Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
NATIONAL
Security and Land Reform minister Didymus Mutasa
assaulted a policeman and
confiscated a rifle from another, a Rusape
magistrates' court trying the
case of Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa
heard this
week.
The state alleges that Chinamasa attempted to coerce
war
veterans secretary for information James Kaunye to drop charges of
public
violence against Mutasa's supporters. The supporters, including
Makoni North
chairman, Albert Nyakuedzwa, have since been tried, convicted
and jailed for
three years each for attacking Kaunye to stop him from
running against
Mutasa in Zanu PF primary elections.
The
case had its light moments when state prosecutor Levison
Chikafu refused to
prosecute until President Mugabe's portrait was put up in
the courtroom. The
case continued 10 minutes later after the portrait was
hung in
place.
During cross examination, defence lawyer James Mutizwa
asked
Kaunye why he had reported the case to the Attorney-General's office
and not
the police. Kaunye replied: "I could not report the matter to the
police
because at the material time the situation was tense. Police officers
were
abducted and the officer in charge of Rusape Urban, Inspector Tomukai,
had
been assaulted by Mutasa. Another constable had his firearm
confiscated."
Instead of action being taken against Mutasa,
Tomukai was
transferred, he said.
While giving evidence,
Kaunye said shortly after his August 2004
assault, Chinamasa approached him
and promised him a senatorial seat if he
did not challenge
Mutasa.
He said when the minister approached him again in
December 2005
urging him to drop charges against Nyakuedzwa in return for an
offer letter
to Precincts Farm, he told the minister that he was a bad
broker as he had
not delivered the senatorial seat.
"On
the issue of the senate, the accused (Chinamasa) replied
that he could no
longer do anything as his hands were tied by the Tsholotsho
issue," Kaunye
said.
Kaunye, who testified he could not reveal much about
Tsholotsho
for fear of his life, said he told Chinamasa to punish
Nyakuedzwa, whom he
said was wooed into Zanu PF from the MDC by the late
Moven Mahachi.
However, Mutizwa put it to Kaunye that he
hated Mutasa and his
associates hence the trumped up charges against
him.
"When accused (Chinamasa) was preparing his defence, he
was
saying I have been caught in crossfire. This is a Mutasa thing," said
Mutizwa.
Kaunye denied the accusation, saying he had
campaigned for
Mutasa in 2005 elections following a meeting he held with
Solomon Mujuru.
He said he even suffered for Mutasa as former
Zanu PF Manicaland
chairman, Mike Madiro - who was suspended from the party
for allegedly
plotting against Mujuru - considered him a "Mutasa's man" and
fired him from
his job at the party's provincial offices.
Kaunye said at one time Chinamasa invited him to a meeting in
Mutare where
the minister wanted to strategise on becoming Zanu PF's
national chairman
ahead of John Nkomo.
Mutizwa said as a lawyer, former
Attorney-General and now
Justice minister, Chinamasa was well versed in the
law and would not offer
inducements to have charges of attempted murder
dropped.
Mutizwa said Chinamasa had not committed an offence
but it was
Kaunye who told the minister that he was "going to be take-take
with Mutasa",
Mutizwa said.
Take-take is a military term
meaning hand to hand combat
involving the use of combatants."
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
FRESH infighting has
flared up in Zanu PF as the party's rival
camps square up over President
Robert Mugabe's hotly-contested succession,
with dossiers of alleged
corruption surfacing as the latest political
weapons.
Sources said this week the two factions, led by retired army
commander
General Solomon Mujuru on the one hand and Emmerson Mnangagwa on
the other,
had intensified the power struggle over Mugabe's job.
The
sources said the factions were wielding dossiers of alleged
corruption
against each as part of their arsenal.
They said the Mujuru
faction had an audit report of Zanu PF
companies compiled by Kudenga &
Co chartered accountants which tries to nail
the Mnangagwa camp. Ngoni
Kudenga, a senior partner at Kudenga & Co, has
refused to disclose the
contents of the report.
Mnangagwa is said to be in possession
of a dossier showing how
the Mujuru camp allegedly used Vice-President Joice
Mujuru's visit to China
in June to clinch personal business deals for
self-enrichment via Dande
Capital Holdings, a financial advisory services
company, and its
subsidiaries. Mujuru allegedly has an interest in Dande,
which has seven
subsidiaries, where her daughter Kumbirayi
works.
Mujuru took Dande directors with her to China. These
include
David Butau, a Zanu PF MP for Guruve North, Evison Musanjeya and
Wilfred
Hlanguyo.
The three, together with Decent
Chitsungo, are company
shareholders.
During Mujuru's
visit, Dande signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with China National
Construction and Agricultural Machinery
Import and Export to establish a
chrome mine in the Dande area, while Elé
Resources, a subsidiary of Dande
Capital, signed a deal to start a coal mine
and two thermal power plants in
the Dande region.
The sources said Mnangagwa visited China
shortly before Mujuru
and managed to secure the services of embassy staff to
compile a report for
him on Mujuru's trip. The sources said Mnangagwa
submitted the report to
President Mugabe. Efforts to get comment from
Mnangagwa yesterday were
unsuccessful.
The Mugabe
succession war is being fought at various levels of
the
party.
Sources said the arraignment of Justice minister
Patrick
Chinamasa for the alleged obstruction of the course of justice,
efforts to
charge State Security minister Didymus Mutasa, whom the Mujuru
camp
reportedly now wants replaced with Mashonaland East provincial governor
Ray
Kaukonde, the Zupco corruption trial and events around Local Government
minister Ignatious Chombo and deputy Information minister Bright Matonga,
were part of the succession fight.
Chinamasa is said to
be quarrelling with Attorney-General Sobusa
Gula-Ndebele who is linked to
the Mujuru faction. Chombo is said to be out
of favour with both camps due
to his fluid allegiance.
It is also said the apparent fight
between Reserve Bank governor
Gideon Gono and the Mujuru camp is about
Mugabe's succession because Gono,
who is thought to be linked to the
Mnangagwa group, is viewed as positioning
himself for the
presidency.
Gono last week said he would not be intimidated
by people waving
their "liberation war credentials", in remarks widely seen
as aimed at the
Mujuru camp which is dominated by war veterans. Mutasa, who
is under siege
from the Mujuru faction, came to Gono's defence this week,
saying government
viewed seriously threats against Gono, whose farm was last
week raided by
strangers and allegedly set on fire.
Last
week Gono did not greet or acknowledge the presence of
General Mujuru at his
monetary policy statement presentation.
Zim Independent
Reagan Mashavave
CHAIRPERSON of
the Harare Commission, Sekesai Makwavarara, is
expected to repay the costs
of all unauthorised use of council property,
funds and labour, in the next
two months after a recommendation from the
audit
committee.
A source told the Zimbabwe Independent this week
that the
commission's audit committee, which met on Wednesday evening,
recommended
that council recovers ratepayers' money by deducting all
unauthorised
expenditure from Makwavarara's salary over the next two
months.
"The audit committee has recommended that
unauthorised
expenditure by the chairperson be deducted from her salary in
the next two
months. This follows her defiance to write a report on the
alleged abuse of
council funds, labour and vehicles," the source
said.
The source said Makwavarara's refusal to explain why
she abused
council funds as well as where she got the authorisation,
prompted the audit
committee to come up with the
recommendations.
The recommendations follow the publication
of audit reports that
exposed alleged rampant abuse of council vehicles,
labour and funds by
Makwavarara in the Independent last
week.
The audit reports showed that Makwavarara prejudiced
council by
using council vehicles and labour to ferry 400 bags of fertiliser
to her
Raffingora farm on more than four occasions.
Another vehicle was used to empty a septic tank at her farm.
Council
employees drove all the vehicles during working hours.
The
other report showed that Makwavarara spent more than $175
million on
"consumables and alcohol" for the mayoral mansion. It showed that
of the
$175 million, $110 million was spent in less than five days. The
report
says there was no evidence that Makwavarara was entitled to such
expenditure.
Zim Independent
RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono was last
week
forced to make a retreat on claims that government had raised US$2,5
billion
in foreign currency, a target it set for itself at the launch of the
National Economic Development Priority Programme (NEDPP) in
April.
Gono told a Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries
congress in
Bulawayo that government had met its target to raise US$2,5
billion in three
months from April.
But when challenged
by delegates to provide the figures, Gono
allegedly said the US$2,5 billion
was not in cash only, but included other
investments.
"The target to generate US$2,5 billion has been met but the
injection was
not in cash alone but included other investments in the
country. The target
we set ourselves in April has been met," Gono said.
The
government launched the NEDPP in April this year aimed at
reducing the rate
of inflation and to stabilise the currency.
Under the NEDPP
government also pledged food security and to
generate US$2, 5 billion in
foreign currency in three months. However, Gono
could not give details of
the new investments in the country.
Also at the same congress
Finance minister Herbert Murerwa
revealed that state enterprises made losses
totalling $76 trillion in the
first six months of the year, an indication
that government had failed to
turn around the fortunes of
parastatals.
Murerwa said companies that recorded the
heaviest losses in the
period include the National Railways of Zimbabwe
(NRZ), Hwange Colliery,
Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) and the
Zimbabwe Iron and Steel
Company (Zisco).
"The
restructuring of parastatals has been slow with most of
them continuing to
make losses. In the first six months of this year, they
made losses of close
to $76,43 trillion," said Murerwa.
He said as a result the
parastatals were failing to service
their debts and were constantly calling
on government for assistance.
"This high indebtedness remains
a challenge for both the fiscus
and the public service sector," Murerwa
said.
Despite under-performance by the parastatals,
government has
poured in billions of dollars for their
capitalisation.
Murerwa however said the Zimbabwe United
Passenger Company
(Zupco), the Agricultural and Rural Development Authority
(Arda) and
Agribank had performed well to a point of declaring dividends to
shareholders.
Murerwa attributed the poor performance of
parastatals to poor
corporate governance and government subsidies on
prices.
The government two years ago set up a concessionary
loan
facility to lend parastatals money through the RBZ.
In 2004 the RBZ loaned $25 billion to Arda, $20 billion to the
NRZ, $10
billion to Zupco, and $7,5 billion each to Air Zimbabwe and the
Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Holdings.
Presenting the 2006 budget last year
in December, Murerwa said
government would privatise seven parastatals in a
bid to stop them from
draining the fiscus. There is no evidence of that on
the ground. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
DEPUTY
Information minister Bright Matonga and Zupco chairman
Charles Nherera have
written to the Attorney-General's office demanding
proof that Jahesh Shah,
the key witness in their corruption trial, was
granted
immunity.
In a letter dated August 9 addressed to the
Director of Public
Prosecutions Loice Matanda-Moyo, the accused's lawyers
said a regional
magistrate had made a finding that Shah had "dirty hands"
and as such they
intended to pursue a private prosecution in the High
Court.
Wilson Manase and Joseph Mandizha are representing
Matonga and
Nherera.
Through their lawyers, the two said
it was their view that the
AG erred in granting Shah
immunity.
"As our clients are minded to seriously consider
challenging in
the High Court your grant of immunity from prosecution to Mr
Jahesh Shah,
and or your refusal to prosecute him, it is only fair that we
kindly demand,
as we hereby do, that you expeditiously furnish us with the
aforesaid
certificate, a copy of the said immunity and your reasoned
response," the
letter says.
Matonga and Nherera are being
charged for allegedly demanding
bribes from Shah, the director of Gift
Investments, in return for awarding
him a tender to supply buses to
Zupco.
Last week Nherera was convicted by the Harare
magistrates' court
on corruption charges relating to the bribe issue. He
will be sentenced on
August 21.
In a joint letter to the
AG's office, Matonga and Nherera said
letting Shah off the hook when he had
"dirty hands" was tantamount to
"throwing justice out of the
window".
"Traditionally and typically, ancient Greek and
Roman mythology
has it that justice is blind.It seems to our clients that
our good goddess
now closes one or both eyes to certain people and events,
and yet still
opens one or both eyes against others," they added.
Zim Independent
FACTION leaders of the divided MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai
and Arthur
Mutambara, have urged Sadc to tackle the local crisis when it
meets in
Lesotho next week.
In separate Heroes' Day
messages, the two leaders, currently
working on a plan for possible
re-unification of the party, said Sadc
leaders should deal with trouble
spots in their backyard to ensure that
political and economic integration of
the region is not derailed.
"Sadc has been at best fragmented
and muffled, and at worst
lacking in force and substance," Tsvangirai
said.
"Sadc's vision of attaining a supra-national union
where member
states and governments completely subordinate their sovereignty
over
policies to a supra-national authority, and which may ultimately lead
to the
alignment of the countries involved into a single community, depends
on the
speed with which we move to protect our people from incipient
backwardness
and political retardation, especially in Zimbabwe," he
said.
Mutambara said Sadc could not afford to ignore the
Zimbabwean
crisis.
He said economic problems in one Sadc
country meant problems for
others and that this should spur regional leaders
to confront the local
situation head-on.
"It is
imperative for Sadc and the African Union to realise
Zimbabwe's failure is
their demise too. Under globalisation there is no
country that can prosper
and stay competitive without effective regional
integration," he
said.
Mutambara said Zimbabwe had become an albatross around
the neck
of the region and that its crisis must be resolved to ensure
economic
progress.
He said: "As the Sadc summit
approaches, and as we remember our
liberation heroes, we urge regional
leaders to take a vested interest in the
Zimbabwean situation to resolve its
political and economic crisis."
The MDC leaders' remarks are
likely to pile pressure on Sadc
leaders before their meeting in Maseru,
Lesotho, from August 17-19.
Sadc leaders are not expected to
discuss the Zimbabwean issue
despite its contagion effect. South Africa has
borne the brunt of the
situation as Zimbabwean economic refugees flow into
the country.
Tsvangirai and Mutambara said Mugabe should
accept failure and
allow Zimbabweans to rebuild their shattered
lives.
"Twenty-six years into Independence, the very
foundations upon
which our liberation struggle rested are under assault. Our
vision and
aspirations for a free Zimbabwe are now mirages and illusions
existing only
in the realms of dream and imagination, but not attainable,"
Mutambara said.
"Our country is in the middle of an economic
meltdown of epic
proportions. Starvation, unemployment, deplorable working
conditions,
unmitigated suffering and unprecedented hopelessness have become
endemic."
Tsvangirai said: "Zanu PF and President Mugabe are
stuck in the
search for technical solutions. They are tinkering with
piece-meal
experiments while wishing for a lasting political remedy to the
national
crisis. They are in a state of denial, refusing to listen to the
words
beneath the song; Zimbabwe has to undergo a comprehensive
transformation."
Meanwhile, secretary-general of the
Tsvangirai-led MDC, Tendai
Biti, has attributed failure by the opposition to
take advantage of public
anger over Operation Murambatsvina in May last year
to lack of leadership in
the party.
Biti told the
London-based SW Radio on Tuesday that his party
failed to live up to public
expectations.
"Come Murambatsvina, there was so much anger
and we did not
respond and provide leadership to that anger," Biti
said.
He was responding to accusations that the MDC had
missed many
opportunities to mobilise people already angry at Zanu PF's
misrule and
wanton human rights violations.
"We failed to
provide leadership to the huge fear or frustration
that was there and I
think that leadership was critical. And, because we
failed to provide that
leadership, we began to eat into ourselves and the
October 12 split was the
inevitable result of that."
Responding to the same charge,
secretary-general of the camp led
by Mutambara, Welshman Ncube, said there
was a simmering rupture in the
party at the time which consumed their
attention. "You cannot participate in
a match when in fact you are
hospitalised and you are sick. And, this is
what was happening, in my view,
to the MDC during the time of Operation
Murambatsvina," Ncube said. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
ZIMBABWEANS holding on
to large amounts of old bearer cheques
have devised new tricks of dealing
with RBZ governor Gideon Gono's deadline
of August 21.
The Zimbabwe Independent this week discovered that Bulawayo
residents were
visiting retail outlets and exchanging the old currency for
new notes for a
fee.
The majority of those exchanging the money were foreign
currency
dealers who were holding on to amounts running into billions of
dollars
before the new measures were introduced last
week.
Investigations by this newspaper showed that those with
large
amounts of money were targeting garages, hair salons, supermarkets,
butcheries, newspaper vendors, departmental stores and retail outlets to
exchange the old bearer cheques for new ones.
"The system
is not foolproof. As long as the currencies work
concurrently, there will
always be a way of beating the system," said a
cashier at a clothing outlet,
who said she exchanged $400 million of the new
notes and charged a 10% fee
of $40 million for the transaction.
The cashier then pocketed
the money levied on the transaction.
Last week several people
also managed to bring into the country
billions of dollars through the
Bulawayo-Francistown train that was not
being searched until Thursday, three
days after Gono gave his ultimatum.
Economic commentator Eric
Bloch said the RBZ's move to crack
down on money launderers had been
successful judging from the amounts
recovered so far.
He
said it was difficult to devise a 100% foolproof system on
such
undertakings.
"The main idea of the exercise was to trap some
of the money
fuelling the black market. There was a lot of money being
hoarded and the
amount recovered will help to stabilise the economy and
reduce significantly
the parallel market and the rate of inflation," Bloch
said.
He however said the manner the law enforcement agents
went about
carrying out the exercise was not the best.
"The police are treating all citizens as being guilty until
proven innocent.
We have people who got money legitimately being arrested
and that is wrong
for the police to do," Bloch said.
"There is money
legitimately acquired like money for paying
salaries on a farm but you have
people arrested for that and I know of three
people (who have experienced)
something like that. That is very wrong."
Other people with
lots of money are resorting to buying cattle,
properties and converting the
old notes into foreign currency.
A local retail manager said
foreign currency dealers exchanged
$2 billion of the old bearer cheques
after purchasing clothing worth $100
million.
Sources in
the retail trade said money changers were offering a
rate of 20% of the
amount converted into the new currency.
"People have devised
various means of beating the system and
instead of carrying the cash in
large amounts they are transporting it in
small amounts ranging from $50
million to $90 million. Just yesterday one
fuel dealer exchanged $3 billion
in nine trips at a local supermarket," said
a source.
Zim Independent
Itai Mushekwe
US envoy
Christopher Dell has dismissed government claims that
his country's foreign
policy on Zimbabwe is to forment regime change.
Dell told the
Zimbabwe Independent that Washington wanted
"regime restoration" rather than
regime change.
"Contrary to the assertions of the government
and its spokesmen,
our policy is not about regime change in Zimbabwe," said
Dell.
"It's about regime restoration; seeing Zimbabwe once
again
return to the path it set out upon 26 years ago when it did in fact
devote
its time, energies and resources to the well- being of the people,"
he said.
In an interview on the sidelines of a function to
bid farewell
to 27 Zimbabwean students going to study in the US on full
scholarship on
Wednesday, Dell said the US had made it clear at every
possible instance
that it had no problem with the people of Zimbabwe, but
with the misguided
policies of the government.
"We
continue to do what we can, including providing over US$40
million a year in
food assistance and more than $25 million to fight HIV and
Aids. We also
work to provide the best and brightest of Zimbabwean students
with the best
possible educational opportunities that America has to
offer."
Dell said in the early years of Independence
President Mugabe's
government showed a clear commitment to the well-being of
its people and
devoted large resources to social services such as health and
education
whose positive results and investment were
well-known.
The country is grappling with a six-year economic
recession
characterised by food shortages, runaway inflation and plummeting
industrial
output blamed on President Mugabe's botched land
reform.
Dell said although the country was facing economic
problems
there were still visible pockets of excellence in the educational
system.
"Despite the erosion of the past six years, there are
obviously
still pockets of excellence in the educational system here and the
extraordinary abilities of Zimbabweans cannot be denied."
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
GOVERNMENT has
finished Bilateral Investment Promotion and
Protection Agreements (Bippas)
negotiations with France, Italy and
Indonesia, a move analysts say gives a
glimmer of hope to other countries
whose nationals lost their agro-ventures
during the land reform programme.
Sources said government had
resolved Bippas queries with France,
Italy and Indonesia and was looking
into others on a case-by-case basis.
An Italian embassy
official who refused to be named confirmed
that government had made an
undertaking to resolve the matter.
"We have assurance from
the highest office that the Zimbabwean
government resolved our case in line
with the obligations of the agreement,"
the official
said.
"We have agreed in principle and are waiting for the
final
communiqué."
The official said government had
agreed to either compensate,
bring back the farmers or revoke notices of
acquisitions depending on the
case.
"We are however
worried that our nationals on the ground still
face problems with people
coming to claim land," he said. "Even where there
are court orders, they are
often not respected."
Italy has a Bippa signed in 1996,
protecting up to 30 farmers
and a host of other investments in different
fields.
"Of the 30 farmers, only 14 still remain on the land
with the
rest having been forced out," the official said.
Analysts said the move to redress violations of Bippas, if
extended to other
countries, was likely to be met with resistance by Zanu PF
members including
cabinet ministers who occupy most of the properties.
Members
occupying Bippa-protected farms include Higher Education
minister Stan
Mudenge. Mudenge moved into Chikore Farm in Masvingo protected
under a Dutch
Bippa, displacing the Buchan family.
President Robert Mugabe
ratified the Dutch agreement in 1996.
Zanu PF MP for Mudzi
West, Joseph Christopher Musa, invaded a
multi-trillion dollar
Danish-operated Zengea Farm, housing Red Dane Dairy.
Zengea
Farm is protected from acquisition under a Bippa between
the government of
Zimbabwe and Denmark signed in 1996.
Zim Independent
THREE
soldiers have been arrested in connection with last week's
wanton assault of
commuter omnibus drivers and rank marshals in Harare's
central business
district allegedly to avenge the beating up of a colleague
by Kuwadzana
touts.
In an interview yesterday, police spokesperson Wayne
Bvudzijena
said: "Three soldiers have been arrested. I do not know when they
will
appear in court."
The soldiers, apparently on a
revenge mission, used belts,
booted feet and fists to randomly beat
commuters at Kuwadzana bus terminus
in the city centre.
Innocent passengers were pulled out of commuter omnibuses and
forced to
scurry in all directions as the rampaging soldiers prevented
vehicles from
leaving the rank along Albion Street. By-standers were not
spared the
onslaught by the military men.
The incident happened shortly
before 5pm last Thursday when
people were going home after
work.
The Albion Street rank is used by among others
residents of
Kuwadzana, Mbare, Avondale and Crowborough.
People intending to go home were stranded as kombi drivers
abandoned their
vehicles while those coming into town avoided the terminus
for fear of being
beaten up.
This week the Zimbabwe National Army said it had
launched a
probe into the incident. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
BANKS were this week still battling to reconfigure
their systems
to switch to the redenominated currency, with revelations only
one
institution had managed to change its system ahead of the August 21
deadline
for the phasing out of the old bearer cheques.
Other banks this week said they were ready to readjust their
banking and
accounting systems to comply with a Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) order to
switch to the redenominated currency.
However, some banks
were still waiting for their foreign
consultants to arrive in the country to
work on their systems. Sources said
two foreign IT consultants had arrived
in the country to work on their
systems. The source said so far officials
for FlexiCube, an Indian firm, and
Equation 3, of the United Kingdom, had
arrived in the country this week.
The Equation 3 system is
used by ReNaissance and CFX Financial
Services while FlexiCube is used by
FBC and CBZ Bank. There are fears that
large banks might be the most
affected because of the large amounts of data.
Sources indicated
however that while banking sector players were
downplaying the looming
crisis, the situation had become so desperate that
principals of one of the
two British-owned banks had to summon its executive
to London for a
briefing.
Last week, businessdigest reported that foreign
consultants for
banking software used at some banks had indicated that they
would require at
least five weeks to reconfigure the
systems.
CFX Financial Services had by this week managed to
reconfigure
its banking and accounting systems to accommodate the new
currency.
Barclays, one of the biggest banks, said it was ready to switch to
the new
system but indicated they were waiting for a conversion date to be
agreed by
the Bankers Association of Zimbabwe, a grouping of
bankers.
"Barclays is ready to convert to the new system and
is waiting
for the conversion date," a Barclays spokesperson said yesterday.
- Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
By Admire Mavolwane
"IRRATIONAL
exuberance" is a phrase that was once used to
describe activities on the
stock market, ahead of the now infamous "dotcom"
crash, by the highly
respected Alan Greenspan, the former United States Fed
chairman.
When the same term was applied to the Zimbabwe
Stock Exchange,
in April 2005 ahead of the first quarter monetary policy
review, investors
understandably ran for cover. At the time when the words
were uttered on
April 15, 2005, the market was recording two percentage
point gains everyday
and the bulls were firmly in the ascendance. The
industrial index had in
those eleven trading days gained 30,4% to enter the
new realms of the post 3
million points.
As of this
Wednesday, the industrial index had gained 80% in
nine trading days to reach
the dizzy heights of 174 245,25 points (re-based)
leaving commentators short
of superlatives. If the April 2005 bull run was a
sure sign of "irrational
exuberance", how can one then appropriately
describe the current bull run,
which at this point is showing no signs of
relenting. The sceptics, who by
Friday were looking for converts to their
doomsday cult predicting the
market had gone up too fast and was bound to
come to a screeching halt, were
forced to eat humble pie. Granted, the
momentum has slowed down, but the
bull-run is still on course. The big
question now is; what or who is going
to upset the apple cart?
The other much debated topic after
the merits, or de-merits of
removing the zeros from our currency, the stock
market and the $2,5 billion
NEDPP, is the "beyond redemption" situation some
of the state owned and run
companies are now in. According to the Reserve
Bank's supplement on its
quasi-fiscal interventions it is said that local
authorities and parastatals
contribute 40% of gross domestic product (GDP).
No wonder, the economy is
what it is today because you cannot have a sector
that contributes two
fifths to national income being in a sick state that
the parastatals and
local government obviously are and expect the overall
economy to be in good
health.
This is the justification -
probably - for the setting up and
subsequent distribution of approximately
$6 trillion under the Parastatals
and Local Authorities Reorientation
Programme (Plarp) facility set up last
year. In addition to these
disbursements, the total debt stock of this state
supported sector stood at
$76,43 trillion as at the end of June. Of the $6
trillion dished out by the
RBZ, Zesa absorbed 24,02%; Air Zimbabwe, 21,57%;
Zisco 34,1%; IDC, 7,34%
with the balance split amongst ten other entities.
The irony of the
situation is that those entities that got the bulk of the
funds have made
little if no repayments of the facility. Zisco, Zesa and Air
Zimbabwe have
not repaid a single cent (both new and old currency) and at
this point do
not seem to be in a position to ever repay the funds.
Zesa,
of the "Moto Muzhinji" fame, had in the 2004 fiscal year
incurred net losses
amounting $50,2 billion. Twelve months latter the losses
at operating level
had ballooned to $8 trillion. In one year the utility
made losses which
where greater than the $6 trillion budget deficit (8,6% of
GDP). Something
is obviously amiss because our intuition tells us that the
budget deficit
should have included the parastatal's losses in the first
place. For the
first half of 2006, we are told that notwithstanding the
turnaround
blueprints that the utilities had to produce before accessing
Plarp funds a
year ago, heavy losses were incurred, particularly at NRZ,
Zisco, Air
Zimbabwe, Zesa and Arda and these, again, are not included in the
budget
deficit figures for the first half of 2006.
Despite their
embarrassing situation, as we approach the Heroes'
and Defence Forces
holidays, the state utilities will be falling over each
other flighting
congratulatory messages both in the press and electronic
media. Even the
Cold Storage Company which has been failing to pay wages for
the past three
months will most probably not be left out. Some will even opt
for the more
expensive full page colour adverts.
All hope is not lost
though as it appears that one or two
parastatals have achieved the enviable
status of having "turned around".
Zupco, we are made to understand is now
fully capitalised with a new fleet
of rapidly aging Chinese buses and has
repaid its loan from the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe. In addition, it has even
gone on to pay dividends to its 51%
shareholder, central government, the
latest payment being a $20 billion
cheque handed over at a ceremony held in
the capital recently. Curiously
enough, the other 49% shareholder ZHL has
not received a dime of the latest
"dividend" or even the previous ones,
which brings into question whether it's
a real dividend payout or a loan
repayment. Otherwise, shareholders of ZHL
are being unfairly prejudiced or
discriminated against.
Not to be left out, but a little bit
late to the party, the
Agriculture Bank of Zimbabwe, is reported to have
handed over a "dividend"
cheque for $38,5 billion to the Minister of
Finance. We are not sure whether
the dividend is an interim one or not,
seeing that the bank is due to
announce its six months to June 2006 results.
It could be the final dividend
for 2005, but the results statement published
in March this year indicated
that the bank could not pay a dividend due to
the fact that its capital
adequacy ratio at 9% was below the statutory 10%
minimum. In fact,
government had to inject $45 billion, in order to bring
the bank to
conformity with the banking regulations.
The
board even hinted that the bank might fail to meet the $1
trillion minimum
capital required as at September 30 2006. As an
alternative, the board was
formalising its conversion into the Agricultural
Development
Bank.
First, it was the condolence and congratulatory
messages and now
the latest craze for parastatal companies seems to be the
payment of
dividends to government. Zupco led from the front seat, followed
by Forestry
Commission and lately Agribank. The public only gets to know the
dividend
paid figure, with no other financials being revealed. No details of
the
revenues and how much profits were realised, distributed and retained
etc.
We will not be surprised if CSC becomes the next one to
hold the
coveted dividend cheque handover ceremony. Then congratulatory
advertisements from fellow - most likely broke parastatals will occupy
acres of space in the press and probably read: "The board and management of
XXX holdings and subsidiaries would like to congratulate YYY for paying a
dividend to government.. blah blah".
Zim Independent
BIDDERS were this week reportedly dodging 181-day
treasury bills
(TBs) re-introduced by the central bank to bolster its
reduction of key
accommodation rates, sending a clear indication investors
are unwilling to
lock their funds for lengthy periods due to uncertainty
pervading the
market.
Dealers said only banks, awash with
cash after a drastic
reduction in statutory reserve ratios and the reduction
in accommodation
rates, bid for the long-dated paper.
"Investors are shunning the six-month papers," a primary dealer
said on
Wednesday. "It's mainly because of the tenor and the rate - around
218% per
annum. Investors are resisting," the dealer said.
"Investors
do not want to lock themselves for longer periods
given the uncertain
economic environment," said Kingdom Stockbrokers (KSB)
in a weekly review to
investors.
The central bank allotted $929 billion worth of
bids in
Wednesday afternoon's tender after accepting all bids. The average
rate was
243,11%.
All bids amounting to $123 billion had
been allotted in the
morning tender with an average rate of
233,61%.
The central bank weakened its monetary policy last
week, a move
analysts said had opened "floodgates for speculators" and
fuelled a rampage
on the equities and parallel foreign currency
markets.
The Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono cut the
accommodation rate
to 300% for secured accommodation and 350% for unsecured
accommodation, from
850% and 900% respectively.
Gono said
the adjustment to the accommodation rates had been
made "so as to balance
the virtues of anti-inflation demand management
interventions with the
continued flow of credit to the productive sectors of
the
economy".
"These accommodation rates will be reviewed in line
with the
inflation outlook," Gono said.
The money market
has consequently experienced surpluses,
triggering a slump in rates. The
market was up $1,2 trillion and $250
billion on Monday and Tuesday
respectively. It opened Wednesday $6,8
trillion in
surplus.
Since the beginning of last week, equities were very
bullish
driven by the fall in interest rates, KSB said in its
commentary.
The key industrial index last week closed 83,37%
up at 161
008,12 points, with the mining index jumping by 94,66% to close at
65 393 84
points.
There was a market wide rally in
equities from Monday to
Wednesday last week before profit takers set in on
Thursday on selected
middle and lightweight counters.
The
bull-run had been sustained through this week, although the
momentum of the
rally had somewhat slackened on profit taking.
"Going into
the future, we are expecting some profit taking to
continue in selected
counters.
The market will continue on an upward trend driven by
gains in
quality counters that are expected to report good results," said
KSB. -
Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
COMMERCIAL banks
this week began slashing minimum lending rates
(MLR) after the central bank
last week drastically cut accommodation rates,
but analysts say the lending
rates remained too high to attract borrowings.
Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono on Monday
last week reduced
accommodation rates significantly, saying banks had to
unlock funds to the
productive sectors to spur economic growth and fight
inflation.
The accommodation rate, the rate at which
financial institutions
borrow from the RBZ to cover daily shortfalls, went
down to 300% for secured
borrowing, from 850% before Gono's policy
announcement.
The accommodation rate for unsecured lending
was reduced to
350%, from 900% before the new monetary policy
measures.
Zimbank, the commercial banking arm of the Zimbabwe
Financial
Holdings, lowered its MLR to 270%, from 560%.
In a statement to clients, Zimbank said the decrease was in line
with recent
market developments.
Barclays Bank reduced its lending rates
from 550% to 340%.
Banking sector sources said other commercial banks were
already
recalibrating their lending rates in line with the latest reduction
in the
policy rate.
Kingdom Bank, MBCA and Stanbic Bank
are presently charging
minimum interest of 550% on loans.
NMB Bank and the Zimbabwe Allied Banking Group's MLR are at 500%
while CBZ
has its MLR pegged at 465%, the lowest among commercial
banks.
CFX Bank is charging 600%.
Economic
analysts said the decrease in lending rates by
commercial banks was
expected, but warned that the new rates remained too
high to attract
meaningful borrowings by companies.
High interest rates had
curtailed the growth of bank loan books
as borrowers shied away because they
had become prohibitive.
"The decrease (was inevitably going
to) put more pressure on
commercial banks to revise their rates," said David
Mupamhadzi, an economist
with a local financial
institution.
Presenting the mid-year monetary policy review
on July 31, Gono
said it had become necessary to reduce accommodation rates
"so as to balance
the virtues of anti-inflation demand management
interventions with continued
flow of credit to the productive sectors of the
economy".
He said accommodation rates would continue to be
reviewed in
line with the inflation outlook. A continued reduction in the
inflation rate
result in further interest rate reductions, he
said.
"We call upon the banking industry to realign their
interest
rates accordingly so as to sharpen the transmission mechanism of
monetary
policy into the rest of the economy," Gono said.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
THE new currency
retention measures introduced by the central
bank last week could
significantly turn around the fortunes of the ailing
gold sector if adopted
as long-term policy, the Chamber of Mines president
said this
week.
Jack Murehwa, also an operations director with platinum
producer
Zimplats, said the policy by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
governor Gideon
Gono, would help restore confidence in the troubled mining
sector, but
investors would wait to see if the policy was
durable.
"Working on the assumption that this is a long-term
policy, gold
miners can now seriously look into recapitalising their plants
and reviving
development plans that were not viable under previous monetary
arrangements," said Murehwa.
"Our request to the
authorities is that these positive moves
stay in place for the long-term as
we continue to drive towards a market
economy," Murehwa
said.
Although other issues relating to confidence in the
mining
sector were outside the central bank's domain, it was a "quantum
leap" for
the RBZ to allow gold to be treated like other minerals, Murehwa
said.
Zimbabwe's mining sector has experienced stunted growth
over the
past six years due to an economic recession characterised by acute
fuel and
foreign currency shortages.
Mines' viability has
been hampered by the lack of movement on
the exchange rate front despite
hyperinflation eroding profitability in the
sector whose products are mainly
for external markets.
Multi-million dollar projects in the
country's mining sector had
been shelved in the past few years after players
and investors lost
confidence in the economy and economic policies,
particularly those related
to mining activities.
Miners,
particularly gold producers, were facing viability
problems due to poor
foreign currency retention policy and a static
interbank exchange
rate.
The situation was further worsened by the government's
decision
to compulsorily take over 51% empowerment stakes in all
foreign-owned mining
concerns in the country.
Murehwa
also said the 60% devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar
last week would have a
positive impact on industry, but said such
devaluations should be undertaken
periodically to ensure viability in the
mining sector.
Gono announced last week that exporters and miners would retain
70% of all
their foreign currency proceeds in foreign currency accounts.
Previously, exporters retained the 70% for 30 days before
disposing of it on
the official market.
Gold producers only retained 40% of
their receipts in foreign
currency accounts.
Gono also
devalued the Zimbabwe dollar to US$1:$250 000.
The rate had
been stuck at US$1:$101 195 since January this
year.
However, the gap between the interbank and parallel market
exchange rates
remains wide as the greenback is trading at around US$1:$600
000 on the
parallel market.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
THE Zimbabwe
Tourism Authority (ZTA) has revised upwards its
projected tourist arrivals
for 2006 after recording a 33% increase in
arrivals during the first half of
the year.
ZTA chief executive Karikoga Kaseke said the
revision was
prompted by the increase in tourist arrivals during the first
six months of
the year which surpassed projections.
"For
the second half the authority (had) projected 926 879
tourists. The figure
is now being revised to 1,1 million, bringing the total
projected tourist
arrivals for 2006 to 2,1 million, a 35% increase when
compared to 2005,"
Kaseke said.
ZTA had projected that the country would receive
983 818
tourists during the first half of the year. The projected arrivals
were
surpassed by 3,6%, bringing the total number of tourists during the
period
to 1 019 814.
The ZTA boss said there had been an
increase in tourist traffic
from all source markets except Europe which
registered a decline of 13%.
The decline in arrivals from
Europe was attributed to the World
Cup which was held in
Germany.
Tourist arrivals from Asia increased by 75%, while
arrivals from
the American and African markets increased by 26% and 36%
respectively.
Kaseke however said the performance of the
tourism sector hinged
on adequate fuel supplies, improved accessibility by
tourist source markets
and facilitation at the border
posts.
"The first half of the year is usually the quieter
part of the
year, and we anticipate more activity during the second half,"
said Kaseke.
Zimbabwe Council of Tourism (ZCT) chief
executive officer, Paul
Matamisa, said it was vital for all major
stakeholders in the industry to
work together if the revised projections
were to be achieved.
"We are confident that the set
projections will be achieved. The
successful implementation of the strategic
marketing plans which the
authority has just finalised is the key to
achieving our set targets,"
Matamisa said.
Hotel
occupancy rates during the first half of the year were low
compared to the
number of tourist arrivals as non-registered tour operators
housed a
significant number of the visitors.
Zim Independent
THE Christian Alliance condemns the detention and
harassment of
convener Bishop Levee Kadenge and four other leaders, namely,
Daphne Magaya,
Pastor Ancelom Magaya, Rev Brian Mugwidi and Pius Wakatama in
Harare last
Friday.
We must first set the record
straight. On Saturday July 29, the
Christian Alliance hosted the Save
Zimbabwe All Stakeholders Convection in
Harare.
All
political parties including Zanu PF were invited to speak on
the future of
our country in light of the current national crisis. Civil
society and
church groups also participated. The convection was called to
explore ways
of promoting internal dialogue and mapping the way forward
towards a final
peaceful resolution to our national crisis.
The convection
came up with resolutions forming the basis of our
strategy for engagement.
The highlight of the convection was that the
Zimbabwean crisis can only be
resolved through an all inclusive process of
internal dialogue. The
convection committed itself to pursue this objective
through a broad-based
alliance.
AS Christian Alliance, the organisers of the
convection, we
emphasise that the formation of the broad alliance is not a
political front
or party. It is not the intention of the Christian Alliance
to contest or
delegate political power to any group. We are a network of
like-minded
Christian leaders pursuing our biblical mandate to promote peace
and
justice.
We call upon the police and the government
to ensure that there
are not obstacles to justice and peace by continued
harassment of Christian
Alliance leadership. The recent police action only
reinforces the need for
all Zimbabweans through their political and social
formations to commit
themselves to an urgent resolution of our national
crisis.
We pray that God will protect and defend those he has
called to
be his instruments in establishing peace and justice. Our prayers
are also
extended to Zimbabweans who live under the threat of
brutality.
Christiance Alliance,
Harare.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
ERICA
Mheterwa (54) and three other villagers in the Masarafa
area of Nyamapanda
spent the early hours of Monday morning gathering the
wild masawu fruit for
sale at Harare's Mbare market to fight spiralling
poverty in the
area.
As dusk approached, the quartet perched themselves on
their
masuwu bags along the Nyamapanda highway patiently waiting for
transport to
Harare.
Mheterwa's sack has a label which
indicates that not so long ago
it used to carry foodstuffs donated by the
European Union.
Experience tells them that all things being
equal they will
catch a long distance haulage truck around 7pm to get them
to Harare before
mid-night. Their major challenge would be to get somewhere
safe to sleep and
to eat before they start selling their "wares" the next
morning.
When we stopped on the roadside to chat to them
about the new
currency introduced by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe last week,
we realised
we were alerting them to a new phenomenon they didn't need to
worry about on
their previous trips.
They all admitted
that the scant details they had heard of the
new currency from their radios
were not enough to enlighten them.
In this remote area the
radio and occasional visitors from town
are the only sources of information
on important events in the rest of the
country.
A
newspaper is out of question because it rarely gets there.
Even if it did,
very few if any, would afford it. With hunger wreaking havoc
in their lives
and their houses precariously leaning against mountain
slopes, the people
have more pressing problems to worry about.
The next meal
comes after a lot of scrounging.
All four say they have not
seen any RBZ officials whom central
bank governor Gideon Gono said would be
sent in the remote areas to educate
people on the new "family of bearer
cheques" and the deadline to replace the
old currency.
"We have not seen anyone from the Reserve Bank," said Mheterwa.
"We rely on
the radio but the reception is so bad that we can't hear
everything.
Sometimes it crackles for the whole day."
The Zimbabwe
Independent, on a tour of the area, spent half an
hour with the four
villagers to find out whether they understood the meaning
of the new
currency, and it was evident during that chat that they were all
in the
dark.
Worse still, they don't understand the motive behind
the new
currency. It showed in their discussions that almost two weeks after
its
introduction, news of the new currency had not trickled down to the
people.
When the Independent news crew showed them the new
currency,
Mheterwa scanned it with scepticism.
"Is this
real money?" she asked as she held the $1 000 note.
"What can it buy which
we could not buy in the past? Ukundiko kutamba nesu
chaiko (These people are
playing with us.)."
The few RBZ officials sent to conduct
education campaigns in the
area spend their time in air-conditioned offices
at the border post away
from the poor villagers who need their help the
most.
"So what do I get if I sell a bucket of masawu at the
old $800
000 each?" asks Mheterwa.
A teenager who looks a
little knowledgeable interjects saying
she will get $800 per
bucket.
But Mheterwa dismisses her explanation and instead
says they
will get $80 per bucket. And that marks the beginning of a
five-minute
debate that in the end creates more
confusion.
At one time Mheterwa said she had heard a rumour
in her area
that the new currency would include
"shillings".
"I heard that they are going to introduce the
shillings. Is that
true?" Mheterwa asks.
She is however
smart enough to know that the new currency,
regardless of its form or
colour, will not stop prices from going up. She
might not have heard of the
word inflation but she feels it when the price
of a bar of soap goes
up.
"Ndokuti igotenga zvakawanda here nhai mwanangu? Ayiwa
tibvirei!
Ndiyo inonzi chawagona hapana jeri reBindura chairo," she
responded to
attempts by this reporter to explain the meaning of the new
money.
The four are a microcosm of the kind of confusion that
the new
currency has caused especially in the
countryside.
Mheterwa represents the genuine anxiety that
pervades the rural
landscape regarding the currency
change.
With less than two weeks to go before the August 21
deadline for
the change-over, it is apparent that the bulk of the vulnerable
people have
not been educated about the new currency.
A
policeman we gave a lift at Kotwa growth point along the way
said the 21-day
transitional period was too short. He said elderly villagers
in the area had
piles of notes which they would not part with. He said the
exercise should
go on up to December.
But it is not the illiterate elderly
folk only that are in the
dark.
Nodia (23), a bar lady at
Nyamuyaruka shops, about 10km from the
border post, took more than five
minutes to work out what the new $1 000
note translates into in the old
currency.
"So this is a $100 000? No I think it's a million.
So what
change do I give you for the beer you are buying?" asked Nodia as
she tried
to make sense of the new currency.
Such is the
level of confusion that has engulfed the people. In
the end she was rescued
by one of the patrons who claimed to work for a
freight agency at Nyamapanda
border post.
Ironically, Nodia works in the same complex that
the central
bank team is booked into.
They are staying in
obscure lodgings because The Pumpkin Hotel,
the only decent place in the
area, is fully booked.
Those who have passed through
Nyamapanda and other border posts
say the searching by state security agents
are dehumanising.
The tight security at the border has forced
desperate
cross-borders traders to devise cunning ways to smuggle the old
bearer
cheques into the country.
Money is being smuggled
in tyres. Reports said two haulage truck
drivers were caught with money
stashed in deflated tyres.
The enterprising ones use
undesignated routes to enter the
country. They cross into Zimbabwe through
de-mined areas and hide in the
bushes until the roadblock has cleared. Weary
policemen normally dismantle
search roadblocks in the evening to enjoy the
hefty allowances they are
getting from the RBZ.
While the
targeted people struggle to make head or tail of the
new currency, the
exercise has turned into a money spinning venture for Zanu
PF youth militia,
RBZ officials and police officers who are getting hefty
allowances for their
work.
Senior police and RBZ officials are reportedly getting
$50
million a day.
The militia and junior officers are
getting between $30 million
and $35 million.
The real
crisis, though, is with the inflexible people who will
not part with their
old notes.
A policeman told the Independent that one old man
had told them
he had a trunk full of money but would not change it because
it belonged to
his son based in Gweru.
The central bank
has a huge task on its hands. It has less than
10 days to educate the whole
nation and collect bank notes from far flung
parts of the country.
Zim Independent
By Pedzisai Ruhanya
SINCE colonial
rule to date, Zimbabwe is a country mired in
asylum debacles. This situation
is a microcosm of a country facing
monumental democratic and human rights
deficits that need urgent attention
by both the citizens of Zimbabwe and
part of the international community
that cares.
Because
of the situation threatening the democratic existence of
the country, there
is need to refocus the whole issue of asylum status in
Zimbabwe and define
who among Zimbabweans should seek political asylum if
necessary.
The Zanu PF leadership and President Robert
Mugabe in particular
should seek political asylum because of their failure
to govern the country
in a civilised manner as expected by those they
govern. This political
minority has no legitimate cause to drive millions of
Zimbabweans outside of
their motherland.
According to the
1951 Refugee Convention, "a refugee among other
things refers to a person,
owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted
for reasons of race,
religion, nationality, membership of a particular
social group or political
opinion, who is outside the country of his
nationality and is unable, or
owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail
himself of the protection of that
country; or who, not having a nationality
and being outside the country of
his former habitual residence as a result
of such events, is unable or,
owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to
it".
In my
view, this is the way in which the recent decision by
Asylum and Immigration
Tribunal (AIT) of the United Kingdom ought to be
understood. But it is not
an endorsement of the AIT's judgement against some
of the legitimate
Zimbabwean asylum-seekers in that country and I do not
seek to refute the
well-established international law position on refugees
and asylum-seekers
as enunciated by the 1951 Refugee Convention which is the
key legal document
in defining who is a refugee, their rights and the legal
obligations of
states.
That the Zanu PF government and its militia and
members of the
security agents such as the army, the police and the Central
Intelligence
Organisation have since Independence from Britain in 1980 been
involved in
human rights abuses against perceived enemies is not in
doubt.
The prevalence of lawlessness in the country cannot be
contested
as Zimbabweans are witnessing during the currency transition where
the youth
militia, an extra-legal institution, are involved in confiscating
people's
money and manning the country's borders.
If
Zimbabweans were to run away from the country after such kind
of harassment
by the infrastructure of violence created by the Zanu PF
government that
even Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono, who purports to be
attempting to
bring law and order in the financial services sector, is using
illegitimate
law enforcement agents, they could have a legitimate claim to
asylum under
the 1951 Refugee Convention.
While it is without doubt that
Zimbabweans who have been victims
of state violence deserve to be granted
asylum status, I want to make a plea
to my fellow Zimbabweans that the time
has come for us to make a stand and
deviate from the orthodox definition of
an asylum-seeker and define the real
people who should seek asylum outside
of Zimbabwe.
This view is informed by the fact that since the
1965 Unilateral
Declaration of Independence by Ian Smith to the current
administration led
by Mugabe, a minority group in Zimbabwe has been allowed
to define the
destiny of the millions of Zimbabweans.
During the war of liberation, Zimbabweans under Zapu and Zanu
and other
citizens fled the country and sought asylum in different parts of
the world
including our neighbours such as Zambia and Mozambique because of
the brutal
nature of the Smith regime and its racist policies.
Immediately after Independence in 1980, Mugabe seemed to emulate
the violent
nature of his predecessors and was not ashamed to see one of the
most
celebrated if not the leading national hero of his generation and the
Second
Chimurenga, the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo, fleeing the country
and
seeking asylum in the UK.
Seven years after the death of
Nkomo, a man who was humiliated
by Mugabe and sought refuge in a country his
fellow Zimbabweans perished
fighting against its Rhodesian proxies, the
situation has gone out of hand
and it needs to be
redressed.
In this regard, Zimbabweans must take a political
and sovereign
stand and refuse to be driven out of the country just like
Nkomo refused to
stay in the UK forever. It is time for Zimbabweans to join
brave compatriots
like Lovemore Madhuku of the National Constitutional
Assembly, Heneri
Dzinotyiwei, Paul Siwela and John Makumbe of the University
of Zimbabwe and
thousands other Zimbabwean political and civil society
leaders who have
refused to throw in the towel and stand for their
legitimate and
constitutional rights to remain in
Zimbabwe.
The same applies to many brave Zimbabweans who have
soldiered on
against this brutal dictatorship.
My
understanding of a democracy is that a leadership is elected
to administer
the affairs of the country in a responsible and accountable
manner and the
election of that leadership calls for a transparent electoral
process that
produces legitimate outcomes. Let's suppose this was the case
in Zimbabwe -
which of course it is not - Mugabe would be answerable to the
people of
Zimbabwe and ultimately Zimbabweans would determine his future at
State
House.
To show that Mugabe and his leadership have lost the
legitimacy
to continue running the affairs of the state, they are not
ashamed to see
millions of Zimbabweans running away from those that should
serve them.
The situation in Zimbabwe could be compared to a
company. A
company is made up of shareholders; it has a board of directors
and an
administration run by either a chief executive officer, a general
manager or
whatever the structure could be.
As is the
norm, the board of directors on behalf of the
shareholders appoints a chief
executive officer to administer the company on
behalf of the shareholders.
In the event that a chief executive officer who
is the servant of the board
and its shareholders fails to run the company by
either making losses, being
involved in corrupt practices or other
activities that do not enhance the
growth of the company, the chief
executive officer is fired or asked to
leave. This is the situation that
should happen in
Zimbabwe.
But Mugabe and Zanu PF have the temerity to fire
the
shareholders of Zimbabwe, the sons and daughters of our country to all
places in the universe where they face humiliation, scorn and have lost the
concept of humanity, ubuntu.
It is in this spirit that I
sought to argue that it is not the
ordinary Zimbabweans who should seek
asylum but Mugabe and the entire Zanu
PF leadership because they cannot be
allowed to hold the whole country
hostage.
Recently
former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, before he was
flown to The Hague,
sought asylum in Nigeria and the same should happen to
political managers
who fail to administer the political affairs of their
country in line with
the demands and expectations of the shareholders,
Zimbabweans in
general.
To our African brothers and sisters in countries
such as Zambia
and Mozambique, particularly the leadership of these
countries, my question
is: why should your countries continue to keep
Zimbabwean asylum-seekers in
perpetuity?
You looked after
us during the war and we are very grateful
about that but do you still have
any cause to continue doing the same 26
years after
Independence?
The solution is to tell your brother, Mugabe,
and his leadership
that, in the words of British Home secretary John Reid,
"they are not fit
for the purpose".
* Pedzisai
Ruhanya is a Zimbabwean journalist studying in the
UK.
Zim Independent
By Chris Mhike
IS the ruling
Zanu PF party's current tenure in government
legitimate? This has become an
open-ended question. The answer, at best,
could be: "Maybe, maybe
not."
Unfortunately for the Zanu PF government, the recent
Supreme
Court judgement, which invalidated Chief Justice Godfrey
Chidyausiku's 2005
Electoral Court appointments, entrenches the ruling
party's nefarious status
as an illegitimate and rogue
regime.
The subject judgement arose from an application that
was made
last year by Claudious Marimo, a "losing" candidate in the March
2005
parliamentary election and by the party that sponsored his candidacy -
the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - against four
respondents.
These respondents were the Minister of Justice,
Legal and
Parliamentary Affairs, the Attorney-General, the Chief Justice and
Herbert
Murerwa (Finance minister and "winning" candidate in the Goromonzi
constituency).
An Electoral Court had been created at the
High Court under the
newly promulgated Electoral Act to accommodate any
petition from the
parliamentary elections.
The applicants
contended that the Electoral Court was improperly
constituted. This was so,
firstly, because the court's judges had been
appointed ineptly by the Chief
Justice. Secondly, because the Act under
which the court had been created
was inconsistent with the constitution of
Zimbabwe.
On
July 25 2006, Justices Maphios Cheda, Vernanda Ziyambi,
Wilson Sandura,
Elizabeth Gwaunza and Griffiths Malaba unanimously decided
that the
applicants' contentions were valid; that the manner in which judges
were
appointed to the Electoral Court in 2005 was unconstitutional and
invalid.
Such invalidity therefore means that all
petitioners and other
losing candidates from the 2005 elections were denied
a free and fair chance
to challenge the outcome of the 2005 parliamentary
election. It means that
if there was in any constituency, an illegal and
fatally flawed ascendancy
to the legislature, the beneficiary of such
irregularity got away with
murder.
It means that the
credibility of Zanu PF's so-called victory in
the 2005 election is now at
stake - more prominently than it has ever been
over many recent
years.
Indeed, Zanu PF's legitimacy crisis did not commence
only after
the delivery of this progressive judgement. After the 2000
parliamentary
election, Zanu PF fell into the trenchant legitimacy crisis as
opposition
parties, local and international observers, churches and an array
of
individual and organisational citizens declared that the poll had been
rigged.
The crisis deepened after the 2002 presidential
election when
President Robert Mugabe was declared the victor against the
MDC's Morgan
Tsvangirai. A body that depended on the ruling party for its
own formation,
existence, sustenance and future administered that
election.
The March 2005 parliamentary election revived Zanu
PF's crisis
as the ruling party barred all credible international observers,
used the
uniformed forces and senior civil servants in conducting the poll
and then
declared itself the winner of the poll. It disastrously claimed a
two-thirds
parliamentary majority.
The most glaring
testimony to the implausibility of Zanu PF's
"victory" arose from the
discrepancies in the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
(ZEC) figures. ZEC's
voting pattern statistics on March 31 2005 differed
significantly from its
final proclamations on April 2 2005.
For instance, in the
Makoni North constituency, the final ZEC
results attributed 18 910 votes to
Didymus Mutasa of Zanu PF and 6 077 to
Elton Steers Mangoma (MDC), thus a
total of 24 987 voters for the two
candidates. Yet in its initial
announcement, ZEC had stated that a total of
14 068 voters had cast the
ballot in Makoni North, thus a discrepancy of 10
919
votes.
This figure far exceeded the difference in the number
of voters
with which Mugabe claimed victory over Tsvangirai in the disputed
2002
presidential election. Yet the 2005 discrepancy was not recorded only
in
Makoni North. Numerous other constituencies were victims of similar ZEC
bungling.
Just before the 2005 poll, political parties,
citizens and civic
organisations had expressed their dissatisfaction with
the manner in which
the Justice George Chiweshe-led Delimitation Commission
had delimited
constituencies for the election.
The
dissenting or concerned voices were never given an ear by
the government in
2000, 2002 or in 2005.
It is clear therefore from the
foregoing that the ruling party
could not lay claim as the indisputable
winner of the 2000, 2002 and 2005
elections.
In the
aftermath of the 2005 parliamentary elections, the MDC
filed 16 petitions to
contest the results. Soon after filing the petitions
with the Electoral
Court, it became apparent that Justice Chidyausiku had
improperly appointed
judges to the Electoral Court. It was clear then that
the primary problem
arose from the Electoral Act itself, which was
unconstitutional.
Opposition parliamentarians and
commentators had, before the
enactment of the Electoral Bill, pointed out
the unconstitutional and
undemocratic nature of the proposed statute. But
Zanu PF, in its usual
fashion, refused to listen. Its members of parliament
went on to vote for
the enactment of the dangerous Bill, and President
Mugabe signed the
farcical document to turn it into law.
When the time came for the electoral petitions to be heard, the
petitioners'
lawyers advised the Chief Justice and the Electoral Court
"judges" that
their appointments could not stand. The warnings fell on deaf
ears.
At least the Chief Justice tried to listen. On May
5 2005 and
acting in terms of s162 (1) of the Electoral Act, he had
appointed five High
Court judges to the Electoral Court.
After the challenge had been launched, the Chief Justice wrote
to the judges
on June 1 2005 therein acknowledging the illegality of his
appointments of
May 5 2005. In that letter of June 1, he revoked the
previous appointments
and purported to make fresh assignments, saying he had
then consulted the
Judge President and the Judicial Service Commission.
But the
fresh appointments were still invalid because there was
no Act of Parliament
authorising the Chief Justice to appoint Electoral
Court judges after
consulting the Judge President and the Judicial Service
Commission.
The petitioners' lawyers brought this fact to
the attention of
the judges sitting as the Electoral Court, but like the
Zanu PF
parliamentarians, like the president, like ZEC, like everyone else
in the
establishment, the Electoral Court "judges" were obstinate. They went
ahead
and made determinations.
Because the judges were
improperly appointed to the Electoral
Court, their determinations have come
to naught. Without a valid law in
place for the constitutional appointment
of judges to the Electoral Court,
and without any competent Electoral Court
in the country, we now have a
lacuna in the law of
elections.
The Zanu PF government's crisis of legitimacy has
deepened.
There isn't any Electoral Court to confirm its claim to electoral
victories.
No court to confirm its legitimacy. The ruling party's crisis of
legitimacy
has indeed been rekindled.
Parliamentary
incumbency in the 16 constituencies over which
petitions were raised remains
contentious.
The two-thirds majority that was used in passing
the ridiculous
17th Constitutional Amendment has become controvertible
again. For how could
people whose election to parliament is still subject to
scrutiny and
possibly reversal thereafter be part of a "majority" that
determines the
future of this country?
The legitimacy of
all structures and systems that were
established after the 17th
Constitutional Amendment is now seriously
doubtful.
The
senate, the "reconstituted" Zimbabwe Electoral Commission,
post-election
laws and all other issues arising from the amendment could
well fall into
that realm of vacuity. This because they are creatures of a
dubious
"two-thirds" majority.
Until this void is fixed, and until
sound answers are given to
these critical questions, Zanu PF's legitimacy
crisis prevails.
* Chris Mhike is a Harare-based legal
practitioner.
Zim Independent
By Nelson Chamisa
THE Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) condemns the arrest
over the
weekend of pastors and church leaders demanding a peaceful
resolution of the
national crisis. This barbaric act has convinced everyone
that the Zanu PF
government is cornered and has now run out of options.
Those
arrested were Bishop Levee Kadenge of the Christian
Alliance of Zimbabwe and
other church leaders linked to the Save Zimbabwe
Convention, a gathering of
all civic groups and opposition political parties
which convened last week
and agreed to make Robert Mugabe and his regime
accept the people's demand
for an immediate end to the worsening crisis.
Once again, the
vampire state has bared its poisonous fangs in a
desperate move to
intimidate the men of God. The MDC strongly condemns the
continued savage
assault of people's basic freedoms.
The MDC believes the end
should be nigh for any dictatorship
that begins to target the holy men of
God in a desperate bid to force them
to join those men of cloth that have
chosen to embed themselves with the
Zanu PF cause - a cause which has
brought starvation, unemployment and
disease on millions of innocent
Zimbabweans. There is an inevitable end for
evil regimes that seek to gag
the anointed men of God who dare speak against
corruption and
misgovernance.
The MDC calls on all church leaders to remain
resolute in their
fight for justice and freedom. The church plays a pivotal
role in
vaccinating society against ailments of bad governance and corrupt
leadership. God continues to bless the national spirit against
misrule.
Our pastors seeking a peaceful resolution to the
national crisis
are mere messengers spreading the emancipatory gospel for a
better deal for
the millions of Zimbabweans who have fallen prey to misrule.
Their voice is
just because their cause is just.
When
forces of darkness start targeting the beacons of light in
our society like
Zanu PF is doing to the church, then there is sure evidence
of the collapse
of the wall of dictatorship. Dictatorships have temporary
legs. The writing
is on the wall for Zanu PF.
The national consensus is to save
our country. Let's all harness
the emerging collective spirit to save
Zimbabwe. The churches, students,
civic groups, labour and political parties
have turned the corner.
Those who have sought to divide the
country and its people must
go. Mugabe and his regime must go and pave way
for a period of
reconstruction and national healing.
*
Nelson Chamisa is MDC secretary for information and publicity.
Zim Independent
Comment
IN 1948 Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru,
speaking to
villagers who were to be displaced by the giant Hirakud Dam,
said: "If you
are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the
country."
Villagers in the dry Indian region naturally did
not want to
lose their homes and farmland but their resistance faltered as
their homes
were flooded to form one of the largest man-made lakes in the
world. A plus
was a guarantee of a permanent water source for the
region.
The government of India managed to convince its
people that its
actions were for the common good. Governments should
generally work in the
interest of their people to achieve a common good. At
least that is the
reason they are elected into office.
The concept of working for the common good of a nation can
however be abused
by rogue states to achieve nefarious ends. Zimbabwe today
stands out as a
prime example of a state whose government has come up with
obtuse policies
which have been defended as being done for the good of the
people.
The decision by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to
introduce new
notes and to launch a blitz that has made the possession of
large sums of
money illegal falls in the class of imperceptive policies that
we must all
believe are being done for the benefit of ordinary Zimbabweans,
even if they
do not support the initiative.
We see the
so-called Project Sunrise as a policy coming out of
the same mould as the
land reform programme of 2000 which government said
would empower the
indigenous people.
Said President Mugabe of the land reform:
"Zimbabwe's
much-vilified land reform programme is our response to the
challenge of
empowering more of our people and therefore creating a wider
base of farmers
in the country.
"In our fight for freedom
and independence, one of the pillars
of the struggle was land grievance -
land, land, land, which means food,
food, food to the
people."
Which food Mr President when the country has been
forced to
import food since 2000? The rag-tag deception is further exposed
when the
country's human development indices continue to plummet in the face
of
immense poverty and depravation of both rural and urban
communities.
Hundreds of thousands of rural people in
Murerwa, Mutoko and
Mudzi continue to eke out a living on poor soils still
waiting to be
resettled seven years into the progamme, while those who were
allocated
farms have only succeeded in chopping down trees and poaching
game.
In 2004 the central bank said the closure of financial
institutions was being done in the spirit of fighting economic saboteurs and
protecting the rights of depositors. We have not yet seen the spin-off from
the strong arm tactics of the governor after the elimination of the
saboteurs.
The theory continued with the execution of the
evil Operation
Murambatsvina last year in which government administered
terror on its
people by destroying unplanned backyard residential structures
and informal
traders' vending points. The government said the
internationally condemned
operation was meant to "provide residential and
business accommodation to
deserving people".
Today
victims of the operation are still destitute while the few
structures that
have been built under the subsequent Operation Garikai have
been grabbed by
ruling party mandarins and parcelled out to their relatives.
Project Sunrise is couched in the same spirit. When the dust has
settled, we
will soon be counting the cost of the latest state-sponsored
folly. Banks
which are crucial in making the plan work are already hurting,
travellers
have been hugely inconvenienced, tourists will not come to a
country where
they are frisked like criminals and our image as an investment
destination
has plummeted to new depths. The age-old saying that two wrongs
don't make a
right applies here. This is correct for three, four or five
wrongs, they
cannot make a right.
But the virus of justifying evil is now
embedded deep in the
soul of government. It is this foul spirit which has
seen government
justifying the enactment of draconian laws like Aippa and
Posa in the
interest of the nation.
Can the Interception
of Communication Bill and the Suppression
of Foreign Terrorism Bill be
justified as laws people have been clamouring
for? Of course not, so is
Project Sunrise.
This is what happens when repression
replaces consensus as a
mode of governance. We are suffering for the
interest of a few!
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
WHEN 33
people died in a road accident along the Harare-Chirundu
road on Monday the
story of the tragedy was relegated to number four on the
main television
news. Stories about money seized under Project Sunrise and
Vice-President
Joice Mujuru's trip to South Africa received more prominence.
This is how our rulers value human life. Two people I knew well
perished in
the accident and another who lost his wife in that tragedy was
critically
injured.
One of the deceased persons used to drive to and
from Harare
every fortnight but he could not do so last week because of the
sharp rise
in the price of fuel. He was forced to travel by bus and he has
become a
statistic of the carnage on our roads.
The
police have only given sketchy details about the cause of
the accident. It
could have been a burst tyre, the bus was overloaded and
the driver could
have been speeding, we were told. This is the same sort of
drivel we got
when dozens of people perished in three separate accidents
three months
ago.
But this, coming from a police force that not so long
ago
paraded officers and the latest gear to carry our forensic
investigations at
accident scenes, is hugely disappointing. We would be glad
to know what
happened to the forensic examiners, if ever there were any and
what became
of their equipment.
The forensic traffic
investigators are crucial in assisting
local authorities and civil planners
in designing roads and roadside
infrastructure such as lampposts, traffic
signs and kerbs.
I am still amazed at the number of high mast
lampposts that have
been brought down by motorists along major Harare roads,
especially
Enterprise Road in the Glen Lorne and Umwinsdale areas, and the
Chitungwiza
road. The lampposts appear to be too close to the road hence
motorists like
to climb up them at every opportunity.
The
forensic investigators should explain this phenomenon. That
is their role.
What is more surprising is that the Harare local authority
does not appear
to have learnt anything from the huge number of lampposts
that they have to
replace all the time after they are knocked down by
motorists. They keep
replacing them in exactly the same positions, inviting
more
accidents.
Imprecise details on the causes of accidents and
the recurrence
of carnage are evidence that there is something wrong with
the regulation of
the transport sector that is also saddled with crippling
funding costs.
Accidents like the one this week are bound to
happen again so
long as the transport sector continues to face viability
problems and as
long as there are no proactive measures to enforce safety
standards on
buses.
Discussions with bus operators and
officials in the Zimbabwe
Traffic Safety Council this week revealed shocking
details about the state
of the transport industry in the country. Corrupt
vehicle inspectors and
unscrupulous operators trying to cope with the
shortage of spare parts are
compromising the safety of
passengers.
Operators said whenever they send buses to the
Vehicle
Inspection Depot to get certificates of fitness, they either borrow
or
cannibalise tyres from grounded buses to fit on front axles. After
inspection, they return the tyres to the owners and then fit worn-out tyres
on the buses that are then dispatched on rural routes.
Youthful drivers entrusted to move some of the contraptions we
see on our
roads believe it is an act of valour to drive at over 120 km/h.
Whatever
happened to the police highway patrols? Eaten up by Zimbabwe's
all-devouring
monster - corruption?
Zimbabwean traffic laws make it an
offence to fit retreads on
the front axles of buses but I have seen quite a
number of such offenders
going unpunished. The same goes for buses and
rickety lorries moving on
urban roads without lights at night while police
officers manning roadblocks
chat by the roadside waiting for kombis that can
yield a bribe.
Bus operators said the same tricks affected
other crucial
components like steering wheel systems, brakes and mandatory
gear to protect
heavy vehicles in the event of tyre blowouts. Operators
using unroadworthy
vehicles can always bribe the police to secure
passage.
There is also concern over the strength and
suitability of
certain substandard tyre brands being imported from China
that have flooded
the market. Good brands of tyres cost anything between
$200 million and $300
million and the cheap ones sell for $120
million.
Faced with huge cash outlays, operators are opting
for the cheap
Chinese tyres that are deemed to provide excellent value for
money. But the
shortcuts have come at a huge price that includes the loss of
human lives.
When human lives are at stake, it is incumbent
on government to
maintain safety standards. At the moment, it is all
rhetoric and very little
action on the ground.
I
challenge VID bosses to go to Mbare Musika bus terminus and
see the poor
tyres fitted on front wheels of buses and to check how many of
the vehicles
have blowout protection gear. That's being proactive.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram
Nyathi
IT appears Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono's
"economic war"
will cost far more than the victory that it seeks against
corruption, that
is if there is going to be victory at all. Initially we
underestimated the
enormity of the project. (I use enormity in both senses
of the word.)
Suddenly it has become a criminal offence to be found in
possession of your
national currency.
We last week
estimated that the military-style operation could
cost anything up to $1
trillion. This was for vehicles and allowances for
those involved. We didn't
factor in reports of looting at roadblocks and
open acts of bribe-seeking at
border posts by Zimra officers. They are
already stocking the new notes
while allowing a few lucky individuals to
bring back their old bearer
cheques in exchange for a foreign currency
"handshake".
What I still fail to comprehend is why it was found necessary to
mount such
a huge and costly operation. Gono set a punishing deadline of 21
days by
which old bearer cheques would cease to be legal tender. He ordered
banks to
start dispensing the new notes although ATMs were not configured to
dispense
them. The chaos in all bankhalls at the moment bears testimony to
the
scandalous nature of this order.
Like his handling of
delinquent banks in 2004, Gono has tended
to adopt a retributive approach
out of all proportion with the task at hand.
Banks are being punished for
the crimes of individuals who chose to keep
their cash under their
mattresses because of a crisis that is also not of
their making. If there
had been no wholesale economic collapse we would not
experience the current
levels of inflation that make it foolhardy for
anybody to keep his money in
a bank account.
The retrospective publicity blitz suggests an
undertaking that
was not planned. If it had been planned, Gono would have
spared us the
extravagant costs and numerous roadblocks as if the nation
were under a
state of emergency. The deadline of August 21 would be enough
to force
everybody to surrender their money.
But why
pursue people who stand to lose from not surrendering
something that becomes
worthless at the close of business on August 21? Gono
has been granted
presidential powers to deploy the army, police, the CIO and
youth militia to
collect pieces of paper that nobody wants, at a cost far in
excess of what
the RBZ is pumping out to fund the operation - unless he is
lying that the
notes will be phased out!
How does this splurge help in
fighting inflation and in turning
around the economy? The deadline would by
itself have made it possible to
arrest the criminals without the need for
mounted soldiers we saw patrolling
suburbs in Beitbridge. The massive
clean-up and obscene show of might have
not brought any name worth writing
home about. Its result has been as
mundane as America's search for Osama bin
Laden, netting mainly small fish
or downright tadpoles.
It is the fanatical zeal and disproportionate waste of state
resources that
worry me because they have done so much to hurt the economy.
It was the same
sledgehammer approach in 2004 that destroyed confidence in
the banking
system and caused untold suffering for depositors.
The impact
of the current operation on rural people and other
ordinary Zimbabweans is
as devastating as Operation Murambatsvina was to
high density urban dwellers
and operators of informal businesses. Real
criminals are taking advantage of
the confusion to cheat and rob. Even shop
retailers are hiking prices in the
name of removing three zeros. Gono is
inadvertently whipping up national
revulsion against an otherwise noble
crusade.
In this
connection, I was alarmed by the political dimension the
campaign has
assumed. Gono last week attacked a sinister agenda by people
blandishing
"liberation war credentials" whom he said thought they were
"above the
law".
"Your history does not matter," scoffed Gono, adding:
"Your
history does not make you a bloodsucker." Where and who are these
bloodsuckers? Suffice to say this gives the whole operation a new tenor, a
vituperative political tone we have come to associate with President Mugabe
for whom threats and warnings have become part of official
lexicon.
While one cannot question the moral imperative of
the war on
corruption, it is fatally shortsighted to ignore the political
and economic
milieu that has spawned mass poverty and an amoral culture of
ruthless
acquisitiveness. To me that should be our enemy number one, for the
rest,
from inflation, fuel shortages, corruption to general anti-social
behaviour
are, in Marxian dialectics, only a manifestation of our material
conditions.
That is why it is easy to lop zeros from the old currency only
to see them
sprout more luxuriantly in the new one tomorrow. You only need
to go
shopping or to buy fuel to discover this truth.
It
is this environment that has made people cringe at a
financial system that
instead of rewarding punishes the honest labourer who
entrusts it with his
hard-earned pennies. The bottomline is that you cannot
turnaround an
agro-based economy without robust commercial agriculture.
Zim Independent
By Eric
Bloch
The following is a paper presented by Eric Bloch to the
Human
Resources (Pvt) Limited seminar on executive remuneration and
retention on
Monday.
AT the outset, it should be recorded
that Zimbabwe has not
introduced a new currency - it has merely
redenominated its existing
currency in recognition of the extent that the
buying power of each unit of
the currency had diminished, in order to make
the usage of the currency more
manageable.
Zimbabwe has
not redenominated its existing currency in order to
contain inflation, and
unless the redenomination is abused, it should also
not fuel inflation. What
Zimbabwe has done is, albeit very belatedly,
recognising that the rampant
hyperinflation of the last few years has made
the currency, in its form
until the redenomination occurred, extremely
cumbersome and an immense
hindrance to the conduct of normal economic
transactions.
As inflation soared ever upwards, each transaction required more
and more
dollars. The transaction, only a year ago, of $1 000 now required
in excess
of $1,2 million, while that which a year ago was $1 million now
requires $1
billion. Results include that:
* almost all computer
accounting software in use in Zimbabwe did
not have the capacity to process
the transactions;
* virtually all cash registers in
Zimbabwe's shops could not
record an accumulation of
transactions;
* similarly, none of the accounting machines in
Zimbabwe, and
very few calculators, had capacity to process transactions,
for they
required as many as 16 digit fields, inclusive of cents, for many
transactions;
* not a single petrol pump meter could
record the price of
petrol or diesel sold;
* the populace
had to carry hundreds of currency notes in order
to pay for normal, daily
routine transactions, with consequential great
inconvenience;
* security hazards for those carrying
currency, for businesses,
and for transmission of currency to and from
banks, intensified
exponentially; and
* almost all
businesses had to use note counters to process cash
transactions, be it at
supermarket check-out points or otherwise, with
inconvenience to management,
personnel and customers.
Introduction of a totally new
currency, at this point of time,
would have been an exercise in the
pointless, for as yet the Zimbabwean
inflation crisis has to be resolved and
halted. Therefore, if a new currency
would have been introduced now, it
would undoubtedly require to be replaced
again in a year or two and so on
recurrently until inflation has fallen to
single-digit
levels.
While what was needed, and has been done, was a
transitional
measure to address the problems, until a new currency can be
introduced, and
it must be recognised that, dependent upon how long
inflation continues to
occur at triple or quadruple-digit levels, a like
transitional measure may
be required again in the course of the next year or
two.
In the meanwhile, undoubtedly partially influenced by
the
pronounced negativeness, despondency, doom and gloom that years of
economic
hardship has fuelled, the general reaction to the redenomination of
the
currency has provoked great concerns, many misunderstandings,
expectations
of diverse new problems, and a perception of such complexities
in the
transition, that the belief is widespread that Zimbabwe is now in a
currency
crisis! That is not the case!
Admittedly, some
unforeseen circumstances will need to be
expeditiously addressed by the
authorities, and constructively dealt with by
commerce, industry and the
populace. But overall, the authorities have
sought to identify realistically
the key issues occasioned by the currency
redenomination, and how they
should be dealt with, and have prescribed them
in the Presidential Powers
(Temporary Measures) (Currency Revaluation)
Regulations, 2006, gazetted as
Statutory Instrument 199 of 2006 in a
Government Gazette Extraordinary on
July 31 2006.
Those regulations were reinforced by very
timeous publication of
comprehensive Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe advertisements
in the national press,
accompanied by extensive advertising on radio and
television, widely
displayed posters, and other RBZ publications and
interactions with the
banking, commercial and other sectors of the
Zimbabwean society.
The key elements of the currency
redenomination measures
include:
The last three zeros of
each currency constituent are deleted.
Thus $10 becomes 1 cent, $100 becomes
10 cents, $1 000 becomes $1, $10 000
become $10, $100 000 become $100, $1
million becomes $1 000, $1 billion
becomes $1 million and so
forth.
That change applies not only to currency notes, but to
all
incomes and prices. Three zeros must drop off all prices, all salaries,
all
wages, all governmental charges and anything else as is
currency-denominated.
As a result, provided that all
comply, the effective value of
anyone's money, from the point of view of
buying power, remains unchanged.
Save for the effects of continuing
inflation, the redenominated income will
have the same buying power as the
previously denominated income, for all
costs should be redenominated to a
like extent.
To give effect to this, the Statutory Instrument
provides that:
* newly denominated bearer cheques be issued
by the RBZ to
replace those previously in circulation. Those new bearer
cheques are in 13
different denominations, being one, five, 10 and 50 cents,
$1, $10, $20,
$50, $100, $500, $1 000, $10 000 and $100 000. Those new
bearer cheques
became legal tender on August 1 2006, with effect from which
date all then
in circulation bank notes and coins would have a commensurate
revalued rate.
All the in-circulation former bearer cheques would be
similarly revalued,
but be of value, force and effect only until August 21
2006, by which date
they must be exchanged, through the banking system, for
new bearer cheques;
* all deposit balances at financial
institutions denominated, as
at August 1 2006, under the former currency
system, are automatically
converted to the new denomination value. It is
pertinent to note that the
Statutory Instrument specifically provides that
financial institutions
cannot charge for exchanges of currency and of bearer
cheques to an extent
of more than 2,5% of the sum of the revalued currency,
and cannot charge for
the conversion of deposit balances;
and
* anyone who, during the three-week period ending on
August 21
2006 deposits or exchanges at any single financial institution $5
billion or
more (in the case of traders, parastatals or non-individuals), or
$100
million or more, in the case of individuals, whether by way of a single
or
by way of multiple deposits must provide the financial institution a tax
clearance certificate, and a declaration of the source of the
funds.
Failure to do so will result in the financial
institution
issuing the depositor a one-year "currency stabilisation bond",
and advising
the RBZ thereof.
Thereupon, if the currency
is found to be the subject, or
proceeds, of a cash-detainable offence, or a
"serious offence" as defined in
relevant legislation, the currency is
forfeited to the state. If the funds
are lawfully held, then the bond will
be redeemed upon maturity, together
with interest at the monthly, average
treasury bill rate.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of
Zimbabwe, in response
to a query, that it will now issue a directive that
any cheque dated on or
before July 31 2006 and returned to drawers may be
endorsed "not revalued"
on the top right-hand or bottom left-hand corner of
the face of the cheque,
accompanied by the drawer's signature, and may then
be represented.
Any cheque dated between August 1 and 21 2006
is presumed to be
drawn in terms of the old currency system, and must be
rejected by a
financial institution, unless it is endorsed on the top
right-hand or bottom
left-hand corner of the cheque face with the word
"revalued", accompanied by
the drawer's signature in proximity
thereto.
The Statutory Instrument specifically prescribes
that the
conversion to the new currency system shall not prejudice the
subsistence or
validity of debts, contracts, securities or any other legal
act or
instrument whatsoever made, done, executed, incurred, entered into or
created prior to August 1 2006 which until August 21 2006 shall be
discharged or settled in terms of the old or the new currency systems, and
subsequent to the latter date in terms of the new currency
system.
Although the system change involves all enterprises
and the
populace in a fair amount of "mental adjustment" and administration,
it is
relatively straightforward and, after a few initial hiccups, should
settle
down to effective commercial operations unhindered by the obstacles
created
by hyperinflation under the old value system.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
IF there is anything the world
requires today," declared
President Mugabe last week, "it is the examination
of our conscience." The
purpose of such a soul-searching exercise was to
find out whether leaders
were serving the interests of the people or their
own, Mugabe indicated.
He was speaking to a visiting
delegation of the New Birth
Cathedral from Atlanta, US. He called for honest
leadership and commitment
to policies that serve the interests of the
people. "The ordinary people
want to see what we do," he told his guests at
Zimbabwe House.
As usual, this was followed by a chronicle of
Zimbabwe's
liberation history and what government was doing to empower its
people.
The Herald didn't ask who had been empowered by
government's
policies except for Mugabe's cronies or why we are in such a
mess. It is
also doubtful that Mugabe would have been entirely "honest"
about the effect
of his ruinous land policies to men of the cloth who
appeared more impressed
by his eloquence than honesty.
Another deficiency in the story was its lack of purpose. What
was the
bishops' mission? Who financed their trip? Who was hosting them and
where?
All we got was that they managed during their whirlwind visit "to see
a true
picture of the situation in the country" as opposed to Western media
propaganda.
But surely they can't "see a true picture"
from just one source
who not only has a vested interest in that picture but
is also seen by many
as the prime cause of the national malaise. You cannot
see a true picture of
a country from a perfumed hotel suite in the city
centre and spending the
day in the opulence of the presidential compound
when 70% of the population
lives in abject poverty in the countryside.
Shouldn't honesty and
truthfulness start at the top, and especially among
those professing the
faith?
We would hate to assume that
these prelates belong to the same
faith as the indefatigable pair of Comrade
Coltrane Chimurenga and Sister
Viola Plummer whom everyone knows are
embedded with the lootocracy in Zanu
PF.
Talking of
honest, one in need of such exhortation is Mberengwa
West MP Joram Gumbo. He
appealed to Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono to
extend his August 21
deadline for the surrender of old bearer cheques by
rural folk because
unscrupulous "white farmers" had offloaded billions of
dollars buying
cattle.
He claimed white farmers were buying a beast for as
high as $160
million "to offload the cash they had
stashed".
One would be tempted to ignore such extravagant
claims were it
not for their racial overtones and the exaggerated influence
of the few
remaining white farmers.
All but the most
deluded can be deceived about who is most
involved in foreign currency deals
and would therefore need an extension of
the surrender deadline. Is Gumbo
trying to tell us something by diverting
attention to a particular racial
group?
A friend of Muckraker's last week came face to
face with the
chaos caused by the recent introduction of the "new family of
bearer
cheques". After a business transaction he was handed a $100 000 note
of the
new family. When he went to deposit it with a building society he was
told
"it can't".
They said he needed "a clearance
certificate" from the RBZ and
Zimra proving the source of his money. This
was despite RBZ governor Gideon
Gono clearly setting a ceiling of $100
million that individuals can deposit
without a question being
asked.
He duly proceeded to enquire with the RBZ by
telephone. He was
referred by Gono's secretary to the public relations
department for
clarification. It turned out to be the beginning of long
nightmare.
The first person in the PR department said she
didn't have an
answer and referred him in turn to the Financial Markets
Department. The guy
there referred him to the Banking Services Department.
There was more
darkness in that cavernous vault.
He was
referred from one person to another without a hint of
light. At long last he
landed on somebody designated as chief bank teller
who sounded equally
confused. He made him hold on to the phone for well over
five minutes while
he was "looking for a pencil".
After getting the pencil and
listening to the insurmountable
problem, he referred him back to the PR
department.
In this maze he eventually stumbled on
"Zanza's secretary" who
advised him to go to the shops and buy groceries and
get change while she
sought for the "official" position. She then took down
his details and
promised to revert to him. Were he a person of limited
mental resources he
would still be waiting today.
This
"unofficial" solution materialised after a painstaking 35
minutes and 13 RBZ
"referees". It is frightening to imagine what happens in
the back of beyond
in remote areas when the occupants of the glass tower at
Samora Machel are
themselves so perplexedly ignorant.
Still on the new money,
we were alarmed that senior police
officers are reportedly being arrested in
the line of duty for fighting
corruption through corrupt means. Some were
helping "criminals" who could
buy their way to safety by letting them slip
through police cordons.
A number of motorists who have been
found with "illegal loads"
at roadblocks speak of being ordered to "throw a
brick" into the grass
verges before being allowed to pass. There are no
records of these "bricks"
and nobody knows how many the wayfarer might lose
before getting to his
destination. One Marondera driver was ordered to buy
groceries in a nearby
shop plus food and drinks for his passengers to slash
his money to the
"legal limit".
It must therefore be
fascinating that amidst the orgy of
bribe-taking, cheating and intimidation
of frightened and confused rural
travellers we are told hungry Border Gezi
youths who have no jobs were
deployed to "curb
corruption".
It's a farce beyond
comment.
What has become of investigations into attempts
to intimidate
Gono by criminal gangs so that he abandons his anti-corruption
and
money-laundering crusade? His response to reports of an armed gang and a
fire outbreak at his farm in Norton went over the top at the
weekend.
Who are the politicians or freedom fighters waving
"liberation
war credentials, guns and spears" to try and frighten the
governor we
wonder? How was the link between the unidentified gangs and war
credentials
established?
The whole thing smacked of
hysteria and melodrama.
By the way, what was the governor
still doing with 1 300 tonnes
of unharvested maize in August? Talk of
hoarding and economic sabotage!
Muckraker has not had the
fortune to study the different species
of bird in Zimbabwe. However, we can
tell a quelea bird when we see one.
Definitely there was none in the Herald
illustration of a feature on quelea
birds done by one Tonderai Matonho on
Monday. The quelea bird familiar in
Zimbabwe is neither red nor yellow. It's
closer to brown.
The illustration was as illuminating as
using a picture of a
donkey in a story on how cattle get foot and mouth from
buffaloes.
It should also not be lost on readers that the
poor birds are
already being prepared as a scapegoat for a poor wheat
harvest. Last year,
we were told in the story, the evil birds "destroyed"
half the country's
winter wheat. So what? This year they might destroy more,
so don't blame
those dancing kongonya on the farms for bread
shortages.
A major reason many Zimbabweans are loath to
keep their money in
banks is the high inflation. The culture took root
during 2003 when there
was a huge run on currency notes and people had to
buy them from those lucky
enough to get them from bank
tellers.
The second reason is that there is no correlation
between the
return on deposit interest and bank charges. How do you keep
your money in
an account that gives you annual interest of 20% when
inflation is running
at 1 000%?
Gono last week launched
what we thought was a noble campaign to
persuade citizens to regain
confidence in the formal financial system under
Project
Sunrise.
Now imagine Muckraker's horror when he read in the
Herald this
week that government had gazetted the Finance Bill 2006
proposing a raft of
tax measures, among them a clause to increase the rate
of tax payable on
"cash withdrawals effected through an ATM from $500 to $10
000".
How many ordinary depositors earn that kind of interest
from
their banks in a month? Maximum daily withdrawals of $10 million
require 5
transactions from an ATM. That is to say you lose $50 000 each
time you
withdraw $10 million. The criminal part is that this is tax on
income
already taxed under PAYE.
Who would want to keep
their money in a bank after such a law
that legalises usury turned on its
head?
It's a classic own goal.
We
enjoyed reading tales of VP Joice Mujuru's mission to South
Africa. She was
heading a delegation to attend the launch of the Progressive
Women's
Movement of South Africa. She said among Zimbabwe's accomplishments
in the
field of women's empowerment was the passing of the Legal Age of
Majority
Act and now the Domestic Violence Bill to protect the rights of
women.
The South African initiative is meant to
commemorate the fight
by women for their rights dating from the period of
apartheid. Mujuru joined
them on this "historic" occasion as a member of a
regime in independent
Zimbabwe where women cannot march for their rights on
Women's Day and are
beaten by state agents for putting on red roses on
Valentine's Day, where
women and children are detained and beaten up by
police for demonstrating
against poor service delivery by local authorities.
For evidence ask Chra,
NCA and Woza women.
If Mujuru had
decided to march under disguise in the streets of
Harare to Munhumutapa
Building she would be arrested. She chose the safety
of South
Africa.
Talk of double-standards.
The
interview between the Sunday Mail and Information secretary
George Charamba
turned out to be damp squib compared to the prepublication
hype.
But we liked Charamba's shedding of crocodile tears
about the
welfare of artists whom he lamented were a "forgotten tribe" in
Zimbabwe. He
said artists were "criminalised" by society for being creative.
"Remember we
come from a society that punishes its creative members. We have
a society
that has a high disregard for its own artistes, a society with
high stigma
against its creative minds," cried Charamba.
Needless to say one of his biggest finds in this endeavour was
one "Toilet"
Tambaoga who appears to have been quietly put off air now that
President
Mugabe wants to build bridges with Tony Blair. The rest of our
most creative
artists are self-made men and women who owe nothing to
Charamba and his
galas.
It would be interesting to know what Charamba has done
for
really creative artists like Cont Mhlanga of Workshop Negative fame, and
arguably Zimbabwe's only published artistic genius Dambudzo Marechera whom
the government that Charamba serves hounded to death. Obviously these two
would refuse to prostitute their talents for political ends like morally
depraved galas that sully the memories of those they purport to
commemorate.
We enjoyed the little story in the Financial
Gazette yesterday
about the so-called costly typo that caused Air Zimbabwe
and the First
Family immense embarrassment. It is possible that other
passengers had
previously endured the torment in silence until it became too
much for
Robert jr who alerted his father that there was lavatorial stuff on
their
menu.
It's a pity that perhaps the persons
suspended over this menu
disaster were totally innocent victims of local
content taken too far.
Biltong and peanut butter would have
saved the national airline
all this. Incorrect political correctness we call
it.
Gono the worst ever, must go now
HAVING just been in Zimbabwe
on an emergency family visit, I
really enjoyed reading the hard copy of the
Zimbabwe Independent rather than
the electronic edition that I am used
to.
I could not agree more with your Editor's Memo headed
"Send them
000ff too" (Independent, August 4).
It really
is rank madness that the over-zealous Reserve Bank
governor should try and
claim credit for the mess that he and his boss have
created.
It is useful to reflect on the state of affairs
when the govenor
took over.
The parallel exchange rate
was US$1:$6 000. There was a reprieve
as the local dollar appreciated to $3
500. This turned out to be a false
dawn as the rate marched relentlessly
northwards achieving the dizzy heights
of $650 000.
The
highest note was probably $500. Now the highest note is $1
million ($100
000).
Inflation was around 625%. It retreated to around 125%
but has
since taken a life of its own climbing to about 1
200%.
Interest rates were around 100% and moved to
+800%.
The remit of the central governor everywhere else in
the world
is to manage interest rates, exchange rates and inflation. Given
the current
state of affairs in respect of these, Gono has been a total
failure.
He is the big zero that needs to be sent
off.
I was gobsmacked when I saw an advert on TV with a thief
settling to steal a wheelbarrow rather than a bin-liner full of the old
bearer cheques. When I was advised that these adverts were being flighted by
the Reserve Bank I realised that there is no hope with these bunch of
clowns.
The irony was lost on the governor that the fact
that the thief
preferred to steal the wheelbarrow rather than the cash is a
sad indictment
of his governorship.
In my book, Gono is
the worst governor this country has had. He
should just resign and, while at
it, take his boss with him.
Totemless,
Surrey, UK.
----------
Do old
bearers expire on or before August 21?
REMEMBER
the time when $60 trillion had to be
printed to cover the wage increase of
the civil servants?
Remember how desperately
short of cash the banks
were in the days when these increased wages were
paid in spite of the extra
trillions that were
printed?
And now our Reserve Bank governor wants
us, by the
end of this month, to have the salaries of all wage earners in
the country
paid in the new currency. The total wages, not just the
increases.
And to top it all, a couple of days
later he wants
us to pay school fees -
nationwide!
Really?
Everybody knows how this exercise gobbles
up a
gigantic chunk of the available cash and how long it takes before this
money
gets regurgitated into circulation. And now this exercise also has to
take
place with new bearer cheques only.
The
mind boggles.
By the way, can anybody tell me
when exactly the old
bearer cheques cease to be legal tender? On or before
August 21? I always
assumed that August 21 was inclusive, but I don't want
to be unpleasantly
surprised.
And at what
time, if I may ask? Can a shop owner for
instance refuse to accept legal
tender, say, at 4pm on August 21? He would
only be able to bank it on August
22, but the banks will most likely refuse
to accept
it.
Clueless,
Bulawayo.
-----------------
We're whistling in
wind
WITH our "old money" we have been surviving
using
paper currency with face values of from $500 to $100 000. Admittedly
the
bank notes with a value of $500 and $1 000 are virtually worthless, and
the
largest denomination bearer cheque of $100 000 is worth far too
little.
Given these simple truths, self-evident
to even the
least sophisticated among us, how does Reserve Bank governor
Gideon Gono
justify his new range of bearer
cheques?
His newly introduced bearer cheques
range from one
cent to $100 000 - that is, in terms of "old money", from $10
to $100
million.
What on earth can justify
the introduction of bearer
cheques so worthless as the new bearer cheques
with a face value of one,
five, 10 and 50 cents ($10, $50, $100 and $500 in
old money terms)?
In their ignorance, some people
may believe that
these may be of some value if the rate of inflation starts
to decline.
Unfortunately they are confused, understandably in Zimbabwe's
present
circumstances, as to the difference between a decline in the rate of
inflation and a decline in prices. The former may happen (that is prices may
rise at a slower rate). The latter will not.
Given that prices will most certainly not decline,
of what possible use are
these new bearer cheques denominated in cents?
Also, given his previous reluctance to issue any
bearer cheques with a
reasonable value, why now the introduction of a bearer
cheque for the
equivalent of $100 million in old money? Perhaps he is less
optimistic about
his anti-inflation drive than he cares to admit.
If as much thought has gone into the rest of his
monetary policies as has
gone into the choice of new bearer cheque
denominations, then we really are
whistling in the wind in expecting any
improvement.
RES
Cook,
Harare.
--------------
Nyarota's book hardly
earth-shattering read
I MUST be one of the first
people who grabbed a copy
of Geoff Nyarota's book after its publication a
few weeks ago, partly
because he had been flaunting it several times in the
Fingaz.
Having finished reading the book, Against
the Grain:
Memoirs of a Zimbabwean Journalist, I must admit I'm not
disappointed,
though not excited either.
I'm
not disappointed because the book is a useful
general reference book for the
history of post-colonial Zimbabwe (albeit
told from a personalised view). I
enjoyed Nyarota's sharp recollection of
events before and after
Independence, his experiences with the late Canaan
Banana, the Chronicle,
Willogate (of course!), the Financial Gazette and the
Associated Newspapers
of Zimbabwe.
However, the book is hardly the
earth-shattering
read Nyarota publicly made us believe. Outside a few
personal anecdotes, the
book tells the ordinary story everyone who has
followed post-colonial
Zimbabwe knows.
What I
find a little careless for a senior
journalist like him are several silly
mistakes. For example, he writes
wrongly that Charles Chikerema died in 1997
(Page 319), that Eddison Zvobgo
died in 2003 (202) and that Joshua Nkomo
died in 1998 (288) - not to mention
that he studied at Fort
Hare!
The book also wrongly asserts that Chen
Chimutengwende lost the 2000 election (316). He contradicts himself when he
states that as editor of the Fingaz, he had "asked (Trevor) Ncube to find
out if Moyo would consider writing a regular column under his name" (224),
and only later writes that: "When I became editor of the Financial Gazette
in 1990, my deputy, Trevor Ncube, recommended that we commission a regular
column from (Jonathan) Moyo" (316).
There are
a few other such mistakes and
inconsistencies which Nyarota could have
avoided by doing a thorough
homework, or perhaps penning a shorter, tighter
script.
Nevertheless, I find the book useful as a
reference
tool for not just the politics of the media but also of the
country.
(The pages cited are based on the 2006
edition
published by Zebra Press, Cape
Town.)
Rob C
Moyana,
Bramley,
South Africa.
-----------------
Be very, very
afraid!
I WAS going through an old copy of the
bombed-twice,
banned-twice Daily News of January 6 2003 when I came across
an opinion
piece entitled "Zimbabwe scenario draws chilling parallels with
Tito's
Yugoslavia".
The article had a
prophetic ring to it, in relation
to our recent removal of zeros from our
currency.
To quote a few
paragraphs:
"Under Marshal Tito, Yugoslavia ran a
budget deficit
that was financed by printing money. This led to a rate of
inflation of 15
to 25% per year.
"After Tito,
the Communist Party pursued
progressively more irrational economic policies.
These policies and the
break-up of Yugoslavia led to heavier reliance upon
printing or otherwise
creating money to finance the operations of the
government and the socialist
economy. This fanned
hyperinflation.
"By the early 1990s the
government had used up all
of its own hard currency reserves and proceeded
to loot the hard currency
savings of private citizens. It did this by
imposing more and more difficult
restrictions on private citizens' access to
their hard currency savings in
government banks . .
."
Sounds familiar? Read
on:
"In October 1993 they created a new currency
unit.
One new dinar was worth one million of the old dinars. In effect, the
government simply removed six zeros from the paper money. This, of course,
did not curb inflation and between one October 1993 and 24 January 1995
prices increased by five quadrillion percent. This number is a five with 15
zeroes after it.
"In November of 1993 the
government postponed
turning on the heat in the state apartment buildings in
which most of the
population lived. The residents reacted to this
withholding of heat by using
electrical space heaters which were inefficient
and overloaded the
electrical system."
Now
wait for this:
"The government power company then
had to order
blackouts to conserve
electricity.
"The social structure began to
collapse. Thieves
robbed hospitals and clinics of scarce pharmaceuticals and
then sold them in
front of the same places they
robbed."
Totally
uncanny.
On July 31 2006, Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe governor
Gideon Gono announced the removal of three noughts from
our threadbare
currency, the dollar.
On July
2 2006, I purchased a 750ml bottle of cane
spirit for $1 120 (000) - up from
$815 (000) - an increase of $300 (000).
This means that of the three zeros
removed on Monday, one zero had already
returned in two
days!
Of course, this makes nonsense of Gono's
threat to
"harm" businesses that continue to increase
prices.
According to British economist John
Maynard Keynes:
"There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the
existing basis of
society than to debauch the currency. The process engages
all the hidden
forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does
it in a manner
which not one man in a million is able to
diagnose."
The fact that our wartime government
continues to
ignore this impending implosion is frightening. All we can do
now is put our
heads between our legs, and start praying
hard.
Be very, very
afraid.
Tony
Namate,
Harare.
------------------
It's a bad year for
saboteurs
IT is annus horribilis (a bad year) for
all the
saboteurs of Zimbabwe's economy. They can now consider their filthy
lucre as
"garden manure", according to Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
governor Gideon
Gono's stock saying.
Little
wonder they were hoarding trillions of bearer
cheques within and without our
borders. Besides our phantom enemies in the
occident, these local men and
women are therefore the enemies within
Zimbabwe, the real McCoys and
therefore the enemy of both the people and the
state - I mean body
politic.
It is not a surprise that most of these
culprits are
people entrusted with authority by the president to help him
deliver his
election promises to the nation, but they nevertheless think
that the common
man is an indentured slave who must be exploited and milked
of his
hard-earned Zimbabwe dollars. Thus in their minds Zimbabweans are an
expendable citizenry.
It is a pity that when
the RBZ governor tries to
rescue the entire nation, the chosen few feel
shortchanged. I do not get it:
who is suffering here when the man in the
street is menaced by incessant
price increases, pitiable salaries and he
cannot get the support that he
greatly needs from people he elected to
office - who have misread the word
"running" the country for "ruining" the
country?
These saboteurs of our economy are
immune to despair
and they really ought to keep themselves in their business
of speculation,
unwarranted price hikes, foreign currency deals and money
laundering.
Take for example a 750g Key Blue
laundry soap bar
that was being sold for $460 000 on the August 1 as Gono
was striking off
three zeros on the old currency. Instead of doing the same
when converting
to the new currency, shop owners saw a lacuna to increase
the price with
$680 as the new price for the same
item.
This was done to prove to Gono that the new
currency
is nors de combat. It cannot buy anything in Zimbabwe. I profoundly
feel
they may have a point because our government has no political and moral
will
to deal with producers and traders
alike.
It is highly commendable that the RBZ has
set up a
price monitoring team of 320 officers to put in check these dubious
people
who often cook up unpatriotic price
hikes.
Allow me to suggest to both government and
RBZ
officials to look into issuing food coupons to employees by starting a
pilot
project with civil servants and council
workers.
The food coupons must have a list of
basic
foodstuffs like mealie-meal, sugar, cooking oil and flour - all with
government-stipulated prices. This pilot project of food coupons can help
government to remove loopholes while distributing foodstuffs through
reputable supermarkets such as TM, OK, Food World, Friendly and
Gustai.
We can consult our neighbours in Zambia
on the
modalities of implementing the food coupons, which they did them
during the
Kenneth Kaunda era.
The next step
will be to cater for all sectors of
our society. If we are serious about a
turnaround we need a bitter pill like
this one, even though certain sectors
of our society may call us a nanny
state.
Gono alone cannot make it; we need to work together
as a
nation.
Meanwhile I must hasten to thank him for
a sterling
job and suggest that he reconsiders the 21 days conversion period
because he
has so far been magnanimous to saboteurs to the disadvantage of
the poor.
The period is far too long and should
be reduced to
even 10 days and let the cash hoarders learn a thing or two
about money:
that you cannot hoard it like sugar let alone export it like
tomatoes to
South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Malawi and
Mozambique.
Also the bearer cheques must all be
collected back
to the RBZ by the stipulated expiry date by which time fresh
cheques will be
issued. This will obviate the incidence of hoarding of large
sums of money.
Lastly, the statement of the
obvious is that the
taste of pudding is in the eating. Most people who have
experienced the
day-to-day hardships of the middle and lower classes will
support every
effort for the betterment of their
lives.
Please go ahead and make our day son of
the soil.
The
Vulcan,
Harare.