Zim Online
Wednesday 22 November
2006
MASERU - Zimbabwe's unstable political and
economic environment
continues to cast a spooky shadow on efforts at
attaining deeper regional
integration in southern Africa.
The
country's deteriorating situation, marked by a seven-year-old
economic
crisis and rampant cases of human rights abuses, was again on the
menu as
ministers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) met
here
last week for regular consultations with their counterparts from the
European Union.
Diplomatic sources privy to the discussions,
held under the aegis of
the SADC-EU Ministerial Double Troika, said the
unresolved Zimbabwe question
returned to haunt the southern African leaders,
with the EU questioning the
region's seriousness at creating strong
democratic institutions.
Led by regional powerhouse, South Africa,
the SADC member states have
adopted a policy of "quiet diplomacy" under
which they have refused to
publicly condemn President Robert Mugabe's
repressive policies.
Western governments and Zimbabwean human
rights groups say quiet
diplomacy has only helped protect Mugabe from
criticism for stealing
elections and violating human rights.
"The EU openly showed its frustration with the lack of progress in
reining
in President (Robert) Mugabe and feel that the region can do more to
make a
difference in that country," said a senior SADC official who declined
to be
named because he was not authorised to disclose details of the
discussions
to the Press.
The source noted that there is growing frustration
with Zimbabwe
within SADC itself although regional leaders appeared still
unable to summon
enough courage to challenge the 82-year-old Zimbabwean
leader.
He said the EU challenged SADC to urgently find a solution
to the
crisis in Harare before the entire region is plunged into
chaos.
In a communiqué issued after the Maseru meeting, SADC
"indicated its
continuing support to Zimbabwe in finding solutions to
improve the situation
and underlined the need for continuous constructive
engagement with the
Republic of Zimbabwe."
The region is eyeing
a Free Trade Area by 2008 and a Customs Union two
years later, both of which
could remain pipe dreams as long as the situation
in Zimbabwe is not
normalised.
Both targets are premised on the attainment of
macroeconomic
convergence, including having single-digit inflation in two
years' time.
Zimbabwe's inflation rate is currently the highest in
the world at 1
072 percent in October. Analysts, including the International
Monetary Fund,
have
projected that the rate would go past the 4
000 percent mark by the
end of 2006. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 22 November
2006
MASVINGO - At least 15 opposition
polling agents in last month's rural
district elections in Bikita district
are in hiding after they were attacked
by war veterans who accused them of
causing ZANU PF's loss in the area.
ZANU PF trounced both factions
of the main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) in the elections
but lost five wards, among others
countrywide, in Bikita in the southern
Masvingo province.
The loss of the wards did not go down well with
the war veterans in
Masvingo triggering a backlash against the opposition
supporters.
Aaron Chiwore, one of the displaced polling agents told
ZimOnline
yesterday that the war veterans were beating up and harassing MDC
polling
agents in the area.
Narrating his ordeal, Chiwore said
"The war veterans came to my home
at night and threatened to set the whole
homestead on fire.
"They accused me of being a sellout and took
turns to beat me up in
front of my family. I left my home that very night
and up to now I am afraid
to go back because they might come
again."
Police in Masvingo confirmed that post-election violence
had gripped
Bikita district.
Officer commanding Masvingo
province Assistant Commisioner Charles
Makono said: "We have heard several
reports of political violence in the
district. At the moment no one has been
arrested, but investigations are in
progress."
The MDC and
human rights groups have often accused President Robert
Mugabe's ZANU PF
party of using the war veterans to beat up opposition
supporters to remain
in power.
ZANU PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira could not be reached
for comment
on the matter.
But the ruling party has in the past
rejected charges of political
violence against MDC supporters saying the
charges were trumped up to
tarnish the image of the government. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 22 November
2006
MASVINGO - Six police officers were on
Sunday arrested in Masvingo
town in southern Zimbabwe after they allegedly
seized fuel from illegal
dealers and later sold the commodity on the
thriving parallel market.
According to sources within the police in
Masvingo, the six whose
names could not be immediately verified, seized 200
litres of fuel from
illegal dealers on the Masvingo-Beitbridge
highway.
But instead of taking the fuel to the police station, the
police
officers freed the illegal dealers and mounted an illegal roadblock
during
the night where they were selling the commodity.
Officer
commanding Masvingo province, Assistant Commissioner Charles
Makono
confirmed the incident to ZimOnline yesterday.
"It is true that six
of our officers were arrested over the weekend
for selling seized fuel on
the black market. We are going to charge them
with corruption. They are
going to appear in court soon," said Ass
Commissioner Makono.
Zimbabwe has grappled a severe fuel crisis over the past six years
which has
seen most garages around the country going for weeks on end
without any
supplies.
But the commodity is readily found on the illegal
parallel market
where a litre is costing as much as Z$2 000, which is five
times more than
the official price.
Police officers are among
the lowest paid civil servants in Zimbabwe
with a junior officer earning
about $27 million a month, an amount which has
forced some police officers
to resort to crime to supplement their meager
salaries. -
ZimOnline
VOA
By
Blessing Zulu
Washington
21 November
2006
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono has continued
to face
questions about his institution's purchase of 70,000 tonnes of
sub-standard
fertilizer from an obscure South African company, dealing
another setback to
agriculture.
Parliament's committee on lands has
summoned Gono and Agriculture ministry
Permanent Secretary Simon
Pazvakavambwa to answer more questions. Gono was
recently called on the
carpet on the subject before Vice President Joyce
Mujuru and the National
Economic Recovery Council she chairs, and an
extraordinary cabinet meeting
presided over by President Robert Mugabe.
Following those two high-level
meetings, Gono declared he had satisfied the
cabinet and went on the
offensive, accusing unnamed cabinet members of
trying to smear him ahead of
the ruling ZANU-PF party's annual conference
next month.
Acting
Chairman Edward Mkhosi of the lands committe told reporter Blessing
Zulu of
VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that although Gono has been grilled at
the
highest levels, his committee is determined to get to the bottom of the
matter.
Though it is not yet clear how much damage to next year's
crops has been
caused by the fertilizer - some of which was distributed to
farmers -
founding president Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement
for
Democratic Change has predicted another failed harvest and blasted the
government for "corruption and inept planning."
Tsvangirai said the
country was witnessing a "classic case of bungling:
inadequate or fake seed,
sub-standard fertilizer, heavily subsidized fuel
which is being diverted to
the black market and shoddy preparations for the
(agricultural) industry's
revival." He said such mistakes in previous years
have led to current severe
food shortages.
Tsvangirai called on the Mugabe government to end the
political and economic
crisis with an overhaul of the constitution and a
round of free and fair
elections.
VOA
By
Carole Gombakomba & Chris Gande
Washington DC
21
November 2006
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe appears to have shot
itself in the foot in
moving last month to shut down money transfer
agencies. The interbank
foreign exchange market data show a 17.7% decline in
hard currency sales
from September to October, when they totaled US$13.5
million, and a 10.5%
fall in forex purchases to US$15.3
million.
Economists attribute this contraction in foreign exchange
trading volumes
within the Zimbabwean banking system to the crackdown on the
money transfer
agencies.
Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono ordered 16
transfer agencies to halt
operations early last month, accusing the private
companies of engaging in
"deviant behaviour" in directing funds from
Zimbabweans abroad into the
local currency black market.
Economist
Isaac Kwesu of the graduate school of management at the
University of
Zimbabwe told reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that
the closure of the transfer agencies along with a slump in the
value of the
Zimbabwe dollar and a dearth of foreign direct investment were
all factors
at play.
In Bulawayo, meanwhile, the availability of hard currency has
tightened for
another reason: ruling party youth militia known as the Green
Bombers have
launched an offensive against black market currency traders,
virtually
halting dealings.
The ZANU-PF militia have focused efforts
on a downtown area where forex
dealings are so common local residents call
it the World Bank.
Sources said the youth militia were being paid
generously by the central to
carry out the blitz - as as much as Z$150,000
or US$600 a week depending on
the work.
The Zimbabwe dollar,
meanwhile, has continued its freefall on the parallel
market and was last
trading around Z$180,000 to the U.S. dollar.
Reporter Chris Gande of
VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe interviewed a parallel
market currency trader in
Bulawayo who spoke on condition of anonymity.
VOA
By
Blessing Zulu
Washington
21 November
2006
Harare has given the World Food Programme and partner
humanitarian
organizations permission to resume distribution of food aid to
thousands of
Zimbabweans, officials said, but warned crippling fuel
shortages and
persistent rains could hold up relief.
A World Food
Program official confirmed that the United Nations agency has
received
clearance to expand its own programs in early December.
Aid manager
Wilfred Sikhukhula of the Consortium for Southern Africa Food
Security
Emergency, said Harare has notified his organization to start food
distribution in the hardest-hit areas in January. Core members of C-SAFE,
funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, include World
Vision, CARE, Catholic Relief Services and the Adventist Development and
Relief Agency, or ADRA.
In Zimbabwe, rural district council chairman
Andrew Ndebele of Chiredzi,
Masvingo, a southern province that traditionally
comes up short on food
production, also confirmed that barriers at various
levels of government to
aid distribution had been removed.
Those
include Gwanda and Insiza in Matabeleland South, Chiredzi and Gutu in
Masvingo Province, Uzumba-Maramba -Pfungwe and Mtoko in Mashonaland East and
Rushinga in Mashonaland Central.
Deputy Director Nyika Musiyazviriyo
of Christian Care, one of WFP's main
operating partners in Zimbabwe, told
reporter Blessing Zulu of VOA's Studio
7 for Zimbabwe that the government's
clearance of operations was a very
welcome development.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Local
groups calling for regime change, and willing to back any party with
strategy for removing Mugabe from power.
By David Ncube in
Bulawayo (AR No. 84, 21-Nov-06)
A deep, simmering bitterness
towards the ruling ZANU PF party is growing in
the Matabeleland, uniting the
local Ndebele people in a militant
determination to bring down President
Robert Mugabe and his government.
Political analysts in Bulawayo,
Matabeleland's biggest city, are warning
that the region is a time bomb,
which could detonate if Mugabe and his
Shona-dominated government remain in
power after the next presidential and
parliamentary elections scheduled for
2008 and 2010.
Analyst Jethro Mpofu told IWPR, "My fear is that, come
2008 or 2010, if
there is no satisfactory change that will give hope to the
people of
Matabeleland, I am afraid that
there will be a violent
explosion."
There is a growing sense of alienation in the region, in the
west and
south-west of the country, particularly among young people, some of
who
attend football matches wearing shirts bearing a picture of a raging
bull,
the old symbol of the former Zimbabwe African People's Union, ZAPU,
the
liberation movement founded by the late Dr Joshua Nkomo, a widely
revered
Ndebele.
Mpofu said it is the young people, more militant and
vocal than their
elders, who seem certain to resist another election won by
Mugabe - who has
been in power for more than 26 years - and his
party.
Tired of their region being neglected and lagging behind in
development,
several organisations representing the interests of the
minority Ndebele
people, who have never felt they fully belong to
independent Zimbabwe, have
mushroomed. The Ndebele, offshoots of the Zulu
people of South Africa,
constitute about 16 per cent of the 11.5 million
population of Zimbabwe: the
Shona, concentrated in the north and east,
account for about 70 per cent of
the population.
Some of the
organisations are calling for regime change and will back any
party that has
a strategy to remove Mugabe from power. Others want
Matabeleland to be an
independent state. Apart from what they see as the
Mugabe's government's
deliberate negligence of the region, they accuse the
head of state of having
attempted to exterminate its people during
widespread massacres in the 1980s
by his personal military hit squad, the
notorious North Korean-trained 5th
Brigade.
The 3500-strong 5th Brigade, made up entirely of men from
Mugabe's own Shona
ethnic group, massacred some 20,000 villagers and
tortured and assaulted
countless others in a ruthless crackdown on the
Ndebeles beginning in
January 1983. Mugabe said Operation Gukurahundi (a
Shona word meaning, "The
early strong rain that washes away the chaff before
the spring rains.") had
been necessary to weed out Ndebele dissidents who
wanted to topple him.
Political scientist Dr John Makumbe, a Shona and a
representative in
Zimbabwe of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency
International,
said, "They (the Ndebele) are now more militant and vocal
than ever before
because of the hardships they have been experiencing. The
whole country is
in trouble, but they feel that they are worse off. They
want to kick out the
government and Mugabe."
Makumbe, based in
Harare, added, "People in Matabeleland are more united and
can mobilise each
other more effectively than in any other parts of the
country. There is a
strong sense of coordination and mobilisation in
Bulawayo."
The
people of Matabeleland have never forgiven Mugabe for unleashing the 5th
Brigade on them from 1983 to 1985 during the Gukurahundi. They have long
memories of public executions, of people being forced to dig their own
graves before being shot, and of relatives being tipped down mine shafts by
the truckload. They remember Mugabe boasting, "We have degrees in violence";
and dismissing an Amnesty International report on the massacres as "a heap
of lies" from "Amnesty Lies International".
Early last month, ZANU
PF's information and publicity secretary Nathan
Shamuyarira, one of Mugabe's
closest colleagues, exacerbated this already
dangerous situation by saying
he has no regrets about the 5th Brigade's
atrocities. Having heard his
utterances, the people of Matabeleland feel
more betrayed than ever,
realising that Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African
National Union, ZANU,
colleagues remain unrepentant.
To stop the slaughter, Nkomo agreed that
his ZAPU movement be absorbed in
1987 into the then prime minister Mugabe's
ZANU. The result was ZANU PF
(ZANU Patriotic Front), in which all real power
remained with Mugabe's
Shona-dominated faction.
A former sergeant in
ZAPU's Zambia-based liberation guerrilla army, Max
Mnkandla, now president
of the Zimbabwe Liberators platform, founded by
liberation war fighters who
believe the ideals of independence have been
betrayed, said, "Because of
what Shamuyarira said, we are now openly going
for regime change. We are
going to support anyone that can unseat Mugabe."
Mnkandla, whose father
was killed by 5th Brigade soldiers, added, "That
Gukurahundi issue is
painful for most of us as it was a merciless struggle
by ZANU against
defenceless people with no army. We now intend referring
Shamuyarira to the
International Criminal Court in The Hague to be charges
with genocide and
other war crimes."
Felix Mafa, director of the Bulawayo-based Post
Independence Survival Trust,
a non-government organisation that gives
assistance to survivors of the
Gukurahundi massacres, said, "Shamuyarira
showed us that the old ZANU was
not repentant and Mugabe was also not
repentant. We now realise that the
statement Mugabe made when he said at
Joshua Nkomo's funeral that it [the
5th Brigade offensive] was 'a moment of
madness never to be repeated' was
nothing but a political
statement.
"If he was sincere, he would have said something, in the form
of an apology
for Shamuyarira's statement; but to date nothing has been
said. They are not
repentant."
Shamuyarira was asked at a public
meeting if he had any regrets about
Gukurahundi. He replied, "No, I don't
regret. They (the 5th Brigade) were
doing a job to protect the people ...
That's a situation that we would like
to put into history. It's not a fair
question to put to me. Why should I be
answering this 25 years
later?"
David Coltart, a human rights lawyer who defended ZAPU's
leadership,
including Nkomo, against charges of treason by Mugabe's
government during
Gukurahundi, said, "The statements by Shamuyarira indicate
that he is either
exceptionally callous or that he simply does not know what
happened in the
Midlands and Matabeleland areas during that time, because a
person with the
slightest clue of what happened would not make such reckless
statements."
Coltart recalled affidavits he had taken during Gukurahundi,
"Women spoke of
how their husbands, sons and relatives would be abducted or
simply gunned
down in cold blood. Others spoke of how their neighbours would
be herded
into huts, which would then be set in fire, while all village
people who
were in ZAPU leadership structures were killed."
But the
most worrying development for Mugabe is a devastating attack made
upon him
by his vice president, 83-year Joseph Msika, concerning
Gukurahundi. Enraged
by Shamuyarira's comments, Msika said he approached
Mugabe about his
attitude towards the events in Matabeleland in 1983-87 and
was not satisfied
by the answer he received. "When we asked him (Mugabe)
about the
disturbances, he apologised to me personally, but I was not
convinced," said
Msika, a ZAPU veteran who was appointed national vice
president following
his party's merger into ZANU PF.
Msika went further and said his old
friend and ZAPU colleague Nkomo was the
true father of Zimbabwe's
independence, not Mugabe. When Mugabe claimed to
be the one who launched the
liberation struggle, he was telling lies, said
Msika
Msika's attack
came late, more than two decades after the Matabeleland
killings, drawing
mixed reactions from the Ndebele people. Some applauded
him for standing up
and stating his views on the painful issue. Others said
that, just like the
late former justice minister Eddison Zvobgo, the ailing
Msika was seeking
forgiveness for his long silence from the people of
Matabeleland before he
dies.
Zvobgo, a Shona widely seen as a presidential candidate, earned
acclaim and
respect shortly before his death in 2004 when he publicly
apologised to the
victims of Gukurahundi and their families, confessing that
the memories were
giving him sleepless nights. As he was a senior member of
the ruling party,
it was widely assumed
that he was apologising on behalf
of all ZANU PF.
"I don't think Msika cares about what they [ZANU PF] will
do to him. He is
trying to make up with the people of Matabeleland by saying
he is on their
side. He is looking for redemption," said Dr
Makumbe.
Makumbe, however, said the people of Matabeleland should not be
fooled as
Msika has been enjoying the privileges of selling them out by
supporting
Mugabe for the past two decades.
He said it was almost
irrelevant for Msika to be speaking out now. Makumbe
said Msika should have
used his position as vice president to influence the
government to give the
Gukurahundi dead dignified burials and to compensate
the victims and their
families. He should have also demanded that Mugabe
publicly apologise to
them.
The Survival Trust's Mafa disagreed. He said Msika should be
applauded for
his statements. "Msika has been disturbed by Gukurahundi and
he wanted to
put the record straight," he said. "Unfortunately it is too
late but he must
still be applauded for that. Msika was angered by
Shamuyarira and he has
shown that he is prepared to be fired by Mugabe for
those statements."
Analyst Jethro Mpofu commented, "Our government is a
government of secrets.
A lot has been eating at Msika throughout his entire
political career. His
statement is a political death wish, something that
has been eating at him
which he needed to say out in the open."
The
Zimbabwe Liberators' Mnkandla said Msika had now come to his senses,
clearly
feeling the need to put his views on the public record before he
dies.
Msika, together with a handful of other former ZAPU leaders,
have been
widely accused of betrayal of the Ndebele people since they signed
the 1987
post-Gukurahundi Unity Accord that created ZANU PF. Over the past
two
decades they have been steadily losing the support of Matabeleland's
people.
Effie Mazilankatha-Ncube, executive director of the Matabeleland
Empowerment
Services Association, a regional self-help association, said in
a letter
published in the weekly Standard that former ZAPU leaders from
Matabeleland
who had accepted lucrative posts in Mugabe's ZANU PF hierarchy
"are no
different from ancient colonial governors who represented British
interests
in our country ... (They) are hostages and they know
it."
Mpofu concurred, describing the former ZAPU leaders as "colonial
constables". He went on, "They were watchdogs of Mugabe instead of
representing the people of Matabeleland. They represent Mugabe not us and
they will never win in Matabeleland."
The unity accord was signed
reluctantly by Nkomo on December 22, 1987 to
spare further Ndebele loss of
life at the hands of the 5th Brigade. It
followed police raids on Nkomo's
home ordered by the then police minister
Enos Nkala, a man known for his
abiding hatred of the ZAPU leader and his
movement. Nkomo's aides and
bodyguards were arrested along with several
hundred ZAPU officials
elsewhere. Nkomo lashed back, "We accused former
colonisers who used
detention without trial as well as torture and yet do
exactly what they did,
if not worse. We accused whites of discrimination on
grounds of colour and
yet we have discriminated on political and ethnic
grounds."
But Nkala
was not deterred. He banned all ZAPU rallies and meetings and
ordered the
closure of all ZAPU offices. All ZAPU-controlled district
councils were
dissolved.
Nkomo was eventually ground down and acceded to the unity
accord - but to
this day it is viewed by a majority of Ndebeles as mainly
benefiting the
elite from both the Shona and Ndebele ethnic groups. They
contend that unity
has not benefited them in any way except for stopping the
killings by
Mugabe's military. "The unity accord was a non-event," said
Mnkandla. "We
don't want to see or hear anything about [it]. They are just
words that
don't represent anything. We don't want to celebrate that holiday
(the
anniversary of the accord) on December 22: they should actually scrap
it
from the holiday calendar. Who is it benefiting? Certainly not the people
of
Matabeleland."
Nineteen years after the 1987 accord, Matabeleland
still believes it sits on
the sidelines. The lingering impact of Gukurahundi
on the region is
indelible. The bitterness against the government
unambiguously manifests
itself at election time. Matabeleland remains the
only region where ZANU PF
cannot claim a rural support base. Now Shamuyarira
may find he has thrown
petrol on an already smouldering fire with
unpredictable consequences for
the Zimbabwean state.
David Ncube is
the pseudonym of an IWPR contributor in Zimbabwe.
IOL
November 21 2006 at
02:36PM
Harare - Iran and Zimbabwe "think alike" and "should fight
against
Western superpowers and their evil systems," President Robert Mugabe
was
quoted as saying on Tuesday.
The Zimbabwean leader, who is
on a four-day state visit to Iran aimed
at bolstering political and business
ties, said his country and Iran had to
come together and work out
"mechanisms for defending ourselves," according
to Zimbabwe's
state-controlled Herald newspaper.
Iran and Zimbabwe have been
labelled "outposts of tyranny" by US
Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice.
But Mugabe - who proudly describes Iran as a great friend -
dismissed
the accusation saying that "only God can
judge."
"Some people who regard themselves as
demigods say we belong to the
axis of evil. Who are they to judge us?"
Mugabe said shortly before holding
closed-door talks with his Iranian
counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on
Monday.
State media in
Zimbabwe say that the southern African country and Iran
are both being
vilified by Britain and the United States, Zimbabwe because
of its
controversial land reform programme and Iran because of its nuclear
enrichment programme.
The defiant Zimbabwean president said
Iran and Zimbabwe had to put up
a fight against US President George W Bush
and British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, whom he described as evil men,
according to the Herald.
In 2000 Zimbabwe launched a controversial
programme of seizing
white-owned farms for redistribution to new black
farmers. The programme has
slashed agricultural production, plunging
Zimbabwe into its worst economic
crisis since independence in
1980.
Zimbabwe's Mugabe has been urging his countrymen to look at
alternative markets for Zimbabwean products as his government becomes
increasingly isolated from former Western trading partners.
Britain, the US and the European Union have all imposed travel
restrictions
on Mugabe and his associates as well as an arms embargo over
perceived
rights abuses and unfair elections.
Western countries accuse Iran
of wanting to enrich uranium to produce
material for nuclear weapons, but
Teheran insists the programme is purely
for energy purposes.
Speaking on Monday, the Iranian leader described Mugabe as a
prominent,
influential and just leader, a person who loves freedom, a
freedom fighter,
the Herald said.
"We do not condone US and British hegemony. We
have good co-operation
to do away with this control," Ahmadinejad was quoted
as saying before a
state banquet hosted in Mugabe's honour. -
Sapa-dpa
By Violet Gonda
21 November 2006
The wholesale looting of
Zimbabwe's steel making company ZISCO has
shown how the ruling elite is
destroying Zimbabwe's assets, along with the
country. At one stage ZISCO was
a major foreign currency earner but senior
government officials are among
the many who have plundered the company.
Journalist Dumisani Muleya says the
company is operating below 30%, as it
has been a victim of extended gross
mismanagement and looting by public
officials who have been raiding it since
1980.
He said; "It's a company that is almost a billboard of the
incompetence and the corruption that has characterised the ZANU PF regime
since it came to power."
A confidential report compiled by the
National Economic Conduct
Inspectorate linked Vice-president Joyce Mujuru
and co-Vice-President Joseph
Msika in the corruption scandal. According to
Muleya the report says Mujuru
was paid US$11 000 as allowances by ZISCO
subsidiary in Botswana,
Ramotswa/Tswana Iron & Steel, on October 4 2003.
She also received 30 000
litres of fuel from ZISCO for her celebrations
after she was elected
vice-president in 2004.
Although the
report also named Msika, supporting documents as to
whether he got something
or not were not available to the investigation
team. Other beneficiaries
named include Higher Education Minister Stan
Mudenge and Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa, although documents were also
not made available to
investigators.
Prominent cabinet Ministers Samuel Mumbengegwi, Olivia
Muchena and
Sithembiso Nyoni are also mentioned in the report as some of
those who could
have benefited from the generous handouts from the
government-owned company.
Names repeatedly mentioned are also those
involved in the management
of the company, including former managing
director Dr Gabriel Masanga.
The systematic looting of the public
asset extended beyond the borders
of Zimbabwe and included Botswana, South
Africa and Asia.
The journalist said that corruption has created a
situation in which
the company is hardly a viable entity, certainly in
comparison to the levels
of operation during the Rhodesian era when it
helped sustain the Rhodesian
war. But because of the extended period of
looting it is now a pale shadow
of its former self.
Muleya who
has written several articles exposing this major scandal
said this is one
example of how parastatals, including the Zimbabwe
Electricity Supply
Authority, the National Railways of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe
United Passenger
Company "are victims of gross mismanagement and corruption
and clearly a
result of the corporate culture that was created by the
current government."
He said general incompetence and inefficiency were the
order of the
day.
It's reported the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe tried to deal with
the
ZISCO problem by pumping in trillions of Zimbabwean dollars but
authorities
soon discovered that this would not help unless there was a
complete
overhaul of those structures.
It now waits to be seen
what the Mugabe government is going to do with
the culprits, as the findings
of the NECI report has put the regime in the
spotlight.
Meanwhile speculation is rife that Minister Obert Mpofu may become a
casualty of the ZISCO scandal as he faces impeachment for lying in
parliament under oath. ZISCO falls under Mpofu's Ministry of Trade and
Industry.
The full interview with Dumisani Muleya can be heard
on the programme
Hot Seat Tuesday.
SW Radio
Africa Zimbabwe news
New Zimbabwe
By
Staff Reporter
Last updated: 11/21/2006 12:11:48
ZIMBABWE'S education
ministry had a budget deficit of $5 billion this year
due to high
expenditure, the latest parliamentary report obtained Monday
said.
In
its first report on the ministry's budget performance, the Parliamentary
Portfolio Committee on Education Sport and Culture said: "The committee was
informed that even after receiving the additional funding from the
supplementary budget, the ministry still had a budget deficit of $5
billion.
"By and large, the committee noted that the expenditure pattern
of the
Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture was characterised by high
expenditures, well above 50 percent target to June 2006."
The
committee said the high expenditure was partly a result of the
prevailing
hyperinflationary environment.
"As a result of the budgetary constrains,
the ministry failed to achieve its
targets during the first six months of
the 2006 financial year. The total
half year expenditure stood at 81 percent
of the total 2006 allocation," the
parliamentary committee
added.
Zimbabwe's education system, once hailed as one of the best in
Africa, has
been crumbling under the weight of a failing
economy.
With the economy shrunk by more than a third in eight years in a
crisis
blamed on President Robert Mugabe's policies and unemployment at 80
percent -- many students have dropped out of school as parents can no longer
afford the fees.
An average 200,000 school leavers join the job
market yearly but a quarter
of Zimbabwe's 12 million people -- including
many skilled workers -- have
been forced to seek a living abroad.
21 November 2006
PRESIDENT TSVANGIRAI REFLECTS ON THE STATE OF
AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY
AS THE FARMING SEASON BEGINS
Fellow
Zimbabweans, we approach another farming season with uncertainty over
our
food security needs. The rains are already with us, but corruption and
inept
planning shall see another failed season following a systematic
destruction
of the agriculture sector that has led to a sustained economic
meltdown.
Despite promises of a good rainy season, what we are witnessing
is classic
case of bungling: inadequate or fake seed, sub-standard
fertilizer, heavily
subsidized fuel which is being diverted to the black
market and shoddy
preparations for the industry's revival. A fall start
always leads to
another disaster.
The same lacklustre approach was
evident last year and as a result an
estimated three million people are
short of food today. A disastrous
beginning always ends in a national
failure. Our wheat crop could easily be
reduced to waste due to shortages of
working combine harvesters, spares and
proper planning.
Food shall remain
scarce and prices beyond reach out of our failure as a
country to meet our
traditional production targets. The sad story rests on
the chaotic land
reform programme, which saw land use decline by significant
margins and
output reduced by more than half of the previous records.
As long as Robert
Mugabe and Zanu PF skirt around an obvious political
problem, our prospects
for a meaningful turnaround remain poor. The collapse
of agriculture has
affected all sectors of our economy leading to losses of
jobs, reduced
export earnings, power and fuel rationing, weak investor
confidence, poor
tax revenues and a sharp fall in social services.
Once a net exporter of
food, our nation's plight has been worsened by
expensive food imports and
serious shrinkages in the basket of basic
commodities. Every family is at
risk because of seven years of continuous
disruptions in commercial
agriculture and a deliberate onslaught on property
rights.
As inflation
gallops to levels never seen in Africa before, even in
countries at war,
attention seems to be directed at the symptoms of the
deeper political
malaise resulting in serious economic distortions and a
determined flight
of local and international confidence.
Farming is a business and is better
performed when land is seen as economic
asset than a status symbol. The
state lacks the capacity to engage in
productive commercial farming.
What
happened to the huge estates run by the Agricultural and Rural
Development
Authority in Middle Save, Muzarabani, Sanyati, Kondozi and other
productive
areas shows that commercial farming is better left to serious
investors and
farmers capable of making sense out of an economic mixture of
science,
capital and expertise to produce food for the nation.
The meddling influence
of the Mugabe regime in input procurement and
disbursement, farm management
and crop and livestock production dynamics is
a perfect route towards a
perennial state of food insecurity in Zimbabwe.
History is replete with
examples of failed experiments with agriculture when
partisan interest
groups, especially the military and a political party
militia, are pushed -
out of political expediency -- into a sector they know
nothing about and are
expected to produce food for the nation. Their
reluctance to stay on the
ground and their lack of farming expertise lead to
corruption, crop failures
and a drain the little currency available, through
food imports.
The
state can print as much money to dole out to these groups in the form of
support but that process shall never deliver a basket of grain. Many are
already crying out for food hand-outs!
Our communal farmers, for many
years a shining example of maize producers,
have been abandoned. There seems
to be an excessive political focus of the
so-called new farmer - a Zanu PF
created a new community with no known
interest or knowledge of agriculture.
This group perpetually looks to the
state for their loot, rewards and
accolades, unlike the communal farmers
whose track record - even under arid
conditions - is beyond debate.
Many of our rural areas are impassable due to
poor roads; the communal
farmers lack essential support and inputs; the
state of our communal lands
resemble a nation at war, their service centres
are now empty shells totally
unable to support any meaningful economic
activity in the rural areas.
The former commercial farms are slowly being
turned into zones of
inappropriate activities - the so-called new farmers
resorting to poaching,
deforestation and gold panning in order to
survive.
Given our experience during the last seven years, may I commend the
people
for their resilience during the most trying times? The humanitarian
emergencies before the nation are daunting.
We must do everything in our
power to save Zimbabwe. With the lowest life
expectancy rate in the world,
the number of orphans in our homes is a major
source of worry.
Without
access to food and drugs, the situation in most of our homes -
compounded by
a runaway HIV/Aids pandemic -- has reached unacceptable and
dangerous
levels.
We owe it to our children to resolve the national crisis speedily and
to
cast away our current pariah status in the eyes of the international
community. We need food, jobs, medical drugs and a good education system for
their children.
The people of Zimbabwe want to live well, with an
affordable way of life. We
maintain our position that we can only reclaim
our respect, at home and
abroad, if we deal with the nagging political
questions and disputes in our
midst. We must move as one people towards a
way out of the political crisis
in order to set a base for recovery,
reconciliation and national healing.
We believe a new Constitution and an
environment that shape the future and
allow for free and fair elections
shall provide the key to a lasting
resolution of the crisis and open doors
to the creation of a respectable and
accountable government.
We remain
convinced that we must organise ourselves and put pressure on the
regime to
respect the power of the people. We have to fight for our rights
and improve
our food sources and food security.
I look forward to working with all
Zimbabweans to build a better life for
them and their families: to make
Zimbabwe once again one of the richest
countries in Africa where every young
person has a job, where every child
has plenty to eat, where every family
can look to having their own home,
where every old person can have quality
health care - working together we
can and will save Zimbabwe.
To those in
Zanu PF and in the military who still believe in a free and
prosperous
Zimbabwe, it is important to realise that political insurance and
progress
depends on an environment that enjoys national acceptance and
national
support.
We fought against colonialism to stop a few with privileges from
exploiting
the national cake at the expense of the majority. The continued
segregation
of the people through political patronage ad a selective
allocation of
scarce resources cannot be sustained.
The liberation
struggle sought to bring about a new Zimbabwe. That national
project was
anchored on a need for a foundation of equality - in which our
country
provides shelter and care for all women, men and children who live
there,
with equal access to justice, to public goods and services, and to
economic
opportunity and resources, and where no unlawful discrimination
shall be
accepted.
We believe in the unity of our people. We understand the folly of
separate
development and are conscious of the consequences of
inequality.
Given the current damage and its implications on family
relations, we
believe it is important for our nation to heal its wounds and
re-build for
the future, recognising that what binds us is far greater than
what divides
us, celebrating our diversity and differences as individuals
and as
communities, and with a common resolve to institute safeguards to
ensure
that never again will our dignity be undermined by any one person or
political party.
May I re-state our desire for a Zimbabwe that cherishes
good governance,
compassion, solidarity, peace, security and respect for
women, men and
children.
I wish to reaffirm our subscription to the
principle of sustainable
development grounded in prosperity, quality of life
and community stability.
As soon as we deal with our political problems, the
revival of sustainable
agriculture -- as the mainstay of economy and
livelihood -- must be starting
point in our efforts to kick-start the
economy.
Morgan Tsvangirai
President.
People's Daily
Zimbabwe will receive 70 tons of DDT to strengthen
its ongoing
programs to combat malaria, The Herald reported on
Monday.
Everisto Njelesani, representative of the World Health
Organization(WHO)to Zimbabwe, was quoted as saying that 60 tons would be
shipped in from Mauritius while the rest will come from South
Africa.
Njelesani said his organization was impressed by the
Zimbabwean
government's commitment in the fight against malaria, one of the
major
killers in the country.
"We believe the government of
Zimbabwe has the capacity to fight this
killer disease," he
said.
Njelesani said in the past, DDT received negative publicity
owing to
unsatisfactory handling and disposal of its waste. "It is pleasing
to note
that Zimbabwe has overcome this barrier and both the United Nations
Environment Programme and the WHO are convinced by the country's program,"
he said at a ceremony to launch the SADC Malaria Week in the southern
Zimbabwean city of Beitbridge.
He said the idea of
reintroducing the use of indoor residual spraying
in both stable and
unstable areas was reaffirmed at the Durban International
Convention Center
by health ministers of the Southern African Development
Community(SADC).
Njelesani said the WHO would continue
supporting such efforts, urging
SADC members to work together in addressing
health issues affecting the
region.
Source: Xinhua
IOL
November 21 2006
at 12:54PM
Johannesburg - Zimbabwe will amend its constitution to
make provision
for a human rights commission, Harare's Herald newspaper
reported on
Tuesday.
Its website quoted secretary for justice,
legal and parliamentary
affairs David Mangota as saying consultations to
this end were underway.
"The idea is to create an organ which will,
in the main, satisfy in a
broad sense all parties whose duty it is to
protect and promote the rights
of the country's people whatever their
station in life may be."
The envisaged commission would enhance, in
a large way, the work of
the ombudsman, whose office investigated violations
of people's rights.
"Like the office of the ombudsman, which is
established in terms of
the constitution, this will be an independent
institution, which is not
subject to the control or direction of
Government," said Mangota.
In the eyes of the
international community, Zimbabwe has a an
appalling human rights
record.
Government actions that evoked wide condemnation included
the
demolition of informal settlements around Harare which left thousands of
people homeless and destitute. - Sapa
afrol News, 20 November -
For eight consecutive years, Zimbabwe deliberately
refused to submit its
state party report on human rights to the Banjul-based
African Commission on
Human and People's Rights (ACHPR). In a surprising
mood, Zimbabwe tabled its
human rights before commissioners, who are
currently attending the 40th
session of the commission in the Gambian
capital.
But according to
news leaks from Banjul, the human rights commissioners -
who described the
report as "vehement and unapologetic", as Harare is on
course to defend its
appalling human rights records - decided to embargo the
report from being
discussed or criticised.
The Zimbabwe government had wished the report to
be dealt with by the Banjul
session but furious commissioners decided it
should be kept for the 41st
session, which takes place in July next
year.
According to informed sources, there had been attempts to smuggle
the late
report to be among the agenda but commissioners detected the
plan.
The report was embargoed to the press but some of its details had
leaked.
And according to sources in Banjul, the Zimbabwe government insists
that the
present economic crisis is caused by the sanctions imposed by the
Western
world. Consequently, it therefore argued that the violations of
rights have
been precipitated by the abnormal situation Harare authorities
had faced.
The government of President Robert Mugabe has been grilled by
Western
countries for its frequent gross violations of the rights of its
people,
particularly its opponents who face torture, arbitrary arrests and
detentions.
Zimbabwe bears the full brunt of its human rights abuses,
alleged stealing
of elections and the controversial seizure of white-owned
farmland that were
redistributed to the landless blacks. These actions
prompted not only a
floodgate of condemnations, but they also forced the
European Union, United
States, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, among
others to impose economic
and visa sanctions on President Mugabe and his
senior officials.
Since 1998, Zimbabwe has refused to file its annual
human rights reports to
the continental commission, which forms part of the
African Union (AU)
structure. It is mandatory for African countries to
submit their annual
reports to the AU's commission for discussion and
recommendation.
The Director of policy in Zimbabwe's Ministry of Justice,
Margaret Chiduku,
confirmed that her government had finally ended its snub
of the African
Commission, although she failed to explain why it took her
country so long
to act this way. "I am happy to report that we have
submitted our combined
state party report since 1998 to the ACHPR and we
await to hear from the
commissioners," she told
'ZimOnline'.
Zimbabwean right activists stormed the Banjul session to
submit dossiers of
human rights abuses by their government. They made
specific reference to the
illegal detention and torture of the country's
labour union leaders in
September.
The legal officer of the Zimbabwe
chapter of the Media Institute of Southern
Africa, Wilbert Mandinde,
welcomed Harare's submission of its combined state
party reports since 1998.
"The eight year delay is a cause for concern," Mr
Mandinde
noted.
By staff writer
© afrol News
AND
November 21,
2006
By Makusha Mugabe
The SADC chairman, Lesotho
Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, with
support from South Africa has
initiated a process which will see Zimbabwe
brought before the
organisation's Organ on Politics, Defense and Security
for retarding the
regions development through economic mismanagement.
HARARE -
Pressure from the international community and activists, and
the negative
effect that Zimbabwe is having on economic development in the
Southern
African region have combined to force the regional block to finally
start
taking action against the Mugabe regime.
The decision by the new
Southern African Development Community (SADC)
chairman to dispatch a
Ministerial Action Group to Harare for an official
report evoked furious,
even panic reactions from the ruling Zanu (PF) party.
Lesotho Prime
Minister Pakalitha Mosisili's decision, with the
blessing of South Africa
and probably Botswana will be most damaging in that
it raises the prospect
of the Zimbabwe crisis being put on the agenda of the
SADC Organ on
Politics, Defence and Security (OPDS).
By implication, according to
diplomatic sources, the move to have the
Zimbabwe crisis on the agenda of
the OPDS means the country has now been
classified by SADC as a failed state
which has become a threat to regional
economies and peace - a position which
has obvious to the rest of the world
but one which the SADC had hitherto
turned a blind eye to.
Reports that South African President Thabo Mbeki
has endorsed the
indictment of Harare by the SADC have stunned and prompted
Foreign Minister
Simbarashe Mumbengegwi to hurriedly demand an explanation
for the marked
departure from Mbeki's quiet diplomacy.
Accumulating
evidence of economic damage across the region,
highlighted by the South
African Rand's fall, may finally have convinced
regional
leaders.
South Africa's deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad
last week
confirmed that a team of SADC leaders has now been mandated to
deal with the
deepening crisis in Zimbabwe.
He said a three-member
SADC delegation would be dispatched to Harare
on a fact-finding mission,
after which they will spell out their assessment
to an emergency summit of
regional Heads of State.
While Pahad did not state which countries
would comprise the
delegation, diplomatic sources said previous SADC
chairman and Botswana
President Festus Mogae, South African President Thabo
Mbeki and the current
SADC chair Mosisili have been tasked with dealing
specifically with the
Zimbabwe crisis.
SADC leaders stayed
discussions on Zimbabwe at their last meeting of
Head of States in Maseru,
Lesotho last August saying they wanted to give a
chance to an initiative by
former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa to
resolve the crisis.
President Robert Mugabe reportedly stormed out of that meeting after
being
told that Zimbabwe was now an impediment to investment in the region,
but it
was Mosisili who covered up for him saying Mugabe had gone away
because he
was tired.
But this has also led diplomats to believed that
Mosisili is taking
the unusually tough line against Mugabe because he
genuinely believes Mugabe
should rest as he was quoted saying "he is not a
young man, is over 80 and
surely the old man is slowing down."
The
rest of the region hopes to take advantage of firming commodity
prices and
the New Economic Partnership for Development (Nepad) offered by
the US to
develop their economies, but Zimbabwe is looking East to the
Chinese and the
Middle East while dragging the rest of the countries down.
The SADC
countries are moving towards a customs union by 2010 in the
hope of
attracting more investment to the region as a bloc, with Mosisili
obviously
recognising that Zimbabwe was dragging the region down.
Hw was
quoted saying he does not want the region to be judged on the
actions of one
member. "We should not be seen in the light of just the one
member state out
of 14, (so) that people will use that as a pretext not to
invest in our
region because one member of the family is unacceptable to
them."
But even then Zimbabwe's poor economic performance would
dilute the
region's key economic indicators.
"The situation in that
country is of concern to SADC precisely because
Zimbabwe was the second
strongest economy in the community and for its
economy to have declined to
levels (at which it has) is of major concern to
us," Mosisili said.
US ambassador to Zimbabwe Chris Dell recently told ChangeZimbabwe that
President Mbeki could be changing tack after realizing the failure of South
Africa's policy toward Mugabe's "increasingly despotic rule."
Dell
said South Africa, which has been granted a non-permanent seat in
the UN
Security Council, could play a more important role in informing
international opinion on Zimbabwe's worsening crisis.
He said US
foreign policy on Zimbabwe would not change despite the
shift in the balance
of power in congress, from the Republicans to the
Democrats, following the
US legislative poll last week.
"If anything the US government will
actually step up pressure on the
Mugabe administration to adhere to good
governance," Dell said.
Human rights activists in London have also
publicly castigated the
South African Foreign Minister Dr. Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma for Her government's
inaction on Zimbabwe, and the South
African Ambassador to Zimbabwe was also
publicly embarrassed about the
situation in Zimbabwe. www.changezimbabwe.com
Published:
21-NOV-06
Addis Ababa - About 60 percent of Sub-Saharan Africans would
not have access
to electricity by 2020, according to the director for energy
and water at
the World Bank.
Jamal Saghir said: "What we are seeing
is basically an energy crisis."
Energy was quickly being pushed up
Africa's development agenda as poor
planning, mismanagement, natural
disasters, growing demand and erratic
investment stifled growth rates across
the continent.
Saghir added that average electricity access of 25 percent
was getting
worse. "Not only is Africa lagging behind other regions but, in
recent
years, the access gap has been widening."
He said that low
water tables and the slow pace at which new generating
capacity was being
developed only aggravated the crisis.
An indication as to how severe the
problem was a report by Tanzania's
Economic and Social Research Foundation
found that power generation capacity
needed to be doubled within the next 10
years, while Nigeria's population,
treble that of South Africa, only has a
tenth of its supply and even South
Africa was struggling at times to make
ends meet.
In Ghana, Uganda and Zimbabwe, power cuts and rationing have
become fairly
common and Saghir believes that the $2bn a year the sector
received from
international institutions needed to be doubled to increase
access rates to
35 percent by 2015.
What made matters more serious
was that a shortage of supply was quickly
pushing up power tariffs, thereby
making it more difficult for those who
were actually connected to pay for
services. -Business in Africa Online
Joint Press Release
WHO/UNAIDS
21 November 2006
New data also show HIV
prevention programmes getting better results if
focused on reaching people
most at risk and adapted to changing national
epidemics
Geneva,
21 November 2006 - The global AIDS epidemic continues to grow
and there is
concerning evidence that some countries are seeing a resurgence
in new HIV
infection rates which were previously stable or declining.
However, declines
in infection rates are also being observed in some
countries, as well as
positive trends in young people's sexual behaviours.
According to
the latest figures published today in the UNAIDS/WHO 2006
AIDS Epidemic
Update, an estimated 39.5 million people are living with HIV.
There were 4.3
million new infections in 2006 with 2.8 million (65%) of
these occurring in
sub-Saharan Africa and important increases in Eastern
Europe and Central
Asia, where there are some indications that infection
rates have risen by
more than 50% since 2004. In 2006, 2.9 million people
died of AIDS-related
illnesses.
New data suggest that where HIV prevention programmes
have not been
sustained and/or adapted as epidemics have changed-infection
rates in some
countries are staying the same or going back up.
In North America and Western Europe, HIV prevention programmes have
often
not been sustained and the number of new infections has remained the
same.
Similarly in low- and middle-income countries, there are only a few
examples
of countries that have actually reduced new infections. And some
countries
that had showed earlier successes in reducing new infections, such
as
Uganda, have either slowed or are now experiencing increasing infection
rates.
"This is worrying-as we know increased HIV prevention
programmes in
these countries have shown progress in the past-Uganda being a
prime
example. This means that countries are not moving at the same speed as
their
epidemics," said UNAIDS Executive Director Dr Peter Piot. "We need to
greatly intensify life-saving prevention efforts while we expand HIV
treatment programmes."
HIV prevention works but needs to be
focused and sustained
New data from the report show that increased HIV
prevention programmes
that are focused and adapted to reach those most at
risk of HIV infection
are making inroads.
Positive trends in
young people's sexual behaviours-increased use of
condoms, delay of sexual
debut, and fewer sexual partners-have taken place
over the past decade in
many countries with generalized epidemics. Declines
in HIV prevalence among
young people between 2000 and 2005 are evident in
Botswana, Burundi, Côte
d'Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and
Zimbabwe.
In
other countries, even limited resources are showing high returns
when
investments are focused on the needs of people most likely to be
exposed to
HIV. In China, there are some examples of focused programmes for
sex workers
that have seen marked increases in condom use and decreases in
rates of
sexually transmitted infections, and programmes with injecting drug
users
are also showing progress in some regions. And in Portugal, HIV
diagnoses
among drug injectors were almost one third (31%) lower in 2005,
compared
with 2001, following the implementation of special prevention
programmes
focused on HIV and drug use.
Addressing the challenges: Know your
epidemic
In many countries, HIV prevention programmes are not reaching
the
people most at risk of infection, such as young people, women and girls,
men
who have sex with men, sex workers and their clients, injecting drug
users,
and ethnic and cultural minorities. The report outlines how the issue
of
women and girls within the AIDS epidemic needs continued and increased
attention. In sub-Saharan Africa for example, women continue to be more
likely than men to be infected with HIV and in most countries in the region
they are also more likely to be the ones caring for people infected with
HIV.
According to the report, there is increasing evidence of
HIV outbreaks
among men who have sex with men in Cambodia, China, India,
Nepal, Pakistan,
Thailand and Viet Nam as well as across Latin America but
most national AIDS
programmes fail to address the specific needs of these
people. New data also
show that HIV prevention programmes are failing to
address the overlap
between injecting drug use and sex work within the
epidemics of Latin
America, Eastern Europe and particularly
Asia.
"It is imperative that we continue to increase investment in
both HIV
prevention and treatment services to reduce unnecessary deaths and
illness
from this disease," said WHO Acting Director-General, Dr Anders
Nordström.
"In sub-Saharan Africa, the worst affected region, life
expectancy at birth
is now just 47 years, which is 30 years less than most
high-income
countries."
The AIDS Epidemic Update underlines how
weak HIV surveillance in
several regions including Latin America, the
Caribbean, the Middle East, and
North Africa often means that people at
highest risk-men who have sex with
men, sex workers, and injecting drug
users-are not adequately reached
through HIV prevention and treatment
strategies because not enough is known
about their particular situations and
realities.
The report also highlights that levels of knowledge of
safe sex and
HIV remain low in many countries, as well as perception of
personal risk.
Even in countries where the epidemic has a very high impact,
such as
Swaziland and South Africa, a large proportion of the population do
not
believe they are at risk of becoming infected.
"Knowing
your epidemic and understanding the drivers of the epidemic
such as
inequality between men and women and homophobia is absolutely
fundamental to
the long-term response to AIDS. Action must not only be
increased
dramatically, but must also be strategic, focused and sustainable
to ensure
that the money reaches those who need it most," said Dr Piot.
The
annual AIDS Epidemic Update reports on the latest developments in
the global
AIDS epidemic. With maps and regional estimates, the 2006 edition
provides
the most recent estimates on the epidemic's scope and human toll
and
explores new trends in the epidemic's evolution. The report is available
at
www.unaids.org
___________________________________________________________________
UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, brings
together the
efforts and resources of ten UN system organizations to the
global AIDS
response. Cosponsors include UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA,
UNODC, ILO,
UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank. Based in Geneva, the UNAIDS
Secretariat
works on the ground in more than 75 countries worldwide.
As the
directing and coordinating authority on international health
work, the World
Health Organization (WHO) takes the lead within the UN
system in the global
health sector response to HIV/AIDS. WHO provides
technical, evidence-based
support to Member States to help strengthen health
systems to provide a
comprehensive and sustainable response to HIV/AIDS
including treatment,
care, support and prevention services through the
health
sector.
Contact
Yasmine Topor | UNAIDS Geneva | +41 22 791
3501 | topory@unaids.org
Beth
Magne-Watts | UNAIDS Geneva | +41 22 791 5074 |
magnewattsb@unaids.org
Sophie
Barton-Knott | UNAIDS Geneva | +41 22 791 1967 |
bartonknotts@unaids.org
Iqbal
Nandra | WHO Geneva | + 41 22 791 5589 | nandrai@who.int
VOA
By
Fazila Mahomed
Harare
21 November 2006
In
Zimbabwe, political activism -- especially for those who are not ruling
party members -- often comes with the threat of violence. One feminist and
union activist, Tabitha Khumalo, knows this well. She has persevered in
her fight for women's equality, including a drive to give women access to
sanitary pads, despite violence by men who oppose public discussions of
women's issues.
Tabitha Khumalo says her activism began in 1999, when
she noticed a woman
walking uncomfortably in the middle of the road.
Curious, Tabitha approached
her and asked her why she wasn't walking on the
sidewalk. The woman replied
by staring downwards, her eyes pleading as she
gestured towards the ground.
As Tabitha looked down she saw blood pooling
next to the woman's shoe. The
woman explained that she doesn't have enough
money to buy sanitary pads.
A packet of 10, average quality pads costs
about 500-thousand Zimbabwean
dollars. A well-known brand of tampons
averages 1-point-2 million
Zimbabweawn dollars; that's between 5 and 12
percent of a month's salary for
a worker in the textile
industry.
Tabitha says she was so moved by this encounter that she
decided to take
immediate action. After a snap survey, she learnt that
"Johnson and
Johnson" - the sole manufacturers of sanitary pads in Zimbabwe
-- had
relocated to South Africa.
Khumalo raised the issue with
affiliates of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU), of which she is
a member. It was decided the issue should be
brought to government's
attention. Then minister July Moyo promised to
investigate the re-opening of
the Johnson and Johnson complex, but nothing
materialized.
But
Tabitha persevered. Last year, for example, she attended several
meetings
discussing alternate ways of solving the nation-wide shortage of
female
hygiene products. Her efforts weren't always welcomed. For example,
25 men
gate-crashed one such gathering and began assaulting the
participants.
Tabitha woke up in hospital. She had 42 stitched to remind her
of the brutal
incident. Aside from being assaulted, she'd been raped several
times.
Ms Khumalo acknowledges she was petrified, but adds she
overcame her fears
by focusing on helping others..
"Being arrested
and beaten up and taken to jail that does not bother me,"
she said. "Its the
name of the game and those are the health hazards of
being a trade unionist
especially when you are trying to protect and promote
the interest of the
workers."
Supported by a support network of friends, family and many
housewives in
Bulawayo, Khumalo has become something of a muse for women
around the
country.
Tabitha adds her mother, along with her two
children, encourages and
inspires her.
She said,"Whenever I [go home
after being] arrested, beaten, I always have
shoulders to lean on, and one
of my pillars of strength is my mum. She
nurses me and tells me that when
it comes to emotional stress, I'm extremely
stupid and when it comes to
physical pain, I'm extremely courageous."
The activist has not become
popular because of the attacks; she's earned
respect for her work. While
attending a conference in South Africa recently,
she met with several
British unionists and NGO representatives. Among the
topics they discussed
was the issue of sanitary pads. It eventually led to
the launch of the
"dignity period" campaign.
It drew attention to the medical and
psychological dangers these shortages
pose for women and girls. The
campaigners also sourced sanitary protection
from well-wishers, and
distributed it to women throughout the country.
Tabetha says a stigma
still surrounds the topic. She says it's a pity not
more Zimbabweans,
especially men, are able to discuss feminine hygiene
issues.
t
By
Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) --
At least two Catholic leaders in Zimbabwe
are frustrated that the government
seems to have sabotaged a statement by
Christian churches calling for a
national vision to rescue the ailing
country.
Although the statement
was issued electronically in mid-September, about
2,500 copies printed for
the official launch by the churches in late October
were changed, said
Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
"It's not the document that
I signed," the archbishop said in a Nov. 16
telephone interview from
Bulawayo. "Whole pages have been cut out, and it's
been watered down so much
that it's lost all its power and energy.
"The government has been
interfering in the churches' process; they want to
force their agenda
instead of having genuine dialogue," Archbishop Ncube
said.
The
statement, "The Zimbabwe We Want: Toward a National Vision for
Zimbabwe,"
was issued by the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference, Zimbabwe
Council of
Churches and the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe.
In the past,
Archbishop Ncube has accused Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
of bribing
some Christian leaders, including former Zimbabwe Council of
Churches
President Peter Nemapare, with farms and money so they would work
with his
government. The decision of whether or not to support the
82-year-old
president, who has led the country since its independence from
Britain in
1980, also has caused some tensions among Catholic Church
leaders, sources
say.
Mugabe spoke at the churches' Oct. 27 launch of the printed
document. He has
rejected the churches' call in the original document for a
new constitution.
Alouis Chaumba, who heads Zimbabwe's Catholic
Commission for Justice and
Peace, said while Zimbabwe's churches have
sufficient structures to
distribute their 42-page statement throughout the
country, there are "no
more copies to be found anywhere, and at some
meetings people are discussing
it using only hearsay."
"Also, it is a
problem that it is in English only, because to reach everyone
it should be
translated" into the widely spoken Shona and Ndebele languages,
he said in a
Nov. 16 telephone interview from Zimbabwe's capital, Harare.
Development
indicators show Zimbabwe, with a population of about 12 million,
in an
"unrelenting economic meltdown" characterized by a brain drain of
professionals, the world's highest inflation rate at more than 1,000 percent
and escalating corruption. The country has an unemployment rate of more than
70 percent and is chronically short of food and foreign currency to import
essential commodities, including drugs and fuel.
Chaumba said that
"every day brings its own problems." He said people with
jobs usually walk
about 15 miles to get to work in the mornings "rather than
spend 90 percent
of their wages on transport costs," and in remote areas of
the country, oxen
and donkeys are becoming common forms of transport.
The Nov. 6 newsletter
of Zimbabwe's Jesuits said "the prime evil of Zimbabwe
is the concentration
of too much power in the hands of very few."
Noting that almost all media
is government-controlled, the newsletter said
that "without a free media we
will not be able to have the national debate"
for which the churches called
in their document.
"We need a free debate on a constitution that cuts
power down to size; we
need to prepare for our second liberation and lay the
foundation for a new
Zimbabwe," it said.
UNICEF
By Sabine
Dolan
NEW YORK, USA, 20 November 2006 - "For most girls in Zimbabwe,
access to an
education is really a privilege and not a right," says Winnie
Farao, 26,
explaining how the high cost of education, exacerbated by
hyperinflation,
has made girls' education a "second priority" in her
country.
"With so few dollars, what would you use it for - to send your
child to
school or to buy food?" she asks.
Ms. Farao knows the
situation well. When she was 14, she nearly dropped out
of school because
her parents could no longer afford the fees. But she was
lucky. She received
support from the Campaign for Female Education (CAMFED),
which paid for her
schooling. Today, she works as a programme manager at
CAMFED in
Zimbabwe.
Safe haven for girls
Launched in 1993, CAMFED began by
supporting education for 32 girls in rural
Zimbabwe. Now the organisation
fights poverty and AIDS by helping to educate
nearly 250,000 girls in some
of the poorest regions of Zimbabwe, Zambia,
Ghana and
Tanzania.
CAMFED supports girls' access to education by raising community
awareness
about the importance of schooling, and in a number of other
ways.
"Their fees will be paid for and their uniforms will be provided,"
says Ms.
Farao. "A community environment is made for the girls' safety, to
ensure
they are safe at home, safe along the way and safe in the school
system."
'We want to be educated'
Aside from promoting girls'
education, UNICEF, in partnership with CAMFED,
has been setting up Girls'
Empowerment, or 'GEM', clubs.
These are particularly valuable in
Zimbabwe, a country where an estimated
one in six females aged 15 to 24 is
now living with HIV. Orphaned girls in
Zimbabwe are three times more likely
to contract HIV than their peers.
The GEM clubs play a key role in HIV
prevention, providing valuable
information and life skills that are
essential to girls growing up in
Zimbabwe. At the clubs, girls are trained
in sexual negotiation skills ('how
to say no') and learn about abstinence
and condom use.
"I can say that the GEM clubs are working really hard to
make the girls
there speak out - and to say no to HIV/AIDS, no to rape, no
to abuse," says
Ms. Farao. "We want to be educated. We want knowledge. The
girls themselves
have been given the opportunity to speak about what's
really in their
hearts."
National plan of action
Girls'
education has become a national issue in Zimbabwe. In October, the
United
Nations - in collaboration with the Government of Zimbabwe and other
partners, including CAMFED - launched a ground-breaking National Girls'
Education Strategic Plan to increase Zimbabwe's likelihood of achieving
universal primary education and ensuring that girls can stay in
school.
For Ms. Farao and countless other girls, this represents a major
step in the
right direction.
"The strategic plan is really conscious
to a great extent of girls'
predicaments," says Ms. Farao. "It looks at
girls' education as a priority,
to say, 'We've neglected the girls for a
long time and this is their time.
We need to put them on the programme. We
need to put them on the national
agenda.'"
Email: jag@mango.zw: justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BLOOD
SERVICE ENDOWMENT FUND - APPEAL
The National Blood Service Zimbabwe is
recognised by World Health
Organisation as a centre of excellence. With the
assistance of the Swiss
Red Cross we expect to attain ISO status early next
year. We have had to
face and deal with many problems which fortunately we
have overcome.
Because of the hyper-inflationary environment, the National
Committee has
decided to establish an Endowment Fund which will, we hope,
help to
safeguard the Service and enable it to continue to maintain the very
high
standards which we have attained.
We have approached the
corporate business sector for donations to set up an
Endowment Fund which
will be capable of sustaining the Service. In order to
administer the
Endowment Fund in a transparent manner, a Trust Fund will be
established
which will be responsible for the fund. The Chairperson and the
Chief
Executive Officer of the Service will be Trustees, ex officio; and the
donors
will elect additional Trustees.
The Service would like to appeal to all
its well-wishers to make a donation
to the Endowment Fund. If we have a
sound financial foundation, we will
continue to provide safe blood to meet
the needs of the people of Zimbabwe.
To do that we need your help and
generosity. Please help us to sustain a
very valuable service. Cheques
should be made payable to Zimbabwe Blood
Service
Trust.
JUSTICE L G SMITH (Retd.)
Chairman National Blood
Service Zimbabwe
Xinhua
www.chinaview.cn 2006-11-21
15:05:37
VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Eighteen
people were
injured, three of them seriously, when a passenger train they
were traveling
in from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo hit a herd of 15 elephants
13 kilometers
outside the resort town Monday night.
The
National Railways of Zimbabwe, a government company which runs
the train,
said the accident occurred between Masuie and Jafuta Sidings at
about 7:20
p.m..
The company spokesman Fanuel Masikati told Xinhua
reporter that
the locomotive and three economy class coaches derailed,
damaging about 200
meters of rail.
"Those who were
seriously injured are two train drivers and a
passenger. All the 18 injured
persons were taken to Victoria Falls Hospital.
Six elephants died in the
accident," Masikati said.
He said the parastatal was in the
process of arranging buses to
transport passengers to their various
destinations.
The accident would not disrupt rail traffic as
repairs to the
damaged track had commenced immediately after the evacuation
of the injured.
"We are going to work tirelessly to restore the
damaged track. Our
breakdown unit is already on its way to the crash site.
Traffic will not be
disrupted," he said.
In August, another
train accident occurred at Dibamombe, a few
kilometers from where Monday's
crash happened, claiming eight lives although
some estimates put the death
toll at more than 30.
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe's prime tourist
destination, is 880 km
west of the capital, Harare. It has abundant
wildlife.
By
Tererai Karimakwenda
20 November 2006
We reported Monday
that the refugees who were evicted from the
Methodist church in
Braamfontein, South Africa last Thursday are camping out
on the streets and
in the rain. It was originally reported that the decision
by the church
board to evict them was taken after a woman was raped and
after several
robberies. But Methodist Bishop Paul Verryn said a condom and
a pair of
panties had been found near the pulpit and the locals "went into
toyi toyi
mode" after the discovery and there was no going back on the
eviction
decision. About 40-50 refugees from several countries, including
Zimbabwe,
had been sheltered there. Women with babies are now on the street.
The bishop said he received a call from the xenophobia unit of the
department of home affairs in South Africa after the evictions, thanking him
for the work he is doing with refugees. Verryn found it disturbing that Home
Affairs would thank him yet they have not given him any form of assistance
with the refugees. The bishop said internally displaced South Africans are
now also being referred to him by the social development division after
hearing he is caring for the destitute. But the same department has also
failed to assist him. Verryn said help comes mostly from the kindness of
parishioners but he urged government to help the poor if they are to sort
out all the problems.
Verryn's Central Methodist Church in
Johannesburg has been sheltering
about 600 refugees for years now in a space
that was not designed for such
large numbers. The bishop said many are
Zimbabweans but there are also
refugees from the DRC, Zambia, Tanzania,
Malawi and Uganda. Many of them are
professionals and sadly those skills are
being wasted. Verryn said this
includes principals, teachers, doctors,
accountants, carpenters and highly
educated young people who have fled their
countries.
Bishop Verryn identified poverty as the single most
important issue
they must address if they are to solve other problems. He
said this is why
he is helping the refugees who are coming to him with
nothing. He added that
he was delighted to hear on the radio on Saturday
that fellow clergymen
Bishop Desmond Tutu had apologised to the world
community for the xenophobia
that has plagued South Africa. Asked if he
believed this would lead to more
pressure by Tutu on South Africa, Verryn
said: "I am sure he is not afraid."
SW Radio Africa
Zimbabwe news
The Herald (Harare)
November
21, 2006
Posted to the web November 21, 2006
Harare
THE Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe last week paid US$5 million to various Air
Zimbabwe
international creditors to clear debts that had accumulated since
1999.
Last week the airline suspended flights to London, its cash-cow
route, for
fear of possible plane seizures over the debts.
The
flights resumed five days later, following the payment.
Announcing the
payments yesterday, RBZ Governor Dr Gideon Gono said such
ineptitude, as
demonstrated by the national airline, was not acceptable,
particularly in
instances where burdens from the past were allowed to derail
current
programmes.
"Yes, I can confirm that the Reserve Bank had to swiftly
intervene as a
matter of national security and avoidance of embarrassment by
paying the
debts which date back to 1999, on behalf of Air Zimbabwe, but we
call upon
stakeholders in the various portfolios, particularly in public
institutions
to fully discharge their responsibilities and pay up their
institutional
bills as a matter of financial discipline," he
said.
Such discipline, he stressed, would free current and future
programmes of
overhangs from the past.
"The money we paid for Air
Zimbabwe, as well as the US$210,6 million we paid
to the IMF for historic
arrears are examples of past consumption outlays and
past mistakes that
drain momentum from current programmes."
"At the Reserve Bank, we are now
so used to pioneering programmes, and as
soon as those programmes start to
bear fruit, or are about to take off, some
stakeholders, not wanting to be
outdone, in their typical fashion, jump on
to highjack those initiatives to
be theirs or simply to choke progress.
"But yes, soldier on we will
continue to, without fear or favour in the
national interest," he
said.
The Herald
(Harare)
November 21, 2006
Posted to the web November 21,
2006
Harare
THE Ministry of Finance will soon introduce two new
laws to punish errant
ministries and parastatals that fail to account for
the money allocated to
them under the national budget.
This was said
by the Minister of Finance, Dr Herbert Murerwa, in response to
criticism by
parliamentarians over his failure to table Government
expenditure before the
House for the past six years.
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on
Public Accounts also criticised the
minister for not seeking the House's
approval before borrowing money above
the stipulated threshold and failing
to make public utilities account for
funds they draw from the
fiscus.
In response, Dr Murerwa said he was equally concerned by the
failure by line
ministries to table reports before Parliament but said he
had very little
say with respect to parastatals falling under other
ministries.
He said his ministry had failed to produce a consolidated
revenue report
owing to incapacity by the Government caused by staff
shortages.
He said two Bills were on the cards that provide for penalties
and sanctions
for those ministries that failed to acquit money they get from
the fiscus.
The Public Finance Management Bill and Audit Service Bill
will soon be
tabled before the House and would punish errant ministries and
parastatals,
said the minister.
He said he could not, however,
fast-track the Bills to come before the 2007
National Budget presentation,
which he said would be tabled in 10 days time.
The committee, chaired by
Glen Norah legislator Ms Priscilla
Misihairabwi-Mushonga (MDC), took
exception to the failure by Dr Murerwa to
table before the House in the past
six years a consolidated financial report
detailing Government expenditure
with respect to all ministries.
The committee expressed disappointment
with the fact that all parastatals --
getting the bulk of their funding
from the fiscus -- had not tabled any
report of their expenditure as
required by the Comptroller and Auditor
General.
The committee said
the minister failed to seek approval from Parliament when
he borrows more
than 30 percent of the Government revenue as required by the
Constitution.
Parastatals and other State enterprises, the committee
noted, had not
produced audited reports for the past six years, yet they are
quick to do so
when called upon by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe as a
condition to receive
funding.
The legislators said various funds,
some of which fall within the Ministry
of Finance, had not been accounted
for before the House.
These include the Drought Relief Fund, Social
Dimension Fund, War Victim
Compensation Fund, Housing and Guarantee and
Agricultural Research Fund
among others.
The committee suggested that
parastatals and ministries that failed to
account for the previous budgets
should not get funding until they acquitted
themselves.
It was also
felt that it was prudent that the committee gets Treasury
minutes as that
might clear some of the issues.
"We are very disappointed as a committee,
because we seem to have
continuously raised the same issue but nothing has
changed as you have not
responded to them," said Ms
Misihairabwi-Mushonga.
"The scandals we have read in the media are a
reflection of the problem we
have. It's you who give these parastatals money
but you do not follow up on
your dollar to see how it has been
used."
Masvingo Senator Cde Dzikamai Mavhaire (Zanu-PF) said it was
strange that
the minister did not care to report to Parliament about
Government
expenditure but the same minister would still want the same House
to approve
his budget to make another round of expenditure which he does not
account
for.
"You expect Parliament to pass the budget vote when you
are not accounting
for it. Where are you placing Parliament? Do you take
Parliament seriously
kana kuti munongoti hapana zvavanotiita?" said Cde
Mavhaire.
"We have 87 parastatals and not even one has accounted for its
money,
including the University of Zimbabwe where we have the most highly
educated
people.
"Some chief executive officers of these parastatals
are highly qualified but
they are not producing these reports, this is mere
negligence."
In response, Dr Murerwa said he was equally concerned by the
failure by line
ministries to table reports before Parliament but said he
had very little
say with respect to parastatals falling under other
ministries.
Dr Murerwa said withholding funding, while noble, was not the
best option
because there were other critical ministries like Health and
Defence.
Dr Murerwa said he has always sought Parliament approval in
retrospect when
presenting his annual budget when he borrows above the 30
percent threshold,
a point that was disputed by the committee.
He
said his ministry will proceed to produce a consolidated financial report
with or without other ministries and those ministries who fail to submit
their reports to his ministry will have to explain themselves to the
House.
"I certainly share with Honourable Mavhaire's sentiments that if
you don't
acquit yourself you do not get money, but that is a tough approach
because
that depends on the service the ministry offers," he
said.
"The Bills are coming and they have been inspired by
concerns raised by your
committee and that of Budget and Finance. Some
movements have been achieved
to tighten things and I think the introduction
of these Bills would be a
milestone aimed at creating efficiency and value
for money.
"In exceeding the limit, this is a factor of unanticipated
expenditure that
we incur like Air Zimbabwe is experiencing challenges we
have to chip in,
the same with Zinwa."
Other committee members
include Pelandaba-Mpopoma Senator, Mr Greenfield
Nyoni (MDC),
Lobengula-Magwegwe Member of the House of Assembly, Mr Fletcher
Dulini-Ncube
(MDC), Chief George Chimombe of Manicaland (Non Constituency),
Mufakose,
Kuwadzana and Dzivaresekwa Senator, Cde Sabina Thembani (Zanu-PF)
and
Kadoma, Sanyati and Ngezi Senator, Cde Chiratidzo Gava (Zanu-PF).