"[Joseph] Kabila is biding his time, trying to outsmart them [Rwanda and Burundi] diplomatically while strengthening his grip on power, building up a national army and improving the economy," one diplomat said. "In the meantime, the low-intensity fighting will continue." Rebels of the Rwanda-backed Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) in eastern Congo have discounted Burundi's worries. "Burundi and Rwanda anti-government forces currently attacking Burundi are trying to make a last-ditch attempt because they are about to be disarmed," RCD security chief Bizima Karaha commented. Burundi's President Pierre Buyoya has refused to implement the Arusha agreement, which provides for transitional institutions, until a ceasefire is in place. Opposition members, both Tutsi and Hutu, believe this is a pretext to cling to power. Although a process is underway for direct talks between Buyoya and rebel FDD leader Jean-Bosco Ndayikengurukiye in Libreville, Gabon, the situation currently appears to be at an impasse, analysts point out. "Even if the Lusaka accord succeeds, this does not mean the end of war in the Great Lakes region," one diplomat noted.

“Any closures will have to have the assent of government. The welfare of the workers will in every case be the decisive or determining factor. Government will not tolerate any closures,” he said.
Mugabe claimed most businesses are shutting down in sympathy with white commercial farmers whose properties were overrun by his supporters and later seized by the government for compulsory resettlement.
He has accused commerce and industry of supporting the MDC .
But Welshman Ncube, the MDC’s shadow minister for home affairs and MP for Bulawayo North East, dismissed Mugabe's statement as “mere rhetoric” and baseless. He said the government lacked the financial capacity to bail out businesses.
He said instead of threatening investors with inflammatory statements, the government must create conducive conditions for foreign investment.
According to a survey conducted by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), over 400 companies in the manufacturing sector folded last year because of the pathetic economic environment.
The sub-sectors hardest hit were the motor trade with 171 shut-downs, steel manufacturers with 92, and 45 in the textile industry.
The CZI said 10 000 workers were retrenched from about 750 companies last year with the clothing and textile industries accounting for the highest numbers of lay-offs.
Said Ncube: “Nobody will shut down when they are making profits. Many of these companies are closing down because they have no foreign currency and they can't keep pace with the hyper-inflation. You don't close down a flourishing business because you hate the government of the day.”
He said it would be unfair if the government subsidised the factory take-overs with taxes.
“The government must rein in the galloping inflation, solve the fuel crisis and the problems of unemployment and insecurity and the economy will thrive,” he said. “Everybody will be coming to invest in Zimbabwe.”
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president, Lovemore Matombo, said his organisation would resist the proposed take-overs.
He said: “If Mugabe is going to take over the companies and give them to so-called indigenous business people at the expense of workers, then we will resist the move.
“The government should not sideline other members of the tripartite committee before making such radical moves. How do they take over when they are in serious financial problems themselves?” he asked.
The tripartite committee consists of the ZCTU, government and employers.
Nancy Saungweme, a businesswoman, said the government's proposed take-over of companies must benefit the workers and not the State.

The shelter, which looks after 103 street children, is facing serious financial problems following the withdrawal of funding for the institution.
Workers at the home said the children were taking their baths in a nearby dam.
The children said the absence of running water had become a serious health hazard.
The power cut has affected their studies, they said.
“We are finding it very difficult to do our studies because of the darkness,” said Rutendo, 13. “We call upon the relevant authorities to help us.”
The home, started in 1996, now relies on water bowsers from neighbouringfarmers and surrounding dams.
The money received from the Andy Cole Foundation last year was spent on some basic requirements for the home.

Town engineer, Gunda Rugara, said the road network, neglected for many years, had now reached “the end of road”.
“Over the years, we have been telling the council we need money for the rehabilitation of the roads,” said Rugara.
“Now all the roads are in a very bad shape and the costs have doubled and the council has no option but to look for money.”
He said the council budgeted only $20 million for roads for this year.
Rugara said a serious water crisis was looming if the water works were not upgraded.
Rugara said the existing water works could not cope with demand.
“The problems of water and roads are a result of the council's serious financial problems. We have told them we need the money to avoid a serious water crisis but they seem to be doing nothing.
By the time we get the money, I think the whole town would have run dry.”
The programme would involve the laying of new pipes from Lake Mutirikwi to the reservoirs at Targets Kopje.
Last year, the council posted a $40 million budget deficit.
It has failed to repay $300 million in government.

While the identity of the bombers is still unknown and will probably remain a mystery, judging by the complete lack of progress in police investigations, renewed verbal attacks on The Daily News have been launched mostly from the department of Information and Publicity in the President’s office. They have been disseminated through The Daily News’s main rival, The Herald, and through the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.
The theme of the attacks has been to dismiss The Daily News as a worthless publication which is sponsored by the British government in that government’s allegedly ongoing campaign to discredit and eventually unseat the Zanu PF government of President Mugabe.
The strategy has been to discredit The Daily News as a reliable source of information by dismissing as false stories that appear in its news columns.
While the rebuttal of Daily News stories has become a full-time occupation for Jonathan Moyo, the Minister of Information, it seems to provide him with an opportunity to appear on television almost every night and thus assuage what seems to be an insatiable love for publicity. Moyo is the man who spearheaded the anti-Daily News campaign even before the bombing of its printing press. It is doubtful that government derives any benefit from the minister’s self-serving appearances on television as he lashes out at the paper.
There is something patently questionable about a decision to assign the man who is easily Zimbabwe’s most unpopular politician to promote the image and interests, not only of the government, but also of Zimbabwe, as a nation. The government routinely accuses Western governments, the opposition political parties and the privately-owned press for creating Zimbabwe’s current economic and other problems.
But, in our view, some of the country’s worst enemies are ensconced in government offices, including Moyo’s office, for instance, from where they do much to undermine and discredit Zimbabwe not only with impunity, but also, so it would seem, with official sanction.
The ultimate beneficiary of this campaign against the privately-owned press is Moyo himself - witness the way he now seeks to use defamation actions and court injunctions to silence The Daily News and The Zimbabwe Independent, the two newspapers which have been at the forefront of alerting Zimbabwe, Zanu PF and President Mugabe, in particular, to his seeming hypocrisy, duplicity and now alleged deviousness.
But unless Moyo has a way of either influencing or predetermining the outcome of the numerous cases of defamation which he has instituted against the two newspapers, then he needs to be informed that suing a newspaper for defamation and actually winning a defamation case are not synonymous.
Far from discrediting the image of The Daily News, as they seem hell-bent on doing, people such as Moyo, Chenjerai Hunzvi and Joseph Chinotimba need to be informed that there is something inherently good, in the eyes of the public, about the qualities of any newspaper which is constantly targeted for criticism by officials of a government or ruling party whose popularity is clearly on the wane.
On that note, if Mugabe has serious intentions to win the forthcoming presidential election then he needs to hold a serious chat with his self-seeking, controversial and extremely unpopular spokesman. Mugabe needs to be reminded, in case he has forgotten, that this same man failed to influence the outcome of last year’s referendum on the Constitution in favour of government and that once he jumped on board, Zanu PF nearly lost an election for the first time.
In the meantime, if Moyo has any serious complaints about stories which are published in The Daily News then he should bring his complaints to The Daily News. He should refrain from directing such complaints to The Herald and ZBC where they are published or broadcast without any questions being asked.
Moyo knows that he is not telling the truth when he states that The Daily News is sponsored by the British government. But if he can produce one shred of irrefutable evidence to back his allegation then let him do so.
In any case, what does the British government have to do with the utterances of Vice-President Joseph Msika at the house-warming party of the MP for Mt Darwin South, Saviour Kasukuwere in his village in Chief Matope’s area?

State Splashes $100m On Ministers' Vehicles

(Harare)

April 16, 2001
Posted to the web April 16, 2001

Mercs Chengetai Zvauya
Harare

The cash-strapped government, which recently forked out $50 million towards the purchase of vehicles for MPs, is set to splash a further $100 million for the acquisition of luxury vehicles for newly appointed ministers and judges. The Standard established last week that six judges and 10 ministers are to receive brand new Mercedes Benz E-class vehicles. The cost of each vehicle is estimated at $7 million. The ministry of transport and communication will be responsible for administering the funds and will source the vehicles through the Central Mechanical Equipment Department.

Last week, government slashed a vehicle loan facility for MPs from $150 million to $50 million, with the balance going towards the acquisition of vehicles for the ministers and judges. Contacted by The Standard for comment on Thursday, the minister of transport and communications, Swithun Mombeshora, confirmed that the government was in the process of acquiring the vehicles for the ministers and judges. "I can confirm that the matter is under discussion, but we have not yet finalised the details. But I can tell you that we are working on it," said Mombeshora. Government provides ministers, deputy ministers and judges with chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz vehicles. In the event that they leave office, they are offered the vehicle at give away prices as part of their packages.

Among the ministers who are set to benefit under the scheme are: Jonathan Moyo (state information and publicity); July Moyo (public service labour and social welfare); Francis Nhema (environment and tourism); Joseph Made (lands, agriculture and rural resettlement); Simba Mako-ni (finance and economic development); Border Gezi (youth development, gender and employment creation); Samuel Mumbengegwi (education, sports and culture); Flora Buka (minister in the vice president office) and Nkosana Moyo (industry and international trade). The new judges are Ben Hlatshwayo, Rita Makarau, Charles Hungwe, Anne Marie Gorowa, George Chiweshe and Antonia Guvava. However, the scheme has come under fire from several MPs who are bitterly complaining that they were sidelined and given loans of $600 000 per MP to purchase vehicles.

TWO Pakistani businessmen with investments worth more than $200 million in Zimbabwe have fled the country as widening attacks on businesses by the governing ZANU PF party’s war veterans begin to take their toll, it was established this week.

A source at Leno Trading, a registered company that has been operating more than 60 emergency taxis that ply Harare township routes, said the firm’s chief executive Imran Choudray had fled back to Pakistan following an attack on his home and the grounding of his business.

Choudray’s partner, another Pakistani businessman only known as Choukat, has also fled Zimbabwe but his where-abouts are unknown.

The two businessmen have invested more than $200 million in a commuter taxi transport business since their application was approved by the Zimbabwe Investment Centre in 1992. They had both since acquired Zimbabwean citizenship.

Leno Trading has been embroiled in a labour dispute with some workers who were sacked after going on an illegal strike last October.

Although the workers lost their case in court, they appealed to the Harare chapter of the war veterans’ association which immediately impounded the whole fleet and grounded it at the ZANU PF head office in Harare’s Rotten Row.

Mediation efforts which at some stage involved former ZANU PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa seemed to have solved the problems when Leno was forced and agreed to pay the sacked workers at total of $450 000.

A copy of the agreement drafted by ZANU PF and signed by the workers as well as Leno and the ruling party shown to this paper shows that the workers were divided into four categories.

It is not clear how ZANU PF devised the categories but those from the first to the third categories were paid varying sums of around $15 000 each, with the lowest getting $2 000, while those in the fourth category were told to report back to work.

According to the ZANU PF-brokered agreement, the sacked workers on getting paid would cease all claims against Leno.

Two weeks ago, the dispute resurfaced when the same group of workers approached the new war veterans’ executive led by Mike Madiro.

The Madiro executive is alleged to have told the workers that the money they were given by Leno as compensation was too little and immediately assembled some youths who ground to a halt all operations of the company.

It was not possible this week to get comment from Madiro or his deputy, Chris Pasipamire, who is said to be heading new pay talks between the war veterans and Leno.

Some of the sacked workers then invaded Choudray’s home in Harare’s Avondale, where they beat up his domestic workers and vandalised property.

The businessman and his family, fearing for their lives, immediately took a plane out of Zimbabwe to an unknown destination but are now suspected to have returned to Pakistan. Efforts to contact Choudray for comment failed this week.

Meanwhile 34 of the minibuses that were grounded at the ZANU PF head office have now been dumped at Harare Central Police Station after it was discovered that they had all been vandalised and were several parts missing.

All the minibuses at the police station have their tyres slashed.

Sources within Leno say the company is about to fold because its owners believe that the situation in Zimbabwe has become untenable and might be exploring the possibility of transferring the remainder of their resources to some neighbouring countries.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) says it has asked its regions to compile a report on the effect on business of the harassment of its members by a faction of war veterans led by Chenjerai Hunzvi.

ZNCC president Danny Dube said although no particular case had been brought to his attention, the business organisation had decided to ask its regional offices to compile a report on the extent of the harassment and is still waiting for a response.

In the past few months, several Zimbabwean companies have been invaded and managers assaulted by the veterans, who are increasingly taking over the role of trade unions in the run-up to crucial presidential elections due next year.

The invasions, which follow those of private farms across the country last year by the veterans, have coincided with disclosures by Hunzvi that ZANU PF is setting up "mobilisation bases" in all urban constituencies to back President Robert Mugabe’s presidential campaign.

Hunzvi said the bases would staffed by the veterans, who last year led a reign of terror against Zimbabweans living and working in rural areas, including farmers and their workers, ahead of the landmark June general election narrowly won by ZANU PF.

They said his decision stemmed from a combination of hunger for power, insecurity and a long-held belief that his fractious party would disintegrate if it had to find a new leader.

At 77, Mugabe has been in power for more than 20 years, and he said on Tuesday he would contest next year’s presidential election because he was his party’s best hope.

But many critics say his increasingly eccentric rule has driven a country that was a beacon of hope at independence in 1980 into its worst political and economic crisis — and that Mugabe is the problem, not the solution.



Unbearable strain



The economy is in its third year of recession and a foreign currency crisis has led to a chronic fuel shortage, placing an unbearable strain on commerce and industry.

Economists say Mugabe has shown little capacity to resolve the problems, which he blames on the white minority and alleged sabotage by former colonial power Britain.

"I think you can safely say the man has condemned his party to defeat. For many Zimbabweans, Mugabe is the problem, and if he says he wants to hang on then there is no hope," said John Makumbe, a political analyst and one of Mugabe’s critics.

"I don’t see anything that ZANU PF can do, with him, to avoid defeat. There was a small chance the party could improve its fortunes by sponsoring another candidate."

Emmanuel Magade, a political analyst and law lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, added: "Mugabe has put ZANU PF in a much more difficult position. It’s going to be very difficult for the party to win the election because Mugabe, as a person and leader, now has a serious image problem."



‘Fear of the old man’



But despite the intense domestic and international criticism for a controversial land-grab programme and the crumbling economy, Mugabe himself insists that he remains popular.

"All this noise about Mugabe and so on is fear of the old man. So the old man must see the party win, and we will take our decision thereafter," he told Zimbabwe television on Tuesday.

He had long been silent on his future, raising speculation he might choose a successor to lead ZANU PF into the election.

Many believed he would pass the baton to 56-year-old Emmerson Mnangagwa, his long-serving political confidante whom he has placed in the key positions of speaker of parliament and ZANU PF administrator in the past eight months.

But privately, ZANU PF officials said there was no consensus in the party over the former justice and security minister, who lost his seat in last June’s parliamentary election.

"The problem in ZANU PF is that those Mugabe may want to succeed him are seen as a liability as well, and you get people in the party who say: ‘What is the difference, we may as well continue with Mugabe’. That is the loophole Mugabe is exploiting," said Brian Raftopoulos, an analyst and researcher at the Zimbabwe Institute of Development Studies.

"It’s generally agreed that Mugabe has always kept his options open, and part of that strategy has included sidelining serious potential rivals."

Mugabe has in the past said there is potential for a bloody succession battle in ZANU PF.

Critics say he wants to retain power for life to guard against prosecution for alleged human rights crimes during his rule, but officials say he has always put party interests first.



Grip on party



"Mugabe is a nationalist at heart and no one can take that from him. There is no question of lust for power or any fear. The West is trying to demonise him," said ZANU PF chief spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira.

The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says Mugabe will not win a free and fair election.

"Mugabe’s decision does not change anything. There is a collective decision in the country to throw out ZANU PF as a government because it has led us to ruin, and people are just waiting for the elections," said spokesman Learnmore Jongwe.

Mugabe has tightened his grip on ZANU PF in the past two months by dissolving its provincial executive committees and installing handpicked loyalists in positions of power.

Those who have dared to criticise his stewardship as Zimbabwe falls deeper into recession and political chaos have been replaced by loyal war veterans and former state security officers appointed to lead ZANU PF’s presidential campaign.

Mugabe, who led a seven-year bush war for independence against Ian Smith’s Rhodesia in the 1970s, on Tuesday accused the MDC of being a front for whites bent on retaining economic might and vowed he would never allow them into power.

The MDC won nearly half of 120 contested seats in the June poll and says it would have beaten ZANU PF but for a violent campaign that left at least 31 mainly opposition supporters dead. Political analysts fear guns and clubs will again be the instruments of persuasion in the presidential campaign.

Rautenbach made the comments in an affidavit presented last Friday to the Johannesburg High Court, where he is facing charges of defrauding Pretoria in unpaid taxes.

It also emerged this week that the Zimbabwean transport mogul is being accused by the United Nations of helping Zimbabwe plunder the resources of the Congo through illicit mining deals with that country’s government.

The UN report, released this week, accused Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi of looting the mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and also said Zimbabwe was enriching itself from the war.

The report alleges that Zimbabwean soldiers were paid bonuses by the DRC’s mining parastatal Gecamines and that Rautenbach, while in charge of the DRC parastatal in 1998, had used his company Ridgepoint to enter into an illicit deal with the Congo government.

Quoting two "very reliable sources", the UN report said while Rautenbach was paying Zimbabwean soldiers, he gave no wages to Gecamines workers, resulting in them striking in April 1999.

The report said Rautenbach had forged links with exiled Zimbabwean billionaire businessman John Bredenkamp and Parliamentary Speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, both of whom it said "were in on the Gecamines deal".

The Zimbabwean military had also enriched itself with lucrative joint ventures and concessions from the DRC, the UN report said. The late DRC leader Laurent Kabila gave mining concessions directly to the Zimbabwean army in exchange for military support.

The UN report also alleged that "President Robert Mugabe once told interlocutors that the late President Kabila had given him a mine concession".

Although the UN report chided Zimbabwe, it focused on the activities of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi which it said had profiteered from the DRC war.

Rautenbach could not be traced for comment this week. Although he had earlier promised to give this newspaper an interview, this did not materialise.

In his affidavits in the Johannesburg High Court, Rautenbach alleged a plot by the South African government to destroy him and disable him from helping fund the DRC war.

Rautenbach is facing charges of defrauding South African tax authorities of R100 million by under-invoicing the value of Hyundai vehicles he imported into South Africa for sale.

By so doing, the state prosecutors allege, he reduced the value of the customs duty on the vehicles payable to South African authorities.

South Africa has already launched proceedings to have Rautenbach extradited from Zimbabwe to stand trial in Johannesburg.

South Africa’s directorate of Serious Economic Offences is seeking a final order in the Johannesburg court to allow it to keep properties it seized from Rautenbach last year.

The properties include a helicopter, a house, a wine farm, flats, a Falcon executive jet and several houses.

Judge Jonathan Heher of the Johannesburg High Court deferred judgment to May 29.

In opposing the state’s case, Rautenbach said he had become an innocent victim of Pretoria’s diplomatic machinations on the continent because of his DRC business links.

He denied the charges that he had under-invoiced the cars and said the value of the vehicles was lower because it did not include warranties and because the vehicles had been dismantled before importation.

He said Pretoria’s real motive was to destroy him because it perceived him as an "obstacle to the attempted removal of the Kabila regime", adding that it was obvious that South Africa wanted the Congo government removed from power.