, lawyers, church priests, business
executives
and ordinary motorists alike.
Or as Teddy Mungai, another fuel
black market trader we encountered
further down the highway, summed it up:
"For every five cars you see on the
streets of Harare, four of them get their
fuel on the black market. We are
actually keeping the wheels of industry and
commerce running."
Mungai, like Chitambira, was forced into illegal
fuel trading after
his roadside fruit stall was demolished in July by the
government under a
controversial urban clean-up campaign that the United
Nations said left at
least 700 000 people without homes or means of
livelihood after their homes
and informal business kiosks were
destroyed.
Another 2.4 million people were also affected by the
clean-up campaign
roundly condemned by the international community as a gross
violation of the
rights of poor people.
But President Robert
Mugabe and his government deny the clean-up
exercise violated human rights
and say that the campaign was instead for the
good of the people because the
government is going to build better houses
for people whose homes were
demolished.
Whatever Mugabe's reasons for demolishing people's
homes and informal
businesses, Mungai - who does not source from
long-distance truckers but
from neighbouring Botswana - said when his fruit
stall was destroyed, he was
left with no option but to play hide and seek
with border police as he
smuggles hard cash to Botswana to purchase
fuel.
"It is risky smuggling hard currency out. But once across the
border
you are home and dry," said Mungai, whom we caught up with about
40km
outside the town of Gweru where his truck had broken down under the
sheer
weight of five drums of petrol he was bringing in from
Botswana.
Mungai, who said he had paid $290 000 excise duty for the
thousand
litres, said: "When I get to Harare I will make a cool $120 million
in less
than two days."
But sometimes lady luck just deserts the
fuel black marketers and it
becomes just impossible to avoid arrest as what
happened this week when a
South African trucker passing through Zimbabwe en
route to Zambia to deliver
diesel decided to sell about 39 000 litres of the
fuel to the illegal
traders.
Soon after clinching the deal, the
trucker crashed his vehicle into a
ditch along the Harare-Chirundu highway
that leads to Zambia. Whether it was
by design or by accident remains unclear
but the trucker was quick to tell
the police that his load had been looted by
local villagers.
But the police would have none of it, raiding
known fuel dealers
living near the area where the accident occurred and were
able to recover
about 2 800 litres of the diesel held in about 14 drums - the
rest had
already been shipped to the black market.
And such are
some of the "mishaps" of the fuel black market! -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Sat 12 November 2005
RUSAPE - Heavy pregnant clouds
slowly gather in the dark, threatening
skies. A cool breeze, blows from the
south amid flashes of lightning and
cracking thunder.
After
weeks of eager expectation around the country, the rains are
finally here, to
the relief of thirsty earth and thousands of farmers who
toil the
land.
But for James Munzara, a small-scale farmer in Nyamajura
village,
150km east of Harare, this farming season is threatening to explode
into a
real nightmare.
In a normal farming season, Munzara would
have welcomed the rains
which fell earlier this week, signalling the start
of the farming season.
Not anymore.
Munzara, is among
thousands of black Zimbabweans who benefited from
the government's chaotic
and often violent land reform programme five years
ago. But he reckons this
season will be his worst since moving here.
"I am going through my
worst farming nightmare ever. Most farmers here
don't care whether it rains
or not. The land has not been prepared, seed and
fertilizer are in short
supply and where available we can't afford them,"
says Munzara, throwing his
hands in the air.
Zimbabwe is facing severe food shortages blamed
on President Robert
Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution
to landless blacks
five years ago.
The farm seizures, which
Mugabe said were necessary to correct
historical imbalances in land
allocation, slashed food production by 60
percent leaving Zimbabweans
dependent on food handouts from aid agencies.
A five-year old
severe economic recession has seen Zimbabwe run out of
basic foodstuffs,
medicines and fuel. Fertilizer, seed and other critical
farming inputs are
also in critical short supply because of a lack of
foreign currency to import
the products.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change
party and the West
blame Mugabe for ruining what was once one of Africa's
strongest economies
in Africa.
But Mugabe, the only leader
Zimbabweans have known since independence
from Britain 25 years ago, denies
charges of mismanaging the economy
blaming the crisis on sabotage by Britain
and the West whom he says were
unhappy over his seizure of white-owned farms
for redistribution to
landless blacks.
With this food crisis,
the farmers say they expected the Zimbabwe
government to roll up their
sleeves to, once and for all, break the cycle of
hunger and poverty brought
about by falling output on the farms over the
past five years.
"We are going to have even more food shortages next year. Most farmers
will
just watch while the season passes by because of lack of resources
and
finance," says Munzara.
Another farmer in Nyamajura, 48-year
old Mirirai Chikasha says the
government is squarely to blame for the
lethargy in the farming sector after
failing to equip the new breed of black
farmers with relevant skills and
inputs to maintain production on the
farms.
"The responsible government ministers should be held
responsible when
people die of starvation next year. They have failed to
support the farmers
in a big way," says Chikasha.
Chikasha says
he would not grow a single crop this year because he has
failed to access
tillage equipment and has no money to buy seed and
fertilizers which are all
in critical short supply.
Chairman of Parliament's Portfolio
Committee on Lands, Land Reform,
Resettlement and Agriculture Walter Mzembi,
last week echoed the same
sentiments when has accused the government of
failing farmers through
piecemeal support programmes.
Mzembi, a
ruling ZANU PF legislator, admitted in Parliament last week
that all was not
well in the farming sector.
"The fertiliser companies confirmed to
your committee that they had
nothing in stock for the summer crop. The
industry failed to secure foreign
currency to import vital raw material
components," he said.
With no title deeds, the new farmers have
found it almost impossible
to access loans from the financial sector. The
government-owned District
Development Fund, tasked to help farmers with
tillage, has also failed to
till the land because of the grinding fuel
crisis.
"I used to admire our government but I am now left
wondering what has
gone into them. Now they are wasting money on useless
things like the Senate
yet farmers are stranded.
"How are we
going to feed our families and the nation? Is the Senate a
granary?"asked a
visibly worried Chikasha.
Zimbabweans go to the polls later this
month to elect senators for an
upper chamber of parliament. The
reintroduction of the senate which was
abolished 10 years ago, has been met
with fierce criticism from Zimbabweans
who say the country cannot afford such
a project while at least four million
people are facing
starvation.
The president of the mostly black Zimbabwe Farmers
Union, Silas Hungwe
admitted that the country was facing a food crisis. He
said: "Preparations
are not at the stage we would have wanted them to be.
Most farmers badly
need tillage, seed and fertilizer and it seems they are
failing to access
these things and it's getting really late."
Contacted for comment, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, who has
presided
over the collapse of Zimbabwe's farming sector over the last five
years, said
the government was working flat out to ensure the farming
season
succeeds.
"It is crucial that the farming season succeeds
because we badly need
the food. We can't beg from other countries when we
have our own farmers.
The government is working overtime to ensure that
farmers have everything
they need," he said.
But as Made
expressed the wish to see a successful farming season,
many farmers like
Munzara have already written the season off, leaving
Zimbabwe to face yet
another year of increased hunger and more begging
bowls. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Sat 12
November 2005
CHIPINGE - Stray dogs in Chipinge town, about 200km
south of Mutare,
are feeding on human placentas thrown away by hospital staff
in the town
after the institution's incinerator broke down some few months
ago in yet
another example of Zimbabwe's collapsing health
system.
A nurse at the hospital who refused to be named for
professional
reasons confirmed that dogs in the town were eating human
placentas.
"This has been going on for a long time. The dogs have
been seen
dragging the placentas in the streets. The situation is very sad,"
she
said.
Sources at Chipinge District Hospital told ZimOnline
yesterday that
the hospital was in a state of near collapse after years of
neglect and
under-funding by the state.
The sources said there
was only one medical doctor working at the
hospital which caters for about 30
000 residents of the small farming town.
The hospital generator is also said
to be not working, putting at risk lives
of hundreds of patients at the
institution.
The hospital mortuary, which has a capacity for 25
bodies, is also
said to be failing to cope as it sometimes carries as many as
60 bodies at a
time.
Chipinge Hospital administrator, a Mr
Ngwaru, refused to comment on
the issue after he was contacted by ZimOnline,
ony saying: "Who told you all
this? Anyway talk to the Provincial Medical
Director, he is the rightful
person to comment," Ngwaru said.
The situation at the hospital is said to have worsened last month
after the
town's sole private doctor, Petra Baum Gartner, relocated after
her husband's
farm was seized by the government.
Baum Gartner, who was running
Chipinge Trust Clinic, relocated after
she and her husband, Robert Clowes,
were kicked out by government supporters
from Destiny Farm.
Zimbabwe's health delivery system, like the rest of the country's
economic
sectors, is in shambles after years of under-funding and
mismanagement.
Thousands of doctors and nurses have fled the country, the
majority to South
Africa and Britain, to seek better opportunities outside
the country. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Sat 12 November 2005
HARARE - A few hours after
getting an ultimatum to leave office from
players on Thursday, Zimbabwe
Cricket (ZC) chairman Peter Chingoka and
managing director Ozias Bvute were
picked up for questioning over foreign
exchange transactions.
The same night, Zimbabwe skipper Tatenda Taibu was hounded into hiding
after
his unprecedented call on the ZC bosses to quit over allegations
of
maladministration and financial mismanagement.
Police stormed
the ZC offices after a disgruntled cricket official
tipped off Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe Gideon Gono about the possibility of
irregular foreign currency
dealings at the beleaguered union.
Chingoka and Bvute were,
however, released at night after a close to
five-hour grilling by Gono. It
could not be established whether the police
had found anything or were going
to lay charges under the Exchange Control
Regulation Act.
"The
police descended on the ZC offices and searched for forex before
picking up
Chingoka and Bvute for questioning," a source close to the union
told
ZimOnline. "They suspect the ZC might have breached the
exchange
regulations."
ZC generates a lot of forex from
television rights and international
sponsorship.
The union is
suspected of dealing on the illegal forex parallel market
as well as keeping
hard cash at its offices. A female ZC employee is
suspected to have stolen
US$75 000, but she was not reported to police as
the union feared being
questioned over the forex.
As the probe into the foreign currency
dealings goes on, Taibu has
been forced into hiding after receiving threats
from a well-known individual
linked to President Robert Mugabe's
government.
Taibu addressed a press conference on Thursday morning,
where he
boldly asked Chingoka and Bvute to leave cricket - or the cricketers
would
stop playing.
The 22-year-old skipper received a phone
call at his home over the
stance he and 35 other professional players had
taken.
"I am taking the call very seriously," he said. "So much so
I have
decided to go and stay somewhere for a while. I will not be deterred
by the
threatening phone call in pursuing what I and all the others believe
in, and
what is right for us. But I left home for and while for my own
safety."
Taibu spent the night at a hotel together with his wife
Loveness and
their four-week-old baby. Yesterday he sought refuge at a
friend's place
until his safety is guaranteed.
Although the
identity of the individual who threatened Taibu could not
be established,
sources said they suspected it could have been Themba
Mliswa, a controversial
sports administrator who boasts his links with
Mugabe.
Mliswa
last month stormed the meeting where provincial chairmen moved
the motion to
oust Chingoka where he threatened to disrupt the proceedings
saying the
meeting was political.
Although he has not been in cricket
administration before, he is at
the forefront of moves to redraw the cricket
provinces in tandem with
political provinces.
The Zimbabwe
cricketers at the conference lamented the coming on board
of Mliswa, accusing
him of destroying rugby. The players also said they were
aware the action
they had taken might get them in trouble.
"We realise that by
coming forward in this way, we may risk our
careers, especially as ZC has
shown by its past that it will not hesitate to
bully players. But we have no
choice but to speak out," the players said.
"We are tired of being
threatened by ZC, we are tired of the way ZC
has sought to split us and
attack us individually. We have lost confidence
in the ability of the current
incumbent chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket, Peter
Chingoka, and the MD, Ozias
Bvute." - ZimOnline
Nov. 11 2005
Press Release -
Foreign Affairs Canada
Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre
Pettigrew today expressed deep
concern about the arrest and detention of
leaders and members of the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions as well as
representatives of other civil
society organizations. They were arrested for
participating in peaceful
demonstrations in Harare and other Zimbabwean
cities over the past week.
"I urge the Government of Zimbabwe
to respect the right of
Zimbabweans to freedom of expression and assembly,
freedom of association,
and the 'right to personal liberty' as guaranteed by
the Constitution of the
Republic of Zimbabwe," said Minister Pettigrew. "I
call on the Government of
Zimbabwe to release immediately all persons
detained in recent days for
their participation in peaceful
demonstrations."
Canada has conveyed its concern about the
arrest of these
persons to the Chargé d'affaires of Zimbabwe to Canada and
to senior
officials of the Government of Zimbabwe in Harare.
The Herald (Harare)
November
11, 2005
Posted to the web November 11, 2005
Golden
Sibanda
Harare
THE price of bread could skyrocket to over $60 000 per
loaf within the next
few days as millers are allegedly failing to get
adequate supplies of wheat
from the Grain Marketing Board, forcing them to
rely on expensive imports.
An ordinary loaf of bread is currently selling
at an average retail price of
$30 000.
Millers alleged that the GMB
was facing logistical problems transporting
wheat from farms due to the
prevailing acute fuel shortages resulting in it
supplying less than 40
percent of industry's wheat requirements.
Millers were buying
Government-subsidised wheat from the GMB at $900 000 per
tonne but were now
sourcing imported wheat for about $25 million a tonne.
At such a price,
millers would have to sell baking flour at about $38
million per
tonne.
"While most farmers have now harvested the wheat, GMB is having
difficulty
moving this wheat to their silos because of fuel
shortages.
"The Government-subsidised GMB wheat is sold to millers at
$900 000 per
tonne but direct wheat imports at the current interbank rate
will cost the
millers close to $25 million per tonne with the resultant
flour sold at
about $38 million per tonne.
"Because nothing is
available from GMB, this new price of flour will mean
that a loaf of bread
will move from the current $30 000 to over $60 000 per
loaf should any
further delays occur from GMB," said Mr David Govere, Bakers
Association of
Zimbabwe president.
However, GMB chief executive Retired Colonel Samuel
Muvuti flatly denied the
allegations saying the marketing board was not
experiencing any logistical
challenges as farmers were moving their wheat to
GMB depots on their own.
He also dismissed as mere fabrication claims
that there were shortages of
flour saying millers were getting their
traditional 6 000 tonnes allocation
of wheat per week.
"There is no
shortage of wheat. The farmers are getting their allocation of
6 000 tones
of wheat per week.
"Millers should just tell the truth if they are having
problems collecting
their deliveries from GMB due to fuel problems," said
Rtd Col Muvuti.
Asked what was pushing the price of bread if wheat and
flour were not in
short supply, the GMB chief executive said price setting
was the
responsibility of the Ministry of Industry and International
Trade.
Players in the baking industry further alleged that stocks of
imported wheat
already paid were being held in bonded warehouses in Harare
while awaiting
clearance from the GMB.
Rtd Col Muvuti refuted these
claims saying the GMB did not authorise
utilisation of imported wheat but
only issued licences to would-be importers
with free funds.
He said
the wheat being held in bond could have been used as collateral in
cases
where the buyers had not paid in full for suppliers, assuming the
transaction was on credit terms.
The Herald
Herald
Reporter
AIR Zimbabwe is cheating its passengers and Zimbabwean residents
being the
worst affected with varying fares for local, regional and
international
routes. The national airline is, in its new fares, charging
almost double
what its competitors require.
Not only is Air Zimbabwe
charging more in US dollars for regional and
international flights than the
airlines it shares the routes with, but it is
using exchange rates that vary
arbitrarily between Z$70 000 (for the Dubai
route) and Z$100 000 (for the
Kariba route) to the US$ when quoting in
Zimbabwe dollars. In fact each
route uses a different exchange rate. The
official inter-bank rate used by
other banks has the US dollar worth a
little over Z$61 000.
The net
result of the two measures is that Zimbabwean passengers on Air
Zimbabwe pay
up to almost 90 percent more than if they travelled on foreign
airlines.
Air Zimbabwe has agreements with South African Airways for
the Johannesburg
flights and with British Airways for the London flights
that regulate
frequency of flights. At one time these also ensured rough
parity of fares,
but that seems to have gone by the board.
So with
its new rate structure, even in US dollars, Air Zimbabwe is charging
a lot
more. For example Air Zimbabwe now wants US$400 for a flight between
Harare
and Johannesburg, but South African Airways needs only US$322 and
British
Airways only US$350.
Air Zimbabwe adds insult to injury by using an
exchange rate of Z$92 500 to
the US dollar on this route, one of its highest
rates, to give a Zimbabwe
dollar price of $37 million. SAA can do the flight
for just under $20
million at the inter-bank rate, almost half the
price.
On the Harare to London route Air Zimbabwe uses a more modest
exchange rate
of Z$77 368 to the US$ but with its US$1 900 ticket this
drives a ticket to
Z$147 million. If the airline used the inter-bank rate
the ticket would cost
around Z$117 million, $30 million less.
The
bulk of Air Zimbabwe's costs are in hard currency. It has to buy planes,
service loans, buy spares, buy fuel, pay crew lay-over costs and have some
of the maintenance work down in hard currencies.
For this reason,
most involved in the airline industry are quite prepared to
see the airline
calculate its costs and fares in US$ and then convert these
to Zimbabwe
dollars when quoting prices for Zimbabwean residents.
But no one in the
industry can understand why Air Zimbabwe uses a quite
arbitrary range of
exchange rates and why all these rates are above the
inter-bank rates set by
the market.
And Air Zimbabwe will not explain.
Air Zimbabwe
spokesman Mr David Mwenga refused to comment referring all
questions to
chief executive officer Dr Tendai Mahachi who was, however, not
available as
he was reported to be in meetings throughout the day yesterday.
But
members of the public are told by officials at the Air Zimbabwe town
offices
said the prices were subject to change anytime and they encouraged
travellers to buy their tickets as soon as they were given price
quotations.
The accompanying table shows the costs of an economy class
return ticket for
selected Air Zimbabwe routes in US$ and Zimbabwe dollars
and the exchange
rate that can be calculated from this.