FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube Chief Political
Reporter
Hotel extravagance embarrasses presidency
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe
has summoned Matabeleland North governor, Thokozani
Mathuthu, to explain her
prolonged stay at a three-star Bulawayo hotel - an
unnecessary indulgence
that has cost the overburdened taxpayer nearly $2
billion.
Mathuthu's
predilection for luxury, at a time when the government is
attempting to
right serious expenditure overruns blamed for the burgeoning
fiscal
deficits, has greatly embarrassed President Mugabe and his two
Vice-Presidents, Joseph Msika and Joice Mujuru.
Sources said
President Mugabe, who is expected to read the riot act to
Mathuthu, summoned
the Matabeleland North governor after revelations
surfaced of her unseemly
extravagance, which stretched over eight months, at
a time when two-thirds
of the country's population is wallowing in poverty.
"The story helped in
disclosing the incident and the President is acting,"
said an impeccable
source.
The source was, however, not sure exactly when the governor would
meet the
President.
Mathuthu was appointed to the post of provincial
governor in April last
year, replacing Obert Mpofu, who became the Minister
of Industry and
International Trade.
Mpofu, who was governor of the
province from 2000 until his election as
legislator for Bubi-Umguza in March
last year, stayed at his own house in
one of Bulawayo's posh suburbs from
where he was able to drive everyday to
the government's Mhlahlandlela
Building, where the governor's offices are
housed.
But since
Mathuthu's appointment, the government has been forking out about
$6 million
per night for bed and breakfast, according to a privately-owned
weekly
paper.
Apart from the $6 million, Mathuthu spent an average of $1.6 million a
day
for lunch and dinner, which meant that if she started living at the
hotel in
May after her appointment, her eight months in the lap of luxury
could have
gobbled nearly $2 billion from the fiscus.
Mathuthu's
office yesterday said the governor was not available for comment
as she was
in Tsholotsho, about 110 kilometres outside Bulawayo, on
government
business.
Ironically, Tsholotsho was the venue of a controversial meeting
that
subsequently claimed the scalps of six ZANU PF provincial chairmen, who
had
gathered there to plot how to stop Mujuru's ascendancy to the
presidium.
Presidential spokesman George Charamba could not comment, saying
he was on
leave.
Sources said while investigations were underway to
ascertain the actual
number of days the governor had lived at the hotel, it
was common knowledge
she lived at the hotel most of the time with her
husband despite having a
house in Bulawayo's Njube suburb. Although it could
not be ascertained if
the Mathuthus own the house, close associatesto said
the governor, whose
rural home is in Hwange, about 300 kilometers from
Bulawayo, has a farm near
the colliery town.
FinGaz
Felix Njini Chief Business
Reporter
ZIMBABWE'S mining sector has slipped in international ratings
with
international investors reluctant to invest in the country, citing
political
instability, lack of security and policy inconsistencies among
other issues.
In a 2004/5 mining survey conducted by the Canadia-based
Fraser Institute,
Zimbabwe is ranked last, with a score of 7.6 against
Nevada, United States,
which has the highest score of 95.2.
The policy
potential index measures the effects of government policies
including
uncertainty concerning the administration, interpretation and
enforcement of
existing regulations, environmental regulations, regulatory
duplication and
inconsistencies, taxation, uncertainty concerning native
land claims,
political stability and security among other things.
Other regional African
countries in the survey are Zambia, South Africa,
Botswana, Tanzania and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Institute said Zimbabwe's last
score of 7.6 is the 'lowest score
recorded in the last four years.' Other
countries whose rankings have
bottomed out include the DRC, Indonesia,
Russia, Bolivia and Venezuela.
In the survey, 44 percent mining and
exploration companies executives
interviewed said they would not pursue
investment in Zimbabwe because of its
policies on administration,
interpretation and enforcement of existing
regulations while 11 percent
cited this as a strong deterrent to investment.
On regulatory duplication
and inconsistencies, 39 percent of mining
executives interviewed said they
would not invest in Zimbabwe due to this
factor while 11 percent cited the
factor as a strong deterrent to
investment.
One area where Zimbabwe ranks
poorly is on its taxation policies, with 21
percent saying they would not
come to invest while 21 percent cited this as
a strong deterrent to
investment.
"In terms of repatriating profits, Zimbabwe and South Africa have
severe
(forex) foreign exchange regulations," said an unnamed manager of an
exploration company.
More than 28 percent of those interviewed also said
they would not pursue
exploration in Zimbabwe due to uncertainty regarding
native land claims.
Mining executives expressed strong reservations about
coming to Zimbabwe due
to lack of political stability with 67 percent saying
they would not pursue
investment, the survey reveals.
"Zimbabwe (is
troubled by) no respect for rule of law," a president of an
exploration
company is quoted as saying in the survey.
Zimbabwe's image has also been
heavily dented with investors expressing
concern over their security while
in the country. A stronger majority (57
percent) of those interviewed said
they would not investment due to this
factor while 30 percent cited this
element as a strong deterrent to
investment.
"Zimbabwe (has) terrorist
activity and expropriation," said an unnamed
president of an exploration
firm.
While most mining executives interviewed expressed reservations about
investing in the country, countries such as Zambia and Botswana have
attracted favourable ratings with investors citing favourable investment
climates.
Zambia for instance is being cited as one of the 'most
stable countries in
the Southern African region' amid reports that the
country attracted more
than US$1 billion in mining investment from 1995 to
2004.
Copper production in Zimbabwe's northern neighbour has increased by 55
percent over 2000 production figures and is projected to increase by more
than 200 percent by the end of 2007, said a report in the African Mining
Quarterly, published in Australia.
Zambia produced 550 000 tonnes of
copper in 2005 and is expected to produce
more than 600 000 tonnes this
year.
The country's lawmakers have invited the mining investor world to take
up
the cudgels of opening that country's mineral wealth as Zambia seeks to
exploit the high metal price regime on the international
markets.
Zimbabwe's image was dented in the international arena following
controversial expropriation of white-owned farms for redistribution to
landless blacks. The country hosts some of the world's richest strikes of
platinum group of metals (PGM), gold, ferrochrome, diamonds, nickel, natural
gas and uranium which is not yet being mined.
The country has also
come under the spotlight for its controversial property
rights record. The
mining sector, in particular, has been jittery on recent
hazy government
intentions to localise ownership of mineral wealth.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda
Senior Business Reporter
400 jobs set to go in exercise
ZIMBABWE'S
troubled national airline Air Zimbabwe is to retrench 20 percent
of its
workforce, the largest number of jobs lost in the history of the
airline, in
another clear testimony of mismanagement having gone awry at the
state-run
airline.
Informed sources disclosed that the retrenchment exercise, which
is yet to
be announced to the employees, will initially trim 400 jobs out of
the
airline's 2 000 plus staff complement amid reports that the redundancies
could be increased as the board moves to stem financial haemorrhaging at the
airline.
Although officials at the airline remained tight-lipped on
the pending job
cuts The Financial Gazette is reliably informed that the
airline will make a
formal announcement next week .
Sources said the
retrenchment measure was in compliance with a
cabinet-approved turnaround
programme meant to streamline the airline's
bloated structure, reposition it
to viability and grow its operations to the
levels of other elite
airlines.
They said the airline's determination to lay off workers is
influenced by
the continued ballooning of its foreign currency liabilities,
which include
meeting its bloated wage bill and expenses of running regional
offices.
In November, the airline took its first step towards
re-alignment with the
closure of four regional offices and one in the Far
East after noting the
continued decline in business.
The airline,
which has been battered by successive years of
maladministration, is also
reported to have considered the cost of keeping
the offices operational
vis-a-vis the size of business it was getting.
Insiders at the airline
also disclosed that the board of directors was
considering to once gain
extend its begging bowl to the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) for a
financial handout to meet the retrenchment costs.
Air Zimbabwe, which for
years has failed to turn around its fortunes, has
survived on assistance
from the central bank. Only recently the RBZ bailed
out the airline from an
embarrassing expulsion from the International Air
Transport Association
(IATA) after it failed to raise subscription fees.
Yesterday, board
chairman Mike Bimha, who is attempting to steer the sinking
Air Zimbabwe
ship to safe waters, could not rule out redundancies in
executing the
ambitious turnaround plan.
"Just like any other turnaround programme you look
at your structure because
it is the one that supports strategy," Bimha said
in a terse response.
Although Harare has adopted a Look East policy, it is
yet to harvest the
benefits of the refocus from its traditional tourist
source markets in
Europe and the Unites States.
Owing to extended
periods of mismanagement and undercapitalisation the
national flag carrier,
which is struggling to shrug off the inefficiency
associated with
state-owned enterprises, has been hit by a cocktail of
tribulations which
include a sharp fall in passenger numbers.
The airline also owes
creditors billions of dollars and its managing
director, Tendai Mahachi, is
currently on suspension and under probe.
Late last year the airline broke
aviation records by cruising more than 6
000 kilometres with a lone
passenger in its maiden trip to Dubai.
FinGaz
Felix Njini Chief
Reporter
SUSPENDED Chitungwiza executive mayor Misheck Shoko has charged
that Local
Government Minister Ignatious Chombo crippled urban councils to
facilitate
the imposition of ZANU PF functionaries.
In an urgent
chamber application in the High Court challenging his
suspension from the
municipality last month, Shoko cited Chombo and the
Chitungwiza municipality
as first and second respondents.
Shoko - voted into office in 2002 on an MDC
ticket - argued that his
suspension was unlawful and was undertaken without
consultation, in
violation of the law.
The urgent application, filed on
Tuesday, seeks a court order to compel
Chombo to reverse the
suspension.
"The first respondent's actions were grossly unreasonable, were
motivated by
political malice and capriciousness and were done when no
reasonable grounds
existed justifying invocation of Section 54 (2) of the
Urban Councils Act
Chapter 29:15," said Shoko in an affidavit.
The
embattled Chitungwiza mayor accused the local government minister, seen
as
waging a war of attrition against all local authorities run and
controlled
by the MDC, of orchestrating a plan to hound him out of office by
denying
him a salary increase and unnecessarily intervening in council
affairs.
He said officials from Chombo's ministry openly threatened him
after they
had summoned him to the minister's office where they ordered him
to withdraw
the suspension of Chitungwiza Town Clerk Simbarashe
Mudunge.
"Chombo actually said to me 'I want you to know that I am more
powerful than
you are. This is an issue between ZANU PF and MDC, you will
soon know who
has the real power'."
The MDC executive mayor further
alleges that Chombo would sometimes cut fuel
supplies to Chitungwiza in a
bid to cripple the council's operations.
Chombo has bulldozed his way in
all opposition run municipalities, which he
accuses of mismanagement. He has
removed from office elected Harare's first
executive mayor, Elias Mudzuri
and replaced him with a commission run by
officials aligned to ZANU
PF.
This month another commission, comprising of handpicked ruling party
officials was appointed to run Mutare following the suspension of elected
MDC mayor Misheck Kagurabadza and 17 councillors.
FinGaz
Stanley Kwenda
Own Correspondent
Site still being cleared two years after proposal
THERE
is continuing doubt over the government's commitment to the
construction of
the proposed Lupane State University, which is yet to take
shape two years
after the gazetting of the University Bill, which paved the
way for its
establishment.
The university has already appointed its initial staff and
was supposed to
enrol the first group of students last year in August
presumably after the
construction of the university's key facilities such as
the administration
block, staff houses, students' hostels and the pioneering
agriculture
faculty.
China First Meteorological Company, which was
awarded the tender to build
the university, is still clearing the
construction site, located a few
kilometres from Lupane Business Centre in
Matabeleland North along the
Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road.
Construction
work has been affected by the incessant fuel shortages and
budgetary
constraints. Last year in April the project was allocated $3
billion under
the Reserve Bank Public Sector Investment Facility and it also
received $36
billion in the 2004/05 budget, which is a drop in the ocean
considering the
nature of the project. The university's planning committee
could not reveal
how much it was allocated for the project from treasury in
this year's
budget.
The Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Stan Mudenge, however,
assured parliament last year that the university would soon admit its first
group of students.
"To date, the work completed includes the appointment
of initial staff,
development of educational materials to be used in the
first programmes to
be offered, identification of facilities and acquisition
of materials," he
said.
Despite the assurance, only heavy earth-moving
machinery and a huge
billboard inscribed with the university name are the
only visible landmarks
on site.
The university will have a bias towards
agriculture-based studies such as
livestock production, veterinary medicine,
wildlife protection and soil
studies.
The proposal for the establishment
of the university was put forward during
the 2002 presidential election by
Jonathan Moyo, who became the prime mover
of the project. The university is
currently operating from the National
University of Science and Technology
(NUST) in Bulawayo under the
directorship of Dr Dean Bhala, a former Dean of
Applied Sciences at NUST.
His deputy, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, told the Financial
Gazette this week that the
construction work has been affected by water
problems in the region.
"Lat year we had some water shortage problems but
these have since been
rectified as some boreholes have been sunk and water
is now available. Civil
works should be completed soon and the actual
building will then begin,"
said Ndlovu.
He also revealed that government
would soon establish state universities in
all the country's
provinces.
He said, "There was a time when the government was not sensitive
to
developments in Matabeleland but the building of the Lupane University
demonstrates that the voice of the people has been heard."
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda Senior
Reporter
CLUTCHING an overladen satchel from which a worn-out blanket
protrudes, a
creased cardboard box and plastic sheeting, Zvisinei Matsapa
wonders around
with her portable "bedroom suite".
Close to her
vegetable produce lie a grimy bottle and a battered plate. The
heavens have
just opened up at City Sports Centre grounds, less than a
kilometre from
central Harare, and Matsapa is soaking in the summer rains
pounding the city
as a consequence of the resolution by the commission
supposed to be running
the affairs of the city to relocate trading from the
popular Mbare
Musika.
Matsapa and her counterparts have to brave the elements, quietly
cursing
about the lack of official foresight that has brought about her
current
predicament. Just selling her produce in January, when consumer
spending is
traditionally at a nadir, is challenging
enough.
Matsapa's plight - shared by hundreds of other fresh produce
traders from
all corners of the country - brings back memories of the
shelter crisis
spawned by the government blitz on people's homes in 2005.
The vendors'
tear-jerking predicament has been triggered by the abrupt
closure of Mbare
Musika as the authorities try to combat the spread of
cholera, which has
claimed several lives in the capital in recent
weeks.
Vendors and farmers from Murehwa, Honde Valley and Uzumba-Maramba
Pfungwe,
among other places, have been angered by the precipitous action and
are
evidently not impressed by the promised relocation to a built-up
location in
the strategic suburb of Mbare.
They protest at the
unsanitary conditions they have to put up with at the
"new market." In less
than two weeks, the open space has turned into a mud
bath and closely
resembles the conditions at Mbare Musika prior to its
closure. Set in the
pristine environs of the up-market Belvedere suburb, the
site sticks out
like a sore thumb.
"It's difficult operating from this place," says
Matsapa, a mother of three,
who has endured a 450-kilometre journey from
Honde Valley in Manicaland
province. "Mbare was central and we didn't incur
these added costs of hiring
a pushcart from Mbare to this place," she
adds.
Apart from meeting the additional costs, which are a drain on their
tight
purses, the subsistence farmers report a sharp contraction in
business.
"There are few customers here as compared to Mbare," protests
Dadirai Zuze,
also of Honde Valley. "Plus the pushcart operators are
charging exorbitant
charges to ferry our produce."
Pushcart operators
charge $500 000 for a single trip from Mbare to the city
centre. Matsapa
says she forked out $2 million for the transportation of her
pockets of
onions. She reveals that on a profitable trading day at Mbare,
she used to
make up to $15 million a day but has pocketed a paltry $2
million per day
since the relocation.
"The sales are just depressing and yet we still
have to pay school fees for
our children and buy inputs for our next crop,"
says Matsapa.
A visit to the soggy grounds just after lunchtime shows that
most farmers
have given up selling their produce to shelter from a heavy
downpour under
trees, parked lorries and even the roof of the sports
facility.
Although some Harare residents can see the sense in the city's
decision to
sanitise Mbare Musika and curb the spread of diseases, human
rights
activists and political commentators accuse the authorities of once
again
acting with indifference towards vulnerable groups.
They argue
that the city council does not appear to have learnt anything
from the
chaotic manner in which Operation Murambatsvina, which it actively
supported, was executed.
"Murambatsvina is not over," says Tendai Biti,
the secretary for economic
affairs in the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC). "Where you
have a government concerned with moving people in
and out of market places
it shows it is bankrupt and moribund," Biti
adds.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) director Arnold Tsunga charges
that
the government, which is backing council's clean-up of Mbare, is sowing
the
seeds of another humanitarian crisis in the capital.
"The
transfer of the problem from Mbare to the City Sports Centre can hardly
be
seen as effective planning," says Tsunga, whose rights group has assisted
hundreds of Operation Murambatsvina victims with free legal
advice.
"We have a state which continues to create fertile ground for a
humanitarian
catastrophe to arise because of a systemic failure in
governance," he said.
Though government ministers and the city fathers
reason that the relocation
is necessary to cleanse one of Harare's oldest
suburbs, critics argue that
the knee-jerk reaction can hardly be considered
effective planning.
"This is no more than the forced movement of
communities against their will
and in violation of international standards
and norms," Tsunga says.
'Exposing disadvantaged communities to unhygienic
conditions can only be
attributed to poor macroeconomic planning by the City
of Harare and the
government," he adds.
Tsunga says the government
appears to have exploited the cholera outbreak to
move traders without
attracting adverse criticism as it did with regard to
Operation
Murambatsvina, which has drawn censure from the United Nations.
"The citing
of unhygienic conditions can be a justifiable pretext for the
state not to
comply with minimum human rights standards and the rule of
law," explains
Tsunga.
Since United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan's special envoy
Anna
Kajumulo Tibaijuka reported in her audit of Operation Murambatsvina
that the
government caused serious suffering of large sections of its
population and
should hold to account those responsible for the injury
caused by the
clean-up exercise, who will the farmers and vendors sue for
lost business
this time?
The vendors concur that since the controversial
appointment of the Sekesai
Makwavarara-led commission to run the affairs of
the council the once
alluring capital city has collapsed and believe, like
Professor Milton
Friedman, that the commission should have been left to
wither on the vine
upon the expiry of its first term of office.
FinGaz
Rangarirai Mberi Senior Reporter
'The
liberator has become the oppressor'
SUSPENDED former ZANU PF Masvingo
provincial chairman and TeleAccess founder
Daniel Shumba, has resigned from
the ruling party, claiming that "the
liberator has become the
oppressor."
Shumba, whose fixed telecommunications project has lost the
licence to
operate the country's second fixed phone network, becomes the
most senior
member to resign from ZANU PF in recent times and the second
senior party
figure after former Mberengwa legislator, Pearson Mbalekwa to
quit the
ruling party.
In a letter delivered to ZANU PF national
chairman John Nkomo yesterday, an
evidently bitter Shumba said he no longer
shared the party's ideologies and
so could no longer remain a
member.
"While I agree with the ideals of the liberation struggle, I
unfortunately
cannot agree with a case where a liberator turns oppressor.
There is no
respect of the Constitution, rules and procedures within ZANU
PF. How then
do you expect to uphold the rule of law in the country?" Shumba
wrote.
"I refuse to be part of this. Much more is expected of leaders. I
choose not
be involved in the politics of patronage or factionalism. I see
the future
of Zimbabwe's politics to be in the hands of a respectable,
responsible,
democratic and God-fearing party."
Shumba had previously
been linked to dismissed former information minister,
Jonathan Moyo's foggy
United People's Movement, but other sources have
recently linked him to a
new formation, the United People's Party.
Shumba's future in ZANU PF has
been on the political knife-edge amid
allegations that the disgruntled
TeleAccess chief executive officer was part
of a faction that campaigned
against ruling party candidates in the volatile
Masvingo Province during the
senate elections.
Before that, he was one of the six ZANU PF provincial
chairmen slapped with
five-year suspensions for bidding to block Joice
Mujuru from becoming the
second Vice President late in 2004, despite
President Robert Mugabe's clear
support for her candidacy.
Shumba's
exit, coming six months after Mbalekwa had resigned from the same
party in
protest against Operation Murambatsvina was indicative of the
growing
dissent within the revolutionary party over its policies.
FinGaz
Nelson Banya News
Editor
THE government has made another US$2.5 million payment to the
International
Monetary Fund (IMF), ahead of a routine visit by a staff
delegation from the
Bretton Woods institution.
The IMF delegation
visits Zimbabwe next week to assess Harare's commitment
to fiscal discipline
and the effective turnaround of the economy.
The last IMF mission, which was
in the country in September 2005, expressed
"deep concern over the continued
sharp economic and social decline in
Zimbabwe, with prospects of continued
triple-digit inflation, further output
declines, and increased poverty," and
since then both Treasury and monetary
authorities have moved to try to
arrest the decline.
The IMF staff team, which will visit Zimbabwe between
January 25 and
February 1, will meet government and central bank officials
as well as
industry representatives during the routine Article IV
consultations, which
precede an executive board meeting - to consider
Zimbabwe's possible
expulsion from the fund - in March.
Economic
commentator Eric Bloch does not expect the latest visit by the IMF
delegation to be any different from previous consultations, the looming
directors' meeting notwithstanding.
"There has never really been any
threat of expulsion, just the hype in some
international circles to try and
frighten us. The motion would require 85
percent of the total votes," Bloch
said.
The IMF gave Zimbabwe another six-month reprieve against compulsory
withdrawal from the fund last September, citing the country's increased
payments to the IMF as well as certain positive policy steps taken to right
the economy.
The former Czechoslovakia remains the only country in
history to be expelled
from the IMF.
Bloch said although he expects
further economic decline, "certainly in the
first half of the year", the IMF
might find positives in recent policies put
in place by the
government.
"I think they will commend the government's commitment to
restrict borrowing
to capital projects and not consumption, as was the case
previously. They
might also take heart in the pledge, by government, to
reduce the budget
deficit to less than five percent of GDP, remove all price
controls. There
has also been the freeing up of the foreign exchange
market.
"Concerns, however, remain on the level of the national debt,
inflation and
lack of investment," Bloch said.
Inflation, which has
been resurgent since the second quarter of 2005, closed
the year at 585.8
percent and remains a massive challenge in 2006.
The last time an IMF team
was in Zimbabwe, the central bank maintained its
managed foreign currency
auction, where the local unit traded at $26 000
against the US$. However,
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe floated the local
unit in October, and it is
now trading at about $93 000 per greenback.
Worries remain, however, over
the 70 percent retention scheme which the
central bank has
maintained.
The central bank has also discontinued much of the
quasi-fiscal activity
sharply criticised by the IMF the last time
around.
The IMF called for strong fiscal adjustment; full liberalisation
of the
exchange rate regime; adoption of a strong monetary anchor;
elimination of
all quasi-fiscal activity by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) and the
absorption of RBZ losses by the budget.
Zimbabwe has,
over the past year, stepped up payments to the IMF and has
significantly
reduced its arrears with the fund.
Last August, Zimbabwe paid the Fund
US$120 million (SDR 82 million) to
settle its arrears to the General
Resource Account (GRA). Subsequent
payments have seen Zimbabwe's total
arrears under the GRA coming down to
US$25 million and those to the Poverty
Reduction Growth Fund (PRGF) Trust
are SDR 82 million (about US$121
million).
FinGaz
Munyaradzi Mugowo Own Correspondent
Proposed
prices, incomes stabilisation deal likely to face resistance
A PRICES and
incomes stabilisation protocol proposed by the government in a
desperate
attempt to arrest runaway inflation is likely to face resistance
from other
partners in the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF), who are
considering
serious amendments before the document could sail through.
The
government, anxious to fast-track the draft document to rein in
relentless
price increases and pacify a restive electorate, has been accused
of
conceiving the "deal" in bad faith to stop necessary price
adjustments.
Sources told The Financial Gazette this week that some members
of the TNF -
a social contract bringing together the government, labour and
business -
were reluctant to sign the deal because they felt prices and
incomes should
be determined by the cost structures of firms and not by a
formal system
with no link to inflation.
Mike Bimha, president of the
Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe (EMCOZ),
said that the proposed prices
and incomes stabilisation protocol was still
embryonic and likely to change
face significantly.
"The document presented to the TNF on 21 December 2005 is
a mere working
draft. Social partners undertook to consult on the draft," he
said. "EMCOZ
is in the process of consulting the business community on the
draft in
preparation for the TNF meeting to be held on 19 January 2006," he
added.
The sources said the business environment in the country,
characterised by
hyperinflation and chronic fuel and foreign currency
shortages, made it
difficult for a deterministic pricing mechanism to
satisfy all parties.
"The major bone of contention is how to define
problematic terms such as
'justifiable price increases' and when and how to
effect price changes as
well as how to facilitate their approval in a less
rigid manner," said one
source.
The government, which has accused
business of profiteering, is pushing for
the establishment of a
sub-committee tasked to oversee the pricing of basic
goods and services.
FinGaz
Munyaradzi Mugowo Own
Correspondent
The National Social Security Authority (NSSA), which raised
both employee
benefits and pension contributions and payouts this year, has
admitted that
there were glaring actuarial inaccuracies in its computation
of benefits.
Amod Takawira, the managing director of the public fund
manager, said the
institution's asset valuations needed a revamp to keep
pace with both the
inflation rate and the poverty datum line, currently
estimated at 585.8
percent, year-on-year, and $16.6 million per month,
respectively.
"With effect from 1 January 2005, both employee
contributions and benefits
have gone up. We felt the benefits needed to be
revised, that is why
contributions have also been increased. This has been
effected through a
statutory instrument passed last year," Takawira
said.
Statutory Instrument 229 of 2005 reviewed upwards accident compensation
claims, pensions and children's allowances by at least 40 percent but to
margins that raise questions about the essence of social
security.
For instance, permanent disability through accidents at work
(estimated at
over 75 percent in degree) - for workers grossing up to $750
000 - will now
be compensated at a monthly rate of 80 percent of the
employee's monthly
earnings, while those grossing monthly earnings between
$2 500 000 and $5
000 000 will receive 40 percent of their earnings in
pension allowances.
Pension and children's allowances for a pensioner who
is more than 30
percent disabled shall not be less than $100 000 per
month.
Furthermore, all NSSA pension beneficiaries will now be entitled
to a $100
000 annual bonus, says the statutory instrument.
John
Robertson, an economic analyst, said an ever growing catalogue of
NSSA's
investments showed the extent to which the institution was yielding
high
returns. He said he found it difficult to understand why the
institution was
unwilling to finance the social security of its
contributors.
"The
actuarial research and manipulation is definitely wrong. NSSA pensions
are
terrible pensions. It does not make sense for employees to continue to
invest in a porous safety net. Something must be done to make sure a new
actuarial research does not reproduce the same errors," Robertson
said.
In December 2005, some pensioners were still earning monthly
benefits as low
as $20 000, against a month-on-month inflation rate of about
183 percent
NSSA, a growing investment partner of government and the
private sector with
a stake in the Joina Development project, is currently
eyeing voting stock
in the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe
(IDBZ) at the behest of
government.
FinGaz
!
THREE years ago, government
grudgingly admitted that corruption had reached
alarming levels in all
sectors of the Zimbabwean economy.
This prompted it to use the provisions
of an emergency law, in a move that
ignited a furore among legal experts who
argued that it was wrong to use an
emergency law for a non-emergency case
because the culture of corruption had
been in Zimbabwe for
years.
Last year Transparency International weighed in when it said that
the
country was unflatteringly perched up there with Venezuela, Honduras,
Uzbekistan, Ethiopia, the DRC, Sierra Leone and Moldova as one of the most
corrupt countries in the world.
Around the same time the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe, which has had to clean up
one of the world's messiest piles of
financial wreckage, added its voice to
the chorus of concern on corruption
when it intimated that smoking guns were
lying everywhere! The central bank
said that sometimes the perpetrators of
corruption hide behind such
ostensibly noble initiatives as black economic
empowerment where the country
has been navigating without a compass.
Even President Robert Mugabe -
whose government has over the years taken a
licking from critics for, at
worst nurturing corruption and at best, sitting
on the fence in the face of
the scourge - has since indicated that he takes
umbrage at pervasive and
cancerous corruption. All this underlines the scale
of the catastrophe that
has befallen the country - the depth of the abyss,
if you will, from which
it has now to find a way out.
It is all right that the government has, at the
longest last, acknowledged
that insofar as corruption is concerned, the
pendulum has swung too far the
other way. But there is, however, a world of
difference between
acknowledging a problem and dealing with it.
And
beyond acknowledging that the scourge is now institutionalised,
government
has, to all intents and purposes, failed to earn plaudits for
honesty,
sincerity, drive, commitment and passion over the much-vaunted
anti-corruption crusade for which there is very little, if any, to
show.
And this is hardly surprising. In the court of public opinion,
government
has not taken the scythe against corruption to all sectors of the
economy
and across the social strata. Despite assurances that no one would
be
immune, their social or political status notwithstanding, the
government's
bark has been more ferocious than its bite!
Cases in point
include those of the unashamed social cheats who looted the
War Victims
Compensation Fund, the abuse of the government's VIP Housing
Scheme and the
well-documented corruption at the Grain Marketing Board which
bordered on
treason as a significant number of people faced starvation. Not
to mention
the multiple farm ownership scandal.
These are just but some of the cases
where there has been persistent lack of
action by the authorities even after
relevant information has been obtained
and presented.
Government
seems to be treating all these cases as water under the bridge.
The
inescapable conclusion is that this is because some of the country's
biggest
political egos are implicated, implying that the criminal justice
system has
been twisted to protect the powerful. This is why government has
failed to
assuage the general perception that all the noise about the
anti-corruption
drive was nothing more than window-dressing for the public's
benefit.
It
was at the time politically convenient amid a public outcry over the
festering cancer of corruption in high places. Little wonder therefore that
it will take an incredible leap of faith for the generality of Zimbabweans
to believe that government will ever up the ante in its half-hearted fight
against corruption.
True, the hardly convincing Anti-Corruption and
Anti-Monopolies Minister,
Paul Mangwana, was early this week at pains to
convince the nation that
there is now renewed commitment to deal with the
all-pervading corruption.
And we would like to give him the benefit of the
doubt. But we know better
to ignore his bluster as empty rhetoric.
In
any case, has the government mustered that unshakeable political will to
decisively deal with the menace? With the rich, powerful, influential
politicians and their cronies implicated, will the ZANU PF government, known
for doing almost everything for political expediency and shirking its
responsibilities when it comes to anything that might upset the apple cart,
take what might turn out to be a double-edged sword to its full expression?
Will it, as has been evident in the past, stop going for the proverbial
hares and avoiding the elephants when the old adage, a fish rots from the
head, holds as true today as it did centuries ago? If not, then its
commitment to rid the country of corruption is questionable.
As we
have said before, past experience shows that government has tended to
apply
the law like the spider's web which catches only the smallest insects
but
lets through the big ones. Which is why critics did not read much into
the
arrest in 2004 of former Finance Minister Chris Kuruneri, widely seen as
a
political lightweight who lacks a power base of his own.
FinGaz
Mavis Makuni Own
Correspondent
AIDS organisations, human rights activists and people
living with the
disease in Zimbabwe have boldly taken the bull by the horns
by petitioning
President Mugabe and his government to demonstrate greater
commitment
towards addressing the serious issues pertaining to the
pandemic.
Press reports have indicated that a number of these groups
joined forces to
take their case all the way to the top after being enraged
by the scant
attention the government paid to the marking of World Aids Day
on the first
day of December.
The groups accused the State of having
trivialised and marginalised the
important occasion by scheduling other high
profile events such as the
national budget announcement, the election of the
deputy speaker of
parliament and the official opening of the African
Bankers' Forum by
President Mugabe on the same day.
The groups were
also unhappy that instead of being accorded support on a day
when Aids and
its ramifications should have been the main national focus,
AIDS activists
marching in memory of the millions who have succumbed to the
disease were
rounded up and detained by police in the capital.
The AIDS groups argued that
all these negative developments had detracted
from the significance of World
Aids Day and exposed a lack of political will
and commitment on the part of
the Government.
The Zimbabwean Aids activists are not the first to
recognise that as far as
allocating resources and providing policy
frameworks to deal with the
pandemic is concerned, African governments
sometimes need to be prodded or
even taken to court to rouse them from their
inexplicable inertia.
In South Africa, AIDS activists and officialdom
fought a pitched battle in
the last few years before the government of
President Thabo Mbeki was forced
to climb down from its stubborn stance on
the question of availing treatment
to the general public.
The South
African government's dithering was the result of the head of state's
"dissident" views on the causes of AIDS and HIV.
It is common cause that
his doubting Thomas stance, during which he disputed
the scientific causes
of infection, resulted in the loss of valuable time
before millions of
infected people could access drugs to prolong and improve
the quality of
their lives. United Nations statistics show that today, South
Africa has the
highest infection rates globally.
The Zimbabwean AIDS groups, which copied
their petition to the Speaker of
Parliament John Nkomo, Finance Minister
Herbert Murerwa and Reserve Bank
Governor, Gideon Gono, urged President
Mugabe to intervene to ensure that
everyone in government recognises the
gravity of the challenges posed by the
pandemic.
They charged that there
was not enough commitment and unity of purpose in
government on the matter
despite the fact that President Mugabe had declared
the epidemic a national
disaster.
The petition also draws attention to the fact that of two million
Zimbabweans living with the disease, only 20 000 have access to
anti-retroviral drugs. The criteria used to identify beneficiaries of the
public sector treatment programme remain obscure despite the fact that
government collects a monthly AIDS levy from salaried workers.
Mbeki, is
not the only African leader guilty of dragging his feet on the
question of
AIDS. Last year, the human rights group, Human Rights Watch,
issued a report
criticising African governments for neglecting millions of
children affected
by AIDS/HIV.
African leaders have a poor track record with regard to
protecting the most
vulnerable groups in their populations - women and
children.
Despite the fact that women hold the key to the continuation of the
human
species, very few of these governments have paid attention to this
indisputable reality and allocated adequate resources to deal with the
gender dimensions of the scourge.
A United Nations agency, UNAIDS,
announced in 2004, when World Aids Day
focused on women and girls, that
infection rates were increasing among this
segment of the population and yet
no investment has been made to reverse the
disastrous trend.
The factors
that put women and girls at higher risk including rape, husbands
who engage
in extramarital sex, violence and sexual coercion within
marriage, female
genital mutilation and lack of access to empowerment
through education and
economic participation are taboo subjects in some
countries.
AIDS
activists, not just in Zimbabwe but continent-wide therefore need to
redouble their efforts to convince leaders to abandon their "business as
usual" attitude and realise that a paradigm shift is necessary to facilitate
the development of prevention and treatment programmes that recognise the
reality of the higher risks women and girls are exposed to. No one can
dispute that in most of the African countries that are most hard hit by AIDS
and HIV prevalence, sexual behaviour and cultural prejudices are
inter-twined.
The example of Swaziland, where the absolute monarch, King
Mswati III has
perpetuated the ancient custom of the annual "reed dance",
comes to mind. On
this occasion the king has free rein to choose a bride
from the
bare-breasted teenagers forced to dance before him. This high
profile
display of a man acquiring multiple sexual partners is hardly model
behaviour by a head of state.
To make matters worse, the mountain
kingdom, which has a population of just
over one million people, has one of
the highest infection rates in southern
Africa. More than a third of the
people are infected with the disease.
These contradictions, which are
prevalent in other parts of the continent,
mean for example, that campaigns
to discourage premarital sex tend, in
reality, to target girls only.
Prevailing social norms across Africa dictate
that having sex and children
before marriage is disgraceful and immoral only
for females.
The males
who sire such children are considered to be gallantly 'sowing
their wild
oats' and therefore do not face any social sanctions. They,
therefore at
some subconscious level, see no reason why they should change
their
behaviour, which is crucial in combating the spread of AIDS.
This double
standard presents a built-in, self- sabotaging component in
anti-AIDS
awareness campaigns, most of which further compound these skewed
perceptions
by promoting only male condoms, which empower one group to have
a choice on
whether or not to practise safe sex. Without the educational,
cultural and
economic clout to demand the use of protection or access to
female condoms
to shield themselves from infection, women continue to be
sitting ducks in
the AIDS infection transmission cycle.
Ironically however, these issues
represent a point of convergence yet to be
recognised by both governments
and non-governmental organisations as a
compelling reason to adopt common
strategies across Africa.
The AIDS figures for Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa
in particular, are
staggering. Of the 40 million people living with the
disease globally, the
majority, about 70 percent, lives in the sub region.
In Southern Africa,
life expectancy has plummeted from 62 years a decade ago
to 48 years.
Between 2000 and 2005, the life expectancy of women dropped
below that of
men in Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Zimbabwe, due to AIDS. UN
projections show
that the average life span in the region will further drop
to 43 years this
decade. Consequently, population growth is expected to
stagnate or decrease
between now and the year 2020 in South Africa, Lesotho,
Botswana and
Swaziland where deaths are expected to outnumber
births.
Against this gloomy backdrop, the stance taken by AIDS groups in
Zimbabwe is
therefore not a frivolous act by Western-backed troublemakers
but an
important signal that AIDS and human rights activists across Africa
should
also continue to knock loudly on those government doors until the
desired
response is obtained.
FinGaz
Personal
Glimpses with Mavis Makuni
IT was Thomas Jefferson who said, "Free
government is founded on jealousy .
. . In questions of power, let no more
be heard of confidence in man, but
bind him from mischief by the chains of
the constitution."
Jefferson, the third president of the United States of
America, was
expounding on the subject of free elections as the most
important device to
make public officials observe the constitutional limits
of their power.
Regular elections, Jefferson believed, empowered voters to
throw those who
abused power out of office.
If he was alive today, I
wonder how the chief drafter of the declaration of
American independence
would answer a burning question I have. What do you do
if, despite having a
constitution in place and voting for candidates of your
choice in regular
elections, you achieve the complete opposite and end up
with government
seeking to control every facet of your life?
When I first read about the idea
of getting "big government off the people's
backs", I thought its proponents
were anarchists. But having watched some
overzealous government ministers
involving themselves in the nitty-gritty of
ordinary people's everyday life,
I now know they have a point.
Government should by all means be responsive to
the needs of the people but
its role should be to provide the broad policy
frameworks and guidelines.
The actual implementation of policies should be
left to the relevant
authorities. But this is not what is happening in
Zimbabwe today where
ministers seem to have abandoned their rightful roles
as leaders and
facilitators to become hands-on supervisors of functions that
should be
overseen by officials at other levels of central or local
government.
Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo takes the cake as the
minister who
seems most incapable of delegating and therefore given to
meddling in
affairs where he has no business to be personally involved. As
an example, I
was shocked to watch him on television the other day breathing
fire about
blocks of flats belonging to the Mutare City Council. He wanted
certain
categories of people to be evicted from these housing units and
warned of
dire consequences if the local authority ignored his decree.
Is
this minister serious? Does he not have better things to do than to stoop
to
the level of usurping the routine neighbourhood and housekeeping
functions
of local authorities?
If the minister wishes to be involved in supervising
minute details such as
the eviction of occupants from a block of flats, the
question then needs to
be asked why urban residents should be saddled with
the expense of having
city councils that are supposed to attend to these
issues. Chombo's ongoing
campaign to unseat elected officials from targeted
urban councils through
petty fault-finding is getting out of hand. He may be
undertaking the
hatchet job on behalf of the ruling party but does he not
have any sense of
shame as an individual?
To all intents and purposes
Chombo now acts as the de facto mayor of most
major cities in Zimbabwe,
notably Harare. It seems that the chairperson of
the commission running the
affairs of the capital city cannot make any move
without getting orders from
the minister. This week, before announcing the
abrupt temporary closure of
Mbare Musika, Sekesai Makwavarara swept into the
high-density suburb
accompanied by officials from the Ministry of
Environment and Tourism. An
official identified as the permanent secretary
in the ministry then launched
into a lecture on hygiene and the need for the
vendors trading from the
market to ensure that garbage was collected. The
whole idea was to exonerate
the local authority of its monumental service
delivery failures but who can
be expected to buy such a cock-and-bull story?
The aim of the visit was no
doubt to give the impression that government
cared about the traders and was
doing something for them, but the question
once again arises as to why
Makwavarara needs to be propped up by officials
from a ministry to undertake
such a routine visit? What are staff in the
City Health Department paid to
do if someone as high as a permanent
secretary needs to be brought in to
deliver a pep talk that should be given
by community health
workers?
Chombo is, however, by no means the only minister guilty of
abandoning his
post to usurp the functions of lower structures. The Minister
of Education,
Sports and Culture, Aeneas Chigwedere has been known to pick
quarrels with
headmasters over school fees. On one occasion, he even took it
upon himself
to order police details to be deployed to barricade entrances
to school
premises. We would like to believe the minister has weightier
matters to
attend to than these petty fights.
Of late, Chigwedere and a
host of other senior government officials have
stolen the limelight from the
Zimbabwe Football Association by taking over
the raising of funds for the
national team's participation in the Africa Cup
of Nations tournament in
Egypt. While it is appreciated that ministers can
lend their high profiles
to promote good causes, their assistance should
only be supportive. It just
goes beyond acceptable bounds for officials to
hijack such functions to the
extent of acting as masters of ceremonies as
has been seen on television
lately. There is something seriously wrong
somewhere if Zifa is not capable
of conducting its own fundraising events
and needs an army of ministers and
deputy ministers to make things happen.
One wonders why so many ministers are
choosing to poke their noses into
matters that do not concern them,
resulting in the craziness and confusion
pervading the nation. Is it
possible they resort to this shameless meddling
because they have no clue
how to run their portfolios as unobtrusively and
as professionally as
possible? We need these ministers to provide the
strategic thinking and
planning necessary to pull this country back from the
brink instead of
barking orders and threats at every turn!
Financial Gazette
(Harare)
January 18, 2006
Posted to the web January 19,
2006
Property Reporter
Harare
THE WIDELY condemned clean up
campaign engineered by the government in the
first half of last year is
estimated to have caused property losses of about
US$66 million (about $6
trillion at the ruling exchange rate), The Property
Gazette can
reveal.
In a report authored by ActionAid in collaboration with other
local
Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), the document noted that the
figure
could actually be in excess of US$66 million if legal issues were
taken into
consideration.
"When the losses are seen in the context of
the legal issues, then it seems
clear that a very significant majority of
those affected by Operation
Murambatsvina have prima facie rights to redress
and compensation, as was
stated by the United Nations Special Envoy," reads
part of the report titled
An In-Depth Study On The Impact Of Operation
Murambatsvina In Zimbabwe, The
Traumatic Consequences Of Operation
Murambatsvina.
"If however, the estimate is based on the population and
assuming that at
least two persons were economically active in each
household, then the
estimated losses are much higher.
"The losses are
consequent on illegal actions by the Zimbabwe government if
it can be
established that those affected had rights to their property and
rights to
be carrying out their business.
However, these rights may be lost through
prescription of time and this
would add further injury to an already
injurious situation," it said.
At least 700 000 families were rendered
homeless after the government
demolished illegal structures in Harare and
other towns and cities.
The authors of the latest report on the exercise
interviewed residents of
Harare, Bulawayo and Mutare specifically on areas
of trauma, HIV/AIDS,
leg\al issues and losses.
A structured
questionnaire was used in the collection of data from 1 195
respondents
distributed in 58 affected high-density wards in the 3 urban
centers.