FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube Political Editor
SA
leader’s bid to resume talks forestalled
THERE was a fresh setback in the
talks between ZANU-PF and the opposition
this week after the ruling party
declined an invitation by South African
President Thabo Mbeki to a meeting
to break a deadlock over demands by the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
for a transitional constitution and a
postponement of the polls scheduled
for March.
President Robert Mugabe, who will fight in ZANU-PF’s corner as
the party’s
presidential candidate, insists elections will be held under the
current
constitution and will not be deferred beyond March, a position that
the MDC
sees as unacceptable.
Mbeki, who, unlike his Zimbabwean
counterpart, has a political future
balancing on the knife-edge after losing
the African National Congress
presidency to his rival, Jacob Zuma, had
called a meeting after the two
opposition representatives, Tendai Biti and
Welshman Ncube, informed him of
an impasse over the constitution and the
election timetable.
In an official complaint to Mbeki, the MDC accuses
ZANU-PF of backtracking
on an agreement to implement a transitional
constitution, and once again
pleads for a postponement of elections from
March to a later date to allow
the implementation of all other outstanding
matters in the agreement.
Sources privy to the negotiations told The
Financial Gazette that Mbeki,
through his negotiating team headed by his
local government minister Sydney
Mufamadi, had invited ZANU-PF and MDC
negotiators for a meeting in Pretoria
tomorrow.
However, ZANU-PF said it
would not agree to attend until President Mugabe
returns from his annual
leave, giving another glimpse into the veteran
politician’s unyielding grip
on the affairs of his party.
The President is currently on holiday in the Far
East.
The Zimbabwean leader, who turns 84 next month, has been the heart and
soul
of the ruling party, which he has shepherded since independence in
1980.
MDC and ZANU-PF would have travelled to Pretoria today for the
meeting.
“The idea is to prolong the talks until after the elections,
rendering the
whole process useless” said a source. “Another thing is that
ZANU-PF does
not want Mbeki to officially declare a deadlock to SADC (the
Southern
African Development Community), as it is clear ZANU-PF is
backtracking and
not following the spirit of the SADC talks.”
Neither
side was prepared to comment on the latest snag to hit the talks,
citing a
secrecy clause signed in Pretoria.
But a ZANU-PF official said: “They have
themselves (MDC) to blame. We are
only worried about elections. Why should
we be going to Pretoria when we
have an election in front of us?”
Mbeki,
who is seeing out his last term after unsuccessful attempts to push
for a
third term, had intended to use the Pretoria meeting to iron out
differences
between the two sides and pave the way for the staging of
elections with an
outcome that SADC says should be accepted by all parties.
As reported by The
Financial Gazette last week, the main sticking points are
a transitional
constitution and an election date.
The MDC, which was weakened by the October
2005 split, says it settled for
the transitional constitution following
assurances that the agreement would
be implemented prior to the elections.
It proposed that each side would
second two officials to a committee to
oversee the transitional charter. The
parties would agree on a fifth
member.
But the opposition says ZANU-PF is now against that deal, insisting
instead
on a new constitution after the election, which the MDC says is
unacceptable.
The opposition says the pace at which the transitional
constitution was to
be implemented was supposed to determine the election
date, adding that the
transitional constitution already agreed on was
essential in that it helped
in the setting up of infrastructure for a sound
electoral management system,
codes for good governance, and a human rights
regimen between now and the
election date.
Some of the critical issues
the opposition wants implemented before the
elections include allowing
Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to vote, the counting
of votes and announcement
of results at polling stations as well as agreeing
on the role of SADC and
other international observers in the elections.
The government insists it
will only allow “friendly” countries and
organisations to observe the
elections.
FinGaz
Staff
Reporter
ZANU-PF primary elections set for next month will further expose
the
widening fissures within the fractious ruling party and add fuel to
speculation over the emergence of a breakaway group.
Primaries are
likely to be called in the first week of February after
President Robert
Mugabe dissolves Parliament.
Analysts predict the elections could be held on
March 29, as President
Mugabe will resist pressure to postpone them.
But
as campaigning within ZANU-PF heats up, especially for candidacies in
the
party’s “safe” rural strongholds, latent divisions over the Zimbabwean
leaders’ incumbency will come to the fore.
“It is as if the delimitation
report is already out,” said a ZANU-PF insider
yesterday. “People seem to
know in which areas new constituencies have been
created, especially in
Masvingo.”
Sitting legislators are working overtime to fend off rivals
intending to
wrest power from them by plying traditional leaders with gifts
ranging from
cash to livestock to persuade them to rally local support for
the
incumbents.
An extra 90 seats have been created in the lower House of
Assembly, while
the senate will have an additional 43 seats, triggering a
stampede by
aspiring legislators who, sources said, are campaigning along
ZANU-PF
factional lines.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Minister of Rural
Housing and Social Amenities, has
reportedly sparked controversy in the
Midlands and Masvingo provinces, where
he is said to be seeking a new
political home after faring badly in Kwekwe
in two previous parliamentary
elections.
Mnangagwa lost in 2000 and 2005 to little known opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) candidate Blessing Chebundo, and is
said to be now
looking for accommodation either in Mberengwa or
Masvingo.
He is currently a non-constituency Member of Parliament (MP), but
with
President Mugabe’s powers to appoint loyalists to Parliament now
severely
curtailed, Mnangagwa is desperate to secure a seat on his
own.
Many more ZANU-PF stalwarts that have been rejected in urban areas are
to
fight primaries in their rural homes. In Manicaland, Irene Zindi, a
member
of the commission running Mutare, plans to challenge Oppah
Muchinguri, Women’s
Affairs Minister and ZANU-PF women’s league boss, in
Mutare South.
But the bitter fallout over President Mugabe’s succession is
likely to play
out more publicly in Matabeleland, where supporters of war
veteran Jabulani
Sibanda are determined to replace the old guard, whom they
have publicly
accused of “hiding behind the Unity Accord” to cling to
power.
It is said senior ZANU-PF figures in Matabeleland are among the
strongest
proponents of a new movement, which according to speculation could
emerge to
end President Mugabe’s continued hold on power.
But war
veterans, fiercely loyal to the President, want the senior officials
to play
no further part in ZANU-PF, charging they allowed the MDC to gain a
foothold
in the region.
John Nkomo, the ZANU-PF national chairman, Sithembiso Nyoni,
the Small and
Medium Enterprises Minister and Information Minister
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu would
have to hunt for “safe” constituencies to curtail
their dependency on
President Mugabe’s leniency.
Other non-constituency
MPs such as Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Water
Resources Minister,
Munacho Mutezo, Indigenisation Minister, Paul Mangwana
and Mines Minister
Amos Midzi are also under pressure to wean themselves
from the ageing
Zimbabwean leader who has single-handedly guaranteed their
continued stay in
government.
In Masvingo North, Stan Mudenge, the Minister of Higher and
Tertiary
Education, is said to be now sleeping easier after the suspension
of Kudzai
Mbudzi, who had shown a desire to challenge him in the
polls.
Mbudzi, who publicly opposed last year’s controversial solidarity
marches
for President Mugabe, has been linked to senior figures within the
ruling
party and in business reportedly seeking to forge a broad coalition
that
would include the opposition.
In Bikita, Claudius Makova is
understood to be facing a threat from Elias
Musakwa, a Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe employee and gospel singer.
But an unwritten requirement that
parliamentary and senatorial hopefuls
should have been provisional members
of ZANU-PF for the past five years and
over 46 years of age is said to have
thwarted the aspirations of many Young
Turks, among them Henrietta Rushwaya,
the acting chief executive of the
Zimbabwe Football Association who had
shown an interest in standing in
Masvingo province.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda Senior Business
Reporter
A NUMBER of companies might fail to re-open after the
traditional annual
shutdown ending this week in the first clear sign yet of
the irreparable
damage inflicted on industry by an economic crisis entering
its ninth year.
Industry sources revealed this week that several
companies would remain shut
while some of those that had planned to resume
operations next week
postponed opening their doors until after the joint
March elections when
they hope to have sourced enough foreign currency to
resume production.
They said most companies had shelved reopening because of
the crippling raw
material shortages caused by the huge supply deficit of
foreign currency.
Zimbabwe has struggled to shore up its foreign currency
reserves after the
International Monetary Fund pulled the plug on the
troubled state in the
late 1990s.
Donors and foreign investors, unnerved
by government’s populist economic
policies quickly rushed for the exits,
leaving the country grappling with a
precarious foreign currency
situation.
The July 2007 price blitz, which central bank governor Gideon Gono
last week
referred to as “the darkest period in the history of Zimbabwe,”
arobbed
industry of the little hope for recovery.
“The current blitz on
the parallel market and the spying on companies has
scared and forced most
firms to postpone resumption of operations.
“Furthermore, the economic
conditions are running counter to normal business
practice,” said a
source.
Industry executives said some manufacturers had seen it feasible to
keep
their firms shut because of unviable prices dictated by the National
Incomes
and Pricing Commission (NIPC) and the costly and intermittent power
outages.
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries chief executive officer Joseph
Malaba
yesterday said the apex industrial lobby group was still assessing
the
impact of the economic crisis.
“Information of that nurture (failure
to reopen) has not reached us. We are
conducting our members to find out
what challenges they are facing. It’s a
bit early to comment,” Malaba
said.
Government has previously threatened taking over companies viewed as
“sabotaging” the economy. It is feared that prolonged company closures might
put the companies’ shareholders on collision course with President Robert
Mugabe’s government.
The NIPC has since last year been dictating prices
to manufacturers and
retailers. But executives protest that the fixed prices
are uneconomic and a
threat to their survival.
A Financial Gazette
assessment showed pessimism hanging over the economy
with no chances of
recovery as a spate of price hikes and the dislocation of
key economic
fundamentals pervades the country.
Economic analysts said most companies
would continue shattered by the
economic crisis, which is marked by a world
beating inflation estimated
above 24 000 percent despite accessing cheap
production funds under the
Basic Commodities Supply Side Intervention
(BACOSSI) facility.
“BACOSSI doesn’t give foreign currency to import raw
materials,” said one
analyst.
Other observers said nothing is expected to
change in the troubled country
where government’s ill-advised policies would
continue to wreak havoc ahead
of this year’s elections.
Critics said the
comatose economy will continue to be a victim of government’s
dangerous
experiments with the economy, especially as the ruling ZANU-PF
wobbles into
a crucial election, which it has to win at all cost.
“There is no source of
optimism (on economic recovery). How does it
(optimism) come when the
government is enlarging parliament and the senate
when you don’t have
money,” said Godfrey Kanyenze, the director of the
Labour and Economic
Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe.
FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube Political
Editor
THE Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) needs to urgently recruit about
32 000
additional officers to adequately supervise elections in March, a
parliamentary committee says.
In a report last month on the
third-quarter budget performance of the Home
Affairs Ministry, the
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and Home
Affairs said while
Kembo Mohadi’s ministry was reeling under a severe
cash-crisis, it needed to
boost its numbers to man the polls.
President Robert Mugabe, who has been in
power since independence in 1980,
has scheduled Presidential, House of
Assembly, senate and local government
elections for March.
The main
faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is
demanding
a postponement of the harmonised polls to June to allow for the
leveling of
the skewed political playing field.
The parliamentary report shows that the
current size of the ZRP, which has
been accused in the past of being
partisan, is 28 000 police officers.
“In view of the forthcoming elections,
there will be 15 000 polling stations
and there are supposed to be four
police officers per station,” the report
says. “Therefore, the department
(of Home Affairs) requires an additional 32
000 personnel to meet the
demands of the forthcoming polls. This means
additional funds are needed for
training.”
Under constitutional provisions agreed between ZANU-PF and the
feuding MDC
factions, elections will be held in a single day, which is in
line with
Southern African Development Community guidelines on the staging
of
democratic elections.
The committee recommended that Treasury release
funding immediately to
finance the police force’s activities in the run up
to elections.
The committee, chaired by ZANU-PF Member of Parliament for
Bikita West
Claudius Makova, said the Registrar General’s office, which is
also partly
involved in the running of elections through its responsibility
for the
voters’ roll, urgently needs at least $80 billion more after
extending the
mobile registration exercise.
“Treasury is running late in
releasing funding for this programme. Your
committee gathered that for the
printing of the voters’ roll, only $10
billion was provided, yet the process
required Z$3.5 trillion,” it said.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, chaired
by George Chiweshe, has just
completed the delimitation exercise that saw it
carving 210 House of
Assembly constituencies, 93 senatorial boundaries and
about 2000 wards for
local government elections.
The opposition has
criticised the composition of the ZEC, saying it is
packed with President
Mugabe’s ex-military loyalists and other ZANU-PF
sympathisers.
Justice
Chiweshe is a former Zimbabwe National Army court martial judge.
FinGaz
Dumisani Ndlela
Business Editor
THE imminent split in ZANU-PF, reported by The Financial
Gazette last week,
has heightened tension in the ruling party and Cabinet
amid fears that
President Robert Mugabe could take stern measures against
those involved.
The ZANU-PF strongman is currently on holiday in Asia,
and is expected back
at work before the end of this month.
Reports on the
looming split, which has the backing of some senior African
National
Congress officials, are said to have increased apprehension within
ruling
party ranks, with sources indicating that even a Cabinet meeting
chaired by
acting President Joseph Msika on Tuesday “had been subdued” due
to deepening
fears that President Mugabe was likely to axe some members of
his inner
cabal on his return.
One Cabinet minister called this reporter to say the
newspaper had “stoked
fire for us” due to its publication of the
story.
The Financial Gazette can report that the planned split has the
backing of a
powerful faction within ZANU-PF, which has secured backing from
a number of
former PF-ZAPU cadres even “at Cabinet level”.
Apparently,
President Mugabe is said to be aware of the key players behind
the planned
breakaway from the party, and had tarried taking action to fully
digest the
full consequences of a purge.
But nervous government officials who are part
of the plot said they had
information that President Mugabe could purge them
from office once he
resumes duty after his annual holiday.
It was not
immediately clear if the purge would be wholesale, or if it would
simply
target a few individuals and ignore the godfathers as happened when
he
punished members aligned to former ZANU-PF secretary for administration
Emmerson Mnangagwa for attempting to block Joice Mujuru’s ascendancy to the
Presidium.
Mujuru was pitted against Mnangagwa in the race for the second
most powerful
position in both the party and the country.
Six provincial
chairmen including Daniel Shumba who now leads the United
People’s Party and
Jabulani Sibanda, whose resurgence has ruffled the
feathers of the old guard
in Matabeleland, were suspended from the party
over the so-called Tsholotsho
Declaration.
Sources last week indicated that the suspension of Attorney
General, Sobuza
Gula Ndebele, an ex-officio member of the Cabinet, could
indicate the manner
in which President Mugabe is likely to deal with the
issue, a source
suggested.
Ndebele was suspended pending investigations
into allegations that he
privately met former NMBZ Holdings executive, James
Mushore, when he knew
the banker was on the police wanted list.
Ndebele
is reportedly aligned to the powerful faction within ZANU-PF with
strong
links to the military.
Reports last year indicated that the faction had
scuttled President Mugabe’s
bid for endorsement at the 2006 ZANU-PF
conference, at which he had sought
backing for proposals to harmonise the
country’s presidential and
parliamentary elections this year, as well as
make the legislature an
electoral college responsible for the appointment of
a presidential
successor should the incumbent decide to retire during his
term.
A Herald columnist, widely believed to be President Mugabe’s spokesman
George Charamba, last week discounted The Financial Gazette’s report on the
looming split as “an old, tired beat, much like assault, theft or murder
trials in court journalism”.
Ironically, Charamba contemptuously
indicated that “the supposed launch
month for the stillborn initiative is
February”, after indicating that Ibbo
Mandaza, “who was not given us as
straightforwardly such” in The Financial
Gazette’s report, was the key
person driving the initiative.
“He (Mandaza) and a major (Kudzai) Mbudzi have
whispered loud enough to make
intelligence gatherings effortless,” Charamba
said, almost revealing the
involvement of former military
officers.
Mbudzi declined comment yesterday, saying he was yet to read
Charamba’s
allegations.
Mandaza said: “We’ll be replying to the civil
servant’s comments in good
time.”
The Financial Gazette did not name the
people driving the strategy, nor
those reformists likely to defect from the
party to join members of the two
factions of the Movement for Democratic
Change, due to legal reasons.
But Charamba, who uses the pen name Nathaniel
Manheru for his column, made
an uncharacteristic attack on Simba Makoni, a
former finance minister in
President Mugabe’s Cabinet who is currently a
politburo member in the party,
saying he had been touted as the possible
leader of the breakaway party.
Indirectly referring to Makoni, Charamba
charged: “Who was Zimbabwe’s energy
minister when the country faced its
first energy crisis in the early
eighties?” How did he leave SADC,
Zimpapers, government?”
This suggested a dishonest past for Makoni.
Makoni
was minister of energy in President Mugabe’s first Cabinet after
independence and led the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as
its secretary general before leaving to take up an appointment as chief
executive officer of Zimpapers and later rejoining Cabinet as finance
minister.
Makoni left Zimpapers after clashing with President Mugabe’s
relative, the
late Charles Chikerema, then an editor with The Sunday Mail
and resigned
from Cabinet after stern opposition from other Cabinet members
who alleged
his pro-free market policies were backed by the West and
labelled him an
economic saboteur.
One of they key ruling party members
involved in the initiative was said to
have met Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of
one of the factions of the MDC, to
push the initiative forward.
FinGaz
Njabulo
Ncube Political Editor
THE violence sparked by the disputed election
outcome in Kenya, which left
at least 600 people dead, provides an important
lesson for Zimbabwe ahead of
its own polls in March, analysts said this
week.
Independent political analysts who spoke to The Financial Gazette
as mayhem
continued to engulf Kenyan slums and rural areas agree that the
prevailing
political environment in Zimbabwe, in which President Robert
Mugabe is
viewed as a “player and referee”, could be a recipe for
disaster.
With the ruling ZANU-PF and the main opposition Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) deadlocked on pre–election conditions, it is a moot
question
whether this state of affairs does not pose a threat of violence
breaking
out if tensions increased and the outcome was not accepted by all
parties?
“Unless we have an independent and transparent electoral commission,
clearly
the elections will be rigged in favour of ZANU–PF and the incumbent,
sparking discontent,” said Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National
Constitutional Assembly. “What has triggered the regrettable situation in
Kenya is that there was no transparency and independence in that country’s
electoral commission.”
Kenya’s electoral commission chairman, Samuel
Kivuitu, fuelled tensions when
he told the media; “I don’t know if (Mwai)
Kibaki won.”
He claimed that he was under pressure from the ruling party to
declare
Kibaki the winner. The only way to avoid a recurrence of the Kenya
debacle
in Zimbabwe, analysts said, is to ensure a level playing field for
all
parties.
Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri was yesterday quoted
on state radio
saying he hoped Zimbabweans learnt something from the Kenyan
experience.
While there is debate as to whether Zimbabweans have the stomach
for street
protest – previous attempts to rally such actions have
failed.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main camp of the opposition MDC, has
warned
that the prevailing political environment was not conducive to free
polls.
The former trade unionist called on President Mugabe to stop
dilly-dallying
on the implementation of crucial agreements hammered out by
parties to South
African President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation process Okayed by
the Southern
African Development Community (SADC).
The opposition joined
forces with the ruling party in endorsing amendments
to a plethora of pieces
of legislation, among them, Constitution of Zimbabwe
Amendment Number 18,
which harmonised elections. The 18th amendment is seen
paving the way for
President Robert Mugabe to handpick his successor through
an electoral
college.
The opposition also co–sponsored amendments to tough media and
security
legislation– the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy
Act and the
Public Order and Security Act.
But the MDC wants President
Mugabe and ZANU–PF to fulfill their part of the
bargain.
They want
ZANU-PF to agree to the setting up of a committee of four that
will draw up
a transitional constitution before the elections and shift the
election date
to mid–year to allow the implementation of all changes agreed
upon.
Those
privy to the negotiations report sharp differences over the
composition of
the members of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), which
the opposition
says is packed with ZANU–PF functionaries and former military
personnel they
accuse of being biased against the opposition.
President Mugabe has declared
that elections will be held in March without
fail, a feat that is impossible
to pull off, Tsvangirai said last week.
ZEC chairman, George Chiweshe, told
state media on Sunday there would be no
postponement, adding to the
tensions. The parties also do not see eye to eye
on the role of
international players in the monitoring and supervision of
elections, as the
government has hinted it will only invite “friendly”
foreign organisations
as observers.
Jacob Mafume, coordinator of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition,
agreed with
Madhuku on the need for an independent electoral commission and
other
conditions stipulated under the SADC guidelines on what constitutes
democratic elections.
“What we have in the country at the moment is a
recipe for disaster in the
composition of the electoral commission. What we
have in place is not an
independent electoral commission by any imagination
but a partisan one that
is cherry–picked by the incumbent,” said
Mafume.
“Another lesson from Kenya is that we need to be clear as to how the
results
of the elections are announced. They should be announced at every
polling
station, and not only at the command centre, where the results can
be
manipulated.
“People in Kenya went on the rampage to protect their
votes because they
have strong suspicions that the vote was stolen by the
incumbent who used
state apparatus to rig the outcome,” said Mafume.
The
opposition claims that ZEC has set constituency and ward boundaries to
give
President Mugabe and ZANU–PF an advantage.
According to Tsvangirai, the
opposition refuses to participate in a “ritual
to legitimise” President
Mugabe through a flawed election. He warned: “To
register our displeasure
and to place our revulsion on the record, the
people are ready to express
themselves for an immediate end to the cash
crisis. An exhibition of
people–power shall see a speedy implementation of
the Pretoria agreement, in
particular the resolution of sticky points
threatening to derail our
progress.
“Other options on the table, should the deadlock remain entrenched,
include
a national shut–down and a series of lawful mass action activities
to pull
the nation out of the deep hole. The year 2008 provides us with
abundant
opportunities for a permanent solution to the national crisis.”
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda
Senior Business Reporter
ZIMBABWE’S troubled millers are pressing for an
urgent review of the retail
price of maize meal to avert the imminent
collapse of the grain milling
industry.
The Grain Millers Association
of Zimbabwe (GMAZ) warned this week in a
letter to the state-run and Soviet
styled price regulatory body — the
National Incomes and Pricing Commission
(NIPC) — that production costs had
built up phenomenally and were now
threatening to plunge the sector into
bankruptcy.
GMAZ said it was now
economically unviable to sell maize meal at a producer
price of $145 000 for
a 5kg bag last gazetted in September.
At $145,000 the price of a 5kg bag of
mealie-meal is $5,000 less than that
of a freezit.
A miller would have to
sell seven 5kg bags in order to buy a copy of the
daily Herald.
“Our
current prices, last gazetted on 24 September 2007 are now way too
below
economic production costs. Packaging and transport now constitute 56
percent
and 25 percent (of our total costs) respectively. These two main
costs are
expected to increase again considerably given the fact that they
are
directly indexed to international oil prices, which now reached an all
time
high. Labour costs are also going to rise as the trade union is pushing
for
above inflation wages,” GMAZ chairman Tafadzwa Musarara wrote in a
letter to
NIPC chairman Godwills Masimirembwa.
To operate viably and to avoid the
impending bankruptcy GMAZ has sought
approval to sell a 5kg bag of maize
meal for $2.4 million and $4.8 million
for a 10kg bag.
The milling body,
which has filed four unsuccessful applications with the
NIPC seeking a price
review, said delays to approve the new retail and
wholesale prices had
caused serious distortions in the market.
“Millers, as consumers of other
products need prices that are in tandem with
price increases that you
approve for other sectors so as to sustain
production viably,” said
Musarara.
Musarara said if granted an economic price structure millers would
boost
maize meal output to 15 000 metric tonnes per week and help end the
current
maize meal shortages gripping the country.
NIPC sources told The
Financial Gazette this week that submissions from the
milling industry would
only be considered once President Robert Mugabe, who
is out of the country
on his traditional annual leave, is back at his
Munhumutapa offices.
The
impasse over prices is also bleeding the Grain Marketing Board white,
which
has had to heavily subsidize the price of grain sold to millers.
Because of
the tight lid on the prices of grain, there have been massive
distortions in
the cost structures for the milling industry.
For instance, transport and
packaging costs, which ordinarily carry a lower
weighting, have overtaken
the cost of grain.
However, government still believes that because it is
subsidising the price
of grain, then the unit cost of the end product should
remain stagnant. This
is despite soaring inflation, estimated to have risen
above 24,000 percent.
Zimbabwe is grappling with one of its worst food
shortages since
independence amid reports that more than four million people
are living on
the edges of starvation.
Apart from food shortages
Zimbabweans are also battling with cash, fuel and
electricity shortages.
FinGaz
Stanley Kwenda Staff Reporter
A DEVASTATING outbreak of
diarrhoea and water-borne diseases in Harare’s
teeming suburb of Mabvuku has
raised a major health emergency that
highlights the continued crumbling of
the quality of urban life in Zimbabwe.
As government officials moved in
with ZTV cameras in tow to appear to be in
control of the situation, fresh
questions are being asked about the role of
state-run Zimbabwe National
Water Authority (ZINWA) in the crisis.
A shocking figure of 400 cases of
cholera have been reported in Mabvuku — a
high-density suburb situated some
17 kilometres east of the capital — over
the past two weeks, prompting
Health Minister David Parirenyatwa, to spring
into action.
Talent
Chikomo, a resident of Mabvuku for 20 years, blames the national
water
authority for the festering crisis.
“We started having all these problems
when ZINWA came in. Before that, we
did have problems, but they were
attended to quickly. We were treated as
people. Now, if you report a burst
sewer pipe, nothing happens,” said
Chikomo.
Aging sewerage systems, which
ZINWA inherited from councils, can no longer
cope with the population
explosion, and spew raw sewage onto the streets.
Residents in most towns and
cities where the water supply situation has
deteriorated rapidly over the
years now use any secluded spots to relieve
themselves.
Bushy places have
become a war zone between men and women fighting for
privacy when they go
out to answer the call of nature.
But beneath this tragi-comic scenario lies
a deep-seated national disaster
waiting to explode, and ZINWA is at its
centre.
And sadly, the national threat comes at a time when the health
delivery
system is in critical condition owing to the shortages of drugs,
equipment
and the brain drain involving mostly doctors, nurses and
pharmacists.
Industry, which is operating at less than 20 percent capacity,
has not been
spared by the water shortages either.
As soon as ZINWA,
whose role was previously restricted to bulk water
supplies, arrived on the
scene in 2006, urban people quickly learnt to cope
with endless water
problems plus the stench of raw sewage flowing onto their
doorsteps.
ZINWA, whose board was dissolved last month following a spate
of
resignations, has blamed everything and everyone else, including the
public,
except its own inefficiency.
In the past, the water authority
cited droughts to explain its inability to
cope with urban demand.
But
visiting Lake Chivero, the main source of potable water for Harare, last
weekend and seeing it full, leaves one with no option but to conclude that
the culprit is ZINWA.
“The people of Mabvuku have been drinking water
from unprotected sources for
a long time, and to say that the 400 reported
cases of diarrhoea were caused
by a burst water pipe is simply stretching
the truth,” said Collins
Chihwehwete, a resident of Mabvuku.
“It is
amazing how water is overflowing at Lake Chivero (formerly Lake
Mcllwaine),
but still we have no water in our homes. Who else can we blame
in such a
case but ZINWA?”
The Herald reported on Monday that the country’s major dams
were now 87
percent full, quoting, ironically, statistics provided by
ZINWA.
So, what is the explanation for the water cuts?
“ZINWA’s takeover
(of water supplies) has actually worsened the problem of
water shortages. In
all fairness, the coming in of ZINWA heralded a new era
of increasing water
shortages,” said Jabusile Shumba, senior programmes and
advocacy officer for
the Combined Harare Residents’ Association.
But with ZINWA extending its
influence into all major towns and cities, its
inefficiencies might force
the government to spend more on controlling
health disasters such as the
outbreak of cholera and other water borne
diseases.
To make matters
worse, following the collapse of healthcare delivery,
hospitals that have
been hamstrung by constant strikes are hardly providing
any treatment for
water borne diseases.
Research commissioned last year by Transparency
International Zimbabwe into
the state of governance within Harare
Municipality showed that chronic water
and sewer problems contributed to the
outbreak of diseases in the city.
“Those who live in suburbs in the capital
where raw sewage flows through the
streets and where the stench of
uncollected garbage fills the air are
unlikely to agree that Harare is the
Sunshine City,” the report said.
The report said young children living in
poor parts of Harare are at great
risk of contracting disease.
The study
established that the Harare City Council has become a hotbed of
corruption,
with party stalwarts and those close to people in the corridors
of power
being awarded service and supply contracts without going to tender
or
declaring their interest, contrary to the Local Government Act.
A commission
appointed by Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo after he
hounded
elected opposition mayor Engineer Elias Mudzuri and his entire
council from
office is running Harare.
Chombo has ignored court rulings to dismiss the
commission, perpetuating a
situation that bars ordinary residents from
having a say in the running of
municipal affairs.
The Harare City Council
and ZINWA teamed up this week to drill about five
boreholes in Mabvuku to
provide residents with clean water.
But council’s waste management division
is still not collecting garbage,
meaning the health threat will
remain.
The water crisis in the mining town of Kwekwe casts useful light on
ZINWA’s
incompetence.
The town was previously one of the few urban
centres that had a constant
water supplies. This was because the Zimbabwe
Mining and Smelting Company
(ZIMASCO), one of the city’s largest industries,
had a deal with the
municipality under which it used its own foreign
currency to import water
treatment chemicals for the city, in exchange for
exemption from paying for
the water it used at its smelter. This secured
Kwekwe’s chemical needs and
ensured taps never ran dry.
But ZINWA, upon
taking over jurisdiction for water management, cancelled the
arrangement
with ZIMASCO, which has been taken-over by China’s largest
importer of
chrome, Sinosteel.
Now, even with its supply dam, Sebakwe, more than 100
percent full, Kwekwe
goes for days without water because ZINWA does not have
the foreign currency
to import chemicals.
In Bulawayo, residents were
confronted with muddy water flowing from their
taps over the festive
season.
Despite its inability to deliver, ZINWA opposes the drilling of
boreholes by
residents.
“No one is allowed to drill a well without
permission from ZINWA. The reason
why ZINWA insists on approving the wells
is to ensure that they are dug
correctly without endangering the lives of
the people using them,” said
Tsungirirayi Shoriwa, ZINWA spokesperson.
FinGaz
Charles Rukuni Bureau
Chief
BULAWAYO — Zimbabwe has the highest inflation in the world. One
United
States financial magazine this week put it at over 500 000
percent.
Officially it is reported to be anything between 14 000 and 24
000 percent.
But whenever one talks about where to invest, its name keeps on
popping up.
Despite the economic meltdown that has seen its wealth decline by
nearly
half, Zimbabwe remains one of the best investment destinations in
Africa,
now the focus of those seeking better returns on their
investment.
The interest cuts across the world. One of Australia’s richest
men is
already in Lornho, one of the economic powerhouses during the
colonial era,
spearheading the campaign in London through a new company
called LonZim.
China, one of the fastest growing economies at the moment, has
lined up
several projects.
Merrill Lynch in the United States has drawn
up a list of top companies to
invest in.
A South African investment firm
said investing in Zimbabwe was not for the
faint–hearted but there were some
handsome returns for those with an
appetite for risk.
LonZim which is now
listed on the London Alternative Investment Market has
taken the lead and
has brought with it one of Australia’s richest men, James
Packer.
It has
already purchased two operating companies in Zimbabwe, stock exchange
listed
Celsys, a telecoms and IT company that prints cheque–books, mobile
phone
recharge cards and has a Nokia concession in the country and
Gardoserve,
which makes chemicals for the textiles industry.
LonZim says while it will
not have a particular sectoral focus, it will seek
to identify individual
companies in sectors best positioned to benefit
should there be positive
improvements in Zimbabwe’s economy.
It is likely to make investments in the
tourism, accommodation,
infrastructure, transport, commercial and
residential property, technology,
communications, manufacturing, retail,
services, leisure, agricultural and
natural resources sectors.
It may
also make investments in businesses outside Zimbabwe that have a
majority of
their operations within Zimbabwe and will look into expanding
businesses and
brands currently owned by Lonrho or in which Lonrho has an
interest in
Zimbabwe.
China has several projects lined up. A Chinese company, Sinosteel,
has just
bought a 92 percent stake in ferrochrome company ZIMASCO, which was
once
owned by Union Carbide.
Last year two Chinese companies said they
had entered into joint ventures
with Dande Holdings to build thermal power
stations and to enter into
mining.
Qatar based Venessia Petroleum said it
wanted to build a 120 000
barrels–a–day refinery in the capital, Harare. It
planned to invest US$1.5
billion in the project.
Implats, the world’s
second largest platinum producer, and Aquarius, are
busy expanding their
projects and negotiating their way out of the
government’s indigenisation
programme.
But what is more interesting is a study by Merrill Lynch of the
United
States, entitled: Africa – the final frontier.
The study
identified 100 companies in 20 countries, which it said investors
should
watch.
Zimbabwe has nine out of the top 50 African companies.
It dominates
the financial services sector with three of the five companies
mentioned.
These are Barclays Bank Zimbabwe, now the country’s largest
commercial bank
in terms of assets, FBC Holdings, where the ruling party is
reported to have
a stake, and CBZ Holdings, which was rescued by the
government after the
collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce
International.
Barclays has raised a lot of international interest because of
the money it
has poured into agriculture at a time when everyone considers
it the
riskiest investment because of the government’s controversial land
reform
programme.
Zimbabwe has two companies in the retail sector: Cairns
and TA Holdings; one
in the telecommunications sector, Econet; and another
in the commodities
sector, Bindura Nickel Corporation.
It has Border
Timbers in the infrastructure sector and Hippo Valley in the
agricultural
sector. Anglo–American once owned both but Border is now part
of the Radar
group.
The question most people have been asking is why the interest in a
country
that everyone, including its nationals, seems to have written off?
The
answer is simple. They are looking beyond the current problems.
David
Lenigas, executive chairman of Lonrho and LonZim says: “LonZim will
only be
able to achieve its investment objective in the event the Zimbabwean
economy
radically improves.”
But he is quick to add: “We believe that Zimbabwe offers
a unique and
considerable investment opportunity as a direct result of the
current
economic climate and as a result of a lack of direct foreign
investment. We
believe that Zimbabwe will, in due course, regain its
position as a
significant economic powerhouse in Africa.”
Management
consultant and former Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce
president Luxon
Zembe says Zimbabwe has tremendous potential. “It’s
incredible.”
Investors are looking at the future. They know that there is
nothing that
does not come to an end.
“This phase we are going through is
going to come to an end so some people
are already looking beyond the
horizon.”
Returns in Zimbabwe are handsome. The key industrial index of the
Zimbabwe
Stock Exchange (ZSE) for example is reported to have grown by over
24 000
percent last year.
The ZSE was rated the best performer in the
world in 2007.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the barometer of the region’s
economic
powerhouse, South Africa, was a distant 42nd growing by only 18
percent
while Botswana fared better at number 23. Its bourse grew by 37
percent.
FinGaz
Zhean Gwaze Staff
Reporter
THE government’s hopes to make the 2007–8 agricultural season a
success
could turn out to be the “mother of all disasters” due to excessive
rains
and late planting by most newly resettled farmers.
Incessant
rains have resulted in most fields being waterlogged and farming
experts
this week said most crops could have been salvaged if farmers had
planted
earlier.
The experts said the heavy rains would not have been an issue for
commercial
farmers because of proper planning methods they use but for the
bulk of the
new farmers who depended on government for support, a disaster
looms.
Top dressing fertiliser, which is critical during this time of the
farming
season, is now reportedly in short supply.
Agriculture remains
the backbone of the country’s economy.
In 1998, it accounted for 28 percent
of Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product,
broadly defined as the total value of
goods and services produced by a
country in a year. Then it employed an
estimated 66 percent of the country’s
workforce.
But emotive land reforms
have taken the country several decades back.
The government in 2000 embarked
on agrarian reforms when vast tracts of land
belonging to white commercial
farmers were forcibly allocated to landless
blacks to address historical
land imbalances.
The exercise saw agricultural production plummet and foreign
currency
earnings from tobacco, largely, suffering a heavy blow.
Critics
blame the haphazard land reform programme for compounding the
country’s
economic crisis now in its ninth year although President Robert
Mugabe’s
government blame travel restrictions imposed by Australia, the
European
Union and the United States for precipitating the economic
meltdown.
Although the government distributed farming implements to new
farmers last
year, it failed to provide fertiliser, and yet the heavy rains
being
experienced have resulted in nutrients in the soil being washed
away.
“For most commercial farmers’ crops would have grown and absorbed all
the
nutrients but for the new farmers it is not looking good at all.
It
will be the mother of all disasters,” said John Worsley Worswick, chief
executive officer of Justice for Agriculture (JAG).
JAG represents about
4 300 white commercial farmers dispossessed by the
government’s fast–track
land reform programme.
“Unless there is adequate fertiliser to replenish what
is being leached,
then this season will be a disaster,” said Commercial
Farmers Union
president Trevor Gifford.
Renson Gasela, the Movement for
Democratic Change spokesman for agriculture,
said excessive rains should not
be cited as an excuse for what he expects to
be a poor harvest.
“As only
a third of the seed maize has been planted, we need to save that
small crop.
Top dressing fertilizers must be made available, otherwise this
mini crop
will be a total write-off,” said Gasela.
“Once again, the government cannot
escape the blame, not for copious rains,
but for the perennial failure to
have sufficient seed and fertilizers .We
cannot blame rain. The weather
forecasters had already predicted above
normal rains. What preparations were
done? Nothing, except promising the
farmers seed and fertiliser imports even
as late as end of November 2007.”
Finance Minister Samuel Mumbengegwi
predicted a 4 percent growth in
agriculture notwithstanding drought
conditions experienced during the
2006/07 cropping season.
But critics
say Mumbengegwi’s forecast is wishful thinking, given the
state-orchestrated
confusion on the farms.
JAG’s Worswick said a third of the 400 remaining
members of his union still
on the land were idle as evictions
continue.
The 400 remaining white farmers in the country are banking on the
Southern
African Development Community (SADC) tribunal’s interim relief
order issued
against the government, which allows them to remain on their
properties.
Worswick hoped the SADC order would be extended to protect all
the remaining
farmers.
The interim relief order, granted in Windhoek,
Namibia, late last year,
protects William Michael Campbell and his family
and all his employees from
takeover.
Government had forecast that two
million hectares would be put under maize
and would yield three million
tonnes.
However a recent report prepared by the Agricultural Technical and
Extension
Services (Agritex), showed that just over 1.3 million hectares had
been
tilled and only 719 000 hectares had been put under maize.
Agritex
said a shortage of inputs, such as fuel, seed, fertiliser and
chemicals had
affected planting.
“Farmers are also overwhelmed by weeds as there is a
shortage of herbicides,
and this also affects the well being of crops,”
another agricultural expert
said.
About four million people require food
aid before the next harvesting season
in April.
State media reported on
Tuesday that Zimbabwe would need to import at least
one million tonnes of
maize after deliveries of the 2007 crop to the state
grain procurer, the
Grain Marketing Board, amounted to only 700 000 tonnes.
Zimbabweans consume
1.8 million tonnes of maize annually.
FinGaz
Stanley Kwenda Staff
Reporter
UNTIL the widely condemned
Operation
Murambatsvina in 2005, Zimbabweans could count on housing among
the few
basic needs they could afford.
But following the operation, which affected
2,4 million people, according to
the United Nations, when thousands of
informal urban homes were razed to the
ground, Zimbabweans now face a
serious problem of
accommodation.
Other destructive policies
introduced by the
government since, such as the price cuts last July, which
led to food
shortages and the soaring of prices on the parallel market, have
also made
life an everyday struggle for survival. As businesses were forced
to import
foodstuffs and inflation shot to unprecedented levels, one
important result
has been the “dollarisation” of the
economy.
Dollarisation occurs when the
inhabitants of a
country use foreign currency in parallel to or instead of
the domestic unit.
Wikipedia, the most
frequently used online
reference point, cites Ecuador, El Salvador and
Panama among the economies
that have dollarised their
transactions.
Zimbabwe seems to be taking the
same route if
the events of the past months are anything to go
by.
With foreign currency having dried up on
the
official market owing to poor export performance and donor fatigue,
individuals, companies and organisations are increasingly relying on
non–official sources for their foreign currency
requirements.
But because inflation if fast
eroding the
value of the local unit, which has been under pressure since
November 1997,
it is becoming risky to demand payment in Zimbabwe dollars.
And as a result,
most goods and services are now being pegged in foreign
currency, including
school fees, rent, cars and in some instances
foodstuffs.
The shortage of cash has not helped
the
situation either, as people with access to foreign currency now prefer
to
transact in foreign currency.
Government
calls this dollarisation sabotage,
but economists say this makes sense under
the prevailing economic situation.
“The
dollarisation of the economy is caused by
inflation. The currency is losing
value at a continuous rate.
“It has become very
cumbersome to be always
reviewing prices. Because of this unstable
environment, it becomes easier to
quote prices in a stable currency such as
the United States dollar or the
South African rand,” said Witness Chinyama,
analyst at Kingdom Financial
Holdings.
Informal dollarisation was flourishing, even
if government refuses to accept
the fact. Chinyama said: “Authorities have
outlawed the use of foreign
currency. There is however, a semblance of
official dollarisation by the
government, which has been quoting duty on
assets such as vehicles in
foreign currency.”
Official documents, such as
passports, now
“officially” require one to pay in foreign currency. The
Registrar General’s
office now charges US$220 for a passport. In a tacit
admission of the
weakness of Zimbabwe’s own currency, government now also
demands duty in
foreign currency on hundreds of items it deems as luxury
items, including
motor vehicles.
Analysts
say the dollarisation of the economy
is simply “a show of the extent to
which people have lost confidence in the
local
currency.”
“It’s a situation which is forcing
people to
be criminals overnight, because if you want to import a car you
have to get
the required foreign currency to pay duty on the informal
currency market,”
said Chinyama.
A Harare
businessman said government should
allow businesses to peg prices in foreign
currency until it stabilises the
economy.
“Whether the government criminalises the use
of foreign currency or not, the
fact is that people will still factor in the
foreign currency component in
determining the value of their possessions.
Criminalising the use of foreign
currency is not a solution, what the
government should simply do is to fix
the economy and restore the value of
the Zimbabwean dollar,” he
said.
The streets of Harare are awash with
foreign
currency and, with the current cash shortages, it is not a surprise
to see
several people transacting in foreign currency. Countries such as
Namibia
have pegged their currencies to stronger units, allowing a dual
currency
system where the Namibian dollar is used together with the South
African
rand.
A cash-starved Harare
resident who identified
himself only as Roy argued in a letter to the editor
published in a weekly
newspaper recently: “Our stock of cash seems very low
at US$30 million. In
value terms there are more US dollars in circulation
than Zimbabwe dollars.
This is a recipe for collapse of trade and
commerce.”
FinGaz
Njabulo
Ncube Political Editor
A PARLIAMENTARY committee has recommended that
ZESA Holdings be allowed to
lease out its three idle thermal power stations
to private investors as the
economy reeled under worsening power outages
after Mozambique became the
latest neighbour to cut off supplies to
Zimbabwe.
The power utility’s Munyati, Harare and Bulawayo thermal power
stations are
currently not in operation due to a crippling shortage of coal
from Hwange
Colliery Company.
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on
Mines, Energy, Environment and
Tourism, said leasing the idle thermal
stations to private players would
boost capacity utilisation in industry,
which has hit an all-time low.
“Government should lease out small thermals –
Munyati, Harare and Bulawayo
to companies, which are able to run them. This
will in some way give a
respite to industries and businesses in the nearby
vicinity,” reads part of
the report.
It is estimated that most businesses
are operating at less than 30 percent
capacity with mines operating for only
four hours out of the 24-hour
schedule.
Gold production for last year is
expected to be at an all time low of below
eight tonnes in comparison with
three years ago when the country produced 21
tonnes.
Members of the
committee chaired by Binga legislator Joe Gabuza blame the
low capacity
utilisation on frequent power outages caused by ZESA’s failure
to expunge
its debts with regional electricity utilities such as Hydro
Cahora Bassa
(HCB) of Mozambique and Eskom of South Africa. The committee
noted that
communications networks have been experiencing continuous
congestion partly
due to power outages, adversely affecting business.
The poor wheat yields of
2007 were partly blamed on ZESA after power outages
disrupted
irrigation.
“The situation is making it difficult for companies to plan
because
disruptions usually occur without notice. The committee was deeply
worried
by the fact that most of these sectors play a key role in the
generation of
foreign currency,” it said. The power cuts had a more
widespread social
impact, the legislators said. “Social gatherings and other
activities have
been affected by power disruptions. It has become difficult
for ordinary
households to plan their activities, such as cooking. Most
families are
spending more money looking for alternative sources of energy,”
it said.
The committee said while government had a responsibility to cap
tariffs in
order to protect the poor, ZESA as a service provider, should
still
guarantee a reliable and continuous supply.
The report revealed
that the country had not paid its debts, for the period
March to August
2007, totalling US$42 million, to various regional
suppliers, among them
HCB. As a result, South Africa and Zambia discontinued
supplies several
times last year. Zimbabwe normally imports a third of its
electricity, or
500 megawatts, but this has been reduced to 150 megawatts.
However, this
week, Mozambique was reported to have switched off power to
Zimbabwe due to
an outstanding debt of about US$26 million owed to HCB.
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
10 January 2008
Posted to the web 10 January
2008
Kumbirai Mafunda
Harare
POWER utility ZESA Holdings has
sunk over US$20 million out of US$40 million
in the refurbishment of power
generation units at Hwange Power Station.
ZESA chief executive officer
Ben Rafemoyo told The Financial Gazette this
week that the overhaul of the
thermal power station had already chewed up
more than half of the allocated
US$40 million.
"Out of the US$40 million a little over US$20 million
has been drawn down,"
said Rafemoyo.
ZESA entered into a strategic
alliance with Namibia's state-run power
company NamPower last February to
refurbish power generation units at Hwange
Power Station at a cost of US$40
million.
Under the historic deal NamPower made provision to finance the
foreign
currency component for the rehabilitation of Hwange Power Station
stage 1
units and subsidiary plant and in turn import 150MW for a period of
five
years from Hwange.
The ZESA-NamPower project is expected to ease
the country's agonising power
outages, as it will result in increased power
generation capacity to 500MW
from the current 250MW.
However,
Rafemoyo said the overhaul of the power generation unit, which was
scheduled
for completion last December, will now be completed this month due
to delays
encountered in the procurement of replacement spares before
re-commissioning
the power generation unit.
Rafemoyo said after the completion of unit 3,
ZESA will undertake the
refurbishment of units 2 and 4.
"We want to
increase them (power generation units) to four this January,"
said
Rafemoyo.
ZESA is battling to increase local power generation to make up
for reduced
power imports from traditional regional suppliers who have
pulled the
reduced or stopped power exports to Zimbabwe over unsettled
arrears.
Zimbabwe used to generate about 60 percent of total national
power
requirements through Kariba South Power Station and Hwange Power
Station,
with the balance of 40 percent being met through imports from Snel
of the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique's HCB, Eskom of South Africa
and
ZESCO of Zambia.
But low foreign currency reserves over the past
eight years have impeded the
troubled southern African country from
accessing additional power supplies
resulting in frequent and disconcerting
power outages.
Zimbabwe is using the little foreign currency still
trickling into its
coffers to pay for vital fuel and food imports to keep
the country going.
Besides a hard currency crunch, ageing equipment and
inadequate coal
supplies have hampered local generation capacity.
Financial
Gazette (Harare)
10 January 2008
Posted to the web 10 January
2008
Staff Reporte
Harare
ZIMBABWE has been ranked among the
worst violators of economic freedom
worldwide, adding another smudge to the
country's widely condemned human
rights record blamed for an economic crisis
now entering its ninth year.
The 2007 Index of Economic Freedom, compiled
by the Washington based
Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal and
released at the end of
last year, showed that Zimbabwe anchored the
157-country list of economies
whose operating environments were reviewed by
the economic think tank.
Results of the study showed that Zimbabwe
scored 30 percent.
The Index of Economic Freedom is calculated on a scale
of zero percent to
100 percent.
"Zimbabwe ranked bottom, followed by
Congo Brazzaville and Angola," the
foundation said in its
commentary.
Economic liberties are judged following a 10 point criteria
that includes
business freedom, as evidenced by liberalisation and
privatisation policies,
trade openness, fiscal freedom, investment freedom,
freedom from heavy
bureaucracy, monetary freedom, property rights and
flexibility of the labour
market and laws on minimum wages, among other
issues.
Zimbabwe has reneged on previous plans to privatise its loss
making
parastatals and stands accused of property rights violations
committed
mainly during the controversial agrarian reforms, which started in
2000.
Economic analysts this week said the unfriendly policies, which
include the
prices cuts announced by the government of Zimbabwe in July last
year,
together with the proposed indigenisation and empowerment laws that
will
force foreign owned companies to cede substantial stakes to locals, had
led
to the poor scores Zimbabwe garnered in the annual research.
The
indigenisation laws are likely to enable the government to take up to 25
percent shareholding in mining companies for free.
Foreign banks,
Standard Chartered Bank and Stanbic Bank have warned that the
hostile laws
would trigger a surge in capital flight.
But the government has declared
that any foreign owned company that would be
uncomfortable with the policies
was free to leave.
"If Standard Chartered Bank feels they cannot continue
(operations in
Zimbabwe) they can simply go and CBZ can take over.
Metropolitan Bank can
take over, and FBC can do the same," Indigenisation
minister Paul Mangwana
told a Parliamentary committee last year.
But
what was striking in the results of the index was the inclusion of
China,
the world's fastest growing economy, in the group of restrictive
economies.
Just eight countries were deemed moderately free and 25
were described as
unfree, with seven of them falling into the unfree zone
whilst seven fell
into the repressed listing.
The five freest nations
were Mauritius with a global ranking of 34 percent,
Botswana 38 percent,
South Africa 52 percent, Namibia 55 percent and Uganda
59 percent.
FinGaz
Comment
A WORLD Bank
Institute (WBI) report revealed recently that Zimbabwe was
among the few
African countries in the throes of a precipitous economic
decline due to
endemic corruption. This is hardly surprising!
Transparency International
(TI)’s ranking of corrupt countries has shown
Zimbabwe steadily sliding down
the ladder to take up the worst spot among
continental states ravaged by
graft.
The rot has become so entrenched that it has ceased to be viewed as
disgraceful but a way of life. And it has hit at the heart of central
government.
Government’s machinery to deal with the vice seems to have
been attacked by
the virus as the festering cancer of corruption
spreads.
President Robert Mugabe has previously admitted the existence of
rampant
corruption among top members of his ruling party and Cabinet.
But
despite an array of enabling legislation and state arms to deal with the
vice, these agents lacked the teeth to bite these real economic saboteurs
sowing seeds of corruption.
A report detailing massive looting at ZISCO
involving politicians in high
places was last year suppressed, while nothing
has been done to apprehend
top officials plundering the country’s precious
minerals despite startling
revelations by the police that they have the
names of senior government
officials behind the smuggling of gold.
A
report by the Comptroller and Auditor General released early last year
revealed widespread graft in government, with blatant violation of
procedures in the issuance of monetary advances to officials. The report
also highlighted widespread incompetence within government and the uniformed
forces.
Government has responded by punishing the small fish and runners,
as has
been the case with the current war against “cash barons,” and not
those at
the epicentre of corruption.
The WBI said while the quality of
governance in 212 countries measured
between 1996 and 2006, had greatly
improved, Zimbabwe, together with Cote d’lvore
and Venezuela were
exceptions.
While government created institutions such as the Anti Corruption
Commission, and even a ministerial portfolio specifically tasked with
dealing with the scourge, nothing on the ground suggests the country is
moving forward to deal with corruption.
The worrisome thing is that
corruption is more rampant in high places, and
subordinates have joined in
because of the get-rich-quick syndrome now
characteristic of attitudes among
the country’s restive workforce.
It is now common to pay someone a bribe in
order to get a passport, or any
other service, without waiting in the
long-winding queues that are now a
common feature in the country.
And the
culprits in government know too well that their bosses will not deal
with
them because they are themselves the major drivers of dishonesty. This
is
not to say corruption has only been confined to the public sector
alone.
Corruption levels are equally worrisome in the private sector, both at
executive level and on the shopfloor.
A worrying trend, though, is the
entry of ordinary folks into the corruption
culture. High inflation has
eaten into incomes, and to escape the erosion of
their purchasing power,
workers are engaging in all manner of illicit
activities to
survive.
Economic distortions are also prevalent in the economy, creating
arbitrage
and corrupt business practices. Multiple fuel and maize prices as
well as
fickle exchange rates are fuelling corrupt tendencies.
Government
officials and their cronies are getting cheap, subsidised fuel
and staple
grains from the state granary, which they are quickly selling on
the black
market at extortionate prices.
Others are accessing foreign currency from the
official market at hugely
discounted rates, only to sell the scarce resource
on the thriving parallel
market at exorbitant prices.
When these corrupt
tendencies become entrenched in an economy, and are made
to partner skewed
economic policies, a breakdown of the rule of law, and the
government’s
destruction of the commercial farming sector – previously the
bedrock of the
country’s economy – there is potential for a major economic
condensation.
Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product has contracted by a
cumulative 40 percent
over the past eight years, and it has the largest
budget deficit in the
world at over 10 percent. This has the effect of
undermining confidence in
the economy.
Levels of confidence in business
and the economy dropped from 50 percent to
9 percent between 2000 and 2005,
according to independent studies.
Last year, government announced its
intention to conduct a baseline survey
to determine the level of corruption
in the country.
The survey, officials said, was meant to debunk the myth
created by
international bodies like WBI and TI, which ranked Zimbabwe among
the most
corrupt countries in the world. The survey was commissioned in
February, but
has been stalled by the lack of funding.
Even the
Anti-Corruption Commission established a year earlier has failed to
grit its
teeth against powerful politicians busy plundering the country with
impunity.
It’s time the powers-that-be moved forward by showing real
commitment
towards tackling widespread corruption derailing economic revival
efforts.
FinGaz
Mavis
Makuni
Even the most rabid propagandist must admit that it is now
ridiculous to
continue to pretend that all is well in this country and to
cast aspersions
on those Zimbabweans who are disturbed by this state of
affairs and call a
spade a spade.
Not long ago, Information Minister
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu was urging foreign
journalists to tell "the true story of
Zimbabwe" which is propaganda speak
for sunshine journalism. But if the
minister is honest, he will admit that
even the official press now struggles
to gloss over the myriad problems
calling for realism and pragmatism rather
than political expediency and
self-preservation.
Recent issues of the
state daily, The Herald, have featured stories about
the continuing water
problems in the capital and other urban centres. An
outbreak of diarrhoea
has been reported in Tafara and Mabvuku where 400
people have been taken
ill. As usual only reactive rather than proactive
measures are being taken.
The health hazards leading to the outbreak of
disease were a result of the
failure of the Harare City Council to collect
garbage from residential areas
and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority's
notorious inefficiency. The
Herald reported in its issue of January 5 that
the two suburbs had been
experiencing erratic water supplies and blocked
sewers. The extent of the
dereliction of duty by the responsible authorities
is reflected in the
official daily's description : "Yesterday ZINWA workers
were on the ground
removing raw sewage with excavators on roadsides and open
spaces close to
houses."
An accompanying picture showing an excavator digging into a mountain
of
refuse gives a rough idea of how long the city council had not bothered
to
collect and dispose of garbage from the area. The Minister of Health and
Child Welfare, David Parirenyatwa is reported to have paid a belated visit
to the two suburbs, triggering the flurry of activity that should be
undertaken routinely under normal circumstances. Official spin doctors will
try to project the stop gap attempts now being made to deal with the crisis
as an achievement for which the government should be praised. Rather than
being an achievement, the piece meal measures are confirmation that because
of rampant corruption, ineptitude and dereliction of duty, service delivery
has collapsed throughout the country.
Tuesday's issue of The Herald had
more disturbing news. The paper reported
that the Environmental Management
Agency had summoned the Harare and
Chitungwiza city councils to explain
their dereliction of duty which had
resulted in their failure to collect
garbage from residential areas in
Mabvuku, Tafara, Kuwadzana, Chitungwiza,
Glen view, Glen Norah, Mufakose and
Budiriro. These are densely populated
areas where disease can spread like
wild fire. The inefficiency of the
responsible authorities puts the health
of great numbers of residents at
risk. The local authorities also stand
accused of discharging raw sewage
into the environment. It is a nightmare
for the people to live in these
dangerous conditions as a resident from one
of the affected suburbs
explained when she told the state daily: "We want to
live in a healthy
environment. We have suffered a lot due to water cuts but
at least they have
heard our cries."
The big question to ask amid all this squalidity and
disease is why the man
responsible for reading the riot act to the inept
officials, Local
Government and Urban Development Minister, Ignatius Chombo
is no where to be
seen or heard. Where is this notoriously meddlesome
minister when he is
needed? Why is he not dealing with the Harare City
Council in the same
unrelenting way he targeted the administration of Elias
Mudzuri, who had
been elected executive mayor on a Movement for Democratic
Change ticket?
Residents still fume at the memory of Chombo's ruthless and
shameless
vendetta against Mudzuri, whom he accused of incompetence more
than three
years ago.
But looking at the state of affairs today, Harare
was a paradise under
Mudzuri's stewardship compared to the stinking dump it
has degenerated into
under the commissions appointed by Chombo to run the
affairs of the capital
in a flagrant infringement on the rights of residents
to elect city
officials of their choice. It is notable that since the
dismissal of
Mudzuri, the minister no longer seems to care what happens to
urban
residents. Gargabe is not collected from residential areas and
un-repaired
potholes have begun appearing even on pavements under gleaming
buildings in
downtown Harare.
Readers will remember Minister Chombo
giving an MDC chairman of the
Chitungwiza Town Council 48 hours to tackle
sewage problems that had been
deteriorating steadily for years because of
poor management and lack of
planning by previous administrations. Things
have continued to deteriorate
under the hand-picked officials who were
brought in by Chombo to replace
popularly elected councillors. When Chombo
began his boorish campaign to
remove MDC officials from local councils, the
hype was that this was being
done to improve service delivery.
However,
an objective assessment of the unmitigated disasters that have
ensued after
the forcible takeovers of local authorities and the imposition
of the
Zimbabwe National Water Authority to manage water supplies in urban
areas
shows efficient service delivery is the last thing on the minds of the
powers-that-be. The driving motive behind their illogical actions is to
usurp control from the MDC and punish the party for enjoying support among
urban populations. Vengeance, in short.
In a national election year, one
cannot help wondering what the ruling party
is capable of doing behind the
scenes if it can so blatantly subvert the
will of urban residents who voted
for the local officials who have been
systematically hounded out of office.
Where is Minister Chombo when so many
questions beg answers?
—mmakuni@fingaz.co.zw
FinGaz
Matters Legal with Vote
Muza
Countless justice-seeking individuals have had their hopes
shattered
Two significant developments ensued at the end of 2007, both of
them having
a negative bearing on our erstwhile reputable legal
system.
First was the industrial action by magistrates and other court
officials,
which has left our judicial system heavily compromised, and
reeling under a
blotted case backlog.
Worth to note is the fact that this
job action was the first in the history
of the country, be it before or
after independence.
That this embarrassing development had to take place at
such a critical and
delicate stage of our nation’s development was
unavoidable.
Lower courts’ judicial officers had had their patience stretched
to the
limit after years of false promises by government through its
successive
Justice Ministers. Reports that these striking judicial officers
were
awarded a 600 percent salary increment are pleasing, but more needs to
be
done.
Without appearing like I am turning myself into a trade unionist
for these
court staff, I believe that a lasting solution should be to
emulate what
happens in the private sector where salaries are now being
upwardly reviewed
every month in order to keep up with inflation.
The
story should not end there, houses, vehicles and other tangible benefits
should come their way.
If this suggested solution is not implemented,
there is a more than
realistic possibility that the events of the past
months could repeat
themselves sooner rather than later.
Yet such an
embarrassing development should never be allowed to repeat
itself, for if it
does then it will mirror the absolute degeneration of our
once proud
judicial system.
In the past months, countless justice seeking individuals
have had their
hopes shattered, and a lucid example is many awaiting trial
prisoners
languishing in remand prison with no magistrates to try their
matters.
Resultantly, what becomes apparent is that the abdications of
responsibility
by government in leaving this impasse unattended for so long
has itself led
to a situation where the justice system has ironically become
the number one
violator of people’s human rights.
The second development
that has contrasting facets, in that it is both
worrying and interesting is
the absconding to the United Kingdom of David
Butau, ruling party
parliamentarian and business executive.
Having got wind of the news that he
was wanted by the Zimbabwe Republic
Police for questioning, the man wasted
no time in clandestinely bolting out
of the country to evade his imminent
arrest.
David Butau is no ordinary parliamentarian.
Being the chairperson
for the Budget and Finance Committee in parliament
makes him a key member of
our august house and the entire law making
process. But lo and behold, this
senior, and I believe honorable Member of
Parliament refused to be judged
under the laws he makes.
His reason for absconding– that he wanted to avoid
“rotting in remand
prison” obviously raises more questions than
answers.
By making such a statement, he unwittingly confesses that for the
time that
he sat in parliament, he knew all along that our criminal and
penal systems
were hostile to suspects?
And what action did he take as a
concerned lawmaker to, not only highlight
the shortcomings of the criminal
justice system, but to also introduce
necessary amendments that would
revolutionalise our penal system.
To Butau, the fact that many citizens were
going through the harrowing and
excruciating experiences of our remand
prisons did not matter to him. Thus,
far as long as he was a free man and
enjoying the comfort of his wealth, he
did not give a hoot about the
appalling status of our prisons.
I bet he was not alone in this, but many
other parliamentarians and
influential people are fully aware of the
horrible conditions of prisons and
the insidious perversion of partiality,
judicial political activism and
corruption that have become the hallmark of
some of our courts.
When he saw Chris Kuruneri, James Makamba and many other
suspects rotting in
remand, he as a responsible parliamentarian and citizen
ought to have raised
alarm that some of our courts had become a dangerous
hazard to people’s
quest for justice.
Butau, just like the rest of the
parliamentarians who elect to keep quiet
well knowing that our criminal
justice system is no longer credible must
suffer the consequences of their
hypocrisy and abdication of responsibility.
What has happened to Messrs
Kuruneri and Makamba where they spend many
months in remand prison only to
be acquitted, that Butau swiftly avoided
through turning himself into a
fugitive might happen to any of our senior
state officials.
This is
therefore the right time to advocate a return to normalcy to dispel
the
widely held perceptions that our justice system is now resembling that
of a
banana republic.
The responsibility for lobbying for a drastic overhaul of
our criminal
justice system should start with parliamentarians followed by
lawyers and
supported by all human rights activists.
David Butau has
certainly set a bad precedent and a bad example that I fear
other suspects
might emulate and in the end leading to the undermining of
the due process
of law since it may become inevitable that a good number of
people facing
investigation by police may simply take flight rather than
face prosecution.
Get real about illegal immigrants
EDITOR — Tamupeyi Mupinyuri
seems to be under the impression that because
he/she is sitting pretty in
the Diaspora so is everyone else. There are so
many illegal immigrants in
the United Kingdom (myself included), who are
looking after so many families
back home.
Honestly, how can Tamupeyi suggest the deportation of illegal
immigrants
just because he/she wants to secure a Visa for a 70-year-old
grandmother?
Why be so spiteful.
Anyway, you can go ahead with your
shameful suggestion if you think you have
amassed enough wealth to look
after the families of all those you want
deported just because they don't
have the relevant documents to justify
their continued stay in the
Diaspora.
My friend, you should apply your mind on how best you can help
those without
proper documents secure them rather than focussing on what you
are trying to
do. This is my honest opinion as someone who is also trying to
secure the
relevant documents.
Munamato Siziba
United
Kingdom
-------------
Parallel market correct measure of
demand
EDITOR — In economics, it is the parallel market,
which correctly represents
the equilibrium between supply and demand. The
parallel market is beyond the
reach of anyone who seeks to control,
manipulate or destroy it.
Being inherently capitalistic, efficient and
managed by so many millions of
people, it is capable of reacting to
attempted political manipulations at
lightning speed. This was the case in
the Soviet Union where 70 years of
strict, heavy-handed clampdowns yielded
nothing.
The parallel market is an unstoppable force, a democratisation of
resources
and their allocation. It is the mechanism in which the people
maintain their
control over their resources, and exercise their democratic
freedom to
access them unhindered.
Political manoeuvring to clampdown,
destroy, control or subvert the parallel
market is no more and no less than
some select elite seeking to commandeer
the resources of the State from the
people for their own selfish benefit.
When the economic nightmare the country
is going through is finally over, it
will become clear that it is our
socialist leaders' greed permeating our
economy.
Capitalists are
inherently selfless, seeking to help others by meeting their
needs and
solving their problems. Compare that with the socialists in
charge, who seem
to do nothing other than incessantly feathering their nests
and manipulating
the economic system to ensure they have easy access to
resources by denying
the same access to the very people they purport to
serve.
We Zimbabweans
must ensure that the last bastion of democracy in our land is
not wrested
from our control. We must fight at all costs to maintain a
democratic
people-driven system currently labelled the parallel market.
In the free
countries of the world it is the parallel market, which
dominates, with the
controlled, manipulated and skewed markets of the greedy
being the ones,
which face clampdown.
We must maintain our populist answer to the monopolies
imposed upon us by a
government we no longer need or want.
It is their
monopolies, which we must destroy. We must reclaim control over
our economy
and do away with the socialist way of doing things once and for
all.
If
we fail to do this we will all surely starve as they (socialists) take
everything for themselves. It is time to take control of our lives.
Ding
Dong
Harare
----------
We don’t need
Tsvangirai
Editor—Faction leader Morgan Tsvangirai does not seem to
be serious with
regime change because of selfishness and pride.
After
all, we will never lose sleep over his dilly-dallying. Whoever
believes the
Mutambara formation of the MDC is desperate for unity with the
Tsvangirai
faction is living in cuckoo land.
We do not need Tsvangirai to win the March
elections.
The MDC has nothing to gain from Tsvangirai, who I believe is now
a spent
force.
We do not need to know whether there are formal or
informal talks going on
between the two formations of the MDC because we are
confident of winning
without any of Morgan Tsvangirai’s backers.
We have
had enough of the Buhera boy and we do not need some more of him.
We are
ready to vote for AGO in March 2008 not Morgan Tsvangirai or
President
Robert Mugabe.
Zimbabwe needs a visionary leader like Professor Mutambara and
we do not
regret having him in our midst.
K
Chihwayi
Harare
------------
Where is the promised forex for critical
skills retention?
EDITOR —It has been four months since Dr
Gono, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) governor announced in his mid-term
monetary policy review statement
that exporters could now pay their critical
staff in foreign currency as a
skills retention measure.
What puzzles me
is that up until now nothing has come through after making
our applications
to the RBZ, and our critical staff continues to leave for
greener
pastures.
May the governor please come through on this as this is also
reflecting
badly on us as
employers.
Concerned
Harare
-----------
You know economy has
collapsed when...
EDITOR — Our President has declared on
several occasions that the Zimbabwean
economy will never collapse. I do not
know whether this is a question of
semantics because, to all intents and
purposes, this economy has already
collapsed.
Your Excellency, when your
country's currency is so battered that one United
States dollar costs ZWD5,5
million (a whooping ZWD5,5 billion before the
revaluation of the local
currency in 2006), then your economy has all but
collapsed.
When the
highest denomination in your currency (ZWD750,000) cannot buy you a
pint of
beer, that economy has collapsed. When you cannot provide such basic
amenities like power and water to your subjects that economy is collapsed.
When refuse is not collected in over two years, putting the health of your
citizenry at great risk, that economy, Sir, has collapsed.
Maybe your own
definition, your Excellency, means having to pick up mortar
and bricks from
collapsed buildings on the streets. Even that cannot be far
away.
Masawi Munyanyi
Harare