BULAWAYO - Opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) Bulawayo councillors on Tuesday fled a ceremony to
raise funds for this year's independence celebrations because of the heavy
presence of police outside the city
hall.
The MDC councillors, who emerged
from a full council meeting about 10 minutes before the start of the
fundraiser, were overheard by this reporter expressing concern at the large
number of police officers milling outside the city
hall. Eight uniformed policemen were posted
outside the main entrance of the building, while others loitered in the
vicinity of the city hall, the venue for the independence celebrations'
launch, during which companies donated money for the 2003 Independence Day
Fund. "We might get arrested," said Charles
Mpofu, the MDC chief whip in the Bulawayo City Council, as he swiftly moved
to his car. "I am going home." "I saw them
arrest Paul Themba Nyathi yesterday (Monday)," added Mpofu, who is also the
chairman of the city's finance and development committee. "These people just
arrest people. I don't want to give them a chance to arrest me for
nothing." MDC spokesman Nyathi was arrested on
Monday after attending the court hearing of the party's vice president,
Gibson Sibanda, who has been charged with contravening the Public Order and
Security Act by organising a mass action.
The MDC last month organised a mass work stayaway that shut down industry for
two days, and which has been followed by the arrest of several party
officials and supporters. Mpofu was followed
from the city hall by other MDC councillors, who headed for a municipal
minibus. The councillors cast curious glances at uniformed police officers
stationed around the city hall car park as the council vehicle sped
away. Only one councillor, Stars Mathe,
remained behind with Executive Mayor Japhet
Ndabeni-Ncube. "I initially wanted to go with
my colleagues but in the end, I decided to stay behind. Why should we all go
away, we have not committed any crime?" Mathe told the Financial
Gazette. She added: "The councillors that you
saw going have other pressing issues to attend to. Yes, we might all be
afraid because of what has been happening, but those that have gone are not
cowards at all." A Bulawayo police spokesman
could not immediately comment on the heavy presence of police at Tuesday's
fundraiser. But municipal sources said the police suspected that MDC
supporters planned to disrupt the government function, charges opposition
party councillors denied. "This is our city
and there is no one who can disrupt this noble function," said Ndabeni-Ncube.
"Independence Day is a big day for every Zimbabwean. It should not be
politicised." About $300 000 was raised in
cash and pledges for the Independence Day celebrations, compared to over $500
000 realised at a similar fundraiser last year.
GOVERNMENT-controlled coal producer
Wankie Colliery Company Limited (WCC), struck by severe foreign currency
shortages, has posted a staggering $5.6 billion loss for the year ended
December 2002.
The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange
(ZSE) listed company publishes its results today, after seeking a week's
extension from the ZSE to make its year-end financial statements available
after the March 31 deadline set by stock exchange
regulations. According to ZSE regulations,
listed companies must publish their year-end results within three months of
the end of their financial year. Wankie, which
made a $5.5 billion loss in 2001, posted an earnings per share loss of 33
cents per share in the year to December 2002, a cent more than the 32 cents
loss recorded in 2001. The company is
operating at 50 percent of capacity because of shortages of spare parts and
expects to resume full production in June.
During the year under review, Wankie's coal sales were 13 percent below the
previous year, partly because of the shortage of wagons from the National
Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ). Under normal
circumstances, the NRZ is supposed to supply 150 railway wagons a day to the
coal producer, which however received an average of 66 wagons a day or 44
percent of its normal requirements during its 2002 financial
year. WCC board chairman Ngoni Kudenga said
turnover for the year of $15.87 billion declined by $4.8 billion from 2001
because of a reduction in coal and coke sales and because of state-imposed
price controls. He said the price at which WCC
was selling coal to its largest customer, the Zimbabwe Power Company for use
at Hwange Power Station (HPS), was significantly below the cost of
production. WCC has since June last year been
selling coal to HPS at $1 300 per tonne, however the company did not indicate
how much it cost to produce a tonne of coal. However, coal sales to HPS
account for 64 percent of volume sales achieved but only contributed 38
percent of total turnover. "The year 2002 was
full of major business challenges characterised by severe foreign currency
shortages, unprecedented high inflation, price controls, transport
constraints and loss of critical skills," Kudenga said in a commentary
accompanying Wankie's results. "The company
submitted an application for a price increase to the Ministry of Industry at
the beginning of 2003 and is still awaiting a response. The delays in
implementing the price increase will adversely impact on the company's cash
flow." However, Wankie has benefited from the
payment of amounts owed to it by the NRZ, while the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel
Company has also paid part of its debt, leaving a balance of $1.77
billion. Kudenga said Wankie had now secured a
US$5.3 million loan from the African Export-Import Bank through the Jewel
Bank, which would be used for essential repairs and for servicing equipment
to so that it could resume producing at normal
capacity. The coal producer plans to open a
new US$88 million underground mine that will produce low ferrous coal, which
is expected to increase the company's coal output to meet increasing
demand. Last year, Wankie produced 3 448 600
tonnes of coal, down from 3 751 418 tonnes produced in
2001. Kudenga said the company had
re-submitted an application to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to be allowed to
retain 100 percent of its export earnings.
THE Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has
been hit by a spate of resignations in the past year because of the erosion
of professionalism in the police force and allegations of favouritism towards
war veterans in promotions, ZRP officers said this
week.
The officials said although there
were no statistics on the resignations, at least 30 percent of the police
officers who joined the force after 1998 had left, with most of them
resigning between 2000 and this year. They
said most of the resignations were of poorly paid junior officers who,
together with their colleagues, have been criticised of serving the interests
of the ruling ZANU PF and not the public.
"Most senior officers, from superintendent upward, have benefited from the
police's association with ZANU PF and they are happy," said a police officer
who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Some
have received land while others, illiterate as they might be, have been
promoted beyond their wildest imaginations. But the junior staff are
disgruntled," he added. ZRP sources said a
deliberate policy to favour war veterans and other ZANU PF supporters in
promotions had also forced young officers to use the force as a "spring
board", acquiring professional qualifications before leaving for the private
sector. "There seems to have been a deliberate
policy not to promote staff who did not fight in the liberation war. So,
either one is a war veteran or has shown some zealousness in persecuting the
MDC to receive favours," said a Harare-based
officer. He added: "Because of this policy,
you will find that most of those people who are leaving are from the rank of
assistant inspector downwards because they are the most frustrated. Some
don't want to continue doing what they are being forced to do, so they are
leaving. People are tired of being used as foot soldiers to harass the
opposition so that other people
can benefit." Police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena admitted that the ZRP had suffered a significant loss of manpower,
but said this was normal in any organisation.
He told the Financial Gazette: "Yes, like any other organisation we are
losing our manpower but that is normal. We don't lure people to join
the police and when they join, they already know our conditions and they
should not expect anything more than that.
"The police is an arm of government and we follow government policies and
laws. These people (who are leaving) have failed to appreciate
these policies. In fact, by failing to appreciate government policies, they
are in conflict with the laws they are supposed to enforce and the best
option for them is to leave. "Even before
independence we had laws such as the Land Husbandry Act that worked against
the majority, but it was the duty of the police to enforce such laws,
unpopular as they were."
A MEETING initially scheduled for last
weekend to discuss the next phase of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC)'s mass action will now be held within the next two weeks,
according to MDC secretary general Welshman
Ncube.
He said: "The executive did not
meet over the weekend. The next executive meeting is likely to be held within
the next two weeks, hopefully before Easter. It would be then that the issue
would be discussed. It would be part of the
agenda. "There is no reason for people to
worry about when we will announce the mass action. The party leadership will
make the announcement when they think they are
ready." The opposition party gave President
Robert Mugabe until 31 March to meet its demands for a negotiated political
settlement or face street protests that could include marches to his
residence and offices. The ultimatum followed
a two-day job stayaway last month that brought most of the country's industry
to a halt and which has been followed by the arrest of several MDC officials
and supporters. Ncube this week said the
arrests would not affect the party's ability to organise another mass
action. "The arrest of MDC officials has been
ongoing for some time. Virtually every member of the MDC leadership has been
arrested so this will not in any way affect our capacity to confront this
regime," he told journalists in Harare.
"The MDC is for the people and is the people so they can arrest everyone
within the leadership, but the people will still protest,"
he added.
A THREE-member Harare City Council
board of inquiry has recommended that suspended town clerk Nomutsa Chideya be
dismissed from his job, a development insiders this week said could ignite
fresh confrontation between the council and Local Government Minister
Ignatius Chombo.
The committee, headed by
University of Zimbabwe lecturer Ngoni Moyo, was tasked with inquiring into
the conduct of Chideya, who was suspended last October allegedly because of
gross incompetence. According to a report of
the committee shown to the Financial Gazette yesterday, the three-man panel
resolved that Chideya should be discharged because of his misconduct and
inability to function effectively in the office of town
clerk. The panel said: "In light of Mr
Chideya's inability to function effectively in the office of town clerk, and
in the light of Mr Chideya's misconduct, it is the committee's recommendation
that the council proceed with the discharge of the town clerk, subject to the
approval of the Local Government Board
(LGB)." But government sources said Chombo,
under whose portfolio the LGB falls, was unlikely to allow the dismissal of
Chideya. They said Chombo already had the
green-light from his government colleagues to act against Mudzuri, who is a
top official of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC). They said Chombo could in the next few
weeks invoke powers invested in him under the Urban Councils Act to punish
Mudzuri and probably suspend the mayor from Town
House. Chombo, who has publicly alleged that
Mudzuri has failed to maintain and run Harare, could cite inefficiency as the
reason to punish the mayor, the sources
said. "Plans are already underway to have
Mudzuri himself removed from Town House. In fact, this should be happening in
the next few weeks unless there is a major change of plan," a source told the
Financial Gazette. Neither Chombo nor his
permanent secretary Vincent Hungwe could be reached for comment on the
matter. In January, Chombo's ministry ordered
the Harare council to reinstate Chideya and two other suspended senior
council employees or face unspecified action from the
government. Mudzuri yesterday declined to
comment on the recommendations by Moyo's committee, only saying it was up to
the whole council to decide how to respond to the findings of the
inquiry. The Harare mayor said he was aware of
attempts to dismiss him from his job and said these had been on the cards
since he was elected in 2002. "That is not
surprising that they (the government) want to get rid of me. Actually, that
has been on the cards for a very long time,"
Mudzuri said. He added: "But they do not
have a valid reason to justify such
a thing." The Moyo panel accuses Chideya of
failing to produce a turnaround report for the capital city and dismisses the
town clerk's claims that he had in fact informed Mudzuri that the city
required external help to prepare the
document. The committee also alleges that
Chideya had failed to provide a policy document on how Harare could avert
water crises during peak periods as had been requested by the
mayor. Chideya could not be reached for
comment on the findings of the committee.
BULAWAYO -
Nicholas Mathonsi, the lawyer for opposition Movement for Democratic (MDC)
spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi, yesterday said he had filed an urgent court
application to secure his client's release, two days after he was arrested by
police.
Nyathi was arrested on Monday as
he and other party officials waited for the court hearing of MDC vice
president Gibson Sibanda, who has been charged with contravening the
controversial Public Order and Security Act (POSA) by organising a mass
action. The charge stems from a job stayaway
called by the opposition party last month.
Nyathi, who was not brought before the courts as anticipated yesterday, is
also expected to be charged under POSA.
Mathonsi, a lawyer with Coghlan and Welsh in Bulawayo, told the Financial
Gazette: "I have made an urgent application to
the High Court for his release after getting no joy from the police since
Monday morning when he (Nyathi) was first
arrested. "I am at the High Court as we are
talking, but the judge is nowhere to be found. It is clear now that the
police are holding him illegally. He has spent nearly three days in the
police cells." He added: "If the judge does
not return, we will see what we can do tomorrow. I have failed to reason with
the police." - Staff
Reporter
Crisis in Zimbabwe
Coalition lobbies for fact-finding mission to monitor
violence
Staff
Reporter 4/10/03 3:52:05 AM (GMT
+2)
A DELEGATION from the Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition, a grouping of civil society organisations, is today
expected to submit a report to the Commonwealth secretariat urging a
fact-finding mission to monitor violence in the run up to the Commonwealth
Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)
in December.
The CHOGM meeting,
scheduled for Abuja at the end of the year, is expected to discuss Zimbabwe's
suspension from the Commonwealth, which was extended until December when it
expired in March. Crisis in Zimbabwe
representatives said the delegation, comprising three senior officials of the
coalition, had travelled to London this week to present the report to the
Commonwealth secretariat and lobby for a fact-finding
mission. The report says repression has
continued in Zimbabwe since the disputed presidential election last year and
urges the 54-member grouping to remain focused on the country's
"multi-layered crisis". "The Commonwealth
Ministerial Action Group and the secretary-general's office should mount a
thorough fact-finding mission into Zimbabwe with a mandate to broadly consult
all key stakeholders from political parties, faith-based organisations, civil
society and business," the report says. "This
fact-finding mission could receive both oral and written evidence on a wide
range of issues constituting the multi-layered crisis in Zimbabwe," the
report added. The report urges that between
now and December, the Commonwealth should closely monitor the situation and
give authorities in Harare a deadline within which to stop state-sponsored
violence, disband youth militia, repeal repressive legislation, depoliticise
food distribution and restore the rule of
law. Harare however denies the involvement of
state security agents in political violence as well as the distribution of
food aid along political lines. The government has been accused of denying
food to supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change. The Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe
from its councils last year, citing gross human rights violations by the
government and the disputed presidential poll, which the club of former
British colonies and independent observers say was not free and
fair. Crisis in Zimbabwe said before CHOGM,
the Commonwealth had to make Harare adhere to important international
declarations on democracy. The organisation
said the government had continued its onslaught against democracy, sustaining
violence through state security agents, emasculating the judiciary and
failing to arrest policies that had resulted in close to eight million people
requiring food aid. The civic body also
criticised the government's economic policies and its price control regime,
which has contributed to shortages of basic commodities such as maize meal,
bread, sugar, cooking oil, soap and sanitary ware.
Justice must prevail for political violence
victims
4/10/03 1:37:05 AM
(GMT +2)
SCORES of Zimbabweans have been
attacked in the past two weeks for holding different political views and the
smoke and mirrors show the government has staged in response could ultimately
rob them of justice, sending the wrong signals to foreign investors yet
again.
Under pressure to rein in state
security agents accused of a violent campaign of retribution against members
of the public, the government has trotted out a group of "army deserters"
with convenient links to an alleged underground military wing of the
opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC).
In scenes reminiscent of
the aftermath of the abduction and murder of Bulawayo war veterans' leader
Cain Nkala, about 23 of these so-called deserters were paraded before the
media this week to confess to terrorist acts allegedly scheduled by the
opposition to coincide with last
month's stayaway.
The deserters were
supposedly nabbed during an army investigation into post-by-election violence
that victims have blamed primarily on soldiers out to punish voters for the
ruling ZANU PF's defeat in the Highfield and Kuwadzana polls at the end of
last month.
The MDC has of course denied
the army's allegations.
Indeed, coming as
it does at a time when the government is cracking down on and is attempting
to discredit the MDC ahead of its planned mass action, it is hard not to be
sceptical about the turn the army's investigation has
taken.
The guilt or innocence of those
accused of horrific acts of terror against the public is up to the courts to
decide. But it is unfortunate that given the seriousness of the allegations
against it, the government has allowed the army to investigate itself,
undermining the findings of any probe.
The army has comfortably absolved itself of all wrongdoing by heaping the
blame on "deserters" who, in a development that can only benefit the ruling
party, are said to have conspired with the MDC to brutalise its
own supporters.
Whether the real
perpetrators of these crimes will be among those punished is not certain and
their victims could join the thousands of Zimbabweans who have fallen prey to
political violence in the past three years and whose tormentors have walked
away scot-free.
Independent surveys
indicate that in the first two months of this year alone, two of these
victims have paid with their lives, while six have been tortured, 54
assaulted and 23 forced to flee their
homes.
Many of those affected have named
members of the Zimbabwe National Army, the police and Central Intelligence
Organisation as their brutalisers, most of who have not been held accountable
for their actions.
The state's casual
attitude towards alleged human rights abuses by its security agents has
played an important role in the sharp decline of foreign investment in
Zimbabwe. It is tragic that the government refuses to acknowledge this
fact.
No sane investor will put his or her
money in a country whose citizens cannot be assured of protection from
violence and who in fact have much to fear from the very agencies that are
supposed to protect them.
Although the
government would prefer to believe otherwise, this certainly holds true even
for the African countries whose solidarity with ZANU PF has not unlocked
investment from their firms, partly because of the erosion of the rule of
law.
The government's failure to rid state
security agencies of those elements guilty of brutalising sections of the
population has only worsened the situation, forcing Zimbabweans and investors
alike to conclude that acts of terror are being perpetrated with the full
knowledge and backing of the state.
Indeed, when the moment of reckoning eventually comes, the nation will not
entertain pleas of ignorance from those in charge of the agents
of terror.
It is only a matter of time
before those responsible are held to account.
. . . And now
to the notebook......Aggressive
interrogation
4/10/03 1:34:57 AM
(GMT +2)
Prime minister of Zimbabwe
Jonathan Moyo, who goes under the guise of the Minister of Information, was
at it again in the latest edition of the Sunday
Mail.
Mukanya liked Moyo's response to
allegations that Zimbabwe's police were illegally torturing suspects, not
least because the comments are probably the closest yet since Moyo sold his
soul to Uncle Bob that he has come to telling the
truth.
"In (a) country like Zimbabwe,
where torture is not culture, aggressive interrogation can easily be mistaken
for or deliberately taken as torture," he told the Sunday
Mail.
A quite revealing admission,
especially if one takes into account the fact that the so-called "aggressive
interrogation" involves, as the Standard 's Brian Latham would put it,
"wiring suspects to the national power grid, whipping them with barbed wire
and clobbering them with rifle butts".
And
if you had the stamina to last the whole test of endurance that was the Moyo
interview you will have noticed how he tried to downplay ZANU PF's
embarrassing loss to the MDC in the Kuwadzana and
Highfield by-elections.
Moyo told
Munyaradzi Huni that the battle to reclaim the urban vote for ZANU PF would
be in the next general election, in 2005.
That is true, assuming one is overly optimistic enough to believe that at the
rate at which the country is falling apart owing to mismanagement
by President Robert Mugabe and company, there will still be anything to
vote for by 2005.
Or that we will have
survived the starvation threatening more than seven million Zimbabweans, all
because of the mad land policies of
this government.
Mugabe does not like
uneducated MPs
Talking about the
by-elections, the joke doing the rounds in town is that Uncle Bob may
actually never have cast his vote for the former Harare city security guard
who is known for his queer love for thatch grass
hats.
Most observers say given Mugabe's
pathological disdain for those who are not as well-read as he is, even if
such individuals could be better leaders than him, it is unlikely that Uncle
Bob could ever have chosen a semi-literate buffoon as his representative in
Parliament.
Even if that idiot was put up
by his ZANU PF party as its candidate in the
election.
Did you tell it to Uncle
Bob, Charles?
Did comrade Doc-tor Charles
Utete, the former chief secretary to the President and Cabinet tell his boss
Uncle Bob that the reason he was stepping down from his job was because he
was tired and old?
Talking to the Herald
about his resignation from the government, Utete said: "I need to rest a bit.
This place is challenging and one does not want to go on until one does not
have energy or strength."
Mukanya will bet
his neck Utete would never dare utter such a statement to Uncle Bob, although
this is exactly the kind of advice the 79-year old young man needs more than
life itself.
And another thing, Comrade
Utete, how about helping Vice President Simon Muzenda pen his letter of
resignation to Uncle Bob?
As you may be
aware, old Mzee has been trying to resign since last year but on every
occasion, Uncle Bob has rejected his request that he be allowed to step
down.
Mukanya suspects old Mzee's mistake
is that he is telling Uncle Bob that he wants to leave his job because he is
feeling tired and old, something that obviously would never go down well with
Uncle Bob because it describes him more than anybody else in government,
Muzenda included.
A pleasant
surprise
Mukanya was pleasantly surprised
to read in the Sunday Mail that sometime last month, Bridget Tirivangani and
Justice Mutore were caught selling bread at a price above that legislated by
the government.
The two suspects could not
believe it when one Josephine Mazvimba of the police's special constabulary
would not accept a bribe from them and they were arrested
instead.
What a surprise that there are
still people associated with the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) who would not
readily accept a bribe!
Of course, we are
assuming here that this story is not one of those propaganda pieces the
patriotic Sunday Mail generously dishes out every week in a bid to convince
us we are not living in hell but in
heaven.
Placed near the Mazvimba story was
another one telling of how a policeman at Nkulumane station in Bulawayo was
jailed for 10 months for stealing a wrist watch worth $2 000 from a
suspect.
Now if you ask me, that is more
like our patriotic ZRP, led by that ZANU PF zealot of a commissioner,
Augustine Chihuri.
LIVESTOCK feed producers are meeting
less than half of demand for their products after scaling down production
because of the impact of severe input shortages and state-imposed price
controls, industry executives said this
week.
Dave Hayden, manager of one of the
country's leading stockfeed producers, Agrifoods, said companies had been
affected by the shortage of major inputs such as wheat, maize and
cotton.
Agricultural output has fallen in
the past three years because of the impact of drought and a controversial
government land reform programme that is estimated to have cut farming output
by at least 50 percent.
Stockfeed
producers said price controls on their products had also contributed to a
decline in production.
"Our raw materials
are by-products of maize milling, wheat and cotton and currently, the
by-products are not readily available on the market," Hayden told the
Financial Gazette.
He said
Agrifoods was meeting less than 50 percent of farmers' demand for
stockfeed.
Output of beef stockfeed, for
instance, has declined from 1 500 tonnes to 250 tonnes a week, forcing
Agrifoods to import raw materials in a bid to boost
production.
The Agrifoods manager said the
company had resorted to buying foreign currency from the parallel market
because of severe hard cash shortages on the official forex
market.
Parallel market rates are more
than twice those prevailing in the banking sector, which Hayden said could
trigger a rise in stockfeed prices.
At the
moment, a 50 kilogramme bag of poultry and pig feed costs as much as $15 000
while beef feed costs $5 500 and horse meal $10
000.
Livestock producers said the shortage
of stockfeed had contributed to a decline in output, already low because of
the instability in the agricultural sector and the impact of a drought that
is affecting southern Africa.
They said
the shortages had contributed to milk shortages, while production of pork
products had declined as the number of slaughtered pigs fell from the normal
250 000 a year to 95 000 in 2002.
Farmers
said some livestock producers had been forced to slaughter their animals
because they could not feed them.
Poultry
Producers Association chairman Joe Whaley told the Financial Gazette that
apart from stockfeed shortages, producers had also been hard hit by price
controls, which forced them to sell at a loss because they could not recoup
input and production costs.
He said
poultry producers were being forced to import about 90 percent of their
inputs to remain in business, but could not factor the resulting increase in
operating costs into their prices.
Poultry
producers' inputs include maize, vaccines and gas
for brooding.
"All inputs have to be
imported and we have to source the hard cash from the parallel market, but we
are forced to sell our products at controlled prices, which is resulting in
the business not being viable," Whaley
said.
As a result, poultry output has
fallen by 60 percent in the last few months, leading to a drop in the export
of day-old chicks and frozen chickens to Mozambique, Botswana, Malawi,
Uganda, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of the
Congo.
Meanwhile, Veterinary Services
Department director Stuart Hargreaves said a new government unit established
to boost livestock production would be adversely affected by the stockfeed
shortages.
"The thrust of the new
department is to increase production, but it is now very difficult to do so
owing to the scarcity of stockfeeds and the high costs of vaccines, which are
also in short supply,"he said.
WHY is Pius Ncube such
a controversial figure, reviled by the government and its propaganda
machinery?
In 2000, the family of late
Vice President Joshua Nkomo, baptised into the Catholic church late in his
life, asked Ncube to officiate at his memorial mass in his capacity as the
archbishop of Bulawayo.
President Robert
Mugabe flatly refused to attend if Ncube was to officiate. Someone more
acceptable to Mugabe than Archbishop Ncube had to be found at the last
minute.
He has been the target of vicious
innuendo by the state media. The Bulawayo Chronicle once alleged that there
was "a surprising increase in homosexual pornography in Khami prison" after
the archbishop visited the inmates
there.
He has been accused of close ties
to the Movement for Democratic Change, even of plotting with others to
overthrow the government.
It has been
alleged that he favours Ndebeles over others, and that large numbers of
people in his diocese are leaving the church for
that reason.
"They regularly fabricate
stories about me, it has even been written that I raped somebody. I am under
surveillance, my phone is tapped,"
said Ncube.
"My 87- year old mother has
been interviewed by state agents, as well as young men studying for the
priesthood, to make me feel afraid,"
he claimed.
Not wanting St Luke's in
Lupane, a hospital under his diocese's jurisdiction, to fall into the same
state of dysfunction as most state institutions, he refused to hand it over
to government for use as a provincial referral
hospital.
Because of this, he was accused
of "preventing development".
Sitting
opposite him at the diocesan head office at the St Marks Cathedral complex in
the city centre of Bulawayo, it was hard to reconcile the mild mannered man
before me with the ogre portrayed by the state media. He speaks in mild, low
tones, and seems quiet and reserved.
Early
on a Saturday morning, he is already looking pressured from the commitments
before him that day. A wedding is scheduled for 08:00, and other duties await
him in the afternoon. A queue of people seeking help is already forming
outside. He had returned late the night before from a trip to the hospital in
Lupane.
Within a few minutes of talking to
him, it was evident why his utterances would be so worrisome to an embattled
regime. It became clear why he is such an object of vilification by a state
media that has discarded any pretensions of reflecting diverse views in
favour of being an all out propaganda tool of the besieged government of
Mugabe.
Ncube may be soft spoken, but the
way he shoots his opinions straight from the hip is
explosive.
He holds an extremely low
opinion of President Mugabe and his government, and I was startled by the
vehemence with which he expresses that low regard. He needed little prompting
to give an impassioned catalogue of all the things he felt it was doing that
were against the interests of the people of
Zimbabwe.
It quickly became apparent why a
government that is still coming to terms with its alienation from a large
segment of the population would be so worried about a man like Pius
Ncube.
It is no secret that Matabeleland
has felt "marginalised" from the rest of the country since independence.
Government massacres there in the early 1980s have been officially glossed
over and downplayed, leaving festering hurts and resentments. The
government's failure to address the arid region's water problems, despite
years of promises, deeply rankle there.
All these sentiments were expressed in the embarrassing results of
the constitutional referendum and general election of 2000, and in last
year's presidential election, which showed that Mugabe and his government
have little support in that part of the
country.
Despite the much-vaunted Unity
Accord of 1987 between Nkomo's ZAPU and Mugabe's ZANU, to form today's ZANU
PF, it did little to address the many grievances of Matabeleland. What it did
to Mugabe, however, was to lull him into a false sense of security about his
support in that region as its most prominent leaders were silenced by
co-option into his government. The election results of 2000 were therefore a
shock to him.
It was in the months leading
up to those elections that Archbishop Ncube first came to international
prominence. He was a leader from Matabeleland who went against the grain of
the "everything is just fine" message of the co-opted political leaders.
Being an archbishop of a powerful church, he had a ready platform from which
to spread his message far and wide to a disgruntled, receptive
audience.
It was not easy for Mugabe's
government to dismiss it as the politicking of a foe, the way they could with
opposition leaders. Ncube could not simply be silenced by appointment to some
government position with political power and generous perks, as had happened
with many others. Clearly, he was an inconvenient spanner in the works of
Mugabe and his regime, publicly and noisily pointing out how the emperor had
no clothes in an unprecedented way.
Said the archbishop: "The constitutional referendum and general elections
were the turning points. Mugabe blamed me for ZANU PF's poor results in
Matabeleland. He felt threatened by the loss of his power base, and pretended
to be uplifting Zimbabwe using land
reform.
"Everybody, including the church,
is in favour of land reform, but where have you heard of productive land
being expropriated overnight?"
Ncube spoke
out strongly against the violence accompanying the land seizures in 2000,
which many critics said were being sponsored by the government. Several
people were killed, with many more tortured, raped, dispossessed and
displaced under the guise of land reform.
"There was a deliberate attempt to polarise people in order to control them,
the old tactic of divide and rule," he
charges.
The President did not react
kindly to this kind of outspoken criticism from someone wielding obvious
influence among the people, particularly as his was waning. Mugabe
threatened: "We do not want to create trouble with men of God, but I think
archbishop Ncube has gone too far.
"If he
continues with his political stance we will challenge him as
a politician."
The archbishop spends up
to a third of his time visiting the approximately 40 parishes of his diocese,
and is deeply aggrieved by the suffering he sees, which he blames on the
government.
Ncube says of the President:
"I have nothing against him personally. I don't dislike him. He is a gifted,
intelligent man who once ran this country very well. I credit him as one of
the liberators and founders of the country, but he is now the cause of a lot
of suffering.
"There are awful shortages,
the prices of everything are sky high, people can't live. All this is related
to his method of grabbing land out of his love for
power."
Banging his hand on his desk for
emphasis, Ncube added: "The suffering of the economy rests squarely on
Mugabe's head. It is typical of politicians to mess up and blame others for
their faults. Mugabe is to blame. He is the enemy of the
people."
I winced at his frankness, amazed
that he did not ask that any part of his strong statements be off the record.
I found myself being relieved on Ncube's behalf that President Mugabe
recently declared that he does not read "the rubbish Press" and therefore
will not be further infuriated by the archbishop's latest no holds-barred
criticisms of him.
At a public lecture in
South Africa last year, he said: "We face an absolutely desperate situation
in Zimbabwe and our government is lying to the world about it. (It) continues
to engage in lies, propaganda, the twisting of facts, half-truths, downright
untruths and gross misinformation because they are
fascists."
This is very strong stuff, and
it is not difficult to see why Mugabe may consider Ncube one of the most
dangerous loose cannons in Zimbabwe!
With
an understated anger, Ncube went on: "Matebeleland is known to be drought
prone. Cattle have perished here and many people will not reap a thing
because of lack of water. There is no government relief to speak
of.
"On the contrary, the government is
putting all sorts of obstacles in the way of private efforts to relieve the
suffering. You have to go through all sorts of red tape to import food, and a
lot of it is denied entry or confiscated at the
border."
He says what little government
food relief there has been has often been directed at only those few
districts that have voted for ruling party candidates, adding: "This
government has no feelings for the
people."
Ncube continued: "People feel the
government doesn't care about them. Money is poured everywhere else except
Matebeleland. In terms of health, education and infrastructure, Matebeleland
lags behind the rest of the country.
"Nothing has been done about the long-talked about Zambezi water project, yet
it is a priority; you can't have development without water. There are no
other sources of water here, and many people in the southern-most parts of
the region have not even ploughed this season for lack of
it."
Does he subscribe to the theory of
deliberate tribal marginalisation of
Matebeleland?.
"Sometimes it is a tribal
issue," he replied, "while other times there is an element of let's fix them
for voting for the opposition. All investment is in Harare, sidelining
Bulawayo. Government has been belittling Matebeleland since
independence."
What is the background of
this fearless cleric who has become such a thorn in the flesh of the
political establishment?
"I was born in
1946 at Mtshabezi in the Gwanda area, where my mother's people come from. I
began school in 1954 at Bongani, west of Bulawayo. At the age of 14, I
transferred to St. Patrick's school in
Bulawayo."
"I was deeply impressed by the
selfless, people-centred example of the Catholic priests, who travelled long
distances by bicycle to minister to people," Ncube
recalled.
He did his secondary school at a
seminary in Gweru then underwent training with the Jesuits, the Society of
Jesus, at Chishawasha seminary on the outskirts of Harare from 1967 to 1973.
He was ordained in 1973 and worked at various Catholic church outposts in
Matebeleland.
From 1980 to 1983, he
studied for a Master's degree in theology in Rome. He then went back to
Chishawasha to teach for a year before serving as parish priest at the St.
Patrick's of his primary schooling. He served as vicar general of St. Mary's
cathedral in Bulawayo from 1990 to 1997, serving as the deputy to the then
Swiss bishop.
The bishop nominated Ncube
to succeed him, which the latter initially had misgivings
about.
" I am a grassroots person, not an
executive," he said.
I had no trouble
believing that. He is down to earth, with none of the self-important airs of
some people who occupy positions of power and responsibility. I felt
immediately at ease with him.
As is the
custom, the names of three nominees including his were sent to the Vatican in
Rome, and he was selected. He was prevailed upon to accept and took up his
appointment as archbishop of the diocese of Bulawayo in January
1998.
"I invited President Mugabe to my
ordination. He gave a beautiful speech in which he talked about how
government and the church can complement each other," recalled the
archbishop.
Ncube got up to remove a
copper clock in the shape of Zimbabwe from the wall to show me. It was
inscribed "with compliments of the President of Zimbabwe, R. G. Mugabe", a
gift from the President on the occasion of the archbishop's investiture.
Obviously the honeymoon was very
short-lived.
The archbishop would like to
meet the President to break the impasse between them, and it has been said
that Mugabe is also keen on meeting Ncube. I find it hard to imagine such a
meeting now, in light of the archbishop's ever-sharpening criticism of the
President. Ncube himself believes that despite Mugabe's apparently expressed
willingness for a meeting, he is avoiding it. He says efforts by archbishop
Chakaipa of Harare and John Nkomo when he was minister of home affairs to
arrange such a meeting came to naught.
"My fellow bishops also wanted to arrange a group meeting with the President,
but nothing came of it. He says he wants to see me, but works against it"
said Ncube.
He repeatedly lamented the
great suffering of the people he sees in his travels in
Matabeleland.
Why don't politicians from
the region, who have the ear of the President and are not suspected of
ulterior motives, communicate this suffering to Mugabe? I
asked.
"They are paid to pretend things
are fine," Ncube replies without hesitation. Has he tried to beseech these
politicians to lobby the President on behalf of the region? He makes gestures
of exasperation indicating that he expects little from
them.
When I ask him to name politicians
from Matabeleland who are close to the President, he concedes: "at least John
Nkomo (ZANU-PF national chairman and Minister of Special Affairs) will
listen, he has a bit of decency."
He has
no respect for Jonathan Moyo, Mugabe's minister of information under whom
newspapers like the Chronicle have sunk to their "lowest
and dirtiest".
"Jonathan Moyo doesn't
like the truth, and he is a reflection of the President's own character,"
said the irrepressible Ncube. "These ministers are afraid of telling the
President the truth and losing their positions. They merely dance to his
tune."
Has he always been this
outspoken, or is this a fairly recent development in his life? Ncube was
outraged and deeply affected by the atrocities he saw being committed by the
army's Fifth Brigade in the early 1980s, "but as a priest you have to let
your superiors speak for you".
Now that he
is the archbishop, "there is no one to stop me" he defiantly declares,
leaning back in his chair and grinning.
He
admits that in the early days of his speaking out there was much discomfort
about it in the church. "I was urged to tone down my criticism of the
government and just pray about the many problems I saw people experiencing,
but I just could not keep quiet. I will not be silent at a time of crisis,"
he said.
Despite being thankful for the
support he says he now gets, he admits that there is still widespread fear
for his safety. He confesses to being under personal stress and has been
urged by some well wishers to leave the country, but he resolutely refuses to
consider this. "That's what they want, they would have won by silencing me,"
he says of the authorities.
The Catholic
hierarchy in general have been accused of coddling the President by being
quiet in the face of the many ills that are blamed on the government, such as
state-sponsored violence and alleged rigging of elections. Ncube himself has
pointed out that the church had a much higher profile during the Fifth
Brigade atrocities, and played an important role in helping to embarrass the
government in to ending them. It has not been so vocal in the past few
years.
Is this partly because Mugabe is at
least a nominal Catholic?
"No, I don't
think so," Ncube replied. "That should actually be all the more reason to
tell him off, because he is embarrassing the church." He believes the
church's subdued role is due to a wish for change without rocking the boat
too much. " The government has taken a stance that you are either for us or
against us. The church is aware that unlike before, it has no qualms about
persecuting even ministers of religion now, and no one wants to get
hurt."
Many new independent churches cite
the Catholic church as a staid establishment that exemplifies much of what
has made religion lose its appeal for a lot of people. Is the church losing a
lot of ground to the new churches? Ncube says many people still seek solace
in the church, especially among the young. He is worried about the large
numbers of young people who leave Matebeleland seeking opportunities in
Botswana and South Africa, having given up on finding employment at
home.
"Many, both young men and women,
have to resort to selling their bodies there to try to survive, worsening the
AIDS crisis," he said.
He does concede the
pull of the many mushrooming Pentecostal churches. "They have studied the
psychology of the young, and attract them with lively music, emotional
preaching and by affirming them," he admitted . If they have some good
innovations, why does the conservative Catholic church not borrow some pages
from their book?
" As a large, old
institution, the church changes very slowly," Ncube responded frankly. He
went on: "We must also ask about motive. Are we after mere numbers and the
glorification of the ministers or the glorification
of God?"
He quipped: "Some of the happy
clappers make a fast impression, but it also often dies very fast. Religion
must be based on something more solid than
popularity."
He feels the new churches are
focused the well to do youth, with the poor youth being sidelined. He also
disagrees with what he feels is the fundamentalism of the Pentecostal
churches. It is not just the politicians who will have daggers drawn for the
opinionated, outspoken archbishop!
Several
times, Ncube mentions the horrors allegedly committed by the government
"green bomber" youth brigades. He catalouged the rape that many female
recruits undergo in their training camps and the violence the youth engage in
on behalf of the ruling party. "Young people should be properly educated, not
mis-educated like the green bombers are," he said
with feeling.
"Not all problems can be
blamed on government," he added, in response to my question about the cause
of the general breakdown in morality in what has always been described as a
deeply conservative society. "Traditional and Christian values are gone now,
there are no taboos any more. Everyone now aims for a glorious house, a big
posh car, and a cell phone acquired by
any means."
"Everyone wants to be
marveled at. Some pastors are stinking rich from starting churches, while
their people are starving. The love for power and status are very strong in
Zimbabwe," he charged.
"Let's learn to
respect human values and to see the dignity of every human being. Let us move
towards spiritual values, the love of God, and away from undue attachment to
the three things the devil used to tempt Jesus: pleasure, power and
property," appealed Ncube. He attributed AIDS, political violence and
corruption on society's over-emphasis on these
materialistic values..
Never straying
far from the issue of political governance, he said: "It is very hard to heal
society with a government that will lie, cheat and shed blood to achieve its
aims. They are imparting evil values to the youth through the green bombers.
You cannot have healing when there is so much tension and depression among
the people."
He believes the
state-sponsored violence is bound to stop "because it is now eating its own
children. Even the perpetrators of violence on behalf of the government are
beginning to suffer from the many and increasing ills of the society. They
are misled and brain-washed, and act as robots for Robert Mugabe. He is a
brainy manipulator who uses less intelligent people for his own
ends."
Does he support the MDC? "As a
clergyman, I am neutral, but I can not vote for ZANU-PF when I think of the
violence, starvation and general suffering of Zimbabweans it is responsible
for. ( MDC leader Morgan) Tsvangirai may not be too effective in networking
and strategising, but I can not vote for a murderous regime like that of
Mugabe."
He blames Zimbabwe's impasse on
the "over-glorification of Mugabe." He pointed out that Zambians and
Malawians told leaders who had outlived their usefulness to go, "but the
people of Zimbabwe have been unable to take a united stance against Mugabe.
We are to blame for spoiling him. We should tell him you have done enough
harm, you must go now," said the fiery
bishop.
In one corner you have the
arrogant, fearsome and wicked bully Goliath with all his stupid oppressive
laws, his many brutal warriors armed to the teeth, his lying newspapers, and
his opportunistic yes-men and hangers on. They ridicule the small, lone David
in the other corner, but in their panicky actions show themselves to be
terrified of his simple weapon of truth. Everybody knows how the story
eventually ends.
You can be sure that
despite all the intimidation he faces, archbishop Ncube will continue to have
a lot to say.
NOW that the
euphoria caused by the results of last month's Highfield and Kuwadzana
by-elections is dying down, it's time to take a sober look at what the
outcome means for the political terrain in
Zimbabwe.
Such an analysis is made more
crucial by the upcoming April 18 celebrations, during which Zimbabwe will
mark 23 years of independence
from Britain.
For the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the results have demonstrated that the
party is still much bigger than
individuals.
The results sent a warning to
those MDC leaders who have allowed power to make them big-headed and give
them the illusion that they
are indispensable.
The warning is quite
clear: the people will show any leader the exit sign if they forget whose
interests they are there to serve.
Munyaradzi Gwisai is a living example.
People in the Highfield constituency do not brook any nonsense, even ZANU PF
supporters and their leaders know that very
well.
The township of Highfield has always
been an icon of the liberation politics of
Zimbabwe.
It was the citadel of African
nationalist politics, the birthplace of resistance against the Ian Smith
regime.
It is no surprise that even now,
Highfield constituency is regarded as the pulse of Zimbabwe, a barometer of
the country's political activity and balance of power. Highfield has always
shown the way ahead.
I don't think I would
be wrong in saying that the political mood in Highfield at any given time
indicates to a large extent where the political power in the country
lies.
It is important to note that ZANU,
now ZANU PF, was formed on August 8 1963 in Enos Nkala's house in
Highfield.
Nkala must be reflecting on
last week's election result with some rancour, wondering how ZANU PF could be
so embarrassed in its birthplace.
Senior
ZANU PF officials such as the late Joshua Nkomo, Josiah Chinamano, Eddison
Zvobgo, Nelson Mawema, Leopold Takawira and Morton Malianga, among others, at
one time owned or rented houses in Highfield during the struggle for
liberation.
In fact, most of Zimbabwe's
seasoned politicians lived in Highfield during the struggle and it is here
that they were engaged in plotting and fighting for the end of Rhodesian
repression.
President Robert Mugabe, apart
from owning a house in the constituency, was among the first members of
Parliament for the suburb and is today still registered as a voter in
Highfield.
Twenty-three years down the
line, Joseph Chinotimba, a self-styled farm invader with obscure credentials,
is a losing parliamentary candidate for the ruling party. That is how far
things have deteriorated.
When Mugabe came
back from Mozambique in 1979, he was met by thousands of people in
Highfield's Zimbabwe Grounds, in what was arguably the biggest political
gathering he has addressed during his
career.
My father, who attended the rally,
told me that people were squashed up against each other and hundreds fainted
as they jostled to get a glimpse of Mugabe, the
liberator.
People travelled from other
towns overnight to come to Zimbabwe Grounds, while others walked from nearby
townships.
People wanted to catch a
glimpse of this revered son of Zimbabwe and of Africa, who had fought and
brought freedom, democracy and justice.
Such was the determination and the positive spirit in which people welcomed
their liberators back home. 1980 became "The Year of the
People's Power".
But 23 years down the
line, Highfield has become a political no-go area for Mugabe and his party.
This has become especially apparent in the past three
years.
It's sad. It's like Nelson Mandela
and the ANC being rejected in Soweto, that's how significant the development
is.
I can imagine the late Professor
Masipula Sithole, a visionary when it came to analysing Zimbabwe's political
landscape - may his soul rest in peace - asking me: "Masamvu, do you see what
I see?"
It remains to be seen whether ZANU
PF itself is confronted with the same vision as the rest of the
nation.
Our firm, Career
Connections, is based in Nairobi, Kenya, and we recruit senior managers for
large horticulture and floriculture firms in the region.
We have been networking in Zimbabwe through JAG in an
attempt to identify farmers/farm managers/general managers who might be
interested in working in Kenya with such firms. We believe the expertise and
experience exists and we know that there are a number of Zimbabwean's who may be
out of Africa and are interested in working in Kenya.
The Zimbabwe AIDS Policy and Advocacy
(ZAPA) project will be launched in Harare tomorrow and will assist local
companies to finance anti-AIDS strategies that have been hit by the country's
economic crisis.
ZAPA, which is a United
States Agency for International Development-funded initiative was formed in
January and is run by local HIV/AIDS experts, will oversee a programme that
will fund Zimbabwean stakeholders involved in the fight against the
pandemic. The programme's senior policy
specialist, Alex Zinanga, said ZAPA would have a four-year component focused
on companies in the country's public and private sectors, in a bid to
strengthen workplace
anti-HIV/AIDS initiatives. 33 percent
infected HIV/AIDS experts say of the 33
percent of Zimbabweans that are infected with HIV, the virus that causes
AIDS, most are in the productive age group, making it necessary for companies
to urgently implement policies to combat the
pandemic. "An advocacy policy programme that
involves the private and public sector will be launched soon and will run for
four years to strengthen strategies that will fight the epidemic," Zinanga
told the Financial Gazette. Funds
available He said companies interested in
running anti-HIV/AIDS programmes for their workers would be invited to apply
for funds from ZAPA and submit proposals detailing the kind of workplace
initiatives they wanted to introduce. The
funds disbursed will depend on the number of workers employed at a particular
company, he said. "We decided to fund
companies because of the fact that some companies are facing economic
hardships and cannot implement such policies at their workplaces," Zinanga
added. Economic
crisis Zimbabwean firms have been hit hard by
the country's worst economic crisis in 23 years, dramatised by high
inflation, severe foreign currency shortages, declining consumer purchasing
power, company closures and
rising unemployment. Inflation, which
reached 220.9 percent in the year to February, is expected to top 500 percent
before the end of 2003, while the hard cash crisis has led to serious fuel
and raw material shortages. Effects of
inflation Meanwhile, declining consumer
purchasing power has contributed to a fall in domestic demand for goods and
government-imposed price controls have forced many companies to cut back on
production. Faced with these problems,
HIV/AIDS experts said most businesses had been forced to prioritise
strategies that would ensure their immediate survival, and anti-HIV/AIDS
programmes were sidelined. AIDS worsens
crisis But they pointed out that while
companies were busy implementing fire-fighting measures to deal with
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown, the AIDS pandemic was taking a serious toll on
their workers, in fact worsening the impact of the
crisis. The experts said left to deal with
their health problems alone, the productivity of workers living with HIV was
affected as they were forced to frequently take time off work because of
opportunistic infections or their work suffered because of the emotional toll
of the disease. The impact of the workers'
personal crises ultimately impacted on the companies' bottom line, the
experts added. Productive age
dying "Many people who die from the pandemic
are in their prime age of productivity. As a result, the company loses on
experienced labour," University of Zimbabwe lecturer Marvelous Mhloyi
said. "Fellow workmates lose morale because of
their companions' deaths and the company also spends time and expenses on
funerals and insurance. Productivity is reduced on both ends and company
executives should consider this and come up with relevant
strategies." Experts this week conceded that
the private sector was showing some appreciation of the importance of dealing
with HIV/AIDS. Survey
undertaken The Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries (CZI) has undertaken a survey to gauge the impact of the pandemic
on local business, the first of its kind in
Zimbabwe. CZI labour economist Marshal Padenga
said the survey would, for the first time, provide statistics indicating the
prevalence of HIV in the workplace. Peer
education Several companies are providing
counseling services and medical aid to those infected and are participating
in peer education programmes to increase awareness among workers in an
attempt to prevent further infection. The
amended labour legislation, the Labour Relations Amendment Act 2002, also has
provisions that will enable HIV-positive workers to take extensive time off
work while receiving pay. But experts pointed
out that business' response to the pandemic was not coordinated, adversely
affecting its impact. Farai Mpofu of the
Zimbabwe Business Council on AIDS, formed last year to coordinate business'
response to HIV/AIDS, told the Financial Gazette: "It's apparent that the
response of business to HIV is not coordinated nor is it
monitored. "It currently depends on the
generosity and willingness of the firm to support employees infected with
HIV." Response reactive rather than
proactive Zinanga added: "Business should be
proactive to the disease rather than being reactive because the epidemic is
affecting their enterprises as the country continues to lose daily the
productive age group." HIV/AIDS experts say
companies should not react to cases presented by individual workers but come
up with comprehensive measures that attempt to prevent HIV infection and
minimise the impact of the disease on those already infected and on their own
operations. They say firms should introduce
workplace programmes that attempt to prevent HIV infection, including
workshops and peer education for workers.
Anti-retrovirals recommended Urging workers to
be tested would also minimise the impact of the disease by ensuring that
employees take better care of themselves and even try to secure
anti-retrovirals to inhibit the replication of the
virus. Experts have also urged firms to
establish workplace clinics that would provide counselling and manage
opportunistic infections and provide drugs to minimise the impact on
productivity. Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions secretary-general Wellington Chibhebhe said companies should also
consider medical allowances for HIV-positive workers, especially those in the
low-income bracket. He said: "Workers are the
creators and machine of the world and business should make an effort to help
them. We believe government must come up with medical allowances, especially
for the lowly paid, and it should be tax
free." Costly
measures Analysts said the failure to take
proactive measures now would be costly for local companies, affecting output,
profit margins and the cost of labour.
According to Zimbabwean researchers, the failure to initiate comprehensive
HIV/AIDS policy could result in the cost of labour to companies rising by
four to eight percent by 2010 to more than US$200 per worker annually because
of lost work time and benefits. Adopt
defence Zinanga said: "Anyone who invests in
business should assess the environment and that includes focusing on what
HIV/AIDS is bound to do to their business and adopting defensive
measures."