Mugabe and Shopwell in shoe department Loaded with shopping
Arriving at Vigil in rickshaw with champagne Van Orden tells Mugabe to go
President Mugabe and first lady ‘Shopwell’ Grace were not at all happy with their Harrods experience. Two members of the Vigil impersonating the presidential couple went to this puffed-up shop to illustrate what will happen if the targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies are lifted as demanded by Zimbabwe’s neighbours.
After learning about our proposed shopping spree, a pompous Harrods PR flunky phoned us and threatened to put Attorney-General Tomana on our case. ‘You can’t come in’, she said. ‘Can we take pictures outside?’ we asked. ‘No it’s out of the question’ Harrods replied, sensitive as always to the susceptibilities of their kleptocratic clients. Well, despite Harrods’ hoity-toity response, Mugabe and Shopwell marched boldly into the bazaar. Among the media to capture the moment was an AFP photographer rewarded by us with a Zim$100 trillion note.
Nevertheless President Mugabe (Fungayi Mabhunu) and his consort (Gugu Tutani) have decided in future to take their custom next door to Harvey Nichols.
Another of Zimbabwe’s celebrated 15-digit notes was given to Geoffrey Van Orden, Member of the European Parliament for Eastern England, who came to the Vigil to support us on our 7th anniversary together with his wife Fanny and daughters Rose and Selina. They appeared to have a great time.
Mr Van Orden accepted our petition
to hand over to the European Union calling for punitive action against SADC
because of its failure to honour its commitment to ensure that the global
political agreement is implemented. The petition was handed to him by President
Mugabe who arrived with Shopwell by rickshaw after their Harrods expedition. Mr
Van Orden called on President Mugabe to stand aside and allow peace and
prosperity in Zimbabwe through
free and fair internationally-monitored elections.
To mark the Vigil’s 7th anniversary we all gathered afterwards at a local pub to watch a rough cut of a film about Zimbabwe being made by David Adelstein, which features the Vigil. Thanks to Josephine Zhuga who brought a beautiful cake for the Vigil’s anniversary which was much enjoyed by all.
Dumi Tutani and Luka Phiri who undertook a 55-mile sponsored walk for the Zimbabwean tumour girl, Tare, reminded us that she was operated on today in London. Our thoughts and prayers are with her and all the other suffering Zimbabweans who can’t access this sort of treatment. Betty Makoni, founder of Girl Child Network, who recently visited the Vigil to talk about Tare, has been nominated as one of CNN’s top ten heroes of 2009. Please see events and notices for how you can vote for her.
For latest Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimbabwevigil/
FOR THE RECORD: 268 signed the register.
EVENTS AND NOTICES:
· ROHR Manchester general meeting. Saturday 17th October from 2 – 5 pm. Venue: The Salvation Army Citadel, 71 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M13 9UB. Substantive committee to be elected. ROHR President and ROHR UK executive present. Contact: Fungai Chikoore 07876060929, Jeremiah Murefu 07881452495 / 07536677154, Tsitsi Jonas 07884254184, Fenny Nyatsanza 07886310005 or P Mapfumo 07915926323 / 07932216070.
· ROHR Leicester relaunch meeting. Saturday 24th October. Venue: Bishop Street Methodist Church,10 Bishop Street, Leicester LE 1 6AF. ROHR President and UK Executive present. Speakers: Rev Jill Marsh (Methodist Church), Celia Fisher (Leicester Aids Support Services). Contact: Dennis Sibanda 07901742649, Dr N Masamvi 07825525834, L Maposa 07837788807, F Mzemba 07932449899, G Mutimukulu 07508029001, N Maziso 07732545514, A Mutambira 07768610423 or P Mapfumo 07915926323 / 07932216070
· ROHR West Bromwich general meeting. Saturday 31st October from 1.30 – 5.30 pm. Venue: St Peters Church Hall, Whitehall Road, West Bromwich B70 0HF. ROHR Executive and a well-known lawyer present. Contact Pamela Dunduru 07958386718, Diana Mtendereki 07768682961, Peter Nkomo 07817096594 or P Mapfumo 07915926323 / 0793221607
· Zimbabwe Association’s Women’s Weekly Drop-in Centre. Fridays 10.30 am – 4 pm. Venue: The Fire Station Community and ICT Centre, 84 Mayton Street, London N7 6QT, Tel: 020 7607 9764. Nearest underground: Finsbury Park. For more information contact the Zimbabwe Association 020 7549 0355 (open Tuesdays and Thursdays).
· From Liberator to Dictator by Mike Auret. This is a personal account of the unravelling of Zimbabwe, written by an insider who was prepared to keep faith with Robert Mugabe until it was almost too late. Michael Auret served for many years on Zimbabwe's respected Catholic Commission of Justice and Peace, which worked tirelessly to defend human rights in that country. In this memoir, he traces his involvement in the politics of his country, from his days as an opposition MP in Ian Smith's Rhodesia to his involvement with the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and his election as MP for Harare Central in the brutal election of 2000. http://www.newafricabooks.co.za/books_detail.asp?ID=499.
· Strategic Internship for Zimbabweans organised by Citizens for Sanctuary which is trying to secure work placements for qualified Zimbabweans with refugee status or asylum seekers. For more information check: http://www.citizensforsanctuary.org.uk/pages/Strategic.html or contact: zimbabweinternship@cof.org.uk.
· Vote for Betty Makoni of Girl Child Network as one of CNN’s top ten heroes of 2009 via this link: http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/
Vigil Co-ordinators
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=23707
October 11,
2009
By Raymond Maingire
HARARE - Finance Minister
Tendai Biti says he has battled powerful
politicians aligned to President
Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party who were
determined to see the country bleed
to death through unbridled corruption.
He says he has brought order and
sanity into the governance of economic
affairs, much to the chagrin of
'grandmasters of looting.'
Biti, who has just won the 2009 Euro Money
Emerging Market Best Finance
Minister in Africa award, is adamant he would
not abandon his job through
pressure from hawks opposed to his
policies.
The 44-year-old lawyer turned politician, however, says he
would not
hesitate to return to his law firm if undue executive authority
were to be
applied to force him to abandon the very same policies that have
brought him
respect among his African peers.
Speaking for the first
time since being presented with the prestigious
award, a modest Biti said he
believed he had been honoured for his cutthroat
policies that have brought
back sanity to what had become the world's most
turbulent
economy.
"It (award) is in honour of the decent things that we have done
in 2009,"
Biti said.
"We have stopped the bleeding. We have put in
some decency and we have put
in some sanity under exceptionally difficult
circumstances and conditions."
Biti was being hosted in a pre-recorded
television programme, the
transition, at Harare's New Ambassador
Hotel.
The programme is set to be aired on the local ZTV in a few weeks
to come,
according to Information and Publicity deputy minister Jameson
Timba.
Timba, an MDC legislator for Mount Pleasant constituency, is
behind the
programme, which he says was meant to appraise the general public
on the
operations of the inclusive government.
The award given to
Biti has attracted displeasure from some of his critics
within the current
inclusive government who find the prize as unbefitting
for a minister with
only eight months into his job.
Outspoken Tsholotsho North Independent
MP, Professor Jonathan Moyo, who has
rejoined Zanu-PF, says Biti was a
"manifestly unqualified and reckless
Minister of Finance who is a laughing
stock in his own country".
But Biti is adamant he deserved the honour
although he admits he still needs
to do more to rescale the economic
performance levels that existed in the
mid 90s.
This was a few years
before a plethora of populist but disastrous polices by
President Robert
Mugabe's government triggered a devastating economic
downturn that saw the
once vibrant economy shrink by 60 percent in 10 years.
"We need to
graduate from the macroeconomic era that we are going through to
finding an
economic stabilization and to the era of growth, transformation
and
reconstruction," he said.
"We would want to get an award for wiping out
unemployment of 95 percent and
getting basic infrastructure working
again."
Biti said he would be happier if Zimbabwe would graduate from
"the small
miserable African state to an African giant that has to take its
place among
the giants of the African continent".
He added, "One
thing that I am proud of as an individual is predictability
and consistency.
Those are the two foundations of trust."
"An economy works on the basis
of predictability and trust and what we have
done in the past seven months
is to bring predictability, consistency and
therefore some
legitimacy."
The MDC legislator, who has won a lot of admirers for
restricting
controversial central bank governor and close ally to President
Mugabe,
Gideon Gono, denies accusations that he was tying to sabotage the
Zimbabwean
economy.
There is a growing chorus of resentment to his
policies by Zanu-PF officials
since the finance minister got involved in a
wrangle with Gono over the use
of a US$510 million special credit line
extended by the IMF to help
developing countries deal with the impact of the
global economic downturn.
"You cannot sabotage an economy that has been
abused vandalized and raped
such as the one which we had," he
said.
"The order and sanity which we have brought in the governance of
economic
affairs in this country has threatened shareholders of past
grandmasters of
looting, grandmasters of corruption, grandmasters of
eating.
"There are people that have been eating our country. What we have
done is to
make sure that we play by the rules, to make sure that we play by
the
constitution of this country, to make sure that we play by the economic
logic that is detected by our reality.
"There are those people that
are blind to the reality of our mediocre
situation and it's a myth that is
peddled that we are too rich to be poor
and so a lot of myths are being
peddled.
"There are certain people that were flourishing from the status
quo. There
are cat fish out there. A cat fish can only hunt in muddy waters.
When it
wants to hunt, it goes to the bottom and makes sure the water is
muddied."
Biti defended his firm handling of Gono, whom he has liked to a
member of Al
Qaeda to be brought before a firing squad.
"In 2008, the
Reserve Bank's economic activities were 34 percent of Gross
Domestic
Product. In 2007 they were 24 percent. In 2006 they were 32
percent. If you
have a situation where basically your economy is now the
Reserve Bank, there
is something wrong.
"One has to deal with these issues of abuse which
were being done through
the euphemism of something called quasi-fiscal
activities when there was
nothing quasi about those activities, when they
were pure involvement in the
economy to the detriment of the Treasury and to
the detriment of everyone
else."
Biti, regarded as a hardliner within
the MDC, said although he took his job
begrudgingly as he did not want to
join the inclusive government, he would
not be pressured out of it by people
opposed to his policies.
"Having worked in the ministry of finance, I
will not suffer fools. Fools
will not celebrate having made me quit. They
are not going to make me quit.
"The wars that are created, the arsenals
and the arrows that are sent on us
are not from government. I can live with
that. I knew from day one that I
was going to swim in sewage pond, so I
can't complain that the odour is
bad."
He added, "If I was to be
told to sacrifice my principles that are
fundamental to get this economy on
its feet. If anyone tells me to bring
back the Zimbabwean dollar tomorrow,
then they would be a vacancy on the
sixth floor of the new government
complex (his office) and I am very clear
on that."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Zimbabwean
authorities have hit back at Nestlé for cancelling its milk order
from Grace
Mugabe after an international outcry at the revelation that she
was one of
its regular suppliers.
By Sebastien Berger, Southern African
Correspondent
Published: 9:00AM BST 11 Oct 2009
The multinational food
company bowed to pressure following The Sunday
Telegraph's report that
Nestlé Zimbabwe, the firm's Harare-based subsidiary,
was buying up to a
million litres of milk a year from Gushungo Dairy
Estate - owned by the wife
of Robert Mugabe, the country's 85-year-old
president.
But last week
it emerged that a senior government official warned the firm
that its
decision was seen as an extension of EU and American sanctions
against
members of Mr Mugabe's inner circle, which have infuriated his
Zanu-PF party
and which it blames for the country's descent into penury.
Shortly
afterwards the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe - headed by Gideon Gono, a
close
Mugabe ally - froze the company's accounts at two banks, according to
reports in Harare.
Although the accounts were later freed for Nestlé
to use again, the move -
reported by the Zimbabwe Independent, one of the
few newspapers in the
country to stand out against the government - is being
seen as a warning
shot across the company's bows.
Matumwa Mawere, a
Zimbabwean businessman who now lives in exile in South
Africa after his
companies were taken over by Zanu-PF in 2004, said it
threatened the
credibility of the power-sharing government with the former
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, which is trying to restore
investor
confidence and attract foreign investment.
"If the report on Nestle's
bank accounts is true, then it's a sad day for
Zimbabwe," he
said.
When The Sunday Telegraph first reported that Nestlé was Mrs
Mugabe's
biggest customer, the Swiss-based company insisted it was doing
nothing
wrong - despite the fact that under sanctions regimes for companies
with
headquarters in the EU and the US, the purchase from Mr Mugabe's spouse
would have been illegal. The Swiss government ruled that the Nestlé
subsidiary was not subject to the country's own sanctions against the Mugabe
regime, and Nestlé had assured the authorities that no-one in Switzerland
was involved.
The Herald, a state-controlled newspaper in Harare,
praised the firm for
defying its critics, accusing Western media
organisations of "a co-ordinated
effort to harass Nestlé into pulling out of
Zimbabwe."
But after one Facebook group gathered 8,000 members in just a
few days, and
a civil rights group in South Africa declared that "Nestle
milk is blood
milk", the company backtracked.
Within days, Nestle
announced that it would no longer buy milk from Mrs
Mugabe or any other
non-contractual suppliers, and would instead buy only
from the Dairy Board
of Zimbabwe - which, it said, was only now in a
position to supply all the
milk it needed. But it admitted that the
controversy was a factor in the
decision, which was taken in consultation
with its Swiss
headquarters.
Gideon Gono, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe,
told the Zimbabwe
Independent that the accounts were frozen temporarily
while "two or so
transaction which we thought were irregular" were
investigated. These had
now been explained and things were back to normal,
he added.
Nonetheless there are fears that it was intended as a warning
shot to the
firm, which the sources said could be crippled if it could not
access its
bank accounts to pay its suppliers.
A spokesman for Nestle
at its headquarters in Switzerland said: "No Nestle
Zimbabwe bank accounts
are currently frozen." He declined to comment on
whether they had been
previously frozen, or on discussions between company
officials and the
government.
No response was received from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to
a request for
comment.
(AP) - 3 hours
ago
HARARE, Zimbabwe - A Zimbabwean official says several top officials
and
cronies of President Robert Mugabe being sued for torture have been
renounced by the state and will not receive legal assistance.
Deputy
Attorney General Prince Machaya told The Associated Press on Sunday
that the
state will not represent officials being sued by prominent human
rights
activist Jestina Mukoko and eight others.
The activists are seeking
US$500 million for wrongful arrest, torture and
abduction after their terror
charges were dropped.
The list of defendants includes the security and
defense ministers and the
police chief - all Mugabe
loyalists.
Mukoko's lawyer Harrison Nkomo said the case was now a private
matter
between his clients and the defendants.
http://nehandaradio.com/
Published on: 11th October, 2009
AS the
MDC Provincial Organising Secretary Rodgers was addresing scores of
students
at Fort Hare University on Friday, e-mails were dispatched from the
Registra's office to every student asking them to notify MDC aligned
students to report to the Registra's office for disciplinary
action.
The entire MDC branch leadership of 12 students will be chucked
out of
college on Monday. About 600 other students who attended the rally
are sure
to face the chop. A massive demonstraton at the university is
looming as MDC
SA squares up with University over the continued intimidation
of the
students.
The ANC Youth League and Congress of South African
Students (COSAS) have
thrown their weight behind the demonstration. We are
also giving Dr. Tom
Mvuyo, up to Tuesday afternoon to rescind the decision
to chop students.
We appeal to him to immediately release the students'
meal cards since
payment was made already. The money was paid and there is
no justification
in starving students.
Students's meal cards were
deactivated, literally sentencing them to a 'scotched
earth policy'. This is
unaccaptable in any modern period. The Presidential
Scholarship is
bankrolled by the tax-payer's money and students can't be
treated like
rubbish by ambitious individuals who regard Zimbabwe as their
family
treasury.
MDC SA Publicity & Information Secretary
Sibanengi
Dube
http://www.apanews.net/
APA-Harare
(Zimbabwe) The International Organisation for Migration (IMO) has
launched a
website that aims to attract back to Zimbabwe experienced
professionals who
fled the country's economic crisis over the last 10 years,
APA learns here
Sunday.
IOM said the Zimbabwe Human Capital Mobilization website would
provide
information on job and investments opportunities available in the
country.
A database linked to the website would capture the profiles of
skilled
Zimbabweans around the world interested in taking part in Zimbabwe's
economic reconstruction.
More than three million Zimbabweans left the
country since 2000 to escape
economic hardships triggered by political
bickering among the main parties.
Most of the emigrants went to South
Africa, Botswana, the United Kingdom,
Australia and the United
States.
Aid agencies have since the formation of Zimbabwe's coalition
government in
February embarked on programmes to lure Zimbabweans in the
Diaspora to
return and participate in the rebuilding of their
country.
JN/daj/APA 2009-10-11
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by STAFF REPORTER
Friday, 09 October 2009 15:13
HARARE -The committee overseeing
Zimbabwe's constitution-making
process has resolved to remove a senior army
officer whose controversial
appointment to head a sub-committee on electoral
reforms caused a furore a
fortnight ago, it was established last
week.
Army Brigadier-General Douglas Nyikayaramba was named deputy
chairperson of the thematic committee on elections, transitional mechanisms
and independent commissions, according to a list published in September by
the parliamentary select committee tasked with leading the constitution
making process.
The former opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) party of
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and political
pressure groups immediately
protested the appointment, charging that it was
improper to have a serving
army officer leading the process towards a new
constitution.
Parliamentary select committee co-chairperson and MDC
lawmaker Douglas
Mwonzora said the decision to remove Brigadier Nyikayaramba
was taken at
Monday's joint meeting of the newly formed management
committee. "It was
agreed that it will not be proper to have a serving
member of the defence
forces being a member of the committee because that
would
be tantamount to involving uniformed officers in a process that
is
overtly political," Mwonzora told The Zimbabwean On Sunday last
week.
He noted that when Brigadier Nyikayaramba was initially
appointed, it
was under the impression created at that time that he was no
longer a
serving officer. He is currently on secondment to the Ministry of
Agriculture but "Our understanding now is that Zanu (PF) is going to
withdraw his name and nominate another person to take his place," Mwonzora
said.
Brigadier Nyikayaramba was named in a recent document by
local human
rights groups as one of the army generals accused of
masterminding political
violence in the run-up to the June 2008 second round
presidential election
in a bid to cow Zimbabweans to support President
Robert Mugabe after he lost
the first round vote to Tsvangirai.
Mwonzora said last Monday's meeting also resolved to provide funding
for the
outreach programme under which the select committee would take the
constitutional roadshow to the country's 10 provinces.
Under the
new arrangement, the government would make funds directly
available to the
select committee and bypass the Parliament administration
as was previously
the case. Mwonzora also revealed that the committee would
soon advertise for
positions on the proposed secretariat that would
administer the
constitution-making process. Zimbabwe's constitutional
reforms have been
mired in controversy from the onset, with Zanu (PF)
accused of wanting to
impose on Zimbabweans the so-called Kariba Draft
constitution that Mugabe's
party says was agreed to by the three main
political parties.
Civic
organisations and the MDC have criticised the Kariba Draft
constitution that
they say leaves largely untouched the wide-sweeping powers
that Mugabe
continues to enjoy even after formation of a power-sharing
government.
Zimbabweans hope a new constitution will guarantee human rights,
strengthen
the role of Parliament and curtail the president's powers, as
well as
guaranteeing civil, political and media freedoms.
The new constitution
will replace the current Lancaster House
Constitution written in 1979 before
independence from Britain. The charter
has been amended 19 times since
independence in 1980. Critics say the
majority of the amendments have been
to further entrench Mugabe and Zanu
(PF)'s hold on power.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by The
Zimbabwean
Saturday, 10 October 2009 14:23
HARARE - Senior
managers at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings have
threatened to fire
workers in the drama production department for allegedly
leaking information
to the press alleging corruption at the government-owned
broadcaster.
Sources said a senior executive at ZBH's Pockets Hill
studios in
Harare threatened to dismiss the workers following a story
published by our
sister paper, The Zimbabwean, last week saying senior
managers at the
studios had authorised payments to independent producers who
had never
performed any services or done any productions for the
broadcaster.
"She accused us of leaking the information to The
Zimbabwean
newspaper. She targeted drama producers because they are the ones
responsible for preparing budgets, and threatened to fire anyone found
responsible for the information that appeared in the newspaper," said a ZBH
worker, who declined to be named for fear of victimisation.
Efforts
to get comment from the ZBH on the matter were fruitless.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Farai Shoko
Saturday,
10 October 2009 14:40
HARARE - The Harare city council wants employees
of a top local hotel
investigated for allegedly stealing 1150 kilogrammes of
meat during the
recent installation of mayor Muchandeyi Masunda.
Masunda's installation in August failed to live up to its top billing
after
the meat disappeared despite the council slaughtering 10 cattle for
the
function. Several guest, who included government ministers from Zanu
(PF)
and the two formations of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
mayors
from other towns, councilors and diplomats, had to make do with the
little
food served by Cresta Jameson Hotel which had been contracted to
offer
catering services.
The shortage of food greatly embarrassed the MDC led
council forcing
it to launch a probe into the debacle. But a special
investigation into the
"unsatisfactory organization, preparation and
hosting" of the inauguration
of Masunda recommended that the matter be
reported to the police as a matter
of urgency. "This case must be referred
to the Zimbabwe Republic police
(ZRP) with immediate effect to further
investigate the matter and take
appropriate action," wrote William Dumba,
the chairperson of the
investigation committee in a report to council seen
by The Zimbabwean On
Sunday.
Dumba's report says that meat, which
was meant for consumption at the
function, was later found at Jameson Hotel.
It says hotel management had
failed to give satisfactory answers as to why
the meat was in their
possession.
Management at Cresta Jameson
Hotel refused to comment on the matter
but sources said the hotel had
launched its own investigations following the
embarrassing incident.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by STAFF REPORTER
Saturday,
10 October 2009 15:02
HARARE - The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
Amendment Bill, which
seeks to clip the wings of central bank chief Gideon
Gono , will be tabled
in Parliament soon after the House resumes sitting on
October 20.
Cabinet unanimously approved the RBZ Amendment Bill in July
after its
committee on legislation endorsed the draft law that seeks to
limit the RBZ
to the traditional role of managing monetary policy.
Parliamentary sources
told The Zimbabwean on Sunday that the House of
Assembly's portfolio
committee on budget, finance and economic planning will
go through the bill
and table a report before the House of
Assembly.
"The portfolio committee will use the next fortnight to
analyse the
bill before presenting it in the House of Assembly for the
second reading,"
he said. "I doubt there will be a public hearing."
President Robert Mugabe officially opened the second session of the
seventh
Zimbabwe Parliament on Tuesday, and said Parliament was expected to
commence
debate on the landmark Bill.
Among other key proposals, the bill seeks
to bring the powers of the
governor of the Reserve Bank under the control of
a new RBZ board that will
ensure the central bank sticks to its monetary
policy functions and that it
works to increase its reserves.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, 10 October 2009 15:05
HARARE - Cash-strapped Zimbabwe is
unlikely to be in a hurry to
implement a proposed ban on second-hand vehicle
imports - such a move will
likely inflict the proverbial sucker punch to the
new Harare administration
which is literally living from hand to
mouth.
President Robert Mugabe announced last week that the new
power-sharing
regime in Harare was contemplating a ban on imports of
second-hand cars and
the use of retreaded tyres on public transport vehicles
as part of measures
to curb road carnage. He said his government was
concerned about the high
incidents of fatal road accidents, which have
claimed more than 80 lives
since the end of July and mostly involved
buses.
But analysts warned last week that outlawing imports of used
motor
vehicles would be ill-advised under Zimbabwe's present circumstances
marked
by low donor support for the country's economic programmes. "This
will be
another classic case of killing the goose that lays the golden egg
because
duty on imported vehicles currently constitutes a large proportion
of
government revenue at present," observed an analyst with a Harare-based
stockbroking firm.
According to the 2009 mid-year fiscal review
presented by Finance
Minister Tendai Biti in July, customs duty accounted
for about 32 percent of
the US$285 million revenue collected between January
and June this year. It
was second only to Value Added Tax collections which
contributed a
significant 39 percent of total revenue during the same
period.
Duty on imported vehicles makes up a large proportion of the
customs
duty collections by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority.
Banning
imports of second-hand vehicles would, therefore,
significantly reduce one
of the government's cash-cows at a time it is
desperately looking for funds
to meet salaries of civil servants and other
recurrent expenses.
Corporate tax income accounted for an insignificant 2.4 percent of
total
revenue against a target of US$32.6 million at the last fiscal
stock-take in
July, meaning the government does not have much room to play
with regards to
tampering with its income base.
Economic consultant John Robertson said
banning used vehicle imports
would be tantamount to interfering with the
operations of free market
economy. "Why they would choose to ban the imports
remains a mystery. If you
leave the markets alone, the people in those
markets will ultimately work
out for themselves what is right for the
market," Robertson said.
The analysts also questioned the timing of the
planned ban, saying
such a move would only make sense if it is implemented
at a time when the
domestic vehicle assembly industry has improved its
capacity to supply the
market.
The state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation reported last month
that the government-owned Willowvale Mazda
Motor Industries (WMMI) was
currently operating at about 20 percent of
capacity due to funding
constraints.
WMMI boss Dawson Mareya told
the public broadcaster that conditions
had not changed from last year, with
the company unable to meet demand.
Business has, however, been booming for
importers and distributors of
second-hand vehicles who have set shop through
the major towns and cities.
ZIMRA sources said at least 20 imported
second-hand vehicles are
processed through the Beitbridge border post each
day, with the revenue
collector netting an average US$50 000 daily from duty
paid. Used Japanese
and Singaporean vehicles have a ready market in
Zimbabwe.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by The Zimbabwean
Friday, 09 October 2009 08:36
HARARE - A coalition of international
non-governmental organizations
led by British charity Oxfam International
has launched a campaign against
selling arms to countries like Zimbabwe,
saying the weapons could end up in
the wrong hands and used to oppress
people. Many people believe it is the
army that stopped the former
opposition party from taking power after it
winning elections last
year.
Oxfam and 11 NGO allies said in a report released last week all
international arms transfers should be authorized based on criteria centred
on international human rights law, international humanitarian law and
sustainable development.
Oxfam executive director Jeremy Hobbs said
the world should come up
with a robust arms treaty that would make it harder
for warlords and
dictators to obtain new arms and ammunition.
"Dangerous arms deals like recent deals with Chad, Zimbabwe or Libya
should
be avoided as thousands of weapons can end up in the wrong hands. In
all
these cases, the sale of arms should have never been authorized," Hobbs
said.
South Africa's opposition Democratic Alliance reported in
August that
President Robert Mugabe was stockpiling arms and ammunition in
preparation
for another round of terror to cow hapless Zimbabweans ahead of
next year's
constitutional referendum.
The report compiled by two
DA legislators who visited Zimbabwe in July
said the Zimbabwean strongman
was stockpiling modern weapons and was due to
receive another shipment of
ammunition from the South African government.
According to the report
compiled by DA parliamentarians Wilmot James
and Kenneth Mubu, Pretoria had
already sold an unspecified number of 9mm and
7.2mm ammunition to the
Zimbabwe Defence Forces and the South African
Parliament's National
Conventional Arms Control Committee was also
considering authorizing more
than a million rounds of bullets for export to
Harare.
Besides
South Africa, other countries cited as arming Mugabe were the
Venezuela,
Cuba and North Korea.
More than 200 people - most of them MDC
supporters - were killed
during the wild violence scenes that accompanied
the second round of the
2008 disputed presidential polls.
Oxfam and
its partners said the NGOs talks to establish an effective
international
treaty on the trade in conventional arms were going on at a
snail's pace
because of self interest and delaying tactics by some major
arms
exporters.
Governments are meeting this month at the United Nations in
New York
in a make-or-break debate to decide whether to officially kick
start formal
negotiations on creating an arms trade treaty.
A
robust treaty could limit the flow of weapons and ammunition and
prevent
arms deals that fuel poverty, conflict, armed crime and abuse of
human
rights.
http://www.radiovop.com
HARARE, October 11,
2009 - George Charamba, Permanent Secretary in the
Ministry of Information
and Publicity has blasted The Editor-in-Chief of The
Zimbabwean
newspaper,Wilf Mbanga, saying he is reaping where he does not
sow.
Mbanga is currently based in London in the United
Kingdom. He
publishes The Zimbabwean which has a weekly Sunday newspaper,
as well as a
Tuesday and Thursday version.
"He does not pay taxes
but still gets his United States dollars in
Zimbabwe," Charamba told stunned
editors in Harare. "He just makes money and
sends it all to Europe where his
masters are," an angry Charamba said.
"At least Trevor Ncube pays taxes
and he also pays (National Social
Security Association -NSSA). Mbanga grabs
the money and immediately takes it
to straight to London - the United
Kingdom - where he is based."
Asked to comment by Radio VOP, Mbanga
said he was paying his taxes.
"All the money we earned for the past two
years - until August 2009 was paid
to Zimra to cover the punitive 70 percent
import duty which all our
newspapers have been charged since June last year
- following the hijacking
and burning of our truck carrying 60 000 copies of
the Zimbabwean on Sunday
on May 25, 2008. Since August 1 we have paid 15
percent duty at the border
on every issue imported - including cost,
transport/freight and insurance -
the value of which is determined byZimra."
"The little money we make inside
the country goes to cover our local
expenses. We do not take money out of
Zimbabwe," said Mbanga.
Trevor Ncube, based in South Africa, is Chairman of the Zimbabwe
Independent
Group of newspapers which intends to publish a daily
newspaper -Newsday. The
group already publishes The Zimbabwe Independent
every Friday and The
Standard every Sunday.
Charamba was addressing editors from the
country's newspapers.
He had earlier threatened Barnabus Thondlana,
Editor of Newsday which
is from Trevor Ncube's Zimbabwe Independent Group
stable.
Charamba said however he sympathised with Ncube who had come to
government asking that his paper be given a licence.
"He is
probably disinvesting in South Africa and wants to invest in
Zimbabwe,"
Charamba said. "We spoke to him at the ministry and told him what
needed to
be done before we give him his licence."
There has been concerns that
government has issued licenses to
state-owned papers to launch additional
papers ahead of independent papers.
Zimbabwe is still awaiting a formal
announcement of the Zimbabwe Media
Commission Board which will be
responsible for issuing licenses. Unconfirmed
reports say former Sunday Mail
editor and Ziana and ZBC chief executive
officer, Henry Muradzikwa will
chair the Commission.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by The Editor
Friday, 09 October
2009 10:15
The actions of the Zanu (PF) wing of the unity government
and
revelations that the voters' roll remains as untruthful as ever before
once
again demonstrate to all - except the fatally optimistic - that the
unity
government experiment is ultimately an exercise in
futility.
It matters little whether this government delivers a new
constitution,
be it one authored by the people or by the three wise men in
the dead of the
night in a boat moored in the middle of Lake Kariba. It is
even less
important that a new Independent Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is
set up
with full authority over elections in the country.
For,
a constitution and an electoral commission can never deliver a
credible
election when the voters' register is packed with tens of thousands
of names
of dead people and some who have never walked this earth but who
will most
certainly be present on voting day to cast a decisive ballot in
favour of
the usual suspects.
As we report elsewhere in this paper, a study
of the voters' roll by
the Research and Advocacy Unit has identified names
of 74 021 voters aged
above 100 who are registered to vote in late 2010 or
early 2011 when new
elections expected.
This is a truly amazing
discovery in a country where very few people
outside the Zanu (PF) elite can
ever hope to live beyond 50 let alone 100
years.
Thanks to
President Robert Mugabe and Zanu (PF)'s warped polices of
the last 29 years,
average life expectancy in Zimbabwe is 34 years for women
and 37 years for
men. Where are all these centenarian voters coming from?
So, we
could get a new constitution and as many "independent
commissions" as we
like but Zanu (PF) gets to retain the tools of deception
such as the
fraudulent voters' roll.
The Zanu (PF) game is about wining power
at all costs. Forget the
people's will!
This explains the
indecent haste by Information Minister Webster Shamu
more than a week ago to
unilaterally appoint boards to all government media
and information
companies.
Zanu (PF) has always regarded government owned
newspapers and the
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) as vital cogs in the
party's vote
mobilisation machine. That is why Shamu must ring-fence them to
prevent
"infiltration" by the MDC and other perceived enemies.
The Zimbabwe Media Commission can come but it can never retrieve the
state-owned media from the claws of Zanu (PF) when former military men and
trusted allies of Mugabe's party sit on the boards of ZBH and the newspaper
companies.
And just in case everything else fails and electoral
defeat for Zanu
(PF) becomes inevitable, the unreformed security forces are
on standby to
overthrow the people's will. Remember June 27,
2008!
It is a most unkind ruse they are playing on us all. But one
so
impossible to execute should the MDC take a firm stand and demand that
Mugabe and Zanu (PF) fulfill all their commitments under the GPA. It's over
to you Mr Prime Minister.
http://www.iol.co.za/
October 11 2009 at
10:06AM
By Basildon Peta
It's been a bad week
for Zimbabwe's embattled media. President Robert
Mugabe appointed some of
his top army cronies to run key state media bodies
in what the Media
Institute for Southern Africa has condemned as the
"militarisation of the
media".
Zimbabwe's arch-opportunist Jonathan Moyo, formerly the
scourge of the
media as information minister, then an independent, was
readmitted into
Mugabe's Zanu-PF party. And now, the government has issued a
warning to Mail
and Guardian owner Trevor Ncube not to launch his new
Zimbabwean daily,
Newsday, as planned, on November 1, without a licence. Yet
the government is
launching its own new newspapers without
licences.
Mugabe has not yet appointed the new Zimbabwe Media
Commission tasked with
licensing newspapers, even though Parliament
submitted the names of nominees
to him two months ago. But the state-owned
Zimbabwe Newspapers Group has
since launched two new publications, The
Midlands Chronicle and Harare
Metro, without the required licences. This
prompted Ncube to announce that
he would launch Newsday on November 1
without a licence, since there was no
commission to give him one.
But
Mugabe's spokesman, George Charamba, said the government would move fast
to
shut down Newsday if Ncube launched it without a licence. It would also
arrest its staffers. "If you find yourself on the street without proper
registration, ahh, you are inviting us and we will react instantly," said
Charamba to a meeting of editors in Harare this week.
These
developments have dashed any hopes that the government of national
unity
launched by Mugabe and Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan
Tsvangirai in February would lead to media freedom, as it was supposed to
under the Global Political Agreement the parties signed as the framework for
the unity government.
Particularly ominous for the media is Moyo's
return. As minister of
information he masterminded the closure of four
independent newspapers. The
printing press of the Daily News, the only
independent daily, was bombed and
destroyed in 2001 at a time when Moyo was
warning it would be "obliterated".
If Moyo is co-opted into a Zanu-PF
strategy team as widely speculated,
journalists fear his influence will
again be malevolent.
Journalists and politicians have widely condemned
Mugabe's appointments of
retired army generals and brigadiers to the boards
of Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Holdings, which enjoys a monopoly over
broadcasting; Zimbabwe Newspapers,
which publishes all major state
newspapers and the country's only two
dailies; and the Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe, tasked with issuing
broadcast
frequencies.
Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, leader of the
smaller MDC faction,
has said the appointments of the boards would be
reversed because they were
irregular and unprocedural.
"Those
appointments are null and void," Mutambara said. "The cabinet was not
consulted, the prime minister was not consulted... We are going to reverse
them." However, neither Mutambara nor Tsvangirai has been able to reverse
any of Mugabe's past decisions. - Independent Foreign
Service
This article was originally published on page 24 of Sunday
Argus on October
11, 2009
The MDC
brand is under siege from relentless propaganda churned out by the
ZANU-PF
controlled media such as Zimpapers and the ZBH.These propaganda
organs are
slavishly assisted by latter-day ZANU-PF apologists and
opportunists most of
whom have dubious and scandal-ridden profiles.In this
desperate attempt to
demonise and in some instances,openly criminalise the
MDC and its top
leadership,we have witnessed a recent escalation of the hate
language that
ZANU-PF propagandists have traditionally used against the
MDC.Both the
Herald newspaper and its sister weekly,the Sunday Mail, have
been misused
and abused as vehicles to viciously and maliciously attack the
MDC as a
party and its top leadership in their individual capacities.The ZBH
takes
the propaganda war to another level by deliberately imposing a virtual
blackout on all activities undertaken by the MDC led by Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai.All MDC rallies and important report back meetings are
never covered on ZBC television.The MDC recently celebrated its 10th
anniversary at a mammoth rally attended by thousands of people at White City
stadium in Bulawayo but this historic event was hardly covered by ZBH; both
on radio and television.Contrast this with the massive coverage that ZBH
gives to a mundane and poorly attended ZANU-PF district meeting in
Mbare!
Since its formation in September 1999,the MDC led by Prime
Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai has quickly developed to become Zimbabwe's
largest and most
popular political party.You simply have to undertake a
quick survey
throughout the length and breath of Zimbabwe to appreciate how
enormously
popular the MDC has become.The thousands of people who throng MDC
rallies
and report back meetings weekend in and weekend out is clear
testimony of
the breathtaking popularity of the MDC.It is this remarkable
popularity of
such a young political party such as the MDC that irks ZANU-PF
and
ultimately motivates the crude propaganda onslaught against the MDC.It
is
pretty obvious that the ZANU-PF leadership is acutely aware of their
party's
declining popularity and its gradual breakdown into a rag tag
organisation
loosely held together by small and ineffective tribal cliques
and regional
groupings.For what can one say about a party that has dismally
failed to
organise elections for such a strategic area such as Harare
province.Witness
the primitive violence at the recently held ZANU-PF Women's
League's
congress and you then start really appreciating that ZANU-PF is a
mortally
wounded organisation; a political party that has certainly gone
beyond its
sell-by date! Move a step further and visit the ZANU-PF
Mashonaland West
province.Witness the paranoid hatred for people of Karanga
origin and just
observe how the ZANU-PF provincial executive led by one John
Mafa is now
literally under siege from the Zezuru supremacists led by some
well-known
ZANU-PF political heavyweights.And this is a party that dreams of
beating
the MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in free and fair
elections?
They can dream on.
That ZANU-PF is a party facing
inevitable demise and eventual disintegration
has never been in doubt.It is
now just a question of when and not whether
this party will disintegrate
into small and ineffective ethnically based
factions.And some of us are
actually excited by the re-entry of one Jonathan
Moyo into the sinking boat
that is ZANU-PF.Just watch this space.This man
will,with his usual
efferversence and fury,catalyse the disintegration of
ZANU-PF; the erstwhile
revolutionary party.For us in the MDC,the
re-admission of Jonathan Moyo into
the ZANU-PF fold should be cause for
massive celebration.Only a miracle can
serve ZANU-PF from its impending and
inevitable disintegration.And Jonathan
Moyo is not a miracle! In some of my
previous articles,I have discussed the
need for any organisation,be it
political,religious or even business, to
periodically renew and regenerate
its leadership.Simply put,the concept of
dialectical materialism entails the
inevitable collapse of the old and
backward and the emergence of the modern
and more forward-looking.Because
ZANU-PF has dismally failed to periodically
renew its top leadership
structure ever since the days of the armed
liberation struggle of the
1970s,for students of history and political
science,what is happening to
this formerly formidable political organisation
is not at all
surprising.What we are presently witnessing is the inevitable
collapse of a
once mighty political organisation.This is a party whose
ideology is still
stuck in the mantra of the Cold War era; a party
completely lost on strategy
and stuck in history.A political party that has
stubbornly refused to move
forward and change with the times and a party
that is now the victim of its
own former glory.How the mighty have fallen!
By contrast,the MDC is a
young and vibrant social democratic party.It's top
leadership consists of a
tantalising mix of fairly old and young blood;
vibrant comrades from the
world of trade unionism and some of Zimbabwe's
finest brains.The MDC's
membership consists of an interesting mixture of the
urban poor,the
students,the middle class and now; the rural peasantry.Some
misguided
political analysts have stoically argued that the support base of
the MDC is
full of contradictions.Some of them pose the question of how a
poor peasant
in Dotito can relate to a young and up and coming business
executive in
Harare or Bulawayo.The answer is simple.As a social democratic
party,the MDC
easily appeals to all people,across the racial,ethnic and
class divide, who
aspire to a serious paradigm shift in the manner in which
matters of
governance have been conducted in our beloved country.These are
people who
are sick and tired of the politics of patronage,kleptocracy and
autocracy.These are people who sincerely love Zimbabwe and who refuse to
hate someone simply on the basis of the colour of their skin or the part of
the country where they come from.Primitive concepts like racism and
tribalism have no place within the MDC.Unlike ZANU-PF which somehow believes
in some form of gerontocracy( i.e. rule by the elders),the MDC is a vibrant
political formation that looks at one's inherent abilities and talent rather
than age when it comes to getting elected into leadership positions.This is
one of the reasons why the MDC has some of the youngest cabinet ministers;
one of whom is aged only 31.Contrast this with ZANU-PF who are about to
elect a man in his 80s to become one of the country's
Vice-Presidents!
Because social democracy underpins the MDC's basic
ideology,the party is
finding it very easy to attract new supporters each
and every day; across
the racial,ethnic and social divide.The majority of
Zimbabweans,both urban
and rural,see a future for themselves and for their
children by supporting
the MDC.ZANU-PF is now generally associated with
violence,intolerance,corruption and greed.And the majority of the people now
do not support them because of these deeply entrenched vices.Put simply,in
ZANU-PF,the majority of Zimbabweans see more gloom,more hunger,more
repression,more corruption and indeed,more suffering.No matter how much
crude propaganda the ZBC and Zimpapers continue to churn out,the people have
now opened their eyes and they should no longer be taken for granted.If
anything,the relentless propaganda against the MDC and its top leadership
has had the net effect of making Morgan Tsvangirai the global brand that he
has become.Indeed,for Morgan Tsvangirai to be nominated as a Nobel Peace
prize laureate is in itself a wonderfull lifetime achievement which some
political leaders will only encounter in their dreams.The ZANU-PF brand is
damaged goods and this is why the people of Zimbabwe have repeatedly voted
for change since the year 2000.Indeed,the people have spoken.
Written
by:
Senator Obert Gutu