http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 12:04
FOLLOWING
last week’s expiry of the 30-day deadline set by regional leaders
for
Zimbabwe’s coalition government to implement outstanding issues, MDC-T
leader Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday slammed Sadc chief, Tomaz Salomao, over
the handling of the Zimbabwe crisis at the Windhoek summit in
August.
Upon return from the summit, the MDC-T accused the regional body’s
executive
secretary of not capturing a report by the Sadc mediator on
Zimbabwe,
President Jacob Zuma, which outlined the outstanding issues and a
roadmap
for free and fair elections.
Tsvangirai’s party
claimed that it wrote to Salomao at the end of August
seeking assurances
that the regional body would ensure credible polls were
held in Zimbabwe. It
also protested against the alleged “doctoring” of the
Sadc
communiqué.
The MDC-T accused the secretariat of blocking debate on
Zimbabwe at the full
summit of leaders.
However, in an exclusive
interview with the Zimbabwe Independent, Salomao
denied ever receiving a
letter from the MDC-T.
“Everyone is telling me that I am supposed to have
received a letter from
(Tendai) Biti, but I didn’t receive any letter,” he
said.
Salomao then asked: “What was the letter supposed to have been
about?”
When told that it was an official complaint about the way he
handled the
Zimbabwe issue at the summit and how he deliberately omitted
recommendations
from Zuma’s report which were endorsed by the regional
leaders, he said:
“The MDC has to learn how we do business in
Sadc.
“Political parties attended the troika meeting of the Sadc organ on
politics, defence and security and the communiqué was from the Sadc summit
which discussed several other issues, including Zimbabwe.”
Asked
about the roadmap to elections, which the MDC-T said Sadc should now
implement, Salomao said: “I don’t have official communication from MDC
regarding that issue. They have direct communication with me and the Sadc
secretariat here (Gaborone) and they have to write to me about
that.”
Salomao’s statements angered MDC-T, whose top leadership accused the
Sadc
secretary -general of being a “liar and pushing a Zanu PF
agenda”.
This is likely to cause a crisis in Sadc, whose leaders are given
the
opportunity to read through the initial draft communiqué before the
final
one is endorsed by the summit.
In another interview,
Tsvangirai insisted that the letter was definitely
sent to Salomao. “We had
to register our displeasure because he tried to
forge the communiqué,” he
said. “He tried to say the facilitator’s report
was not adopted. There was
nothing in the final communiqué and yet it was
adopted by the summit,” he
said, adding that: “He (Salomao) wants to tell us
about Sadc, he wants to
take us for a ride.”
Biti, who authored the letter sent to Salomao,
said: “That is a lie (Salomao
not receiving the letter). I can actually give
you a copy; I will give you
the copy. I am going to send Salomao an email
today. I wrote and sent that
letter to him.”
In the letter, MDC-T
noted and demanded answers on three areas of concern:
the alleged watering
down of the communiqué, the blocking of debate on
Zimbabwe in the full
summit, and the implementation of a roadmap to free and
fair elections in
Zimbabwe.
A top MDC-T official accused Salomao of behaving like a “Zanu PF
card-carrying member”.
“Salomao behaves like a Zanu PF
functionary, which is not necessary,” he
said. “He must know that there is a
distinction between himself and Zanu PF.
He acts as if he is card-carrying
member — maybe he is,” he said, adding
that: “It is time now that he
actually understood what his interests are and
his interests are not with
the people of Zimbabwe. It is about life and
death in this country. People
lose lives because he is dilly dallying.”
The communiqué only spoke of a
resolution for the regional leaders to lobby
against the removal of
sanctions.
Zuma’s report noted that the coalition government partners
had agreed on a
30-day implementation matrix on 24 outstanding issues. It
outlined a roadmap
for elections in Zimbabwe as the most viable way out of
the crisis.
The roadmap includes the completion of the
constitution-making exercise, a
referendum on a constitutional draft and the
holding of general elections
that parties hope will produce a clear and
legitimate winner.
Faith Zaba
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
12:01
RESERVE Bank governor Gideon Gono has appealed to Finance minister
Tendai
Biti, his erstwhile rival, to intervene in his blazing row with the
central
bank’s deputy board chairman Charles Kuwaza which has destabilised
the
country’s lender of last resort.
The fight is threatening to suck
in several other high-ranking government
officials, including President
Robert Mugabe.
Central bank officials were said to be thinking of even taking
the matter to
Mugabe if appeals to Biti cannot stop the wrangling.
The
issue has assumed a serious dimension as Gono accuses Kuwaza of the
grave
offence of breaching the Official Secrets Act. An official found in
violation of the Act can be jailed for up to 20 years.
In
a letter dated August 27, titled “Serious operational differences with
the
deputy chairman of the RBZ board, Mr C Kuwaza”, Gono urges Biti to
intervene
to stop “destabilisation of the bank, witch-hunting, overbearing
behaviour,
denigration of the country’s leadership and leaking of official
documents to
the media”.
Gono says if Biti did not get involved to stop the fight,
Kuwaza would
continue with his “covert and overt destructive
activities”.
“This letter formally seeks your intervention to reconcile our
widening
differences in the interest of moving the bank forward,” Gono says.
“Honourable minister, your assistance in this matter will be greatly
appreciated.”
Gono further states that in the intervening time he
had decided to evict
Kuwaza from the Reserve Bank headquarters.
“In the
meantime, I have taken the position that Mr Kuwaza ceases to occupy
the
physical office he is using at the RBZ on the grounds of the material
evidence I have in my possession of his covert and overt destructive
activities,” he says.
Gono is his letter tells Biti of “serious
operations difficulties” he had
been encountering since Kuwaza came in as
deputy board chairman.
“Kuwaza is impairing the interests of the bank and its
stakeholders through
direct, overt destabilisation of management’s team
spirit through abrasive,
abusive and unprofessional language to members of
management,” Gono writes
to Biti.
Gono also accuses Kuwaza of
“unproductive focus on irrelevant witch-hunts,
dating back to issues and
areas he had differences on with previous central
bank
management.
“I have concrete evidence to this effect,” he
says.
Gono also points the finger at Kuwaza for allegedly “discussing and
disclosing sensitive bank policy issues and affairs of the state to third
parties on social gatherings in contravention of the Official Secrets
Act”.
Gono tells Biti that he has “tangible evidence and witnesses”
to that. He
said he was ready to give Biti the evidence of the alleged
Official Secrets
breaches. Kuwaza has been pushing for an investigation into
the activities
of the central bank at the height of quasi-fiscal activities
and
hyperinflation, a move which has triggered a fierce dogfight between him
and
his chairman Gono.
Official documents suggest Kuwaza has been
pushing for a probe into affairs
of the central bank in a bid to unearth
suspected looting of the bank
between 2004 and 2008 by its top officials who
are well-connected to Mugabe
and Zanu PF.
There have been
previous efforts by ministers from the MDC-T to encourage
the government and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to undertake a
“forensic audit” of the
activities of the Reserve Bank. The efforts have
been resisted by Mugabe’s
ministers.
Documents say Kuwaza, a former senior official in the
Ministry of Finance
and board member of several organisatiions, including
the Zimbabwe Revenue
Authority, had demanded an investigation into several
issues, including
seignorage or printing money between 2004 and 2008. Kuwaza
has written to
Gono telling him that Zimbabwe should never print money again
whenever
possible because it caused hyperinflation. In 2008 hyperinflation
in
Zimbabwe scaled 500 billion percent due to printing
money.
Reserve Bank officials say Kuwaza wants all quasi-fiscal
activities
investigated to ascertain how much money was printed and how it
was used.
This is likely to be resisted vigorously from Zanu PF quarters of
government
as some of the money was used to fund operations of the army,
police and
intelligence services.
Government insisted on the
printing of money for its own operations and
buying of cars, houses, farm
implements and equipment and all sorts of items
used by the
state.
Besides money printing, documents show, Kuwaza questioned a
lot of issues at
the central bank, including the tendering process which led
to the building
of the current Reserve Bank headquarters. He is said to be
alleging that the
process was not transparent and that he has tried to check
the records to
see if there was any corruption but failed to get the
evidence.
It is said Kuwaza warned Gono to avoid making the Reserve
Bank a “gravy
train”.
Kuwaza is also said to be even querying
morality of staff at the Reserve
Bank which he says at one point was turned
into “a red light district”.--Staff
Writer
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
16:14
SOME of the over 50 people who accused Harare businessman Frank
Buyanga of
fraudulently seizing their immovable properties through a
controversial loan
scheme have made a U-turn, saying they had instead sold
their houses and
stands to the property mogul.
It has also emerged that
some of the complainants had lost or withdrawn
their cases against the
businessman in the High Court.
Documents and videos in possession of the
Zimbabwe Independent reveal that
the people sold the properties to
subsidiaries of Buyanga’s Hamilton
Property Holdings –– not that they
received loans from the businessman who
has been accused of being a loan
shark.
Buyanga was accused last month of cheating 500 homeowners out of their
properties through a loan scheme where the borrower would sign an agreement
of sale and pay the principal loan and interest within three
months.
Failure to repay the loan, it was alleged, would result in the
forfeiture of
the immovable property and subsequent transfer into Buyanga’s
companies.
Affidavits at hand allege that a Harare woman –– Fiona Jirira ––
had
conspired with people who had sold their houses to Buyanga and resolved
to
raise false allegations of fraud against the 31-year-old
businessman.
In June, Jirira lost a case in the High Court against one of
Buyanga’s
companies –– ZIMCOR Trustees Ltd –– when she wanted to overturn an
agreement
of sale she had entered with the company after selling her
property to it
for US$15 000.
There are at least 53 people, among them
cabinet ministers from both
political divides, prominent businesspeople and
top musicians, who signed
agreements of sale with Buyanga’s companies, but
are now refusing to pay him
back the money they received.
Buyanga
reportedly sunk US$10 million in the economy through buying
properties at a
time of a steep liquidity crunch.
Talkmore Kwaramba of Waterfalls, in a sworn
affidavit dated August 24,
denied having entered into a loan agreement with
Hamilton Property Holdings,
but confirmed having voluntarily entered an
agreement of sale with the
company.
Kwaramba said he had snubbed a
meeting convened by Jirira in March in Milton
Park to “drum up complaints”
against Buyanga’s firm.
He wrote: “On the 29th of September 2009, I entered
into an agreement with
Hamilton Property Holdings Ltd. In terms of this
agreement I sold my
property, 4452/220 Montgomery Drive, Prospect,
Waterfalls, Harare, to
Hamilton Property Holdings Ltd for the sum of $15
000.
“I confirm that in or around March 2010, I was called by one Fiona
Jirira
asking me to come for a meeting in Milton Park. The agenda of the
meeting
was to drum-up complaints against Hamilton Property Holdings Ltd,
its
subsidiaries and Frank Buyanga Sadiqi, through alleging that this
company
was selling/taking over people’s property without their
consent.”
Kwaramba was categorical that he sold his house to Buyanga’s
firm.
“I wish to clarify that my transaction with Hamilton Property Holdings
or
Frank Buyanga was an outright agreement of sale and nothing else and that
my
property was not at anytime taken over or sold without my consent,” he
said.
“I therefore did not attend this meeting because its agenda was based
on
falsehood.”
Another homeowner, Beauty Chabvonga, also claimed that she
had sold her
property in Chadcombe for $15 000 and was also called by Jarira
to attend a
meeting in Milton Park to pin down whom she accused of swindling
scores of
desperate borrowers of their properties.
“I confirm that I went
to Milton Park and spoke to Fiona Jirira,” said
Chabvonga in her affidavit
dated August 23. “They showed me a list of names
with corresponding phone
numbers. I then asked Fiona who had given my
details, but she did not say…I
therefore left the meeting because its agenda
was not clear and based on
falsehood.”
The High Court recently dismissed a case filed against Buyanga by
Margaret
Marume (1909/10) and Todd Muguza (2606/09), while Marume (1824/10);
and
Synodia Chaya (6266/09) withdrew their actions. Chawaona Kanoti’s case
(2529/10) was settled.
Besides the affidavits and court documents, the
Independent has footage of
some of the homeowners signing agreements of
sale. The homeowners were
advised that they were being filmed while signing
the agreements and
consented.
Among those captured on video were Wilton
Musanhi, Tsitsi Chitagu, Irine
Mahlanze, Charles Dzvairo, Pearce Ferera,
Theodora Madzimbamuto, Chris
Msipa, Farai Katso and Elizabeth Katso, Cyprian
Musarurwa, Edwell Makomeya,
Douglas Munzvengi, Jealousy Sibanda, Richard
Ncube and Jirira.
Others are Tendai Mupfurutsa, Vimbai Chidavaenzi,
Marcelline Chinamora,
Stephen Nyoka, Nyamayevu Makombe, David Mwaruta,
Godwin Munyama and Elias
Sawari, Theodora Madzimbamuto, Chris Msipa, Farai
Katso and Elizabeth Katso,
Irene Ndamba, Cyprian Musarurwa, Edwell Makomeya,
Douglas Munzvengi,
Jealousy Clever Sibanda and Richard Zibusiso
Ncube.
Efforts to get a comment from Buyanga over the past two weeks were
unsuccessful as he is abroad, but an official at his office who asked for
anonymity said the complainants had “intentionally confused Hamilton Finance
and Hamilton Property Holdings Ltd so as to prove a case of illegal landing”
against the businessman.
“Hamilton Property Holdings has always been in
the business of buying
property and has no link to Hamilton Finance as
reported in the media,” the
official said.
Meanwhile, Hamilton property
lawyers and the complainants, with the
assistance of the Attorney-General
(AG), last month reached a settlement.
Buyanga’s lawyer, Farai Mutamangira,
on Wednesday said: “We are still
finalising the settlement
agreement.”
Sources at the AG said the complainants had agreed to pay back
Buyanga in
the “context of cancellation of the agreements of sale”.
The
complainants’ lawyer, a Mr Harvey of Granger & Harvey legal
practitioners, on Wednesday refused to comment and referred the Independent
to Mutamangira. Police last month said they were probing Buyanga, though his
lawyers insisted the matter was civil, not criminal.
Bernard
Mpofu
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
16:11
THE Minister of National Healing and Reconciliation, Sekai Holland,
ranted
at political violence victims while a Joint Monitoring and
Implementation
Committee (Jomic) official received boos in a show of how
official organs
are out of touch with their constituencies.
A meeting
organised to bring victims of political violence and official
organs formed
to deal with emotive issues of national reconciliation closer
turned into a
stormy affair this week.
Tempers rose high, with Holland at one point
accusing some victims of trying
"to show off".
A local organisation, Heal
Zimbabwe Trust, organised the meeting at a Harare
hotel. Holland is a member
of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC-T
party, which claims that its
supporters suffered from past elections,
particularly the disputed 2008
presidential election run-off.
Amid jeers, Holland shouted at delegates who
included over 200 victims of
past political violence after they quizzed her
on why her ministry had
remained largely a paper tiger.
Holland went
ballistic when a victim from Manicaland demanded to know why
perpetrators of
violence were being prioritised in government agricultural
input schemes
ahead of victims.
Zanu PF youths, the victim said, were bragging in
communities about
receiving allowances and inputs from government for their
role in the 2008
election violence.
"In terms of resources, the president
(Morgan Tsvangirai) was here. Why didn't
you ask him this question?" She
wanted to know. "Why are you putting it to
me?" she said with jeers drowning
her defence.
Tsvangirai had attended the same event earlier.
Holland was
undeterred by the increasing heckling: "No, listen, can I just
say this
thing. When the president comes here you stand up dancing,
ululating,
jumping and really showing love and gratitude. He leaves then you
put
ministers in a tight spot.
"That is the question to put to the president
because my position is, I am
doing national healing," Holland shot back at
the delegates.
The National Healing ministry and Jomic are the coalition
government's chief
organs to deal with transitional justice matters and heal
tensions that are
running high following the 2008 election, one of the most
violent since
Independence.
Victims and civil society groups accuse the
two inter-party bodies of
failure. Next in line for the victims' wrath was
Lovemore Kadenge, who
represents Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party on
Jomic.
He was booed off the podium after deferring victims' questions to the
ministries of Home Affairs and Defence, which are in charge of the police
and the army.
Earlier this month, Holland exchanged harsh words with
former liberation war
guerillas that operated under Zipra. She was angrily
reacting to accusations
of incompetence by Zipra.
Wongai
Zhangazha
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
16:10
HUNDREDS of locals living in South Africa are struggling to get
legal
documents because the Zimbabwean embassy and consulate in that country
are
failing to deal with the huge influx of illegal immigrants, a group
involved
in discussions with Pretoria over the issue has said.
The South
African government has given Zimbabwean immigrants, estimated at
between 1,5
to three million by different oganisations, until year end to
regularise
their stay or face deportation.
Those with illegal documents have an amnesty,
as long as they manage to
obtain a Zimbabwean passport and register with
South African authorities
before 31 December.
Zimbabwe Exiles Forum
(ZEF), a Pretoria-based group that deals with
immigrant rights issues, said
yesterday the process has been marred by
congestion, poor communication and
neglect of illiterate Zimbabweans. ZEF
met South African Home Affairs
officials on Wednesday, the third time since
the announcement of the new
policy in September, to push for a review of the
process.
Gabriel Shumba,
the ZEF executive director, said Zimbabwean officials were
also hampering
the process for vulnerable groups such as informal traders by
demanding
letters of employment as a condition for issuing passports.
"There are a lot
of challenges, including the fact that the Zimbabwe
Consulate in
Johannesburg cannot cope with the applications for passports
and therefore
people have to pay bribes to jump the queues," said Shumba.
"More
unconscionable and reprehensible is the fact that the Consulate has
been
asking some applicants for letters from employers before allowing them
to
apply for lost or new passports. ZEF believes that every Zimbabwean
deserves
a passport by virtue of nationality rather than employment status.
We find
this practice undesirable and appalling," he said
Co-Home Affairs minister
Kembo Mohadi, whose ministry has already stated
that the new policy was by
mutual consent, refused to directly respond to
Shumba's allegations.
"We
are giving them the requisite documents, he said. "The process is going
on
now. Don't focus on negative things."
Outgoing Zimbabwean Ambassador to South
Africa, Simon Khaya Moyo promised to
issue passports to immigrants before
the amnesty lapsed on December 31.
"In this spirit, the embassy urges all
organisations, whether civil or
political, to refrain from issuing
statements that may not reflect the
correct agreement between the two
countries, which statements may lead to
unnecessary confusion," he said in a
statement.
The South African government is set to resume deportations of
illegal
immigrants from January 1 after scrapping a moratorium on
deportations of
illegal Zimbabweans that has been in place since April last
year.
South African Home Affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma announced
this
week that 240 Home Affairs officials had been deployed to 46 regional
offices across the country to facilitate the registration of illegal
immigrants. Zimbabwe's Home Affairs ministry has said it will dispatch
passport officers to expedite the process.
South Africa hosts the largest
number of exiled Zimbabweans who fled Harare's
decade-long economic and
political turmoil that critics blame on President
Robert Mugabe's
mismanagement of the economy and strong-arm tactics on
dissenting
voices.
Mugabe, on the other hand, blames Western-imposed sanctions for
Zimbabwe's
fall from being one of Africa's best performing economies to a
regional
bread basket.
Economists such as Kingdom Financial Holdings
Ltd's Witness Chinyama say
Zimbabwe's economy is still too small to absorb
millions of unskilled
returning Zimbabweans despite the relative stability
brought by the
formation of the coalition government.
Brian Chitemba
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
16:08
ZANU PF members who invaded Glen Forest Farm just outside Harare
are selling
the land under the name of the late Joanna Mafuyana, wife of
Zimbabwe's
founding father, Joshua Nkomo, who died in 1999, the Zimbabwe
Independent
has established.
The case highlights the porous nature of
government's land reforms and how
productive land grabbed from white farmers
has turned fallow and is being
used for speculative purposes.
Mama
Mafuyana, as the late vice-president's wife is popularly known, died in
2003, but her name remains a cash cow for a clique that has been parcelling
out pieces of the land for as much as US$10 000 per 0,2
hectares.
Government forced out the owners of Glen Forest farm for urban
expansion
purposes and allocated land to a housing project for Zanu PF
supporters.
Most of the farm, previously a thriving maize and cattle
operation, is now
under the hammer.
A real estate agent selling the land
said individual beneficiaries were
queuing up to dispose of the land for
cash.
Posing as a prospective buyer, a Zimbabwe Independent reporter was
offered
part of the land, but was told to wait for two months for "papers to
be
regularised". Fingold Real Estate agency has been conducting the
sales.
The firm's managing director, only identified as Mrs V Aleck, said
sales had
temporarily been stopped because of problems in locking in
transfers to new
owners.
"Currently there are no title deeds, maybe if
you can check after two
months," she said.
The late Mama Mafuyana's
daughter, Thandiwe Nkomo, said she was aware of the
housing project, but had
no idea that beneficiaries were now selling the
land. She said her family
was not involved in the running of the project.
"I can't remember who is
behind the housing cooperative. It's been years
since I last interacted with
people from the Mama Mafuyana Housing
Cooperative," she said.
Commercial
Farmers Union president Deon Theron said his organisation, which
represents
most of the evicted white farmers, had received such a report.
Most of the
people who were allocated the land were Zanu PF supporters.
"It's a criminal
offence because no one can sell land that was acquired by
the government,
especially without title deeds," he said.
Lands and Resettlement minister
Hebert Murerwa was unavailable for comment.
The land, identified in
acquisition papers as Remaining Extent of Glen
Forest of Borrowdale Estate,
measures 149,029 hectares and was invaded by
militants loyal to President
Robert Mugabe in 2002 during the haphazard farm
occupations. It officially
became state land under the Constitutional
Amendment Number 17 of 2005.-
Staff Writer.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
15:29
EDISON Gwenhure of Zaka, Masvingo, still bears emotional scars of
the
militarised 2008 presidential election re-run. Yet, when civil society
and
business have spoken against fresh elections next year, Gwenhure wants
them
held "immediately".
Failure by a discordant coalition government to
deal with issues of
transitional justice and reconciliation following
elections that turned
communities into war zones has made Gwenhure believe
that only an election
that produces a clear winner can heal his wounds. He,
however, qualifies his
support for elections. There must be effective
international supervision, he
says.
"Nothing has changed. No-one has been
arrested," Gwenhure said. "Instead,
some Zanu PF supporters are holding
meetings threatening worse violence. We
want free and fair internationally
supervised elections."
Gwenhure was one of many political violence victims
who testified at an
indaba that brought together Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai, National
Healing minister Sekai Holland, Joint Monitoring and
Implementation
Committee (Jomic) representative Lovemore Kadenge, victims,
civil society
and doctors who treated wounded activists.
Members of
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF's party, accused by rights
groups and
election monitors of fronting the violence, did not attend the
meeting held
at a Harare hotel.
Another victim, Benson Chamwazoda of Checheche, Chipinge,
in Manicaland,
said transitional justice would remain a dream as long as
Mugabe was in
power.
"Tsvangirai appears to be struggling in the
inclusive government. He doesn't
have the powers to act, so the only thing
that can free us is a fair
election that produces a clear winner who can
then tackle these issues,"
Chamwazoda told the Zimbabwe Independent.
"As
it is, there is no difference. We are still being intimidated in the
communities. Let's go for elections. But they should not be a farce like the
2008 ones. The UN should intervene," Chamwazoda said, in what appeared to be
the popular view among the 200 victims of Zimbabwe's past elections who
attended the meeting.
Gwenhure, winding his memory back to Zaka, talked
vividly about events of
June 3 2008 at the height of the election campaign
when he was attacked in
the early hours of the morning. Gwenhure and
colleagues were working at an
MDC-T command centre when the attack
happened.
He said no matter how hard he has tried to forget events of that
day, the
multiple scars on his face, hands and legs just cannot be
erased.
"When we were at the MDC district command centre we were attacked by
five
armed men at around 3.30 am," said Gwenhure. "At the time, we were
still
working since the office was operating 24 hours during this sensitive
period.
"They told us to lie down and shot one of our colleagues Chrison
Mbano. They
then took 25 litres of petrol and splashed it around the room.
One of them
lit a candle, threw it at the centre of the room and closed the
door."
Silence filled the hotel conference room, with some participants
closing
their eyes as if picturing the horrifying incident.
Tears could
be seen streaming down a number of faces as Gwenhure continued
with his
narration.
"Our clothes were set alight by the fire but we managed to bring
down the
door with some of my colleagues," continued Gwenhure.
"But the
moment the door fell. I was shot in the leg and I lost some toes
and
Washington Nyamwa, a colleague, was shot and fell down. I watched him
crying
as he lay on the ground burning to his death while I hid ."
Some victims told
the Independent on the sidelines of the meeting that they
were ready for
elections despite analysts and civil society warning that the
political
environment was not conducive for elections next year.
Victims say the
situation in their communities showed that the political
environment would
remain tense even if elections were put on hold for five
years as demanded
by business leaders.
The victims, however, qualified their support for
elections, stating that
only an internationally supervised election would
solve outstanding issues
such as transitional justice.
As most victims
spoke of violence that has plagued Zimbabwe elections since
2000, a woman
from Matopo, Matabeleland South, queried why victims of
Gukurahundi - a
1980s ethnic campaign by the military that killed 20 000
people according to
a Catholic agency-were being ignored.
"They would kill people and then
instruct relatives to bury them. Some of
the bones are still scattered.
There have been no decent burials up to now
and Gukurahundi victims want not
only compensation but public apologies from
the people responsible," she
said.
A representative of rape victims said women who had been raped wanted
compensation before elections. She proposed the death sentence for those who
committed rape, counseling services for victims and material, moral and
financial support for those living with HIV.
Agreement Kagora of
Muzarabani, representing people detained for political
activism by President
Mugabe's previous government, said some of those
detained lost their jobs in
government because of the detentions. Such
people, he said, should be
compensated for the trauma they suffered and
property they lost while in
prison.
In response, Tsvangirai, who sat through some of the testimonies,
said the
state had an obligation to look after and compensate victims of
political
violence.
Tsvangirai said: "Transitional justice is not about
retribution. It is about
formulating a flexible approach, to engage in the
past to lay a foundation
for peace, tolerance and progress. It is about
listening to the cries of the
victims as well as understand the fears of the
perpetrators, fears that if
unchecked could derail the process of national
healing."
He said he would not agree to an election next year if violence
persisted.
Wongai Zhangazha
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 14:20
WHEN
Botswana President Ian Khama took over from Festus Mogae on April fools
day
in 2008, and became one of the two regional leaders who publicly
denounced
president Robert Mugabe’s style of leadership, many viewed the
retired army
general as the epitome of democracy.
Khama and the late Zambian
president Levy Mwanawasa questioned Mugabe’s
legitimacy after the bloody
June 2008 presidential election run-off that
Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai claims killed at least 200 of his
supporters.
Botswana even
went further to become the only Sadc country to declare that
it did not
recognise Mugabe’s election, representing a departure from the
region’s
usual quiet diplomacy.
Two years on, critics, former allies and analysts say
Khama could be taking
a leaf from Zimbabwe’s wily 86-year-old Mugabe. They
accuse Khama, the
former military commander, of turning into a
dictator.
Opposition political parties, the media and analysts in Botswana
fear that
if unchecked, Khama could become a despot and a mirror image of
Mugabe ––
the man he so much despises.
There are uncanny similarities
between the two. Their only difference is the
time it took for them to show
these dictatorial tendencies, analysts say.
It took most Zimbabweans and the
world 20 years to take note of Mugabe’s
hard-line, authoritarianism. It has
taken Khama just two years to build a
similar reputation.
Khama, like
Mugabe, enjoys excessive powers under the constitution.
But unlike his
predecessors Sir Ketumile Masire and Mogae, who preferred to
consult cabinet
and other stakeholders before making decisions, Batswana
analysts and
opposition parties say the current president has chosen to use
his
constitutional powers to make unilateral appointments.
Khama has allegedly
surrounded himself with friends in cabinet, government
and the party’s top
leadership – cronies who owe their livelihood to him,
they say.
Professor
Kenneth Dipholo, a political analyst who teaches at the University
of
Botswana, said: “We inherited some of the laws which were dictatorial,
but
because we were a democracy these laws were not used.
“Past leaders have not
taken advantage of these laws. The current president
uses the powers and we
believe that he is becoming more like a dictator.”
Many Batswana are now
worried about what has become of the once popular
leader and son of their
founding father, Sir Seretse Khama. They are
wondering what the situation
would be like in another three years when Khama’s
five-year term
ends.
Just talking to ordinary people, journalists, and politicians in
Gaborone,
one gets a sense of an entrenched fear to criticise or talk freely
about
Khama.
A human rights defender who asked not to be named for
security reasons said:
“I have sensed a worsening of the fear. The people
are afraid to criticise
their government and this is going as far as the NGO
sector, which is
cowering and apologetic.”
“Because of the alleged
state-sanctioned killings here, a phenomenon which
seems to be emerging,
Batswana fear that if it continues, Khama could turn
out to be one of the
worst leaders Sadc has seen.”
Spokesperson of the Botswana Movement for
Democracy (BMD), which was formed
in May after a split in Khama’s ruling
Botswana Democratic Party (BDP),
Advocate Sidney Pilane, said there was a
general feeling that the Department
of Intelligence and Security Services
(DIS) had bugged people’s phones and
was listening in to private
conversations with a view of dealing with
dissenting voices.
Khama set up
the DIS, which operates on the same lines as the feared Central
Intelligence
Organisation in Zimbabwe, when he became president in 2008.
The agency is run
by Isaac Kgosi, a powerful and feared personal friend of
Khama from their
military days. Kgosi, who sometimes doubles as Khama’s
bodyguard, has also
worked as his private secretary.
“There is that fear in people that they are
not sure who they are talking to
and they are no longer free to talk on
their phones because they feel that
the DIS is listening in and tapping
their conversations,” said Pilane.
Professor Dipholo said Khama’s emphasis on
discipline made people afraid to
comment or criticise his
administration.
“Fear has engulfed our lives and since the president took
over,
circumstances have changed and the freedoms we knew and enjoyed have
changed.”
Besides instilling fear in the people and trying to turn the
country into a
“disciplined” nation, why do Batswana strongly feel that
their leader is
turning into a dictator?
It was not possible to get a
comment from Khama or his party. Officials at
his party refused several
interview requests.
But in May, Khama defended his strong-arm tactics. He
said it was his
responsibility to restore order and repair his party and
country, adding
that he would continue to instill discipline in his party to
ensure that
members did not end up behaving like South Africa’s African
National
Congress youth leader, Julius Malema.
He then dismissed those
labelling him a dictator, describing them as lazy
people who did not want to
be told to work hard.
Khama said he did not expect people to agree with
everything he does, hence
he had to take a stand as a leader. This, he said,
did not make him a
dictator.
Khama’s appointment of loyal friends to
military and top government posts
has trickled down to top party posts,
which are being held by non-elected
members handpicked by him, say
critics.
Pilane, who was the legal advisor to Mogae before the split, said
opposition
parties, the press and a number of people from the ruling BMD
party were
always wary of Khama’s dictatorial tendencies from the time he
was vice
president.
He said they watched Khama’s worsening dictatorship
hence the split in the
party by people who felt that if unchallenged he
could end up like Mugabe.
“He (Khama) had always displayed tendencies, but
they were not serious,”
Pilane said. “I was always suspicious right from the
time he was
vice-president and I watched him closely for six and a half
years, but some
of us thought he would shed his military leadership,” he
said.
Pilane pointed out that: “Khama operates like a military commander ––
he
makes the decisions and everyone exists to carry out his decisions and
consultation is a waste of time. He issues directives and his ministers are
there to carry them out. He says ‘I am the leader and you must support and
do as I say’.”
He said fortunately for Botswana, it had Zimbabwe as an
example of what
could happen if a leader is allowed to manifest into a
dictator.
“We haven’t reached the stage of Zimbabwe and we never will,” he
said. “We
will not permit it. Last year we could see the beginning of a
Zimbabwe in
the making. We decided to stop it by breaking away.”
“We are
lucky that we had the Zimbabwean experience and we were able to open
our
eyes because we were able to see Mugabe turn from a hero into a despot.
If
it weren’t for Zimbabwe we would never have known that we needed to stop
Khama.”
Faith Zaba, recently in Gaborone
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 12:49
A
FRENCH national whose Chegutu farmhouse was burnt to the ground by
suspected
Zanu PF supporters has expressed anger at Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai's
failure to intervene despite the property being protected by a
bilateral
investment and protection agreement.
The occupation of farms protected by
bilateral investment agreements is one
of the contentious property rights
issues keeping investors at bay, 19
months after President Robert Mugabe and
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai
formed a coalition.
Catherine
Jouineau-Meredith says she has been trying to get Tsvangirai's
help since
February last year after Zanu PF Senator Jamaya Muduvuri occupied
her
Twyford farm. The farmhouse was burnt down on September 14.
"All the
promises given to me personally by you and your office have stood
empty and
no action has ever been undertaken to rectify all the illegalities
that have
taken place since February 6 2009 when the farm was occupied by
Mr
Muduvuri," she said in a letter to the Prime Minister's Office dated
September 21.
Tsvangirai's spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka, however,
yesterday said the
premier was aware of the case and had made efforts to
help.
The farm is also protected by a provisional High Court order issued on
January 27 2007.
Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) President Deon
Theron yesterday said the
incident was one of several that his organisation
had been informed of
around the country.
"We know about the
incident and the farm is indeed protected by a French
Bippa. The owners are
French nationals. Of late there has been a resurgence
of violent disputes at
some of the farms countrywide. We have received
reports of two or three
incidents per district," said Theron.
Jouineau-Meredith claims that she has
lost 15 hectares of seed maize, 50
hectares of seed sorghum, 25 hectares of
citrus, 30 hectares of sweet
potatoes, five hectares of commercial maize,
220 sheep and 26 head of
cattle.
Twyford farm was one of the
farms visited by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur
Mutambara and a high powered
inter-party ministerial delegation in April
last year in a bid to stop farm
invasions. -Staff writer.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 14:14
CHAIRMAN of the
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy Edward
Chindori-Chininga has said government is giving a raw deal to communities in
diamond-rich Chiadzwa because of selfish
interests.
Chindori-Chininga, a member of President Robert Mugabe's
Zanu PF and a
former Mines minister, said new mining regulations to be
introduced "soon"
lacked consultation and were evidence of how resource-rich
communities were
being sidelined.
He was speaking at a multi-stakeholder
mining transparency conference hosted
by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law
Association and Southern African Resource
Centre Watch in Harare on
Wednesday.
Community representatives from Chiadzwa and Mutoko, a hub of black
granite,
were present at the meeting and expressed anger over forced
relocations
being carried out to make way for commercial mining in
Chiadzwa.
"There are a number of statutory instruments that are coming up to
deal with
small-scale mining participation in Chiadzwa that are going to
work out
issues of beneficiation and so on," said Chininga.
"But the
problem is that the government is selfish. What is really needed
normally is
that let us say you are starting a law on environmental agency,
you need to
go out there and involve communities and discuss with people
involved to
hear views before you structure anything."
He refused to divulge contents of
the planned new regulations, saying it was
the Mines ministry's mandate to
make relevant public announcements.
It was not possible to get a comment from
Mines minister Obert Mpofu. But he
has previously stated that he plans to
introduce amendments to the Mines and
Minerals Act to provide for local
beneficiation, among other issues.
Chindori-Chininga, MP for Guruve South,
raised the issue at a time when the
government is facing criticism from
villagers and civil society for failing
to consult with villagers from
Chiadzwa on issues to do with relocation and
compensation.
A recent visit
to Arda Transau by the Zimbabwe Independent revealed that
some families were
affected by the relocation and were now living in disused
tobacco barns at
the abandoned farm, 60 km from Chiadzwa.
"The problem that is happening
sometimes is that government goes ahead and
drafts its own ways of thinking
how they should move and they have a limited
consultation where they may end
up consulting the Chamber (of Mines) but not
going any further yet the
interests are bigger," Chindori-Chininga said.
Some community representatives
from Mutoko community asked why they were
never informed of the
instruments.
"Chairman, we are also involved in negotiations with the
Ministry of Mines
on how the Mutoko community can also be part of the Bills
which are being
considered in parliament," Chindori-Chininga said. "It's
only today that we
hear that something already is being submitted through
cabinet it can go to
the Attorney-General."
Chindori-Chininga's
committee is yet to produce a report on an investigation
on Chiadzwa
operations that was bitterly opposed by Mpofu.
Wongai Zhangazha
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 12:43
THE three political
principals are expected to meet next Thursday to
deliberate on a roadmap to
free and fair polls, but Zanu PF insiders say
there are no elections
scheduled for next year and that they had sold MDC-T
a dummy to see how the
party would react to such a proposal.
MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai two
weeks ago said that he had agreed with
President Robert Mugabe to hold
elections next year, but Zanu PF sources
said polls were unlikely in
2011.
The Zimbabwe Independent understands that while Mugabe told
Finance minister
Tendai Biti to budget US$100 million for the referendum and
another US$100
million for the general election, Zanu PF had no plans for
elections but
wanted to find out MDC-T's strategy.
One politburo
member said: "There are no elections next year. We just wanted
to see how
MDC-T would react. Why should we have elections next year when
there is
peace in the country and when we are beginning to see our country
start to
recover? As you can see we are sitting together mapping out and
planning our
economic recovery." He was referring to a pre-budget
ministerial workshop
held yesterday.
Meanwhile, Tsvangirai told the Independent yesterday
that the principals,
who have not met since the Windhoek Sadc summit in
August, were expected to
finalise the outstanding issues, discuss emerging
issues of violence and
security-sector re-alignment, and agree on the
roadmap for fresh polls.
The roadmap to elections includes the
completion of the constitution-making
process, a referendum on a
constitutional draft, implementing media,
security and electoral reforms,
agreeing on a framework that would guarantee
a violence-free poll and the
holding of general elections that will produce
a legitimate
winner.
"We could not meet because one of the principals (Professor
Arthur
Mutambara) was away for three weeks and even now the president is
away,"
Tsvangirai said. "So we are only scheduling a meeting possibly for
this
coming week, maybe around Thursday."
Tsvangirai could not,
however, be drawn to give a date for the elections but
said it was a process
and polls could only be held after certain benchmarks
that guarantee free
and fair elections are in place.
He said the Thursday meeting would
focus a lot on the violence that erupted
at the outreach meetings in Harare,
which resulted in the death of an MDC-T
supporter.
"Obviously it
is one of the key benchmarks, given these incidents of
interference with the
will of the people to express themselves. We need to
ensure that it will be
a violence-free election," said Tsvangirai.
"It is a whole lot of
issues -- if we are going to go into an election with
fear predominant, it
means that people will not be able to express
themselves. We will already
have subverted the people's will. Violence is
one of the key issues that we
will look at as principals and decide how we
are going to achieve a
violence-free election."
Tsvangirai said Sadc and the African Union
would have to guarantee that
agreement for violence-free elections.
"We
don't want elections that will then become contestable because of
violence,"
he said. "The facilitator is going to come to talk about these
issues and
also to discuss what is the opinion of the parties regarding the
roadmap for
elections so that we have common benchmarks," he said, adding
that: "On what
we need to be observed to have elections, we have to have
electoral reforms
to ensure that we have free and fair elections."
Tsvangirai said it was
possible to have free and fair elections in Zimbabwe
if all the necessary
reforms are in place.
"I think that with everything in place, with
all the benchmarks that we
agreed on including the removal of violence, this
country will be ready for
elections," he said.
"So we want to
make sure ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) which has been
appointed sets
the programmes and priorities and that the parties have an
agreement which
is then underwritten by Sadc."
Faith Zaba
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 14:27
DESPITE the
Southern Africa region sustaining an annual growth rate of 6%,
the UN Summit
on the Millennium Development Goals this week heard that the
majority of
Southern Africans remain among the poorest people in the world.
While
economies in the region are growing, inequalities between citizens of
the
same countries have also increased.
“In South Africa, for instance, there is
a growth in inequalities on the
basis of provinces, gender, classes and
races,” said Dr Agostinho Zacarias,
the United Nations Development Programme
resident representative in South
Africa.
“However, the country is hiding
[this behind] the national economic growth
rate, which is not truly
reflected in the rural areas where there is a
glaring underdevelopment of
infrastructure.”
The problem is a familiar one. According to Isobel Frye,
director of the
Studies in Poverty and Inequality Institute (SPII), robust
economic growth
will not be reflected in improvements in the lives of the
majority, as long
as the export of raw materials drives economies in the
Southern African
Development Community (Sadc).
“Exporting raw materials
does not promote job creation because there is no
stimulation of local
demand for labour,” said Frye.
She said processing raw materials within the
region would create many more
jobs as well as contribute more to national
revenue.
“When we do studies on what poor people would like government to do
for
them, the majority of respondents always state that they would like to
get
jobs,” said Frye.
A further obstacle to reducing poverty in the
region, said South African MP
Stone Sizani, is the power of transnational
corporations, which do not
invest in the countries they operate in or the
local workforce. Instead, he
said, they take their profits back to their
home countries.
“You find most of these companies listed in the London Stock
Exchange
because they have no interests of investing in the country they
work in,”
said Sizani. “That’s why the growth in GDP will not reflect on the
majority
of the people in the region.”
Social protection programmes are
seen as a crucial tool for better
distributing wealth in the
region.
According to Nicholas Freeland, the director of Regional Hunger and
Vulnerability Programme, national non-contributory social pensions now exist
in South Africa, Mauritius, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland and
Lesotho.
Mark Heywood, a South African human rights activist, said cash
transfers
have transformed lives of millions of South Africans in the past
few years.
He said although most of the country’s citizens are still poor,
relatively
few are still living in extreme poverty.
“Cash transfers,
according to the South African constitution, are a human
right,” said
Heywood. He said the school of thought that says giving people
social
protection will make them dependent on the money they receive from
government is prejudicial against the poor.
“It’s like saying they are
responsible for the poverty they live in,” said
Heywood.
“In the last 18
months, 1,5 million South Africans lost their jobs because
of the recession.
How are these people surviving?”
He said it makes more sense to give people
cash as opposed to food aid
because it enables individuals to make choices
on what to do with the money.
“[Some] might want to use it for transport to
go and look for jobs, or buy
food or go to the hospital.” he
said.
Heywood observed that while many countries are now using cash transfers
to
alleviate poverty, these programmes are not comprehensive.
As things
stand, Heywood admitted, cash transfers are not sustainable in the
long-term
because governments might run out of money if too many people
receive grants
compared to those who are employed and contributing income
tax.
Frye said
in South Africa 14 million people are receiving social grants
compared to 12
million people who are employed. This underscores the problem
of an economy
growing without a corresponding increase in the number of
jobs.
“This
imbalance creates problems because we need more people to pay tax so
that
government will be able to give social protection to those who can’t,”
said
Frye.
Despite the potential that social protection programmes offer,
governments
have to resolve the question of how to sustain them without
donors. One
answer may be right under their noses.
“African countries
must create a highly qualified, well-paid, and honest tax
administration
elite to make sure that the state can collect the financial
resources it
needs to pay for development programmes,” Jean-Philippe Stijns
told IPS
earlier this year.
Stijns was the main author of the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and
Development’s 2010 African Economic Outlook, which
concluded that taxes on
economic activity ranging from personal income to
extractive industries must
be strengthened –– which the OECD argued need not
mean raising taxes.
Effective tax collection could be a key missing link
between economic growth
and poverty reduction. In April, economists Dev Kar
and Devon
Cartwright-Smith published a report titled “Illicit Financial
Flows from
Africa –– Hidden Resource for Development”.
They calculate
that Africa as a whole lost US$854 billion to illicit
financial outflows
between 1970 and 2008. The economists believe this
outflow, facilitated by
tax havens, disguised corporations, trade mispricing
and money laundering
have accelerated in the past decade.
Economic growth due to robust oil prices
or commodity prices raises income,
says Kar. “But when income rises, it
mostly goes into capital flight.
Without proper economic governance,
increased growth prospects merely fuel
capital flight instead of stemming
it.”
Stijns argues that more efficient tax collection not only increases
revenue,
it improves democracy and governance.
“Beyond tax collection
efficiency issues lurks the much bigger issue of the
political credibility
of the state and the extent to which potential
taxpayers feel there exists a
valuable “social contract”, Stijns said.
“Helping African states to broaden
their tax base gives them incentives to
engage more directly with their
citizens and better consider their needs,”
said Stijns.
It’s a reminder
that the Millennium Development Goals do not stand in
isolation. Promoting
good governance and an open, rule-based global trade
and financial system ––
goal number eight –– is closely linked to reducing
extreme poverty and
hunger. –– IPS
By Mantoe Phakathi
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 14:17
SHARING power is
like sharing a spouse; it is seldom easy and is always
conflictive.
The
same with Zimbabwe's tripartite elite pact known as the Global Political
Agreement (GPA) signed on September 15 2009 with much fanfare and
thinly-veiled hysteric euphoria.
The GPA is two years old now. The same
welcome celebrations met the GPA's
offspring christened the "inclusive
government' which in simple terms was a
coalition government inaugurated on
February 13 2009; it is therefore 18
months old now.
It is only fair to
reflect on what happened, what did not, and what is
likely to happen. The
underlying argument is that a triple transition is
underway: a transition in
the country's politics, national economy, and
society. Because I believe
politics largely determines everything else, I
concentrate on the political
dimension of the transition which often leads
to or is accompanied by other
transitions in social and economic life. There
are those who support the
transition and others who are viscerally opposed
to it, that is, the
spoilers.
I take a political transition to be an interval between two regime
types.
But there is neither a linear route to nor a straightforward process
from
one regime to another. The path to and processes towards a new regime
are
invariably curvilinear. And yet both the lovers and enemies of political
transition in Zimbabwe often embrace the fallacy of linearity, i.e. that if
they do X, then Y will of necessity be the outcome without acknowledging
that there are many intervening variables that often upset one's best
calculations. Linearity can happen only if one has total control and this is
rare. For instance, the enemies of Zimbabwe's political transition naively
think that by destroying the inclusive government, they would have, by that
very act, destroyed the political transition. They do not seem to appreciate
the reality that the transition predates both the GPA and the government and
will outlast both. They confuse cause and effect. The GPA and its inclusive
government did not cause the political transition, but both were and are
merely visible manifestations of a deep, underlying transition dynamic. In
short, the political transition happened not because of, but despite the
GPA. What this means is that even if the inclusive government were to be
terminated today, the transition dynamic would still inexorably maintain its
course. We should therefore put Zimbabwe's political transition in its
proper perspective. It is these underlying forces that largely explain the
successes and failures of the inclusive government in implementing what the
three principals reluctantly agreed to do as encapsulated in the GPA.
I
see two components to the GPA: the policy agenda and the governmental
structure. The GPA tried to please everyone, a rare feat in the checkered
history of humankind. Thus, the GPA represents the lowest common denominator
or the least-worst option for all the three signatories and their parties.
It was a second-best compromise then, and remains a compromise today. This
is obvious from the many decisions and processes since the inclusive
government; most are compromise decisions and processes.
The same fate
awaits the final product of the constitutional reform process.
I have little
doubt that the final constitutional draft - if there will be
one - will be
an outcome of a patchwork of compromises struck at the elite
level by the
three principals. This is notwithstanding the animated -- and
sometimes too
animated -- public consultations that provide entertainment to
the masses.
This seems to throw me in the NCA camp. But not quite! In
principle, it is
desirable, but improbable to have a "people-driven"
constitution. In
practice, this normative stance has never been and most
likely will never
be. Constitutions everywhere and throughout history have
seldom been and
most likely will never be mass-driven outcomes; they have
been and will
remain elite-propelled processes and elite-driven outcomes.
The masses are
often roped into the process to lend popular legitimacy to
both the process
and the outcome. This is the brutal reality in the
practical world of
politics.
Let's be unambiguous: the GPA was about regime change spearheaded
by the
three wise men (the three principals) and superintended by Sadc. The
GPA was
a negotiated elite-driven transition pact. It was not a product of
the
electoral will of the people. Instead, it was a vitiation of that
electoral
will. And yet the law of the situation demanded such a compromise.
Zanu PF
had lost the March 2008 elections but would not surrender power
while the
MDC-T had triumphed but could not ensure a transfer of state
power,
especially the instruments of public coercion.
In the context of
the post-June 2009 stalemate, and given that the electoral
route to
democratic transition had been blocked, the GPA became inevitable.
Though it
did not receive accolades everywhere, even its harshest critics
acknowledged
that it was a significant milestone in crisis-ridden post-2000
Zimbabwe.
With the GPA and its subsequent offspring christened the inclusive
government came some opportunities but also risks and challenges.
The
record of the inclusive government is a mixed one. It scored some
spectacular victories but the failures are equally stunning. The very
formation of the government was unthinkable a few months before its
inauguration. To President Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai was the
personification of evil and it is highly unlikely that the two had met in
the previous decade. But from February 2009, Tsvangirai was Mugabe's deputy
in the highest decision making body in the country, that is the cabinet. The
psychological impact of this is often underrated as critics rush to condemn
the GPA and the inclusive government.
Also to its credit was the peace
dividend. The government delivered relative
peace and this still holds.
Without doubt, and to most Zimbabweans
post-March 2008, the quest for peace
was stronger than their lust for
democracy. In all probability, that is
still the case today.
Again to its credit, economic stability was
re-established and for the first
time in a decade, the economy stopped
sliding and even recorded its first
economic growth statistic in 2009.
Stratospheric inflation had been tamed.
And, for the first time in a decade,
people's hopes were restored and even
rejuvenated. It must always be
remembered that prospects for transition and
recovery do not depend entirely
on the capabilities of the state, no matter
how robust that state is. Within
society, the political and economic
orientations of ordinary citizens also
matter. After all, in a democratic
regime, the electorate grants or
withholds legitimacy from political leaders
and state institutions. In March
2009, a nationally representative survey
found that an overwhelming 80% of
adult Zimbabweans supported the inclusive
government though this had
declined to 66% by September of the same year.
Even as recently as August
2010, a majority of Zimbabweans (55%) expect the
national economy to improve
in the next 12 months compared to only 8% who
expect it to worsen. In short,
deep-seated despondency has been replaced by
widespread optimism, albeit
fragile.
Equally praiseworthy was the restoration of basic public services,
notably
health, education, water and sanitation, and to some extent the
rehabilitation of our physical infrastructure.
On the credit side, we
must also note the inauguration of the constitutional
reform process.
Granted, this process has been mired in controversy both
within and outside
government and the Copac-led outreach programme has been
anything but
smooth. Instead, chaos seems to have been the defining feature
of this
public consultative process whose outcome is very indeterminate.
On the debit
side of the equation, a systematic analysis of the
implementation of the
clauses of the GPA after 18 months exposes the
fragility and uncertainties
inherent in government. The failures of
government have been attendant on
the partial or outright non-implementation
of the clauses in the GPA. Though
the GPA is inherently flawed, its policy
agenda is nonetheless an essential
building block for a transition to a
democratic order. The deficits and
obstacles include the asymmetrical
division of executive power; rather than
power-sharing, there is power
division resulting in each of the three
parties - especially Zanu PF and
MDC-T - controlling and exercising its own
lump of power. This has
inevitably resulted in policy gridlock and
dysfunctionality.
There has also been little substantive progress in many
governance sectors,
except at the symbolic level eg the establishment of
theoretically
independent commissions like ZEC, ZMC, and the Human Rights
Commission.
And many challenges lie ahead, chief among them the timing of the
next
elections. This is a very contentious issue. Both the president and the
premier have converged on holding elections next year but disagree on
whether this is before or after the adoption of a new constitution. For the
president, there will be elections with or without a new constitution while
for the premier, elections will be conducted only after a new supreme law.
It is common knowledge who will prevail on this one. Evidence on the ground
also exposes the hard reality that the institutional infrastructure and
resources are not in place for credible, reasonably free and fair elections
that produce an indisputable outcome. Further and equally important is that,
given the level and depth of fear attendant on the traumatic campaign for
the June 2008 presidential run-off, an election in 2011 is most probably
going to be a barometer of the amount of residual fear in the electorate
than of their electoral will.
The voters roll is in shambles and needs to
be cleansed. To have a clean
voters' roll you need first to know how many
adult Zimbabweans are still in
the country after the massive emigration
post-2002 census. In short,
Zimbabwe is not ready for elections, either
institutionally or
psychologically. All things being equal, another highly
contestable election
awaits Zimbabwe in 2011 and with it power-sharing
agreement Part II.
Zimbabwe 2011 is most likely to be less stable than
Zimbabwe 2010. As we
move closer and closer to the constitutional referendum
and after it, the
elections, Zimbabwe will inch closer and closer to June
2008 without being
soaked in the same pervasive physical violence. The
country is likely to
witness less physical and more covert, subtle
psychological violence which
nonetheless will distort and subvert the
people's electoral wishes. It could
be another election without a choice,
and another transition cycle will be
restarted. The transition will
continue, but take different forms, and whose
outcome will also be
uncertain.
Eldred Masunungure is a professor of political science at the
University of
Zimbabwe and is also the director of the Mass Public Opinion
Institute.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 14:16
MOST
countries in Africa are not on course to meet most of the targets set
out in
the Millennium Development goals, but on the level of policy, the
goals have
forced African governments to more seriously address their roles
in
alleviating poverty on the continent compared to the past.
Since the
inception of the Millennium Development Goals in 2005, progress
has been
made in some African countries in relation to their specific
realities, but
much more needs to be done.
The MDGs have undoubtedly influenced government
budget plans in several
countries such as Ghana, Ethiopia, Rwanda and
Malawi. The goals have also
impacted on increased allocation of resources to
such sectors as water and
health-care in most East African countries.
So
if one is to assess the impact of the MDGs in broader terms, it would be
safe to say that they have contributed to the movement towards eradicating
poverty, but at a slow rate.
The two most crucial goals for Africa in my
view are firstly ending poverty
and hunger and secondly universal education.
But one cannot speak of goal
number two leaving out goal number three:
gender equality.
Goal one enables people to make an income so that they can
feed themselves
and care for themselves. So if progress is made on enabling
people to feed
themselves and earn a decent income, this will lead to higher
government
revenues which can then be invested in achieving other
goals.
Progress also has to be made on agriculture and agricultural
productivity.
An active agricultural community can have direct access to
food and increase
their incomes. Given that a majority of Africans are still
working the land,
this will reduce income poverty directly.
Failure to
have active economies for poor people means that the only way to
achieve the
MDGs is to rely on international aid. International aid is
useful if well
used and if it comes with less damaging strings attached, but
is often very
unreliable, especially in Africa.
It is sometimes good and most of the times
bad. So Africans need to achieve
goal one so that they can stop relying on
other people for sustenance.
Goals two and three are important because one
cannot transform a population
on the back of illiteracy and repressive
gender relations.
If the people do not put pressure on the governments to
act, then the
government officials can easily relax and not prioritise the
MDGs.
Holding governments accountable and putting pressure on them is the
most
important thing that citizens should do in order to ensure that their
needs
are met.
African citizens should also try and work with their local
governments as
they are closer to the grassroots level problems than
national governments.
But even if the citizens themselves become active in
trying to push for
their needs to be heard, there are major hindrances that
lie in their way.
One such obstacle is the legacy of twenty years of
liberalisation ideology.
African countries adopted structural adjustment
programmes which are now
affecting them drastically. These programmes
encouraged governments to
privatise everything and to free capital and
markets from regulation.
Governments were discouraged from supporting their
farmers and their small
and medium-sized industries indirectly. Alongside
this, they were encouraged
to throw open their markets to imports in the
belief that import competition
will lead to efficiency. A belief which has
no historical precedence and yet
the African policy elite bought wholly into
it.
These market-oriented ideologies are the ones that are making African
states
fail to protect their people economically. Most states have very
liberal
markets that allow imported products to suffocate the local
products. So
this liberalisation ideology then acts as a hindrance to self
sustainability.
The other big obstacle is the existence of corruption
within our African
states. Corruption will always affect the distribution of
funds and
resources to achieve poverty alleviation and that is why it is
necessary to
ensure effective public oversight over government
expenditures.
Nevertheless, public investment is crucial to making progress
in poverty
eradication as this is necessary to provide infrastructure, train
the work
force for health education, invest in value-added production and
provide
direct employment.
China is a good example of poverty eradication
through the use of
government-centred investments.
The United Nations
Millennium Campaign is trying to do three things over the
next three years
to try and accelerate the progress on MDGs in Africa.
First is the
mobilisation of people, including through youth movements and
gender
equality movements and civil societies so as to put pressure on the
governments to keep their promises.
Second is monitoring, UN Millennium
Campaign (UNMC) is trying to find ways
in which they can work with citizen
groups to monitor resources meant to be
spent on MDGs.
Thirdly the UNMC
is focusing on policy. The UNMC wants to start discussions
of Africa's
ability to transform economies, create decent jobs and put
incomes in the
hands of the poor. Most governments in Africa believe that
they can grow
through aid and natural resource extraction, but this does not
do anything
for job creation and sustainable income generation.
Despite the slow progress
on the MDGs in Africa, some countries such as
Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda,
Ethiopia and many more have made good progress in
the education and health
sectors. A few, such as Malawi, Ethiopia and to
some extent Kenya (before
the election-related violence), have also made
significant progress in the
area of agriculture and food production.
If more countries can start to
engage in intra-Africa trade, they would be
helping themselves because this
will create larger markets to support the
expansion of local production, not
only in food and agriculture but in
low-technology manufacturing and
value-added services.
African countries should start opening up doors to each
other so that they
can share and trade effectively among themselves. This
way acceleration on
achieving the MDGs can be realised. But this will
require rolling back on
the extreme import liberalisation regimes,
reinstating industrial policy to
promote value-added production and
innovation and increased public
investment to address the problem of skills
and infrastructure.
Above all, it will require a rethinking of the role of
the state in the
economy and society generally, what others call a
developmental state - one
dedicated to intervening in society and minimising
rent-seeking and
encourage value addition, to redirect rents including
natural resource rents
to benefit the poor and the productive sectors and a
system of taxation that
is effective and equitable, among
others.
Abugre is the Deputy Director for Africa, United Nations
Millennium
Campaign -- IPS.
By Charles Abugre
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 09:25
THE IMF recently
released a paper showing that most countries in Sub-Saharan
Africa will not
be able to accomplish the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) whose deadline
is 2015. This is because of the global financial
crisis that resulted in
less funding flowing to third world countries.
Zimbabwe likewise, though it
was not directly affected by the global
financial crisis, will not
accomplish these goals. This is because of the
current tight liquidity in
the economy that has resulted in restricted
credit and the cost of funds
going up. Other policies that were enunciated
since the adoption of multiple
foreign currencies are also failing to
stimulate growth. The country; on the
other hand, is failing to access
significant external lines of credit
because of its huge external debt
obligation.
The high external
debt of US$6,7 billion that Zimbabwe is saddled with has
increased its
sovereign risk profile, hindering efforts to achieve the
various development
goals that have been set several times. External debt
has been building over
several years, something that is common in developing
countries as they view
external borrowing as a necessary cornerstone for
financing growth. Like any
corporate, governments borrow assuming that they
will be able to generate
enough revenue to cover the debt plus any interest
that would have
accumulated. However, there are some instances where debt
accumulates to
unmanageable levels. This is especially true when the
borrowed funds do not
result in real production increases to levels that
enable the government to
improve revenues. Also, it could be a case whereby
the borrowed funds have
been used for other unintended purposes.
The greater part of the
country's external debt of US$6,7 billion is not new
money but interest
accumulating on arrears. This is highly unsustainable
given that currently
the country is actually seeking more funding while its
capacity to repay the
loans is crippled. Sovereign debt has a negative
multiplier effect in that
it sours relations with the rest of the world and
impedes progress in the
domestic economy.
Greece is an example of how imprudent debt
management strategies can be
harmful to an economy. The country's debt
rating was downgraded to junk
status. This did not only impact negatively on
the country but on the region
as a whole as it adversely impacted the
attractiveness of the Euro as an
alternative asset. Zimbabwe therefore needs
to come up with strategies to
clear its external debt so that it will be
able to access more external
funding essential for growth.
There
are several areas which can be dwelt on to refocus Zimbabwe on its
various
development goals. The private sector accounts for only 5% of
current debt
while government and parastatals have 61% and 34% respectively.
Given such a
scenario, carrying out austerity measures implies reducing
public sector
services and employment. But there is still much to do on
Zimbabwean debt.
The apparently easy but in fact hard compromise is
declaring Zimbabwe a
Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC), a suggestion which
has not been
palatable to political circles. For example, Zambia had waived
a US$7
billion debt following the attainment of the HIPC completion point.
An
analysis of the national debt shows that there are idle elements in the
government and the economy at large which continuously contribute to debt
and these require immediate attention.
Streamlining of government
revenue to productive expenditure; spreading the
expenditure burden;
revamping revenue collection; improving capacity
utilisation in various
sectors; sustainable or reduced wage expenditure in
the public sector and
implementing tough tax evasion regulations are some of
the measures the
government can adopt. It is not surprising to note that of
the US $937
million tax revenue, the informal sector contributed an
insignificant
amount. The recent introduction of an electronic tax register
system to
increase accountability of revenue is highly commendable in
response to
modern computer-based debt management systems.
The authorities should
again capitalise on the strong skills base the
country has to facilitate the
operation of these systems. Effective
communication, coordination and
cooperation amongst data suppliers and users
is key in the formulation of
effective debt management strategies. There
should again be close
coordination amongst the CSO, Zimra, RBZ and the
National treasury in the
implementation of debt management strategies.
Build, Operate and
Transfer models can also be implemented to help create
fiscal space. Instead
of waiting for continuous government funding, private
players can be invited
to carry out projects like road and railway
construction. These models were
also used by Mozambique, Tanzania and
Malawi, among others, in railway and
road construction.
Zimbabwe also needs to engage the international
community. This can be done
through improvement in the country's ease of
doing business indices which
have declined since the adoption of MDGs. Much
more needs doing to protect
both domestic and foreign investment from
arbitrary confiscation and to
provide a just, legal environment in which
disputes can be settled in the
courts on the basis of relevant Acts and
regulations rather than through
force or political
connections.
An acknowledgement that the country cannot operate as an
island is important
to unlock the export market for locals, more FDIs and
foreign currency
inflows hence improved tax revenue. Improvement in the
depth of capital
markets can also reduce over reliance on external
borrowing. Sovereign
balance sheets have been haunted by debt which has
resultantly obstructed
the achievement of goals set.
The
government therefore needs to show commitment and incorporate more
aggressive debt management strategies to improve its credibility which then
completes the circuit of development goals the country adopts. Such a
commitment is also essential in negotiating funds to finance growth
regionally and internationally.
By Jealous Chishamba
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
09:29
CHAMBER of Mines boss Victor Gapare has been sacked from the
National
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board sectoral committee on
mines
after just one meeting amid speculation he was seen as not singing
from the
same hymn book as his colleagues.
Gapare, who owns GAT Mines,
only attended one meeting of the subcommittee
and was fired immediately
after the meeting, a development industry
representatives feel was to
silence the chamber's views on the committee.
He is said to have
rallied small scale miners to agree to the chamber's main
views on
mines.
The chamber believes government should not pursue a wholesale equity
empowerment but should also introduce credits for corporate social
investments to determine equity thresholds. This, mines say, will encourage
social investments.
Although CEO Wilson Gwatiringa says Gapare's
removal from the indigenisation
subcommittee on mining was due to an
"oversight", well placed sources say
the chamber boss was sacked for not
promoting a wholesale takeover of mines.
Documents show that only 15
members had been appointed but sources say NIEEB
will soon appoint a
traditional chief, widely viewed as a Zanu PF
sympathiser in Gapare's
place.
Committee members are Chris Hokonya, Chris Mutsvangwa, Trevor
Manhanga,
Trynos Nkomo, Annackleta Gumba, Hamilton Pazvakavambwa, Walter
Sarabga,
Richard Mubaiwa, Supa Mandiwanzira, Eng Mukudu, Forbes Magumbate,
Elizabeth
Chitiga, John Mangudya and Tinashe Rwodzi (chairman).
A
letter dated September 17 and circulated to members of the chamber from
NIEEB CEO Wilson Gwatiringa to Gapare reads: "I write to advise that you are
no longer a member of the Mines Sectoral Committee on Indigenisation with
immediate effect. The reason is that the total number of committee members
has exceeded 16, in contravention of Statutory Instrument 116 of 2010
Section 6 5(1). This was due to an oversight on our
part."
Gwatiringa claimed NIEEB had also considered Gapare's "busy
schedule" and
that the chamber was already represented on the
sub-committee.
"In reaching the decision, NIEEB considered your very busy
schedule and the
fact that the Chamber of Mines will still be represented by
your chief
executive officer who is also a committee member," added
Gwatiringa.
Following the revision of indigenisation and economic
empowerment
regulations gazetted in January compelling foreigners to "cede"
controlling
stakes in all businesses valued above US$500 000, government set
up
sub-committees to look at the shareholding thresholds and come up with
modalities on how best to implement the policy in various sectors of the
economy.
Sources say government might not want committee members
with dissenting
views.
Chris Muronzi
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
09:18
ZIMBABWE'S business organisations, labour and politicians could be
in a
catch 22 situation as tension around holding next year's general
election
hots up.
The Employers' Confederation of Zimbabwe (Emcoz) -- a
grouping of
employers -- became the first business organisation to appeal to
President
Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy
Arthur
Mutambara to put in place a five year moratorium to an early poll
planned
for next May. For them, economic recovery and national healing
should take
precedence over elections.
Fear of politically motivated
violence stands as the main reason for not
holding elections among business
and civil society organisations. For
business, elections would reverse
economic gains credited to the inclusive
government formed last year.
Analysts say the pro-liberal coalition helped
Zimbabwe's economy grow by 5%
last year -- the first recorded expansion
since 1998.
Capacity
utilisation for local industries which had plunged to below 10% at
the
height of hyperinflation two years ago rose to an average 40% since the
formation of the coalition.
Daniel Ndlela, a renowned economist,
says the country could be in a dilemma
as financial aid inflows are reduced
to a trickle, with Western governments
pinning more pledges on political
reforms.
"The nation is in a Catch 22 situation because of vested
interests in the
status quo. It's a dilemma. One could sympathise with
business because of
the uncertainty that comes with the elections," Ndlela
said.
"The economy could be crippled after the election. But from a
politician's
point of view, an election could be an opportunity to unlock
the value of
Zimbabwe. Already no inflows have been coming because of the
impasse in the
coalition."
He said although credible polls could
unlock problems in the coalition
government, the election could again come
at a cost. Treasury estimates that
the referendum and general election -
estimated at US$200 million - would be
way above monthly government
revenue.
"Again because of the intransigence of the other party (Zanu
PF) it looks
like an election is the only way, which again comes at a cost.
For example,
the high cost of the election of US$200 million could limit any
chances of a
pay rise to the civil service, given the current performance of
the economy",
he said.
Deon Theron, the rotating chairman of the
Business Council of Zimbabwe
contends that a new legitimate government could
restore waning business
confidence in the Southern African state. He said
partners in the inclusive
government should demonstrate their commitment to
holding an internationally
accepted poll. This could be asking too much from
President Robert Mugabe,
whose party believes that Zimbabwe is under siege
from an invisible hand
seeking "regime change".
"We need
stability in the country. The Global Political Agreement has not
fully
restored confidence among investors. So, we feel that we should have
elections as soon as possible but the current situation is not conducive for
a free and fair election," Theron said.
"We have a lot of work to do
before we can have an election under
internationally accepted standards.
It's possible when politicians show
extreme commitment in having a free and
fair election."
Theron who is also the Commercial Farmers Union
president -- an organisation
of white commercial farmers whose properties
were expropriated during the
land reform exercise undertaken in 2000 --
hopes the new government would
bring to finality cases of 198 commercial
farmers being prosecuted in court
for illegal occupation of their farms. The
challenge for the new government,
he noted, would be the restoration of
property rights.
Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions, admits
that holding elections next year under the current
political environment is
not ideal. But he says an appeal by Emcoz to push
the polls to 2015 is
exploitative to downtrodden workers struggling to eke
out a living.
"Generally we would want an election to be held as quickly as
possible but
we feel that any poll held without Sadc supervision is likely
to be
contested," Matombo said.
"What employers are saying (the
moratorium) is that lets continue to exploit
workers for the next five years
because they are making profits. The retail
sector, for example, is making a
lot of money. So as labour we would have
expected companies to increase
salaries in line with capacity utilisation
which rose from below 10% in 2008
to an average of 40% currently. So the
status quo is benefiting
them."
He claimed that although Zanu PF has publicly announced its
readiness for
the polls, most government ministers inclined to the party
were benefiting
from the current economic environment.
"We want
Sadc to supervise and monitor the next election because you cannot
have two
antagonists being in power for the next five years. One of the
parties might
be consumed," Matombo warned.
Bernard Mpofu
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
14:24
IT has become customary for ZTV to ambush ambassadors outside State
House
after their presentation of credentials. Those who have not been
warned by
their longer-established colleagues of the dangers of
misrepresentation if
they say anything to the state media are likely to fall
into a trap.
Last Thursday European Commission delegate Aldo Dell’Arricia was
reported as
acknowledging the existence of a free press in Zimbabwe.
“I
have been in this country for the past eight days,” he told ZTV, “and
what I
can tell you is that there is a press that is free. You can read
newspapers
in this country and have a feeling of independent information.”
And where was
this independent information at the State House ceremony? Were
any
independent newspapers invited? Were there any independent radio or
television reporters to cover the event?
Of course Ambassador
Dell-Ariccia chose his words carefully. “I can tell you
that there is a
press that is free,” he said.
That obviously doesn’t include the Herald. But
that newspaper went on to
pretend that Zimbabwe had a free press. “Zim’s
press free”, the paper
dutifully proclaimed the next day.
Is Dell-Arricia
aware of how little the Media Commission has achieved since
its inception?
Is he aware of Tafataona Mahoso’s sinister presence on the
commission? And
how many radio licences have been awarded (nil)? Meanwhile,
our colleagues
based overseas and in South Africa have still not had an
assurance of safe
passage if they were to return to Zimbabwe. At a
Unesco-sponsored conference
earlier this month none of the state editors
turned up despite having
confirmed their attendance. They are obviously not
their own men!
We wish
Sgr Dell-Arricia a happy and productive stay in Zimbabwe. But having
just
got off the boat he needs to take soundings in the media before he next
holds forth on the current situation.
Zanu PF secretary for
administration Didymus Mutasa provides a significant
insight into his
party’s contempt for democracy. Responding to a recent poll
by MPOI
revealing that Morgan Tsvangirai would claim an easy victory over
President
Mugabe in any presidential poll, Mutasa told supporters in
Masvingo: “Who is
Tsvangirai? He will never rule this country. Never, ever.
How can we let the
country be ruled by sellouts? He will only do so over our
dead bodies. If we
go to the polls and he defeats Mugabe, Zanu PF and the
people of Zimbabwe
will not allow that.”
When asked by NewsDay to clarify his remarks last
Friday, Mutasa refused to
comment further.
“I do not want to hear
anything about it. If you continue asking me about
this issue, I will beat
you up. I was not addressing you; I was addressing
the people of
Masvingo.”
Let’s hope supine Sadc members make a note of these comments. They
perfectly
represent what the democratic movement in this country is up
against. But at
least we know what these losers are thinking. Don’t we
recall somebody else
saying “Never in a thousand years…”?
Perhaps that’s
where Mutasa got the idea!
Muckraker was amused by a story in the
Standard reporting that Zimbabwe had
been suspended from taking part in the
Homeless World Cup in Brazil. This is
apparently because the entire team bar
one — Petros Chitiza — decided to
remain in Australia after the last
tournament that was held there.
The homeless teams, drawn from 64 nations,
comprise street kids from those
countries.
“Zimbabwe will not be part of
the Homeless World Cup in Brazil following the
debacle in which all the
players except me (Chitiza) decided to stay in
Australia,” Chitiza lamented.
The defectors included the entire management
team as well as the
players.
“It’s unfortunate that the whole team decided to remain in
Australia,”
Chitiza said. “It was their own decision but I am not saying it
was the
right thing to do.”
Self-help schemes will be started in future
to make sure the players have
something to return to. Meanwhile, Reason can
acquaint them with their
revolutionary duty to go home and
struggle!
There are occasional rewards for those few readers who are
prepared to wade
through the turgid dross that constitutes Mahoso’s weekly
African Focus
column in the Sunday Mail.
Reflecting the maxim that a
little learning is a dangerous thing, he will
seize on some event 50 years
ago to underpin a current argument. Last Sunday
he was spouting indignation
over Tony Blair’s receipt of the Liberty Medal
for Conflict Resolution. He
referred to the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights adopted in 1948 and
pointed out that South African Prime Minister Jan
Smuts had been present at
the San Francisco signing ceremony.
He declared that “in South Africa in 1948
apartheid was proclaimed de jure
officially as a state policy…This was
important because South Africa in 1948
was a self-governed British
colony.”
No it wasn’t. South Africa in 1948 was a fully-fledged dominion and
had been
so since 1910. That status had been confirmed by the Statute of
Westminster
in 1931. South Africa was represented by its prime minister at
San Francisco
precisely because it was an independent state. Mahoso appears
unaware of
this and deals with this problem by expressing indignation that
Smuts was
present. He doesn’t explain how Smuts could have been present if
South
Africa was not a sovereign state.
The National Party (not
“nationalist party”) came to power later that year
and passed a raft of laws
that were known as apartheid. Of course they were
“de jure” if they were
part of the country’s legal framework. That is
self-evident. Smuts meanwhile
was out of office having been defeated in the
1948 election.
Mahoso was
posing on ZTV last Thursday as an expert on Blair and the Iraq
war. His
appearances should carry a warning that he is not in fact an expert
on many
of the topics on which he holds forth!
“The world should refuse to be fooled
by media stunts,” he declares. More to
the point, Zimbabweans should refuse
to be fooled by his ZTV stunts. His
homework this weekend should be to
familiarise himself with “colonialism of
a special kind”.
We were
interested to note that President Mugabe will be flying from New
York, where
he has been attending the UN General Assembly, to Quito in
Ecuador to
receive an honorary doctorate in civil law from a university run
by the
Anglican church of the province of Ecuador.
Bishop Walter Roberto Crespo who
heads this schismatic outfit was in
Zimbabwe recently to meet Mugabe, Bishop
Kunonga and others. Readers
interested in the background to Bishop Crespo
should Google him up and check
out a BBC story of March 14
2001.
Muckraker has over the years reported the formation of shadowy Zanu
PF front
organisations that purport to be part of civil society. These have
included
outfits such as the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions, Zimbabwe
Revolutionary Volunteers Front, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Justice, Kunonga’s
Anglicans, Zimbabwe Association of Editors, Destiny of Africa Network,
Zimbabwe Coffin-Makers Association, Zimbabwe Exhumers Association, and the
Allied Youth in Mining Organisation.
Now we have another one: the
Federation of Civil Society Organisations.
FCSO has set up a 13-member
committee headed by Zanu PF apologist Goodson
Nguni and including Chris
Mutangadura who is the government’s chief law
officer in the AG’s
office.
The organisation has been established to rival Nango which has
appointed
Farai Maguwu’s Centre for Research and Development as a focal
point for NGOs
monitoring the diamond trade in terms of the Kimberley
Process.
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy chair Edward
Chindori
Chininga told the media that a delegation from the Kimberley
Process had
recommended that NGOs have a role in line with KP procedures as
discussed in
St Petersburg.
But the FCSO has moved to occupy that space
and to resist the appointment of
Maguwu. Nguni’s outfit argued that Maguwu
was unsuitable for the role given
pending court cases against him.
Nango
CEO Cephas Zinhumwe has described FCSO as “a bogus organisation” and
asked
them where they were when Murambatsvina was going down. Needless to
say,
“not around”.
Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri claims there is
an NGO
dedicated to the protection of flies. We have yet to hear its
name.
ZimFlies? This should not be confused with South Africa’s national
airline,
FlySAA.
Rugare Gumbo, speaking to the People’s Voice, said
sanctions had been put in
place to cause three things, disindustrialisation,
regime change, and making
people suffer.
He’s got it wrong. Sanctions
were put in place to protest against political
violence and electoral
rigging. Zanu PF’s voodoo economic policies were
responsible for
dis-industialisation and “making people suffer”.
But Gumbo did get it right
on regime change. Everybody in Zimbabwe wants
regime change but Zanu PF is
refusing to comply!
Gumbo should be asked: “How many people do you think buy
your silly stories
about sanctions? Anybody above the age of five?
But
always prepared to say something daft, Didymus Mutasa told the People’s
Voice that Zanu PF was concerned about the welfare of Zimbabweans, that is
why the party had decided to form three committees to deal with specific
issues effectively: namely economic, social and administrative.
So there
you have it. The nation is saved. Three committees to the rescue!
And Zanu PF
MP for Shamva South Samuel Ziteya says the people are now tired
of Morgan
Tsvangirai’s party of “stoogies” (sic).
“If they want to play monkey tricks
it is better for them to ship out or we
will rather ship them out…”
Is
that the same as “shaping up or shipping out”? We lost the thread there
somewhere what with the monkeys causing havoc with their
tricks!
Muckraker has been struck by the volume of publicity surrounding
Dr
Munyaradzi Kereke, advisor to RBZ governor Gideon Gono. He keeps popping
up
in puff-piece supplements — including in our papers — telling everybody
how
wonderful and accomplished he is. In the material we suspect he wrote
himself on the Tobacco Grower of the Year Award he forgot to even mention
who had actually won the first prize. (He came second although you wouldn’t
know it.)
Meanwhile, he has just opened a medical centre in Mount
Pleasant which
neighbours say is noisy and disruptive. Council officials
warned against the
development but the council itself gave the
go-ahead.
The Herald told us (no doubt coming from Kereke) that people who
were
objecting to his medical project were affluent and could therefore seek
attention elsewhere. He pledged to drive down ambulance costs by 60% by
year-end. It was “madness” what some private operators were charging, he
said.
Among those congratulating him as a “visionary tobacco farmer” was
Doves
Funeral Services which called him “a rising star”, and Imperial Motors
which — entirely coincidentally you understand — also described him as “a
rising star”. There was an accompanying picture of him bowing to VP Joice
Mujuru.
l In last week's edition we referred to Kuchi as builders of the
new
passport office. That should be Energoproject. Our
apologies.
Finally, we enjoyed the following message from a reader
containing the word
“fluctuations”.
“I was at my bank today,” so the
story went. “There was a short queue.
“There was just one lady in front of
me, an Asian lady who was trying to
exchange yen for dollars.
“It was
obvious she was a little irritated. She asked the teller: ‘Why it
change?
Yesterday, I get two hunat dolla fo yen. Today I only get hunat
eighty? Why
it change’?”
“The teller shrugged his shoulders and said:
“Fluctuations”.
“The Asian lady says: “Fluc you white people
too.”
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
14:22
AIR Zimbabwe's pilots have long been deserving of high regard and
great
admiration. They have been foremost amongst the cockpit crews of
virtually
all airlines operating in the region, and further afield. At all
times they
have unreservedly shown that they placed the safety and comfort
of their
passengers above all else, and have been leading contributants to
the
exceptionally high safety record of Zimbabwe's national airline. But no
one
has ever been totally immune to committing errors, doing others and
themselves disservice.
That is certainly so of the present strike in
which the airline's pilots are
engaged. It is an action which is
ill-considered and counterproductive -
not only against the best interests
of the airline, its customers and the
national economy - but also against
those of the striking pilots. In fact,
the pilots' action is tantamount to
them shooting themselves in the foot.
In so contending, one cannot but be
sympathetic with the pilots, for it is
an untenable circumstance that they
are victims of immense arrears of
remuneration to which they are lawfully
entitled. For which they have
consistently fulfilled their service
obligations. It is an indisputable
right to seek their lawful entitlements,
but doing so by withholding their
services is counterproductive in the
extreme, and exceptionally harmful not
only to the employer, but also to
Zimbabwe as a whole, including the
strikers themselves.
It is a harsh and
incontrovertible fact that Air Zimbabwe is operating under
extremely
difficult financial circumstances. This is in no manner a new
circumstance,
but has prevailed almost continuously. Ever since the
national airline was
established, more than half a century ago, each and
every government has
failed to capitalise the airline adequately, forcing
it to resort to costly
borrowings - albeit guaranteed by the state.
The government has also sought
to wield excessive control over the airline's
policy and management
determinations. Since 1990 an intent to privatise the
airline, in whole or
in part, has repeatedly been mooted by government, but
nothing has been
done to achieve it. In the meanwhile, the airline has
been forced to
operate with an inadequate fleet of aircraft recurrently
diminished by
expropriation for governmental journeys abroad, high funding
costs, and
subject to inappropriate operational policies imposed by the
ministry to
which it is accountable. These and other factors have
inevitably resulted
in continuous operational losses, compounding the
gargantuan operational
constraints endlessly confronting the airline's board
of directors and its
management, and exacerbating those losses.
As a result, payment defaults to
personnel have been recurrent, over an
extended period of time, and
intensifying, to the immense prejudice of
almost all the employees. It is,
therefore not surprising, that ultimately
the "lid blew off the pot" with
the pilots resolving to take action intended
to achieve a righting of the
wrong done to them. They cannot be blamed for
seeking and demanding their
lawful entitlements. But to do so by recourse
to an industrial action of a
strike has been intensely counterproductive.
The consequence has been to
intensify the airline's losses, reputedly an
additional US$500 000 per
day.
This can only worsen the financial circumstances exponentially,
intensifying
the inability of the airline to remunerate its employees, and
to continue
its operations. Instead of the action being able to yield the
intended
objective of receipt by the pilots of that lawfully due (nay,
overdue!!) to
them, the pilots have intensified their employer's inability
to pay.
Moreover, the pilots' ill-considered actions are highly prejudicial
to
Zimbabwe as a whole, impacting very negatively upon the already weakened
economy. The strike has horrendously impacted upon the slowly developing
recovery of the tourism sector, with many hundreds of tourists left stranded
at airports around Zimbabwe, and abroad. Many of those tourists will have
resolved never to return to Zimbabwe, and will also not be the advocates of
Zimbabwean tourism to others.
The consequential negative impact upon
tourism will inevitably have
downstream economic ill-effects, with
minimisation of that sector's sourcing
of goods from other economic
sectors. At the same time, many operations of
the business sector have been
disrupted, with businessmen being unable to
undertake essential and urgent
business travel within Zimbabwe, and beyond.
Similarly, potential investors
have been prejudiced, unable to travel to and
within Zimbabwe, or to return
to their home countries timeously, and thereby
disillusioning them as to
Zimbabwe's suitability as an investment
destination.
Compounding the
tragedy is that the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)
has been
voiciferous in its support for the pilots' actions, and thereby
impliedly
commending similar actions by others within the economy.
Trade unionism is
an essential element of any economic society, for worker
rights must be
protected, and ZCTU has, over the years, done much for
workers, and
indirectly for the economy, as is very commendable. Its support
for action
of the nature resorted to by the pilots is however, most
regrettable,
ill-considered, and economically destructive. That support can
well prove
to be of great future prejudice to much of the ZCTU membership.
Instead,
ZCTU should be interacting constructively with employers and
employees to
identify solutions to labour problems, and to prejudices
suffered by
labour.
The Air Zimbabwe's pilots' strike is as deplorable and deserving of
condemnation as has been actions, in the recent past, by some of
government's
employees in the health care sectors, who allowed patients'
lives to be put
at risk in pursuit of the employees' remuneration
demands.
No matter how grievously unjustly those employees may be deprived of
legitimate rights, surely it cannot be acceptable to render their patients,
as against their employer, the victims! Apparently, some of the government
health care employees believe that their Hippocratic Oath obligations are
only Hypocritical Oath obligations!
Government needs to constructively
address labour issues. It needs to
protect the operations of its parastatals
and their employees by genuine and
expeditious pursuit of privatisation.
Workers need to resort to constructive
and cooperative interaction with
employers to attain mutually equitable and
effective resolution of their
reciprocal difficulties. When employees shoot
themselves in the foot, they
only intensify the ills.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September
2010 14:40
WOMEN are the only sector of the Zimbabwean population
mentioned
specifically by name by the three principals of the global
political
agreement in Article 6 on the constitution-making process. This is
attributable to the unjust legal, constitutional and social status of women,
which may qualify them as a group most in need of a new
constitution.
Article 6 says the principals are determined that the new
constitution
“deepens our democratic values and principles and the
protection of the
equality of all citizens, particularly the enhancement of
the full
citizenship and equality of women”. For this to happen a new
constitution
must have, at the minimum, the following provisions across the
breadth of
the 17 thematic areas.
Firstly, a specific equality clause
that says all people are equal would be
necessary. This should not only be
in the bill of rights but also reflected
in the preamble and founding
principles.
Secondly, a clause that specifies that women and men have equal
citizenship
is necessary to eliminate the second class citizenship of women
manifest in
them being disadvantaged in passing on their citizenship to
their children
with foreign men, or in having their foreign husbands acquire
Zimbabwean
citizenship.
In the Bill of Rights itself the following
clauses are needed. An effective
anti-discrimination clause that makes
discrimination unlawful and
unconstitutional, including on the basis of sex,
gender, and marital status,
is necessary. It is vital for the constitution
to state that all culture and
custom is subject to human rights and
fundamental freedoms.
It is also critical to have a clause guaranteeing the
right to security of
the person that clearly and specifically also includes
the right to
protection from violence against women.
There will also be a
need to have a stand-alone clause on the rights of
women.
Another
necessity is a stand-alone clause providing for children’s rights as
this
would address many of the concerns of women because of their childcare
roles.
A further necessity would be the introduction of economic, social
and
cultural rights, which include rights to healthcare, water, sanitation,
shelter, livelihoods and environmental rights.
Affirmative action should
be provided for so that special temporary measures
to address the historical
marginalisation of women are not held to be
unconstitutionally
discriminatory.
This affirmative action should also specifically provide for
a 50% quota for
women in decision-making at all levels in line with Article
12 of the Sadc
Protocol on Gender & Development.
Another clause
should introduce proportional representation into the
electoral system
exclusively or in combination with the present
first-past-the-post system.
This is as long as proportional representation
is not confined to the Senate
which, being the house of Parliament
traditionally dominated by appointees,
is stereotyped negatively against
women.
Jessie Majome is Women’s
Affairs deputy minister.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010 14:30
IT is not
usually a good thing to say to someone "I told you so" when
something goes
horribly wrong after forewarning them on the dangers of what
they are doing.
But there are times when it becomes necessary to do so.
We find ourselves at
that point with regards to the MDC-T and the current
chaotic
constitution-making process. We hold no brief for the MDC-T on
anything and
we also recognise that the party has a right to make its
political
decisions, no matter how disastrous, without consulting others.
However, we
have a right to comment in the public interest on what the
MDC-T, a
political organisation seeking to win power and rule us, does.
After months
of politicking and making smoke-and-mirrors statements
defending this
shambolic constitution-making process, MDC-T leader Morgan
Tsvangirai on
Wednesday finally saw the light.
He crept out of his ivory tower and called a
press conference on Wednesday
in Harare to lament the violence and
intimidation that rocked the capital
last weekend during the constitutional
outreach programme.
"The MDC leadership met today to review the latest
developments on the work
of the parliament-led constitutional outreach
programme which was scheduled
to end in Bulawayo, Chitungwiza and Harare
last weekend," Tsvangirai told
journalists.
"After considering all the
evidence from our Copac teams and from
independent monitors and observers
drawn from civil society, the leadership
noted with concern the reported
loss of life, the disruptions and the
violence which marred the process.
This process fails to pass the test of
legitimacy, credibility and
people-drivenness."
Tsvangirai went on to say the process has been
militarised and that Zanu PF
had hijacked it using state structures and
instruments of coercion. He also
described the process as "messy".
Now
there we have it from the PM himself. What we however find disturbing is
not
necessarily what Tsvangirai said but that it took him so long to say it.
Right from the beginning, we were very clear on this issue. We said from the
start that this controversial process is badly flawed; it lacks credibility
and legitimacy.
Our argument from the start was that the process is not
inclusive and
therefore not representative. We said the process is driven
and controlled
by a team comprising members of three political parties --
which only
represent a narrow section of society -- and that is not
acceptable in a
culturally-diverse and multiracial country like ours.
We
argued for weeks on end the exercise is not consensus-based and is
hostage
to the whims of a few political parties with self-serving agendas.
We
repeatedly stated that all-inclusiveness stems from the principle of
equality. Everyone affected, and even potentially affected, by the
consequence of the constitution-making process must be included via
representative groups be they political parties, civil organisations or any
other group.
We also said the constitution-making team must have
structures and rules of
operation on how to achieve the desired outcome. We
even suggested that
there should be a representative constituent assembly or
commission to
spearhead the process. The assembly or commission must
preferably be chaired
by a judge or another person of proven
integrity.
Tsvangirai and his loyalists initially claimed that the
constitutional
parliamentary committee was representative as it comprised
MPs from the
three parties in parliament. When confronted with the reality
that Zanu PF
and the MDC factions simply don't represent or capture the
diversity and
multicultural nature of our society, the politicians, thinking
they were
clever, incorporated a few gullible elements from civil society
and other
willing tools to camouflage their undemocratic and
unrepresentative team.
The result of that fraudulent attempt by Zanu PF and
the MDC factions to
hoodwink the people was a calamity. People saw through
the smokescreen and
did not really participate as they did during the
1999-2000 process. Zanu PF
then resorted to coercive mobilisation methods.
The idea behind this is to
impose on the people the discredited Kariba draft
constitution. This remains
Zanu PF's agenda. For Zanu PF it's either the
Kariba draft or nothing.
Mr Tsvangirai: It's time to smell the coffee. No
elections until healing is
underway. And a credible constitution-making
process. That's the least the
MDC can do.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 24 September 2010
14:39
IT is now apparent that Sadc and its facilitator in the Zimbabwe
political
negotiations, South African President Jacob Zuma, do not have
teeth that
bite and even have difficulty barking.
And besides Sadc and
Zuma, President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai and his
deputy Arthur Mutambara have betrayed Zimbabweans by
failing to discharge
their mandate to heal the nation and take charge of its
social
development.
The regional bloc at its summit in Namibia last month gave a
30-day deadline
to Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara to resolve outstanding
issues in the
global political agreement (GPA) signed two years ago.
The
deadline expired last Wednesday with no movement whatsoever towards the
resolution of the sticking points - the rehiring of central bank czar Gideon
Gono, appointment of Attorney-General Johannes Tomana and the swearing in of
MDC-T treasurer Roy Bennett as Deputy Agriculture minister. Sadly, Sadc and
Zuma have been mum on this development.
This is the second time such a
deadline had been imposed on the principals
by Sadc and not followed
through.
In October 2009, Tsvangirai's MDC-T disengaged from government,
forcing Sadc's
Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation to
hurriedly convene a
meeting in Maputo, where the political protagonists were
given 30 days to
deal with a litany of outstanding issues. The deadline came
and went without
any resolution. Meanwhile Sadc and Zuma remained
silent.
It is this failure by Sadc to deal decisively with the Zimbabwe
situation
that has rendered the bloc, in the eyes of many, as next to
useless. Sadc
clearly does not have much leverage over the three principals,
especially
Mugabe, and as such it would help matters for the bloc to admit
its failure
and escalate the Zimbabwe case by referring it to the African
Union (AU).
The AU, a joint guarantor of the GPA with Sadc, should be allowed
to come in
and try to resolve the outstanding issues because Zuma and the
regional bloc
have feared to confront one of their own and have failed to
address critical
regional issues to the disadvantage of the nation!
Sadc
has failed to be firm, especially with Mugabe, by demanding a
resolution to
the outstanding issues so that the work to rebuild the country
continues in
earnest. They should have been speaking loudly against the
resurgence of
politically-motivated violence during the constitution-making
process. There
is no need on the part of the regional bloc to treat the
principals with
kid-gloves. They need to commit to what they signed up to.
Mugabe, Tsvangirai
and Mutambara have betrayed the nation by failing to meet
within the 30-day
Sadc deadline to resolve the outstanding issues -- the
reason being that
Mutambara was abroad. Of what benefit was Mutambara's trip
to the country
considering that this impasse is threatening the very
existence of the
inclusive government? Must we put these issues on ice every
time the deputy
premier goes overseas?
The violence in Harare at the weekend during the
constitution-making process
outreach programmes has exposed the farce that
we call national healing.
Last week Tsvangirai said national healing should
take place after fresh
elections.
He should be reminded that any process
of national healing should involve
unearthing the nefarious activities of
those with whom he is presently
sharing power. At present they are
instilling fear of retribution if people
express their views openly.
On
the other hand, he should also note that victims of political violence,
as
we disclose this week, are yearning for recognition and acknowledgement
of
the wrongs done to them. Ultimately he will not be able to please
everybody
at the same time.
In his attempt to play politics, he assumes that what
people need most is
change in political leadership and that when that is
achieved, other issues,
such as national healing can be done. But in doing
so he may be
underestimating the residual bitterness among the victims, many
of whom are
his supporters. Also he probably doesn't realise that those
resisting change
will not take his statements seriously because they know
they will be
targeted once they lose power.
So trying to please them by
suggesting that national healing is suspended
until after the election does
not really achieve much. Far better in our
view is to stick to principle and
insist on the need for national healing
and everything that it
entails.