http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
By Wonai Masvingise, Staff Writer
Saturday, 07 January
2012 13:00
HARARE - Thousands of children attending government
schools could be left in
limbo when schools open on Tuesday amid a civil
servants strike call for
Wednesday.
Parents reeling from the
“January disease” and have battled to fork out
money for school fees,
teacher incentives, boarding fees, as well as school
uniforms and groceries
could find themselves stuck with their children at
home as signs show that
government is unlikely to meet the salary demands.
Representatives of the
236 000-strong civil service yesterday agreed to take
“drastic” action if
government fails to heed their demand for more pay by
Wednesday. Of this
number close to half are teachers.
The Apex Council, which is the
umbrella representative body for civil
servants, resolved at a meeting in
Harare yesterday to confront the
government.
Tendai Chikowore, leader
of the Apex Council, said civil servants had given
government until
Wednesday to respond to their demands for salary increments
or face action,
most likely a crippling strike.
Speaking after a joint meeting of civil
servants representatives held at the
Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta)
offices in Harare yesterday,
Chikowore said government workers were now fed
up with the apparent lack of
interest in improving their
livelihoods.
“We are in agreement that civil servants are agitated and
what we have done
as Apex Council is that we are demanding a meeting on
Wednesday and if they
do not respond to us, we are going to present
ourselves at the ministry of
Public Service and demand a meeting with the
minister,” said Chikowore.
“If they do not give us a favourable response,
we will definitely take
action,” she said.
Teacher representatives
last year gave government an ultimatum to increase
their salaries by
December 31, but the deadline passed without any positive
action from their
employer.
http://www.radiovop.com/
Gwanda, January 07, 2012 –
Government colleges and schools who have been
warned against increasing
tuition fees have ordered students to bring their
own groceries when schools
open next week.
Earlier this week the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts
and Culture,
Senator David Coltart, said there will be no increase in fees
structures for
all Government schools.
“I am aware that
parents have been threatened with fee hikes from all angles
but a decision
has been made. We therefore expect all schools to abide by
that decision as
we will deal with those who will choose to go against
this,” said
Coltart.
Students at Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo College who reside on
the campus have been
told to bring their own groceries to augment the low
fees they are paying.
Part of a letter addressed to the students
reads, “Those who will reside at
the campus should bring 20kg Beef, 4kg salt
, four rolls of tissue paper,
20kg mealie meal(pearlenta/ngwerengwere), 10
sachets Royco,” among other
items.
However health experts fear
that the move to order students to bring fresh
products such as beef to
college could result in some bringing poisoned
food.
“Some of the
students at the college travel for two days from their
respective homes to
get to college and there is likelihood that some of the
meat could be stale
before it reaches its destination a situation likely to
cause serious health
problems,” said Themba Ncube a senior nurse at Gwanda
Hospital.
Although authorities at Joshua Nkomo Polytechnic
refused to speak to Radio
VOP a lecturer at the college who requested
anonymity said the move to order
pupils to bring their own food was
necessitated by the low fees being
charged at the college.
“The
tuition fees are just too low for the upkeep of students for three
months
and hence when they bring their own food it becomes better,” he
said.
Zimbabwe’s education system once a shinning beacon in the
African continent
has over the years plummeted to lowest levels as the
country struggles to
recover from a decade long economic turmoil.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com
07/01/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter I Radio
VOP
THE cash-strapped government has effected a 60 percent increase
on the
allowances of traditional leaders in what critics dismiss as a
cynical
inducement ahead of elections crucial elections this
year.
The increment comes at a the opening of the new school term next
week
remains uncertain as teachers have threatened to go on strike after
negotiations with government over their conditions stalled.
Headman,
acting headman, village heads and their officials will get a bump
in their
allowances according to Statutory Instrument 148 of 2011 published
in the
December 23, 2011 issue of the Government Gazette.
A headman now gets a
monthly allowance of US$140 up from US$50 while an
acting headman now gets
US$84. A village head now gets US$25 up from US$10,
a messenger of chief
US$40 while a messenger of headman now takes home US$20
up from
US$5.
Critics of Zanu PF see these increments as sweeteners ahead of
fresh polls
President Mugabe is thought to be desperate to win against Prime
Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai and his stubborn formation of the Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC-T).
Chief’s council president, Fortune
Charumbira, told last month’s Zanu PF
national conference that traditional
leaders would continue to support
President Robert Mugabe and Zanu
PF.
Charumbira said most chiefs suffered under Ian Smith’s brutal regime
during
the liberation struggle adding they would, therefore, never betray a
party
which led the fight for independence.
But Prime Minister
Tsvangirai accuses Mugabe and Zanu PF of abusing
traditional leaders,
including chiefs by forcing them to act as the party’s
political
commissioners.
“While the MDC has tremendous respect for the institution
of traditional
leaders in this country, it has no respect for those
traditional leaders who
offer themselves as willing and overzealous stooges
of political parties
especially Zanu PF,” MDC-T spokesman Douglas Mwonzora
said recently.
http://www.radiovop.com/
Harare,
January 7, 2012 - Firebrand MDC 99 leader, Job Sikhala has
threatened to
lead his party into “terrorist” attacks on the country’s
polling stations
during elections if President Robert Mugabe proceeds to
hold elections under
the current contested conditions.
“Under these conditions we will
sabotage them,” Sikhala said to journalists
at a party press conference
Friday morning.
“We will change ourselves from a proper opposition
movement to a terrorist
group. We will attack all polling stations
throughout the country. People
who will go there we will also inflict terror
on them.”
The former MDC legislator for St Marys constituency accused
Mugabe of
keeping himself and his party in power through terror on ordinary
Zimbabweans and urged fellow opponents to Mugabe to join him.
He
vowed to fight Mugabe’s terror strategies.
“People of Zimbabwe have
not been able to vote freely since time immemorial
on the basis of the
terror factor. So we also want to inflict terror and
fear into the heart of
the tyrant.
“The tyrant must be afraid. When they hear Job Sikhala
speaking they must
know that I
don’t give empty threats. I must follow
words with action.”
Sikhala, who last led a handful of his party
faithful into a street protest
march to President Mugabe’s Munhumutapa
building last month, said he was
unperturbed by his small support base and
the prospect of confronting Mugabe
who is backed by the army.
“An
effective strategy does not involve numbers. (Former dissidents)
Gwesela,
Gayigusu and Fidel Castro, the three fighters in Matabeleland gave
Zanu-PF
headaches from 1980 to 1987. That is specifically our
strategy.”
Sikhala said he did not fear death and urged Zimbabweans
to join his call to
confront “the dictator”.
“We will expose him
(Mugabe) to the international community,” he said.
“There is no
leader in the world that had so oppressive an army and the most
oppressive
intelligence system like Gaddaffi (Muammar) but he was retrieved
out of a
tunnel. So dictators must know they are not indispensable. They are
just as
human as all of us here.
“They also visit the toilet like you also
visit the toilet. They think they
are super human.”
Sikhala
demanded the scrapping of sections in the country’s electoral laws
which
compel voters to display their folded ballots soon after casting their
votes
saying this creates anxiety among the voters who fear being victimised
for
voting against Zanu-PF.
He added, “Polling station based voting
should be vigorously resisted. The
rule of law should be upheld. There must
be security for all citizens. Fear
must be removed from the
people.
“MDC(99), as the only political party that remains guided by
the founding
principles of a Zimbabwe opposition movement committed to
democracy,
exposing Zanu-PF and refusal to compromise with tyranny, will
champion the
full exposure of the great electoral fraud and solutions to the
attainment
of a democratic Zimbabwe in which free, fair and credible
elections are
held."
http://www.radiovop.com
Bulawayo, January 7,
2012---The churches’ umbrella body Zimbabwe Council of
Churches (ZCC) came
to the rescue of 26 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
refugees who belong
to eastern African country’s opposition party Union for
Democracy and Social
Progress (UDPS) led by Etienne Tshisekedi.
Zimbabwe Police and
immigration officials wanted to lock up the refugees at
Khami Maximum prison
in Bulawayo saying there are threats to national
security.
The 26
refugees who include 14 adults and 12 children entered Zimbabwe
through
illegal means on Tuesday through the Victoria Falls border; they
were dumped
at an open space near Bulawayo’s Amankhosi Culture centre in
Makokoba High
density suburb by a Commuter Omnibus which they hired from
Victoria
Falls.
After two days at the open space ZCC got hint that there were
stranded
refugees in the city and went to give food and medicine before
sheltering
them at African Methodist Church in Makokoba.
However,
armed police and immigration officials descended on the church with
the
intention of arresting and locking them up at Khami Maximum prison
saying
there were threat to national security.
“Heavily armed police and
immigration officials wanted to arrest these DR
Congo refugees and detain
them at Khami Maximum; they said there were
threats to national
security.
“However we pleaded with them not to arrest them as they
look innocent and
starving,” said Amon Mtombeni a member of ZCC who also a
pastor at Africa
Methodist Church.
Bohojo Titus, the spokesperson
for the refugees told Radio VOP that they are
of Tutsi tribe and belongs to
Tshisekedi’s UDPS and they fled violence in
eastern DR Congo last week and
travelled through Zambia until they reached
Zimbabwe.
“We left DR
Congo’s Kivu province last week as the situation there was now
serious,
clashes between our party supporters and government security forces
were now
serious.
“So we decided to leave home together with our families and
we thank
Zimbabwe Council of Churches for helping us, as police wanted to
arrest and
detain us,” said Bhohojo.
The DRC refugees were
however handed over to UNHCR yesterday by the country’s
ZCC and were
transported to Tongogara refugee camp in Chipinge.
Tshisekedi, who came
second on November 28 poll rejected DRC President
Joseph Kabila's
re-election and “sworn in" himself as the country’s leader
last week.
http://www.radiovop.com
i
Beitbridge, January 07,
2012- Eight villagers among them two war veterans
residing at a farm in
Beitbridge West, who have a long standing dispute with
co-Minister of Home
Affairs, Kembo Mohadi will spend the next seven days
languishing in prison
after the state invoked Section 121 of the Criminal
Procedure and Evidence
Act to deny them bail.
Gwanda resident magistrate, Ms Sheila Nzombe had
remanded Given Mbedzi, his
mother Philani Ndou, Soforia Ndou, Jameson
Mbedzi, Alifa Mbedzi, and
Philemon Marubini Ndou, Ignatius Ncube and
Knowledge Muleya out of custody
on their own cognisance.
However
the state represented by Mazwi Goto invoked section 121 which gives
the
state seven days in which to oppose bail with the High Court.
Messrs
Kucaca Phulu and Matshobana Ncube of Phulu and Ncube Legal
Practitioners had
successfully applied for refusal of remand on stock theft
charges against
Philani.
Philani is alleged to have cut a piece of fence from a farm
belonging to
Minister Mohadi, which resulted in several herd of cattle
straying, and
these are still unaccounted for.
The lawyers argued
that this did not form the essential elements of a case
of stock theft, as
there is no evidence to show that their client had stolen
any
cattle.
Philani and her alleged accomplices also face malicious
damage to property
charges after they damaged a door belonging to Minister
Mohadi’s son,
Campbell Junior.
The suspects have a long standing
dispute with Mohadi over some plots
adjacent to his farm and were arrested
at the farm last Saturday afternoon.
They deny the charges and say
they are an attempt to force them out of their
plots.
Two offer
letters were issued to both parties for same plot; Given Mbedzi
has an offer
letter issued in 2003 while Mohadi’s son Campbell Junior was
issued with a
similar letter in 2009 after Mbedzi reportedly abandoned it.
The case
was moved to 12 January when it is hoped the state would have made
a
decision on granting them bail.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
By Ngonidzashe Mushimbo, Staff Writer
Saturday, 07
January 2012 11:40
HARARE - Air Zimbabwe workers have continued with
their strike action after
the cash-strapped national airline failed to
address their salary demands.
The workers say they are living in abject
poverty as they have not been paid
for the past seven months, with some
relocating to rural areas.
Others are now staying as squatters at a
nearby camp.
Air Zimbabwe has been hit by labour disputes, crippling
debts, interference
from senior government officials and politicians as well
as lack of funding
and poor management.
Striking workers claimed that
Transport minister Nicholas Goche was ignoring
their pleas for intervention
and “instead is giving us a deaf ear and a cold
shoulder”.
Workers
told the Daily News that Air Zimbabwe’s acting chief executive
Innocent
Mavhunga came to the scene in an effort to address the striking
workers but
they snubbed him saying he “would preach the same gospel”.
Mavhunga is
said to have continued with his address despite the growing
disgruntlement
from the striking workers.
“He told us that the airline is in no position
to pay its workers as it has
no money but instead is using the available
money to refund the people who
had purchased tickets on abandoned flights,”
said a disgruntled Air Zimbabwe
worker.
Workers said Mavhunga and his
entire management team should be sacked for
failing to pay outstanding
salaries and retrenchment packages as well as
running down the
airline.
“Why does he continue coming to work if he is not being paid?
What is he
coming here to do because we are not coming to work?
“This
guy and his team should be shown the exit door and give room to new
independent management because they have failed to revive the airline,”
argued another disgruntled worker.
When asked to comment, Mavhunga
told the Daily News that he was in a
meeting.
On Thursday, Mavhunga
confirmed that some workers held a demonstration at
the company’s Harare
International Airport offices.
With schools opening next week, the
workers claimed they were told to use
letters written by the company
committing to pay their salaries to negotiate
with schools over the payment
of fees and utilities such as electricity and
city council rates, the
workers claimed.
Goche was unavailable for comment.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw
By Xolisani Ncube, Staff Writer
Saturday, 07
January 2012 11:41
HARARE - Lands and Rural Resettlement minister
Herbert Murerwa has
intervened to end the nightmare of 130 families that
were living in the open
along a railway line after being evicted from
Bromley Farm on the outskirts
of Harare.
New owner of the farm
Samson Chauruka had denied a report in the Daily News
earlier this week that
he had evicted the families.
The Daily News based its report on extensive
interviews with some of the
families during a visit to the
area.
Yesterday, the families were returning to the farm after Murerwa’s
intervention following the Daily News report.
Faison Kome, one of the
people who were living along the railway line,
yesterday said Murerwa called
for a meeting of both parties to seek a
solution to the crisis that had left
the families in a dire health
situation.
“We were invited by the
minister yesterday (Thursday) for a meeting and he
told Chauruka to allow us
to return to our houses. He told Chauruka to
construct new homes for all
those people whose houses were demolished,” said
Kome.
“We hope that
he (Chauruka) will be able to do the best thing for us because
we have
suffered for a long period of time,” he said.
When the Daily News team
visited Bromley Farm yesterday, tents pitched up by
a humanitarian
organisation International Organisation for Migration had
been brought down,
a sign that the families were now going back to their
homes.
Women
and children could be seen busy transporting their belongings back to
the
farm compound using wheel- barrows.
When the Daily News finally got hold of
Samson Chauruka to find out when he
would be constructing these families new
houses, he said he could not speak
to newspapers as the matter was still in
the courts.
“As you know this matter is still before the courts I cannot
comment. But I
can confirm that we held a meeting with the minister and
other details I
cannot reveal to you,” said Chauruka.
Bromley Farm
has been at the centre of dispute following the “purchase” of
the farm by
Chauruka from Lesley Lombard, a white farmer who is now residing
at an old
people’s home in Marondera.
According to former farm workers who were
employed by Lombard, the white
farmer owes them huge sums of money in unpaid
salaries and terminal
benefits.
The workers claim that they had
struck an agreement with Lombard that they
would remain on the farm until
their dues were settled.
A copy of the agreement seen by the Daily News
shows that Lombard had
appended her signature to the agreement giving the
workers a right to remain
on the farm and carrying on with the
business.
Lombard gave the workers a right to use tobacco barns at the
farm for them
to earn a living pending the payment of terminal benefits and
wages.
Bromley is a tobacco processing concern.
However, the white
farmer later on decided otherwise and sold the farm to
Chauruka who then
evicted the workers.
Efforts to get hold of Lombard were fruitless as a
visit to the old people’s
home in Marondera yielded nothing.
She was
said to have gone out of her cottage.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/
07/01/2012 00:00:00
by Staff
Reporter
NEWLY trained nurses are now be free to seek alternative
employment after
the government suspended a requirement that they must work
for the state for
three years following qualification.
The government
imposed the requirement – under which the Health Ministry
also withheld
certificates and diplomas -- in 2007 in a bid to protect its
investment as
hundreds of state-trained nurses left the country for better
opportunities
abroad.
However, a freeze on recruitment by the cash-strapped government
left
hundreds of qualified nurses without work and unable to seek jobs
elsewhere
because they could not get their certificates and
diplomas.
But a Ministry of Health official, Jane Madyira said Friday the
bonding
arrangement had now been suspended because the government could not
employ
the nurses.
"Registered general nurses and primary care nurses
who graduated between
2009 and 2011 who are still unemployed and registered
for the release of
their certificates and diplomas with the ministry are
requested to collect
their diplomas," Madyira said.
The move will see
the Ministry release 532 diplomas for registered general
nurses (RGNs) and
529 certificates for primary care nurses (PCNs) trained
since 2009, but are
still unemployed.
However, state hospitals remain understaffed and the
Health Services Board
(HSB), which represents workers in the health sector,
said it would continue
negotiating with treasury over the recruitment
ban.
"This (suspension of bonding) is out of the realisation that
Government
cannot continue to deny the nurses other opportunities by holding
on to
their certificates when we cannot give them jobs," HSB director
Michael
Sande said.
"We hope that the Ministry of Finance can
accommodate our establishment
expansion request to ensure that our health
institutions have more
appropriate manpower levels.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/
By Brian Latham - Jan
7, 2012 7:17 PM GMT+1000
The state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development
Corp. has taken control of
Sino-Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd., a miner in Zimbabwe’s
eastern Marange diamond
fields, the Herald said, citing ZMDC Chairman
Goodwills Masimirembwa.
The Chinese gem miner stopped operations last
year, saying the area it had a
license to mine lacked diamonds, the Harare-
based, state-controlled Herald
said on its website. ZMDC is recruiting other
miners and carrying out
further exploration to continue operations, the
Herald quoted Masimirembwa
as saying.
http://mg.co.za/
DAVID SMITH HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Jan 06 2012
10:19
In the evening gloom the vast complex emerges into view.
Beyond a high
security wall, insects dance in the beam of a giant
floodlight. Men are
still hard at work in the skeletons of concrete tower
blocks and standing at
the centre of it all is the arch of a Chinese
pagoda.
Zimbabwe's national defence college is under construction within
a
sprawling, heavily guarded compound, the brooding presence of which sends
a
clear message to any would-be revolutionary. Some have dubbed it the
"Robert
Mugabe national school of intelligence".
The construction
site north of Harare has also become the lightning rod for
another source of
simmering resentment -- Chinese labour practices.
Surrounded by a
perimeter wall that runs for a kilometre through what was
once farmland, the
shadowy military academy is being built by a Chinese
contractor whose
managers are accused of meting out physical punishment,
miserable conditions
and meagre pay.
"The beatings happen very often," said a 28-year-old
carpenter, wearing blue
overalls as he made the long walk home after a
14-hour shift. "They
ill-treat you and, if you make a mistake, they beat you
up."
He estimated that there are about 600 Zimbabwean and 300 Chinese
workers on
the site. Around 50 of the Chinese are managers. Some Chinese
people have
"nice homes inside", and others live in wooden shacks just
outside the
complex. The Zimbabweans and Chinese rarely mix, he said. "They
don't speak
English so we use sign language. The Chinese eat off plates,
then give us
the leftovers."
The carpenter said he gets up at 4am and
works from 7am to 9pm every day.
For this he is paid $4 a day, but at least
it is work so he can feed his
wife and three children. "We don't have a
choice because we need to survive.
But if it was possible to chase all the
Chinese away, I would."
Reports of abuse by managers at the Chinese
contractor, Anhui Foreign
Economic Construction Company, are widespread, as
are complaints that the
government is turning a blind eye because it cannot
afford to lose such a
valuable partner.
"We tried to go on strike but
the leader was beaten up and sacked. The
government doesn't say anything,
even though it knows people are beaten up.
I saw them undress some workers
and beat them with helmets," a builder said.
"We feel angry but we need
money, so there is no choice. If you don't work
10 hours, there is no
money."
Attempts to contact the contractor by telephone and email were
unsuccessful.
The company's website refers to projects in Côte d'Ivoire,
Mozambique and
Zambia and describes how the project team of the Zimbabwe
national defence
college raised money for a carpenter whose son needed
treatment for
leukaemia.
Zimbabwe received a Chinese loan of
$98-million to build the college. The
loan will be repaid over 20 years
through earnings from the Marange diamond
fields, which are being mined by
another Chinese firm amid widespread claims
of human-rights
violations.
Okay Machisa, director of the Zimbabwe Human Rights
Association, said:
"Parliament approving such a debt without consulting
Zimbabweans is very
serious. Why are we prioritising an army intelligence
college instead of
universities and hospitals?
"Harare has no
electricity most of the time and the water is not good for
human
consumption. It shows we are trying to keep Zimbabwe under the control
of
state security."
China's commercial empire has expanded enormously in
Africa in the past
decade and Zimbabwe is trying to catch up. Trade between
the two countries
stood at $550-million last year, according to the Chinese
embassy. The
government in Harare has also announced that China is planning
up to
$10-billion in investments in the next five years.
Diamonds and
other mineral resources are the main attraction, but Chinese
entrepreneurs
have also seized opportunities in construction, manufacturing
and retail.
Chinese restaurants are booming, attracting top politicians and
businessmen.
Shops are flooded with cheap Chinese imports, or zhing-zhong,
of dubious
quality. Zimbabwean vendors claim they are being undercut and put
out of
work.
Just as a recent Human Rights Watch report alleged poor conditions
at
Chinese-run copper mines in neighbouring Zambia, so there is growing
antipathy and mistrust in Zimbabwe. Trade unions have called for action and
even members of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party have expressed
disquiet.
Machisa said: "We've got alarming, shocking human-rights abuses
in firms
operated by the Chinese. We've got empirical evidence that is going
to shock
the people of Zimbabwe. They are physically abusing the workers.
They are
psychologically terrorising the workers."
Others believe the
problem is a cultural misunderstanding. A Chinese
immigrant, Li Chen, said:
"If Chinese people work from 8am till 8pm they
have no problem. "It's a
different culture. If people sit down and talk and
understand each other, it
should change."
http://www.ipsnews.net/
By Stanley Kwenda
HARARE, Jan 7, 2012
(IPS) - Alec Marembo has built his family fortune making
bricks in
Dzivarasekwa, a sprawling high-density suburb north of the capital
of
Zimbabwe. But due to the economic crisis of the last decade, his fortune
started crumbling. Although he could break even when the downturn started,
he finally gave in to competition from the Chinese.
"I don’t
understand how our government can allow the Chinese to come here
and take
over small jobs that we consider family ventures and pass them on
as
investment," Marembo told IPS as he gazes into the distance where a new
Chinese brick factory lies.
The government of President Robert Mugabe
introduced the "look east" policy
in 2004, after top government officials
and state companies were slapped
with sanctions by the UK, the United States
and other western countries for
alleged human rights abuses.
The
policy has encouraged China and other Asian countries to invest in
Zimbabwe,
which they have done without attaching any conditions in the
manner of
trading partners in the west.
Times have been hard for many Zimbabweans
due to the closure of a number of
industries caused by the crippling
economic crisis.
So when Chinese investors started arriving they were
welcomed with open
arms. But the trade relationship is now raising
questions.
"The Chinese, like any other investors, are welcome but they
have to come
and build industries which will offer people employment,"
Thulani Mkwebo, a
small shop owner in downtown Harare, told IPS. "If I had a
choice I would
drive them out."
Resentment against the Chinese can be
felt in many parts of Zimbabwe.
Recently there were wildcat strikes at
several Chinese-run business
ventures. Last month some 600 Zimbabwean
construction workers employed by a
Chinese construction and mining company,
Anhui Foreign Economic Construction
Company (AFECC), downed their
tools.
They were protesting bad labour practices ranging from physical
abuse to
irregular working hours and low wages pegged at four U.S. dollars a
day –
far below the rates set by the Zimbabwe National Employment Council
(ZNEC)
for the construction industry, which are between 1.00 and 1.50
dollars an
hour.
The company is building a 98 million dollar military
college just outside
Harare, financed with a Chinese loan to be repaid with
diamonds.
AFECC is mining diamonds in eastern Zimbabwe, in partnership
with the
Zimbabwean military, according to the Ministry of Mines.
The
Chinese have many interests in this southern African country. But the
retail
sector, mining for diamonds and minerals, construction, manufacturing
and
agriculture are the main attractions.
According to a 2011 report by the
Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and
Research Unit, Zimbabwe's exports to
China rose from 100 million dollars in
2000 to 167 million dollars in 2003,
but fell to 140 million dollars in
2009.
Imports from China,
meanwhile, climbed from 30 million dollars in 2000 to
197 million dollars in
2007, before taking a dip in 2008.
This country's exports to China are
largely in the form of raw materials,
with tobacco and minerals being the
main products, while Zimbabwe receives
loans and various finished products -
most of which are popularly referred
to here as "ZhingZhongs" (poor quality
products).
But this has not deterred the Chinese, who have set up small
businesses
pushing locals, particularly cross-border traders, out of
business as they
cannot compete with cheap Chinese products.
Mara
Hativagone, a former president of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of
Commerce
(ZNCC) and chairperson of the Zimbabwe Investment Authority (ZIA),
said the
Chinese should not compete for the downstream industries
traditionally
reserved for locals.
"We want to see more technology transfer from
foreigners. They must not come
here and do all sorts of funny things, taking
advantage of the existing
relationship between the two countries,"
Hativagone told IPS.
"There is no way Zimbabweans can compete with the
Chinese, because they use
cheap labour and mass produce while half the time
we have no water and
electricity in our industries to produce," she
said.
She also accused the Chinese of being cheats. "Sometimes the
Zimbabwe
Investment Authority gives them manufacturing licenses, but they go
and open
restaurants under such big Chinese names as Wing Wah International
Hotel and
Shangri-la," she said.
Zimbabwe's ambassador to China
between 2002 and 2007, Chris Mutsvangwa, who
now runs MONCRIS, a consultancy
firm which helps people from China set up
businesses in Zimbabwe, said he
does not expect the Chinese to flood
business opportunities reserved for
locals.
"Any end of the industry anywhere in the world should be reserved
for
locals. I would not expect Zimbabweans to go to China to compete with
the
Chinese in small businesses, and I don’t expect the Chinese to do the
same,"
Mutsvangwa said.
"The Chinese have to come and exploit other
areas where we have a shortage,
but we should not completely bash them but
look at other things that they
have done for us. They have helped offer
competition for the Americans, and
now the girlfriend has another
boyfriend."
After the government's land reform programme began in 2000,
U.S. business
interests left in droves to relocate to neighbouring South
Africa, depriving
Zimbabwe of millions in potential foreign exchange
earnings.
Beijing is aware of the jitters and has warned against undoing
the existing
relationship.
"China understands the need for
indigenisation and empowerment but we hope
Zimbabwe will protect the
legitimate right of Chinese businesses in the
country," Chinese Vice Premier
Wang Qishan told the media during a visit to
Harare last year.
But
there is also popular support for the Chinese doing business here.
"The
Chinese are welcome, we love them, they bring us cheap goods, and
whoever
says they don’t want them should first create jobs for us," said
Zvikomborero Moyo, a hair and clothing boutique worker in downtown Harare.
"With Chinese help, we can start businesses, we buy from them very cheaply
and resell in the suburbs and that way we are able to make a living."
http://www.globalpost.com
Analysis: South Africa and other
neighboring countries could press Mugabe to
make reforms.
Zimbabwe
GlobalPost CorrespondentJanuary 7, 2012 08:21
HARARE, Zimbabwe —
Zimbabwe’s main political parties, Zanu-PF and the MDC,
are set to
renegotiate the so-called Global Political Agreement, analysts
disclosed
last week. This is a major setback for President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe
has decreed that there will be elections this year, which many saw as
a bold
move to push the MDC out of government.
The 87-year-old ruler is planning
to outmaneuver his MDC partners while he
is still able.
“The time has
come now for us to prepare for elections next year,” Mugabe
told his Zanu-PF
party last month.
He repeated the mantra that he was the victim of a
forced coalition with the
MDC.
“There are those among us who lost the
elections completely,” he said in
reference to the MDC. “They were rejected
by the people. We asked parliament
to regard them as if they won. Now we
have them in government.”
Mugabe is supported in his plans to hold
elections by the army, police and
intelligence service.
Mugabe's
government has already begun a crackdown on the media and has
deployed
military and party militia across the country to intimidate rural
and urban
voters.
Yet Mugabe has encountered some stumbling blocks. He has been
told by the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission that it has insufficient resources
to hold
elections.
He has also been told by South Africa’s President
Jacob Zuma — who is
heading a regional initiative to prevent electoral
violence of the sort
witnessed in 2008 — that fundamental reforms must be
implemented before
elections. These changes include opening up the media and
curtailing human
rights abuses.
Mugabe repeatedly claims he was
deprived of victory in the 2008 poll by
foreign forces, most notably
American NGOs headed by the National Democratic
Institute and the
International Republican Institute. But in fact he lost
both the
parliamentary and presidential polls to Morgan Tsvangirai’s
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) according to official results. But
Mugabe insisted
there had to be a runoff election, because he said that
Tsvangirai did not
win the required 51 percent. Mugabe won the runoff
elections by unleashing
widespread violence in which hundreds of
Tsvangirai's supporters were
killed, according to international observers.
Tsvangirai boycotted the
second round so Mugabe won. But South Africa and
the neighboring states of
the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
pressured Mugabe and
Tsvangirai to form a power-sharing government.
Mugabe’s repeated
denunciation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the
MDC has led to a
dysfunctional government.
Mugabe’s coterie, and in particular the armed
forces, refuse to recognize
the prime minister’s authority. This has in turn
damaged investment
prospects.
But Mugabe’s followers who have been
vitriolic in demanding early elections
are in for a shock. Evidence is
mounting that as a result of Mugabe’s
refusal to meet the terms of the pact
that binds him to the MDC in the
coalition government, the so-called Global
Agreement will have to be
renegotiated.
Analysts are already talking
of a GPA 2.
Elections, as Mugabe wishes, under existing conditions could
reverse
everything that has been achieved by the coalition so far, warned
political
analyst Ibbo Mandaza. Although the joint government has been
unwieldy and
often dysfunctional, it has succeeded in taming Zimbabwe's
billion percent
inflation and in reopening the country's schools. Therefore
there will be a
push for the revision of the GPA.
Other analysts
point out that regional body SADC cannot do any more than it
has already
done in knocking heads together.
Related: Zimbabwe MP freed after being
charged with calling Mugabe gay
“There has to be political will among the
political parties,” said
university lecturer Lawson Hikwa in a newspaper
interview. “There has to be
political will among the parties to move forward
and implement the
outstanding GPA reforms like the constitutional review and
various
legislative amendments for the holding of free and fair
elections.”
Other legislation that needs root-and-branch reform is the
Criminal Law
(Codification and Reform) Act which contains clauses from the
colonial era
designed to suppress nationalist voices. Mugabe is still using
the powers.
Editors and politicians have been arrested under this
act.
If South Africa insists that Mugabe stick to the terms of the
agreement,
then it must be renegotiated before Mugabe can hold elections.
This may well
deprive Mugabe of the head start he needs to place the MDC on
its back foot.
After over two years of horse trading, the parties are in
reality no further
forward than they were in 2009.
But one thing has
changed. Mugabe’s intention to press ahead without
consulting his government
partners and in the absence of essential reforms
such as repealing the
sinister Public Order and Security Act, which outlaws
public demonstrations,
will oblige South Africa and other neighbors in SADC
to draw a line in the
sand and demand that Mugabe make the fundamental
changes that Zimbabwe needs
to return to democracy.
http://www.dailynews.co.zw/
By Stanley Gama, Editor
Saturday, 07
January 2012 11:53
HARARE - On Thursday afternoon, I received a
strange call from Tendai
Mugabe, a reporter at The Herald.
He asked
me a weird question that I, together with the NewsDay Editor Brian
Mangwende
and The Independent Editor Constantine Chimakure, had been bribed
by Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai not to write stories about his supposed
marriage
to Locadia Karimatsenga.
I did not know whether to laugh or cry about
this mischievous allegation but
nonetheless I decided to respond.
The
Herald went on to publish the story yesterday. What is strange about
this
plot is that The Herald is accusing the Daily News and other newspapers
of
not writing the Tsvangirai story yet The Herald itself is not writing
anything about the same story.
Were they also bribed by Tsvangirai
not to write the story? If they have the
story why are they not writing
it?
Before going into the conversation, I want to make it clear that for
the
record, the story that private media journalists received bribes from
Tsvangirai is not only false, it is foolish.
This story has been
going on for some time and last year, there were reports
that private media
editors had been given credit cards with $3 million
dollars.
Where
has that ever happened, even in Utopia?
If anything, the Daily News and
the Daily News on Sunday, papers which I am
editor, extensively covered the
Tsvangirai/Karimatsenga story and I believe
we wrote more stories on the
issue than The Herald.
Our coverage of the story actually invited
negative criticism from
Tsvangirai’s people who accused us of wanting to
destroy their leader.
We did not stop writing what we thought was news
then and up to now if
anything newsworthy comes out of the
Tsvangirai/Karimatsenga issue, we will
not hesitate to publish it without
fear or favour.
The story about editors being bribed in The Herald
yesterday is not only
false but does not meet the basic standards of
journalism.
Let me also take this opportunity to state clearly that I
have lots of
respect for The Herald editor, William Chikoto and the
Zimpapers chief
operating officer Pikirayi Deketeke.
I salute the two
God-fearing men for helping me walk in the field of
journalism when I came
crawling, back in 1998.
This is not the kind of journalism they taught me
and I was not surprised to
hear that the real editor of The Herald was not
on duty when this weird
story was written.
Having worked at
Zimpapers, I have many friends and I must point out that
most of them are
professionals.
I have no problems with The Herald at all but I raise
issue with the editor
who passed the story for publication.
The basic
principles of journalism were not met in The Herald story.
Here I am
talking of the five fundamental and basic principles of
journalism — who,
what, why, how and when. These were not answered.
The story does not tell
the people when this happened, where we met
Tsvangirai, and more many
questions which remain unanswered.
Any editor who passed through a
journalism school like most of us would have
easily answered the above
before publishing the falsehoods.
I appreciate that there might be some
editors who did not go through
journalism school but surely these are basics
which the worst of editors,
including those parachuted through political
backdoors should understand.
These are basics which are learnt on the
first few days at a journalism
college.
Really our journalism has
gone to the dogs. As an editor, I would be ashamed
to run such a story even
under extreme political pressure.
To the editors who passed the story for
publication, I need to ask a
question — if the Daily News gets rumours that
a senior editor at The Herald
is sexually abusing young vulnerable female
journalists or we receive
unsubstantiated reports that the editors there are
employing their
girlfriends, do we rush to write a story?
No, because
some of us went through a journalism school where we were taught
ethics.
It is a shame that a few individuals at The Herald allow
themselves to be
used by some uncouth politician and gay gangster
masquerading as a political
strategist for Zanu PF.
I know the story
was manufactured by this gangster politician, whose mission
is nothing
except to get rid of President Robert Mugabe.
He has tried it many times
and later became desperate and even engaged
Americans to help him but so far
he has failed all because he is a fool.
However, I have problems with him
using gullible editors to pursue trivial
issues in a bid to silence the
private media from writing about Zanu PF.
But we will not be silenced,
you can silence me by killing me (I hear there
is a plot like that by some
political prostitutes) but you can’t silence the
people. I am only one out
of 14 million people.
As I pointed out in my response in The Herald, I
don’t believe presidential
spokesperson George Charamba is involved because
since we started publishing
last year, we have had a very professional
engagement.
At times we argue, he points out where he thinks we would
have gone
overboard but the engagements have remained professional and I
have lots of
respect for someone like that.
I don’t understand why
Zanu PF trusts the man who manufactured this rubbish.
They will regret one
day.
We are aware it will be dog eat dog come election time but with this
kind of
behaviour so early in the year, it means towards elections our heads
will be
cut off.
Lastly, I would like to point out that the story
that I received cash from
the Prime Minister makes interesting reading
because this Christmas was the
most miserable I have ever experienced
because I was extremely broke.
If only I had that kind of money!