http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:24
BY OUR
STAFF
FEARS have mounted in the MDC-T that Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai has
entrapped himself by getting engaged to a daughter of a Zanu
PF central
committee member who was fingered in violence in which one person
died.
Their concerns were raised yesterday, a day after the
PM engaged Elizabeth
Macheka, daughter of senior Zanu PF official and former
Mayor of
Chitungwiza, Joseph Macheka.
Macheka was accused of
shooting to death a man and wounding two others
during the January 1998 food
riots.
The Attorney General refused to prosecute, claiming that he was acting
in
self-defence, a position criticised by human rights activists, who felt
the
office succumbed to political pressure.
Some officials from
his party said Tsvangira’s decision to marry the
daughter of a senior Zanu
PF official who has in the past been accused of
political violence and
murder, has compromised his position.
Tsvangirai has repeatedly
promised that if he wins elections, an MDC-T
government would bring to
justice perpetrators of violence, who have
remained scot-free because of the
current selective application of the law
by the Zanu PF dominated
government.
The Standard was told officials could however not openly
challenge
Tsvangirai’s decision, since he earlier warned them that matters
to do with
his marriage were personal.
Tsvangirai engaged
businesswoman and fiancée of one year, Elizabeth, five
months after ending a
controversial and brief marriage to another
businesswoman with Zanu PF
links, Locadia Karimatsenga Tembo.
Locadia is a sister to Beatrice
Nyamupinga, a Zanu PF MP and relative of the
Mujuru family. Her marriage to
the PM raised fears within the MDC-T that the
party had been
infiltrated.
State Security agents were also said to be running the
show behind the
scenes to damage Tsvangirai’s reputation ahead of elections
this year or in
2013.
Tsvangirai’s new lover is the former wife of the
late Air Force of Zimbabwe
wing commander, Mabasa Simba Guma, who died in a
car accident along the
Harare-Bulawayo road in 2002.
“Tsvangira’s
decision has shocked many of us in the party who know that Zanu
PF is
capable of using anything at their disposal, including sex and women
in
order to destroy an individual,” said a Harare-based MP.
An MDC-T
National Executive Committee member said the party had many
eligible single
women, who Tsvangirai could have married to avoid getting
entangled in Zanu
PF politics and machinations.
“Unfortunately, he does not listen to
anyone, save for the likes of the
Makone family. We just hope that this new
women in his life is not going to
cause disturbances in our party,” said the
official.
The MDC-T officials, analysts and some members of the
public said it would
be difficult for him to act against his father-in-law
and his political
associates in the event that he wins the next
elections.
University of Zimbabwe Political Science Lecturer,
Shakespeare Hamauswa,
said Tsvangirai’s engagement and planned marriage to
Elizabeth was tricky
because of the culture of politics of patronage in the
country.
He said, under a functionary democracy, the law applies to
everyone equally
regardless of status in society, but in Zimbabwe, that
culture was still not
there.
“In Zimbabwe, if someone is connected to the
politically powerful, he or she
is generally safe and can escape arrest in
the event of a wrongdoing or end
up being pardoned after all,” said
Hamauswa.
He said Tsvangirai’s supporters would always question how
the two got
involved, considering his previous relationship to Locadia went
sour after
it was allegedly hijacked by Zanu PF and intelligence
operatives.
“A spouse is a closest friend and there is real fear that
she can leak MDC
secrets to Zanu PF,” said Hamauswa.
He said in the event
of winning elections, how Tsvangirai would handle the
matter would also
largely depend on the constitution of the day.
Hamauswa said if the
current constitution was retained, independence of the
Judiciary would
continue being compromised, making it easy for him to
influence
decisions.
But if a new constitution is adopted, the independence of the
Judiciary
would be restored, making it impossible for anyone to interfere
with the
processes.
Tsvangirai free to marry anyone:
Makumbe
Political Scientist, Professor John Makumbe (pictured)
said he did not see
anything wrong with Tsvangirai marrying the daughter of
a senior Zanu PF
official.
“It will be unfortunate if Tsvangirai sweeps
under the carpet cases
involving senior Zanu PF officials, including that of
his father-in-law,” he
said.
“The law is the law. I don’t think
it will be a problem applying the law if
such cases come to
light.”
Makumbe said Tsvangirai’s fiancée was free to marry the Prime
Minister
despite her Zanu PF connections, arguing that children should not
suffer
because of mistakes made by their parents.
Ordinary
people express mixed views over PM’s engagement
Ordinary people
interviewed by The Standard also expressed diverse views
about Tsvangirai’s
latest move.
“I don’t see any problem with what he has decided to
do,” said a
Harare-based businessman, Dominic Mazarire. “Personal issues
like love
affairs have no boundaries, so I don’t think this will have any
meaningful
impact on his career and ambitions,” he said.
A
Mutare-based relief worker said Tsvangirai’s move was controversial and
showed how confused he was. “It’s a case of double standards, especially
when you look at his previous scandal involving Locadia. It’s just lack of
intelligence and his maturity is really questionable. What is he trying to
portray to Zimbabweans and his following?” said the man who requested
anonymity. “He just does his things on impulse.”
A Bulawayo-based
medical practitioner, Harold Shiri said Tsvangirai was
entitled to marry any
woman he wanted.
“It’s a tricky issue. It all doesn’t matter who it is that
he marries.
Everyone has a right to a personal life, everybody deserves a
chance to do
as they please with their life regardless of political
considerations,” said
Shiri.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:50
BY
NQABA MATSHAZI
WITH talk of elections this year gathering pace, so has the
rate at which
new political parties are being formed in Zimbabwe. Over the
years some of
the new parties have often been accused of either being
spoilers or created
by Zanu PF to confuse the electorate. At other times
they have been accused
of splitting the vote and calls have grown louder for
the emergent parties
to unite with the more established organisations, but
this advice often
falls on deaf ears.
“Zimbabwe is a multi-party
democracy,” says Everisto Chikanga of the
Rebuilding Party of Zimbabwe,
which was launched two weeks ago.
He said existing parties had failed to
unite because they differed in vision
and he felt his party was coming in to
fill a vacuum created by continuous
bickering between Zanu PF and the MDC,
considered the main political
parties.
“The two parties are
holding down the country’s future. As it is, they have
failed to agree on
the GPA and people are tired of this,” Chikanga, a former
Methodist
preacher, said, adding that he was confident that his party would
“scrape”
something from the forthcoming elections.
He said his party was not
being formed immediately before an election, as no
election dates had been
proclaimed so far.
Khulekani Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean based in South Africa, also
announced the
arrival of his party, the African Renaissance Republican
Party, as he also
hopes to be in power.
Ndlovu said the party was
set up last year, but the official launch would
only be at the end of next
month in Bulawayo. “We want to see a loving
Zimbabwe; a smiling Zimbabwe and
a united Zimbabwe,” he said, describing
this as the driving force behind the
formation of the party.
Ndlovu accused the three parties in power of
dilly-dallying with important
national issues, such as the GPA and national
healing. “This is the party
that is going to change the face of Zimbabwe
like it or not.”
Ndlovu also dismissed the idea of entering into
coalitions with other
parties saying he didn’t want to “mud his vision with
other people’s mud”.
The sprouting of new parties has often been looked at
with scepticism, with
some claiming that these new outfits did not stand a
chance against more
established formations.
Already, the
political landscape is dominated by Zanu PF and the MDC-T, with
the
remaining seats falling to the MDC led by Welshman Ncube. Other notable
parties are the splinter MDC faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur
Mutambara and MDC99 led by maverick, Job Sikhala.
Dumiso Dabengwa
(pictured above) also presided over the revival of Zapu,
while Zanu (Ndonga)
has stood the test of time. Mthwakazi Nationalist Party
was also launched
recently.
In recent times parties like the National Alliance for Good
Governance,
Mavambo Kusile Dawn, and Zimbabwe People’s Democratic Party,
among others,
have all been formed immediately before
elections.
Raymond Chamba launched his presidential bid, as an
independent candidate,
and who can forget Daniel Chingoma’s Zimbabwe
Industrial Technology and
Economic Reform Party, which hardly had any
members.
Wurayayi Zembe’s Democratic Party (DP) woke up from the
slumber last week
and issued an independence message saying, “Zimbabweans
are not insane
people who celebrate pain, suffering, disasters,
catastrophes, and tragedies
in the name of independence
festivities.”
New ‘pseudo’ parties, a Zanu PF
strategy
With so many political parties, arises the question of
whether having
several political formations enhanced the quality of
democracy and whether
these parties had any hope of upsetting the apple
cart.
Political analyst, Jack Zaba questioned the timing of the
launching of the
new parties and wondered why they coincided with Zanu PF’s
push for polls.
“This is part of the Zanu PF strategy, they form pseudo
political parties,
which from time to time issue statements against the
party, so that we think
they are against Zanu PF,” he said.
Zaba
said under the current atmosphere it was difficult to form a party at
such
short notice and gain any meaningful votes in any election. Hopewell
Gumbo,
another political analyst, said the formation of new parties was
symptomatic
of the frustration of the ruling elite’s grip on power.
“People have
become disillusioned and this has lowered political
participation, thus you
see opportunists taking advantage and forming
parties,” he said.
Gumbo
said others, in forming political parties, were driven by selfish
agendas
and self-aggrandisement.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:31
BY LESLEY
WURAYAYI
JUST a day after the Harare City Council cut water supply to the
whole city,
businesses and ordinary people said they had been seriously
affected by the
disconnection. The council disconnected water supply to the
city to
facilitate maintenance work at Morton Jaffray
Waterworks.
A hairdresser at Rezende Parkade Mall, Stephanie
Mangwiro, complained that
water disruptions were very costly. She said they
had to buy buckets for
storing water to avoid affections of water-borne
diseases as the hair salon
is always packed with clients.
“We
have to buy buckets so we can store water for use tomorrow (today) since
our
line of business needs lots of water to be fully functional,” said
Mangwiro.
“This is a setback as we need money to buy the buckets.”
Small hotels
and lodges were also seriously affected by the water
disconnection as they
do not have boreholes. However, established hotels did
not feel much of the
pinch.
The most affected were people who use ablution facilities in
public areas
such as Mbare Musika, Mupedzanhamo, Fourth and Market Square
bus terminuses
as well as entertainment joints in most parts of the
city.
Harare residents yesterday criticised the city authorities for
giving them a
short notice saying they only read it in the newspapers
yesterday after
water had already been cut in most suburbs. They said they
did not find time
to store the water in containers.
There are
fears that prolonged water cuts could result in an outbreak of
water-borne
diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery.
Harare was recently grip-ped
with a serious typhoid outbreak that saw more
than 1 000 people being
infected.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:53
BY PATRICE
MAKOVA
FOR the second year running, President Robert Mugabe last week
preached
peace at the national Independence Day celebrations. But what is
worrisome
to many Zimbabweans is that on the ground, violence and
intimidation, mostly
pitting his Zanu PF supporters against those of the
MDC-T, continues
unabated.
Analysts and civic groups are
beginning to question whether Mugabe’s
repeated calls for an end to violence
are sincere or he isjust grandstanding
as his gospel of peace appears to be
falling on deaf ears.
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition acting national
director, Dewa Mavhinga is of
the view that Mugabe should demonstrate total
commitment to peace through a
clear and unambiguous call for the immediate
arrest and prosecution of
perpetrators of violence.
Many of them
are from the Zanu PF ranks and its Mbare-based Chipangano
militia group as
well as elements in the security forces. Mavhinga said
decisive action
against “merchants” of violence was the surest way to
promote peace in
Zimbabwe, not statements which can easily be dismissed as
cheap
politicking.
“In the world of politics it is all too easy to stand on
hilltops to preach
peace while privately urging relentless violence,” said
Mavhinga. “For
Mugabe’s words to be meaningful they must be backed by
resolute action to
surgically cut out toxic violence with the precision of a
butcher’s
cleaver.”
He said as Mugabe was denouncing political
violence in the country at the
Independence Day celebrations at the National
Sports Stadium, youths from
his party were allegedly assaulting and
harassing people in Epworth suburb
in Harare and other parts of the
country.
Mugabe meant every word he said, says
Mutsvangwa
Political analyst and Zanu PF sympathiser Ambassador
Chris Mutsvangwa said
Mugabe was a principled leader who sticks to his
word.
He said the call for peace was a consensus position shared by other
principals in the coalition government including Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai.
“People who think he was grandstanding have their own agenda
which is to see
Zimbabwe in constant turmoil,” said Mutsvangwa. “People
should take Mugabe’s
message in goodwill. The President cannot grandstand at
an important event
such as our national Independence celebrations.”
He
said groups such as Chipangano were made of gangsters who should not be
taken seriously.
“Those prone to violence are increasingly being isolated
and the law will
soon take its course,” said the former Zimbabwe ambassador
to China. “We
wonder where they are taking a cue from when the President,
Prime Minister
and government ministers are working together very well in
cabinet and at
other platforms.”
Mutsvangwa claimed that in the past, it
was European countries, which were
largely responsible for fanning violence
in order to cause divisions in the
country.
“The geopolitical environment
which encouraged divisions has now changed and
Europe no longer has time to
be mischievous as the bloc is now weak and
preoccupied with its own
problems, including a huge debt crisis,” he said.
“This is why they are
talking of ending sanctions against the country.”
Mugabe does not
enforce no-violence mantra: Analysts
Political analyst Charles
Mangongera said people have to be wary of such
statements by Mugabe as
experience had shown that he “indicates left, but
turns rights.”
He said
from the year 2000 elections when political polarisation began in
the
country, Mugabe has been publicly calling for peace, but on the ground
does
not restrain groups from unleashing violence.
“Recent intensification
of calls for peace in the concept of the coalition
government does not
translate to any change of behavior on the ground by his
supporters,” said
Mangongera.
“Mugabe must demonstrate seriousness by ensuring that
known perpetrators
face the music. As long as they roam the streets free
people will find it
difficult to believe Mugabe and Zanu PF are committed to
peace.”
Zimbabwe Association of Community Radio Stations (Zacras)
chairman Gift
Mambipiri said the message of peace from Mugabe now plays like
a broken
record as he has always said the same since his inaugural
independence
speech in 1980.
But, he said, Mugabe has never
followed up with concrete action adding that
the President wore many hats
for various occasions.
“On Independence day he spoke like a statesman but we
all know he was merely
grandstanding. He has always said peace but acted
otherwise through groups
like Chipangano and some war veterans leaders,”
said Mambipiri.
He said people no longer listened to Mugabe because
his agenda both in his
party and on national politics had been overtaken by
events on the ground.
“While he works to consolidate his hold on power both
in the party and
government, his peers are too busy nicodemously working on
the post-Mugabe
project to listen to him,” said the Zacras
chairman.
“Mugabe can’t conclusively condemn violent groups because
they are the ones
that made him and he owes them a favour. He has been down
several times
since the 2000 elections and these groups have always secured
new leases of
life for him.”
Mambipiri said violence which has
been rocking the country since the 1980’s
was largely a local creation,
citing the Gukurahundi era which saw the
deaths of thousands of people
during an army crackdown in Midlands and
Matabeleland regions.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012
11:17
BY JENNIFER DUBE
RESIDENTS of Budiriro suburb are up in arms
against the Harare City Council
following the unilateral conversion of land
meant for schools, clinics and
recreational purposes to residential stands
in their suburb.
The residents alleged that council secretly sold
land to cooperatives and
individuals who are now building their houses while
their children have to
walk several kilometres to school.
So
angry are the residents that they are even planning to stage
demonstrations
soon to force council to reverse the unilateral change of
land use. Budiriro
Residents Association chairperson, Takaidza Mataga, said
the association has
been meeting a senior council official in an effort to
address the
problem.
“We went to see the Urban Planning Services director,
Psychology Chiwanga on
Tuesday and he said council only approved the
conversion of stand number
4792, which was meant for a secondary school, but
did not approve the
conversion of stand number 4793 meant for a primary
school and stand number
9040 reserved for a clinic,” said
Mataga.
He said the association would be meeting council
representatives again this
week. “We also want an explanation from the
councillor, Sydney Chirombe and
the MP, Heneri Dzinotyiweyi, because people
who are building on our land are
from Marlborough and Waterfalls, among
other places, yet our own residents
are also in need of
land.”
Mataga said residents were unhappy that land reserved for four
creches had
also been converted into residential areas for people from other
areas. He
said they were told that Harare was reducing land reserved for
schools and
clinics from 10 hectares to three. However, the whole of
Budiriro has an
estimated four hectares reserved for each project and
council had taken most
of the land, leaving only two hectares or
less.
“The councillor duped residents by making them sign papers,
claiming council
wanted to build us schools,” Mataga said. “We are not happy
at all.”
Councillor Chirombe and Chiwanga could not be reached for
comment.
But council spokesperson, Leslie Gwindi, said he was not
aware of the
matter. “I am in Bulawayo, I have not heard about that,” said
Gwindi. “I
will have to call my guys first before I can
comment.”
Harare Residents Trust (HRT) coordinator, Precious Shumba,
said Budiriro
residents had complained that their children risked being run
over by cars
as they crossed roads to schools which are far away from their
homes.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:40
BY CAIPHAS
CHIMHETE AND NQOBANI NDLOVU
MINISTER of Local Government, Rural and Urban
Development, Ignatious Chombo
has embarked on a crusade to fire or suspend
urban council officials on
trumped up charges to destabilise the MDC-T ahead
of the forth- coming
elections, a government official has
said.
Most local authorities in the country are run by MDC-T mayors
and
councillors. Chombo’s deputy Sesel Zvidzai said the minister has
suspended
or dismissed eight mayors and 16 councillors since 2009 in what he
described
as a strategy to destabilise the councils so that the local
authorities fail
to perform to residents’ expectations ahead of elections
this year or in
2013.
Zvidzai said most of the suspensions or
dismissals were not only partisan
but unlawful and unprocedural. “The
ultimate goal is to create an impression
of failure for these councils,”
said Zvidzai. “Chombo hopes very foolishly
that this strategy will harvest
some votes for exceedingly unpopular Zanu PF
at the next
elections.”
Among the mayors that have either been suspended or
dismissed by Chombo, are
Brian James of Mutare, Tinashe Madamombe of
Bindura, Lionel de Necker of
Gwanda and Zvi-shavane town council chairman
Alluwis Zhou.
But Zvidzai said: “To prove beyond doubt that these
dismissals are unfair,
illegal, immoral, cruel and selfish, Chombo has lost
most challenges in the
competent courts of this land where councillors dared
to challenge the
dismissals. He has, however vexatiously, appealed against
the judgements
just to make sure that the councillors’ return to office are
delayed.”
He said service delivery had suffered greatly because of
Chombo’s
interference in local authority issues. “For example, is it not
coincidental
that the epicentre of typhoid is wards which have no
representation as a
result of the dismissal of the ward councillors?” he
said.
Harare City Council was the biggest casualty, where seven
councillors were
dismissed, followed by Rusape with five and then Banket
with two. Chombo,
who was not answering his mobile phone yesterday, has on
several occasions
accused most of the mayors and councillors of corruption
or gross
mismanagement of the local authorities.
But Zanu PF
spokesperson, Rugare Gumbo, denied that his party aimed to
decimate MDC-T
run councils ahead of elections. “Minister Chombo is the best
person to
answer that because Zanu PF, as a party, does not have such a
strategy or
policy,” said Gumbo. “We believe in transparency and good
governance in the
running of council affairs.”
Pressure group wants chombo’s wings
clipped
Meanwhile, a Bulawayo-based pressure group has appealed
to Parliament to
stop Chombo from interfering with operations of local
authorities. In a
letter addressed to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee
on Local
Government committee chairperson, Lynette Karenyi, the Bulawayo
Progressive
Residents Association (BPRA) coordinator Rodrick Fayayo, pleaded
to the
committee to stop Chombo’s alleged victimisations of mayors and
councillors.
“It is BPRA’s contention that the Parliamentary
Portfolio Committee on Local
Government should act as a check and balance on
the operations of Minister
Chombo as he seems to be on a free reign targeted
at municipalities which
have refused to bow to his whims and
inconsistencies,” wrote Fayayo.
He said while BPRA agreed that
councils must be supervised, “Chombo’s
actions are being driven by political
motives as opposed to the quest for
transparency and accountability”.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:42
BY OUR
STAFF
TENSION has gripped Glen Norah, Glen View and Highfield suburbs
following
last week’s murder of a feared senior Central Intelligence
Organisation
(CIO) officials, Brown Mwale by a quartet comprising soldiers
and a pirate
taxi driver.
Brown (40) is young brother to another
feared senior CIO official Joseph
Mwale implicated in the murder of two MDC
activists 12 years ago, but has
still not been prosecuted.
This
is despite a High Court judge having recommended he be brought to book.
Joseph Mwale and his accomplice, war veteran Kainos Kitsiyatota Zimunya, are
accused of having petrol-bombed a vehicle driven by Tichaona Chiminya and
Talent Mabika when they were campaigning in Buhera for MDC President Morgan
Tsvangirai in the run up to the 2000 elections.
Residents of Glen
Norah said since the murder of Mwale in the early hours of
Independence Day,
CIO agents have been swarming the area and surrounding
suburbs where they
were searching for the suspects and other criminal gangs
including armed
robbers.
One of the suspects surrendered himself at Machipisa Police
Station fearing
arrest by the dreaded spies. “People are living in fear
because they are
afraid of being caught in the crossfire. Night spots are
now closing early
because CIOs are now regularly patrolling the area in an
intimidating
manner,” said one Glen Norah resident.
Police
spokesperson Inspector Blessmore Chishaka said police had not yet
received
reports of intimidation by members of the CIO. He however
confirmed that
four suspects; two soldiers, a pirate taxi driver and another
person, had
been arrested on charges of kidnapping and murdering Mwale.
Chishaka
said Mwale had been drinking beer at a night club in Glen Norah B
and wanted
to hire a taxi to his Waterfalls home towards midnight. He had a
misunderstanding with a pirate taxi driver who wanted to charge him US$5,
while he was offering US$4.
Chishaka said the pirate driver
called his friends, who included two
soldiers and the four began to assault
Mwale. The suspects briefly fled when
police on bicycle patrol were spotted
in the area.
Mwale’s friends who had also run away returned but while
they were walking
home along Sebakwe road, the four suspects re-emerged and
began assaulting
the deceased again.
Mwale was bundled into the
taxi which drove at high speed along High Glen
Road. His body was then
dumped near an area popularly known as “pamasimbi”.
Mwale’s friends managed
to phone his young brother Esau, who alerted the
police. The suspects were
arrested at another night club in Glen Norah. One
of them was putting on a
T-shirt which had blood stains.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:44
BY
SOFIA MAPURANGA
A local pressure group, the Zimbabwe United People’s Advocacy
Group (Zupac),
is demanding that government pays at least US$2 million to
each victim of
the Gukurahundi atrocities committed in the early years of
independence.
The human rights group recently petitioned Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai,
who later raised the issue of compensation in
parliament. Zupac national
chairperson Zwangendava Reason Sibanda said the
group embarked on this
initiative after realising that the country has a
huge mineral resource base
and government can afford to compensate each of
the victims.
He said government must compensate victims of
Gukurahundi and and also those
of the 2008 politically motivated violence,
in the same spirit that it
rewarded war veterans for their role in the
liberation struggle. He said
victims of the 2005 clean-up campaign, termed
operation Murambatsvina, must
also be compensated.
“Although the
money will not bring back our dead relatives or restore the
hurt and pain
that we suffered at the hands of elected leaders and
government, each family
or individual should be compensated as a starting
point of mending our
violated lives,” said Sibanda.
Sibanda said the petition to
Tsvangirai was the second after the first one
sent to President Robert
Mugabe and his deputy Joice Mujuru in September
last year was ignored by the
presidency.
Efforts to get a comment from Tsvangirai’s spokesperson
Luke Tamborinyoka
were unsuccessful yesterday.
Zupac was formed in 1997
under the name Movement for Matabeleland Genocide
(MMG). However, the
organisation changed its name last year to Zupac after
the realisation that
the former name had tribalistic implications.
Zupac claims to have 4
712 000 members comprising victims of Gukurahundi,
Operation Murambatsvina,
communities displaced by diamond mining in
Manicaland province and those
affected by the 2008 politically-motivated
violence.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:45
BY NQABA
MATSHAZI
AS the founders of Freedom Fone were celebrating an award for
fighting
censorship, ironically, the Broadcast Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ)
was
descending on them, ordering them to halt their
project.
Freedom Fone is a project, where people can dial in to
listen to
pre-recorded messages in various languages or they can send in
their own
voice messages to the platform.
Only last month, the
founders of the project were awarded in a category that
recognised
innovation and original use of new technology to circumvent
censorship and
foster debate, argument or dissent.
The awards were organised by
Index on Censorship. Zimbabwe has tight
broadcasting laws that make it
virtually impossible for new entrants and the
Freedom Fone project was seen
as a way of going beyond that censorship.
But BAZ was particularly
peeved with a drama on sexual health the service
was running, saying this
was infringing on the Broadcasting Services Act
(BSA) and should stop the
service forthwith.
“They have asked us to stop, but we will respond
since this is a telephony
service rather than a broadcast one,” Brenda
Burrell from Freedom Fone said,
adding that they did not want to pre-empt
how they would deal with the
directive.
In December last year,
the authority said the call-in programmes were
tantamount to broadcasting
and should be halted immediately. BAZ chairman,
Tafataona Mahoso declined to
comment and referred all questions to the
authority’s CEO, who was again not
available for comment. Repeated calls to
the authority’s offices were
fruitless, as the CEO was said to be out of the
office.
Burrell
described the interference from BAZ as “irritating” saying she was
not sure
what agency the authority would use to enforce its decision. She
said their
programmes were very popular and without being specific, she said
thousands
of people had called in to listen to the radio drama.
It was also
used for an audio magazine, Inzwa, that featured news headlines,
while a
programme where headlines in each day’s newspapers were read out had
also
been featured.
Freedom Fone was also used on a constitutional
project, where Constitutional
Affairs minister, Eric Matinenga would respond
to questions.
High call costs rendered the project restrictive:
Burrell
However, the cost of making telephone calls hadmade the
project out of the
reach of many. “It limits the number of people who can
access the service,”
Burrell admitted.
“But for people who are
illiterate or do not have access to the internet and
newspapers, its money
worth spending.” For organisations intending to set
up their own platforms,
Freedom Fone may also be costly, as some key devices
are expensive, but the
runners of the project said they gave free software.
Freedom Fone is
presently in use in Rwanda, Tanzania, Niger, Cambodia and
South Africa,
where Burrell says it has been more successful. The Freedom
Fone project was
initiated by Kubatana, a body that aims to capacitate
Zimbabwean non-profit
organisations to communicate and mobilise by
incorporating electronic tools
such as e-mail and internet into their media
strategies.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 11:08
BY NUNURAI
JENA
CHINHOYI councillors have shot down a management recommendation that all
debtors owning the cash-strapped local authority more than US$2 000 be
handed over to the messenger of court for attachment of their
properties.
Contributing during a full council meeting recently, Ward
10 councillor
Tendayi Musonza, said they could not take the legal route
because service
provision was poor and the billing was
“pathetic”.
The council has for a long time failed to provide
residents with clean
running water exposing them to diseases, said Musonza.
“We cannot be seen
taking the same people who voted us into office to court.
After all, the
billing system is in a shambles,” said Musonza. “Council
should think of
other means to encourage residents to pay because the reason
they are not
paying is that they don’t have the water.”
Acting
Chinhoyi Town Clerk Willie Tembo tried to convince councillors that
council
could only provide clean water if the residents and other debtors
paid up.
The councillors, however, remained adamant.
Tembo said the council
was failing to pay workers on time because debtors
were not paying including
the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa)
which, he said, owned the
local authority more than US$300 000.
Tembo revealed that Unicef,
which had been providing water treatment
chemicals for free, stopped last
month. The council is now required to fork
out US$20 000 every month to buy
the water chemicals.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 11:05
BY NUNURAI
JENA
CHINHOYI — Landlords here are cashing on the desperation of Chinhoyi
University of Technology (CUT) students for accommodation by charging
exorbitant rentals, forcing many of them to live in squalid conditions or in
groups to avoid the high costs.
The most expensive suburbs are
those close to the university because they
are the most sought after.
Students pay between US$40 and US$60 dollars per
person a month for
accommodation even where more than five students share a
single
room.
Students renting outside the campus, located in Mashonaland
West provincial
capital, Chinhoyi, said the situation was pathetic but they
had little
choice. “As students, we understand the accommodation crisis but
looking at
the situation, we cannot blame the community because we came here
to learn.
Knowing that the school might have a high intake I blame the
university
authorities,” said one student.
One landlord, Taurayi
Mungate of Cold Stream suburb, said he now survived on
letting out rooms to
students since he was retrenched. He was forced out of
employment when the
Cold Storage Commission (CSC) closed down a decade ago.
Mungate said
high demand for accommodation was an opportunity to make money
to feed his
family. “It’s now a sort of employment if one has a house with
many rooms,”
he said. “Someone can actually survive without going to work.
That is one of
the benefits the community is deriving from the university
although this
disadvantages the students.”
Elderly Simhan’a Zinduru, who owns a
house in Chitambo suburb, said some
home-owners were letting a single room
to an average five students. Zinduru
said this exposed the students to
contagious diseases like tuberculosis.
“You see four to six students
crowded in one room. This compromises their
health,” he said. Chinhoyi
lawmaker Stewart Garadhi said the university was
shortchanging the students
by accumulating properties in the town and beyond
for other purposes other
than housing the students.
“The university authorities are busy
buying properties, just recently they
bought Orange Groove Hotel but they
have idle land behind the university,”
said Garadhi. “I don’t know why they
are not considering the plight of the
students.”
Garadhi said
lecturers also faced the same plight.
Authorities say they’re
doing their best
CUT dean of students Thomas Bhebhe, while
confirming the accommodation
crisis, said the university was trying its best
to assist them. “The
director of campus’s job is to take all the data of
property owners in
Chinhoyi, landlords and identify those who want to
accommodate our
students,” said Bhebe.
“He has that database and
our students go through our director to get the
accommodation they want.” He
said this had made the lives of some students
much better than having to
move from door to door looking for accommodation.
CUT has over 5 000
students and only 1 500 live on campus, leaving the
remainder to find
accommodation in and around Chinhoyi. Some live in Banket,
25km away from
Chinhoyi.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012
11:11
BY OUR STAFF
CHEGUTU town may soon have a university following
proposals by the Adventist
Church to build one in the agricultural town. The
municipality of Chegutu
last week urged those opposed to the project to
lodge objections within a
month.
“The Adventist church made an
application for a piece of land for the
purpose of a university and council
decided to donate the land because it
will realise downstream benefits out
of that investment,” Town Clerk, Alex
Mandigo, said in an interview. “Our
community stands to benefit from job
creation during construction and also
when the university starts operating.”
Mandigo said the university
would be the first tertiary institution in the
town and schools from Chegutu
and surrounding areas will feed into it. He
said the university will also
benefit people from nearby towns and areas
like Kadoma, Sanyati, Gweru and
Mhondoro.
Mandingo added that the university, which would be
constructed in phases,
will offer a wide range of courses and construction
is expected to commence
once all the paper work was
completed.
Project implementers are currently carrying out
feasibility studies. If the
project is approved, the Adventist Church-run
institution would be the
second university after Chinhoyi University of
Technology (CUT) in
Mashonaland West province. The church also runs Solusi
University in
Matabeleland South province.
News about the
university coincided with President Robert Mugabe’s
announcement that
preparations for the establishment of universities have
gained momentum in
three provinces which had no state universities.
Provinces without
state universities are Matabeleland South, Mashonaland
East and
Manicaland.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:42
BY LESLEY
WURAYAYI
AT least 1 200 pastors from different denominations in the country
are
expected to gather in Gweru in July, where they will do refresher
courses to
improve their spiritual teaching skills.
The five-day
training workshop is being jointly conducted by Training
Pastors
International (TPI-USA) and Gospel Vision International, a church
organisation which specialises, among other things, in training
pastors.
“We are expecting 1 200 pastors who want to receive the
training,” said
national coordinator of TPI, Joseph William
Boomenyo.
“This workshop will equip pastors to effectively lead and shepherd
people
according to biblical foundation. We are targeting pastors from all
over the
country and from every church in the country, be it Seventh Day
Adventist,
Pentecostal or Catholic — all are welcome.”
Boomenyo
said the workshop offered a great opportunity for pastors to
further their
skills. He said there were over two million pastors in the
world and 95% of
them had been evangelised and established as pastors, but
without an
opportunity to further their training.
“The church can only advance
as far as its leaders can take it and in many
cases in undeveloped
countries, the church is lacking not in evangelism or
in church planting,
but in the training of its pastors,” said Boomenyo.
TPI and GVI
trains pastors in courses such as theology, expository
preaching, prayer and
worship, missionary outreach, among others.
“The strategy we use is to seek
partnerships with individuals and churches
in the United States that are
interested in helping to train pastors around
the world,” said
Boomenyo.
“The philosophy of training involves taking US pastors on
short-term mission
trips and going to strategic locations around the world
with the purpose of
establishing ministry training centres.”
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 10:38
BY OUR
STAFF
FORMER South African President Thabo Mbeki will be in Harare this week
to
launch a programme to raise funds for the University of Zimbabwe (UZ).
Mbeki
was once the mediator in the government of national unity (GNU) talks
before
his successor, Jacob Zuma, assumed his facilitation
role.
Co-ordinated by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara’s
office, the
programme aims at raising US$20 million by the end of year and
will kick-off
on Saturday with a fundraising dinner where Mbeki will be the
guest of
honour.
“The UZ, once the beacon of education in the
country and the region, has
fallen in standards over the years and this
programme is aimed at restoring
the university to its former position,” said
Professor Paul Mavima,
principal director at Mutambara’s
office.
“We are trying to spearhead African philanthropy by using the
UZ as a case
study.” Mavima said Vice- President Joice Mujuru was a patron
of the
programme and was being assisted by DPM Mutambara and Finance
minister
Tendai Biti.
He said the UZ alumni, the private sector,
the civic society and
Zimbabweans in the Diaspora were partnering government
in the programme and
more people, including those who did not study at the
UZ, were encouraged to
donate to the institution.
The university
has already indicated that it needs about US$70 million for
various capital
projects including the development of geo-technology
laboratories,
establishment of a technology resource centre, refurbishment
of medical and
other laboratories as well as the construction of its
Graduate School of
Management.
UZ Vice-Chancellor Levi Nyagura early this month told
journalists that the
institution had fallen “on hard times” and was in
desperate need of
assistance. He said geology and metallurgy departments
have had to be
suspended due to the unavailability of lecturers while the
mining
engineering department had no more than three
lecturers.
Mavima said students’ halls of residence, together with
the water and sewer
infrastructure, were other areas that needed
attention.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 11:12
LESLEY
WURAYAYI
DISPLACED people who were operating business enterprises in the
diamond-rich
Marange area have started receiving compensation, a local
community
organisation representing the affected people has
said.
Chiadzwa Community Development Trust (CCDT) senior official,
Melanie
Chiponda, confirmed recently that the businesspeople were receiving
compensation for developments and loss of business caused by
relocation.
Chiponda said the compensation started with
businesspeople who were
operating at Zengeni Shopping Centre, which falls
under Mbada Diamond mining
company.
She said the business owners have
been asked to open bank accounts to enable
the company to deposit their
monies.
“They are being compensated for their shops that were
affected by diamond
mining taking place in that area,” said Chiponda.
“A
total of three butcheries, a grinding mill, two bottle stores and four
general dealers were affected, leaving the area with no service providers.
The biggest challenge however, has been that most business people did not
have bank accounts, thereby delaying the process of
compensation.”
It could not be established how much the
businesspeople would receive as
compensation or whether a proper evaluation
of the properties and businesses
had been carried out.
Chiponda
was hopeful that the businesspeople would also be relocated to Arda
Transau
Relocation Village, about 24 kilometres outside Mutare, to enable
them to
continue offering the services they have been giving.
“We will be
meeting with some of the businesspeople soon to try and engage
them to come
into our new community,” Chiponda said. By late last year, over
500 families
from Chiadzwa diamond fields had been relocated to Arda
Transau.
The villagers moved into the three-bedroomed houses,
mostly built by a
private construction firm costing US$55 000 per unit.
Those displaced by
Marange Resources and Mbada Diamonds operations have also
benefited from
solar panels installed at their new
homes.
Miners urged to respect local cultures
A
local environmental organisation has urged foreign miners to respect
cultures of communities in which they do business. The call comes soon after
traditional leaders attributed the low rainfall experienced in some parts of
the country to the disregard of local cultures and beliefs by mining
institutions.
Speaking at a workshop held recently, Zimbabwe
Environmental Law Association
(Zela) legal officer, Veronica Zano, said
traditional leaders were furious
over foreign miners’ violation of their
cultures.
“Traditional leaders say these miners are violating their
cultural rights
during their operations in their communities,” she said.
“These miners
include the Chinese, Russians and Lebanese. they come into
their
communities, displace the villagers and pollute the environment.
Villagers
are suffering.”
Zano said traditional leaders were
associating the lack of respect of local
culture and beliefs to the low
rainfall levels recently received in the
country. The association’s projects
coordinator, Gilbert Makore, said the
mining sector is not growing as much
as it could be due to archaic mining
laws and regulations.
“The
mining sector is still governed by archaic laws that are restricting
the
growth of the sector,” he said. “They have no provisions regarding
community rights, environmental rights and general
transparency.”
Presently, the association is engaging the
parliamentary portfolio committee
on mining on the need to review the
mining laws. The government recently
announced that it would finalise the
long-awaited Mines and Minerals
Amendment Bill when Parliament resumes
sitting in May while the promulgation
of a diamonds policy is expected to be
completed in the second half of the
year.
—Our Staff
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 11:02
President Robert
Mugabe on Wednesday made what ranks as his most passionate
call for peace in
Zimbabwe in recent years. Addressing thousands who
gathered for the
Independence celebrations at the National Sports Stadium,
Mugabe said
violence of the past should be “buried” and called on everyone,
including
security forces, to ensure that peace prevails in the
communities.
While he appeared to make a convincing case for
an end to hostilities,
thereby earning a few kudos, many may have wondered
whether, like the
biblical Paul, he had experienced his Damascene moment
considering his
background.
It is a known fact that Mugabe is
more associated with violence than peace,
largely pronounced by his
unleashing of the 5 Brigade in the 80s to massacre
thousands of innocent
souls in Matabeleland.
This followed a few years after his call for
reconciliation at Independence.
Waving his fists, Mugabe has previously
boasted about degrees in violence
and is infamous for urging his supporters
who invaded farms in 2000, killing
several farmers, to “strike fear in the
hearts of white men”.
Mugabe also encouraged war veterans and Zanu PF
youth militias to inflict
harm on supporters of the MDC. Such links to the
occurrence of violence,
makes Mugabe ill-suited to preach the gospel of
peace.
Instead of just grandstanding at important occasions, Mugabe
needs to
convince Zimbabweans that he is a changed man; a champion of peace
and
harmony. He can start by ordering the police and the army to adopt zero
tolerance on political violence.
He should also order police to
investigate all cases of political violence
that were recorded with no
action being taken. The President also needs to
bring back to the barracks
soldiers who have been deployed across the
country where they are accused of
interfering in the Zanu PF electoral
process.
Vigilante groups
like Chipangano in Mbare have no place in democratic
societies and they
should be disbanded. Complaints against them should also
be thoroughly
investigated.
If Mugabe is sincere about his call for peace, nothing
can stop him from
taking these steps. Deeds, not words, Cde
President.
Quote of the week
"It wasn’t
well-thought. Due process not being followed, we need to go back
to the
drawing board and say how can we empower our people. The best way to
empower
our people at this present moment in time is to expand our economy
to create
as many sectors as possible.” Finance minister Tendai Biti on
indigenisation.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012 11:00
As the spectre of
elections becomes a certainty, Zanu PF has moved a gear up
in efforts to
reincarnate itself from oblivion by espousing a rushed
indigenisation policy
onto a reluctant electorate.
But politicians being the liars
they are, Zanu PF has so far dismally failed
to charm the people on how
indigenisation will benefit anyone gullible
enough to be hoodwinked by the
policy to cause a vote for them. Their talk
of Zimbabweans owning their own
resources is cheap and empty, evocative of
the monotonous political
propaganda voters are now all too familiar with.
As
proponents of indigenisation, they have not been able to explain
convincingly how the takeover of Metallon Gold by Saviour Kasukuwere will
benefit us. How are people living outside mining areas, or any other
foreign-owned company earmarked for indigenisation and are not lucky enough
to be part of some employee and management share ownership trust, going to
benefit from the indigenisation programme? I am one of the many citizens of
Zimbabwe still smarting from my failure to benefit from similar Zanu PF
driven processes like land reform because land allocations were done based
on partisan party political lines.
Before the ink is dry on some
of the community share ownership schemes so
far signed, complaints are
already filtering from chiefs and residents of
the communities about the
lack of transparency in the process and the
marginalisation of community
leaders as we have heard in Mhondoro Ngezi.
Questions are already being
asked as to whose interests the trusts are
serving, if chiefs who are
supposed to be the champions and custodians of
the process on behalf of the
communities and government, are themselves
clueless about how the process
should be run. This disorder in Zanu PF only
serves to demonstrate that the
policy is not only localised in outlook but
hurried and clearly carved out
to benefit a few people.
And if one may ask, what is the role of the
National Indigenisation Economic
Empowerment Board in all this and what have
they done thus far? Or is the
body just another job-creating conduit for
cronies, relatives and
girlfriends of those in power.
Zanu PF
knows Zimbabweans, particularly the youth, badly need jobs and would
fancy
owning natural resources in the communities they live. So they find it
seductive to use the indigenisation as a trump-card to woo voters in the
next elections in the same manner they used the land, and printed money to
“mechanise” farmers as themes for the two most recent
elections.
The sad reality, though, is that the same looters of
resources will end up
owning these companies because they are the ones with
money or have
connections with money.
By hurriedly and forcibly
taking over companies, Zanu PF is seeking to
destroy the very same bedrock
of economic empowerment they claim to be
building, as they did with the land
reform programme — giving farms to
people who did not have the skills or the
equipment to work it. Do the
prospective owners of the mines have the
resources or the necessary
wherewithal to run the companies, considering
that mining is a highly
capital intensive business?
Or, does
Zanu PF intend to hand over the grabbed mines to their “fair
weather
friends” from the East? Imperialism is imperialism; it cannot be
condoned
because it is being done by the Chinese. If, through
indigenisation, our
objective as a nation is to get rid of imperialism,
capitalism or any other
isms, then this policy must be applied without
favour to any particular
group.
However, if media reports are anything to go by, Zanu PF has
already begun
selectively implementing this policy by excluding from the
exercise their
friends from the East, as shown by their spirited refusal to
extend this
policy to our God-given diamond fields in Chiadzwa ostensibly to
protect
their personal interests there by proclaiming that alluvial diamond
mining
was a preserve of the State.
And so, Zanu PF thinks that
the electorate is foolish enough not to see
through their duplicity.
Indigenisation is, regrettably, a Zanu PF
electioneering ploy that will not
benefit ordinary citizens, and which like
its forerunner, the agrarian
reform project, will become another monumental
failure.
Economic
empowerment policies such as indigenisation or the land reform are
clearly
very noble economic empowerment concepts, but it is their careless
and sheer
thoughtlessness and the untransparent manner in which they are
executed that
leaves ordinary citizens asking whether these policies are
meant to benefit
anybody ordinary.
BY JUSTIN TUMISAI MAKOMBE
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012
10:58
As local politicians turn the heat on each other in the race to own
minerals, which are part of the vast natural resources Zimbabwe possesses
and amidst the hullabaloo of indigenisation, an interesting question arises:
Who owns and controls the country’s natural resources? Is it the government,
private capital, local communities or the politicians
themselves?
Obviously, if Zimbabwe had a substantive and a legitimate
authority to talk
about, it would be the government, with all the gains and
benefits accruing
to the State — the State which is the authority that looks
after its people,
the majority of who are mostly the local communities, the
marginalised and
the down-trodden.
Exiled businessman Mutumwa
Mawere recently raised a critical observation on
resource ownership and
control: “The propensity to convert state actors into
lords and for citizens
to be reduced to vassals must be exposed and
resisted”. This statement
evokes the need to think that the state actors
are the politicians turning
the heat on each other at the expense of the
poor, who are also in the race
to exploit these natural resources and yet
are being harassed or sidelined
in their efforts.
The development of natural resources must be at par
with equal human
development. Colonialism’s “civilising” burden of partial
development of
natural resources for commercial exploitation should not
resurface in the
form of biased and misconstrued indigenisation, sovereignty
and black
empowerment. The relationship of the majority and State actors
should
naturally bring transformation based on equity, responsibility, a
strong
restraint to avarice and gross selfishness that the politicians are
unashamedly exposing.
The dominant and self-serving interests of
politicians in natural resource
exploitation, for instance, gold, diamonds,
black granite, platinum, chrome,
lithium or even fauna and flora, are
ignoring the needs of the majority
whose requirements are partially being
satisfied through distorted, unclear
or non-existent open market
systems.
Such neglect of the majority’s key sources of survival has
been the main
reason why the so-called land reform and the indigenisation
choruses have
posed a serious challenge to sustainable natural resource
conservation and
management to the extent of even posing a threat to simple
and fair daily
survival.
Indeed, it is true that most of the
current crop of local politicians do not
understand modern economics and its
concepts of development such as resource
use, ownership and control. These
ideas have spanned a large portion of the
history of humankind and nature.
But how these simple and clear principles
continue to elude them boggles the
mind.
Development experts have asserted that fair principles of
sustenance have
provided human societies the material basis of survival over
many centuries
by deriving livelihoods directly from nature through
collective-provisioning
mechanisms. Limits in resource-exploitation have
been respected and have
guided the limits of human
consumption.
The majority in Zimbabwe continue to derive their
sustenance within the
deliberately squeezed survival economy which remains
invisible to open and
fair market systems while the self-anointed and greedy
lords continue to
exploit natural resources with impunity. And, in any case,
the rule of law
is highly questionable, with the Recostruction Act and the
Prevention of
Corruption Act having been used grossly unfairly on Mawere
when the former
government wrested his asbestos mines. With such glaring
cases of
unfairness, to what extent are the generality of Zimbabweans safe
in freely
exploiting, owning and controlling natural
resources?
Many times when people get into positions of power, they
easily despise the
poor and they persecute the meek. Resources should just
simply be exploited
and shared equally among the people without looking at
the race, colour or
tribe of a person.
By Tonderayi Matonho
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 22 April 2012
10:56
The other day I bought mixed vegetables worth US$2,95 and was given
a sweet
as change because of the lack of coins. Before the till operator
gave me the
sweet I had asked for a carrier bag but she said the plastic
bag they had
cost US10c.
I remembered that in the 1980s the same
sweet cost half a cent. Remember the
brand called Crystal Sweets? We also
called them “Take Twos” because for a
cent one got two. Now the same sweet
costs US5c.
Carrier bags were given for free in any decent
supermarket.
On impulse, I decided to check the prices of the following
goods:
a single chewing gum US5c
a single lollipop US20c
a
single cabbage head US$1
a ballpen such as
Eversharp 15 US25c
a
loaf of bread US$1
a bottle of Coke US50c
a can of Coke
US$1
a meat pie US$1,25
a single banana US20c
a single peach
US75c
a kg of economy beef US$8
a packet of 10 cigarettes
US50c
I would have wanted to know how much the same goods are going for,
say in
New York. The US embassy was not forthcoming with answers for the
whole
week.
I remember before our economy went into a freefall chewing
gum were a cent
for two, a lollipop (sucker) cost a cent, a cabbage head
cost at most 20c,
Eversharp 15, as its name suggested was 15c, a loaf of
bread was 25c, a coke
went for 20c, a meat pie was 25c, with 20c one got all
the bananas he
desired, peaches were equally cheap when in season, economy
beef was about
$2 while a packet of 10 cigarettes cost 15c.
Air
used to be given free at service stations, now one has to part with a
US$1
to have a flat tyre inflated! Then the Zimbabwe dollar was equivalent
to
US$1,50.
So what has happened to the US dollar? Have we dollarised the
economy or
have we domesticated the US dollar so we can use it whatever way
we wish?
Dollarisation would seem to imply that we use the US
dollar at the same
value it is used in the United States and as its value
rises and falls
against other international currencies.
This is
not what’s happening in Zimbabwe; we have appended our own value to
the US
dollar. A boiled egg would cost about US5c in New York; in Zimbabwe
it costs
US20c, that is four times more. This means in Zimbabwe, the US
dollar is
equivalent to five boiled eggs! What this boils down to is that
we have
Zimdollarised the US dollar and it is being hit by inflation to the
same
extent the Zimdollar was battered in the mid-1990s. What explains this?
I
suppose that’s the question our economists should address.
I am only
worried by the daylight robbery that consumers are subjected to in
supermarkets! Is it legal for stores to give customers change in the form of
sweets or any other unwanted item for that matter? If it is, who places a
value on the sweets and the goods? If it’s legal a customer must be allowed
to go back to the same supermarket with 20 sweets and get a loaf of bread.
But the supermarkets do not accept this! That is grossly
unfair.
Supermarket A has over the past week given me 20 sweets as
change; I don’t
eat sweets, so I must be able to go back to the same
supermarket and
exchange the sweets for a loaf of bread; doesn’t that make
sense?
No sane person would buy a Crystal sweet for US5c but
consumers are forced
to buy them at that price for no fault of their own. It
is not the consumer’s
fault that there are no US coins circulating in the
country.
One only has to imagine the amount of money supermarkets are
making from the
vulnerable public. Busy supermarkets can make as much as
UD$200 a day by
giving sweets as change. They are doing this while the
government watches.
They are doing this while the Consumer Council of
Zimbabwe remains mum.
There is no single customer who doesn’t have
wads and wads of tokens from
Spar supermarkets that they have been given as
change; at least these can be
reused. There is no single consumer who
doesn’t have heaps of sweets in
their car which they have no use
for.
Consumer watchdogs should be out in the shopping malls
monitoring how
supermarkets address the issue of change. They should not
look just at the
small picture where a single consumer is given a banana in
the place of
US20c worth of change. The bigger picture is that thousands of
customers
around the country have been given bananas as change on a single
day. The
supermarkets have become unscrupulous as they see this as a source
of cheap
money. This highly unfair business practice must surely be
outlawed.
But what are our legislators doing about this? Zilch! Why
do we vote them
into power when they cannot address such seemingly small
issues which have a
huge impact on the pockets of their
electors?
We are told it is too expensive to import US coins; what
this translates to
is that the man in the street must continue to lose his
hard-earned cash to
unscrupulous businesspeople while our government remains
unmoved by this.
Some supermarkets have devised credible ways of
going around this; they
offer plastic money in the form of cards that can be
swiped after every
transaction. But there is a catch; it makes the consumer
captive to the
supermarket because the cards can’t be used at other
supermarkets. Consumers
have the right to shop around and compare
prices.
This right is removed if he/she is forced to buy from the
same supermarket.
Plastic money would be the way forward if there was some
kind of Zimswitch
for supermarkets where the card could be used at the
supermarket of one’s
choice.
But most importantly, the government
must address this issue seriously; it’s
not as frivolous as it
sounds.
BY NEVANJI MADANHIRE
