Yahoo News
Mon Sep 17, 10:59 AM ET
HARARE (AFP) - Planned legislation that
would place the majority share of
all listed firms in the hands of
indigenous blacks will lead to a fall in
foreign investment and worsen
Zimbabwe's economic woes, business leaders
warned Monday.
Members of
a parliamentary committee that is currently debating the
controversial
Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment bill were told that
the proposed law
was both ill-timed and outdated.
Cain Mpofu, chief executive of the Zimbabwe
National Chamber of Commerce,
said the correction of the historical
imbalances should have been tackled by
veteran President Robert Mugabe's
government when the former British colony
gained independence in
1980.
"It, however, must be appreciated that 27 years down the road there
has been
an evolution and there is now significant change in ownership of
business in
Zimbabwe," Mpofu told the MPs.
"The timing, therefore,
does not appear appropriate for the following
reasons: the economy is in a
tail spin, international perception about
proprietary rights protection in
Zimbabwe is at its lowest and inflation is
the highest in the
world."
"There is a likelihood of a 30 percent drop in foreign direct
investment
following passage of the proposed act.
"A decline in gross
domestic product is also to be anticipated after
implementation of the
indigenisation programme," he added.
Jack Murehwa, president of the
Chamber of Mines, said the government should
not try to force through
changes of ownership.
"Government should facilitate the operations of the
sector and not impose
themselves on the sector operations," he
said.
"Where ownership has to change hands, this should be on voluntary
and fair
market values."
The draft bill, which is now before the
Harare-based parliament's legal
committee, has raised fears among
foreign-owned companies operating in
Zimbabwe that they will soon lose
control of their firms.
Some of the firms dually listed on the Zimbabwe
Stock Exchange and London
Securities Exchange include Old Mutual, NMB Bank
and mining firm Hwange.
Multi-national firms that may be affected by the
policy, first unveiled in
June, include Barclays Bank, Bindura Nickel
Corporation and mining giant Rio
Zim.
In June, Mugabe warned that his
government would seize and nationalise firms
he said were profiteering
excessively in a bid to incite Zimbabweans to
revolt against the
state.
Zimbabwe currently has the world's highest rate of inflation of
more than
7,600 percent, as well as an unemployment rate of around 80
percent.
IOL
September 17 2007 at 12:07PM
Harare - The Zimbabwe government's
threat to take over companies
defying controversial price controls is not a
joke, Industry Minister Obert
Mpofu was quoted as saying on
Monday.
Obert Mpofu told the ruling Zanu-PF party members meeting
at the
weekend in western Zimbabwe that the government had already started
identifying companies it plans to take over.
While embarking on
this project of price stabilisation we are now deep
in the process of
identifying all those business entities who are for regime
change with a
view of taking over the companies, Mpofu was quoted as saying
by the
state-controlled Chronicle newspaper.
"It is unfortunate that when
we say these things, people brush them
off and say it is only a joke," he
said. "We are now going to take over the
companies buy them
out.
"If they think we are not serious, let them
wait until we knock at
their doorsteps," added the minister, who chairs a
special taskforce
responsible for enforcing price controls imposed more than
two months ago.
Mpofu was Monday due to meet with some major
companies including
industrial retail giant Edgars, according to the
Chronicle.
Reports last week said Edgars was about to close down 19
of its 55
clothing stores, putting at risk the jobs of more than 200
workers.
The Zimbabwe Independent newspaper, a respected business
weekly linked
the store closures directly to the price cuts that have made
business
unviable for many companies here.
Mugabe's government
imposed price cuts of at least 50 per cent in June
to try to fight
inflation, which has now reached more than 7 600 percent.
But the
controls appear to have backfired. Stores are now empty of
most basics,
including meat, milk, bread, cooking oil and sugar.
Many of the
goods are available on the black market though at inflated
prices.
Mpofu admitted at the weekend that it was difficult to
enforce the
price controls if the government did not control the companies
that produced
the goods.
"Right now, if we are to take a stroll
in our cities, most of the
shops have run out of commodities," Mpofu
noted.
"But these same commodities are there in the streets and
houses where
people are buying them. This simply shows how difficult it is
to control
something which is not yours," he was quoted by the Chronicle as
saying. -
Sapa-DPA
UN Integrated Regional
Information Networks
17 September 2007
Posted to the web 17 September
2007
Harare
The amount set aside by the Zimbabwean government to
feed at least four
million people identified as food insecure is "a mere
drop in the sea", say
analysts.
Finance minister Samuel Mumbengegwi
announced in early September that the
government had set aside Z$347 billion
(about US$1.02 million at the
parallel market rate) to buy food for 600,000
households it had identified
as hungry, due to poor harvests after a
combination of drought and critical
shortages of inputs.
The
government's budget allocation would "buy less", said John Robertson, a
Zimbabwean economist, because of the rapidly depreciating Zimbabwean dollar
and foreign exchange shortages.
Rates on the black market have been
rising steeply, with one US dollar now
costing about 340,000 Zimbabwean
dollars, an increase of around Z$120,000
per US dollar since the additional
money for relief was announced.
Renson Gasela, an expert on agriculture
and a former chief executive officer
of the state-owned Grain Marketing
Board (GMB), pointed out that "in real
terms" the money allocated by the
government for the rollout of food would
only buy about 40,000 metric tonnes
(mt) of cereals.
In order to avert widespread hunger, particularly in the
worst affected
provinces of Masvingo and Matabeleland South and North, the
government has
already bought 500,000 metric tonnes (mt) of grain from
Zambia and Malawi,
leaving a net deficit of over 600,000mt to meet the
national requirement,
according to the official daily newspaper, The
Herald.
Mumbengegwi also set aside Z$800 billion (about US$2.3 million)
to import
maize, and for the GMB to purchase grain from farmers. The
newspaper said
the allocation would put the government "in the driving seat
in terms of
drought relief purposes, ahead of non-governmental organisations
[NGOs] and
international donors, such as the World Food Programme
(WFP)".
The amount seems small compared to the US$118 million appeal
launched by WFP
to provide immediate assistance to 3.3 million of the 4.1
million people
that UN agencies estimate will be facing severe food
shortages from now
until March 2008. The remainder will be supported by
NGOs, including the
Consortium for the Southern Africa Food Emergency
(C-SAFE).
Print money?
"The reality is that the central bank's
foreign currency coffers are
severely strained and, as has been happening in
the past, the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe will be forced to go to the black
market to scoop out the much
needed foreign currency," Robertson told IRIN.
The time factor would also be
critical in procuring the food, as the
Zimbabwean dollar was depreciating in
value at a fast pace.
Robertson
speculated that since the government was "heavily burdened by both
domestic
and external debts" it could be left "with no option but to print
more money
and, in the process, push up inflation".
The government-controlled
Central Statistical Office maintains that
inflation is slightly over 7,000
percent, but the Consumer Council of
Zimbabwe, a watchdog body, has said it
had reached more than 13,000 percent.
The reality is that the central
bank's foreign currency coffers are severely
strained and, as has been
happening in the past, the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe will be forced to go to
the black market to scoop out the much
needed foreign currency
In
late June the government ordered prices to be cut by 50 percent and
forced
businesses to comply, but the exercise backfired as it led to
widespread
shortages in shops and in the manufacturing industry, with
commodities
surfacing in the black market at exorbitant prices.
Gasela said the GMB's
silos were "virtually empty" because farmers were
reluctant to sell the
little they harvested for the poor prices the
government was
offering.
The government backtracked on its price-control policy in
August, and since
then prices have shot up again, further compromising food
security: basic
commodities such as maizemeal, the staple food, are now
beyond the reach of
the poor.
Maize prices in US dollar equivalents
in three monitored markets - Harare,
the Zimbabwean capital; Bulawayo, in
the southwest, the second city; and the
eastern city of Mutare - rose by 23
percent on average, from US$1.24 per kg
in July to US$1.52 per kg in August,
according to the USAID-funded Famine
Early Warning Systems Network
(FEWS-NET), which used the official revised
exchange rate of Z$15,000 to
US$1.
Rural residents have begun to work for food. Tapiwa Goronga, 48, a
resident
of Chikomba district, southwest of Harare, walks 15km to the
village
shopping centre three times a week, where he does odd jobs for the
owner of
a grinding mill, for which he is paid three kg of
maizemeal.
"I did not harvest anything this year and the grinding mill is
my only hope,
otherwise my four children and wife would starve."
[
This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
Reuters
Mon 17 Sep
2007, 13:37 GMT
By Jeremy Lovell
LONDON (Reuters) - The
humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe has become the
world's worst but is still
largely ignored by the international community, a
member of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on
Monday.
David Coltart,
one of Zimbabwe's leading white politicians and member of
parliament for a
mainly black constituency, said the crisis in the former
British colony had
far outgrown the ability of any single nation to tackle.
He accused
United Nations food and health agencies of a gross dereliction of
duty in
keeping silent on the issue.
"Zimbabwe is the world's worst humanitarian
crisis -- but no one is talking
about it in public," he told Reuters on a
visit to London. "It is absolutely
catastrophic. The U.N. must
act.
"Not only are people starving to death every day, but the collapse
of the
economy is starting to destabilise the region."
Inflation in
the country once known as the breadbasket of Africa is running
at around
4,500 percent, unemployment is at 80 percent and price controls
have
stripped supermarket shelves bare.
Even staple foods like bread and maize
meal are virtually impossible to get
hold of and people have been reduced to
scavenging.
President Robert Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980,
blames the
economic disaster on meddling by outside countries, including
former
colonial power Britain.
They in turn deny the accusation and
blame Mugabe and his ruling ZANU-PF
party for incompetence, nepotism and
corruption.
"What we need is a massive humanitarian relief effort. Mugabe
is
deliberately using food as a weapon," said Coltart, who is secretary for
legal affairs for a faction of the MDC.
"The trouble is that on the
surface everything is quiet -- it is in the
hospitals and in the morgues
that you see the truth," he added.
Coltart said mediation talks with
South Africa were making some headway on
issues like a new constitution,
electoral law, security amd relaxing
draconian media restrictions, but there
was still a long way to go.
And time was running short with presidential
and possibly parliamentary
elections expected in March next year.
"We
need to get agreement on a new constitution by then, and it doesn't give
us
much time to finish an awful lot of work," Coltart said.
He urged his
divided party to end internal feuding and prepare to fight the
elections
with a united front.
"If we fight the election still divided it will be a
gift to ZANU-PF and a
disasted for Zimbabwe," Coltart added.
SW Radio Africa (London)
17 September
2007
Posted to the web 17 September 2007
Tererai
Karimakwenda
11 members of a new human rights group were severely
assaulted by police and
arrested on Friday as they gathered for a peaceful
march in Harare.
Stan Zvorwadza, vice president of Restoration of Human
Rights Zimbabwe
(ROHRZim), said about 500 members of their group were
gathering for the
march when they were disrupted by heavily armed police who
proceeded to
assault them with baton sticks and booted feet. Ironically the
march was to
protest police brutality. Zvorwadza said: "The police have
become vicious
animals in Zimbabwe. They have become vicious leopards who
brutalise people
for no reason whatsoever."
The 11 spent 3 days
in custody and were released late Monday afternoon after
paying a Z$40,000
fine each for 'disorderly behavior.' A furious Zvorwadza
blasted the police
saying they are playing games with the system by
ruthlessly detaining
people, then letting them go without any serious
charge. Referring to the
fine, he said: "You can't even buy a sweet for that
amount of money in
Zimbabwe."
Zvorwadza revealed that the 11 activists were assaulted while
in police
custody. He said one of them was removed from the group and
severely
battered by a notorious CIO agent whose name he did not disclose.
Those who
needed medical assistance were denied it.
Regarding the
incident Friday, Zvorwadza explained that their members had
gathered on the
sidewalk in order to keep traffic flowing and avoid causing
problems.
Opposing police brutality is one element of the mission of
Restoration of
Human Rights Zimbabwe. Zvorwadza said: "They do not follow
normal police
principles used in other democratic countries. They beat
first, then
arrest."
He added that the group is trying to educate people about their
rights. They
also want the police to realize that what they are doing is
morally and
politically wrong. He said: "They are supposed to protect the
public instead
of victimising them for expressing their
rights."
Police violence in Zimbabwe has intensified as the economic
situation
continues to deteriorate. Any public expression of frustration by
the masses
has been met with brutal response by armed forces. Opposition
leaders,
students and civil activists have all been victims of police
brutality, and
lawyers who represent them have not been spared either.
SW Radio
Africa (London)
17 September 2007
Posted to the web 17 September
2007
Henry Makiwa
Raucous Zanu PF youths on Saturday denied a
victim of Robert Mugabe's
operation Murambatsvina a decent burial in Harare,
when they assaulted
mourners at her funeral before taking off with the
corpse.
According to eyewitnesses at Mabvuku cemetry, gangs of ruling
party militia
were angered by the presence of members of the Combined Harare
Residents
Association (CHRA) whom they accused of belonging to the
opposition MDC. The
youths reportedly found alliance in the form of the riot
police who beat up
and arrested mourners, while the Zanu PF thugs took off
with the corpse.
At least 65 CHRA members were arrested and charged
under the draconian
Public Order and Security Act, before they were released
after paying an
admission of guilt fine. The police reportedly deflated
tyres of the truck
that was carrying the body and mourners before locking up
the group at
Harare Central Police Station.
CHRA information officer
Mfundo Mlilo, who was amongst the arrested, said
Mugabe had denied Jenaguru
peace "in life and beyond the grave".
Mlilo said: "This woman had her
home and life taken away when the government
launched their Murambatsvina
campaign and for some inhumane reason was
denied a decent send off that we
all have a right to.
The Zanu PF youths stole her body and threatened
mourners with death and
actually spent a night with it until the next day,
when they buried her in
the company of only one of the deceased's uncles
because four of her other
relatives had been arrested. All CHRA did was to
attempt to assist someone
who had been rendered homeless, but apparently it
is illegal in this part of
the world."
CHRA last week mobilised funds
to assist in the burial of the late Jenaguru
who was found dead in her
plastic and wood shack in Harare's slum residence
of Mbare.
SW Radio Africa
(London)
17 September 2007
Posted to the web 17 September
2007
Tichaona Sibanda
South African President Thabo Mbeki on
Saturday held an hour long meeting
with the Presidents of both factions of
the MDC at his Union Building
offices in Pretoria.
While no-one would
comment from either of the two MDC factions, a source
told Newsreel both
sides expressed satisfaction at the way the talks have
progressed so far.
Mthulisi Sibanda, who had gone to cover the meeting
Saturday said many
journalists were blocked from interviewing Morgan
Tsvangirai and Arthur
Mutambara.
'No-one of us (journalists) who were at the Union Building
had an
opportunity to talk to Tsvangirai or Mutambara. They were brought in
through
the back door and were whisked away soon after the meeting without
uttering
a word to the media. This is not alright, Zimbabweans need to know
what is
happening,' said Sibanda.
It emerged however that both sides
were united briefly in telling President
Mbeki that they would not
participate in an election without a new
constitution. Robert Mugabe has
said there was no need to create a new
constitution, resisting opposition
demands for a new charter before
elections next year.
Two months ago,
Mugabe told his Zanu-PF supporters that the current
constitution serves the
nation well and there was no reason to change it.
But Newsreel is reliably
informed that the need for a new constitution was
proving to be the most
delicate issue confronting Mbeki in his mediation
efforts.
While it
has been difficult to get information about the talks because of an
official
media blackout by the South African government, sources however
told us the
MDC was not backtracking on the drawing up and adoption of a new
constitution.
According to ZimOnline, sticky constitutional reform
issues have forced
Mbeki to push back the talks deadline. 16th October is
now the tentative
date by which the negotiating parties should have reached
a consensus on key
issues
A follow-up meeting of the country's civil
society representatives and Mbeki
was cancelled on Sunday as Mbeki is
believed to have requested more time
because of the 'thorny' issue of the
new constitution.
The South African leader was due to brief leaders of
the National
Constitutional Assembly, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, Progressive
Teachers Union
of Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) on
the progress of
the talks. He is now expected to meet them this coming
weekend.
By Lance
Guma
17 September, 2007
News just received from the Zimbabwe Congress
of Trade Unions (ZCTU) is that
3 of its members were heavily assaulted
Monday for distributing campaign
materials ahead of the planned stay away on
the 19 th and 20 th of
September. A statement from Khumbulani Ndlovu the
ZCTU Information Officer,
said National Organiser Michael Kandukutu,
Tennyson Muchepfa from the
National Engineering Workers' Unions, and Justice
Mucheni from the Food
Federation are being held at Mbare Police station in
the capital.
Ndlovu says Kandukutu managed to send a text message from
his mobile saying
alerting the union of their whereabouts. Zimbabwe Lawyers
for Human Rights
have already been informed and are battling to secure their
release. Last
time the ZCTU tried to hold a stayaway the regime responded by
assaulting
its leadership. The image of police assaulting ZCTU leaders in a
truck was
broadcast all over the world and put the spotlight on Mugabe's
government.
It remains to be seen how the government will respond to the
coming strike.
Monday's incident seems to have already set the
tone.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
ZCTU Alert!!!
We have managed to locate the three who were heavily
assaulted this
afternoon and abducted while distributing campaign material
ahead of the
ZCTU planned 19 and 20 September stayaway.
The three are
Michael Kandukutu, the ZCTU national Organizer, Tennyson
Muchepfa from the
National Engineering Workers' Unions, and Justice Mucheni
from the Food
Federation.
Michael managed to send a text message from his mobile phone
saying they
were being held at Mbare Police Station. Zimbabwe laywers for
Human Rights
have already been informed and they are working on accessing
the three.
Khumbulani Ndlovu (Ms)
Information Officer
Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions
P.O Box 3549
Harare, Zimbabwe
The Economist
September 17th 2007
Our
correspondent avoids a trap
I am once again landing in Harare, after a
short flight from Johannesburg.
Zimbabwe's capital is closer to home than
Cape Town is, but it is another
world.
The government does not like
foreign journalists much, especially those
working for a British
publication, and getting accredited is no longer
possible. So I have never
been able to report legally from Zimbabwe, and for
immigration purposes, I
am there as a lonely "tourist", or on "business".
My first visit to
Zimbabwe was in 2005, during the government's Operation
Murambatsvina, an
urban "clean-up" exercise that destroyed the homes or
businesses of about
700,000 people. I wish I had known Zimbabwe when it was
still considered a
success story.
As usual, I have made sure I do not carry anything that
would give me away:
no laptop, no business or press cards, no notebook.
Still, it is easy to get
into Zimbabwe. Unmotivated immigration officials
collect the $30 visa fee
and usually ask no questions. The several daily
flights to Harare are very
busy, so I don't stand out in any
way.
This time I have decided to come on "business". To my surprise, I am
asked
who my business contact in Harare is. I make up some story about
exploring
investment opportunities and having no contact yet. The bored
official waves
me through.
I pick up my rental car and drive the
short distance towards Harare to meet
a local contact who works with me when
I'm in town. He risks losing his job
and worse if caught with me, but
working with foreign journalists provides
much-needed extra
income.
My local contact-I will call him John-can tell me what is safe
and what isn't,
and identifies people I can interview. Informants have
become common,
especially as the ruling party, ZANU-PF is tightening its
grip ahead of next
year's election, and it is hard to know for sure whom I
can trust.
It is easy enough to blend in Harare, but rural areas, where
the ruling
party's control is far stronger, are riskier. There, I stand out
as a sore
thumb, a stranger sniffing around small towns where everyone knows
everyone.
John tells me we thus cannot sleep there safely, so we will have
to drive
back to Harare every evening.
Ironically, rural areas where
the ruling party's authority is not contested
tend to be more relaxed than
rural areas where the opposition is still
active. In a ZANU-PF stronghold,
we navigate the many roadblocks with no
problem.
We also check out
shops and talk to one of the few white commercial farmers
who has managed to
hang on to part of his land. He grows crops for export,
like citrus and
tobacco. He is one of roughly 350 commercial farmers thought
to be left,
from 4,500 before the government started redistributing land in
2000.
He says he has so far managed to hang on by staying out of
politics,
maintaining good relations with local officials, and sheer
doggedness. He
explains that he has gone to court not to fight land
redistribution itself,
but to try to reclaim equipment and houses that the
top government official
and a few war veterans who have been given the heart
of his farm were not
allowed to grab.
The farm no longer makes money,
but cheap government loans and heavily
subsidised diesel help to keep him
going. He also plants and harvests on
neighbouring farms, which have been
reallocated to black owners, and gets
half the crop.
But as we drive
into a small town east of Harare, the mood changes. The
much-feared youth
militias are patrolling the streets, and lonely men are
loitering. We are
supposed to meet one of John's contacts, whom he has known
for years, at the
local hotel.
He works with farm workers, hundreds of thousands of whom
have lost their
jobs with the collapse of commercial agriculture. He is
supposed to tell me
how they are faring in this area, and to introduce me to
a few of them.
We wait in the hotel parking lot, in plain view. The
contact is late, he
does not pick up his phone, and night has fallen. I feel
increasingly
uncomfortable. Something is wrong. After a while, we decide
that hanging out
in the hotel parking lot, which looks out on the main
street, is probably
not a great idea, and we go and look for
petrol.
John finally reaches his contact, who says he will be at the
hotel in 20
minutes. I suggest we skip the meeting, drive back to Harare and
call him
from the road. But John wants to check the hotel's bar once
more.
He goes in alone, while I turn the car around, turn off the lights
and keep
the engine running. This feels like a cheap spy movie. A few
minutes later,
John walks back quickly, jumps in the car, and tells me to
rush off. His
trusted contact had arrived, but with five security men. John
is shocked.
But who knows what kind of pressure his contact is under? Human
rights
organisations have been denouncing beatings, arbitrary arrests and
rapes for
years.
The Herald (Harare)
Published by the government of Zimbabwe
17 September 2007
Posted to
the web 17 September 2007
Harare
The Zimbabwe National Water
Authority requires at least $1,5 trillion to
address the problem of sewage
pipe bursts, which has troubled Harare for
many years.
Deputy
Minister of Water Resources and Infrastructural Development Cde
Walter
Mzembi told the two Houses of Parliament last week that there was
need to
prioritise the allocation of funding to water and sewage
reticulation.
He lamented that his ministry had only been
allocated $500 billion in the
supplementary budget announced by Minister of
Finance Dr Samuel Mumbwengegwi
on September 6. "We require not less than
$1,5 trillion to cut the flow of
raw sewage in Harare alone, but if you look
at the Blue Book, we were given
$500 billion. So this means that before we
even start the work, we already
have a funding deficit," he said.
Cde
Mzembi urged legislators to assist his ministry in lobbying for more
funding
in the 2008 National Budget. This, he said, would enable it to fully
discharge its mandate of repairing water pipes and acquiring new equipment
to replace obsolete infrastructure.
Cde Mzembi was responding to a
question from Kambuzuma MP Mr Willias
Madzimure (MDC), who wanted to know
why Zinwa's service delivery had been
deteriorating since its takeover of
Harare's water and sewage functions. In
the Senate, Cde Mzembi was
responding to a report by the Portfolio Committee
on Local Government, which
said Zinwa did not have the capacity to take over
water supply from local
authorities.
Cde Mzembi said while the Government had allocated resources
to agriculture,
this was not the case with the water sector.
He said
while he appreciated the recognition the ministry had got from the
recent
supplementary budget, more resources needed to be channelled to
water. "I
have sometimes wondered why we are unable to resource the water
sector the
same way we have financed other sectors. I would like to urge
this House to
help us lobby Government to give priority to water," said Cde
Mzembi. He
said Zinwa was facing resistance from some local authorities that
feared
loss of revenue once the parastatal took over responsibility for
water
supply and distribution.
"They have retained the equipment, making the
takeover difficult. "We have
in some instances built stocks of treatment
chemicals to act as a buffer
covering three months before we take over
because of the resistance from
some local authorities," he said. Turning to
Tafara and Mabvuku high-density
suburbs that have become synonymous with
water shortages, Cde Mzembi said
Zinwa's short-term intervention was to
drill boreholes in the areas, a
programme that was expected to last until
next year.
In response, Highfield-Glen Norah-Glen View Senator Cde
Charles Tawengwa
(Zanu-PF), who had moved the motion, commended Cde Mzembi
for his response
but pointed out that the views expressed in the committee's
report emanated
from residents.
The Sowetan
17 September 2007
The
Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg has become a theatre of the
absurd.
Every day, without fail, the drama of human
folly is played over and over
again.
It's bedtime and among hundreds
of the Great Unwashed sleeping on the hard
floor and some snoring on the
stairs of the church, I saw him sleeping like
a baby and still clutching a
tennis racquet to his chest.
It turned out that this faceless man in his
mid-thirties dreamt of becoming
a Wimbledon champion. He still believes that
one day he will become a
champion and bring glory to his wretched country
and fortune to his family
back in Mutare, Zimbabwe.
Inside the
church a daily prayer session was in progress. The huge church
was bursting
to the seams but there were still dozens of others, mostly
economic refugees
from Zimbabwe, hanging aimlessly around Smal Street, a
famed landmark
boulevard that fronts the entrance to the church.
One girl of no more
than 13 sat on the concrete floor next to a toppled
garbage bin minding a
small, emaciated baby. I wondered if the poor baby
would make it past her
first birthday.
Across the street, a tall man tottered around, his head
craned skyward as he
sung songs of redemption, some hymns and folk songs of
his native country.
The loneliness and lack of family support system has
made him soft in the
head.
In this catalogue of misery, I attract the
attention of two Zimbabweans who
wept as they told me the tragic stories of
their lives and their land.
Nesbert Muradzi is 42 but the trials of
life have made him look at least 60.
Back home he was a science, maths and
geography teacher earning Z2600 a
month.
That's the equivalent of
R60.
He was born in Rasupe in Manicaland but had to relocate to Harare
where he
was posted.
He found a small room to rent. It set him back
R50 per month, leaving him
with only R10 to make ends meet.
Outside
the church I fished out R25 and gave it to him and I was ashamed of
myself
when I saw his eyes moisten in gratitude.
This university-educated man
came to South Africa with the hope that he
would land himself a teaching
post. Despite bringing along his
qualifications he can't get a job because
he hasn't converted his
qualification to SAQA, the South African
qualification body.
"They tell me that to get your qualification
recognised by SAQA, you need
R1000. I have never had that kind of money at
any one time in my life."
Misery.
To survive in big, bad Joburg,
Muradzi does odd jobs like clearing rubble on
construction sites. It is a
back-breaking job which gives him about
R20-a-day if he's lucky enough to
get one.
He has left Marjorie, his wife and fellow teacher, and four
school-going
children back home.
"Every weekend my wife crosses the
border into Zambia where she sells
bric-a-brac. I wonder how we would have
survived as a family without her."
On March 11 when the world watched in
horror as the batons struck Morgan
Tsvangirai, Muradzi, a member of a
teacher trade union movement, was at the
same march and was severely
assaulted - three of his ribs broken in the
process.
On the second
day of June he sold his television set and bought a one-way
bus ticket to
the "promised land".
He didn't bring much with him, only an extra pair of
trousers, a lone shirt,
one pair of shoes and extra underwear.
He
carries his worldly possessions with him wherever he goes. He fished out
damp underwear from his trouser pocket because he was told there was a lot
of thievery at the church. Another pocket yielded a washing rack, a comb, a
thin slab of face soap and a small jar of Vaseline.
But to think
otherwise is to laugh in the face of common sense as to mock
reality.
When the sun sets, his spirit sinks because he has no
blanket to ward off
the night chill. He simply uses discarded cardboard to
save his body from
the cold concrete slab.
Vitalis Nyakunya 41, has
an even sadder story to tell.
The man also has a wife and four children
back home. Like thousands of his
compatriots, he jumped the border at Musina
to come to Johannesburg.
But because he had no money to book his passage,
he first worked as a farm
labourer at farms on the border. In that month he
made R400. He sent R200 to
his family with someone from his village. Sadly,
the money never reached
home. He had been robbed by one of his
own.
But that's the least of his problems. Money can be earned, but life
is more
precious. His 14-year-old daughter suffers from a rare disease
called
papillomas. It attacks the wind pipes and makes it difficult for her
to
breath.
If Nyakunya cannot raise the R5000 needed for an
operation, his beloved
daughter will, as certain as the sun rises and sets,
die a slow and painful
death.
"Right now I feel that I woulddo
anything just to make money and give my
daughter the gift of life," he said,
his face masked in grief.
Back home I couldn't touch my dinner. Sleep
refused to come and when I
finally dosed off, the nightmare I saw in central
Johannesburg earlier in
the evening mani- fested itself as a nightmare
again.
Weep for the people of Zimbabwe.
africanews, Netherlands
1..
Posted on Monday 17 September 2007 - 14:35
Fidelis Zvomuya, AfricaNews
reporter in Pretoria, South Africa
AfricaNews - The dairy sector in
Zimbabwe is in a bad and perilous state
due to the current economic crisis,
hyper inflation, power cuts,
unavailability of fuel, shortages and high
input costs resulting in the
farmers' survival no longer being about money,
but the passion they have for
the industry, Ajs Kirk, chairperson of
Zimbabwe's National Association of
Dairy Farmers (NADF) says.
Kirk
says the future viability of farmers is under siege due to mounting
pressure
from both the economy being driven by an inflation rate of more
than 7 400%
and the increasingly unavailability of basic inputs.
"These challenges
have seen milk output declining drastically in recent
years. Both farmers
and milk processors face bankruptcy due to dramatic,
sustained and
manipulated fall in prices. Right now the price is
approximately below the
total economic cost of production," he says.
The latest snapshot of
Zimbabwe's dairy industry shows that 200 dairy
farmers and 158 000 dairy
cows have disappeared from the industry since
1990.
The country's
milk production nose dive by 65% from 256 million litres in
1990 to 90
million in 2006.
This falls 50% short of the dairy domestic demand which is
estimated at
180 million litres per year. This national requirement is
against a drop in
the country's per capita consumption which went down to
the current 7 litres
from a high of 25 litres in 1990.
The number
of registered producers declined from 514 in 1990 to 278 in
2007.
An estimated 200 former dairy farms are no longer being used for milk
production despite them having basic dairy infrastructure in place.
Milking herd size declined from 191 000 in 1990 to the current 33 000
giving
an average yield of 14 litres per cow per day down from 25 litres.
Poor
breeding, inappropriate breeds, the lack of high technology and
cutting edge
research on feed and genetics is another challenge that has
affected
production and milk quality.
"We are surviving as dairy farmers just
because we know that if the
country's dairy industry collapses, it will
never rise again.
"If we kill our cows that have evolved after
generations of area specific
breeding and adaptation, they can never be
replaced. I have come to the
conclusion that waiting for the light at the
end of the tunnel that seems to
be moving away and dimming all the time is
futile," Kirk says.
Kirk notes that farmers need to identify cost
effective milk production
processes, assist in the development of policies
and actionable strategic
plans to address constrains such as farmers'
viability, the high cost of
stock feed.
"Despite all these
challenges, we need to understand the relevant global
dairy industry value
chains as our rebuilding and revitalisation plans hinge
on a strong market
that exerts a pull effect that is attractive and
quantifiable incentives for
the producers," he says.
Poor infrastructure, low per capita income and
poor milking herds and
marketing are all a cause of concern for the
sector.
Shortages of drugs and milking machines is compromising quality
of the
milk with the average Somatic Cell Count (SCC) having gone up to 741
000
this year from last year's 593 000. The country's national SCC
requirement
is anything less than 400 000.
"The quality of the
product is also our major concerned," Kirk says.
Despite a decline in
the number of producers, the number of processing
companies has increased
from two in 1990 to the current 34. But these
facilities are currently
utilising 30% of their processing capacity.
Anthony Mandiwanza, group
chief executive of Dairibord Holdings Limited
says these processing
facilities have an existing installed capacity to
process in excess of 400
million litres per year.
According to Mandiwanza, Zimbabwe needs to put
in place policies and
strategic focus that will see an increase in milk
production with a target
of 240 million litres by 2010.
"The
country has a potential export in excess of 100 million litres that
can earn
US$65 million per year," Mandiwanza says.
But a scientist with,
Chinhoyi University of Technology, Evelyn Garwe says
the sustainable
viability and commercial competitiveness of dairy producers
in Zimbabwe does
not only rely on policy changes but also relies heavily on
the establishment
of new and appropriate technologies for managing and
feeding cows to
optimise productivity.
Garwe says, research is the main source of
technological innovations and
is very important in strengthening the
country's dairy potential.
"In order for research to achieve the
intended results, there is need for
narrow definition of priorities, well
trained multidisciplinary team of
scientists and long term commitment,"
Garwe says.
Zimbabwe has weak research and productivity programmes
designed to
increase milk production but very effective regulations for
enforcing
regulated milk prices.
In 2007 alone milk price in
Zimbabwe went up by 3 746% from Z$650 per
litre in January to Z$1 400 in
February, Z$3 200 in March, Z$11 000 in April
to the current Z$25 000.
Farmers are still saying this milk price is not
fair at all.
Most
dairy farms' incomes are highly concentrated, with 97% coming from
raw milk
sales, 2% excess heifer sales and 1% cattle slaughter.
At the same time
cost of doing dairy farming in Zimbabwe is pegged at
76,8% feed, 19,2%
indirect costs, 2% animal health chemicals, 0,3%
Artificial Insemination,
0,7 disinfectants, 1,1% labour.
"If for whatever reason we cannot
produce milk at a competitive price we
must change our system or stop
production," Kirk says.
He says currently dairy farmers have been
reduced to investment experts,
political analysts, police and chief
negotiators as they have to take these
challenging tasks for critical
survival.
"This professional change has seen the country's milk quality
declining as
farmers are not spending time on their dairies due to all these
challenges.
We can't plan or budget at the moment, because we are now
operating at a
monthly inflation rate of 100%
"We are best
qualified to set the price of our produce. Both farmers and
processors have
production models to monitor pricing. Let us be self
regulatory and
government should concentrate on providing us with reliable
electricity and
fuel supplies," Kirk says.
According to Kirk they are no longer looking
at milk prices, but means to
implement and ensure sustainable operating
systems that are most efficient
for their farms.
This Day (Lagos)
17
September 2007
Posted to the web 17 September 2007
Kwara
Kwara
State Commissioner of Agriculture, Professor Gana Yisa, has said
Zimbabwean
commercial farmers operating in Shonga, Edu Local Government Area
of the
state, will soon establish a N400-million dairy factory
Yisa said in
Ilorin yesterday, that the factory would produce about four
million litres
of milk annually and would so on be completed, while
production will start
early 2008.
He said the state government has awarded a N200-million
electricity contract
for the connection of Shonga Village to the national
grid.
Yisa said about 900 specially bred dairy cows would be imported
from South
Africa for the purpose.
According to him, the factory
would produce cheese for export, while some of
the 13 farmers would soon set
up poultryfarms. "The farmers intend to
produce two million broilers per
annum once thepoultry farms are in place,"
he said, adding that soya bean
crop would be used for poultry feed.The
farmers had cultivated about 5,000
hectares of farmland with a variety of
crops, including maize, rice, soya
bean and cassava. "As a matter of fact,
each of them has 320 hectares of
cassava with an estimated yield of 60,000
tonnes per hectare," Yisa said,
adding that a flour producing company from
Benue had placed order for the
cassava.
The commissioner said when completed, the cargo shed at the
Ilorin
International Airport now under construction, would be used to store
produce
from the farms.
Prof Gana Yisa, said the electricity project
would enable the farmers to
have access to electricity, the lack of which he
noted,was a major problem.
According to him, contractors are now on site
installing electricity
transformers."In a couple of months, the commercial
farms will be linked to
the national grid.You cannot use diesel to run a
factory,"Yisa said,
pointing out that the farmershad been using generators.
He observed that
infrastructure wasspringing up in Shonga due to thepresence
of the white
farmers now called "new Nigerian farmers" by the state
government. On
employment opportunities, Yisa said that some 3,000 persons
from Shonga area
were now employed both as casual and permanent workers.
Investigations ,
showed that only 100 of the workers were on permanent
employment, while the
rest were casual workers hired during harvest.
Meanwhile, Alhaji Amuda
Kannike, theSpecial Assistant to the Governor
onAgriculture, in August
disclosed that five Nigerian banks had assisted the
farmers with a total of
N2.5 billion. The banks according to him are:
Intercontinental Bank, First
InlandBank, Bank PHB, Guarantee TrustBank and
First Bank.
SW
Radio Africa (London)
17 September 2007
Posted to the web 17 September
2007
Lance Guma
The country's most popular daily newspaper The
Daily News notched up 4 years
in the wilderness last week with government
showing no signs of relenting on
its ban of the paper.
Despite
optimism brewing from talks between Zanu PF and the MDC in South
Africa,
evidence on the ground seems to suggest it will take an almighty
miracle to
get a government already under pressure from external
publications and the
Internet to licence a paper that exposed its abuses to
the rest of Zimbabwe
on a daily basis. The paper was shut down in September
2003 and last week
Tuesday journalists, press freedom campaigners and other
civil society
leaders met at a special meeting at the Quill Club in Harare
to commemorate
its closure.
The Zimbabwe Times quoted Media Institute for Southern
Africa (MISA) legal
officer Wilbert Mandinde saying the country did not need
statutory
regulation of the media and that the Access to Information and
Protection of
Privacy Act (AIPPA) used to close the paper had brought misery
to
Zimbabweans. 'Accreditation and registration which is conditional, is
unwarranted and an affront to freedom of expression. Today we make an appeal
to government to repeal AIPPA and bring back The Daily News,' he said. Andy
Moyse the Director of the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ) drew
comparisons with the disappearance from supermarket shelves of basic
commodities saying the absence of the paper had reduced Zimbabweans, 'to
scavenging in every corner of the information black market.'
The
Supreme Court refused to deal with an application from the Daily News
challenging the constitutionality of AIPPA, citing what it called the
paper's 'dirty hands' a reference to its initial refusal to register.
Several subsequent court decisions have shown that the commission that
denied the paper a licence was not properly constituted and was biased
against the paper. Despite court directions to have the matter resolved,
government has been stonewalling on the issue. The Secretary General of the
Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Foster Dongozi, told Newsreel all they have
been getting is posturing from government, who maintain they are committed
to striking down sections of AIPPA and will re-licence the paper.
He
says the Information Ministers keep changing and the union has to keep
dealing with someone new. They have had to deal with Jonathan Moyo, the late
Tichaona Jokonya, Paul Mangwana, and now Sikhanyiso Ndlovu. Each minister
has always promised an open door policy but never delivered anything.
Dongozi said, 'no doubt we have seen the last of the Daily News,' adding
that government pledges of amending AIPPA were directed at appeasing the
African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, where several legal
challenges to the media laws in the country are taking place.
:: The Southern African
Monday, 17 September 2007
The Vatican on Friday appointed little known
Bishop Michael Schupp to
act as Archbishop of Bulawayo following the
resignation of Pius Ncube who is
facing adultery charges.
In a
move seen by observers as seeking to quickly distance the
Catholic Church
from now ordinary Bishop Ncube's predicament, the Vatican
quietly replaced
him with a man expected to refocus the archdiocese.
Ncube, a fiery
critic of President Robert Mugabe resigned last week as
the Archbishop of
Bulawayo following damaging sex allegations. He Ncube was
shown in the
government media in bed with several women after a husband of
one of the
women filed an adultery lawsuit against the prelate.
The way the
media handled the matter also came into focus last week
when the South
African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) fired its Zimbabwean
correspondent,
Super Mandiwanzira who was allegedly used by President Robert
Mugabe's
secret police to expose Ncube.
A DVD purporting to show Ncube in
bed with the women has even appeared
on the streets of Harare. Ncube
supporters have dismissed the reports as
part of a government smear
campaign. Ncube has continually exposed Mugabe's
poor human rights record,
especially the persecution of opposition leaders
and independent
journalists.
The influential Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference
stood by Ncube
when the scandal initially broke, chronicling several
incidents in which he
fought for the oppressed, among them his exposure of
the early '80s massacre
of Ndebele-speaking people in Matabeleland and the
Midlands.
Christian Science Monitor
As Africa applauds its oldest ruling freedom fighter, Zimbabwe teeters
on
economic ruin.
By Peter Kagwanja
from the September 17, 2007
edition
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA - WESTERN dignitaries attending
festivities to mark a
decade of South Africa's democracy on April 27, 2004,
were struck mute by
the deafening applause that greeted Zimbabwe's
president, Robert Mugabe.
"I cannot figure out why he is being applauded
when he has destroyed his
country," protested Gareth Evans, former
Australian foreign minister and
president of the Western think tank, the
International Crisis Group.
Mr. Mugabe remains both an enigma and a
magnet, attracting Africans and
repelling the West. He is at the center of a
seven-year-old game of
brinkmanship between Africa and the West, fostered by
diametrically opposed
responses to Zimbabwe's seizure of land owned by some
4,500 white farmers in
2000. Since then, the two sides have looked each
other in the eye to see who
would blink first.
This face-off hovered
over the summit of Southern African Development
Community (SADC) leaders
last month in Lusaka, Zambia, and now haunts the
Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting in Uganda this November and the
upcoming Euro-Africa
summit in Portugal in December.
Mugabe's fall from grace in the eyes of
the West is a relatively recent
phenomenon in his 27 years in power. Now
portrayed as the archetypal
bare-fisted dictator, he was hailed by former
Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher as "a man I can do business with." And in
1994, Queen Elizabeth
bestowed on him an honorary Knight Commander of the
Order of the Bath.
What inflamed relations with Britain was the
injudicious denial by Tony
Blair's Laborites in 1997 of Britain's colonial
responsibility for land
reform. Clare Short, Britain's secretary of state
for international
development, wrote to Zimbabwe's minister of agriculture
and land: "We are a
new government from diverse backgrounds without links to
former colonial
interests. My own origins are Irish and, as you know, we
were colonized not
colonizers."
After Britain reneged on its pledge
to fund land reform, citing cronyism,
Mugabe went ahead with his own land
redistribution plans, which pushed
Zimbabwe's predominantly agrarian economy
down the cliff: 80 percent
unemployment, nearly empty government coffers,
collapsed services, and an
annual inflation rate of 18,000
percent.
In less than seven years, Zimbabwe has witnessed the fastest
peace-time
economic dip in history since Weimer Germany - plunging one of
Africa's
strongest economic and regional breadbaskets into a crisis with 4
million
people reportedly starving and in need of food aid.
Mugabe
may have lost the economic war, but he has won every political battle
with
the West. As the oldest freedom fighter still in office, he has always
drawn
the biggest applause in African meetings, including the recent SADC
summit.
The Africa-West standoff has emboldened him and turned him into a
symbol of
African resistance, a liberation hero.
Even though foreign humanitarian
aid has flowed steadily to the poor in
Zimbabwe, the West's asset freezes
and travel bans on Mugabe and a hundred
of his associates and spouses are
seen in some quarters as "racial"
retribution for his seizing of white farms
and handing them over to black
Zimbabweans. But invoking a moral mission,
the West insists that its "smart"
sanctions have targeted elements of the
ruling elite "engaged in actions or
policies to undermine Zimbabwe's
democratic processes or institutions."
In the aftermath of the Iraq
invasion in 2003, Mugabe upped the ante,
whipping nationalism to a fever
pitch: "Our cause is Africa's cause," he
told the fervently pro-Zimbabwe
publication, New Africa, in May. This has
given wing to intense
militarization of polity in the government ahead of
the 2008 elections to
forestall a Western-sponsored "regime change."
In a move aimed at
demobilizing the opposition's urban support and nipping
in the bud a
Ukrainian-style "orange revolution," the Mugabe government
ordered
"operation Murambatsvina" (Drive Out the Filth) - a draconian
clearance of
what it termed "illegal shelters" in Harare and other cities -
which a
United Nations report estimates has destroyed the homes and
livelihoods of
700,000 Zimbabweans and negatively affected 2.4 million more.
Apart from
the economic cost of Zimbabwe's meltdown on the region, Mugabe's
real impact
on Africa is ideological. The West has urged South Africa to
break rank with
states that back Mugabe and to adopt a forceful stance
against Harare. At
the same time, South Africa's ruling elite fear that,
owing to Mugabe's
nationalist credentials and popularity, public
condemnation of Harare would
exacerbate South Africa's internal divisions
over President Thabo Mbeki's
successor and lead to isolation on the
continent.
Pretoria's
behind-the-curtains quiet diplomacy talks between Zimbabwe's
ruling party
and the opposition from 2000 to 2004 yielded a new
constitutional draft for
Zimbabwe. But the initiative was stillborn because
Pretoria lacked the
muscle to enforce it. Moreover, in a continent where age
matters, the
65-year-old Mr. Mbeki has an uphill task getting octogenarian
Mugabe to take
him seriously.
Issues of sovereignty have also come into play. Pretoria's
effort to use
economic leverage by offering Zimbabwe a $500 million credit
line to pay the
International Monetary Fund debt in return for governance
reforms backfired.
Zimbabwe rejected the offer and paid its own debt in
February 2006.
Mugabe's status as elder statesman and anticolonialist
hero has ensured
unwavering regional support. An extraordinary SADC summit
in March 2007
expressed "solidarity" with Mugabe, but appointed Mbeki as
mediator between
Zimbabwe's ruling party and the opposition. Zambia's
president, Levy
Mwanawasa, the new chair of SADC who previously described
Zimbabwe as a
"sinking Titanic," made a U-turn, declaring that the country's
problems were
"exaggerated."
SADC's meeting last month resolved to
bail Zimbabwe out of its economic woes
and endorse Mbeki's mediation, but
this enterprise has no breathing chance
unless Africa and the West end the
face-off.
Moreover, the trial of Liberia's warlord, Charles Taylor, in
2006 for crimes
against humanity as part of the West's war on impunity in
Africa has removed
guarantees for safe retirement, thus diminishing the
chance of Mugabe's
exiting. He is running in the 2008 elections.
The
face-off has fostered an international climate hostile to Zimbabwe's
economic recovery. Although Harare exited the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting in 2003, it is important that the CHGOM in November
provides an opportunity to bring Zimbabwe back onto its agenda. Portugal,
now holding the EU presidency, must stay the course regarding its decision
to invite Zimbabwe to the Euro-Africa summit in December. This event
provides a window to revive the ties between the two continents in ways that
can usefully impact Zimbabwe.
Mugabe's liberation colleagues, such as
Namibia's Sam Nujoma and Zambia's
Kenneth Kaunda should work with Europe's
new leadership - Gordon Brown and
Nicolas Sarkozy - and other influential
global elders to support the SADC
mediation to deliver an economic recovery
plan and a democratic constitution
to ensure a level playing field in the
2008 polls.
Dr. Peter Kagwanja is acting executive director of the
Democracy and
Governance Program at the Human Science Research Council in
Pretoria and is
president of the Africa Policy Institute in Nairobi,
Kenya.
The Mercury
September 17, 2007
Edition 1
HARARE: Cash-strapped Zimbabwe planned to build a Z$70
trillion (R17
billion) games village in time for the 2010 soccer World Cup,
reports said
yesterday.
The games village, to be funded by private
developers, would be built on a
100ha plot near the southern city of
Masvingo on the shores of scenic Lake
Mutirikwi, the official Sunday Mail
newspaper said.
It would comprise 14 luxury villas that could accommodate
128 visitors or up
to three visiting teams, as well as a shopping mall, with
hypermarket, banks
and a filling station.
Zimbabwe is hopeful that
the World Cup - to be held in neighbouring South
Africa - will revive its
flagging tourism fortunes and bring in desperately
needed foreign
currency.
Foreign tourist arrivals in game-rich Zimbabwe have
plummeted since the
launch of a controversial land reform programme seven
years ago and
subsequent reports of rights abuses and widespread food and
fuel shortages.
Attempts to lure foreigners from new markets in Asia have
had only limited
success.
Authorities, struggling to find the money
to import food for hundreds of
thousands of hungry households, are keen to
benefit from the football
showpiece. - Sapa-DPA