http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 09:35
Tendai
Marima
THE Chinese are creaming off millions in hard currency from
Marange diamond
fields through an agreement which allows them to milk 90% of
the revenue
generated from the deal, depriving the country of more than
US$200 million
to date.
Deputy Mines Minister Gift
Chimanikire has disclosed Anjin Investments, the
biggest diamond company in
Chiadzwa, is controlled by Chinese who own 50%
equity and the Zimbabwe
Defence Industries (ZDI) which has 40%. The
remaining 10% is supposed to be
owned by the government through the Zimbabwe
Mining Development Corporation
(ZMDC).
However, Finance minister Tendai Biti yesterday said ZMDC
is not involved,
suggesting the 10% Marange diamond fields is actually owned
by a company
called Matt Bronze controlled by the army.
The
directors of Matt Bronze are not known, raising fears this could be
benefitting individuals in the army, not the public. Since Anjin is a
Chinese Defence Industry company, ZDI controlled by the army and Matt Bronze
a military outfit, this means the company’s proceeds are going to the
military which is averse to transparency and
accountability.
According to a compliance report drafted by the
Kimberley Process
Certification Scheme seen by the Zimbabwe Independent,
Anjin mined 3 000 000
carats of diamonds between July 2010 and October
2011.
“At full throttle, the monthly production capac-ity may reach
approximately
two million carats for which a comprehensive production
footprint has
de-veloped,” the report says.
In an interview
yesterday Biti said if Anjin was to operate at full capacity
the company
would produce two million carats valued at an average of US$80
per carat
which could yield US$160 million a month. However, Biti said Anjin
was not
remitting anything to treasury despite creaming huge profits.
“They
are not remitting, not even a single cent,” he said.
Biti also gave a
breakdown of the structure of roy-alties and taxes, showing
Anjin is
expected to pay 14% in corporate taxes (based on the net figure),
4%
non-resident shareholders tax, royalties of 17% and also VAT.
This
means Anjin is supposed to remit revenues covering the 50% shareholding
(if
the ZDI’s 40% and the controversial 10% are added) and taxes, some-thing
which should have yielded more than US$200 million so
far.
“Because it’s a joint venture we are automatically entitled to
50%, so 50%
plus taxes gives you the fig-ure we are supposed to get (US$200
milllion).
Our complaint is that ZMDC is not in there; it is this Matt
Bronze company
which is owned by the army,” Biti said.
Anjin has
not made remittances to treasury partly because diamonds are being
used to
pay off a high-interest loan from China’s Export-Import Bank
(Eximbank) to
build a state-of-the-art National De-fence College near
Mazowe.
Zimbabwe entered into a US$98 million loan agree-ment
with Eximbank on March
21 2011. The contract states the Chinese would fund
and build the National
Defence College.
At a 2% interest rate,
Zimbabwe would repay in a series of 26 installments
over 13 years, but only
after a seven-year “grace period” has passed.
However, government
ministers claim to be in the dark over how much is
generated by Anjin to
repay China’s loan.
When the deal was initially presented to parliament in
May 2011, MPs
objected to its high-interest rates and the lop-sided
structure of the loan
which had greater financial benefit for the Chinese as
lenders. However,
after much heated debate, it was approved in a second
parliamentary sitting
in June.
Top government sources say diamond
revenues from Anjin are also being used
to pay for arms be-ing imported from
China. Zimbabwe buys arms from China.
Speculation is rife China
is supplying Zimbabwe with arms in exchange for
diamonds. Just before the
2008 elections, a Chinese ship loaded with arms
was stopped from docking at
the Durban port after pro-tests by trade unions.
The Anjin deal seems to be
the new cover.
In an interview this week, Chimanikire said: “We are
aware that there was a
loan arrangement for the defence college that would
be paid through Anjin’s
diamond mining and China would supply
equipment.”
Of the five diamond mining companies licenced to mine in
Marange, Anjin is
the biggest. It has seven shafts which amount to seven
mines in one area.
Biti has blamed the underperformance of rev-enue
collected this budget year
on poor contribution by diamond mining firms,
lamenting revenues of only
US$30,5 million had been remitted to the fiscus
between January and March,
against a target of US$122,5
million.
Revenue collections for March 2012 amounted to US$287,9
million against a
target of US$320,2 million, giving rise to a US$32,4
million shortfall which
Biti said arose mostly owing to underperformance of
dia-mond proceeds.
It is estimated Anjin mines seven million carats a
year and with additional
processing plants, it is ex-pected to increase
production to 10 million.
However, the company’s financial records remain a
mystery, ac-cording to
Chimanikire.
“Their records must be made
available to the pub-lic; in many companies at
the end of the financial year
a dividend is declared to the shareholders and
even a 1% shareholder is told
how much the company made and what they will
get. Speaking in my capacity as
deputy minister of mining, there is no way
Anjin could have recorded a
loss,” he said
Chimanikire further said diamond remittances were
essential to the fiscus
and companies like Mbada and Marange Resources are
supposed to declare their
dividends on a monthly basis because government
needs the money.
Anjin has been at the centre of controversy since it
began operations in
Chiadzwa in early 2010. Zimbabweans on Anjin’s board
mainly comprise serving
and retired members of the military and the
police.
In its report, Diamonds A Good Deal for Zimbabwe?,
international human
rights group, Global Witness, warned involvement of the
military and police
in diamond mining “creates opportunities for off-budget
funding of the
security sector”.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 11:33
Owen
Gagare
RECENT actions by the military, particularly army commanders, who have
openly declared their allegiance to Zanu PF, while also pushing for
President Robert Mugabe’s re-election in the next polls which they want held
this year has set tongues wagging about the role of the security forces in
politics.
The sensitive issue has assumed greater prominence
with reports that Sadc
leaders are increasingly concerned about the
Zimbabwean military’s
manoeuvres reminiscent of their brazen meddling in
elector-al matters in
2008 and how this was poisoning the environment for
free and fair elections.
Sadc facilitator in Zimbabwe, South African
President Jacob Zuma, together
with his regional colleagues insisted
recently at their summit in Luanda,
Angola, on the full implementation of
the GPA and roadmap. Zuma is expected
in Harare on Monday or Tuesday to
engage principals on a number of
contentious issues, including the role of
the military in politics and
elections.
This issue looms
large in the incomplete roadmap done last year. As Mugabe
and Zanu PF’s
pros-pects of winning the next elections diminish, Zimbabwe’s
security
forces have been assuming a more direct role of politics and
electoral
matters in a bid to influence the outcome.
The Joint Operations
Command (JOC), which brings together the army, police
and intel-ligence
services chiefs, has been the force behind Mugabe’s
vigorous push for
elections, with or without a new constitution. The
military’s at-tempt to
influence the selection of Zanu PF candidates has
also shown how the
security forces are deeply involved in politics in the
run-up to the next
elections.
The military was heavily involved in the discredited June
2008 presi-dential
election runoff betweenMugabe and Prime Minister Mor-gan
Tsvangirai which
was marred by widespread violence and intimi-dation. The
army practically
played a commissariat role for Zanu PF to save Mugabe from
outright defeat
after he had lost the first round of
polling.
Retired army commanders and military analysts say the public
has every
reason to be afraid of the mili-tary although they point out that
it is
unlikely they could stage a coup.
While some analysts say
the ar-my’s moves are signs of desperation and last
kicks of a dying horse,
oth-ers warn the military has potential do some
serious damage by unleashing
violence and intimidation, as well as
manipulating the election results,
although a coup is unlikely.
Dr Martin Rupiya, executive director of
the African Public Pol-icy and
Research Institute, says the military must
not be discounted as it will play
a critical role in the next elections and
may influence the out-come. He
said security forces have already been
strategically deployed to influence
the results by other means than a
coup.
“When we talk about elections, the composition of the
Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (Zec) and the six stages in the electoral
process are critical.
These stages include constituency delimitation, voter
registration,
campaigning, polling, collating and announcing of the
re-sults. They are all
key,” he said.
“You have to look at the
compo-sition of Zec and who controls the six stages
of the process. You will
find that the Zec secretariat is still dominated by
security personnel and
they are involved in campaigns and other processes,
so in reality the
outcome can be influenced even before polling and this is
what we saw in
2008 when there was a delay in announcing the results.”
Rupiya says rather
than a coup, the military would most likely work behind
the scenes to
control and influence the electoral process like they
previously
did.
After Zanu PF’s close shave in the June 2000 elections where it
avoided
defeat by just five seats, the army started getting more involved in
politics. The military embarked on a bruising campaign in the run up to the
March 2002 presidential election. The election was rigidly controlled by the
army and the re-sult was a disputed outcome after Tsvangirai appeared to
have over-run Mugabe.
A few months before the poll,service
chiefs led by the late Gen-eral
Vitalis Zvinavashe publicly declared they
would not salute a president
without “liberation cre-dentials” which was
interpreted as a veiled coup
threat if Mugabe lost.
Major-General
Douglas Nyika-yaramba, recently promoted, was then deployed to
the electoral
com-mission to become chief elections officer although he was
still
serv-ing.
Sobusa Gula-Ndebele, a former colonel in the army, chaired
the Electoral
Supervisory Commission which ran the election.
In 2004,
Mugabe appointed a four-member Delimitation Commission chaired by
former
judge advocate responsible for military tribunals in the Zimbabwe
National
Army and High Court Justice George Chi-weshe.
In 2008, Chiweshe was
appointed to chair Zec which presided over the
discredited presidential
elec-tion run-off. He was later promoted to judge
president.
Nyikayaramba is one of those army commanders who have
vowed to defend Mugabe
to the hilt and re-sist or resign if anyone takes
over. Major-Generals
Martin Chedondo and Trust Mugoba have also recent-ly
declared their support
for Zanu PF.
Rupiya says statements like these
should be taken seriously although there
are slim chances of a
coup.
“You have to take them seriously, remember on January 9, 2002,
they
announced that they would not ac-cept anyone without war credentials to
come
into power and in 2008 they made good their threat. We have a
historical
precedent,” he said.
Gwinyayi Dzinesa a senior
re-searcher in Conflict Prevention and Risk
Analysis Division of the
Pre-toria-based Institute for Security Studies said
the military had
as-sumed the role of a “kingmaker” in Zimbabwean politics
and will play a
huge role in the next polls.
“The security sector has increas-ingly
been involved in Zimbabwe’s politics
since the country’s closely contested
parliamentary elections of June 2000,”
he said.“The secu-rity sector, which
has a record of partisan involvement in
violent political processes in order
to influ-ence the outcome of elections,
has been shielded from security
sector reform by Zanu PF despite constant
lobbying by the MDC
parties.”
Dzinesa said it was highly un-likely Sadc would condone
a violent electoral
process in Zimbabwe again while the option of a coup
might not be
practicable in the cur-rent circumstances.
“Although it
would be hard to pre-dict, I do not see the guarantors of the
GPA –– the AU,
Sadc and South African President Jacob Zuma –– tolerating a
coup in
Zimbabwe. The international community is also hardening its position
against
coups.”
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012
11:01
Brian Chitemba
ZANU PF has roped in the services of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to
draw up strategies to revive its waning
support base in Matabeleland ahead
of the next elections. A CCP delegation
met the Zanu PF politburo, central
committee and district coordinating
committee members from Bulawayo,
Matabeleland North and South on Tuesday to
formulate ways of enticing the
electorate.
Zanu PF lost control
of the Matabeleland provinces after the MDC first
contested elections in
2000, and the party believes that borrowing CCP
strategies would help revive
its flagging fortunes.
The CCP’s Centre for International Exchanges
director-general, Wu Shumin,
advised Zanu PF to address relevant issues
facing the Matabeleland region,
saying the party would only be electable if
its policies solved problems
facing the region’s electorate.
Zanu
PF is unpopular in Matabeleland due to perceived marginalisation and
unfulfilled development projects, and the Gukurahundi atrocities committed
by the Zanu PF government in the 1980s believed to have resulted in the
deaths of about 20 000 people.
Shumin advised the party to
address poverty, unemployment, housing
shortages, deteriorating healthcare,
rampant corruption and industrial
development. Bulawayo has particularly
been hit by de-industrialisation
which saw the closure of 87 companies
leaving about 20 000 jobless.
The CCP backed the controversial
indigenisation programme saying it would
gain Zanu PF political mileage
because the black majority had been
disenfranchised for decades.
“The
party’s greatest strength lies in connecting with the people and there
should not be a time when it is alienated from them,” said China Executive
Leadership Academy official Liu Jingbei.
“Successful parties
derive their strength from vibrant grassroots structures
and discipline
among members,” Jingbei said.
Meanwhile, Zanu PF has tasked its
politburo members to come up with a raft
of recommendations on how the party
can win the next elections to ensure
that President Robert Mugabe holds onto
his 32-year rule.
The party’s national commissar Webster Shamu wrote
to all politburo, central
committee and national consultative assembly
members instructing them to
analyse Zanu PF’s performance in the 2008
elections and give him feedback
urgently.
Zanu PF officials told
the Independent that the 2008 election analysis and
recommendations were a
waste of time, particularly in Matabeleland where
Mugabe has never been
popular with the electorate.
“Who will vote Zanu PF in Matabeleland?”
asked a senior party official from
the region. “We can’t win in this region
because people feel marginalised
and if Mugabe rejects devolution then
forget the Matabeleland vote.”
Senior party officials in Bulawayo met
at the provincial headquarters on
Sunday, but failed to come up with any
recommendations as they were soon
sucked into a bitter debate over district
structures.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 11:02
Staff
Writer
THE constitution-making process has hit a dead end again as the
Global
Political Agreement (GPA) negotiators failed to agree on issues
previously
resolved, with Zanu PF claiming the whole draft constitution does
not
reflect the views of the people as captured in the national report. The
deadlock comes after Sadc urged the coalition government to complete the new
charter as outlined in the election roadmap. The management committee, which
met at Ruparara lodge in Nyanga starting last Sunday to resolve all
outstanding issues, failed to reach a compromise.
“The meeting
has been adjourned and will resume soon but the management
committee has
failed to break the deadlock,” said a Copac source.
Copac insiders
who attended the meeting said the three parties — Zanu PF and
the two MDC
formations vowed not to move on their party positions.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012
11:08
Tendai Marima
EVEN though cabinet agreed last week to ensure
diamond revenues are remitted
to Treasury, smuggling, looting and leakages
will remain serious problems
unless urgent measures are taken to curb them.
When Zimbabwe held mass
diamond sales in India in November last year,
bargain hunters from as far as
Israel, Lebanon and China flooded Surat and
Mumbai’s markets to buy the
gems.
The entry of Zimbabwe’s cheap
diamonds onto the global stage pushed the
price of diamonds down and by
January this year, South Africa’s De Beers and
Russian Alrosa, which control
the majority of world supplies, recorded a six
to 10% drop in diamond price
in the international market.
Sold at discounted rates of up to 50%,
Zimbabwe’s diamonds are among the
cheapest in the world, making them
attractive, but they have brought little
financial benefit to a country
which expected to earn $2 billion from the
trade
annually.
Finance minister Tendai Biti expected diamond revenues to
contribute $600
million to this year’s national budget. However, Treasury
has only been able
to get a trickle, with Biti last week warning the budget
might have to be
revised downwards.
In figures presented to
parliament last week, Deputy Minister of Mines, Gift
Chimanikire, said
Zimbabwe had sold diamonds worth about US$120 million and
received a
dividend of US$29 million for the first quarter of 2012.
Chimanikire
said on average, Zimbabwe’s stones were sold for US$40-US$100 a
carat, but
Parliamentary Legal Committee chairperson, Shepherd Mushonga,
questioned
Chimanikire’s calculation and suggested they were being sold for
as little
as US$9.
“Zimbabwe is now a member of KPCS (Kimberley Processing and
Certification
Scheme) and that on the world market a carat of diamond is
selling between
US$200 and US$800. The prices which the minister has
referred to indicate
that our diamonds are selling for about US$9 per carat
when we are members,
we are now allowed in the international community of
diamond mines to sell
our diamonds,” said Mushonga.
Although
Chimanikire rebuffed Mushonga’s point, allegations that sales of
Zimbabwe’s
diamonds are under-priced and not transparent will not go away.
The sale of
diamonds has been shrouded in secrecy amid complaints of
smuggling,
corruption and looting since the discovery of diamonds in Marange
in
2006.
Biti has also questioned the pricing of diamonds at a 2012
budget
consultative meeting in Kwekwe in October last year. He told the
meeting:
“We are being told that diamonds are being sold at US$60 per carat,
but (on
the international market) the cheapest industrial diamond sells at
US$200
while the expensive goes for US$1 300. Looking at those figures, the
nation
could have got US$4 billion in 2010 alone, but we only got US$150
million.”
In February this year he said he had received US$5 million
against a target
of US$41,5 million.
In September 2010, the
government authorised a secret diamond sale held in
Marange diamond fields
in spite of the international ban on Zimbabwe’s
diamonds. At the time,
secretary for mines, Thankful Musukutwa, responded
defending lack of
transparency and accountability saying: “We will not be
releasing the
quantity or amount that was generated because these were
private sales by
private companies.”
“No other country in the world releases their
sales figures or quantities.
When it comes to the issues of diamonds, we
must be careful as a country
because of the sensitivity of the issues
associated with them,” he said.
Mines minister Obert Mpofu last week
refused to guarantee transparency and
accountability, citing
sanctions.
Industry experts say Zimbabwe’s cheap stones are set to
dominate the global
rough diamond supply market in the next few
years.
In 2010, India imported rough diamonds worth US$11 billion
mainly for
industrial use and more than half of the imports were of
low-range quality.
Demands for the country’s cheap gems led to the opening
of diamond cutting
offices in Surat and another office is set to open in
Brussels, Belgium,
later this year.
While import of rough gems
from Zimbabwe could potentially employ 60 000
Indians in Surat, the trade
has fuelled smuggling and corruption back home.
According to diamond
consultant Keith Lapperman, Zimbabwe lost up to US$500
million last year due
to theft and smuggling.
“My estimate is that last year, between 20
million to 30 million carats were
smuggled from Zimbabwe. This translates to
between US$400 million and US$500
million. This is substantial,” he said. “A
sub-industry of mainly smuggled
diamonds has developed, which, if not
regularised urgently, will have
far-reaching consequences not only for
Zimbabwe, but for the diamond
industry in general. This figure is likely to
decline once you formalise the
sector. The controversy will be
reduced.”
Economist John Robertson has pointed to the absence of
protection of
property rights, citing the state’s seizure of African
Consolidated
Resources (ACR) diamond claims in 2007.
“Essentially, the
rights to prospect still need to be backed up with the
rights for
Zimbabweans to claim minerals as their own property. Security of
ownership
would guarantee billions in new investment,” he said.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012
10:59
Staff Writer
A CLUSTER of Matabeleland-based political
parties is holding discussions to
form an election pact under the banner of
the Patriotic Union of
Matabeleland (Puma) ahead of the next
polls.
However, Zapu leader Dumiso Dabengwa snubbed the initiative and
instead
opted to join forces with the Common Issues Platform (CIP) in Harare
despite
his party being involved in the coalition talks.
It is
believed that all the agreements were in place and ready for signing
when
Dabengwa turned his back on the deal, only to emerge at the CIP press
briefing in the capital.
Among the agreements, the proposed
alliance would field and campaign for one
candidate in perceived Zanu PF
strongholds. The deal was reportedly
facilitated by a retired senior
politician in the region.
When reports of the CIP emerged, political
parties in Matabeleland said they
felt betrayed because they had worked
tirelessly with Zapu and other parties
since last year to form a united
front.
Zanu Ndonga, Zapu, MDC 99 and the Democratic Party held a
joint press
conference in Harare recently where they announced the formation
of the CIP
to challenge the coalition government.
“This is the
coming together of opposition parties that share the same views
and concerns
about what is happening in the country,” Dabengwa said at the
press
conference.
Puma officials said although they hold no grudge against Zapu,
they were
surprised that it had snubbed efforts for a united front in
Matabeleland.
Puma information secretary Bhekinkosi Mdlongwa said Zapu’s
snub would not
derail their project.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012
10:57
Staff Writer
FACTIONAL fissures continue to rock Zanu PF
with officials in Masvingo
accusing each other of fuelling divisions by
meddling in District
Coordinating Committee (DCC) elections. This emerged at
a Nyajena Mission
rally a fortnight ago where Zanu PF politburo member
Dzikamai Mavhaire
reportedly accused Masvingo North MP Stan Mudenge of
rigging DCC elections.
Sources said Mavhaire pointed out Mudenge was at the
top of the list of
ministers bunking cabinet because of ill-health, but
somehow had the
strength to visit the province and meddle in DCC
polls.
When contacted for comment Mavhaire he said the party
was busy with its
structures and was not at liberty to discuss what
transpired at the rally.
Mudenge could neither confirm nor deny his
involvement with the DCC
elections saying: “I am not at work so there is
nothing I can say right now”.
Masvingo South MP Walter Mzembi also
told the same rally that rigging was
possible because the party had no
offices in the province after it was
evicted in 2010 for failing to pay
rent. It is currently operating from
provincial secretary for administration
Edmore Mhere’s business complex.
Masvingo has been a Zanu PF hotbed
for factionalism which reared its ugly
head in May when intra-party violence
erupted after a round of disputed DCC
elections in Nyajena, Masvingo South.
Riot police were called in to quell
the violence.
The main
warring Zanu PF factions are led by Defence minister Emmerson
Mnangagwa and
Vice-President Joice Mujuru.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012
10:53
Owen Gagare
SOUTH African President Jacob Zuma, the
Sadc-appointed facilitator in
Zimbabwe’s political dialogue, is reportedly
anxious to come to meet on
Monday principals to the Global Political
Agreement (GPA) on imple-mentation
of the pact and election roadmap, but
negotiators say they are not ready to
re-ceive him.
This
follow negotiators’ failure to resolve disputed issues on the
constitu-tion-making process and come up with an agenda for Zuma and
principals’ meeting.
The negotiators, tasked to draw up an agenda
for Zuma’s meeting with
President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai, Deputy Prime
Minister Arthur Mutambara and MDC leader Welshman
Ncube, have not yet come
up with discus-sion points as they have been seized
with resolving
differences in the constitution-making
exercise.
The negotiators were part of Copac man-agement team which
met in Nyanga from
last weekend until Wednesday. They, how-ever, failed to
find common ground
and are scheduled to meet again early next week af-ter
consulting their
principals.
One of the negotiators told the
Zimbabwe Independent yesterday it would only
be after either solving the
constitutional impasse or declaring a deadlock,
that they could receive
Zuma.
Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs minister Eric
Matinenga confirmed
the management committee had not resolved all the issues
but said
significant progress had been made. “We are at a very delicate
stage of the
process, but I must say we made significant progress although
we have not
yet finished,” he said.
Zuma, tasked by Sadc at its
recent sum-mit in Luanda to meet the principals
to find ways of implementing
agreed issues in the GPA, is eager to use the
current momentum to press all
the parties on the roadmap. The summit
maintained elections in Zimbabwe
should only be held after the full
implemen-tation of the GPA, derailing
Mugabe’s push for polls this year,
with or without a new
constitution.
The South African facilitation team met negotiators in
Harare after the
Luanda sum-mit to prepare for Zuma’s visit, but a date
could not be agreed
on because of current disputes.
Among Zuma
and Sadc’s major concerns are Zimbabwe’s security chiefs’ brazen
med-dling
in politics ahead of the elections. Sadc leaders are keen to
ensure polls
are held in a peaceful environment, hence their bid to contain
security
chiefs.
The MDC formations have been calling for security sector
reform but the
issue is one of the unresolved items on the roadmap. Also
outstanding is the
staffing of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and issues
around the
observing and monitoring of the polls.
Some agreed
items, among them media reforms, have not been implemented and
Zuma and
principals are expected to come up with an implementation
mechanism.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 10:53
Wongai
Zhangazha
JUST about every Zimbabwean driver has a story to tell about
negotiating the
country’s pothole-ridden urban roads and highways.
Negotiating the rutted
and usually narrow roads is now tantamount to a
dangerous game — dicing with
death. Drivers are often left swearing after
their cars have ploughed into
deep potholes, or when a seemingly smooth ride
abruptly turns bumpy and
rough as a result of deteriorating roads. After
many years of neglect, some
potholes have developed into craters, especially
during the rainy season,
causing inconveniences and accidents, some
fatal.
Occasionally, scores of people die on the roads, partly as a result of
human
error, a situation often worsened by potholes and the general poor
state of
the narrow and perilous highways.
The state’s roads
agency, the Zimbabwe National Road Administration
(Zinara), which is tasked
with maintaining the country’s road network, has
not been up to grips with
the situation as it has done little to fix the
country’s roads despite its
energetic revenue collection drive.
Zinara recently introduced new
vehicle licence discs with enhanced security
features as part of efforts to
curb what it has claimed to be illegal
reproduction of the permits.
This
followed claims that last year it was prejudiced of up to US$15 million
in
potential revenue through rampant printing of counterfeit discs. Zinara
head
of corporate communications, Augustine Moyo, recently said motorists
would
now be required to licence vehicles quarterly. Previously, licencing
was
done either annually or quarterly.
“We have added a new holographic security
feature which cannot be forged or
manipulated. This move is meant to assist
us curb rampant printing of
vehicle licence discs. The current system is
manual and has weaknesses,” he
said.
“It would help us to have a
watertight system when it comes to vehicle
licencing. This will also
increase revenue inflows, translating into bigger
allocations to road
authorities.”
Moyo said Zinara last year collected US$25 million from vehicle
permits
against potential revenue of US$40 million. He also noted the
country has an
estimated 800 000 cars, although only 478 000 were licenced
authentically.
“We collected US$80 million and redirected it towards
road and routine
maintenance,” he said.
“Our road network is very
old. It should be appreciated that maintaining an
old asset is expensive.
Some of these roads were constructed over 40 years
ago, yet the lifespan of
a road is 20 years. This means almost the entire
road network now requires
rehabilitation and not only the routine
maintenance being done
now.”
However, motorists are not convinced Zinara is doing
much.
Development specialist Maxwell Saungweme said evidence showed
Zinara is a
very incompetent body which is “good at devising ways of
siphoning money
from road users without delivering on most of its key
functions”.
“A quick glance at the state of Zimbabwe’s roads really
shows that this body
just makes noise and hogs the limelight by levying road
user fees, but does
not really do much to ensure that roads are upgraded and
maintained,” said
Saungweme.
In a 2010 report on the state of
parastatals released last month,
Comptroller and Auditor-General Mildred
Chiri accused Zinara of failing to
do its job despite its energetic revenue
collection efforts.
Chiri noted the country’s road network has
outlived its lifespan and
expressed concern no serious development was
evident despite, in some cases,
the road network being over 50 years
old.
Roads which have exceeded their intended design life include
Harare-Beitbridge, Harare-Chirundu, Harare-Plumtree, Harare-Mutare,
Harare-Bindura, Harare-Nyamap-
anda, Gweru-Chivhu, Gweru-Zvishavane,
Masvingo-Mutare, Masvingo-Bulawayo,
Bulawayo-Beitbridge and
Bulawayo-Victoria Falls roads — a total of 3 655km.
Chiri estimated
the cost of new road construction per kilometre at between
US$350 000 and
US$500 000, giving the construction cost of the mentioned
roads at about
US$1,8 billion.
She pointed out tollgate collections would be
insufficient for construction
or periodic and routine road maintenance, and
recommended that resources be
availed from central government for road
rehabilitation to augment the toll
funds, and that Zinara gets into joint
partnerships with private financiers.
Zinara has since acknowledged
the road problem and promised to seek central
government intervention and
partner the private sector in construction and
maintenance instead of
harassing motorists without tangible delivery.
Until Zinara does
something about the situation, Zimbabwe’s roads and
highways will remain
death traps.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012
10:50
Elias Mambo
OVERCROWDING, squalour, disease and starvation
characterise Zimbabwe’s 55
jails following decades of underfunding of
prisons and neglect by the
authorities. The Supreme Court last week visited
Harare Central Police
Station following an application filed by four Women
of Zimbabwe Arise
(Woza) leaders seeking to condemn its detention cells as
uninhabitable. The
media was part of the tour.
The visit enabled
journalists to a get glimpse into the hellhole that
Zimbabwe’s prison cells
have now become where thousands languish in misery
and solitude.
At
Harare central police station, the situation can only be described as
awful.
Cells designed to hold only six inmates are jam-packed with over 25
inmates
sharing a single toilet flushed from the outside whenever the guard
on duty
feels like doing so.
For breakfast inmates are fed maize meal
porridge –– which sometimes has no
sugar –– two wafer-thin slices of bread
and tea with only a few drops of
milk.
At lunch time it becomes a case of
“survival of the fittest” as inmates
scramble for sadza with boiled cabbage
or beans.
In its 2009 report on the state of local prisons, the
Zimbabwe Association
for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender
(Zacpro) says for
most prisoners there is only one way to escape from this
misery: dying!
The suffering which characterises a stay in
Zimbabwe’s prisons is described
in graphic detail by former CIO operative
and apartheid South Africa’s
double-agent Kevin Woods, who spent 18 years in
the notorious Chikurubi
Maximum Security Prison in Harare.
Woods
was sentenced to death in 1987 for his role in the bombing of ANC safe
houses in Zimbabwe at the height of apartheid brutality. His sentence was
later commuted to life imprisonment before he was released courtesy of a
presidential pardon in 2006.
Woods reveals in his book The Kevin
Woods Story: In the shadows of Mugabe’s
Gallows that for more than five
years of his incarceration, he was cut off
from the outside world and held
in solitary confinement –– naked.
He describes prison conditions as
deadly, leaving inmates to summon all
their willpower to survive. Woods says
he had to smuggle food into his cell
on many occasions and endured
overflowing toilets and days with no food, no
electricity, no water and
lice-infested blankets for months on-end.
Six years after Woods’ release, the
country’s prisons are again under the
spotlight.
Woza leaders
Jenni Williams, Magodonga Mahlangu, Celina Madukani and Clara
Manjengwa
petitioned the Supreme Court through their lawyers, the Zimbabwe
Lawyers for
Human Rights, seeking an order compelling government to ensure
holding cells
at Harare central police station met basic human dignity and
hygiene
standards.
Five Supreme Court Judges, Justices Vernanda Ziyambi, Rita
Makarau,
Paddington Garwe, Yunus Omerjee and Anne-Mary Gowora inspected the
cells to
ascertain their conditions.
However, the judges failed to get a
true reflection of the state of the
holding cells because the authorities
cleaned the cells ahead of the
scheduled visit.
“One of the cells on the
first floor had a stench but the floor appeared to
have been cleaned,” said
Ziyambi who read out the Supreme Court’s
observations in court after the
inspection.
“In that cell, there were six blankets lying on the
built-on concrete beds.
In each cell that we inspected there were six
built-in beds with no
mattresses. Around each of the toilets there was a
concrete block which was
about a metre high but without a
door.”
Woza leaders said great attempts had been made by the police
to remove the
“human waste bomb” that had been apparent on the first floor
cell unit
during their arrest in 2010.
Apart from food shortages and
hygiene items, there is also a shortage of
prison
uniforms.
Zacpro said Chikurubi, which has a holding capacity of 800
inmates,
currently has 1 780 prisoners –– more than double its capacity. The
55
prisons in the country have the capacity to accommodate 16 000 prisoners
but
presently hold 35 000 inmates.
The suffocating overcrowding
has been blamed for the rampant outbreak of
diseases and malnutrition within
the prison system.
Exiled MDC-T treasurer Roy Bennett, who spent a
year in jail for allegedly
assaulting Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa
during a heated parliamentary
debate, referred to Zimbabwe’s prison
conditions as “a human rights tragedy
and a serious abuse of human
rights”.
In July 2005 Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku ruled that
police cells at
Matapi and Highlands police stations were “degrading and
inhuman and unfit
for holding criminal suspects”.
Zacpro has said
because of the current situation Zimbabwe’s prisons
constitute a unique and
a particularly cruel form of torture that has both
physical and
psychological impacts on inmates affected.
In an interview with the
Zimbabwe Independent this week, DeputyJustice
minister Obert Gutu said
police cells and prisons need urgent refurbishment
or even
demolition.
“The fact of the matter is that most, if not all, cells
in Zimbabwe are in
urgent need of refurbishment and in some cases, such as
at Chivhu prison,
demolition,” Gutu said.“These are structures that were
built several decades
ago to cater for a relatively small prison population.
The average cell in a
Zimbabwean prison is nothing short of a
hellhole.”
Gutu said most inmates were living dreadful
lives.
“It would appear that the decision to phase off help from the
Red Cross was
premature and ill-advised. Prisoners are now surviving on a
diet of sadza or
occasionally beans or half-boiled cabbages as relish,” said
Gutu.
“We call upon development partners, including the International
Committee of
the Red Cross, to come on board and assist us in our vision of
transforming
our prisons into modern correctional
facilities.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was
until recently
regularly supplying prisons with beans, cooking oil and
groundnuts for more
than 8 000 inmates in 17 places of detention around the
country, including
Harare Remand Prison and Chikurubi Maximum Security
Prison.
It also provided assistance and technical support to the
Zimbabwe Prison
Service to boost food production at prison farms, upgrade
water and
sanitation facilities, monitor the nutrition of inmates and
improve access
to healthcare services.
However, following
termination of its assistance, UCRC has left a huge void
in the provision of
food and other necessities. The situation is worsened by
the fact that
improving prison conditions ranks low in the cash-strapped
unity
government’s list of priorities. This means the suffering of prisoners
will
continue and as Zacpro said, for now the only way out for inmates is
perhaps
dying, making prison reform urgent.
As Nelson Mandela, who spent 27
years in jail to secure the freedom of South
Africa, said: “It is said that
no one truly knows a nation until one has
been inside its jails. A nation
should not be judged by how it treats its
highest citizens, but its lowest
ones”.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012
11:04
A TOP Zanu PF bigwig has been linked to the purchase of a luxurious
boat
worth US$5,5 million imported from an Italian yacht maker Azimut Yacht
this
week.
However, the yacht, which arrived in the country on
Wednesday, has also been
linked to a mystery Harare man from Chisipite whose
name is known to the
Zim-babwe Independent.
According to reliable
sources in South Africa, the boat was fully paid for
at a company called
Broderick Marine in Vanderbiljpark, southern
Johannesburg, which ordered the
boat from Italy on behalf of the owner.
The yacht left Vanderbiljpark
for Zimbabwe on Monday and crossed the
Beitbridge border post on Wednesday
in an abnormal-load truck registration
number BX 00SB GP destined for
Kariba.
The boat is a six-sleeper, with three lounges, two Cummins
5HP diesel
engines and has top and bottom steering wheels which allow the
driver to
steer the boat from either inside or outside.
It is
fully air-conditioned with a 32-inch flat screen television and a
refrigerator. Investigations by the Independent show the boat was bought and
imported by the Chisipite-based returning resident on the Zimbabwean side
while documents on the South African side show the own-er as a top Zanu PF
politician.
The sources said the boat was bought for US$3,8
million and duty of US$1,7
million was paid. It was cleared by Group Air’s
GA Freight, a Harare-based
clear-ing agency.
Efforts to get
comment from Broderick Marine proved fruitless.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 11:04
Staff
Writer
THE Insurance and Pensions Commission (Ipec) has instituted a
forensic audit
focusing on the way the Mining Industry Pension Fund (MIPF)
disposed of its
residential properties and office blocks between 2000 and
2009. The
investigations, which started a week ago, are being carried out
following
allegations that the properties were sold to MIPF trustees and top
management.
The MIPF disposed of eight blocks of flats and office
blocks which included
Charingira, Spencer Cook and St Andrews, along Samora
Machel Avenue.
The audit is investigating whether the properties were
sold at fair value
and wants to expose MIPF top managers and trustees who
benefitted.
One top MIPF official told Zimbabwe Independent this
week: “Ipec is doing a
forensic audit focusing on the disposition of
residential properties between
2000 and 2009. There are allegations top
managers bought more than one
property and that St Andrews was bought by
trustees who later resold the
properties.”
While pensioners from
the mining sector receive an average US$63 per month,
the MIPF chairman,
James Maposa, is paid a quarterly fee of US$789, a
sitting allowance of
US$330 and a monthly fuel allocation of 100 litres.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 11:00
Staff
writer
MDC-T deputy president Thokozani Khupe is reportedly contemplating
ditching
her Makokoba constituency in Bulawayo for rural Nkayi deeming it a
safe seat
in the next elections, like many of her colleagues now running
away from
urban areas. Khupe recently built a new homestead in
Nkayi.
The deputy premier has been Makokoba MP since 2000 and saw off
stiff
challenges from Zanu PF’s Tshinga Dube and MDC leader Welshman Ncube
in the
2008 harmonised polls. However, Khupe’s popularity in MDC-T
structures in
the constituency has been waning with members accusing her of
dictatorship
and neglecting the electorate. This week 84 MDC-T members in
the Makokoba
constituency, including senior officials, defected to the rival
MDC.
Last month Khupe shunned a rally in Makokoba where she was
scheduled to give
a keynote address only to surface at another rally in
Siganda, Nkayi.
“Speculation around Khupe planning to stand in Nkayi
has been doing the
rounds since late last year,” said a party insider. “What
is fuelling it is
that she has not attempted to dispel the rumours. Khupe no
longer commands
support and respect compared to a few years ago and she
knows that.”
As a result the MDC-T has proposed a system similar to
Zanu PF to protect
its presidium.
Contacted for comment Khupe
denied the claims saying seeking a constituency
in Nkayi would “destabilise
the area as there is a candidate who is already
campaigning there”.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 11:06
Staff
Writer
MASHONALAND Central governor Martin Dinha and Zanu PF party
heavyweights in
the province have resolved to put their feud aside and work
as a united
front to ensure victory for President Robert Mugabe in the next
elections
expected in 2013.
Dinha met with Mashonaland Central
chairperson Dickson Mafios three weeks
ago in Muzarabani to try and resolve
the sharp differences which had emerged
between the party’s heavyweights and
the governor.
The two agreed to work together ahead of crucial
elections to ensure that
Zanu PF regains the two seats — Bindura South and
Mazowe Central — it lost
to MDC-T in the 2008 elections. Zanu PF won 16 of
the 18 constituencies and
all six senatorial seats in the province which has
been its traditional
stronghold.
Dinha confirmed to the Zimbabwe
Independent meeting with Mafios in
Muzarabani at a handover ceremony of a
three-bedroomed house to Chief
Kasekete by United Family International
Church leader, Prophet Makandiwa.
Mafios works closely with politburo
members Nicholas Goche and Saviour
Kasukuwere.
“We have decided
to close ranks. I met with Mafios. We felt that it was not
in our best
interest to fight. I am Zanu PF through and through and I am
Zanu PF by
conviction and choice,” he said. “We agreed that we should define
our roles.
The chairman will do his job of mobilising supporters, while I
represent the
president in the province ... if there are issues to do with
land and
governance, they call me and we sit down to chat the way forward.”
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 11:28
Chris
Muronzi
RESERVE Bank governor Gideon Gono is making frantic efforts to calm
the
markets after Interfin Banking Corpo-ration and Genesis Investment Bank
were
closed last week due to serious liquidity problems.
After
holding meetings with delega-tions from the African Export-Import Bank
(Afreximbank) and the Interna-tional Monetary Fund (IMF) in Harare last
week, Gono was this week in Cairo, Egypt, for the continental financial
in-stitution’s meetings.
Sources say Gono, who is a director at
Afreximbank, took the opportunity to
“calm the markets” about Zimbabwe’s
banking sector which is engulfed in
instability due to the banks’ closures
last week.
The sector is reeling from a liquidity crunch and several
banks are treading
on quicksand. However, Gono has been assuring
Afreximbank, which has given
Zimba-bwe more than US$2,6 billion over the
past few years, that the banking
sec-tor is largely “safe and sound” and its
money would not sink.
Last week Afreximbank executive vice-president
for finance, administra-tion
and banking services Denys Denya was in Harare
for meetings with Fi-nance
minister Tendai Biti, Gono and bankers, to assess
the economic situa-tion
and banking sector.
Denya also met with
CBZ, MBCA, FBC, Kingdom Bank and Interfin, as well as
international bank
executives to assess the situation. Interfin was closed
due to a liquidity
crisis and looting.
A banker who attended one of the meetings said:
“Denya and his execu-tives
were in Harare and met Biti, Gono and bankers to
evaluate the economic
situation and also the banking sector. The idea was to
understand what was
happening in the sector and calm nerves following the
closure of Interfin
and Genesis.”
Besides, the IMF delegation
which was in the country for its Article IV
Consultations also had a chance
to meet local treasury and monetary
au-thorities and also bankers to tackle
the situation.
The multilateral financial institu-tion is on record
as urging local banks
to merge, find new investors or close to avoid
escalating systematic risks.
Zimbabwe has 26 financial institutions,
a figure the IMF feels is too high
given its small economy with an
es-timated US$7 billion Gross Domestic
Product and US$4 billion bank
depos-its. Meanwhile, in a dramatic turn of
events, Renaissance Financial
Holdings Ltd founder Patterson Timba yesterday
withdrew a court application
in which he was challenging a deal that saw the
National Social Security
Authority acquiring a controlling stake in
ReN-aissance Merchant Bank (RMB).
In a notice of withdrawal filed just
before the hearing was due before
Jus-tice Lavender Makoni at the high
court, Timba, through his lawyers Muza
& Nyapadi, withdrew the case at 8:45
am.
“Take notice that
the appellant here-by withdraws his claim against all the
respondents,”
reads the notice of with-drawal.
Vote Muza of Muza & Nyapadi,
repre-senting Timba, is said to have called all
law firms –– Dube, Manikai
& Hwacha, Scanlen & Holderness, and Wintertons,
advising them not to
come to court.
However, the move was not well received by Justice
Makoni as it emerged
Timba had not paid the costs of other litigants in the
case, expected to run
into tens of thousands of dollars.
Justice
Makoni ordered the ques-tion of costs be determined by the high
court owing
to their significance.
Timba applied to the high court to stop former RMB
curator Reggie Saruchera
from making drawings from the bank and force the
Reserve Bank, cited as the
second respondent, to re-imburse the bank funds
paid to him as remuneration.
Timba also sought an order that should shares
in RMB be disposed of, it
should be done on the basis of a valua-tion done
by PriceWaterhouse Coopers
or two other valuations.
He also
wanted an order to have Saruchera’s valuation of RMB set aside and
another
to force him to recover funds the bank was owed by the RBZ and its
governor
Gono.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012
10:17
Staff Writer
THE Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) board last
week threw spanners into the
setting up of a Central Securities Depository
(CSD) amid reports of
resistance by the stock-broking community who fear the
transparency brought
about by the system would expose some of their
underhand dealings,
businessdigest has established.
Well-placed
sources said stock-brokers feared underhand dealings, open
positions and
duplicate share certificates could come to the fore once the
electronic
trading system was automated.
For instance, the Interfin Securities
and Remo Investments share wrangle, in
which the two stock-broking firms
lodged clients’ shares as security to
access funds without their permission,
could have easily been detected had
the CSD been
installed.
Interfin and Remo have since sold some of the shares to
third parties.
Without a CSD, some of the shares cannot be traced or
recovered. A ceremony
to mark the signing of the CSD shareholders’
agreement was cancelled at the
eleventh hour in the capital last
week.
Members of the ZSE will today hold a general meeting which
will, among other
things, discuss the progress of CSD and demutualisation of
the exchange
ahead of an Annual General Meeting (AGM) slated for next
Friday.
According to a notice sent to members, the agenda of the
meeting is to get a
progress update on CSD, demutualisation and feedback on
the 2010 finances of
the exchange.
ZSE board chairperson Eve
Gadzikwa said the meeting was an operational
meeting, adding the AGM would
go ahead as planned next Friday.
“The CSD ceremony was cancelled to
allow shareholders to go through the
shareholder agreement,” said
Gadzikwa.
Finance minister Tendai Biti last month ordered players in
the capital
markets to expedite the process of setting up an automated
trading system
(ATS) and CSD, amid indications the ministry was frustrated
with the slow
pace of reforms.
Biti last year said government,
through various institutions, would take up
a 51% stake in the CSD after a
local consortium Chengetedzai Depository
Company had won the tender. The
shareholding would entail ZSE getting 15%,
NSSA 13%, ZB Financial Holdings
13% and the Infrastructure Development Bank
of Zimbabwe
10%.
Chengetedzai is a consortium made up of First Transfer
Secretaries and
Chartered System Information.
Disagreements over
the valuation of the sweat capital used by Chengetedzai
saw the process
being stalled further. Chengetedzai had valued the sweat
equity at US$1, 1
million based on valuations by Grant Thornton Camelsa.
However, the
valuation was not agreed on, a development that saw Ernst &
Young being
contracted to come up with another valuation.
Ernst & Young came
up with four scenarios to the valuation range, which were
deemed reasonable.
The first scenario was US$998 510, based on all hours
worked, the second
scenario based on selected hours was US$686 420, the
third scenario on
derived hours was US$356 513 and the fourth scenario based
on salaries was
US$141 616.
However, the first and fourth scenarios were taken as
outliers and as a
result, the averages of the two remaining scenarios was
used. The valuation
therefore came to around US$520 000, a figure
shareholders agreed on.
Plans to demutualise the ZSE have progressed
at a slow pace due to funding
constraints.
A total of US$4
million is required for the process, which was mooted four
years ago. Since
then, no funds have been allocated for the process.
Demutualisation would
mean the ownership, trading rights and management of
the exchange becomes
divorced from one another in order to circumvent the
conflict of interest
often associated with mutual exchanges.
The ZSE will hold its AGM
next week, which would be held without suspended
chief executive Emmanuel
Munyukwi, who is currently awaiting hearing.
Gadzikwa said the issue was
still under consideration.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 09:50
Gamma
Mudarikiri
TOBACCO earnings for the current marketing season have so far
earned the
country US$455 million, 45% ahead of sales for the same period
last year
which were US$313 million. A total of 122 million kilogrammes have
been sold
at an average price of US$3,72 per kg, while sales for the same
period last
year were 115 million kg sold at an average price of US$2,72, an
37%
improvement in prices.
Contract sales have realised US$273
million from 75 million kg at a firm
average price of US$3,80 per kg, while
48 million kg have gone under the
hammer on the open auction floors,
realising US$172 million.
The average prices on the auction floors
have been US$3,61 per kg.
Meanwhile, Tobacco farmers in Africa met
in Zambia last week and objected
to proposals by the Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) to
stop the cultivation of the
crop as development market forces would
not allow this owing to high
demand for the leaf internationally.
Tobacco farmers and
representative bodies at the meeting, which was
hosted by the
International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA), a lobby
organisation for
tobacco farmers internationally, said proposals by FCTC
to ban cultivation
of the crop was disturbing, exclusive and going
beyond FCTC
mandate.
ITGA Africa region chairman François van der Merwe said FCTC’s
original
mandate was to explore research and promote alternative crops in
the event
that demand for tobacco globally declines.
“The
suggestion that an outside organisation should think it morally right
to
dictate what a farmer’s land can and cannot be used for in the pursuit of
his or her livelihood is disturbing to say the least.”
“Market
forces will not allow this prescriptive-style to prevail. As long as
there
is a demand for leaf, it will be grown,” Francois said.
FCTC’s
recommendations include limiting land under tobacco cultivation as
control
measure to control use of the crop.
Governments in tobacco growing
countries as part of the
recommendations should not provide
incentives to increase acreage of
land for tobacco cultivation and
with time should freeze the total
acreage under the
crop.
Farmers said although there are alternative and staple food
crops, such as
maize, tobacco remains a cash crop with high returns
compared to any other
crop.
Joseph Wanguhu, who represents the
Kenya Tobacco Farmers Association (KTFA)
said he was skeptical about the
viability of alternative crops, which
have a market internationally and
poorly priced compared to tobacco.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 09:49
Staff
Writer
INFLATION, as measured by the change in the Consumer Price Index
(CPI) came
in 0,01% lower than the April figure at 4,02% year on year.
Month-on-month
inflation was 0,07%, 12 bps lower than April’s 0,19%. Annual
inflation in
Zimbabwe as measured by ZimStats has trended downwards in 2012
from the
December 2011 closing figure of 4,9% to the current
4,02%.
The downward trend in inflation can be explained by two major
exogenous
factors — crude oil prices and the South African rand exchange
rate. The
current weak global economy has resulted in a drop in crude oil
prices which
had exerted a lot of inflationary pressures on many oil
importing economies
at the beginning of the year.
The recent drop
in oil prices has led to a decline in inflationary pressures
in most
economies and is part of the reason why inflation has only moved
sideways
locally.
Zimbabwe currently imports most of its basic commodities
from South Africa
and these imports constitute a great part of the 31,93%
weighted food and
non-alcoholic beverage segment of the CPI calculation.
Because the imports
are rand-based, the cost has been on a decline due to
the weakening of the
rand, leading to a sideways if not downward movement in
the cost of most
imported food and non-alcoholic beverages.
The
decline in inflation was guarded by the huge increase in the 16,23%
weighted
housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels component which
went up by
39 basis points month on month, while the annual increase came in
at 13,94%
and clothing and footwear costs went up by 20 bps
month-on-month.
The year-on-year food and non alcoholic beverages
stood at 4,61% whilst
non-food inflation stood at 3,75%.
The
month on month inflation rate in May 2012 was 0,07%, shedding 0,12
percentage points on the April rate of 0,19%.
The month-on-month
food and non alcoholic beverages inflation stood
at -0.25% in May shedding
0.39 percentage points on the April rate of 0.14%.
The month-on-month
non-food inflation was unchanged at 0,21%.
ZimStats is currently
doing a Poverty, Income, Consumption, Expenditure
Survey (PICES). The
objective of the survey is to provide data on income
distribution of the
population; the consumption level of the population;
private consumption;
consumer Price Index (CPI) weights; living conditions
of the population;
production account of agriculture (Communal Lands, Large
Scale commercial
farms; small Scale commercial farms; resettlement areas, A1
and A2 farms;
and poverty. After the survey, the weights of the CPI will
change in line
with the international requirement of five years. At present
2008 is the
base year for the index.
Elsewhere on the continent, the Ghana
Statistical Service (GSS), will rebase
its CPI next
year.
Economists argue that the existing methodology is outdated and
that it does
not fully represent current expenditure patterns. They also
argue that some
of the components in the basket are
obsolete.
Housing, water electricity gas and other fuels take up a
greater proportion
of the average income, much more than food. However, food
and non-alcoholic
beverages, have a greater weight of 31,9 against 16,2 for
housing water
electricity gas and other fuels.
The changes to the
weightings will make the basket accommodate current
happenings.
The present basket is made up of 68 commodities under
12 components. New
weights will also be assigned to the commodities to
reflect their relative
importance in current household consumption. It’s
most likely that transport
and communication costs will see higher
weightings as they now make up a
bigger share of household spending than
previously.
The CPI for the month stood at 101.63 compared to 101.56
in April and 97.71
in May last year.
With the current CPI
determination method in place and the Rand continuing
to weaken, inflation
is likely to remain subdued and the weak global
economic growth is likely to
ensure that oil prices remain depressed in the
short to medium term
resulting in weaker inflationary pressures in most oil
importing countries
like Zimbabwe.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 10:23
Maxwell
Madzikanga
THERE seems to be broad agreement among certain political
quarters that the
power sharing arrangement in Zimbabwe has been but a
national disaster. This
is a view regularly articulated at home and abroad
even by some of the key
leaders in the coalition arrangement, the Government
of National Unity.
However, despite its seemingly dismal performance, the
coalition government
has helped prevent further politically-motivated
violence, stabilised the
country economically and prevented inevitable
national implosion.
Zimbabwe witnessed improvement in a number of key
health, social and other
development indicators. From the start, the
coalition partners appreciated
the arrangement was transitional; a
short-term agreement to enable the
country to enjoy respite from some of its
challenges.
However, the transitional arrangement should not be used
to stifle Zimbabwe’s
return to full democratic normality. One of the
critical ingredients to the
return to full democracy is prevention and
mitigation of
politically-motivated electoral violence in all its varied
forms before and
after elections.
Factors that initiate, fuel and
maintain the vicious cycle of political
violence are multifaceted,
structural, intersecting and systemic. For the
coalition arrangement to come
to a sustainable end, the country needs to
conduct credible elections within
a reasonable timeframe.
However, elections are by their nature an
uncertain and competitive
political process. When political stakes are high,
as in the case of
Zimbabwe, politically-motivated violence tends to dominate
the electoral
process. The political landscape in the country, before and
after
Independence, has largely remained fraught with intolerance and
hostility to
diverse political opinions and free debate.
Before
Independence the Rhodesian armed forces, law enforcement apparatus,
civil
service and all state machinery were highly partisan and rallied
blindly
behind the Rhodesian Front.
On the other hand, during the war the key
liberation movements experienced
an ugly “struggles within the struggle”
scenario that unfortunately spilled
into post-Independent Zimbabwe. The ugly
consequence of this intolerance has
done more harm to the country and has
served but one purpose — sullying the
sacrifices of our heroic freedom
fighters.
Political violence leads to loss of life, property, and
“fracturIsation” of
families, communities and permanent disruption to
traditional safety nets.
Despite the ugly consequences of political
violence, it seems Zimbabwe is
not adequately prepared to deal with another
potential wave of
electorally-motivated violence.
Political
violence in general and electoral violence in particular is
predominantly a
reflection of widespread poverty and lack of social
services, catastrophic
unemployment levels and depleted trust in public
institutions.
In
the past, political violence in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa involved
use of brute physical force, threats and intimidation. The violence tended
to be largely but not exclusively, targeted at potential candidates,
electoral officials or objects of the electoral process like ballot boxes
and facilities. It also entailed harassment, breaking up of opposition
meetings and denying smaller political parties access to state
resources.
Currently, for most politicians in the coalition
government, politics and
contestation for political office is largely a life
and death situation.
As some analysts have observed, violence during
elections, whether
perpetrated by the incumbent, opponents, or both, is a
clear sign of weak
institutionalisation of the African state and fragmented
identity of the
nation.
Violence is perpetrated by both the
incumbent political leaders as well as
by oppositional actors. It is not the
proportion or degree that matters, but
the fact that in Zimbabwe, for
example, violence has been and continues to
be promoted covertly and overtly
by all political actors. An impartial,
pluralistic and capacitated media
would play an important role in critically
analysing political statements
and exposing politicians salivating for hate
language.
It is most
unfortunate that key political actors in the country seem to have
perfected
their talents for using violence-packed language; language that
promotes
disharmony, hatred and enmity.
Political violence in Zimbabwe is initiated
and galvanised particularly by
the political elite who want to hold on or
attain political power whatever
the cost.
Zimbabweans of
divergent political persuasions should look forward to a time
when electoral
violence cannot be used as a weapon to gain power or when
political disputes
would be settled amicably.
The state has the responsibility of
protecting all its citizens regardless
of their political views. Police need
to always act in a non-partisan and
professional manner by avoiding
selective application of the law.
Violence weakens national cohesion,
increases national inequalities and
disparities, fuels suspicion, degrades
the reputations of citizens at home
and abroad, depletes national pride and
innovativeness, feeds braindrain,
widens the horizons of impunity and
ultimately depresses voter turnout as
well as participation in democratic
processes.
Paul van Tongeren and Kai Brand Jacobson provide an
interesting framework
useful in enhancing understanding, preventing and
mitigating electoral
violence in Zimbabwe. Critical ingredients of the
framework are the need to
ensure that any underlying causes of electoral
violence are mapped. The
mapping should begin at least 24 to 48 months
before elections. They also
suggest that at all levels in a country, there
should be a time-tested,
coherent infrastructure for peace and
mediation.
The two electoral experts say social media should be
harnessed with a view
to raising national awareness on the cost of violence,
its long-term impact
as well as reporting incidents of electoral
irregularities as they occur.
They recommend that adequate and comprehensive
electoral training should be
provided to members of the police and other
security services to enable them
to respond non-violently to incidents of
political violence.
The role of law enforcement agencies before,
during and after elections is
to prevent violence, provide intelligence and
investigate such incidences
whenever they occur and to apprehend offenders
and hand them over for
prosecution.
The judiciary needs to be
effective, impartial and reliable. To combat
impunity, the judiciary should
not only be seen to be dispensing
“predictable justice”, but should also
work in sync with other state organs,
civic actors, national level actors
and even international judiciary
mechanisms.
The electoral
management body should be robust and prompt in dealing with
electoral
complaints and act in an impartial manner. Simultaneously, the
question of
impunity has to be aggressively tackled at all levels beginning
with leaders
of all political parties, candidates and other stakeholders,
cascading to
the lowest levels.
The approach to permanently dealing with political
violence should entail
multi-agency, multi-sectoral and multi-level
strategies. Dealing with
political violence without dealing with other forms
of violence endemic in
our schools, institutions of higher learning,
families and communities would
be a waste of scarce national
resources.
Raising violence awareness and training should be
mainstreamed in the school
curriculum, training of armed forces, the police
and all tertiary
institutions so that there is a ubiquitous understanding of
violence, its
forms, manifestations and mitigation. This is how violence can
be stemmed
and stamped out.
Madzikanga is a Zimbabwean
academic. He writes in his personal capacity.
E-mail: madzikangam@yahoo.co.uk
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 10:20
Pedzisai
Ruhanya
AFTER the March 29 2008 relatively free and fair general election
won by the
then opposition MDC, Zanu PF resorted to violent political
repression
against pro-democracy activists especially after its leader,
President
Robert Mugabe, lost to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the
presidential
poll. When the history of the fall of Zanu PF is written, this
will be
highlighted as a critical moment in the political demise of the
former
liberation party.
Zanu PF enlisted the support of the army
in the presidential run-off to
terrorise unarmed civilians whose only crime
was to choose a leader and
party of their choice. The result of that June 27
2008 poll is what brought
Zimbabwe to the sad state it is today, a country
governed by an illegitimate
Zanu PF elite that derives its powers from the
coercive apparatuses of the
state.
Mugabe’s sham electoral
victory was dismissed by the AU and Sadc observer
missions as well as the
EU, the Confederation of South African Trade Unions
and individual countries
such as Botswana and Zambia who were very clear on
the illegitimacy of the
Harare regime.
Sadc has met four times in Zambia, South Africa,
Namibia and Angola and
discussed the Zimbabwean problem among other issues.
At the meetings Mugabe
and the other parties (the two MDC formations) have
been reminded to respect
the GPA and allow the implementation of necessary
reforms that should lead
to free, fair and credible
elections.
The last meeting in Angola insisted on previous positions
of the regional
group, basically telling Mugabe, and indeed other leaders,
that electoral
unilateralism and dictatorship was no longer acceptable to
Sadc.
Instead of taking heed, Zanu PF is slowly returning to its
pre-GPA electoral
shenanigans as it prepares for a violent poll. The spate
of arrests of
pro-democracy forces, assaults on political activist including
two alleged
murders of MDC activists in Mutoko and Zaka districts, as well
as the
continued abuse of the armed forces, are indicators of Zanu PF’s
electoral
strategy: the use of violence for political ends.
Zanu
PF needs to appreciate that world leaders and leading democracies will
not
legitimise a violent electoral process and outcome. The message from
across
the Limpopo from President Jacob Zuma’s administration is that it
will not
be “business as usual” until Zimbabwe has a legitimate government.
The
continued call by Zuma, on behalf of Sadc, for a democratic roadmap to
the
holding of future elections sends a clear message to Zanu PF that a
rigged
poll is unacceptable.
Meanwhile, Zanu PF has already identified its
enemies as civil society, the
political opposition (MDC formations) and
foreign companies through the
politically-driven indigenisation programme
meant to secure votes for the
party. It is clear that Zanu PF’s “Look East”
policy has not yielded much
hence its continued attempts to re-engage the
West so that it removes the
targeted sanctions.
The unanimous
decision by the UN Security Council in 2011 to impose
sanctions on Zanu PF’s
long time ally, the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi
leaves Zanu PF in a
serious political quandary. It was the Security Council’s
decision to refer
Gaddafi’s criminal conduct in the uprising in Libya to the
International
Criminal Court that unsettles Zanu PF most because that
decision was taken
with the consent of Russia and China, countries that
usually block such
moves.
Consistently Zanu PF has stood in defence of these repressive
laws as
necessary to maintain law and order in Zimbabwe, a euphemism for its
illegitimate stay in power. These reforms are contained in the GPA that Sadc
is consistently asking the parties to implement.
Instead of
bowing to popular domestic, regional and international pressure
by repealing
these laws, the Zanu PF element in the unity government
continues to
selectively use these laws to further its narrow political
interests by
applying laws such as the Criminal Law (Codification and
Reform) Act to
demean the substance and social fibre of the justice system
in
Zimbabwe.
Posa, a worthy successor to Rhodesia’s Law and Order
(Maintenance) Act, is a
favourite tool of Zanu PF and its use could
increase if the political
impasse within the unity government continues. It
should not be forgotten
that the central objective of promulgating these
laws and the setting up of
other institutions and infrastructure of
repression was to silence the
democratic forces in Zimbabwe, and for as long
as Zanu PFs legitimacy is
questioned, it will continue to use these
draconian laws.
As a result, Zimbabwean politics reads like a nomad’s
diary. With promises
of a better future, every election has been seen as an
opportunity to set
the pace for development through creating a new vision
that people must
rally behind. But these hopes have been consistently dashed
by an
increasingly stubborn Zanu PF political elite.
Zanu PF’s
loss in the 2008 general election has a number of ramifications in
terms of
governance and democracy. The first consequence for the party was
its
increased fear and paranoia, perceiving as it did a threat against from
outsiders who it accused of supporting the opposition through sanctions. The
party is using this warped thinking to abuse human rights under the guise of
safeguarding the national interest, when it is clear that citizens are no
longer interested in hollow and bankrupt politics and tired liberation
discourse.
In this regard, civil society organisations and the
democratic opposition
have huge challenges. They have to continue to guard
against complacency by
not believing that the inclusive government made up
of three political
parties alone can resolve this crisis.
It is
in the interests of a possible political transition built on Sadc
consistency on creating political normalcy in Zimbabwe premised on
fulfilling GPA reforms that civil society groups should remain resolute and
continue to push for the full democratisation of the country premised on the
rule of law.
Ruhanya is a PhD candidate in Media and Democracy at
University of
Westminster, London.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 09:04
Peter
Gambara
THE winter wheat planting period in now over and indications are
that only 4
000 hectares of the crop were actually planted countrywide this
year. This
is against a target of 50 000 hectares that had been set by
government.
Wheat takes 140 days to maturity and a crop planted second week
of June will
only be ready for harvesting end of October, or beginning of
November. It
will help us as a country to look back on what went wrong so
that we can
plan better for tomorrow.
Although wheat can be
produced in summer, wheat production in Zimbabwe is
done in winter starting
in May of each year. This means farmers need to
irrigate the crop as our
winter is dry. Winter wheat production in Zimbabwe
has generally been on the
decline over the past 10 years.
Over the last decade, local producers
have managed to produce up to 26 0000
metric tonnes from about 65 000
hectares, with the balance being imported.
However, over the past three
seasons production has gone down to around 12
000 hectares, yielding about
50 000 metric tonnes. In 2010, while government
set aside US$26,6 million
targeting 45 000 hectares, only 12 000 hectares
were actually
planted.
In his 2011 and 2012 budget statements, the Minister of
Finance Tendai Biti
did not set aside any funds for winter wheat production.
However, after some
pressure from interested groups, government has tended
to provide some
inputs as the season approaches. This year the Minister of
Agriculture,
Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Joseph Made and Biti
jointly
announced the availability of inputs from the Grain Marketing Board
(GMB) a
few weeks before the onset of the winter wheat planting
period.
However, the logistics were poor hence the uptake of these
inputs for wheat
production was insignificant and the total area planted to
wheat this year
is estimated at only 4 000 hectares. Why is this
so?
The challenges facing winter wheat production in this country
centre around
the loss of interest from growers that emanates from a host of
challenges
that producers continue to face. These include unreliable
electricity
supply, high electricity charges, lack of a firm market for the
crop,
shortage of finance on the local market and expensive water
charges.
The loss of interest from farmers to grow wheat is mainly
emanating from
electricity availability problems. Every year towards the
start of the
winter season, Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and
Distribution Company
(ZETDC) has always been quick to reassure farmers that
it will reserve a
certain amount of the electricity for winter wheat
production, but half way
through the season, farmers realise those were
empty promises as
load-shedding becomes too excessive to produce a
reasonable crop.
By its nature winter wheat production relies on
irrigation that is driven by
power. After planting the crop in May, one
expects to harvest around end of
October, making the whole venture a
six-month undertaking. It is not
sustainable to use diesel-powered
generators to irrigate the crop for that
long and generators have generally
been used to supplement availability of
power during critical stages of
wheat production, however generators cannot
substitute ZETDC
electricity.
Some farmers have experienced situations where
electricity availability has
deteriorated midway through the season and they
have had to abandon sections
of their wheat to concentrate on a smaller
portion that they could irrigate
during the few hours that they received
electricity supply. In such
situations, farmers make huge losses and this
has contributed to some vowing
they will never grow wheat again until the
electricity situation has
improved.
This past season (2011), a
lot of farmers found themselves with huge Zesa
bills that make it completely
unviable to grow wheat. Made recently
estimated the cost of electricity at
US$700 per hectare. If a farmer were to
grow just 20 hectares, that means
he/she incurs a bill of US$14 000. After
settling these bills, most farmers
would actually end up in the red. There
is definitely a need to relook at
the cost of electricity on the farms,
otherwise after last year’s experience
a lot of farmers would rather not
venture into wheat production this year. A
lot of farmers are therefore
looking at alternative winter crops like
potatoes, cabbages etc.
The marketing of last year’s wheat crop
presented a lot of challenges as
most farmers were stuck with their wheat
with no real market to talk about.
Biti announced that he would not provide
funding to purchase wheat as he
felt that millers, who directly need the
wheat, should purchase the crop.
Those who delivered to GMB therefore did
not get any payment.
Most members of the Grain Millers Association of
Zimbabwe (GMAZ) preferred
to import wheat claiming it was cheaper to do so.
Some said their silos
were full. Others said they could only pay for the
wheat three months after
delivery. Some farmers have still not received
their payments up to now. The
lesson here is let us as a country mobilise
the finances to purchase a crop
on time and not leave it until the last
minute. Failure to pay for delivered
crops demotivates farmers to grow the
crop the next season as, was the case
with maize and now wheat.
The issue
of the producer price is another contentious issue. Normally
government,
either through GMB or the Ministry of Agriculture, would
announce a producer
price at the start of the marketing season for winter
wheat, that is
September1. However, last year this was not done.
It is important to
mention here that the producer price is announced after
consulting producers
through their farmers unions or associations as well as
some research as to
the prevailing input prices at the time the crop was
planted. It is not a
fixed price, as producers are expected to use it as a
guide in their
negotiations with millers.
In the absence of a producer price, there
is a tendency by millers/buyers to
offer a very low price coupled with cash
on the spot incentive.
The availability of finance on the local
market is another challenge that
has contributed to the decline in interest
from farmers. It costs about
US$1200 to produce a hectare of wheat and the
average yield is about 4
tonnes per hectare at US$475 per tonne, thus the
profit from wheat farming
is therefore very small. Most banks say they
advanced loans to wheat growers
last year and due to the chaos that
characterised the marketing of the crop,
they could not fully recover the
loans and have therefore stopped lending to
wheat producers. After all it is
a very low profit crop that has the added
danger of not getting adequate
water due to electricity load-shedding.
Farmers have become their
worst enemies by not paying back loans to banks or
input suppliers like
fertiliser companies. The habit of farmers not paying
back loans is
spreading like cancer among the farmers. It is not a secret
that there is
very little money available to banks to lend to all the
productive sectors
of the economy and if farmers get into the habit of not
paying back, banks
have a good reason to ignore the farming sector and
concentrate on less
risky sectors.
The confusion that characterised the government winter
wheat input scheme
this year left farmers with no real alternative source of
finance to grow
the crop. Farmers were told to approach CBZ Bank to apply
for the inputs and
get vouchers that were redeemable at GMB and yet for
quite a long period,
CBZ staff professed ignorance about the input scheme.
CBZ also demanded that
all those who wanted to access the inputs had to open
bank accounts with
them.One wonders whether this is essential; why should
all wheat farmers
bank with CBZ so that they can access a government input
scheme?
If it’s a government scheme, why not provide the money
through the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe, it only makes sense for it to manage
commercial banks
rather than have one commercial bank managing other banks.
The lesson here
is if government wants to support winter wheat production,
it should first
of all put it on the budget. It should then bring all the
stakeholders
together early, say February, to agree on the logistics. The
tendency by
ministries to plan and implement schemes without consulting the
stakeholders
should be avoided.
Government had problems
convincing the fertiliser manufacturing companies to
deliver fertiliser to
GMB depots as they claimed they were owed money for
previous deliveries.
There has been trading of accusations between the
Ministry of Finance and
the Ministry of Agriculture over the delay in
providing funds for the winter
wheat and to pay farmers for crops delivered.
This impasse over the delay in
paying farmers who delivered maize to GMB
last year actually contributed to
the decline in the area planted to
commercial maize this year, as farmers
lost confidence in GMB’s ability to
pay for delivered
maize.
While government could not pay farmers on time for maize and
wheat
delivered, the same government, through the Minister of Energy Elton
Mangoma, has directed ZETDC to disconnect farmers who have not settled their
electricity bills. This just shows poor coordination in government. If those
bills were incurred irrigating wheat that has not been paid for, where does
government expect these farmers to find the money to pay their electricity
bills?
Whereas wheat farmers face a finance crisis, the situation
is different for
barley growers contracted by Delta. The farmers get their
inputs on time and
they are paid for deliveries on time, but most
importantly, they can be
relied upon to grow and deliver. Besides those who
grew wheat and failed to
meet their loan obligations, there are quite a
number of farmers who get
government subsidised inputs every year, but never
plant a single hectare of
wheat.
Others reduce the area they
would have promised to plant so that they divert
some of the inputs towards
their summer crops. There is need for government
to separate real wheat
farmers from pretenders.
The cost of water is another factor but not
very big challenge facing winter
wheat growers. Users of water are required
by law to obtain permission and
pay for it by Zinwa. However, over the years
the farmers have said Zinwa’s
charges are too exorbitant to the extent of
being more expensive than
fertilisers.
Wheat farmers in this
country continue to face a lot of challenges that have
discouraged them from
growing the crop. Maybe there is need for an indaba
where all players take
part and iron out these differences and challenges.
Without addressing these
challenges and trying to make wheat an attractive
crop to grow, the
hectarage under wheat in this country will continue to
drop year after
year.
Gambara is an agricultural economist and consultant with
AgriExpert, a
consultancy firm. He writes in his personal capacity.Email:
pgambara@hotmail.com
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 10:37
Muck
Racker
TAFATAONA Mahoso believes the visit by UN Human Rights
Commissioner Navi
Pillay indicated that the majority of African elites
“remain thoroughly
confused about the doctrine and practice of human rights
in contrast with
the real prevailing and historical situation of human life,
survival,
autonomy and dignity on earth”.
What baloney is this,
readers of his turgid column may well ask? Pillay’s
visit “reminded many of
a similar and scandalous visit by Anna Tibaijuka in
2005”, Mahoso
claimed.
Did it? What it did do is remind Zimbabweans of the cruelty wrought
by
Operation Murambatsvina where people were made to tear down their homes
and
become internal refugees.It was one of the most disgraceful episodes in
the
country’s recent history. Pillay’s recent visit also reminded us of the
persistent human rights abuses that the state media pretend never
happened.“Both
women came in the name of the United Nations,” Mahoso says,
“but carried
other baggage which had nothing to do with the purposes of the
UN as
understood by the majority of its
members.”
Mahoso provides as an example of this claim
David Coltart’s proposal for a
Truth Commission so that victims of abuse and
oppression may be given the
opportunity to say what happened to them and
their loved ones and what
should happen regarding justice and
reconciliation.Mahoso is so incensed by
this suggestion that he decides to
call people names and invent a history
for them. Coltart is branded “a
former Rhodesian Selous Scout”.What is
“scandalous” is that Mahoso almost
certainly knows that Coltart was never a
Selous Scout. But he finds it
useful to make the charge to bolster his
otherwise threadbare argument.It is
also “scandalous” that the editor of the
Sunday Mail in which this
allegation appeared was happy to provide Mahoso
with a platform to tell
whoppers of this sort. Did he make any attempt to
verify Mahoso’s claim? It
would have been easy enough to do so.
Some years ago when Aippa was
new on the scene Mahoso headed a committee
that ascertained the people of
Zimbabwe wanted an ethical media. He dined
out on this claim for years. He
even wrote letters of complaint to editors
charging them with falsehoods.He
now occupies an important media post. But
the invective remains the same.“In
the hands of Senator David Coltart human
rights are used to advance the
temporary fortunes of the MDC party and its
Rhodesian sponsors,” Mahoso
claims. “That is why only Rhodesians and those
Africans defined as victims
of Gukurahundi from Matabeleland region are to
be humanised while the rest
of the nation is demonised.”Does he believe this
junk? Who do the majority
of Zimbabweans trust, Pillay or Mahoso? Let’s have
a straw
poll.
The same gang Mahoso serves have devised what they think is
a vote winner.
They are proposing to change the design of Africa Unity
Square so it no
longer resembles a Union Jack from the air.This is very
obviously a populist
measure which is unlikely to make much impression. How
many people want to
fly over the square in order to see the change of
design? And how are they
going to do that?The last time they did something
to the square it was to
remove the flower sellers as part of Operation
Murambatsvina. That was
hardly a progressive move! In previous elections
they have changed road
names thinking that would win votes. It
didn’t.
The square was originally called Cecil Square after Robert Cecil,
Marquess
of Salisbury, who was British prime minister in 1890, not after
Cecil John
Rhodes as many people think.
Ask the authorities planning the
name change and see what they say. Here’s
betting they think it was named
after Rhodes.
Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa
has laid bare the levels
of desperation his party has reached in their bid
to cling on to power. The
Daily News reports that Mutasa justified the
army’s dabbling in politics
saying trade unions are doing the same for the
MDC.“In as much as I do not
know much about what is going on at Copac,
personally I do not have a
problem with the military choosing to campaign
for a party of their choice,”
Mutasa said. “It is common knowledge that
trade unions (ZCTU) campaign for
the MDC and should we then say they should
not do that? These people fought
with us during the liberation struggle, so
why should we discriminate
against them. We cannot stop them from
campaigning,” he said.How can the
ZCTU’s support for the MDC be equated to
the army’s involvement in politics?
Only Cde Didymus and his ilk seem to
know.
In any case Zanu PF clearly has a lot more support in the trade union
arena.
They can count on the support of Mushandi Munhu Workers’ Federation,
the
Zimbabwe Congress of Student Unions as well as Zimbabwe Federation of
Trade
Unions among a host of civic organisations they have been churning
out.
Last week we ran a story in which Indigenisation and
Empowerment minister
Saviour Kasukuwere, at the forefront of a crusade to
take over ownership of
foreign-owned banks, was a former Genesis
shareholder.
Kasukuwere’s Migdale Holdings, through various shelf companies,
reportedly
holds a 17,20% stake of Genesis. Kasukuwere is now very keen to
distance
himself from the Genesis melée, claiming he had sold his equity in
the
bank.This irony, however, is clearly lost on Kasukuwere along with
National
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board chairperson David
Chapfika
whose bank, Universal Merchant Bank, folded in 2001.These very same
people
are now promising us heaven on earth claiming the indigenisation and
empowerment drive will create more than five million jobs and reduce the
unemployment rate to single-digit levels.
Chapfika claims it will also
create a sustainable economy that can withstand
the effects of the “illegal”
economic sanctions imposed on the country by
Britain and its Western
allies.
NewsDay reports that Chapfika in April said the there was nothing
sacred
about the banking sector.
“If you want to kill cattle, kill them
all. You can’t say this one is too
fat today and leave it,” Chapfika
said.
There you have it!
Whose idea is it to have children
dress up in uniform and march around?
Can we guess that some of these
kids are the children of chefs? Did the UN
Convention on the Rights of the
Child including the African child propose
that they should put on uniforms
and parade at the opening of the “child
parliament”? Child soldiers are not
in favour nowadays because of events
elsewhere in Africa. But nobody told
our rulers.
While support for the disabled child is noble, the military theme
is not.
The Zanu PF party flag was in evidence we noted. But Morgan
Tsvangirai,
Arthur Mutambara and Thokozani Khupe who attended didn’t seem to
mind!
We were pleased to see that Nando’s on Samora Machel has
cleared a path to
its door.
The popular spicy chicken outlet has
invested tens of thousands of dollars
in its new premises but the customers
weren’t able to get in because kombi
drivers had blocked the entrance.This
is all part of what NewsDay has
identified as the growing anarchy in Harare.
The mayor has lost control as
people simply do what they like. Kombis park
anywhere making it difficult
for other motorists to get into the city
centre. Car sales yards have set up
their premises in the suburbs, the one
opposite Prince Edward School being a
case in point. On Kwame Nkrumah Ave
noisy car-wash merchants compete for the
attention of motorists looking for
parking. In Strathaven patrons at a local
bar block access for residents
trying to get in and out.Then there are the
churches with their loudspeakers
blaring day and night.This is what happens
when the social order breaks
down. Zanu PF officials are reluctant to say
“No” to applications for change
of use because there are votes to be had in
saying “Yes” or just looking the
other way. Meanwhile it is anarchy out
there and city officials think this
is the time to launch their 13-year
Vision aimed at transforming the capital
into a world-class city by 2025.
They are completely delusional. First they
have to restore law and order.
Did you know Canada and Zimbabwe
are at war, according to the Herald?
“Canada has indisputably declared war on
Zimbabwe for its revolutionary
pursuits,” the edition of June 14 announced.
“This is an open war,” Tendai
Moyo who is a researcher and social
commentator told us. This all has
something to do with Queen Elizabeth being
head of state and the Canadian
“aborigines” being subjugated!
So what’s
he going to do about it? “In the face of such belligerence we can
no longer
afford to keep on giving the other cheek,” he says. “It is high
time we
counter these acts of aggression.”As you would expect, Moyo says he
is
guided by a resolution of the Zanu PF Mutare 2010 conference which urged
the
government to take measures through government against foreign companies
that impose sanctions. Moyo points to Canadian ownership of Caledonia
Mine.Isn’t it weird how this band of half-baked polemicists think Zimbabwe
has options. They will, as the expression goes, cut their noses to spite
their faces. By the way, does Zimbabwe have a foreign policy? All those
envoys sent out to smooth the path ahead of the Luanda summit and not a word
of solidarity.
Some formulaic mention of sanctions but nothing much else.
Pathetic.
We hope the Herald’s Victoria Ruzvidzo had a nice stay
in Vanuatu and that
she managed to win over the locals.
“Of course
the world has largely been fed with untruths about our country
but we need
to harvest this awareness and turn it into dollars somehow,”
Victoria
reflects.She obviously hasn’t reached any conclusions yet. But
wherever she
goes people have been curious to know about Zimbabwe. “They
know we are a
sovereign state and that our president has made his views
clear on the
global stage regarding our sovereignty –– a trait admired even
by his worst
enemies.”And there are more than a few of those. Looks like
Victoria has her
work cut out!By the way, if you want to win friends
Victoria, it’s not such
a good idea to call their country “the back of the
beyond”.
Meanwhile ZBC has once again failed to broadcast the
ongoing Twenty20
triangular series pitting Zimbabwe, South Africa and
Bangladesh in Harare.
Cricket lovers will have to rely on Supersport for
coverage of an event
happening in our own country. ZBC also failed to screen
the Castle Premier
Soccer league because they demanded payment from Delta.
As if to add insult
to injury, ZBC still has the temerity to demand payment
of licence fees to
watch Vimbai “European” Chivaura and Mahoso giving us the
benefit of their
Jurassic-era thinking.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 22 June 2012 10:35
Erich
Bloch
ALTHOUGH no formal statement has been issued, state and independent
media
carried extensive reports last week of an emergency cabinet meeting —
chaired by President Robert Mugabe — convened to deliberate on the parlous
circumstances of the Zimbabwean fiscus. The reports stated that the poor
fiscal circumstances are primarily due to the current, exceptionally weak
state of the economy, notwithstanding some marginal recovery in the years
2009 to 2011, and the excessive levels of government spending. The meeting
apparently also included strong contentions, wholly justified, that many of
the arms of government repeatedly incur unauthorised and unnecessary
expenditures such as the recent engagement of more than 4 000 additional
troops into Zimbabwe’s already bloated armed forces.
Tragically,
however, despite some of the ministers (especially the Minister
of Finance,
Tendai Biti) authoritatively attributing the bankruptcy to the
debilitated
state of the economy and the expenditure control mismanagement
by many
ministries, none of the reports on the meeting’s deliberations
indicate any
substantive policies or actions to address the economic morass.
Minister
Biti intimated the possible imposition of a freeze on public
service
salaries (this has already provoked the ire of the public service,
notwithstanding the justification of such a freeze particularly in light of
current minimal levels of inflation). Instead of deliberating on
constructive, urgent policies and actions, within hours of the conclusion of
the meeting, diverse elements of government again made statements and
pursued actions certain to prevent the upturn of the economy. One of such
statements was made by Mugabe the day after the emergency cabinet meeting,
when he publicly stated that no further mining licences will be granted to
non-Zimbabweans.
Currently, the greatest contributor to
the emaciated economy is the mining
sector, but despite the significance the
extent of mining operations remains
minuscule compared to that which it
could be. Zimbabwe has an enormous
wealth of diverse mineral resources,
ranging from gold and platinum to
diamonds, lithium, coal, nickel, tin,
methane gas and much more, and yet
those resources are greatly unexploited,
or insufficiently so.
Zimbabweans do not have the capital resources
necessary to maximise the
exploitation of the huge potential wealth that can
emanate from a pronounced
expansion of the mining sector, and there is also
insufficient technological
resources to fully realise the economic
opportunities of the minerals
available. Similarly, Zimbabwe’s present
ability to effect value addition to
its minerals and other primary products
is massively constrained by capital
and technological insufficiency, and
this can only be remedied by intensive
interaction with foreign investors.
However, the majority in the political
hierarchy is so myopically fixated on
economic indigenisation and
empowerment that they continuously alienate
access to required capital and
technological inputs. It is long overdue for
politicians to recognise that
the necessary enhancement of indigenous
involvement in the economy can only
be achieved in pursuing opportunities in
tandem with foreign investors.
Realism must also set in with regards
to the economic and fiscal benefits of
the diamond resources Zimbabwe has.
It cannot be denied that the potential
of the resources is great, but
realisation of massive fiscal inflows from
the exploitation of the resources
cannot achieve a miraculous turnaround in
inflows to the
fiscus.
On the one hand, the majority of legitimate operators in the
diamond fields,
whilst paying mining licence fees and paying royalties on
diamonds mined and
sold, cannot in the short term be expected to be the
sources of vast
revenues to fund government expenditure. The operators incur
considerable
initial expenditures on the development of their diamond mining
operations,
including the acquisition and installation of the necessary
mining
infrastructure, machinery and equipment, and on the training of their
labour
force.
Moreover, Zimbabwe has only held Kimberley Process
Certification (KPC) for
about a year, and time elapses before maximised
market access within the
bounds of KPC is achieved. In addition, the world
diamond market demand,
and hence prices, have weakened considerably as a
consequence of the 2008
financial recession in the US, and the recent
similar recession and decline
in most of Europe, negatively affecting the
revenue that can currently be
generated from the diamond fields. The
importance of diamond fields to
Zimbabwe’s future economy is very great, but
only realisable over a period
of time, and in the meantime they cannot be
the fiscus’ spectacular cure-all
for its revenue shortfalls.
The
problems of the fiscus being effectively addressed, and the restoration
of a
strong, virile economy, are not only contingent upon the constructive
progression and development of the mining sector, but upon doing so
similarly for other key economic sectors. Agriculture was, for many
decades, the foundation of the economy, but has shrivelled to a small
portion of what it used to be. Admittedly, that is in part a consequence of
adverse climatic conditions but, to a far greater extent, its contraction
has been caused by the ill-considered pursuit of the politically-driven land
reform programme, and the failure to timeously pursue necessary reforms to
the programme.
After years of private sector representations that
new farmers could not
access their working needs in the absence of
appropriate collateral
security, about nine months ago Mugabe, when
addressing the opening of a
session of parliament, intimated that the
so-called 99-year leases would be
modified to accord them collateral value.
Despite that statement, nothing
has happened over the prolonged period that
has since elapsed. Not only,
according to ministerial information, have
only 122 leases been issued up to
now although there are over 4 000 new
farmers, but nothing has been done to
those leases to accord them
transferability which would give them collateral
value. Meanwhile, most of
the agricultural sector continues to wither,
yielding very limited benefits
to the economy as compared to its former
economic
contribution.
The circumstances of the manufacturing sector are as
abysmal. It was in
September 2009 that the Minister of Industry and Trade,
Welshman Ncube, said
a Distressed Industries and Marginalised Areas Fund
would be created. One
month later Biti formally launched the fund, but
almost three-quarters of a
year later, government has put no resources into
the fund which has only
received a paltry input of US$20 million from Old
Mutual, and to date the
fund has reportedly only assisted two industrial
concerns. If industries
are to be rescued and revived they need expeditious
funding, with attendant
funding conditions that are realistic in relation to
the circumstances of
the industries.
