The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
Sunday Times
(Johannesburg)
October 5, 2003
Posted to the web October 4,
2003
Gugulethu Moyo
Johannesburg
IN THE year 2000, the owners
of a small radio station in Zimbabwe took the
government to court, asserting
their right to operate an independent
broadcast service. Capital Radio
challenged the constitutionality of the
government monopoly over the
airwaves.
It won.
But just six days after the Supreme Court
ruling, Zimbabwe's President
Robert Mugabe signed into law new broadcasting
regulations which outlawed
private ownership of radio transmitters in
Zimbabwe.
Later that day the studio and the private residence of the
broadcaster were
surrounded by policemen armed with AK-47 rifles. The staff
were evicted from
the premises at gunpoint and the station's transmitters
were seized by the
state.
Now the government would have us believe
that the recent forced closure of
the Daily News was justified because the
publisher is a delinquent
corporation that defied the law.
The
Zimbabwean government would have us all deceived by the sophistry of
its
legal argument, but the truth of the matter is that it is a
dictatorship
which tolerates no dissenting voices.
The Daily News
dared to challenge the state's monopoly over the daily
newspaper market. Not
only did it challenge it, but it won.
From its launch in March 1999,
Daily News sales had by April 2000 overtaken
those of the state-owned
newspapers. It had become the nation's first-choice
newspaper.
In June
2000, 129 000 copies of a single issue of the paper were sold.
In January
2001, the Minister of State for Information and Publicity,
Jonathan Moyo,
issued a dark warning: "The state will silence the Daily
News." The reason,
he said, was that it posed a threat to national security.
Two days later, the
printing press owned by the publishers of the Daily News
was blown to
smithereens in an expertly engineered explosion.
Miraculously, the Daily
News appeared on the streets of Zimbabwe the
following morning.
Then
the arrests started. Not of assassins and arsonists, but of journalists
and
investors.
The passage of the Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act in
March 2003 sent a clear message that the state had decided to
get serious
about regulating the media .
Two months after the
enactment of this law, the editor-in-chief of the Daily
News and two staff
reporters were arrested and charged with abuse of
journalistic privilege by
publishing a "falsehood". They each faced two
years' imprisonment.
The
Daily News launched a constitutional challenge to this section of the
law,
arguing that it was Draconian and could have no justification in a
democratic
society. It won.
This did not, however, put an end to the detentions.
There were many more
sections of the law that could be violated. A total of
27 Daily News
journalists were arrested and charged with various crimes
constituting abuse
of "journalistic privilege".
Nonetheless, the paper
persevered, reaping the reward of its leadership
position through market
approval.
In January 2003, the publishers launched another court action,
this time
challenging the legitimacy of the requirement compelling media
houses to
seek permission from a regulatory authority before they could
publish
legally in Zimbabwe. On the afternoon of September 11, the Supreme
Court
ruled that the Daily News should register. The next day the
newspaper's
staff were evicted from their offices at gunpoint. Two days
later, the
police seized the company's publishing assets.
The
legitimacy of the regulatory structure established through the Access
to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act is highly questionable. The
Act
created the Media and Information Commission, a body of five
unelected
individuals who represent no one in Zimbabwe generally or, indeed,
in the
media sector. This commission has sweeping powers but is not
democratically
accountable.
The minister of state for information and
publicity - to whom this body is
accountable - is also unelected, serving
only at the pleasure of a president
whose legitimacy is subject to challenge
in the courts of Zimbabwe.
In a country where there is an alarmingly high
rate of unemployment - of
almost 70% - a law which has had the effect of
cutting off the livelihood of
more than 1 000 people is patently
illegitimate.
On the other hand, the state newspapers have rejoiced at
what they term "the
demise of the Daily News".
Having regained their
monopoly in the daily newspaper market, they have
increased their cover
prices by more than 100%.
Clearly this goes beyond the law.
I
shall end here with the poignant rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jnr: "This
is
raw tyranny under the guise of maintaining law and order. We cannot in
all
good conscience obey such an injunction . . . We do this not out of
any
disrespect for the law, but out of the highest respect for the law. This
is
not an attempt to evade or defy law or engage in chaotic anarchy. Just as
in
all good conscience we cannot obey unjust laws, neither can we respect
the
unjust use of the courts."
Moyo is a legal representative for the
Daily News
The Scotsman
Scot pledges to defy ban and relaunch paper
NICHOLAS
CHRISTIAN
A SCOT is at the centre of a move to get a banned newspaper
in Zimbabwe back
on the streets in defiance of President Robert
Mugabe.
Lindsay Ross, from Aberdeen, is leading a
plan to put the popular but banned
Daily News back in circulation this
week.
The executive director of the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU), Ross
and her
colleagues are planning to e-mail an edition of the paper and text
news to
people’s mobile phones in an effort to overcome the ban.
Ross
entered journalism in 1972 and, from 1989, lived for seven years in
East
Africa. She is married to one of Uganda’s most senior broadcasters.
She
said: "Press freedom will be a big issue at the next Commonwealth Heads
of
Government Meeting [CHOGM] in Nigeria."
The Daily News was closed down on
September 19 after the Zimbabwe supreme
court ruled that it must register
with the state media and information
commission. But the commission refused
to give it a licence.
Many of the journalists are now living outside
Zimbabwe after warrants for
their arrest were issued. Now they plan to edit
the newspaper from
Johannesburg in South Africa.
Ross added: "The CPU
will do everything in its power to help these
courageous men and
women."
Wilf Mbanga, the Daily News’ founder, said: "We were banned for
exposing
corruption and telling the truth as it is. But we will never give in
to
Mugabe and his cronies. Our reporters are the unsung heroes of
Zimbabwe."
However, Zimbabwean information minister Jonathan Moyo said
Mugabe’s
government was the victim of a hate campaign, which he said was led
by
international media groups.
Moyo said the government was being
targeted by Western media over its
seizures of white-owned farms for
resettlement by landless blacks.
He added that the Daily News had paid
the price for ignoring new media
registration laws and said its actions were
indefensible.
Sunday Times (SA)
Olonga plans to be opera
singer
HENRY Olonga, the
exiled Zimbabwe fast bowler now based in Kent, has
confirmed he is turning
his back on professional cricket to seek a career in
music as an opera
singer.
With a knee operation due this month, he has been recording
master tapes for
a possible CD, and his moving rendition of Anthem, from the
musical Chess,
during the Walter Lawrence Trophy dinner at Lord's on Tuesday
night drew a
standing ovation.
Olonga, 27, did not rule out a
return to Zimbabwe if the political situation
changed, but he added: "It's
music for me now."
The MCC have honoured him and fellow dissident
Andy Flower with life
membership for their anti-Mugabe protest during the
World Cup.
In a statement, new MCC president Charles Fry said: "Both
the membership
committee and the main MCC committee were unanimous in wanting
to honour
Andy Flower and Henry Olonga. They sacrificed their international
careers,
earlier this year, to take a brave and principled stand against an
appalling
regime."
Australian Damien Martyn won the Walter
Lawrence Trophy and £5 000 from
sponsors Aon for the summer's fastest century
- 65 balls - in Yorkshire's
final match against Gloucestershire.
©
The Telegraph, London and Sapa-AFP
News24
Zim widens media attack
05/10/2003 16:39 -
(SA)
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's government continued its
onslaught
against the country's independent media on Sunday with a warning
from the
head of the state press control authority that it was "coming" for
the only
independent Sunday newspaper.
At the same time, the owners of
the Daily News, the lone critical daily
voice that was banned last month,
announced they planned to publish the
newspaper, but on an internet website
with a South African address.
The privately-owned weekly Standard quoted
Tafataona Mahosa, the head of the
media commission, the state-appointed body
that issues licences for
journalists and newspapers, as threatening the
paper.
"Oh, you are from the Standard," Mahoso was reported as saying
when one of
the paper's reporters called him for a comment. "We will be
coming to you.
"We will be writing to you soon. You are writing
lies."
Mahoso's remarks come after a tirade delivered on Friday by
Jonathan Moyo,
Mugabe's information minister, who denounced all the remaining
independent
newspapers and journalists as "imperialist running dogs" who were
writing
and publishing "trash."
Moyo, the architect of the notorious
press-gag laws, the "Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act,"
also menaced Studio Seven, a
Voice of America programme broadcast direct to
Zimbabwe on shortwave.
"Studio Seven will die," Moyo said. "It faces
death, they think we are
sleeping, we want to see whether are going with
Studio Seven."
The government two years ago quashed attempts to establish
independent radio
and television stations.
Observers say that Moyo's
attack appears to mark the start of a new campaign
to destroy possibly the
rest of the independent press that maintains
critical coverage of the
government.
The Daily News has been bombed twice and last year the Harare
studio of a
Dutch-backed radio station was destroyed by a
bomb.
Editors and scores of journalists have been arrested, several of
them
assaulted and tortured.
Website
Gugulethu Moyo, lawyer for
Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe which owns the
Daily News, said the company
had registered the newspaper's website from a
South African address, to
ensure it didn't violate the ban which outlaws it
from publishing in
Zimbabwe.
The website, with the words "the Daily News will be back" does
not yet
publish news bulletins, but operates as an interactive chat
page.
"We need to tie together some of the legalities," Moyo
said.
"We will follow the rules. Although we cannot publish in Zimbabwe,
we can
publish everywhere else in the world.
"The point is that the
story of Zimbabwe will continue to be told."
The Standard also carried a
four-page supplement, showing front pages from
previous editions of the Daily
News, stamped across with the words, "they're
trying to silence the
truth."
It also gave the newspaper's new website address.
As a
reaction to the wave of threats from the government, the Standard
carried an
editorial addressed to Mugabe, saying, "We are tired of the game
of fools
that your administration has become.
"You and you alone must address all
the crises because, as you say, you were
elected to lead us.
"It is
only a game of fools that has no timetable. Great men and women know
when the
game is up."
A columnist gave an ironic reply to the government's
warnings: "For his
(information minister Moyo) threats, we can only say, 'we
are quaking in our
boots'."
Zim Standard
The Standard threatened
By Caiphas
Chimhete
AFTER shutting down The Daily News and The Daily News on
Sunday,
Junior Information Minister Jonathan Moyo and Media and
Information
Commission chairman Tafataona Mahoso say they have turned their
guns at The
Standard and The Zimbabwe Independent.
Ranting and
raving at the official launch of New Ziana, a multi-media
State organisation
charged with publishing pro-Zanu PF information, an
agitated Moyo made it
clear that after the closure of the two Associated
Newspapers of Zimbabwe
(ANZ) titles, he was now after The Standard and The
Zimbabwe Independent, two
newspapers he called "running dogs of
imperialism".
A highly
charged Moyo said the type of "trash" published by the
newspapers, both owned
by the same company, would not be published anywhere
overseas.
"They call the President (Mugabe) a thief. Why don't they say (United
States
President) George Bush is a thief and (British Prime Minister) Tony
Blair is
a thief?"
"If we were serious people, who do not want to apologise
for who we
are ... really we would shut these papers down because they are
trash, they
injure our national interest," ranted Moyo, who incidentally only
gained
national prominence in the 1980s and 1990s by writing his anti-Mugabe
and
anti-Zanu PF tirades in the private media.
Moyo also
pronounced the "death" of Studio 7, a Voice of America (VOA)
news
broadcasting station that beams to Zimbabwe.
"Studio 7 will die. It
faces death. They think we are sleeping, we
want to see where they are going
with Studio 7, " said Moyo.
Delivering a speech in characteristic
vitriol at the launch, Moyo said
The Standard and The Zimbabwe Independent
were just like The Daily News and
The Daily News on Sunday which were closed
down on September 11.
He also talked erroneously about how the two
papers had changed their
mastheads to reflect the views of their
"masters."
"They publish trash just like The Daily News. They are
not different
from it. Just to show their clear identity, The Independent has
dropped
Zimbabwe, which was part of its name, while the national flag that
was on
The Standard masthead has been blown by the wind, the British wind. It
is no
longer there anymore. They are serving their masters and we are
clearly
aware of that," charged Moyo.
Contrary to what Moyo
said, the Zimbabwe Independent masthead still
contains the name Zimbabwe,
which lies on top of the word 'Independent'. The
removal of the Zimbabwean
flag from The Standard was a result of a
re-branding exercise that sought to
come up with a modern product of
international standards and had nothing to
do with the so-called "British
masters", as Moyo claimed .
Mahoso, who also attended the launch, made it plainly clear that a
clampdown
on The Standard was in the pipeline.
Asked about the implications
of Moyo's attack on the newspapers and
his general views about the media
landscape in the country, Mahoso said:
"Oh, you are from The
Standard. We will be coming to you; we will be
writing to you soon. You are
writing lies, carrying stories with initials as
by-lines," said Mahoso,
referring to the paper's Hot Gossiper column.
Two months ago,
Mahoso wrote to The Standard expressing his
displeasure at the column that
has ruffled feathers among many high-ranking
politicians and
businessmen.
Both The Standard and the Zimbabwe Independent
newspapers are
registered with the Media and Information Commission.
Zim Standard
Mzee death: Hungwe faction in disarray
Newsfocus By John Makura
HARARE - The death of Zimbabwe's first
Vice President, Simon Vengai
Muzenda two weeks ago, is bound to change the
political configuration of
Masvingo province in south-eastern Zimbabwe - long
touted as the bulwark of
the governing Zanu PF's support.
Muzenda, who died at the age of 81, was both kingmaker and godfather
for many
political aspirants in the Midlands and later in Masvingo when he
muscled out
retired Air Vice-Marshall, Josiah Tungamirai, to claim Gutu
North during the
1995 general elections.
"We have lost a godfather and protector,"
bemoaned Josaya Hungwe, one
of Muzenda's most trusted protégés.
Hungwe also ghosted for his mentor during a long and drawn-out turf
war that
has raged in Masvingo province for a decade and half, pitting
Muzenda against
former Zanu PF heir apparent Eddison Zvobgo.
"Vanga vari denga
pamusoro pedu isu ve Masvingo. Denga raitivharirira
zvose mhepo, zuva, mvura
nezvimwe zvakadaro. Zvino tasara tangove pamhene,"
(He was like a roof over
our heads, protecting us from the wind, the sun,
the rain and harsh weather
conditions. Now that he is gone, we are left
exposed," Hungwe, a pretender to
the Masvingo crown, lamented.
Muzenda elevated Hungwe, his distant
cousin, from a primary schools'
manager's post to an MP, and then to a more
influential position as governor
of the vast province of 1,3 million
people.
Observers have credited Hungwe with almost succeeding in
maintaining a
relentless campaign against Zvobgo. His efforts have, however,
failed to get
the former Zanu PF spokesman expelled from the
party.
Zvobgo is a founder member of Zanu PF while some people
consider
Hungwe to be "a Johnny-come-lately" whose political power and
prominence was
drawn from riding on Muzenda's coat tails.
Known
for his vengeful campaigns against political opponents, Muzenda
however
leaves the province of his birth fractured and with supporters
confused over
whom to owe allegiance to among the leaders of the two
warring
factions.
Since Hungwe became governor of Masvingo in
February 1990, there has
been no political love lost between him and the
astute Zvobgo, perceived in
some quarters as the best legal brains in Zanu
PF.
Their battles have become legendary, sometimes spilling out
into the
public arena amid accusations and counter accusations of which
faction loves
Mugabe most.
Hungwe has always sought to gain
political favours from both Mugabe
and Muzenda by accusing Zvobgo of
'unbridled presidential ambitions".
"He wants to be President and
says I am a Mugabe man, whose man is
he?" Hungwe has said in the past,
casting aspersions on his political foe.
Hungwe is also said to
have pulled his weight in Masvingo, promoting
only those known to publicly
rebuke the Zvobgo faction.
Buttressed by the support from Muzenda,
Hungwe managed to whittle down
Zvobgo's influence in the province,
culminating in a Politburo decision
recently to haul the party's former
leading legal adviser before a
disciplinary committee.
"It is
the work of strangers in the party," Zvobgo said of the
machinations of
rivals to demean and degrade his status ahead of a proposed
December party
congress to decide who succeeds President Robert Mugabe.
But it is
not only Hungwe who has had their "roof taken away" by the
death of Muzenda,
his mentor and godfather.
During a pre-burial speech at Muzenda's
Zvavahera home in rural Gutu,
Mugabe revealed that his party's political
support could fall apart and lose
its age-old stranglehold in the province to
the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) because of Muzenda's
death.
"Why should we let the symbol of our nationhood, the Great
Zimbabwe
slip from our grip?" he pleaded with mourners gathered to pay their
last
respects to his deputy.
In the 13 years he has been
governor - the longest in independent
Zimbabwe's history - Hungwe has also
managed to assemble his own clique of
supporters who stand to lose a lot from
Muzenda's death.
More importantly, the fractious province is likely
to disintegrate
further if Zvobgo and the firebrand Dzikamayi Mavhaire were
to play "the
high stakes" game once more and try to take advantage of the
void created by
Muzenda's death to reclaim their dominance of the
province.
Mavhaire was ousted from the provincial leadership by war
veterans'
three years ago at Hungwe's behest after saying Mugabe had "to
go".
Ever since, Hungwe and his team have failed to hold Masvingo
province
together. They failed to field candidates in some rural council
electoral
wards and lost eight of the 10 urban wards by the widest of margins
to the
opposition MDC in last month's municipal polls.
Muzenda's
death not only throws into disarray the aspirations of his
faction in
Masvingo, it will also prove tricky to Mugabe and the ruling Zanu
PF
party.
Zanu PF knows it urgently needs to feel the vacancy created
by
Muzenda's death, yet it must move cautiously to balance tribal
interests.
Zim Standard
Unemployed youths turn to crime to make ends
meet
By Caiphas Chimhete
WALKING through the Harare
Gardens to Parirenyatwa Hospital one
afternoon, unsuspecting Marvelous Mauye
had her wristwatch and handbag
snatched from her in broad daylight by two
youths.
Despite her desperate cries for help, scores of people -
who throng
the park daily, some of them with their lovers, - turned a blind
eye.
Unperturbed, the youths' leisurely walked away with their loot as
if
everything was normal.
Tearfully recounting her ordeal, Mauye
said: "I was once warned not to
walk alone through the park even during the
day but I thought it would not
happen to me. It was like hell."
She said people no longer cared about what happened to others as long
it is
not them or someone they know. Mauye's case is not an
isolated
incident.
Statistics indicate that the number of
criminal activities,
particularly robberies, have significantly increased
over the past year due
to the deteriorating economic environment and
worsening poverty.
Latest police statistics confirm a worrying
trend of increasing cases
of armed robbery, theft and housebreaking
countrywide, which experts and
social scientists say are an indication of the
result of the deepening
poverty among Zimbabweans.
In the first
half of this year alone, cases of housebreaking and theft
shot up by 13,28
percent compared to the same period last year.
During the same
period, cases of armed robbery also went up 27,3
percent as more people
turned to criminal activities in a bid to eke a
decent living.
Police spokesman Andrew Phiri admits police are failing to cope with
the
overwhelming increase in incidents of crime. He urged communities in
affected
areas to join hands with the police to fight crime.
"Police are
carrying out preventive patrols in the affected areas, but
alone, our efforts
cannot stamp out crime," he said.
Presently, over 85 percent of the
country's 12,5 million people live
below the poverty datum line while
unemployment has topped 80 percent,
according to the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions (ZCTU).
A labour consultant with a local employment
firm said there is direct
correlation between crime on one hand, and poverty
and unemployment, on the
other.
Presently, the country's
education system annually churns out more
than 350 000 school leavers onto
the job market while an additional 15 000
graduates from tertiary
institutions join the job queues.
In contrast, the shrinking formal
sector only creates about 10 000
jobs a year and the rest "survive by their
wits on the streets", said an
expert.
"Not all of those who fail
to make it into formal employment will
survive through genuine means, the
majority would prefer the quickest and
easiest way of making money - which is
stealing," said the labour
consultant.
Apart from those that
fail to enter the formal employment, thousands
of workers are also finding
themselves jobless as companies retrench due to
economic constraints. It is
estimated that more than 900 000 jobs have been
lost in the formal sector
since 2000.
A sociologist with the University of Zimbabwe,
Professor Claude
Mararike, attributed the rise in the crime rate to the
"human factor decay"
necessitated by increasing economic
pressure.
"People's relationship with those things that they need
in life is
getting poorer and weaker everyday. As a result, more people turn
to
criminal activities in order to survive," noted Mararike.
In
a broader context, he added, the crime rate increases as law
enforcement
mechanisms - both by the police and the communities - weaken.
"The
police have to be a little more imaginative than they are now
while
communities should also co-operate with them to reduce crime,"
he
said.
Mararike, a university lecturer, believes crime is
becoming
"institutionalised" with communities working hand-in-hand with
known
criminals by buying cheaper but stolen property from the thieves.
Phiri
concurred with Mararike.
"Criminals do not operate in a
vacuum, the community should assist the
police with information concerning
crimes committed," said Phiri .
Zim Standard
Aids reduction claims disputed
By Henry
Makiwa
LOCAL experts and HIV/Aids activists have disputed
government's claim
that the prevalence rate of the killer disease have taken
a dip, questioning
the manner in which health authorities carried out their
latest survey.
The objections come in the wake of Dr David
Parirenyatwa, the Minister
of Health and Child Welfare's pronouncements that
there has been a
significant drop in the number of people who are infected
with the Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV, the virus that causes Aids) in
Zimbabwe.
Tapiwa Kujinga, a lawyer and spokesman for the Zimbabwe
Activists on
HIV and Aids (Zaha), said the manner in which the government had
conducted
its survey was "hazy".
"The people who conducted the
survey are unknown and the statistical
projections worryingly differ with
those highlighted by the more credible
UNAIDS organisation; it becomes harder
for us to get a clearer picture that
will enable us to formulate strategies
in the fight against Aids," said
Kujinga
In August, Parirenyatwa
announced that a government study showed that
1,8 million Zimbabweans aged
between 15 and 49 are infected with HIV, the
virus that causes
Aids.
The figure is less than that estimated by the UN in its
Global Aids
Report for the year 2001, in which it reported that more than two
million
out of Zimbabwe's population of 11,6 million were
infected.
"What is apparent however is that more and more people
are dying even
if the government claims that the figures are going down. it
is saddening
how (the government) the government is now advocating for the
construction
of more morgues at hospitals and not for the procurement of
anti-retroviral
drugs as if they value the dead more than those dying from
Aids," Kujinga
said.
Anti-retrovirals are drugs that are capable
of dealing with the
numerous opportunistic infections that affect HIV
positive people.
"Much more still needs to be done, especially as
Parirenyatwa himself
concedes that many people do not know their HIV status,"
said Kujinga.
According to government projections, about 90% of
Zimbabweans infected
with HIV do not know they have the virus.
Parirenyatwa has said poor Zimbabwean teenage girls were
particularly
vulnerable owing to cultural practices such as forced and
arranged
marriages.
One health expert who refused to be named
said: "The government's
survey simply took prevalence rates from different
settlements all over the
country and averaged them across the board, a trait
which is cause for great
concern.
"You cannot take Binga's low
prevalence rate and combine it with
Harare's high one to come up with a
diluted projection.
"The government wants to appear as if it is
employing successful
programmes to mitigate the effects of Aids and yet if
the HIV/Aids
prevalence rates have indeed taken a dip, all credit should go
to the bold
non-governmental organisations and civic groups that have
courageously
fought the disease amid a harsh political
environment."
He added: "The prevalence of the disease can be be
drastically reduced
if it wasn't for the stringent bureaucratic measures that
the authorities
have placed even against international organisations who want
to assist the
country."
Though Parirenyatwa could not be reached
for comment, a government
source told The Standard that the latest estimates
were from a study
conducted by the government, based on surveillance data
carried out on
pregnant women between the ages of 15 and 49 attending
pregnancy clinics.
Zimbabwe has one of the highest prevalence rates
of the disease in the
world according to UNAIDS.
At least 3 800
Zimbabweans die of Aids-related illnesses every week, a
figure experts have
attributed to the country's lack of a comprehensive
anti-retroviral drug
therapy programme.
Zim Standard
Child president slams national youth service
By our own Staff
VUMBA - Outgoing child president, Lydia Samvura,
has slammed the Zanu
PF-initiated national youth service programme, saying it
was imposed on the
Zimbabwean youths.
Presenting a paper at a
workshop convened by the Centre for Peace
Initiatives in Africa (CPIA) in
Vumba recently, Samvura said it was
unfortunate that many youths had no
choice but to join the discredited
programme in the hope of securing
employment thereafter.
"Youths are being given education without
the end result being an
advantage to them," said Samvura.
"At
the end of the day students with 12 points fail to proceed to
productive
sectors of life but instead join hundreds of others on buses to
Border Gezi
training camps to be indoctrinated and physically trained, all
in the hope of
getting employment easily. What culture should we learn
from
this?"
Samvura said many Zimbabwean youths were being
forced into exile after
completing their education in search of greener
pastures.
Zim Standard
Binga parents boycott schools over "Green Bomber"
teachers
By our own Staff
BINGA - Several parents have
withdrawn their children from more than
13 schools here after the Ministry of
Education, Sport and Culture
reportedly displaced 171 teachers to pave the
way for graduates of the
controversial national youth service programme, it
was learnt last week.
Binga is a well-known stronghold of the
opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC). The ruling Zanu PF has in
the past three years
failed to sway its rural folk to ditch the
opposition.
MDC and Binga Member of Parliament Joel Gabbuza
confirmed that many
parents in the region had decided to remove their
children from school
rather than have them taught by the new teachers whom
they believe were
being brought in by Zanu PF.
"The parents say
they will not let the government intimidate them
since they built the schools
from their own energy and resources," said
Gabbuza.
It is widely
believed in Binga that the teachers being forcibly
transferred from the
region would be replaced by graduates from the national
youth service
programme, a scheme associated with the ruling party.
An official
at the Matabeleland North regional education offices, a
Mrs Mguni confirmed
that many parents had withdrawn their children from
schools in the region and
that there were 104 vacant teaching posts in
Binga.
"There is
indeed a shortage of teachers in Binga since those who had
become regulars
from the area were untrained and I understand that they are
currently engaged
in the national youth service programme," said Mguni.
The 68
national service graduates, reportedly brought in from Gokwe
and other areas
outside the district to join the education system as
temporary teachers, can
hardly speak a word of the local Tonga language, an
issue mentioned by some
parents as one of the reasons they pulled their
children out of the
schools.
Shadreck Mudimba, the district administrator, last week
called on
parents, teachers and civic leaders to meet to solve the
problem.
The Standard however understands that the meeting
degenerated into a
"political farce" with angry parents loudly accusing the
government of
hiring "Green Bombers" to teach their children.
Government schools and other civil service institutions are now
reportedly
giving first preference to jobseekers who have completed the Zanu
PF-aligned
national youth service training.
Schools in Binga affected by the
acute shortage of teachers and that
have been offered the youths as
substitutes include Muchesu, Bulawayo Kraal
and Samende.
Zim Standard
Zanu PF defies High Court over $2bn debt
By
our own Staff
THE High Court has ordered the Deputy Sheriff to
attach property worth
about $2 billion from Zanu PF which has failed to pay
debts owed to six
clothing companies that printed its election campaign
regalia last year, but
it emerged yesterday that the governing party was
refusing to comply with
the order.
In a landmark judgment that
could provide some relief to several
companies that are owed huge sums of
money by the ruling party, High Court
Judge Charles Hungwe found Zanu PF in
default of its contractual obligations
made with six companies that either
printed or distributed its campaign
T-shirts.
Facing its
stiffest challenge since independence from Britain in 1980,
Zanu PF last year
went on an vigorous poll campaign for President Robert
Mugabe that saw
millions of "Hondo ye Minda" T-shirts printed and
distributed all over the
country.
The T-shirts and other party regalia were meant to
complement a
blitzering media campaign in the State newspapers, radio and
television that
sought to prop up Mugabe's waning political fortunes. Mugabe
later won the
election amid charges of electoral fraud.
The six
companies, owed $1,8 billion by Zanu PF, are identified as
Millennium
Advertising, Soakhill Marketing, Textile Printers, Tanclau
Printers, Brighter
Decorators and Meckpect Distributors.
The companies filed a joint
challenge to contest the governing party
under the principal representation
of former Radio 3 DJs Joe Hussein and
Kudzi Marudza, who co-own one of the
companies.
Instructing the Deputy Sheriff to attach the Zanu PF
property, Justice
Hungwe said: "The terms of the contract agreed between the
plaintiffs (the
six companies) and the defendant (Zanu PF), were that the
plaintiff would be
paid in respect of the goods sold and delivered; and
material supplied to
the defendant upon delivery of the said goods in all
cases not later than 30
days from the date of delivery of goods.
"You are required and directed to attach and take into execution the
movable
goods of Zanu PF."
However, it emerged yesterday Zanu PF was
refusing to comply with the
court ruling, once again defying the rule of
law.
Sources at the party's Harare headquarters said raucous guards
and
some roughneck youths who loiter around its premises, harassed a
messenger
of court, identified only as Kunze on Thursday, when he tried to
effect the
court order.
"The youths and the guards put up a
really ugly scene. They told the
poor guy (Kunze) that if he ever returned to
the party's headquarters to
attach the property, they would beat him up and
lock him up in the
basement," said a Zanu PF official.
Thembinkosi Magwaliba of Matutu and Kwirira Legal Practitioners
who
represented the companies yesterday refused to comment.
"I'm
out of the office right now and I cannot give you any comment. I
also have to
consult my clients first before I speak to you because I
wouldn't want to
prejudice them," Magwaliba said, via telephone.
Zim Standard
Letters
Don't blame the mirror for being ugly
reflection
WHY is the government and some Zanu PF propagandists
accusing the
privately owned media of projecting a bad image of Zimbabwe?
Zimbabwe is
indeed a very beautiful country that many a tourist would like to
visit in
their lifetime but that natural beauty of Zimbabwe cannot be viewed
in
isolation of the humanity within.
For, what is beauty in
civil strife, in starvation, in political
hegemony and economic chaos,
rampant prostitution and corruption and
unprecedented unemployment. It is
therefore obligatory for every journalist
worth his salt to mirror society as
it is, for the benefit of that very
society.
The government of
Zimbabwe has turned its own people into outlaws,
because of the
disintegrating moral standards rendering social life
utterly
despicable.
For starters, what happened to respect for
the dead? Sanctify of death
is no longer held with the solemnity it deserves.
Due to government's
inefficiency in procuring fuel death has been so
trivialized. Honestly, how
can one spend the whole day in a fuel queue with a
corpse. This is because
at some garages one has to present a body and burial
order to acquire fuel.
Due to this development, some conmen have
sprouted all over the city
of Harare. It would not be surprising to discover
that these conmen are
conniving with some hospital mortuary staff to collect
bodies and obtain
burial orders. They then use these to buy fuel which they
later sell on the
black market. The source of this problem: the
government.
There is quite a number of unclaimed bodies in the
mortuaries. Some
have been lying unclaimed in these mortuaries for months and
this has opened
the floodgates for these 'fuel conmen' to make a killing. One
wonders why
there are so many unclaimed bodies at mortuaries.
Imagine you live in Victoria Falls and a relative dies in Harare. You
have to
start looking for cash to travel, which is not so easy. If you have
the cash
there is no fuel. This dilemma, seemingly far-fetched, serves to
show the
magnitude of the problem at play here. It is indeed the government
that is
making people appear irresponsible.
Numerous families have been
torn apart because of the failures of the
government. The queues for visas
that we witness at embassies are not out of
choice. Fathers leave their
families to look for greener pastures elsewhere
because they can no longer
afford to feed their families. Mothers too have
left the country to fend for
their hungry families.
But this has had a very undesirable effect
on family bonding. The long
separation of parents has seen marriages crumble
and the social structures
of families have disintegrated. Divorces have
become the order of the day.
The root cause of all this is, again, the
government.
Dropouts from schools are also on the increase. People
can no longer
afford to pay school fees. The result is, so many young girls
have turned to
prostitution to survive. In a situation like this, how does
one manage to
conscientise people about the vagaries of HI/Aids?
Take a stroll in the avenues in Harare and witness what is happening
right
round the country. Prostitution is brisk business, day and night, and
most of
the prostitutes are teenagers of school going age.
Many young men
have resorted to crime as their source of livelihood.
There has been a huge
increase in the number of street kids and beggars. The
rise in the cost of
accommodation has seen a number of people become
homeless.
It is
therefore irrelevant to say that the private media paints a bad
picture of
the country. Society speaks for itself through its actions. It is
not for the
media to preach to the outside world what is happening in our
country. It is
up to us to organise ourselves so that we are perceived
as
normal.
The natural beauty of our country should be
complemented by the basic
human rights of our people.
The recent
ban and refusal to grant an operating licence to The Daily
News is very
unfortunate. You can kill one rooster but many more will be
there to crow
when the sun comes up.
Fortune Mbele
Harare
Zim Standard
Zim economy still drifting towards
catastrophe
By Kumbirai Mafunda
ZIMBABWE will continue
drifting towards economic catastrophe in the
absence of a conducive economic
environment, one of the country's leading
conglomerates, Radar Holdings, has
warned.
In a commentary accompanying his group's year-end results
chairman,
Kenneth Schofield, said the last year was characterised by the
"continued
wanton destruction in absolute terms of the social, economic and
structural
fabric of this country".
He said Zimbabwe has become
less of a meaningful participant in the
development of the southern African
region because of the certification of
regulatory chaos, legal turmoil and a
total lack of economic direction.
"We are not even applying
Band-Aid. Rather we are rolling like a
rubber ball across a porcupine's back
Ševery time we move, another hundred
holes appear," said Schofield, who took
over the chairmanship of the group
from his late father, Chris, who died last
year.
Zimbabwe is wallowing in its fifth year of economic
recession,
dramatised by raging inflation - recorded officially at more than
426% in
August - shortages of the country's legal tender and energy
constraints.
The capacity to generate foreign exchange necessary to
sustain the
industry and commerce is severely diminished, whilst agriculture,
which for
years has been the backbone of the economy, has been badly
decimated.
Radar Holdings is the holding company of a diversified
portfolio which
includes Commercial and Industrial Holdings (CIH), UBM and
listed concern,
Macdonald Bricks, and Border Timbers, among
others.
Schofield decried the arbitrary application of the law,
rampant
corruption and the inaccessibility of the world's capital markets
caused by
the government's pariah status. He blamed the skewed dual interest
rate
policy for retarding savings.
"The local economy has
remained driven by inflation which, in turn,
has meant continued demand for
most products. While we lurch from one crisis
to the next, as long as this
interest rate policy continues there will be
zero incentive to save, zero
incentive to hold onto Zimbabwe dollars and on
the basis that the value of
the currency unit - whether expressed in hard
currency or simply in goods and
services - will be impossible to hold demand
for real assets of whatever form
will continue," he said.
The Randalls' chairman said he hoped
Zimbabwe would not submerge
further into infinite lawlessness.
"That business continues to operate will surely be a case study
for
institutions across the world as to the resilience and resourcefulness
of
all Zimbabweans," said Schofield.
In his outlook, the
businessman said there was need for the creation
of an enabling environment
to steer industry out of the current quagmire.
Radar recorded
turnover of $19,4bn, 234% more than the $5,8bn achieved
in the comparative
period. Profit for the year was $4,2 billion, up from
$329m attained in the
previous year.
Zim Standard
Too daft to see the economic realities
Sundaytalk with Pius Wakatama
ON the 19th of September this year of
our Lord the State mouthpiece,
The Herald proudly announced in its business
section, "Efforts by the
government for parastatals to change realistic
prices for their goods and
services hailed."
Hear, hear! We are
finally waking up to, the basic economic realities
of life. Yes, we have just
discovered that for the past two decades we have
been living in an unreal
world - a fool's paradise, if you please. This
realisation has not come out
of our own intelligent reasoning however. We
are not capable of that. It has
come out of the stark reality that
Zimbabwe's economy has become unstuck. It
has finally melted down and we are
up to our buttocks in the messy
goo.
The Minister of Mines and Mining Development, Edward Chindori
Chininga
recently announced that government had agreed to release $2 billion
to
Ziscosteel, a parastatal, to pay off its debt to Wankie Colliery,
another
crippled parastatal which is also up to its neck in debt. Even though
the
colliery has one of the richest coal reserves in the world and was a
major
exporter of the product, it cannot produce or deliver. Zimbabwe's
own
companies have to import coal from South Africa.
Chindori
Chininga said the thrust was for the two companies to charge
realistic prices
to meet their obligations.
"This is a very good plan because most
parastatals have been
performing community service when in actual fact they
should be making money
and sustaining themselves. It is similar to the price
control issue because
when the controls were in place goods were scarce on
the official market but
as government moves away from controls, we have seen
most goods return to
the official market," he said.
Lord, have
mercy!
Did Zimbabwe's industry have to be destroyed for our Zanu PF
leaders
to learn that price controls do not control prices but destroy the
profit
incentive to produce goods?
When goods are thus few on
the market or have to be imported prices
naturally go up. And, when
government tries to enforce price controls a
black market is immediately
created.
Obviously Chindori Chininga has not learnt the first
lesson about
business. He said State enterprises "should be making money and
sustaining
themselves." No, Sir. The goal of any business should not merely
be to
sustain itself but to make significant profits in order to grow itself
for
the benefit of its stakeholders and the nation. Any business which does
not
have this as its goal will not exist for long.
Almost to a
man (and woman) our economic pundits pointed out over and
over again the
truth that price controls would not work. Since one does not
need a degree in
economics to figure this out I also added my two penny
worth to the debate.
Way back, on January 31 in the year of our Lord 2000, I
wrote about the
debilitating effect of price controls in The Daily News.
Unfortunately our
erstwhile rulers have their ears firmly plugged so that
they can't hear the
truth.
In this article I said, "When government holds prices below
market
levels in order to protect the public from so-called profiteering
by
business it is, in fact, doing more harm than good."
If a
product is sold below the market price, then consumers will buy
more than
what is available because it will be so affordable. Very soon that
product
will be in short supply.
On the other hand producers, if they are
still in business, will be
discouraged from producing that product because
they can't make profits
which justify their production, marketing and
distribution costs. When a
company discontinues a production line because it
has become unprofitable
people will have to be laid off and up goes the
unemployment index.
In any economy a certain amount of inflation is
taken as a given.
Business adjusts to this with a sensitivity which only
entrepreneurs have.
They have to gauge market sentiment as well as the
reaction of other players
in the market. They also have to keep watching
their margins or they will be
out of business if they are slow to
react.
The government does not have this kind of sensitivity. More
often than
not, they only act in response to consumer sentiments or out of
political
expediency. They can, therefore, set prices which are unrealistic
and
destructive.
This is exactly what has happened to Zimbabwe.
Despite the
protestations of level headed and patriotic economists, our
government
zealots insisted on imposing upon us a command type of economy.
They took it
upon themselves the responsibility of telling private business
what to
charge for the goods irrespective of what it costs them to produce
or
procure those goods.
In order to give a semblance of
intellectual credence to their
populist economic ideas, they bombarded us
with shallow commentaries by
black phoneys with funny names and equally funny
accents who posed as
economic analysts.
Now that the chickens
have come home to roost we lay the blame on
non-existent sanctions by Western
countries instigated by the opposition
party, business saboteurs and
everybody else but ourselves and our own
stupidity.
Isn't it
amazing that now that the damage is done and we are
helplessly staring at our
economic ruin, we suddenly discover that price
controls don't work? Do we
apologise and let better people take over to
clean the mess?
No,
sir. We act as though we have, out of the blue, discovered a new
truth. We
proudly announce the deregulation of prices as though it is an
original
discovery for which we should be patted on the back.
This Zanu PF
government must really believe that Zimbabweans are
stupid morons who can't
think.
Just as price controls created a thriving black market in
goods, so
did the artificial and unrealistic pegging of the Zimbabwe dollar
create the
present foreign currency black market. Former finance minister,
Simba Makoni
was fired for pointing this out and suggesting that the Zimbabwe
dollar be
devalued to realistic market levels.
On February 14,
2002, I also pointed this out in The Daily News.
Freddy Chawasarira, the then
ZimTrade chief executive had attributed the
shortage of foreign currency to
the importation of non essential goods by
some shops.
I replied:
"The foreign currency shortage we are currently
experiencing is not caused by
the importation of so-called trinkets but by
policies which restrict economic
freedom."
One of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s conditions
for resuming
balance of payments assistance to Zimbabwe is that we deregulate
the
exchange rate and let the value of the dollar be determined by
market
forces.
Propping up of the dollar has given it an
artificial value which the
market does not recognise. Hence, the growth of
the black market and the
flight of foreign currency from the
banks.
"If the dollar is allowed to float and find its place on the
market,
foreign currency would start flowing into banks since the black
market would
be effectively eliminated. Exporters would also have the
incentive to export
more because of the promise of more earningsŠ
."
Why does the government not listen to advice by the private
sector and
the country's economists and let the market determine the real
value of the
Zimbabwe dollar?
The true reason is that because we
are so heavily in debt internally
such a move would see the external debt
balloon to unmanageable levels, in
Zimbabwe dollar terms. This would cause
the artificial facade, which is our
economy today, to really come tumbling
down.
However, even without devaluation our economy is finished
anyway. No
amount of stop gap bandaging can save it.
He who has
ears to hear, let him hear.
Zim Standard
"We are quaking in our boots"
Shavings from
the Woodpecker
There is something about Zanu PF that turns
perfectly reasonable men
into raving morons that bash at anything in their
sight, or so it seems.
How else can one describe the behaviours of
the likes of junior
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo or journalism lecturer
and head of the
Media and Information Commission, Tafataona Mahoso, for that
matter.
Moyo, or Nathaniel Manheru - as he likes to be called
nowadays - was a
reasonable man: a respected university professor of
political science whom
many parents were convinced was well appointed to
shape their children's
minds.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s,
baring the occasional bout of
madness he directed at Uncle Bob Mugabe (whom
reasonable people agree can
send even the sanest person bonkers), it was
generally agreed that Professor
Moyo was a good man: a man of letters who was
only concerned with the way
the governing party was ruining the
country.
Then there is Tafataona Mahoso. When he came back to
Zimbabwe years
after independence from wherever he was coming from, it was
generally agreed
that although he would sometimes also go off the rails, he
was a reasonable
man who was likely to add value to the journalism
profession.
Both men, it was agreed, were perfectly normal
Zimbabweans trying to
redress some of the problems that were within their
capabilities, given
their training in life.
Then Moyo became the
face of Zanu PF after his disastrous flirtation
with trying to sell Mugabe's
flawed new constitution to Zimbabweans in 1999.
From then on, he
was like a man possessed: lashing out at any shadow
that he wrongly perceived
to be Mugabe's enemy, and by extension his enemy
as well. He ranted and he
raved.
He attacked the private media (and even the State media at
the time),
the opposition, the British, the Americans and the South Africans
- who over
the most difficult years after the flawed 2000 election, have been
Mugabe's
staunchest supporters.
Not to be outdone, his protégé
Mahoso followed foolishly, like a
puppy, but spewing bile in long and boring
articles in the equally boring
Sunday Mail.
Journalism students,
who had expected to read timely and thought
provoking features by Mahoso in
his weekly Sunday column, were surprised
that this top lecturer was only an
angry old man, desperate to curry favours
with Zanu PF, after
all.
They could only conclude, as they indeed also concluded after
reading
Nathaniel Manheru's hate-filled articles in the other Zanu PF rag
every
Saturday, that Zanu PF turns perfectly reasonable men into stark
raving
morons.
Educating Mahoso
Mahoso and Moyo,
during the launch of the misnamed New Ziana, this
week warned that they are
after journalists at The Standard and the Zimbabwe
Independent, now that they
have succeeded in shutting down The Daily News.
We arequaking in our
boots.
In his tirade, Mahoso attacked his pet hate, the Standard's
hot
column, Hot Gossiper, which is perhaps one of the most widely read
columns
in this country.
Mahoso, whom we suspect has a hidden
fetish to be one day featured in
the hot, gossip-dripping Hot Gossiper
column, can't seem to distinguish
between a proper news story and a gossip
article.
For what its worth, maybe we should educate Mahoso, the
head of the
journalism department at Harare Polytechic, on what a gossip
column is.
A gossip column, as its name implies, covers issues or
reports that
might not necessarily be easily identified with their subjects,
for all
sorts of reasons, legal or otherwise. These articles are light
reports,
compared to hard news, and are meant to brighten the paper - and
the
readers' lives.
They also sometimes poke fun at leading
personalities in business,
politics or civil society by exposing and making
fun of their sexual
peccadilloes.
For his threats though, we can
only say once more: "We are quaking in
our boots."
Food for
thought
It is interesting that Moyo-Manheru and Mahoso, when
attacking the
private and independent Press, never mention the Financial
Gazette, the
Sunday Mirror and the two Tribune tabloids.
Can we
read something here? Are these newspapers "good" because they
are owned by
businessmen with known close links to the ruling Zanu PF party?
It
is an open secret in the journalism profession that some of these
so-called
"independent" newspapers are mere Zanu PF fronts that in all
fairness, should
openly declare their allegiance as does the party's
People's
Voice.
By the way, are Nathaniel Manheru and Ceaser Zvayi
registered with the
Media and Information Commission?
Food for
thought, Mahoso.
Zim Standard
No end to Mugabe's theatre of fools
Zimbabwe is now a crisis-ridden society, bouncing from
one crisis
after another with no visible solutions on the
horizon.
It is like a ship at sea, captained by a drunken master -
or at best -
by a skipper who has abandoned his duties, retiring to his cabin
and
delegating his work to no one in particular.
There are so
many crises that it is difficult to list all of them on a
single page: there
is of course, the foreign exchange crisis, then the fuel
crisis - cash, AIDS,
drugs, transport, water Š you name it.
We are living in a country
where everything - including the very
things that used to bind us together
such as our pride in being Zimbabwean
and the high self-esteem and confidence
that we used to exude - are now,
regrettably, also in short
supply.
It now seems all that is left which is not in short supply
is the air
that we breathe and the sun to warm our backs.
But
yet some of these crises could be addressed if only there was
proper
leadership and serious planning in the governing Zanu PF party.
Millions of Zimbabweans would not have to die from HIV/Aids if a
proper
anti-retroviral drug therapy programme is rolled out.
We know that
cheaper generic ARV drugs are now available in countries
such as Brazil and
India and the arguments that a proper roll out plan needs
to be in place
first before the drugs can be made available, is cheap, to
say the
least.
Experts have pointed out that Zimbabwe's anti-retroviral
drug therapy
roll-out plan could easily ride - piggyback style - on the
successful TB
programme that has been in existence, and is very successful,
for some years
now.
Then comes the issue of public transport. It
is a sorry sight to drive
around the capital Harare, and Bulawayo, and
witness the plight of workers
who have to spend hours on the long and winding
queues for transport to take
them home from work.
Zimbabwe,
before and immediately after independence, used to have a
public transport
network that worked. And that was even before the advent of
commuter
minibuses.
That system, which in the capital was run by the Harare
United
Passenger Company, worked, for those old enough to
remember.
The entry by government into the public transport sector
through its
buy off of ZUPCO has been a disaster. The company has been forced
to ferry
Zanu PF supporters all over the country even when the governing
party and
the government owe it millions in unpaid debts.
How
then can a normal company be expected to operate on purely
commercial lines
and make enough money to buy new buses to service its
routes, when it is at
the beck and call of a political party?
It has been said before,
and we say it once more: government has no
business in business.
Still on ZUPCO and the issue of public transport, the company's desire
to
"keep up appearances" is mind boggling, to say the least.
Instead
of buying cheaper buses that would carry workers and everybody
else, the Zanu
PF-aligned firm spends hard-earned foreign currency buying
luxury coaches
from South Africa.
Besides those two, the list of small problems
that Zimbabwean
authorities have allowed to blow up into crises is
endless.
Take the cash shortage, for example.
The
government itself, through its Central Statistical Office, admits
that
inflation has skyrocketed during the last two years.
CSO figures
for August, the latest available, say consumer inflation
has surpassed 426
percent.
The rise in inflation has been a gradual process that
accelerated
during the last 12 months or so, and surely the government should
know about
this, if it reads its own statistics.
The government
should have known - and should have prepared for it -
that the amount of bank
notes in circulation would need to be increased just
to meet the challenges
posed by the soaring inflation. Period.
All other measures such as
travellers' cheques and bearer cheques,
while providing light relief, are
like closing the barn door after the horse
has bolted.
The same
can be said of most of all the other crises that we are
facing. They can and
should be easily dealt with if we had a proper and hard
working government in
place.
Come to think of it, most of these problems are not
insurmountable.
The issue of governance, which the World Bank and
the International
Monetary Fund are always clamouring about, could easily be
dealt with if
Zanu PF and the opposition sit down to map out the way
forward.
It is only when we address the fundamental issues that dog
us such as
human rights' abuses, democracy, freedom of expression and proper
rule of
law, that we shall shed off our current pariah status and hopefully
be fully
accepted as equals in international organisations, and by
international
financial institutions.
We therefore implore
President Robert Mugabe to seize the moment that
has presented itself with
the apparent thawing of relations between his
party and the MDC.
We implore him to display the statesmanship that he was well known for
in the
early years of our independence and revisit his policy of
reconciliation and
once again focus on the rehabilitation of Zimbabwe and
its crumbling
economy.
Mr. President, the time for petty politics is over.
Neither you nor
Zimbabwe have the time anymore to play to the
gallery.
We are tired of the theatre of fools that your
administration has
become. You and you alone must address all these crises
because as you say,
you were elected to lead us.
Fire the
deadwood in your midst, if you must. Fire the whole lot of
your advisers and
employ new ones if that will help you solve our problems.
We have enough
Zimbabwean talent within and without our borders for you to
pick new brains
from.
In the twilight of your career, would you want to leave the
legacy of
failure?
We, forward thinking Zimbabweans, believe you
still have it in you to
rally the whole country - including the MDC - to at
least pull Zimbabwe out
of its current political and economic
quagmire.
But if you are indeed tired and bereft of ideas, as your
critics
claim, then it is time for you to go.
It is only a game
of fools that has no timetable - great men and women
know when the game is
up.
Zim Standard
Minding your pleas and queues
overthetop By
Brian Latham
Troubled central Africans were amused last week to
learn that their
alleged government had made another plan to solve the petrol
problem.
For those with the energy to do these things, counting the
so-called
solutions to the fuel crisis has become a popular pastime. So
far,
apparently, government has made several dozen announcements heralding an
end
to fuel woes.
None of them have come to anything - while
analysts predict the latest
will come to nothing as well.
Much
of the problem lies in the government's inability to understand
or speak
English. While it claims to have deregulated the oil sector, it
still
maintains price controls on petrol.
Quite how you can have
deregulation and price control is a mystery to
every troubled economist and
energy executive in the troubled central
African nation. Deregulation means
the state has no involvement in the
market, which would be right and
proper.
So the truth is that the oil sector has not been
deregulated and that
government is either confused or lying - or
both.
Given its history, it's probably both. The ministry of
disinformation
is becoming awfully good at presenting whopping lies as fact -
especially
after it's barbaric treatment of the only independent daily paper
the
country had.
Still, remember that you read it here first:
the fuel sector has not
been deregulated and fuel shortages will not go
away.
For it's part, insane economists in the Zany Party expect
oil
companies to sell petrol for less than they paid for it. They also
expect
supermarkets and other retailers to sell basic commodities for less
than
they paid for them.
Quite why they expect such altruism
from business is another mystery,
but one that will never, ever (to borrow a
phrase from the most equal of all
comrades) be realised.
Meanwhile worried economists and businessmen warn that there is a
more
sinister process at work - one that forces companies into bankruptcy so
that
Zany politicians can pick them up for next to nothing. "We've seen it on
the
farms and we'll see it in town, just you wait," said an angry and
troubled
central African businessman.
Others said that the
amount of traffic in a country with no
functioning filling stations was proof
that Zany business had already
hijacked the oil sector.
"Every
time you fill up you're putting money into their pockets,"
he
said.
It is a simple truth that when governments interfere in
the market,
shortages become inevitable. That's because government has no
business
telling people what things should cost. It is another truth that
only
governments bloated with arrogance and self-importance ever
consider
interfering in the market place.
But then no one in the
troubled central African nation was ever in
doubt about how arrogant and
self-important the Zany government has become.
Asking for sanity or
common sense to bring an end to economic
hardship, queuing and hunger is
pointless, so don't bother pleading your
case. The Zany party has decided
that the imperialist British, the More
Drink Coming Party and exploitative
white men have caused all hardship.
Zany politicians and
businessmen with S Class Benzes and 500 suits are
not exploiting the masses,
they are reaping the rewards of sovereign
independence. Funny how a party
card can set you apart.
If you own more shoes than Imelda Marcos
but support the wrong party
or are the wrong colour, then you're a subversive
imperialist. But if it's
all in the name of Zany enterprise, you're a hero.
Curious how no one
notices the hypocrisy in all this, isn't it?