Zim Independent
HARARE - Zimbabwean prosecutors on Thursday produced a
list of
more weapons they say were stockpiled by an ex-soldier plotting to
assassinate President Robert Mugabe, delaying his trial, the soldier's
lawyer said.
Peter Hitschmann, a soldier under the former
white government of
Rhodesia -- Zimbabwe's name before independence in 1980
-- was arrested in
March with six others including an opposition legislator
after police
discovered an arms cache at Hitschmann's home in the eastern
border city of
Mutare.
Hitschmann denied the
charges.
The trial was due to start on Thursday but was
postponed after
the list of extra weapons such as teargas canisters and
flares, allegedly
found at Hitschmann's house, caught the defence unaware,
Hitschmann's lawyer
Eric Matinenga said.
"Just before the
trial opened the prosecution gave me an
additional list of weapons which
were allegedly in Hitschmann's house but
which my client is unaware of,"
Matinenga told Reuters from the trial venue
in Mutare.
Matinenga said in his defence outline handed to court that
Hitschmann was
tortured while at an army barrack in Mutare.
"That was part
of our defence and the court took note of that,"
said Matinenga. "For
example he was viciously kicked in his testicles
resulting in him blacking
out," he added, reading from the court
submissions. He did not say who
tortured Hitschmann.
Hitschmann is being charged with
breaching the country's tough
security laws and could face life in prison if
convicted.
The government says the arms cache found at
Hitschmann's home
included AK-47 automatic rifles, machine guns, shotguns,
pistols, revolvers,
tear gas canisters, flares, thousands of rounds of
ammunition and a two-way
radio communications system.
Police say the arms were discovered on March 6, after Mugabe's
82nd birthday
celebrations in February, but have also said investigations
into the alleged
plot had started earlier.
A Harare High Court in March denied
Hitschmann bail arguing that
he was likely to flee.
Hitschmann is a licensed arms dealer but prosecutors say his
licence was
strictly for non-military weapons. His defence is arguing that
the retrieved
weapons had insufficient firepower to overthrow a government.
The state argues that the weapons were meant to be used to
disrupt Mugabe's
82nd birthday celebrations in Mutare, where the veteran
leader was feted at
a stadium by thousands of supporters of his ruling
ZANU-PF party. --
Reuter
Zim Independent
BRITAIN'S House of Lords has urged South Africa to
renew
systematic pressure on President Robert Mugabe to retire as part of
plans to
resolve Zimbabwe's multifaceted problems.
In a
wide-ranging recent debate, the Lords said Britain and
South Africa, among
other key members of the international community, have a
duty to confront
Mugabe over his regime's intensifying acts of repression.
This comes after
the recent brutal assault on trade union leaders which
Mugabe said was
justified.
Lord Blaker said London and Pretoria should end
their silence
over the Zimbabwe situation and speak out against
misrule.
"The Government of Zimbabwe is getting more brutally
violent day
by day. The courageous opponents of Mugabe's regime have been
demonstrating
their opposition more vigorously than ever," Blaker
said.
"The campaign against Mugabe is backed by the Zimbabwe
Congress
of Trade Unions, the South African trade union organisation Cosatu,
Zimbabwe's
National Constitutional Assembly, the Zimbabwe National Students
Union, a
statement by the ILO, Women of Zimbabwe Arise - a brave and active
group -
and churches, apart from the Bishop of Harare who has been busy
collecting
farms."
He said the European Union must
maintain sanctions against
Harare to ensure Mugabe does not wriggle off the
hook.
"Sanctions are absolutely vital and must continue. If
they were
to be removed, the morale of those opposing Mugabe would collapse,
as would
their campaign," he said.
"I am told that some
members of the EU are a bit wobbly on
sanctions, especially those from
southern Europe, although the Scandinavians
are sound." He singled out
Portugal as a notable "wobbler".
Blaker said South Africa
should act because it had interests
that were at stake in
Zimbabwe.
"Many of Zimbabwe's neighbours are suffering
economically, such
as South Africa, as well as many others in Sadc," he
said. "South Africa
fears Zimbabwe will implode, flooding it with even more
immigrants. I
suggest that South Africa could use its dominant position in
Sadc to call
for Zimbabwe to be suspended from its membership so long as
Mugabe is in
power."
He said Mugabe must also be taken to
task through the United
Nations Security Council for his "scandalous
operation" of destroying
informal businesses and shanties last
year.
Lord Acton asked what Pretoria's policy towards
Zimbabwe was in
view of its inconsistent engagement on the issue. Baroness
D'Souza said
South Africa and the international community must act
collectively to sort
out the situation in Zimbabwe.
"Now
is, perhaps, the time to use the full array of legal,
diplomatic and other
measures open to the UK and the EU in order to create a
critical mass of
international opinion and to support those in Zimbabwe who
bear the
unspeakable brunt of repression," she said.
"The Zimbabwean
situation has now reached such proportions that
it is appropriate to refer
Zimbabwe to the Security Council."
She quoted the Select
Committee on Foreign Affairs' report last
year which said: "We recommend
that the United Kingdom start a campaign for
the referral of Robert Mugabe
to the International Criminal Court for his
manifold and monstrous crimes
against the people of Zimbabwe.
"Torture in Zimbabwe is
widespread, systematic and severe and
therefore constitutes a crime against
humanity," D'Souza said.
"Under the Rome statute of the
International Criminal Court,
there is a duty on all those who are signed up
to the statute to bring a
prosecution at the court in The Hague. Perhaps now
is the time to initiate a
campaign on that."
Baroness
Park said the Matabeleland massacres in which 20 000
civilians were killed
by the Fifth Brigade between 1982 and 1987 must be
factored in
this.
The Earl of Sandwich said Zimbabwe was in crisis
largely because
of the actions of "one man who has transformed himself from
an acclaimed
idol of the liberation struggle to a ruthless dictator who is
well past his
sell-by date".
Lord St John of Bletso said
although he had been hopeful, the
Zimbabwe situation continues to
deteriorate dramatically.
"There is a popular saying that
pessimism is sensible because
pessimists are never disappointed.
Unfortunately I have been an optimist for
Zimbabwe, and I have been bitterly
disappointed," he said.
Lord St John said Mugabe was now
virtually Life President and
was afraid of leaving office because he could
be held to account for gross
human rights abuses like former Liberian
president Charles Taylor.
He said it was unlikely Zimbabweans
would rise against Mugabe
because there was no organised political
opposition at the moment.
"There are two reasons why the
people will not protest. First,
unfortunately, there is a lack of plausible
opposition in the country," he
said.
"The MDC seemed
credible in the past but is now deeply-divided
between those who support
Morgan Tsvangirai, a man with charisma but
doubtful judgement, and those who
support Arthur Mutambara, a man of great
intellect but less popular appeal.
Secondly, a remarkable 70%, if not more,
of Zimbabweans live in rural areas
where they remain largely unaware of the
government excesses in the urban
areas."
Lord Chidgey said Zimbabwe was "sinking down to the
level of a
failing and bankrupt state". Lord Astor said Mugabe's regime was
currently
being "shored up by collaborators - some guilty, some gullible,
some in
Zimbabwe and some in the international
community".
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign
and Commonwealth
Office, Lord Triesman said people should focus on
Zimbabwe's crucial 2008
presidential election to ensure it is free and fair
as part of measures to
secure change. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
ALL signs appear to
indicate the National Economic Development
Priority Programme (NEDPP),
touted as a quick-fix panacea to Zimbabwe's
economic slide, is cloned from
Indonesian and Malaysian economic policies of
the 1990s.
But what gives the Zimbabwean version a different hue is that
the economic
turnaround blueprint is situated in a volatile political
environment as a
result of Mugabe's succession issue.
As the Zimbabwean
version drifts towards its December deadline,
it has assumed political
dimensions heavily overshadowed by serious
infighting amongst the higher
ranks of the ruling Zanu PF party, hindering
whatever progress it was
expected to achieve.
Its major thrust to reduce inflation and
raise US$2,5 billion
now lies in tatters as Zanu PF's camps battle for
supremacy in the
succession race.
Nothing illustrates the
evaporation of hope and disillusionment
among legislators more than the
belief that NEDPP has failed to lift
Zimbabwe out of the economic
rut.
Last week Bikita West MP, Col (Rtd) Claudius Makova
doubted
NEDPP's potential when he asked experts in the Economic Development
ministry
during parliamentary hearings: "We have moved from programme to
programme.
Are you saying this one is a better programme than those
implemented before
it?"
But more telling was Makova's
reaction on Monday this week when
he expressed fears of being labelled a
reactionary critic of government
policies.
"These days it
is a political risk to 'see before others have
opened their eyes' lest you
are viewed in different light," Makova told the
Zimbabwe
Independent.
"You risk burning your fingers. There are others
in our
committee who expressed similar dismay and frustration but the
reaction by
my peers has been that I have been outspoken and too forthright
in
questioning NEDPP. Their remarks portray someone who has trodden where
others fear to go, but I am not the only one who wondered at NEDPP's
achievements so far."
During the mid-term 2006 monetary
policy review, Reserve Bank
governor Gideon Gono blamed bureaucratic inertia
as one of the drawbacks
that had beset the turnaround
programme.
"Often central government has come up with noble
projects and
policies, but the same have fallen flat at the implementation
stage or have
suffered from policy reversals, indecision and contradictions
as ministries
and parastatals fought turf wars at the expense of the nation
at large,"
Gono said.
"As long as these vices are not
dealt with effectively, all our
efforts at turning around this economy will
count for nothing."
What Gono did not disclose was who was
responsible for stymieing
progress.
Politicians are
beginning to question the benefits of NEDPP,
voicing concerns as to whether
the ambitious programme is any different from
others that have been
initiated before it.
NEDPP was meant to cut bureaucratic red
tape and fast forward
solutions to declining economic performance. It has
become bogged down in a
matrix of vicious political infighting over the
succession race.
"We have expressed reservations about the
sincerity of the
people who have come to brief us on the success the
programme has achieved
so far," says Pearson Mungofa, the MDC legislator for
Highfield.
"There is nothing tangible that is expected to
come out of that
programme and we don't expect any change," Mungofa said. He
rued that the
country was losing a lot in the mining sector because there
was no clear cut
policy.
"Look at what is happening in
Marange," he said. "The Ministry
of Mines is dead. The country could have
benefited from the diamonds."
Mungofa was the first black to
qualify as a diamond cutter.
NEDPP is anchored in the
Zimbabwe National Security Council that
is chaired by President Mugabe, with
other appendages such as the National
Economic Recovery Council chaired by
Vice-President Joice Mujuru. There are
various committees that cover sectors
such as tourism, mining and industry,
among others.
Mungofa said the greatest drawback was that everything had to be
sanctioned
by President Mugabe.
"No matter how beneficial the advice
given by the committees
under NEDPP, the final say rests with Mugabe. He
decides what advice to take
and what not to."
Mungofa
said most Zanu PF MPs feared voicing concerns in these
committees because
they had to toe the party line for fear of unsettling
party
bigwigs.
"Aside from the occasional maverick, Zanu PF MPs
seem not
prepared to rock the boat."
Sources close to the
NEDPP say rivalry between two camps led by
Solomon Mujuru and the party's
legal affairs secretary Emmerson Mnangagwa,
aspiring to outbid each other in
the succession race, has hobbled the
process.
"Whatever
one camp suggests as a solution to the economic woes
confronting Zimbabwe is
shot down by the other just to frustrate that
effort," a source privy to the
machinations in the various committees said.
"Each of the two camps is
trying to gain competitive edge over the other."
Critics also
blame the militarisation of major state
institutions as not helping move the
process forward.
"Whenever pertinent questions are asked, the
military guys on
the committees are quick to jump up and proscribe them,
saying the answers
are security issues," another source
said.
Addressing the portfolio committee last week, one of
the deputy
directors for economic analysis in the Economic Development
ministry,
Thabani Dhliwayo, summed up the mood that reflects NEDPP's failure
for
asking incisive questions: "Honourable senators and MPs, you have really
put
us in a fix."
He said several factors such as policy
reversals, a
business-as-usual approach and lack of a shared vision were
militating
against implementing NEDPP.
One striking
similarity with the Indonesian experience is that
in the 1990s, the
Indonesian regime's increasingly authoritarian and corrupt
practices became
a source of much discontent.
Suharto's almost unquestioned
authority over Indonesian affairs
slipped dramatically when the Asian
financial crisis lowered Indonesians'
standard of living and fractured his
support among the nation's military,
political and civil society
institutions. After internal unrest and
diplomatic isolation sapped his
support in the mid-to-late 1990s, Suharto
was forced to resign from the
presidency in May 1998.
Zimbabwe's NEDPP has not yet reached
that stage. But it is
already clear the programme has fallen victim to
political intrigue and an
absence of will.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
PRESIDENT of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Joseph
Kabila and the Zimbabwe
Defence Industries (ZDI) chief executive Colonel
Tshinga Dube have been
named as the owners of a company that is enmeshed in
a pay dispute with 10
local workers for services rendered at a diamond mine
in the central African
country.
ZDI is a state-owned weapons manufacturing
firm.
The revelation was made last Friday at the Harare High
Court by
retired army Colonel Paul Kujoka who was employed at the diamond
mine in
2000 as a general manager.
Kujoka made the
revelation while giving evidence in a matter in
which one of the former mine
workers, Urayayi Sakupwanya, is demanding US$21
000 from businessman Lloyd
Hove and a company called Thabs Marketing. It is
not clear how much the
other nine workers are owed by the mine owners.
Hove is Thabs
Marketing chief executive.
Sakupwanya, who is being
represented by Harare lawyer Advocate
Prince Machaya, said he was supposed
to be paid a monthly salary of US$5
000.
Under cross
examination Kujoka, who described himself as a
"known military man in the
DRC after having worked for the ZDI" marketing
arms and ammunition in the
Congo, said: "The company is owned by President
Joseph Kabila and Col Dube,
the general manager of Zimbabwe Defence
Industries."
Kabila replaced his father Laurent as president after the latter
was shot
dead by his bodyguard in January 2001.
"Pascal Unyemba came
to the mine from the president's office
(DRC) as a representative of Dube
and Associates," he added.
Kujoka said the Zimbabweans were
employed by locally-registered
Thabs Marketing that made them sign
employment contracts with Dube and
Associates which is registered in the
Congo on promises that their United
States dollar salaries would be
deposited in Harare at a local bank.
The salaries were never
deposited.
Kujoka said Thabs Marketing gave them a guarantee
that if
problems arose with Dube and Associates, the local company would
bear
responsibility.
Kujoka said at the mine, 65% of
income went to Thabs Marketing
while Kabila and Dube's company took 15% of
the proceeds.
Two local chiefs, whom Kujoka said received
them well in their
community, were given 14% and 5% of proceeds respectively
while 1% went to
some commissioners.
"Whereas other
stakeholders were given their share in money
form, Dube and Associates
demanded diamonds. the distribution was done on a
weekly basis. Every week I
gave diamonds to Unyemba for Dube and
Associates," he said.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube/ Nqobani
Ndlovu
ECONOMIC Development minister and Zanu PF MP for
Mberengwa East,
Rugare Gumbo, has accused party chairman John Nkomo and
political commissar
Elliot Manyika of fuelling divisions in his
constituency.
This follows the recent suspension by Nkomo and
Manyika of three
Mberengwa District Coordinating Committee (DCC) members
believed to be
aligned to Gumbo on allegations of
indiscipline.
The three officials are DCC chairman Munyaradzi
Ndlovu and
committee members Shiri Masenda and Jetina
Matavire.
Gumbo has continued to work with the suspended DCC
members in
defiance of Nkomo and Manyika, arguing that their suspension is
illegitimate.
"These people are being victimised by the
Midlands provincial
executive that provided false information to the
national disciplinary
committee headed by Nkomo," Gumbo
said.
"Nkomo and Manyika should leave these people to work
for the
party because they are the ones that campaigned for me vigorously to
win
elections in 2005. The suspension is illegitimate and they will continue
to
work for the party."
When contacted for comment, Nkomo
and Manyika confirmed that
they suspended the three DCC members for alleged
indiscipline.
The two politburo members maintained that the
suspension stands
despite Gumbo's defiance and attempt to belittle the
party's disciplinary
committee.
"The suspension still
stands," said Manyika. "We don't encourage
those members to work until
investigations on their pending cases are
completed."
Nkomo added: "What Manyika has said and did (suspension) is a
decision of
the party's disciplinary committee to restructure Mberengwa
following
reports of serious divisions in the area."
They however could
not be drawn to reveal what action would be
taken against Gumbo for defying
the party's disciplinary committee.
The Zimbabwe Independent
earlier this year revealed that Gumbo
and Richard Hove, the Senator for
Mberengwa-Zvishavane, were at loggerheads
over control of the
constituency.
The dispute emanated from the claim that Gumbo
wanted to remain
the strongman in the province as a whole. Gumbo was
understood to have fired
the original DCC members and replaced them with his
right-hand men whom
Nkomo and Manyika have suspended.
According to authoritative sources, the suspension of the three
DCC members
aligned to Gumbo is believed to be an attempt to get back at him
for what he
did earlier this year. Sources alleged that the bitter suspended
DCC
members, with the help of Gumbo, are now de-campaigning Zanu PF Rural
District Council candidates ahead of elections set for tomorrow.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
GOVERNMENT could
have lost close to 1 200 tonnes of wheat worth
almost $260 million after
soldiers running the Operation Maguta programme
ploughed into the ground 200
hectares of late planted winter wheat to pave
way for a summer maize crop at
Hunyani farm near Chinhoyi.
Farming sources in the Chinhoyi
area said the army destroyed 200
hectares of wheat they had planted in
August after realising that the crop
would not mature before the onset of
the rains. They decided to prepare the
field to plant
maize.
Wheat is normally planted before the end of May and
must be
harvested before the onset of the rains to avoid losses. The Grain
Marketing
Board is buying a tonne of wheat for $217 million. It costs about
$450 000
to grow a hectare of the crop.
The farm, which
was allocated to Chinhoyi University during the
land reform programme, was
taken over by the army last year at the launch of
Operation
Maguta.
"Wheat at Hunyani farm was planted in August nearly
two months
after the expected planting date," a source from Chinhoyi said.
"Wheat is a
five-month crop so planting it in August means harvesting it in
January.
From the onset prospects of a maximum yield were very low primarily
because
of the late planting, and signs of early rains forced them to disc
in the
crop."
Chinhoyi University spokesman Musekiwa
Tapera did not deny the
development but referred all questions pertaining to
farm operations to the
army.
"I cannot comment on
developments at the farm because the army
is running it under Operation
Maguta," Tapera said.
Sources said last week on Thursday and
Friday tractors could be
seen ploughing through the knee-high wheat crop.
The army planted 200
hectares of wheat in August and could have planted up
to 400 hectares if
Arex officials had not advised against the move on the
basis of late
planting.
Surplus wheat seed which they
intended to plant on the extra 200
hectares is still stashed at the farm
workshop, a source said.
If the area had been planted on
time, an estimated 1 200 tonnes
could have been harvested with an average
yield of six tonnes per hectare.
Zim Independent
Lucia Makamure
THE Hwange
Colliery Company Ltd commissions its
re-capitalisation programme today after
acquiring new machinery.
The company, which has been
operating below capacity due to
foreign currency shortages, is set to
improve its performance with the
arrival of the new
equipment.
The recently acquired Chinese equipment includes
coal haulers,
two excavators and a water bowser bought from
North
China Industries Corporation (Norinco) at a cost of US$6,3
million.
Cliff Nkomo, spokesperson for Hwange Colliery
Ltd, said the
funds to buy the equipment were generated through export
proceeds. However,
the commissioning of equipment alone is no guarantee that
optimum production
levels will be achieved and maintained as the mine is
heavily
under-capitalised.
Some major challenges also
faced by the company include working
capital constraints, use of antiquated
equipment, water logging of the mine
and inadequate supply of
spares.
These problems have resulted in the company's bad
performance as
there is inadequate coal supply which is affecting tobacco
farming,
performance of the National Railway of Zimbabwe steam engines, the
engineering and manufacturing sectors, electricity generation at ZPC which
has resulted in incessant power outages, and underperfomance of
Zisco.
"We aim to raise our production capacity from 180 000
tonnes in
September 2006 to optimum capacity of 400 000 tonnes by December,"
said
Nkomo.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
GOVERNMENT
appears to be losing the battle to control prices
after the High Court on
Wednesday nullified directives on the price of
cement, the same day that a
magistrate said the Attorney-General's office
was wasting taxpayers' money
by failing to prosecute cases against company
executives accused of raising
prices illegally.
High Court judge, Justice Bharat Patel,
made the order following
an application by Circle Cement (Pvt) Ltd,
challenging the specifying of
cement as a product subject to price
controls.
"The control of cement in item 5 of the Fifth
schedule as read
with Section 7 of the Control of Goods (Price Control)
order 2003 (Statutory
Instrument 125 of 2003) is hereby declared ultra vires
the control of Goods
(Price Control) regulations 2001 (Statutory Instrument
334/2001) and is
accordingly null and void," read justice Patel's
judgement.
Through its lawyer, Terrence Hussein, Circle
Cement said it has
previously been charged on nine occasions with the same
offence, but all the
matters were withdrawn before plea at the Harare
magistrates' court.
Also on Wednesday, Harare magistrate
Priscilla Chigumba
acquitted National Foods Ltd, a day after Dairibord
Zimbabwe was cleared of
the same offence on prices.In her ruling Chigumba
said the AG's office must
mount "credible prosecution of these matters,
otherwise it is wasting the
taxpayer's money".
The
government is currently divided over the issue of price
controls with
Vice-President Joice Mujuru's promise that there would be no
more arrests of
business executives being ignored.
On Tuesday the director of
research and consumer affairs
in the Industry and International
Trade ministry Norman
Chakanetsa, who is facing allegations of increasing
the price of bread
without authorisation, appeared in
court.
Chakanetsa said Industry and Trade minister Obert
Mpofu had
given him permission to raise prices. Chakanetsa's case is
continuing in
court.
Price control regulations list seven
categories of goods that
the government can control through the Industry and
International Trade
ministry.
These are drugs as defined
in the Medicines and Allied
Substances Control Act; fertlisers; foodstuffs
and beverages other than
alcoholic beverages; food additives, including
salt, vegetables and fats;
iron and steel and other refined or unrefined
mineral raw materials; fuel
and soaps.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
THE Reserve Bank
this week forced the lock on banks with a fresh
seven-year bond raid and
increased holding thresholds for the five-year
Financial Sector
Stabilisation Bonds (FSSBs) which mopped up $65 billion
from the market on
take-up last week.
The new bonds, whose take up date is
November 17, will mop up
over $130 billion from the market, while the
additional thresholds for FSSBs
will take up about $30
billion.
This will mean financial institutions will have
locked a total
of $225 billion in the long-term financial instruments. The
financial
institutions will be forced to borrow from the central bank at
penal rates
to fund short-term obligations.
Dealers said
the central bank's initiative, that immediately
sent bank treasurers
searching for a solution to an imminent funding crisis,
was likely to plunge
the market into massive shortages ahead of huge
maturities in November and
December.
The Zimbabwe Independent last week reported that
there were
growing banking sector fears of a drastic response by the central
bank to
the FSSBs' failure to induce calculated market shortages following
take up
of the bills.
The Reserve Bank said in a note to
financial institutions that
holding thresholds for the five-year FSSBs had
been increased from 10% of
the balance sheet size as at September 30 for
commercial banks to 15%, and
from 7,5% for merchant banks to
12,5%.
Financial houses, building societies and discount
houses had
their holding thresholds increased from 5% to 10% while asset
management
firms, which were compelled to hold bonds amounting to 2,5% of
their balance
sheet sizes, are now expected to increase their holding
thresholds to 7,5%.
Commercial banks will be compelled to
hold Economic
Stabilisation Bonds (ESBs) amounting to 20% of their balance
sheets while
merchant banks will have to take up ESBs equivalent to 17,5% of
their
balance sheets. Finance houses, building societies and discount houses
will
be forced to hold EBSs equivalent to 15% of their balance sheet sizes
respectively.
Asset management firms will be required to
hold bonds equal to
12,5% of their balance sheet sizes. The balance sheet
sizes used for ESBs
are as at October 31, while the balance sheet sizes used
for FSSBs are as at
September 30.
The central bank said
it had taken the measures because of the
high liquidity levels over the
remaining period this year and beyond.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
THE weekend rural
district council elections in more than 800
wards should be a major test for
contesting opposition parties in the Zanu
PF strongholds only 18 months
ahead of the presidential election in 2008.
With Zanu PF
having already won 485 wards unopposed, opposition
parties will have to
produce a dramatic performance to make significant
inroads into the ruling
party's political turf.
Despite their continued failure to
break into Zanu PF-dominated
communal lands, the opposition parties have
claimed that they are gaining
ground. Ward election results are important
because they are nationwide and
cover grassroots constituencies where the
majority of voters live.
Spokesperson for the Tsvangirai
camp, Nelson Chamisa, said his
party would win in those wards that his party
is contesting unless the poll
was rigged.
"The people
have been very clear that they are tired of Zanu PF
councillors who have
failed to develop their local areas," Chamisa said.
"They are
tired of Zanu PF councillors who have engaged in
corrupt activities and
abused council equipment and machinery. They are
tired of Zanu PF
councillors who have politicised food aid by denying maize
and grain to
people of other political affiliations."
Political
commentators however expressed reservations about the
possibility of
opposition parties making a major dent in Zanu PF's support
base in
tomorrow's election.
Head of the department of political
administration at the
University of Zimbabwe, Dr Eldred Masunungure, said
the outcome of the rural
district council elections would confirm what is
already known about the
dynamics of support for the major political
parties.
He said no major upsets were expected with probably
an exception
in Kadoma mayoral election. The Kadoma Central constituency is
currently a
MDC bastion although Zanu PF won it in a by-election after the
death of MDC
MP Austin Mupandawana in 2003. The MDC won it back in
2005.
The Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC has fielded a mayoral
candidate
against the incumbent, Fani Phiri of Zanu PF who has held the post
since
2002.
Masunungure said whatever the outcome of the
weekend elections,
it would not have a bearing on the 2008 presidential
election.
Zanu PF national commissar Elliot Manyika this week
forecast a
resounding victory for his party, echoing party chairman John
Nkomo's
predictions in the party publication, The Voice, that they would
win.
Chamisa said the MDC leadership had over the past few
weeks
engaged in an intensive nationwide rural campaign to drum up support
ahead
of the rural district council elections.
He said
they addressed rallies in rural Masvingo, Midlands,
Matabeleland South and
Matabeleland North since last week.
Masunungure said the
opposition had a long way to go before it
could dent Zanu PF's rural
support.
"Unless the opposition can spring a surprise, Zanu
PF will
confirm its dominance in rural area in these elections. It has never
launched such a serious campaign in local elections as it did this
time."
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
CORPORATE
officials interviewed by the National Economic Conduct
Inspectorate (NECI)
over the alleged looting by senior politicians at
state-owned steel-making
enterprise, Zisco, have threatened to spill the
beans.
Employees of Zisco and its Botswana subsidiaries, Ramotswa (Pvt)
Ltd and
Tswana Steel (Pvt) Ltd, as well as investigators of the graft at the
foreign-currency spinning parastatal, told the Zimbabwe Independent this
week that they were ready to reveal the names of top government officials
involved in pillaging the firm.
Industry and
International Trade minister Obert Mpofu has
backtracked on promises to
expose "underhand dealings" at Zisco.
Investigations by the
Independent, including visits to Redcliff
and checks in Botswana, shows that
the Zisco scandal is easily the biggest
case of high-level corruption to
rock government since Independence in 1980.
Information to hand - including
the names of the culprits still undergoing
verification - indicates it
involves members of the state presidency,
cabinet ministers, MPs and Zanu PF
officials. An editor with a local
newspaper plus company executives are also
mentioned.
The NECI findings are contained in three reports,
two voluminous
ones dealing with the Zisco situation locally, and the other
with the
Botswana dimension to it.
Zisco is one of the
largest state-owned enterprises in Zimbabwe.
Its principal activities are
the production and marketing of iron and steel.
In the past it signed
agreements with several British companies but recently
lost a lucrative
US$400 million contract with an Indian company, Global
Steel
Holdings.
The Reserve Bank said in July it had saved Zisco
from closure by
providing an emergency $2 trillion (old currency) lifeline.
Production at
the company had plunged by 88% from 14 200 to 1 600 metric
tonnes in
February. The firm is saddled with foreign debts of over US$126
million.
Whistleblowers said they would not allow authorities
to sweep
the issue under the carpet when they had provided the investigators
with
detailed information which clearly established systematic looting of
public
assets and attempts to use Zisco as a vehicle for
self-enrichment.
"We are going to release the information
when the right time
comes if they continue trying to hide the corruption at
Zisco," a senior
Zisco official said. "People from NECI led by their deputy
director came to
Redcliff and went to Botswana to probe the issue and we
gave them all the
information. So what's the problem?
"If
they believe they can manage to conceal corruption and then
blame us for
what happens at the company, then they should think twice. We
will expose
them sooner rather than later."
Sources said NECI officials
got all the information they need to
nail those who were involved in the
Zisco graft. The Independent's contacts
in Botswana said three NECI
investigators visited that country from July 24
to August 3 last year to
gather information.
While there, the NECI detectives went to
the Grand Palm Hotel &
Convention Resort in Gaborone where government
officials used to squander
Zisco money on expensive drinks and food almost
every weekend.
The place, formerly the Grand Palm Hotel
Casino Resort, is a
five-star hotel and is located just outside
Gaborone.
"The NECI people from Zimbabwe came here and we
gave them all
the information, including documents, to show who was booked
here, when and
for how long," a source said.
A Zisco
official said the raiding of the Midlands-based
parastatal would make all
previous government graft cases "look like a
Sunday afternoon picnic when it
eventually explodes.
"It is outrageous and we will make sure
it is not covered-up,"
the official said. "How can government try to hide
corruption which is so
brazen?"
The Zisco looting was
done via bid-rigging of contracts and
awarding of large sums of allowances
in forex to top government officials
and their cronies who claimed to be
doing government business. Zisco also
lost millions in forex due to
overpricing by suppliers.
The parliamentary portfolio
committee dealing with the issue has
failed to get the NECI report on Zicso,
with ministers giving excuses as to
why the report could not be
released.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
ZIMBABWE'S standing
as an investment destination plumbed fresh
depths in a World Bank rating
unveiled in Harare yesterday, moving from 145
to 153 on an average weighted
ranking of 175 countries.
The country's low rating is an
indictment on government policies
as it indicated that the country was among
25 countries "making it more
difficult for businesses".
The ranking comes at a time when the country's monetary and
fiscal
authorities have embarked on a whirlwind tour of mainly Asian
countries to
lure investors and help turn around the ailing economy which
has suffered a
cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) decline of more than
30% between
1999 and 2005.
The rating, contained in the World Bank's
Doing Business 2007:
How to Reform report, used 10 criteria for the ranking
of countries and
Zimbabwe scored dismally in almost all of
them.
Its ranking was the worst on dealing with licences
index, where
it moved a notch up to 171 on the current
ranking.
Trading across borders obtained the same ranking as
last year at
168, with the cost of importing a container pegged at US$4 565,
while
starting a business was ranked 137, from 128 last
year.
Licensing procedures take up to 481 days, while firing
costs are
equivalent to 446 weeks of salaries, according to the World Bank
report.
Director liability had a very low ranking at one. The
highest
ranking for director liability is at 10, with the United States,
where Enron
directors were recently jailed after being held responsible for
the collapse
of the company, having scored 9.
Mungai
Lenneiye, the new World Bank country manager for
Zimbabwe, said the ranking
had not factored in issues of expropriation,
transparency in the tender
processes as well as the macro-economic
environment.
Analysts indicated that these factors could have given Zimbabwe
an even more
unfavourable score had they been factored into the rating.
Industries that remain in business are operating below
capacity.
The report said while Africa had lagged behind all
other regions
in the pace of reform, the continent this year ranked third
and was behind
only Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the OECD high-income
countries.
Two thirds of the African countries made at least
one reform,
and Tanzania and Ghana ranked among the top 10
reformers.
"Several countries - including Bolivia, Eritrea,
Hungary,
Timor-Leste, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe - went backward,"
the report
said.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
ANALYSTS said
this week Finance minister Herbert Murerwa had to
devise creative strategies
for increased revenue collection and impose tight
controls on government
expenditure next year to curtail huge deficits.
The analysts'
views come as Murerwa, who has held pre-budget
consultations this month, is
preparing to unveil his 2007 budget proposals
in parliament next
month.
Murerwa last week blamed the current deficit, held
responsible
for stoking inflation, on hyperinflation and adjustments to
civil servants'
salaries in May.
Analysts said Murerwa
should refrain from overtaxing struggling
companies and
workers.
University of Zimbabwe Graduate School of Management
lecturer,
Isaac Kwesu, told businessdigest fiscal indiscipline in government
had
generated huge budget deficits, and there was little prospect Murerwa
could
rein in government spending against the background of rampaging
inflation.
Murerwa presented a $327,2 trillion ($327,2
billion under the
new currency system) supplementary budget that bloated the
2006 budget to
$451 trillion, from the $123,9 trillion proposed for the
year's budget.At
the time the supplementary budget was presented, most
government ministries
had spent their budgets and were already in the
red.
There are reports that some government departments have
already
spent their budgets and are struggling to pay
salaries.
Kwesu said such developments made planning for
Murerwa's 2007
budget difficult, considering that inflation is projected by
the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) to top 4 000% next year. In that case,
any
proposal underestimating the high inflation environment is likely to
miss
targets within months, creating the danger of quarterly supplementary
budgets.
"High inflation and more price increments will
characterise
2007," Kwesu said.
"Murerwa must improve on
revenue collection. People are watching
if he will introduce new taxes or
increase the existing taxes. The bottom
line is fiscal discipline, which is
lacking," said Kwesu.
"Government relies on corporate tax.
But this is shrinking
because companies are closing down. Pay As You Earn
(PAYE) has been affected
by high levels of unemployment. The main sources of
government revenue are
drying up," he said.
Kwesu added
that Value Added Tax (VAT) is dependent on consumers'
purchasing power,
which has also been eroded by hyperinflation.
Murerwa has
therefore little room for manoeuvre.
Government already
heavily borrowed on domestic market where the
debt stock increased two fold
between July and September 2006 from $50
billion to $119,4 billion due to
high deficits.
Economists fear that the situation next year
could spark
increased money printing, something that will further fuel
inflationary
pressures in the economy.
Kwesu blamed
government's poor inflation forecasts for the
continuing recession because
it rendered planning difficult. Budgets are
prepared on basis of inflation
forecasts and an outturn higher than
projections normally spawns a higher
budget deficit.
Kwesu said government had to learn from past
mistakes to avoid
highly inflationary budget deficits, the major cause of
supplementary
budgets in the country.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
A
GOVERNMENT debt accrued from the purchase of Chinese passenger
aircraft has
added a US$1,8 million interest bill, according to information
obtained by
businessdigest.
The interest is in respect of a US$12 million
debt outstanding
after the purchase of two MA60 passenger aircraft by
government from China's
state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China
(Avic) which last year.
The debt, outstanding since April, is
understood to have raised
concerns the Chinese might join the league of
disgruntled creditors failing
to claim back loans overdue for repayment by
Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe has received funding for projects as well
as credit
lines from China under Sino-Zimbabwe deals promoted by President
Robert
Mugabe's government under the "Look East" policy.
The Chinese gave Zimbabwe a third aircraft as a token of
appreciation for
the purchases.
The third plane was grounded just weeks after
it was handed over
to the Zimbabwean government in
January.
The interest is likely to increase the stock of the
country's
foreign debt, reported to have declined after a payment of
outstanding
general resources account arrears to the IMF earlier this year
by the
central bank.
According to details obtained from
reliable sources, government
had promised to clear its debt with Avic,
acquired under a financial
arrangement with the Chinese government, by the
end of last year.
But it failed to fulfill its obligation
because of acute foreign
currency shortages in the country, although the
central bank recently
splurged huge sums of foreign cash on the purchase of
vehicles for
government departments and ministries.
Air
Zimbabwe spokesman, David Mwenga, refused to comment when
contacted by
businessdigest this week, referring all questions to the
Transport and
Communications ministry.
Transport minister Chris Mushohwe,
and his permanent secretary,
Engineer George Mlilo, could not immediately
give any comments, requesting
written questions.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
AIR Zimbabwe became
the first state-owned company to react to
the termination of central bank
support by hiking airfares for both domestic
and international routes under
measures the airline's spokesman said were
meant to sustain
operations.
The airline hiked its fares by between 200% and
500% in a move
spokesman David Mwenga said was meant "to make the business
viable"
following condemnation of the airline by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
governor
Gideon Gono who grouped it among "non-performing
parastatals".
Gono said Air Zimbabwe, together with the
Zimbabwe National
Water Authority, power utility Zesa, the Grain marketing
Board, the
Agricultural Research and Development Authority (Arda) and the
Zimbabwe Iron
and Steel Company (Zisco) had "developed seemingly perpetual
reliance on the
Reserve Bank for support, unacceptably surrendering their
cash-flow planning
and survival needs to us".
Sources
said key parastatals like power utility Zesa, which had
been restrained from
reviewing their tariffs upwards for fear that this
could exacerbate
inflationary pressure, were already pressing for a review
of tariffs to
sustain operations.
Zesa, which has unsuccessfully battled
poor power generation at
its plants, as well as constrained power imports,
has always argued that its
problems could be solved by charging economic
tariffs to its customers.
This has been dismissed by Gono and
government because of the
effects of such economic tariffs on the
inflationary situation in the
country, as well as potential social
discontent that might arise as a result
of a significant hike in electricity
tariffs.
Sources indicated that Zinwa, the water supplier in
local
authorities in Harare and surrounding towns and the city of
Chitungwiza, was
already seeking authority to increase its charges to
survive.
A review of Zinwa's charges had been dismissed by
government,
who alleged it was inflationary.
But with
Gono's withdrawal of support to the non-performing
parastatals, it is
expected that pressure was likely to build up against the
parastatals for an
immediate review of charges to maintain viability.
It is
expected that line ministries or the various parastatals
were likely to be
more receptive to requests for reviews given that their
own resources are
depleted and they can not subsidise the loss-making
parastatals.
Zim Independent
GOVERNMENT'S domestic debt declined to $119,4
billion after
reaching an all time high of $127,4 billion on September 15,
central bank
figures revealed this week.
In its recent
update of government's debt stock, the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe said
domestic debt stood at $119,4 billion as at September
30, declining by $8
billion from the record touched on September 15.
Government's
domestic debt consists of government stocks,
treasury bills and central bank
advances.
Since January this year, domestic debt has been on
an upward
trend.
Government said its borrowing had been
bloated by food and fuel
imports.
The country, once the
region's bread basket, has been dependent
on imports to feed its people due
to disruptions caused to the farming
sector by a controversial agrarian
reform as well as poor harvests caused by
draught.
Government's domestic debt opened the year at $14,1 billion and
has been
consistently rising since then.
With limited or no meaningful
sources of offshore support for
the budget, government has aggressively
borrowed from the domestic market
where high interest rates have significant
increased the domestic debt
level.
A highly inflationary
environment has created huge deficits in
the national budget, forcing
government to resort to aggressive borrowing.
Last year, the
budget deficit out-turn was at 60% of gross
domestic product, according to
figures released by the International
Monetary Fund
(IMF).
Government had, however, claimed the budget deficit
for the year
was a paltry 3% of GDP.
Central bank
governor Gideon Gono said in July that government's
debt levels had become
unsustainable.
Besides domestic debt, government holds a huge
stock of foreign
debt which it has failed to repay because of foreign
currency shortages.
The country's total debt disbursed and
outstanding (including
arrears)currently stands at US$4 billion.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
THE Civil
Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (Caaz) is expected to
start refurbishment and
expansion of the Victoria Falls Airport at a cost of
close to $1 billion,
businessdigest established this week.
Caaz chief executive
officer David Chawota said this week his
organisation would soon issue a
tender for the refurbishment and expansion
of the
airport.
The tender will be valued at $600 million, Chawota
said,
refusing to give additional costs.
Chawota said
Caaz had already contracted a company that had
already begun clearing land
at the airport ahead of the planned expansion
programme.
"Contractors have moved on site to start clearing the ground and
carry out
the enabling work before the actual contraction of the runway
begins,"
Chawota said.
"We will soon be going to tender to invite bids
for the actual
construction of the runway. We expect the company that is
clearing the land
complete by the end of the year."
Last
week, government injected $600 million for the project,
part of a programme
meant to spruce up the image of old airports around the
country before 2010.
Completion of the expansion programme is expected
before 2010 when South
Africa hosts the soccer World Cup.
President Robert Mugabe's
government has indicated that it would
want to take advantage of increased
tourist traffic during the hosting of
the World Cup in South
Africa.
Tourist arrivals have declined significantly from a
peak of 2
250 000 in 1999 to 1 560 000 in 2005 as a result of an unstable
political
and economic environment in the country. Victoria Falls
International
Airport was opened in 1966. It had had a number of
refurbishments over the
years.
The last refurbishment was
carried out in 1990.
After the completion of the current
expansion and refurbishment
programme, the existing building will become the
domestic terminal.
The Victoria Falls airport is a key port
of entry for tourists
visiting the Victoria Falls by air.
It handles one domestic and four regional scheduled flights
daily as well as
commercial non-scheduled and private charters.
Caaz projects
that after the expansion and modernisation of the
airport, it will attract
larger airlines with bigger planes. This will
increase accessibility to the
resort town by international tourists.
Several airlines had
previously indicated willingness to fly
tourists directly to Victoria Falls
but had been inhibited by the size of
the airport.
Caaz
has also carried out expansion and refurbishment programmes
at the Harare
International Airport and similar work is underway at the
Joshua Mqabuko
Nkomo Airport in Bulawayo whose commissioning is scheduled
for
December.
Zim Independent
By Alex T Magaisa
FUNDAMENTAL
questions that occupy the minds of most people in
Zimbabwe and beyond who
have been frustrated by the economic decline and
increasing poverty are
whether it is possible to replace the ruling Zanu PF
and, if so, how that is
possible in the face of failures of the commonly
employed
methods.
Such approaches, ranging from participation in
elections to mass
stayaways and street demonstrations have largely proved
ineffectual in
recent years. Despite the visible decline, Zanu PF appears
more entrenched
and despair has taken over where once there was hope and
expectation.
It appears to me that one of the weaknesses in
approaching the
challenge has been a generalisation of the issues at hand,
which has led to
the adoption of general and predictable methods and a
failure to explore
alternatives. The challenge has been framed as one of
taking political power
from Zanu PF without however posing to explore and
understand the nature of
Zanu PF's power. "Political power" has been defined
generally and taken for
granted yet in reality the nature of political power
is multifaceted and
more complex.
Understanding the
nature of Zanu PF's power is critical because
it allows an avenue to see its
strengths and weaknesses and also open up
space for new alternatives. The
question therefore is: from which sources
does Zanu PF draw its
power?
Having applied my mind to these questions, I have
resorted to
the work of Susan Strange, one of the major voices in
international
political economy. Almost 20 years ago, Strange brought great
insight, in a
book titled States and Markets, into the nature of power
within the
international system.
Power itself is defined
simply as one's ability to impose
his/her will on others regardless of their
wishes/interests. Strange
identified two kinds of power: first, relational
power, which is the power
that one wields to get another person to do
something that they would not
otherwise do, and second, structural power,
which is the power to shape and
determine the structures within which others
operate; the power to set the
agenda and decide how things are
done.
It is important within this context to understand how
Zanu PF
uses structural power in the way it sets up the framework in which
individuals and entities including political parties and corporate
enterprises operate and relate to each other within the political and
economic landscape. It is understanding the nature of Zanu PF's structural
power that is the focus of this article.
According to
Strange, there are four key sources of structural
power, namely production,
finance, security and knowledge. Put simply, the
proposition is that
structural power reposes in those that are able to:
exercise control of
people's security; make decisions and control the manner
of production for
survival; control the financial architecture, ie supply
and distribution of
finance; and, control the definition, development,
dissemination, storage of
and access to knowledge broadly defined to include
information, ideas and
beliefs.
Production is probably the most commonly known
source of
structural power. Marxists having long argued that power reposes
in those in
control of the means of production. The ones that decide the
mode of
production and control production levels necessarily have the power
over
those with an interest in accessing the means and items of production.
They
seek to strengthen and defend their position and establish rules and
institutions to create enclosures that others cannot
challenge.
It is within this context that we can see Zanu
PF's strategy in
relation to land reform and lately other areas of
production such as
industry and the mining sector. Zanu PF knew that in an
agro-based economy,
it lacked sufficient control of the production
structure.
Instead, the commercial farmers with greater
control of the
production structure appeared to favour the new opposition
party, the MDC.
It therefore became necessary to break this pattern to avoid
having the
power from the production structure residing with the MDC. To be
fair, Zanu
PF probably had illusions that the transition from the old to the
new
farmers would be smooth but as we now know, these illusions were without
foundation.
Zanu PF's power arising from the production
structure would have
been greater today had agricultural productivity been
maintained at the
pre-2000 levels. But this did not materialise and while it
controls the
means of production, its power from this structure is actually
weak because
of low productivity. The only reason why it is important is
that it has
managed to deprive others of the opportunity to draw power from
this
structure because of its monopoly that is supported by a strong
security
structure.
I would also point out that it is
within this context that we
can understand Zanu PF's desire to assume
greater control of the mines and
is hard on the local industry, setting the
prices of essential goods and
therefore levels of production and also its
active participation as a
shareholder in local
industries.
But it is also important to realise that people
are not without
power. For example, while an employer draws power from his
control of the
production system on which employees depend for employment
and livelihood,
employees can whenever they feel the employer has abused his
power, withdraw
their labour or engage in other action that forces the
employer to meet
their demands. We have seen however that mass stayaways,
strikes or similar
action do not seem to have had the desired effect on Zanu
PF power.
This is probably because power from this
structure is already
weak anyway as there is no real production to talk
about and so Zanu PF
couldn't care less. Withdrawing labour does no more
harm to the power from
the production structure, which is already weak. Zanu
PF has nothing to lose
in this respect. It would be different however if
people engaged in other
parallel forms of production, hereby creating a
parallel structure from
which they draw power but Zanu PF has no control.
However positive action
such as this is difficult where Zanu PF can deploy
power from the security
structure.
The finance structure
consists of control over finance,
generally defined. This involves the
control and availability of credit and
other financial facilities. Its
influence is more defined in advanced
economies but is generally important
because it affects the power arising
from other structures - production,
knowledge development and security. The
old adage that he who has wealth has
power applies with equal force in this
case.
In Zimbabwe
we can see the manifestation of Zanu PF's power from
this structure in its
tentacles spread across the financial sector,
especially major local banks.
It can also be seen in the Reserve Bank's
forays into retail banking (under
the cloak of temporary "operations") -
becoming a principal source of
finance for industry and agriculture and a
key player via institutions like
ZABG. Private institutions have been
forcibly taken over or sidelined by the
all-powerful RBZ and in the process
Zanu PF is effectively assuming control
of the key sites of the finance
structure thereby seeking to enhance its
power.
A question is not often asked - why are there people
who appear
to support Zanu PF despite its failings? They are often dismissed
as
ignorant and mostly rural folk. People or entities that toe Zanu PF's
line
do so not necessarily because they believe in its ideals but only
because by
doing so they secure access to facilities within Zanu
PF-controlled
financial architecture. They do so because they depend on it -
if they had
an alternative they probably would not toe the line. But looked
at another
way, if they chose to reject it they would be creating their own
parallel
source of power. In this context, the parallel market is no more
than a
refusal to succumb to the power of the Zanu PF-controlled financial
system.
If all the funds circulating in the parallel market were in the
formal
system, it would greatly enhance the power of those in control of the
finance structure.
Then there is the old saying that
knowledge is power. It simply
means that those who are able to define and
control the development, use,
dissemination and access to knowledge have
important structural power. The
control of knowledge involves withholding
certain kinds of knowledge from
people thereby keeping them ignorant or
feeding them certain kinds of
knowledge that favour the
controller.
Knowledge also affects the other three structures
- in terms of
enhancing or decreasing security, technology for finance and
also for
production. By 1990 Zanu PF had already increased attempts to
control the
knowledge structure by enhancing control and interference with
academic
freedom at universities via the notoriously controversial
University of
Zimbabwe Amendment Act. The same efforts can be seen in the
control of
syllabi of key subjects that teach liberation history and also
increasing
attempts to take control of the private education
sector.
Similarly, re-education programmes and the national
youth
service constitute attempts to control knowledge - the spread of ideas
that
support a certain position.
More importantly, Zanu
PF has maintained control of power
arising from the knowledge structure
through a system of closure or
withdrawal of knowledge. This is the context
in which we can understand the
media monopoly of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Holdings, the threats and actual
acts of violence against the Daily News
culminating in the continued refusal
to issue a licence, the dominance of
Zimpapers.
The question therefore is whether those that
oppose Zanu PF's
ways have any strategy aimed at breaking this source of
power? The question
knows what sustains the vehicles through which knowledge
is developed and
transmitted. The party mouthpieces need revenue from
advertisers and
subscribers but how many among these potential advertisers
and subscribers
are unwittingly keeping it afloat?
The
security structure is probably the most important of all
structures from
which Zanu PF draws power. The fact that this is a strong
structure of power
for Zanu PF should not take away attention from the other
structures which
have their own weaknesses that can be exploited. The
security structure
cannot operate on its own, it requires the other
structures and hence it is
often deployed to ensure that the other
structures of power remain in
existence.
As we have seen, power derived from the security
structure can
also be used to support other structures, for example using
coercion of the
youth militia to promote certain ideas and beliefs, using
the police force
or army to confiscate funds held by individuals, and
failing to provide
security to farmers when threatened with violence during
the land invasions.
The most brutal use of power from the security structure
to coerce
obedience and compliance was the deployment of the
notorious
Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland under the guise of suppressing
dissident
activity.
It stands to reason therefore that
securing power does not lie
in the realm of elections or mere demonstrations
but measures that
neutralise the power drawn from the security structure.
Given the nature of
the Zimbabwe state and the historical circumstances of
its birth it is no
surprise that the centre of power lies in the security
structure. Any
attempt therefore to win power requires ways of getting some
of that power.
An opposition movement needs some measure of
support emanating
from within this structure, in order to draw the necessary
power.
Penetrating the security structure could involve making oneself
relevant to
the agenda and interests of those that form part of the security
structure.
This is not easy but also not impossible. The MDC tried it when
some
legislators allegedly tried to woo top military personnel a few years
ago,
though their attempt was probably awkwardly executed and therefore
failed.
What emerges from the above is that instead of
talking of Zanu
PF's power in general terms, it helps to dissect its
structures in order to
understand more precisely its strengths and
weaknesses, by understanding its
sources of power. Conversely, this helps to
unravel the various options and
avenues available to those that seek to
challenge its power.
When people have talked about its
superior power, they have
largely referred to its power arising principally
from the security
structure. They have not specifically considered its power
arising from
other structures and the weaknesses that lie therein. When
considered in
total, it is easy to see that because of the weaknesses in
other power
structures, they have had to be propped up by the security
structure.
Notwithstanding the immense power from the
security structure,
it is also important to realise that power is
reciprocal. It may not be
equal reciprocity but the fact remains that one's
power is relevant only to
the extent that he controls things that are
required by other people.
In return for their desire for
security the people cede power to
those that are able to offer security.
Conversely, once that security
becomes a threat or is no longer available,
people no longer require it and
may therefore seek
alternatives.
The history of Zimbabwe itself is testament to
this fact. When
the liberation parties realised that the security offered by
the Rhodesian
Front was not in their best interests but had instead become a
threat to
their freedoms, they decided to reject that form of security and
create an
alternative source of their own.
* Alex T
Magaisa is a lawyer based in the UK.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
POLICE last week
intensified their crackdown on the business
sector, arresting private-sector
executives for allegedly increasing prices
of basic commodities without
approval.
The campaign, which triggered fears of a witch-hunt
in the
business community, also claimed a senior government official who was
arrested for allegedly approving bread price increases without government
authority.
There are indications that the arrests, which
analysts say are
part of government's renewed drive to use price controls as
a political tool
to win hearts and minds, have become a fresh ground for
political struggle
in Zanu PF currently split over the succession
issue.
Analysts say the business leaders are becoming pawns
in the
political chess game that has become dirty. Confusion reigns in
government
with revelations last week that the crackdown was carried out
against
Vice-President Joice Mujuru's assurance to business leaders last
month that
no one would be arrested or harassed.
Industry
and International Trade minister, Obert Mpofu,
professed ignorance saying he
was not on top of the price controls issue and
alleged that a "third force"
instigated the arrests of business executives.
"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 don't know
what is happening. Talk to
them (businesses) about the arrests, they know
better," Mpofu told this
paper last week.
What is however clear is that government is
seriously thinking
of coming up with all-encompassing measures to control
prices.
Over the past six months there has been a systematic
trend which
shows that government is becoming increasingly repressive and
intolerant
towards the business community.
President
Robert Mugabe has on numerous occasions registered his
anger toward
businesses that hike prices of goods.
There are now concrete
signs that government is planning a
far-reaching project to control prices
of basic commodities despite Mpofu
claiming otherwise. Similar controls have
failed in the past.
A confidential document in possession of
this paper shows that
Mpofu's ministry is heavily involved in what is called
the "Price
Stabilisation Committee" whose role will be to control and
monitor prices of
basic commodities. The document says that a representative
from the Ministry
of Industry and International Trade will chair the
committee that will be
charged with the role of approving prices of basic
goods.
A representative from the private sector will be the
deputy
chair of the committee, says the document, compiled by Mpofu's
ministry. It
states that companies that want to increase prices will have to
seek
approval from the committee, which will make a decision by
consensus.
"For the three controlled products, the committee
will submit
their recommendations to the Minister of Industry and
International Trade
for tabling before the National Economic Recovery
Council (NERC) and
Cabinet."
The committee means that
government wants to have control over
prices in almost every
sector.
Analysts say the new measures are a sign that
government has
failed to revive the economy and would want to divert
attention by giving
the impression that they are doing something to protect
poor people by
reintroducing price controls. The new measure marks the
return of the price
controls, which caused massive shortages of basic
commodities when they were
introduced in October 2003.
The price controls gave rise to the black market that thrived on
people who
offloaded basic commodities out of the formal onto the informal
market to
beat the controls. Thousands of people lost their jobs as
companies were
forced to downsize because of the controls. Analysts say the
government
seems to have learnt nothing from the destructive effects of the
controls
which economists agree fuel the black market and inflation.
Economic consultant Daniel Ndlela said price controls would not
work and
they have never worked anywhere. He said the government is refusing
to
accept the international trend that show that price controls cannot be
used
as a tool to revive an economy.
"They have never worked
anywhere but here it's worse because
they are forgetting other economic
fundamentals like foreign exchange rates
and interest rates which they are
not controlling," Ndlela said.
Ndlela said it was "dangerous
and misleading" for government to
control the price of say bread on the
pretext that the bakeries are getting
wheat from the Grain Marketing Board
at a cheaper prices.
"They are working under the dangerous
notion that the end price
of a loaf of bread is a function of wheat only.
They are conveniently
forgetting that there is labour, financing cost, spare
parts and fuel which
the bakeries are getting at the parallel market
rate."
The sad reality is that distortions in the market have
resulted
in the current situation where there is more than one price for
things like
foreign currency and fuel.
The government
insists that fuel costs $320 per litre but
businesses can only find it at
more than $1 000. The official price of the
United States dollar is $250 but
business is sourcing it at $1 400 because
of the scarcity in the
market.
While some privileged companies access the cheap
capital from
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe at around 20% per annum, others
get the money
from the market at rates of 350%.
These
distortions in the market are a result of the same price
controls that
government is planning to reintroduce.
A new wave of price
controls could only lead to more shortages
and company closures while they
exacerbate the economic crisis.
Perhaps the sad irony is that
Zimbabwe seems to be going back to
the policies that its friends in the East
like China and Russia have thrown
in the dustbin. China, Zimbabwe's
celebrated ally, tried it without success
from 1949 to 1979, before it
started moving towards a free market.
China used to control
the price of almost everything from
foreign currency to rubber shoes and TV
sets.
In extreme cases people found with foreign currency
were put
before a firing squad. The Soviet Union under the communists tried
price
controls for almost 60 years before they realised they don't
work.
"It's clear that the world is moving toward
market-determined
prices," said Ndlela.
"As soon as China
allowed the market forces to take charge their
economy started growing. Why
Zimbabwe has not learnt from China is amazing."
Other
analysts say the new price controls are a sign that
government has lost the
war against inflation and wants to shift the blame
to
manufacturers.
Economic commentator Eric Bloch said price
controls will sound
the death knell for businesses that are already battling
with massive
inflation, lack of foreign exchange and the general collapse of
the economy.
They will lead to more company
closures.
Bloch said government was desperate for political
survival and
has turned the heat on businesses to give the perception that
they are for
the people.
"The problem is that they
(government) know that controls will
not work. They are trying to save the
political establishment by peddling
such populist policies to give an
impression that they are in control when
in fact they are not at all," Bloch
said.
On a broader scale it is clear that there is no
consensus in
government on the way forward with regard to the
controls.
"There are people in government who know that these
policies
will not work but will never speak out because they are too afraid
of
offending President Mugabe," said economic commentator John
Robertson.
"For instance Finance minister Herbert Murerwa
last year spoke
strongly against price controls but has not gathered the
courage to push for
their abolition. During a parliamentary portfolio
committee hearing in
September last year Murerwa said price controls were
causing distortions in
the market.
"We should move away
from price controls. They do not help. It
is some of these policies that are
creating additional distortions," Murerwa
said.
"We are
in a globalised village. There is no country (in the
world) that tinkers
with this kind of thing."
Mugabe has shown in his speeches
that he is a staunch supporter
of price controls. The irony is that Zimbabwe
is returning to discredited
and damaging policies just as it has signed up
to a regional protocol on
free trade and investment.
Zim Independent
Comment
ZANU PF MPs have presented us with useful
disclosure on the
state of the National Economic Development Priority
Programme (NEDPP) which
government told us was a quick-fix plan to extricate
the economy from its
current woes.
At its inception,
Vice-President Joice Mujuru said NEDPP was a
temporary plan aimed at
stabilising the economy through strategies that
should improve food
security, increase foreign currency generation, boost
investor confidence,
reduce unemployment and reduce both foreign and
domestic
debt.
At the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries Congress in
Bulawayo
in August, Mujuru said the programme was beginning to bear fruit
although
she was hard-pressed to demonstrate the gains.
On the foreign investment and foreign currency generation front,
central
bank governor Gideon Gono has told us that details of the deals are
confidential. It takes a huge leap of faith to believe that there is
anything behind this official subterfuge.
What is very
clear though is that the original plan, designed to
raise US$2,5 billion,
has failed. Economic Development minister Rugare Gumbo
admitted at a
pre-budget seminar that the programme was on the ropes.
"The
problem with the NEDPP is that it came as an emergency to
solve the economic
crisis facing the country and I agree that we failed to
manage it and
therefore it did not bear the desired fruits," he reportedly
said.
"We are human beings and we make mistakes," Gumbo
said.
This was in sharp contrast to the optimism generated in
state-media circles at the time of the programme's launch that it was a
panacea which would lead to a complete "turnaround" of the
economy.
More pointed attacks on the wonder programme were
launched last
Thursday, significantly by Zanu PF MPs, at a parliamentary
portfolio
committee meeting at which they quizzed senior officials in
Gumbo's
ministry.
Senator Tsitsi Muzenda wanted to know
if the NEDPP "is the best
programme because we are good at presenting
papers. People out there are
crying because the price of fuel is going up
and there is no bread in the
shops".
Bikita West MP
retired Col Claudius Makova saw no difference
between NEDPP and past
economic programmes.
"How far have we gone in the achievement
of the objectives of
the programme?" he asked. "We have moved from programme
to programme and are
you saying this programme is a better programme from
the ones we have
embarked on, but haven't achieved much?"
The observations by the Zanu PF MPs point to the fact that the
programme has
run into troubled waters. Their views undoubtedly resonate
among other
senior leaders who have seen through the delusional ruse that
the economy
could be turned around in six months.
In May, the government
said it required three to four months to
implement the programme and an
extra month or so to tie up the loose ends.
We immediately raised the red
flag and warned that this was another journey
into infantile self-deception
because the task at hand was too great to be
wished away in three
months.
The government's thought police were quick to label
those
exercising healthy scepticism as detractors, or saboteurs even. We
said at
the time there was no prospect of such a programme succeeding so
long as the
macro-economic fundamentals remained so badly skewed. These
included runaway
state spending and disruptions on the
farms.
We have been vindicated. The anxiety about the failure
of the
programme is now coming from within Zanu PF
itself.
Remarkable also is the fact that the attack on NEDPP
is coming
at this late hour in the implementation of the programme. This is
a time
when Gumbo, Makova and Muzenda should have been celebrating the
achievements
of NEDPP and parading its gains. What happened to the US$2,5
billion target?
How much was actually raised?
Meanwhile,
as the programme festers under the dead weight of its
unreformed
bureaucracy, policy inconsistencies and outright recidivism by
the state,
political hawks in the party have grabbed the initiative to use
the plan as
a platform for their power play.
The total confusion at the
Industry and International Trade
ministry over price controls illustrates
this. The programme is now in the
clutches of powerful politicians who have
no interest in putting the economy
right, as the assaults on the business
community show, but are instead
focused on political manoeuvring. To say the
programme should be
discontinued would be to assume there was a plan in the
first place. The
inevitable has happened.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
PRESIDENT Mugabe has finally signed the Sadc Protocol on Trade,
Finance and
Investment and government spin doctors were immediately
unleashed to
convince us that the protocol would increase investment and end
our
misery.
Government could have celebrated too soon because
convergence
does not occur at the drop of a hat. It is a painful process
that requires
governments to look beyond their borders when they make
policies. This is
easier said than done.
Regional leaders
have a lot to learn from the steps taken by
Europe towards the introduction
of the euro. EU members adopted a set of
criteria agreed to in the
Maastricht Treaty. The shift towards a common
currency implied that a set of
credible measures had to be agreed and
implemented by all countries in order
to coordinate policy and achieve
economic convergence in the bloc. This was
a long-drawn process which worked
in the end because member-states were
committed to reform to align their
policies with the Maastricht
Treaty.
In the mid-1990s the Common Market for Eastern and
Southern
Africa (Comesa) excitedly flirted with the idea of a common
currency to be
used as legal tender in an envisaged free trade area. The
initiative was
dead in the cot as a number of factors militated against the
thrust; mainly
failure by member-states to achieve convergence in stability
indicators such
as inflation, debt servicing ratio of forex earnings, budget
deficits, broad
money supply growth and levels of central bank funding to
the central
government.
Achieving convergence in these
key indicators remained a dream
as member-states were involved in wars and
many were at various stages of
implementing structural reforms or dropping
them. The quest by the region to
establish a free trade area and monetary
harmonisation failed because the
implementation of the plan was largely
premised on the fiction that holding
conferences and authoring voluminous
papers on the subject would provide the
glue to bind the states
together.
The same kind of naivety could be befalling the
Sadc region,
most of whose members are very familiar with the Comesa flop
because they
were active participants in the slow death of the plan. The
regional leaders
have given themselves until 2008 to come up with a free
trade area, a
customs union by 2010 and a common market by
2015.
The idea of the Sadc protocol is to raise the profile
of the
region as an attractive investment destination and to harmonise
trade.
Leaders meeting in Midrand, South Africa, this week
said their
mini-summit was to map the way forward in achieving this
evidently arduous
task. Missing in their roadmap to achieve real regional
integration and
bringing down barriers to trade is a key
ingredient-political stability in
individual
member-states.
Chances of real economic convergence in Sadc
can be enhanced if
Zimbabwe, which currently sits in the centre of the
region like a failing
heart, is committed to reform which will put right the
current regime of
shameful indicators.
The indicators are
out of kilter with regional standards. The
region also appears powerless to
address poor policies in Zimbabwe. There
are price controls on basic
commodities and government is pushing for
damaging indigenisation laws in
which it wants to expropriate mines and
industry. The state has a monopoly
on the trade of grain and other
agro-products.
The land
reform programme, the genesis of dissonance in
Zimbabwe, is far from being
concluded even when government has maintained
the ruinous plan is over.
Worse still, there is a concerted attempt by
Zimbabwe to export its version
of land reform to the region.
The current protectionist
mindset of the Zimbabwean government
is at variance with the spirit of free
trade. As is the case with Zimbabwe's
"participation" in the Nepad
initiative, the country would very willingly
tag along with others for the
purposes of solidarity with no real benefits
accruing to
us.
If anything, Zimbabwe has worked to diverge from the
grouping
economically. There is no evidence to suggest that Zimbabwe belongs
to any
convergence club in the region and President Mugabe's colleagues are
well
aware of that.
Sadc chair and Lesotho premier
Pakalitha Mosisili at the summit
almost told us what we already know about
the contagion effect Zimbabwe has
in the region.
"... We
should not be seen in the light of just the one member
state out of 14 (so)
that people will use that as a pretext not to invest in
our region because
one member of the family is 'unacceptable' to them," he
told
reporters.
"That is unacceptable to us. We are saying we need
to be seen in
total as a region, instead of the outside world singling out
the one member
and saying because of member X we will not invest in
Sadc."
Then what PM? Those uncomfortable questions about
Zimbabwe will
be raised by any would-be investor. So the attitude of the
region is to tell
investors that "Zimbabwe is one of our not-so-well-behaved
cousins and there
is nothing we can do to reform him. As investors you have
to put up with his
attitude."
Somehow, we don't think
that response will prove sufficiently
alluring!
Zim Independent
Muckraker
WHO woke up Engineer Munacho Mutezo? The
Minister of State for
Water Resources and Infrastructural Development was
having a nice long nap
when suddenly he woke up and started waving his fists
around.
Nobody had heard of him before
that!
Addressing a police passing out parade, he said the
police
should safeguard government's "achievements" since Independence.
These
"achievements" presumably include the Kunzvi Dam that was never built
and
the Tokwe-Mukosi Dam that after nine years is still not
complete.
Other "achievements" include 80% unemployment, a
moribund health
system, and a toxic economic climate that has driven three
million
Zimbabweans to seek a better future with the "Western imperialists"
Mutezo
castigates.
Exactly how the police are expected to
safeguard these
"achievements" is a mystery. But perhaps what he meant was
more in line with
what President Mugabe said in Cairo recently when he
appeared to endorse
police violence against ZCTU demonstrators. Mutezo
referred to "fly-by-night
imperialist agents" who were "bent on
destabilising our country and
effecting regime change through unwarranted
subversive activities and
contrived demonstrations backed by the
West".
The security of the nation came first, Mutezo warned.
"Our
security forces would not fold their arms while they (imperialist
agents)
destroy properties and infrastructure that the government
painstakingly
constructed since 1980."
As most of that
infrastructure is now in a state of advanced
decay it would be difficult for
anybody to "destroy" it. And what evidence
does the minister have of
"subversive activities" by "imperialist agents"?
The last time the state
tried to make a case against people in Mutare it was
thrown out of court
with a strong judicial rebuke to the state agents
responsible for cooking up
such charges and arbitrarily arresting people.
Should a
minister presiding at a passing out parade of police
officers not be
reminding them of their duty to uphold the rule of law;
reminding them that
Zimbabweans have rights that need to be protected from
the depredations of
paranoid and petulant politicians whose approval of
state violence has given
Zimbabwe a terrible reputation for misrule and
repression?
That's what Mutezo should be doing, not
parroting the facile
mantras of his malevolent master. When Mutezo has
actually achieved
something in his job he might be in a position to speak
out on public
occasions. Until then we suggest he goes back to
sleep.
Mutezo spoke of a peaceful nation where "the citizens
cooperate
with the government".
Evidently, citizens have
been letting the government down by not
cooperating with it. They will need
to be shown the error of their ways so
that in future they are more
cooperative. The government clearly expects the
police to give a lead in
this regard.
Mutezo congratulated the police for their role
in Operation
Sunrise.
"The ZRP is challenged with the
sole mandate to enforce
government policies and ensure compliance by all
stakeholders," he said.
"Enforcing compliance" are the key
words here.
Former Botswana President Sir Ketumile Masire
has published his
autobiography which provides useful insights into what our
neighbours think
of us, VOA radio reports. Masire refers to the "political
and economic
destruction of Zimbabwe" in recent years. He speaks of the
"persecution of
many Africans and the destruction of the capacity of the
economy to
function".
The ex-president's book, titled
Very Brave or Very Foolish:
Memoirs of an African Diplomat, was published by
Macmillan in Gaborone to
coincide with the recent 40th anniversary of
Botswana's Independence. Masire
says that his relationship with President
Mugabe was chilly from the start
when Botswana maintained a close
relationship with Joshua Nkomo, Mugabe's
rival in Zimbabwe's liberation
struggle.
Mugabe "appeared to mistrust us", Masire writes.
The author says
he hoped relations would improve once Zimbabwe had secured
its Independence,
but says those hopes were dashed when Harare imposed
duties on imports from
Botswana in what he calls "a violation of our free
trade agreement".
Historian Jeff Ramsay, who is also press
secretary to Botswana's
current President Festus Mogae, said Masire's book
is one of the first
accounts of the liberation period from a senior
participant. Attorney
Tafadzwa Mugabe of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights
told VOA that the
criticism from Masire is welcome - but comes when the
damage has been done.
Muckraker is pleased to see the Law
Society of Zimbabwe
responding to allegations made by Tafataona Mahoso. By
publishing it
prominently on its op/ed pages, the Sunday Mail offered a
stark contrast
between the rational and measured tones of the LSZ's piece
and the maladroit
nationalist posturing that characterises Mahoso's
peripatetic column. But
the Sunday Mail does itself no service by allowing
youngsters on its staff
to write in defence of Aippa. This simply confirms
the widely held view that
some people posing as journalists are in fact
state public relations
officers. Defending the arrest and prosecution of
their colleagues in the
independent press for the imagined offence of
"abusing journalistic
privilege" is not a career-enhancing move and exposes
them to charges of
professional castration.
But they did
make one significant concession in their fumbling
piece.
"The LSZ and its colleagues have never bothered to educate their
constituents of the good embodied in Aippa," they wrote, "to the worrying
extent that the rest of the populace now view it in the same blinkered
perspective - a draconian piece of legislation."
So, some
progress there!
And while we would congratulate the LSZ on
exposing Mahoso's
factual errors, the legal body needs editorial help when
listing its
functions. Sometimes less is better, a point that Mahoso never
seems to
grasp. But he did provide us with a laugh over his claim that
Zimbabwe was
winning the image war. Does it seem like that? Anyway, for that
to happen he
has got to know what he is talking about. It would be useful
for instance to
know the correct name of the independent newspaper that
appears on a Sunday.
It is not called the Sunday Standard. And has he ever
been to Cape Town?
Afrikaner accents are not common in that part of the
country and that great
block of granite is not called Table Bay Mountain, it
is called Table
Mountain!
It is this sort of carelessness
and ignorance that isolates
Mahoso from those he seeks to lecture in his
African Focus column. The image
problem will remain so long as people like
him speak for the regime.
The land reform programme,
declared officially over in August
2004 by President Robert Mugabe, is still
yielding a grim harvest.
This week the Herald reported that
the sons of Sunday Mail chief
reporter Emilia Zindi had allegedly murdered
Lameck Wonder and tried to
conceal the deed by burning and then burying his
remains in a shallow grave.
Zindi is the proud owner of Hippo
Valley Farm in Chegutu where
the incident took place. Emilia's sons, Mike
and Misheck, reportedly beat
and killed the guard at their farm after he
told them an electric
switchboard and a water pump had been
stolen.
Emilia is one of many prominent beneficiaries of the
often
violent land reform programme during which a number of white
commercial
farmers were murdered in cold blood, one of them abducted from a
police
station and shot. Emilia is among High Court judges, senior army,
police and
CIO officers feasting from this presidential
largesse.
A niggling question is how can somebody so badly
compromised be
expected to report fairly on the conduct of such an
enterprise? How can such
a reporter comment objectively on government
policies and failures?
More than that, there were reports
recently that Emilia had
commandeered a tractor ferrying oranges to Chegutu
and claimed them as her
own. We would love to be enlightened by MIC chair
Mahoso on the impartiality
of such embedded
journalists.
We notice that Air Zimbabwe has increased
its airfares by more
than five times with immediate effect. Just over night
people travelling to
London and back must be ready to part with $1 865 000,
up from $358 310.
This was perhaps in response to Reserve
Bank governor Gideon
Gono's recent announcement that he would no longer give
cheap money to
non-performing parastatals. The irony is that the increase
was allowed the
same week that managers of several retail shops and
wholesalers were
arrested for raising prices of certain commodities "to
cover operational
costs". What's going on here?
There is
another interesting fact. The trip to London in British
pounds is reportedly
around £600. The official exchange rate for the pound
is fixed at an
arbitrary $465 in local currency. Yet the new fare of $1 865
000 suggests an
exchange rate close to the black market at $3 000 to £1.
Let's hear no more unctuous complaints about the black market.
It's now
official.
Agriculture minister Joseph Made has reportedly
read the riot
act to Arda. The Herald on Tuesday quoted Made telling Arda
senior managers
that those not prepared to work should
leave.
Made is reported to have complained that Arda had
failed to
increase livestock and crop production because managers spent most
of their
time in their offices.
"Time should be spent on
the estates and as government we will
not accommodate failure.We will not
accept any excuses for failure,"
protested Made.
Made
spent many years as head of Arda and should know what he is
talking about.
If wasting time in the offices doing nothing is the culture
he fostered over
the years he should not expect that to change over night.
If he has since
changed, let's see the heads roll.
In a lighter note,
Muckraker was amused to hear about the recent
visit of the Russian trade
team. Many proved to be shady operators who
couldn't believe their luck. Our
informants say they were offered a very
generous package of perks to see
Zimbabwe and experience our hospitality.
Some members of the delegation,
which included journalists, took this offer
literally and did rather more
experiencing than they could afford. They were
particularly keen to film our
local talent and demanded "close-up" shots, we
are told.
But very soon the per diems ran out and, amidst angry and noisy
scenes
unprecedented at the venerable city-centre hotel, fuelled by torrents
of
Vodka, the police had to be called. We are not sure exactly how the
matter
was settled except to say the Russians saw quite a lot of Zimbabwe
and its
friendly people and have many "Kodak moments" to show their
friends back home.
Zim Independent
By Eric
Bloch
"THERE are none so deaf as those who will not
hear". If that is
so, the Zimbabwean government must be the "deafest" of the
deaf, for it
obdurately fails to hear whatsoever it does not wish to hear. A
key case in
point is whensoever anyone has the temerity to advise government
to abandon
its policy of a command economy, and especially so if the advice
against
autocratic economic domination relates to the destructive
consequences of
price controls.
Although this column has
previously addressed the foolhardiness
of price controls, the recent insane
pursuit of enforcement of those
controls dictates a revisit to the issue,
albeit that government so
dogmatically adheres to its authoritarian rule of
the economy, that, despite
the irrefutable evidence of the resultant
demolition of the economy, it will
undoubtedly do naught but further
intensify the controls, and even more
vigorously seek to enforce
compliance.
For more than a century, any country that has
sought to impose,
and enforce, price controls has achieved nothing other
than to worsen their
economies, inflict greater hardships upon their
populations, and massively
fuel inflation. That was the case in Russia ever
since the communist
revolution led by Marx and Lenin, and throughout the
despotic rule of
Stalin, as also in the many countries that, over the years,
constituted the
Soviet Union, prevailing until the dissolution of that Union
and the era of
glasnost. Thereafter the economies of those countries
progressively
recovered, not solely because of the ongoing minimisation of
price controls,
but also diminution of other excessive economic restraints
and directions.
The same were the experiences of China, Cuba, Argentina,
Bolivia, Tanzania,
and many, many other countries.
Government's motivation for the imposition of price controls,
and its
presently ongoing wave of arrests in order to enforce compliance
with the
controls, is undoubtedly driven primarily in order to divert the
focus of
the economically oppressed population from the fact that it is
government
that has progressively destroyed the economy. For a long time the
country's
rulers have been able to blame, even if spuriously, Tony Blair,
the European
Union, George Bush and USA, whites in general (commercial
farmers in
particular), political opponents non-existent sanctions, and many
others.
But it is fast running out of scapegoats to blame and, with
inflation in
excess of 1 000% per annum, and almost all anticipating it to
rise further,
and very markedly, government seeks to save itself, and its
image with the
Zimbabwean masses.
To do so, it has no qualms in alleging,
even if without
substance, that inflation has been caused by wide-ranging
profiteering and
exploitation by manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and
retailers. And, to
demonstrate its love, care and concern for the
increasingly poverty-stricken
people that it governs, government has turned
to intensive actions against
all those that have not complied with its
oppressive, unrealistic, and
disastrous price controls. It has resorted to
numerous arrests, nationwide,
with especial focus upon those who sell
essential commodities such as bread,
sugar, milk, maize meal, and cement. In
many instances, pursuing its tried
and proven tactic of effecting arrests on
the eve of weekends, so that that
those arrested would have to spend 48 to
72 hours in jail before obtaining
remand, pending trial, government has used
the law to circumvent the intents
of the law for justice and
equity.
The result has been inevitable. As the controlled
prices of the
products have not been realistically assessed, and as they do
not move in
alignment with inflation, more and more of the products cannot
be produced,
or marketed, without sustaining loses. It is naivety in the
extreme to
expect producers to produce goods at costs which exceed the
prices at which
they are permitted to sell them.
Doing so
is a guaranteed path to bankruptcy. In like manner,
retailers cannot afford
to sell goods at less than the combined cost of
their purchase of those
goods, and of selling them. The retailer, as with
the producer, is
confronted not only by the direct costs attributable to the
commodity, but
also to a myriad of other costs (almost all of which are
presently rising
continuously), those costs including salaries and wages,
rents, electricity,
insurances, financing expenses, and numerous other cost
factors. If the
commodities cannot be sold for amounts which will recover
both the direct
and indirect costs, losses are the unavoidable result,
ultimately causing
the failure of the businesses, with all concomitant dire
consequences upon
the owners of the businesses, but also upon all other
stakeholders,
including employers, suppliers, customers, and the state
itself.
Of course, no businesses wish for such
developments, so as
government steps up its enforcement of its ill-conceived
and misguided price
controls, they discontinue the production and sale of
the price-controlled
products and, instead, concentrate upon those products
as are not the
subject of controls. That results in pronounced scarcities,
to the immense
prejudice of the consumers. Illustrative of this circumstance
has been the
near total disappearance of bread from the shelves of most
bakeries and
supermarkets. The same holds good for most, if not all, of the
other
price-controlled products. Almost in the entirety, the scarce
commodities
are only available, if at all, from black market sources, at
prices far
beyond those which would have been charged had the traditional
outlets been
able to sell them without the harebrained controls imposed by
government.
Thus, far from curbing inflation and helping consumers,
government is
actually fuelling inflation, concurrently with subjecting most
to the
distress of not being able to access their needs.
The long-proven, only effect ways of containing prices are to
address the
underlying causes of inflation, to motivate increased
productivity, and to
stimulate competition. If government would take
constructive measures to
generate foreign exchange, so that virile parallel
market (which is a major
contributant to inflation) would decline, to
contain its excessive
expenditure, to curb corruption, to restore viability
to agriculture, and to
achieve parastatal efficacy and viability, inflation
would decline rapidly
and substantially. That would play a very major role
in stabilising prices.
Most of those measures would also yield significant
productivity improvement
in commerce and industry, which would also
contribute materially to
achieving price stability. And the creation of a
deregulated economy and on
investment conducive environment would enable
intensified private sector
competition. That would motivate determined focus
upon containment of costs,
and improved operational efficiencies, in order
to resort to competitive
pricing.
Dynamic moves by government in that direction,
instead of
pursuit of heavy handed legislation, and the ill-considered
intent to create
a Price Stabilisation Monitoring Commission, would address
pricing issues
for more beneficially, from the point of view of consumers,
and of the
economy, and would be productive. In contrast, the present stance
and
actions of government in its intensification and enforcement of price
controls is nothing but total lunacy.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
LET'S face it gentlemen. Who would not want to marry a rich
woman? What
woman would not want to get married to a rich man? Let's leave
the debate
about love for another day.
These thoughts raced through my
mind as I mused over the Madonna
child adoption saga, debate - scandal or
humanitarian gesture? Many people
have taken many angles, depending on their
view of Madonna herself, not the
plight of 13-month old David Banda, his
grieving father Yohane or the moral
issues involved.
It
is the ethical dilemma that comes with poverty that I found
most
excruciating. Which is what Yohane faced. I have no brief for jealous
groups
who claim the adoption was a publicity stunt by Madonna. There are
thousands
of children adopted by Western benefactors from around the
developing world
every year.
Governments often focus on the ability of the
adopting parent to
meet the requirements of the law, safeguard the rights of
the child and
having the means to make the child live a life better than he
would have led
had he/she been left under conditions where he/she was
born.
In the case of David Banda, those opposed to his
adoption have
raised rights issues, or that Madonna was allowed to bend the
law to
fast-track her plan. There have been extremists saying Madonna should
have
"adopted" the whole family. They don't want to acknowledge that she is
funding charities in Malawi already while they watched and did nothing after
Yohane lost his other two children and a wife.
I have no
doubt that were it not for the publicity stirred by
Madonna's act of charity
or Yohane's decision, many might never have known
about Yohane and the
poverty that forced him to surrender his child to an
orphanage. We have
become inured to a life of widespread penury.
Protests about
culture, our roots and "robbing our cradle" are
foolish humbug by people who
watch and laugh at their poor neighbour's
plight and we have thousands of
such people in Zimbabwe.
How many of those shedding crocodile
tears about African oneness
are helping victims of Operation Murambatsvina
as we enter the rainy season?
How many Aids orphans have they sent to
school? Why do we have so many
child-headed families when we have a surfeit
of pan-African philanthropists
all around us?
One
Taonezvi Mararike living in the lap of luxury in America
pompously parades
his string of qualifications. He is called a "speech
pathologist, founder,
owner and chief executive officer for Total Therapy
Services, LLC, a
US-based contract rehabilitation company for speech
therapy, physiotherapy
and occupational therapy".
At the end of his article in the
Herald this week, he sermonised
about David Banda's adoption with holy
indignation: "No wonder why our human
resources are diminishing. From brain
drain now it is robbing our cradles."
So what are you doing
in America, Mararike? How many Africans
need your services far more than
Americans who are already oversupplied?
Mararike appealed to
the whole of Africa to be on the lookout
for European predators visiting the
continent to rob it of future
specialists the way colonisers ravished the
continent. You would think
finally Africa had come of age if you didn't live
in these shores to see for
yourself the grinding poverty and black-on-black
human cruelty going on
everyday.
These are the same
people who watched and did nothing while 20
000 innocent villagers were
butchered in Matabeleland and the Midlands in
the early 1980s as if those
people did not have the potential to be doctors,
lawyers, teachers,
presidents or ministers.
These are the same people who
watched and did nothing when over
800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were
massacred in 100 days of a satanic
orgy in Rwanda in 1994. These are the
same people who everyday talk about
human rights violations in Iraq and
Afghanistan that they view through
Western camera lenses but will not dare
alert the African Union to what is
happening in Darfur, in Epworth or the
plight of women and children dumped
at Hopley Farm outside
Harare.
Nobody talks of African oneness when they see the
voiceless poor
who can't even afford to give their dead a decent burial. Did
I read in the
Herald this week that Zimbabwe's child mortality rate has shot
up while we
posture about Banda being taught British
culture?
I am not concerned about what Madonna did as much as
the cause -
African poverty that I largely blame on our own failure to
manage our human
and natural resources and distribute them
equitably.
As a continent Africa is very rich in resources
but poor in
leadership. That is what has robbed us of our dignity and chased
our
children away. For an African man, no matter however improvident, to
have to
surrender his child to a charity is the ultimate indignity. That is
why
ordinarily we don't put our aged parents in old people's
homes.
Yohane Banda reached a point of desperation and none
of his
countrymen heard his wailing in the wilderness, not even his
relatives.
Finally a foreigner, a woman for that, has robbed
him of his
manhood and the whole of Malawi wants to be adopted by Madonna.
Zimbabwe
could be next. The issue is not about strong child adoption laws,
it is
about making them unnecessary.
Zim Independent
WE enrolled with the University of Zimbabwe in February
2005 and
sat for our first semester exams in May/June of the same
year.
Results were published during the mid-year break. We
resumed
studies in August 2005 and sat for our second semester exams in
November/December 2005.
Drama started to unfold this year
when results were out and
about to be published. Results from all other
departments in the Faculty of
Education were published except those for
Educational Management.
We tried to find out the reason as
there was no official
communication. But rumour was that our results were
being withheld due to
some irregularities.
We were
summoned to the UZ by one A Nyamunokora by telephone and
each one of us
appeared individually before a panel of all chairpersons of
departments in
the Faculty of Education.
The dean in the faculty, Chipo
Dyanda headed the panel. From the
questions and issues they raised, it was
not clear whether they were
investigating an exam paper leak or attempts to
solicit exam papers.
The hearing was characterised by
threats, verbal abuse,
violation of human rights, degradation and gross
disrespect of personal
privacy and freedom of association. This was further
compounded by the
summoning of students by the ZRP Serious Fraud Section
which has confused us
because we have failed to link UZ academic affairs and
this arm of the
police.
We were then asked to resubmit
our course work assignments to
the same Nyamunokora who told us this was
being done to scrutinise our work.
We also understand that
lecturers in the Educational Management
department were asked to form a
committee to assist Dyanda headed by one Dr
Kapfundo.
The
committee's terms of reference were to scrutinise our exam
scripts in order
to check for evidence of the allegations. We also
understand that the
committee found no irregularities in the exam scripts
and said they saw
nothing abnormal.
Dyanda did not take the committee's
recommendations purporting
that the lecturers were interested parties.
Consequently, the lecturers and
students were warned not to speak to one
another and their phones were
subsequently bugged.
Up to
now there are no results for MEd (Ed Management), a
programme we should have
completed by now. No one is communicating with us.
If we visit the UZ we are
referred from one office to the other with each
one professing ignorance of
the whole issue.
As students we are very worried, stressed
and frustrated.
* UZ Master in Education (Educational
Management) students.
Zim Independent
THE Herald's report on central bank governor Gideon
Gono's call
for Zimbabweans to brace for even tougher times ahead made sad
reading.
Since his appointment at the Reserve Bank, a litany
of
half-baked economic programmes have been formulated and nothing positive
has
resulted from their implementation.
The quality of
life for ordinary Zimbabweans continues to
deteriorate
unabated.
It is interesting to note that Gono's economic
cures are
camouflaged with fancy titles to disguise the brutality of their
intentions.
Look at the Project Sunrise, the only plausible
deduction is
that Gono wanted to relieve the poor populace of their
hard-earned money.
The manner by which the project was
executed would have been a
tangible lesson for any project management
student on how not to run a
project.
Gono is not
qualified to proffer advice to Zimbabweans when he
has failed to deliver
sound "text-book" economics.
Joseph
Mhlanga,
Dublin,
Ireland.
Zim Independent
THE issue regarding Philip Chiyangwa's Pinnacle
Properties
getting a licence to deal in foreign currency to sell properties
to
non-resident Zimbabweans shows the extent to which unbridled and
unconstrained power of the RBZ governor can be abused.
Mr
(not Dr please!) Gideon Gono said: "It is illegal for any
institution in
Zimbabwe, other than Homelink (Pvt) Ltd, to enter into
foreign currency
deals for the purposes of purchasing or renting property."
So
"it is even illegal for" the RBZ "to enter into foreign
currency
deals."
Although we are told that the RBZ are the sole
shareholders of
Homelink (Pvt) Ltd, why should the responsibility of dealing
in foreign
currency be monopolised by a company not born out of an Act of
Parliament?
Following the abolition of money transfer
agencies (MTAs),
Homelink should also have been dissolved since it came into
being and was
directly linked to the existence of MTAs.
Its website www.homelinkzimbabwe.com says it
currently offers
money transfer services.
The transfer of
money is an ordinary line of business of banking
institutions. Is it now
illegal to do so through them? I am confident that
one's relative can still
send money through the banks.
Our legislature seems to be
unsophisticated enough to deal with
the RBZ governor each time they call him
to appear before a parliamentary
committee.
The
legislative research teams seem to be either compromised or
simply
incompetent. The MPs allow him to lecture them and unreservedly
respond to
his critics without substance.
Typical of a politician, Gono
did a newspaper interview speaking
to himself: "I've no political ambitions:
Gono", (Herald, October 23).
Reading the questions, one gets
a feeling that the governor
crafted his own questions.
An
interview is a formal meeting at which a writer or reporter
poses questions
to a person from whom material is sought for a newspaper
story, television
broadcast, etc.
The newspaper should have informed us that
the following are the
responses to the questions sent to the RBZ governor.
There was no "voice" of
the interviewer in the interview at
all.
Unfortunately, he responded to the questions by going
into an
overdrive without ever thinking someone will find it painful to read
since
the length of responses was not reader-friendly.
There is also a feeling that the RBZ governor went into a panic
mode if the
online reports that he was summoned by the president over the
Chiyangwa deal
are true.
The two-page "interview" is just too much for him
and normally
we expect such space to be made for the president. He has such
an
unrestrained access to the state media - print or
electronic.
We have a governor who talks too much! Compare
him with his
predecessors Kombo Moyana and Leonard Tsumba; Tito Mboweni of
South Africa,
Alan Greenspan or his successor, Ben Bernanke, of the
USA.
All of them earned their doctorates of economics! Gono
suffers
from an inferiority complex that sees enemies all
over.
He requires management by his advisor, Munyaradzi
Kereke, who
earned his economics doctorate.
In Japan, the
Ministry of Finance is such a powerful
institution. Our governor here has
usurped the Ministry of Finance's role in
the
economy.
LM,
Harare.
Zim Independent
CENTRAL bank governor Gideon Gono's assertion that
people should
remain optimistic about the economy when the solution to the
economic
meltdown is nowhere in sight is surely misplaced and smacks of a
governor
who is at his wits' end.
His remarks that it is
often the last key on the bunch that
opens the door speaks volumes of a
desperate man who is now experimenting
with a battered
economy.
Telling us to be proud of Zimbabwean skills that are
running
other economies abroad when our own is in desperate need of such
skills is
an insult to our intelligence. It is surprising that the governor
seems to
be uncomfortable with criticism when it is him who has grown bigger
than his
job description of governor of the central bank.
How can he avoid scrutiny when through his overzealousness and
technically
deficient policies, he has shaken virtually every establishment
in the
country, albeit with no iota of improvement in the country's economic
conditions?
Perhaps a few pointers may help us better
understand issues
here. Since his appointment as governor of the central
bank, we watched in
trepidation as he closed financial institution after
institution.
At the time, non-core activities and
non-compliance with
regulations were given as reasons for the closures, so
we gave him the
benefit of the doubt and waited.
However,
what he and his team did not and still do not care or
realise is that by
closing those institutions because of a few bad apples at
the top, they
rendered many men and women in the downstream levels jobless.
Given our (Africans') extended family culture, the governor and
his team did
not only put hundreds of people on the streets, but he deprived
thousands of
people of livelihoods.
With no government policy that has
managed to attract meaningful
foreign direct investment to establish
factories or companies in order to
lower unemployment levels, suggestions by
some that some company/bank
closures may have been motivated by
vindictiveness, and perhaps settling of
old scores, no longer appear to be
far-fetched.
Through his desire to stamp out the black
market, the governor
is widely seen as one of Zanu PF's architects of the
ill-conceived Operation
Murambatsvina which destroyed homes and the informal
sector, leaving over
800 000 people homeless, penniless and in abject
poverty.
That was a wicked policy with no human face at all!
And this is
the man who has the audacity to tell Zimbabweans to remain
optimistic . my
foot!
Positive mentality among the
generality of Zimbabweans does not
come easily when every day we are faced
with shortages of basics, price
increases and have no water or electricity,
and are led by a solution-dry
and inept government.
It is
perhaps necessary to enlighten the governor that it is now
common knowledge
that the Zimbabwean economy's two greatest enemies are, in
order of
severity:
* The Zanu PF government and
*
Inflation.
The characteristics of the number one enemy are
dictatorship,
misguided foreign policy, inept economic polices, corruption
and sheer
incompetence.
The last two characteristics are
a clear endowment of the
Minister of Local Government. I won't say much
about the Minister of
Agriculture as he is either almost non-existent or
clueless.
The number two enemy, which is the governor's
fixation -
inflation - remains a disease in the economy and cannot be cured
singularly.
Insatiable government expenditure and low capacity utilisation,
both in
agriculture and industry, and the lack of forex have clearly been
the main
causes of inflationary pressures and the
meltdown.
It is my conviction that by defeating enemy number
one the
battle against enemy number two will certainty be decisively
won!
In true fashion of a policy maker who is now bankrupt of
ideas
and solutions, the governor has resorted to creating scapegoats in the
form
of the so-called economic saboteurs for allegedly taking advantage of
imbalances in the economy and abetting the black market.
Could the "guvnor" please tell me who in his/her right mind
would change
that ellusive greenback (US dollar) in a commercial bank at
such a "sick"
exchange rate when flogging it on the black market will result
in more Zim
dollars to put food on the table and to feed many mouths at
home?
In fact, in our current economic quagmire, the
black market has
been the hero and the backbone for survival for the
majority of Zimbabweans.
The parallel or black market did not
just surface suddenly like
a mushroom. It is nature's way of balancing the
economic food chain in an
economy fraught with flawed and skewed
policies.
Ever wondered why many people the world over have
asked how we
are managing to survive under these torrid economic conditions?
The black
market is the answer, period!
The governor's
new-found love of using security forces to
buttress his battle with the
so-called economic saboteurs is interesting as
it shows that, for a supposed
technocrat, he has stooped so low in order to
cover up the failures of his
concoction of monetary policies.
Some of these security
forces have been drafted into the already
bloated central bank structure and
their sole purpose has been to
intimidate, harass and even torture
businesspeople for putting mark-ups on
goods produced from raw materials
whose purchase prices were already
infected by the hyperinflation
bug.
This obsession with militarising government institutions
in a
bid to solve flawed economic fundamentals is not only witless but
doomed to
miserably fail.
To label any Zimbabwean who
refuses to be hoodwinked and
intimidated by dictatorial authorities who
openly lie in daily state
newspapers as spineless is as gibberish as blaming
our economic meltdown on
sanctions.
Don Sahayi
(Snr),
Harare.