http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 18 November 2011 10:07
Dumisani
Muleya
PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai (pictured) has come under
close state watch
over his political activities and manoeuvres ahead of
elections next year or
in 2013 amid fears by President Robert Mugabe and his
security operators
that he was lobbying to put Zimbabwe on the United
Nations Security Council
agenda if poll results are disputed again.
Briefings to the Zimbabwe
Independent by official sources show Tsvangirai is
being closely monitored
all over the place by state security agencies as
they try to detect and
decipher his political moves, mainly after elections,
in the wake of events
in countries like Ivory Coast and
Libya.
“The prime minister is under close watch, particularly now
ahead of the
elections,” a source said. “The security agencies are on his
case because
they have established a trend that after elections since 2002
there is
always an attempt to take Zimbabwe to the UN Security Council
because of
disputes over results which always arise. This has unnerved those
close to
Mugabe.”
Sources said Tsvangirai’s latest trip this week
to Morocco, which those
close to Mugabe are watching with extraordinary
interest, have heightened a
sense of insecurity and anxiety within the
corridors of power in Harare.
Although Morocco is not an African
Union member, having pulled out in
protest in 1984 over Western Sahara and
the Polisario Front, it is going to
be a non-permanent UN Security Council
member for a two-year tenure starting
January 1 2012 on the Arab League
ticket. It will replace Lebanon.
Sources say state agents have been shadowing
Tsvangirai on his recent trip
to Ivory Coast, South Africa, Nigeria and
Gabon. South Africa, Nigeria and
Gabon are UN Security Council members. Togo
is coming in to replace either
Nigeria or Gabon.
“Tsvangirai is
being monitored because they fear he is mobilising outgoing
and incoming UN
Security Council members, mainly from Africa, to build a
case at the
international body to deal with the Zimbabwe situation if it
deteriorates
after elections,” a source said.
These fears were expressed in detail
in a column in the state-controlled
Herald last Saturday, widely believed
to be written by Mugabe’s spokesman
George Charamba. Checks on the issue
showed Charamba’s worries were a
reflection of the anxieties of Mugabe and
his lieutenants.
Tsvangirai this week went to Morocco, apparently for
a meeting organised by
the Amadeus Institute, an independent local think
tank founded in 2008. He
returns home this weekend from Rabat where he was
expected to interact with
the likes of Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga
and Libyan Interim Prime
Minister Abdurraheem El-Keib at the Amadeus
Institute. The presence of
Odinga and el-Keib is bound to raise further
alarm in Harare.
Tsvangirai arrived in Rabat as foreign ministers of
the 22-member Arab
League met on Wednesday to discuss the crisis in Syria
where President
Bashar al-Assad is battling a determined uprising against
his rule.
Sources say the political upheavals in the Middle
East/North Africa and
former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, bludgeoned and
shot dead by
Nato-backed rebel fighters in cold blood in his home town of
Sirte last
month, have unsettled top Zanu PF leaders who were already
disturbed by
events in Ivory Coast a few months ago.
Southern
African leaders have tacitly warned leaders like Mugabe and others
to be
wary of events in North Africa as they could happen in trouble spots
in the
region.
The Amadeus Institute, which in 2008 gave Tsvangirai a
democracy award,
describes itself as “a laboratory of ideas and a unique
creator of debates”.
Tsvangirai was blocked from the trip to Morocco using
an emergency travel
document by South Africa in 2008. Tsvangirai also
visited Morocco and Libya
in 2009 when he was premier.
While the
Amadeus Institute is seen elsewhere as a public platform for
debate, it is
regarded a conduit of alleged Western funding to the MDC-T in
Mugabe and
state security circles.
In his Nathaniel Manheru column, headlined
MDC-T: Dreams of death, division
and invasion, Charamba described the
Amadeus Institute as a “phony
organisation”.
“This is the vehicle
through which Morocco interacts with Morgan Tsvangirai
and his party, indeed
the vehicle for meddling in Zimbabwe’s electoral
politics,” he said.
“Morocco has funded the MDC-T both as a country and as a
protégé of Europe
and (the United States of) America doing the bidding of
both.”
Showing that Tsvangirai was under close watch and
reflecting fears of his
activities, Charamba had indicated the premier would
visit Morocco and the
US before the end of the year. He said his visit was
part of a broad attempt
to lobby UN Security Council members on
Zimbabwe.
Official sources say Mugabe and his loyalists fear
Tsvangirai could push for
UN intervention as in Ivory Coast and Libya,
taking a cue from events of
2002 and 2008. According to WikiLeaks cables,
Tsvangirai wrote to former US
president George Bush suggesting UN
intervention in Zimbabwe after the
disputed 2002 elections. After the
violent 2008 June presidential elections
run-off, the US and its allies took
Zimbabwe to the UN Security Council but
was blocked by China and
Russia.
Charamba’s piece attempted to deals with Tsvangirai and his
MDC-T’s game
plan towards and after the next crucial elections. It claimed
their plan is
firmly situated within the local, regional and international
context.
Locally, he claimed Tsvangirai was banking on Mugabe’s
incapacitation, death
or divisions within Zanu PF, while in the region and
internationally, the UN
Security Council would be the theatre of action,
further raising the stakes
in the struggle for power in Zimbabwe.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 18 November 2011 10:02
Faith
Zaba
VICE-PRESIDENT Joice Mujuru will escape any form of sanctions to be
slapped
on senior Zanu PF officials who secretly met United States diplomats
and
expressed their desire to see President Robert Mugabe leave office.
Mujuru
is among Zanu PF bigwigs recently exposed by the WikiLeaks cables as
having
met the US diplomats. The cables revealed that the late
Vice-President
Joseph Msika, the late Eddison Zvobgo, the late retired army
commander
General Solomon Mujuru, Vice-President John Nkomo, Indigenisation
minister
Saviour Kasukuwere, former Information minister Jonathan Moyo and
Reserve
Bank governor Gideon Gono, among other senior officials, wanted
Mugabe to
go.
Zanu PF politburo members told the Zimbabwe
Independent in separate
interviews this week that the party would not deal
with everyone, including
Mujuru, exposed in the explosive WikiLeaks cables
as this would damage an
already badly fractured party ahead of crucial
general elections expected
next year or in 2013.
Mujuru met US
ambassador Charles Ray on the outskirts of Harare on December
16 2009, just
three days after a heated Zanu PF congress in the capital.
While other top
party and government officials were quoted criticising
Mugabe’s leadership
as a liability in their meetings with US diplomats,
Mujuru managed to steer
clear of discussing Mugabe and rather sang from the
Zanu PF hymn book
blaming sanctions for Zimbabwe’s economic woes.
On politics, Mujuru
told Ray that the Zanu PF old guard was giving way to
“young blood” noting
that she and party chairman Simon Khaya Moyo, who were
54 and 64 years old
in 2009, were on the younger side and formed one half of
the party presidium
along with Mugabe and Nkomo.
Zanu PF is presently studying diplomatic
cables published by WikiLeaks to
decide who should be
punished.
In several of the cables senior Zanu PF and government
officials told US
diplomats that they wanted Mugabe out of office because he
had become a
liability to both the party and the country. Others went
further and
discussed sensitive issues regarding Mugabe’s personal life,
particularly
his health.
When the cables were published, all but Jonathan
Moyo distanced themselves
from the damaging disclosures.
Moyo
said it would be naïve for those implicated in the cables to assume
that
there would be no reprisals.
The politburo members said heads would
roll among those found to have had a
“sinister” agenda to destroy the
party.
Contrary to expectations by Mujuru’s rivals, who have been
pressing for
Mugabe to deal with her for meeting US diplomats clandestinely,
politburo
insiders said she was unlikely to be punished.
“People
like Mai Mujuru have no case to answer,” said one politburo member.
“She was
acting President at the time of the meeting, so why would she meet
the
Americans in the dark. Jonathan Moyo might also survive because he came
out
and said that at the time he was in the wilderness.”
“The president said some
of the people might have said what they said
without realising the
implications of their statements. He said for some, it
was through ignorance
and stupidity as they didn’t realise the impact of
their
statements.”
The insiders said a typical example of how Mugabe was
likely to deal with
the WikiLeaks is what happened to people implicated in
the Tsholotsho “coup
plot” of 2004. Six provincial chairpersons and Moyo
were fired, while
Patrick Chinamasa and Emmerson Mnangagwa were forgiven
despite their direct
or indirect role.
Zanu PF spokesperson
Rugare Gumbo confirmed that not everyone would be
punished but only a few
whose intentions might have been to destroy the
party.
“Very few
people will survive the Wikileaks,” said Gumbo. “It is a big
challenge for
us to sort out these WikiLeaks cases. We can’t deal with
everyone because
the party will be destroyed totally. What we will look at
is what the
person’s intention was. We will look at whether the person’s
intention was
to destroy the party or its leadership or whether it was done
out of
ignorance because he or she was over-excited.”
“If someone said we
are liberal, it is different from someone who says the
party is destroyed or
someone who criticised the party’s leadership,” said
Gumbo.
The
cables left Mugabe isolated and forlorn after senior party officials,
including some ministers, said he should step down.
Mugabe,
fighting the effects of old age and ill-health, apparently due to
prostate
cancer, is under growing pressure to quit ahead of the Zanu PF
national
conference in Bulawayo from December 6-10.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 18 November 2011
09:55
Faith Zaba
THE three parties in the inclusive government —
the two MDC formations and
Zanu PF — have gone on a full throttle campaign
to woo voters ahead of
crucial elections anticipated next year or 2013.
While Zanu PF has come up
with strategies targeting churches, the youth,
businesspeople, women,
communal farmers and urban dwellers to win the
general elections, the MDC
formations have been holding campaign rallies
across the country.
However, the police and Zanu PF supporters have
disrupted several of these
rallies which were supposed to be addressed by
the two MDC formations
leaders, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and
Welshman Ncube.
Tsvangirai has held rallies in Manicaland, Binga,
Nkayi and Masvingo, while
planned meetings in Victoria Falls, Lupane,
Zimbabwe Grounds in Harare and
Chitungwiza were cancelled after police and
Zanu PF supporters blocked them.
MDC-N has had meetings in Lupane,
Gwanda, Matobo and Tsholotsho, while a
rally, which was supposed to be held
in Bulawayo, had to be called off after
the police denied it
clearance.
Ncube has said he wants to hold a rally in every district
of Zimbabwe before
the elections.
President Robert Mugabe is yet to
launch his campaign rallies, although his
Zanu PF party has adopted a
different campaign approach from the MDC
formations.
Zanu PF has
intensified its campaign in rural areas, making donations to
schools and
villagers. Parallel to government efforts to provide
agricultural inputs in
rural areas, Zanu PF has a scheme of its own,
targeting communal
farmers.
Even Zanu PF cabinet ministers are said to be spending a lot
of time in
their constituencies and provinces attending meetings and making
donations.
In a recent interview with the Zimbabwe Independent, Zanu PF
spokesperson
Rugare Gumbo said one of its strategies was working with the
churches to
build support for the 87-year old leader.
Zanu PF’s
drive to infiltrate the churches stems from a decision by the
party’s
commissariat last April to use faith organisations as future
vehicles for
its election campaign.
At the launch of Zanu PF’s anti-sanctions
campaign in March, churches,
including Apostolic churches and founder of the
United Families
International Church Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa who attracts
a large
following in Harare, were invited to denounce Western sanctions
against
Mugabe and his allies.
But Zanu PF’s main targets are the
Apostolic churches, which have a
following of more than four million people.
Zanu PF believes this can
bolster its declining support and rocket it to
victory.
Gumbo said the party’s aim was to garner votes from at least
half of the
members of the apostolic churches.
“We are working
with the churches. Even if Zanu PF gets a quarter of
Vapostori, we will be
fine but we want at least half of the Vapostori,” he
said.
At
some church services, leaders of the churches were seen eulogising Mugabe’s
leadership and urging congregants to support Mugabe because “he carries the
blood of Jesus”.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 18 November 2011 09:52
DETECTIVES
from the CID Law and Order section yesterday visited Alpha Media
Holdings
(AMH) offices looking for Standard editor Nevanji Madanhire and
senior
reporter Nqaba Matshazi over a story published in the newspaper last
month
alleging that Home Affairs co-minister Kembo Mohadi was muscling out
resettled farmers in Beitbridge to create room for his son and nephew. The
detectives, who were led by a Detective Inspector Mukwaira, said they wanted
to record statements from the two scribes regarding how they got documents
used in writing the article. The officers said the two should report to the
Harare Central Police Station’s Law and Order section today.
The
detectives’ visit came a day after Madanhire and Matshazi were granted
US$100 bail each by the Harare Magistrates’ Courts for criminal defamation
and theft charges involving Green Card Medical Aid Society. Green Card is
owned by Munyaradzi Kereke, a special advisor to Reserve Bank Governor
Gideon Gono. Madanhire and Matshazi were ordered to surrender their
passports and continue residing at their given address.
AMH Group
Senior Associate Editor Iden Wetherell said the latest development
appeared
aimed at destabilising the newspaper group ahead of elections
marked for
next year.
“This has all the hallmarks of a sustained campaign by the
state to disable
our newspaper group output ahead of elections,” Wetherell
said. “And yet
they have the cheek to complain about
sanctions.”
AMH chief executive officer Raphael Khumalo echoed the
same sentiments and
accused the police of selectively applying the
law.
“This is another case of selective application of the law and
harassment of
our journalists. We are yet to hear of the arrest of people
who stormed
parliament this year or those who disrupted MDC rallies
recently. Our
journalists have become a soft target for the police,” said
Khumalo.
Khumalo said he thought the ushering in of the present
coalition government
would restore some normalcy in the country, but it
seems things had become
worse, and that was sad and unacceptable. — Staff
Writer.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011 19:10
Dumisani
Muleya
THE historic pact between Zanu PF and the MDC formations to end
resurging
political violence and curb future brutality ahead of possible
elections
next year or 2013 signals a “Damascene moment” for President
Robert Mugabe
and moves to atone for atrocities of his regime.
Officials
close to the initiative to stop violence say Mugabe, 87, and
facing the
exits due to old and ill-health, is gradually becoming mellow as
he tries to
repent and make amends for the damage his regime inflicted on
the people and
society during its three decades-long repressive
rule.
Zimbabwe has a long history of political violence
dating back to the
colonial era, particularly after Ian Smith’s Unilateral
Declaration of
Independence in 1965, although Zanu PF perpetuated the
culture of violence
after 1980.
Mugabe’s rule has been a reign of
terror in many respects, characterised by
fear and violence. When he came to
office in 1980, one of Mugabe’s first
moves to consolidate and keep power
was to target the main opposition party,
the now defunct PF Zapu. Its
leaders, who spearheaded the liberation
struggle, were arrested and
detained.
Zapu leader Joshua Nkomo, one of the founding nationalists
before Mugabe,
survived assassination attempts in 1982 before ironically
fleeing to the
former colonial power he had fought,
Britain.
During the same period Mugabe, then committed to a one-party
state and
command economy, unleashed brutal repression using North
Korean-trained
security forces in the south-western and midlands regions of
the country in
a desperate bid to crush Zapu and Nkomo. In the process, at
least 20 000
civilians were massacred during the episode now known as
Gukurahundi which
resonates with Zanu PF history. During the mid 1970s, Zanu
PF leaders and
commanders scattered in Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique
deployed a crack
force dubbed Gukurahundi to quell an internal rebellion by
disgruntled
combatants.
Zapu was eventually coerced into a merger
with Zanu PF in the 1987 Unity
Accord, paving way for constitutional changes
giving Mugabe, prime minister
until 1989, sweeping executive powers and
turning the country into a de
facto one-party state. Attempts to create a de
jure one-party state failed
in 1990.
Elections since 1980 have always
been marked by violence and bloodshed. Zanu
PF’s systematic brutality,
mainly during elections, started in the 1980s
against Zapu and the trend has
continued up to this day. The 1985 elections
took place amid a fierce tide
of violence in the south-western part of the
country.
Edgar
Tekere’s ZUM became the main victim of violence during the 1990
elections,
marked by the shooting by state agents of the late Patrick
Kombayi, while
the MDC became the target of a sustained crackdown after
2000.
After Zanu PF lost the 2000 constitutional referendum — the
first time
people voted against Mugabe’s regime in clear protest at misrule
—all hell
broke loose. Mugabe and his party reacted with vicious repression
and
violence, seizing farms, attacking the MDC all over the place and
curtailing
civil and political liberties, including press
freedom.
The elections of 2000, 2002 and 2008 were thus characterised
by violence.
The brutality of 2008, which shook the conscience of the
nation, left scars
which are still fresh.
Following recent
incidents of violence, particularly in Chitungwiza,
political party leaders,
Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube moved to act
and held a historic
meeting in Harare last Friday to come up with a deal to
end
violence.
Senior officials in the three parties involved in the pact
say Mugabe – who
previously boasted Zanu PF had “degrees in violence” - has
undergone a
“Damascene moment” as he goes through the twilight zone of his
long
political career.
“I think President Mugabe is genuine in
his call for the need to end
political violence. He seems to be trying to
atone for his mistakes to leave
legacy of peace and harmony,” a senior
official involved in the
anti-violence initiative said. “Like the Biblical
Paul on his way to
Damascus, it seems Mugabe has eventually seen the
light.”
Another official reinforced this observation, saying the
initiative to
honour Nkomo, once a sworn enemy of Zanu PF leaders, with
statues in Harare
and Bulawayo was part of Mugabe’s atonement process. “He
appears to be
trying to make amends for the excesses of the past and
therefore he must be
acting in good faith,” the official
said.
Questions abound whether Mugabe is not pooling wools over
people’s eyes on
this issue. Observers say Mugabe might be willing to have a
mindset shift
given the now entrenched multiparty politics environment but
some of his
lieutenants might be disinclined. Those close to the process say
the biggest
challenge for the leaders was not agreeing to end violence but
walking the
talk. Hence, Ncube emphasised during the meeting the need for
sincerity.
After the three party-political leaders addressed the
meeting, MDC-T
secretary-general Tendai Biti summed up their contributions
in 10 points in
what he termed the “Harare Declaration”. There is also the
1989 Harare
Declaration against apartheid and the Harare Commonwealth
Declaration of
1991.
Biti’s charter drawn from Mugabe, Tsvangirai
and Ncube’s contributions
include the need to say no to violence and embrace
peace, sincerity,
tolerance, the call for citizens to be proud to be
Zimbabweans subscribing
to a common set of values, principles and grundnorms
(basic norms), equality
before the law and freedom from coercion,
leadership, vision, the need for
security forces to protect the people,
spirituality and implementation of
agreed issues.
Scepticism is
rife though on whether the anti-violence pact would be a
watershed in
Zimbabwe’s electoral politics, leading to free and fair
elections. Some
critics say the move is a smoke-and-mirrors plot by Mugabe
and Zanu PF to
con the MDC parties again through a change of strategy and
tactics. Others
insist it a genuine effort by Mugabe to make amends for his
political
transgressions and avoid being held to account for gross human
rights
abuses, although the process might be undermined by uncontrollable
hardliners around him.
Only time will tell if this was a genuine
deal to end violence or a
deceptive change of strategy by Mugabe who always
introduces new, and often
radical, political dynamics during the course of
the game. Critics say
Mugabe must be given the benefit of the doubt although
he is not to be
trusted.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011
19:05
Paidamoyo Muzulu
THE Mines and Energy Portfolio Committee
this week dispatched a final
written warning to Justice minister Patrick
Chinamasa demanding that he
avails the Shabanie Mashaba Mines Holdings share
warrant certificates he
claimed were in government possession after the
state took control of
Mutumwa Mawere’s business empire in 2004.
Chinamasa
escaped contempt of parliament charges in August for failing to
produce the
share certificates despite receiving three letters of demand
from the
committee. However, The Speaker of parliament ruled that the
committee had
not exhausted all available channels to get the information
before charging
Chinamasa.
Parliamentary insiders told the Zimbabwe
Independent that a letter had been
dispatched to Chinamasa demanding that he
produce the certificates.
“A final letter demanding share warrants proving
government ownership and
total legal costs for UK proceedings and fees paid
to lawyers who
represented the government. The minister has since
acknowledged receipt of
the letter,” one of the sources said.
The
sources said Chinamasa “has requested for time to get all the details
together”.
Committee chairman Edward Chindori-Chininga was not
immediately available
for comment as he was said to be in South Africa.
However, in August
Chindori-Chininga said his committee was going to decide
collectively on the
next course of action against Chinamasa.
Chinamasa
was not available for comment.
Clerk of parliament Austin Zvoma
declined to confirm or deny the new
development in Chinamasa’s case.
“I
cannot confirm that information because that would be undermining the
work
of the committee,” Zvoma said yesterday.
The case arose out of the
committee’s investigations into the status of the
now defunct SMM after they
were placed under state administration as part of
their reconstruction for
state indebtedness.
Chinamasa then appointed Afaras Gwaradzimba of
AMG Global Accountants as the
administrator of the mines with powers to seek
SMMH share certificates from
T&N (UK) to effect a complete government
takeover of Mawere’s empire.
The case resulted in a long-winded court
case in the UK with Gwaradzimba
claiming he won the matter and got the share
warrants. However, Mawere
maintained that he still owned SMMH and the share
warrants were still safely
tucked in a safe in the
UK.
Gwaradzimba is currently facing contempt of parliament charges
for utterings
that demeaned the characters of members of the Mines and
Energy Portfolio
Committee by publishing a defamatory article in the NewsDay
of Friday, March
4.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011 19:04
Nqobile
Bhebhe
PRESSURE group International Crisis Group (ICG) says the slow pace
in
tackling the Zimbabwe political crisis was diminishing prospects of
constructive engagement making it difficult to see how minimal conditions
for free and fair elections could be secured. In a report released on
Wednesday titled Resistance and Denial: Zimbabwe’s Stalled Reform Agenda,
the ICG said initial hope created by the Southern African Development
Community (Sadc) resolution of a more robust hands-on approach on the
Zimbabwe crisis was fast fading due to no visible
action.
Following a Sadc Troika Organ on Politics, Defence and
Security meeting in
Livingstone, Zambia in March, which was hailed as a
watershed for its
hard-hitting communiqué, there were high hopes that a
long-lasting political
resolution was imminent.
“The promise that
the regional organisation Sadc would take a more robust
stand following the
March 31 communiqué of its Organ Troika on Politics,
Defence and Security
has not yet been adequately borne out,” reads the
report.
The
report says political instability was escalating with recent clashes in
Harare and other parts of the country being cited.
“A more
resolute Sadc position has been in place since the first quarter of
2011,
but has yet to bear fruit on the ground…But the clock is ticking, with
no
more than 18 to 20 months before elections,” it says. “The issue cannot
be
endlessly deferred, however, even if the first step is only constructive
talks about potential dialogue. In the meantime, prospects for constructive
engagement are diminishing, which makes it difficult to see how even minimal
conditions for free and fair elections will be secured.” the report
says.
However, MDC president Welshman Ncube told the Zimbabwe
Independent that it
was wrong for people to assume that Sadc should “police
Zimbabwe everyday
like a headmaster” saying the regional body was still on
track in its
commitment to the Zimbabwe crisis.
“It’s a mistake
for anyone to think that Sadc will be policing Zimbabwe like
a headmaster
and it will never happen. Sadc can only facilitate, guard and
pressurise.
The communiqué was tough and I believe Sadc still stands by
that. The
Livingstone summit established one principle that Zimbabwe will
not hold any
election unless those elections are held in a free and fair
environment.
Therefore I don’t think Sadc has changed and it would not yield
on that,”
said Ncube.
The ICG said the two competing formations of the MDC
largely welcomed the
more proactive engagement of Sadc’s facilitation team
headed by South
African President Jacob Zuma.
However, it said
President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party, which retains a
dominant role in
the current power-sharing arrangement, has frustrated it.
The ICG said
Mugabe’s recent admission that he could not force a 2012
election date
suggested that realisation was growing within Zanu PF that
efforts to impose
elections without consensus would be counter-productive.
As a
guarantor of the Global Political Agreement, Sadc needs to secure
tangible
progress on several key issues if elections are ultimately to be
held in
conditions that are sufficiently free and fair.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011 19:03
Paidamoyo
Muzulu
ZESA has renounced the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
clandestinely
signed between treasury and Chinese conglomerate Sino Hydro
for the
expansion of the Kariba South hydroelectric power project opting for
a more
transparent tender process. Kariba presently generates 750 megawatts
of
power at its peak and the MoU seeks to increase generation capacity by an
extra 600 MW. It was signed by Finance minister Tendai Biti and Economic
Planning and Development minister Tapiwa Mashakada early this
year.
Investment in the country has been subdued in the last decade
with Zesa
failing to provide uninterrupted power supply to the manufacturing
industry.
The power authority sometimes switches off consumers for up to 12
hours as
part of its haphazard load-shedding schedule.
Zesa chief
executive officer Josh Chifamba told the Mines and Energy
Portfolio
Committee on Monday that the agreement awarding Sino Hydro the
Kariba
expansion work had jumped the gun and would cause problems with other
Chinese companies should it be implemented without going to tender.
“Sino
Hydro made an offer, (but) it jumped the gun on many issues,” said
Chifamba.
“The feasibility studies had not been done. We were going to have
problems
with other Chinese partners. The only way was to go to
international
tender,” he said.
Chifamba said such large projects needed very high
levels of transparency to
encourage investment and participation by the most
competent company through
a tender process.
“We need maximum
transparency to encourage funding. This would also give us
an opportunity to
evaluate the best tender and compare the services of the
companies in an
open manner,” Chifamba said.
The debt laden energy utility conceded
that the perennial power shortages
could only be solved by engaging in
Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to
build new electricity generation
plants. However, Chifamba suggested that
investors were wary of Zimbabwe’s
inconsistent policies.
“We are not the most attractive investment destination
in the world,” he
said. “Electricity generation is a long term investment.
There must be
stability, and currently there is nervousness among investors,
for instance,
around indigenisation policy.”
Most local
parastatals are debt ridden making them unattractive to
investors. Zicosteel
owes about US$240 million to Chinese and German banks.
The situation is the
same at the National Railways of Zimbabwe, Air
Zimbabwe, Noczim, Grain
Marketing Board, Agribank, Cold Storage Company,
TelOne, NetOne and the
Zimbabwe Power Company (ZPC). The ZPC has been
shortlisted for privatisation
or restructuring in the short to medium-term.
In another development,
Chifamba announced that Zesa would soon embark on
the ambitious Batoka
hydro-power project with potential to generate 3000MW
after finally agreeing
to settle a US$260 million debt to Zambia for the
shared Kariba
infrastructure inherited at independence in 1980.
The dispute
revolved around an unpaid debt for infrastructure that Zimbabwe
inherited at
Independence from the Central African Power Corporation (Capco)
during the
federation era.
Chifamba said: “Zesa will start servicing the Capco
debt commencing next
January and that will give us the greenlight to start
the Batoka project.”
Zimbabwe’s power stations are operating at 50% capacity
and producing 1 300
MW compared to a national demand of 2 400 MW. The
utility meets the
shortfall by importing from the DRC’s power company Snel,
Eskom of South
Africa and HCB of Mozambique.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011 19:02
Brian
Chitemba
A HIGH-POWERED Zanu PF delegation has descended on Bulawayo for
a crisis
meeting to deal with problems bedevilling preparations for the
party’s
annual conference to be held in the city in about three weeks time.
The team
led by the party’s national chairman, Simon Khaya Moyo (pictured),
also
comprises secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa, Defence minister
Emmerson Mnangagwa, State Security minister Sydney Sekeramayi, Zanu PF
women’s
league secretary Oppah Muchinguri, youth affairs secretary Absolom
Sikhosana, spokesman Rugare Gumbo and education secretary Sikhanyiso
Ndlovu.
They are scheduled this weekend to meet various conference
preparatory
committees at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), the
venue of the
conference.
The party’s top brass will meet the
Bulawayo committee led by provincial
chairman Isaac Dakamela to discuss the
slow trickling in of funds and
donations as well as accommodation challenges
amid reports that the party
was battling to secure accommodation for the
more than 5 000 delegates
expected to attend the indaba.
While
accommodation for senior officials has been secured, ordinary
delegates are
likely to be accommodated at government schools close to the
ZITF.
Dakamela confirmed that his party’s bigwigs would visit the city
for crucial
meetings “to iron out outstanding issues regarding conference
preparations”.
Dakamela said Bulawayo province would meet ahead of
the conference to
publicly endorse Mugabe’s continued leadership. Zanu PF
sources in Bulawayo
said the party faced serious problems securing funding
and beasts for
slaughter pledged by local businessmen during the fundraising
launch.
Zanu PF budgeted US$1,5 million for the conference with each province
expected to raise US$150 000. However, the host province has only managed to
source US$21 000, which is all locked up in pledges.
“The Khaya
Moyo committee will craft ways of sourcing resources for the
conference
because there is no money and the Bulawayo City Council has
refused to allow
the party to use its pavilion at the ZITF. “There is a lot
of confusion
around the preparations and all this is because Sikhanyiso
Ndlovu and
Dakamela don’t know what they are doing,” said a senior Zanu PF
official.
Dakamela said the party wrote to the Bulawayo City
Council asking for the
council’s pavilion for use as offices for the
presidium. Council rejected
the request saying Zanu PF had not followed
proper procedures.
Khaya Moyo’s team, the source said, would also
attempt to rein in warring
factions in the province.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011 19:02
THE
long awaited Mtshabezi-Umzingwane pipeline, which is expected to ease
Bulawayo’s perennial water woes, is set to be completed six months after the
original schedule. It was initially scheduled to be completed in
December.
The Mtshabezi-Umzingwane water pipeline is seen as a
medium-term panacea to
Bulawayo’s perennial water shortages. Bulawayo
residents and business have
endured serious water rationing over the years
as the city’s supply dams are
failing to cope with the ever increasing water
demand.
According to findings by the cabinet taskforce on reviving
Bulawayo
industries, water shortages have forced many companies to close
shop or
relocate to Harare.
Water Resources minister Samuel
Sipepa Nkomo said the project would be
delayed after the State Procurement
Board (SPB) refused to approach Zesa
directly for the electrification of the
pump station. The SPB instructed
that an open tender be used to select the
company to carry out
electrification.
“The project is 77%
complete,” Nkomo said. “The contract for the Mtshabezi
Pump Station:
Electro-Mechanical Works was awarded to Hydroproject (Pvt.)
Ltd through PBR
1194 on 25 August 2011 for the sum of US$1,126,738.40. The
Contractor placed
orders for the pumps with a supplier in South Africa. The
electricals of the
project will certainly push it to the end of the first,
if not second,
quarter of 2012.”
Nkomo said the 42km excavations were complete while
the laying of pipes had
been done on 40,8km. Only 1,2km remained on the
pipeline expected to cost in
the region of US$14 million.Bulawayo has five
supply dams, Insiza,
Umzingwane, Upper Ncema, Lower Ncema and Inyankuni,
which are all located in
the drought prone Matabeleland South
province.
Mtshabezi Dam has a capacity of 11,4 million cubic metres
of water and has
not been fully utilised since it was completed in 1994.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011
17:08
Collins Rudzuna
SO the Finance minister is due to make his
budget announcement shortly and
the nation is expectant as usual.
Developments in the world economy,
particularly the Eurozone countries, have
now sobered up the initial
optimism and put to doubt the achievability of
earlier estimates of real GDP
growth of 9,3% for 2011 and 7,8% for
2012.
One of the topical issues that came out of the mid-term budget
statement was
the existence of a significant unfunded budget deficit of
US$700 million. In
the absence of new sources of funds we expect the
minister will follow the
international trend and implement “austerity
measures”, the buzz phrase for
cutting the deficit by reducing
spending.
As we have seen in the UK, where university students
demonstrated against
the reduction of state subsidies on education, this
strategy is highly
unpopular and may be met with stiff resistance from those
affected directly.
Austerity measures would be difficult to implement in
Zimbabwe anyway as 70%
of our budget is taken up by public sector salaries.
Cutting salaries or
laying off workers ahead of what is possibly an election
year would be
political suicide and might also be the catalyst for a violent
eruption by
the discontented masses.
Prospects for cutting
spending being limited as they are, what is the
minister likely to do to
manage the deficit situation? It is highly probable
that modest tax
increases may be put into effect. Taxes ranging from pay as
you earn on
individuals’ salaries to various duties and levies payable in
the course of
trading are already on the high end, especially relative to
the low incomes
earned by most people. Yet it is likely that the taxman will
make a further
squeeze on the taxpayer, if only a slight one.
The Confederation
of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) recently published its report
on a
manufacturing sector survey. One of the CZI’s policy recommendations
was
reduction of Vat and import duty. It is highly unlikely this
recommendation
will be implemented and it is more likely that duty on
imported products may
instead be increased.
The debate on the imposition of import duty is
another topic that makes for
interesting discussion. It is particularly
interesting to consider whether
this strategy will be effective in enhancing
the competitiveness of local
manufacturers, thereby reducing the need for
imports and improving the
balance of payments situation. Official figures
show total foreign payments
in the third quarter at nearly US$600 million
per month, suggesting an
annual import bill of US$7,2 billion. Exports are
anticipated at US$4
billion and this leaves a deficit of US$3,2
billion.
The mid-term budget statement saw the minister
re-introducing duty on
certain basic foodstuffs as a direct result of
lobbying from local
manufacturers. Given their initial success,
manufacturers may be asking for
further protection. Last time, retailers
adjusted prices of locally-produced
goods to match those of imported goods,
thereby “cheating” the final
consumers of any benefit from buying from local
sources. It will be
interesting to see what happens on this front this time
around.
Some political analysts have ruled out the possibility of an
election being
held in 2012. From a budget point of view it would be
fortunate if they are
right as this exercise would need funding as well. In
an economy where the
government’s finances are already stretched, the
holding of an election
would cost us money we do not have. Yet the
appointment of a democratically-
elected government is key to our ability to
attract the international funds
that are needed to revamp the economy. Donor
funding will be needed for this
exercise as for the constitutional
referendum as well. It will be
interesting to see how the parties involved
in the election are receptive to
donor money should it be
available.
Early rains have fallen and the agricultural season has
kicked off.
Hopefully, the uncharacteristically high temperatures prevailing
do not
negatively affect agricultural production. Subsistence farmers rely
on a
good harvest for food and should the season be a bad one, the Finance
minister may have to make available funds for food relief as well. This is
one area where donor funding should come in to plug the gap, and if
politicians are readily willing to work with Ngos, then the process of
distributing food will be smoother.
These issues of the budget
deficit, trade balance, elections and food
security are just some of the
more important ones to consider but the
overriding theme is that the
minister has a tough exercise ahead of him and
little room to manoeuvre.
Aside from increasing taxation and sourcing funds
from donors, there is
little that can be done by the minister. Is he perhaps
more creative than we
assume? We will know when the budget statement is out!
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011
16:22
Paul Nyakazeya
ZIMBABWE through Green Fuel has joined a
growing list of world economies
taking up the call to reduce carbon emission
while enjoying local benefits
of a homegrown solution to fuel independence.
Green Fuel ethanol is produced
locally from sugar cane grown in Chisumbanje.
The ethanol project has
created more than 4 500 jobs to date in agriculture
and offers training and
skills development in the new technologies
introduced by the Green Fuel
ethanol plant.
Ethanol is a safe, clean
transportation fuel, which will reduce pump prices
and bring significant
benefits to industry, business and individuals across
the
country.
By being locally produced Green Fuel ethanol will save on
fuel importation
and transportation costs.
Green Fuel produces anhydrous
ethanol using the latest plant and
distillation technologies from Brazil.
This is a new generation, high
quality biofuel and is the best performing
fuel on the market.
Ethanol blends of 10% and up to 25%, are safe for
use in al petrol vehicles,
offering a clean efficient fuel with a higher
octane rating and improved
performance of your petrol vehicle. It is easy
and safe to switch between
blend and 100% petrol.
Currently, regional
market comparisons indicate that the pump price of
petrol in South Africa is
R10,77 (US$1,35), the rest of the region is
experiencing a price range of
between US$1,50 and US$1,70.
Zimbabwe’s fuel prices last week tumbled
in the backdrop of Green Fuel’s
introduction of blend into the local
market. Green Fuel blend entered the
market at a retail offering of $1,36
per litre effectively giving the
motorist cheaper fuel than the US$1,42 to
US$1,44 price range.
Local produced ethanol is said to be
revolutionising the fuel market,
protecting the local consumer from ripple
effects of increases global oil
prices with Green Fuel’s blend being on the
market at a competitive US$1,36.
Green Fuel spokesperson Lilian Muungani told
Independent Motoring on Monday
that market reaction to the product has been
overwhelming and effort was
underway to ensure the distribution is
nationwide.
“We are open to supply everyone and we urge distributors outside
Harare to
approach us for commercial agreements,” she said.
She
said the last two week’s experience in the fuel market presents Zimbabwe
with all forms of possibilities informing of a revolution that will not only
stabilise fuel prices, but will also turn the wheels of economic recovery
towards accelerated growth.
“The 10% minimum blend ratio has had
an impact of a downward movement in the
price of blend by about eight
cents,” Muungani said.
There is more benefit awaiting the consumer if
authorities increase the
blend ratio. Research has shown that a blend ratio
of up to 20% has no
resulting technical effects on the vehicles therefore if
the blend ratio
goes up to this figure the consumer is presented with a cost
saving of up to
16 cents this is likely to bring the price of blend further
down to the
$1,25 and for the first time in the history of this country fuel
may be
priced lower than in South Africa.
“This will have a huge positive
impact on the general industrial performance
as well as the small to medium
enterprise sector in the rural areas whose
operations hinge on the movement
of commodities from major industrial
cities,” said Muungani
A
cursory look at the fuel trends within the region shows that most of
Zimbabwe’s neighbours remain vulnerable to the oscillating international oil
prices from which Zimbabwe will be cushioned henceforth. The Malawi Energy
Regulatory Authority (Mera) this week announced a 30% hike in fuel
prices.
This, the board indicated, was meant to cover the rising
costs of fuel
importation. The energy regulatory authority further announced
that the
price hike had been effected in consideration of other
macroeconomic
fundamentals affecting the price of petroleum products. The
South African
Energy Department recently announced a 23% hike in fuel prices
surprising
petrol consumer with R10,77 cents per litre
(US$1,35).
But for the motoring public, questions abound on fuelling
on blend from
ethanol with questions bordering on safety for the engine,
impact on
performance and most importantly the issue of economic savings
against
mileage to be achieved being asked.
For many urbanites,
air pollution in most urban centers is no longer a
distant subject confined
to environmental discussions at international
forums. Rather, it has become
a daily reality invading one’s nostrils as
emissions from industrial and
motoring activity combine to form a thick
layer in the
atmosphere.
The benefit resulting from ethanol use to citizens is
cleaner air resulting
to healthier people, especially those that suffer from
respiratory diseases.
Ethanol is a clean burning fuel that reduced air
pollution and decreases
green house gas emissions by over 60% and as high as
90%.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011
18:48
Qhubani Moyo
IF the Constitution Parliamentary Committee
(Copac) is not planning anything
sinister with the views that came out of
the constitutional outreach
programme done between June and September 2010,
then it should make public
the provincial and national report so that the
public is informed on the
views made. This business of treating information
that came from the people
as highly confidential and classified may incite
the thinking that there is
some sinister agenda by the select committee. It
is a matter of public
record that the way select committee handled the whole
constitution-making
process is far from impressive. The glaring incompetence
levels, amongst
many of the members of the select committee, make it urgent
and critical
that the views of the public be made public. Otherwise a
cunning few could
manipulate the rest of the members of the select committee
to come up with a
constitution that does not reflect the will of the
majority of the
Zimbabwean people.
It is just and fair that the
people who expressed what they wanted to get
into the new constitution be
given reports of what came out of the outreach
programme. The news that
Copac is already moving to the drafting stage of
the constitution makes the
whole outreach process a charade and should not
be allowed to
happen.
What wisdom is Copac using to jump to converting the people’s
views into a
draft constitution without publicising what came out of that
outreach? This
borders on undermining and disrespecting the people of
Zimbabwe. There is
also a rumour that Copac has concluded the constitutional
principles that
are supposed to be the pillars and foundation of the
constitution. The
question that many Zimbabweans would want answered, as a
matter of urgency,
is are these principles general constitutional principles
or are they
principles that are derived from the views of the people? If the
views of
the people were made public, it would be easy to answer that
question but as
it stands the truth will be difficult to
tell.
The lingering question is what the trio of co-chairpersons
Edward Mukhosi,
Paul Mangwana and Douglas Mwonzora are doing by wanting to
treat the people’s
views as a safely guarded secret that has a potential of
threatening
national security? If anything, the keeping of people’s views as
secret has
a potential of causing mayhem and instability because the
constitution that
may come out might not be identified with the collective
views of the whole
nation. Copac should not play kids’ games about the
constitution-making
process because when all has been done it is the real
foundation of the
future of this country.
The majority of the
problems we face today are a result of a weak
constitution. The
co-chairpersons and their team have to know that they are
carrying dynamite
in their hands and it can easily explode in their faces if
they play games
with the information that was gathered.
This is not only critical or urgent
but highly explosive because the
outcomes of all other process of
constitution-making have been made public.
What then is the point of keeping
people in the dark on the outcome of this
important phase of the
process.
When the GNU was formed with Article Six of the GPA mandating the
writing of
a new constitution, the first thing that was done in that regard
was the
appointment of the select committee from the MPs. The names of those
appointed to lead the process were made public. After that the first
stakeholders’ conference, which came up with 17 thematic areas that were to
form the basis of the public enquiry, was held. The subsequent meetings came
up with the talking points and these thematic areas were well publicised and
presented to the nation and which reflected, to a large extent, the basis of
the public outreach questionnaire.
This was followed by the
appointment of the outreach teams whose names were
also widely publicised in
the media. The outreach programme meeting points
and the how the people were
supposed to submit their views were also
publicised.
This made
the people identify with the constitution-making process and thus
ensuring
that the public moves with it in line with the desired
people-driven
constitution. What then has happened now for Copac to pretend
that
publication of this part of the process is not important? This is the
most
critical stage of the process and Copac should not pretend that this is
less
important.
This is especially problematic given that Copac made a
commitment to move
with the people and inform them in all national languages
of the outcomes of
all the stages of constitution-making. They must deliver
on that promise
unless they have something to hide or are planning a coup on
the views of
the people. This is a supposedly a people-driven process after
all!
Rushing to the drafting stage without publicising the people’s
views is a
potential source of conflict. This is because some people might
dispute what
is in the draft on the basis that they have no knowledge of
what came out in
the outreach programme. People will want to know the
relationship of what is
in the draft constitution and the various provincial
reports. This will
build confidence in the whole process as anything outside
this might be met
with resistance in the long run. The select committee
should not negate the
simple tenet of constitution-making in conflict areas
which is moving with
the people in the process.
A suspicious
outcome based on data that was never made public can have
dangerous outcomes
which can cause instability. For instance if the
constitution does not
embrace the principle of devolution of power in which
provinces have power
to run their affairs with governors directly elected by
the people, then
this will be a cause for a national problem. Equally if the
constitution
does not provide for an electoral system based on proportional
representation, abolition of death sentence, a comprehensive Bill of Rights,
promotion of all languages and cultures, a maximum two five-year terms for
the president and the removal of a dual vice presidency among many issues,
then this can be a major source of conflict.
Copac should just do
the right thing by ensuring that what came out of the
outreach is not left
to speculation and rumour but made public to avoid the
dangers that go with
speculative tendencies.
Moyo is the National Organising Secretary
of the MDC led by Professor
Welshman Ncube. He is contactable on qmoyo2000@yahoo.co.uk .
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011
18:19
‘ZDF won’t entertain security sector reform being advocated by the
MDC-T,”
the Saturday Herald told us last weekend.
This was said by Chief
of Staff, Major-General Martin Chedondo at army
headquarters last
week.
Major-General Chedondo said the idea of security sector reform was
being
pushed by “former Rhodesians who lost to Zanu and PF Zapu on the
battlefield”.
So not only will the army forbid security sector
reform, it will, according
to the Herald, forbid any discussion of the
subject on the grounds that
“Rhodesians” are behind it.
This at a
time when the nation is drawing up a democratic constitution.
Is Chedondo
authorised to block freedom of expression in this way and
prevent
Zimbabweans from exercising their democratic right to discuss the
options
open to them? The methodology here is not new. First of all identify
a
spurious threat to the state. Then curb the democratic rights of
Zimbabweans
on the basis of that non-existent threat.
How many “Rhodesians” does
Chedondo think are left? Does he have any clue?
And here we have the MDC-T
failing the public once again. Instead of making
it abundantly clear that
Chedondo does not have the right to silence
Zimbabweans just because he
imagines some plot to promote sanctions
involving “Rhodesians”, the party
remains silent.
This is a claim that needs to be rebutted vigorously instead
of allowing
ignorance to prevail. Chedondo boasts of having “won” the
liberation war.
Did he win it in order to prevent Zimbabweans exercising a
free political
choice at the polls?
On the subject of
sanctions, what has happened to that dubious
“anti-sanctions”
petition?
Did it find a home anywhere? We recall those poor kids from Zhombe
being
stuck in Harare once they had served their purpose without food or
anywhere
to sleep.
But who will the petition be handed to? None
of the UN agencies or EU
personnel are likely to take it seriously. It needs
pointing out to Zanu PF
that with the increase in state-sponsored violence
and the prevention of
MDC-T rallies, the likelihood of sanctions being
retained by the US and EU
is growing by the day.
The Herald is
carrying ads of a menacing looking fellow charging forward
bellowing
“Sanctions must go.”
”Don’t stand by and watch such an injustice,” he yells.
“This November be
heard loud and clear.”
He is right. There must never be
a return to the violence that characterised
the 2008 election. The public
need to speak out against Zanu PF’s mendacity.
We liked the picture in the
Herald of police officers dancing to mark the
relaunch of the ZRP service
charter. Was anybody aware it had been
relaunched, or indeed that it was
alive in the first place?
What does this suggest? That a new era
dawns? That the police will be
impartial?
The relaunch took place as
officers from the CID Fraud Squad were busy
raiding the offices of the
Standard.
The Saturday Herald carried a front-page heading announcing that
“Police to
be more effective”. That should be
interesting!
Still with sanctions, Tafataona Mahoso tells
us that “…Any genuine effort at
national reconciliation and unification must
begin with the full admission
that illegal economic sanctions constitute
mass violence and mass torture
against the people…”
There, accompanying
this daft claim, is a picture of Jestina Mukoko who has
been a notable
victim of state violence.
Equally significant is another picture which shows
the Matapi flats covered
with satellite dishes. Here is a practical example
of what the people think
about ZTV which Mahoso champions.
The
hundreds of dishes that coat the flats tell us the people don’t want
Zanu
PF’s propaganda and that any lifting of sanctions will first require a
full
admission of violence by those responsible.
Muckraker has
been studying the spending habits of South Africa’s
post-liberation
aristocracy to see how closely it compares with our own.
Former Cooperative
Governance and Traditional Affairs minister Sicelo
Shiceka who went to
Geneva to visit his girlfriend in jail while claiming he
was on official
business related to the World Cup was finally fired by
President Jacob Zuma
two weeks ago. The details of his profligate spending
were provided in this
column several months ago.
But Shiceka has been overtaken in the big
spending stakes by Transport
minister Sbu Ndebele whose sojourns, Business
Day reports, have included the
Pretoria Sheraton, Cape Town’s Cullinan and
Radisson Blu, the Michelangelo
Towers in Sandton, and the Cape Grace and
Westin Grande.
The minister spent a total of 346 nights in top class hotels,
Business Day
said.
Ndebele’s spokesman justified the expenditure
on the grounds that the
Department of Public Works had failed to provide him
with an official
residence.
“What we are seeing is a growing trend of
ministers spending a fortune on
their high-flying lifestyles at luxury
hotels,” the Democratic Alliance’s
Transport spokesman Stuart Farrow said.
He described Ndebele’s accommodation
bills as exorbitant.
Mahoso and
other propagandists for the regime have regularly attacked the DA
as
elitist.
Who are the elitists here? Those who use public funds to live high
on the
hog, or those who exercise public accountability in ensuring the
public
interest is properly observed?
And which of the parties mentioned
above is the revolutionary party?
Political parties
causing violence will be held accountable following the
drafting of a code
of conduct by the Organ on National Healing,
Reconciliation and Integration,
the Herald reported on Monday.
The code compels political parties to publicly
campaign against violence. It
will also establish a National Peace and
Reconciliation Council to resolve
political disputes, states the
Herald.
Haven’t we heard all this before? Another national “healing”
body set up
while incidences of political violence continue unabated? We
would like to
know what “healing” the Organ on National Healing,
Reconciliation and
Integration has managed to achieve since its
constitution?.
According to its code of conduct: “The leader of a party that
has subscribed
to this code will instruct the party’s officials, candidates,
members and
supporters that no weapon of any kind, including any traditional
weapon, may
be brought to any political rally, meeting, march or other
demonstration.
“A party that has subscribed to this code will not engage in
or permit any
kind of violent activity to demonstrate party strength or to
prove
supremacy.”
Inter-party and stakeholders’ committees will be
established at national,
provincial and district levels to deal with
political violence, reads the
code of conduct.
All this sounds
very nice but what measures have been put in place to deal
with the parties
that do not conform to this code of conduct? What of the
clearly partisan
police who only seem to make arrests when the MDC-T are
concerned?
Meanwhile Zanu PF national chairman Simon
Khaya Moyo has been busy
encouraging his party supporters to retaliate when
attacked by their
political rivals, NewsDay reports.
“Let us desist from
political violence and be peaceful,” he is reported as
saying. “But if we
are attacked, we are left with no choice but to
retaliate. We cannot afford
to watch them as they attack us. We will also
fight back,” he said.
When
are they attacked Cde Khaya Moyo? Were they being attacked when they
unleashed terror on their opponents outside parliament during the opening of
parliament a few months ago? We wonder if they were also under attack when
they disrupted an MDC-T rally in Chitungwiza recently carrying all sorts of
weapons.
NewsDay reports that the ZRP officers who
arrested fugitive Rotina Mavhunga,
alias Sekuru Mboni, last year after she
duped cabinet ministers into
believing pure diesel was oozing out of a rock,
have been rewarded, albeit
over 12 months later.
Constable Washington
Chinyama and Sergeant Trybest Mutata were handed R200
each and certificates
of merit during a belated Cop of the Month awards
ceremony held in
Chinhoyi.
They were adjudged the best cops for the 2010 second quarter for
managing to
“corner and arrest” the mystic figure-turned-con
artist.
Mavhunga was in September last year slapped with a 27-month prison
term
after being found guilty of defrauding government and supplying false
information to senior officials.
The officials that were duped by
Mavhunga included ministers Didymus Mutasa
(then National Security), Sydney
Sekeramayi (then Defence), Kembo Mohadi
(Home Affairs) and former
Mashonaland West governor Nelson Samkange. Then
there was Tobaiwa Mudede and
police deputy commissioner-general Godwin
Matanga.
Mavhunga reportedly
got four buffaloes, a vehicle and billions of Zimbabwean
dollars for leading
government on what the magistrate termed “a wild goose
chase”.
Mavhunga
once headed a 50-strong convoy to Makuti and Kariba and had a
helicopter
dispatched from Harare when the country’s fuel shortage was at
its most
acute.
Speaking on behalf of the Cop of the Month sponsors, the
Cotton Company of
Zimbabwe, the firm’s area manager Lancelot Ndlovu hailed
the police’s
efforts in curbing crime in the face of serious resources
constraints.
We’ would add mental resources among the serious resources
constraints.
We hear “Reverend” Obadiah Msindo is up to
his usual tricks with elections
now looming on the horizon. Hapless
employees as well as people promised
housing stands, loans and farm
implements are being made to toyi-toyi
outside his ironically-named “White
House” office. They also have to endure
Msindo’s “preaching” on the virtues
of Zanu PF and President Mugabe.
Muckraker is perplexed about how the good
reverend is able to provide stands
and implements when we are reliably
informed that he does not own his own
abode.
Msindo told a church
gathering in Harare recently that every church member
was supposed to preach
the Zanu PF gospel in their neighbourhood if they
wanted to be economically
and socially empowered. Msindo also claimed that
his “church”, Destiny for
Afrika Network, had gone “international”.
“I want the world to know that all
other prophets who are saying that there
is someone other than Robert Mugabe
who will win next election and rule this
country are lying. Mugabe was
chosen by God. He will cease ruling this
country by choice. To be precise he
will rule until he dies,” Msindo added.
Muckraker was left perplexed on which
“God” Msindo was referring.
Last week we commented on the
questionable role of the Zimbabwe Media
Commission following its threat to
close down newspapers.
This week the Standard has seen two of its journalists
arrested and
incarcerated at the behest of a powerful citizen. This is an
abuse that
should worry journalists in all dimensions of the profession.
This should be
a civil matter. The Criminal Defamation Act is a colonial law
designed to
silence nationalist dissent. But the supine Zimbabwe Media
Commission has
said nothing and done nothing in response to the
arrests.
The ZMC clearly doesn’t see its role as defending the press. Instead
it
chooses to advance the agenda of the state. Where does all that money
from
registration fees and levies go? Who has the ZMC assisted with the
revenues
it has collected?
Godfrey Majonga appears to be walking in the
footsteps of Mahoso with the
threat to close newspapers. The world should
know Zimbabwe is a delinquent
state that only pretends to be
democratic.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011
18:12
THERE has been much talk recently that the Marange diamond mines
should be
nationalised, including an ill-considered motion in parliament to
bring such
nationalisation into being. On the other hand, the Mines and
Mining
Development minister, Obert Mpofu, has been quoted saying that such
nationalisation will not occur. Ever since the discovery of the considerable
diamond resources in the eastern districts, there has been over-reaction and
excessive expectation that those resources would bring economic
transformation and recovery. While those expectations are unrealistically
optimistic, it cannot be disputed that effective exploitation of the diamond
fields would bring about a substantial economic upturn. However,
nationalisation of the diamonds would be disastrously
counterproductive.
First and foremost, the government, in common with
almost all governments
the world-over, has a long-proven record of failure
to operate businesses
successfully. Be it Zesa, National Railways of
Zimbabwe, AirZim, TelOne or
any of the other more than 40 state-owned
enterprises, the history of their
operations is naught but paucity of
service, gross operational losses,
excessive numbers of employees, frequent
incidents of corruption, and much
else of negative operations and
performance. There is absolutely no
credible reason to believe that, in
contrast to the dismal performance
records of virtually all existing
parastatals, suddenly government would be
able successfully and viably to
operate diamond-mining enterprises.
Secondly, government — by its own
admission — is bankrupt. It has a
gargantuan debt, which it is unable to
service. It cannot fund its
day-to-day operational needs, including its
pronounced inability to fund
health services, education, infrastructural
maintenance and development, and
other ongoing government costs. It cannot
capitalise properly its existing
parastatals and, therefore, it would
clearly be unable to provide that which
would be needed by diamond-mining
ventures for development of the mines,
acquisition of essential equipment,
funding of working capital needs and the
like. Thus, nationalisation of the
diamond mines would minimise to far
below otherwise attainable levels, the
operations of the mines, the volumes
of their production, the extent to
which they would be able to provide
much-needed employment, and innumerable
downstream economic benefits.
Instead of the fiscus benefiting from
attendant mining royalties, direct and
indirect taxes on the operations of
successful mines, and diverse other
associated revenues, government would be
confronted with calls for essential
capital and to provide funding to cover
operational losses. It does not
have that funding and therefore the
exploitation of the new-found diamond
wealth would be
miniscule.
A further hazard of the nationalisation of the Marange
diamond fields could
be the loss of the long-fought-for Kimberley Process
Certification (KPC).
For a considerably long time there was reluctance to
accord Zimbabwe KPC
status. This was not, as spuriously alleged by some of
the political
hierarchy, because of so-called “illegal”sanctions, but for
fear that the
Marange production would be a conduit for blood diamonds and
for other
illegally produced diamonds.
To a significant
extent, those fears were founded upon beliefs that unlawful
diamond-mining
was being pursued in the Marange diamond fields by Zimbabwe’s
security
forces and other state employees. Were those fields now to be
wholly
operated by the state, inevitably perceptions will develop that once
again
they had become unauthorised diamond producers who are smuggling the
diamonds across Zimbabwe’s borders for sale outside of the
officially-recognised markets.
A further negative that will arise
from the nationalisation of the diamond
fields and from their mining
operations would be that, yet again, Zimbabwe
will be discouraging the
critically needed foreign direct investment which
is a prerequisite for
economic recovery. Much investment has already been
discouraged and driven
away by the manner in which government is pursuing
indigenisation and
economic empowerment. Investors do not wish to provide
considerable capital,
technological expertise, access to their markets, and
very much else, and
yet be accorded minority investor-status devoid of
control over their
investments and the underlying operations of the
investment
entities.
The demand for a minimum of a 51% indigenous
participation in all mining —
and most other — ventures has substantially
discouraged the investment which
is so essential to Zimbabwe’s future
wellbeing, to the creation of
employment, generation of export earnings and
creation of inflows to the
fiscus. Nationalisation of the diamond mines
would further deter investment
in general, creating a fear that that
nationalisation will be a precursor to
the nationalisation of all other
mines, and thereafter of other enterprises.
It cannot be denied that
stringent controls are necessary to ensure that
there is no unlawful
exploitation and that all diamonds are legitimately
marketed within the
prescribed parameters of the Kimberley Process
Certification. The proceeds
of that marketing should benefit Zimbabwe and
all amounts due to the fiscus
should be timeously forthcoming.
But that should not — and cannot
— be achieved by nationalisation of the
diamond mines. It must be ensured
by efficacious and transparent monitoring
by the Zimbabwe Mining Development
Corporation, the Zimbabwe Minerals
Marketing Authority, the Mines and Mining
Development ministry and the
Zimbabwe Republic Police reinforced by just and
efficacious,
business-conducive legislation, and as also by the Zimbabwe
Revenue
Authority.
Although the diamond fields cannot be the sole
source of Zimbabwe’s future
economic wellbeing, they can be a major
contributant to it. That is if it is
fully capitalised and developed, and
constructively and positively managed
and exploited. That needs private
sector venture capital and expertise, not
state-driven mismanagement; as is
the characteristic of all of Zimbabwe’s
parastatals. It also needs access to
legitimate international markets as
well as non-corrupt and non-oppressive
state security. None of that can be
credibly anticipated in the event of
nationalisation. In that event,
instead of “Diamonds are forever”, they
will be “for never”!
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011 18:05
Paul
Nyakazeya
WHEN heavy downpours hit most parts of Zimbabwe in early
October, farmers
began preparing their land for the traditional planting
season despite not
having enough inputs. But faltering weather patterns in
the region are
creating uncertainty about when the best time to plant crops
is, forcing
farmers to either rely on their own observations and judgment,
or the
sometimes conflicting advice of meteorologists. Whichever way you
look,
climate change is taking its toll.
For Zimbabwean farmers it’s a
double edged sword as farming inputs are not
readily available and too
expensive for many. Farmers are also failing to
access loans to buy
implements and inputs.
Some Zimbabwean farmers are no longer
confident about the agricultural
season since the Grain Marketing Board —
traditionally a source of seed and
fertiliser — has indicated that it would
not provide free farming inputs to
small-scale growers.
The
immediate past president of the Commercial Farmers Union Deon Theron
told
the Zimbabwe Independent that this farming season was uncertain as in
previous years farmers were able to access loans to buy
inputs.
“As a country we will be forced to import food again to make
up for the
shortfalls that seem inevitable,” said Theron. “Regarding loans,
most
farmers do not have anything to offer as security and this is worsened
by
the liquidity problems affecting the country in general,” he
said.
An average A2 farm is between 10 and 15 acres in size. A
farmer would need
about 400kg of compound D fertiliser for one hectare of
land, and about
250kg of seed is needed for one to plant on the same amount
of land.
However, success largely depends on the planting population and
type of
soil.
Zimbabwe Farmers Union president Silas Hungwe said the
perennial challenge
facing local farmers in acquiring inputs was now
legendary.
“As a union we are worried but hopeful government will
assist communal
farmers to avoid importing maize to meet shortfalls,” said
Hungwe. “However,
in urban centres, input shortages and high transport costs
could be brought
to an end by spreading agro-dealerships,” he
said.
Hungwe said at least 250 000 smallholder farmers would benefit
from the
revival of agro-dealership programmes meant to improve their access
to
technology and inputs. The farmers would be drawn from four of the
country’s
10 provinces.
Communal farmers said the
financially-troubled GMB was still paying farmers
for grain they delivered
last season instead of giving them subsidised or
free farming
inputs.
Colin Muyambo, a farmer in Manicaland province, said they
would not till
their land to previous levels unless the GMB provided
agricultural inputs.
Muyambo said a 10kg bag of maize seed now costs up to
US$22. He said farmers
were struggling to raise funds for
inputs.
“We could not afford to ignore these early rains as we feared
we could lose
out if it was (indeed) the onset of the season,” said
Muyambo.
Like many smallholder farmers who cannot afford irrigation schemes,
Muyambo
said he had to rely on rainfall.
However, the early rains
welcomed by farmers last month was downplayed by
the country’s
meteorological department, which said the precipitation did
not herald the
rainy season.
The meteorologists’ warning that farmers should not
begin planting their
crops has left many confused.
“No one now knows
about the cycle (of rainfall) anymore, and even the people
who tell us these
things are not sure themselves,” Muyambo said.
Farmers have been appealing to
government to “quickly” release funds under
the US$45 million Subsidised
Inputs Facility for the 2011 summer cropping to
ensure early
planning.
With the rainy season setting in, farmers said they would
like more action
on the ground and not just promises.
Presenting the
country’s mid-term fiscal policy review in July, Finance
minister Tendai
Biti said his ministry’s original growth projection for 2010
was 7%.
However, fragile prospects for recovery in economic performance
demand a
reduction of this figure.
“We have, thus, revised our growth
projection for 2010 to 5,4%,” Biti said.
“The revised projection figure of
5,4% should not be taken for granted. A
business as usual mentality will
certainly guarantee a further downward
revision,” he said.
ZFU
director Paul Zakariya said while it was important that government
allocate
resources towards funding for this year’s summer cropping.
“We will only
believe it if the funds are released,” said Zakariya. “What
happened last
season should not be allowed if the country is to produce
enough,” he
said.
In the past, government would release less money compared to
what it would
have promised, greatly affecting agricultural
production.
“We have had so many promises which never materialised. There
also has to be
a lot of trust between government and input manufacturers so
that they can
release the inputs,” he said.
Zimbabwe Commercial
Farmers Union president Donald Khumalo said the
programme maybe beneficial
to farmers depending on the method used to
disburse the inputs. He said
there should be strict monitoring and control
measures for the inputs to get
to farmers.
“Normally, the facility is abused and Agritex officers
and farmers unions
should assist in spearheading the programme,” said
Khumalo.
The Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet), an early warning
system
funded by USAid that monitors food security around the world, has
over the
last 10 years estimated that Zimbabwe’s food was
insecure.
Government has dismissed Fewnet projections as wrong.
Agriculture,
Mechanisation and Irrigation Development minister Joseph Made
said Fewsnet’s
projections did not portray the correct situation on the
ground, suggesting
that it should leave Zimbabwe alone and go to countries
where it is wanted.
Once regarded as the breadbasket of southern
Africa in the first decade of
Independence, Zimbabwe has become a basket
case and a perennial importer of
food in the past 10 years. It also heavily
relies on food handouts from aid
agencies after farm invasions of the early
2000s disrupted the country’s
agricultural production.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011 18:03
Richard
Lee
ZIMBABWEANS are concerned about increasingly strident calls by
President
Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF for early elections next year after the
constitution-making process and a referendum. Although it is widely accepted
that the shaky inclusive government’s life has to come to an end sooner
rather than later, it is imperative that government creates a conducive
environment that allows for free and fair elections. Anything less could
have disastrous consequences for a country that is barely out of the woods
following a decade-long economic calamity.
There is an urgent
need to have substantive and meaningful reforms
undertaken, as dictated by
the Global Political Agreement (GPA), before
elections to avoid a repeat of
the discredited 2008 presidential election
run-off. And the last thing that
Zimbabweans want is a repeat of the 2008
orgy of politically-motivated
violence.
Hopes were high that the inclusive government — created in
February 2009 and
composed of Zanu PF and the two MDC formations — would
implement all the
critical issues agreed in the GPA, paving the way for free
and fair
elections. However, almost three years on, Zimbabweans are
seriously
concerned about their politicians’ sluggish approach to resolving
the GPA’s
many outstanding issues, which are essential to ensuring that any
polls are
credible and violence-free and that Zimbabwe finally opens a new
chapter.
Indeed, nothing substantial has been achieved since the
inclusive government
was formed, save for the stabilisation of the economy.
Instead, the
government of national unity has been a theatre of political
battles, mainly
between Mugabe and his Zanu PF ministers, and Prime Minister
Morgan
Tsvangirai and his MDC ministers. In August last year, the three
parties
endorsed and formalised the implementation matrix, which was
approved and
presented as part of the report to the Sadc mediator, South
African
President Jacob Zuma. After that Zuma took the report to the Sadc
summit in
Windhoek and it was approved by regional leaders, who gave
Zimbabwean
parties timeframes and deadlines on the implementation of the
agreed issues.
The implementation matrix envisaged some issues being
tackled immediately,
others within a month or two, and a few continuously or
on a periodic basis.
The issues included interference with the rights of
freedom of association,
assembly and speech; electoral, media and security
sector reforms; dealing
with staffing issues at the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (Zec) and
disbanding the Joint Operations Command (Joc), which is
a state security
organisation that was reportedly behind the bloody
presidential run-off poll
of 2008 that kept Mugabe in
power.
Zimbabwe’s cabinet approved the implementation matrix, but
nothing much was
done afterwards.
And it is becoming increasingly
clear that elections might be held in 2012
without the necessary fundamental
reforms.
Mugabe recently told his party supporters that: “We must have polls
which
put an end to this dysfunctional political arrangement — the inclusive
government which has served this country not as we desire. Already, we have
lost three years of potential development. We cannot afford to go on in this
indecisive, if not negative, way. We must put an end to this ugly political
scene that is in our country.”
“We cannot go beyond March next
year,” he added. “I will definitely announce
that (election) date. It does
not matter what anyone would say.”
It looks as if the elections will at least
be postponed until after a
referendum on a new draft constitution. But
without the necessary democratic
reforms, it is difficult to see how that
referendum can be credible — let
alone the far more hotly contested polls
that could follow it.
Rather than resorting to rhetoric, now is the
time for the three political
parties to show commitment to ensuring the full
implementation of the GPA.
Without security sector reform, opening up of the
airwaves, realignment of
and staffing of Zec in order to weed out central
intelligence officers,
military personnel and partisan officials from the
election body and an end
to selective application of the law, free and fair
elections will be
elusive. As long as Joc, which is made up of army
commanders, central
intelligence organisation directors, police and prison
commissioners, and
defence and security ministers, continues to hold its
meetings, there is
understandable fear that the elections could be as bloody
as in 2008. But
Zanu PF has refused to dismantle Joc, whose members have
vowed that Mugabe
will rule for life and that they will not allow anyone
without war
credentials to take over from him.
Current indicators
of the situation on the ground are not good. There are
widespread reports of
politically-motivated violence across the country,
including in Harare. The
police, together with the Attorney-General’s
Office, continue to enforce the
law in a partisan manner. It has failed to
investigate, arrest and prosecute
known or identifiable perpetrators of
politically-motivated violence. The
culture of impunity by the police has
remained intact despite the signing of
the GPA.
After realising that Mugabe and Zanu PF are already in full
election mode,
MDC-T finally awoke from its deep slumber recently and
demanded the full
implementation of the GPA and related democratic reforms
before Zimbabwe can
hold elections. The MDC-T even made it clear that it
would not participate
in any elections unless the following benchmarks are
met:
Completion of the constitution-making process and the
referendum;
Completion of the drafting of a new voters roll;
Completion of
media reforms;
Completion of legislative reforms;
Conclusion of
outstanding issues on security sector realignment and staffing
of
Zec.
Compliance by Zimbabwe with the Sadc electoral guidelines;
and,
Putting in placing mechanisms to ensure that violence will not be a
factor
in the elections.
I suppose it is better now than never.
But the MDC formations have to remain
steadfast in relation to their demands
for reforms if Zimbabwe is to create
an environment where journalists can
operate freely without fear of being
arrested or intimidated, political
parties can have equal access to state
media, particularly the only public
broadcaster which has become a
mouthpiece of Zanu PF propaganda, political
parties can campaign freely, and
the independence of the electoral body is
guaranteed.
The signs are worrying but it is still not too late to
avoid a repeat of
2008. But genuine reforms need to be made — and made
soon.
Lee is communication manager at the Open Society Initiative for
Southern
Africa based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011 18:01
By
Pedzisai Ruhanya
SINCE the formation of the inclusive government in
February 2009 following
the signing of the Global Political Agreement (GPA)
in September 2008, media
reforms, just like security sector re-alignment,
have been resisted by the
Zanu PF side of the government because they form
the cornerstone of the
party’s misrule and consolidation of its political
hegemony albeit through
extra-legal activities.
There are several reasons
that can be advanced to explain why Zanu PF has
resisted media reforms in
violation of Article 19 of the GPA which deals
with freedom of expression
and communication.
The GPA is not adequate to ensure
entrenched democratic media reforms, but a
broad democratic process is
required because the media is at the heart of
this dictatorship. The
situation is worsened by the fact that a
representative of the regime,
Information minister Webster Shamu is supposed
to spearhead the reforms. It
is simply not permissible.
The critical reason for stalling media
reforms has been a well crafted
agenda by Zanu PF from Independence in 1980
to use the media, particularly
the sole broadcaster, ZBC, to entrench its
rule through propaganda
activities against its political enemies, feeding
misinformation to the
electorate and portraying itself as the only party
that can administer the
affairs of the state. The coming of Independence did
not stop Zanu PF, which
won the elections, from monopolising television and
radio stations in a
similar way and manner the Rhodesian Front did with the
Rhodesian
Broadcasting Corporation (RBC) the predecessor of
ZBC.
Like the Rhodesian Front, Zanu PF uses ZBC, which is supposed to
be a public
broadcaster, covertly and overtly to further its political
interests. The
broadcast media in Zimbabwe is used to vilify opponents of
Zanu PF and
President Robert Mugabe despite the fact that the regime has
lost the
democratic legitimacy to government. It also used to manufacture
consent
through repeated lies and disinformation about the political and
economic
imperatives, especially during election times.
The main
role of the broadcast media and newspaper titles under government
control is
to complement and implement the activities of the coercive
structures, the
security apparatus through the use of embedded intellectuals
such as
Tafataona Mahoso, Rino Zhuwarara, Claude Mararike, Sheunesu
Mupepereki and
others through newspaper columns and radio and television
programmes where
they reinforce Zanu PF propaganda and ideologies of the
ruling
elite.
The music jingles on television and radio in support of Zanu
PF programmes
such as the land reform and the economic indigenisation
policies are all
meant to entrench Zanu PF using the media hence the
spirited efforts to
refuse to implement reforms because Zanu PF cannot
imagine a situation where
there is competition at the ideological level
using media diversity and
platforms.
In fact there has been elite
continuity where the structures of the RBC were
largely retained; RBC staff
were replaced by Zanu PF supporters, relatives
of party and government
officials and sympathisers including war veterans
who used to run Zanu PF
propaganda stations during the war like Radio
Zimbabwe.
The
continued use of the colonial 1957 broadcasting laws until 2001 when the
Broadcasting Services Act was put in place showed that Zanu PF did little to
democratise the broadcasting area for selfish and political reasons of
consolidating its power. In the print media, although the Mass Media Trust
was supposed to create a buffer between the government and Zimpapers, Zanu
PF disregarded it and made sure the titles are under its control for the
sole reason of advancing its political power under the guise of national
development, security threats and other misguided reasons.
Before
2000, there was an Information ministry, but after the constitutional
referendum defeat in February 2000 and a narrow electoral victory in June
2000, Zanu PF started to redefine its media policies and strategies to
confront the new organised democratic forces and the coming of robust
newspapers such as the Standard, Zimbabwe Independent and the Daily
News.
The one thing that Zanu PF did was to create an arsenal of
structures and
laws such as the Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act, the
Broadcasting Services Act, the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe and the
Public Order and Security Act. All these laws were meant to
criminalise and
negate the practice of journalism and consequently stifle
media freedoms.
But the most critical move taken by the government
during that period was
making the Information portfolio a department in the
Office of the President
and Cabinet and led by a professor of political
science, Jonathan Moyo. The
banning of newspapers, private television
stations and the era of jingles
and music promoting Zanu PF were some of the
projects. Like other
departments in the president’s office such as the
Central Intelligence
Organisation, ruthlessness in dealing with opponents of
the regime became
its critical focus but at the level of ideas through
propaganda and
legislative oppression.
Hegemonic theories such as Antonio
Gramsci’s conceptualisation of the media
suggests that the media has to be
understood as an instrument to spread and
reinforce dominant hegemony.
However, the media can also be used by those
who want to spread
counter-hegemonic ideas as well.
The use of music jingles, performing
cultural groups and popular musicians
to rally people behind the
government’s programmes such as the land reform
and elections show how the
mass media can be used by the political elite to
entrench its power in the
face of organised civic and political opposition.
Zanu PF, despite
knowing Moyo’s previous positions on the party’s policies
and leadership,
decided to work with him to produce and reproduce knowledge
and ideas as an
intellectual. The regime could not hang on to power through
the use of
violence without consensual support through discourse and
propaganda.
There is a division of labour in Zanu PF between the
thinkers and those who
hold the gun; the latter being the violence
apparatus. Many Zimbabweans know
of vigilante groups such as
Chipangano.
These groups work hand in glove, supporting and covering
for each other’s
mistakes. Where outbreaks of political violence take place
and Zanu PF and
the violence agents are involved, the state media will
immediately apportion
blame to the Movement for Democratic Change and other
opposition political
parties as it did in the 1980s against Zapu and in the
1990s against ZUM.
They allow Zanu PF’s embedded intellectuals to comment on
radio, television
and state-controlled newspapers blaming it on everyone
except the party.
To then allow this critical aspect on its hold on
power especially
broadcasting to be liberalised and democratised is like
surrendering power.
However, media advocacy groups and journalists should
not give up or lose
hope because that is the nature of the struggle. Human
rights are born out
of struggles. Those fighting for media reforms should
appreciate what they
are fighting against; the power of the ruling elite and
its system. The
struggle must continue.
Ruhanya is a PhD candidate, Media
and Communication Research Institute,
University of Westminster, London,
UK.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011 16:59
By
Innocent Makwiramiti
THE major factors influencing growth of inflation
are both external and
internal. Latest figures from Zimstats show that
inflation, as measured
by the consumer price index, stood at 4,3% year on
year for the month of
September 2011. Growth was driven by foodstuffs, which
account for nearly
30% of the consumer price index, followed by
non-alcoholic beverages and
utilities (ie rates, water, electricity).
According to government targets,
inflation is expected to average between 4%
- 5% in 2011, well below the
projected growth rate of 9,3%. Under such a
scenario, economic growth will
be positive in real terms. Inflation,
however, is expected to be above 5%
year-on-year by year end. This will be
driven by external factors (ie
imported inflation, rand depreciation, rising
food prices, Eurozone crisis)
and internal factors (ie wage, salary
pressures, ineffective monetary and
fiscal policy, structural rigidities in
the economy, low capacity
utilisation, prices of utilities and worsening
balance of payments).
The big question is, does government have the
necessary tools to control the
expected inflationary pressures? When use of
the multiple currencies
replaced the local currency, inflation declined to
the negative region. This
was a deflationary environment characterised by
low production in the
economy, rise in cheap imports of basic commodities,
worsening balance of
payments, massive unemployment levels and growth of the
informal economy.
The decline in inflation does not imply that government
had the necessary
tools to control inflation (ie appropriate monetary and
fiscal policy to
fine tune the economy).
A significant portion of
inflation is imported. As a result of low capacity
utilisation prevailing in
the economy, at least 70% of basic commodities in
the retail sector are
imported. Prices are therefore determined by forces in
the country of
origin, of which government does not have control. This
exposes the economy
to vagaries of regional and international economies
where the local
economy does not have any influence. The rand for example is
depreciating
and currently stands at around R8 to the US$ from a rate of R6
three months
ago. This is likely to lead to an increase in price levels in
South Africa,
which in turn will automatically be transmitted to Zimbabwe
since she is our
major trading partner in the region. Government does not
have control in
such form of price transmission.
The worsening balance of payments
position on the current account signifies
the extent of imported inflation.
Latest figures indicate that the current
account deficit stands at US$3
billion with imports at US$6 billion while
exports are at US$3,1 billion.
Foodstuffs account more than 60% of imports.
Capital goods needed to improve
capacity utilisation and hence supply of
goods and services remain
depressed.
Capacity utilisation is currently at 57,1% on average
although it varies
from a low of 30% to a high of 74% according to a recent
study by the
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI). The low level of
capacity
utilisation is due to a host of factors, which include the
liquidity crunch,
imports, low investment levels, high cost of production
and depressed
demand. Capacity utilisation varies from industry to industry.
The deficit
from low capacity utilisation has to be met by imports. What
this indicates
is that we are an import-dependent economy, including
imported inflation. In
such an environment it will be difficult to control
inflation.
The above is worsened by the fact that world food prices
are on the rise.
This is due to climatic changes and to demand outstripping
supply. This has
an effect on imported basic commodities and our government
does not have
influence on those prices.
The current Eurozone
crisis will have an effect on the local economy and
will present challenges
to our government insofar as inflation control is
concerned. The crisis
will reduce demand by Europe for our exports in the
short to medium term.
Further, bilateral and foreign direct investment will
remain
depressed.
This is shown by the fact that foreign investors, who
used to dominate the
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), have retreated. As such,
liquidity in the
economy will remain low and hence so will capacity
utilisation. This has an
effect on government in as far as controlling
inflation is concerned. We
will continue to import inflation in the short
term. We desperately need an
injection of fresh capital to jump-start the
economy. As such, the expected
inflow of US$2 billion dollars from Marange
diamonds, if managed properly,
will play a big part in reducing inflation
through increasing capacity
utilisation.
Monetary and fiscal
policies are necessary tools in a fully-functional
economy to fine tune
economic variables and hence inflation. Monetary
policy is as good as dead,
while fiscal policy is limping from the intensive
care unit. The two
instruments are necessary to fine tune liquidity and
aggregate demand and
hence inflation. This leaves the economy vulnerable to
external inflationary
influences which our government is unable to control.
Part of the
explanation can be due to absence of local currency. However, if
we had
adequate liquidity in multiple currencies, the tools could still be
effective. There is no effective interest rate and exchange rate management
policy to influence inflation. Currently, the policy is determined by
external forces.
Other areas where government finds it difficult
to control inflation are in
the areas of speculative, cost-push and demand
pull-inflation. As long as
capacity utilisation remains low, speculative
tendencies will remain in our
economy as import agents put a premium on
imports.
Speculative inflation has become cancerous in our economy.
Around 70% of
inputs in the manufacturing sector are imported. We do not
have control on
the price of imported inputs. Input costs will continue to
escalate,thereby
putting pressure on price hikes. Because local authorities
are being
pressured by government to break even in their operations, they
are
resorting to price hikes (ie water, electricity). This ends up being
inflationary. Wage spiral inflation is arising from demand for higher wages
by the private sector given the recent increase in the salaries of civil
servants. This area is difficult to control, especially given the fact that
the country is heading towards elections.
Demand for higher wages
leads to demand-pull inflation. This may be worsened
if politicians start
pouring money in the market for electioneering
purposes.
From the
above, it can be seen that inflationary pressures are in our
economy and
these will take time to be removed. What then are the best
possible
solutions?Inflation is a necessary evil in the growth process. This
is
provided all the economic fundamentals (ie liquidity, inputs, utilities,
infrastructure) are in place. What will be left will be to fine-tune
inflation / demand so that it moves in tandem with production. This involves
application of appropriate monetary and fiscal policy, which is not the
case in Zimbabwe at the present moment. But still we need to move towards
putting in place the necessary framework that will control inflation as we
jump-start growth in our economy.
Most of the strategies have
been highlighted in many economic forums or
discussions. It is still however
pertinent to mention them in this
discussion.
The strategy to be adopted
to control inflation should be aimed at improving
liquidity within the
economic system. This in turn will enhance the supply
of goods and services
and consequently reduce inflation. A holistic approach
as outlined in the
Medium Term Plan (MTP) has to be adopted, one that
enhances sectoral
integration as was before the turn of the century.
Capacity
utilisation in the real sector (ie agriculture, mining,
manufacturing,
tourism) has to be increased.Under normal circumstances, 70%
of output from
the agricultural sector finds its way into the manufacturing
sector.
Because of challenges in the agricultural sector arising from
shortage of
inputs, tillage problems, lack of production skills, poor
weather
conditions, poor distribution and marketing and liquidity crunch,
the
sector is currently unable to carry its role as a significant driver of
the
economy. These challenges have to be urgently sorted out so that the
supply
and demand gap of agricultural and manufactured agricultural
commodities is
reduced. This will reduce imported inflation.
Exports have to be
increased through putting in place export incentives.
This is particularly
so in relation to the mining, tourism and manufacturing
sectors. Value
addition in the mining sector must be carried out to improve
on earnings. A
rise in exports will increase cash in circulation and reduce
the current
account deficit of the balance of payments and consequently
imported
inflation.
The financial sector is the engine of growth in any
economy. In Zimbabwe,
this sector is not fully playing this role largely due
to inadequate
financial instruments to mop up financial savings needed to
increase
investments in the economy.
Financial instruments must
be put in place to harness excess savings in the
informal economy. This
sector has lost confidence with the formal banking
sector and is currently
holding in excess of US$3 billion to US$4 billion
which can be channelled
into the formal banking sector. This can play a big
part in the provision of
medium/long term funding urgently needed by the
production sectors in order
to improve supply of goods and services and
consequently reduce inflation
(ie financial,technological).
Special windows should be opened for
the small and medium enterprises in
order to enhance their operations.
Experience in Asian tiger and western
industrialised countries has shown
that the SME sector plays a big part in
creation of employment and supply of
goods and services. Zimbabwe cannot be
an exception. Attention should be
given to this sector to reduce
unemployment, increase consumption and create
sectoral linkages and
consequently industrialisation. In the medium to long
term, the SME sector
will play a significant part in the reduction of
inflation.
For the above to succeed, a conducive environment must be
put into place by
government.This relates to property rights, transparency,
policy consistency
and commitment. It is the politician who is derailing
most strategies for
economic growth largely because of self-centredness and
greed. Because of
the myopic nature of the politician, most strategies are
not fully
implemented, hence the continued economic challenges that we are
experiencing.
Business and labour are raring to go in a
conducive environment. Foreign
direct investment (FDI) whether coming from
the east, west, north and south
cannot come if there are no property rights
and transparency. The onus is
therefore on the politician as the driver to
create an environment that
increases the supply of goods and services and
consequently control and
reduce inflation. The road can be long but it can
be short if there is
commitment on policy consistency.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November 2011
18:57
AS the nation eagerly awaits the 2012 national budget presentation
by
Finance minister Tendai Biti next Tuesday, questions abound as to whether
the nationwide consultations managed to yield any meaningful input or was it
just an all too familiar routine before the budget is drafted. However, many
sectors of the economy will expect their input to be considered and
incorporated into the economic roadmap for 2012.
While presenting the
2011 budget statement, Biti indicated that there were
key issues inhibiting
the economy from moving forward and derailing the
attainment of fiscal
targets.
He cited the political environment, absence of fiscal space
and alternative
financing instruments, lack of implementation capacity, slow
pace of reform
and the unsustainable debt as the albatross around the
economy’s neck. He
said these issues would make all the difference between
Zimbabwe’s current
levels of growth and a double digit growth
rate.
An economic growth rate of 9,3% was projected for 2011. In his
mid-year
fiscal policy review statement, Biti said the nation was still on
course to
attain this target by year-end.
But given that the
country is still reeling from a liquidity crisis which
has crippled both the
financial and the capital markets, it remains an
illusory target.
The
performance of the financial sector and stock market can be considered
to be
a measure of wellness of the economy and the lack of activity on our
stock
market is clearly indicative of the structural problems affecting our
economy.
Biti needs to urgently come up with policies which can
remove such rigidity
in the functioning of the economy. Sadly urgent and
more pressing matters
are not given as much attention due to the friction
within the GNU.
For example, the revenue generated from diamond sales
was expected to bring
about relief to the fiscus but has actually become a
curse, with only a few
individuals benefiting at the expense of the whole
nation.
This issue has been spoken about with the minister even
proposing the
crafting of a diamond Bill but still the noble idea remains an
academic
postulation.
The recent blitz on companies under the
disguise of indigenisation is
another sign of discord in the unity
government. The whole programme has
been marred by inconsistencies and half-
baked implementation models.
Without doubt, the timing and the rush
to implement the policy shows lack of
vision and purpose. One wonders where
the seriousness and urgency in this
unity government is. Expectations on the
2012 budget statement should hinge
on the need to build an environment
conducive to business, which resultantly
encourages direct foreign
investment that can bring about relief to Zimbabwe’s
dire liquidity
situation. When there is injection of money in the economy,
the ripple
effects are far much greater.
Biti introduced duty for imported goods
during the year in a bid to protect
local industries amid pleas that imports
were cheaper than
locally-manufactured goods. But the move has since
backfired and triggered
price increases since local manufacturers still
operate below capacity and
are failing to meet demand.
The
question remains whether locally manufactured products can compete with
imports?
Local industries are still in the recovery mode and most
of their
manufacturing equipment and methods have since become obsolete and
it will
take a long time for them to catch up. Therefore, imports will
always be
needed to cover the supply gap. Even Biti conceded in his 2011
fiscal policy
statement last year that local manufacturers were running
antiquated relics
of plant and equipment that made them generally
uncompetitive.
But a few months later, something changed his
mind. As such, it is of
paramount importance not to swing policy like a yoyo
when facts on the
ground suggest otherwise, as seen on the decision to
impose duty of imported
but cheaper products.
Local manufacturers
should invest in newer plant and equipment for them to
survive the
competition.
Instead of coming up with such protectionist policies,
Biti should be
ensuring that he creates an environment that allows companies
to access the
much-needed capital to lift the local industry out of the
doldrums. So far
he only managed to create cry babies out of Zimbabwe’s
industries who run to
mummy for protection when the slightest opportunity to
do so presents
itself. Yet it is a harsh business environment out there.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 17 November
2011 18:56
THE sincerity of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF to play
their part in
ending politically-motivated violence is doubtful given the
reckless
utterances by party chairman Simon Khaya Moyo and Chief of Staff at
Army
General Headquarters Major-General Martin Chedondo. Speaking a day
after the
leaders of the three political parties in the inclusive government
had met
last Friday to denounce violence, Moyo surprised the Zanu PF
Midlands
conference when he encouraged his party supporters to retaliate
when
attacked by their political rivals.
Khaya Moyo said: “Let us
desist from political violence and be peaceful. But
if we are attacked, we
are left with no choice but to retaliate. We cannot
afford to watch them as
they attack us. We will also fight back.”
Moyo cannot purport to be
against political violence when he makes such
reckless statements. Why did
he not tell the Zanu PF members to report to
the police if they are
attacked? Why did he not assure them that Zanu PF
will use the police to
protect them? Put simply Khaya Moyo was advocating
for vigilante activities.
He is telling Zanu PF supporters that once they
are attacked, they should
attack back.
Is he not confident of the police’s abilities to
discharge their duties? It
is ironic that Khaya Moyo can make such a
statement when the police have
been accused of being biased in favour of
Zanu PF.
Meanwhile Chedondo on Friday also dabbled in politics in
contravention of
the Defence Act that demands he must be apolitical. He
vowed that the army
would never entertain security sector reform. Chedondo
went further to
exhibit political intolerance by labelling a key player in
the inclusive
government and the body polity of the country, the MDC-T, as a
puppet of the
US and the West meant to effect regime change in
Zimbabwe.
Moyo and Chedondo’s utterances clearly demonstrated that
Mugabe, Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Industry minister Welshman
Ncube’s call for a
paradigm shift in the way we run our politics fell on
deaf ears.
Mugabe may have been mellow and charming last Friday, but
the situation on
the ground makes it abundantly clear that there is no major
shift in the
mindset of the securocrats and senior Zanu PF officials. Bear
in mind that
it was alleged, and never denied, that senior army generals and
party
bigwigs masterminded the June 2008 bloody presidential run-off
campaign for
Mugabe.
The campaign left over 200 MDC supporters
dead, thousands injured and
displaced. The chilling aspect is that the
violence was allegedly
perpetrated by state security agents, with the
support of war veterans and
Zanu PF youth militia. This is why there is a
call for security sector
reforms. The army, police, prison service as well
as the CIO need to be
professional again and not be Mugabe and Zanu PF’s
attack dogs.
The re-emergence of violence this time around brings
back the sad memories
of June 2008 and threatens to erode the gains the
inclusive government has
made since its formation in February
2009.
If we are to have free and fair elections next year or in 2013,
politically-motivated violence should be brought to an end. Perpetrators
must be brought to book and dealt with swiftly and firmly. The principals of
the inclusive government should publicly rebuke outlandish statements such
as those made by Khaya Moyo.
Servicemen with political leanings
like Chedondo should either quit the army
and join the Zanu PF commissariat,
or go back to the barracks and seek
rehabilitation!
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday,
17 November 2011 18:55
A LONG time ago a female friend who was still on
the lookout for a
prospective husband confided to me that one of the things
that made her
dismiss a suitor immediately was the state of his shoes. To
her, a man with
unpolished and untidy shoes was correspondingly unsound
upstairs and she
wasn’t prepared to tie the knot with such a
person.
Needless to say, I wasn’t up to scratch and that’s why I was only
her
friend. From my high school days, not polishing shoes signified that you
were a non-conformist and being labelled a rogue was by then highly
desirable. Old habits die hard and I hadn’t managed to kick that habit at
the time of talking to this fantabeaugorgeous (fantastic beautiful and
gorgeous) lady. I don’t know if other women would agree with her method of
judging the book by its cover, by it at least had its own
logic.
Earlier this year we wrote in this column that the issue of
not having
change two years after dollarisation to us suggested an element
of
disorganisation by government and we were worried that if our government
could not solve basic economic issues like small change, could they solve
greater economic challenges? One can bet their bottom dollar that by the
time the unity government (more of a disunity government really) reach that
stage of the play where the word “Exeunt” is written in the script, we still
won’t have them coins which we were told were on the high seas donkey’s
years ago now.
And now we are preparing to hear about this same
government intends to solve
the bigger economic issues in the upcoming
fiscal budget. Using the polished
shoe benchmark, these guys have scored
badly already. The simple shoe
criterion is why has there been no definite
date for the budget? Yes, the
16th (yesterday) was bandied about for a while
but while trying to establish
the exact date, various dates were given,
right up to the last minute!
Surely, an event of such national significance
ought to be known well ahead
of time by all stakeholders in the nation.
Inquiries to Parliament, where
the budget announcement is made, revealed
that they had no iota as to when
it would be held.
In a casual
discussion, one minister had indicated to me that only the
Ministry of
Finance knew. Oh yes? Does the budget belong to the Ministry?
For people not
to know at least a month in advance when the budget will be
announced is not
good enough.
The budget is an essential tool of economic policy and
the entire nation
needs to know where the leadership is taking them. Many
executives prefer to
hear from the horse’s mouth as pronouncements therefrom
have an impact on
their operations. As such they postpone implementing other
business plans or
trips until the announcement is made.
Now when
the budget date is the subject of surreptitious activity, what does
that say
to us? Does that signal confusion behind the scenes or why we’re
already
expecting an overrun of US$700 million? Isn’t there a deadline for
preparing
the document? If that’s not the case, we can postpone the budget
to the
following week or next month, big deal. We might even say let’s have
no
budget day at all and receive announcements as we go.
How can the
nation take the budget seriously now if those drawing it up don’t
seem to do
so? And the excuse that the President’s trip had been overlooked
is even
more ridiculous, given that Presidential trips as those are planned
way in
advance. This is a clear case of the left hand not knowing what the
right
hand is doing.
