Zim Independent
Vincent
Kahiya/Clemence Manyukwe
POLITICAL rivalry between
feuding camps in Zanu PF has divided
government over the issue of price
controls with police defying
Vice-President Joice Mujuru's calls to halt the
arrests of company
executives.
Government sources said
Mujuru, who supported industry against
harassment over price increases, had
fallen out of favour with President
Mugabe who has given the law enforcers
the greenlight to clamp down on
companies raising prices of basic
commodities. A senior government official
was arrested this week for
allowing an increase in the price of bread.
"There is now all
the evidence that she is no longer the
anointed one," a source said
yesterday. "When she became VP, Mugabe told the
nation that she should go
all the way but his tone has now changed. It's
'the people' who now have to
decide on succession."
The source said the conflict over
price controls and the arrest
of company executives had opened a door to the
rival camp led by Emmerson
Mnangagwa "whose star is definitely
rising".
Caught in the cross-fire of the political rivalry is
Industry
and International Trade minister Obert Mpofu who has become a
target of his
colleagues who accuse him of giving the nod to price
increases.
In addition to the government official, police
this week
arrested company executives on allegations of illegally hiking
prices. The
arrests are in defiance of Mujuru's order.
After the arrests of private-sector executives last month, the
Confederation
of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) and the Zimbabwe National Chamber
of Commerce
confronted Mujuru.
CZI president Callisto Jokonya yesterday
confirmed that they met
Mujuru who assured them there would be no more
arrests in connection with
price controls.
"We had a
meeting with the vice-president and she assured us
that it would not happen
again," Jokonya said. "We have received information
that some wholesalers
have been arrested today in connection with price
controls. We have talked
to officials at the Ministry of Industry and they
say they are not
responsible. We do not know where the order is coming
from."
Last weekend, Mugabe was singing a different tune
to Mujuru.
Addressing a gathering in Gweru, he said people should "report"
businesses
that hike prices.
"When we review salaries, we
would have looked into prices. We
call on you people to report such
businesses to us when they increase prices
of basic commodities like bread,
mealie meal and sugar," Mugabe said.
Mpofu, recently back
from an abortive mission to India,
yesterday said he had nothing to do with
the arrests. Industry sources said
Mpofu had indicated the arrests were
being instigated by a "third force"
which had usurped his power at the
ministry. He confirmed to the Zimbabwe
Independent yesterday that he had
nothing to do with the arrests.
"Why don't you talk to
(Joseph) Malaba from CZI?" said Mpofu.
"We are really not involved in the
pricing issue. It is them in industry who
are in charge and government is
not in control. We do not know what is
happening. Talk to them about the
arrests, they know better," Mpofu said.
Malaba is the CEO of the
CZI.
Mpofu's ministry is supposed to chair the Price
Stabilisation
Committee, a body mandated by cabinet to monitor and decide on
the prices of
three basic commodities - flour, maize meal and bread. The
committee
includes representatives from the private sector which holds the
deputy
chair. The CZI represents the private sector on the
committee.
The attack on Mpofu has manifested itself in the
arrest of his
ministry's director of research and consumer affairs, Norman
Chakanetsa, on
corruption charges. Chakanetsa, who chairs the pricing
committee, was
arrested at his office on Tuesday and taken to Ahmed House.
Police this week
also recorded a statement from Malaba regarding the
issue.
Police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Wayne
Bvudzijena
yesterday confirmed Chakanetsa's arrest for authorising the bread
price hike
while the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries said some
wholesalers had
been arrested in connection with the issue of
prices.
"He was supposed to appear in court today for
violating the
Prevention of Corruption Act. He is alleged to have increased
the price of
bread without the necessary authority," Bvudzijena
said.
Sources said price controls became even more divisive
after the
arrest of business executives and the blasting of police by Harare
magistrate Peter Garufu as overzealous last month following the
incident.
After the ruling, government called for a meeting
of the police,
magistrates and prosecutors to advise them on how to handle
cases to do with
price control violations.
Harare
provincial magistrate Mishrod Guvamombe yesterday
confirmed the holding of
the meeting but could not give details.
"I did not attend the
meeting on price controls but there were
magistrates, the police,
prosecutors and representatives from the Ministry
of Industry. There is a
committee which has been formed," Guvamombe said.
* Meanwhile
a Harare magistrate yesterday fined several
companies found guilty of
violating price control regulations.
The companies were fined
amounts ranging from $130 00 to $500
000. More companies are expeced to
appear before the courts to answer the
same charges. The fined companies
include Lobels, Innscor and Greatermans.
Zim Independent
Lucia Makamure
TRAVEL agents and
passengers are in a quandary following a
decision this week by Air Zimbabwe
to charge airport handling taxes in
foreign currency.
The
decision has jeopardised travel plans for many over the
coming festive
season.
A memorandum sent to travel agents on Monday
instructs them to
"collect taxes that do not accrue to government and remit
these to Air
Zimbabwe".
Air Zimbabwe yesterday increased
fares by between 300% and 350%.
Passengers travelling to and
from London are now required to pay
US$76 over and above the fare of $1,4
million. The taxes for those
travelling to China are US$11, Dubai US$8 and
South Africa US$31. The local
currency component of the fares to the
destinations is $2,5 million, $1,3
million and $340 000
respectively.
Agents are now required to collect the taxes in
US dollars
together with the airfare unlike in the past when they sold
tickets
incorporating required taxes in local currency.
"The banks won't give you the foreign currency for the taxes.
They laugh at
you when you try to make an application," a travel agent who
refused to be
named told the Zimbabwe Independent on Wednesday.
"The only
way to get the foreign currency is on the black
market. I find it difficult
to understand how passengers are expected to get
the hard currency when
banks cannot assist because they say they do not have
any," the travel agent
said.
The national airline has blamed the unstable currency
exchange
rate for its losses after collecting departure fees in local
currency for
destinations out of the country where they are required to pay
in foreign
currency.
Air Zimbabwe spokesperson, David
Mwenga, said Air Zimbabwe had
been losing millions of dollars after
remitting foreign currency to
authorities in other
countries.
"Air Zimbabwe had been losing a lot (after)
collecting (taxes)
in Zimbabwe dollars, for departure fees out of
Johannesburg or London or any
other external departure point but remitting
to the authorities in those
destinations in foreign currency," Mwenga said
in response to questions from
the Independent.
"Because
of the changes (increases) in exchange rates, we often
end up making losses,
as we are obliged to remit the exact foreign currency
component to the
authorities, sourcing that foreign currency at a loss to
ourselves," said
Mwenga.
There was no confirmation of where the airline has
been sourcing
its foreign currency all along but central bank governor
Gideon Gono is on
record as saying the airline has been on a life support
system from the
central bank.
"We now require that even
if you are a Zimbabwean and pay your
fares in local currency, for any travel
outside our borders, where airport
departure fees are required to be paid in
foreign currency, the passenger
now pays that portion in foreign currency,"
said Mwenga.
Because of the losses incurred, the airline owes
foreign
creditors US$23 million and $400 million to local creditors,
excluding the
Parastatals Reorientation Programme (PARP) loans that stood at
$1,381
billion and $2,6 billion which was advanced to the parastatal without
being
covered by PARP as at July 31.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
A FORMER army
colonel will today testify in the High Court in a
case in which some people
are alleging that they were never paid for
services rendered at a diamond
mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) in 2000.
Retired Colonel Paul Kujoko, who is said to be working in Mt
Darwin at a
youth training centre under the Youth ministry, will testify in
the matter
in which Urayayi Sakupwanya is suing businessman Lloyd Hove and
Thabs
Marketing for non-payment of over US$21 000 for the work he did at the
mine
in the DRC.
In court papers, Hove is said to be the company's
executive
chairman.
Giving evidence in court yesterday,
witness Lyndon Kapuya said
he was employed by Thabs Marketing and worked in
the DRC for more than a
year but was not paid.
He said
none of the workers who worked for the company in the
mineral rich country
were given salaries supposed to be in US dollars.
"When we
left for the DRC there was Colonel Kujoka, Major
Muguyo, Mr Hove, myself and
a Kennis," he said.
He said in the DRC they were joined by
other Zimbabweans
including Sakupwanya.
"We were not paid
any salaries. None of us were paid," Kapuya
said.
He said
although they were working for Thabs Marketing they were
made to sign a
contract with a company called Dube and Associates and Thabs
Marketing
guaranteed the contract saying in the event of a dispute it would
take full
responsibility.
Kapuya said he had approached Hove for the
payments, but he
claimed that he did not have the money but would pay him
when his fortunes
improved.
Documents filed with the
court by Sakupwanya say Dube and
Associates is not registered according to
the law.
Asked under cross examination whether there had been
any
allegations of misconduct levelled against Sakupwanya, Kapuya said there
had
been a single incident.
He said at one time the
plaintiff was ill and was told to go
home and when they were at a place
called Kananga the mine's head of
security phoned and said Sakupwanya had
some diamonds.
Zim Independent
ZANU PF national chairman John Nkomo last Friday
ordered deputy
Environment and Tourism minister Andrew Langa to drop his
court case against
Small and Medium Enterprises Development minister
Sithembiso Nyoni.
Nkomo summoned the two Zanu PF lawmakers to
his Harare office to
resolve the dispute between them, which resulted in
Langa reporting Nyoni to
the police.
Nkomo confirmed that
he had a meeting with Langa and Nyoni.
"I did call a meeting
to solve the problems between Langa and
Nyoni. What I wanted to do was to
help them bury the hatchet," said Nkomo.
Langa also confirmed
that they met Nkomo at his Harare office.
"We met the Speaker
of Parliament at his office to try and come
up with a good working
relationship between the two of us," said Langa. "As
we talk now there is no
more police case between us."
Police spokesman Assistant
Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena on
Tuesday confirmed that Langa had withdrawn
his case.
"The case has been withdrawn," said
Bvudzijena.
Efforts to get a comment from Nyoni were
fruitless as she was
not answering her mobile phone.
Nyoni was reportedly miffed by Langa's comments allegedly made
at a meeting
with farmers at Kombo area in Fort Rixon that senior
politicians in the area
were behind a wave of stock theft around Fort Rixon.
Sources
said Nyoni felt the comments were directed at her as
they came amidst
reports that 18 stolen head of cattle had been positively
identified by the
owner, Robert Bruce Moffat, at her farm near Kombo area.
Reports said stolen
beasts had allegedly been driven to Nyoni's farm where
brands with Moffat's
identity were tampered with and replaced with Nyoni's
brands. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
HUMAN rights
organisations have expressed disappointment over
African Union chairperson
Alpha Omar Konare's failure to meet civil society
during his recent visit to
the country.
Konare was in Zimbabwe last Friday but snubbed
the human rights
activists. He only met President Robert Mugabe on what he
said was a
"consultation of Africa's elder statesman and a founding father
of the AU on
resolving conflicts in the Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo,
Somalia and
Ivory Coast".
The National Association of
Non-Governmental Organisations
(Nango) confirmed that Konare rejected its
members' efforts to meet him for
an appraisal of the Zimbabwe
situation.
"We appreciate the urgent need to resolve the
crisis in Sudan
and the region but there is a strong feeling that the
Zimbabwean situation
is equally important," Nango spokesman Fambai Ngirande
said.
"We would have wanted to give the chairman an update on
government's reluctance to implement the African Commission's
recommendations on the rule of law, continued evictions and horrible living
conditions for the victims of Operation Murambatsvina."
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), which played a pivotal
role in the
compilation of a shadow report on rampant human rights
violations presented
to the African Commission for Human and Peoples' Rights
(ACHPR), an arm of
the AU, expressed concerned at Konare's behaviour.
"We are
concerned with Commissioner Konare's failure to meet
civic organisations
despite the fact that the ACHPR presented him with
(evidence of) a
disturbing human rights situation in Zimbabwe," Otto Saki of
the ZLHR
said.
Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa (Sahrit) director
Noel
Kututwa said he was saddened that Konare ignored
them.
"We are unhappy with the development," Kututwa said.
"AU as a
political body tend to side with government which is one of the
reasons why
Zimbabwe is getting away with gross human rights violations such
as
Operation Murambatsvina."
l In a letter to President
Mugabe in April, ACHPR chairperson
Ambassador Salamata Sawadogo said
Zimbabwe should take provisional measures
to avoid causing irreparable
damage to victims of the operation.
"The African Commission,
having examined the request of the
complainants, has decided, in conformity
with Article 111 of the African
Commission's Rules of Procedure, to request
Your Excellency and the
government of Zimbabwe to take provisional measures
to obviate the general
deterioration of the health of 34 terminally ill
individuals infected by
HIV/Aids and who, due to Operation Murambatsvina,
are said to lack access to
medical treatment, in particular anti-retroviral
drugs," his letter says.
Sawadogo said government had to
ensure that the 210 children
displaced by the operation were given an
opportunity to pursue their
education.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
CONFUSION reigns in
government circles over how to kick off
deals signed with China and
Russia.
Three of the five deals secured by government with a
Russian
delegation last week overlap and in most instances duplicate similar
deals
signed with the Chinese earlier this year.
Russian
investment company RusAviaTrade signed a deal with the
Zimbabwe Electricity
Supply Authority and Hwange Colliery, promising to
upgrade the operations of
the two companies. Government in February signed
similar deals with Catic of
China to rehabilitate and expand the production
capacity of Hwange Colliery
Company, making the Russian deal a duplication
of the of the previous
agreement. The Chinese deal was valued at US$70
million.
RusAviaTrade's deal with Zesa's subsidiary Zimbabwe Power
Company is again a
replica of Catic's agreement with the same subsidiary
through which Hwange
thermal power station was to be expanded under a US$400
million
deal.
RusAviaTrade's deal with the Civil Aviation Authority
of
Zimbabwe is also replicated in an agreement signed between Chinese
companies
and the same parastatal.
Critics this week
questioned whether the Chinese deals had been
set in motion before similar
understandings were entered into with the
Russians. In addition, Zesa,
Hwange and CAAZ, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority
and the Ministry of
Transport and Communications also signed deals with the
Russians and are
expected to benefit from the investments.
The Russian
overtures follow similar attempts at investments
from Chinese and South
Korean companies in June, giving a faint hope to the
fastest shrinking
economy in the world.
The country's hostile investment
climate, coupled with political
instability and lawlessness in the form of
property rights violations, as
well as continued shortages of foreign
currency, fuel, electricity, spares
and basic commodities, have deterred
foreign direct investment from
traditional western companies. It is unclear
how Russian investors plan to
sidestep these pitfalls.
The 48-member Russian delegation, which included 17 journalists,
explored
other investment opportunities. RusAvia Trade provide Russian
aviation
products, including new and used aircraft, helicopters, spare parts
and
related services.
Its parent company is RusAvia Group, a
group of Russian and
Western companies involved in the aviation business.
The group includes
design and production companies, exporters and companies
related to the
Russian aerospace industry.
Zimbabwe is
trying to buy commercial aircraft from Russia to
boost its depleted national
fleet. Government recently ordered several
Russian planes for national
carrier Air Zimbabwe, but the airline's
engineers have rejected the
aircraft, saying they were "flying coffins".
RusAvia director
for external affairs Yury Panchenko said the
group of Russian investors
would return in a month to follow up on their
deals.
"We
will create a website to tell the Russian business community
about
investment opportunities in Zimbabwe," Panchenko said at the
weekend.
The delegation left the country last Tuesday after a
seven day
visit.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
GOVERNMENT is trying to
raise US$30 million required by the
Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority
(Zesa) to purchase spares to repair
six damaged generators at the Hwange
power station.
Zesa also wants to use the money to refurbish
the entire power
station that is operating at far below
capacity.
The six generators at the power station developed
faults last
week and caused a serious electricity deficit that had large
parts of the
country going without electricity for periods of up to 10 hours
daily.
The generators were resuscitated late last week but
four of them
are operating way below capacity while the other two have
completely packed
up.
Zesa corporate affairs manager,
James Maridadi, this week
confirmed that government was trying to raise
US$30 million for the power
company to refurbish Hwange power
station.
"We have made an appeal to government for US$30
million to
enable us to repair the six generators and refurbish the power
station.
Government is frantically looking for the cash for us," Maridadi
said.
The country's power problems worsened after the main
line
drawing power from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was
damaged.
Maridadi said Hwange power station was in "crisis
operations".
"As we speak right now, four of the generators
are operating on
a limping basis while two are completely non-functional,"
he said.
"From a capacity output of 740 megawatts, Hwange
power station
is generating an erratic 300 and 400 megawatts of electricity
a day,"
Maridadi said.
Zimbabwe needs over 1 200
megawatts of electricity a day and the
power deficit has forced Zesa to
introduce load-shedding.
Maridadi however said the Bulawayo
thermal power station, one of
the three thermal power stations that were not
operational due to coal
shortages last week, was now operational while
Munyati and Harare thermal
stations were still out.
"The
coal shortages that forced the three thermal stations to
cease operations
are still persisting but the Bulawayo power station is back
in operation,"
he said.
To make up for the deficit, Zimbabwe imports more
than 30% of
its power requirements from the DRC while additional power is
imported from
South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia when they have excess
capacity.
Maridadi said Zesa's pricing system was not viable
and that this
had contributed to the organisation's reliance on government
for support.
"There is need to review our tariffs which are
sub-economic. We
import electricity at a higher rate than we are selling it
and we are urging
government to reconsider the pricing system," Maridadi
said.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
ACTING Information
minister Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana last Friday
angered journalists by saying
he was concerned by "paupers" in the
profession.
He was
speaking on media regulation at the Quill Club in Harare.
The
newsmen from the private and public media objected to the
utterances,
reminding Mangwana that government was to blame for the high
unemployment
levels among journalists because it had sanctioned the closure
of private
newspapers.
Since 2003, government has shut down the Daily
News, the Daily
News on Sunday, the Tribune and the Weekly
Times.
Zimbabwe has also witnessed high-handed arrests of
journalists
in the private media, very often where there was no case against
them.
Mangwana said journalists complained too much about Zimbabwe's
draconian
media laws instead of confronting their employers for better
salaries and
working conditions.
He claimed that
journalists were fighting wars on behalf of
publishers and editors when
their stomachs were empty.
"I am concerned when I see paupers
among journalists," Mangwana
said. "There is high unemployment among
journalists. Instead of complaining,
why can't you organise yourselves for
better salaries, form an NEC (National
Employment Council) for journalists,
for example, which will set minimum
salary levels?"
But
while Mangwana complained about poor remuneration,
journalists said his
ministry had done little to improve salaries and
working conditions for
journalists working for public media institutions.
Mangwana
criticised the private media, singling out the Zimbabwe
Independent for
reporting negatively about government.
"I was reading the
Independent one day and from page 1 to 45
there were negative stories about
government. Does it mean that government
had done nothing positive in that
week?" the minister complained.
He said while it was
acceptable that society had divergent
views, media practitioners should also
complement government efforts in the
national interest.
In response journalists queried why government wanted them to
keep quiet
when it blatantly violated human rights, the rule of law, muzzled
the media
and when there were high levels of corruption in high office.
When Mangwana raised allegations of corruption among
journalists, the
newsmen demanded to know the whereabouts of a report on
corruption at
troubled steel company, Ziscosteel.
Zim Independent
ZIMBABWE'S bulk importation of fertiliser and wheat
from
neighbouring countries is threatened by a shortage of wagons. The
National
Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) has admitted that it was difficult to
move the
consignments as it has a shortage of 2 239
wagons.
Zimbabwe is facing a critical shortage of wheat and
fertiliser,
a situation that has led to bread shortages and compromised the
national
crop harvest.
The government has released
conflicting statements on the
expected winter wheat harvest, saying it is
expecting sufficient wheat
supplies. But statements from NRZ officials last
week revealed that
government was in the process of importing wheat and
fertiliser from
neighbouring countries.
The NRZ this week
said it would need a further 2 239 wagons to
complement its current rolling
stock to move the anticipated bulk imports of
fertiliser and
wheat.
NRZ general manager, Retired Air Commodore Mike
Karakadzai, told
stakeholders at a strategic meeting organised by the
company last Friday in
Bulawayo that the NRZ faced a shortage of
wagons.
The NRZ currently has 5 638 operational wagons but
requires 7
412 wagons to service the 2 759 kilometre local rail
stretch.
"At the present moment we have 5 638 wagons that are
in service
against a requirement of 7 412 wagons," Karakadzai said. "The
shortfall of 2
239 will have a negative impact on our operations as we move
the fertiliser
and wheat that the country is going to import as from now
onwards."
But a senior member of Operation Maguta taskforce,
Air Marshal
Henry Muchena, on the same day told a National Economic
Development Priority
Programme meeting in Bulawayo that the country's winter
wheat programme had
surpassed its targets after putting 30 500 hectares
under crop in the
2005/06 season.
Muchena said the
hectarage was expected to yield a minimum of
120 000 tonnes of
wheat.
Giving an overview of operations at the company,
Karakadzai said
the NRZ had a potential to move 18 million tonnes of goods a
year but that
it was currently moving a mere 9,4 million.
It also emerged during deliberations that there were serious
cases of
pilferage on NRZ trains.
The NRZ came under fire from
customers who highlighted pilferage
cases of goods being transported by the
NRZ.
Delegates also took a swipe at the NRZ for refusing to
take
responsibility for stolen or lost goods under its care and said the
company
should tighten its security controls.
In response
Karakadzai said the issue of pilferage on NRZ trains
was an insurmountable
challenge.
"The issue of pilferage is insurmountable and we
have had cases
where guards are involved in fuel, sugar and cement pilferage
but there is
security provided for sensitive cargo and we have enlisted the
Zimbabwe
National Army to escort such cargo. We are also beefing up our
security," he
said.
Turning to the challenges facing the
company, Karakadzai said
ageing infrastructure, shortage of business
opportunities, shortage of
foreign currency to purchase spares, a serious
brain drain, theft and
vandalism were hampering the company's progress. -
Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Vincent Kahiya recently in
Maranage
"AMONG all the stones that our world's fancy holds
precious, the
diamond stands preeminent," wrote J Willard Hershey in The
Book of Diamonds.
"The diamonds that gleamed with such fire in an idol's eye
before the rising
of the Star of Bethlehem may be sparkling today with more
dazzling radiance
in the crown of an emperor."
And how
appropriate is Hershey's observation today. Diamonds are
as attractive to
the devil as they are to rulers who have fought wars over
the precious
stones. When managed properly, they are a symbol of national
pride and in
equal measure a source of disgrace if mismanaged.
Botswana
and the DRC stand out as modern examples of the
positive and negative
impacts of diamonds on a country.
Zimbabwe, which recently
discovered diamonds in Marange communal
lands in Manicaland, appears keen to
mishandle the precious stones and as
usual gain a measure of
notoriety.
The reckless exploitation of the minerals in the
low rainfall
area, dominated by rocky terrain and thorny bush, should rank
as a national
blunder that has serious ramifications for investment in the
mining sector.
A visit to the area last weekend revealed the sad state of
mining policy in
Zimbabwe where politics appear to supersede rational
thinking.
The drama manifests itself along the
Mutare-Masvingo highway,
between Chakohwa and Nyanyadzi business centres
where youths converge in
small lively groups under trees and on shop
verandahs gulping quarts of
clear beer as if their lives depend on it. Young
ladies have also joined in
the act. Their animated discussions and barnyard
laughs betray the contents
of the soft-drinks bottles in hand. They contain
a potent mixture of soda
and cheap cane spirit.
They
carry small bags packed with wads of bank notes and
tumapuwe (small stones)
which have become a new source of paper wealth for
the youngsters. They do
not know what to do with the vast amounts which they
carry around, it
appears. That they are overwhelmed by their new-found
wealth is evident in
the way they appear to be in competition with each
other to spend it as
quickly as possible. Beer is not bought in rounds but
in crates. Even
strangers are allowed to join in the binges provided they
speak the same
language of kumunda (field).
The field is the source of this
debauchery. It is the place in
the Chiadzwa area of Marange about 90 km east
of Mutare where politicians
have given villagers the go-ahead to mine
diamonds from claims owned by
Consolidated Resources
Africa.
The scene in the field is that of mayhem, social
decadence,
entrepreneurial theft and all the crookedness that obtains when
leaders
temporarily suspend the law to allow madness to take control. The
forty-niners of the Pacific North-West, if they were around today, would
recognise all the facets of this latest "rush".
Last
Saturday afternoon there were at least 500 miners at the
claim, each in a
race to extract the small stones from the belly of the
earth. They do this
under the watchful eyes of the Central Intelligence
Organisation and the
police who have set up a temporary post at the mine.
Amid the
acrid smell of sweat and human waste, the miners work
the diamond pipes with
picks and shovels. Local teachers and their pupils,
policemen and council
workers have joined in the rush. This is a race to
riches but it comes at a
huge cost to the environment. When senior Zanu PF
politicians gave the
villagers the go-ahead to mine, no environmental impact
assessment had been
carried out at the mine and its environs. There are no
toilets or safe
drinking water for the huge throngs gathered there daily.
This is a cholera
outbreak waiting to happen.
The threat to the environment has
been superseded by the
elemental drive for wealth. Huge trees which stood on
the diamond pipes have
been uprooted and quickly chopped up to provide
firewood for the makeshift
kitchens.
After digging up the
ground, the soil is put in a sieve which
removes fine sand to leave small
pebbles among which are "greens",
industrial diamonds and "maglass", the
ornamental ones.
The Minerals Marketing Corporation of
Zimbabwe (MMCZ) has been
sending its officials to buy the stones but they
cannot buy everything
available. This has attracted illegal buyers who
openly purchase the stones
at Chakohwa and Hot Springs.
I
witnessed a man in a silver Mercedes Benz S320 handing a
youngster a
supermarket plastic bag full of notes in exchange for maglass.
The youngster
sporting a crisp Brazilian national soccer team jersey walked
away $450 000
richer.
"That was nothing (the money) because I could have
earned more
if I had sold them to MMCZ but they do not bring enough money to
buy the
minerals," he said.
The informal buyers resell
the stones to MMCZ, earning huge
profits. They are not the only ones cashing
in on the bonanza.
Informal traders have stormed the
area. They have set up stalls
where they display anything from condoms,
razor blades, and sanitary pads to
clothing, beer and groceries. Others cook
food and sell it at the site and
there are opportunists scouring the ground
for stones dropped by the miners.
But very little money
changes hands at these stalls. All trade
is barter. They exchange their
wares for the diamonds which they then
resell. Business is brisk here
because the villagers have suddenly developed
not-so-common tastes like
mid-afternoon tea.
Nightfall brings in new forms of
entrepreneurs.
They stand on the paths used by miners
retiring to their
villagers. Prostitutes attracted by the large number of
young carefree men
openly advertise their services. They do not want cash
for their industry.
They want tumapuwe instead. The services are sometimes
rendered in the open.
The sudden wealth displayed by
individual miners however is in
sharp contrast to their surroundings,
dominated by rickety huts and a very
poor road network, save for the main
Mutare-Masvingo highway.
The rocky dirt road to the mine
crosses the Odzi River via a
narrow bridge whose approaches from either side
feature frighteningly steep
gradients.
Buses that had
long shunned the rutted road now make daily trips
to the mine from Mutare
bringing in merchants, prospective miners and
criminals.
It is a cauldron of disorder that is not likely to benefit the
area at all.
There is now a separate diamond-based economy where prices of
commodities in
shops are determined by the price of the stones. But all in
all the area
remains poor.
The local council is not collecting any
royalties or levies from
the miners. The buyers and miners are not paying
any taxes and meanwhile the
major national resource is exploited to satisfy
political ends. It is a
terrible advertisement for anyone thinking of
investing in the mining
sector - an unregulated free-for-all where the
existing claim holder has
lost its rights to politicians and
freebooters.
Two years ago there was another human throng in
the province of
Chimanimani where gold panners laid siege to the district.
There were
similar scenes of free-spending, bags of cash and politicians
turning a
blind eye. Billions of dollars worth of gold was extracted from
the area and
no infrastructural development took place
there.
Zimbabwe has a choice to go the Botswana/Namibia route
where
diamond mining is strictly controlled and the national fiscus
benefits, or
to follow the precedent of the DRC where political and military
carpet-baggers take control amidst widespread pillaging of a vital national
resource.
It looks like the latter course has already
been embarked upon.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
UNTIL authorities
decided it was rather niggling to enforce a
law penalising a stranger for
winking at a woman by classifying batting an
eyelid as a form of sexual
harassment, Zanzibari women appeared overly
protected.
The pesky law in religious communities raised controversy as to
defining how
the flutter of an eyelid should constitute an offence.
Women
themselves found it embarrassing to take strangers to the
community court
and prefer charges that he had intentionally twitched his
eyelid at them.
And complainants had to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that
it was not just
an involuntary twitch but that the stranger rippled his
eyelid intentionally
for more than three seconds.
Such imprecise definitions seem
to have crept into Zimbabwe's
new Domestic Violence Bill currently under
discussion in parliament.
Women that paraded the streets a
fortnight ago to protest
Mabvuku-Tafara legislator, Timothy Mubawu's
utterances during debate on the
Bill might have clapped their hands too
early before they had all their
ducks in a row.
The Bill
has an ominous catch. A person that makes "any false
statement in any
application or affidavit made in terms of this Act, knowing
such statement
to be false or not believing it to be true, shall be guilty
of an offence
and liable to a fine or to imprisonment for a period not
exceeding five
years or to both such fine and such imprisonment".
The MP
raised the protesters' wrath with his biblical references
to the highly
controversial Bill that caught cultural revivalists, orthodox
Christians and
modernists alike in a flat spin.
Mubawu dared stand alone
like Daniel in the lion's den for
saying that the Bill against domestic
violence was diabolic.
"I stand here representing God, the
Almighty. Women are not
equal to men," Mubawu told fellow legislators during
debate.
"It is a dangerous Bill and let it be known in
Zimbabwe that the
right, privilege and status of men are gone. I stand here
alone and say this
Bill should not be passed in this House. It is
diabolic."
His supporters say the Bill could trigger
matrimonial upheavals
on a scale never seen before.
Domestic violence has for long been conceived primarily as a
private family
affair to be resolved silently within the walls of the home.
But women's rights lobbyists seem to have triumphed in turning
the age-old
marital harmony on its head, according to critics.
Said
Kadoma West MP Zacharia Ziyambi: "There are certain
cultural values that
shape every family which are likely to be at stake with
this legislation and
many families are going to break up."
In terms of the Bill,
domestic violence means "any unlawful act,
omission or behaviour that
results in death or the direct infliction of
physical, sexual or mental
injury to any complainant by a respondent".
It includes such
acts as physical abuse, sexual, emotional,
verbal and psychological abuse,
economic, intimidation, harassment and
stalking.
When
enacted the legislation will penalise perpetrators for
abuse derived from
any cultural or customary rites or practices that
discriminate or degrade
women.
These include a raft of transgressions such as forced
virginity
testing, female genital mutilation, pledging of women or girls for
the
purposes of appeasing spirits, abduction, child marriage, forced
marriage,
forced wife inheritance, sexual intercourse between fathers-in-law
and newly
married daughters-in-law.
Whereas the privacy
of the home and the centrality attributed to
intimate relations are valued,
privacy and intimacy often provide the
opportunity for violence and the
justification for non-interference.
But Mubawu was not
standing alone when he made the assertions
that prompted women into
pillorying him.
Chief George Chimombe, a representative of
the chiefs in
Manicaland, pointed out that the proposed Act was vague in
relation to
virginity tests.
The traditional chief, a
cultural revivalist, argued in defence
of virginity tests, saying the law
was seeking to take the practice out of
context, disregarding its
advantages.
"Virginity testing is not conducted by just
anyone," he argued.
"There are selected elderly women in the
villages who are
responsible for that," he added, citing an incident when
the cultural norm
helped expose cases of child abuse, resulting in the
culprits being brought
to heel.
It could take a lot to
define some sections of the
well-intentioned Bill such as "emotional, verbal
and psychological abuse"
which the Bill says mean a pattern of degrading or
humiliating conduct
towards a complainant.
Women
lobbyists, however, have hailed the Bill as long overdue.
"Women were crying for such a Bill and were getting
disillusioned by the
delays. We now have hope that government is showing
concern about domestic
violence," Angela Makamure of the Federation of Media
Women of Zimbabwe,
said.
"Not everything in the Bill is rosy though. For
instance the
Bill is vague on sheltering for the victim of domestic
violence," she added.
"It might not appeal to economically
challenged women whose
husbands are the sole breadwinners because once
convicted under the Act, the
breadwinner could spend some time in jail,
creating hardships for the
family," Makamure said.
"A
husband coming from prison might be hardened by the
punishment to the extent
that he no longer loves his spouse. Either of the
spouses could easily be
ostracised by the relatives and the Bill is silent
on the safety nets in
such instances."
She also said the Bill should have been
taken on a roadshow to
the rural areas before it was tabled to allow rural
women to input into it.
But director of Women's Action Group
(WAG), Edna Masiyiwa, said
this had been done.
She said
it had taken too long for the Bill to come to
parliament.
"We have worked for this type of Bill for the past six years
since 2000. It
is something that we have been wanting and we are glad it has
finally come
about. I hope it will be passed soon."
Masiyiwa said in
collaboration with Msasa Project, WAG had been
running workshops in rural
areas such as Guruve and Marondera to sensitise
women about domestic
violence.
"We will continue pushing for as many rural women
as possible to
know how the Bill protects them," she
said.
Enforcers will find it asocial to charge offenders for
"the
repeated exhibition of obsessive possessiveness or jealousy", just as
the
Zanzibari women felt they were overly protected from legitimate
courtship.
Seeing the vague definition, Justice minister
Patrick Chinamasa,
on Tuesday, proposed to amend contentious sections that
deal with jealousy,
and unreasonable denial of conjugal
rights.
"I am impressed by the debate over the Bill and
praying that it
sails through parliament," a University of Zimbabwe media
student, Cleopatra
Ndlovu, said.
She said it was evident
from the divisions between men and women
parliamentarians over the Bill that
some men had unfounded fears that the
Bill was meant to penalise men only by
disempowering them.
"The Bill penalises both and will foster
harmony in the
families."
For communities that had
invested all their faith in a harmless
connivance allowing sexual
intercourse between fathers-in-law and newly
married daughters-in-law, and
other such practices to guarantee continuation
of a generation, the Bill
could be diabolic.
The Bill seeks to punish spouses for
unreasonable deprivation of
economic or financial resources to which a
complainant is entitled under the
law or which the complainant requires out
of necessity, including household
necessities, medical expenses, school
fees, mortgage bonds and rent
payments, or similar
expenses.
On economic abuse, spouses "shall be guilty of an
offence and
liable to a fine not exceeding level fourteen or to imprisonment
for a
period not exceeding ten years or to both such fine and such
imprisonment".
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
THE Reserve Bank
gobbled up a massive $65 billion from the
market through financial sector
stabilisation bonds on Monday but failed to
sink the market into deficit,
triggering fears in the banking sector that it
could respond with drastic
measures to induce shortages.
The central bank has used tight
monetary policy as its chief
instrument in reining-in rampant inflation,
currently topping 1 000%
year-on-year.
"We fear the
worst," a money market dealer told businessdigest
yesterday. "The feeling in
the banking sector is one of fear - we fear the
(central) bank could come up
with something drastic to create a deficit
market."
The
market went short to the tune of $10 billion on Monday after
financial
institutions scurried to comply with a Reserve Bank directive
forcing them
to hold a prescribed amount of the bonds on their books.
"This is against all expectations in the market," a bank
treasurer said. "We
expected heavy shortages."
The market expectation had been
that the market would plunge to
shortages as high as $30 billion on take up
of the bonds.
The shortages softened on Tuesday to $2,7
billion before the
market rebounded to a surplus position of $1,6 billion on
Wednesday.
The market was forecast up $8 billion on Monday on
the back of
heavy treasury bill maturities.
Market
players said there had been massive inflows into the
market whose sources
were not been clear.
But speculation swirled that the central
bank was heavily buying
foreign currency, injecting huge amounts of money
into the market in the
process.
Some financial
institutions had also been allowed to access
funds locked up in the
non-interest yielding non-negotiable certificates of
deposit, and this had
helped bolster liquidity on the market.
Reserve Bank governor
Gideon Gono said last week the bonds,
whose holding thresholds for financial
institutions would be pegged against
the institution's balance sheet size as
at September 30, 2006, would "ensure
that the financial sector further
strengthens its medium to long-term
position".
A
commercial banking institution is required to hold bonds
equivalent to 10%
of the balance sheet size, while a merchant bank's holding
threshold for the
bonds is pegged at 7,5%.
Finance houses, building societies
and discount houses' holding
thresholds are 5% of the balance sheet size per
institution, with asset
management firms compelled to hold bonds amounting
to 2,5% of their balance
sheet sizes.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
ABOUT 8 000
workers lost their jobs in Zimbabwe's troubled
textile sector over the past
five years while the fate of 16 000 more is
uncertain due an influx of cheap
Chinese imports that have hurt demand for
domestic
products.
The local textile industry's woes have been
exacerbated by
foreign currency and raw material shortages and the
hyperinflationary
environment in the country.
Textile
industry executive Jane Mutasa told businessdigest that
employment levels
slumped from 24 000 workers in 2001 to 16 000 this year
and more companies
have warned they might wind up unless the problem of raw
material and
foreign currency shortages is solved.
Mutasa, who is the
president of the Indigenous Clothing
Manufacturers Association with a
membership constisting of about 40% of the
sector, ruled out prospects for
immediate recovery, citing the escalating
cost of production, rampaging
inflation and Zimbabwe's drying foreign
currency coffers that have affected
critical raw material imports.
"From a total of 24 000
workers in 2001 the sector now employs
16 000 people," Mutasa said. "This
shows the rapid deterioration that we are
grappling with. Companies have no
fabric, manufacturing chemicals, dyes,
spares and raw
materials."
She added: "Millers are not producing enough
fabric to keep
factories running. Even if we get the fabric it is very
expensive, which
makes operations unviable. People's capacity to buy clothes
has been wiped
away by inflation. They are prioritising
food."
Textile companies have been affected by an influx of
cheap
Chinese goods that have resulted in the market abandoning local
products.
Last week, the European Union also complained
bitterly about
Chinese shoes making inroads into that bloc and threatened to
block further
importation of the shoes to save EU companies from
imminent
collapse.
Mutasa said to avert
further deindustrialisation, local
companies required cheap working capital
injections to bolster capacity.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
provided companies with $2,7
trillion in old currency in working capital at
50% interest rates through
the Productive Sector Facility in
2004.
But this was not enough to eliminate the distress in
the
clothing industry.
The National Union for the
Clothing Industry (NUCI) said in the
past 12 months it had handled hundreds
of labour disputes as workers
contested their employers' decisions to slash
working hours from 48 hours
per week to 24 hours in response to the economic
crisis.
One such company was Concorde Clothing, which
streamlined its
staff complement from 600 in 2001 to 170 and is operating
below 50%
capacity.
Even the streamlined staff had been
working for three days per
week in the past three months.
NUCI figures indicated that in the past two months, two more
companies had
liquidated, throwing about 300 workers out of employment.
Others applied to the National Employment Council for permission
to send
workers on unpaid leave until next year.
Clothing industry
experts said this was a bad signal because
traditionally this was the
busiest time of the year when companies prepare
for the festive
season.
NUCI deputy secretary-general Joseph Tanyanyiwa said
the
scenario at Concorde Clothing was an emblematic of the crisis facing the
entire industry.
He said one of the recent worst cases
was the closure in 2004 of
Export Processing Zones Authority licenced
Fannick Clothing, which affected
1 200 workers.
Fannick
exported 80% of its output to western markets.
Clothing
industry executives who spoke to businessdigest last
week said their
decision to reduce working hours was meant to keep their
companies running
and retain jobs until the situation improved.
Zimbabwe's
manufacturing sector has been in steady decline since
2000 when government
forcefully dispossessed productive white farmers from
their land, replacing
them with undercapitalised black farmers.
A Confederation of
Zimbabwe Industries report last year said the
sector would continue to
record falling turnover unless corrective measures
were put in
place.
The economy is currently in its sixth year of
recession, with no
signs of recovery.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube
A CABINET minister
has rejected industry concerns over cheap
Chinese imports, saying government
would do nothing to stop the imports
despite threats to local
industries.
"Even if an individual or company goes to China
to purchase
shoes which last for one day, we don't care because that's not
government's
business," Chihota told delegates at a pre-budget consultative
meeting in
Bulawayo last week.
He said locals were
fuelling trade in cheap Chinese imports and
government did not care "even if
these individuals and private companies
dump the cheap goods because it's
not our fault".
"Individual business people and some private
companies have
demonstrated their interest in importing cheap Chinese goods.
The government
has not at any time supported or generated foreign currency
for the
importation of cheap goods from China that have flooded the
country," said
Chihota.
Chihota blamed private companies
and businesspeople for the
flood of the cheap quality Chinese goods
threatening local industries,
particularly the textile
sector.
The cabinet minister's remarks surpised legislators
and captains
of industry at a 2007 pre-budget seminar which reviewed
government policy on
the importation of Chinese goods.
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce vice-president Obert
Sibanda said
government had an obligation to protect the local industry.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
ECONOMIC analysts this week said central bank governor Gideon
Gono was
unlikely to rein-in inflation in the absence of complementary
efforts by
government.
They said Gono's economic recovery projects were
unlikely to
succeed during the tenor of President Robert Mugabe's government
which has
demonstrated an unyielding penchant for profligate
spending.
The analysts pointed out that with a weak export
sector, a
decline in production and foreign currency shortages and the
absence of
support from the international community, no economic reform
programme would
be effective.
Economic commentator, Eric
Bloch, told businessdigest that it
was becoming evident that Gono, who has
remained silent on inflation targets
set out when he became governor in
December 2003, was losing the battle
against inflation.
Bloch said Gono, who had intended to bring inflation to single
digit figures
by last year, had obviously overlooked key economic
fundamentals when he
made the announcements.
Inflation reached an all-time high of
1 204,6 year-on-year for
August but eased to 1 023,3 in
September.
Gono has however made no reference to his targets
in monetary
policy reviews made this year, although he has indicated he
continues to
fight inflation through monetary policy.
Independent economist John Robertson said the governor's
monetary policy had
been weakened by poor export performance, an active
parallel market and
isolation from the international community.
"You only set
inflation targets when the export market is
performing and when the parallel
market is not dictating prices of basic
commodities," said
Robertson.
Last year Gono said the Reserve Bank would contain
inflation to
between 50-80% by December this year.
"The
recent monetary policy was more of a threat to the
financial sector after
the bank realised that attempts to arrest the high
inflation had failed due
to lack of political backing for his policies,"
Robertson
said.
One analyst said Zimbabwe's economy needed measures
that would
significantly boost industrial and agricultural output to win the
war
against inflation, which he said was a factor of market
shortages.
In his memorandum to financial institutions dubbed
"Fine Tuning
of Monetary Policy", Gono said he was reviewing his mid-term
monetary policy
"with inflation reduction as the overriding
objective".
"With inflation reduction remaining the
overriding objective of
the central bank, it has become necessary that the
additional measures be
implemented, so as to stabilise the economy in the
medium-term," Gono said.
A critic told businessdigest: "Even
if he fine tunes his
monetary policies monthly, the formula to win the
inflation battle is
boosting exports and production as well as generating
more foreign
currency".
Zimbabwe's soaring inflation is
seen as a major stumbling block
to pulling the country out of a six-year
recession marked by persistent
shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food
and a high unemployment rate.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
ZIMBABWE'S
platinum output could this year surpass last year's,
a move that could place
the country among the world's top five platinum
group metals (PGMs)
producers, businessdigest established this week.
Based on
2003 and 2004 production volumes, the World Mining Data
2006 report says the
country is already the seventh largest platinum
producer after overtaking
Japan, Australia and Yugoslavia.
Platinum production figures
for 2005 amounted to 4 833 kg. The
United States was placed fifth on the
World Mining Data report with output
at 4 040 kg in 2004, a figure that has
already been surpassed by the 2005
production level.
South Africa and Zimbabwe are the only producers of PGMs in
Africa. South
Africa is the world's leading platinum producer and the second
largest
palladium producer after Russia.
The World Mining Data
report, which summarised mineral output
trends across the globe from 2000,
indicated that platinum output in
Zimbabwe increased two fold from 504 kg in
2000 to 1000 kg in 2004,
surpassing Japan, Australia and
Yugoslavia.
In 2001 Zimbabwe produced 519 kg of platinum,
followed by 2 306
kg in 2002, 1 300 kg in 2003 and 1000 kg in
2004.
Platinum output however peaked at 4 833 kg in 2005,
according to
figures from the Chamber of Mines.
Zimbabwe
was out of the top 10 before 2000, the report
indicated.
Zimbabwe has the second-largest platinum group metal deposit in
the world
after South Africa.
The two countries hold about 90% of the
world's known reserves
of platinum but the local mining industry is
presently rattled by an array
of problems that have subdued mineral
production.
For instance inflation hit 1 023,3% in September,
the highest in
the world.
Potential investors have also
been closely monitoring the threat
of mine seizures following government
proposals to acquire 51% shareholding
in foreign-owned
mines.
The planned acquisition of foreign-owned mines has
negatively
impacted on investments in the mining sector, described by
analysts as
capital-intensive.
Other top 10 world
platinum producers are Canada, Colombia,
Russia and the United
States.
Zimbabwe is also among the top 20 asbestos producing
countries
in the world.
Output of the mineral however
dropped from 151 954 metric tonnes
in 2000 to 130 000 metric tonnes in
2004.
The world's most expanding economy, China, is listed as
the
largest asbestos producer.
China extracted 510 000
metric tonnes of asbestos in 2004, up
from 260 000 tonnes in 2000.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
THE National
Investment Trust (Nit) will soon approach
government and the Parks and
Wildlife Authority of Zimbabwe requesting the
game rangers to cede part of
large swathes of land it controls in the resort
town of Kariba for
industrial development, businessdigest established this
week.
Nit is a government investment vehicle that
warehouses shares
for empowerment purposes.
Kariba's
economic activities revolve around power generation,
wildlife ranching,
tourism, crocodile farming and commercial fishing but Nit
believes the
resort's economic potential is severely underutilised.
Nit
said this week a diversified industry will create more
employment
opportunities in that region and contribute immensely to foreign
currency
generation for the economy.
Industrialisation programmes
being pursued by Nit will see the
expansion and modernisation of old and
shallow habours, improvement of
storage and handling facilities and docking
space through the injection of
start-up capital into indigenous companies by
Nit.
Nit has already started moves to secure permits to
develop
habours in partnership with current operators.
"Lake Kariba is the largest man-made lake with immense
opportunities but
most land is reserved for parks (and) wildlife purposes,"
Nit CEO Aaron
Jeremiah told businessdigest.
"We will engage parks to
release part of its land for industrial
development because we cannot have
land for wildlife only in Kariba. We must
empower our companies to start
manufacturing, but there is little space,"
Jeremiah said.
Last week, Nit presented its proposal to local authorities in
Kariba.
Part of the proposal included the expansion and
modernisation of
habours to improve storage facilities, handling equipment
and sprucing up of
Kariba's shores for tourists ahead of the 2010 World Cup
in South Africa.
Businessdigest understands that Nit will be
guided by a document
prepared by Keith Guzah during his brief stay as Kariba
town council
commission chairman in 2003, which detailed the state of
infrastructure at
habours and the potential economic benefits the
development of the habours
will unleash.
Guzah was
appointed Nit chairman last year.
There is a constant
shipment of fuel, food, kapenta, tourism
industry goods, cars, building
materials, groceries, spares and other
consignment between Kariba, Binga,
Mlibizi and commercial fishing companies
along the lake, estimated at more
that 1000 tonnes per month.
However, Nit said the habours are
not large and deep enough to
handle cargo and fishing
vessels.
Due to prolonged droughts, aid organisations have
also been
spending large amounts of money transporting relief food by road
to
impoverished communities in Matabeleland North and Nyaminyami when it
would
be cheaper to use the lake.
Business at Kariba's
habours is currently low due to subdued
business in the troubled tourism
industry, depressed output of kapenta fish
due to ageing rigs, spares
shortages, fuel supply bottlenecks and other
economic
problems.
Shipment of goods from Zambia has also been
affected, but the
Nit said it will not wait until the economy turns around
to start its
programmes.
Zim Independent
Itai Mushekwe
THE country's
freight industry is operating at about 40%
capacity as a result of continued
dislocation of macro-economic
fundamentals, an industry representative has
said this week.
Shipping and Forwarding Agents Association of
Zimbabwe (SFAAZ)
chief executive officer, Joseph Musariri, told
businessdigest that the
freight industry's viability was under threat from a
declining economy in
recession over the past six years.
"We are operating at 40% capacity as an industry," said
Musariri. "Our
business depends on
imports and exports, as you're aware since
2000 import and
export volumes started declining, hence freight business
become enfeebled."
Musariri said the closure of national
airline, Air Zimbabwe
cargo plane, Affretair and the National Railway of
Zimbabwe's inefficiency
have resulted in the freight business battling for
survival and aiming to
break even.
"Zimbabwe no longer
has a national cargo airline following the
closure of Affretair resulting in
the loss of air cargo business while the
inefficiency of NRZ's railway
network, our biggest stakeholder, has
compounded the decline of business as
the volumes of goods moving in and out
of the country are now
limited."
Musariri said a number of variables such as
government's land
reform programme, company closures and shortages of
foreign currency to
procure raw materials by manufacturers had all combined
to hurt the sector.
He however maintained that despite the
hard times, a new
generation of indigenous players, most of whom acquired
experience in
foreign-owned companies that had shut down due to the economic
problems,
would emerged.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
A UNITED Nations
trade agency has added its voice to growing
disapproval of Zimbabwe's
planned nationalisation of foreign-owned mining
companies, warning that the
decision would deal a further blow to foreign
investment inflows into the
country.
A United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(Unctad)
report released this week said Zimbabwe and the Central African
Republic's
"identical indigenisation policy frameworks" would discourage
critical
foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows into the two
economies.
The agency's comments came after Zimbabwe
announced plans to
force foreign-owned mining firms to dispose of 30% stakes
to indigenous
companies under a planned empowerment policy for the mining
sector.
Government later indicated that the mining firms
would be
required to give up 51% shareholding to black-owned companies under
the
empowerment policy to be legislated through amendments to the country's
mining laws.
Unctad said Zimbabwe's indigenisation
requirements were part of
policy changes made by several African countries
which made foreign
investments "less favourable".
The
report also took particularly sharp aim at the Central
African Republic
policy decision suspending the issuance of new gold and
diamond mining
permits and the banning of foreigners from mining zones.
Unctad's statistics indicated that FDI inflows into Zimbabwe
between 1990
and 2000 amounted to US$88 million.
The figures sharply
dropped to US$26 million in 2002, US$4
million in 2003, US$9 million in
2004, before picking up to US$103 million
in 2005.
This
reflected the deteriorating macro-economic situation in the
country which
critics said was a factor of poor policy implementation by
President Robert
Mugabe's government, in power since 1980.
Unctad said African
countries concluded a total of 583 Bilateral
Investment Treaties (BITs) in
2005.
Zimbabwe, Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mauritius,
Morocco,
Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia concluded more that
20 BITs
each last year, Unctad said.
But the agency
warned that a glut of BITs could duplicate other
agreements made by the
African countries, creating problems in the
implementation of the investment
treaties.
"However, caution is advisable against a
proliferation of BITs,
free trade and regional trade agreements. African
countries have already
subscribed to a large number of regional integration
schemes that have
created an overlapping multiplicity of agreements," said
Unctad.
Analysts said Zimbabwe's mining sector had relied
heavily on
international mining companies for investment, but the planned
policy
changes could affect investment in the sector.
Government insists it will proceed with its empowerment plans
for the mining
sector.
A principal officer in the Ministry of Indigenisation
said last
month government was adding a new dimension to the empowerment
agenda: it
would legislate for the nationalisation of all foreign-owned
companies
besides those in the mining sector.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
WHEN
Gideon Gono assumed office as the third Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe governor in
December 2003, he acknowledged the country was facing a
crisis "without
precedent in (Zimbabwe's) short history".
Nothing appears to
have improved since then.
The crisis, as has become common
idiom in government and
business circles, was described by Gono as a
"challenge", a term meant to
apply gloss over government's failure to
administer one of sub-Saharan
Africa's once most prosperous
economies.
But the real challenge Gono faces is not one of an
"unprecedented economic crisis", but an overabundance of his own economic
prescriptions to deal with the economic catastrophe.
Time
is running out.
Gono completes three years of his five-year
term in December,
and will have only two years remaining before his term of
office expires in
2008.
In his maiden monetary policy
statement, financial pundits
viewed him as making the distinction of having
well-defined fiscal policy
positions. Gono said his 12-month vision was "to
see the implementation of
policies that seriously arrest and reverse our
inflation from the expected
initial peak of 700% in early 2004 to below the
170-200% levels".
Those that had hoped to judge him using
figures should have been
impressed.
Although the 170-200%
levels were not achieved within the year,
the country experienced a 500%
decline in inflation from an all-time high of
623% in January 2004 to 124%
in March 2005.
Even the most unsentimental cynics believed
Zimbabwe was out of
the inflation abyss.
But for a man
perceived to dread failure, Gono should be as
worried as his critics who are
beginning to feel vindicated for disbelieving
that he could heal the
country's economy.
He has made the catchphrase "failure is
not an option" almost a
war cry at the central bank's impressive home along
Samora Machel Avenue.
Since 2005, inflation has soared
unabated, touching an all-time
high of 1 204,6% year-on-year for August
2006.
The vision appears lost, and the monetary policy is
gradually
sliding off the rails.
According to the vision,
Gono's two-year plan was to consolidate
gains from the previous year that he
indicated would "express themselves
through reduced inflation levels, from
three digits to a two-digit figure".
The first two years were
to be an integral anchor to later
economic revival measures, but, the vision
faded during the first two years.
"It is the bank's five-year
long-run monetary policy vision to
attain a 'healthy economy' in which
inflation and currency stability become
entrenched in all our national
planning efforts and actions," Gono declared.
Today,
inflation remains the highest in the world despite
intermittent decreases
now and then.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has
forecast inflation to
average 1 216% this year, and 4 278,8% next year,
suggesting that it could
breach the 5 000% mark next
year.
During the current year, the IMF predicts that real GDP
will
contract by 5,1%, and by a further 4,7% next year.
The local currency has been kept artificially stable on the
official market,
where exchange rate policies have been arbitrarily changed
almost with every
monetary policy review.
On the thriving parallel market, the
currency is becoming
increasingly defenceless, and critics argue that the
parallel market, which
Gono has tried in vain to destroy, reflects the true
value of the domestic
currency against international currencies in present
hyperinflationary
conditions.
For example, the Zimbabwe
dollar, which opened the year at $100
to the US dollar, is currently trading
at $1 400 against the greenback on
the parallel market.
Dealers said buyers of huge volumes were spending as high as $1
600 on the
greenback on a secondary parallel market involving
institutions.
The five-year vision is seriously under threat,
with currency
and inflation stabilisation looking so far like failed
skirmishes.
Analysts said the unorthodox approach to monetary
policy since
Gono's tenure as governor was proving costly to the economy,
and creating
conflict between him and fiscal policy
agents.
They said policies were being crafted, abandoned,
redesigned,
and discarded with haste to the extent that the economy had
become an
"experimental guinea pig" to the central bank
governor.
A growing legion of critics is beginning to view
Gono's monetary
policy measures, which won backing during his first year in
office, with
increasing scepticism.
A bank treasurer,
writing in this newspaper last week under a
pseudonym, described Gono's
policy review measures as "destructive".
"While the governor
has declared war against speculators in both
the foreign exchange and stock
markets, the man is guilty of sparking off
speculation of the greatest
magnitude," the bank treasurer said.
For bankers, Gono has
become the most feared governor ever to
preside over the monetary policies.
While his predecessors have been hogtied
from devaluing, he has been given
the leeway to do so without restraint.
Soon after becoming
governor, he closed down at least 15
financial institutions, blaming them
for being major culprits in speculative
activities that had driven the
parallel foreign currency market and fuelled
inflation.
A
raft of policies have been crafted, amended, and redesigned
during Gono's
tenure at the central bank, all designed to deal with the
financial
sector.
The big five banks this year complained that they
could twist in
the wind as a result of monetary policy measures,
particularly a high
interest rate regime that had conspired with high
statutory reserve ratios
to wipe away accumulated
capital.
Gono gave in to bankers' request for a softening of
that policy,
but last week he pounced once again on the unsuspecting banks,
imposing
financial sector stabilisation bonds to be taken by financial
institutions
according to the sizes of their balance
sheets.
The bonds are likely to take away huge sums of money
from the
banks, forcing them to borrow from the central bank, whose
accommodation
rates Gono also raised just over two months since bringing
them down in
July.
This will have the effect of
creating huge costs for the
financial institutions, threatening their
survival.
Individuals, too, are becoming worried by a number
of monetary
policy measures, particularly those that have robbed them of
convenience in
the conduct of economic activities.
Examples are the prescribed withdrawal limits of $100 000 for
individuals,
as well as a recent requirement that all transactions on the
Zimbabwe Stock
Exchange above $50 000 should be done through the Zimbabwe
Electronic
Transfer and Settlement System.
Gono said monetary
authorities would soon insist that every
transaction above $50 000 should
have a taxpayer's number.
It was unclear how individuals
intending to invest on the stock
market would get the tax numbers, but
critics argue that Gono wants to
exclude as many people as possible from
investing on the local bourse.
The ZSE has so far been the
only investment vehicle offering
positive returns in the
economy.
Gono said the stock market had "become a cause for
extreme
concern to monetary authorities as the ZSE has become a platform for
creating vast amounts of paper wealth without real productive activities on
the ground".
While the governor may deplore speculative
behaviour, the most
telling indictment to date of Gono's record is that
despite his immense
power and ambition, inflation is nearly double what it
was when he came into
office. And no serious effort has been made to curtail
state expenditure
which remains the root cause.
Zim Independent
By Innocent Chofamba-Sithole
THE
most likely probability from the prevailing configuration of
political
forces in Zimbabwe today is that Zanu PF looks set to remain in
power after
the departure of President Robert Mugabe.
This looming
scenario owes itself as much to the Machiavellian
scheming behind the ruling
party's self-preservation strategy as to the
unravelling of the main
opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC).
For
anyone who cares to understand the trajectory of power in
Zimbabwe today, it
is important to begin with an appreciation of two obvious
but fundamental
and mutually reinforcing realities underpinning the
political contest over
the state.
The first one concerns the decisive constitutional
authority
that is now vested in the parliamentary Zanu PF party in the wake
of the
2005 general election.
The second is that the MDC,
as we had come to know it over the
last six years, has ceased to exist. Its
place has now been taken by two
rival factions commanding significantly less
support than their erstwhile
progenitor.
To put it
plainly, Zanu PF's constitutionally contrived
two-thirds majority means that
it does not require the consent of the
opposition in parliament to keep
Mugabe's successor in State House for years
on end before he/she is
subjected to a national election.
Already, Zanu PF is
reportedly mulling such a strategy under the
guise of holding joint
parliamentary and presidential elections in 2010.
The
opposition could respond to such manoeuvres either by
co-operating with the
ruling party with a view to influencing the
transitional process and
securing a role for itself in an envisaged
transitional government, or
mobilise political resistance against them
altogether.
However, the first scenario appears more realistic than the
second.
As political analyst Eldred Masunungure has
eloquently argued,
for any mass resistance programme to succeed, the
opposition needs to
grapple with the "basic asymmetry in the risk
orientations of the ruling
elite and the ruled masses".
According to this argument, the opposition is faced with the
challenge of
transforming Zimbabwe's subjective political culture into one
that is
capable of actively supporting civil disobedience against a
risk-taking Zanu
PF regime. It follows, therefore, that success in this
endeavour necessarily
hinges on the opposition leadership's own capacity to
eschew risk-aversion
in order to inspire a culture of popular activism. And
yet it must be
mentioned that our recent history is replete with missed
opportunities; the
opposition leadership has tended to remain inert even in
circumstances where
"the ruled masses" were reasonably predisposed to
support one form of civil
disobedience or another.
For example, the erstwhile MDC
leadership chose to pursue
dialogue in the aftermath of Mugabe's disputed
victory in the 2002
presidential election, only for them to rediscover their
resolve to confront
the regime head-on more than a year later. But the
decisive moment had
already been lost, hence the failure of the grandly
ambitious but
conceptually awkward "Final Push" of June
2003.
Since then, the Zanu PF regime has summarily dissolved
the MDC's
elected municipal governments across the country and embarked on
the
infamous Operation Murambatsvina without eliciting as much as a whimper
of
protest from the opposition. Critics have seized upon this apparent
political lethargy to charge that the MDC was never a truly organic,
socially-based political movement. Whether this charge is fair - and not
altogether inaccurate - it is not the focus of this discussion. However, it
is necessary to point out that the unravelling of the "spaghetti mix" at the
apex of the MDC has left the opposition movement grossly disarticulated and
strategically hamstrung.
In direct response to this
dismal state of opposition politics,
and against the background of deepening
economic woes, the electorate has
become disillusioned and apathetic. The
ill-conceived and clearly
unsustainable threats of "a winter of mass action"
by Morgan Tsvangirai and
his faction have exacerbated this sense of
political resignation as they
have served only to emphasise the opposition's
weakness.
It is quite clear that the opposition currently
lacks the
capacity to mobilise decisive resistance against any
constitutional deferral
of the presidential election for the simple reason
that the opposition
itself has ceased to be attractive. How strong, then, is
the likelihood of
the opposition co-operating with Zanu PF over transitional
arrangements to a
post-Mugabe era?
Going by the
historical record, one would have to concede that
the opposition is highly
amenable to some form of negotiated settlement with
the ruling party. The
elusive objective of the MDC's diplomatic campaign
over the last few years
has been to bring Zanu PF to the negotiation table
in order to thrash out
arrangements for a transitional framework.
The
single-mindedness with which the erstwhile MDC pursued the
diplomatic route
almost became an open admission of its declining people
power. Hence the
party's frustration with Thabo Mbeki's choice of foreign
policy towards
Zimbabwe.
With the opposition as weakened as it is and Zanu
PF winning
more than 140 seats unopposed in crucial local elections in
recent weeks, it
is apparent that the ruling party feels no political
pressure to engage in
inter-party dialogue. However, it may consider talking
to the opposition and
civil society over transitional arrangements in order
to create a semblance
of national consensus as part of a strategy to thaw
the West's diplomatic
siege on the country. The availability of choice, in
terms of which
opposition faction to engage, also presents Zanu PF with
potentially
strategic political capital. The country's immediate post-Mugabe
future,
therefore, appears to be firmly tied to the outcome of Zanu PF's
internecine
succession conundrum. The prospect of the ruling party itself
splitting
along factional lines has been raised quite frequently, especially
now as
the race to succeed the octogenarian strongman draws closer to the
finish-line.
This "split thesis" assumes that decades of
"democratic
centralism" within Zanu PF have virtually transformed Mugabe
into an
institution-within-an-institution and that his departure, in the
absence of
both elite and rank and file consensus over his successor, would
inevitably
have cataclysmic consequences for his party. However, I am
inclined to
discount the "split thesis" on several
grounds.
Zanu PF's factions recognise how important the
party's continued
control over the state is to its regime reproduction
agenda. Therefore, the
leadership ambitions of the ruling party's competing
factions have to be
understood within the context of intra-state power
contestations that are at
once informed by the overriding imperative to
preserve the party at the helm
of the state.
In other
words, the succession race is a political battle to be
lost and won entirely
inside Easton's proverbial black box. It is highly
unlikely that any of the
Zanu PF factions is prepared to march into
opposition and take on the might
of the would-be state-sponsored ruling
party. Unless there is a viable
partner in the pre-existing opposition to
ally with on the eve of elections,
as happened in Kenya in 2002, it is
difficult to imagine that either faction
is ready for the often protracted,
arduous and thankless industry of
opposition politics.
Secondly and inseparably linked to the
first point, both
factions are no doubt reassured in their presidential
hopes by Zanu PF's
contrived constitutional authority to either re-mould the
institutions of
state or to re-write the rules of political engagement to
their liking. It
would be absurd for them to risk losing this political
advantage by
splitting up.
* Innocent Chofamba-Sithole is
a Zimbabwean journalist writing
from the UK. chofamba@yahoo.co.uk
Zim Independent
By Rwendo
POLITICAL oppression
and foolishness brought the Rhodesian Front
down. Instead of managing change
through a controlled hand-over of power,
Ian Smith precipitated a civil
war.
Thankfully, he was forced to the negotiating table
before many
more young Zimbabweans were killed.
Similarly, a failed philosophy that led to economic
mismanagement and
corruption is bringing Zanu PF down.
Instead of allowing for
a transition to new ideas and leadership
within the ruling party (contrast
China), Zanu PF opted for business as
usual in the 90s - demagoguery under
the same old leadership and persecution
of voices within its ranks calling
for change.
When real opposition inevitably arose at the
beginning of the
millennium, Zanu PF opted to ignore history and fought
change by any means
necessary.
To break the link between
white commercial farmers and the
opposition, they were prepared to virtually
destroy commercial agriculture
using the late Chenjerai Hunzvi, the Green
Bombers and war veterans.
On the media they successfully used
Jonathan Moyo with
near-similar devastation for the independent
media.
To control industry, banking and financial fields,
they have
turned to Gideon Gono using the central bank.
For the urban population and civil servants, the ZRP, army and
CIO are used
against their paymasters - the people.
In all this, both
Smith and President Mugabe initially achieved
their objectives and managed
to hold onto power for some years. But they did
not address the underlying
problems.
Smith belatedly tried to use Abel Muzorewa and the
late
Ndabaningi Sithole to deliver "majority rule".
And
Mugabe and Zanu PF are trying it with their own "false
economic prophet".
Yet, where is Smith and the RF today?
In these dark times
when all seems bleak, it is worth reminding
each other - be it again and
again - that the only certainty in this life is
change, and that it will not
take a thousand years this time either.
* Rwendo is a pen
name for an author writing from Borrowdale.
Zim Independent
Comment
GOVERNMENT has made its intentions clear on the
need to
expropriate mines and industry in the spirit of indigenisation.
There are
plans to introduce mining and indigenisation Bills to parliament
in moves
the government believes will empower blacks.
The
government has laboured feverishly to portray black
Zimbabweans as victims
of sustained oppression more than a quarter of a
century after Independence,
hence the need for empowerment.
But there appears to be an
undisguised determination by our
government to get it wrong all the time, in
the name of black empowerment.
There is a thread of disorderliness and
destructiveness in all the
initiatives embarked upon to date that have seen
government scoring own
goals without any shame. The execution of the land
reform remains an
unforgettable show of this talent for
blundering.
Elsewhere in this paper, we carry stories of the
shocking
situation currently obtaining at diamond deposits in Marange
district where
politicians have driven out mine owners and invited villagers
to exploit the
resource using whatever means possible. The anarchy that the
politicians
have created to date is the seed of future dislocation of law
and order in
the sector and in the area. Even when order is finally
restored, if at all
it is, the residue of the disturbances is likely to
haunt the area and the
sector for a long time to come.
There is evidence of this virus in the land reform programme
when war
veterans and Zanu PF hoodlums were press-ganged and then unleashed
on the
land to drive out white farmers. Such was the power of the anarchists
that
the police were too emasculated to deal with murderers, looters and
cattle
rustlers. It was a virtue to illegally drive off in a white farmer's
tractor, dig up irrigation pipes or dismantle a transformer. The looters are
still recognised by the Zanu PF government as heroes of the Third
Chimurenga. Their criminal activities appeared to have executive blessing as
known criminals from that time still walk free.
Today,
attempts to restore order in the farming areas have
remained difficult as
the looting has continued even though there is a
change of guard on the
land. Farmers, both black and white, who refuse to
toe the line can today
still lose their farms at the drop of a hat or be
subjected to endless
disruptions by invaders.
The orgy of violence has become the
phenomenon associated with
land reform and not productivity or empowerment
which are yet to be
realised. Another case in point is that of Zanu PF
militia groups led by
Joseph Chinotimba who four years ago invaded and
closed companies on the
pretext that employers were giving workers a raw
deal.
The invaders in some instances announced that the
workers had
taken over the companies and would get government support to run
them. This
initiative, thank goodness, failed but the axe still hangs
precariously over
the companies through constant threats by the
state.
The Marange chaos could thus be a dress rehearsal of
impending
disorder in the mining sector where apprehension has been
heightened as a
result of the as-yet-unpublished mining Bill. When senior
politicians in
Manicaland lead from the front to order invasions of mines,
there is every
reason to fear the replication of this anarchy in other
districts.
Zimbabwe has vast mineral reserves but has largely
remained poor
because of its destructive policies.
President Mugabe earlier in the year marvelled at platinum miner
Zimplats'
contribution to the development of the Selous area, which is a
model of
social investment. The Marange case has nothing to do with
development or
the much-publicised NEDPP quest to raise foreign currency.
This is
state-sanctioned plunder of national resources and we are waiting to
hear
Mines minister Amos Midzi's justification for the illegality taking
place in
Marange.
When investors see the extent of the anarchy and the
fate of a
legitimate prospector, they will stay away in droves. It is time
that our
government learnt to create wealth without plundering national
resources and
suspending the rule of law.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram
Nyathi
Sunday morning listening to Fiba Zimbabwe on SFM. The
preacher
made an impassioned speech about the "African problem". He said
Africa had
enough resources to become the reserve bank of the world. But
this was not
possible for three major reasons.
Africans,
said the preacher, were plagued by too much
"consumption without production,
greed without sharing and dependency
without responsibility". I was inclined
to agree with his observations on
consumption and greed. These are the twin
evils that have been most
responsible for the islands of obscene opulence
amid seas of poverty.
There are all the signs of conspicuous
consumption. A visitor
from Europe walking along Harare's streets would be
forgiven for thinking
that we have one of the biggest production plants for
Toyota and Mazda
vehicles despite shortages of foreign currency to import
critical inputs
such as fuel, medicines, farm machinery and
fertiliser.
While business leaders drive around in the
slickest 4x4s, one is
struck by the brutality of municipal police as they
chase around street
vendors trying to eke out a scavenger's existence
selling cigarettes,
oranges, maputi and cellphone recharge cards. Overweight
Hummers and the
latest SUV share the same potholed streets with pushcarts
laden with bananas
for sale.
One cannot miss the sharp
contrast between the opulence of
Rainbow Towers overlooking the dirty
commuter terminus near the magistrates'
court.
However,
the charge of dependency and responsibility needs some
qualification. I
disagree very strongly with anyone who says African
citizens should not hold
their governments responsible for the continent's
backwardness.
Most such preachers are coy about telling
these earthly leaders
that they are fallible, that they should be
accountable to the electorate
and that they have a duty to observe and
respect the laws their governments
impose on citizens.
More than that, it is often difficult for citizens to be
responsible under a
political dispensation where there is simply too much
government. In the
case of Zimbabwe the government controls virtually
everything one can think
of.
It controls the price of bread, commuter fares, fuel,
council
tariffs and school fees. There is hardly a facet of one's daily life
where
one does not experience government's intrusiveness. Remember after
taxing
your money, they still want to determine how much you can use per day
and
how. When you thought they were done, they are working on a law that
allows
them to tap into your conversation any time of the
day.
The preacher reminded me of the duplicitous evangelists
from
Nigeria and America who seek to explain all our problems on the basis
of our
sins or lack of faith. In that way they avoid dabbling in politics
but
ambush the poor who turn to them for salvation.
They
will give churches their own names, spend millions of
dollars advertising
their services and splash their faces in the news papers
and television
screens while their flock starve.
They scream in front of
television cameras and promise to cure
diseases before rented crowds all in
the name of Jesus but will not visit
the home for Aids sufferers at
Mashambanzou in Waterfalls, Jairos Jiri
Centre for the disabled in
Southerton, nor St Giles rehabilitation centre in
Milton Park to heal the
disabled and infirm. There we have real people in
pain and in need of help.
Clear these centres of their sick and we shall
surely erect churches there
in your name. It's not about posturing for the
camera.
But then Jesus was not attention-seeking, a miracle crusader nor
a showman.
While he exhorted us to give to Caesar his due, he would not
condone the
cruel treatment of the poor and the fatherless.
His heart
bled for the poor, not to anoint despots or absolve
them of their earthly
responsibilities. This brand of preachers is not
helpful in making our
leaders take their tasks seriously - not as the
anointed of God, but as
servants of his people.
It is not possible for people to
exercise full responsibility
over their destiny when all national resources
are controlled by a
parasitical state with its octopus hands in everything.
Africans are poor
not because the continent has no resources but because the
government wants
to be in charge of everything and dole out largesse at its
pleasure.
Poverty, ignorance and patronage are a source of immense
power.
Can anyone imagine Tony Blair or George Bush, or any
European
government for that matter, trying to win an election by promising
the
electorate a return to the land and telling them they will be better off
away from amenities to be found in towns. Even that great friend of the
poor, Karl Marx, with all his zeal and zest for a socialist revolution
maturing into classless communism, had no sentimental illusions about rural
conservatism and backwardness. These have been parlayed by unscrupulous
politicians to keep the rest of society in thrall.
His
views on religion were captured in the famous remark about
it being the
"opium of the masses" and unfortunately we have preachers today
ready to
administer the portent sedative on behalf of oppressive regimes
while they
promise the poor everlasting joy after death. Such preachers have
lost their
saltiness.
Zim Independent
UNDER the section on "emotional, verbal and
psychological abuse"
in the Domestic Violence Bill, some of the offences,
though not criminal,
are listed as "obsessive possessiveness" and
"unreasonable denial of
conjugal rights".
This is what I
call getting into the real heart of the matter. I
was reminded of a little
story I read last week. It said men or women with
beautiful spouses were
most liable to suffer stress in their lives. This, it
was revealed in the
survey, was because both, if they were committed to each
other, were likely
to be plagued by jealousy and possessiveness.
The Bill on
domestic violence seeks to make jealousy and
possessiveness about your wife
or husband an offence. It is difficult to
fathom what lay in the mind of the
person contemplating such a piece of law.
Are we not stretching civilisation
too far?
While you commit an offence of being "too
possessive" of your
spouse, you are still expected to fulfill his or her
"conjugal rights". How
does one reconcile these two? Isn't the law seeking
to be too intrusive on
issues that ordinarily should be resolved by two
consenting adults or in the
family setting with friends and
relatives?
Why is it assumed that classifying a conflict in
the family as
an offence will make it any less emotional and elicit exactly
the same
reactions associated with love, anger, provocation? Is it the
intention of
the minister to legislate for or against love? Perhaps he saw
the film on
circuit not so long ago starring Ewan McGregor: Down With
Love!
Then there were other interesting anomalies. The Bill
requires
that an interim protection order issued by the court should have a
warrant
of arrest attached to it regardless whether the respondent is aware
of the
action of the complainant or not. Why should the respondent be denied
the
legal right to presumed innocence or at least to be allowed the chance
to
give his/her side of the story without being treated as a common law
criminal? The Bill ignores a natural human trait that a claim can be
motivated by malice or a complainant overreacting in the heat of the moment.
Experience shows that very few acts of "domestic violence" are
premeditated.
In an act of exuberant vindictiveness, the Bill
proposes that a
respondent who violates a protection order should be fined
or jailed for a
"period not exceeding five years". What is the intention of
such a shocking
sentence in a domestic issue? This is not to downplay the
"offence"
committed but the Bill ignores the personal relationship between
husband and
wife. Unless the two were already in the process of a divorce,
spouses never
keep grudges against each other for that long. This to me
sounds more
punitive than corrective.
The person so
unfortunate to be convicted of domestic violence
is liable to a fine "not
exceeding level fourteen or to imprisonment not
exceeding 10 years". Is this
for murder or rape?
The prison term contemplated here
presumes that once a
complainant reports to the police he or she puts the
matter beyond his/her
further power, has abandoned all traditional remedies
pertaining to the
domestic set-up and leaves no room for reconciliation.
This is patently
erroneous. A complainant can reconsider his/her decision
for any number of
reasons:
* Influence of friends or
family;
* Personal affection;
*
Breadwinner status of respondent;
* Possible loss of job and
support; and finally,
* Risk of breaking up
marriage.
The Bill risks working against its intention by
discouraging
those who want to make a complaint because they need help, not
because they
want to end their marriages or unduly punish their spouses.
Unless there is
something I am missing about domestic
relationships.
Finally, as I went through the Bill I was on
the lookout for the
clause that so offended Tafara-Mabvuku MP Timothy Mubawu
that he had to
interpose himself between God and parliament but I found
none. He allegedly
complained bitterly that men had been stripped of their
dignity and that the
Bill was offensive in the eyes of God and therefore
should be thrown out. He
probably hadn't read the whole Bill and
overreacted.
Was the demonstration that followed against
Mubawu's perceived
blasphemy or the alleged inequality between men and
women? To me both
reasons are silly - the first because God exacts His own
revenge and the
other because nowhere does the Bill seek to legislate for
inequality on the
basis of sex. So what was the point?
But if he said what he is alleged to have said, I would still
respect him
for his honesty. It is hard in these days of political
correctness to find
men or women who have the courage to speak their mind.
The
crowd of women and male hangers-on who supported them
against Mubawu would
do well to learn a thing or two from Voltaire's plea to
God to protect him
from his friends because it was easier for him to deal
with his enemies
(honest men).
Studies in all cultures and across social
classes have
demonstrated that violence against women and the girl child,
including rape
and murder, is mostly committed by relatives or men they know
and trust (God
help us). They tend to keep a safe distance from
strangers.
I hope those demonstrating were not playing
political games.
Leave our legislators to give this important Bill the
attention it deserves.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
THERE is nothing quite as
dispiriting as watching a group of
journalists sitting silently while a
minister insults them. In any other
country the minister would have been
told his fortune in quick-time and
given the order of the boot. But then
again, in any other country the
minister would not have abused his
hospitality quite so brazenly.
Acting Information minister
Paul Mangwana (who tells us he
prefers "Munyaradzi") addressed the members
of the Quill Club last Friday.
"We have a situation where
media houses and journalists abuse
their journalistic privileges and write
falsehoods and sensationalise issues
to satisfy their foreign paymasters,"
he declared in the now customary
facile language of Zanu PF. "By so-doing we
are working for the destruction
of our national economy because we will be
chasing away investors."
Nobody told him to stop talking such
arrant nonsense. Nobody
asked him whether he was aware the courts had struck
down the offence of
"abusing journalistic privilege" because it couldn't be
taken seriously, and
that the state had lost all the prosecutions it had
brought against
journalists under the law he so mechanically
defends.
Who are the "foreign masters" he cites? If he knows
who they are
why doesn't he have the courage of his dubious convictions and
name them?
And who has scared off investment: a handful of journalists who
evidently
don't pose much of a threat at the Quill Club, or state agents who
steal
land and engage in public violence against government's
critics?
"Journalists should not be misled by rich media
houses that are
financed from abroad." he ventured. Somebody should have
said that the
country should not be misled by rich ministers who have
brought it to its
knees with their failed policies. What sort of patriotism
is that?
Nobody asked the obvious question: Is it appropriate
for a
minister responsible for oversight of what have been widely identified
as
corrupt parastatals to be the same person responsible for investigating
corruption at these parastatals?
Mangwana asked why some
independent newspapers had editorial
policies in which "they only reported
on the negatives without a single
positive story".
Here's
the deal minister: You find us a positive story about
Zanu PF and we will
publish it. But we appreciate you may need a little time
to get back to us
on this one.
A private war seems to be going on in the
pages of the state
media every Saturday.
The columnist
calling himself Nathaniel Manheru objects to those
calling "in the name of
NEDPP" for the eviction of A1 farmers who are
accused of pursuing backward
agricultural practices. Their pieces of land
are well placed for "quick
hits" by means of which their detractors believe
they can turn the economy
around within months, it is said.
This is the same "breed"
making impassioned pleas for government
to stop land invasions, "themselves
a catch-all defence for stubborn
whites", Manheru claims.
So who has been making "impassioned pleas for an end to land
invasions" and
hopes to turn the economy around in a matter of months? Is it
not Gideon
Gono?
If so, despite his access to the highest office in the
land, he
appears to face a roadblock in the form of Manheru. Which explains
why
Didymus Mutasa and others feel free to ignore calls for a halt to land
invasions. They intend to go on seizing land and so long as this gang of
recidivists has the bit between its teeth the country has no prospect of
investment or recovery.
Meetings of the NEDPP executive,
we are told, are becoming
increasingly acrimonious as those that had hoped
to see some dividends for
their hard work, particularly in the form of
cooperation with the private
sector, see nothing now except failure staring
them in the face.
"NEDPP is finished as a project and its
owners are fighting like
rats in a barrel," one disillusioned participant
told us last week.
We know that is true because we see it
advertised every Saturday
morning in the Herald. The president has warned,
"with the depth of a seer",
we are admiringly told, "the next conflict will
be between A1 and A2
farmers".
So the next jihad is
already being planned as the black
latifundia faces its would-be
expropriators. Is there to be no peace, no
settled policy, no respite from
the constant turmoil as fake revolutionary
opportunists book their seats
aboard the presidential baggage train?
Manheru sees nothing
wrong with continued farm invasions, stock
theft, veld fires and the
environmental havoc caused by the rampant cutting
of trees by sluggards who
have no idea of farming.
To him those who call for an end to
this destruction are agents
of imperialism who are against "land reform".
Even President Mugabe who said
people should not keep land for speculative
purposes or as "weekend braai
resorts" is a petit bourgeois. Especially Gono
who has on several occasions
called for an end to farm invasions to
"increase productivity".
Manheru can be sure he has Mutasa on
his side. He has been
issuing fresh offer letters left, right and centre to
anyone, so long as he
is a potential supporter.
In
Manheru's scheme of things, the purpose of land reform was
not about
productivity but an issue of cultural identity.
We wonder
what secret deals he is making from the anarchy on the
farms. Don't you
think we need a probe there Dr Mahoso?
Zimbabwe had
another visit recently from one of those
Pan-Africanist solidarity merchants
who are paid to see nothing, hear
nothing and say nothing of the truth
during their tour.
"The purpose of our visit," said
Canadian-based Global Afrikan
Congress chair Cikia Thomas, "is to express
solidarity with the people and
government of Zimbabwe for the work that the
people and the government are
doing towards self-determination in
Zimbabwe."
This comes at a time when Zimbabwe is completely
dependent upon
the goodwill of other countries for its food and fuel
supplies. It used to
be self-sufficient, but now, thanks to the policies
Thomas endorses, it is a
beggar state.
What we want to
know is who funded Thomas's visit here? We are
sure in the interests of
honesty he will disclose that for us. We would hate
to think he is not his
own man. And what objection does he have to living in
his homeland of
Jamaica?
Thomas said he expected to see people begging in
Harare.
"That is the impression we got from the Western media
but we
didn't see that."
His photo shows him wearing a
pair of glasses. Behind the lens
his eyes are staring vacantly upwards which
perhaps explains why he didn't
see any beggars on the streets of Harare. His
hosts evidently clapped their
hands as their vehicle approached the junction
of Sam Nujoma and Chitepo and
the beggars disappeared while Thomas's eyes
shifted approvingly towards the
heavens.
Somebody
else whose shifty eyes stare out from the pages of the
state press is
Tafataona Mahoso. He fatuously accuses ZUJ leader Matthew
Takaona of
becoming part of the "feeder lines into the global conveyer belt
of lies
against Zimbabwe which are also used to justify sanctions against
this
country".
And what had Takaona done to deserve Mahoso's
vitriol?
He gave an interview to VoA.
Others giving interviews to VoA recently include Nathan
Shamuyarira and
Didymus Mutasa. They have all joined "the global conveyor
belt of lies" as
well have they?
It is only a matter of time now before Mahoso
is taken away by
men in white coats. And if he wants to know why Zimbabwe is
the target of
sanctions he need look no further than the widely circulated
footage of ZCTU
leaders being viciously assaulted in the back of a police
vehicle.
There is more. Is there anybody out there who can
help Mahoso?
He is so terrified by the prospect of losing his job as MIC
chair that he is
having sleepless nights over the idea of a voluntary media
council. And the
Sunday Mail is giving him acres of space to pour out his
copious grief.
The fellow is so distraught he can't reason
clearly. This week
he said he was not opposed to self-regulation in the
media which he
immediately called a "myth".The reason for this
contradiction, it appears,
was that an attempt at media self-regulation had
failed in Zambia. This is
cause for celebration for
Mahoso.
If Zambia fails, why should people of a lesser
calibre like
Zimbabweans hope to do better? To drive the point home, even in
Malawi the
experiment had failed, Mahoso told us. So there was no point in
wasting
donor money trying to do what is to him beyond the ken of an
African
mind.
And there was Police
Commissioner Augustine Chihuri last week
telling two police women who were
headed for peace-keeping duties in the
Sudan to bear in mind that they were
Zimbabweans and should remain "loyal
and patriotic".
"Zimbabwe is your country and home and you cannot afford to
dishonour and
disown it no matter how much silver and gold comes your way,"
he told
them.
So how much silver and gold came the way of those thugs
filmed
beating people on the streets of Harare and subsequently in police
cells? Or
was that for free?
The UNDP in Harare should be
asked how their superiors in New
York justify their continued sponsorship of
Zimbabwe's role in peace-keeping
duties when such violence is unleashed
against innocent citizens back home.
The impact of such
news clips upon public consciousness in
tourism source markets has yet to be
quantified. But you can be sure that
the government's publicity agency, the
ZTA, staffed by friends of the ruling
party, will
find their
work cut out for them explaining this shocking
advertisement for Zimbabwe.
And we wonder which government apologist will
next be writing about how the
independent press is responsible for
"tarnishing Zimbabwe's image"
abroad.
Here's a proposal the ZTA may want to consider: What
about an ad
campaign telling tourists they no longer have to leave the
capital to watch
wild beasts descending upon their prey. They can now see
such magnificent
sights from their hotel rooms. Of course the ZCTU, NCA and
MDC would have to
contribute to these "canned" hunts by making their members
available.
There was an interesting story this week of
the Harare council
invoking a law that will make motorists pay for damage
caused to council
property in the event of an accident. This should of
course save ratepayers
a few pennies.
But we should be
happy to have a test case where a motorist
takes council to court over a
burst tyre or damaged rim because of potholes
in the city roads. That would
be a fair deal.
There is this curious Anti-Corruption
Commission-sponsored
advert on TV seeking to promote awareness against
corruption. It has got all
the familiar small fry that are exhibited for
ephemeral amusement while
corruption on a grand scale in high places goes
almost unnoticed. Until of
course a parliamentary portfolio committee
noticed it big time at
Ziscosteel.
We were therefore very
disappointed to hear that a report
detailing this corruption has been killed
and buried in an unmarked grave.
Which means there may never be a postmortem
to show who committed what
offence. Mangwana and Obert Mpofu have
demonstrated the limits of this
much-touted clean-up.
Zim Independent
By Eric
Bloch
WHEN Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe,
delivered his
statement of Fine-Tuning of Monetary Policy on October 9, he
dropped an
array of bombs upon the financial sector, the Zimbabwe Stock
Exchange, Money
Transfer Agencies (MTAs), exporters, other economic
entities, and the
populace in general. Some of the bombs were very necessary
and deserved,
whilst others have potentially disastrous consequences of the
same magnitude
as would be caused by a North Korean nuclear bomb, the most
pronounced being
the repercussions upon an already critically injured export
segment, verging
upon permanent collapse.
One of the very necessary
bombs, however, descended upon many of Zimbabwe's
parastatals. Gono clearly,
and justifiably, voiced his displeasure at the
extent to which some of the
parastatals have very evidently done nothing to
right their ills, mainly
self-afflicted, and place their operations upon an
even keel. Instead, these
parastatals demonstrably perceived RBZ as a "milk
cow", and the governor
made it clear that that cow was no longer prepared to
be milked. He said
that in the light of RBZ's "varied experiences over the
last 18 months, some
parastatals and local authorities have developed
seemingly perpetual
reliance on the Reserve Bank for support, unacceptably
surrendering their
cash-flow planning and survival needs to us (RBZ)".
He said that in view
of this syndrome of total cash-flow reliance upon RBZ
of such parastatals,
"it has become necessary to institute stringent
measures that restrict and
forbid non-performing parastatals and local
authorities from accessing
central bank support". He advised them that
hereinafter "their first port of
call for financial assistance shall be
their parent ministry", and stated
that those that immediately come to mind
are Air Zimbabwe, Zinwa, Zesa, GMB,
Arda and Zisco, (although he commended
some others, including National
Railways of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe United
Passenger Company), for "beginning
to perform and self-sustain". He also
urged banking institutions "to play a
complementary role in instilling sound
financial management systems and
corporate governance standards in the
parastatals sector as a condition for
lending".
The affected parastatals must have been shaken rigid, for RBZ
largesse had
been very considerable, motivated by a desire to bring economic
efficacy to
parastatal operations, required for the economy to function
properly, but
much of that largesse having been abused and, instead of those
parastatals
better-serving the economy, their service delivery had become
progressively
less and less, and that which has been forthcoming not meeting
the national
needs. With the RBZ being a benevolent banker, those
parastatals felt that
they were "on a pig's back".
Irrefutably, some
dynamic action is not only necessary, but is also long
overdue, and that
action must include that the RBZ cease to be the banker of
permanent resort,
and that the parastatals very belatedly engage in
effective cash-flow
management, and take those actions necessary to achieve
viability,
self-sufficiency, and absolute fulfilment of the purposes for
which they are
supposed to exist. However, it is unacceptable that they
should now transfer
their funding dependency upon their parent ministries,
other than possibly
transitorily whilst implementing positive and
constructive measures to
achieve self-sufficiency. On the one hand, if the
ministries become the
substitutory source of funding on an ongoing basis,
the underlying malaise
of the parastatals will not only continue unabated,
but will intensify, with
the economy and the populace being ever-greater
victims of mismanagement,
declining service and soaring costs.
On the other hand, government's
fiscal deficits are already untenably great,
and would worsen very
considerably if the ministries were to provide an
unending flow of funding
to parastatals. Such parastatal financing could
only be funded by government
by recourse to yet further taxation of an
already very over-taxed economy
and of a populace which is, even now,
grossly imposed upon by considerably
excessive direct and indirect taxation,
or by government increasing its
devastating great borrowings. Many of such
borrowings are, to all intents
and purposes, provided by RBZ, through the
purchase of government treasury
bills and loan stock not taken up by the
private sector, and paid for with
inflation-creating, excessive printing of
money.
Thus, it will be as
undesirable for ministries merely to become funding
substitutes of RBZ for
the cash-ravenous parastatals, as it has been for RBZ
to be the financial
horn of cornucopia for parastatal inefficiency, and for
parastatal
deficiencies. Instead, once and for all, government needs to do
something
about total and partial privatisations of parastatals, which it
has
recurrently declared as its intent since 1991, but with little
performance,
save and except for the very successful privatisations of the
Cotton Company
of Zimbabwe, Dairibord, Rainbow Tourism Group, Zimbabwe
Reinsurance Company,
and Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, and some very limited
other partial state
disinvestments.
Government, empire-building ministers, permanent
secretaries, and the
politically well-connected, need to learn that it has
been extremely rare,
the world-over, for governments to run businesses well.
Not only do
governments have neither the required expertise and motivation,
but those
constituting the governments inevitably being transient in nature,
and
normally being devoid of specialised business expertise to run
businesses
properly, they are totally unsuited to be engaged in
businesses.
This has not only been a Zimbabwean syndrome, but one
throughout the world.
For many decades the parastatals of the USA, Britain,
France, Italy, Russia,
and many other countries, were business disasters.
Year in and year out they
failed to meet the needs of their countries which
they were supposed to
satisfy, and were an endless financial burden upon the
exchequers.
Eventually, and with immense political reluctance, each of those
countries
ultimately embarked upon programmes of privatisation, and with
very rare
exception did so with great success. The transcontinental railways
of the
USA, that country's telecommunications, and those of the United
Kingdom,
British Airways, British Gas, Renault and Peugeot, are but a few of
the very
many examples of successful privatisations.
The keys to the
successes were the genuine will and determination to
privatise, the choice
of strategic partners possessed of required technical
expertise, and other
essential resources, and appropriate legislative
deregulation, combined with
placing enterprise viability and the needs of
the population ahead of
political considerations. Zimbabwe needs all of
these keys to unlock its
parastatals successfully, and in order to access
the keys it must be willing
to clean-up the parastatals by writing-off their
debts, ridding them of
unnecessary super-structures, and restructuring them
with foundations of
operational viability, accessing strategic partner
expertise and adequate
equity investments.
It is long overdue for Zimbabwe to sort out its
parastatal chaos, and the
first step towards doing so is for government to
have the courage to pursue,
with utmost vigour, a real policy of
privatisation, instead of nothing but
endless, non-performing, lip-service.
Until government does so, Zimbabwe
will continue to suffer inadequate and
erratic power supplies, fitful
telecommunications, unreliable grain
supplies, air services which - despite
recent valiant efforts by Air
Zimbabwe personnel - are characterised by
unreliability, and like disservice
from most other parastatals.
Failure is now a certainty, not
an option guvnor!
WHILE- Reserve Bank governor Dr Gideon
Gono's policies may be
applauded by some, and religiously so by the Herald,
I think there is
something amiss about his policies and the way he runs the
central bank.
Firstly, can anyone point out one policy that
has borne
sustainable economic fruits at a national level since he stepped
into
office?
I am not talking about the many Zanu PF
kleptomaniacs who have
since made millions (revalued) by spinning the
generous agricultural loans
he dished out through non-agricultural and
illicit activities.
I believe policies should stand the test
of time if proper
thinking and planning is done and consultations
made.
Thanks to Gono's wayward thinking, we are now subjected
to
disruptive policy changes in his attempt to please President Mugabe while
economics and market forces are ignored. The result has been an economic
circus.
The world-wide practice of having independent
reserve banks
which focus on monetary issues was not crafted by imbeciles as
Gono and
Mugabe would want us to believe.
It's a tried
and tested method that brings sanity to the world's
economies.
One "success" I can attribute to Gono, which
he performed with
ruthless efficiency, was the elimination of some of the
best financial and
economic brains in the country through his trumped-up
externalisation
charges and other Zanu PF mafia-type
antics.
Project Sunrise was like an over-played record which
drained
resources only to bring the convenience of carrying fewer
dollars.
The reason for over-playing it was to divert
attention from
dismal failure on the inflation front.
If
one were to do a simple cost-benefit analysis of the RBZ
function under
Gono, the result will show that the RBZ has become a white
elephant.
It is well-known that RBZ senior officials are
among the highest
paid on the land. How is that for a non-productive
parastatal whose record
of missing its own set targets of inflation
reduction, money supply, etc is
startling?
Even more
sickening is the governor's mantra of "failure is not
an option" when all
around him there are signs of failure: industrial
production is at its
lowest, agricultural output is low, poverty and the
number one enemy -
inflation - are playing havoc.
What a failed economy in a
failed state!
Another abrupt policy shift dubbed the "Fine
tuning of monetary
policy" is again misdirected as the productive sector
will still bleed while
inflation runs amok.
Trying to
intervene in everything including the functioning of
the stock exchange
under the guise of exposing money launderers or
fictitious terrorists is
madness. People need investments with returns that
make sense in this
hyperinflationary economy.
Simple free market practice is too
much for this "guvnor" hey!
History will surely judge him for
having presided over an
economy with the highest inflation level on the
planet, and his tenure will
provide a good case study of the most
inconsistent and myopic monetary
policies ever.
Failure
is not an option but a certainty.
Don Sahayi
(Snr),
Harare.
----------
Corporate incest at state media
houses
THE Ministry of Information and Publicity has
the
following companies/parastatals under it - Zimpapers, Zimbabwe
Broadcasting
Holdings (ZBH), New Ziana, the Media and Information
Commission, Transmedia,
and the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe
(BAZ).
Justin Mutasa is the ZBH board chairman. He is
also the
group CEO of Zimpapers.
As a board
chairman, he oversees the appointment,
conditions of service and performance
of the CEO.
When the CEOs of Zimpapers and ZBH are
called to meet the
line minister or made to appear before a parliamentary
committee, they do so
as peers.
Yet a fellow CEO is
overseeing the appointment, conditions
of service and performance of a
peer.
Is the Ministry of Information and Publicity
short of
capable hands to fill the position of ZBH board chairman without
necessarily
burdening Mutasa, who is also chairman of the Metropolitan Bank
of Zimbabwe
Ltd, among other positions?
We have
also witnessed a situation whereby Herald editor
Pikirayi Deketeke is the
acting chairman of BAZ.
The former executive chairman
of ZBH, Rino Zhuwarara, was
at one time a commissioner with the MIC, which
decides the fate of other
media houses and journalism
practitioners.
Call it corporate
incest!
It is not good corporate governance practice to
have the
same people in the various institutions under one
ministry.
Get a list of board members of the above
named
institutions and you will be shocked by the cross board membership of
people
who are senior executives.
On a separate
note, I am not sure if it's the best
decision to appoint a "content" person
as CEO of a media house like what has
happened at ZBH, where Henry
Muradzikwa has been thrust in the position.
They tried
it with Zhuwarara. It failed because a content
person cannot spend his day
attending to administrative, logistical and
structural matters of a
company.
If he is the excitable type, he will clash
with the
editor-in-chief of Newsnet and that will be tantamount to undue
interference.
LM,
Harare.
-----------
Grant
Zimbabwean asylum-seekers work/study
permission
THIS is an open letter to the
Refugee Reception
Office, Department of Home Affairs (South
Africa).
We have received several reports from
Zimbabwean
asylum-seekers that they have been issued with asylum-seeker's
permits by
your offices which stipulate that they are not allowed to work
and/or study
in South Africa. The permits which were shown to us were issued
in the week
commencing on October 9 and all emanated from Rosettenville,
Johannesburg.
Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) brings
this anomalous
issue to your attention in its standing as a non-profit
organisation
registered in South Africa whose mandate includes the
protection and
promotion of the human rights of Zimbabwean refugees. We
submit that
refugees are entitled to a means of survival and to education in
their host
countries in terms of international instruments including the
United Nations
Refugee Convention of 1951 and its 1967 Protocol and the 1969
OAU Refugee
Convention as well as the South African Constitution and the
Refugee Act as
amended.
The prohibition to
work and study for asylum-seekers
is highly retrogressive as it also starkly
contradicts the pro-refugee
rights approach of the South African courts. The
Cape High Court in the
celebrated case of Wachenuka vs Department of Home
Affairs in 2002 embraced
the internationally recognised entitlement of
refugees to self-sufficiency
rights such as the right to work and to access
education, even pending
determination of their
asylum-applications.
What we find to be most
disconcerting is that such
prohibitive permits were allegedly issued to
Zimbabwean asylum-seekers only
whilst asylum-seekers of other nationalities
were not put under such
restrictions during the same period. This, if
confirmed, would clearly
indicate an unconstitutional and unjustifiable
segregatory policy against
Zimbabwean asylum-seekers by your
department.
In the circumstances, we are
compelled to implore
your good offices to immediately launch an in-depth
investigation of these
anomalies and to simultaneously retract the offensive
permits replacing them
with standard
ones.
Gabriel
Shumba,
Human Rights Lawyer
and
ZEF executive
director.
-------------
Pensioners' payouts a pittance,
please review
I am sure the majority of
pensioners share my
feeling that the current payouts are a
mockery.
I found myself a pensioner as a
result of the
present regime's skewed economic policies which resulted in
the organisation
I was working for downsizing due to a decrease in
business.
I am currently getting a payout
of $1 510
(revalued), most of which is swallowed by bank
charges.
I am therefore kindly appealing to
Old Mutual
to review the payout to a realistic figure since they are doing
very well on
the stock market.
Apparently, Old Mutual does not allow anyone
to opt out of their scheme
until after two years.
Frustrated,
Harare.
---------
Water disconnections are
illegal
THE Combined Harare Residents'
Association
(CHRA) is buoyed by the city's admission that residents have not
paid water
rates imposed by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority in May
2006.
The threats of water disconnections
issued
by the City of Harare's public relations manager Percy Toriro (Daily
Mirror/Herald and Newsnet October 16) were ill-timed, misinformed and
unjustified.
Residents of Harare,
represented by CHRA,
will go all the way to defend their right to fair
treatment and quality
municipal
services.
The City of Harare will soon
realise that it
neither has the capacity nor the law on its side to deal
with the so-called
errant residents who refuse to pay the arrears in newly
imposed water rates.
Water disconnections
are illegal whatever
the circumstances. CHRA urges residents of Harare to be
resolute in their
rejection of a corrupt, illegal and unaccountable system
of administration
led by the commission running the affairs of the City of
Harare. For the
city to disconnect anyone's water, they must obtain court
orders.
The threats issued by the
municipality will
soon backfire as residents fully implement their boycott
agenda inspired by
CHRA's catchwords: "Do not fund your own
oppression".
We will continue to mobilise
residents to
resist tyranny at Town House. This resolution is informed by
the association's
July 2 general council resolution that commits the
organisation to campaign
for rates boycotts, holding of public meetings and
staging decentralised
peaceful demonstrations against the City of Harare for
poor service
delivery.
CHRA stands
guided by its lawyers. The City
of Harare should be reminded that the
implied contract between residents and
itself has to be honoured by both
parties. It must first address the water
supply, administration and billing
side of the contract before acting
against
residents.
Precious
Shumba,
CHRA information officer.