Zim Independent
Loughty Dube/
Pindai Dube
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's succession crisis
deepened yesterday as war
veterans and the Zanu PF Bulawayo leadership
clashed over a solidarity march
by the ex-combatants in support of Mugabe as
the party's candidate in next
year's elections.
War veterans
staged the march in defiance of Zanu PF leaders in the
region, who include
party Vice-President Joseph Msika, chairman John Nkomo,
and politburo
members Dumiso Dabengwa and Sikhanyiso Ndlovu. The Zanu PF
leaders have
opposed the ex-combatants' march, arguing its organiser, war
veterans leader
Jabulani Sibanda had been expelled from the party.
The move which
isolates the senior party leader also threatens Zanu PF's
Unity Accord with
PF Zapu, which has been the foundation of Mugabe's current
power structure.
Mugabe supports Sibanda, also former Zanu PF Bulawayo
chairman, whom he
brought back into the party through the backdoor, while
the Bulawayo leaders
are opposed to his influence.
Zanu PF Bulawayo province spokesman,
Effort Nkomo, two weeks ago told
party supporters that his party will not
hold solidarity marches for Mugabe
until his candidacy has been approved by
congress. The party leadership in
Bulawayo initially tried to block the war
veterans from marching in the
city, but failed yesterday.
"We
are a disciplined province," said Nkomo. "Zanu PF has a system
where
provinces are called upon to have nominations for any posts that come
our
way. That communication has not come to us yet, but when it finally
does, we
will respond accordingly."
Zanu PF Bulawayo provincial leaders
barred the former freedom fighters
from using Davis Hall, the party's
provincial headquarters. The war
veterans, numbering about 5 000, were
forced to congregate at Stanley
Square, just a stone's throw away from Davis
Hall.
The barring of the war veterans from using the party
headquarters
highlights growing divisions in Mugabe's succession struggle
that have
turned Bulawayo into a new battleground. To show the growing
divisions over
Mugabe's succession, no senior party leaders from the
province or the
national structures took part in yesterday's march.
Conspicuous by their
absence were senior national party leaders Nkomo,
Dabengwa, Ndlovu, Cain
Mathema and Joshua Malinga.
Sibanda, who
led yesterday's march, has been at loggerheads with
senior leaders following
his dismissal from the party in 2004 in the wake of
the Tsholotsho incident.
Sibanda was part of a Zanu PF faction led by
Emmerson Mnangagwa which was
accused of plotting to oust Mugabe. Sibanda's
war veterans executive was
dissolved by a committee set up by Mugabe but the
former combatant has
returned to the helm of the association - and
apparently the party -
claiming to have been reinstated by Mugabe.
Bulawayo is now divided
into two camps with one camp supporting Mugabe's
candidacy while the other
camp wants a new candidate to be chosen at a
special congress pencilled in
for December 12-14. Sibanda has come out in
full support of Mugabe's
candidacy while Bulawayo leaders are opposed to
this approach.
Some leaders in Bulawayo province have been linked to the Solomon
Mujuru
faction, which reportedly wants Mugabe removed at congress. Sibanda
has been
rooting for Mnangagwa in the succession stakes. Zanu PF is facing
irreparable damage in Bulawayo where factions are distinct and the fight for
control of the province is intense. Party commissar Elliot Manyika said
early this week Bulawayo must hold fresh elections to replace the current
provisional executive before congress.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya/ Constantine Chimakure
THE ruling Zanu PF is at
war with itself over the forthcoming special
congress in December that might
see President Robert Mugabe tightening his
grip on power or emerging badly
bruised by internal fights.
Inside sources said this week the Zanu
PF power struggle has
intensified in the run-up to the congress, scheduled
for December 12-14,
over which the party is now deeply divided. While Mugabe
and his loyalists -
now supported by the faction led by Emmerson Mnangagwa
and the war
veterans - want the congress to endorse him as the party's
presidential
election candidate, the rival Zanu PF camp headed by retired
army commander
General Solomon Mujuru is anxious to replace Mugabe at the
critical
gathering with one of his deputies, Joice Mujuru.
This
has left the party split down the middle.
Zanu PF spokesman Nathan
Shamuyarira said earlier this week the
congress would "have the election of
the presidency as the main thing",
meaning that Mugabe's position and those
of his two deputies, Joseph Msika
and Mujuru, as well as party chair, John
Nkomo, would be up for grabs.
However, Mugabe diehards, including
war veterans, do not want this.
They want the congress to be convened only
to endorse Mugabe as party
candidate. But the sources say Mugabe's loyalists
are missing the point that
there is more to the congress than just endorsing
the leader because if it
was only about this, there would be no need for an
extraordinary congress as
the party's annual conference, which was due in
terms of the Zanu PF
constitution, has the power to "declare the president
of the party elected
at (the previous) congress as the state presidential
election candidate of
the party".
Mugabe and his supporters
have of late been desperately pulling out
all the stops to mobilise a
critical mass to crush the Mujuru camp which is
now retreating. A senior
member of the Mujuru camp claimed this week his
group had never opposed nor
tried to oust Mugabe.
"We never opposed President Mugabe's
leadership of the party. Mugabe
indicated during the 2004 congress he would
wanted Mujuru to take over from
him and it was on that basis that we started
campaigning for Mujuru to be
the party leader," a senior politburo member in
the Mujuru camp said.
"If Mugabe is standing we will back him, but
in the event that he
steps down along with Msika, naturally Mujuru should
take over. That's what
we are saying."
The climb-down by the
Mujuru faction came as General Mujuru himself
told the Zanu PF politburo on
September 5 people were lying to Mugabe that
he wanted to oust him from the
party leadership.
The retreat is a sign of mounting pressure on the
Mujuru camp
hard-pressed to show its moral fibre to confront Mugabe at the
congress.
Although the Mujuru faction now seems to be losing
ground, it has been
pushing for Mugabe to go since it blocked his bid to
extend his term of
office to 2010 at the Goromonzi conference in December
last year. The camp
also played a major role in scuttling Mugabe's plan to
secure approval as
the party candidate during the central committee meeting
on March 30.
In the run-up to that crucial meeting designed to prop
up Mugabe as
Zanu PF leader, the Mujuru faction had dramatically raised the
stakes in the
power struggle by unexpectedly mobilising key former Zanla
general staff
members to tell Mugabe to go, but the president refused to see
them.
After that Mugabe went on the offensive. To deal with
Mujuru's
faction, he closed ranks with the Mnangagwa camp and the war
veterans.
Mugabe had earlier in February expressed outrage at the Mujuru
camp,
accusing it of losing the plot and trying to oust him. Mugabe also
secured
the support of a retinue of senior party officials such as
administration
secretary Didymus Mutasa, commissar Elliot Manyika, and
politburo members
Nicholas Goche, Saviour Kasukuwere and Oppah
Muchinguri.
While Mugabe's support seems intact, Manyika, Goche and
Kasukuwere are
said to be rooting for Simba Makoni to replace Mugabe should
he be available
and if the opportunity arises. This complicates matters
because the Mujuru
faction also has a soft spot for Makoni. Although Makoni
has no power base
to use as a springboard for a presidential bid, he
generally has
cross-cutting appeal in and out of the party.
Zim Independent
Constantine Chimakure
THE Anglican Province of Central Africa
has initiated moves to expel
controversial bishop of the capital, Nolbert
Kunonga, after he withdrew the
Harare diocese from the province alleging
that it had failed to censure
bishops sympathetic towards
homosexuality.
Kunonga, a staunch supporter of the ruling Zanu PF
government, wrote a
letter to the province's Archbishop and Primate Bernard
Malango on September
21 pulling the Harare diocese out of the Province of
Central Africa. Malango
has since retired.
The province has
concluded that Kunonga's action is of the effect that
the Harare diocese is
no longer part of the church. The legal process in
motion is meant to regain
control of the diocese.
The province through lawyers Gill,
Godlonton & Gerrans wrote to
Kunonga this week asking him to surrender
the church's property and divest
himself of the rights of being a signatory
to the diocese of Harare's bank
accounts and investments.
"We
are instructed that despite your withdrawal from our client you
continue to
conduct episcopal duties in the diocese of Harare and
administrative
business at our client's premises at Paget House (Harare),"
wrote the
lawyers. "We are also instructed that you remain in possession and
continue
to use our client's motor vehicles being a Toyota double cab,
Toyota single
cab and a Toyota Fortuner."
The lawyers said they were instructed
that Kunonga was enjoying access
to the diocesan and provincial bank
accounts being an ordinary and a foreign
currency account held by the
Diocesan Trust and Central Funds with the
Standard Chartered Bank, Unity
Square branch in Harare.
Further, Kunonga, the lawyers said, also
had access and was a
signatory to the diocesan investments with Imara Asset
Managers and with
Kingdom Asset Management.
"We are instructed
that all these assets described above are held in
trust by the Diocesan
Trust for the benefit of the diocese of Harare but
remain the property of
our client, Church of the Province of Central
Africa," reads the
letter.
The lawyers or-dered Kunonga to complete the necessary
documentation
to re-move his name as signatory to church
investments.
"Following your withdrawal from our client it follows
therefore that
you must immediately complete the necessary document to
divest yourself of
the rights of being a signatory to the two accounts held
by the diocese of
Harare with Standard Chartered Bank of
Zimbabwe.
"In the same vein there is no justification for your
continued conduct
of Episcopal duties as Diocesan Bishop and any other
business at our client's
premises wherever situated and particularly from
the Paget House offices,"
the letter reads. "The motor vehicles described
above in your use can no
longer be left at your disposal in the
circumstances."
The lawyers gave Kunonga up to Tuesday to write to
them undertaking to
cooperate with the church to sign all necessary
documents relinquishing his
position as a signatory to the bank accounts and
investments.
"In that letter you must also undertake that you will
immediately
cease using our client's motor vehicles and that you will
deliver them to
our client at an address to be given to you," the lawyers
wrote. "You must
also go further in that letter to undertake that you will
immediately cease
using our client's motor vehicles and that you will
deliver them to our
client at an address to be given to you."
The lawyers said Kunonga's failure to respond to their letter would
force
them to make a court application to protect their client's
interests.
However, Kunonga did not respond to the
letter.
Documents in the possession of the Zimbabwe Independent
reveal that
the Province of Central Africa will soon file an urgent High
Court
application to force Kunonga to surrender the church
assets.
In a certificate of urgency signed by Simon Sadomba of
Gill, Godlonton
& Gerrans, the church avers that the assets in question
were the sole
benefit of the Church of the Province of Central Africa, which
in turn
allocated them to the Harare diocese for use.
"The
assets," read the certificate, "are held in trust by the Diocesan
Trust."
"Following first respondent (Kunonga)'s withdrawal from
the church of
the Province of Central Africa, first respondent has no right
to remain in
possession of the applicant's assets including the bank's
funds,
investments, movable and immovable assets," wrote Sadomba. "Applicant
entertains a well-founded fear that the first respondent will fund his new
ministry with the applicant's resources as he has access to the Applicant's
investments and funds."
The lawyer argued that the continued
use of the province's office by
Kunonga "to further his new-found ministry"
had deprived the Harare diocese
of its offices, office furniture and
secretariat.
"To enable the continued existence of the applicant in
the form of the
Diocese of Harare Anglican Church it is inevitable that the
first respondent
be urgently interdicted from continued possession of the
applicant's assets
and also be interdicted from accessing the applicant's
resources by way of
investments and bank accounts," Sadomba
argued.
He added that the Province of Central Africa would suffer
irreparable
harm in the event that such interdict is not
granted.
"Indeed the ministry of the applicant will be severely
affected if it
has no use of its office and various materials in its office
(and) the funds
and investments are spirited away by the first respondent,"
Sadomba said.
"No civil action against the first respondent can secure the
immediate
refund of these funds and investments. Without the funds the
applicant
cannot meet its basic obligations like clergy's salaries and
allowances and
service bills."
Harare Diocese Trust vice
chairperson Philip Mutasa yesterday
confirmed the pending court action
against Kunonga, but said he was not at
liberty to disclose information on
the matter.
Mutasa said: "We will follow the instructions of the
province. A
resolute statement will be issued shortly by the
province."
Zim Independent
Lucia
Makamure
PROMINENT lawyer Terrence Hussein who has represented
Zanu PF
luminaries has threatened to sue permanent secretary in the Ministry
of
Information and Publicity, George Charamba, if he fails to substantiate
claims he made in his answering affidavit in a constitutional challenge to
the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA).
Hussein represented a
number of Zanu PF legislators who won the
watershed 2000 parliamentary
elections and whose victories were later
challenged in the High Court by the
MDC.
He also represented President Robert Mugabe when his 2002
presidential
victory was challenged by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai claiming
the election
was rigged.
Charamba, also Mugabe's spokesman,
claimed in the affidavit that
Hussein had helped craft the BSA and should,
therefore, recuse himself from
the constitutional case seeking the
abrogation of some sections of the law.
"It is surprising that
Hussein, for reasons best known to him(self),
has decided to exploit the
information given to him in confidence and such a
thing should not be
allowed as it gives rise to a conflict of interests of a
serious nature,"
said Charamba.
He further argued that if Hussein was allowed to
represent the
respondents, this would seriously harm not only the minister
but also the
relationships between lawyers and their clients as the
protection of clients'
confidential information would play second fiddle to
the economic interests
of legal practitioners.
"Indeed, there
is a serious conflict of interest in this matter and
Hussein and his
practice should recuse themselves, failure of which this
matter should be
dismissed," added Charamba.
The threat to sue Charamba comes amid
revelations that the Attorney
General (AG)'s office had failed to respond to
a letter Hussein wrote in
August demanding evidence on the claims made by
the permanent secretary.
Hussein said Charamba's claims are false and
gravely defamatory.
"The allegations in our view are seriously
defamatory and we give you
(the Attorney General) and your client (Charamba)
due notice that unless
they are fully substantiated, we will institute a
damages claim," read
Hussein's letter to the AG.
Hussein is
representing Ndabenhle Mabhena and his company, Manala
(Pvt) Ltd, in the
Supreme Court case in which the applicant is challenging
Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe (BAZ)
and Transmedia.
The applicant is seeking an order declaring that
Section 38 of the BSA
is inconsistent with Section 20 of the Constitution of
Zimbabwe. Section 38
of the BSA states that all frequencies allocated
immediately before the date
of the commencement of the BSA would continue to
be operational exclusively
to ZBC.
In Zimbabwe there are only
two VHF (Very High Frequency) television
channels and both of them are held
by ZBC. There are also three other
available television channels known as
UHF (Ultra High Frequency).
The applicants are arguing that
essentially what it means is that when
one wants to start a television
station they would have to set up UHF
transmission systems parallel to the
one held by Transmedia for VHF
television.
Applicants further
argue that it is not an option to go on UHF due to
the funds involved while
ZBC is sitting on two VHF channels and using only
one.
The
applicants also contends that ZBC is now a private limited company
and there
is no justification for it to tax the public in the form of
licence fees.
They argue that collecting licence fees from the public is a
ploy to
perpetuate and fund the monopoly ZBC currently enjoys.
In response,
the government argues that the other VHF channel has been
reserved for
National Television which the applicants argue has not taken
off the
ground.
The Ministry of Information in its response is arguing that
the
retention of frequencies was not unconstitutional because they were
providing a public service.
Zim Independent
Dumisani
Muleya
THE ruling Zanu PF and opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
have taken the ongoing talks to resolve the current
crisis a step further by
agreeing on outstanding components of the final
draft constitution.
This came as it emerged that the Like-Minded
Donor Group (LMDG), which
is made up of 10 bilateral donors - Canada,
Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the
Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, the
United Kingdom and
Australia - met in Holland last week to discuss a
proposed economic rescue
package for Zimbabwe in the event that the talks
succeed.
Zanu PF and the MDC have amended the agenda of the talks
to include a
rescue package item, sources said.
The
negotiations agenda has also been expanded to encompass a
transitional
mechanism item for adopting the new constitution if the whole
process leads
to that.
This is in addition to the five main items - a new
constitution,
electoral laws, security legislation, media laws and the
political climate -
already on the agenda.
The sources said the
donors agreed at the meeting they would provide
an urgent economic rescue
package for Zimbabwe via the Southern African
Development Community (Sadc) -
which is behind the current dialogue between
Zanu PF and the MDC - under the
auspices of the World Bank.
Sadc has promised to bail out Zimbabwe
but does not have the resources
to do so.
LMDG countries have
now resolved to chip in and help the country out
of its economic
crisis.
Zimbabwe is facing a deep economic crisis triggered by
government's
disastrous policies and gross mismanagement.
The
country has no foreign currency reserves to talk about and faces
acute
shortages of fuel, electricity, food, drugs, and basic essential
commodities.
Shops are largely empty and people have resorted
to buying from
neighbouring countries.
Zanu PF and the MDC two
weeks ago agreed on a new draft constitution
at a meeting in Kariba under
the chairmanship of South African President
Thabo Mbeki's envoy, Sydney
Mufamadi.
After the agreement, the draft was initialled by Zanu PF
negotiators,
Patrick Chinamasa and Nicholas Goche, and the MDC delegates
Welshman Ncube
and Tendai Biti.
Mufamadi, the sources said,
also initialled the draft as Mbeki is the
guarantor of the
document.
Zanu PF and the MDC had already "substantially agreed" on
the new
draft before they recently passed Constitutional Amendment No 18 to
introduce controversial political and electoral law reforms ahead of next
year's defining joint elections, although they still had to negotiate
several sticking points in the draft.
The sources said almost
all outstanding issues have now been cleared
and the process is moving fast
to the next stage.
After this, the new constitution, a hybrid
document from three
drafts - the government-sponsored draft in 2000, the
National Constitutional
Assembly's draft, and the Zanu PF/MDC document of
2003/2004 - would be taken
to the negotiators' principals and parties for
approval. The negotiating
parties are expected to finish the talks by
October 30.
Chinamasa is expected to brief the Zanu PF politburo
meeting on
October 24 about the progress at that time.
The
politburo was initially expected to meet last week, but the
meeting was
postponed.
Chinamasa last briefed the politburo on the issue on
September 5 where
it was agreed that Zanu PF should only agree to
concessions which do not
shake the foundations of its power.
It
is said President Robert Mugabe reiterated at that meeting that his
party
would not accept a new constitution.
This means that the new draft
might actually be blocked when it comes
to Mugabe and Zanu PF as happened in
2004 with the Chinamasa/Ncube draft.
Sources in the ruling party
say Zanu PF wants the new draft
constitution to be introduced after the
elections, while the MDC wants it
before the polls.
MDC leaders
recently publicly claimed that there would be a new
constitution in place
before the coming elections without saying whether or
not such a
constitution would be implemented ahead of the polls or after.
Sources close to the negotiations said Zanu PF and the MDC held
several
meetings between themselves and also under the mediation of South
Africans
two weeks ago at different venues in Harare and other parts of the
country.
After dealing with several electoral issues, which
Zanu PF says were
very urgent, the parties are currently engaged on other
items under "Track
II" in the dialogue.
Track I dealt with
changes to the current constitution.
Track II is focusing on the
constitution, security legislation, media
laws and political climate,
including a range of issues such as the
militarisation of state
institutions, the role of chiefs and sanctions.
The MDC expects to
get a new constitution and amendments to the
Electoral Act, Public Order and
Security Act, Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act, Local
Government Act, and the Traditional Leaders
Act, among other
things.
After making concessions on the constitutional amendment,
Zanu PF
expects to get backing for scrapping sanctions and foreign radio
broadcasts
from stations such as the Voice of America's Studio 7 and SW
Radio Africa,
currently broadcasting into Zimbabwe.
Zim Independent
LOCAL
Government minister Ignatious Chombo has appointed a committee
to probe
Chinhoyi executive mayor Ripisa Kapesa on allegations of abuse of
office,
amid assertions that the move was part of Zanu PF infighting in
Mashonaland
West.
The five-member probe team is headed by acting Harare
Provincial
Administrator Justin Chivavaya. It started investigating Kapesa
last week.
Kapesa, the Zanu PF Mashonaland West secretary for
administration, and
party provincial chairman John Mafa, allegedly belong to
a faction headed by
Policy Implementation minister Webster Shamu, which is
fighting to control
the province against a camp headed by
Chombo.
Shamu and Chombo are both members of the ruling party's
politburo -
the supreme decision- making body outside congress.
Chivavaya yesterday confirmed the probe, but insisted it was not
targeted at
Kapesa.
"We are investigating Chinhoyi council as a whole. Our
terms of
reference were global and if anyone in the council abused office,
he or she
will be exposed," Chivavaya said.
However, impeccable
sources said Chombo was using his power as Local
Government minister to oust
Kapesa and was also reportedly working flat out
to have Mafa and the mayor
removed from Zanu PF's provincial executive
during the on-going party
restructuring exercise.
"Chivavaya's committee is investigating
Kapesa on allegations that he
bought a vehicle without competitive bidding
and allocated a commercial
stand to businessman Phillip Chiyangwa without
following proper procedures,"
a source said. "Chombo also want the committee
to find out how Kapesa hired
his personal guards, amid suspicion that he
breached council recruitment
procedures."
Chiyangwa was
allocated the stand to build a state-of-the-art hotel.
A member of
the probe team who asked for anonymity said the
investigations commenced
last Tuesday when they obtained documents from
Chinhoyi council's heads of
departments.
"On Wednesday we interviewed councillors one-by-one on
how Kapesa was
running the council and two days later we interviewed the
mayor," the member
said. "I cannot give you details on our findings except
to say our mandate
is to find out whether or not Kapesa abused his office
for personal gain."
Zanu PF sources, however, insisted that the
investigation had nothing
to do with abuse of office, but political
manoeuvring in the province. -
Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Lucia
Makamure
LAWYERS representing men accusing of plotting a coup
against President
Mugabe will next week serve the courts with a notice to
apply for no further
remand, the Zimbabwe Independent has
learnt.
Charles Warara who is representing the six said the notice
papers will
be served on Monday.
The six, Albert Mutapo, Nyasha
Saluki, Oncemore Mudzurahona, Emmanuel
Marara, Patson Mupfure and Shingirai
Mutemachani, who have been in custody
on remand since May, will appear for a
routine remand hearing on Monday and
their lawyers will serve the notice on
the same day.
"My clients will be appearing in court on Monday for
routine remand
and on the same day we will serve the court with our notice
for application
for refusal of further remand," Warara said on
Wednesday.
"We shall be filing the notice on Monday in accordance
with the court
procedures on filing the application," he said.
Warara said the actual application will be served two weeks later on
October
29 after the two week notice period has elapsed.
"The application
for refusal of further remand will be served on
October 29, after the two
weeks notice period has passed," Warara said.
Warara added that by
the time they serve the application the police
should have concluded their
investigations and if no new evidence crops up,
then there will be no reason
for the courts to refuse to grant bail. The six
were arrested in May on
allegations that they wanted to stage a coup and
replace President Mugabe
with Rural Housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.
However, police
investigations into Mnangagwa's involvement in the
alleged coup are still to
be presented before court nearly five months after
the six alleged coup
plotters were first arraigned before the courts.
Last week, sources
in the Attorney General's office told the Zimbabwe
Independent that the
investigators handling the case want the accused men to
implicate two senior
Airforce of Zimbabwe commanders.
Also last week the High Court gave
the police two weeks to conclude
their investigations in order for the
courts to proceed with the bail
application as at the moment there is no
physical evidence to link the six
accused to the alleged coup.
Zim Independent
Constantine Chimakure
WAR veterans backing President Robert
Mugabe to remain in power are
lobbying Zanu PF to introduce a parliamentary
quota system for the
ex-combatants ahead of next year's harmonised local
government, legislative
and presidential elections.
Sources in
the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association
said the Jabulani
Sibanda-led organisation wanted the ruling party to have
the quota system in
place arguing that they have been marginalised for too
long.
The association is at the forefront of drumming up support for Mugabe
to be
endorsed as Zanu PF's 2008 presidential candidate at the ruling party's
special congress to be held in Harare in December.
The
association has held several solidarity marches backing the
octogenarian
leader.
"The ex-combatants want to use their current closeness to
President
Mugabe to push for the quota system," one of the sources said.
"They want a
certain percentage of the House of Assembly and Senate seats
reserved for
them. They are yet to come up with a figure."
The
sources said Zanu PF's politburo, the highest decision-making body
outside
congress, will meet on October 24 and would, among other things,
deliberate
on the war veterans' request.
"The war veterans issue will be
deliberated on during the politburo
indaba. The ex-combatants are of the
opinion that it is high time they are
well represented in parliament,"
another source said. "They think that from
the few ex-combatants in
parliament or cabinet, they have not done enough to
represent them. War
veterans want to be accorded the same status as women."
In 2004,
Zanu PF introduced a 30% parliamentary female quota system -
something the
party's women's league had been fighting for since 1999.
Veterans
vice-president Joseph Chinotimba yesterday said it was mere
speculation that
the former freedom fighters would push for the quota
system.
"As far as I know we are not for the quota system. It is just
speculation,"
Chinotimba said. "Whoever wants to be a legislator must be
elected by the
people after following laid down procedures."
He said there was no
need for special circumstances for war veterans
to gain legislative
power.
"Admittedly, war veterans are an integral part of Zanu PF,
but when it
comes to elections we are all equal to other members," said the
self-styled
commander of the 2002 land invasions. "Why should we need the
quota system?
Don't try to influence general members of the party to fight
war veterans."
In 1997, the association forced government to pay
about 50 000 war
veterans a one-off $50 000 each in compensation for
participating in the
liberation struggle. It also managed to coerce the
government to pay the
combatants monthly pensions.
Meanwhile,
Zanu PF has embarked on a re-branding exercise as it
prepares for next
year's elections.
Party insiders said Zanu PF was in the process of
coming up with a
manifesto and a theme for the 2008 elections.
"Printing of party regalia will be done soon," a source said. "We
expect to
have the manifesto and theme of the elections ready by the time we
go to
congress."
Nathan Shamuyarira, Zanu PF spokesperson, was quoted in
the party's
official mouthpiece, The Voice, this week saying he was working
on the
manifesto.
Zim Independent
Augustine
Mukaro
THE last remaining white commercial farmers have
appealed to the
regional Southern African Development Community (Sadc)
Tribunal in an effort
to stop government from expropriating their
properties.
Government, using Constitutional Amendment No 17, which
effectively
nationalised all land, and the Gazetted Land (Consequential
Provisions) Act
served all remaining white farmers with eviction notices.
The majority of
the notices, which have since expired, gave farmers a 90-day
grace period to
wrap up businesses and vacate the property from the day of
receiving the
notice. Failure to comply attracts a two-year jail term or
fine or both if
found guilty. The latest wave of evictions is set to derail
Reserve Bank
governor Gideon Gono's recovery plan since most of the affected
farmers had
benefited from the Agriculture Sector Production Enhancement
Facility
(Aspef).
Over the past two weeks, government has
stepped up the enforcements of
the eviction notices, arresting, detaining
and harassing farmers.
Eleven of the remaining white farmers in the
Chegutu area were
yesterday dragged to court to answer charges of breaching
the Gazetted Land
(Consequential Provisions) Act through defying a
government eviction order.
Two others were arrested in Karoi a fortnight
ago.
The owner of Grand Parade was forced off his farm by the
military and
is yet to gain access to the property despite getting a court
order allowing
him to remain on the farm until the finalisation of the case.
A host of
other white farmers are under siege from the marauding war
veterans, militia
and uniformed forces throughout the country. The farmers
have accused Zanu
PF top politicians of grabbing one farm after another and
running down the
infrastructure at farms in the process.
"Top
politicians and the military are the main perpetrators of the
latest wave of
evictions," one farmer said. "Chiredzi South MP retired
Brig-General Kalisto
Gwanetsa gave one of the last remaining cane farmers in
Chiredzi 14 days to
leave his property. The farmer is currently vacating."
Another
farmer said in Karoi the military led by a Colonel Mukadlha
invaded Grand
Parade taking over irrigation equipment and a newly planted
tobacco
crop.
"Over the past five days the military have denied the farmer
access to
the property and have pitched their tent in the tobacco field,"
the farmer
said.
Justice for Agriculture chairman John Worswick
said the farmers last
week appealed to the Sadc Tribunal to stop the planned
evictions.
"Sadc tribunal has teeth if it makes a ruling on the
case," Worswick
said. "The ruling is enforceable in the country because
Zimbabwe is a
signatory to the tribunal." He said the farmers have been
failing to get a
fair hearing in the heavily politicised and subverted local
courts, forcing
them to opt for the regional tribunal. Worswick said farmers
were also
considering approaching the African Commission.
This
becomes the second appeal to an international body after more
than 11 Dutch
farmers evicted during the emotive land reform programme took
Zimbabwe to
the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes
(ICSID).
The Dutch farmers argue that their properties were
protected under a
bilateral investment treaty in which Harare promised to
pay compensation to
Dutch nationals in disputes arising out of any
investments in Zimbabwe. The
final hearing of the case has been set for
October 29 to November 1 in
Paris.
Zimbabwe has Bippa
agreements with several EU countries, four of them
ratified by President
Robert Mugabe. More than 400 displaced farmers were
protected under these
agreements. The trade pact requires government to
protect the investments
and properties of other countries from arbitrary
expropriation.
If the farmers win their cases, it could open the floodgates to
similar
claims in international courts by white farmers of different
nationalities
whose businesses were protected under Bippa agreements but
were still
expropriated without compensation.
Farmers' lawyer David Drury said
there was no case warranting putting
the farmers on trial and he would be
seeking the case to be heard in the
Supreme Court.
"The farmers
are making some constitutional points which have to be
addressed by the
Supreme Court which is the constitutional court," Drury
said. "One of the
points is that the law discriminates on the basis of race
because only white
farmers are targeted and also the issues of compensation
and property
rights."
The case has since been thrown out. The trial of the
farmers will
start on October 31 until December 31.
Zim Independent
Orirando
Manwere
ZIMBABWE, which requires 1,8 million tonnes of the
staple maize crop
annually, is expecting only 800 000 tonnes from local
production with the
remaining million tonnes to be imported from Malawi ,
government officials
have said.
The country also has a wheat
deficit of 255 130 tonnes as it expects
144 870 from the winter wheat season
production which was badly affected by
power outages and lack of
coordination by government and other players in
the sector, according to a
parliamentary report.
A total of 480 000 tonnes of wheat is
required annually. The country
is experiencing a critical shortage of bread
and maize meal, with the latter
being felt more in the southern parts of the
country which are further away
from the Mutoko, Kotwa, Murehwa and Marondera
depots which are receiving
imports from Malawi.
At least 3,3
million people are in need of food aid, according to
World Food Programme
estimates while government estimates that 600 000
families require food aid.
Government allocated an additional $800 billion
for the purchase of maize by
GMB from local farmers as well as for imports
under the 2007 supplementary
budget and the WFP says it is mobilising US$97
million to meet the country's
food needs.
Giving oral evidence on the country's food security to
the
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Land and Agriculture last week,
Agriculture permanent secretary Ngoni Masoka and Grain Marketing Board
acting chief executive Samuel Muvuti said government had stepped up imports
of the two products.
However, they said distribution was being
hampered by the
unavailability of fuel for road and rail transport, the poor
state of roads
and distance from receiving depots to numerous distribution
centres
nationwide. Masoka said maize imports from Malawi were by road and
transporters were at times reluctant to use some routes due to the poor
state of roads while they also intermittently experienced fuel problems back
in Malawi .
He pointed out that out of the 800 000 tonnes
expected from local
production, the GMB was expecting to receive 220 000
tonnes as the rest
would be retained by farmers and families for subsistence
use.
Muvuti told the committee that the speedy collection of local
grain
was also being affected by the unavailability of grain bags which had
to be
imported.
He revealed that the GMB owed a South African
company US$1 million for
grain bag imports as a local company, Grain Bag,
had limited capacity
although it was reported to be exporting
some.
"So far we have imported 400 000 tonnes of maize from Malawi
and we
need to import 200 000 tonnes. A total of 260 000 tonnes has already
been
consumed and we need to import 260 000 tonnes which is yet to be
contracted
as we are still mobilising foreign currency."
Commenting on current stocks, Muvuti said as of September 24,GMB had
received 164 562 tonnes from local producers comprising small scale farmers
and the corporate sector including Delta, National Foods and Crest Breeders
all involved in contract farming.
He said he expected
deliveries to improve following the maize delivery
bonus of $11,4 million
per tonne (bagged) announced by central bank governor
Gideon Gono in his
mid-term monetary policy statement last week.
Zim Independent
Orirando
Manwere
THE current law-making process in which the executive
initiates
legislation, has proven to be partisan, undemocratic and at times
counter-productive to the nation, the Zimbabwe Independent can
report.
The ruling Zanu PF party, with a majority in parliament,
has despite
constructive criticism of some Bills by legislators from both
sides of the
House, used the whipping system to push laws
through.
The executive has thus continued to use parliament to
merely rubber
stamp its partisan policies.
This, according to
MDC legislator and chairman of the Parliamentary
Legal Committee, Welshman
Ncube, has rendered the legislative and oversight
role of parliament null
and void.
In an interview this week, Ncube said the executive had
through the
whipping system adopted an undemocratic culture of fast-tracking
legislation
without due consideration of the input from Parliamentary
Portfolio
Committees and relevant stakeholders.
He said this
could only be addressed through a complete paradigm shift
by government on
the role of parliament in a democracy and the adoption of a
new
people-driven democratic constitution.
During the current Third
Session of the Sixth Parliament, both Zanu PF
and MDC legislators in the
Lower House and the Senate which is expected to
further scrutinise and
refine proposed legislation, expressed grave concerns
on some provisions in
the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Bill.They
were also unanimous on
the shortcomings of the Zimbabwe National Water
Authority's takeover of
water and sewer reticulation services from local
authorities, the
establishment of the proposed National Health Insurance
Scheme, and the
national youth training programme, among other policy
initiatives by
government.
However, despite heated debate and well-researched
reports and
recommendations by Zanu PF-dominated portfolio committees and
input from
stakeholders through public hearings, the Bills have been
passed.
Concerns on the Indigenisation Bill and the effect of price
controls
by central bank governor Gideon Gono during last week's mid-term
monetary
policy, all but confirmed the increasingly unresponsive attitude of
government which has resulted in policy failures.
Ncube said
there was need to strengthen the current parliamentary
committee system as
there was not much time between Bill presentation and
second
readings.
"There is fast-tracking of legislation," Ncube said.
"Committees are
not given enough time to fully reflect on provisions in the
Bills and input
towards them. Even if they do, second readings are done
within a day and
ministers merely push for adoption of those Bills and in
the end we have
flawed legislation.
"Reports of portfolio
committees are often not considered," he said.
"This is the effect of
unilateral governance which is hostile to
consultation. This dictatorial
tendency is inherent in Zanu PF which depends
more on coercion than opening
up democratic space.
"Unless there is a complete paradigm shift in
government, we will
continue to have this problem. We must draw lessons from
the South African
parliamentary committee system which is well organised.
Committees there are
given much more time to critique Bills and the
oversight there is much more
intense and more effective than ours," said
Ncube
The executive director of the Public Affairs and
Parliamentary Support
Trust Michael Mataure said parliamentary reform was a
process and there was
need for education and awareness on emerging
trends.
Mataure pointed out that the initiation of legislation by
the
executive was a common trend the world over except in the United States
where there was provision for private motions by legislators.
"It's common practice the world over that the executive originates
laws,
policies and regulations from ruling party manifestos for
consideration by
ordinary back benchers who in the majority of cases are not
legal
experts.
"The Bills are drafted by legal experts in ministries or
through the
Attorney-General's Office and they are often complex for
ordinary back
benchers. "However, legislators are expected to make
contributions towards
the proposed laws but the executive ultimately
determines the outcome
although it is obliged to adopt certain
recommendations. This can be
immediately done or in the later stages," he
said.
Mataure added stakeholders and general members of the public
still had
recourse through the courts if they felt that their rights were
violated.
"This is where the courts and the civil society come in
to provide
checks and balances. Although the executive is obliged to respond
and adopt
recommendations, it must be appreciated that this is a
process.
"Our parliamentary system is going through an evolution.
The
introduction of portfolio committees to give voice to the public using
their
MPs marked the first step towards bridging the gap between the
executive and
the public."
He pointed out that circumstances
and levels of development determined
what issues were critical and the US
system could not be compared to the
Zimbabwean situation.
However, over the years, legislation like the Electricity Act of 2000,
Broadcasting Services Act, Public Order and Security Act and the Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act have been enacted despite
criticism from legislators and stakeholders.
Earlier this year,
officials from the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe told the portfolio
committee on Transport and Communications that
the authority was finding it
difficult to grant licences to new players
because of the restrictive
provisions in the Act.
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings head Henry
Muradzikwa confirmed
government interference at the broadcaster when
commenting on the Pius Ncube
coverage before the same
committee.
During the initial stages of the tabling of Aippa, the
late Edison
Zvobgo who was the chairperson of the legal committee,
criticised provisions
of the Bill, leading to amendments though the current
Act still remains
overweening.
Zim Independent
By Ibbo Mandaza
IT should be of particular interest to
Zimbabweans, whose government
had in 2007 to import 400 000 tonnes of maize
from Malawi, to know how the
latter was able to produce a bumper maize
harvest of 1,5 million tonnes when
the former "bread basket" of Southern
Africa could account for a mere 1,3
million tonnes during the 2005/2006 and
2006/2007 agricultural seasons. This
is quite apart from a land reform
exercise that should have constituted the
foundation for higher agricultural
production in Zimbabwe than had been the
case during the heyday of the
monopoly of 4 000 white farmers.
For Zimbabwe's financial outlay to
the various sectors of agriculture
for the two seasons was a whopping $9
trillion (or about US$36 billion)
compared to the US$12,1 million which the
Malawi government allocated
through the Malawi Social Action Fund (Masaf)
project. Sources say out of
the $9 trillion which was doled out by the
Reserve Bank through the Aspef
loan facility over the last two seasons, only
$1,5 trillion was recovered.
Considered in tandem with the poor harvest, the
extent of wastage in
Zimbabwean agriculture can only be described as
monstrous.
The critical point is that the Masaf project is a
resounding lesson in
the management of a food production process, with
limited financial
resources but an enormous social base in the form of a
highly mobilised
peasantry and administered through the local authorities,
district leaders
and village wards.
It is a lesson which
Zimbabwe would do well to emulate as it embarks
on the 2007/8 season.
Reports that a similar project proposal failed to pass
the scant scrutiny of
cabinet in Harare a few months ago is, of course,
disturbing. But it cannot
be too late to mobilise the requisite support on
the basis of an
orchestrated celebration of the Malawi model. Perhaps the
Reserve Bank could
quickly study and adopt the Malawi precedent and thereby
modify the monetary
policy outline with particular reference to agriculture
and the production
of food crops.
Malawi drought (2004-5)
Malawi
experienced serious droughts in the 2001/2002 and 2004/2005
growing seasons.
The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC)
estimated that close to
4,2 million people would need food assistance in the
2005/2006
season.
Out of these, 2,6 million were deemed to be at highest
risk. This
prompted the Malawi government, with the support of a World Bank
unit headed
by Nginya Mungai Lenneiye, to institute, through the Masaf
project, a public
works programme - conditional cash transfers (PWP-CCT)
over the months
October-December 2005. The plan was to transfer cash income
to vulnerable
households to enable them to buy food and agricultural inputs
for the
2005/2006 season.
The PWP-CCT
programme
This was an emergency drought relief programme to be
implemented
through the Local Authority Managed Projects (LAMPs), a
conventional public
works programme which Masaf had been implementing for
the past 10 years. So,
how does LAMPs operate?
Beneficiaries
are paid a wage which is 20% lower than the market wage;
the local
leadership, with assistance from the local authorities (LAs)
select the
beneficiaries; only one person per household is eligible to work
under the
programme. The conditional cash transfer of 1 000 Malawi Kwacha
(MK) or
US$7,20 is made on the basis that a beneficiary worked on a public
works
programme for 10 days. Therefore, beneficiaries were to work for eight
hours
per day at MK 100 per day so as to enable them, after working on the
programme for 10 days, to buy a subsidised 50kg bag of maize and one 50kg of
fertiliser.
So, Masaf allocated US$12,1 million to the LAs for
the programme: 80%
of the funds were earmarked for wages; 18% for works; and
2% for
administrative expenses. The programme was meant to benefit 565 281
directly
or 3,1 million, including indirect beneficiaries (5,5 people per
household).
Key to the success of this PWP-CCT exercise was also an
intensive
information, education and communication (IEC) campaign which
preceded it,
and was targeted at would-be beneficiaries, traditional,
religious and
political leaders. The staff of the local authorities were
also targeted as
the implementers of the programme. The main focus of the
messages was on the
design principles, objectives and implementation
arrangements of the
programme, including the conditionality thereof. For, it
was vital that the
communities understood both the content and import of the
PWP-CCT programme.
The LA staff were also very conversant with the
design, principles and
procedures of the PWP-CCT. According to a project
evaluation report, this
was attributed to the excellent IEC mounted by Masaf
just prior to and
during the implementation period. "IEC preceding
implementation is therefore
a critical success factor for such a programme,"
the report emphasised.
Implementing the
programme
As has already been mentioned, the total resources
available to the
programme were US$12,1 million. This was allocated to all
the districts,
based on the population most at risk due to food shortages as
estimated by
the MVAC. In turn, Masaf prepared special project
implementation and
financial management guidelines. These were provided to
every district, all
of which opened special PWP-CCT bank accounts into which
resources for wages
and works were deposited. The district administration
costs amounting to 2%
of the total PWP-CCT costs were deposited in the
normal Masaf district
operational costs bank account.
In
addition to the standard cheque-signing arrangement under the
LAMPs, a
signatory from the district agricultural office was incorporated
under the
programme so as to strengthen the verification system. Also,
special
security arrangements were made to minimise the risk of transferring
wages
to beneficiaries.
Significantly, wage payments to the beneficiaries
were always made on
time, efficiently and there were no cases of "ghost
workers". The lesson
learnt was that LAs have the capacity to manage and pay
emergency PWP-CCT
beneficiaries on time.
Most of PWP-CCT
projects were on road construction but there were some
on agriculture and
food security. The projects were supervised by the LA
under the LAMPs,
supplemented by Masaf which sent supervision teams to each
LA, to monitor
and support the implementation of the PWP-CCT.
The
results
By the end of January 2006, Masaf had disbursed US$12,1
million to all
28 district assemblies - a total of 1 838 projects were
spread across Malawi's
three regions. These projects directly benefited 504
012 individuals, which
translates to 89,2% of the set target of 565 281
people. As per the design,
after the PWP-CT was over, beneficiaries would
get cash transfers under
existing LAP projects, thus raising the number of
beneficiaries above 504
012 facilitated by existing LAMP projects.
Beneficiaries used their wages to
buy food and seed. Most PWP-CCT
beneficiaries were targeted and one the
fertiliser was distributed to the
rural area, acquired and used the
government sponsored fertiliser
coupons.
It had been feared that the wages would be misused by the
beneficiaries. On the contrary, reports from implementation support teams
indicated that most beneficiaries acquired fertiliser coupons using their
wages. In general, the beneficiaries used the cash earned on food, seed and
fertiliser as these were considered necessities. They were also able to
purchase other items such as soap, second hand clothes, contribute to
payment of house rentals and school fees for children.
With a
total of MK2 000 at the end of 10 days, beneficiaries indicated
that they
were able to purchase two bags of 50 kg fertiliser and maize seed.
In
addition, with relatively good rains experienced in many parts of the
country, beneficiaries said their harvest levels had improved over those
achieved in the previous season. Where improved yields were mentioned,
communities (in eight of the 16 LAs where the exercise was conducted) said
that the money assisted in purchasing subsidised fertiliser, and that this
had contributed to the bumper harvest realised in the 2005/2006
season.
Also, it was reported in nine LAs that the wage per day was
adequate
when compared with rates on other sources of employment or piece
work,
especially in the rural areas. It is also worth noting that the
purchase of
fertiliser was made possible by a parallel government initiative
of farm
inputs subsidy to enable low-income groups to access at least one
bag and
seed to improve their crop production. Moreover, if there had been
no
parallel initiative of the farm inputs subsidy, the cash would not have
been
adequate to meet the cost of these inputs.
The outputs of
the programme were also significant and contributed to
the improvement of
life in the communities. These outputs, produced from the
public works
programme, included roads, woodlots and small-scale irrigation
schemes. As a
result of accessible roads, the communities mentioned that
they are now able
to transport their produce to markets and vehicles were
able to use the road
whereas this was not possible previously.
This has enabled easy
communication. Communities were therefore happy
with the outputs, especially
roads that had been created and were improving
access to other social
services. Small-scale irrigation schemes also ranked
highly among the
outputs created, as these would continue assisting
households increase their
yields beyond the project.
* Mandaza is a political
economist.
Zim Independent
Independent
Sportview By Darlington Majonga
LAST Sunday a friend of mine
who is a footballer decided that we chill
at home and watch on television
South Africa play Fiji in a 2007 Rugby World
Cup quaterfinal in
Marseille.
But before we couched ourselves for the encounter, we
felt we had to
tuck into some food and then gulp one or two as the game
progressed.
We drove to a nearby restaurant where they were serving
what they
termed a special traditional meal: sadza and guru/matumbu
(pulverised maize
meal and tripe/casings).
The debate
started.
There's nothing traditional about offals, unless cattle in
Western
countries don't have tripe, casings and hooves (mazondo), I
argued.
But since time immemorial our ancestors have treated such
food as a
delicacy, my friend countered.
Unless he meant eating
offals has become a tradition for the poor, I
totally agree.
Of
course my friend could not say who enjoyed the rumpsteaks, T-bones,
fillets
and oxtails.
Tummies full, we rushed home to enjoy the action. Yes,
we were ready
to watch those on proper diets slug it out.
By
the time the teams went to the break with the Boks leading 13-3, we
had
marvelled at the display of power in mauls and scrummages that involved
packs on either side weighing in excess of 900kg.
The second
half was another furious display of brawn and brain.
Of course high
tackles, some comparable to the clothes-line in
wrestling, could not be
avoided as the contest remained close.
Yes, these men were well
fed, we agreed with my friend, but on what we
didn't.
Then
skipper Mosese Rauluni broke downfield as Fiji mowed down South
Africa's
defence before dreadlocked centre Seru Raibeni, fresh from the sin
bin, set
off giant Ifereimi Rawaqa who charged into the corner and was about
to plant
a sensational try . . .
Just when he was about to do what he could
not have failed - placing
the ball on the ground to complete a remarkable
comeback by Fiji - Springbok
winger JP Pietersen unbelievably hauled the
119kg Rawaqa over the touch line
in one of the best tackles seen at the
World Cup in France.
None of the two eats sadza, we agreed. And
none in either team, we
concurred.
Maybe they do, but probably
small amounts and not regularly.
All my life I have survived on
sadza and I sometimes go nuts if I can't
have it for days like has been
happening in these days of basic goods
shortages.
Yet I have no
doubt whatsoever that the same maize meal - apparently
only brought to
Zimbabwe by white settlers around 1890 - could be one of the
reasons we
don't do well in sport.
We tend to eat too much of it.
I'm not an expect in nutrition, but I strongly believe that as long as
we
continue eating mounds of sadza - which at times gets you dozing soon
after
ingestion - we will never achieve anything in sport.
If any of our
athletes want to sprint anywhere below 10 seconds, they
should stop shoving
mounds of sadza down their throats. Period.
They could as well ask
star swimmer Kirsty Coventry if she can
attribute her Olympic success to a
nutrition based on sadza.
Gary Brent will confess those
toe-crushers he now bowls at opposition
batsmen are a result of a good
nutrition, which I have no doubt includes
little sadza.
Black
brothers Byron and Wayne, as well as their sibling Cara, could
have a story
to tell about the nutrition that made them a name in world
tennis.
And little sadza is probably the reason Benjani
Mwaruwari is playing
well for Portsmouth in the English
Premiership.
Maybe Tonderai Chavhanga, Tendai Mtawarira, Brian
Mujati and other
Zimbabwean rugby players can tell us what they eat in South
Africa that they
didn't have at home.
Did anyone see Takudzwa
Ngwenya, who played for the United States at
the World Cup, expose Springbok
star Bryan Habana for pace to score one of
the most sensational tries in
France?
When I get the chance to talk to him, I will ask him what
he eats:
chicken breasts or soya chunks.
Richard Atkins
revolutionised eating habits in the West with his
low-carb diet programmes
that at one time had become a craze.
The Atkins diet involves the
restriction of carbohydrates in order to
switch the body's metabolism from
burning glucose to burning stored body
fat.
But then,
sportspersons - athletes, cricketers, footballers, rugby
players and so on -
don't just want to lose fat but to build body mass as
well as improve their
endurance and speed.
Zimbabwean sportspersons want to be as big and
athletic as Springboks
Os du Randt, CJ van der Linde or Schalk
Burger.
How is that possible?
It's not easy,
considering the hardships and food shortages in
Zimbabwe.
But
at least sportspersons will not be harmed by attempting to follow
what
experts advise.
British nutrition specialist Barry Groves has his
own theories on the
best nutrition for athletes.
Groves
believes that "carbo-loading" - which involves eating high
carbohydrate
meals of such things as bread, pasta and cereals (and sadza)
for a few days
immediately prior to a tournament - "is the way to failure
not only for an
athlete but for anyone who needs energy to work".
In view of the
vast amount of dogma which surrounds nutrition for
athletic performance, you
may be surprised to learn that there is little or
no evidence that
carbohydrates are an energy food, he says.
Groves says those who
recommend carbo-loading don't appear to realise,
among other things, that
the body can't store carbohydrates in large
quantities and most people
already get more than enough carbohydrates to
fuel their bodies' daily
activities.
All carbohydrates, whether they are bread, pasta, sugar
or (sadza)
when you put them in your mouth, enter the bloodstream as
glucose. And the
bloodstream can only hold so much, he writes on the website
Second Opinions.
The body, being a well-run power plant, puts the
leftovers in storage
to use in the future if it's needed. Some is stored as
a type of starch
called glycogen, but as it can't store much of this, the
body turns most of
the excess into fat and keeps it on deposit in the body's
fat cells. And we
see it walking around the streets wherever we go, hanging
off bodies in a
most unattractive way. Put simply, carbo-loading cannot work
simply because
excess carbs are not stored in a readily usable way,
according to Groves.
As the Rugby World Cup enters the penultimate
round this weekend
following sensational quarterfinal matches that trashed
predictions that had
seemed banal, the talk has been about
power.
The Springboks hope to employ a conservative approach
centred on heavy
forward play as well as kicking.
Argentina
have vowed to take the game to the South Africans with a
similar plan
evolving around their pack.
England, who meet France in the first
semifinal tomorrow, have been
powered all the way by their massive forward
pack as well as Johnny
Wilkinson's kicking.
For now we can only
enjoy the battle for the Webb Ellis trophy from
France with the hope that
one day Zimbabwe will boast powerful forward packs
as well as really
athletic backs.
The talent is there in Zimbabwe, but as long as we
don't get the
nutrition side right, haulume!
Should it not be
criminal for anyone to expect a sportsperson who
chomps away mounds of sadza
with a relish of soya mince chunks or covo to
excel in his or her
discipline?
dmajonga@yahoo.com
Zim Independent
Shakeman
Mugari
ZIMBABWE Allied Banking Group (ZABG) group treasurer,
Andy Hodges, has
quit following the discovery of a questionable transaction
that he tried to
push through the bank for alleged personal gain,
businessdigest can reveal.
Businessdigest can reveal that Hodges,
who had been with ZABG since
its formation three years ago, resigned on
Monday, September 24, but
officials at the bank say he is on leave. Banking
regulations state that
once a treasurer resigns from an institution he
should immediately go on
leave.
Hodges resigned after it was
discovered that he was allegedly using
the bank systems to make margins from
foreign currency transactions between
clients under the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ)'s twinning arrangement.
Hodges this week denied that
he had been forced to resign. "Those
allegations are not true. I just
resigned," Hodges said.
When presented with the allegations of the
illegal deals, Hodges
insisted: "I'm not at liberty to reveal reasons for my
resignation. Just
know that I resigned for personal reasons, nothing
more."
The twinning arrangement involves the partnering exporting
and
importing companies for easy foreign currency management and
distribution.
The twinning arrangement can be used when a company needs to
buy raw
materials, fuel and payment of debts.
All transactions
under the twinning arrangement should be approved by
the central bank and
done at the official exchange rate.
Sources say on September 20 the
treasury department got instructions
from the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe
(CBZ) to transfer funds into an account
belonging to a mining company which
banks with ZABG.
The mining company had foreign currency but needed
Zimbabwean dollars
to meet its local obligations. Hodges is understood to
have organised the
twinning arrangement with an importing company that had
local currency but
needed foreign currency to purchase raw materials and
agricultural
equipment.
The total value of the transaction was
$70 billion which was divided
in two receipts of $66 billion and $4
billion.
Hodges had allegedly given the clients two different rates
for the
transaction. Internal investigations have since revealed that Hodges
used a
parallel market rate of US$1: $300 000.
CBZ had
instructed that $66 billion be transferred into the mining
company's account
but did not state where the remaining $4 billion was
supposed to
go.
A source said Hodges, who at that time was in Kariba for a
presentation at a seminar, instructed that the remaining $4 billion be
transferred into his personal investment vehicle called Sasfron
Trust.
Hodges said he wanted to use funds to buy some shares under
Sasfron
Trust. Part of the amount was supposed to be paid out directly to
Hodges
himself while the remainder was to be used by ZABG stockbrokers to
acquire
shares under Sasfron Trust.
Problems arose when the
transaction was taken to group chief
executive, Steven Gwasira, for
approval. Gwasira refused to approve the
transaction after querying why
Hodges should receive such large amounts. An
internal investigation
discovered that the $4 billion was part of Hodges'
mark-up from the
deal.
Although ZABG was not prejudiced, Gwasira was concerned that
Hodges,
who ran a strategic division in the bank, was using his position to
negotiate parallel deals that put the institution at risk.
He
was also concerned that Hodges had used the bank's systems to push
through a
personal deal.
Hodges came back from Kariba on September 22 and
tendered his
resignation on September 24.
* Meanwhile
businessdigest can also reveal that Hodges is now the
second major
shareholder in ZABG after government. Hodges has been buying
ZABG shares
over the past six months.
Hodges now holds a 1,9% stake in ZABG
while government controls 97%.
Hodges bought the shares from depositors of
collapsed banks, Trust and
Royal, whose funds were converted into shares
when the financial
institutions were amalgamated into ZABG. Hodges controls
the stake through a
vehicle called Farai Trust.
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) will with effect
from next month
carry out audits on all ministries, parastatals and local
authorities that
have received money under the central bank's quasi-fiscal
operations.
The RBZ will carry out the audits with the help of two
local auditing
firms. Businessdigest understands that KPMG and Ernest and
Young have been
contracted to carry out the audits.
The first
phase of the process will cover parastatals that have
received trillions of
dollars over the past three years. Most of the
companies have failed to
account for the funds they received from the
central bank.
Companies that fail to account for the previous allocation will not
get more
funds from the RBZ.
"The auditing process will start next month.
Most parastatals have
been informed about the process and already some of
them are running
scared," said an RBZ official who will be involved in the
auditing process.
Analysts say it is highly unlikely that the
parastatals will cooperate
with the RBZ auditors especially judging by
previous responses to parliament
and government auditors. The central bank
has been criticised for fuelling
inflation by printing money in order to
fund quasi-fiscal operations.
Presenting his monetary policy last
week, Gono defended the
quasi-fiscal activities saying without balance of
payment support, it was
impossible to implement liberal
policies.
"How do we implement liberal policies when at every turn
there are
local and international economic agents whose sole role has now
been
prescribed as that of undermining anything and every attempt we make
towards
stabilising our economy as part of the political games?", said
Gono.
The list of beneficiaries included communal farmers, women
and youth
programmes ($1 trillion), local government authorities and the
troubled
Zimbabwe National Water Authority ($14,25 trillion). Zinwa and
local
authorities will also benefit from a US$5,25 million revolving fund.
The
Agricultural Sector Productivity Enhancement Facility (Aspef) has so far
benefited from $3,9 trillion.
Tobacco, cotton, maize and soya
bean farmers also got a fair share of
Gono's generosity. Maize farmers will
get US$200 per tonne, half of which
will be paid in foreign
currency.
"In the event import parity prices warrant higher
payments, any
further top-up, over and above the US$200 per tonne will be
payable in local
currency," said Gono.
Maize farmers who have
already delivered to the Grain Marketing Board
will get bonuses of $5,8
million per tonne. Wheat, barley and soya bean
farmers will get US$250 per
tonne.
Gono said 3 000 boreholes will be drilled in the next three
years with
assistance of a $200 billion fund.
Gono said the
money will come from the Reserve Bank and anyone who
shows that they were
interested in "solving" the country's fuel crisis by
planting jatropha trees
will benefit from a $200 billion fund.
In industry, manufacturing
and retailing companies will access Bacossi
fund from the Reserve Bank at
concessionary rates of 25%. This fund will
also benefit small shop owners in
the rural areas.
This, Gono said, would improve production. There
will also be a US$5
million for the packaging industry.
Mining
companies will also access the funds at the same rate in
addition to the
increased gold support prices. Backdated to August 1, the
gold support price
was increased from $3 million per gramme to $3,5 million
per gramme.
Zim Independent
By Nhlanhla
Nyathi
THE long-awaited mid-term monetary policy review
statement finally
came and as usual Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor
Gideon Gono, under
very difficult circumstances, managed to pull one or two
tricks from his
bag.
Whether these tricks will amount to some
positive changes to the man
on the street remains to be seen.
The last three months have admittedly been the most horrific for
everyone
and moreso for Gono as he tried to balance free market economic
policies in
the midst of overbearing political considerations.
He found himself
being an apologist on the one hand and an
accommodator on the other for the
sake of facilitating progress and finding
common ground.
Particularly because of the additional challenges presented by the
effects
of the price controls on the supply side of the economy, his job
just became
that much more intense.
Although addressing the shortage of basic
commodities is not part of
his mandate, the governor felt obligated to do
something to alleviate the
suffering of the Zimbabwean
populace.
Since his appointment, his interventionist strategies in
the whole
economy have been justified on the grounds that Zimbabwe ceased to
operate
as a normal economy when multilateral organisations severed ties
with the
country in 1999.
Gono made it clear that he would not
be following economic policy
recommendations from the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) to abandon
quasi-fiscal operations perceived to be
inflationary.
To make matters worse, he widened his tentacles
through quasi-fiscal
activities by announcing wide-ranging loans to public
utility enterprises.
This puts him on a collision course with the IMF and
other multilateral
institutions.
Massive amounts in foreign
currency and local currency were made
available to Noczim, Zesa and Zinwa as
part of the process of arresting
deteriorating service provision by all
public utility companies.
Given that scenario and the fact that
Gono has publicly announced that
Zimbabwe continues to be a member of the
IMF while lobbying for its
transformation, more or less seals Zimbabwe's
fate as an outsider.
It would be foolhardy for the ordinary
Zimbabwean to think that the
transformation of the IMF and the World Bank
can come at the insistence of
Zimbabwe because it feels
disgruntled.
The IMF and other international financial institutions
of repute are
controlled by a select group of developed countries who
contribute
significantly towards the financial resources required to fund
developing
countries. As a result, the veto power to influence
decision-making and
policy is vested with those developed countries that
bankroll the
institutions.
Our brothers in the African Union
and Sadc might pledge solidarity
with Zimbabwe, but unfortunately cannot
influence policy direction adopted
by such institutions as they themselves
are recipients of the same funding.
The question that keeps
lingering in people's minds is: how does
Zimbabwe survive if multilateral
institutions that by our own admission
contributed significantly to the
economic development of Zimbabwe in 17
years are to completely cut us
off?
What is Gono's approach and does he hold all the answers for
Zimbabwe's
problems post-IMF?
Before focusing on the strategy
employed by Gono since his appointment
people need to understand the
economic and political status of Zimbabwe
prior to and at the time of his
arrival in office.
Zimbabwe has gone through a recession for the
past 10 years with its
economy contracting by over 50%. Despite the good
infrastructural
development inherited in 1980 and subsequent improvements up
to 1999,
productive capacity has declined to below 30%.
The
consequent impact on inflation and unemployment has been terrible.
Zimbabwe
has been compared to war-torn economies and countries experiencing
civil
unrest.
Multilateral organisations responsible for BOP support,
infrastructure
development and other social activities suspended their
support in 1999 in
response to the crisis.
Zimbabwe has failed
to feed its own people and yet prior to the
economic recession it occupied a
respectable position of food security
within Sadc.
Gono's
presentations seem to suggest that Zimbabwe can achieve an
economic
revolution through concessionary loans to the productive sector.
Considerable financial resources have been invested in procuring
farming
implements and purchasing inputs at the onset of every farming
season. A
significant part of the money has been spent on crafting
quasi-fiscal
operations targeted at developmental projects in the productive
sector. The
strategy in a nutshell was to empower players in the productive
sector
through provision of concessionary loans for working capital
purposes.
Maximisation of production as a direct result of the various loans
would
boost the economy through exporting excess reserves and reducing
imports
through import substitution.
In the absence of support from the
IMF, the World Bank, and the
African Development Bank since 1999, the
governor's strategy finds
justifiable credence.
Prior to the
suspension of BOP support, the government of Zimbabwe had
various
alternatives to finance its activities. After the suspension of
support in
1999, Zimbabwe has operated from domestic resources which have
mainly led to
significant money supply growth.
Public utility enterprises and
various arms of government get
allocations of foreign currency from the
Reserve Bank earned through
dwindling exports of mineral resources, tobacco,
cotton, and the tourism
sector.
The question then is why Gono's
policies have not worked to revive the
economy?
During his
term, inflation has soared to astronomical levels and the
social structure
for many Zimbabweans has broken down. Inflation is
currently at 6
500%.
Does this mean the massive outlay of resources poured by Gono
into the
productive sector has just gone to waste with no real returns? What
is
happening?
The non-responsive nature of the productive
sector to the massive
input of financial resources suggests an underlying
problem that might have
been overlooked.
An analysis of the
Zimbabwean economy will show that because the
country went through 10 years
of economic recession, infrastructure in all
productive sectors had been
seriously eroded so that much of the loans
extended by the RBZ meant for
working capital were not adequate to trigger
the anticipated economic
revival.
What was required was a recapitalisation of the productive
sector
through foreign direct investment and provision of reliable support
activities such as electricity, water and roads.
The mining
sector has failed to replace processing plants and
equipment because of the
mineral pricing structure in the country.
The foreign currency
retention structure has not been viable enough to
sustain the maintenance of
the heavily capitalised plants and equipment for
most mining
companies.
With depleted plants and equipment, no amount of
concessionary loans
in local currency for working capital could trigger the
desired gold
production levels.
To make matters worse, public
utility companies entrusted with
providing essential back up services to
this sector have also been battling.
Power outages due to Zesa and serious
shortages of fuel due to Noczim have
created a whole new dimension to the
complexity. Skills shortage has also
been a problem for this sector as most
qualified personnel have fled to
neighbouring countries which have better
remuneration packages.
The agricultural sector is struggling
because of the flawed nature of
the land-reform process. Farming skills and
marketing strategies that were
amassed by the country through several
generations of white commercial
farmers were lost literally overnight
because of the land reform process.
Although the process was a
noble and very necessary transference of
land ownership, it led to loss of
infrastructure due to vandalism from
unruly elements who had hijacked the
process for their own selfish gain.
The overall effect was that our
new farmers did not have adequate
resources, skills, and the marketing
prowess to profitably access world
markets.
In addition, the
failure of Zesa to facilitate uninterrupted supply of
electricity for
irrigation purposes has rendered several hectares under
plough
useless.
Some of the new farmers who have been accessing subsidised
fuel from
Noczim have instead sold it on the black market rather than
putting it to
agricultural use. Partly because of these reasons, the
agricultural sector
has not helped the economic revolution that Gono has
anticipated all these
years.
The isolation of Zimbabwe on an
international scale has had massive
ripple effects on the tourism sector
which has suffered from an
international media onslaught. A once vibrant
sector feeding off Zimbabwe's
many natural wonders became the victim of
Zimbabwe's isolation.
Despite concessionary funding in this sector,
tourist numbers have
continued to decline because of a negative perception
of the country. No
amount of concessionary funding can influence tourist
numbers unless the
international perception changes.
Like all
other sectors, the manufacturing sector has also been on a
downward spiral.
Production levels are estimated to be around 30%. The
massive shortage of
foreign currency has had a serious problem in procuring
raw materials
required for production.
Inconsistencies on the part of Zesa and
Zinwa have played a big part
in the fall of this strategic sector.
Significant financial resources have
been ploughed into this sector through
various loans and facilities to no
avail.
The tenacity of the
RBZ governor is commendable but the hurdles are
heavily stacked against him.
It is very doubtful that the Reserve Bank can
fill the void left by
multilateral institutions.
Zimbabwe has limitless natural resources
that can be best exploited
through the assistance of multilateral
institutions and foreign direct
investment for the benefit of
Zimbabweans.
The efficient running of an economy depends on the
interaction of
various local and foreign funding mechanisms to effectively
harness
unexplored resources for economic advancement.
Multilateral institutions are useful in assisting in developing social
facilities and capital projects of which in part the Reserve Bank had
overlooked because of limits with respect to foreign currency. After all we
have access to Zimbabwe dollars, but the elusive US dollar is in short
supply because of reduced exports.
More loans in local currency
to the productive sector mean greater
demand for foreign currency as most of
these strategic sectors use a
significant part of imported
inputs.
* Nhlanhla Nyathi is an independent financial analyst. He
can be
contacted on 0912 250 092.
Zim Independent
Constantine Chimakure
THE writing seems to be on the wall:
President Robert Mugabe will in
December retain the presidency of the ruling
Zanu PF at its extraordinary
congress in the capital.
Mugabe -
at the helm of Zanu PF since 1975 - has over the past six
months lined up
traditional chiefs, mayors, the party's women and youth
leagues and of late
war veterans to drum up support for his continued hold
on
power.
Party insiders say Mugabe's candidacy for next year's
presidential
poll was unequivocal and no debate would ensue during the
congress on the
matter as Zanu PF's 10 provinces would have endorsed the
president ahead of
the event.
The insiders added that Mugabe
was so feared in the party that no one
would dare challenge his leadership,
let alone suggest that the octogenarian
retire from active
politics.
Media reports abound that Mugabe's presidency would be
challenged at
the congress by a faction in Zanu PF led by retired army
general Solomon
Mujuru.
Mujuru reportedly wants his wife Joice
to take over from Mugabe.
There is another faction in the party
backing Rural Housing minister
Emmerson Mnangagwa, but that camp is
reportedly backing Mugabe's stay in
power.
Political analysts
this week said while there was fighting in Zanu PF
over the succession
issue, Mugabe was likely to be unanimously elected as
the party's president
and first secretary.
Mugabe needs the support of at least seven
provinces to retain his
presidency and is reportedly being backed by
Mashonaland West, Mashonaland
Central, Harare, Manicaland, Masvingo,
Midlands and one of the three
Matabeleland provinces.
This,
analysts said, was despite the fact that there were strong
reservations over
Mugabe's leadership style that has seen an unprecedented
economic
crisis.
This is characterised by high inflation, unemployment of
over 85% and
rising domestic and foreign debt.
"No one in Zanu
PF at the moment can stand up to Mugabe and tell him
to go," political
scientist Michael Mhike said. "I foresee Mugabe
unanimously nominated by all
provinces to run in next year's presidential
election."
Mhike
said while the Mujuru faction successfully opposed Mugabe at
Zanu PF's
conference in Goromonzi in December last year from pushing for
harmonised
local government, legislative and presidential elections in 2010,
the camp
would not have the stamina to block his candidacy in December.
The
Mujuru faction opposed Mugabe until the ageing president with the
support of
Mnangagwa and Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa, three months
later,
decided that the polls be held next year.
"The question is: can
Mujuru get the support of the provinces to kick
out Mugabe from power? The
answer is negative," Mhike said. "One can say for
certain that Mugabe is
Zanu PF's candidate in the 2008 presidential
election."
Zanu PF
insiders seem to concur.
Party spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira this
week told Zanu PF's
official mouthpiece, The Voice, that provinces would
nominate the party's
presidium ahead of the extraordinary
congress.
"Election of the presidency in the past has been done
through the
provinces, they are asked to identify candidates they want, then
the results
from each province are announced at the congress," Shamuyarira
said.
"This special congress will follow the same pattern as the
provinces:
they must indicate the candidates they like; the other organs of
the party
(central committee and politburo) will also be dealt with in the
traditional
way."
Constitutional law expert Lovemore Madhuku
recently said it was a fait
accompli that Mugabe will represent Zanu PF in
next year's presidential
election.
"It is very naïve for anyone
to think that there is still a race for
the presidency in Zanu PF. Mugabe is
the candidate," said Madhuku, the
chairperson of the National Constitutional
Assembly.
A senior Zanu PF official who spoke on condition of
anonymity said as
Mugabe declared in February, there was no vacancy for the
presidential post
as those moving for his ouster were afraid of a backlash
from the veteran
ruler.
"The rule that the presidency is
nominated by provinces ahead of
congress presents problems for those
harbouring plans to oust the
incumbent," the Zanu PF official
said.
"It is common cause that the outcome of the provinces would
be known
way ahead of the congress and in the past we know what happened to
those who
wanted to rearrange the presidium."
In November 2004,
Zanu PF suspended six provincial chairpersons and
war veterans leaders after
it emerged that they wanted a new-look party
presidium made up of Mugabe as
president and Mnangagwa and former women's
league boss Thenjiwe Lesabe as
his two vice-presidents.
Mnangagwa was to replace Vice-President
Joseph Msika, while Lesabe was
to fill the vacancy left by the death of
Simon Muzenda.
Chinamasa was to come into the presidium as national
chairman of the
party, taking over from John Nkomo.
The plot,
reportedly masterminded by Mnangagwa and former Information
and Publicity
minister Jonathan Moyo, later known as the Tsholotsho
Declaration, saw
Mugabe turn on the provincial chairpersons.
They were suspended
from occupying party positions for five years
while war veterans leader
Jabulani Sibanda was expelled from Zanu PF.
Provinces were then
prodded into nominating Mugabe, Msika, Mujuru and
Nkomo into the
presidium.
"It is this ghost of 2004 that most provinces are afraid
will come to
haunt them if they intend to oust Mugabe," the Zanu PF official
said. "The
provinces would rather re-elect him than face the
music."
It is strongly believed in Zanu PF that Mugabe would win
next year's
poll against the opposition and later retire after serving part
of his
five-year term.
This would see parliament sitting as an
electoral college to elect a
new president.
"The real fight
between the Zanu PF factions is not to end Mugabe's
tenure in power this
year. The factions want to have the majority of their
hangers-on elected in
both the Senate and the House of Assembly in
preparations for Mugabe's
exit," another Zanu PF official said.
It, therefore, remains to be
seen what the outcome of the congress
will be, but it seems Mugabe is still
around for the time being.
Zim Independent
By Chido
Makunike
THE Mugabe government puts tremendous energy into
blaming what it
refers to as "illegal sanctions" by Western countries for
the Zimbabwean
economy being down on its knees, causing untold hardship to
the majority of
Zimbabweans.
The claim is that international
aid, credit and investment have
largely dried up on the orders of Western
governments, unhappy with change
which took prime land away from white
farmers.
When the representatives of the accused countries bother
to respond to
these charges, it is usually to say that what have been
imposed are merely
limited "targeted sanctions" against members of the
ruling elite.
They deny applying any sort of general economic
embargo, or seeking to
cause "regime change" by trying to instigate popular
rebellion over the
hardships.
They also point to how they
continue to contribute humanitarian aid to
relieve the suffering of the most
vulnerable Zimbabweans, despite the
diplomatic impasse.
It is
quite clear that economically, things have completely spiralled
out of the
control of the government.
There is little prospect of any change
for the better happening before
next year's expected elections, and it is
not at all far fetched to imagine
things might be much worse by
then.
Short of improving the situation, therefore, the government
finds it
convenient and necessary to latch on to sanctions as an explanation
for its
inability to make living conditions bearable.
The hope
is that the electorate will find that classic political
explanation ("it is
the fault of the Great Enemy") for their economic
plight, and the
government's seeming helplessness in the face of it,
convincing enough to
avoid a feared thrashing at the polls after almost 10
years of steep
decline.
It is not likely to impress a significant number of the
voters who
have been fed this line as they watched their lives deteriorate
dramatically.
There are several perspectives from which the
Mugabe regime's blaming
sanctions for the economic state of Zimbabwe today
is weak.
One major problem of arguing "your suffering is the fault
of our
enemies" is to seem to absolve oneself of
responsibility.
Yet whether or not there are Western sanctions
against Zimbabwe in
place, declared or undeclared, legal or illegal, it is
still the
responsibility of a government to reduce or prevent the
deprivation of its
people, and to put in place conditions for an improvement
in their standard
of life.
Sanctions would certainly make this
difficult, but they would just be
one more out of many obstacles to
success.
The quality of a government can to a large extent be
measured by how
well and hard it works around these sorts of
obstacles.
A Zimbabwean voter cannot be expected to accept putting
primary
responsibility for his economic fortunes on governments in Europe or
North
America, over that of his own government.
He or she would
be quite justified to say at election time, "if you
find that the sanctions
you allege are in place are an insurmountable
barrier to doing your job of
running the Zimbabwean economy better than
this, then I am exercising my
right to give another group of people a try".
This, of course, is exactly
what Mugabe & Co fear many voters will choose to
do.
But
instead of working harder to have them lifted, or to more
effectively get
around them, the government merely moans louder about the
unfairness and
"illegality" of those alleged sanctions.
This merely entrenches the
appearance of complete helplessness and
inability to deal with the issue,
which is what the average Zimbabwean cares
about at the end of the day,
regardless of why and how it came about.
Screaming "illegal"
sanctions ever louder, as things get worse,
suggests the authorities have no
coping strategies, and have given up.
This is not the kind of image
a ruling party that has presided over
almost a decade of very dramatic
decline can afford to go into an election
with.
You cannot
boast endlessly about your "sovereignty", and at the same
time whine about
how your economy's fate is not in your hands, but in that
of your enemies.
It must be one or the other.
If we are as "sovereign" as Mugabe
never tires of reminding us we are,
then our economic performance should not
depend on what any other countries
do or don't do.
If, by
crying "sanctions" every other minute, Mugabe and his regime
are admitting
that we are a small country whose economic fate cannot be
divorced from the
international diplomatic standing of its government, then
we are not quite
as "sovereign" as we imagine.
In the latter case, diplomatic action
beyond helpless whining is
called for, and yet silly bravado is all we see
and hear.
Suppose Mugabe "won" his sanctions argument. Suppose
Western
governments said, "You were right Mr Mugabe, we did impose
sanctions, and
your fine speeches have made us see the error of our ways. We
now hereby
formally lift those sanctions."
Do Mugabe & Co
really believe this is all it would take to make money,
goods and investment
suddenly flow into Zimbabwe, with no other actions on
their part? Can they
really be so divorced from reality that they fail to
understand that there
are many other factors which make the typical
hard-headed investor look
elsewhere than the Zimbabwe of today for
opportunities?
A
question that is not asked often enough: if our economic calamities
are
because of sanctions imposed over land reform, why didn't the government
foresee and prepare for them? We are often reminded what tough
revolutionaries our rulers are. In preparation for the wholesale takeover of
farmland, did none of these revolutionaries think for a moment that it would
cause a ruckus, and therefore have short, medium and long-term plans to
prepare for it? Why has the government seemed so surprised by the reaction
its actions have received in Western capitals?
The point here
is not that they should only have done what the Western
countries approved
of. It is, instead, that on having decided to go ahead
with measures they
knew would be disapproved of by economically powerful
countries, they should
have had a plan in place to deal with the effects of
how that disapproval
was expressed. Or was the hoped for "plan" to talk one's
way out of the
disapproval with fiery, populist speeches at the UN? What
naivete for
self-proclaimed revolutionaries!
Then there is the issue of
sanctions busting. Nothing would have
earned the Mugabe regime the respect
of even its detractors more than having
shown particular agility at the
"sovereign" ability to get around the
claimed sanctions; to keep things
working fairly normally despite them.
Or to at least show prospects
of even slight recovery after an initial
dip, which could then have been
explained as merely a transitional hiccup as
"the revolution" took hold.
This was especially important to show in the
agriculture sector, whose
overnight wholesale changes were the genesis for
all that has followed
since.
If the government had been able to say, "yes, we know things
are hard,
but look at all the successes we are beginning to score in the
agricultural
sector, whose taking over caused the imposition of sanctions in
the first
place," people's reactions to it would have been very different
from what
they are today.
Comparing American sanctions on Cuba
with those said to be in place
against Zimbabwe is pathetic, and ill-advised
for the Mugabe government.
Cuba has achieved notable successes in areas like
agriculture and health
despite decades of outrightly declared, strictly
enforced US sanctions.
They have done this through quite innovative
approaches we have not
seen our government show in any arena. Cuba's rulers
at least give the
appearance of being real revolutionaries, living modestly
and wanting to be
seen to be sharing any hardships with the
people.
In Zimbabwe the rulership takes great pride in showing off
just how
removed from the general populace they are, as if to goad them. So
in Cuba
one sees some genuine "solidarity" between the governed and the
rulers
whereas in Zimbabwe the rulers delight in emphasising their lordship
over
the people, "solidarity" being nothing more than a cheap
slogan.
It is a pity our opposition parties are so distracted by so
many
peripheral things. A more focused opposition could have made mincemeat
out
of the Mugabe government for its attempt to absolve itself of
responsibility
for the pathetic state of our country with the weak official
excuse of
"sanctions". - Kubatana.net.
Zim Independent
By
Lloyd Msipa
THERE is an old Chinese proverb that says that
"over a long distance,
you learn about the strength of your horse; over a
long time, you learn
about the character of your friend". Loosely translated
it means over time,
strength or resolve will determine whether one will
stand the test of time.
Opposition politics in Zimbabwe have come
full circle - from the
politics of confrontation and division to engagement,
constructive or
otherwise.
With the recent climbdown by the
opposition on Constitutional
Amendment Number 18 to the total dismay of
other players like the National
Constitutional Assembly and the Save
Zimbabwe Campaign coalition it appears
the opposition in Zimbabwe in its
current composition will not succeed in
unseating the Zanu PF government
next year or in the future.
A cursory analysis of the strategies
employed by the opposition in
Zimbabwe against the government now and in the
past reveals major tactical
errors.
The opposition used the
politics of confrontation when at the time
engagement was more plausible;
divisive politics further exacerbated their
strategies rendering them weak
and hence less effective to carry out the
mandate confided in them by
Zimbabweans in and outside Zimbabwe.
Today they have espoused the
politics of engagement when confrontation
or a hybrid of both confrontation
and engagement would have been
appropriate.
This approach has
significantly reduced their esteem in the eyes of
progressive Zimbabweans
and the international community. Yes, some would
argue that either way the
opposition had little choice in the matter and
hence the attempt to salvage
whatever concession by supporting this Bill was
more appropriate,
unfortunately politics is not that simple.
In politics permanent
interests take precedence over permanent
friends. To illustrate my point one
has to look at the return of politicians
like Emmerson Mnangangwa to
mainstream Zanu PF politics as a case in point.
It is in this
spirit that as Zimbabweans in and outside cannot be seen
to leave the
destiny of Zimbabwe in the hands of a few individuals who
themselves seem
rudderless.
Zimbabwe's situation is not only unique but is fraught
with
complicated historical and modern problems.
Zimbabwe under
the government of Zanu PF represents a challenge to the
efforts of the
Pioneer Column in 1890.
The Zanu PF government has in all essence
reversed the work begun by
the Pioneer Column led by Cecil John Rhodes and
his British South Africa
Company (BSAC) in 1890.
This episode
saw the annexation of Zimbabwe by a force (later
christened the British
South African Police - BSAP ) consisting of some 480
men together with all
the various mining rights and prospects.
The Pioneer Column was set
up to exploit the provisions of a treaty of
1888, the so-called Rudd
Concession between Cecil John Rhodes's BSAC on
behalf of Queen Victoria and
the sovereign power in the region at the time
which was the Matabele King
Lobengula.
The Pioneer Corps were officially disbanded on October
1, 1890 with
the formation of the BSAP. Each member was granted land on
which to farm. As
we all know the rest is history.
In the
modern context the impact of challenging this historical
injustice has got
us where we are today.
The challenge that is presented to us as a
generation is generational
intervention. The complicated but yet unique
situation in Zimbabwe requires
more than just politics of the
podium.
The politics of Zimbabwe require an all encompassing
approach by all
progressive Zimbabweans who think outside the box. The
Zimbabwe problem
cannot be resolved at party politics level.
The Zimbabwean problem demands a United Peoples Patriotic Front. We
need to
arrive in our lives at a point of personal resolve. Before we are
political
party members we are first and foremost Zimbabweans.
The outcome of
the Zimbabwean project will serve as a precedent of
what happens in South
Africa and other African countries with regard to the
land issue and the
politics of food that go with it.
It is in this spirit that I am
particularly wary of the status quo
where we have mortgaged the solution to
the Zimbabwean problem to a few
individuals and a fragmented opposition
party.
It is important that the people of Zimbabwe come out of
their comfort
zones and begin to formulate an all encompassing people's
solution to our
problems.
Charity begins at home. We cannot be
seen to be outsourcing the
solution to the Zimbabwe problem.
"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for
your
country", to borrow from President John F Kennedy. Zimbabwe now more
than
ever requires in place before the next plebiscite a new people-driven
patriotic front to serve as a vehicle to our salvation.
* Lloyd
Msipa is a lawyer resident in the United Kingdom and can be
contacted at lmsipalaw@virtalukandco.com
Zim Independent
Comment
ANY Zimbabweans must have watched in awe as
government this week
distributed thousands of farming implements to hundreds
of farmers of
different categories who have been resettled since the start
of the chaotic
land reform exercise in 2000. We silently prayed for the best
and hoped that
the rainy season might be as predicted: above normal
rainfall.
Then all things being equal, with all this equipment, we
might at last
kiss goodbye to the beggar stigma that has dogged Zimbabwe
since the first
white commercial farmer was kicked off his land seven years
ago.
Unfortunately things have stubbornly refused to be
equal.
The very mode of the land reform programme itself - the
lawlessness
which accompanied it - appears to have taught Zimbabweans that
breaking the
law and ignoring set rules is okay. While the climate has been
less kind to
our lot, it has not been the worst culprit in Zimbabwe's
failure to feed
itself.
Speaking at the presentation of the
equipment at Bak Storage in Harare
on Monday, Reserve Bank governor Gideon
Gono made his usual passionate
appeal for hard work and honesty among the
beneficiaries of the
mechanisation programme.
Billions of
dollars have already been set aside for the programme in
addition to
trillions invested in the equipment handed out to farmers. Gono
said there
would be enough fuel, fertilisers, seed and other inputs to give
effect to
the "mother of all agricultural seasons".
This is where we have our
considered reservations: in the past seven
years government has given out
millions of dollars to newly-resettled
farmers which have not been accounted
for. Some of the farmers have found
themselves displaced before they could
repay the money because they didn't
have "offer letters". Productivity has
not been a factor.
Others have become, to quote Gono himself on a
different occasion,
"serial land occupiers" moving from one farm to the next
after ruining or
looting farming and irrigation equipment. In a collusive
silence to pretend
that everything was well were it not for the garrulous
opposition, these
farmer criminals have been let off with no more than a
stricture.
Government has extended further largesse in the form of
fuel, seed and
fertiliser which in the past have quickly found ready buyers
on the
flourishing black market. Police now report that maize for
mealie-meal is
being converted into maputi for the export market while
Zimbabweans starve.
Those involved have been treated with a
leniency which implies that
people who got land can squander national
resources without accounting to
anyone. Many have been accused and arrested
for racketeering, but none has
ever received more than token punishment. A
one-time provincial chairman of
Zanu PF put it quite poignantly when he
boasted that "if you want to get
rich, join Zanu PF".
Lack of
skill, irresponsible behaviour and delinquency have done more
to turn
Zimbabwe into an object of universal ridicule than have natural
calamities
such as drought and so-called Western sanctions.
Zimbabwe has
enough agricultural colleges to deal with the issue of
skills shortages, yet
it appears that this has not been a priority of the
authorities when talking
about national food self-sufficiency.
We have more than dedicated
law enforcement agencies to deal with
irresponsible land-grabbers who can't
produce, yet there is simply no will
to take decisive action on the part of
the authorities. But the biggest
deficiency we have observed is that the
readiness to splurge resources on
new farmers is never matched by a
willingness to call them to account.
In the past most commercial
banks had agro-business departments to
deal with farmers. Although there
were fewer luxury 4x4s, those assigned to
these departments did not shy away
from travelling to remote farms to ensure
that resources lent to farmers
were used in a sustainable way. The former
Agricultural Finance Corporation
did the same. This should not be beyond the
capacity of the
RBZ.
We are fully aware that it would not be in the best interests
of black
economic empowerment to set too stringent criteria such as
training,
financial stamina and skills to decide who should get land. But we
believe
there are requirements which can be a universal determinant for A2
farmers -
interest and commitment. No amount of money or fuel or free seed
and
fertiliser can turn somebody not committed to farming into a commercial
producer. Free resources only increase the temptation to make fast money on
the black market.
We have many examples of Zimbabweans in all
facets of the economy such
as Nigel Chanakira (banking), Mutumwa Mawere
(mining), Strive Masiyiwa
(telecommunications), Ray Kaukonde (farming) who
defied racial stereotyping
to launch business empires without relying on
government support. Apart from
being exceptional, they had a commitment to
what they invested in. But many
new farmers have given fresh flavour to the
cliché that you can take a horse
to water but you can't make it drink.
Similarly, good intentions by
government, on their own, don't make committed
farmers.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
THERE were two strikes going on
simultaneously in Zimbabwe this week.
They have been going on for much
longer, and are likely still going on
despite assurances about an agreement.
One is by doctors, the other by
teachers.
There was one
remarkable thing about both: save for the initial report
of the imminent
strike by teachers, there has been a blanket silence in the
media. This is
despite their devastating impact on our lives and the
prejudice on the
future of our children.
As usual, there was a belated reaction by
government to both. It
reviewed their salaries when much damage had already
been done, not to
mention the loss of goodwill.
I don't know if
the private sector has been able to match the poverty
datum line, which is
what the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) was
clamouring for two
weeks ago when it called for a two-day stayaway. The call
was ignored partly
because the ZCTU has aligned itself with capital from
which workers are
demanding better pay. That is the first paradox.
The second paradox
is that the more damaging and widespread strike by
teachers and doctors has
been less "news" to the media than the ZCTU's
failed industrial action
because it is seen as lacking political content.
Comments by deputy
Health minister Edwin Muguti on the doctors' strike
are quite revealing if
only inadvertent. He said: "There has never been a
day when industrial
action has resulted in positive things; we have to talk
and discuss
grievances because if you fail to go to work you will not be
fixing the
minister but patients."
Put in another way, the "patients" could be
our children, not the
minister or government.
No doubt these
are self-serving remarks, but useful nonetheless.
They are useful
in so far as they demonstrate how short-termism has
destroyed our capacity
to think about the future. Many teachers say they
cannot afford to commute
to work for the full month on their meagre
salaries. Their transport
allowances are a pittance.
Parents appear to understand this more
than they appreciate its full
implications on children going to school to
play while teachers engage in
private "deals" in town or in South Africa.
While "news" is that a strike
called by the ZCTU or the MDC might result in
political change, nobody stops
to think that recurrent strikes by teachers
mean we are bringing up a
generation of semi-literate "future"
leaders.
Opportunities missed by our children while teachers are
nursing
grievances over salaries will never return. The same scandal is
going on at
tertiary institutions where students have dropped out because
they cannot
afford the fees, can't find affordable accommodation or there
are no
lecturers. Many young girls have opted to engage in daytime
prostitution in
Harare's seedy lodges.
I fully appreciate the
plight of teachers, but I am dismayed when a
parent says they have a right
to strike anytime they feel like it but thinks
nothing about the future we
are laying for Zimbabwe. Is this the generation
which those aspiring to
political office are happy to lead, people who
cannot think beyond informal
trades - bricklayers, carpenters, prostitutes,
pimps and farm labourers -
after a short training stint at Border Gezi
indoctrination
camps?
Is it the wish of Zimbabweans that we educate our children
just enough
to serve as party militia? When have militia become guardians of
democracy,
human and property rights, political tolerance and engines of
national
progress which Zimbabwe badly needs?
Like nurses, many
teachers and other professionals are attracted to
"greener pastures" abroad
which were created by the sweat of humans no less
mortal than ourselves.
There, the former coloniser welcomes them with
feigned sympathy but in fact
regards them with the contempt of a slave who
is set free but returns to his
former master because he can't fend for
himself. Reasons for seeking
political asylum have turned some of our
brothers and sisters into creative
geniuses about the evils going on in the
motherland.
I am fed
up with people telling me about how everything should be
blamed on the Zanu
PF government. I know that. The question is what is to be
done? Do we have
to sacrifice the future of our children, and as a
corollary, that of our
country, just to "fix" Mugabe? Yet I think something
positive can be done,
if only to assume responsibility for our destiny.
In the
short-term, I believe parents' associations can fund the
education of our
children by subsidising teachers' transport and
accommodation. Looking at
the average teacher-pupil ratio of about 1:40,
this shouldn't be much of a
sacrifice for your child's future.
Secondly, the private sector can
contribute money into these
associations to top up what government pays,
after all they are the major
beneficiaries from those skills. People can't
be every business' greatest
asset only when they start making profits for
organisations.
Thirdly, donors who fund most non-governmental
organisations and civil
society groups can also play a vital role. Most of
them are involved in
human rights issues, of which education is one. I know
some will raise the
usual noise about helping an evil regime. That is
hypocrisy. Why should it
be detestable to subsidise local education but
morally right to take
Zimbabwean professionals - teachers, nurses, doctors,
engineers, etc -
trained at a huge tax on the poor? Some kind of human
rights there!
At the end of the day, the future of our children is
in our hands. It
is that simple.
Zim Independent
MuckRaker
Vice-President Joseph Msika was reported on Monday
as slamming "some
remnants of die-hard unrepentant racists". He said there
remained "pockets
of stubborn racists in some parts of
Zimbabwe".
He is of course perfectly right. Didymus Mutasa's speech
to the ZFU
congress is a good example. There are those cabinet ministers and
government
officials who have made it their mission to remove all remaining
white
farmers from the land; who have done their best to prevent
agricultural
production in many parts of the country; who have made a
significant
contribution to the country's economic collapse.
These same national parasites have seized farms that once kept the
country
self-sufficient in food but now resemble wastelands. These are the
people
who have prevented dairy farmers from producing milk, butter and
cheese.
We pointed out last week that Msika, who believes he
has a mandate to
rule forever, has not in fact been elected to anything by
anybody. To his
credit he has tried to prevent some of the worst excesses of
land invasions,
and he was almost certainly exempting the Lowveld sugarcane
producers from
his hit-list. But his denunciations ignored the obvious fact
that primitive
racism is now the official creed of Zanu PF.
It
has been used to justify land seizures, political violence and
policies that
deter investment. The official press is among the chief
hate-mongers who
churn out a daily diet of invective against whites as well
as other
minorities. Zimbabwe is now widely seen as a toxic state where
people of
European ancestry are unwelcome. Just read state columnists
venting their
spleen at the weekend and you get some idea of how vicious
this campaign has
become.
But thankfully the poison generally doesn't filter down.
Blacks and
whites are today in the same boat, victims of a pernicious
dictatorship that
is desperate for scapegoats to justify its damaging
policies and incompetent
office-holders.
Don't believe
anything the official press tells you about a
"turnaround" in the tourism
sector. Tourists don't want to visit countries
like Zimbabwe and Burma
because they are ruled by regimes whose brutal
suppression of civic and
opposition activists is seen as unacceptable. Who
wants to go to a country
where the ruler promises "we will bash them"?
Airlines Association
of Southern Africa (AASA) chairman Roger Foster
disagrees. He, predictably,
thinks Zimbabwe is safe and peaceful.
"Adverse publicity by the
media is affecting Zimbabwe," he said in
Victoria Falls.
Some
of the delegates to an AASA meeting were worried about coming
here, he said.
They thought there would be no vehicles on the roads. But
there was traffic
everywhere.
"There is activity from the airports right up to the
hotels," he said.
Indeed there is. He and his members should try
driving from the
airport at night along Cripps Road in Mbare and experience
the activity
there. Smashed windows and cases grabbed are the standard
welcome for
visitors and returning residents alike.
Which
brings us to Nelson Chamisa. The Sunday Mail reports that at the
recent
ACP/EU joint parliamentary meeting in Brussels Chamisa convinced
delegates
that "all was largely well" in Zimbabwe and this "effectively
thwarted
attempts by Britain to have Zimbabwe punished".
Britain had planned
to use "trumped up claims of rights abuses in
Zimbabwe to have the country
excluded from trade and aid packages".
Is it true that Chamisa
blocked any moves to have Zimbabwe arraigned
for human rights abuses in the
wake of 3/11? He was of course a notable
victim.
If the Sunday
Mail's version of events is correct, and he has made no
attempt to deny it,
Chamisa will have performed a signal disservice to the
cause of democracy.
He has allowed Zanu PF to get away with the impression
that the
state-sponsored violence that resulted in several deaths in the
period March
to May was "trumped-up" and was no longer an issue.
Here we see a
serious weakness in the current inter-party talks. Zanu
PF is using the
talks to cover its trail of repression and misrule. And the
MDC is
collaborating in the process.
The MDC must not be so desperate for
agreement that it pretends all is
well in Zimbabwe at international fora. It
should do what Zanu PF and The
Voice are doing: speak out.
President Mugabe used his address to the UN General Assembly to
suggest
President Bush had no right to criticise Zimbabwe when the US was
engaged in
a war in Iraq. We were pleased to see this response by Percy
Ngonyama of
Durban in Business Day.
"Many progressive people were extremely
pleased when Robert Mugabe
reminded US President George Bush and British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of
the crimes they have committed and continue
to perpetrate against humanity
and the downtrodden. However, Mugabe's own
crimes against the people of
Zimbabwe should never be forgotten. And we also
need not be fooled by the
politically correct anti-Western
rhetoric.
"Mugabe bashes British imperialism and colonialism while
building
multi-million dollar palaces and being driven around in luxurious
Western-manufactured vehicles when the majority of his people cannot even
afford the basics due to a large extent to Zanu PF's 27 years of plunder,
cronyism, corruption and nepotism.
"While the likes of Mugabe
and Mbeki may have mastered the art of
misleading the African poor and
appeal to popular sentiments in what one
writer has aptly described as 'talk
left, walk right' mentality, they are
just as culpable as their
international counterparts. The ruling class in
which Mugabe occupies a
prominent position is the real enemy of the masses
and the main beneficiary
of all atrocities from wars to environmental
degradation.
"Furthermore it is extremely misleading to argue, as some 'Africanists'
have, that Mugabe has finally managed to 'teach the white man a lesson',
since the majority of the victims of the ruthless Mugabe dictatorship are
black."
What a neat riposte to the claims of state
propagandists. And what a
cheek for the state media to talk about the BBC
and CNN blocking out
inconvenient voices. Isn't that exactly what ZBC does
all the time?
Talking of junk, what does the Ministry of
National Security, Lands,
Land Reform and Resettlement think it is doing
replying in support of its
minister, Didymus Mutasa, to an article that
appeared in last week's
Independent? The paper reported that Emmerson
Mnangagwa was due to assume
Mutasa's post.
The ministry
described the article as "grossly fabricated and an
inaccurate piece of
cheap political opinions, wishes and dreams patched
together to resemble a
news item".
It then proceeded to make a number of partisan charges,
including the
rather unoriginal claim that the Independent was part of a
regime-change
agenda.
The newspaper, the ministry said, has "no
say or influence on
government appointments and demotions. That remains the
sole and highly
respected prerogative of the president."
Highly
respected, with all that dead wood around?
This childish little
lecture, while helpfully exposing the absence of
professionalism in
government departments, tells us nothing except that
somebody has been
suborned into rushing to defend a minister who appears
unable to speak for
himself.
What are civil servants doing commenting on ministerial
appointments?
Since when has that been their function? We have seen military
figures
making naïve pronouncements upon who they will salute in office, but
do we
really want to know the views of some pathetic creature in Mutasa's
ministry?
It is "gross", we are told, to fail to mention that
Mutasa "is one of
the many people who are strongly lobbying and fighting for
His Excellency's
endorsement as the sole presidential candidate during the
2008 elections."
In other words he is a lick-spittle. Please pass
the sick bag.
A reader has called us to claim a first. He says
Zinwa tariffs in
certain categories of consumption represent an increase of
1 million%. He's
got the paperwork to prove it. How does this fit in with
price-slashing, he
wants to know?
What we have here is an
inefficient and wasteful parastatal foisted on
the residents of Harare and
Bulawayo against their will, charging what it
likes without consultation or
ability to pay. Imagine pensioners coping with
bills of 700% and
more.
It is bad governance at its worst. And, the president tells
us, there
is no going back.
Why is everything for him a
personal challenge? Why can't he just do
the right thing and have residents
participate in decisions directly
affecting them? It's called
democracy.
Zinwa is emblematic of everything that's sick about this
country:
mismanaged parastatals, failure to provide a service, unaffordable
public
sector price hikes (when Zanu PF is claiming it has slashed prices),
arbitrary impositions on residents, and non-consultation at every
level.
And now Zanu PF wants to win elections so it can go on doing
more of
the same.
Reg Rumney, writing in the Mail &
Guardian, made a useful point
regarding the empowerment and mining
legislation. When the ownership target
is set at 51%, he said, forced
transfer is seen as the equivalent of
outright expropriation.
"Why 51%?" he asked. "Why not 35% which can be seen as effective
control?
Why not 49% or 50%? Anton Rupert, founder of the multi-national
Rembrandt,
felt that 50% represented true partnership.
"By insisting on 51% or
more Zimbabwe will make absolutely certain
that no new foreign investment
enters the country," Rumney said. "Since the
country has insufficient
capital, that more or less means no investment.
Once again Zimbabwe is
experimenting with extreme policy options. Indeed,
Zimbabwe is a kind of
laboratory for bad policy in Southern Africa."
Readers will
have been intrigued to see a picture in the Sunday Mail
of Zimpapers CEO
Justin Mutasa presenting a certificate at a college awards
ceremony in the
capital. The accompanying story is headed "Add value to
society through
patriotism".
Below is an advertisement congratulating Taremekedzwa
Mutasa on her
graduation from the University of Texas in Austin. She
graduated with a BSc
in broadcast journalism.
"How wonderful,"
the ad says. Indeed, wouldn't it be wonderful if we
had a market for
broadcasters here. And didn't a single person at the Sunday
Mail think it
ironic that Mutasa could lecture graduates on patriotism while
educating his
daughter in the US?
This is the sort of journalism the government
wants to encourage:
where newspapers don't notice glaring contradictions
that should jump off
the page and bite them on the nose.
Another example was President Mugabe's remarks this week about food
production.
"End food shortages" his remarks were headlined in
the Herald as if
all it takes is a royal command. "Zimbabwe had become a
laughing stock
because of its food inadequacies," Mugabe declared. But he
didn't say who
was responsible for those inadequacies in the first
place.
All the factors that led to agrarian failure in 2000-2006
can be
witnessed in Mutasa's ongoing farm seizures. Nothing has changed. And
just
in case there is any doubt, there was Joseph Made standing beside the
president, perhaps providing one of his crop forecasts.
The
Roman Empire, we are told by historians, used to keep its populace
happy by
bread and circuses. In Zimbabwe we just get the circuses.
Zanu PF's
semi-literate mouthpiece The Voice had an interesting
front-page picture
this week of Elliot Manyika. It was headed "He is
mobilising support for the
president".
But there was something disconcerting about this
picture. His head was
dripping with blood. Is The Voice trying to tell us
something or does their
printer need servicing?
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
The judiciary
has a key role to play safeguarding human rights and
upholding the rule of
law. Our gripe with the judiciary in Zimbabwe has
invariably been prompted
by fawning attitudes towards the state which is
only too pleased to see
members of the bench reduced to mere appendages of
the
executive.
Judge President Rita Makarau's speech at the police
pass-out parade in
Harare two weeks ago is pregnant with the same political
commentary that has
littered speeches by ruling party politicians and
government spin doctors.
The judge said our police force "continues
to be an icon to reckon
with not only on our borders but also indeed the
world over".
She said the completion of the curriculum which the
officers went
through, including subjects like police duties and
investigations, criminal
law, human rights and policing, political history
of Zimbabwe and public
order management "empowers the graduates with the
right aptitude to meet the
demands of the organisation in contemporary
policing".
The judge also spoke about the harmonised elections
scheduled for next
year.
"Let me remind you that the harmonised
presidential, parliamentary and
local government elections are just around
the corner and it is another
opportunity for the country to demonstrate to
the whole world our
traditional competence in administering peaceful and
democratic elections.
"It is my fervent hope that people of
Zimbabwe will not be hoodwinked
and get involved in sponsored violence as
wished by our detractors. I trust
and hope that the police, as they usually
do, will create a peaceful arena
for all political parties to jostle for
positions ."
By employing the language and diction of Zanu PF
politicians, Justice
Makarau runs the risk of sailing in the same boat with
them. The judge in
her past statements has demonstrated a measure of
independence and to some
extent judicial activism.
Despite
warning the police graduates to conduct themselves in a
professional manner
and to desist from abusing police powers, I felt the
judge lost the plot by
insinuating that we have a professional police force
which can be trusted to
ensure there is peace during elections.
I want to differ with the
Judge President's assertion that the ZRP has
become an icon to reckon with
because officers are always being called to
serve on United Nations
missions.
If anything, over the years, the competency of the force
has
degenerated due to the unsavoury politicisation of command structures.
This
has made the police a key instrument in Zanu PF's rule of terror. A
professional police force does not engage in arbitrary arrests of suspects
with no shred of evidence to support their arraignment. But this is
happening.
This week the state could not proceed with
prosecutions against MDC
officials accused of terror attacks earlier in the
year. The officials
arrested in the dozens, had spent months in remand
prison as police said
they were still gathering evidence. Eventually they
produced before the
court false information that the suspects had been
trained in South Africa
and that police officers had gone across the border
to investigate.
The "iconic" police failed in court to produce any
evidence that they
travelled to South Africa. They could show no evidence of
militia training
by the accused and no evidence of petrol
bombing.
That is grossly unprofessional conduct which should be
frowned upon by
the bench. Then there are the ever-increasing incidents of
torture and
assaults on suspects to extract evidence or as a political
punishment. This
has not been given due attention by the courts as police
officers accused of
torture and assault have continued to use police
stations as outposts of
terror on civilians.
Evidence abounds
that our police force have fallen short when called
upon to deal with
politically motivated cases. Justice Makarau knows about
the number of
murder cases that have remained unsolved even though
perpetrators of the
crimes are known. The emblematic Joseph Mwale case has
remained in abeyance
because the police - with all its competence - cannot
locate the suspect in
government corridors.
Also does the Judge President have a view on
the executive
congratulating police for bludgeoning opposition and civic
leaders in March?
What advice can she proffer to the police on the
interpretation of the
Public Order and Security Act, especially sections
which deal with holding
of public meetings? Her comments on these issues are
key to having a
professional police force.
This was also a good
opportunity for the Judge President to remind the
new officers of the
importance of respecting court orders which have been
ignored with impunity
by the force.
We cannot let the Judge President get away with the
belief that the
state machinery has a tradition of running peaceful and
democratic
elections.
Is this a personal view or the thinking
of the whole bench which has
in the past been called upon to adjudicate on
electoral challenges where
opposition candidates were shown to be the
victims of partisan violence?
It is vital that judges in Zimbabwe
uphold the rule of law and
demonstrate a conscientious concern for the Bill
of Rights. As it stands the
Zimbabwean judiciary is found wanting by legal
monitors at home and abroad.
Justice Makarau's address to the police
recruits tells us why.
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
IN his mid-year
Monetary Policy Statement the governor of the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ), Gideon Gono, focused on diverse issues confronting
Zimbabwe's
distressed economic environment.
The statement had a number of
significant highlights, of which one of
the most meaningful was a pronounced
recognition of a need to boost the
viability of exporters. In order to
achieve this, the governor announced
three substantive monetary
policies.
The first of those was that, with immediate effect,
exporter retention
of export proceeds in foreign currency was increased from
60% to 65%.
Undoubtedly exporters in general, and those with extensive needs
for
imported inputs, hoped that the mandatory surrender of export proceeds
to
the central bank, in exchange for Zimbabwean currency, would be more
substantially reduced.
Equally undoubtedly, the governor would
have liked to accommodate that
desire of exporters, but the chronic scarcity
of foreign exchange that
afflicts Zimbabwe inevitably limited the extent
that he could relax the
surrender requirements.
Hopefully, with
the effluxion of time, he will be able to do so but,
in the meanwhile he was
at least able to accord some slight relief to
exporters, their need for
foreign exchange generally being as great as other
economic
sectors.
Of a very much beneficial impact upon exporters was the
introduction
of an overnight investment window at the central bank wherein
exporters can
invest the currency conversion proceeds, at a once-off
overnight return of
800%.
Thus, on the portion of export
proceeds as are converted from foreign
currency, being the prescribed
minimum of 35%, or such greater proportion as
the exporter may wish, the
exporter now receives the official exchange rate,
currently being US$1:$30
000, plus an overnight return thereon of 800%.
Effectively, based
on the current official exchange rate, the exporter
therefore receives US$1:
$270 000, on surrendered export proceeds, as
distinct from a previous
effective exchange rate, up to last month's
mid-year Fiscal Policy Review
and Supplementary Budget Statement of the
minister of Finance, of US$1: $15
000. Thus, exporters will now be enjoying
an 18-fold greater exchange rate
than previously.
Admittedly, the new effective rate is considerably
lower than rates
prevailing in the unlawful alternative markets, but that
would always be so,
irrespective of the level of the official rate, for so
long as foreign
currency availability does not match demand.
But the rate enhanced belatedly compensates exporters, to some major
extent,
for the vastly increased production and operating costs, driven
horrendously
upwards by Zimbabwe's appallingly great hyperinflation, and
thereby restores
viability to many exporters who were either battling to
survive, or who had
no alternative but to discontinue exports and
concentrate exclusively upon
domestic market production.
Reinforcing those new measures, the
governor further announced that
"to ensure that exporters preserve the real
value of their foreign exchange
deposits.all such deposits will earn an
all-inclusive interest rate of 12%
per annum in hard currency".
That is a better interest rate than is generally payable for hard
currency
deposits in international markets.
Amongst the vast economic ills
that characterise Zimbabwe, one of the
greatest is a gross inadequacy of
foreign exchange. To some considerable
extent that is because of the minimal
extent to which Zimbabwe can access
lines of credit, international loans,
balance of payments' support, and the
like.
That
non-availability is unsurprising, bearing in mind Zimbabwe's
abysmal image
of a very high credit risk. That image is, unfortunately, very
justified,
bearing in mind not only the magnitude of Zimbabwe's
debt-servicing arrears,
but also that its economy is so emaciated that its
prospects of timeous
settlement of future debts are minimal.
The insufficiency of
foreign exchange is exacerbated by the paucity of
Foreign Direct Investment
(FDI). Not only is the Zimbabwean economic
environment unattractive to
potential investors, but the lack of attraction
is exponentially intensified
by the government's determined and rigid
pursuit of all precepts of "command
economics".
President Mugabe and others continuously and scathingly
disparage
advocates of "textbook economics", and yet they adhere to the
textbook
philosophies espoused by Lenin, Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao-Tse-Tung,
Fidel
Castro, and others of their ilk, whilst rejecting the textbook
philosophies
of Keynes, Friedman, Greenspan and others. Therefore government
persists in
grossly excessive regulation of the economy, making investors
therein
anathema to most potential investors.
Recently FDI has
been further markedly discouraged, by the
ill-considered Indigenisation and
Economic Empowerment legislation, worsened
by the racist and scathing
comments of the politicians, targeted against
foreign
investors.
Both these factors are of a key nature to the disastrous
lack of
much-needed foreign exchange that grievously constricts the
Zimbabwean
economy, and yet an even greater factor is that Zimbabwe's export
performance has undergone major decline. In part, that is due to
governmentally-created, near total collapse of agriculture, but to a
considerable extent it has been because manufacturers, miners, and others,
could not afford to produce for exports.
They were, and are,
confronted, by continuously rising costs, but
government's past rigid
fixation against currency devaluation precluded
exchange rate compensation
for rising costs.
Therefore the new monetary policies are a very
significant advance to
address the situation, and the private sector must
respond positively,
constructively, and rapidly, by resuming export
activities dynamically.
However, it is also necessary that the
authorities recognise that
there can be no overnight
transformation.
On the rare occasions of previous exchange rate
adjustments, not only
were those adjustments usually inadequate,
unsatisfactory compromises which
did not realistically address economic
needs but, in addition, government
each time expected immediate up-turns in
exports and therefore, in foreign
exchange inflows. When they did not
materialise, government used that factor
to justify not effecting further
currency devaluations.
Regrettably, as absolutely essential as
exchange rate movement
correlated to inflation, is necessary, it cannot
function as an
instantaneous magic wand.
Now that Gono has
courageously sought to address the exporter's
difficulties constructively,
those as can export must be given adequate time
to generate the much needed
increase in foreign exchange. First, they have
to woo back the export
customers that they have lost, and obtain orders from
them. Then they have
to source foreign exchange for the inputs needed to
produce the ordered
goods, place orders for those inputs, receive delivery
thereof, and then
produce the goods. Thereafter the exports have to be
delivered to the
customers, payment awaited and in due course, received.
Thus, as
admirable and essential as the governor's policies are,
government, RBZ and
others must appreciate that the benefits therefrom will
only flow to
Zimbabwe progressively, over a period of time.
Free equipment and machinery not the answer
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe
and his RBZ governor, Gideon Gono, are
deluding themselves if they think
that doling out farming equipment and
implements is the panacea to hunger
and malnutrition mitigation in Zimbabwe.
For this reason, I have
compiled some pertinent questions, which I am
sure Mugabe's bunch of
bootlickers will be happy to respond to.
* Didymus Mutasa
(State Security minister): How do you ascertain
between a genuine farmer and
a land-grab "beneficiary" farmer?
* Mike Nyambuya (Energy
minister): What provisions, if any, are there
to enable genuine farmers to
access fuel in order to run the donated
equipment?
* Rugare
Gumbo (Agriculture minister): Why have the farmers not
received any seed
and/or fertiliser, considering that the agricultural
season is upon
us?
* Joseph Made (Agricultural Mechanisation minister): Where
will the
farmers secure draught-power to till the land?
*
Grain Marketing Board: What incentives, in terms of producer prices,
have
you put in place to entice farmers to heed your call to produce
more?
* Mutasa: What measures have you taken to ensure that the few
white
farmers remaining, get on with what they know best,
uninterrupted?
* will not hold my breath for answers
from
this lot, come harvest time. The reality of yet another failed
season will
be
glaring.
Joseph Mhlanga
Dublin,
Ireland.
-------------
Old man loses it yet
again
THE old man has lost it again! Age is catching up with him
real fast.
His recent mouthing in New York left everything to be desired.
Many were
quick to be hoodwinked by his oratory skills but sadly missing the
point
altogether. President Robert Mugabe turned the summit into an
invective
show. Any right thinking person was left wondering whether it was
not a case
of the kettle calling the pot black.
The following
are some of the accusations he made:
* He accused Bush of killing
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"He imprisons and tortures at Guantanamo,
he imprisoned and tortured
at Abu Ghraib. He has secret torture chambers in
Europe," Mugabe said in
reference to Bush
He was right on that
score but he lost the plot. Has anyone bothered
to ask who does Bush torture
and imprison? He does it to foreigners not his
own compatriots. Was it Bush
who imprisoned Lookout Masuku, Dumiso Dabengwa
and Morgan Tsvangirai? Who
tortured Luke Tamborinyoka, Gift Phiri etc?
* Mugabe went on to
accuse Bush of stealing elections. "He stole
elections," he said. It's an
open secret who won the 2002 election in
Zimbabwe. Is it Bush whose victory
in a 2002 election is being challenged?
* Mugabe bragged that he
had been on the political scene well before
Bush and Blair were known. Not
ashamed whatever for having clung on to power
despite his age.
* "They seek regime change; they not my people, seek regime change,"
he went
on to say. Did Bush and Blair influence the people of Harare,
Bulawayo,
Mutare and all other cities to vote for the opposition? Do these
people not
want regime change? People go into an election and there is only
a
difference of 400 000 votes, at least according to your results. Can one
beat his chest that he is still wanted?
* "I spent 11 precious
years of my life in the jail of a white man, I
lost a further 15 years
fighting injustice in my country," Mugabe added.
True he was imprisoned for
11 years, but remember who could not fire a
pistol?
* Mugabe
claimed to protect his people. What people? Who is on record
saying "Bash
them" "Chakadashurwa"? Was Chamisa protected, was Patrick
Kombai protected
and what about Talent Mabika and Tichaona Chiminya? Does
Aippa, Posa and the
Interception of Communications Act protect the people?
* "But I
have but one God, he is in heaven," said Mugabe. Is it the
same God we know?
It's subjective how many gods are in the world. We all
know what god allows
bashing of people.
* "At home, he apparently does not need the
congress," Mugabe accused
Bush. Did Mugabe need the parliament to go to
DRC?
* "The colonial sun set a long time ago. and Zimbabwe will
never be a
colony again," he said. True the colonial sun set but the
colonial laws are
still obtaining - Posa is Loma in a new form. Zimbabwe
will never be a
colony of Zanu PF.
How irrelevant can any old
man get!
GD,
Harare.
-------------
What the party has done
I
MAY well be wrong but the Indigenisation Bill is expecting foreign
companies
and others to sell or give a majority shareholding to indigenous
persons (as
defined).
This is a case of forcing companies to do something that
they may not
wish to do. Zanu PF is not looking at this from an economic
viewpoint but
from a political one.
If the companies do the
same thing they will appreciate that
politically they should give/sell the
controlling interest in their company
to indigenous persons of opposition
parties and not to the persons of the
ruling party which is forcing them
into doing this. At least this way there
is a possibility that should the
opposition succeed in the next election,
they would consider reversing this
legislation.
This would result in the ruling party making the
opposition parties
considerably stronger by putting the business sector into
their camp, which,
I am sure, was not the intention behind the
legislation.
It is equally surprising that the opposition party has
not thought
through this and has not been to see the business leaders,
possibly they
have.
Be that as it may, I trust that the Herald
reporting of the debates in
parliament and the Senate are correct and that
the minister is recorded as
saying that the legislation is not racial and is
not against whites but is
to correct imbalances created by the colonial
regime. This should mean that
all companies created after April 1980, which
were created under the present
government, should not be subject to this
legislation.
In fact one could go back further to the Unilateral
Declaration of
Independence of Ian Smith which was the last time that there
was effective
colonial exercise of power.
One also has to
question the racial denial if the minister actually
said: "If a white person
wishes to start a business he should partner with
an indigenous person".
Then follows "we are not stopping anyone from
starting a business, it is not
racism to correct wrong things".
What is wrong with being white?
Can this be interpreted to mean that a
white child born in 1980 in Zimbabwe
should be considered indigenous, the
same as a black child?
The
regulations are to be monitored by the minister and maybe he is to
ensure
that party or other individual interests are looked after.
The
Herald newspaper is making great play on international sanctions
against the
country and how this is affecting everyone and the specifically
the poor,
and providing samples. If we accept that this is all true then
parties in
opposition to the government can claim that these sanctions would
fall away
if the present government was elected out of office.
One has to ask
- are these good political decisions and what is the
calibre of the
opposition parties who are not picking up on these things and
using them to
advantage?
Well wisher,
Harare.
-------------
Be prepared, change is
coming
DEAR constituents and friends
You will
recall that I wrote to you in March that the regime has
cracked and that the
transition to a free and prosperous Zimbabwe is clearly
visible on the
horizon, although it may be some time before we can regain
control of our
lives through a new, democratically elected government.
Recent
events, although both disturbing and frustrating, have
confirmed this
prediction. Zanu PF is fighting among itself - the "coup
plot" is just the
tip of the iceberg - but more importantly is busy doing
all its usual
nonsense while the country is fallling headlong into serious
economic
chaos.
You will also recall my suggestion that you link up with
friends and
neighbours as we face what lies ahead, because we need to stand
together and
help each other.
This reaching out and mutual
support appears to me even more important
today, as we enter a period of
serious difficulty for most of us. We simply
can no longer cope with these
prices. This is the situation today, but what
will it be in a month's time,
or by the end of the year?
Clearly the country will no longer be
functioning in such a
situation - indeed already it is not functioning
properly in many spheres,
as we know. Therefore we have to help each other
and make contingency plans,
to be as prepared as we can be for any emergency
or unrest. We are not a
country at war, but we are in the kind of situation
prevailing in a country
at war, and we need to realise this and plan
accordingly.
The good thing about our situation is that we know
that it is all part
of the process of change.
Also, be prepared
to vote, even if it means using the current
discredited
system.
Trudy Stevenson,
MP, Harare
North
----------
Bring proper education back
I
AM 15 years old and I have asked my brother to help put this
together.
I am looking forward to writing my 'O'levels next
year. However, I am
worried about writing exams under the discredited Zimsec
exam system.
As I study, I look at my brother's 'O' and 'A'level
certificates and
curse being born late to be educated under such a system.
As children we are
taught that old people are wise but I question the wisdom
in changing our
system to such a poor system that our education and exam
standards are so
pathetic. I pity the children who regard such men as their
fathers.
I have a dream that one day a new government will bring in
a new
education minister who knows what they are doing. Only then will our
education system be solid and we would be measured against Australians,
Singaporeans, the British and other progressive nationalities.
I have a dream that after Aeneas Chigwedere, my teachers will go back
to
being the respected middle class lot that they once were. I urge whoever
takes over from the current regime to go back to basics in as far as high
school education is concerned.
Ronald Murefu,
Harare.
---------
Moyo must be censored
THE Candid
Comment contributed by Dumisani Muleya last week made
interesting reading,
particularly when he asks, "and what are we
doing?"(about the situation in
Zimbabwe).
The reason why we are where we are today as a country is
mainly
because of lack of self-respect as individuals and as a
nation.
How else does one explain why people can wake up at
midnight to do
their laundry and then wake up the next day at about the same
time to press
their clothes without having a problem with it? Why is it that
ratepayers
have no problem paying bills to Zesa and Zinwa without demanding
to know why
the services by these utilities are only available at midnight -
when the
intended users are obviously sleeping?
The questions
will continue to be asked but if Muleya's question is
asked of the editorial
staff at the Zimbabwe Independent regarding why you
give Jonathan Moyo space
in your newspaper, I wonder what you people will
have to say.
In my view, this clearly shows lack of respect for your readers as
well as
your advertisers who have stood by you through thick and thin.
What
kind of Zimbabwe are you hoping to build by giving space in your
paper, our
paper, to someone who, as a minister, wished the paper never
existed in the
first place?
Muleya is indeed right when he says that the Zimbabwe
debate is now
about personalities rather than content. But with Moyo,
unfortunately, our
wounds are still fresh! Give us some respect by censoring
the former Zanu PF
spin-doctor.
Godwin Ndhlovu
Kwekwe