SW Radio Africa (London)
3 October
2007
Posted to the web 3 October 2007
Tererai
Karimakwenda
From the original 4000, an estimated 350 to 400 white
farmers who remain on
the ground in Zimbabwe are dealing with an escalating
and violent campaign
by the army, Central Intelligence Officials and the
Youth Brigade as the
ruling party gears up for elections due next year. Top
military and
government officials are also after the best of the remaining
commercial
farms as the country's economy continues to deteriorate, and some
are
ignoring court orders to stop interfering. Among them is
Brigadier-General
Itayi Mujaji, a war veteran and senior official in the
Zimbabwe Army, and
the ZANU-PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira.
John
Worsley Worswick of Justice for Agriculture (JAG) said the tactics
being
used have changed in the last 9 months. The war veterans and settlers
that
were used to intimidate white farmers for the last 7 years have been
replaced by military police, intelligence agents and members of the
so-called Youth Brigades. Harassment has been so intense that several
farmers have packed up and left in the last few weeks. Worswick described it
as "Jambanja", or violent takeovers, because there has been an open display
and use of weapons.
White farmers are being arrested and then
detained over the weekend in rural
cells, for ignoring the September 30
deadline to vacate their properties.
But Worswick sees it as a ploy to
intimidate them into leaving. This way
they will not bear witness to the
brutality of ZANU-PF's election tactics in
the rural areas. Many have been
summoned to appear at magistrate's courts to
be charged, and their cases are
often postponed to a later date. At least 5
from Harare South are reported
to have packed up and left in September
alone.
Worswick confirmed
that Brigadier-General Itayi Mujaji had used armed
soldiers to evict farmer
Charles Lock from his Karoi farm in Manicaland just
2 weeks ago, despite the
fact that he has 5 court orders allowing him to
stay. There is also an order
for the arrest of General Mujaji and his wife
Pauline for contempt of court.
But all that was being ignored.
Lock cannot be accused of refusing to
cooperate with government. He gave up
his own 2 500-hectare farm, moved to
his father-in-law's farm and gave
two-thirds of that farm away as well. He
has said he will continue to fight
in the courts.
Worswick also
confirmed reports that the ZANU-PF spokesman Nathan
Shamuyarira has been
after Mount Carmel farm in Chegutu. The property is
owned by Mike Campbell,
a 73 year old commercial farmer who believes that
leaving is giving up.
Campbell has vowed to stay.
The harassment of white farmers is bound to
escalate as we get closer to the
elections in 2008. Worswick said some
farmers are considering bringing their
cases to the regional court of the
Southern Africa Development Community
(SADC), in Windhoek, Namibia.
UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks
3 October 2007
Posted to the web 3
October 2007
Harare
Shortages of basic commodities like bread and
maizemeal, brought on by the
world's highest inflation rate prompted
Zimbabwean teachers unable to cope
with escalating prices to go on strike
this week, demanding a salary hike.
There is virtually no bread for sale,
and the government's Agricultural
Extension Services Department revealed in
a recent report that the winter
wheat harvest had only reached 144,870
metric tonnes (mt), against a
national requirement of
400,000mt.
A combination of drought, lack of irrigation, seeds and
other inputs, fuel
and spare parts for machinery, resulted in a poor harvest
from the main
2006/07 agricultural season, according to a recent report by
the
USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET).
In
its Food Security Outlook, October 2007 to March 2008, FEWS NET said the
harvest would only provide 45 percent of Zimbabwe's cereal needs, leaving an
import requirement of over 610,000mt. The wheat crisis has forced millers
and bakers to close down or downsize their operations.
John
Madzimure, manager of a baking company in the capital, Harare, said
dwindling flour supplies had forced his employer to cease operating in
September. "Most of the time, workers would report for work but spend the
day doing nothing. We started by retrenching but, again, losses kept on
mounting, until it was decided we should close down."
Coping with the
strike
Teachers, unable to keep up with inflation of around 6,500 percent
on
salaries that start from about US$6 a month, went on strike this week to
demand that they be paid at least US$30 a month. According the independent
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, the cost of living for a family of six is
about US$33 a month.
Final exams start next week, and the striking
teachers have drawn the ire of
students, who have been forced to run their
own classes. "We feel that we
are being sacrificed," commented a pupil. "Why
didn't the teachers embark on
their protest earlier?"
A 12-year-old
student, taking a break from giving a mathematics "lecture",
said, "As a
prefect, I mobilised my classmates so that we could do what you
see us doing
right now [learning]." He said his parents had tried to
dissuade him
attending school because the teachers were on strike, but he
had managed to
convince them that "we are so close [to writing exams], and
life should not
stop because the teachers are away".
Food is scarce
Hopeful
consumers queue for bread every morning, "but in the last seven
days, the
delivery has not been coming", said Jane Mutema, a Harare
resident. She said
rumours that bread would be delivered often tended to
create stampedes, and
a pregnant woman had been trampled on one occasion.
While basic goods can
still be found on the parallel market at substantially
higher cost, the FEWS
NET report pointed out that these informal
marketplaces are constantly
disrupted by more frequent police raids. "Not
only is the food crisis in
urban areas one of access, it has now become an
availability crisis as
well." The exchange rate is currently Z$500,000 to
US$1 on the parallel
market.
Not only is the food crisis in urban areas one of access, it has
now become
an availability crisis as well
Unlike Harare, which is
close to surplus supply areas, the urban populations
of Bulawayo, Hwange and
Tsholotsho, in Matabeleland North Province, and
Kariba in Mashonaland West
Province have been worst affected. Open market
maize prices in these cities
rose dramatically between June and August 2007,
escalating by between 20 and
33 times, compared to a national average
increase of just eight percent,
according to FEWS NET.
Shortages of basic commodities are having the
biggest impact on the poor,
whose limited buying power forces them to make
frequent purchases of smaller
amounts of food and prevents them from buying
in bulk when commodities
become available, said FEWS NET.
People in
need
FEWS NET expects about 4.1 million in urban and rural areas to be in
need of
food assistance between October 2007 and March 2008. The country's
eight
provinces are all expected to face a cereal deficit this year, with
the
traditionally grain-deficit Matabeleland and Masvingo - both hard hit by
drought - being worst affected.
The government has managed to import
29 percent of its maize order from
Malawi by August 2007, while humanitarian
organisations have procured six
percent of their order of 352,000mt of
cereals. "With these food delivery
mechanisms the country still faces a
cereal gap of 111,135mt," which the
FEWS NET report said was likely to
filled, "especially since there are
elections in early 2008."
The
agriculture department and farmers have blamed constant power cuts,
which
affected irrigation, for the low wheat yields. Farmers complained that
erratic power supplies had also damaged their electrical
equipment.
"As new farmers, most of us are not insured ... besides, we
had borrowed
money from the banks to finance our activities, but now that
our yields were
poor, we are at a loss as to how we are going to repay the
loans," said
Tamutsa Chinhundu, who farms in Mazowe, about 40km northeast of
Harare.
Other items have also been affected by the economic recession.
Zimbabwe was
once the second-largest tobacco exporter in the world after
Brazil, but
cigarettes have now disappeared from shops, and cost at least 10
times the
government's fixed price on the thriving black market, the
official daily
newspaper, The Herald, reported this week.
Newspapers
were also in short supply on Sunday, said The Herald, whose
parent company
has cut its print run as a result of paper shortages, while
advertising
revenue has shrunk because consumer goods are no longer
available in
stores.
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the
United Nations ]
ekklesia.co.uk
By staff writers
3 Oct 2007
The Archbishop of Harare has
issued an urgent appeal for help as Zimbabwe
faces a spiralling food crisis.
It is estimated that one in three people
will soon be in need of food aid
following a disastrous harvest.
Catholic aid agency CAFOD is launching a
£4 million appeal this Friday (5th
October) for Zimbabwe. It will run an
emergency response programme providing
over 120,000 people in some of the
worst affected areas with food supplies
and seeds and tools.
In his
appeal the Archbishop of Harare, Robert Ndlovu, said: "The people of
Zimbabwe are suffering. Our once bountiful nation is unable to feed its
people and the coming months will bring yet deeper hunger and desperation
for many.
"We have already lost too many of our children, friends,
brothers and
sisters to hunger and disease. Many more have fled the country,
fleeing from
lives that have become unbearable through poverty and
hunger.
"Now the Zimbabwean people stand at the edge of a precipice. Our
country is
in deep crisis. Our harvest has failed, through a combination of
severe
drought, HIV and AIDS and the consequences of economic
decline.
"By March one in three people in Zimbabwe will have no food.
Many will run
out very soon. Our brothers and sisters face a struggle for
survival at a
time when many have nothing left, their possessions sold and
their health
gone.
"On behalf of my Zimbabwean brothers and sisters
living in hunger, I appeal
to their fellow Christian brothers and sisters to
walk alongside them during
this difficult time in faith and Christian
charity.
"Our message of hope remains: 'God is always on the side of the
Oppressed.'"
CAFOD will run a joint emergency response with its
Zimbabwean Church partner
CADEC. For the first time ever, the annual Harvest
Fast Day appeal will go
to the emergency fund.
CAFOD director Chris
Bain said: "CAFOD is one of the few aid agencies that
is still able to reach
people directly in Zimbabwe. The country is facing an
immense crisis but
unless we act quickly, the situation will spiral
downwards and we will start
to see loss of life on a large scale.
"CAFOD is asking its supporters to
respond generously to the Archbishop's
appeal."
SW
Radio Africa (London)
3 October 2007
Posted to the web 3 October
2007
Henry Makiwa
Leaders from Zimbabwe's two teachers' unions
have urged their members to
continue with their on-going strike despite the
approaching annual final
examination season that begins on
Monday.
The unions say the teachers' job action, now approaching its
fourth week,
must continue at the expense of students' examinations as they
argue the
teachers' welfare is more important. They insist that if
government does not
give in to their demands, no examinations will be taken.
Already, millions
of students have lost out on preparations of their end of
year tests.
Zimbabwean examinations kick off on Monday starting with the
grade seven
pupils sitting down for their tests before Ordinary level
students tackle
the vernacular language question papers.
The
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) national co-ordinator,
Oswald
Madziva, insisted that teachers would not show up for work unless
government
met their demands.
Madziva said: "We have been around long enough to note
that government has a
pattern of not increasing the teachers' salary in the
third term. This time
around we have resolved to be utterly unyielding, and
to that end we
appreciate the contribution of the Zimbabwe Teachers
Association who have
now joined the job industrial action."
Teachers
spurned a 100 percent salary increment from government last month,
demanding
instead a Z$15 million basic salary plus a Z$5, 2 million housing
allowance
and Z$4 million transport recompense.
Some teachers in Zimbabwe are
earning as little as Z$2 million, less than 2
pounds sterling on the black
market.
A teacher who refused to be named on Wednesday said the
government's
negligence towards teachers was tantamount to
"madness".
He said: "The minister of education obviously reads all these
stories of how
some people in Harare are having to fork out as much as Z$15
million for
water bills alone, how then does he expect teachers to survive
earning a
paltry Z$2 million? Its madness!"
He added: "Recently,
boarding schools sent students back home to get some
top up fees that would
cater for the rampaging inflation. These ranged from
Z12 million to Z$40
million. If teachers have children at boarding, how then
are they to educate
them?"
SW Radio
Africa (London)
3 October 2007
Posted to the web 3 October
2007
Henry Makiwa
Robert Mugabe's government on Wednesday,
amid much scepticism presented to
governors, legislators and journalists in
Harare its latest scheme to arrest
the world's highest
inflation.
Mugabe announced last November that he would be introducing
the Zimbabwe
Economic Development Strategy (ZEDS). The plan aimed to run
between 2008 and
2010 sets out to "create wealth and reduce poverty among
the indigenous
people." In what many dismissed as the ageing despot's
attempt to buy in
favours, Mugabe said the strategy would have the backing
of SADC and the
civil and business society in Zimbabwe.
On
Wednesday, Judith Kateera, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of
Finance, expressed much optimism that Mugabe's latest economic plan will end
the country's economic crisis, despite already having sanctioned more than
half a dozen previous blueprints that all failed.
Of much interest,
observers note, is how the government is willing to run
the reform plan only
once next year's elections are out of the way. This
suggests that the
planned programme includes reforms that could be painful
for ordinary
Zimbabweans.
Analysts are however sceptical that the plan will deliver
the goods where
it's other predecessors have faltered.
Journalist
Kumbirai Mafunda said: "The strategy is unlikely to achieve much.
At least
it will further compound the evident differences between Reserve
bank head
Gideon Gono and Finance minister Samuel Mumbengegwi. At most, it
will go
down as another high-sounding nothing as none of the government's
plans have
ever been followed through to the end."
Zimbabwe's annual inflation tops
an estimated 7000 percent, the highest in
the world. The country's economy
has shrunk by almost a third since 2000.
And there are regular shortages of
everything from fuel to basic food
staples.
Mugabe however lays blame
on the western sanctions and trans-national
businesses for sabotaging the
economy. He has recently been on the warpath
against the business sector,
which he accuses of supporting a regime change
agenda allegedly being
pursued by the main opposition party and its allies.
Business leaders
have denied the charge.
Monsters and Critics
Oct 3, 2007, 14:49 GMT
Johannesburg/Harare - Zimbabwe's
exchange rate is now effectively 240,000:1
US, it emerged
Wednesday.
While the official rate remains fixed at 30,000 Zimbabwe
dollars to 1 US,
exporters and holders of foreign currency will now be
allowed to invest
their receipts at a once-off overnight rate of 800 per
cent, the official
Herald daily reported.
This gives an effective
rate of 240,000:1, said the paper.
On the thriving black market for
foreign currency this week, the US fetches
nearly double that amount, at
around 450,000 Zimbabwe dollars.
The new effective exchange rate was part
of a package of measures announced
by Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono on
Monday.
It is meant to encourage Zimbabweans to earn and keep foreign
currency
within the country. The governor did not say he was devaluing the
dollar.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
International Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: October 3,
2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe set out Wednesday to demonstrate
that Western
economic sanctions were hurting ordinary people, the poor and
even the
unborn.
In its first detailed policy statement on sanctions,
the central bank
disputed claims from Britain and the United States that
their "targeted
sanctions" - like travel bans on top officials - did not
hurt most
Zimbabweans. The bank said that the country suffered from a broad
range of
"declared and undeclared" embargoes that hit Zimbabwe's weakest the
hardest.
The drying up of development project finance and hard currency
loans from
international institutions has had "far reaching effects on the
majority of
the people since 2000," the report said.
"Far from the
claim that sanctions are ... targeted on a few individuals,
the reality on
the ground is the tight grip of sanctions is being felt
throughout the
economy," it said.
Western officials argue loan support, development aid
and investment
disappeared not because of sanctions but because of fears
about levels of
risk - worsened by corruption, mismanagement and threats of
property
seizures - and concern over Zimbabwe's human rights
record.
Pregnant women were unable to obtain medication when necessary
and lives
were lost through the absence of hard currency needed for medical
equipment,
drugs and food, the central bank said. "Three quarters of the
equipment in
hospitals in the city of Harare are not functional and this has
had serious
repercussions on the ordinary people," it said.
The
landlocked nation's transport system was grinding to halt, children were
unable to get to school and workers walked to their jobs because of gasoline
shortages.
It noted that U.S. computer companies refused to sell
equipment to a main
university in eastern Zimbabwe, and "the sanctions have
thus spilled over"
to technology critical for the learning of future
generations.
Britain, the former colonial power, the United States and
other Western
countries insist the sanctions they have applied to protest
violations of
human and democratic rights are travel bans on President
Robert Mugabe and
his inner circle and restrictions on their foreign-held
bank accounts -
measures designed not to affect the poor.
The report
listed among the sanctions the withdrawal of foreign lines of
credit that
sharply reduced export competitiveness and forced exporters to
hunt for high
risk offshore financing for imported raw materials. It said
the withdrawal
of development aid programs left only humanitarian aid, which
had no long
term benefit to the economy.
It said Western governments and taxpayers,
the ultimate source of donor
funds, were influenced to stop providing
funding by biased Western media
reporting on political and economic turmoil
in the country since the chaotic
and often-violent seizures of thousands of
white-owned farms began in 2000,
disrupting the agriculture-based economy of
the former regional breadbasket.
Many charities and aid agencies closed
down in Zimbabwe and even the World
Health Organization moved its regional
headquarters out of Zimbabwe, the
central bank said. Loans from the
International Monetary Fund, the World
Bank and the African Development Bank
that kept the economy afloat stopped
after 2000 in disputes over economic
policy and loan repayment arrears.
The report said that donor grants fell
from about US$140 million a year in
the 1990s to about US$40 million (?30
million) last year. Foreign direct
investment went down from about US$100
million (?72 million) a year in the
1990s to about US$20 million (?14.5
million) year since 2000.
Central Bank Governor Gideon Gono, in a fiscal
policy review on Monday,
alleged Zimbabwe was being singled out for punitive
measures by the West and
said half the developing countries supported by the
IMF would be
disqualified if they were "judged in the same manner as
Zimbabwe."
The report said Zimbabwe's growing budget deficit was financed
from
inflationary domestic bank sources and the central bank was forced to
increase currency in circulation by about 1,000-fold since January 2006.
Currency in circulation went up from a factor of 11,000 in 2006 to a factor
of 12 million in July this year, the report showed.
The central bank
has acknowledged printing extra local money to keep the
economy
running.
Zimbabwe suffer the world's highest official inflation, at
nearly 7,000
percent. Independent estimates put real inflation closer to
25,000 percent
and the IMF has forecast it reaching 100,000 percent by the
end of the year.
Monsters and Critics
Oct 3, 2007, 14:25 GMT
Berlin - German Chancellor
Angela Merkel left Berlin Wednesday on a
three-nation tour of Africa,
calling for bigger efforts on both sides to
solve Africa's
problems.
Her aid minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, confirmed in an
interview that
Merkel would attend a December conference in Lisbon on
Africa, regardless of
whether Zimbabwe's autocratic President Robert Mugabe
was present.
Germany is helping Portugal host the EU-Africa summit.
British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown has threatened to boycott the gathering
if Mugabe
attends. Berlin officials who asked not to be identified had said
Tuesday
Merkel was certain to go.
In remarks just before her jet took
off, Merkel appealed for a 'common
spirit' between Africa and the developed
world to reduce poverty, ensure
respect for human rights, fight disease and
improve education.
Merkel's first stop on the five-day trip is Ethiopia,
to be followed by
South Africa and Liberia.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche
Presse-Agentur
UN Integrated
Regional Information Networks
3 October 2007
Posted to the web 3
October 2007
Harare
Predictions by Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank
Governor, Gideon Gono, that empty
supermarket shelves will soon be packed
with goods are being received
somewhat sceptically by
Zimbabweans.
Gono's upbeat assessment of the country's prospects in his
mid-year monetary
policy statement on Monday coincided with an absence of
bread on shop
shelves because of a poor winter wheat harvest, adding to the
list of
widespread shortages of basic items that includes fuel, water,
electricity
and medicines. Donor agencies estimate that more than a third of
Zimbabweans
are on the cusp of severe food shortages.
The belief
by Gono that supermarket shelves will soon fill up is based on
the
government's introduction of price controls in June, which forced the
supply
chain to slash commodity prices by 50 percent and led to empty shop
shelves,
staff being laid off and the closure of businesses.
"It is against this
background that I can say without fear of retraction or
of being misquoted
that it will not be very long before we see visible
supply improvements on
the ground," Gono said in his mid-term policy review.
"We should, by the
end of this month [October], see the return of mazoe
[orange syrup], soft
drinks, cooking oil, soap, milk, bread, sugar and
animal feeds on the
shelves at affordable [cost to consumers], but
economically viable prices to
the suppliers," he said.
A tempered optimism
However, the Reserve
Bank governor tempered his optimism with a warning to
government against
immediate implementation of the recently passed
Indigenisation and
Empowerment Bill, which allows government to take a
controlling stake of 51
percent in all foreign-owned businesses, including
the British-owned
Barclays and Standard Chartered banks, and South African
banking institution
Stanbic, owned by Standard Bank.
Our well -considered advice to
legislators and government is that a fine
balance should be struck between
the objectives of indigenisation and the
need to attract foreign
investment
"Our well-considered advice to legislators and government is
that a fine
balance should be struck between the objectives of
indigenisation and the
need to attract foreign investment necessary to grow
our economy, so that
the same economy starts registering growth, which will
enable the majority
of our people to start experiencing real, as opposed to
the window-dressing,
freelance type of participation we have seen in some of
our so-called
indigenised companies," he said.
Gono advised against
what he termed "excitable but impractical overnight
conversion events",
which could create a perception that the indigenisation
programme was aimed
at instant gratification through "grab, take and run"
tactics.
Gono's
delivery of his monetary policy statement coincided with the return
of
President Robert Mugabe from the 62nd session of the United Nations
General
Assembly in New York, who arrived at the airport in the capital,
Harare, to
a tumultuous welcome from veterans of the country's war of
independence.
In an address to his supporters Mugabe said companies
unhappy with the
indigenisation bill were free to leave. "The minerals are
ours, we are
offering good partners - friendly partners - a share of 49
percent. If they
won't take it, hard luck; we will give it to our
people."
In another broadside against business, which is labouring under
the world's
highest inflation rate of more than 6,000 percent, Mugabe warned
against any
price increases. "We will have to seize those companies if they
do not abide
by laid down pricing schedules. I am warning you," Mugabe
said.
Mixed messages
John Robertson, an economic consultant, said
the mixed messages emanating
from Mugabe and Gono made it unlikely that shop
shelves would fill up any
time soon.
The President and the governor
gave different statements on major policies,
with the Head of State
believing that threats would bring discipline to
business, while the
governor was critical of price controls
"The President and the governor
gave different statements on major policies,
with the Head of State
believing that threats would bring discipline to
business, while the
governor was critical of price controls. This scenario
is not likely to
result in shelves filling up quickly," he told IRIN.
He said the country
was facing a hangover from the price controls. "Goods do
not just appear on
supermarket shelves; they have to be manufactured by
producers and, in this
case, many no longer have the capacity to resume
production."
A
government economist, who declined to be identified, was doubtful about
any
recovery in the short term. "Over the last eight years, industries have
collapsed, relocated or reduced capacity. The few that were barely surviving
before the price cuts were dealt severe blows and are not likely to
recover," he commented.
"A visit to most supermarkets now reveals
that goods on the shelves are not
locally manufactured but imported from
South Africa. If the shelves are to
fill up, it will be with imported goods,
as private players capitalise on
the absence of a viable manufacturing
sector," the government economist
said.
Eric Bloch, an economist and
Reserve Bank consultant who has no doubt that
Mugabe will sign the
indigenisation bill into law, allowing it to be
gazetted, told IRIN the
governor's prediction that the shelves would start
filling up was a
realistic scenario.
"The goods are slowly trickling back on the shelves,
because today I asked
my messenger to do some shopping and out of the 16
items on the shopping
list, he managed to find 11 items, including milk,
candles and laundry soap.
All the commodities bought were manufactured
locally."
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the
United Nations ]
New Zimbabwe
By
Torby Chimhashu
Last updated: 10/03/2007 20:15:22
THE stage is set for
fresh confrontation between the Zimbabwe government and
businesses following
a wave of price increases effected Tuesday, just hours
after the central
bank unveiled its Monetary Policy Statement (MPS).
President Robert
Mugabe has warned that his government will seize firms
found charging prices
outside "what was agreed on".
Arriving from the just ended United Nations
summit in New York held last
week, a bubbly Mugabe told supporters at the
Harare International Airport
that he won't compromise on prices.
"We
are warning companies to examine themselves and charge the prices we
have
set. If they do not comply with our set prices we will take them over,"
Mugabe told supporters at the airport.
"We will seize the companies
and take over their operations."
But companies and parastatals reeling
from government imposed price controls
moved ahead with a fresh round of
upward adjustments.
First to introduce steep water tariffs was the
bungling Zimbabwe National
Water Authority (ZINWA) which pushed upwards the
rates from $3 596, 20 per
cubic metre to $23 765,63 backdated to August
.
The water utility also announced that residents in low-density suburbs
pay
$47
530,63 per cubic metre, which is the full cost of treating the
cubic metre.
The increases came a day after the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
Governor Gideon
Gono set aside $14,5 trillion for water and sewer
reticulation following
widespread outbreaks of cholera and massive diarrhoea
reported in high
density suburbs plagued by water cuts.
Gono said:
"We cannot sit and watch while our people die from diseases such
as cholera
and dysentery which have been reported in the high density areas.
Your
Governor can not and will not allow the suffering of people. Water is
life
and everything depends on it.
"The problem that has been created, I don't
know for what reasons, requires
the Governor and his team at the central
bank to respond with speed. This
money is our response to this crisis which
is now an emergency."
Zinwa has been roundly blamed for the water crisis
gripping most urban areas
especially Harare and Bulawayo. Bulawayo is worst
hit.
Since taking over the water management and other works related
assignments
from the local authorities, Zinwa has been plunged the country
into a
serious water crisis.
Prices of basic commodities also shot
through the roof as supplies trickled
in at major supermarkets around the
country.
A 2 litres bottle of Mazowe which Gono promised would be on the
shelves
before the end of the month now costs $1 million dollars from $420
000 while
powdered washing detergents are pegged at $800 000 for 500g. The
price of
washing soap jumped from $450 000 per bar to $1 million.
A
kilogramme of beef has skyrocketed to $1, 2 million in the high density
suburbs while the same weight is costing $1 million for
pork.
Analysts said the heavy increases in the prices of basic
commodities is
hardly surprising given the government crackdown on business
and other
related problems such as foreign currency shortages and
intermittent power
outages.
Also on Tuesday, the thriving foreign
currency parallel market recorded high
rates for the elusive United States
dollar and other currencies.
The local unit opened the day pegged between
500 000 and 520 000 against the
greenback on the black market, depending on
volumes pushed.
Dealers said it was in stark contrast to last week where
the US Dollar was
stabilised at 420 000.
The Zimbabwe Electricity
Supply Authority (ZESA) has also pushed tariffs
upwards in a bid to raise
US$41 million to retire its ballooning debt.
Analysts have warned that
Gono's efforts to introduce a new currency could
be further scuttled by new
levels of inflation expected from the price
increases and the foreign
currency crisis.
Zimbabwe is in its straight ninth year of economic
recession which is
punctuated by poverty levels of more than 70%, collapsed
currency, shrinking
production and inflation sitting at 6592%.
SABC
October
03, 2007, 18:45
Zimbabwe's top clothing outlets are feeling the pinch of
the government's
crackdown on price controls. Edgars, partly owned by Edcon
of South Africa,
and Truworths are scaling down operations.
Edgars,
the country's second largest clothing retail outlet, has run out of
stock in
Harare's central business district, with reports that some workers
have been
sent home. But this was before central bank governor Gideon Gono
weighed in
this week with incentives for manufacturers to produce and help
efforts by
retailers to restock.
Truworths has not announced any intention to close
or scale down but is
changing its way of doing business. It has stopped
selling merchandise on
credit. In its financial results for the fiscal year
ending in July, it said
the severe dislocation of the supply chain meant
volumes were low and would
remain as such until June next year if decisions
to restore viability were
not met.
Institute for War &
Peace Reporting (London)
3 October 2007
Posted to the web 3 October
2007
Thomas Dzvetero
Harare
ZANU-PF's extraordinary congress in
December ahead of the 2008 elections
should answer the question on
everyone's lips: will President Robert Mugabe
lead the party in elections
next year?
The ruling party is split on whom should take the party into
the 2008
presidential and parliamentary elections, which will also be held
with local
elections.
Mugabe will either announce his retirement
at the December 10 congress or
face the humiliation of being challenged for
the top post for the first time
in his almost three-decade leadership of the
party. If he is challenged, he
is likely to lose the subsequent poll, say
observers, because many party
members are said to be opposed to his
candidature.
To ascertain which direction the party is likely to take in
the two months
before the congress and what is likely to happen at the
congress, IWPR spoke
to top ZANU-PF officials from the different factions in
the party, who spoke
on condition of anonymity.
According to the
ZANU-PF constitution, it is only at a congress that new
leadership can be
elected. The party's constitution stipulates that an
extraordinary congress
can meet to discuss one item on the agenda - in this
case who will lead
ZANU-PF into the elections?
Top ZANU-PF sources say the only agenda at
the forthcoming congress will be
to either endorse Mugabe as the party's
candidate or hold elections to
choose a successor to the man who has ruled
the country for 27 years.
The party has only called for extraordinary
congresses twice since
independence in 1980. The first was to discuss the
Unity Accord with the
late Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU-PF party and the second was
to appoint politburo
members in 2000.
Whether Mugabe will accept
being challenged at the congress and allow
elections or resign to avoid a
showdown is the subject of intense debate.
Members in retired army
commander General Solomon Mujuru's camp have vowed
to contest his nomination
but up until now no-one has ever dared challenge
Mugabe in
public.
Mujuru's faction, which is pushing for the nomination of the
retired
general's wife, Vice President Joice Mujuru's, believes that Mugabe
will not
countenance a showdown if there is a chance he will lose.
A
top official in the Mujuru camp said Mugabe was most likely to announce
his
resignation at the congress to pave the way for Mujuru's ascendancy. He
said
that eight of the 10 party provinces so far were vying for Mujuru and
would
vote against Mugabe if he agreed to leadership elections. Only the
Midlands
and Manicaland provinces are split over the issue but could be
swayed to
vote for Mujuru, says the official.
He believes that Mugabe is going to
first seek support from all politburo
members to ensure that he emerges as
the sole presidential candidate for the
elections. But he will fail in this
bid, predicts the official, because most
politburo members want him to
resign in December.
"Mugabe is not as foolish as to wish to be humiliated
at the congress. He
will not allow a situation where he is contested. He
will have to resign
because he is not going to get the support from within
the party. I think
what he is doing at the moment is testing the waters to
see if he still has
the support of the party.
"I strongly believe
that Mugabe wants to retire but wants to do so on a high
note, after he is
sure that the party is still strong and that his security
is assured. I also
believe all these people [in the ZANU-PF Youth and
Women's League and the
war veterans] campaigning for him are just
overzealous and don't understand
what the man wants."
But those in Mugabe's camp say that he is not likely
to resign at the
congress and will be endorsed by the party.
A senior
army official who has no doubts about Mugabe's nomination as the
party
candidate for 2008 elections said, "If you understand how ZANU-PF
works,
then you will know that all that is being written by the media is
nothing
but fiction.
"In ZANU-PF, President Mugabe is our candidate and he has
the support of the
people - I am talking about ordinary ZANU-PF supporters.
When the day comes,
one person will stand up and nominate him and I can
swear on my mother's
grave, there will be no other nominations.
"Who
will be that daring to stand up and tell the congress that he or she no
longer wants Mugabe as the party leader? As long as he does not announce his
retirement or resignation, Mugabe is going to emerge as the sole party
candidate."
The officer said whoever wanted to oppose Mugabe needed
to be reminded of
the downfall of others such as Dzikamai Mavhaire, who was
fired from the
party in 1997 for calling for Mugabe to be ousted. Only years
later was he
allowed to return.
However, the Mujuru faction says even
the country's Central Intelligence
Organisation is split over the issue and
it will not be that easy this time
round to stop members from choosing their
candidate. "If he insists and
forces his candidature, the party is likely to
split at the congress," said
the Mujuru supporter.
But the army
officer points out that such a split would be unlikely because
it would
herald the end of the political careers of those who broke away.
The
question in most people's minds is where rural housing minister and
presidential aspirant Emmerson Mnangagwa now fits in the succession
debate.
He almost won the vice presidency in 2004 after having secured
the support
of six of the ten voting provinces. But Mugabe instead backed
Mujuru and
fired the six provincial chairpersons who supported Mnangagwa,
accusing them
of plotting a palace coup.
But Mugabe and Mujuru's
alliance has since become strained after her camp
showed some impatience by
pushing for his retirement.
Most thought Mnangagwa was down after he was
demoted from the number five
position of party secretary for administration
to secretary for legal
affairs, position number 11 according to the party
hierarchy. However, a new
alliance has since been forged with
Mugabe.
Mugabe seems to be favouring Mnanagwa and has openly pledged his
support at
government and party meetings. A key member in the Mnangagwa
faction says
the former speaker and security boss is on the rise.
"It
seems Mnangagwa is the one rising and will emerge as Mugabe's successor.
I
also believe that the constitutional amendment was made for a reason.
Mugabe
will stand and retire and I believe Mnangagwa will be the person who
is
chosen by parliament.
"Mnangagwa knows that with the president's
endorsement, he will get the
support from the party."
The official in
Mujuru's camp said there was no way that Mugabe, whom he
describes as a
tribalist, will hand over power to a Karanga, like Mnangagwa,
or a Manyika,
such as his powerful security minister, Didymus Mutasa.
Zimbabwe has two
main tribal groupings: the Shona make up 80 per cent of the
population and
the Ndebele the remainder. But the Shona are divided into
three subgroups:
the Zezuru (to which Mugabe belongs), the Karanga and the
Manyika.
"What people don't know is that Mugabe will not hand over
power to a
Karanga. He is a tribalist. I believe Mnangagwa is being used by
Mugabe. How
does Mnangagwa jump from number 11 in the party to number one?
It is not
possible. I also think he is making a mistake aligning himself
with Mugabe,"
he said.
The official said Mujuru, a Zezuru herself,
would be elected and her
deputies were likely to be Speaker of Parliament
John Nkomo, an Ndebele, and
maybe Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi,
another Zezuru.
Mutasa was a likely candidate to be one of the vice
presidents, but he
tarnished his image when he consulted a witchdoctor about
his presidential
prospects. He would have represented the Manyika group,
which has been
agitating for the top ZANU-PF post.
Thomas Dzvetero is
the pseudonym of an IWPR journalist in Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwean
MASVINGO
There
was a shocking miscarriage of justice today as Masvingo magistrate
remanded
in custody the secretary general of Great Zimbabwe University (
GZU) Edison
Hlatshwayo on allegations of malicious injury to property and
assault. The
magistrate refused bail due to the fact that the state is still
hunting for
more students following disturbances that rocked the University
two weeks
ago. He is to appear in court again tomorrow. Other students on
the wanted
list includes Zwelithini Viki, Gideon Chitanga who is the ZINASU
Vice
President and Mehluli Dube who is also facing treason charges after he
was
arrested by Gwanda Police on Saturday.
Hlatshwayo was arrested on Thursday
last week while attending a public
meeting organized by the Youth Forum at
Charles Austin theatre hall in
Masvingo. Zanu PF youth disrupted the meeting
leading to the arrest of 11
participants. The coordinator of Youth Forum
Wellington Zindove and the
spokesperson of the National Constitutional
Assembly Madock Chivasa were
also arrested and appeared in court on
allegations of undermining police
authority were released after paying ZW$10
million bail each. They are to
report at Avondale police station twice a
week.
Hlatswayo becomes the seventeenth student to be remanded in custody
since
2006 after Beloved Chiweshe, the ZINASU Secretary General, Marvellous
Kumalo, the ZINASU programmes Officer and 14 other students from Bindura
University of Science Education were remanded in custody on 13 May 2006
following a mass protest by students over the continued fee hike in the
country. Most of them had to spent two weeks at the notorious Chikurubi
Maximum Prison in Harare. Hlatswayo is being represented by a legal defence
team from the Zimbabwe Lawyers of Human Rights (ZLHR). Meanwhile, Beloved
Chiweshe said that ZINASU will launch a massive Free Edson Campaign if he is
not released by tommorrow 12.00pm.
'Justice delayed is justice
denied'
Zimbabwe National Students Union
53 Hebert Chitepo
Ave,
Harare, Zimbabwe,
+263912471673/ +26311861104
zinasu@gmail. com
www.zinasu.org
Business Day, Nigeria
03
October, 2007
In 2006, Mo Ibrahim launched the world's biggest prize to
reward good
governance in Africa. Those ligible for the award are past
executive heads
of state or government who demonstrated, while in office,
excellence in
African leadership. The five million US dollar award is
distributed over ten
years at $200, 000 annually for life thereafter. In
addition, the award
stipulates a further $200, 000 per year for good causes
of the winner's
choice to be granted by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, the
sponsor of the award.
To select the first winner, which will be announced on
October 22, 2007, the
foundation selected five eminent personalities to
conduct the exercise.
Those on the 2007 prize committee include the former
United Nations
Secretary General, Kofi Annan; former United Nations Special
Representative
for Namibia and former President of Finland, Martti
Ahtisaari; former
Minister of Education in Guinea and Special Adviser to the
Director-General
of UNESCO, Aicha Bah Diallo; our own former Minister of
Finance and Foreign
Affairs during the Obasanjo administration, Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala others are
the former President of Ireland and one time United
Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson; and former prime
Minister of
Tanzania and former Secretary-General of the Organisation of
African Unity,
Salim Ahmed Salim.
The prize aims to encourage leaders
who fully dedicate their constitutional
tenure of office to surmount the
development challenges of their countries,
improving the welfare of their
people and consolidating the foundation for
sustainable
development.
It is now recognised all over the continent that bad
leadership equates bad
governance and vice versa. We only need to look at
Zimbabwe for an excellent
example. This award hopes to cement this by
promoting good governance by
promoting good leadership. By promoting this
initiative, it is expected that
it will lead to visionary and purposeful
leadership in Africa.
The idea is to encourage and support good
governance in Africa. We believe
the significance of this award is not lost
on those that believe that the
main problem of Africa over the decades has
been the failure of leadership
to provide good governance. Africa has been
unfortunate to have leaders that
were interested only in stealing billions
and causing wars, ethnic
cleansing, and impoverishing their people. In a
continent that is often
associated only with wars, famine, disease, bad
leadership, misery, etc, the
prize must be commended because it goes to the
root of the whole matter,
rather than seek to treat the symptoms.
The
award has been regarded in some quarters as the equivalent of the Nobel
Prize, this time for honest leaders. Eligible candidates are former
executive heads of state or government in any Sub Sahara African (SSA) state
who have taken office through democratic elections and who have left office
in the previous three years. In addition to this, the criteria include
measures of governance on sustainable economic development; impact on health
and education; transparency and empowerment of civil society, democracy and
human rights; and the rule of law and security.
While we wait for the
announcement of the first winner or no winner on the
October 22, 2007, we
cannot but imagine which African leaders in the past
three years meet such
an all encompassing test of national leadership. In
the same vein we applaud
this remarkable initiative and hope that African
leaders will be spurred on
by this prospective reward.