VOA
By
James Butty
Washington, D.C.
17 May 2007
The
archbishop of Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo, says the church
in
Zimbabwe is doing its moral duty when it criticizes the Mugabe government
for the political and economic problems afflicting the country. In a
pastoral letter last month, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference said
economic and political repression by the Mugabe government had left Zimbabwe
in extreme danger. In response, President Mugabe accused the bishops of
turning political and that they would be dealt with as political
entities.
But Archbishop Pius Ncube told VOA that the church in Zimbabwe
has a long
history of defending the rights of the poor.
"Twenty-seven
years ago before he was president, already the Catholic
bishops were
directing the prime minister, Ian Smith, telling him that he
was racist, and
that he must rectify the situation and open political
participation and the
economy to all the races. During that time, Mugabe was
happy that the Church
was speaking up for freedom because he was not yet in
power. Now as soon as
he's in power, he's behaving exactly the same way as
Ian Smith did. Ian
Smith was saying the bishop must preach the Bible and not
dabble in
politics. We are only defending the rights of the poor that they
have a
right to be respected. They should not be tortured and beaten up and
broken
up," he said.
President Mugabe had accused Zimbabwe's Catholic bishops of
turning
political and threatened to deal with them as political entities.
Archbishop
Ncube said the Mugabe government is already using other tactics
against the
church.
"For instance, we have quite a lot of
missionaries, and they need their
permits for them to live in Zimbabwe. Now
they have been denying permits to
some of our missionaries. Some of our
missionaries have to leave the
country. They try and make life a bit
unpleasant for us," he said.
Archbishop Ncube denied that the pastoral
letter criticizing the Mugabe
government had caused some polarization among
some bishops and priests. On
the contrary, he said it was well
received.
"Generally, people say that this statement was overdue and that
it was very
good that we have spoken. You know that certain elements, that
is, certain
people are linked with this government, and they get4 benefits
from the
government. And therefore they don't react," Archbishop Ncube
said.
In criticizing the bishops' pastoral letter, Zimbabwe's minister of
local
government, public works and urban development Cde Ignatius Chombo
reportedly said imperialist agents were using the Roman Catholic Church
through selected bishops to criticize President Mugabe.
But
Archbishop Ncube said the government had always branded its critics as
enemies of the state.
"As soon as you tell the truth then you are a
rubber stamp and a puppet of
the Western world, and this is very sad because
on the African continent
there is a lot of violation of human rights. And
the African leaders must
learn to take care of their people. That's all we
are asking for. They can
earn their luxury; they can earn their salaries;
they can earn their
benefits as leaders. But please let them take of their
own people. Their own
people are being fed by the so-called imperialists,"
he said.
FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube and Nkululeko Sibanda
Staff Reporter
ZANU PF heavyweights bay for commissar's blood
ELLIOT
Manyika's future as ZANU PF's national political commissar hangs in
the
balance as senior ruling party members, particularly those in Bulawayo
and
Masvingo, push for his removal as punishment for his controversial role
in
the internal politics of their provinces.
Party insiders this week spoke
of moves to sideline the former Youth, Gender
and Employment Creation
Minister at the party's special congress expected to
be held in the last
quarter of the year. The congress will be held ahead of
next year's
harmonised elections to quell discontent simmering among senior
ZANU PF
politicians in Bulawayo and Masvingo.
The insiders say accusations and
counter-accusations have been traded in
ruling party circles over the manner
in which Manyika handled elections in
the fractious Masvingo and Bulawayo
provinces to replace interim executives
led by Samuel Mumbengegwi and
Macloud Tshawe respectively.
To buttress their case against Manyika, who
could not be contacted for
comment throughout the past week, his foes accuse
the ZANU PF political
commissar of failing to break the opposition's
stranglehold on the urban
areas, and allegedly undermining provincial
leadership.
Since the formation of the Movement for Democratic Change in
1999, ZANU PF
has struggled to win seats in urban areas.
"The camp
opposed to Jabulani Sibanda and his war veterans has been spying
on
Manyika's mission in the run-up to the aborted elections in Bulawayo and
the
violent Masvingo polls, coming up with all sorts of allegations, in an
attempt to link Manyika with the Jabulani camp, which they now want to use
to get at him," said a source. "The truth of the matter is that Manyika has
just been caught up in a big political game and he might be used as a
sacrificial lamb."
There is no love lost between Manyika and certain
factions in ZANU PF after
the national political commissar curtailed debate
on President Robert
Mugabe's succession at the party's central committee
meeting in March.
Reports, yet to be denied, suggest that there was a faction
backing former
ZANU PF secretary for administration Emmerson Mnangagwa and
another rooting
for Vice-President Joice Mujuru to succeed the party's first
secretary, who
has ruled the country since independence from Britain in
1980.
The ZANU PF special conference could effectively put the matter to
rest, the
sources say.
Not long after the March central committee
meeting, ZANU PF secretary for
administration, Didymus Mutasa, admitted for
the first time that there were
divisions in the party, although he
downplayed these by saying the feuding
factions had closed ranks.
Manyika
has battled for weeks to heal fractures in ZANU PF and to win
popular
support for the party, whose greatest rival is now the economy,
which has
condemned 80 percent of the population to poverty.
Provincial executive
elections in Bulawayo had to be postponed after the
process degenerated into
chaos, with the interim executive being accused of
locking out some members
allied to former war veterans chairman, Sibanda,
who was expelled from ZANU
PF in 2004.
Efforts to audit the party's grassroots structures in Bulawayo
collapsed
last weekend when supporters did not turn up. However, an audit
team drawn
from other parts of Matabeleland reportedly gave a grim report on
ZANU PF
support among Bulawayo voters.
Said a member of the Bulawayo
interim executive: "When they came back, it
was evident that the situation
on the ground was not at all rosy. Some of
them actually said there was need
for a renewed campaign to lure back
supporters to the party because at the
rate at which things are going, we
are at high risk of another shameful
performance in the forthcoming 2008
elections in Bulawayo."
John Nkomo,
the party's national chairman, was forced to preside over a
weekend meeting
to calm tempers.
And in Masvingo, tensions between feuding factions
degenerated into violence
in which Member of Parliament and former governor,
Josaya Hungwe, was
injured,
The clashes occurred ahead of provincial
elections that eventually saw Alex
Mudavanhu beating Minister Paul Mangwana
to clinch the provincial chairman's
post.
ZANU PF's Masvingo province
accuses Manyika of being used by some militant
war veterans to further their
interests.
However, Manyika's supporters say the scheming for his ouster is
linked to
lingering resentment over his role in preventing any debate on
President
Mugabe's succession. Manyika has, however, used results of the
2005
election, in which the ruling party snatched seats from the opposition,
to
defend his position.
FinGaz
Charles Rukuni Bureau
Chief
. . . Provided the playing field is even
BULAWAYO - The Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) will contest next year's
elections provided there is
a level playing field, the party's national
secretary for Integration,
Healing and Reconciliation, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo,
said last
week.
Responding to questions at a press conference at which the Morgan
Tsvangirai
faction of the MDC welcomed former deputy mayor of Bulawayo
Albert Mhlanga
back to the fold, Nkomo said as a movement for democracy, the
party would
get into power through elections.
All they were asking for
was a level playing field and this could be
achieved by adhering to the
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
principles and guidelines for
democratic elections, which were adopted in
Mauritius in August 2004.
The
SADC principles call for, among other things, full participation of all
citizens in the political process, freedom of association, and equal
opportunity for all political parties to access the state media.
Zimbabwe
claimed that it abided by the SADC principles in the 2005
parliamentary
elections in which it won a two-thirds majority but the
opposition cried
foul.
Already the government has said it will not allow exiled Zimbabweans to
vote. The state-controlled media like radio and television and the country's
only two dailies give very little coverage, if any, to opposition
parties.
Nkomo said it would be easier this time for Zimbabwe to abide by the
SADC
principles because South African President Thabo Mbeki was spearheading
the
mediation process among Zimbabwe's key players, but Mbeki has been
accused
of siding with the government at the expense of the
opposition.
Nkomo, however, pointed out that the government had already
started
bulldozing its way by, for example, announcing a date for local
government
elections without consulting anyone and while the contending
parties were
still trying to iron differences.
Local Government Minister
Ignatius Chombo announced at a rally in his
constituency that local
government elections would be held in January. He
did not give a date and
did not specify whether these would be both rural
and urban government
elections.
There is widespread
speculation that parliamentary and
presidential elections, which will be
held at the same time, would be held
before
March to ensure that President Robert Mugabe does not remain in office
beyond his legal term.
"We are quite aware that ZANU PF has already
started rigging the elections
by giving people food and using chiefs and the
military to mobilise voters.
We are not going to allow this. We will meet
Mbeki and discuss this," Nkomo
said.
"Our people need time. They have to
get identity
cards first, especially the youths, and then register as voters.
They need
enough time to do this. We also want those in the diaspora
to
be allowed to vote. All these things have to be negotiated. We also want
to
talk about
a new constitution. This
might even mean having a
transitional government," he said.
The ruling ZANU PF has already announced
its presidential candidate and
seems intent on ambushing the opposition.
South African presidential hopeful
Tokyo Sexwale this week complained that
Zimbabwe's talks might collapse
because Mbeki was not being listened
to.
"I'm beginning to feel my president, who's gone out on a limb, is not
being
listened to," he told the British Broadcasting Corporation. "He won't
fail
because he didn't try. He'll fail because he's not being listened to.
It
takes two to tango."
FinGaz
ZIMBABWE'S tourism sector
players warned this week the industry could lumber
into a fresh crisis ahead
of elections next year after the United States
issued a travel warning
against the country.
The travel warning on Zimbabwe was issued by the
Americans due to concerns
of increased security threats following the
beating of opposition party
politicians and activists as well as journalists
and lawyers over the past
two months.
Zimbabwe is scheduled to hold its
presidential elections in March and these
could run concurrently with
parliamentary and senatorial elections due in
2010 but expected to be
brought forward under a proposed harmonisation
programme.
The polls could
trigger an outbreak of violence, a situation likely to lead
to the renewal
of travel warnings by western countries on Zimbabwe.
Chipo Mtasa, president
of the Zimbabwe Council for Tourism (ZCT), told The
Financial Gazette
yesterday: "It is very disappointing and it worries us
that there are
renewed (travel warnings) from our traditional markets."
President Robert
Mugabe's government has branded the US and its allies
imperialists, accusing
the western countries of harbouring a scheme to
unseat his government.
To
deal with the unfriendly west, Mugabe had embarked on a Look East policy
under which the country has splurged billions to market the country to Asian
countries, but this initiative has been unsuccessful.
In any case,
tourism sector players said Asian visitors have not been big
spenders
compared with their European and American counterparts.
"Although we are
looking at other markets we still consider traditional
markets to be
important to us," Mtasa said. - Staff Reporter
FinGaz
Staff
Reporter
BULAWAYO - The business sector could soon price itself out of
the market
because of serious consumer resistance, the regional manager of
the Consumer
Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) in Matabeleland, Comfort Muchekeza,
said this
week.
The council has so far been unable to publish its
breadbasket for April
because of escalating prices. The basket reflects the
minimum amount a
family of six - father, mother and four children- requires
for their basic
needs per month.
"It's a big headache. In some cases
prices are going up twice a day. So by
the time our team compiles the
basket, the prices gathered during the survey
are already outdated,"
Muchekeza said.
The Central Statistical Office said last week that the
poverty datum line
had almost doubled from $937 800 in February to $1.7
million in March.
Inflation rose from 1 730 percent to 2 200 percent.
In
his monetary policy review statement last month, central bank governor
Gideon Gono spoke against price controls but at the same time urged the
business sector to ensure that their pricing formulae and practices were not
fraught with profiteering tendencies that victimised consumers and propelled
inflation.
He urged the government to remove subsidies on maize and
wheat, but said it
should also strengthen the CCZ.
The prices of mealie
meal, bread and milk have since gone up and some
commuter omnibuses
increased their fares from $5 000 to $10 000 this week.
This will push the
minimum daily requirement for transport to and from work,
a loaf of bread
and a pint of milk to $50 000 a day.
A worker, therefore, requires more than
$1 million a month just for
transport, bread and milk alone, way beyond the
average minimum wage, which
is still about $200 000 a month.
Muchekeza
said the business sector seemed to be forgetting that they were
milking the
same cow everyday without feeding it.
"They will soon run out of business
because of serious consumer resistance.
This will not be out of choice or by
design but simply because the consumers
cannot afford it," he said. "I think
it is better to make one cent every day
for ever than to make a million once
and go bust after that."
The International Monetary Fund says Zimbabwe can
get out of its economic
quagmire without external help. To do this, it needs
to transfer all
quasi-fiscal activities to the government budget, unify the
exchange rate,
liberalise price controls and impose strict budgetary
constraints on public
enterprises.
FinGaz
Nkululeko Sibanda &
Tawanda Karombo Staff Reporter
Ruling to reinstate 400 ZBC workers comes too
late for some
A RULING by the Labour Court that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation
(ZBC) must reinstate 400 workers sacked five years ago at the
height of
former Information and Publicity Minister Jonathan Moyo's
"political
cleansing" of the media is a typical case of justice delayed
being justice
denied.
A good number of those to whom the court order
should have brought redress
and relief have died in destitution and others
have been forced to go into
the Diaspora to seek new ways of making a
living.
But even those who are able and willing to take advantage of the
court's
directive will find the ZBC to be a totally different institution
from the
one they were forced to leave.
The wholesale dismissal of
experienced broadcasters marked one of the
darkest periods of Moyo's reign
as chief government propagandist and the
media in Zimbabwe in general is yet
to recover from the ramifications of his
combative approach and
policies.
Two years after Moyo's dismissal from government, the ZBC is in a
quandary
as to how to deal with the consequences of what Moyo termed a
"restructuring
exercise" but which turned out to be one of the most
vindictive and despised
moves in his crusade against the media.
Two weeks
ago, the Labour Court ruled that the employees were unfairly
dismissed and
should be reinstated. But both the public broadcaster and the
Information
and Publicity Ministry do not have a clue as to how to react to
the
judgment.
Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said he was awaiting
communication
from ZBC management on the matter.
"I am in the process of
talking to all the chief executive officers of the
state media to try and
find ways in which we could address the welfare of
the
journalists."
However, news of the judgment is unlikely to excite many of the
former
workers - the institution that once gave them a livelihood and
professional
security now resembles a shell, crippled by obsolete equipment
and other
ills that have caused morale to hit rock bottom among the new crop
of
broadcasters who have taken over.
Lawyers representing the retrenched
workers estimate the corporation would
have to pay
$3 billion in
compensation.
Many of the ejected workers have tales to tell about life under
Moyo's iron
fist - late night meetings at his office and threats against
those he
thought were not toeing the line. Years after his departure, the
impact of
Moyo's legacy is still being felt. He replaced the retrenched
experienced
workers with greenhorns only answerable to him.
This resulted
in a sudden decline in standards, leaving the corporation in
financial
trouble and unable to pay decent wages. Senior producers are paid
as little
as $141 000 per month, which is nowhere near the $1.7 million
poverty datum
line.
Key departments continue to be understaffed and the ZBC has had to rely
on
students on attachment, who are paid nothing and therefore, provide cheap
labour.
Newsnet Editor-in-chief Tazzen Mandizvidza's suspension over
claims that he
leaked an unedited version of President Robert Mugabe's
birthday interview
continues.
The important current affairs
section
currently only has two
permanent employees. As a further sign of the rot, in
one instance last
week, the ZBC failed to air four
radio news bulletins
because no newscasters were available.
"At times, we are running (television
bulletins) with unedited pictures, we
run incomplete bulletins. The shoddy
pictures on television are because all
the picture editors have left," said
a senior producer.
Recently, ZBC engineers tried to stage a sit-in to protest
against the state
of affairs. However, divisions that persist at the
broadcaster as one of the
vestiges of Moyo's divide and rule management
style ensured the move did not
succeed.
ZBC chief executive officer,
Henry Muradzikwa, said it was too early to
discuss his recovery plans for
the broadcaster.
"I have taken a position that I will not entertain any
questions at the
moment regarding issues at ZBC. I am taking that position
with you as well.
Give me time to sort myself
out and then we can
consider taking you (the media) through developments at
the corporation,"
said Muradzikwa.
FinGaz
Rangarirai Mberi
Caveman's guide to
life without electricity
PERHAPS the one good thing about ZESA's drastic
power cut schedule is that
we still get to watch Tiriparwendo - that TV
drama of the dark ages. That
way, we at least get to remember where we've
been - and where the ZANU PF
government has just returned us.
The
ZESA schedule could mean some households having power for only four
hours
each day, between 5pm and 9pm. We had becomed so accustomed to
electricity
it's become impossible to imagine life without switches and
remote control
buttons. Now, we must rely on Aaron Chiundura-Moyo's history
caper for tips
on how to survive without electricity.
First, the water. This week, large
parts of Harare had no water after some
wise guy cut off power to Morton
Jaffray. A timely warning that while we
sacrifice modern life for three
months to water our wheat, taps will run
dry.
So if you cannot afford a
water tank - or any of that tap water the stores
shamefully pass off as
mineral water to naïve customers - then it's down to
the river for you, just
like in the dark ages. Picture them, hordes of
office workers, towels in one
hand and brown soap in the other, emerging
cleansed from the Mukuvisi River
like Hindu pilgrims out of the Ganges.
The clever ones - the ones busy
stocking up on provisions while you waste
time reading this nonsense - who
would have water around the home when the
Armageddon hits, would still have
to get by with candlelit baths and
toilet-by-candlelight.
And if you are
still around when the dung hits the fan, then it's too late
to throw the
kids into the back seat and attempt an escape. Chances are
petrol pumps have
gone blank, and your usual dissident supplier down at the
gum-trees has also
run dry and is slyly diluting his remaining fuel with
that oily Mukuvisi
water.
Scotch carts - whose prices account for a large part of our official
inflation figures if you ask the Central Statistical Office - would have
been an option. But vehicles drawn by livestock are no longer allowed on our
civilised roads.
So, if your family must travel, you walk. All in line -
kids at the back,
Mommy second with the baby on her back and a bundle on her
head, and Daddy
leading up front, carry- ing nothing but his knobkerrie,
just like in the
dark ages before women's suffrage.
And then there is
entertainment. Many take it for granted that they will get
home today, curl
up on the sofa under a lamp with this issue of The
Financial Gazette, or
reach for the remote, flick on the TV, and switch
between News Hour and
today's installment of Desperate Housewives. Don't be
so sure.
For those
that love "going out", the restaurants and clubs are bound to run
out of
diesel for generators. So it's back to biras, all night boogies round
a huge
fire, just like in the dark ages.
And then there's that crucial area - food.
Experts advise to keep the fridge
shut during power outages; that way, food
can remain frozen for days. But
this is three months, remember, so forget
the fridge.
There's an entire generation of dumb city slickers that thinks
milk comes
from Bon Marché or Spar. Newsflash. The white stuff actually
comes from
cows. Remember the Waterfalls woman found with a cow in the
bedroom during
Murambatsvina? She doesn't seem so loony now, does she? So go
get your own
cow, and get your milk fresh off the udder every morning, for
the old ways
are upon us.
And there's no electric stove. Firewood? That's
an option, but not for
everybody, especially not the modern suburban wife
who won't risk her
three-inch nails and the million-dollar hairdo near an
open flame - unless,
of course, it's a braai.
So be sure to carry home
any animal you happen to kill on your way from
work. They call it
"roadkill". Either you hunt and gather, or it's dried
veggies and dried
meat. And dried bread, carefully broken into morsels and
passed around a
candlelit table like Christ did with his men before Judas,
tired of stale
bread, sold him out for just 30 pieces of silver, a real
bargain for the
head of a Messiah.
Which brings us to our last tip, money. Forget all that
talk from Reserve
Bank boss Gideon Gono that we must not stuff our
mattresses with cash.
When the power goes out, you can be certain many ATMs
will go on the blink.
Generators are not to be trusted, as half of them have
long been drained of
fuel by capitalist security guards by night. Having a
contingency stash of
cash will help you resist the temptation to go on a
looting rampage.
FinGaz
Clemence Manyukwe
Staff Reporter
THE latest judgment in the long-running Daily News saga
shows how the
judiciary has flinched from taking the bull by the horns,
allowing the paper's
ban to remain in force indefinitely despite repeatedly
finding that its case
has merit and that government is violating the rights
of the publishers.
Delivering the latest judgment last week, High court
judge, Justice
Anne-Marie Gowora, observed that the constitutional rights of
the Associated
Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), publishers of The Daily News
and The Daily
News on Sunday, were being violated. But the court would still
not grant the
ANZ any relief.
"I cannot deny that there is merit in the
argument on behalf of the
applicant," Justice Gowora said.
However, she
could not grant the ANZ's application to be deemed registered
saying this
would turn the court into a "licensing authority."
The judge referred The
Daily News back to the Ministry of Information and
Publicity now headed by
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu despite acknowledging that the
same Ministry had
previously treated the paper unfairly.
Corroborating an earlier observation
by Judge President Justice Rita
Makarau, in a February 2006 ruling, that the
Media and Information
Commission (MIC) was biased against The Daily News,
Justice Gowora also
found that the regulator was frustrating the paper's bid
to be registered.
"Given the attitude displayed by the Minister, however, it
is obvious that
he does not intend to put in place measures or even change
the composition
(of the MIC) in order for the registration of the applicant
to be dealt with
by an impartial body. Clearly, this would be in violation
of the applicant's
rights in terms of the Act and the Constitution," reads
part of Justice
Gowora's judgment.
The judge said she found the
Information Minister's conduct "surprising."
The judgment led to what one
lawyer described as "sober observations".
Chris Mhike, of the legal firm
Atherstone and Cook, said the courts had
failed to uphold media freedoms,
despite concluding that they were being
violated.
"Although the case
raises numerous remarkable and sober observations, the
decisions taken, at
the end, fail, in a very sad
way, to uplift fundamental human and media
rights."
Mhike said one of the judgment's key findings was that there was an
irregularity in the manner in which the MIC dealt with The Daily News
application for registration, and that because the MIC chairperson Tafataona
Mahoso, had been found to be biased, decisions made by the commission were
void.
Another important point raised by the judge
is the failure of
the
Minister of Information and Publicity to put in place a legal structure
to
allow the Daily News application to be heard and determined by an
impartial
body.
Turning to the judge's refusal to rule decisively on the
paper's
registration, Mhike said: "The High Court, in the latest hearing,
unfortunately refused to recognise the inescapable reality that the Daily
News case is one classical situation that justifies the intervention of the
courts of law in the interests of justice."
The Zimbabwe chapter of the
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) said
the lack of a decisive
judgment on the matter kept the case in a "vicious
circle."
Misa-Zimbabwe
expressed "deep concern over the judgment, which has once
again failed to
bring finality to the five-year old matter. Without doubt,
the vicious
circle, in which this matter is now caught, seriously prejudices
the
publishers and employees of The Daily News and The Daily News on
Sunday."
Since its banning in 2003, The Daily News has approached the
courts six
times. The Supreme Court heard two other applications on March
14, 2005.
In a letter following Justice Makarau's judgment effectively
precluding the
courts from presiding over the case, the ANZ said government
should
establish a separate legal structure to decide on the matter, and
indicated
the company had no intention of engaging in any further
litigation.
However, the Minister's failure to comply set off another legal
battle.
Misa-Zimbabwe director Rashweat Mukundu said the government was not
in a
hurry to dismantle its repressive media laws. In the absence of a
court-imposed deadline to deal with the Daily News issue, the government was
likely to continue dragging its feet.
By noting the delays in dealing
with
the ANZ's application, and pointing out that at one time the MIC dealt
with
the issue after awakening "from slumber" Justice Gowora seems to
share
the same view.
Her judgment also coincides with Mukundu's comments
that the government
wants to keep its repressive institutions
intact.
"The Minister accepts that due to the finding of bias made against
members
of the (MIC), they could not have deliberated on the application.
However,
he has taken the stance that despite the finding, he retains
confidence in
them and does not wish to replace them" Justice Gowora
said.
"What is, however,
surprising is that despite the finding by
the
Supreme Court in 2005 that the remarks by the chairman of the commission,
prior to the application having been heard, could have created an
apprehension in the minds of reasonable people
that justice would not be
done, no effort was made on the part of the
minister to put in place a legal
structure or framework that would permit
the application to be heard and
determined by an impartial body."
Legal experts say the judge's conclusion
shows that it is only the courts
that can protect The Daily
News.
Constitutional lawyer Lovemore Madhuku said the outcomes of various
court
applications by The Daily News were influenced entirely by political
considerations.
"It is very difficult to use the court system to get
fundamental things such
as the registration of The Daily News. The
deregistration was in the first
place a political decision. The judgment was
influenced by political
considerations."
FinGaz
AFRICA is battling
a serious power crisis on her doorsteps, whose impact is
now more pronounced
in the Sub-Saharan region, where Zimbabwe now risks
plunging into total
darkness if nothing is done to improve her
power-generation
capacity.
In this serialised paper, presented in Maputo at the Forum of
Energy
Ministers of Africa (FEMA) summit, Engineer Simba Mangwengwende,
former ZESA
chief executive officer, and contributing author Dr Njeri
Wamukonya, explore
the energy crisis in greater depth, providing useful
insights to
policy-makers.
THE African power sector is a microcosm of
the African paradox - a continent
that is rich in everything and yet is also
poor in everything. It has become
a cliché repeated ad nauseum that Africa
has all the human and material
resources to end poverty but is poor in using
the resources for the benefit
of all the people.
Although Africa is home
to 14 percent of the world's population it only
generates and consumes 3
percent of the world's electricity. Unless there is
a radical paradigm shift
in macroeconomic and energy planning and
development it is estimated that by
2020 Africans will comprise 16 percent
of the world population and yet still
only account for an insignificant 3.5
percent of electricity generation in
the world.
The low electricity consumption levels in Africa are due to
economic
under-development and low electricity access rates. The performance
of the
power sector is characterised by poor security and reliability, high
distribution losses, negative financial rates of return and poor cash
collection.
Power sector reforms have helped in providing emergency
generation, but have
marginalised the local private sector and not given
priority to electricity
access by the poor.
Regulatory agencies are weak
and have not succeeded in making the power
sector sufficiently attractive to
get adequate investment resources from the
private sector.
To turn around
the performance of the power sector there are three major
challenges to be
addressed - replacing existing project wish lists with
bankable projects,
establishing regulatory policies that improve country
investment
attractiveness and establishing institutions that have clear
roles and are
appropriately resourced.
Although droughts, declining terms of trade and
heavy debt service burdens
are contributory factors to the security and
reliability problems in the
power sector, these are all symptoms of
weaknesses in planning, regulation
and institutions.
The paper
demonstrates how bankable projects can be developed by promoting
value added
manufacturing and focusing on regional projects supplying the
larger
economies or exploiting economies of scale.
Because efforts to achieve the
required investment levels through Official
Development Assistance (ODA) and
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) have not
met expectations, it is proposed
that the way forward lies in increasing the
local private sector
participation.
It is that private sector, more than government efforts, which
will succeed
in increasing FDI inflows in the economy in general and the
power sector in
particular. If local entrepreneurs in the power sector start
making money
FDI inflows will be assured. This is one of the key messages of
this paper.
To attract private sector investment it is necessary to put in
place
regulations that ensure that efficient operators can make money. The
effectiveness of regulatory policies and agencies needs to be measured in
terms of the continent's ability to attract investment.
The paper
concludes with general recommendations on issues that need to be
attended to
at individual country levels and specific recommendations that
FEMA should
take up at regional and continental level.
There is a critical need for
countries to develop and disseminate
information and data required to
replace project wish lists with bankable
projects that also support regional
cooperation. Institutional role clarity
is essential to avoid duplication of
effort and wastage of scarce human and
financial resources. The importance
of developing the capacity of the local
private sector is emphasised.
The
African Power Sector is facing development challenges at a time when
there
is greater awareness of the adverse impacts of the different energy
resources on the environment.
Africa has an excellent chance of following
a truly least-cost development
path that has minimum impact on global
warming and can have the benefit of
international best practice in utility
management and regulation.
INTRODUCTION
Challenges Facing
African
Power Sector
African Paradox - Poverty in the midst of plenty
Africa
is endowed with abundant energy resources that are more than
sufficient to
meet current and From Page 14
projected demand including exports for the
foreseeable future.
In 2005 Africa's installed electricity generation
capacity was estimated to
be just over 105 000 Megawats (MW) and energy
generation just over 510
TWh/year (IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency,
2006: Annex A). This
level of demand represents energy resource utilisation
levels that are a
minute fraction of what is available.
The Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC) has more than 400 TWh
(Terawatt)/year of
economically exploitable hydropower resources, followed
by Ethiopia with 260
TWh/year and Cameroon with 103 TWh/year (WEC - World
Energy Council,
2005).
Africa has 55 billion tonnes of proven coal reserves, the bulk of
which are
in South Africa (49 billion). The largest proven oil resources in
Africa in
millions of barrels are in Libya (29 500), Nigeria (22 500),
Algeria (10
040), Angola (5 412) and Egypt (4 150) (ibid.).
More
environmentally friendly power could be generated using natural gas of
which
the largest reserves in billion cubic metres are found in Algeria (4
522),
Nigeria (3 515), Libya (1 313) and Egypt (1 223) (ibid.).
At present fossil
fuels account for over 80 percent of the electricity
generated in Africa
(Table 1).
Hydropower development is potentially the least-cost option for
meeting
demand being a renewable resource with less adverse impacts on
climate
change than fossil fuels. There are also associated ancillary
benefits such
as irrigation, water supply, flood control, navigation and
recreation.
Adverse social and environmental impacts can generally be
adequately
mitigated. Other regions of the world are far ahead of Africa in
exploiting
these advantages of hydropower (Table 2).
In contrast to this
energy wealth Africa has the greatest energy poverty in
the world in terms
of utilisation. The continent is home to 13.8 percent of
the world's
population, and yet only accounts for 6 percent of the world's
energy
consumption and 3 percent of electricity generated (IAEA, 2006)
(Annex A:
Tables A1 & A2).
Per capita consumption of electricity is only 0.6 MWh
compared to a world
average of 2.6 MWh. By 2020, unless there is a dramatic
shift in the pattern
and rate of economic growth, the projection is that
Africa will have over a
billion people or 15.8 percent of the world's
population but its share of
electricity generated is only expected to be 3.5
percent (Ibid., Table A2,
Annex A).
The major contributory factor to low
power consumption is the continent's
economic under-development. In 2004
Africa's total Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) was US$685 billion (2000 US$),
which was less than 2 percent of the
world GDP of US$35 025 billion (IEA,
2006).
If North Africa and South Africa, which account for two thirds of
Africa's
GDP, are excluded, the combined GDP of all the remaining countries
in
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is less than that of medium sized industrialised
countries such as Turkey, Sweden or Switzerland.
The second major but
related reason for the low power consumption in Africa
is the low
electrification rate (Table 3) which means that the majority of
the African
population do not have access to electricity. In SSA access
levels are
significantly low in the rural areas.
The population that has access to
electricity suffers from poor supply
quality with frequent power supply
interruptions.
The power interruptions result in significant economic losses.
Kenya, for
example, is estimated to lose 9 percent of its annual output to
power
outages (World Bank, 2006).
The losses include the cost incurred by
companies in purchasing and running
standby generating facilities. During
2000-2004, over 70 percent of the
firms in Kenya owned or shared
generators.
The share of firms that own or share generators has been rising
in many
other countries. In Sierra Leone for example nearly every business
facility
in Freetown has a diesel generator. A significant number of
businesses in
Rwanda fall in the same category and more recently this trend
has been
witnessed in Ghana.
In South Africa the national utility, ESKOM,
has had to bring into service
old and expensive power plants that had been
mothballed.
The African power sector is also characterised by high levels of
distribution losses. The average distribution losses are 11 percent of
energy supply compared to 7 percent in the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and 9 percent globally (IEA,
2004: Annex B).
Excluding South Africa, which accounts for half the
continent's power
consumption but has low losses of 6 percent, the African
average loss levels
rise to 15 percent. Some countries experience losses
that are more than one
third to one fifth of energy generated and sent out
into the system.
Although information on financial performance is generally
difficult to
obtain, what is available shows that many state owned power
companies
operate at huge losses and have problems in cash collection. -To
be
continued next week
FinGaz
Economic
Viewpoint with Terence Zimwara
SINCE the start of this year workers from
both public and private
organisations have complained of low salaries which
are now below the
poverty datum line courtesy of inflation.
In fact,
previously unaffected employees such as middle and top management
have seen
their earnings getting caught up in the vicious cycle of
hyperinflation
which has been stalking the economy for some time now.
Previously where
collective bargaining was normally done bi-annually, it has
now become
impossible for workers to wait for that long especially in the
face of
escalating prices of basic commodities. In the past authorities
sought to
overcome this by introducing price controls or freezes along with
the
freezing of incomes through an institution such as a Prices and Income
Stabilisation Commission and more recently under the auspices of the social
dialogue process.
Employers in most privately-owned enterprises have
tried tackling the
problem by having monthly salary increases and to some
extent, such moves
have gone a long way in alleviating workers' plight. Such
a measure has the
effect of partially cushioning employees from the constant
price increases,
particularly those of essential commodities, and this
indeed has proved to
be effective when one compares the quality of life of
workers under this
policy and those waiting for quarterly
increases.
However, this kind policy will not totally protect employees from
inflation
but it only minimises the pain. This is especially true when one
observes
events that occurred from the start of March through to April. The
price
increases during this period showed that salary increases awarded at
the
beginning of the month proved too little to cover the rate of price
increases. (First, because businesses effected price increases of between
300 to 500 percent to cover losses they thought they would incur during the
period of price and income freezes - the social contract. However as we all
know the envisaged social contract failed to come into effect while the new
prices were not reversed, thus leaving workers worse off since they had not
received a proportionate salary raise).
In mid-March the massive fall of
the local currency on the parallel market
led to an upsurge of prices across
all sectors of the economy and again
workers were left in a much worse
position. It is against this background
that many now realise the
ineffectiveness of monthly salary increases and
just recently, civil
servants made a call for their salaries to be paid
fortnightly.
These
circumstances call for special methods of dealing with inflation to
the
benefit of the employees and one such method is the indexing of incomes
against the consumer price index (CPI) or any index which has the special
attribute of moving equally with inflation.
Indexing salaries is the
linking of salaries to CPI, meaning the worker will
receive a wage which is
the same in real terms. The wage earned may rise
nominally but the real wage
will not but at least the income would enable
the worker to pay for the same
goods and services every month without having
to worry about price
increases.
The indexing of salaries uses the same techniques and mechanisms
as those
used in the indexing of stocks (for the S&P 500 index) and this
may just be
what workers here need. In fact this is not a new phenomenon.
Brazil and
Mexico adopted this policy in the late 90s when these economies
were
overwhelmed with inflation.
In Israel this strategy was used to near
perfection when that country
experienced inflation rates of nearly 500
percent in 1984. This meant that
while prices of commodities did go up, this
did not unduly affect the worker
and his spending patterns because at the
end of every month the real wages
did not change.
What is noteworthy from
the Israeli experience is that the linking of
salaries to the consumer price
index or indexing was only effected after the
policy of freezing incomes and
prices failed to stop inflation precisely
because market forces were
dictating the direction of the economy. After
that, the idea of linking
salaries to the CPI was proposed and implemented
after the parties to the
process - business organisations and labour - had
agreed to the
plan.
Implementing such a programme could be costly from the point of view of
most
employers but the long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term costs
such
as reduction of profit levels in the case of a private
organisation.
Indexing salaries with the consumer price index would help
boost workers'
morale and improve industrial relations, which are currently
at an all-time
low. Improved relations between workers and employers could
ultimately lead
to improved productivity, thus setting the tone for the
change in the
country's economic fortunes. Secondly this could help stem the
massive brain
drain which has rendered the country a virtual training ground
for a number
of countries since the educated are leaving in search of
employment
opportunities elsewhere.
To achieve this, the social dialogue
process is the best starting point.
Parties to this process can also think
of the strategy as they seek to reach
an agreement. Freezing of salaries in
a hyperinflationary environment can be
a very effective tool only when it is
accompanied by a measure that would
shield employees from the debilitating
effects of inflation.
lTerenze Zimwara is a student in Financial Management.
The ZES articles are
coordinated by Lovemore Kadenge and he can be contacted
on email
lovemore.kadenge@gmail.com
Cell
091 2 980 016
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda Senior
Reporter
CONTROVERSIAL former permanent secretary Simon Pazvakavambwa has
been fired
from the President's Office where he was transferred after his
inglorious
exit from the Ministry of Agriculture last
year.
Pazvakavambwa, who joined the President's Office following his
ejection from
the Agriculture Ministry because of his role in the
importation of a
consignment of inferior quality fertiliser from South
Africa, was relieved
of his new duties last month. He did not get a golden
handshake, as is
normally the case when high-ranking officials cut ties with
their employers.
Sources said Pazvakavambwa was sacked over a number of
misdemeanours, and
for being a "security nuisance".
A worker in the
President's Office said yesterday that Pazvakavambwa, who
had been working
in Cabinet Secretary Misheck Sibanda's office as a
secretary, had not been
reporting for duty last month.
Pazvakavambwa was reluctant to discuss the
issue yesterday, but confirmed
that he was no longer in government
employment.
"I was retired from the public service. But no reasons were
given. I was
told through the President's Office. I am a pensioner now. What
choice do I
have? I think it's okay," he said.Prior to his sacking from the
Ministry of
Agriculture, Pazvakavambwa had frequently clashed with senior
government
officials over policy.
In 2005, he contradicted reports by his
superiors on the food situation,
telling a Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries congress that the country's
grain silos held stocks to last less
than a month.
As pressure mounted over the fertiliser saga, he threatened to
"spill the
beans" to show how the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) and then
Agriculture
Minister Joseph Made allegedly connived to import the
sub-standard
fertiliser.
The importation of the fertiliser sparked
clashes between the RBZ, the Grain
Marketing Board and the Agriculture
Ministry.
FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube
Chief Political Reporter
LAWYERS in private practice in Zimbabwe are
preparing what they say is a
landmark lawsuit against the police and the
government while at the same
time mulling a potentially paralysing boycott
of the courts countrywide to
protest the harassment of the legal
fraternity.
Legal experts say the legal practitioners' planned actions
could escalate
latent tensions between government and the judiciary.
In a
move that sparked condemnation at home and internationally, Law Society
of
Zimbabwe (LSZ) president Beatrice Mtetwa, and a number of other lawyers
were
assaulted outside the High Court as they protested a series of attacks
perpetrated by the police against lawyers since March.
The previous
weekend, prominent Harare lawyers Alec Muchadehama and Andrew
Makoni, who
represent 13 jailed opposition activists, were arrested and
detained for
three days on allegations that they had tried to obstruct the
course of
justice.
During the same weekend, police beat up their own lawyer, Richard
Chikosha,
apparently as punishment for consenting to the granting of bail to
Makoni
and Muchadehama.
On Monday, this week, prominent lawyer Jonathan
Samkange was picked up in a
midnight raid on his Avondale home in Harare and
detained at Rhodesville
Police Station on allegations of violating
immigrations laws.
The next day, the government dropped the charges. Samkange
is alleged
British mercenary Simon Mann 's defence counsel in his battle to
avoid
extradition to Equatorial Guinea. Mann is accused of master-minding a
coup
plot to oust President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.
In Mutare, 10
lawyers were arrested on Tuesday and held for hours after they
undertook a
protest march against the government's assault on the legal
profession.
Recently, Mutare area prosecutor Levison Chikafu complained that
the police
were harassing him because he prosecuted Justice Minister Patrick
Chinamasa
last year during his trial on charges of obstructing the course of
justice.
The minister was acquitted.
Yesterday, lawyers said they plan in their
individual capacities, to sue
Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi, Police
Commissioner Augustine Chihuri,
and individual police officers identified as
having been involved in all
recent attacks against lawyers, particularly
during last Tuesday's crushing
of the lawyers' march outside the High
Court.
After a number of meetings in different parts of the country this
week, the
lawyers have agreed on a petition to be sent to Chinamasa, Chihuri
and
Attorney-General Sobusa Gula-Ndebele, asking them to express publicly
their
full support for the independence of the legal fraternity. The
petition also
asks them to denounce the growing impunity of state security
agents.
The proposals are expected to be endorsed tomorrow at an emergency
meeting
of the national council of the Law Society.
"There is a general
consensus that we sue the police, individually,
including Chihuri," said a
source speaking on condition of not being named.
While admitting that there
was anger within the legal profession over recent
events, Mtetwa declined to
elaborate on the lawyers' plans.
"We have all these proposals and suggestions
from our members, but the
national council will meet to decide," said
Mtetwa. "It would be premature
for me to discuss some of these proposals in
the press before the national
council meets. But one thing for sure is that
members are not happy with the
continuing harassment of legal
professionals."
Stenford Moyo, the president of the Southern Africa
Development Community
(SADC) Lawyers Association, said the regional
grouping, whose members
visited Harare last weekend on a fact-finding
mission, would back any action
taken by the LSZ tomorrow.
"We are aware
of proposals to sue, among others, and we are supporting them
all the way,"
said Moyo. "The SADC Lawyers Association is watching the
events closely. We
believe the continuation of impunity should cease
forthwith."
There was,
however, some scepticism within the legal fraternity yesterday
over the
feasibility of a nationwide strike by legal officers. There were
suggestions
that divisions within the profession would stall such a strike,
while others
fear a court boycott would spell disaster for an already
clogged justice
system.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will make a ruling today in a
constitutional
case focusing on the urgent enforcement of High Court
orders.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said the case challenges the High
Court's
insistence that contempt of court cases be dealt with as ordinary
applications, rather than as urgent matters.
After the arrest of
Muchadehama and Makoni, police defied three court orders
for their release
but the High Court declined to treat as urgent a contempt
application filed
against the police.
Five Supreme Court judges will hear the case.
A ruling
supporting the lawyers' position would pave the way for a flood of
contempt
of court applications against the police. The MDC has several such
applications pending.
FinGaz
Dumisani Ndlela Business
Editor
INVESTORS yesterday kept back their panic for a real crisis after
eventually
discounting the loss of NMB Bank's authorised dealership licence,
keeping
the share price for NMBZ Holdings, the bank's parent company, locked
within
the $40 per share range in morning trade.
The share did
not move in afternoon trade.
The share last week suffered significant losses,
plunging from $92 per share
on Tuesday to $62 per share on Friday, on
reports of fraud that had resulted
in the externalisation of over US$4
million.
Market watchers said the worst they had anticipated - a closure of
the
financial institution - had been allayed after the central bank settled
for
a withdrawal of the foreign currency dealership licence for weak
controls.
Only 345 000 shares traded on the counter yesterday morning, with
dealers
saying apprehensive buyers had moved out from the counter.
On
Tuesday, the counter had buyers but no sellers.
"It's not as if there is a
flurry of disposals," a dealer said. "But there
is obvious apprehension and
this will take a bit of time before buying
resumes on the counter."
Bank
officials said there had been no panic among depositors, insisting
these had
been kept updated about the development even before news of the
foreign
currency fraud hit the newsstands last week.
It was difficult to make an
independent assessment since the majority of NMB
Bank's depositors, the
majority of them corporate clients, do their banking
from their
offices.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) penalised NMB Bank for lack of
controls
by cancelling its dealership licence with effect from
Tuesday.
The RBZ said the cancellation had been prompted by a breach of
exchange
control regulations.
NMB Bank had failed to adhere to sound risk
management practices, resulting
in the illegal externalisation of US$4.8
million, the RBZ said.
It did not, however, cancel the banking
licence
"The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe wishes to assure the public that NMB
Bank
Limited's all other local currency (ZWD) banking operations are not
affected
by this cancellation. NMB Bank Limited will, therefore, subject to
its own
continued soundness and adherence to internal systems and
procedures,
continue to operate for all local currency transactions," the
RBZ said.
It said all outstanding foreign currency transactions by the bank
had to be
"wound down through authorised dealers of customer's own choice
within a
maximum period of fourteen (14) days".
Market analysts said most
of NMB Bank's clients were multi-banked and were
consequently unlikely to be
affected by the cancellation of the bank'
licence.
NMB Bank's bottom line
was also unlikely to suffer significantly because of
lack of foreign
currency trading on the local market.
"It's not a good thing to have lost the
foreign currency licence even though
this is not a significant revenue
earner. It provided some kind of package
to their clients and they have lost
an aspect of that package," a market
analyst said.
FinGaz
Staff Reporter
A FORMER
Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) chief executive
officer has
blamed the power utility's woes on the elimination of a
performance
contract, saying this had previously given the power utility's
board
autonomy to run the institution profitably.
Simba Mangwengwende, kicked
out of ZESA in 2000 following the appointment of
Sydney Gata as executive
chairman, said this in a paper presented to the
Forum of Energy Ministers of
Africa Ministerial Conference on Energy
Security and Sustainability held in
Maputo recently.
Mangwengwende was the lead author of the paper, while Njeri
Wamukonya,
Energy Program Officer, Division of Technology, Economics and
Industry-Regional Office for Africa, United Nations Environment Programme,
was the contributing author.
Reference by Mangwengwende to the local
power utility comes as ZESA has
introduced 20-hour load shedding periods in
households to support winter
wheat production.
Mangwengwende said
performance improvement in a state-owned utility under
local management had
been achieved in Zimbabwe on the basis of a
performance contract established
between the government and ZESA between
1992 and 1993.
"The performance
contract was a regulatory instrument, which gave the ZESA
board
the
autonomy to run ZESA as a self-financing business. On the issues that the
board was required to refer to the minister there was an undertaking that
supportive responses would be expeditiously provided," he said.
He said
the financial performance of the utility had dramatically improved
when the
performance contract was introduced.
"The ability of the utility to cope with
crises was also demonstrated in the
1998/99 period. Following a hitherto
unprecedented massive depreciation of
the local currency, ZESA incurred a
massive loss equivalent to US$174
million in 1998. Using an automatic tariff
adjustment formula that had been
anticipated in the performance contract for
such an eventuality, the loss
was reduced to US$44 million in 1999 and
turned into a profit of nearly $13
million in the following year,"
Mangwengwende said.
The utility managed the financial recovery without any
direct subsidies from
the government, he said.
Mangwengwende said the
situation had changed following the abolition of the
performance contracts.
"In 2002 new legislation was introduced, which became
operational in 2003.
The performance contract was discontinued without
establishing an equivalent
or better regulatory mechanism."
"Consequently ZESA's performance has
significantly deteriorated since then,
again demonstrating the critical role
of regulation in realising value from
power sector investments," he
noted.
ZESA, which under the 2002 legislation unbundled into several
operational
units, is facing serious financial problems.
Board chairman,
Christopher Chetsanga, recently told a press conference that
the institution
was technically insolvent.
Although managing a net income of US$12.7
million,
US$5.9 million and US$40 million in 2000, 2001 and 2002,
respectively, the
power utility plunged into exorbitant losses between 2003
and 2005 blamed
for the poor pricing structure.
The utility posted a
negative net income of US$270.9 million in 2003 and
this has worsened to
US$428.7 million in 2004 and US$418.1 in 2005.
The performance contract was
discontinued in 2003 and a new power sector
regulator was established in
2005.
FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube Chief Political
Reporter
ROY Bennett, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) treasury
secretary who
has been granted political asylum in South Africa, has urged
that country's
government to offer sanctuary to more Zimbabweans he says are
fleeing from
President Robert Mugabe's rule.
Speaking to The
Financial Gazette by telephone from Johannesburg yesterday,
five days after
being granted asylum, Bennett said South Africa's Department
of Home Affairs
should expedite the processing of applications of thousands
of fellow
Zimbabweans who have applied for the same dispensation.
"After seven years of
political persecution under the ZANU PF government in
my own country, I have
finally found justice in a neighbouring country,"
said Bennett.
Bennett
won an appeal last week at the Refugee Appeals Board against a
Department of
Home Affairs decision last May to deny him asylum.
He becomes the first
senior opposition figure from Zimbabwe to be granted
asylum in South Africa.
Analysts have described the decision as important
because it reflects a
tacit admission by South Africa of increasing
repression under President
Mugabe's administration.
"There have been thousands of people that have been
persecuted by the regime
in Harare that have come before me, and there are
others that will come
after me. So I think it is important for President
(Thabo) Mbeki and his
government to move faster and help Zimbabweans seeking
asylum because of the
political problems in Harare.
"More people, not
just Bennett, should be given political asylum. But this
should be on merit.
There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, that
deserve asylum,"
said Bennett.
The former MDC legislator for Chimanimani spent a year in jail
for pushing
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa during a heated debate in
Parliament when
Chinamasa described Bennett's ancestors as "thieves and
criminals."
His coffee-producing farm, Charleswood in Chimanimani, was seized
by the
state under the controversial land reform. Bennett fled to South
Africa last
year when the government tried to link him to an alleged plot to
assassinate
President Mugabe.
Several MDC officials, including Mutare
North MP Giles Mutsekwa, were
arrested in connection with the alleged plot.
They were later released due
to lack of evidence. Peter Hitschman, the
alleged mastermind of the plot, is
still being held.
FinGaz
Stanley Kwenda Staff
Reporter
DOCTORS at two of the biggest state hospitals have gone on
strike to press
for better pay, only a short time after ending a three-month
job boycott
that paralysed the healthcare system countrywide.
The
Hospital Doctors Association (HDA) said this week that doctors at
Parirenyatwa and Harare hospitals had gone on strike to demand a salary
review in response to the sharp rise in the cost of living since the last
increment.
"We have downed tools, we no longer want to talk anymore,"
said Kudakwashe
Nyamutukwa, HAD president. "We are not going to talk to
anyone because
everyone knows that the cost of living is spiralling out of
the reach of
every average Zimbabwean. Doctors are no exception," he
added.
The strike is expected to spread to health institutions in other parts
of
the country.
The industrial action by the doctors comes a week after
Health Minister
David Parirenyatwa admitted that state nurses could no
longer afford bus
fare to work. His ministry has since announced an
adjustment in allowances
of up to 332 percent for health workers.
Doctors
working at state hospitals have since last year gone on sporadic
strikes
over pay. Last December, government had to hire army health
personnel to
cover for striking doctors and nurses, but they could not cope
with the
large number of patients seeking care.
Currently, a junior doctor at a state
hospital earns a basic salary of $240
000 and allowances amounting to about
$700 000. Total earnings therefore,
remain below the official $1.7 million
breadline.
The country trains 4 500 nurses and 149 doctors every year, but
three
quarters of these find their way into private practice or leave the
country
once they complete the mandatory probation period.
Early this
year, government said it was considering hiring retired nurses to
boost its
low staff levels. But the low wages have been unable to lure the
retired
workers.
FinGaz
Clemence
Manyukwe Staff Reporter
A MINISTRY of Foreign Affairs letter has
confirmed claims by Bubye Minerals
that one of the vehicles at the centre of
its diamond row with River Ranch
Limited is registered in the name of the
United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP).
Bubye Minerals is
entangled in a long running dispute with River Ranch
Limited over ownership
of River Ranch diamond mine, situated in Beitbridge.
Bubye has implicated the
UNDP in the row, by claiming that the agency's
vehicles could have been used
by its rivals to smuggle diamonds. The company
identified one of the
vehicles as a Toyota and gave its registration number
as 200 TCE
666.
Both the UNDP and River Ranch Limited have denied Bubye's
claims.
However, in a letter to Bubye Minerals yesterday, the Ministry of
Foreign
Affairs said one of the vehicles was indeed registered in the name
of the
UNDP in 2005.
"Please be advised that the vehicle number 200TCE
664, a Toyota Landcruiser,
was registered on 26 October 2005 under the name
of a Mr Pradiptha Kishora
Susare, a UNDP employee and 200TCE 666, also a
Toyota Landcruiser, was
registered as a UNDP Mission vehicle on 26 October
2005," reads part of the
letter.
In a press statement released on March
15 this year, the UNDP denied that
any of its vehicles had been used to
smuggle diamonds as alleged.
"The vehicle registered 200 TCE 666 also
mentioned as belonging to UNDP
actually belongs to the Global Fund
sub-recipient operating in the Binga
District supporting HIV and AIDS
project."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the information it supplied
was for
court purposes only and stressed that it would not accept any
liability from
any claim arising from the correspondence.
Prior to the
Ministry's letter, the UNDP had said of the vehicle: "This
vehicle is
currently grounded after it was involved in an accident on 14
December 2006.
Therefore, there is no remote possibility for the same
vehicle to have been
seen at the River Ranch mine in Beitbridge. UNDP as the
interim principal
recipient of the Global Fund merely facilitated the
procurement and the
registration of the vehicle."
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda Senior
Business Reporter
THE civil service is losing skilled staff in critical
and specialised
fields, compromising service delivery, as it also emerged
that over 15 000
employees could have severed ties with the government over
the past 12
months.
Public Service Commission secretary, Constance
Chigwamba, said the civil
service is among the sectors hardest hit by a
brain drain robbing the
country of skilled professionals.
"Like the
private sector, government has lost staff in critical areas such
as finance,
economics, engineering, architecture, quantity surveying, estate
management,
valuation and physical planning," said Chigwamba without giving
figures.
She said that the government had established a Skills Retention
Fund, which
"will be used to attract and retain those in the critical
shortage areas."
Sources however, said more than 15 000 civil servants have
resigned over the
past twelve months and the figure continues to rise. This
means the
government is losing an average of 40 employees per
day.
Although no reliable figures are available to quantify the extent of the
staff exodus, it is estimated that the number of Zimbabweans living in the
diaspora stands at over three million. Many of those that have left the
country are skilled workers.
In government service, officials say much of
the loss in skills is being
felt in teaching, engineering and IT.
In
confirming the exodus, the Local Government Board - the government board
that oversees the operations of local authorities - recently disclosed that
its operations are being hampered by staff flight. The board blamed this on
a lack of funding that had seen workers getting their pay late, or not
getting paid at all.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Amos Midzi
recently told a ZANU PF
party caucus that his Ministry is failing to
clampdown on illegal mining
because of a high staff vacancy rate in his
department, which he estimated
at 52 percent. Government officials say the
situation at Midzi's Ministry
reflects the plight of other government
departments.
Tendai Chikowore, the chairperson of the Civil Service Staff
Association
Apex Council, said this week that poor salaries that cannot pay
for basics
are at the heart of the exodus.
Most civil servants, including
teachers, earn monthly salaries around $480
000 that are below the $1.7
million Poverty Datum Line. This week, doctors
announced they were going
back on strike; just months after a three-month
boycott paralysed health
delivery. It is feared the doctors' strike could
spur wider strikes in the
civil service.
A recent report said more than 4 500 teachers had fled the
country for
greener pastures since January.
Soldiers and policemen are
also reportedly deserting, taking up jobs as
security guards in neighbouring
countries.
FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube and
Clemence Manyukwe Staff Reporte
DEFENCE Minister Sidney Sekeramayi has
sparked confusion by telling
parliament that the government, which
previously announced plans to enlist
war veterans into the army, does not
intend to set up a reserve force, a
scenario made more perplexing by the
fact that his ministry has called a
series of meetings across the country
for war veterans.
Sekeramayi announced the creation of an auxiliary force
under the Defence
(War Veterans Reserve) Regulations of 2007 Statutory
Instrument 64, gazetted
in March.
But this week, responding to a query in
parliament by the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) shadow minister for
defence, Giles Mutsekwa,
Sekeramayi said: "Mr Speaker, the government has no
plans to form a reserve
army." He did not elaborate.
Mutsekwa had asked:
"Minister, can you clarify the position as of today of
the formation of the
reserve army, the age groups and also if you would want
to comment on press
reports that most ex-Zipra combatants are reluctant to
join the army because
they felt they were used by the government to beat up
people."
Despite
Sekeramayi's categorical denial, the Ministry of Defence, through
its
"Department of War Veterans", has inserted notices in the press calling
for
meetings in all 10 provinces. The notices say the meetings are "for a
special address" to the ex-fighters.
The War Veterans' Board, chaired by
ZANU PF politburo member Dumiso
Dabengwa, will convene the meetings.
The
first of the meetings will be held on Saturday at the National Sports
Centre
in Harare. Meetings in Bulawayo, Mutare and Masvingo will, curiously,
be
held at army barracks.
FinGaz
ZIMBABWE'S government is
ignoring South Africa's attempts to mediate in its
political crisis, a top
African National Congress (ANC) figure says.
South Africa has refused
to criticise President Robert Mugabe in public,
preferring "quiet
diplomacy". But Tokyo Sexwale - a veteran ANC activist and
one of South
Africa's wealthiest businessmen - has said in a BBC interview
that it is now
time "to turn up the volume".
Sexwale told the BBC's Hardtalk programme this
week that a meltdown in
Zimbabwe should be avoided at all costs, as this
would have serious
implications for South Africa.
"I'm beginning to feel
my president, who's gone out on a limb, is not being
listened to," he said.
"He won't fail because he didn't try. He'll fail
because he's not being
listened to. It takes two to tango."
According to Sexwale, the Zimbabwean
government must be compelled to uphold
the rule of law. Sexwale's
Mvelaphanda empire has business links with
Zimbabwe, and is currently
partnering Meikles Africa in a R40million joint
venture on a Cape Town hotel
project. Meikles has a one percent share of
Mvelaphanda.
Sexwale's
comments will be seen as a sign of growing frustration within the
ANC over
South Africa's approach to Zimbabwe .
-BBC/Staff Reporter
FinGaz
Dumisani Ndlela
Business Editor
Auditors qualify financial results due to land ownership
uncertainty
IDEALLY, a red light should be flashing for new investors
planning on
spending cash on horticultural group Interfresh Limited:
Approximately 88
percent of the group's estates were gazetted with a section
5 notice in June
2000.
This, consistent with constitutional
amendments made to outlaw any legal
challenges to the compulsory acquisition
of privately-held land by the
government, makes Interfresh's farmlands state
land.
Accordingly, the company's external auditors, KPMG Chartered
Accountants,
qualified the group's financial results for the year to
December 2006.
In qualifying the group's financial results, KPMG said the
government had
not yet formally adopted a land policy that governs the
future of land
tenure with respect to corporate agriculture.
"The new
policy will determine whether the company will have to apply for
long term
leases or de-listing. The ability of the company to continue
operating as a
going concern may be affected should the land on which it
operates be
designated to other farmers by government in its implementation
of this
amendment to the Constitution of the Republic of Zimbabwe relating
to land
tenure as there is no right of appeal on land designation," the
auditors
noted.
Yet, even after the listing of Interfresh's properties in 2000, there
has
been mysterious interest in the horticultural concern over the past six
years.
This might be because of its line of business, or investors are
simply
chasing after a mature operation with a consistent business
model.
A consortium of bankers once muscled its way into the firm to explore
its
value in 2003, but quickly sold out to another consortium led by
incumbent
executive chairman Lishon Chipango between 2004 and 2005.
There
have been several intriguing deals, the latest being the purchase of
an 18
percent stake in Interfresh by Dairibord Holdings late last year.
Without
discounting the value of Interfresh as a foreign currency earning
company,
it would be fair to note that the odds are staked heavily against
the
counter.
Dairibord might see value in the group through synergies that might
result
in the company supplying scarce juices for the production of
non-carbonated
drinks by its subsidiaries, or the kind of synergies Delta
Corporation
derived from its acquisition of Ariston - passing foreign
currency earnings
to the major shareholder to prop up its
business.
Ariston, another key exporting firm on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange,
had been
itself subject of speculation of a merger with Interfresh in 2002.
The two
companies have previously entered into exclusive deals, the key one
being a
joint venture between Ariston's fruit exporter Katope and
Interfresh.
Of the odds staked against Interfresh, which cash-rich investors
have
obviously discounted, is the fact that the group's operations have for
the
past six years not just contended with the threat of expropriation of
its
agricultural estates, but also a plethora of problems that remain a key
threat to earnings potential despite satisfactory performances even as
recent as the last financial year.
An unrealistic exchange rate
constrained viability, as has decreased volumes
on general fresh produce
(remember its citrus orchards were once invaded,
and a deputy minister
occupies one of the group's estates).
This is not to say there are no
positives on the firm.
The group posted satisfactory results for the year to
December 2006,
increasing turnover by 1 175 percent to $9.4 billion and
operating profit by
1 363 percent against average inflation of 1 017 percent
during the
reporting period.
Interfresh was founded in 1953 and listed on
the local bourse in 1997.
FinGaz
Staff Reporter
Exchange
rate adjustment makes exporting counters a better bet
ANALYSTS this week said
they expected investor interest on exporting
companies to increase following
an exchange rate adjustment made late April.
The increased interest on
the exporting companies would propel the stock
market to new high levels
during the current second quarter, the analysts
said, but warned much would
also depend on monetary policy instruments used
by the central bank to
control liquidity on the money market.
Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono
announced a new facility for exporters and
foreign currency holders under
which they could sell their foreign currency
to the central bank at an
effective rate $15 000 for a US unit.
However, all transactions on the
official market would be made at the old
rate of US$: $250.
The effect of
this would be to compel all foreign currency sellers on the
official market
to dispose of their receipts to the central bank at a higher
rate than the
official exchange rate.
Stocks likely to benefit from increased interest in
exporting companies
include gold mining stocks, as well as those in the
horticultural sector.
Gold producer Falcon Gold's share price went up 350
percent a day after Gono
announced the new exchange rate on April 28 and new
support prices for the
gold mining sector.
Gono reviewed the gold support
price from $16 000 per gramme to $350 000 per
gramme.
The move will
significantly boost viability in the gold mining sector which
had been
teetering on the brink of collapse due to a poor support price and
delays in
payments for gold deliveries to Fidelity Printers and Refiners, a
subsidiary
of the central bank.
One stockbroker said fund managers had reviewed their
portfolios and moved
huge chunks of money from blue chip counters to
predominantly exporting
firms.
"Exporting counters are now a
better
bet," the stockbroker said,
highlighting that measures allowing them to
retain 60 percent of their
foreign currency earnings had also boosted their
prospects.
He said counters like pork producer Colcom, cotton maker Cottco,
and nickel
miners Bindura Nickel Corporation and gold and diamond producer
RioZim had
become favourites to both punters and long term
investors.
"Apex will also stand to benefit as the company has embarked on
completing
an induction furnace, which will see them reduce their dependence
on
Ziscosteel and Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) thus improving
supply
reliability," the stockbroker said. "Moreover, this will assist the
company
to increase its exports by five times," he said.
Apex said
recently it was happy with an exchange rate of US$1: Z$1500. A
review of the
exchange rate to US$1: 15 000 is therefore a significant
bonus.
Lishon
Chipango, chairman of exporting firm Interfresh, said a new exchange
rate
announced by the RBZ would significantly boost the performance of
exporting
companies.
FinGaz
Staff Reporter
ZIMBABWE Stock Exchange-listed horticultural group
Ariston is planning to
mechanise tea picking at its Manicaland estates
because of serious labour
shortages.
Ariston's chief executive officer,
Kumbirai
Katsande, revealed this at an analysts briefing last
week.
Katsande said the farming sector had been hit
by
acute labour shortages because many people were resorting to gold and
diamond panning as well as cross-border trading.
He said Ariston had decided to mechanise tea picking
at its estates since
the labour problems were likely to affect the farming
sector for a long
time.
Ariston would also resort to growing crops that
were
not labour-intensive.
Although the
mechanisation will not result in an
improvement of quality in the tea
picking process, it will however
significantly lift
volumes.
Katsande said his company had lost over 2
000
workers at its estates over the past two
years.
Ariston's Southdown Estates late last year
temporarily stopped coffee production due to a shortage of labour which
Katsande attributed to the rush for diamonds.
Southdown Estate is Ariston's flagship business.
Katsande said the reduction in coffee production had
also been affected by
increased volatility in the price of coffee on the
international
market.
Ariston cut down the hectarage for coffee
from 250
hectares to 200 hectares.
FinGaz
Personal Glimpses
with Mavis Makuni
ZANU PF Chief Whip, Joram Gumbo's dismissal of the Pan
African Parliament as
a "noise-making body" with no legislative powers gives
a grim insight into
the reality of the government of Zimbabwe not being
prepared to listen to
anyone on the face of the earth.
Gumbo, who
is also the vice-chairman of the Southern African Regional Caucus
on
Politics was reacting to the announcement over the weekend that the Pan
African body was to send a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe to investigate
allegations of human rights abuses levelled against the government of
President Robert Mugabe.
The Pan African Parliament voted overwhelmingly
to send a mission following
a wave of arrests and beatings of opposition
leaders and activists. The
latest victims of state brutality are human
rights lawyers, including
Beatrice Mtetwa who, as the first female president
of the Law Society of
Zimbabwe, should be a cause for pride for the country,
whose declared policy
is promoting gender balance in private and public
institutions as well as
eradicating violence against women and
children.
The battering of Mtetwa and her three male colleagues in broad
daylight in
an open space as reported by the Sunday paper, The Standard, is
a disturbing
confirmation of the institutionalisation of police brutality
and
criminalisation of human traits such as compassion and a belief in fair
play. The attack highlights what a tangled web of lawlessness life in
Zimbabwe has become.
Mtetwa, Chris Mhike, Colin Kuhuni and Fritz Patrick
were assaulted not for
committing a heinous crime, but for trying to present
a petition to the
Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs,
Patrick Chinamasa.
They were resorting to this peaceful and constitutionally
protected way of
communicating with a government official to express concern
over the arrest
of their colleagues, Alex Muchadehama and Andrew Makoni.
Muchadehama and
Makoni had been arrested for no reason other than that they
acted as legal
representatives for fellow Zimbabweans.
How many wrongs
must be committed to convince the powers-that-be that at the
end of the day,
brute force changes nothing. It can maim and kill fellow
humans but it will
never make what is wrong right.
Rather than detract attention from what is
wrong in the country, brute force
in fact magnifies it and highlights the
need to confront matters in a
non-violent way. Battering people for
recognising this reality will not
solve anything. Following his battering
along with other opposition leaders
and activists on March 11, Lovemore
Madhuku of the National Constitutional
Assembly said: "There is some
systematic following of all key activists and
trying to intimidate them,
either by making them run away from their homes
or beating them
up."
Disturbingly, subsequent events have proved him right. In an interview
in
March, Mtetwa herself said human rights lawyers had been warned by some
sympathisers in the police force that they had been singled out for
retribution. This would suggest that the attack on her and her colleagues
was a pre-meditated act. Where do Zimbabweans hide if their own government
lies in wait for them to put a foot "wrong" to justify viciously attacking
them?
The motion for a probe to be undertaken by the Pan African
Parliament into
this state of affairs was introduced by a representative of
the Inkatha
Freedom Party of South Africa and was adopted by an overwhelming
149 votes
in favour and 29 against. The nays are reported to have consisted
mainly of
Zimbabweans, including amazingly, Senator Sheila Mahere, who as
the former
director of the Msasa Project was supposedly once opposed to
violence and
crusaded against it. Her unease over the prospect of state
instigated
violence being investigated is therefore perplexing. One wonders
what her
reasons are for wanting a lid to be kept on these alleged abuses.
Common
sense dictates that unless there are some sadistic people in
government who
derive a perverse sense of satisfaction and pleasure from
inflicting pain
and suffering on others, a chance to chart a way forward
should be welcomed,
not thwarted.
However, it would appear from Gumbo's
utterances that Zimbabwean authorities
are not resisting attempts to throw
light on the government's human rights
performance out of indignation they
are being falsely accused. They are
simply thumbing their noses at every one
and saying they must be left alone
to bash hapless citizens because Zimbabwe
is a sovereign nation. Gumbo told
the state media why the Zimbabwean
delegation had failed to stop the motion.
"We tried our best but there were
too many odds against us", he complained.
"While we were in the meetings,
Crisis Coalition was busy circulating
pictures showing those members of the
MDC who were beaten up by police while
television stations showed footage of
the police beating up some lawyers."
But not to worry, Gumbo seemed to tell
state journalists: if all else fails,
the government can always bar the
mission!
Gumbo should realise that the insurmountable odds the Zimbabwean
delegation
faced in Pretoria did not result from clever gimmicks employed by
the
Movement for Democratic Change and other stakeholders lobbying the Pan
African Parliament. It was simply an impossible task for the delegation to
convince a majority of the delegates that all was rosy in the face of
indisputable and graphic evidence of official brutality. The sheer horror of
the unspeakable orgy of violence perpetrated by state agents against
defenceless citizens spoke for itself.
Tony Blair et al were not present
to influence delegates to vote as they
did. As leader of that delegation,
Gumbo's duty upon his return to Zimbabwe
should be to advise the government
to stop burying its head in the sand and
instead acknowledge the existence
of a problem that must be resolved in a
democratic and humane manner. The
government knows it would face the same
overwhelming disapproval at home as
that shown in Pretoria if it did not
resort to brute force to silence every
dissenting voice.
FinGaz
Dumisani Ndlela Business Editor
Consumers wait for their time on the
market
IF, as the cliché goes, there is a time for everything then,
presumably,
there is going to be a time for stability in the country's
pricing system.
To the long-suffering consumer, that has always been the
hope for the past
seven years, and an intensification of price escalations
every day has only
cast a pall on the little hopes for price stability in an
increasingly
turbulent economy.
Government, on one hand, has blamed the
business community for a spate of
price increases that has fed inflationary
pressures and dashed hopes for
immediate prospects for economic recovery in
the country.
President Robert Mugabe made the most blatant attack on the
business
community recently, accusing the business sector of collusion with
imperialist forces working to unseat his government from power.
Price
increases, he said, were meant to create social unrest and make his
government unpopular.
The business community, on the other hand, denies
colluding with external
forces to destabilise the economy and agitate people
against the incumbent
regime.
While admitting "extreme concern" over the
recent spate of price increases,
they say the price hikes currently being
experienced in the country "were
triggered by an unprecedented increase in
the price of inputs apparently
influenced by the informal exchange
rate".
In a recent statement signed by the Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries,
the Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe, the Plastic
Manufacturers
Association, the Retail Association of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe
Commercial
Farmers Union and the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, the
business
community said some of the price increases were "driven by economic
fundamentals".
Other price increases, which they said had to be dealt
with by the
authorities, were "out of line with fundamentals".
"Leading
members of the private sector have met and agreed that it is
imperative that
the business community exercises restraint in increasing
prices as well as
ask their suppliers to justify their price increases if
they are frequent
and steep," the joint statement, issued less than a month
ago,
stated.
But the call for increased restraint was qualified.
"However, we
note that voluntary restraint alone cannot work unless root
causes are dealt
with expeditiously," the business sector said.
Business people indicated to
The Financial Gazette this week that the highly
inflationary environment was
making it increasingly difficult to exercise
restraint.
While most of the
price increases appeared speculative, they were,
essentially, anticipatory
in nature, they said.
Government, in trying to curtail social upheaval
emanating from an
escalation of prices, imposed price controls on selected
basic commodities,
a situation that has spawned a black market for the
scarce products.
While the price controls were meant to benefit the poor, the
controls have,
in fact, benefited the rich and politically
connected.
Until the recent upward revision in the price of maize meal by the
Grain
Marketing Board (GMB), ruling party and government bigwigs and their
cronies
who bought maize from the parastatal for $600 per tonne were
reselling it to
the grain monopoly at $52 500 per tonne, the price at which
the GMB was
buying it from farmers.
The same people, who had access to
cheap fuel from the National Oil Company
of Zimbabwe, were reselling the
fuel, some of which they acquired on the
pretext of requirements for farming
activities, on the black market at
inflated prices.
Apparently, this has
been the case with almost all controlled products.
The other effect of price
controls has been to fuel shortages.
Basic economic arguments note that price
controls eventually hurt the entire
economy.
For example, government has
been arguing that retailers should not hike
prices on their shelves, even
when the cost of replenishing stock is
escalating daily.
Inevitably,
supermarkets have largely ignored this unsupervised policy.
Naturally, if
retailers are forbidden from charging economic prices, they
will eventually
be unable to buy from the suppliers.
If the suppliers cannot sell their goods
to retailers at viable prices, they
will quit buying from farmers who will
be stuck with products they cannot
sell to the marketplace.
Consequently,
they might stop producing the controlled products, creating
shortages on the
market.
This has been the reason for the increased hardships consumers
currently
have to face. Farmers are not producing enough crops because
selling prices
are low due to controls.
While the official excuse for the
poor harvests has been a debilitating
drought, clearly capacity utilisation
at most of the country's farms has
been pathetically low.
Government is
currently pushing for a National Incomes and Pricing
Commission Bill to
enforce price controls and curb what politicians allege
to be
profiteering.
The Bill passed through Parliament in March, and now reportedly
awaits
approval by the Senate before President Mugabe's
assent.
Apparently, the Bill seeks to penalise unsanctioned price
increases.
Imposing criminal charges for price increases is likely to
discourage
manufacturers from obtaining higher-priced replacement supplies,
therefore,
limiting consumer access to controlled products.
The
government might have good intentions in imposing market controls, but
the
record for such controls has simply proved unhelpful and dangerous to
the
economy.
Several bread manufacturers have closed down because of price
controls.
Meanwhile, consumers continue waiting for their time on the market.
FinGaz
Mavis Makuni Own
Correspondent
Peer review report ruffles feathers
THE African Peer Review
Mechanism (APRM) of the New Economic Partnership for
Africa's Development
(NEPAD) has been touted as a vehicle for African
countries to benchmark
their economic and political performance.
Conducted every three to five
years, the APRM is supposed to promote good
governance, observance of human
rights and the rule of law. However, after
the presentation of the first
peer review reports, fears that the process is
like, other African Union
initiatives before it, doomed to fail to get round
the egos of African
leaders seem to be proving true sooner than expected.
This week, the South
African weekly, the Sunday Times carried the following
ominous item on its
front page tease bar: South Africa tells Africa to go to
hell. A quick turn
to the appropriate page inside established what the story
was about - the
South African government's rejection of a Peer Review Report
drafted by a
panel of eminent persons led by renowned Nigerian economist,
Adebayo
Adedeji. The report was presented to President Thabo Mbeki at a
function
last year.
It is no secret that the APRM is unacceptable to some leaders in
Africa
because of its call for open and free discussion of governance issues
by all
stakeholders in a country which they regard as a threat to the
authoritarian
regimes they preside over. This has been demonstrated by the
reluctance of
some countries to sign up to be reviewed by their peers.
However, for South
Africa to react as vehemently as has been reported is
puzzling.
NEPAD, under whose auspices the APRM operates, is the brainchild of
Mbeki,
who is regarded as Africa's "Renaissance Man". For this reason the
way his
government reacted to a dose of Mbeki's own medicine after being
subjected
to rigorous scrutiny was supposed to be exemplary and set a
standard for the
level of political maturity and commitment required to
nurse the
dispensation through its teething problems.
In short, the South
African president was supposed to accept criticism and
the pointing out of
unpalatable realities with magnanimity. Regrettably, the
opposite has
happened and the Mbeki administration has reacted angrily. It
is reported to
have issued a "blistering" response rejecting the panel's
findings. It has
dismissed 149 of the 150 recommendations made by the panel
to address
problems and challenges cited in the Peer Review Report.
Some observers
quoted by the South African media have described the
government's reaction
as "churlish and quibbling". Mbeki does not appear to
have considered what
would become of the initiative if the next batch of
countries to be peer
reviewed take the cue from him and angrily bury their
heads in the sand
too.
The South African government, which appears to have expected a perfect
score
of 10 out of 10 claims the report is contradictory and inconsistent.
The
government's argument that with its legacy of apartheid, the country
faces
unique challenges is perfectly justifiable. In fact, in view of its
dark
past, the country has done remarkably well in the 10 years since the
end of
apartheid and the panel acknowledges this. "In all respects, South
Africa
has, for the past 12 years already embarked on what the APR Panel has
recommended", the government insists. This suggests that the panel's
findings are not as wide off the mark as Mbeki and his government claim. The
only difference may relate to how far the panel, looking from a detached
standpoint as a peer should, perceived the government to have gone and how
far it still has to go in tackling the problems.
In language reminiscent
of that used by Zimbabwean authorities to describe a
United Nations report
on the demolition of dwellings under the controversial
Murambatsvina
clean-up exercise, the South African government said:
"Embedded in (the)
discourse are ideological and value-laden propositions."
As their Zimbabwean
counterparts were reminded after Murambatsvina, it needs
to be pointed out
to the South Africans that by its very nature, undertaking
an evaluation of
any activity or process inherently involves making value
judgments.
The
panel ruffled feathers, particularly Mbeki's, with its comments on the
high
crime rate in South Africa, judicial reform, the treatment of illegal
immigrants, and the negative impact affirmative action has had in driving
whites out of the public service.
To the suggestion that parliament
should be granted more powers, the
government's curt response was: "What
stops parliament from exercising its
current powers more vigorously?"
Hopefully South African legislators have
taken note.
The panel's report
listed unemployment, violent crime and a growing gap
between the incomes of
the rich and poor as some of the problems with the
potential to threaten the
stability of the country.
All these issues should form the basis of candid
national debate on the way
forward instead of sparking a dispute between the
host government and the
reviewing panel.
Observers who are familiar with
Mbeki's idealism on HIV/AIDS as well as
crime are bound to conclude that his
government's reaction to its Peer
Review scorecard is exaggerated and
uncalled for.
mmakuni@fingaz.co.zw
FinGaz
Comment
IT is official: Zimbabwe is now in
hyperinflationary
mode, the state-run Central Statistical Office (CSO)
confirmed for the first
time.
Not that there
is anything new in the CSO's
validation of the obvious given that the market
had long suspected the
national statistical agency was being economical with
the true inflation
picture, a view amplified by the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) recently.
That, coming from the government
itself and not from
perceived enemies of the state, suggests the pendulum
has swung too far to
the other side and the unfolding economic carnage
cannot be ignored anymore.
Made famous in the 1930s
by pictures of Germans
pushing wheelbarrows full of banknotes to buy pints
of milk, hyperinflation
is defined in the Web dictionary as "the rapid,
out-of-control inflation, at
double-digit rates per month and more, usually
occurring during war times
and periods of severe political
instability".
Discounting war, a distant phenomenon
for Zimbabwe,
forecasts by the IMF contained in its world outlook for April
points to a
gloomier political environment ahead, more so, with the
harmonised elections
on the horizon. The Bretton Woods institution projects
the Consumer Price
Index, which ended the month of March at 2 200 percent,
to close the year at
2 879.5 percent, hitting 6 470 percent by December
2008.
To come out of the vicious inflation cycle,
Zimbabwe - a once prosperous agricultural-based economy now hitting the
headlines for the wrong reasons altogether - need not re-invent the wheel
although there are doubts whether the country's leadership still has what it
takes to clear the mess it created by doling out unbudgeted funds to war
veterans, the costly adventure into the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
the haphazard land reforms of 2000, among other
things.
While Zimbabwe's circumstances are peculiar
to her
situation, Bolivia provides an important template to draw lessons
from.
Emerging out of military rule and socialist romanticism, the South
American
state was soon to discover that halting inflation didn't require an
authoritarian government to institute far-reaching reforms encroaching on
civil liberties. Theirs was a three-pronged strategy focused on earning real
revenues without switching the printing press on. The economy was opened up
to international trade while the role of government was transformed to help
it regulate and create rules of the game, but not to control and
micro-manage the economy, as is the case in
Zimbabwe.
Faced with chronic devaluations spawning
frequent
price increases ahead of a crucial election, the United States
imposed price
controls in 1971, unprecedented in peace time and proceeded to
suspend the
convertibility of its currency into gold. The verdict was out
months later:
the controls failed as shortages became more acute while the
quality of
products plunged as a way to get around the
restraints.
Three decades down the line, this reality
holds true
for Zimbabwe. Faced with a poorly performing economy, a direct
result of
ill-advised populist policies, central government sought to put a
lid on
galloping prices by putting producers and manufacturers of basic
commodities
on the price stabilisation committee's
watch.
The carnage from the controls has been high
among
public utilities. Electricity monopoly ZESA is in the red because of
an
uneconomic pricing structure that has worsened the plight of consumers
instead of insulating them against spiralling electricity tariffs. The
National Oil Company of Zimbabwe is also reportedly surviving from hand to
mouth.
While the government has had to dig deeper
into its
coffers to rescue troubled state enterprises, companies in the
private
sector have not been so lucky. Despite the existence of a facility
for
distressed companies, industry players that have been lucky to survive
have
done so at the mercy of the banking sector.
Is it surprising, therefore, that little, if any,
investment has come into
the country?
Hyperinflation has caused events to move
faster than
the government had anticipated. Technically, price controls now
exist on
paper. To its "credit", the government has turned a blind eye to
the
unfolding reality playing out right under its nose, amid indications it
might have climbed down from the arrests of business executives fingered for
violating price controls. Who knows, with the looming elections, it might
resort to the heavy-handed tactic of effecting price controls in order to
win votes.
Among the institutions smelling the
coffee is the
agricultural ministry, which has moved to correct distortions
in the pricing
of wheat and the staple maize. Despite circumstances beyond
its control, the
central bank has made giant strides in correcting
distortions in the pricing
of the exchange rate via the cleverly structured
drought mitigatory fund.
True, price controls and
voluntary restraint being
advocated by parties to the social contract
negotiations cannot work unless
root causes have been dealt with
expeditiously. It is with this in mind that
the National Incomes and Pricing
Commission Bill before Parliament is doomed
before it comes on stream.
Unless the government starts to use sound
economic policies to muzzle
frequent price increases, it will continue
chasing
shadows.
Indeed, profiteering has become endemic in
Zimbabwe
but it doesn't come first, second, third or fourth on the list of
ills
plaguing the economy - it may come a distant last. At the apex of the
crisis
is arrogance and denial i.e. failure by the powers-that-be to accept
they
are their own worst enemies.
FinGaz
Matters Legal with Vote
Muza
IN keeping with the promise that I made last week, I shall attempt
in this
article to give an honest account of what I witnessed at the Harare
High
Court on May 8, 2007 after lawyers had gathered to protest against the
conduct of the Zimbabwe Republic Police.
On this day, I joined my
colleagues, not as pseudo-journalist with a mission
to later report on the
incident, but merely as a concerned lawyer whose sole
intention was to
register my displeasure as well as show solidarity with
fellow
practitioners. I am happy that most of what transpired, brief though,
happened before my own eyes and so unless otherwise indicated, hearsay shall
not the basis of this story.
On the fateful day word had quickly spread
that lawyers had to meet at the
High Court with an intention to present a
petition to the Minister of
Justice. Not just out of a willingness to be the
first on the scene, but
also because of the time keeping instincts in me, I
made sure that on the
stroke of lunch hour, I was already at the
rendezvous.
Being one of the first on the scene of the incident made me
notice that even
before the first group of lawyers had begun to gather, a
number of anti-riot
police officers were already waiting for us. These
numbered about a dozen.
Initially, they just milled around feigning lack of
interest, but their eyes
betrayed their anxiety.
President of the Law
Society of Zimbabwe, Beatrice Mtetwa, must have been
the first to arrive on
the scene. In a few moments, I saw lawyers trooping
in from all directions.
They came in different ages, sex and race. A few
notable first-comers were
Modecai Mahlangu, former president of the law
society, Misheck Hogwe, my
former teacher at law school, John Meyburg and
old Fitzpatrick, among a few
others.
As the number of lawyers began to increase threatening to outnumber
the
dozen or so anti-riot police already present, the situation began to get
a
bit tense. I could feel the tension in the air. The glares from the police
officers that had seemed friendly began to transform into threatening
ones.
Orders for the lawyers to disperse were issued, but half-heartedly.
"Move",
"disperse", "illegal" were barked randomly in varying tones by some
of the
anti-riot police officers. The lack of confidence by this first group
of
cops seems to have stemmed from their hidden fear, or respect for the
group
of lawyers who were elegantly dressed some, if not the majority, in
full
court regalia. These first orders were ignored and the lawyers
continued to
chat, talk and laugh. Our confidence mainly arose from the fact
that we had
gathered, not for a political meeting, but merely to register
our grievances
with the Minister responsible for Justice. We were not a
political
gathering. We saw no reason whatsoever why the police could be
offended by
our peaceful presence. In fact, my initial feeling was that the
police
officers whom we had found present had been there to provide an
escort for
our procession.
How wrong I was as events were soon to
prove!
Just as the number of lawyers began to increase, another group of
police
officers arrived dressed in full riot gear. With them was their
senior, a
big-bellied, short man driving a Peugeot 306. I could see by the
insignia on
his shoulders that he was either a superintendent or a chief
inspector. He
merely shouted that he was "the Officer Commanding Crime" for
Harare.
Not just bubbling with confidence, but manifesting clear arrogance
and
menace, he approached our president. Without exchanging any greeting,
but
eager to prove that he had come for business, he demanded that we all
disperse. His justification was that our gathering was illegal in terms of
the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). The lawyers found this absurd. A
small argument ensued between him and our president. Both groups watched
keenly as our two leaders indulged in a battle of words. I heard Beatrice
Mtetwa tell the policeman that there was nothing wrong with our meeting;
that it was not a political rally, that it was a peaceful protest and
therefore POSA did not apply in this case. She demanded any legal document,
a court order perhaps, that could bar us from indulging in our protest.
I
heard the policeman say that he had a "document". He quickly dashed to his
306, fumbled around, and suddenly re-appeared with a loud hailer. I saw him
strut towards us. Our group swarmed around him and became attentive. We all
wanted to hear what good or bad tidings he had for us.
Then the fateful
words: "This is an illegal gathering, meetings are banned,
if I say three
words, and you don't move, then will do what we do". The
emphasis placed on
the last five words starkly illustrated that the man
meant business. He
indeed went on to say the three words, which was a clear
signal to his
troops to do "what they do".
In no time, the police sprang into action. Just
then, I realised that half a
dozen other cops had been mingling with us in
plain clothes. Upon receiving
the signal, they suddenly pulled out
truncheons and baton sticks from
somewhere inside their clothes. I noticed
one bearded female plain-clothed
cop who looked really vicious. Cruelty was
written all over her face. She
exhibited more energy then most of male cops.
She barked orders, yelled,
To Page 34
From Page 18
pushed and struck.
In the melee, I saw her strike old Fitzpatrick viciously,
not caring about
the frailty and age of this lawyer. We split into two
groups. The larger
group headed towards Sam Nujoma Street and disappeared
into the Central
Business District.
The other smaller group led by the president headed
towards the Ministry of
Justice offices, a few metres away. I joined this
same group, but making
sure that I kept as much distance as I could between
my body and the
truncheons. It is this group that incensed the irate police
officers. They
saw us as directly challenging their powers.
From a
distance, I saw a large group of cops swarming over the lawyers,
raining
blows and some of the poor old victims were unable to escape due to
the
sheer force of the attack. Our president was beaten, old Fitzpatrick was
beaten, and Chris Mhike was also thrashed and bashed. I think I also saw
Modecai Mahlangu being violated. No one was arrested or taken to a police
station to be charged. Rather, and as now widely reported, our president and
a couple of other lawyers who included old Fitzpatrick were taken to an open
veld in Eastlea and in full public view, were heavily beaten while they lay
face down.
The nasty incident caused me pain and almost brought me to my
tears. Since I
could not take it anymore, I pulled off my gown, dashed into
my car and in a
sanguine mood and feeling sorry for our besieged profession,
drove to my
chambers.
Vote Muza is a legal practitioner with Gutu and
Chikowero. He can be
contacted on Email: gutulaw@mweb.co.zw
Website: www.gutulaw.co.zw
Zimbabwe needs a new civilisation
EDITOR -
During my many years in the diaspora, I have learned what I think
might
benefit our country.
I have learned that every civilisation has something
which you can point to
and say "If you understand that, you can understand
everything else about
their society."
If you go to India you can look at
their religious system; if you go to
America, you can look at their economy;
if you go to China you see their
educational and political system. If you go
shopping at Tottenham, London,
you can see their freedom of expression and a
functioning democracy.
If you then went to Zimbabwe at any one time and you
were with a foreigner,
and he said "Point me to the area by which I could
understand you", you
would, by common consent, say "The systematic absence
of the rule of law".
It's an odd thing to say isn't?
Each time people
discuss countries of their origin in public places, you
wish you could
disappear. If you had become a Zimbabwean legislator in
Ottawa, Paris or,
better still, in Johannesburg, you would reach a point
when you say
'sokwanele,' enough is enough, and start advocating for a
complete ban of
all such discussions in public places. You would be
compelled to do that not
because the subject does not accord with our
national or regional
socio-cultural characteristics, but because the whole
world discusses
Zimbabwe now, for all the wrong reasons.
We have been made a byword for
lawlessness. So, simplified, one would do
that with a view to preserve
decency until there is a change on our
political scene. As a people with a
growing predilection for a new
civilisation, characterised by a free society
and economic prosperity, we
can be inspired by the words of former British
Prime Minister, William Pitt,
who said in 1801: "Where the rule of law ends,
tyranny begins." Therefore,
folks, let us brace ourselves once again for
that epoch-making vote next
year. That vote has two main potentials, to
supplant the self-serving
tyranny discussed herein and to usher us into a
new Zimbabwe, full of milk
and honey. God bless Zimbabwe!
Innocent
Kadungure
Ottawa, Canada
------------
Don't bank on
Mbeki
EDITOR - Thabo Mbeki won't do anything to solve the
Zimbabwean crisis. He
can't be a mediator because he is President Mugabe's
best friend.
South Africa being an African super power should be using its
clout to rein
in President Mugabe but it seems Mbeki is just buying time for
his friend.
African countries cannot do much at the moment because the
mediator they
appointed is not doing anything.
At one time in Tanzania
Mbeki was quoted openly supporting President Mugabe.
Today he is attaching
conditions for the opposition in order to open up
negotiations. The MDC
should just ignore Mbeki's efforts and find a solution
to the
crisis.
Lovemore Maseko
Durban, South
Africa
------------------
Players bowled out?
EDITOR -
Is it true that the Zimbabwean cricket players have not been paid
for their
services at the World Cup? Has a full audit been carried out on
the
Zimbabwean Cricket board?
One would have to assume if the players are not
being paid they certainly
wouldn't be paying their top heavy management
wages.
Greg Ettridge
Australia
---------------
I prefer the
light
EDITOR - Before ZESA can embark on its potentially
disastrous 20-hour load
shedding stunt, they should have asked for feedback,
suggestions or
alternatives from those who will mostly be affected by this
thoughtless
action - the consumers.
My suggestion as a consumer is to ask
ZESA to start a programme of volunteer
load shedding. This would involve
ZESA hiking rates to market levels so that
they can raise the much-needed
funds to boost their generating capacity.
The volunteer part of this
programme comes in when those consumers who can't
afford the high rates will
force themselves to switch off their appliances
or use electricity only when
desperately necessary. What this means is that
those who can afford
electricity will then not be lumped with those who can't
pay. All ZESA has
to do is to have suggestion boxes in their banking halls
where consumers can
cast their votes. After all, you pay for what you use.
The bottom line is: if
electricity could be sold on the black market,
Zimbabweans would flock to
buy it. So hiking prices won't make a difference
to a nation that already
relies on black market prices for almost
everything.
Interestingly, a
packet of cooking gel costs about $40 000 in the
supermarket, and a packet
usually lasts for two to three days of cooking
only. Remember that most
households pay ZESA bills of around $40 000 per
month. The choice is now
between darkness and light. I prefer the light.
Tony
Namate
Harare
---------------
Replace senators with
chiefs
EDITOR - In my view, we have had too many
constitutional amendments in this
country. I have a suggestion, which if
implemented with sufficient
consultation, possibly taken to a referendum,
will improve our constitution
and make it really Zimbabwean.
I suggest we
do away with the present Senate and replace it with an
equivalent house
comprised of chiefs. These chiefs must be appointed or
elected according to
our customs. With all due respect, I further suggest
that the leader of
government be a prime minister, and we return to the
system of government
where we had a ceremonial president.
I further suggest that this ceremonial
president be a chief who is a member
of Senate/House of Chiefs. We can have
a mechanism by which the presidency
can rotate among the 10 provinces of the
country. Because of the proposed
roles of the chiefs, I further suggest that
the qualities expected in a
chief should be spelt out so as to ensure
performance in office.
For example, tertiary education might be made a
requirement. Other issues
that might need to be discussed relate to whether
the present provinces
reflect on the true Zimbabwe, or we may need to revise
it. The Senate/House
of Chiefs should be complemented with technocrats,
ex-combatants and other
icons of our liberation struggle. Maybe, even
representatives of major
political parties should be included in this
House.
Chiefs had better start looking for the real traditional regalia (not
the
hats etc they were issued by Ian Smith) to adorn when they attend
Senate/House of Chiefs. I also hope that the new Parliament /Senate building
projects soon to be embarked on takes all this into consideration. Ian
Smith's old parliament building should not be demolished but should remain
as a reminder of a painful past we should never return to. I am a
Zimbabwean.
Meanwhile, the word chief doesn't sound right and respectful
to me. Where
did it come from? One hopes the language experts attend to this
matter and
coin the right name for our madziMambo and madziShe before they
take their
rightful place as the rulers of this land. The British have their
Queen and
the Americans envy them for
that.
Shungu
Harare
------------
Readers
Forum
Sheer
madness!
EDITOR - I appreciate the
importance of wheat in
Zimbabwe and cannot imagine Zimbabwe importing wheat
when we have able
farmers to grow it. Most new wheat commercial farners have
been in business
for at least five years now. It is assumed that within
these five years they
have managed to get some rewards from their farming
activities.
It therefore baffles me that they fail to
buy
electricity generators to power winter wheat irrigation programmes. ZESA
cannot be allowed to reserve 20 hours of electricity to serve 2 000 farmers
at the expense of eleven million Zimbabweans.
We
have children in our homes who need to have a
warm breakfast every morning
before they go to school. Surely, ZESA can work
out some other intelligent
power sharing arrangement and not the proposed
20-hour blackouts. For
example, wheat farmers can pay their electricity
bills in foreign currency
to enable ZESA to import more electricity.
Rita
Masango
Chinhoyi
----------
MDC does not even have faith in
itself
EDITOR - Further scrutiny of Mr
Kadungure's response in
last week's Financial Gazette to my letter is
necessary. He says that "when
the MDC was formed in 1999, it sought
intervention in the region . . . " and
then "predominantly from South Africa
. . . ". Well, why did the MDC seek
such intervention from anyone at its
formation? Furthermore, why
"intervention" and not simply "invitation" to
witness the formation of the
party? What was the problem, which it found
necessary to resolve only with
outside intervention? Was any faith in
internal grievance-settlement
procedures totally lost? Were these the early
signs of a lack of faith in a
government that was black, or
whatever?
I would have thought that the MDC's troubles
began after
they lost the 2000 election and not in 1999, and these problems
possibly led
them to embark on a diplomatic mission (not an unreasonable
thing to do). So
then it means that there was no faith by the MDC in itself,
in what it was
forming. The issue of conducting discussions from Europe or
elsewhere is
trivial. It is what is discussed that is
important.
One is also left unsure as to what a "renewal of
democracy" means. So, democracy existed in Zimbabwe prior to when? And then
it needed renewal from what time/s? Further, Mr Mbeki "failed" to
"intervene" to reverse the"economic meltdown" and "glaring (political)
impasse".
Well, what is an "economic meltdown"? One can
guess but it
does sound too alarmist a term and an absolutely uncompromising
depiction of
an economy (it being in the nature of economies to experience
fluctuations,
not "meltdowns"). Silencing those "who dissent". Where is this
happening? I
would have thought that the troubles in Zimbabwe between the
governors and
the governed are coming from people holding meetings without
police
permission? And the people holding those meetings refusing to take
orders
from a government they do not accept. Well, if the police give
consent to a
meeting and then withdraw it without warning, resulting in a
skirmish, then
they are guilty of deliberately formenting violence and are
violating the
right to free assemble. Or is it the case that the police give
consent but
on further surveillance of the potential risks to public order,
decide to
cancel it, and the people become disappointed and decide to go
ahead all the
same?
The role of the leadership is to
clarify issues for the
crowd and not to let them expose themselves to
coercive action.
Mordecai Mutiswa
Betera
United Kingdom