Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
President Robert Mugabe and his South African
counterpart Thabo Mbeki
are set on a collision course at the Sadc meeting in
Zambia next month
following the collapse of inter-party talks between Zanu
PF and the MDC
aimed at resolving the Zimbabwean crisis.
Mbeki,
who has postponed direct talks on several occasions after the
Zanu PF
negotiating team failed to turn up in at the venue in Pretoria, has
nothing
tangible for Sadc leaders who selected him to facilitate talks
between the
two parties at a summit in Dar es Salaam in March.
The next Sadc
meeting is in Zambia on August 12. The flimsy excuses
given by Zanu PF for
failure to attend the talks have raised suspicion that
Mugabe could have
snubbed the Sadc initiative in the face of a
self-destructing opposition.
The two MDC formations are represented by their
secretary-generals, lawyers
Welshman Ncube and Tendai Biti.
Zanu PF key negotiators, Justice
minister Patrick Chinamasa and Labour
minister Nicholas Goche, again did not
turn up for negotiations scheduled to
resume in Pretoria last
week.
However, South Africa's Department of Foreign Affairs
spokesperson
Ronnie Mamoepa said the Zanu PF team had last week failed to
attend the
talks because of "prior commitments". He said the delegation had
apologised
to the South African government.
Mamoepa denied
claims that the talks had collapsed. Mbeki himself
recently reported
"progress" in the mediation effort.
The process is being conducted
under a media blackout.
Sources said Mugabe was unhappy that Mbeki
appears sympathetic to
calls for a new constitution before Zimbabwe's first
joint parliamentary and
presidential elections next year and the proposal
for a reformed-minded Zanu
PF. The reformed Zanu PF is understood to be
focusing at a post Mugabe-era.
Observers said Mugabe did not
believe in the Sadc initiative launched
following an international outcry
after MDC faction leader Morgan Tsvangirai
was beaten up by police on March
11 for defying a government ban on public
meetings.
On the same
day the Zanu PF delegation was expected in Pretoria,
Mugabe told a party
national consultative assembly meeting that the current
constitution was
serving the government well.
The MDC and civic society
organisations are opposed to piece-meal
amendments to the constitution and
want an overhaul to level the playing
field. The MDC has made the new
constitution one of its key demands at the
proposed talks with Zanu PF in
South Africa.
Top Zanu PF officials this week said the ruling party
was buying time
while waiting for Constitutional Amendment 18 to pass
through the necessary
framework before officially pulling out of the
negotiations.
An indication of the gravity of the Zimbabwean crisis
was when South
African Foreign Affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma
recently conceded
for the first time that she was "concerned" about the
economic situation
"which is deteriorating over time". She also warned that
efforts to rebuild
the country's economy would be hampered by polarisation
and division.
MDC Tsvangirai faction spokesman Nelson Chamisa
referred questions on
the matter to Biti. Mutambara faction spokesman
Gabriel Chaibva said as long
as there were no substantial breakthroughs "we
will not comment to avoid
predetermining the direction of the
initiative".
However, sources said although Zanu PF had submitted
its position
paper, it was reluctant to transform it into fully fledged
negotiations.
Under the Sadc initiative Mbeki was expected to bring
to the
negotiation table Zanu PF and MDC and map out a solution to the
political
and economic crisis the country. Mbeki was also tasked to ensure
that
Zimbabwe holds free and fair elections.
Zim Independent
Augustine
Mukaro/Shame Makoshori
GOVERNMENT'S ban on fuel coupons has
created panic amongst oil
companies, fuel dealers and garages as they rush
to clear wards of paper
that had become the most convenient way of procuring
fuel.
This came amid unconfirmed reports this week that the
government was
close to clinching a major fuel deal through an off-shore
loan to be
guaranteed by diamonds and tobacco. But players in the industry
were not
upbeat about the deal, saying there was nothing on the ground to
suggest
that fuel was on its way soon.
Fuel merchants were
yesterday trying to interpret government's move to
ban the coupon system.
There was chaos at service stations as coupon holders
thronged garages with
containers of varying sizes in a bid to beat the
two-week deadline given by
authorities to use all their coupons.
Government yesterday banned
fuel coupons but gave people and
organisations a fortnight to acquit
them.
Observers said the move was yet another of government's
ill-conceived
policies that would worsen shortages.
People in
the diaspora and oil companies with access to forex procure
fuel and
distribute it through the coupon system. The coupons are usually
sold in
foreign currency.
Fuel dealers dispelled speculation that
government was on the verge of
clinching a fuel deal from its newly found
allies.
Industry sources said government was negotiating with a
Libyan bank
for a line of credit but the deal was still far from being
sealed, as they
are demanding guarantees for loan repayments.
"Suppliers are demanding that government should provide first class
guarantees since Zimbabwe has previously failed to own up its debts and is
still battling a foreign currency crisis and an economic meltdown," one
dealer said. "But the National Economic Recovery Council has recommended the
use of either diamonds mined from Marange, beef or tobacco to back up the
line of credit."
The dealers said the Reserve Bank was availing
about US$6 million
monthly towards fuel procurement.
The amount
is enough to supply government departments for only two
weeks.
Government has recently been scouting for fuel from Libya, Iran and
Equatorial Guinea.
Energy and Power Development minister Mike
Nyambuya was in marathon
meetings yesterday while Permanent Secretary Justin
Mpamhanga was out of
office.
Zimbabwe needs about 2,5 million
litres of fuel per day, but
government has indicated that country has been
running at about 20% of the
required daily supplies.
Based on
prevailing international oil prices averaging US 65 cents per
litre, fuel
requirements amount to at least US$390 million annually.
Petroleum
prices this week climbed to $250 000 per litre on the black
market against a
government price of $60 000 per litre, forcing commuter
operators to
withdraw services.
After critical palance of payment support
lifelines were withdrawn by
the World Bank and the IMF in 1999, Zimbabwe has
grappled with a damaging
crisis.
Industrial output fell by 7%
last year alone and the gross domestic
product has plunged by between 30%
and 40% in seven years.
Zimbabwe has been conducting
over-the-counter fuel deals.
But the few facilities that have been
lined up have collapsed due to
failure to pay on time.
A
sugar-for-fuel deal with Iranian oil giant, Independent Petroleum
Group in
2003 failed after the country failed to honour its side of the
bargain.
Zim Independent
Lucia
Makamure
VICE-President Joseph Msika this week admitted that
government's land
reform programme was chaotic and has destroyed commercial
agriculture.
Msika made the disclosure in Nyanga on Monday to
delegates attending
the annual general meeting of the Communal Areas
Management Programme for
Indigenous Resources.
Msika said he
was not happy with the implementation of the land reform
as it was not in
line with what had been outlined in the land reform policy
document.
"There was chaos in implementing the land reform
programme," said
Msika. "The policy document didn't say all white farmers
should be chased
out. I am not a racist and I refuse to be racist . As black
people we think
that every animal should be killed and this is leading to
the fast
disappearance of some animals. We are losing small creatures and
this is
leading to the extinction of small tender trees and creeping
creatures."
He said dairy farming had collapsed due to poor
management and this
had left the country facing milk shortages.
"Munyika hamuchina mukaka Made. (There is no milk in the country),"
Msika
said to Joseph Made who was part of the delegation. Made was the
Agriculture
minister during the time of the land reform.
Zim Independent
Kuda Chikwanda
MAKONDE legislator Leo Mugabe
this week opened up on the Mashonaland
West provincial leadership, targeting
provincial godfather Nathan
Shamuyarira and Local Government minister
Ignatious Chombo for failing to
stop farm evictions in the
province.
Chombo and Shamuyarira are perceived to be the godfathers
of the
fractious province which is torn into two camps.
"I
don't want to be the one who decides on these farm evictions," said
Mugabe.
"It will appear as if I have been given money by white farmers to
protect
their interests and yet I am really concerned with productivity.
Speak to
Shamuyarira and Chombo, they should have addressed this already."
Mugabe said this as he confirmed to the Zimbabwe Independent that he
convened and chaired a special commercial farmers meeting in his
constituency on July 2 to discuss the issue of farm evictions with white
commercial farmers.
Mugabe's sentiments yesterday came three
weeks after it was reported
that Chinhoyi farmer, Doug Taylor-Freeme, had
ploughed through 40 hectares
of 30-centimetre wheat as revenge for having
his farm listed for
resettlement. It has since emerged that the reports were
false although
there have been manoeuvres to takeover Taylor-Freeme's
farm.
Mugabe was quoted defending Taylor-Freeme's continued stay on
the land
despite reports in the state media that the farm had been allocated
to Chief
Nemakonde.
The July 2 meeting was attended by 22 white
commercial farmers, Zanu
PF provincial officials and War Veterans
Association representatives.
It noted that verbal eviction orders,
the confiscation of farming
equipment from white farmers and written offer
letters which were being
issued unprocedurally were some of the major
problems affecting farmers and
farming output.
The meeting also
heard that the district administrator's office was
being by-passed in the
issuance of offer letters.
"It was felt that some people in Harare
were manipulating the
government services for personal gain. In reply MP
Mugabe advised that such
letters were fake and should be ignored. A typical
example of this was that
of two police officers who brought offer letters
one after the other from
Harare claiming that they had been allocated the
same plot," read the
minutes.
It was resolved that government
had compromised agricultural
production through the arbitrary issuance of
offer letters which had
heightened uncertainty in the farming
community.
Shamuyarira refused to comment saying he was busy while
Chombo was
said to be out of office. He was not answering calls to his
mobile.
National Security minister Didymus Mutasa who is
responsible for the
Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement portfolio, was said
to be in a meeting
by his secretary.
However, the minutes of
the Special Commercial Farmers meeting at
Lomagundi College show that Mugabe
assured the white commercial farmers that
the matter was being dealt with at
the highest level.
"He (Leo Mugabe) informed the farmers of a
number of meetings that had
been held over the issue. The recent one being
between Chief Nemakonde's
delegation which met His Excellency the President
(Robert Mugabe) on the
issue.
"The message which came from his
meeting was that the eviction of the
remaining commercial farmers should be
stopped until after consultations
between the political leadership of
Makonde are finalised," the minutes
read.
Zim Independent
BULAWAYO
city council this week decommissioned Lower Ncema dam and
immediately warned
that the city was faced with threats of disease outbreaks
due to critical
water rationing that will see residents going without water
for 20 hours on
a daily basis.
The decommissioning of Ncema dam has triggered an
acute water shortage
after the city decommissioned two other dams earlier
this year after they
ran dry.
Upper Ncema and Umzingwane Dams
were decommissioned earlier this year.
The city now has to rely on only two
dams, Insiza and Inyankuni, for water
supplies.
Bulawayo city
council spokesman, Phathisa Nyathi, said the situation
was
precarious.
"The Bulawayo city council has resolved to tighten the
water rationing
schedule with immediate effect. Residents will get water
once a day over
three days because as the water situation stands we are in
trouble," Nyathi
said.
As from Tuesday, residents were
subjected to 20-hour water cuts.
The council has warned that the
two remaining dams - Insiza and
Inyankuni - are expected to be
decommissioned in the next two months and the
city will then have to
entirely rely on borehole water.
"Bulawayo requires 140 000 cubic
metres of water daily but has been
getting 106 000 cubic metres because of
shortages. With the decommissioning
of Lower Ncema, supplies are expected to
fall to 60 000
cubic metres," Nyathi said this week.
Zim Independent
POLICE on Tuesday evicted one of the last remaining white commercial
farmers
in Matabeleland North in contempt of a High Court order interdicting
them
from disrupting operations at the farm.
Margaret Joubert, with her
ailing 83-year old mother, Ellen Maud
Dolphin, was evicted at gunpoint by
heavily armed police details from Portwe
Estates in Bubi/Mguza
constituency.
The Zimbabwe Independent established that police also
impounded
Margaret's three vehicles - a Land Cruiser, a Toyota Camry and a
Nissan
Hardbody - before making off with three elephant tasks she was
keeping in
her farmhouse.
Attempts to evict the Jouberts from
the farm started in February after
police raided Portwe Estates and
confiscated hunting rifles.
However, the eviction on Tuesday is in
contempt of a High Court order
interdicting the police from disrupting
operations at the farm owned by Dave
Joubert. Margaret is the wife to Dave
Joubert.
Bulawayo High Court Judge Francis Bere in May ordered
police who had
invaded Portwe Estates in April to vacate and stop
interfering with
operations.
The Jouberts' lawyer Josphat
Tshuma of Webb Low and Barry said they
were going back to the High Court to
file a contempt of court suit against
Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri
and Home Affairs minister Kembo
Mohadi.
Yesterday, Margaret
Joubert confirmed that police on Tuesday evicted
her from her farm. She is
temporarily sheltered at a neighboring farm.
"Armed police officers
with AK-47 rifles numbering about 50 came to my
house on Tuesday morning led
by Officer Commanding Matabeleland North,
Edmond Veterai and forcibly gained
entry into my farmhouse and told me to
leave," she said.
"I
showed them the High Court order but they said there don't take
instructions
from the High Court or lawyers but from their bosses," a
suppurating
Margaret added when narrating her story in a telephone
interview.
Matabeleland North police spokesperson, Inspector
Augustine Zimbili,
could not be reached for comment yesterday. Wayne
Bvudzijena, the police
spokesperson, referred the Zimbabwe Independent to
the Lands ministry.
"For comments concerning the allocation of
farms, you have to talk to
the Ministry of Lands," said Bvudzijena. However,
repeated efforts to obtain
a comment from Didymus Mutasa, the Minister of
Lands, Land Reform and
Resettlement, were fruitless. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
ZIMBABWE, which
said it was prioritising the eradication of extreme
poverty and hunger, is
sliding backwards and is far from achieving the
Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) goals by 2015, civic organisations have
said.
United
Nations member-states in 2000 adopted eight MDGs at a summit in
New York.
Under the plan Zimbabwe pledged to end poverty and hunger.
Government's implementation of inconsistent socio-economic policies,
poor
governance and the breakdown of the rule of law, have made it difficult
to
achieve Goal Eight - "Develop a Global Partnership for
Development".
Global partnerships are critical for ensuring support
for various
development programmes in developing countries.
Addressing journalists at a media roundtable on MDGs at the United
Nations
Information Centre in Harare last Friday, Cephas Zinhumwe, acting
chief
executive officer for the National Association of Non-Governmental
Organisations, said lack of international co-operation had reduced support
for Zimbabwe's efforts.
Zinhumwe said government needed to
re-engage regional and
international partners and all local stakeholders to
get out of the current
economic crisis, characterised by hyperinflation and
price and foreign
exchange distortions.
The media roundtable
was convened by the office of the United Nations
Resident Coodinator in
Zimbabwe Dr Agustinho Zacarias.
MDGs, from goal one to eight,
comprise the following: Eradication of
extreme poverty and hunger, achieving
universal primary education, promoting
gender equality and empowering women,
reducing child mortality, improving
maternal health, combating HIV and Aids,
malaria and other diseases,
ensuring environmental sustainability and
developing a global partnership
for development.
Out of the
eight, Zimbabwe prioritised goals number one, three and
eight as
prerequisites for the subsequent achievement of the rest, but it is
has
emerged that failure to implement goal number eight was seriously
impacting
on the achievement of the rest, half way towards the 2015 global
target. -
Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Constantine Chimakure
A ZANU PF camp led by Youth Development
deputy minister Saviour
Kasukuwere and minister without portfolio Elliot
Manyika has reportedly
begun purging senior party officials in Mashonaland
Central suspected of
backing Vice-President Joice Mujuru's presidential
aspirations.
The Zimbabwe Independent learnt this week that the
faction was
selecting candidates for next year's local government and
parliamentary
polls to replace incumbents perceived to be rallying behind
Mujuru.
Reliable sources said the Kasukuwere faction had lined up
people to
succeed Interactive Affairs minister and provincial chairman Chen
Chimutengwende and provincial governor Ephraim Masawi.
The
campaign has also targeted Guruve North legislator David Butau,
senators
Betty Chikava (Bindura-Shamva) and Agnes Angelina Dete (Mazowe) and
Bindura
mayor Advocate Dinha in a bid to weaken Mujuru's grip on the
province.
The six are believed to be key allies of
Mujuru.
The Kasukuwere camp also comprises Labour minister Nicholas
Goche and
backs President Robert Mugabe's continued stay in
power.
Mugabe's loyalists are opposed to two other camps vying for
the
presidency - one rooting for Rural Housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa
and
the other backing Mujuru.
"Kasukuwere and his team have
already started selecting candidates for
next year's parliamentary polls.
They are also positioning some of their
loyalists to take over party
positions from those perceived to be backing
Mujuru," a senior Zanu PF
official in Mashonaland Central said. The faction
has positioned provincial
youth chairman Dick Mafios to take over from
Chimutengwende as provincial
chairman. There are also efforts to push for
the appointment of Mafios as
governor and resident minister.
"The camp will lobby for Mafios as
provincial chairman to become
governor. Effectively they would have elbowed
Chimutengwende out of party
structures and Masawi from the office of
governor, collapsing two offices
into one," another source
said.
Goche's wife, the sources added, has been earmarked to take
over the
Shamva-Bindura senate seat from Chikava and has since been
appointed
chairperson of Women in Farming in the province.
Fears are abound in Kasukuwere's camp that Masawi is eyeing Manyika's
house
of assembly Bindura seat and there are hopes in the camp that a
delimitation
commission would split the seat into two - Bindura urban and
rural.
Manyika would stand for the Bindura urban seat if the
plan is
successful while former legislator Canisio Dengu is being positioned
for
Bindura rural.
"The plan is to starve Masawi of any seat.
Manyika is not from Bindura
constituency where Masawi hails from hence the
fears. The constituency is
largely made up of the Masembura and Musana
communal areas and Manyika is
afraid that people in the rural part of the
constituency would rather elect
one of their own who could be Masawi," said
the source.
Manyika comes from Chiweshe.
There were
also plans to replace Dinha with either Bigboy Makulaga or
Jonah Ngwenya.
Ngwenya is the district coordinating committee secretary for
Zanu PF youth
league.
Local government elections are scheduled for next
January.
While it was not clear who the Kasukuwere camp wanted to
replace
Butau, sources indicated that one of Manyika's aides (name supplied)
had
been earmarked to take over from the Dande Holdings
chairman.
The sources said once the Kasukuwere team is done with
Mashonaland
Central, they would move to other provinces to undermine Mujuru
ahead of
Zanu PF's special congress to select the party's 2008 presidential
candidate.
Manyika as the party's national political commissar,
the sources
alleged, would restructure Zanu PF provincial leaderships making
sure that
those rallying behind Mugabe occupy top positions.
Mugabe needs the support of at least six provinces at the special
congress
to remain in power.
According to sources, the Kasukuwere-Manyika
faction is pushing for
Tendai Savanhu to take over from Mines minister Amos
Midzi as Harare
provincial chairman. The faction is said to be certain of
support from
Masvingo province.
"They are confident of getting
support from Masvingo where the Zanu PF
leadership has since pledged its
allegiance to Mugabe," the source said. He
added that the faction was also
confident that Manicaland, Mashonaland
Central Mashonaland West and one of
the three Matabeleland provinces would
back Mugabe ahead of Mujuru and
Mnangagwa.
Masawi, Chikava and Dinha this week professed ignorance
of what was
happening in the province, while Chimutengwende, Butau and Dete
could not be
reached for comment.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
THE alleged adultery case involving Archbishop
Pius Ncube, a fierce
critic of President Robert Mugabe, which has been
sensationally playing out
in the media, has a new twist to it after it
emerged that the saga is a
state security hatchet job to discredit the vocal
cleric.
Analysts said events in the past week were reminiscent of
the Cain
Nkala and Ari Ben-Menashe issues and will collapse due to too many
holes.
Archbishop Ncube is being sued for $20 billion by a Bulawayo
man,
Onesimus Sibanda, who alleges that he had an adulterous affair with his
wife, Rosemary Sibanda.
Ncube's lawyer Nicholas Mathonsi, in a
lengthy interview yesterday,
said his client was not guilty and that it was
for that reason he was
contesting the case in court.
"My client
is not guilty and that is the reason we are contesting the
matter," said
Mathonsi. "Unlike the other team that has played their case in
the
newspapers, it is incompetent to discuss the merits and demerits of the
case
before a wrong platform."
Questioned on the pictures showing Ncube
in a compromising position
with different women, Mathonsi said he did not
know how authentic the
pictures were but said his client was
innocent.
"We do not know where the pictures are coming from and
what they are
or if they are authentic. We expect them to be produced in
court as evidence
but now they are already the property of everyone,"
Mathonsi said.
He also revealed that his client will sue media
outlets that carried
the pictures and the people who allegedly shot them
once the courts have
dealt with the matter.
The case has caused
apprehensions in the Catholic Church, with a
majority of people interviewed
by the Zimbabwe Independent saying they did
not believe that the video tape
and the pictures being splashed by the media
were original.
However, it emerged this week that the people involved in "nailing"
Ncube
have links to state security institutions.
The investigator cited
in the state media as the mastermind behind the
pictures, Ernest Tekere, is
a former undercover agent while state newspapers
claimed that he was a
detective with the police Criminal Investigations
Department
(CID).
Investigations and interviews with senior police officers in
that
department revealed that Tekere never worked for the CID. Most officers
said
they never knew him as a police officer but linked him to state
security
agents.
It also emerged that Sibanda was a solider
with the Zimbabwe Defence
Forces (ZDF) based in Gweru, and not a National
Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ)
communication technician as claimed by state
media.
NRZ public relations manager, Fanuel Masikati, refused to
comment on
whether Sibanda was a railways employee.
"I am sorry
I have no comment on that matter. I cannot comment to
you," Masikati
said.
It also emerged that Sibanda has not been staying with his
wife for a
long period but is staying with another woman in
Gweru.
The allegations against Ncube came after President Robert
Mugabe told
Zanu PF supporters in Harare last week that there were members
of the clergy
who were involved in illicit affairs with married
women.
Mugabe warned that some of the clergy were going to be
exposed for
what they were.
Exactly a week later, state media
was awash with pictures of
Archbishop Ncube, indicating that Mugabe was
aware of the impending smear
campaign against Ncube.
The plot
unravelled on Sunday when state reporters travelled all the
way from Harare
to Bulawayo to cover the story. The Herald sent Munyaradzi
Huni to cover the
case while SABC correspondent and ZTV part-timer Supa
Mandiwanzira was
already in Bulawayo on Sunday to cover the case.
Mandiwanzira's
cameraman was on Sunday at the St Mary's Cathedral
where he was seen filming
the Sunday mass. Archbishop Ncube, who presides
over St Mary's, was not
present over the weekend.
A press conference was quickly arranged
by Sibanda's lawyer,
Munyaradzi Nzarayapenga, who announced the lawsuit
before papers were
delivered to Archbishop Ncube with a team of journalists
in hot pursuit.
Zimrights chairman, Kucaca Phulu, said the pictures
being shown by the
state media violate the rights of people
pictured.
"The whole episode violates privacy and the right to be
protected from
abuse. The pictures also violate the dignity of readers while
traumatising
children who read the newspapers," Phulu said.
The
government-owned Herald and Chronicle newspapers ran photos
showing a man
identified as Ncube removing his clothes and lying in bed with
a woman.
Archbishop Ncube has filed a notice of defence at the Bulawayo High
Court.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
Public euphoria over reduced prices has begun
to turn into panic as
shoppers realise that government's forced price
reductions have cleared
basic commodities from supermarket
shelves.
Many goods are reappearing on the black
market.
Government's Operation Dzikisai Mitengo (reduce prices)
launched two
weeks ago was welcomed by consumers as an opportunity to hoard
cheap
commodities but the exercise has reduced supermarkets to
shells.
The commodities have since resurfaced on the black market
at prices
ranging between four and five times the gazetted
prices.
A thriving black market in Mbare is cashing in $120 000 for
a 2kg
packet of sugar, $500 000 for a 2-litre of cooking oil and $200 000
for a
bar of washing soap against government's $32 000, $86 000 and $90 000
for
the three commodities respectively.
Surveys throughout the
week showed that shelves in most supermarkets,
from growth points to the
major cities, have been emptied of basics.
People now spend most of
their time in queues for the limited supplies
of the commodities. On the
other hand, a critical fuel shortage has created
a transport
crisis.
Economic experts warned from the onset of the price
reduction blitz
that the move was going to destroy businesses.
Since the launch of the operation, over 2 000 business executives and
shop
owners have been arrested for allegedly failing to comply with the
government directive. Fearing arrests and detention, shop owners reduced the
prices of all commodities, including electronic goods.
By
Monday most shops in Harare had nothing left and queues had become
longer
than ever as consumers chased the sporadic deliveries of what remains
of the
basic commodities.
A number of chain stores have scaled down
operations and reduced their
workforce to assess the damage so far and work
out a way forward.
A tour of supermarkets on Wednesday showed that
in the northern
suburbs, retail outlets have resorted to limiting the number
of commodities
to one per customer but still not all basics could be found.
One shop
manager in the Borrowdale area said the strategy was to limit the
buying
frenzy and keep the shop open as long as possible.
A
direct contrast is seen in high-density residential areas where
everything
has been cleared out. Shop assistants said panic buying was still
rife in
the suburbs, as people stampede for limited supplies that were
trickling in.
"We are selling commodities as and when they are supplied,"
one assistant
said. "As for now deliveries have not been consistent."
In Mbare,
OK Supermarket has closed its bakery, butchery and takeaway
sections of its
shop and started renovations because it has been idle
following the price
reduction blitz.
"The renovations started last week," the foreman
of the renovations
team said. "We are redoing the floor because it is
damaged."
At the same shopping complex, all butcheries and other
small operators
have been forced to close shop after people looted products
when the prices
were slashed.
The manager of a shoe outlet,
which had less than five pairs on
display, said it was a matter of time
before he closed shop. "The price
reduction should have started from the
manufacturer, not the retailer like
what happened. If we do not receive
supplies within the next week, we will
be sending our workers
home."
On the pavements in front of the emptied shopping complex,
business is
brisk with informal traders persuading passers-by to buy basic
commodities.
Merely asking how much a commodity costs invites a mob of
traders trying to
convince you to buy their goods. They also make bargains,
reducing prices to
make sure that they beat competition.
Reports from other parts of the country show similar trends.
Zim Independent
Lucia
Makamure
CELLULAR network service providers face collapse due
to sub-economic
tariffs which were imposed by government three weeks ago,
industry sources
have said.
This comes in the wake of the
networks losing a lot of foreign
currency on termination charges because of
the increased number of local
calls to international
destinations.
When the government ordered the network providers to
reverse their
tariffs to the June 18 levels, international calls from
Zimbabwe rose
drastically, thereby congesting networks.
"The
sector is going to collapse soon if the charges are not revised
because at
the moment we have a scenario where we are having a lot of
international
calls from Zimbabwe to the Diaspora. This means network
providers have to
pay foreign currency for those calls yet very few
international calls are
coming in," said the sources.
Econet Wireless, one of the major
cellphone providers in Zimbabwe,
said they were losing a lot of foreign
currency in termination fees due to
increased international calls being made
by their subscribers.
"We would like to remind our customers that
every time they make an
international phone call, we as their operator have
to pay the operator in
the country they are calling in foreign exchange. Our
foreign currency
resources are very limited and we can only afford to pay
for a small amount
of bandwidth to cover these calls. In order to preserve
our capacity to
maintain international links, our customers can help by
asking people
overseas to call them instead," said Econet in a written
response.
Econet said the tariff reversal of three weeks ago had
resulted in
Zimbabwe having the lowest cellphone tariffs in the
world.
"The tariff approval reversal has not only resulted in
Zimbabwe having
the lowest tariffs in the world, unfortunately some of our
customers have
also taken the view that calls are so cheap in Zimbabwe they
can literally
spend the whole day on the phone," said Econet.
"We have not only recorded calls by some of our customers lasting
several
hours, but the call pattern now pertaining in Zimbabwe is showing
that
Zimbabweans are spending more than three times the global average on
telephone calls. The consequences on the network are rather obvious: firstly
we are carrying three times the traffic level that the network is designed
to carry. This means that the network is 'flooded'. There is nothing we or
any other operator can do about it. To make matters worse, a considerable
number of our base stations are switched off every day because there is no
power," added Econet.
In South Africa, subscribers are charged
between R2 and R2,70 on a
local cellphone call. In Zambia, a call is charged
at K750 per minute, which
is equivalent to $60 000 on the parallel market
while Zimbabwean charges are
between $400 and $700.
According
to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
standards, only 10% of
the subscriber population can be connected at any
given time but in Zimbabwe
due to the cheap tariffs more than 10% of the
subscribers are connected for
much longer at any given time. This is causing
network
congestion.
Call-hold time, which is the time one stays on a
cellphone call,
according to the ITU standards, should be five minutes or
less. In Zimbabwe
people are spending more than an hour on a phone call and
pay just $30 000.
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
ZIMBABWE'S domestic debt has soared to $6,8 trillion,
increasing by
221,8% in three weeks largely due to huge interest payments on
borrowings
through Treasury Bill instruments.
The unprecedented
rise in the government debt level, which is a 3
760,8% increase from the
January figure of $175 billion, was fueled by huge
interest payments,
according to figures obtained from the Reserve Bank
yesterday.
The figures show that government debt surged to $6,782 trillion on
June 22,
from $2,1 trillion at the beginning of the month.
The new debt
level means that with an estimated population of 13
million, every citizen
owes $521 695 to local banks and financial
institutions.
Four
in every five Zimbabweans is living below the international
poverty
benchmark of US$1 (about $150 000 on the parallel market) per day.
The figure has a huge bearing on the returns that investors will be
getting
from the money market. The money market is bound to continue issuing
investors with negative returns in the short-tem to minimise the harmful
effects of the huge interest cost component on the debt figure.
"Outstanding treasury bills accounted for 99,3% of this amount.
Government
deposits with the Reserve Bank increased to $555,1 billion from
7,1 billion
on June 1," the bank said.
The increasing government debt stock
raised fresh fears of renewed
turbulence in the crisis-sapped economy,
battling high inflation currently
topping 4 530%, a world
record.
Interest payments accounted for 75,4% of total debt at a
hefty $5,1
trillion.
The interest payments were for treasury
bills, most of which were
issued to the market at rates of between 500% and
550% during the first
quarter of the year.
High interest rates
helped swell the level of government debt,
analysts said, indicating that
this had forced a major restructuring of debt
in January from short-term
debt to long-term debt.
That strategy had been carried forward into
the second half of the
year, with the Reserve Bank flooding the market with
long-dated Treasury
Bill papers of one year or longer tenors.
Indications are that the restructuring exercise was unlikely to be
unsuccessful due to the market's lack of appetite for long-term
investments.
Analysts this week said it was evident that the
solvency of government
was already seriously compromised by the current
interest rates, and
technically government finances will not be better with
even a 2% rise in
interest rates.
The principal Treasury Bill
debt amounted to $1,6 trillion, or 23,8%
of government debt.
The debt stock was likely to rise further on increased borrowing by
government to finance unbudgeted expenditure arising from promises by
President Mugabe to subsidise manufacturers after ordering prices to be
reduced by half. The debt could also be further increased by the fact that
Zimbabwe has no access to international capital and therefore government
would rely exclusively on the domestic market for money.
Zim Independent
Admire
Mavolwane
INTERNATIONAL media has in the past few days been
dominated by the
news that China's trade surplus with the rest of the world
had reached a
record US$26,1 billion in June. This works out to be double
what it was the
same time last year and was spurred by a 27% increase in
exports to US$103
billion. Ironically, this surge is coming at a time when
the authorities in
that country have been trying to rein in exports by
repealing rebates and
imposing taxes on some goods.
To the
chagrin of many Westerners, the trade relationship between
China and the
United States remains firmly in favour of the former with the
surplus to
June sitting at US$73,9 billion.
The reverse is true for Africa.
According to the Chinese Daily, the
trade relations between the country and
Africa have not only been improving
but are skewed towards the African
continent. In value terms, goods worth
US$40 billion have been traded
between the two with China importing more
than it is exporting. These
imports are mainly raw materials such as
platinum, nickel, copper and other
metals. The increase in crude oil output
from African countries has also
been attributed to the high economic
activity and hence energy demand from
China.
The Chinese economy has been growing an incredible rate in
the past
three or four years. This year, after a series of 8,0-10,7% annual
growths
rates, the country is expected to grow by another
11,1%.
This frenetic activity in China has manifested itself in
record
increases in the prices of most major metals and minerals. The price
of gold
has risen from US$275/ounce in 2001 to US$673/ounce this year whilst
nickel
once reached US$50 000/tonne before receding to the current levels of
US$33
000/tonne. Platinum is trading at US$1 300/ounce from US$529/ounce in
2001
and copper has not been left behind. Massive investment in Zambia is on
the
back of these favourable copper prices.
Another important
facet of the "China effect" in the mining sector is
the increase in
exploration. Most mining houses are making enough profits
and are able to
re-invest these in extending the lifespan of existing mines
and open up new
ones. At the 68th annual general meeting of the Chamber of
Mines, the
chamber president indicated that funds dedicated to non-ferrous
metal
exploration world wide reached US$7,13 billion in 2006, with Africa's
share
being US$1,14 billion, of which the bulk was, by South Africa.
Zimbabwe's
contribution to Africa's exploration budget is tiny and not worth
mentioning.
What is even more saddening is the fact that not
only has the country
failed to benefit from the mining boom, with the sector
having declined by
16,23% in 2006, but a number of mining concerns are
scaling down. Some are
even closing down. Factors inhibiting the sector from
participating in the
'party' are well known.
This is not to say
there has been no activity in the sector. On the
contrary a lot has been
going on, particularly with regards to the old
mining houses. There has been
numerous changes in ownership and management
as some owners and/managers
have given up whilst others who feel fired up to
take the current challenges
head on have accepted the baton.
Central African Gold (CAG)
recently acquired listed Falcon Gold
Zimbabwe (Falgold) which runs Dalny and
Venice mines. The same group also
acquired Olympus Gold Mines. In another
development Carslone Enterprises
acquired Golden Kopje Mines. Listed
concern, Bindura Nickel Corporation
(BNC), announced that it had completed
the pre-feasibility study of the
Hunters Road nickel project and the board
had approved the construction of
an open pit mine at the site. The mine is
estimated to have a lifespan of 22
years.
On the other hand,
Hwange has not been having it easy. The colliery
company has been having
problems with its ageing machinery and at times has
failed to supply coal to
Zesa's thermal power station. It is reported that
the company needs US$60
million to re-equip and retool. Consequently, last
year saw production
declining by 32% and it is expected to regress even
further this year. The
recently appointed chief executive needs all the luck
in the world to turn
the company into the blue chip, which it should be.
Coming to the
performance of listed mining concerns, the share price
of Falgold did
respond to the change in management, with an appreciation of
7 043% since
the year begun. Hwange with all its troubles has been the
second best
performing mining counter this far with a year to date gain of 4
900%.
Surprisingly, BNC, whose operational performance has not been
disappointing
and whose future prospects look much brighter and has been
very generous to
shareholders with quarterly dividends, is third with an
uplift of 3 900%.
RioZim is last with a return of 3 650%, weighed down by
the issues to do
with the funds owed to gold miners by the central bank and
heavy expansion
investments estimated at US$200 million that the company
needs to undertake.
The overall mining index has gone up by 3 925%, and is
significantly lagging
the benchmarks such as the parallel market rate and
the Old Mutual implied
rate which have risen by 7 307% and 4 823%,
respectively.
The
fact that the sector has underperformed is not unexpected given
the trials
and tribulations that it has had and will continue to content
with. The
sector's fortunes remain intertwined with the exchange rate and
actions of
the central bank. Another dimension which has been added to the
equation is
that the central bank will now be both a competitor and arbiter,
after it
has set up gold and coal mining subsidiaries.
In the meantime we
are missing out on the Chinese gravy train, and who
knows what the global
situation will be when we finally get our house in
order.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
TOBACCO sales will fall short of
the projected total output of 80
million kg by nearly 10 million kg if
average daily sales of 485 000kg
continue with about 37 days of official
trade left.
Figures obtained from the Tobacco Industry and
Marketing Board (TIMB)
yesterday showed that a total 50,4 million kg valued
at US$117 million
(about $29,3 billion at the interbank rate) had gone under
the hammer as at
July 18.
Farmers this week said if the average
daily sales were maintained
until the close of the auction floors which are
traditionally during the
first week of September, a total of about 68,3
million kg would have been
sold.
Auction floors are usually
extended by about two weeks to accommodate
late deliveries. If sales during
the two weeks are included using the same
average sales, about 73,1 million
kg would have been sold for the 2007
selling season.
The
figures also showed that Tobacco Sales Floor (TSF) auction floors
have so
far handled the largest volume of tobacco, with about 7,3 million kg
of
tobacco valued at US$ 17 million going under the harmer as at July
18.
Burley Marketing Zimbabwe (BMZ) auction floors are second with
sales
of 6,8 million kg valued at US$16,1 million while Zimbabwe Tobacco
Auction
Centre (Zitac) accounts for the lowest volume of tobacco sales at
6,3
million kg valued at US$15,3 million.
Zitac usually caters
for large scale tobacco farmers, while TSF mainly
accommodates smallholder
farmers. BMZ attracts medium- to large-scale
tobacco growers. Contract
farmers accounted for 29 million kg valued at
US$68,7 million.
This year's tobacco auction started on a low note with farmers unhappy
with
prices merchants were offering.
Although amount being offered was
satisfactory, farmers were also
unhappy with the late payments which have
resulted to some staying at the
auction floors for nearly three
weeks.
Meanwhile a total of 52 213 kg of burley tobacco valued at
US$88 000
(about $22 million at the interbank rate) have been delivered to
BMZ auction
floor the country's sole buyer of burley tobacco. The deliveries
are 88 027
kg less that 140 240 kg archived during the same period last
year.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
DELTA Corporation has said the
economic recovery of the country will
require government to change the
current policies to relax controls and
allow market forces to operate, and
to create a more predictable environment
for business.
In a
statement in the company's 2007 annual report, Delta chairman Dr
Robbie
Mupawose said the current economic environment characterised by price
controls and a fixed exchange rate was not conducive for an economic
recovery.
"Economic recovery will require significant changes
to economic
policies," said Mupawose. "This should include the relaxation of
controls
and a move towards the operation of market forces to create a more
predictable enabling environment for business."
The dollar has
been fixed at $250 to the US dollar since July 31 last
year while it is
trading above $140 000 on the parallel market. Goods such
as mealie meal,
cooking oil and bread have been controlled since 2004. Delta
products such
as soft drinks and beer have been affected by the current
price
freeze.
After a cocktail of failed economic blueprints government
has lined up
another economic draft, the Zimbabwe Economic Development
Strategy (ZEDS),
to succeed the National Economic Development Priority
Programme (NEDPP) that
was unilaterally terminated by the Joint Operations
Command (Joc) a
fortnight ago amid a blazing price war with
industry.
The other blueprints that have failed to revive the
economy include
the Growth with Equity in 1981, the Economic Structural
Adjustment Programme
(1991), the Poverty Alleviation Action Programme
(1994), the Zimbabwe
Programme for Economic and Social Transformation (1996
to 2000) and the
National
Economic Revival Programme
(2003).
"The upward trend in inflation (currently at 4 530% for
May) is well
established and will not reverse unless steps are taken to
secure funding
from non-inflationary sources for recurrent government
expenditure,"
Mupawose said.
Delta's financial results for the
past three years have cited price
controls and failure to access enough
foreign currency from the Reserve Bank
as major stumbling blocks to its
turnover, operations and expansions.
Delta posted a turnover of
$375 billion in the first quarter of this
year, mainly on beer
sales.
The company said it was supportive of the initiative
underway to reach
a tripartite agreement between government, labour and
business on a way
forward to economic recovery. He however said all parties
should endure
short-term setbacks in their operations.
"Recovery is only possible if each of the parties is prepared to take
significant short-term pain in order to avoid an otherwise inevitable
continued economic collapse and considerable longer term pain," Mupawose
said.
Zim Independent
Pindai
Dube
UNCERTAINITY has gripped the property sector which is
reeling from the
effects of a government directive on price cuts that have
worsened
accommodation crisis in the country.
This comes amid
revelations that property owners have started
withdrawing their assets from
the market to evade the government crackdown
which started a fortnight
ago.
Players in the sector said the withdrawal of properties from
the
market was in protest to the government refusal to adopt price formulas
it
was presented by estate agents for consideration in place of the
reduction
in prices and rentals.
Real Estate Institute of
Zimbabwe (REIZ) president, Boysen Mutembwa
confirmed to businessdigest that
the property sector has been thrown into
turmoil by the government directive
to rollback prices and rates to those
obtaining before 18 June.
Mutembwa also said government has remained mum over the property price
formulas they presented after the onset of the price reduction.
He said in the absence of an agreed pricing structure, the sector
faced
collapse. Since the beginning of the year, the property market has
been
buoyant driven mainly by demand for upmarket accommodation. However
prices
of houses and commercial properties have remained beyond the reach of
many
potential buyers in a market where the bulk of the country's working
class
no longer qualify for bank loans or mortgages.
"We presented our
price formula suitable for our sector to the
Minister of Industry and
International Trade," said Mutembwa. "Authorities
in the price cuts
taskforce have remained mum over the issue."
Mutembwa said most
residential property owners had started withdrawing
their properties from
the estate agents and were engaged in private deals
with potential property
buyers.
"Most residential property owners are withdrawing their
properties
from estate agents as they do not want their prices to be
controlled under
this government operation and are engaged in private deals
with the property
buyers," he added.
Property owners have been
reaping huge financial profits through rent
increases, which in cases have
gone up by more than 400% inside four months
while others are demanding
rentals in foreign currency.
Knight Frank managing director, Oswald
Nyakunika said landlords had
resorted to withdrawing properties from the
market due to the ongoing price
reductions.
"Whenever rentals
or returns are low, there may be a reluctance to
lease in favour of owner
occupation. Before the price cuts and price freeze,
the trend was three
months rent review to compensate for any losses due to
inflation," he
said.
Zim Independent
Constantine
Chimakure/Kuda Chikwanda
BATTLE lines have been drawn and
daggers out, with the fate of Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon
Gono coming under the spotlight.
Zimbabweans now wait to see
whether Gono will be forced out of office,
have his wings clipped or
continue spearheading so-called economic recovery.
Gono recently
found himself at loggerheads with ruling party stalwarts
after he advised
that government's order for businesses to cut prices of all
goods and
services by 50% was antithetical to economic revival.
In two
documents addressed to the Cabinet Taskforce on Price
Monitoring and
Stabilisation in the past fortnight, Gono warned that the
price blitz would
lead to unintended consequences such as the collapse of
businesses,
worsening economic decline and suffering for the poor.
He likened
the state-sponsored crackdown to the invasion of Iraq by
the United States
of America and its allies without an exit strategy. He
drew biblical
references with Moses and the Israelites' departure from
Egypt.
Those opposed to the "prime ministerial" powers President Robert
Mugabe has
given Gono bayed for his blood saying he was working at
cross-purposes with
government. They suggested that either his wings were
clipped or he be
dismissed.
They believe Gono to be a stumbling block to the ruling
party's 2008
parliamentary and presidential elections campaign. The current
price blitz
spearheaded by state security agents and youth militia is widely
perceived
to be one electioneering tool.
They believe if they
convince Mugabe, he can turn his back on the
central bank chief, in much the
same way he did with former Information
minister Jonathan Moyo two years
ago.
But questions arise on their capacity to pull this off. Do the
sentiments of Gono's enemies mean there is now lack of trust between him and
government? Will he be allowed to continue in office with enemies lurking in
the shadows?
More importantly, will the relationship between
Gono and his
principal, President Mugabe, change?
Gono has
denied having presidential or political ambitions. He has
also denied that
there is a rift between himself and senior ruling party
officials, saying
his relations with the presidium and cabinet are
excellent.
"I
am not a politician, but a technocrat and practical governor of the
central
bank whose duty is, among others, to give advice to the government
in its
various forms and I am doing exactly that without fear or favour.
"I do not hold any political ambitions either. As governor, I hold an
apolitical office in the land and I have no known enemies in either Zanu PF,
MDC or any other political party," he said at the weekend.
Such
assurances will not deter plans by Labour minister Nicholas
Goche, Industry
and International Trade minister Obert Mpofu and minister
without portfolio
Elliot Manyika who are reportedly pushing for his exit.
All are members of
the politburo, Zanu PF's supreme decision-making body
outside
congress.
The three ministers represent widely held sentiments
within the two
major ruling party factions, led by retired army general
Solomon Mujuru and
Rural Housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa. Reliable
sources say the two
camps want Gono out "as soon as yesterday".
The Mujuru faction has been fighting Gono since his appointment in
December
2003, while the Mnangagwa camp, widely perceived to be Gono's
political
backers, are said to be peeved at his alleged presidential
ambitions.
Gono's closeness to Mugabe has been a source of
worry for both camps.
Apart from being Mugabe's personal banker for years,
he is believed to have
more access to the 83-year old leader than most
ministers and politburo
members.
But political analysts believe
the noise created by Manyika, Goche and
Mpofu to be much ado about nothing.
They believe that if he had indeed
fallen out of favour, he would now be
gone as the ruling party has a history
of non-tolerance for
dissent.
Gono's trump card, they said, was the RBZ Act, which
empowered him to
advise government on matters affecting the
economy.
"Gono's mandate is to advise government," political
scientist Michael
Mhike said. "He is in charge of the economy and I do not
see why they want
his wings clipped or to have him dismissed. He is supposed
to fight
inflation, create employment and oversee interest rates, but how
can he do
that without criticising policies he feels are against his
mandate?"
Mhike said those calling for Gono's dismissal were doing
so because
they believed he harboured presidential ambitions.
"This is a political matter. It has nothing to do with improving our
economy. I think some Zanu PF leaders are worried with what he has been
doing at the helm of the central bank since 2003."
Other
analysts believe that while Gono could have angered Mugabe by
suggesting the
price blitz was improper, he would not be fired as he enjoyed
a sound
relationship with Mugabe.
One analyst who requested anonymity said
Gono supported the principles
behind the price blitz but was concerned at
government's failure to address
the supply side.
"If Mugabe was
angered, it was only fleeting. Evidently Gono believes
that for the exercise
to be successful, government should address the supply
side. Do we want a
situation where prices have been slashed and shops are
emptied without
replacements?"
Last weekend Gono defended his criticism of the
blitz, calling for a
holistic approach to avoid "unintended
consequences".
"An unfortunate impression has been created
suggesting that the
governor is working at cross-purposes with
government.nothing could be
further from the truth," Gono said.
Gono said there was need to put in place mechanisms to reduce
inflation and
improve productive capacity for prices to stabilise.
Since coming
into office, Gono's advice to government has either been
ignored or
implemented too little, too late. Increasing the country's
productive
capacity has been his clarion call, but his calls have all been
met with
stiff resistance by those peeved at Gono's central role in the
economy.
Since 2003, Gono has called for the removal of price
controls and
subsidies saying they place pressure on the central bank to
engage in
damaging quasi-fiscal activities. Government has refused to heed
his advice
and price distortions still exist on fuel, foreign exchange
rates,
agricultural output and service provision by
parastatals.
The International Monetary Fund has blasted the RBZ
for quasi-fiscal
expenditures, which have stoked inflation.
Realising that the uptake of land under the land reform programme was
not
tallying with output, Gono advised government to undertake command
farming
to force all beneficiaries to be productive. Government is yet to
act in
that regard.
Efforts to devalue reasonably and offer viability to
exporters have
been dismal. Mugabe does not believe in devaluation and any
official who
does so will be axed as Simba Makoni was in 2002.
Gono has warned of abuse of fuel meant for farming, delays by
government in
announcing agricultural crop prices, corruption and the
implementation of
99-year leases. He has repeatedly called for parastatal
re-orientation,
privatisation, upholding and signing of Bilateral Investment
Protection and
Promotion Agreements (BIPPAs), and prudence in tabling
proposed amendments
to the Mines and Minerals Act.
He has also put himself on the
warpath with National Security minister
Didymus Mutasa, who also holds the
lands portfolio, on the need to stop farm
invasions.
Mutasa has
contributed to the fracas by continuing to issue offer
letters and this has
resulted in disruptions to farming while violating some
BIPPAs.
Government only implemented 99-year leases last year, despite Gono
having
called for them since 2004. Parastatal re-orientation has been a
dream, and
government has been resolute in refusing to privatise
parastatals, which
have been a huge drain on the fiscus.
Uncertainty has hit the
mining sector badly over the proposed
amendments to Mines and Minerals Act,
while the National Incomes and Pricing
Commission, which Gono called for in
May 2005, was only implemented in May
2007.
Gono also started
making calls for the social contract in 2005 but it
is yet to be signed. The
closest the partners got to was when three
protocols were signed on June
1.
Zim Independent
By Tawanda
Mutasah
IN order to feed Italian masses with the propaganda of
a leader who
still had the stamina to govern, the dictator Benito Mussolini
is reputed to
have occasionally visited construction sites where he would be
photographed
pushing and pulling back-breaking debris and
machinery.
As soon as the cameras were turned off, the dictator's
aides would
leap to resuscitate a punting and sweat-drenched Mussolini, who
would then
spend days on end privately hospitalised to recover from the
aches and pains
of his bravado.
I never cease to be amazed at
the yawning gap between appearance and
reality in the lives of political
strongmen from Benito Mussolini to Robert
Mugabe.
During the
many years that his late wife Sally Mugabe was attached to
a dialysis
machine, Mugabe notoriously conducted an affair with his
secretary Grace
Marufu, and now we hear him - in remarks that were
suspiciously sequenced to
preview the serving of summons for claimed
adultery on Bulawayo Catholic
Archbishop Pius Ncube - berating those who are
supposedly breaking their
vows of celibacy.
The point is not whether or not Ncube and
Rosemary Sibanda had a
relationship between two consenting adults in what,
if they did, they - or
one of them - may have believed to be their private
space. Nor whether, if
it happened, they had entered into the relationship
with the same motive.
If there was no relationship and Ncube has
been systematically set up
in the well-known patterns of the Mugabe regime,
we are outraged. If there
was a relationship, whether or not Ncube and
Sibanda were set up in the
process, or one of them was, we are nauseated by
the callous attempt to
distract the attention of a nation on its knees
through cheap, scout-camp
theatrics.
These "half-round chicken
kicks" do not put a slice of bread in the
mouths of hungry
Zimbabweans.
Whatever exists or does not exist between Ncube and
Sibanda, the
families and individuals concerned must take responsibility for
their
decisions in the private moral realm and with God and their
consciences.
They would then use the civil law as appropriate, whether for
claimed
adultery damages on the part of Sibanda's husband, or for possible
defamation damages on the part of Ncube, or to seek other
relief.
On the other hand, contrary to the intentions of Mugabe and
his
cohorts, the matter does not for once confuse Zimbabweans and the world
about the veracity and importance of Ncube's public moral voice on the
morass that Zimbabwe has become, and on Mugabe's responsibility for the
state we are in.
At their Harare rendezvous, whereat Edgar
Tekere linked up with Mugabe
to drive towards and cross into Mozambique to
join the liberation struggle
in 1975, Tekere's book, A Lifetime of Struggle,
records that "as I got into
the car, I saw a small figure slowly climbing
the security fence at the rear
of the garage. It was Robert Mugabe. He was
coming from the home of Abigail
Kurangwa."
Because, according
to Tekere's account, this event happened after
Mugabe had committed to Sally
before leaving Ghana, presumably it is these
experiences that inspire the
designs of Mugabe to govern Zimbabwe through
the stage-management of sexual
intrigue.
Unfortunately for him, just as he found Zimbabweans to
have had the
sophistication to see through the massive propaganda on which
Ian Smith
propped up the Rhodesian state, the nation today knows that being
fed
sensational intrigue about Ncube does not cause inflation to come down,
nor
essential commodities and medicines to appear on the supermarket shelves
and
in the hospital dispensaries.
Rather, Zimbabweans are able
to question how much money might have
gone into setting up cameras in Ncube
or any other man or woman's bedroom
and where that money might have come
from.
They are able to question how much of Zimbabwe's resources
were spent
rigging cameras in the Canadian offices of Ben Menashe to entrap
Morgan
Tsvangirai, and whether those resources could not have sustained the
pest-control services at our mortuaries in one of which a child's body has
recently been reported to have been bitten by rats.
Zimbabweans
are able to wonder how many dip tanks in our rural areas
would have been
kept functioning by the US$1 million spent on Baffour
Ankomah's New African
magazine to lie about the events of March 11.
In fact, Zimbabweans
know what the big moral questions of our day are.
They aspire to a
decent life of more than the pitiful 37 years of life
expectancy in the
country. Zimbabwean adults aspire to enter into consensual
relationships
that are faithful, non-violent and mutually nurturing, and if
God grants it,
to found families where children that may come of those
unions have
educational and life opportunities enabled by their government.
They know who is shattering those dreams.
How many widows were
created by Gukurahundi, tearing asunder the moral
fabric that Mugabe today
pontificates about? How many families were
separated by Operation
Murambatsvina?
How many couples today live apart, with partners
having found no
option but to escape the hunger in Zimbabwe, leaving loved
ones behind? How
many young women have been forced into dangerous liaisons -
often with the
belching fat-necks that eat at Mugabe's trough - on account
of an irrational
economy where one's monthly bus fare alone exceeds one's
wages?
These are critical moral issues that Ncube is consistently
helping to
keep alive in our national conscience.
The moral
questions of the day also include all of us choosing either
to
opportunistically line up at the trough of patronage for the sake of our
own
tummies, or to speak out on the side of the oppressed, unfortunately
becoming ourselves, our lives and our reputations, individual targets of the
wrath of a dying dictatorship.
Pity you, the Scribes and the
Pharisees. In addition to the laughable
spectacle of your well-fed TV
newsmen lumbering themselves to the alleged
crime scene, even though if we
gave them a basket of stones they could not
conceivably cast the first one,
the oddities of your case are myriad.
At the very least, we find
that we all live in a strange country where
the head of state makes remarks
that anticipate adultery court summons 10
days in advance, and where TV
cameras escort those who serve court summons
wherever they go.
As you sit down to devise the next scheme not to protect and
facilitate the
livelihoods of us who voted you into office, but to distract
us and to
muzzle our voices of conscience, take a moment to remember the
great
denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23, where
Jesus
denounced those who "are like whitewashed tombs", those who "inside .
. .
are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness", and those who, at verse 23,
"have
neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and
faith".
* Tawanda Mutasah is a friend of Archbishop Pius
Ncube.
Zim Independent
By
Mutumwa Mawere
THE nature and context of the political and
economic crisis in
Zimbabwe has changed in a cynically predictable manner.
The contestation for
power since Independence has been principally between
the labour-dominated
opposition and custodians of the national democratic
revolution.
The labour movement in its current formation is a
direct consequence
and creation of the post-colonial state. In fact,
President Robert Mugabe
can rightly claim to be the father of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU) because under the colonial settler regime,
such consolidation of
labour power was illegal.
If one accepts
that the ascendancy to power of Zanu in 1980 was a
triumph of the working
class and the marginalised majority, then the focus
of the post-colonial
state necessarily had to be about the poor. To the
extent that the national
democratic revolution was meant to restore
sovereignty to the people, the
expression of such power had to be through a
government created by the
citizens.
For the first seven years of Zimbabwe's Independence, the
address of
sovereignty was the parliament of Zimbabwe. After the Unity
Accord, the
address changed to State House and Mugabe became the supreme
leader.
It is clear that there is no consensus as to the origins of
the
Zimbabwean crisis. Some argue that the crisis began at Lancaster House
particularly in respect of how the land issue was to be handled and
financed. They argue that the fact that there was a delay in tackling the
problem should not detract from the core challenges of democratising an
entrenched legacy of colonially engineered inequities.
Accordingly, the economic crisis in Zimbabwe is seen as predictable in
that
any attempt to convert the civil rights gains of the national
democratic
revolution into economic rights is bound to generate problems.
In
prosecuting the national democratic revolution, it is argued that
it would
be unreasonable to expect the assistance of the bourgeoisie class
particularly the white settler class. Naturally, one would expect that the
labour movement, whose members were exploited historically in the creation
of an artificially developed colonial state, to come to the assistance of
the ruling elite.
In fact, the creation of a federation of the
working class was meant
to entrench an alliance of the oppressed and the
ruling elite in the pursuit
of a common objective to eradicate poverty. The
role of the state was seen
by both labour and the bureaucrats as central to
the execution of the people's
mandate.
Notwithstanding the
expectations, Mugabe's experiment backfired on him
and 27 years later he now
finds himself head-on with an unexpected alliance
between the working class
(his own creation), white settler class and the
domestic and foreign capital
class.
What is ironic is that there may not be any fundamental
policy
differences between the labour movement and Zanu PF in as much as the
differences between Zanu and Zapu were patched up to the benefit of the
leadership of both parties.
It is not clear in terms of the
tactics and strategies of the labour
movement what kind of Zimbabwe they
want ie a socialist construction with
the state in control of the commanding
heights of the economy or a
capitalist system in which the market determines
the allocation of
resources.
If there is any lesson to be drawn
from the just-ended ANC Policy
Conference and last week's South African
Communist Party (SACP) congress, it
is that the labour movement is
determined to institutionalise the same
policies that Mugabe is being
criticised for by the labour movement in
Zimbabwe.
If Mugabe
were a South African, there is no doubt that he would have
been elected
unopposed as both the leader of the ANC and the SACP. However,
Cosatu and
SACP appear to be opportunistically opposed to Mugabe's policies.
On the question of asset ownership, Mugabe and the ANC alliance
partners
believe that the state should control and manage the assets. In
fact, the
SACP called for the nationalisation of petrochemical firm Sasol
and Mittal
Steel South Africa to ensure energy security.
The general secretary
of the SACP, Blade Nzimande, told the party's
congress last week that it was
absurd for resource-rich South Africa to be
paying high prices for steel and
oil produced in the country.
"Why do we have to pay not just import
parity prices but as much as a
30% premium when compared to India and China
for our own steel? About 40% of
our oil comes from Sasol, but we are paying
international prices," he said.
He urged delegates to pass a
resolution calling on the state to take
control of the two companies. It is
clear that the difference between the
SACP and Zanu PF's position on asset
ownership and pricing policies may be
the same and yet the SACP advocates
regime change in Zimbabwe.
It is not clear what SACP and Cosatu
know about the MDC in terms of
policy that would lead them to want Mugabe,
their most vocal and eloquent
spokesman for the Socialist International, to
go and be replaced by a party
that would on the face of it (if the
solidarity with SACP and Cosatu means
anything) end up advocating the same
policies that Mugabe has failed to
implement over the last 27 years. Could
the argument between MDC/ZCTU and
Zanu PF be over the pace of
nationalisation or are there fundamental policy
differences?
On
the issue of the benefits from the post-colonial state, Mugabe's
position is
that the benefits are skewed in favour of criminals masquerading
as
businessmen and imperialist agents. The position is no different from the
one articulated by Cosatu secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi at the SACP
congress.
Vavi said: "The main beneficiaries of economic
transformation are
white capitalists who remain the induna (chief) while the
black middle class
holds jobs in human resources. The SACP and Cosatu are in
the middle of one
of the biggest struggles since the 1980s and 1990s and the
patience of the
working class is wearing thin.
"They remain as
oppressed by the white oligarchy as the working class.
Cosatu and SACP are
demanding that the benefits of the sustained economic
growth should be
shared with the people who created the wealth. We can
expect the attacks on
all of us to intensify."
Many have been surprised by Mugabe's
reaction to the Zimbabwean
business sector in terms of price increases in
the face of a
hyper-inflationary environment. However, given that it is
unclear what the
policies of the labour dominated MDC in the post-Mugabe era
are, Mugabe has
decided to take over the role of the opposition in Zimbabwe
and no-one can
doubt after the actions of last week that he is now
opportunistically the
undisputed leader of the downtrodden and leaderless
opposition.
For the SACP and Cosatu, they see in Mugabe a leader
that warehoused
and baby-sat capitalism for too long. They would want a new
leadership in
Zimbabwe that would accelerate the destruction of private
property and
introduce state planning in which they would think for the
citizens in the
name of national interest.
Given that the raw
materials of any successful politician in Africa
are the poor rural people
and the working class, Mugabe has no choice but to
reclaim the leadership of
the national democratic revolution by stepping
into the ideological vacuum
created by the MDC with its alleged questionable
alliance with capitalists
and white settler farmers.
Under this construction, it is then
argued that there can be no basis
of a regime change being driven by the
working class when there is no better
leader for them than Mugabe and Zanu
PF. If Zapu came to the realisation
that it was futile to oppose the
national democratic revolution led by Zanu,
then it is also argued that MDC
will now come to its senses with the
realisation that the state can force
business to reduce prices by 50% with
no visible and tangible
opposition.
If Mugabe can bring lower prices to the suffering
masses then surely
why would any reasonable and patriotic Zimbabwean want
him out? Only
imperialist forces would want such a leader out of power and
leave the
vulnerable majority unprotected.
If Mugabe has
transformed himself into the leader of the opposition,
then what are we to
make of Gideon Gono's antics of leaking confidential
papers to the media and
trying to confuse the public from targeting him for
his own misguided
policies and programmes?
By the way, who introduced externalisation
as a criminal offence in
the Zimbabwean vocabulary? Who controlled the
exchange rate at artificial
rates and then introduced Productive Sector
Facilities? Who removed the
three zeros from the currency and called them
heroes?
What is the difference between no devaluation and price
control? Who
introduced unconstitutional and illegal quasi-fiscal activities
whose full
extent remains shrouded in mystery? Why would Gono want to run
away from his
shadow? What ever happened to Herbert Murerwa who correctly
predicted that
the zeros would come back with a vengeance?
It
is evident that Mugabe learned from Gono that the police can do a
better job
in managing political and economic behaviour than good policies.
Notwithstanding the demise of the traditional communist order, there
are
many who believe that socialism can be a better instrument for
eradicating
poverty in Africa. There are many who resign in comfort that
Mugabe, like
other like-minded leaders, is a victim of imperialist forces
that are
determined to keep Africans from controlling their destinies.
What
is tragic is that bad leadership benefits from the ideological
confusion
that seems to characterise contemporary African opposition
politics.
* Mutumwa Mawere's weekly column appears on New
Zimbabwe.com every
Monday.
Zim Independent
Comment
EXUBERANCE has never been a substitute for rational
thinking and
government is slowly waking up to this realisation. The
taskforce on Price
Monitoring and Stabilisation on Wednesday effected an
upward revision on the
price of cooking after agreeing with producers that
the prices decreed by
the government three weeks ago were
unsustainable.
The taskforce this week quadrupled the price of
cooking oil from $22
000 for a 750ml bottle to $91 000. It has also been
announced that retailers
and wholesalers are allowed to effect a 20% margin
to cover transport costs
for distances over 40 kilometres. This should be a
welcome development for
the business sector which has over the past three
weeks incurred huge losses
for selling their products at sub-economic
rates.
Indications on the ground are that the taskforce will be
doing the
same on other basket goods in a move designed to bring products
back onto
shop shelves and to build trust between government and industry.
For a long
time, business has been regarded as hostile to government's
designs, and
policies at both fiscal and monetary levels have seen the
private sector
coming out second best.
The strategy of business
in the current exercise has been to comply
with state policy to avoid
further antagonism and hopefully extract
concessions. The need to build
trust between the parties is the basis of the
social contract penned last
month between business, labour and government.
The plan however received a
jolting shock when government introduced a price
blitz which saw most
businesses booking losses and others recording squeezed
gross margins of
under 10% compared to monthly inflation of 50%. This
militates against the
spirit and letter of the social contract. The blitz
has become synonymous
with losses, retrenchments and uncertainty in the
manufacturing and retail
sectors which were already on their knees.
The margins on cooking
oil announced this week can only make business
sense if they were reached
after agreement between government and producers.
This should set the
benchmark for other goods to ensure the review of prices
right across the
chain is a result of consensus.
It is also important for industry
to come out and make public the cost
build-up for key products. That way, it
becomes clear what margins
manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are
realising. In the absence of
this, government and consumers have ganged up
against businesspeople who are
accused of profiteering. On the other hand,
retailers and manufacturers have
accused government of irrationality and
heavy-handedness. In the interim,
production has continued to
plummet.
Pricing models should therefore make sense. The current
structure
based on a decree by government forcing retailers to slash prices
to June 18
levels is unworkable. This makes it crucial for the negotiating
parties to
cut red tape and agree on models as expeditiously as possible.
The longer it
takes, the greater the damage to the economy which has taken
enough
battering already.
In all this, it's also important for
government to meet its side of
the bargain. The pricing models should not be
based on assumptions but on
realistic notions which are not always constant.
For example, any pricing
model calculated assuming that business will access
subsidised fuel at $60
000 a litre will cause serious problems because
service stations do not have
fuel at that price. The supply of raw materials
- especially those that are
solely distributed by the state - should be
predictable and consistent.
Millers for example should get a consistent
supply of grains, fuel and
electricity, which is a huge ask under the
current environment.
Business has a duty to inform the public about
constraints they are
facing, especially if the government is in breach of
its obligations in
production processes because our politicians are always
quick to blame
producers.
The real test therefore on the
efficacy and viability of the prices to
be set by the taskforce - hopefully
with input from the private sector -
should be seen in the availability of
products on the formal market. Also
those entrusted with monitoring prices
should understand formulae used by
retailers in coming up with the agreed
margins. The issue of transport costs
is a case in point here. But of late,
exuberant monitors have marched into
shops and forced retailers to charge
ridiculous prices which have nothing to
do with the set law.
This always creates uncertainty in the market because processes have
been
left to semi-literates who believe that their role is to punish
businesspeople. We now await the availability of locally manufactured
cooking oil on supermarket shelves.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
ORDINARILY I should not be bothered to comment on the
debauchery in
the state media this week concerning Catholic Archbishop Pius
Ncube, all
presented in salacious detail by voyeurists paid to play dirty
games on
government's political opponents while the nation
burns.
I don't always agree with some of Ncube's views, such as his
alleged
call on Britain to invade Zimbabwe Iraq-style. There was a similarly
crazy
article on the Internet attributed to one Eddie Cross. I have as much
respect for such a project as I have for a military coup. My abiding belief
is that the way to everlasting peace, democracy, love and compassion and an
end to violence and destructive political hostility is through the ballot
box.
Archbishop Ncube's adultery allegations presented us with
a dilemma.
Because of the political polarisation in the country, Zimbabweans
now view
everything either through Zanu PF or MDC eyes. Whether Ncube was
engaged in
an adulterous relationship with his secretary should never have
turned into
a political scandal. So is his vow of celibacy.
Being a sinner myself, I am reluctant to judge other people's private
lives
on strict moral standards. Those are very private spheres which people
have
to sort out with their creator, whatever their status in life.
Archbishop
Ncube is no different.
But what happened during the week was
apparently an attempt to ruin an
individual's life by creating a dangerous
moral relativism - that there is a
bigger and a smaller sin. Ncube was
accused of the bigger sin because of his
status in the Roman Catholic
Church. Unfortunately even the most
well-meaning who were trying defend
Ncube got themselves trapped in this
two-sins argument.
What is
the point of telling us President Mugabe also did it? To the
best of my
recollection, Ncube never gloated over Mugabe's past personal
indiscretions,
but took a principled position on fundamental national
issues.
If Ncube committed adultery, it is an issue for his tormented
conscience.
After all, his God knows the whole truth. If he is sued for it,
it is for
the courts to deliver the verdict, not political opponents. The
best entry
point in the debate by ordinary Zimbabweans is at the ethical
level. This is
to say if Ncube committed adultery, he set a very bad example
for his flock
and must live with the consequences.
The ethical plane provides us
with a level field to judge our leaders.
Ncube's enemies want him hanged,
which is wrong. His friends want to ignore
his alleged unethical behaviour.
They are equally wrong.
The truth is that his moral authority has
been severely eroded, which
is what his enemies wanted, but the truthfulness
of the things he has railed
against in the past seven years has not
diminished. Ncube's opponents lost
the plot by going personal. Ncube was not
attacking President Mugabe purely
at the personal level. Hunger,
state-sponsored violence, shortages of drugs,
food, fuel and the torture of
opposition activists are there whether Ncube
speaks or not. That is what he
will be remembered for by those fighting for
a better Zimbabwe, not
pornography.
There is no need for unnecessary denial, obfuscation
or moral
relativism. The same thing cannot be right or wrong depending on
which
political party you belong to. Mugabe cannot be good as leader of the
MDC
but bad as leader of Zanu PF. Gukurahundi cannot be right and wrong. It
helps us to identify the leaders the nation needs if we approach this debate
with an open mind.
This is a debate we in Zimbabwe missed when
the South Africans were
confronted with the Jacob Zuma rape trial - whether
he was fit to be the
next president. Unfortunately, for political
convenience, it soon veered off
course. The Zulus claimed the rape
allegation and Zuma's trial were a plot
by President Thabo Mbeki to keep
them out of power. Instead of debating Zuma's
suitability as an exemplary
future leader, tribal politics soon smothered
rational
discourse.
In Ncube's case, the state media went for overkill. An
affair between
two consenting adults was treated like rape. It was like
Ncube had exercised
undue influence over a woman who is 44.
What is not asked is whether it is ethical and responsible for
government to
waste national resources and time in pursuit of a personal
vendetta. Not
just that, but also in clear violation of the Access to
Information and
Protection of Privacy Act under which a number of private
newspapers and
journalists have been prosecuted for publishing pornographic
material and
falsehoods. If the government was not directly involved in
bugging
Archbishop Ncube's alleged bedroom, how come no public official
invoked that
law against the said "private investigator" for breach of
privacy?
The ramifications of the entire project are chilling.
It means nobody
is safe from snooping and government sees nothing wrong with
this. It means
political rivals in the same party can safely snoop on each
other and use
whatever information they get to pursue their agenda and the
results will be
acceptable. It means such devices can be installed in bars,
bedrooms and
hotels to record coded signals innocently uttered by private
citizens. These
are serious moral and ethical questions which those engaged
in the dastardly
acts at St Mary's Cathedral should be asking
themselves.
Are we now a Gestapo state? Who is next? Who is
safe?
Zim Independent
by Vincent
Kahiya
STATE propagandists this week should be reveling at their success
in
creating the Pius Ncube sideshow which for a moment distracted people
from
empty shelves and food shortages caused by the current price
war.
The hardcore porn emblazoned on the pages of the Herald and the
Chronicle on
Monday and Tuesday had Zimbabweans - predictably - talking
about the
morality of the prelate. People gathered to pore over the pictures
and
"expert" opinion varied on the issue. There were suggestions that the
pictures were generated by a computer and therefore not real. Others were
looking at the anatomy of the characters on the slides and quickly
concluding that the sizes of certain body parts were not
consistent.
At a car dealership I visited on Tuesday afternoon, two
company executives
waiting in the visitors lounge were engaged in an
animated argument over the
pictures. "It can't be the same woman, look at
her . here, and check it on
this other picture," said one, a well-known
banker. "Do you see that the
shapes of the . are not the same."
The
other was unconvinced by this expertise in women's body parts. He
maintained
that the pictures were of the archbishop in the love nest. He
concluded as
they were heading out to their vehicles which had been brought
to the front
of the building that "Mudhara wacho haana choice". He should
have found a
younger woman.
The two gentlemen's discussion captured the tragedy of
Zimbabweans in this
whole saga. We have failed to look beyond the naked
images that were
published in the papers. Even those who brought up moral
arguments for or
against the priest did not see the dangers inherent in this
exercise, which
has fingerprints of state security agents all over
it.
A lot of readers saw it as a Pius Ncube issue. But the incident has
greater
national implications on individuals' rights to privacy and the
possibility
of the government and the Media and Information Commission
allowing state
media to carry out similar exercises on perceived political
opponents with
impunity.
Going back six or so years, the Zimbabwe
Mirror's editor-in-chief Ibbo
Mandaza obtained a High Court order which
barred the Daily News from further
publishing material relating to his
private property.
The Daily News had printed a front-page pictorial story
in which properties
belonging to Mandaza were shown. The photos were aerial
shots taken from a
plane. The paper claimed at the time that it had more
photos of Mandaza's
properties, resulting in the publisher rushing to
court.
Commenting on the matter, then Information minister Jonathan Moyo
said the
Daily News should be brought to book for acts that did not respect
the law.
"They behave as if they have an entitlement to violently intrude
into other
people's privacy with impunity. This should send a clear message
not only to
them but to others," said Moyo.
"People in Zimbabwe are
innocent until proven guilty by a court of law and
yet this paper has been
pointing fingers and going to extremes. This is
shameful, disgusting and
should never ever be allowed," he said.
This was in the pre-Aippa era. I
recall vividly government citing the
Mandaza case to justify the enactment
of Aippa, which became law a year
later.
But in the Ncube case, the
old script that purported to protect individuals'
rights to privacy no
longer subsists because the cast has changed. Opponents
of the incumbent do
not have the right to secrecy. They can be photographed
naked in bed having
sex and pictures publicised in papers. This is a clear
example of Aippa
failing the test of one of its key mandates of protecting
private citizens.
The law's inadequacies in facilitating access to
information are
well-documented.
Coming back to the two executives, one of whom did not
strike me as a
paragon of virtue, there is nothing that can prevent similar
operations
being carried out on them. It might not be a sting on their
sexual conquests
but their business transactions, telephone conversations
with clients,
emails etc.
Lest we forget, parliament recently passed
the Interception of
Communications Bill to spy on individuals' phones and
other electronic
messages. After the Pius incident, what can stop the media
from publishing
transcripts of a cellphone conversation between a CEO and
his mistress or,
worse still, the goings-on in hotel rooms occupied by
opponents of the
state? Don't say you have not been warned. Big Brother is
becoming more
devious. By the way, have telecoms companies placed orders for
equipment to
help government spy on us?
Zim Independent
MuckRaker
ALL along we were wondering what Paul Mangwana's
Indigenisation and
Empowerment department does from the beginning of the
year to the end. Last
week the minister provided the answer in his
"Conversation" with Caesar
Zvayi.
He said the basic function of
the department was to spearhead the
indigenisation of the economy, "that is
placing businesses in the hands of
black Zimbabweans".
How many
companies have been "placed" in the hands of the majority
beside a coterie
of Zanu PF hangers-on?
Asked again whether his department was ready
to take over companies
which failed due to unsustainable prices imposed by
government, Mangwana was
unequivocal: "We are actually taking this as the
best opportunity for
indigenisation," he said.
When land
invasions started in 2000 we were told the same lies that
people were ready
to take over from white commercial farmers. Seven years
down the line there
is no sign of any improvement in the nation's food
security situation.
Instead, we are having to survive on food imports from
impoverished Malawi.
Can Mangwana help us "place" food on our tables?
Speaking of
hallucinations, President Robert Mugabe this week said his
government was
willing to work with "well-intentioned" companies in reviving
the economy.
He called for "unity of purpose" between government and the
private
sector.
This coming while government has launched a vicious
crackdown on
businesses accused of "profiteering" is unlikely to find eager
listeners. It
calls for a huge leap of faith for one to take Mugabe's calls
seriously.
As we speak many businesses are being forced to operate
at reduced
capacity while others are threatening to retrench workers after
government's
unplanned price blitz. We wonder who still has confidence in
this criminal
regime to trust it with his wealth.
Enter
Public Service and Labour minister Nicholas Goche. He told the
Herald this
week that price controls would help reduce inflation. He said
government and
its "partners"- labour and business - had promoted the social
contract to
bring about price stability in the economy.
"To enforce the social
contract," said the minister, "government has
put in place a Price
Monitoring and Stabilisation Taskforce which is working
with manufacturers
and retailers in the stabilisation of prices. This will
go a long way in
increasing access to basic goods and services by vulnerable
members in our
society as well as increasing their disposable incomes."
Goche is
obviously living in a fool's paradise. The reduction of
prices was the
easier bit just like the removal of three zeros from bearer
cheques by
Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono. Raising productivity is the
really
crunch. It calls for far more than just setting up a price monitoring
taskforce. Very soon the people Goche believes will have access to cheaper
goods and services will find the shops empty.
Perhaps the
minister needs somebody to remind him that a social
contract can only work
when there is a buy-in and a common vision by all the
stakeholders instead
of government's current sledgehammer approach. There is
more to economics
than presidential decrees.
The Herald's biggest story of the
week was on Archbishop Pius Ncube.
The "stinging adultery allegations" meant
that all caution was thrown to the
winds and no expense was spared to bring
down the "arrogant" archbishop "who
has been at the forefront of demonising
the government". Such a worthy cause
necessitated the redeployment of Sunday
Mail political editor Munyaradzi
Huni to Bulawayo. He was seen as the most
competent hatchet man for the
assignment.
We will leave the
courts to pass their verdict in the fullness of
time. What we found curious
if not frightening is the fact that a whole
president had given us a hint a
week earlier that there were bishops who
were sleeping around.
The Herald and ZBC immediately rose to the occasion, and, a week down
the
line, they had the scoop and the culprit. (We wish they could be equally
diligent in investigating who attacked Nelson Chamisa at Harare
International Airport.)
Secondly, we were told of pictures of
Archbishop Ncube and his partner
in crime Rosemary Sibanda "secretly taken
by a private investigator hired by
the woman's husband".
The
pictures, we were innocently informed, were taken in the
archbishop's
bedroom. No hint is given that this is a serious crime under
the Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act. How did the
"private
investigator" get access into Ncube's bedroom and also manage to
whisper the
information to the president?
Is it possible the "private
investigator" was from the President's
Office and used state resources to
settle private scores for his master? Or
do we have nuns moonlighting for
the President's Office? Believe it or not,
these are not celibate
either.
There is a job here for Media and Information Commission
chair
Tafataona Mahoso. This is a clear case of invasion of privacy. Who
among us
is safe? More importantly, it would be interesting to see the
pictures that
have been released to Huni who is now using them everywhere to
extract
confessions.
Where are the media ethics that Mahoso is
always talking about? This
is the same Mahoso who raised bull dust when The
Standard published a
picture of President Mugabe just hitching his pants and
not pulling them in
the other direction. Compare this with pictures splurged
in the Chronicle
and Herald this week.
To the media, it's now
legal guys. Let's enter bedrooms of our rulers
to carry out operation
chastity.
Then suppose the whole farce turns out to have substance,
it would be
a case of two big men and two poor secretaries. It does look
like the game
is going to be rough indeed.
Still on Mahoso,
he believes there are no shortages of basic
foodstuffs in the supermarkets.
He also claims Zimbabwe's is a "very rich
economy awash with money and
luxuries".
Writing is his rambling column in the Sunday Mail,
Mahoso said only "a
few targeted items were missing" in the supermarkets and
that this did not
reflect scarcity.
So where are the goods you
might ask?
"Several varieties of Russian vodka, for instance, were
available in
almost all major supermarkets," observed our erstwhile
socialist guru
Mahoso. "So were Zimbabwean and South African wines, cereals,
soaps,
detergents, toiletries and perfumes," he noted, arrogantly indicating
to us
the social circles he now revels in.
Is this guy talking
for the poor or for so-called rich capitalists?
Are these the goods that the
price war is targeting we wonder? We were
reminded of the infamous "let them
eat cake" rejoinder that is often
attributed to France's Queen Marie
Antoinette or closer to home, "let them
eat potatoes" coined by our own
ruler.
The elusive CIO agent Joseph Mwale is reported to be now
based at the
Zimbabwe consulate in Lusaka, Zambia. He is accused of the
murder in 2000 of
two MDC activists, Talent Mabika and Tichaona Chiminya. He
has never had to
face the law.
What we found bizarre was the
claim that Mwale is immune from
prosecution because he allegedly committed
the offence in the course "state
duties".
We wonder if that is
legal opinion or mere political speak. What
"state duties" was Mwale doing
which entailed petrol-bombing opposition
supporters?
He
certainly can run for now but can't hide from his crimes
forever.
The Zanu PF taskforce set up to investigate the
availability of oil in
Chinhoyi in Mashonaland West province has presented
its "findings" to the
party's politburo in Harare, The Voice told us this
week.
"The team reported to the politburo that there was no need to
pursue
the issue as nothing convincing had been found," said the party
secretary
for Information and Publicity, Nathan Shamuyarira.
The taskforce included politburo members Lands minister Didymus
Mutasa,
Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi and Home Affairs minister Kembo
Mohadi.
Said The Voice: "The reported diesel find made
headlines over the past
few months and brought hope to many at a time the
country was experiencing
fuel shortages."
Shamuyarira said the
reported diesel had been "some gimmick" by a
self-proclaimed spirit medium
"whose intentions were not known". Most
Zimbabweans wonder what the
intentions of those who were peddling this
nonsense were. Welcome down to
earth.
A keen follower of the Pius Ncube saga sent us his
observations: Like
vultures seeing prey, the state media went wild this week
celebrating the
prospect of the ultimate demise of President Mugabe's
nemesis in Bulawayo,
Archbishop Pius Ncube following an alleged adultery
scandal. The Herald even
wheeled out its leading propaganda hatchet-man
Munyaradzi Huni to spearhead
the campaign on the ground in Bulawayo, aiming
obviously to "finish off" the
pesky Ncube whose bold criticism was probably
beginning to get up Mugabe's
chin.
What must be obvious even to
the most gullible of Zanu PF supporters
is the CIO hand in all this. While
not denying that the man of the cloth
might have strayed from the straight
and narrow path of self-righteousness,
the elaborate scheme, complete with
hidden cameras to capture the entire
sordid details of the Archbishop's
bedroom proclivities smacks of a
top-level sting that can only be engineered
by intelligence services.
As for the snooping activities of the
private investigator, Ernest
Tekere of the obscure Homeguard Security
Services, we wonder whether someone
should not be looking finely at the
provisions of Aippa.
If Ncube goes down as a result of this
indiscretion, it is because he
was reckless not to realise that as an avowed
critic of someone as
vindictive and ruthless as Mugabe, the CIO would watch
his every move and it
was a matter of time before he put his foot
wrong.
But the president himself is not exactly a paragon of
virtue in this
regard. It is common knowledge that Mugabe began to have an
affair with his
current wife, Grace, when she was already married to someone
else who was
then posted on diplomatic service to China. In fact at the
time, Mugabe's
own wife, Sally, was still alive and ailing with kidney
failure that
eventually claimed her life, while the president went on to
father two
children with another man's wife. Talk of the kettle calling the
pot black.
So while the lawsuit will probably cause serious damage
to Pius Ncube's
standing in the Catholic Church, the campaign of
vilification in the
official media smacks of hypocrisy of the highest order.
If Ncube is guilty
of breaking his vows of celibacy as a man of the cloth it
is up to the
church to deal with the matter through its established laws and
traditions.
And then from the law standpoint, it is up to the
courts to determine
whether claims by Onesmus Sibanda, the aggrieved husband
of the woman with
whom Ncube is alleged to have had an adulterous affair,
are justified. This
is how normal democracies operate. Certainly, we do hope
that the court
hearing this case will take note of the trial and verdict of
the state media
that Ncube has already been subjected to.
Zim Independent
Eric Bloch Column
GOVERNMENT'S diabolically ill-conceived recent
interventions in the
economy are only exceeded by the even more diabolically
implemented
fulfillments of those interventions by Zimbabwe's so-called
guardians of law
and order.
Government has unhesitatingly
abused its power and authority
(inclusive of self-bestowed authority instead
of that lawfully vested in it
by the constitution and by
parliament).
It has availed itself of existing legislation (and, in
particular, the
Control of Goods Act) to apply draconian regulations at
pronounced variance
to the intents of that Act, and at even more pronounced
variance to the best
interests of Zimbabwe, its economy in general, and
commerce and industry in
particular, and especially contrary to the best
interests of the Zimbabwean
populace. And many of its law enforcers have
exploited the created
opportunities of self-enrichment, and of excessive,
over-reactive demands
upon the business sector, including forced sales at
astronomic losses to
that sector, endangering its survival.
As
noted in this column a week ago, rigid price controls and stringent
price
regulations have never succeeded in countering pronounced
hyperinflation.
Even more, they have never succeeded in rescuing any
government which
recurrently and endlessly ignores all economic
fundamentals, disregards all
evidence of its own culpability for the
creation of economic ills, and have
never resulted in obtaining the enduring
respect and support of
electorates.
Instead, without exception, they have resulted in
worsened economic
circumstances, intensified hardships for the populations,
and the ultimate
demise of those governments as have obdurately and
steadfastly persisted
with their foolhardy endeavours of self-protection,
self-enrichment, and
attempted deceptions of those they were supposed to
represent and care for,
but which instead they continuously sought to rule
and dominate.
The Zimbabwean government treats history with the
same contempt as it
accords any who have the temerity to differ with it, any
who espouse
policies at variance to its own, and any who do not demonstrate
absolute,
unswerving obeisance and subservience to it.
Occasionally, its contempt is expressed merely by total indifference
and
offhanded dismissal. More often it reacts by pouring forth vitriol
against
its perceived enemies, the outpourings of that vitriol emanating
from all
levels of the political hierarchy, from its administrative arm of
disinformation, misrepresentation and indoctrination, and from the
sanctimonious apostates within the realms of the state-controlled
media.
When the Control of Goods Act was promulgated 53 years ago,
the intent
was to ensure justice and equity for enterprise and consumer
alike, within
an essentially free and minimally regulated economy,
whensoever exceptional
circumstances necessitated interim, short-term,
constructive measures.
Moreover, the legislation was subject to the
basic principles of
democracy. However, from 1989 onwards, government has
progressively
bulldozed modifications to the Act through parliament,
including vesting the
president with immense powers of rule by dictate and
decree (whensoever he
deems it to be necessary or expedient).
It was government, and not business as it alleges, that caused
Zimbabwe to
sustain the world's highest levels of inflation. Its policies
and actions
destroyed agriculture, decimated industrial productivity,
debased the
nation's currency, sharply diminished foreign currency inflows,
occasioned
an intense brain-drain, and consequential further economic
prejudice, and
all that has caused the hyperinflation that characterises
Zimbabwe in its
27th year of so-called Independence.
But government is wholly
convinced of its absolute infallibility, and
is therefore totally unable to
recognise its culpability, let alone
acknowledge it to others. Therefore, it
has had to delude and deceive itself
as to the causes, and convince others
of such causes. Being profoundly
paranoiac, government inevitably believes
that economic morass to be the
willful, ill-intentioned machinations of
others.
However, never-ending blame being placed at the feet of
(the
now-retired) Tony Blair, George Bush, the European Union, the
International
Monetary Fund and of virtually non-existent economic sanctions
(speciously
alleged to be illegal) has lost credibility.
Populations can only be misled, hoodwinked, and fooled for a period of
time,
and eventually the truth will out. (That even happened to Nazi Germany's
minister of propaganda, Josef Goebbels, who was the all-time master of
misinformation!)
So government has had vigorously to identify
another scapegoat to
blame, and who better to attack falsely than the
business community, for
that community determines prices (as government has
not allowed market
fundamentals to do so).
However, false
attribution of blame could no longer suffice to appease
a sorely afflicted
populace. So government turned to the Control of Goods
Act, and misused it.
Very temporarily the populace were exhilarated and
exuberant, with the
expectations of an end to gross hyperinflation, and
instead a progressive
restoration of economic wellbeing.
The exhilaration and exuberance
has been short-lived! The realities
are becoming more and more
pronounced:
* Almost immediately, there has been a virtually total
non-availability of most essential commodities, including maize meal, bread
and flour, sugar, cooking oil, salt, milk, beef, chicken, fuel and public
transport.
It is not that commerce and industry is deliberately
withholding
products from sale, but that none can afford to manufacture at a
loss, and
shopkeepers cannot afford to sell at prices that do not cover
costs and
operating expenses, let alone also not to yield even a limited
profit.
Similarly, transport operators cannot operate when their
costs are
greater than the fares that they are permitted to earn. But
government is
too obdurate or dense to accept this basic economic fact.
Instead, the
scarcities are the fault of millers, private abattoirs,
manufacturers,
retailers, and others, or so government would spuriously have
one believe;
* The long-existent black market has been
reinvigorated and enlarged,
both because the operators saw the opportunity
of exacerbating scarcities by
bulk-purchasing of the forcibly price-reduced
goods, and because of
discontinued or much-reduced production and
imports.
As a result, while official (unannounced) levels of
inflation may be
falling (being calculated on controlled prices, at which no
goods are
available), actual inflation is soaring upwards.
The
official price of petrol is $60 000 per litre, but in the black
market,
which is the only source available to most, the price ranges from
$160 000
to $200 000 per litre. The official price of a loaf of bread is $22
000, but
on the black market a loaf costs between $45 000 and $50 000.
The
harsh facts are that despite government's protestations of
inflation-containment, despite the original consumer enthusiasm at the
state's
pursuit of price controls, and despite the approbation of the
Consumer
Council of Zimbabwe, cost of living is spiraling up and up, while
hardships
and discomforts caused by scarcities are increasing;
* Business enterprises are fast collapsing. Some may be surprised
thereby
(and especially those in government), but businesses cannot survive
if they
are forced to sell their goods at a loss, and even if they are
allowed to
sell at a profit, but that profit is insufficient to fund
overhead
expenditures and finance costs. Thanks to government's bigoted,
irrational
policies, businesses are fast being destroyed, be they
manufacturers,
wholesalers, or retailers;
* As a result of the accelerating
collapse of businesses, and of the
battle to survive of many others,
unemployment (already intolerably great)
is intensifying to an immense
extent. Almost all contract labour has been
terminated whilst thousands of
others have also faced sudden loss of
employment. This has greatly increased
poverty and hardship for tens of
thousands, if not more;
* The
already catastrophically great brain drain has become even
greater, with
ever more departing to live in viable economies. The
constraints that the
brain drain places upon productivity and, therefore,
upon curbing inflation,
are vast, whilst the prejudice to future economic
recovery is
gargantuan;
* The previous low levels of investment have fallen to
zero, for there
is no motivation to invest when each and every enterprise
(other than within
the black market) is condemned to operational losses, and
potential total
failure;
* The fiscal inflows are sharply
diminishing, as turnovers of business
fall, thereby reducing value-added tax
revenues, and as profit-generation
becomes a thing of the past, and
therefore there are few business payments
of income tax, and decreasing
dividends yielding withholding tax. As a
result, the gigantic deficits of
the state are becoming even more immense;
* Respect for the police
has been almost totally destroyed, as with
each and every action of theirs
to force price reductions they, their
families, and friends (armed with
prior warnings of those actions) swarm to
the targeted businesses, ahead of
any other consumers, in vast volumes,
undoubtedly driven by intents of
subsequent disposal in unofficial markets,
at immense profits.
And these are but a few of the numerous negative consequences of
government's harebrained actions. And there are not even any compensatory
benefits to government (other than profiteering by a select few who are
exploiting the opportunities created), for the electorate no longer see any
benefit from government's actions.
This won't bring us bread
GOVERNMENT and its secret agents once
again this week proved their
no-longer shocking levels of political
ineptitude by running a story in the
public media about an alleged adultery
affair committed by Archbishop Pius
Ncube.
The media "blitz"
which one would have expected to be worthwhile
turned out to any
solution-seeking Zimbabwean to be nothing but another sad
tale of crude Zanu
PF propaganda gone stale.
There are multiple examples of this
propaganda whose main purpose is
to silence those who are not friendly to
Zanu PF or the president.
Think of Jonathan Moyo, who after falling
out with Zanu suffered and
endured the bruising effects of fatuous
allegations that he was gay.
Remember the incident sometime early this year
when the media reported that
Welshman Ncube cried under the grilling of
journalists about the death of
his grandfather during the Gukurahundi era?
Even those who are privy to and
within Zanu have also been used or abused as
sacrificial lambs for political
expediency.
The purpose is to
either embarrass or silence those who are targets,
much to the detriment of
their reputation or to simply maliciously contain
them because their
potential is a direct threat to the ruling party
geriatrics.
Making all sorts of noises and useless innuendos about Ncube does not
bring
bread to the tables of suffering Zimbabweans who are desperate for
food,
which is either expensive or out of supply in the formal market.
Neither
does it make the ruling party an angel. Zimbabweans need to guard
against
this crude Zanu PF propaganda which only serves to sow discontent
and peddle
confusion.
This is not to say that Ncube is an angel or infallible
or to condone
what he is alleged to have done. If the allegations are true
then he needs
to own up and live with the damaging consequences of his
actions, like the
many other senior government officials whose stories of
infidelity have not
been told.
Zimbabweans need headlines that
tell them where and when they can get
mealie-meal, sugar, cooking oil and
all other basic commodities that are now
scarce; headlines that tell them
when Mugabe is retiring; headlines that
will let them know when to expect a
new constitution.
That Ncube has allegedly committed adultery
cannot make us forget that
we no longer want Zanu PF in
power.
C Rushwaya,
crushwaya@fastermail.com
----------------
Gono should just resign
THREE years ago I wrote in one local
business paper that the Reserve
Bank governor, Gideon Gono, should be given
a chance and supported by all
who want to see economic
progress.
I was responding to critisism from the MDC's Tendai Biti
who had
implied that Gono will fail to turn around the country's economy. I
am
afraid to say that now I agree with Biti. At first Gono deceived me a
visionary, disciplined economist and technocract.
But if
reality is allowed to prevail, he is far from being a
disciplined economist
who is above politics. Twice I have heard him
backtrack on his ideas so that
he can be politically correct, and to avoid
rocking the boat or upsetting
the President.
Just a few months ago he made remarks to the effect
that sanctions are
not to blame for country 's ecomonic decline, only to
backtrack after
reminders that this thought was not consistent with Zanu PF
propaganda. Just
last week he also backtracked on his suggestion that the
price controls were
a disaster.
Which economist on earth can
support price controls? History has shown
that whenever the government
passes laws requiring suppliers to sell an item
for less than the market
price, the result will be a shortage. It's just a
law of economics. And
contrary to what government officials throughout
history have believed, no
government can repeal a law of economics any more
than it can repeal the law
of gravity.
Price controls are being imposed because the government
is trying to
conceal the effects of inflation that it has created. All
caused by Gono
printing too much money.
Such inconsistencies
from the governor serioulsy undermine his
credibility and raise doubts about
his principles. Our governor is willing
to play to the gallery even if it
means bringing the whole country down.
It is time for Gono to give
us a break from his deception, he is just
like the rest. If he is principled
he should resign.
Asher Tarivona Mutsengi,
Canada.
------------
Unfair treatment at
Zimpost
AS Zimpost employees we have tried to make our management
appreciate
our predicament. But have failed to get a positive response.
Maybe by
publishing this letter the Zimpost board and minister responsible
may
intervene and help us.
Our salaries are so pathetic to the
extent that one cannot purchase a
two-litre bottle of cooking oil.
Month-ends have become a nightmare for us
as we are confronted by rents,
rates, grocery purchases which we cannot
settle with the peanuts we are
paid.
Recently our managing director was in the Herald Business
boasting
that Zimpost had made a remarkable profit, but he does not want to
reward
the workers who contributed to this profit. Instead he was advocating
for
buying new vehicles. Surely for us drivers we need new vehicles (mail
vans)
not luxury vehicles for managers. Before vehicle purchases, management
must
seriously look into the welfare of workers.
Just imagine
head office sent a circular two months ago saying food
allowances had been
increased. Breakfast from $350 to $5 000, refreshments
from $200 to $1 000.
Honestly this is ridiculous!
Please may the Communications
Minister, board and MD look into these
allowances and salaries. Disgruntled
employee.
Zimpost responds:
ZIMPOST values the
welfare of it's employees and as such has been
responding to changes in the
economic environment so as to cushion staff
members.
It has to
be mentioned that the figures quoted by "Disgruntled
employee" are two
months old and have since changed. This is an indication
that Zimpost is
responding to challenges in the macro-economic environment.
In addition, any
worker on company business is entitled to a full
reimbursement of all
expenses incurred upon production of receipts.
Management is aware
of the need to keep a balance between expenditure
and revenue generated. It
is unfair and unfortunate for the letter writer to
claim that workers are
neglected when investment decisions are made to keep
the company going and
growing.
On the issue of salaries, Zimpost management and the
workers' unions
have meet quarterly to discuss and agree on a cost of living
adjustment.
Zimpost is committed to improving the welfare of its
employees.
Zimpost public relations
department.
------------
I remember professor
I
TOTALLY agree with Cekay Tawham (Zimbabwe Independent, July 13) that
Professor Jonathan Moyo must come clean about his actions and performance
during the time he was leading the charge in harassing media practitioners
and the role he played in closing media freedom space in
Zimbabwe.
Every time I read his articles or watch him on SABC, I
find it is
difficult to accept that he is the same man who used to go to
extreme
lengths in pushing the agenda of reducing free expression,
especially
through the closure of private and independent
media.
A particular incident always comes to mind for me when on
June 28,
2001, he personally phoned me about a letter I, as regional
director of Misa
then, had the day before written to the then Minister of
Home Affairs, John
Nkomo, to protest the demand that Misa office bearers
from Malawi and
Tanzania who had arrived in Zimbabwe for a Misa evaluation
workshop held on
June 15, present themselves for accreditation within 24
hours.
Moyo vehemently insisted that this was a requirement that
applied to
all foreign journalists visiting Zimbabwe, irrespective of their
mission. In
fact, at the time, new regulations had been approved on June 13,
two days
before the Misa officials' arrival, that clearly stipulated that
such
regulations applied to those coming to Zimbabwe on "media
assignments".
As pointed out in Cekay's letter, the professor now
has a record of
flip-flopping making some of us wonder what to
believe.
Luckson Chipare,
Windhoek,
Namibia.
-----------
Unethical journalism
THE
coverage of the alleged adultery case concerning Archbishop Pius
Ncube is an
affront to ethical journalism and the principle of fair and
balanced
reporting especially as the matter is before the courts and
therefore
subjudice.
The state media has embarked on a "parallel legal
process" and the
persecution of Ncube is unacceptable.
The
showing of the alleged graphic pictures and videos of moments of
intimacy
smacks of an agenda beyond normal journalistic duties.
Misa
condemns the pictures carried by the Chronicle. These are in bad
taste and
it is an abuse of state media for political gain. It is
reminiscent of the
murder case of Cain Nkala. Misa calls on the state media
to return to the
fundamentals of the profession and serve the society
better. We call for the
respect to privacy of the parties involved in the
case.
Misa
also notes that Ncube's voice on the social, economic and
political issues
affecting Zimbabwe remains strong. The alleged scandal is
between him, the
courts and his God.
Misa
(Zimbabwe).
-------------
Heroes Acre not for
all
IT is my oppinion that the Heroes Acre is a reserved place for
exceptional contributors to economic, political and social liberation of the
state but to my surprise its turning to be otherwise.
In many
circumstances anyone senior and close to the heavy weights is
now declared a
national hero - some of whom the majority of Zimbabweans have
never heard
of.
What I don't understand is are burials now platforms to
campaign,
stress policies, or indeed a moment for Zimbabweans to express
their loss?
I suggest that a separate shrine be designed for senior
members in the
uniformed service and the national shrine be reserved for
very senior
members known to the state. That way, people will converge to
honour the
fallen heroes. Moreso we will save space.
Munya,
Bulawayo.