2010 07 23
The Zimbabwe Independent
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/business/27319-bitis-potential-time-bomb.html
Thursday, 22 July 2010
A TRILOGY of statements made by the Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, in his presentation of the 2010 Mid-term Fiscal Policy Review (MFPR) touched on critical human capital issues that have an impact on economic recovery.
Statement 248 of the MFPR reminds us that “the brain drain experienced during the last decade continues to affect implementation of various projects and programmes as well as operations of the productive sectors”. Statement 249 plots the vector the Minister of Finance thinks the nation should follow by suggesting that “Strategies for training, retaining and attracting skilled personnel will be essential in capacitating both the public and private sectors”. The last statement is merely aspirational. It is sad to note that the third statement of the trilogy may render the noble intentions embodied in statement 249 academic.
Statement 372 unpacks the cabinet position that “in line with Cabinet guidelines over the deployment of adequate revenue collections towards service delivery and development, public entities including local authorities will be required to observe the 30 - 70 ratio”.
This 30 - 70 ruling is the wage/revenue ratio. Simply put, for every dollar of revenue collected by public entities such as the Bulawayo City Council and Zimbabwe Electricity Distribution Company, for instance, no more than 30 cents should be paid as salaries. This intervention is calculated to increase levels of service delivery.
Ultimately service delivery charges will have to significantly drop. The break-even model, which is simply fixed costs divided by the difference between revenue and variable costs will demand a fall in service charges. If Statement 371 is true then, currently the bulk of fixed costs are coming from salaries. Applying this model, a drop from a wage/revenue ratio of 70 - 30 to 30 - 70 should see service charges drop by at least 35%. A combination of cheaper and improved service delivery is an exciting prospect. The immense contribution in lowering production costs will definitely decelerate inflation, Biti’s Key Result Area.
It is my contention that if this wage/revenue ratio is rigidly applied, short-term service delivery may be achieved but over medium to long horizons we may experience serious deterioration of service delivery. We are staring in the face of two laws, one from economics and the other from organisational behaviour. We break them at our own peril as they take no prisoners. The price of scarce skills is governed by the law of demand and supply, which in simple terms states that the scarcer the resource the higher the market clearing price. This law conspires with the law recently restated by a well known HR think tank which,boldly, in the form of an equation reads -
Talent = competence x commitment x contribution.
It should be noted that the talent equation is multiplicative. For instance zero commitment will result in zero talent even if a person is highly competent and contributing. Put differently, brilliant skills cannot compensate for lack of commitment (consistent and predictable application of skills and knowledge) and contribution (purpose and meaning derived from work). Here is where the 30 - 70 ruling might backfire. A competitive salary is a key driver of commitment, though not the sole driver.
The 30 - 70 benchmark is regarded as best practice in the not-for-profit sector to ensure that the bulk of the resources are directed towards programmes and activities, the core business of not-for-profit sectors. What this means is that those not-for-profits with bigger grants are more likely to have the budgets to offer better salaries and rewards. There is high mobility of exceptional talent from low paying to high paying not-for-profits. Unfortunately, for the state-owned enterprises and other public bodies, flight of talent will be to the recovering private sector and not-for-profits inside and outside Zimbabwe. Gut feeling tells me “cabinet” might have borrowed this idea from the not-for-profits. Caution is called for.
Let me share with you a tale. Recently, concern was raised in parliament (not Zimbabwe) as to why a certain key parastatal was losing key personnel. Consultants were engaged to help answer this question as part of a broad strategic reward management consultancy project. I was privileged to be one of the leading consultants on this project. We discovered an interesting pattern. Personnel who were leaving the parastatal were from the traditionally scarce skills job families specifically, engineering and accounting. They were leaving for the private sector where their skills were in high demand owing to large-scale infrastructural development projects boom.
Comparing different grades of engineering and accounting jobs between the parastatal and the national market showed serious if not ‘embarrassing’ gaps. The parastatal had tried introducing an attractive scarce skills allowance to stop the skills bleeding. Faced with facts showing that even with the introduction of the scarce skills allowance the salary gap barely closed, the parastatal’s executives were ready to begin to appreciate the scale of the problem they were facing. Here is how this war story ties with our situation. Salaries of parastatal employees in that country are subject to very strict rules. Due to these strict rules we found out certain key personnel were being remunerated at levels twice below equivalent positions in comparable markets. To reverse the skills blood-letting policy changes are required at government level.
If the 30 - 70 ruling works like the laws of the Medes and the Persians we will experience the ‘third wave’ of brain drain, albeit from parastatals and other public bodies. Scarce skills such as engineers, artisans and competent administrators will not be attracted to parastatals and the few remaining might leave. Service delivery and astute management of public enterprises will be severely compromised. I also foresee a situation where state-enterprises may fail to attract highly competent board members due to lack of capacity to provide competitive sitting allowances. If the “third wave” does happen the law of demand and supply will force government to allow state-owned enterprises to offer salaries above the market to recapitalise their human capacity.
Drained of exceptional technical, executive and board talent our state enterprises risk being run by mediocre personnel. With unattractive salaries we will see more of the NRZ syndrome where employees are allegedly forming companies that supply services to the parastatal in violation of tender protocols and basic corporate governance norms.
I am not rubbishing the 30 - 70 ruling. It is the duty of strategic HR to advise policy makers. The latest and largest global research on HR professionals is startling in so far as reward management is concerned. HR professionals in Latin America, the US, Europe, China and India where the sample of over 10 000 respondents was drawn think that reward management is an administrative issue. In contrast non-HR professional associates in the same global survey see reward management as a strategic issue. ominated by lawyers and financial experts. My plea with the policy makers is that the ‘cabinet guidelines’ be treated as white lines rather than rail lines, to allow flexibility. A rigid 30 - 70 ruling resulting in the violation of time-honoured laws of demand-supply and talent will give us neither talent nor service delivery.
=Should the 30 - 70 wage/ratio be rigidly applied ?.
Let’s share at brettchulu@consultant.com .
By Brett Chulu
2010 07 23
The Zimbabwe Independent
Thursday, 22 July 2010
A FEW weeks ago, this column foreshadowed that the Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, would be faced with a monumental challenge when presenting his Mid-Term 2010 Budget Review.
Substantially (but not wholly) driven by him, the once extremely emaciated economy had, in 2009, made some significant first steps to economic recovery. However, from February 2010 onwards that recovery had not only been halted, but also considerably reversed. The minister’s challenge was to arrest the resumption of economic decline, and to set the economy once again upon the path to recovery and doing so would undoubtedly be extremely difficult.
On Wednesday last week the minister confronted the challenge. In 135 minutes in some respects he very bravely did so, but in other respects not only did he fail, but created greater economic obstacles. To all intents and purposes, his 2010 Budget review should have been titled “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!” He unhesitatingly challenged some of the sacred cows of his many political opponents, but he also did some things wrongly.
The foundation of the economy had, for over a century, been agriculture, but ever since the millennium it has been almost naught but a shattered foundation. The foolhardy manner in which government pursued a necessary, and long overdue, programme of land reform disastrously destroyed the agricultural sector. Of the many “skills” of that programme’s methodology, one of the greatest was the total destruction of property rights. Government practically acquired total ownership of all rural lands, completely destroying the principles of property rights. In consequence, the thousands of “new farmers” had no collateral security upon which to access the working capital resources essential for viable farming operations.
Biti unreservedly attacked this, strongly emphasising the need for a major and constructive revision and restructuring of the land reform, centred upon the creation of meaningful rights. When doing so, he was severely heckled by a large number of parliamentarians, but courageously withstood that heckling.
In similar manner, he had no reservations in calling for Zimbabwe to pursue policies of indigenisation and economic empowerment in a manner that does not deter and alienate investment, for none but those with self-inflicted myopia can deny that ever since the promulgation of the Indigenous and Economic Empowerment Regulations on February 12, foreign direct investment and domestic investment were brought to a near-total halt. Concurrently, the gravely weakened business confidence was almost totally destroyed, with inevitable economic decline the result.
The minister also correctly emphasised the urgent need to contain pronounced corruption and profligancy within most sectors of government, and for yet more stringent containment of government spending, especially so on unwarranted international and regional travel, vehicle hire, and the like. The magnitude of the interjections and heckling of the minister’s fellow parliamentarians is testimony to the courage of the minister in outspokenly addressing these issues.
However, part of Biti’s budgetary statement was regrettably bad. Pretending to be conscious of the hardship sustained by much of the population, he announced an increase in the income tax threshold for Pay As You Earn (Paye), from a meagre US$ 160 to US$ 175 per month. Not only is such increase niggardly in the extreme, effectively placing a measly US$ 15 per month extra into the taxpayer pockets, but it also contemptuously disregards the magnitude of poverty suffered by most Zimbabweans, including a great majority of those in employment. The Poverty Datum Line for a family of six approximates US$ 480 and, assuming that such family has two income earners, albeit not earning at equal levels, any taxation on income of less than US$ 300 is the extortion of taxes from those struggling to survive on incomes below the minimum necessary to avoid endangering life.
Ministerial recourse to token gestures, of virtually meaningless benefit, was also demonstrated by the announced change of the date by which commerce and industry must remit Value Added Tax (Vat) to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority, from the 10th to the 15th day of the month. That five day extension is of virtually no assistance to the financially constrained businesses that cannot afford to extend credit to customers when they have to pay Vat to government before receiving it from customers. As a result, they do not extend credit, with the resultant further containment of consumer spending power, and of the ability of the distributive trades to source goods from the manufacturing sector. That, in turn, minimises industrial production, with consequential fuelling of inflation.
In fact, a longer Vat payment period would have benefited the fiscus, for it would have fuelled increased trade volumes thereby generating greater Vat and customs and excise duties, and income tax on commercial profits.
These and other taxation measures announced by Biti, and fast-tracked through parliament on the following day, can only be regarded as bad. Bad for the populace, bad for the economy, and bad for government.
And then there was that which was ugly. Amongst the many weakened elements of the Zimbabwean economy are the clothing, textile and footwear industries. Those industries have, in the past, been major contributors to Zimbabwe’s economic wellbeing, and had (or have) the potential to be key catalysts of economic recovery. They can employ many, generate foreign exchange, contribute to downstream economic sectors and the fiscus.
Instead of recognising the massive extent that the viability and continuance of these industries have been threatened, he has strengthened the threats by reducing the customs duties payable on imports of competitive products. Such action by the minister is ill-considered and disastrous.
Similarly, and despite the fact that the mining sector could be the foremost driver of Zimbabwean economic recovery, Biti has once again focused upon that sector for more onerous taxation.
Yet again he has increased the royalties payable by miners, and has declared the intention
to reduce considerably, from 2011, the capital allowances benefits presently accorded the industry, as well as envisaging other onerous taxation measures. Once again he is sending out a message which can only be construed, even if not so intended, as being “we don’t want mining investment”.
Especially ugly is that, despite talk of intended entry into Public Private Partnerships, which effectively is partial privatisation of parastatals, concurrently the minister disclosed government’s intent to establish two new parastatals.
The mining of diamonds in Marange is to be conducted by a governmental company, and similarly such a company is to have exclusive mining exploration rights. How regressive can Zimbabwe be ?.
Yet more parastatals - jobs for the boys, losses for the state! This is masochistic economic destruction, and is a significant element of the ugly in the Budget review.
By Eric Bloch
2010 07 23
The Zimbabwe Independent
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/opinion/27365-zanu-pf-retraces-steps-to-failure.html
Thursday, 22 July 2010
HAVE you ever seen a party working so hard to lose an election ?.
Zanu PF appears absolutely determined to retrace its footprints of failure.
Firstly and perhaps most egregiously we have seen the abuse of those broadcasting instruments currently in the hands of the state. Not only is news distorted to suit the claims of the former ruling party, but very often news of what other parties might be doing is ignored altogether. Civil society doesn’t get a look-in.
And then Zanu PF can’t understand why external radio stations continue to enjoy such a huge listenership. Zimbabweans are hungry for news and they know they won’t find it on ZBC. Why should external stations close down when they are fulfilling a national need ?.
Meanwhile, the Media minister still can’t bring himself to provide assurances to broadcasters working abroad that they can safely return to the country without retribution of the sort that was promised to them eight years ago.
Then there is the abuse of state newspapers. We reported in this column last week the case of a Herald columnist, Tendai Midzi, who didn’t exist. At least he didn’t exist in the capacity attributed to him.
London Metropolitan University where he was said to lecture in economics hadn’t heard of him. Then ministers have the cheek to lecture us on media ethics!
Then there is the wider ethical problem of a party that lost the parliamentary election continuing to hang on to the public press so it has a better chance of winning the next one.
But it won’t of course. Zanu PF’s failed mantras hold no purchase on the public mind any more. Their desperation can be best illustrated by the disgraceful language senior officials use to abuse the independent press. They clearly have no confidence in their own media. And recycling those jingles tells the same story. They have nothing new to offer the public.
Why do they think it is a good idea to repeat all the failed blandishments of 2000 and 2008 ?.
This once great party has become a pale shadow of its former self - reduced to scatological ravings in a captive media!
Last week, the Herald told us US ambassador Charles Ray was “not amused” when NewsDay carried a story on the US “Specially Designated Nationals” list which the US treasury renewed recently. It included President Mugabe and his family. The Herald’s handlers took exception to this.
NewsDay didn’t even apologise, the Herald spluttered, when it was pointed out that the list had been knocking around for some time. And it made no reference to terrorism, as NewsDay suggested.
NewsDay’s error was not to recognise that this was a variant of an old story. The list is in fact renewed every year. It first appeared in 2003 and contains a number of people associated with terrorism.
What interested us in the Herald story of July 15 was the official who claimed to be speaking for the embassy. It didn’t sound at all like anybody we know. In fact it sounded like somebody working at Munhumutapa Building!
Those interested can refer to the US Treasury SDN list for June 29 on Google.
What happened to the Herald’s story about those Pakistani “terrorists” held at Beitbridge ?.
The more vocal the Herald became in defence of its story, the more Zimbabwe officials distanced themselves from it.
“Reports of the arrests that were carried in the state-controlled media citing unnamed official sources raised fears that terror groups might be trying to target the World Cup,” the Times of Johannesburg reported. One of them was involved in the Mumbai bombings, the Herald would have us believe.
“Yesterday (July 8) however the Zimbabwe police denied that they were the source of the improbable claims and confirmed that the suspects were being held only on immigration charges,” the Times said.
“You are working from the wrong premise altogether,” Wayne Bvudzijena told the excitable Herald team. South African police had earlier dismissed suggestions that the arrests signalled a foiled terror plot, the Times helpfully added.
Still on the subject of gullible Herald scribes, we had Isdore Guvamombe campaigning for the removal of David Livingstone’s statue from its Victoria Falls site and being impressed by what he saw at the Military Museum in Cairo.
“This writer was particularly impressed by what he saw in Cairo, Egypt,” Guvamombe wrote, “where a mock battle of what happened when Egypt finally defeated Israel in 1981 is shown to tourists twice a day.”
It is shown twice a day presumably because tourists may not believe it the first time around.
We were familiar with the events of 1967 when the Egyptians under Gamal Abdul Nasser waved their fists at Israel and then ran as fast as they could. The Sinai Peninsula fell to Israel in that encounter. So did Gaza. And we recall that in 1973 the Egyptians managed to cross the Suez Canal and enter the Sinai Peninsula which they held briefly before being chased back across the canal. But what happened in 1981 apart from the assassination of Anwar Sadat ?.
Guvamombe could perhaps explain.
He seems very impressed with Iran which has a lot to teach Zimbabwe, he says.
“Its revolution has produced a country that is developing faster than its detractors had anticipated and Zimbabwe, still climbing out of its land reform programme, will certainly learn a lot about benefiting from the gains of a revolution.”
Like how to crack the skulls of the opposition!
President Mugabe had his audience “in stitches” at the traditional lunch held for MPs by the Minister of Local Government after the opening of parliament last week. His subject ?.
Corrupt MDC-T councillors.
The president elicted “huge guffaws” with his “witty treatment” of a serious issue, the Herald reported.
“You are elected to serve the people,” he said. “Councillors, think again. Chinjai maitiro.”
The Herald reporter then felt duty-bound to explain that chinja maitiro was a MDC-T slogan and the president was simply “throwing it back” at them.
This “tickled the funny bones” of the party’s leadership, we are told.
Things got even wilder when Grace Mugabe took a pot shot at her husband over the slogan, adding “Nemiwo chinjai maitiro”.
The president in turn said he would not change his ways but would continue to “grace the occasion”.
This had them rolling in the aisles apparently.
Tendai Biti has been subject to considerable flak since he presented his mid-term review. He is the man Zanu PF loves to hate. The People’s Voice this week reported some legislators accusing Biti of hate speech over land reform.
And what exactly was this hate speech ?.
He described the 99-year leases as unbankable.
Now what is hateful about that self-evident truth ?.
Meanwhile, Zanu PF calls him “a white man in a black body”. And that is not hate speech!
“As long as this economy continues to be agriculture-dependent, but without security of tenure, then all significant growth will remain unrealised,” Biti said.
The land grabbers didn’t like that. They set up a hullabaloo. But it is obvious even to a Form 2 pupil.
We are being governed by people who don’t understand basic economics. Zanu PF MP for Shamva South, Samuel Ziteya, said Biti was undermining the powers of the president.
So that’s not allowed then ?.
Something else to keep out of the constitution!
And reading the People’s Voice it was immediately clear that they don’t understand that the president’s speech to parliament is crafted by the government.
“Finance minister Tendai Biti supported President Mugabe’s position on the issue of diamonds,” we were told.
They obviously don’t have a clue how parliament works. And one can’t help believe that much of the outrage over Biti’s proposed Diamond Bill comes from the gang of plunderers who have done so well out of the chaos of the past few years. But those who have rushed to claim victory in the wake of the St Petersburg meeting had better be careful. They are now being watched as never before. And the more they insult the US, EU, Canada and Australia, the more their exports will be scrutinised. And that’s the last thing they want!
The front page of the Herald on Tuesday exposed all that is problematic in our government of national unity. Under the heading “EU shifts goalposts on EU dialogue”, there was an indignant front-page story about the EU having its own agenda which ignored the supposed progress made by the GNU. This follows recent re-engagement talks in Brussels.
This newspaper has consistently argued that progress is illusory. We had Patrick Chinamasa proving that this week with his declaration that Zimbabwe would not observe the rule of law with regard to the Sadc tribunal’s rulings.
In case there was any doubt about the situation, George Charamba was quoted on the same front-page as saying the MDC-T leader was not allowed to change officials in his office. Recent movements were “void at law”.
What we have here of course is one party to the GNU instructing the other on what it can and can’t do. This officious behaviour will inform the EU that we have a dysfunctional government where one faction allied to President Mugabe is unwilling to work with the other headed by the PM.
The Herald story on dialogue contained bitter complaints by “sources” that the EU wasn’t taking any notice of the progress made in the GNU. Is it surprising ?.
Did anyone read a story published in the Herald on Tuesday headlined “Violence mars Australian poll campaign” ?.
The story picked from Australian newspapers said the police had charged two men in Adelaide after a Liberal Party candidate was allegedly punched during an argument over the treatment of asylum-seekers.
The other violent incident was the firing of gun shots at the offices and home of a ruling Labour Party candidate.
What interested us was not the alleged isolated cases of violence in Australia but the Herald’s hidden agenda in publishing the story.
While we also condemn violence in whatever form, we now wait to read in the Herald about Zanu PF militants and war veterans assaulting supporters of the MDC in the countryside and forcing them to support their party’s line on the new constitution.
Muckraker was shocked to read the comments of new British Council director Jill Coates. She claimed that Zimbabwean exiles “totally exaggerated” the Zimbabwean story.
“Zimbabwe is such a beautiful and peaceful country and not at all hostile like what is perceived in the UK media,” she declared.
What do we call these remarks ?.
Naïve or downright stupid ?.
Firstly, representatives of the British Council should think twice before denouncing their home country’s media. It doesn’t speak well of their organisation.
If Coates had read the paper she was quoted in she would have understood the urgent need for a free and reformed press. Her mission in Zimbabwe should not be about criticising the British media or Zimbabwean exiles in the UK. They have surely received punishment enough cut off from their families and loved ones.
It should be about disseminating the values of a free society and cultural diversity.
She obviously didn’t swot up on this before leaving home. Instead she gave us the benefit of her Pollyanna opinions when she had just got off the boat.
2010 07 23
The Zimbabwe Independent
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/opinion/27359-politicians-a-threat-to-diamond-benefits.html
Thursday, 22 July 2010
FOUR years ago thousands of Zimbabweans descended on the Marange fields in the grip of diamond fever. Marange, near the eastern border with Mozambique, was a field of dreams which did not need expensive or complicated mining equipment; you could simply pan your way to riches.
Diamonds came to mean different things to different constituencies. There was a story-perhaps apocryphal - of a newly rich posse of young dealers who, having sold their diamonds, made their way to the nightclubs, normally beyond their reach, and upon entrance waved stacks of trillion-dollar bills while calling out “tapinda, tapinda!” - “We have arrived!”
Diamonds became closely associated with the tapinda tapinda culture of dealers who, as the expression went, “burned” their money on flashy cars and other goods. To government, diamonds have come to represent the fastest way out of a 10-year economic crisis. But the sale of Zimbabwe’s diamonds has been blocked - until now.
Last week, at the World Diamond Council in St Petersburg, Zimbabwe received approval from the Kimberley Process to export a limited amount of its stockpiled diamonds. The Kimberley Process is a voluntary body established in 2002 to certify that diamonds entering the market are “conflict free” - a status not without controversy in Zimbabwe, where mining has been linked with allegations of severe human rights abuses.
Kimberley-approved exports are just what the country needs to jump-start its economy. And the necessity for the certification was one of the few issues that united the fractured unity government.
Obert Mpofu, the Minister of Mines and a Zanu PF appointee, and Tendai Biti (Minister of Finance, an MDC-T appointee) were particularly energetic in their campaign for this approval. But not all members of government have the same aims for the diamonds - to some members of Zanu PF, cut off now from access to the state coffers by Biti’s reforms at the Finance ministry, the diamonds represent an opportunity to loot again.
And to the NGO and human rights community, Zimbabwe’s diamonds are drenched in blood, and represent the repression against which they have long campaigned. These groups are particularly concerned about the military presence in the Marange diamond fields, which the government justifies as necessary to prevent illegal panning and diamond smuggling.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, the Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights, the Centre for Research and Development and other NGOs produced a number of damning reports alleging abuses ranging from extra-judicial killings to displacement, as well as raising environmental concerns.
It is these competing interests that were behind the recent debates at Kimberley Process meetings. In its founding document “conflict diamonds” are described as “rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments”.
There is no question that the military has used unnecessary violence in many instances. Particularly disturbing are reports of the shooting of illegal miners, the formation of syndicates using forced labour - including children - and of beatings and torture. So human rights organisations are right to be concerned about Marange.
But these kind of abuses, outrageous and unacceptable as they are, are not unique to Zimbabwe, but can be found wherever riches are discovered around the homes of the poor, such as oil in the Niger Delta or Equatorial Guinea.
It is simply wrong to argue that Zim-babwe’s diamonds come within the Kimberley definition of conflict diamonds. The NGO Partnership Africa Canada spoils its most recent and otherwise excellent report by arguing that Zimbabwe’s Joint Operations Command - made up of chiefs of police, prisons, armed forces and air force - constitutes a “rebel movement seeking to destabilise the government”. This is a startling conclusion, given that the government supposedly to be destabilised is made up of ministers from the MDC who have been actively campaigning to have the diamonds certified.
Human rights organisations have expressed dismay at Zimbabwe’s certification, but they should be heartened by its willingness to be part of the Kimberley Process. The scheme is entirely voluntary, and under the approval Zimbabwe will continue to be monitored.The current monitor, Abbey Chikane, is a controversial figure whom many in the human rights community accuse of causing the arrest of an activist, Farai Maguwu, now facing criminal charges of “spreading falsehoods” detrimental to Zimbabwe.
Chikane may be controversial, but he has made important recommendations. In particular he recommended that military personnel in Marange be replaced with trained security officers. He also suggested a single export window, which would go some way towards tracing the gems leaving the country. And, perhaps in recognition of the controversy, the Kimberley Process has said it will appoint a panel to continue the evaluation of Zimbabwe, rather than a single monitor.
Zimbabwe’s participation in the scheme gives NGOs an opportunity to influence matters, which would not be there had the country done as it threatened and simply sold its diamonds without Kimberley approval. The Kimberley Process has probably calculated that Zimbabwe was better in than out - “out” would mean no control at all, risking the potentially destabilising dumping of large quantities of diamonds on the world market, while “in” would mean that Kimberley could continue to send monitors there.
If the wealth from the diamonds is channelled properly, it is just what Zimbabwe needs. The diamond fields that have been discovered are so vast that it is estimated the country could produce a quarter of the word’s diamond needs in a matter of years.
The crucial issue around Zimbabwe’s diamond wealth is how to ensure it benefits the whole country and not just a few, because if managed well it has the potential to transform the country. There is only one thing that stops Zimbabwe achieving its potential - its politicians. - guardian.co.uk.
By Petina Gappah
2010 07 23
The Zimbabwe Independent
Thursday, 22 July 2010
CONCERNS raised by Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, in his mid-term fiscal statement about the mining sector not making a meaningful contribution to the fiscus have drawn attention to the priorities that the government needs to focus on.
In the face of drying-up aid, Zimbabwe needs to craft guidelines that will ensure that companies that invest in the mining sector have clearly stated beneficiation policies in order to ensure that most value addition to the country’s minerals is done in the country. As things stand, the country is exporting ore for processing in other countries, thus accruing economic benefits to foreigners at a time when Zimbabwe is desperate for both revenue and employment creation.
Zimbabwe is already a major producer of platinum and chrome. The relief with which platinum and chrome production was received has yet to transform into a miracle healing for the country’s sick economy. If anything, the Finance minister has had to introduce punitive penalties for chrome producers who, instead of processing chrome in Zimbabwe, have decided to just crush it for export.
It is important that mining companies realise that most benefits accruing from minerals, which are not renewable, should be to the host country. Perhaps, as a minimum requirement when companies invest in mining, the government needs to state the minimum level to which they should beneficiate minerals, among other things. This would be a more helpful way of empowering locals and ensuring that all Zimbabweans benefit from the country’s wealth instead of policies such as the indigenisation law that have not only scared off potential investors but are set to benefit only a few well-connected individuals who are already rich.
It is with the hindsight of experiences from the mining of other minerals that Zimbabweans need to exercise caution in the excitement that has followed the green light from the Kimberley Process on the sale of diamonds. Zimbabwe needs to copy models from countries that have used minerals as a springboard from which to revive their economies and should not get carried away by the certification to devise systems that, in the long term, will prove disastrous to the fiscus. This is certainly true of the chrome sector.
While foreign investment is a laudable development in an economy, care must be taken to ensure that it benefits the host economy and does not allow companies to line their pockets without leaving a legacy of development. It is with this in mind that the government should get commitments from its partners in the diamond sector to ensure that it has not surrounded itself with sharks whose only motive is to fatten their bottom lines.
Zimbabwe should move away from being an exporter of raw materials when it can ensure that those who want to exploit its resources make a significant contribution to the development of the country through technology transfer and other downstream benefits like employment creation. The prevailing situation where turnover from the sector topped US$ 1 billion against a US$ 44,8 million contribution to the fiscus is untenable and cannot be addressed through punitive taxes only.
Minister Biti’s concerns that “minerals are an irreplaceable wasting resource, hence, there is need to maximise tax revenue from mineral extraction and also encourage investment”, needs to be pursued with vigour.
Edwin Dube
2010 07 23
The Zimbabwe Independent
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/comment/27379-editors-memo-chihuri-must-go.html
Thursday, 22 July 2010
OUR police have over the past decade been de-professionalised and increasingly became enemies of citizens, instead of protectors as a result of political leanings of the force’s commanders.
The Police Act, which governs the operations of the force and its chiefs as an apolitical agency, was sacrificed on the altar of self-serving political agendas of the commanders.
Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri publicly stated his support for the then ruling Zanu PF and President Robert Mugabe, in clear violation of the Police Act.
From then on there have been numerous reports that police officers of a contrary political view to those of the commanders were transferred or removed from the service. Do you still remember the Commissioner’s Pool ?.
It has been alleged and never denied by authorities that during the chaotic land reform programme of 2000, and political violence before, during and after the 2002, 2005 and 2008 elections, the police selectively applied the law.
Farms then owned by white commercial farmers were looted, members of the then opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were allegedly killed, assaulted and displaced, while the Zanu PF perpetrators went scot free.
On the other hand, violence perpetrators from the MDC were arrested and arraigned in court - some convicted and jailed.
Under the watch of Chihuri, we have also seen the criminalisation of the opposition and civil society through the banning of demonstrations and public meetings using laws such as the Public Order and Security Act.
We had hoped that the formation of the coalition government in February 2009 would result in the urgent reformation of the police force along that of other security organs. It was also our hope that perpetrators of farm looting from 2000 and of political violence would be brought before the courts and face justice.
The recent arrest of former Zanu PF Mashonaland West secretary for lands, Temba Mliswa, for allegedly looting farms, among other offences, had also given hope that at last the police had rediscovered their professionalism and that all perpetrators of past crimes would have their day in court. Our hope was misplaced!
Police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka told our sister publication NewsDay recently that the force was not investigating any other cases of farm looting besides that of Mliswa. Why Mliswa alone when former commercial farmers have reported dozens of cases of looting of their properties by bigwigs in Zanu PF ?.
Farmer organisations claim that there are over 600 cases of farm looting reported to the police, but the force has turned a blind eye. This is selective application of the law at its worst and it calls for urgent reforms to restore professionalism.
Meanwhile, will the police ever arrest Kainos “Kitsiyatota” Zimunya and Joseph Mwale who allegedly petrol bombed to death MDC activists Tichaona Chiminya and Talent Mabika a decade ago in Buhera ?.
The High Court ordered their arrest, but to date nothing has been done. The dragging of feet by the police is worrying.
The problem is that our police force has been politicised.
The politicisation, according to a paper by Knox Chitiyo, former UZ lecturer and now head of the Africa programme at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, “is not simply a legacy issue, the top commanders are partisan, and this tension between politicisation and professionalism has impacted, and will continue to impact, on the efficiency of the police”.
The first step in reforming the police is to ease Chihuri out of office. As long as Chihuri is in charge, the transformation of the police will remain a pipe dream.
Chitiyo in his paper, “The Case for Security Sector Reform in Zimbabwe,” published last September, said the inclusive government should prioritise reforming the police because the force occupies the “legal as well as the military and paramilitary domains, and thus have much greater daily interaction with the public than do the other security institutions”.
Among the reforms Chitiyo suggested were the encouragement of better civilian-police relations through improved community policing; upholding the Police Code of Conduct which already exists; and the reorganisation and retraining of the force.
But the first step is that Chihuri must go.
Consatntine Chimakure
2010 07 23
http://changezimbabwe.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3012&Itemid=2
Written by CZ Correspondent
Friday, 23 July 2010
Rumbidzai Tsvangirai tied the knot with Calvin Nyarota at Wild Geese Lodge in Harare on Saturday.
President Robert Mugabe who normally likes to attend weddings, apparently prioritised an address to Johanne Marenge Apostolic faithful.
Presidential spokesperson George Charamba was quoted saying President Mugabe had already been invited to the Johanne Marange Passover ceremony, apparently held at Marange.
Charamba said President Mugabe sent his gift on the day of the wedding before leaving for Marange.
The President has been photographed wearing the Marange Apostolic garments, but it is not clear whether he has converted to the religious sect which has provided solace for the poor and mostly uneducated people of Marange.
Diamonds have come as a boon to them, but they are discovering that outsiders are set to benefit from the resources at the exclusion of the locals.
Last Updated ( Friday, 23 July 2010 )
2010 07 23
http://changezimbabwe.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3013&Itemid=2
Written by Makusha Mugabe
Friday, 23 July 2010
Education Minister and Senator (MDC-M) claims Robert Mugabe's agents attempted to assassinate him; that the land chaos is driven by “warlords”, that those who are disappointed with the inclusive government had unrealistic expectations
Nobody wants to walk away from the GPA, but if the constitutional process is subverted, he said, the MDC-T would walk way.
Watch It Here.
2010 07 22
http://changezimbabwe.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3010&Itemid=2
Written by Makusha Mugabe
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Three MDC activists, Kembo Elias, Gift Bvutse and John Simango from Mutasa South in Manicaland province have been served with summons to appear at the Mutare magistrates’ courts on 28 July on trumped-up charges of political violence, according to the MDC.
The three were arrested in June 2008 on charges of political violence in the run-up to the 27 June presidential run-off.
They were however acquitted in July the same year. But the two were shocked on Monday when they were served with new summons on the same charges on Monday.
In Mazowe South, Mashonaland Central province, a Central Intelligence Organisation operative, Alexander Kanengoni has teamed up with Zanu PF youths in the area to intimidate villagers against attending the Constitution Parliamentary Select Committee (Copac) meetings.
Their threats caused a very low turnout of people on Wednesday at Chaona business centre in the area.
In Zhombe East, Midlands North province, an army officer Duncan Mahofa, well known as Major Mpofu, has been intimidating villagers threatening to beat up suspected MDC members if they continue contributing in the constitution making outreach meetings.
2010 07 24
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6232
by Own Correspondent
Saturday 24 July 2010
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DAVID COLTART . . . Education Minister
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Harare
The British government has pledged to continue supporting reforms in Zimbabwe, saying the troubled southern African country's future remains overshadowed by rule of law abuses and economic difficulties.
Speaking after meeting Zimbabwe’s Education Minister David Coltart in London earlier this week, UK Foreign Office Minister Lord Howell praised the limited progress made so far by Harare’s coalition government in improving living standards for long-suffering Zimbabweans but said the country was far from improving its human rights and economic track record.
“He assured Minister Coltart of the UK’s continuing assistance to help bolster reform and achieve their aims of a stable, democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe,” the British Foreign Office said in a statement.
Coltart was in London last week at the invitation of the Council for Education in the Commonwealth and the Link Community Development Trust which organised a conference on challenges faced by Zimbabwe’s education sector.
The UK and other Western powers have withheld budgetary support for Zimbabwe’s 17-month-old coalition government until there is evidence of “concrete progress” in implementing political reforms.
The Western nations have demanded full implementation of a power-sharing agreement between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai as a condition for resumption of budgetary support for Zimbabwe.
Implementation of the agreement has been marred by bickering between Mugabe’s ZANU PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Tsvangirai over appointment of key regime officials and the pace of political reforms.
Relations between Britain and Zimbabwe soured after London and its Western allies imposed visa and financial sanctions on Mugabe and his top lieutenants as punishment for violating human rights, stealing elections and failure to uphold the rule of law.
Mugabe denies the charges and instead accuses Britain of reneging on promises to fund land reform in Zimbabwe and charges that London and its Western allies have funded his opponents in a bid to oust him from power as punishment for seizing white land for redistribution to blacks.
2010 07 24
by Own Correspondent
Saturday 24 July 2010
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6233
Harare
Zimbabwe's ambassador to Russia, Phelekezela Mphoko, has been named as the country's top diplomat to South Africa replacing, Simon Khaya Moyo.
Mphoko was named alongside other new appointees to EU and the UN office in Geneva.
Moyo, who is the chairman of Mugabe’s ZANU PF party, is now expected to be full time at the party’s headquarters in Harare.
The ambassadorial post in Pretoria - one of the most senior given Zimbabwe’s close ties with South Africa - had caused rifts within the power sharing government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
MDC officials had been jostling for the post in Pretoria were they were hoping to influence President Jacob Zuma's policy towards Harare.
Zuma is the Southern African Development Community’s official mediator in Zimbabwe.
According to the government gazette published on Friday, James Manzou will now take up the ambassadorial post at UN office in Geneva, while Mary Mubaiwa will become Zimbabwe’s representative in Italy and Steven Chiketa will now be the heard of the mission to Sweden.
Under a 2008 political agreement that gave birth to the Harare unity government, Mugabe is required to consult Tsvangirai before making senior appointments such as those of ambassador.
But the veteran leader, who still wields all his old wide-ranging powers despite formation of the unity government, has in the past unilaterally appointed key allies to strategic government posts.
It was not immediately clear on Friday whether Tsvangirai had been consulted and was in agreement with the latest appointments.
Previous unilateral appointments by Mugabe of the country’s attorney general and central bank chief are at the center of wrangle between the President and the Prime Minister that Zuma has been trying to resolve since last year.
ZimOnline
2010 07 23
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6230
by Own Correspondent
Friday 23 July 2010
Harare
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Zimbabwe totaled US$ 60 million in 2009, an increase of $ 8 million from the $ 52 million recorded last year, according to the World Investment Report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on Thursday.
News of Zimbabwe’s modest gains in FDI comes at a time the coalition government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has announced that it was reviewing investment laws and policies to woo more foreign capital into the country.
“We want to promulgate a new Investment Promotion and Protection Act, which will lay the rights and obligations for the state of Zimbabwe and investors, including the incentives and the regulatory framework," said Economic Planning and Investment Promotion Minister Tapiwa Mashakada at the launch of the UNCTAD report.
“This new act will go a long way in creating a more friendly investment climate in Zimbabwe,” he said.
Zimbabwe, which once had one of Africa’s most vibrant economies, saw several foreign-owned companies fleeing the country over the past decade, galled by Mugabe’s controversial policies, including the seizure of white-owned farms to resettle blacks.
Mugabe has refused to pay for land seized under his reforms including properties protected under bilateral investment promotion and protection agreements with other governments, leaving potential investors unsure about whether to pour money into an economy where respect for property rights and international agreements is at best questionable.
However the Zimbabwean leader - who often accuses foreign-owned businesses of plotting with his Western enemies to oust him from power - has backed calls by the business-friendly Tsvangirai for foreigners to return to the country.
But Mugabe insists foreigners must come to partner indigenous Zimbabweans in joint ventures and should not seek to control the country’s economy and vast resources.
ZimOnline
2010 07 22
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6224
by Own Corespondent
Thursday 22 July 2010
JOHANNESBURG
Zambia's grain agency said on Wednesday that it has started releasing surplus maize to local traders for export to needy countries among them Zimbabwe.
The Food Reserve Agency (FRA) said it would initially sell 160,569 tonnes of white maize carried over from 2008/2009 crop season in a move to keep domestic prices high after another bumper harvest this year.
"The exports will enable the agency to create space for the 2010 crop and ensure that production is sustained by preventing prices from collapsing as a result of the bumper harvest," FRA executive director Anthony Mwanaumo said in a statement.
Mwanaumo said the FRA would ensure all maize released would be sold outside Zambia to avoid flooding the local market causing price distortions.
Once a net food importer, Zambia has seen maize production rise in recent seasons, a trend partly attributed to former Zimbabwean white commercial farmers who have helped boost agricultural production after relocating to the country following their expulsion from Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe.
Maize production from the 2009/2010 season reached 2.7 million tones to leave Zambia holding a surplus of 1.1 million of maize. The country, which produced 1.9 million tonnes in the 2008/2009 season, requires about 1.6 million tonnes of maize per year.
Lusaka has in previous seasons exported maize to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Angola, countries where the grain, just as in Zambia, is also a key staple food.
Several Zambian exporters have said they will target exports mainly to Zimbabwe, after Harare announced another poor harvest this year.
Once a net food exporter Zimbabwe has faced food shortages since Mugabe’s controversial land reform programme that he launched in 2000 and which has seen agricultural output plummet because the government failed to provide blacks resettled on former white farms with inputs and skills training to maintain production.
A unity government formed the veteran President formed with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last year is pushing to revive the economy although it has to date failed to ensure law and order in the mainstay agricultural sector where mobs of supporters of Mugabe’s ZANU PF party continue harassing the few remaining white commercial farmers.
ZimOnline
2010 07 22
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6225
by Own Corespondent
Thursday 22 July 2010
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ARMY . . . Soldiers have been accused of taking part in rape orgy
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Harare
An AIDS advocacy group on Wednesday said that it will next month hand over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) evidence of politically motivated rape committed by President Robert Mugabe’s supporters two years ago.
US-based AIDS-Free World said soldiers loyal to the Zimbabwean leader and youth militia from his ZANU PF party committed “systematic rape” to intimidate opposition supporters during violence-marred polls in 2008.
The group that said it has a dossier containing evidence of the political motivated rapes said top security commanders, who have been the staunchest backers of Mugabe’s three-decade grip on power, masterminded the violence and abuse.
The AIDS-Free World said referring the dossier to the ICC for litigation against ZANU PF supporters was one of several optionsit was pursuing in ending the climate of impunity that has pervaded Zimbabwean society since the country’s political crisis began in 2000.
It said the alleged perpetrators of more than 380 cases committed during a “carnage of rape” that started in the run-up to Zimbabwe’s disputed presidential election run-off continue to freely roam the streets while their victims face the trauma of disease and broken families.
“AIDS-Free World continues to advocate for action at the highest levels of international organizations. Next month we will speak with officials of the International Criminal Court,” the group said on the sidelines of last week’s international AIDS conference in Vienna, Austria.
In the months after their brutal rapes, 37 percent of the women interviewed by AIDS-Free World tested positive for HIV.
Whether or not they acquired HIV from their rapists, the consequent trauma and displacement put their health and treatment in jeopardy, the advocacy group noted.
“The culture of impunity in Zimbabwe, so entrenched that the actions of the President himself promote rape as an effective political strategy, helps spread HIV,” said AIDS-Free World.
It warned of another looming carnage as Zimbabwe prepares to hold polls in 2011 and called on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union to use their collective muscle to rein in Mugabe before more innocent people are killed or raped.
“Intense pressure from SADC and the AU could bring Mugabe to his knees. It is unacceptable for the African community, knowing full well what has happened and will happen in Zimbabwe, to stand by passively as Mugabe gears up for another campaign of rape and terror to hold onto power,” the group said.
Top army and police commanders are credited with keeping Mugabe in power after waging a ruthless campaign of violence in 2008 to force then opposition MDC-T party leader Morgan Tsvangirai to withdraw from a second round presidential poll that analysts had strongly tipped the former trade unionist to win.
Tsvangirai had beaten Mugabe in the first round ballot but failed to achieve outright victory to avoid the second round run-off poll.
The former foes eventually bowed to pressure from southern African leaders to agree to form a government of national unity that has been able to halt the economy from sinking deeper into the mire but has struggled to ensure the rule of law and to uphold human rights.
In an earlier report released in December 2009, AIDS-Free World said both the police and the legal infrastructure in Zimbabwe were so compromised that it was impossible for victims of politically motivated rape and abuse to get justice in the country.
ZimOnline
2010 07 22
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6227
Thursday 22 July 2010
Harare
White-ruled Rhodesia's last army commander, Rtd General Peter Walls died on Wednesday in George, South Africa. He was 83.
Walls, who also once serviced in the British army, led the Rhodesian forces against the ZANLA and ZIPRA guerilla armies of Robert Mugabe and the late Joshua Nkomo fighting for independence.
When Rhodesia became independent Zimbabwe in 1980, then Prime Minister Mugabe retained Walls to help in the integration of the former guerilla forces and their Rhodesian foes into the Zimbabwe National Army.
But Mugabe later accused Walls of plotting to assassinate him in a failed 1980 attempt. The former Rhodesian commander went into exile in South Africa after the accusation.
ZimOnline
2010 07 21
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6222
by Caroline Mvundura
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Harare
Zimbabwean Finance Minister Tendai Biti will lead a joint government and business delegation to neighbouring Botswana to discuss the modalities of a 500-million pula (aboutUS$ 70 million) credit facility availed by Gaborone.
“I will be taking business people from the CZI (Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries) to Botswana …. the minister (of finance) in Botswana has advised me to do that in the next few months” Biti told a CZI meeting in Harare at the weekend.
The money is earmarked for use to revive Zimbabwe’s manufacturing sector that is struggling to shake off the debilitating effects of a decade of political strife and acute recession.
Relations between Zimbabwe and Botswana - strained in recent years chiefly because of Gaborone’s outspoken criticism of President Robert Mugabe’s controversial rule -appear to have thawed after the formation of a unity government that includes the former opposition MDC party of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Meanwhile Zimbabwe is also negotiating with South Africa for the release of another US$ 50 million credit facility promised by Pretoria last year.
The Harare coalition has said in total it requires $ 10 billion to bring back Zimbabwe on its feet and on the path to sustainable economic recovery.
But the administration has attracted little international support beyond strictly humanitarian aid with multi-lateral lenders demanding repayment of outstanding debt before new loans can be given.
On the hand, rich Western nations able to provide required grants and soft loans are reluctant to fund the administration directly, insisting Harare must first step up the pace of democratic reforms, do more to uphold human rights and the rule of law before they give support.
ZimOnline
2010 07 21
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6223
by Caroline Mvundura
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Harare
A group of Zimbabwean fishermen have written to President Robert Mugabe to intervene to stop soldiers from beating them and stealing their fish, in a bizarre case that highlights how members of security forces have become rogues that regularly terrorise civilians.
In a letter to Mugabe, who is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, the fishermen based at Darwendale Dam, 60 kilometres south-west of Harare, said they appealed to the President after the latest attack last Thursday, when soldiers raided a fishing cooperative, beat up fishermen, stole their property and burnt their fishing nets.
The attack that was apparently in retaliation after the fishermen had earlier apprehended a soldier who was stealing their fish and handed him over to the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority of Zimbabwe (PWMAZ) was reported to the police who, as in previous cases, have not arrested or charged the soldiers.
“On the 15 of June 2010, four soldiers, one armed, arrived at our base and started beating 12 fishermen with a gun, steel rods and boat oars. They destroyed everything-kitchen utensils, tents-and blankets and several nets were burnt,” the fishermen said in the letter that was sent to Mugabe last week and copy of which was shown to ZimOnline yesterday.
“We are failing to do our normal business because the soldiers are busy hunting us,” the fishermen said.
The letter was also copied to Defence Minister Emerson Mnangagwa, his justice counterpart Patrick Chinamasa, Attorney General Johannes Tomana, PWMAZ and the police.
Efforts yesterday to establish from Mugabe’s office whether the President has seen the fishermen’s letter and if so, what action he has taken or plans to take were to no avail, with his spokesman George Charamba said to be unavailable to take questions from ZimOnline.
Zimbabwe’s soldiers have been accused in the past of brutality against civilians, mostly during elections when they have joined youths from Mugabe’s ZANU PF party to wage violence against perceived opponents of the veteran leader.
The army has also been accused of committing human rights abuses at the controversial Marange diamond field in eastern Zimbabwe where soldiers sent to guard the mines ended up committing violence against local communities.
The government and Zimbabwe Defence Forces commanders deny that their troops attack or harass civilians.
According to the Darwendale fishermen, trouble started in 2008 when a soldier from an army base near the dam was caught removing fish from the nets of a fishing company called Irvodale.
The soldier was handed to the PWMAZ that supervises fishing at the dam and is the country’s anti-poaching authority. The wildlife authority however let the soldier go scot-free.
The fishermen said since that incident two years ago they have regularly caught soldiers including senior officers such as captains stealing fish.
They said they have reported all cases to the police and the PWMAZ who have however not taken action, while on the other hand the soldiers have stepped up attacks against the fishermen for reporting the theft to the police.
The fishermen claim in the letter to Mugabe that attempts to appease the soldiers by regularly supplying them with fish free have failed to stop the raids, beatings, and theft of fish.
ZimOnline
2010 07 20
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6218
by Patricia Mpofu
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Harare
South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) party has called on southern African leaders to act against President Robert Mugabe for his refusal to adhere to orders by a regional court to compensate white farmers whose land he seized.
"Zimbabwe stands in brazen contempt of SADC (Southern African Development Community) of which it is a member state," DA spokesman Wilmot James said on Monday, days after the SADC Tribunal ordered Harare for the third to compensate white farmers for land seized under Mugabe’s controversial reforms.
The Namibia-based Tribunal first ruled against Mugabe’s land reforms in November 2008, declaring the chaotic and often bloody farm redistribution programme discriminatory, racist and illegal under the SADC Treaty.
The Tribunal directed the Zimbabwe government not to seize land from the 79 farmers who had appealed to the court and said Harare must compensate those it had already evicted from their farms.
But Mugabe ignored the ruling while his supporters have stepped up a campaign to drive Zimbabwe’s few remaining white farmers off the land.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the media that Harare - which did not even bother to send a representative to the Tribunal hearing last Friday - would disregard the latest ruling because it does not recognise the regional court’s authority.
Urging South African President Jacob Zuma to act against Mugabe’s continuous flouting of the regional pact, the DA said Zimbabwe’s third time refusal to follow Tribunal rulings was a confirmation that the Zimbabwean leader is “rogue who will do anything to stay in power".
The opposition party said Zuma and the SADC should act firmly against Mugabe rather than stand idly by, adding that closer regional economic integration was only possible if all member states play by the set rules.
"Our region needs to find a way to work together and we can only do that if we all play by a mutually agreed set of rules that bear weight,” it said.
The Tribunal last week said Harare’s refusal to obey orders was in violation of the SADC Treaty, adding it would once more report Harare to the SADC heads of state and government.
Under the regional Treaty, the Tribunal can only refer uncooperative member-states to the SADC summit of leaders who have powers to take action against offending members.
Regional leaders have to date not acted against Harare’s refusal to abide by Tribunal rulings.
ZimOnline
2010 07 20
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6219
by Own Correspondent
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Harare
A Zimbabwean court on Monday postponed to next week the trial of homosexual worker Ellen Chademana after a police investigator failed to pitch up at court.
This is the sixth time that the case, in which Chademana and a co-worker are accused of possessing pornographic material in breach of Zimbabwe’s censorship laws, has been postponed.
Chademana’s lawyer told the court that he would apply for his client to be removed from remand should the state fail to proceed with the case on July 26, the new trial date.
“We ask to place this on record that this is the sixth time that the state has postponed this case. We shall challenge the further postponement on remand of my client if the state fails to resume trial,” the lawyer said.
Chademana works for the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), the only representative body for homosexual people in the mainly conservative southern African country.
She was arrested together with Ignatius Muhambi, an administrative assistant at GALZ, last month at their Milton Park offices in Harare and charged with possessing obscene, indecent or prohibited articles in contravention of Section 26 (1) (b) of the Censorship and Entertainment Control Act chapter 10 - 04.
Muhambi, whose trial has already begun at the magistrate’s court, has pleaded not guilty. Chademana is yet to plead.
ZimOnline
2010 07 19
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6215
by Caroline Mvundura
Monday 19 July 2010
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TENDAI BITI . . . MDC secretary general
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Harare
President Robert Mugabe and senior army officers implicated in atrocities will not be prosecuted if they voluntarily vacate office to make way for new blood committed to serving the interests of the country, MDC-T secretary general Tendai Biti said at the weekend.
Biti - who is also Zimbabwe’s finance minister - said several ministers from Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party who are presently serving in a coalition government with the MDC-T as well as service chiefs were hanging on to power to “prolong their freedom”.
“They are afraid of being arrested once they leave office. But let’s tell them that they can leave and not lose their farms or arrested,” Biti told captains of industry during a meeting organised by the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries last Friday to review the 2010 mid-term budget statement he presented last week.
Several top ZANU PF officials and army generals have been fingered in the atrocities that accompanied Zimbabwe’s chaotic decade-long land reform programme as well as political violence during previous polls.
Others, including Mugabe and Air Force of Zimbabwe commander Perence Shiri, have also been implicated in the 1980s massacre of innocent civilians during an army operation to crash an uprising in the southern Matabeleland and Midlands provinces.
Zimbabwe witnessed some of the worst political violence last year after a parliamentary election that was won by the MDC-T while Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in a parallel presidential election but with fewer votes to avoid a second round poll.
In a bid to ensure Mugabe regained the upper hand in the second round vote, ZANU PF militia, war veterans and security agents unleashed an orgy of violence and terror across the country, especially in rural areas most of which became no-go zones for the opposition.
The MDC-T leader later withdrew from the 27 June 2008 run-off poll because of the violence which was won by Mugabe unopposed.
At least 20 000 innocent civilians form the Ndebele ethnic minority were reportedly killed in the early 1980s during a bloody counter-insurgency drive by the army in Matabeleland and Midlands.
Mugabe - who some say personally ordered deployment of the army’s North Korean-trained 5th Brigade in Matabeleland and Midlands ostensibly to stop an armed insurrection against his rule - has called the killings an “act of madness”.
But he has never personally accepted responsibility for the civilian murders or formally apologised.
The Zimbabwean strongman has also not yielded to calls by human rights groups for his government to compensate the victims of the brutal army operation popularly known as the Gukurahundi massacres.
Mugabe has conveniently avoided raising the issue fearing a backlash from disgruntled Ndebele members of his divided Zanu (PF) party - all in hope of maintaining a fragile 1987 Unity Accord he signed with the then PF Zapu led by the late Joshua Nkomo.
The Ndebele group within ZANU PF has long been disappointed by what they see as the apparent sidelining of their region from national development issues.
Biti’s statement tallied with comments by Tsvangirai who has previously called for the setting up of a truth and reconciliation commission to probe cases of human rights abuses dating as far back as the pre-independence era and touching on the highly emotive Gukurahundi massacres.
The prime minister has however cautioned against retributive attacks against those fingered as behind the atrocities, hinting on a possible amnesty for the perpetrators of public violence and other atrocities.
Biti and Tsvangirai would however face a tough assignment of convincing their supporters - many of whom were maimed or lost loved ones due to the atrocities - about the importance of an amnesty.
Amnesty for senior ZANU PF officials and other people behind the 2008 political violence has been an emotive issue since Tsvangirai joined Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara of a splinter MDC faction in the coalition government 17 months ago.
Security chiefs and ZANU PF chefs have tried to derail the unity government unless there are guaranteed immunity from prosecution.
They do not want to face the courts and fear that exposure of their crimes could threaten ill-gotten assets such as farms.
ZimOnline
2010 07 19
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6216
by Own Correspondent
Monday 19 July 2010
Harare
The UN has revised Zimbabwe’s humanitarian appeal for 2010 by more than 20 percent, citing underlying vulnerabilities necessitating urgent support for the country’s health, food aid and agricultural sectors.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said a mid-year review conducted by donors last Wednesday identified significant increases in requirements for the health, food and agriculture clusters.
The extension of food aid activities to the end of 2010 accounted for the largest increase of humanitarian requirements after the initial provision was to cover the period up to April 2010.
“Revised requirements thus amount to US$ 578,399,290. This is an increase of some $ 100 million (or 20%) over the original requirements,” OCHA said.
The mid-year review, carried out at the UN headquarters in New York, came amid revelations that only a third of Zimbabwe’s consolidated appeal for 2010 had been met by donors.
OCHA said the review was part of a process in which humanitarian aid organisations working in protracted humanitarian crises come together to revise their response plans in support of affected countries’ relief programmes.
Zimbabwe’s 2010 humanitarian appeal has received few takers, with US$ 162 million or just 28 percent of the US$ 578 million asked for so far funded by donors.
The lukewarm support prompted the UN humanitarian wing to issue a passionate plea for assistance in March, urging vigilance among the donor community to avoid a relapse of Zimbabwe’s situation to the problems triggered by the decade-long collapse of the country’s social services.
Zimbabwe has been plagued by widespread humanitarian suffering in recent years, driven in part by long-running political strife.
When the appeal was launched in December 2009, some six million people in the country did not have access to safe water and sanitation due to the erosion of basic services.
Livelihoods were also threatened by a prolonged economic downturn.
The humanitarian crisis has since worsened, with outbreaks of measles, cholera and typhoid reported in parts of the country.
2010 07 23
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/5694.html
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Leo Mugabe hit by clan feuds as skulduggery takes grip
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23 July, 2010 09
Harare
Leo Mugabe, the President's forgotten nephew has hit hard times lately as the Mugabe's family fueds get worse amid reports that the President and his sister Sabina are nolonger on speaking terms over the aging dictator's wealth now under control of the First lady Grace Mugabe.
The official line is that Sabina Mugabe is polly and in retirement, but sources said she has sulked herself into private life in the aftermath of vicious family fueds in which her son Leo led a majority of the Mugabe's clan against the First Lady Grace Mugabe.
Sabina has effectively renounced her Zanu PF membership as a result of the fall-out.
The two centres of power in Zimbabwe's most powerful clan are believed to be spending huge amounts of money exorcising evil spirits and machinations, accusations and counter accusations as clashes takes toll.
A family feud with only one likely winner - First Family.
Last year ZANU-PF politburo members in Mashonaland West tried to persuade Sabina Mugabe to take up a post in the province defying a directive by President Robert Mugabe that her sister should not stand for any election due to ill health, but sources said Grace Mugabe who is now the undisputed power in the party's Womens' League stepped in to block the appointment.
Sources said Leo Mugabe has survived asssination attempts on a number of occassions and senior family members have tried to bring the feuding parties together, but to no avail.
Those in business say the former ZIFA President, has hit hard times lately as all political avenues "to make money" have been closed.
Early this year, his truck containing thousands of cigarette cattons was siezed by police on the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique and he escaped jail with a warning and the truck and its contents confisticated by the State.
On her side, the First lady Grace Mugabe has a powerful team of politicians and business partners including the Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono who are backing her in business and they are making sure Leo Mugabe has hit hard times.
Three years ago Leo Mugabe made the call for Gono to be sacked as Reserve Bank Governor and invastigated.
To his clan members, Mugabe is saying the wealth belongs to his children and he has outflanked the rebel nephew Leo Mugabe and gave a cabinet post to Leo's rival brother Patrick Zhuwawo as Deputy Minister of Science and Technology.
The two sons of Sabina Mugabe, Leo and Patrick have different fathers and Leo's father is the late former ZIFA Secretary-General in the early 80s and owner of Mboma buses in the 70s and early 80s and Patrick Zhuwawo is fathered by a Mozambican man. The two brothers don't see eye to eye.
Since 1985, Sabina has been MP for the Mugabe family's home area of Zvimba, about 80 kilometres north-west of Harare. Her eldest son, Innocent, was director of the state's Central Intelligence Organisation until his death a few years ago.
Leo, is owner and chief executive of a construction and telecommunications consortium, Integrated Engineering Group which is now close to liquidation due to piling debts. In the past, IEG has been awarded contracts running into billions of dollars to construct public buildings, often ahead of far more experienced companies, but the money has not been put to good use.
The latest test of Leo's troubles is his claims to be a shareholder in Telecel Zimbabwe through Empowerment Corporation, where he has called for a meeting to nominate a candidate to replace Jane Mutasa on the board of the mobile phone company.
Mr Mugabe confirmed the meeting yesterday although he denied that the meeting was a plot to remove Mrs Mutasa.
"Members are free to offer themselves for re-election," he said.
The businessman-cum-politician also maintained that he was a shareholder in EC.
EC, a significant shareholder in Telecel Zimbabwe, holds 40 percent equity while Telecel International, the foreign partner, holds a controlling 60 percent stake.
Originally, EC was composed of six organisations vying for a stake in the mobile telecommunications firm.
Businessman James Makamba represented the EC interests on the Telecel board and was later replaced by Mrs Mutasa after he slipped out of the country when police launched investigations on his alleged externalisation of foreign currency.
Telecel, however, suspended Mrs Mutasa as acting chairperson in March this year when the Harare businesswoman was arrested on allegations of defrauding the company of airtime worth US$ 750 000. The Attorney-General has since declined to prosecute.
Grace Mugabe is believed to be backing Jane Mutasa not to give up on Telecel in order to "fix" Leo and the First Lady's close relative, the Attorney General's Chief State Prosecutor Chris Mutangadura is alleged to be behind AG office's refesual to prosecute Mrs Mutasa.
Sources said Mr Mugabe, a former legislator and football administrator, has been mobilising support to ensure Mrs Mutasa’s ouster.
"The annual general meeting is scheduled for Tuesday next week. It seeks to elect new leadership of the Empowerment Corporation and eventually elect a board representative on the Telecel board," said sources familiar with the latest developments.
Mr Mugabe along with Mr Shepherd Kapota and Mr Moffat Marashwa are eyeing the chairmanship.
Mrs Mutasa declined to comment.
She, however, recently confirmed to local media that there were wrangles within the EC, accusing "greedy and ambitious elements and individuals who never paid for the shares".
We could not obtain the actual EC shareholding structure, but it is reliably understood that Mrs Mutasa and Mr Makamba are the major shareholders in the corporation.
Sources said CBZ Bank wrote to EC that the Z$ 140 000 cheque drawn by Mr Mugabe in 1999 meant for subscription was dishonoured and that was when he lost his stake in Telecel, and it is believed Gideon Gono played a part in the bank's actions.
The AAG was allocated shares equivalent to 9 percent but failed to subscribe. Mr Philip Chiyangwa, a founding member of the lobby group, eventually bought the shares.
He is understood to have later sold his stake to Mrs Mutasa and Mr Makamba.
Magamba Echimurenga, a consortium representing war veterans, is also understood to have cashed in on their shares in Telecel.
Other groups forming the corporation failed to subscribe. These included the National Miners’ Association, IBWO and the Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union.
Telecel insiders have, however, queried how Mr Mugabe could call for an AGM yet he "is not a known shareholder in Empowerment Corporation".
"It’s not a secret that his cheque meant to subscribe for the shares was dishonoured. Each and every member had a right to subscribe."
2010 07 24
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/5705.html
24 July, 2010
History is being destroyed, we need a Co-Finance Minister (from ZANU-PF); Biti is hard to penetrate - Chiyangwa.
ZANU PF political analysts like Jonathan Moyo, Itayi Garande etc have come out putting up a fight with long and winding articles full of "hot air" attacking or discrediting Finance Minister Tendai Biti's Mid-term Budget, a sign of a rattled party faithful harangued and in despondency.
TO OUR READER PLEASE NOTE - Every Friday The Zimbabwe Mail will give you an article like this called IN-YOUR-FACE.
No rules, No fear, and No holds barred! You know it, to deal with an enemy, look at it in its face. There will be no scientific or intellectual tools in IN-YOUR-FACE!
IN-YOUR-FACE hope you'll all enjoy the first instalment -
While Chiyangwa has called for a co-Finance Minister, Itayi Garande, a lawyer has called for the violation of GPA agreement calling for his handlers to take away the Ministry from MDC.
Jonathan Moyo, a whole professor of Political Science is now working full time on Hon Minister Tendai Biti - incredible.
Ordinary folks must be feeling great that Finance Minister has done a tremendous job that rattles a whole range of Zanu PF thugs like "Cde" Phillip Chiyangwa, "Cde" Jonathan Moyo, and all those peddling lies that "they died for this country".
Guys, if Biti was incompetent, headlines in Zanu PF or State media would be splashed with ......."So'n so Hail Biti"........."This n that in Mid Term Budget Review Hailed"........"This n that Commend Biti".
But, NO! They're all cracking!
In the last week, all forms of propaganda volleys have been launched and the lengths of "Cde" Jonathan Moyo and "Cde" Garande's articles are a reflection of a good number of hours scratching at the barrel, out of desperation.
Even Zanu PF MPs have threatened to go on strike!
They are all coming out with all guns blazing at Biti because he has normalised the abnormal. He has brought some semblence of the real world. Tightened up the loop holes - closing down on smuggling syndicates. Calling on those who owe the State in Tax to pay-up. These and many other measures implimented have rattled Zanu PF and as a result calls for elections have been sounded out in the "stampede for cover".
This piece (below) is from the Financial Gazett, a Quasi-Zanu PF outfit owned by dead man walking Gono. It shows how rattled these thugs are - In Italics and bold are commentaries by IN-YOU-FACE.
Here we go - Biti touched a raw nerve last week after scrapping a duty free facility that allowed players in the tourism sector to bring vehicles into the country duty free, effective September 1.
The Finance Minister said the programme had been abused by operators who were importing vehicles for personal use and for their “small houses” - street lingo for concubines. True!
Through his Native Investment Africa Group, Chiyangwa owns a number of listed and non-listed companies. These include the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed, ZECO Holdings, an engineering business; Pinnacle Property Holdings and Tsivo Holdings Limited through which he owns Glory Car Hire.
(With so many people struggling for survival, and Tourism at its historical low, honestly who would hire a Rolls-Royce for the nation to break-even)
Glory Car Hire’s asset register has 54 top of the range Mercedes Benz vehicles and 20 Bentleys, which were imported under the duty free facility. This is in addition to a 5, 4 million rand Rolls-Royce, exclusively imported by Glory Car Hire to cater for high net-worth tourists.
(Something very wrong for an economy to produce such a feat of luxuries or the type of a businessman when manufacturing declines by 80%)
The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) lobbied for the facility last year.
(This is the same Tourism body diversifying and redirecting its its energy into hiring R n B musicians and Reggae artists to prove to the World that Zimbabwe is a safe Tourism destination, right!)
In an interview with The Financial Gazette last week, Chiyangwa threatened to exit from the travel business citing policy inconsistancies.
(Who cares, you've never been there, Phillip! You can't exit where you've not been)
“If I feel the business is becoming so noisy and stupid, I can opt out and people will lose jobs,” Chiyangwa said in reaction to the scrapping of the duty-free window. (Unbriddled anger)
“Nobody should play around with my money. (Oooo dear!) You (Biti) haven’t succeeded in anything and (yet) you (want to) tell me how to do things?”
(A Finance Ministers, economists, Central Bank Governors out there work hard towards changing tests and habits, to achieve equitable redistribution of wealth, Phillip! Anything outside that is totali failure and only belongs to Robert Mugabe's old school politics of patronage, and so yes Biti wants to change your madness)
Biti, considered to be one of the country’s top legal minds, made his name as a lawyer. He is also the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T)’s secretary general.
He was appointed Finance Minister in February last year following the consummation of the inclusive government between ZANU-PF and the two MDC formations.
While Chiyangwa’s business empire is predominantly property and engineering, the former ZANU-PF chairman for Mashonaland West has diversified his interests into the hospitality sector in order to take advantage of an anticipated boom in tourism.
(You people at The Financial Gazzet, you're misleading people, Chiyangwa has never diversified from anything to anything, he has only spread his burglary and looting from Zimbabwean resources - read the City Council Report)
The tourism industry is still to recover from a decade-long economic crisis that hit the country between 1998 and 2008.
At the height of the crisis, the industry experienced a huge drop in tourist arrivals, especially from traditional markets which slapped the country with travel warnings.
(So does it need a Rolls-Royce, Mercedes Benz vehicles and 20 Bentleys - Grow up!)
The travel warnings were withdrawn last year as the international community warmed up to the new political dispensation. (new dispensation ?.
You must be joking).
Attempts to shift focus to the Far East and other Asian markets had failed to reverse the industry’s fortunes which only started looking up in February last year when the inclusive government was formed.
Industry players also claim to have lost US$ 15 million through the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) raids which followed a crack investigation into the affairs of the industry by the National Economic Conduct Inspectorate-(NECI).
The NECI investigation exposed serious corruption in the industry.
Chiyangwa estimates that his Glory Car Hire suffered US$ 500 000 in revenue losses during the ZIMRA raids. (Give us a break!)
This week, the flamboyant businessman told The Financial Gazette that the scrapping of the duty free facility was targeted at his business, adding that Biti was tightening the scre-ws on ZANU-PF controlled ministries in the inclusive government. ZTA operates under the aegis of the Ministry of Tourism, headed by Walter Mzembi (ZANU-PF).
(Naaaaa Philip, Biti is simply normalising the abnormal and you happen to be the biggest beneficiary of this corrupt syndicate, plundering our wealth because of flimsy grounds that they "died for this country" - you're only rattled because finally a Good guy is now working wonders for the good of mankind.)
“It is not the only Rolls-Royce brought into this country under the same (duty free) programme and yet it is the only Rolls-Royce that people are losing sleep over,” he said.
(If noone, particulary the Finance Ministe is not losing sleep to curb your type, then the majority of suffering Zimbabweans out there would simply give up hope of a better Zimbabwe. Your type is not needed in a normal democratic State.)
“Someone’s heart skips the moment he sees it and says - Oh, he (Chiyangwa) can’t own it. (Oooooo yes that's very true Mr Chiyangwa - abused resources which could have been redirected into proper use). But I have bought it. I have the cash to buy the vehicles. Everybody is jealousy of what I do. Why don’t you do your own things man ?.
(True! Your corky and all sorts of show ponny traits are the very reason why everyone, exept your minority Zanu PF colleagues would seek to see you down)
These stupid decisions are like taking one step forward and the next backwards.
(Stupid to you, but very noble to ordinary Zimbabweans - Have you read of a story of a woman who killed a son for $ 20)
If this is not naivety, then I don’t know what is. (Really) I expect a minister like Biti to be more magnanimous than narrow,” he added. (All hail Biti Comrade Phillip Chiyangwa has finally cracked)
Chiyangwa said he has bought an entire bond of Mercs from ZIMOCO, the local franchise holder of Mercedes Benz vehicles, for US$ 11 million and employs scores of workers at his Glory Car Hire.
(Mercedes Benz Executives must be smiling all the way to the bank up there in Munich, Germany for a single extraordinary Third World custormer who has so much cash to spend)
(Guys, now it is time to laugh)
“I employ chauffeurs and the guys who clean my cars, there are 20 of them. History is being destroyed, we need a Co-Finance Minister (from ZANU-PF); Biti is hard to penetrate. Finance is a collective ministry, ndini ndazvitaura handina basa naye. (It’s me who has said it, I don’t care). Anything in government that is ZANU-PF-run is being resisted by Biti. He listens to Pasi (ZIMRA boss Gershem), but does not listen to Kaseke (ZTA chief executive officer, Karikoga). I told the ZIMRA guys you can’t take my vehicles, panofiwa (there will be bloodshed). It is my money; I didn’t buy them through a government loan...I had to get a ministerial letter to intervene,” Chiyangwa added.
Pasi is the Commissioner General of ZIMRA, which falls under the Finance Ministry.
Asked which minister had intervened during his standoff with ZIMRA after the tax collecting agency tried to impound two of his Mercedes Benz vehicles but failed, the businessman fired back -
“Why do you want to know him ?.
He is a ZANU-PF minister,” he charged.
(This has Kembo Mohadi, co-Home Affairs Minister written all over and this is politics of patronage)
“The next day they (ZIMRA officials) phoned to say we are no longer coming,” said Chiyangwa. (Welcome to the World of Zanu PF)
On Thursday last week, the day after Biti delivered his statement, Zimbabwe Council for Tourism president, Emmanuel Fundira, Kaseke and Chiyangwa put aside their long-standing differences related to their business interests to trash the Finance Minister’s fiscal review statement. (Another bunch of rattled Zanu PF thugs)
“It is about the Rolls-Royce,” said Kaseke.
(Yes Comrade Karikoga, if it is not about Rolls-Royce, fleet of whole range of Mercedes Benz vehicles and 20 Bentleys, then Finance Minister Tendai Biti must be sacked for being incompetent)
“But we approved Chiyangwa’s papers on the basis of the details he gave us, and we were convinced they were correct,” he said.
(Yeah, because you're one of them Comrade Kari,............besides, haven't we read about fraudulant documents (2001 changed to 2007) in the Chombo-Chiyangwa Council Land Report, released by Harare City Council?)
All hail Biti for normalising the abnormal! Good workmanship Tendai! But, look after yourself man, those thugs are now behaving like a wounded tiger - They'll kill yah! They're evil!
2010 07 24
http://www.thezimbabwemail.com/zimbabwe/5704.html
24 July, 2010 0
By Robson Sharuko
Package offered to help cash-strapped Dynamos fulfil its remaining African Champions League assignments
A CONTROVERSIAL US$ 400 000 aid package offered to help cash-strapped Dynamos fulfil its remaining African Champions League assignments, by a group of middlemen claiming to be representing wealthy Congolese businessman Moise Katumbi, has torched a storm at the country’s biggest football club.
The 46-year-old Katumbi, who is also the Governor of the mineral-rich Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo and a member of the Confederation of African Football Marke-ting Commission, owns reigning African club football champions TP Mazembe and is a rich businessman with vast interests in mining and transport in his country.
The Herald can reveal today that two Harare businessmen, working closely with Malawian football consultant Felix Sapao, approached Dynamos board chairman Richard Chiminya at his offices in the capital on Monday - a day after the Glamour Boys had slumped to a 0-2 defeat to TP Mazembe at the National Sports Stadium - with a secret offer purported to be coming from Katumbi.
No comment could be obtained from either Katumbi or TP Mazembe last night.
But the shadowy scheme could taint the image of TP Mazembe, who are one of the richest clubs on the continent and are the defending club champions, in a tournament that has always been blighted by allegations that it does not promote the spirit of Fair Play amid concerns that some of the clubs use their financial weight to get favou-rable results.
Matters came to a head 10 years ago when Tunisian referee Mourad Dammi travelled to Ghana as a guest of his home club Esperance, who were playing Hearts of Oak in a Champions League final, and then went into the match officials’ dressing room and tried to influence South African referee Robbie Williams to call off the match amid crowd trouble in Accra.
Such a decision would have favoured Espera-nce, who were trailing at that stage, and Dammi was subsequently banned for a year by Caf but was back in business, just a few months after his suspension, and was even given the honour to handle the 2006 Nations Cup final between hosts Egypt and Cote d’Ivoire in Cairo.
Sapao, who is the local agent of French television marketing company SportFive that holds the broadcasting rights of the African Champions League, also has very close links to TP Mazembe and worked as part of their backroom staff during their successful Champi-ons League campaign last year.
He was a key figure in brokering the deals that took a number of Monomotapa players from their base in Harare for a stint at TP Mazembe at the beginning of the year and was also at the National Sports Stadium on Sunday where he was part of the five-man team that accompanied Katumbi, under heavy security and police guard, into the dressing rooms at half-time.
Sapao runs a company called Digital Arts Media and Sports, which is based in Malawi’s commercial capital Blantyre, but now spends most of his time in Harare which he has turned into a convenient base for his business transactions that are primarily based on football across the continent.
On Monday he teamed up with two Harare businessmen, including a former Dynamos chairman, and went to Chiminya’s office in the capital where they dangled a US$ 400 000 carrot, wrapped as an aid package, to help the Glamour Boys - who are struggling to raise funds to bankroll their Champions League campaign - fulfil four of their remaining five matches in the tournament.
The meeting was also attended by Dynamos board vice-chairman Freddie Mkwesha and the club’s chief executive officer Casper Muzenda.
The three middlemen claimed that they had an offer, from Katumbi, to help Dynamos with a package that would ease their financial stress and help the Glamour Boys focus on their remaining matches.
They claimed Katumbi, who wants TP Mazembe to successfully defend its Champions League crown this year, wanted a competitive Dynamos in the group so as to help ease the threat that is posed by Esperance and Algerian side Entente Sportive, rather than a Glamour Boys’ side - torn apart by financial woes - that would turn into a punching bag for the rest of the group members.
Sources said Katumbi played the same card last year when he allegedly offered Monomotapa a cash payment to help them cover their costs and make them focus on their final Champions League tie against Heartland of Nigeria - a result which was key in deciding who tops the group and avoids the winner of the other group - which the Zimbabwean team won 2-1 at Rufaro.
TP Mazembe duly topped the group.
Monoz had threatened to withdraw from the Champions League, after being weighed down by serious financial challenges, and - with TP Mazembe having beaten them 5-0 in Lubumbashi and 2-0 in Harare - the Congolese side risked not only losing six points but seven goals should the results of the Zimbabwean team be nullified in the event that it failed to complete its assignments in the group.
Rodwell Dhlakama, who was the Monomotapa coach at the time, has always complained bitterly that he believes the playing field was not level in those two games.
Although TP Mazembe rolled past Monoz, the Congolese side still brewed up a shocker and bought four players from the Harare team -Daniel Zokoto, Mthulisi Maphosa, Chris Samakweri and Darryl Nyadoro - with only the gangling Nyandoro turning into the player who is being regularly used by the African champions.
On Monday, the focus apparently shifted to Dynamos and sources at the club revealed that the initial meeting at Chiminya’s office resulted in a decision being passed for a DeMbare delegation
to travel to Lubumbashi on Wednesday where they would be handed their US$ 400 000 package.
The money was split into four tranches, of US$ 100 000 each, which would cover each of Dynamos’ two away matches against Esperance and Entente Sportive and the two home matches against the same sides in Harare.
Dynamos’ match against TP Mazembe, either in Kinshasa or Lubumbashi, was not covered by the deal.
Muzenda, club secretary-general Oliver Manyau and a man who was supposed to travel as Dynamos chairman, filling in the shoes of incumbent executive boss Farai Munetsi, were tasked with flying to the DRC on Wednesday and then returning home yesterday.
Tickets for their travel were immediately booked with a Harare travel agency and the trip was sanctioned.
The following day things changed.
The Dynamos executive, headed by Munetsi, met in the capital to review their Champions League loss to TP Mazembe and the Dynamos chairman advised his fellow executive members that some of the board members, notably Robson Rundaba and Bernard Marriot, were strongly against the planned trip.
Munetsi felt that such a gesture compromised Dynamos, not only in the eyes of their fans, but also in the eyes of the sponsors who were backing their cause, and - given that they still had an outstanding match against TP Mazembe - accepting the money would be tantamount to throwing away that game long before it had been played.
The executive then resolved to reject the offer and called Chiminya advising him to either cancel the proposed trip or they would resign en-masse.
At that point Chiminya advised them that, after scrutinising the offer at length, he had also decided that it was not good for the club and had already made a decision to cancel the trip.
But the Dynamos executive members still felt that their players remained vulnerable, either given their links to agents involved or associated to the people who had acted as middlemen, and felt that by initially accepting the offer on Monday, the board had erred badly and compromised their players who could still be approached clandestinely given the financial challenges facing the club.
"The executive committee then mandated Munetsi, as their boss, to write a letter of protest to Chiminya - on behalf of the leadership - where he would express their concerns at what they believed to be undue interference by the board, especially by the chief executive Muzenda, on issues that had nothing to do with the board," said the sources last night.
"There was also concern within the executive committee that a fake Dynamos chairman had been lined up to represent Munetsi on that trip to the DRC and, as of Monday, that issue had received the blessings of the club’s board chairman until his change of heart on Tuesday.
"There is a storm right now at the club because of that issue and the danger is that, even though the official channels have been closed, the money could still be brought and be given to the players in other secret ways."
Dynamos secretary-general Manyau said he was only prepared to confirm that his club had turned down the offer on professional grounds and was not at liberty to discuss other issues.
Sapao yesterday left Harare for the Lubumbashi but not before demanding the money that he used to book the tickets, for the cancelled fight, for the three Dynamos representatives.
He also sent an e-mail to Manyau expressing his displeasure at the sudden turn of events.
"It is quite unfortunate that your executive chairman didn’t want you guys to travel to DR Congo. Club politics," wrote Sapao on Thursday.
"I spoke with Governor Katumbi yesterday and the amount he was offering for the games and Esperance and Satif (both home and away) was US$ 100 000 per game (total US$ 400 000).
"He (Katumbi) says that (there) are no second chances for offers from him."
Dynamos have since approached a leading local bank for a loan to help them foot their expensive trip to Tunisia next week. - The Herald