Zim Standard
BY
our CORRESPONDENT
PROFESSOR Welshman Ncube, the
Secretary-General of the
pro-Senate faction of the MDC, broke down last
Saturday while rebutting
allegations that he was on the payroll of the
ruling Zanu PF party.
Asked by a journalist about alleged
links with the ruling Zanu
PF, Ncube slumped into his seat at the front
table as his voice became
choked with emotion.
Ncube was
at the Gweru Press Club where he and Professor Arthur
Mutambara were invited
guests.
"There have been all sorts of allegations about my
association
with Zanu PF by (Morgan) Tsvangirai and other people in his
faction," Ncube
said. "It has been said I was given a farm by Zanu PF, that
Zanu PF bought
me a Mercedes Benz, and that I am on their payroll. I was
never a member of
Zanu PF.
"How could I ever have been a
Zanu PF member when it was the
same party that caused a lot of suffering to
my family during Gukurahundi?"
he asked. "My brother was killed just 30 km
away from here during that time
when Tsvangirai himself was still a Zanu PF
commissar.
"My grandfather was also killed and for six days
the army did
not allow us to bury him," Ncube said. "We were only able to
bury him after
we had asked for the intervention of my cousin Sobuza
Gula-Ndebele, who used
his influence as he was then with Military
Intelligence.
"We buried my grandfather right where he had
been shot as we
could not lift him because his flesh was falling off as it
was in a very
advanced state of decomposition."
After
Ncube broke down, Mutambara asked that questions be
directed to
him.
He dismissed allegations of links to Zanu PF through a
reported
marriage to Dr Charles Utete's daughter.
"I have
heard stories about my being married to Utete's
daughter. I know the lady in
question because we were together at university
but I never dated her. I am
married to Dr Jacqueline Chimhanzi from Hwedza
and we have two kids,"
Mutambara said.
Following Ncube's claims that it was part of
political strategy
for some politicians to spread rumours about their
opponents, Mutambara said
it stemmed from a Zanu PF culture of regarding
people with different
opinions as enemies.
Zim Standard
BY
GODFREY MUTIMBA
NEW tobacco farmers have attacked Reserve
Bank Governor Gideon
Gono saying he is insensitive to their
plight.
Gono told disgruntled farmers at the official opening
of the
tobacco selling season on Tuesday that those who were not happy with
the
government prices were free to stop tobacco farming and concentrate on
other
crops.
Gono had on Monday announced a 35% delivery
bonus on tobacco
sold by 31 July, a 15% bonus on sales made after 31 July
and before 31
August 2006.
Gono also scrapped the 15%
tobacco growers' retention scheme.
The announcement did not
go down well with the struggling
farmers who were still trying to come to
terms with the low tobacco selling
price.
Hilda Masango
from St Albert's Mission in Centenary said: "What
Gono said is totally
unacceptable."
"How can he say if we are not satisfied with
the price we must
stop producing tobacco? It shows that government is not
sensitive to our
plight. We face so many challenges in producing tobacco and
the meagre price
they announced is far too short to sustain us if we are to
continue
farming," she said.
Another farmer Romeo
Mupuranga from Hurungwe also slated the
central bank
governor.
"We are very angry with what the Governor said on
Tuesday. It is
total madness for a high-ranking official to say something
that discourages
farmers from producing this essential crop. Government had
promised to
support us on the price issue but Gono was on the forefront of
rejecting the
proposed $180 000 per kg."
Other farmers
said they were likely to withdraw from tobacco
farming altogether. They
cited several problems that range from high
transport costs, shortage of
inputs and lack of funds.
Some said they have resorted to
using buses to transport produce
to the market.
Christine
Makanjera, also from Hurungwe, said: "We can no longer
afford to hire
vehicles to ferry our produce because they are now charging
between $3 and
$5 million for a single bale when we are getting between
US$1, 25 to US$2,
50. So we have resorted to ferry our tobacco on buses to
cut costs. But the
problem with buses is you can't transport many bales on a
single
trip.''
Others said they were not getting any profit from
tobacco as
inputs costs and labour were ever increasing. In response to
questions from
The Standard, Gono maintained that the new farmers should
stop growing
tobacco if they were not able to produce quality
crops.
"Where a farmer strongly feels a particular crop is
not viable,
it is rational and honourable to refocus and pursue other
disciplines of
economic endeavour," Gono said.
"As a
country we cannot successfully build our economy towards
sustained
prosperity if among us, there are ambivalent forces which on the
other hand,
are calling for bottomless pockets of subsidies and on the
other, preaching
and calling for inflation reduction through monetary
austerity and fiscal
budget deficit reduction."
Zim Standard
BY CAIPHAS CHIMHETE
THE government-appointed Media and
Information Commission (MIC)
has demanded a full list of journalists
accredited to cover the on-going
Harare International Festival of the Arts
(HIFA).
This has raised suspicion among journalists - who
will be
celebrating the World Press Freedom Day this week - that Mahoso
wants to
snoop on those who write for foreign media.
HIFA spokesperson, Jill Day, confirmed that MIC had requested
the list of
both local and foreign journalists covering the international
event.
"It's true. We gave them the list. This is
probably because
they are worried about the number of foreign journalists
who are covering
the event. For example, we have 12 journalists from France
who cover arts
and culture," she said.
Day said there
were also several Zimbabwean journalists covering
the event. She said 31
"journalists" from The Zimbabwe Mirror stable, 11
from Ziana, 49 from the
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) and about 13
from the little known
Harare Post are accredited to cover the event.
MIC chairman
Tafataona Mahoso said there was nothing sinister in
demanding the list of
journalists covering HIFA. He said any serious
registrar would not sit
around and expect people to come to him.
"It's normal. AIPPA
(Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act) requires that all
journalists be accredited and that is why we
wanted the list," Mahoso
said.
He said MIC would flush out all bogus journalists, who
sneak
into the country pretending to be reporters.
"They
sneak in through Nyamapanda and Victoria Falls pretending
to be tourists and
start writing stories once in the country," said Mahoso,
a former media
lecturer at the Harare Polytechnic.
Zimbabwe Union of
Journalists (ZUJ) secretary general, Foster
Dongozi, said: I have also
received inquiries from foreign journalists
trying to confirm if the reports
of the alleged witch-hunt are true. There
you are - another case of shooting
ourselves in the foot."
HIFA is one of the few remaining
viable events taking place in
Zimbabwe and any attempt to muddy the waters
could destroy the well-funded
emerging entertainment
industry.
The MIC has already closed privately owned
newspapers such as
The Daily News and its sister paper, The Daily News on
Sunday, The Tribune
and The Weekly Times.
The government
blames the current ills befalling Zimbabwe on
negative media reports
emanating from the local private Press and the
Western
media.
Meanwhile, local journalists will meet in Harare on
Wednesday
to observe the United Nations' World Press Freedom Day. The
commemorations,
which are being spearheaded by the Zimbabwe Union of
Journalists, will start
with journalists marching in the morning through the
city centre.
ZUJ vice president, Njabulo Ncube, said
journalists would meet
outside the New Ambassador Hotel on Wednesday morning
for the march.
Zim Standard
BRUSSELS - A senior European Union official sparked
controversy
by meeting Zimbabwe's finance minister in Brussels on Wednesday
despite EU
sanctions on the African country.
EU Aid and
Development Commissioner Louis Michel met Herbert
Murerwa just three months
after the bloc extended for another year a series
of measures against
Harare, including an arms embargo and travel ban on its
officials.
The 25-member bloc accuses Zimbabwean
officials of violating
human rights, freedom of speech and freedom of
assembly.
Belgium granted Murerwa a visa to attend a meeting
of ministers
from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific on Thursday and
Friday in
Brussels.
Some EU diplomats said that although
granting the minister a
visa for a conference was allowed under the terms of
the EU sanctions,
holding an official meeting with him was
not.
"A number of (EU) member states have said that this is
not in
line with the EU policy," a Swedish diplomat told Reuters, adding
that they
were concerned that the European Commission was applying a policy
different
from that of the EU countries.
Another EU
diplomat also said it was clearly against the EU's
position.
A spokesperson for Michel, a Belgian, said the
meeting did not
signal a change of policy.
"The EU's
position has not changed and will not change until
Zimbabwe changes its
policies ... the meeting was aimed at helping Zimbabwe
move in the right
direction," he said.
The EU sanctions were initially
triggered in 2002 by Zimbabwe's
land redistribution plan, which confiscated
white-owned commercial farms,
and President Robert Mugabe's disputed
re-election.
Since then, EU aid to Zimbabwe has been
suspended, except for
health and education projects, to which 70 million
euros were allocated last
year, Michel's spokesperson
said.
Mugabe and more than 100 ministers and officials are
targeted by
EU visa bans and asset freezes. Plans for an EU-Africa Summit
have been
postponed since 2003 because Britain and several other EU
countries refused
to attend if Mugabe was invited.
Zimbabwe is mired in a deepening economic crisis, with shortages
of foreign
exchange, fuel and food, the world's highest inflation rate at
over 900% and
70% unemployment. Critics say the land seizures have cut
Zimbabwe's
commercial agriculture by 40%. White farmers said last week they
had been
invited to apply for land, a move that could mark a shift by the
government,
which had vowed not to return seized farms. - Reuters
Zim Standard
BY OUR STAFF
GWERU - Professor Arthur Mutambara, the
president of the
pro-Senate faction of the Movement for Democratic Change
says the government
should allow Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to participate
in elections if it
hopes to harness precious foreign currency that they
earn.
He said this last weekend at the Gweru Press Club where
he was a
guest speaker. "Right now the economy is being sustained by 20% of
foreign
currency from the Diaspora that enters the country through legal and
extra-legal means," Mutambara said.
" As the MDC
government, we will develop networks of Zimbabweans
that have pride in being
Zimbabweans and are happy to invest in their
country. We also need to
benefit from the expertise that Zimbabweans in the
Diaspora have to offer,"
he said.
Despite having an estimated three million
Zimbabweans earning
convertible currencies such as the British Pound, the US
and Canadian
Dollars, the Botswana Pula and South African Rand, the country
is struggling
to provide basics such as food, medical drugs, fuel and
electricity.
Zim Standard
BY
WALTER MARWIZI
VETERAN politician Edgar Tekere has stepped
into the row over
the biography of the late Vice President Simon Muzenda,
charging that the
piece of literary work is a distortion of Zimbabwe's
liberation history.
After reading a story about Patrick
Kombayi's lawsuit against
the author, publisher and Minister Emmerson
Mnangagwa, Tekere rushed to get
a copy of the controversial book and was
quick to call The Standard.
"It's a reckless, extravagant,
magnificat for Cde Muzenda by an
academic. I am very happy that Kombayi
took note of it and went to court,"
Tekere said.
Simon
Vengayi Muzenda & The Struggle For and Liberation of
Zimbabwe was penned
by Professor Ngwabi Bhebe and published by Mambo Press
in Gweru almost two
years ago.
The book is a glowing account of Muzenda, which
seeks to
convince the reader that the national hero was an astute organiser
and a
shrewd politician committed to the total emancipation of his
people.
It also portrays Muzenda as a peacemaker who was not
afraid to
cross swords with his colleagues in order to stop Zanu PF leaders
from
killing each other during the dark moments of the liberation
struggle.
Though touted by a reviewer as an authentic and
comprehensive
biography of Muzenda, the book has stirred
controversy.
Kombayi, a Gweru businessman, who felt offended by
the book, has
taken his case in the courts where he won a $112 billion
default judgement
against Mnangagwa, although Mnangagwa won a
reprieve.
As Kombayi battles to overturn the reprieve granted
to the
minister by the High Court, Tekere says he is equally offended and
would
support the businessman all the way in the courts.
"In the book, there is lots of mention of Tekere. I don't like
it at all, it
is not the truth. Bhebe never came to me to ask me. Never
asked Kombayi
about his role either. That is why it is a reckless piece of
work," Tekere
said.
Tekere then went down memory lane, explaining in detail
how he
was solely in charge of the party and military affairs of Zanu PF
when other
leaders such as President Mugabe and Josiah Tongogara were away
in Malta
around 1978. It was the same time that the late Henry Hamadziripi
is said to
have led a revolt against the party
leadership.
Tekere said Bhebe had bended backwards to praise
Muzenda and in
the process offended many people.
"He
writes about Muzenda sympathising with people who had
plotted a coup. It was
myself. Bhebe wants to please Muzenda and I am glad
that he is being
punished with this lawsuit," said the Mutare-based
politician.
"The process of arrest, it wasn't (Emmerson)
Mnangagwa. I
started it. Mnangagwa (then Chief of Security) only got a
report when they
came back. That is when he started the process of
prosecution."
While the author said it was Muzenda who
stopped the execution
of the Hamadziripi group, "demonstrating his immense
humanity" at a time
when close comrades like Tekere were pushing for their
elimination, the
former Zanu PF secretary general said: "Mugabe presided
over the court. We
all agreed we were going to execute them at home because
we did not want to
shed blood in a foreign country. That is when I stood up
and said: 'comrades
remember I was number one to be executed but we can't
continue killing each
other, shedding blood'."
Tekere
said his colleagues understood his message and the
plotters were then thrown
in the infamous pits where they were held captive
in Mozambique. Tekere said
Hamadziripi and company were only released after
they bargained with the
British government to secure the release of their
colleagues from Ian
Smith's prisons. These included Maurice Nyagumbo and
Moven
Mahachi.
"I am really agitated. Bhebe is an academic and
should know
better. Falsification of history is bad. Our children should
learn proper
history."
Tekere said he was willing to go
to court and testify in favour
of Kombayi.
Bhebe on
Friday said he welcomed any other further works that
would advance the
history of the liberation struggle. He said he had not
talked to Tekere and
that other historians were free to make a follow up on
the sources he didn't
cover.
"That is how history is advanced. As a historian you
can't
cover all sources. Younger historians are free to fill in the gap. But
it
would not be correct to say I went all out to falsify history, that's a
strong statement to make or rather an accusation. I have nowhere where I
castigated anyone. I am sure if I had produced what they said (politicians)
about each other, they would not be working with each other in government
today. Vaigwa zvevanhu ava."
Zim Standard
By Nqobani Ndlovu
BULAWAYO - Andrew Langa, the Deputy
Minister of Environment and
Tourism and MP Insiza is being investigated by
police and the Grain
Marketing Board (GMB) for allegedly diverting maize
meant for drought prone
Matabeleland South region to Zvishavane and
Mberengwa.
The Standard was told that Langa sources maize
from the Gwanda
GMB, which delivers it to the parastatal's Insiza depot on
the pretext that
it is destined for his constituency.
The
deputy minister, it is alleged, then takes the maize to
Vokola where it is
milled before being delivered to the black market in
Mberengwa and
Zvishavane.
The accusations come at a time when some parts of
Matabeleland
South have suffered a devastating drought that has left close
to 500 000
people in urgent need of food aid.
Some
families are said to be surviving on amacimbi and pounded
roots of mtopi, an
indigenous tree.
The food situation in the region has been
worsened by the
failure of community leaders and villagers to secure maize
from the GMB in
Gwanda.
"Langa is under police
investigation for diverting maize to the
black market. The maize is for
Matabeleland South," said one of the sources.
Matabeleland
South police spokesperson, Inspector Johnson Nyoni,
said: "I do not have
that report with me. It is better you contact GMB
officials..." Langa
dismissed the allegations as flimsy and baseless.
"Whoever is
alleging that has different agendas altogether and I
warn them to
concentrate on their core business."
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
MAY Day commemorations will be held tomorrow across the
globe
but there is nothing to suggest that long-suffering Zimbabwean workers
will
have any reason to celebrate.
With the poverty
datum line for a family of six above $35
million, life has become unbearable
for many who earn less than $10 million
a month. Many workers interviewed
by The Standard said there was nothing to
celebrate as they are struggling
to survive.
"I do not know anything about Workers' Day. My
kids are always
hungry and very soon schools will be opening and everything
is too
expensive,' said Linda Kandodo of Budiriro.
But
worker representative organisations appear determined to
commemorate the day
despite the hardships.
Both the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU) and the
Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU) have lined
up workers' meetings
in all major towns where the plight of workers will
come under the
spotlight.
The ZCTU will commemorate
Workers' Day in 20 centres across the
country with Harare hosting the main
event. However, the labour union was by
Friday afternoon battling to secure
a venue in Mutare.
Lovemore Matombo, the President of the
ZCTU, said his
organisation was taking up the matter with the courts in
order to secure a
venue they booked and paid for last
year.
The government appointed commission running the city
was
blocking the union from holding its meeting in Sakubva stadium on the
basis
that it had failed to produce a police clearance on
time.
The Vice President of the Zimbabwe Federation of
Trade Union,
Joseph Chinotimba, said commemorations will be held at Rufaro
Stadium. He
said workers should come in large numbers.
Zim Standard
BY OUR STAFF
ZIMBABWE'S major
hospitals are taking drastic measures aimed at
reducing overcrowding in
their mortuaries.
These range from restrictions to the use of
the mortuaries to
paupers' burials on a two-week basis.
So bad is the situation at Parirenyatwa, a national referral
institution,
that visitors walking along the corridors of wards close to the
mortuary are
greeted by bad odours emanating from the mortuary fridges
where bodies
often remain unclaimed for long periods.
While the
hospital's mortuary has a carrying capacity of 54
bodies, the facility
nowadays days takes in as many as 130 bodies at any
given
time.
Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals' chief executive
officer, Thomas
Zigora, admitted that things had become so bad that the once
well-equipped
medical institution was battling to remain afloat in a harsh
economic
environment.
Zigora said plans to construct a
new mortuary to cater for the
increasing deaths, attributed to the HIV/AIDS
pandemic, had failed to
materialise due to financial constraints. He said
this left the institution
with no option but to restrict the use of their
mortuary.
Zigora said: "In order to ensure that we always
have space for
patients dying in the hospital, it has been resolved that
with immediate
effect, bodies not collected after three days will be sent to
funeral
parlours where relatives will be expected to collect these bodies at
their
own expense.
"Until such time as the situation
improves, we regret to advise
that the Parirenyatwa Mortuary will only be
reserved for hospital deaths."
Due to high burial costs, many
low-income families prefer to let
the bodies of their relatives stay in
mortuaries until such a time that they
are accorded pauper's burials by the
State.
Mortuary attendants say some bodies remain unclaimed
for very
long periods and end up being disposed of at the hospital's
expense.
"Our mortuary has a capacity to hold only 54 bodies
but of late
has had as many as 130 bodies," Zigora said.
"The hospital's mortuary equipment is old and cannot cope with
these
numbers. The heavy load places a strain on the compressors. This has
led to
bad odours permeating the hospital corridors nearest to the
mortuary," he
said.
At Harare Central Hospital, bodies are sent for a
pauper's
burial after only two weeks. In the past bodies could be kept in
the
mortuary for up to three months.
A private company
has been contracted to carry out the paupers'
burials.
"If you have a relative who dies these days, be warned to act
quickly
because he or she may end up in a pauper's grave in just two weeks,"
said a
mortuary attendant at the health institution.
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
RADIO Voice of the People, the local radio and
production house
whose directors are being persecuted by the State, has been
awarded the 2006
One Media Special Award for Community Media. The award
will be presented in
London on 8 June.
Radio VOP, as it
is commonly known, is privately owned by
Zimbabweans and has since 2000 been
battling to obtain a commercial licence
to broadcast locally on
FM.
A bomb destroyed its Milton Park offices in 2002 while
police
and officials of the Central Intelligence Organisation raided new VOP
offices in Beverly Court in December - in search of transmission equipment,
which they could not find. They ended up by arresting three employees who
were only released four days later, after the directors had presented
themselves to police.
On Thursday, Harare Magistrate
Rebecca Takavadii remanded the
VOP directors out of custody to 14 June.
The directors are being accused
of broadcasting from Zimbabwe without
licence, a charge they deny.
Zim Standard
BY NDAMU
SANDU
TOBACCO growers' representatives sought audience
with
Agriculture Permanent Secretary Simon Pazvakavambwa on Wednesday to
intervene on the tobacco price.
Standardbusiness can
reveal that the growers' representatives
raised their concern over the
package put in place by the central bank,
which they said was far below
their expectations.
"We met Pazvakavambwa and briefed him on
our concerns. We hope
to meet RBZ Governor Gideon Gono and present our
position," a source, who
was among those who attended the meeting, said
Thursday.
Tobacco farmers contend that the support framework
announced by
RBZ is inadequate to meet costs incurred growing the golden
leaf, once
Zimbabwe's major foreign currency earner. Central bank governor
Gideon on
Monday announced the tobacco support framework, which he said
"rewards
quality and ensures grower viability while at the same time
encouraging
early delivery of the green leaf tobacco to the auction
floors".
Gono said on Monday: "With effect from 25 April
2006, tobacco
growers who sell leaf tobacco at the auction floors by 31 July
2006, will be
entitled to a 35% delivery and early delivery bonus. This
support framework
will be based on the actual value of tobacco sold on the
auction floors."
The RBZ Governor said the cut-off of 31 July
2006 takes into
account unanticipated logistical challenges experienced by
growers during
the preparation of this year's crop for
marketing.
He said sales made after the cut-off date and
before 31 August
2006 "shall attract a reduced delivery bonus of 15%". After
that date a
delivery bonus shall not apply, Gono said.
He
said under the new framework tobacco growers would be paid
for all tobacco
sold at the auction floors at the prevailing interbank rate.
"As a result the 15% Tobacco Growers Retention is discontinued,"
Gono said.
But farmers say the support price is inadequate.
Tobacco
growers want an adjustment on the exchange rate to one
US dollar for $180
000 and that the retention scheme either raised or
maintained.
"We were pushing for the increase in the
retention scheme from
15% to about 20% but RBZ has scrapped it totally and
this will affect the
growers," said a tobacco growers'
representative.
On Monday growers' representatives warned of
disaster in the
coming season citing a mismatch between costs of farming and
returns from
sales.
Zim Standard
By Ndamu
Sandu
THE government has again lived up to its reputation
of promising
Zimbabweans "heaven on earth".
The National
Economic Development Priority Programme (NEDPP),
formulated through the
Zimbabwe National Security Council (ZNSC), is the
latest such
pie-in-the-sky.
Government says the model is a response to
critical economic
challenges besetting the economy.
According to Rugare Gumbo, Economic Development Minister, NEDPP
revolves
around its specific objectives designed to reduce inflation,
stabilisation
of the currency, ensuring food security, increasing output and
productivity
and generation of foreign exchange. NEDPP promises Zimbabweans
a better
economy within the next six to nine months.
Gumbo says the
success of NEDPP would be guaranteed by the
inclusion of all stakeholders -
government and the private sector.
To ensure the success of
the model, Gumbo said, various
taskforces had been formulated to implement
programmes and strategies. The
taskforces formed focus on agriculture
co-ordination, input supply and food
security; domestic and international
resources mobilisation; human skills
identification, deployment and
retention; 'Look East' promotion and
implementation of programmes; import
substitution and value addition;
foreign exchange mobilisation and
utilisation; and SMEs promotion and
distressed companies
rehabilitation.
Enter central bank chief Gideon Gono: "within
90 days we would
have been able to raise US$2.5 billion in cash or in the
form of
investments", he says.
And Didymus Mutasa would
not be left alone saying his State for
National Security, Lands, Land Reform
and Resettlement ministry will ensure
that 99-year leases are brought to
finality. Mutasa blamed disruptions on
the farms to people "who do not have
government at heart".
A look at recent farm invasions shows
that top government and
ruling party officials - and not landless peasants -
have been on been
leading the spate on invasions. Horticultural concerns
Interfresh and
Ariston bear testimony to this!.
Analysts
warned last week that government had on numerous
occasions raised the hopes
of the populace only to fail them at the eleventh
hour. They say the
previous five models touted as the stimulus to the growth
of the economy
since 1980 had failed because government had not committed
itself fully to
the prescriptions.
Zimbabwe launched the Transitional
National Development Plan
(1986-90) which accorded priority to poverty
reduction. This meant that
government spending was geared towards increased
social sector expenditure,
expansion of rural infrastructure and redressing
social and economic
inequality including land reform.
In
early 1990s, government succumbed to pressure from the
Bretton Woods based
World Bank to adopt structural adjustment programme,
Economic Structural
Adjustment Programme (ESAP) that undertook to reform
public enterprises and
the civil service. It promised to reduce central
government deficit from 10%
of GDP to 5% by the fiscal year 1994-95.
As the
socio-economic situation deteriorated, government dumped
ESAP for Zimbabwe
Programme for Economic and Social Transformation
(ZIMPREST) touted as a
home-grown programme in February 1998. ZIMPREST
promised: a fall in
inflation from over 20% at the start of the programme to
single digit level
by the year 2000 and continuous growth in exports (at
least 9% per annum in
US$ terms). ZIMPREST could not live to celebrate its
fourth anniversary and
was replaced by the Millennium Economic Recovery
Programme in August
2001.
A short-term 18 months economic programme, MERP was
premised on
the need to restore economic vibrancy and address the underlying
macroeconomic fundamentals. But it was rendered ineffective largely due to
the withdrawal of international donor support in February 2003. Government
launched another one-year stabilisation programme National Economic Recovery
Programme (NERP). Economic commentators said the ghost of the past would
haunt the implementation of NEDPP.
"The previous models
claimed to have got support from government
but nothing materialised," said
John Robertson, a Harare-based economic
consultant.
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono
sang from
the same hymn last week insisting that financial institutions that
fail to
meet the US dollar-linked minimum capital requirements have to shape
up or
ship out.
Under the new dispensation commercial
banks are required to have
US$10 million, merchant banks, finance houses and
building societies (US$7.5
million), discount houses (US$5 million) and
asset managers (US$1 million)
as minimum capital by 30 September
2006.
In a circular to banking sector CEOs, Gono said:
"Compliance
with these parameters as set out and pre-announced will, thus,
not be
negotiable, and players in the banking industry are called upon to
take
heed."
Gono warned that any depreciation in the
ZW$/US$ exchange rate
by 30 September 2006, would mean that banking
institutions would be required
to make up for the differential by 31
December 2006.
He said institutions without realistic chances
of meeting the
current capital requirements have "to seriously consider
identifying
strategic partners with adequate resources as well as mergers
and
acquisitions".
"Founder shareholders, especially
individuals, should be
prepared to dilute their shareholdings and allow new
shareholders to come in
if they don't have the requisite resources," Gono
said.
Zimbabwe has 14 commercial banks, five merchant banks,
three
finance houses, six discount houses and four building societies
currently
operating. Economic analysts say a small economy such as the one
Zimbabwe,
is already over-banked.
Independent economic
consultant, John Robertson, said: "It doesn't
make sense to have more banks
when we have an economy smaller than
Birmingham and Manchester. We cannot
have more banks in a shrinking
economy."
An International
Monetary Fund team last year said the
Zimbabwean economy could accommodate
seven banks.
Zim Standard
Comment
THE guilty, it is said, are always afraid. The
government this
month proved it had something to hide when it blocked a
United Nations Food
and Agriculture Organisation team from conducting a
joint crop assessment
exercise throughout the country.
While the government raised the argument that it was a sovereign
State and
would therefore not countenance multi-lateral organisations
undertaking crop
assessment surveys, what really frightened the government
was confirmation
of the extent of the food shortages despite a good rainfall
season and the
government's claims of a bumper harvest.
The truth is that
the failure of its much heralded land reform
programme would have been
unmasked. Whenever the government finds itself in
a corner it throws
tantrums in the hope that such theatrics will shut up its
critics. But that
will not stop the food deficits and that is why it is
spending scarce
foreign currency on food imports.
What the response to the
FAO proposal confirms is that Zimbabwe
is being run by a desperate cabal - a
clique intent on clinging to power by
any means
necessary.
What we don't need amidst this are traditional
leaders trying to
mislead the nation.
In an apparent
response intended to buttress the government's
rebuff of the UN agency, the
Zimbabwe Council of Chiefs declared that "most
parts of the country produced
better yields than in previous seasons owing
to good
rains."
The statement was as vague as it was shallow on
statistical
breakdown of district/provincial yields to shore up the claim of
"good
harvests".
Traditional leaders were reviled by the
generality of the people
before independence because of their willingness to
be used against their
own subjects by settler
administrations.
Their action last week proved once again
that they had mortgaged
their fate to that of the government because of the
perks they are being
feted with at the expense of roads and health
facilities stocked with drugs
for use by rural people.
It
is not difficult to understand why some of them were despised
intensely by
people they are supposed to represent. They continue to
demonstrate that
they are the State's instruments of oppression, driven by
selfish
interests.
Also objectionable and shameful are attempts to
mislead the
international community. The government has suggested that it is
prepared to
let commercial farmers back onto the land - an embarrassing
admission of the
folly of its "agrarian revolution". But this was a gesture
- along with the
National Economic Development Priority Programme - designed
to impress the
Spring meeting in Washington of the Board of Governors of the
IMF and World
Bank.
If there are serious intentions to
bring back the commercial
farmers onto the land the government should be
announcing the beneficiaries
and their farms so that they can start
preparations to occupy the farms in
order to ready themselves for land
preparations by July/August. The
government won't act because it is afraid
and has no clue. So it pretends.
But before the commercial
farmers can be allocated farms an
inventory of their area of specialisation
would have to be carried out. It
is no use allocating a tobacco farmer land
that is suitable for ranching.
That will not turn around the fortunes of the
country in the next 90-180
days.
The removal of
speculative farmers that were given land by the
government is a contentious
issue because the government has no will to act
and evict them given its
paranoia over the opposition's prospects of
exploiting such a
situation.
But some commercial farmers have short memories.
They have
learnt nothing from Nick Swanepoel's futile efforts at engaging
the
government over land redistribution.
Zim Standard
sunday opinion by Webster M Zambara
AS Zimbabwe's situation
continues to deteriorate on all fronts,
there has been a sharp increase in
the number of organised violence against
innocent civilians, mostly in the
form of common assault and assault causing
grievous bodily
harm.
This issue is of grave concern. Last month the media
reported on
Harare Municipal police brutality. More recently, there were
allegations
that soldiers descended heavily on revellers in Gweru, while
teachers at
Rambanepasi High School in Hwedza ran amok, assaulting 300
pupils.
Two incidents highlighted Harare municipal police
brutality.
They beat up a motorist changing a flat tyre, and went on to
assault a
street vendor leaving him for dead. Of interest was the
acknowledgement that
during "Operation Murambatsvina" some of the rowdy
policemen harassed women
engaged in the catering business in the Kopje
area.
Of even greater interest for me was the following
observation in
The Herald: "The bottom line is that these youthful looking
municipal
policemen need re-orientation. They are too aggressive for
peaceful
situations."
On reading this I held my breath.
The editorial comment only
fell inches short of telling the truth, that they
are Green Bombers!
Everyone knows it. How many times have the
civil society and
members of the opposition been at the mercy of these
youths?
Here is a case of reaping the sour fruits of
violence. Martin
Luther King Jr. said it: violence begets violence, period!
Our youths have
been trained, at the Border Gezi camps, to be violent and
they are simply
doing what they know best. Unfortunately, Zimbabweans are
just too tolerant,
so the youths cannot exercise what they were prepared to
do - inflicting
pain. There are no elections, so there is no one to
terrorise. They end up
pounding innocent people because naturally they need
to practise what they
know best.
Whenever we are walking
on the streets of Harare they are like
hyenas salivating at a herd of sickly
buffaloes in a land ravaged by
persistent droughts. We are in serious
trouble.
This led me to conclude that the person who wrote it
was either
not serious at all or is part of the system, or both. Whether in
public or
not, human rights violations should be condemned in the extreme
sense of the
word. The hottest part of hell should be reserved for those who
condone
violence against innocent and defenceless
civilians.
The other incident on soldiers beating up
revellers in Gweru is
rather shameful, but there could be more to it than
has been reported. It
was reported that the reason given was that the
patrons were liars. How
could people afford to drink beer if the people are
facing real economic
hardships, the soldiers reasoned.
Two arguments can be developed here. On one hand, it can be
argued that
these were over-zealous members of the army who got angry on
behalf of
President Robert Mugabe and the government. As their reasoning
shows, anyone
who says the situation has deteriorated and yet can afford to
drink into the
night is a liar who should be dealt with. But then beating
patrons is in
itself unlawful.
This leads to the second argument. The
officers may actually
have been saying instead of organising yourselves into
meaningful resistance
to our suffering you spend time drinking, how then
will change come?
Or worse still, the officers became too
jealousy that their
salaries are paltry, and if they can no longer afford
the luxury of beer,
then no one else should.
These
officers are lucky in that Zimbabweans have not yet
galvanised their courage
and shed off the cloud of extreme fear engulfing
them. These are extreme
provocations that should be avoided. If the more
than 500 000 residents of
Gweru get organised and stand up against police
brutality, will our police
officers in Gweru withstand the heat? Do not take
people for granted. Even
Ian Smith thought his jacket would continue to rule
this
country!
Then we have the case of teachers at Rambanepasi
Secondary
School in Hwedza. As a retired teacher myself, I just could not
imagine
professionals removing their ties and jackets so that their
"children" would
rue why they were born. One would think these gentlemen
were possessed by a
blood thirsty demon, to even fracture a pupil's
arm.
But there is more to it that meets the eye. Violence is
a
symptom of underlying unresolved conflicts. Two days before Independence
Day, I submitted in this paper that we are a stressed people. In fact, we
are angry because of extreme poverty.
In conclusion, it
is very unfortunate to notice this sharp
increase in cases of violence
against innocent civilians. But more
unfortunate is for the Harare Municipal
police to think they can beat up the
three million residents of Harare. One
day the people will say NO!
Zim Standard
sundayopinion by Msekiwa Makwanya
WHEN things go wrong in a
country it is necessary and natural
that there should be opposition to what
is going wrong otherwise citizens
will be guilty of complicity in their
difficulties.
The remit of the opposition is therefore to
offer alternative
views or generate fresh ideas. As citizens look up to the
government to
deliver they also look up to the opposition to check how
government is
performing.
Unfortunately the media has not
focussed much on the actual
message by the opposition apart from that
President Robert Mugabe must go,
their in-fighting and splits. If the media
does not adequately cover the
message of the opposition they are failing our
country.
Propaganda has its limit and it is not helpful in
nation-building. The difficulty that we have in Zimbabwe today is the binary
view that, either you are with us or against us, even if the issues that are
being raised are clear. The city of Harare has endured Sekesai Makwavarara's
inefficiency but she has been allowed to go on.
What
people find thoroughly annoying about the government are
not genuine
mistakes which we all make as human beings but rather, failure
to deal
decisively with incompetence and corruption.
Maybe we can say
as well, either you are for inefficiency and
corruption or against it. There
is an assumption that inefficiency and
corruption are only in government.
No! I have experienced disgusting
inefficiency of a lawyer who took my money
and failed to provide the
service, only to refund me after two years. I have
a relative who
experienced obvious misdiagnosis by a private doctor after
paying a fortune
for consultation, only to get a correct diagnosis at a
government hospital
for a lesser fee. We have some people who have been
allocated cheaper diesel
and other farming inputs only to sell these
subsidised inputs on the black
market.
Inefficiency in
government departments cannot be excused; it
clearly requires managerial
leadership and strategic direction but there is
need to know what is also
happening in the private sector. It is the case
that the government should
solve these problems, but this is a matter of
co-operation partnership with
all stakeholders. It is the people who lose
out when there is no
co-operation and partnership. The government has taken
a step in the right
direction by allowing the white commercial farmers to
return and help the
country in food production.
Mugabe has also asked Zimbabweans
in the Diaspora to return home
and play their part but the way he said it
was not particularly reassuring.
If he is serious the Zimbabwean government
should establish a framework for
people to return just as the government has
put in place a mechanism for the
farmers to return.
In
fact, other governments and firms are recruiting from
Zimbabwe and they put
in place relocation packages, which might include
accommodation, transport
and other perks for highly skilled workers. The
return of those in the
Diaspora is a global trend, but to recruit for key
sectors, the government
has to plan in partnership with the private sector.
The
government can offer land for building houses at
concessionary rates for the
highly skilled workers while the private sector
can build the houses on
loan. There are other initiatives that are possible
and the government can
make sure that people with good public relations man
its embassies in other
countries.
They have to start offering some basic services,
like the
efficient renewal of passports without charging unnecessarily
exorbitant
fees. There are other services that can help to build trust and
the
embassies have to be creative about it. It is all about customer care.
Zimbabwe's image problem requires that Zimbabweans start working on positive
image building.
However, efficiency is the best public
relations for any country
or company. No country or company can do well if
it does not provide an
opportunity for feedback from its customers and
stakeholders. The sort of
language that we hear from some very senior
government officials at times is
not good for the country's
image.
However, efficiency is the best public relations for
any country
or company. No country and company can do well if it does not
provide an
opportunity for feed back from its customers and stakeholders.
The sort of
language that we hear from some very senior government officials
at times is
not good for the country's image.
Zim Standard
sunday view by Marko Phiri
ONE of the worst vices to emerge
from local politics as defined
by the ruling party are the overt demands the
authorities make on the
uniformed forces.
While it is
true that the army and police cannot pursue
industrial action to push for
whatever reforms, the path the ruling party
has steered over the years has
taken away any vestiges of the
professionalism the army ever claimed since
the coming of independence.
A few months ago, a colleague in
the army reported he and his
uniformed brothers were accused of plotting a
mutiny when they showed one of
their immediate superiors their payslips and
asked him "off the record" to
budget for them.
The idea
was for the senior officer to see that the wages they
were getting were a
mockery considering the country's parlous economy. The
officer did not find
the inference amusing. Now the army, as we are told,
should be loyal to
whichever sitting government, the threat of being court
martialled was
enough to keep the young men in their rightful place: abject
poverty
alongside the majority here.
But in recent days there have
been reports of the uniformed
forces being put on high alert as the woes
continue stalking millions in the
country. Without appealing to anything
that would have spooks knocking at my
door, it has to be asked what would
convince a hungry soldier to take up
arms against a hungry and unarmed
man.
It will be agreed that despotism manifests itself
through the
illegitimation of popular protests which from the Sandinista
regime to other
Latin American "democracies" which brought the world's
attention to
liberation theology in the 1970s, the army has been used to
browbeat hungry
masses.
History, however, still records
soldiers who refused to take
orders to mow protestors and instead turned
their barrels toward State
house. The common thread with all oligarchies is
that they derived power
from the uniformed forces, but there came a time
when the soldiers came
marching towards the power mongers, and suddenly
turned the tide. It marked
the coming of popular
democracy.
What it means therefore is what those countries
had all along
was unpopular democracy! These are the countries who claim to
have opened
political space but still enacted laws which forbade political
rallies and
censored opposing voices from the public
media.
Africa offers many such case histories, but perhaps
what makes
Zimbabwe a unique or curious case is that the soldiers in whom
the regime
has vested its shelf life on are the kind who manifest their
political
loyalties without any sense of shame. They are men who claim to
have fought
a common enemy with the oligarchs, therefore that loyalty has to
be as long
as they live, never mind their brief in a kosher democracy would
be loyalty
to the people.
The clouding of loyalties to
State and political ideology has
meant the top boys are those who will tell
with unbridled passion the same
story about the racist white man. But
curiously, those charged with being on
the ready to cudgel popular protests
are the type who wears boots which are
desperately crying out for recycling.
Not only that, they still have to push
and shove for scarce commodities with
the same people they are expected to
suppress.
These are
the men who know the sufferings of the people, and who
interestingly became
victims of circumstances when they found themselves
homeless after landlords
irked by "Operation Restore Order" felt they had to
hit back and duly kicked
them out of their lodgings. These are the same men
expected to defend the
status quo.
For those who direct the uniformed forces from
their safe havens
know they enjoy the best of everything based on patronage
from the regime.
But questions have to be asked about the seriousness of the
authorities amid
reports of the uniformed forces being put on high
alert.
Army prison cells would no doubt overflow, as privates
are court
martialled for not acting on the orders to quell street protests.
But
besides this being a matter of conscientious objection, would a hungry
soldier be eager to beat up an equally hungry neighbour or landlord merely
on the orders of the powers that be? Where would he derive his
strength?
The tragedy of local politics is that outside the
legitimation
of occupying the seat of power through a popular vote, loyalty
to the regime
has for years now become a matter of rule by fear. Rule and
allegiance
becomes a matter of black-white, either-or dichotomies, you are
either with
us or against us, in the fashion of George W Bush's war on
terror which
these same have however condemned as
illegitimate!
Sadly that allegiance as it extends to the
uniformed forces now
already known to be beyond all traces of
professionalism as seen by their
undisguised loyalty to their erstwhile
comrades-in-arms in the bush, has
meant the privates are expected to be
automatons, or worst still victims of
voodoo incantations. They merely do
the bidding of the voodoo priest without
any resistance.
Never mind that this is happening within political space already
claimed to
be a democracy. Since independence came to Africa, stories have
been told
about poorly paid soldiers going on the rampage looting food,
televisions,
fridges and other mod cons, while others have been known to
protest for not
being given decent uniforms.
What then makes this country a
special case where starving
uniformed forces would be convinced to club to
death sweet toothed nostalgic
grandmothers dreaming of the good old days
when they could have tea with
plentiful sugar anytime they felt like
it?
The militarisation of pu-blic bodies itself points to a
regime
far removed from the realities people have to live with. If these
nationalists could take Ian Smith head on and today gloat about their
determination to bring black majority rule, what would not endow the
latter-day freedom fighter with like valour?
The answer
considering the circumstances becomes the vesting of
power in institutions
meant to protect the very people now being subjugated
by threats of
deaths.
Before the country took the plunge, soldiers were a
respected
and feared lot, and these were the days when young men left home
to guard
the Beira Corridor. Some never came back, but those who did became
local
heroes and nobody dared cross them.
Today, beating
up a soldier at a beer drink is met with "why
not?" And all this because the
same regime that seeks their protection has
turned them into
paupers!
Catalogue of Harare Commission's failures
Harare has failed century
THE Commission running Harare has
failed to address the
continuing decline not only of service delivery but
also of urban life in
general. It is the Combined Harare Residents'
Association's conviction that
misplaced priorities, lack of strategic
direction and piecemeal solutions
are at the core of Harare's
decay.
It remains hazy as to which Strategic Turnaround Plan
is being
enforced or whether it's a hybrid of various plans that have been
proposed
for the city.
The by-laws governing the City of
Harare are substantially
colonial and archaic. There is a need to repeal
irrelevant by-laws, and
up-date others.
Commissions are
stopgap measures and should be reviewed so as to
protect residents from
overly ambitious politicians or political appointees.
This is not about
replacing one commission with another but having municipal
elections
timeously.
While the decay of Harare is evident for all to
see, below are
some of the facts on the ground to buttress this point. This
also comes with
an open invitation to the Parliamentary Committee on Local
Government to
tour some of the areas of Harare.
Refuse at
public places like schools, business centres, market
places, along roads, at
street corners, in the industrial and in the Central
Business District is
piling up. More than 150 families live in plastic
shacks along the Mukuvisi
River in Glen Norah C where they drinking
contaminated
water.
Ardbennie Road from Mbare Musika is an eyesore. Raw
sewage flows
from 7th, 8th and other roads that join it. Children walk and
play bare feet
in the sewage. At Mbare National shopping complex, the
public toilet
outside is blocked and raw sewage flows. Inside the complex
there are
butcheries that operate adjacent to blocked
toilets.
It has been brought to the attention of CHRA that
the situation
in Harare is certainly a time bomb waiting to
explode.
In Rujeko Street, adjacent to Rujeko Poly-Clinic in
Dzivarasekwa, raw sewage flows from the backyard of house Numbers 165-1, 2
and 3 with reckless abandon. Residents have placed stepping-stones in order
to walk past the flowing streams of sewage.
Vendors sell
their vegetables anywhere, despite the stinking
environment.
Piles of refuse have continued to grow
outside all schools, at
main shopping centres, at the post office, at the
community hall, along
major roads and at intersections in residential areas
in Kambuzuma.
Water was cut in Jo'burg Lines. Refuse
continues to pile behind
Blocks 3, 4, 7, 14 at Matapi
Flats.
Piles of garbage are heaped opposite Mwamuka Service
Station and
raw sewage continues to flow from seventh, sixth, eighth and
ninth streets.
Reports to Mbare district office have yielded no
results.
Burst sewer pipe just outside the Evangelical
Kutenda Church
have gone for six months without being repaired. Heaps of
garbage continue
to pile along Westwood Road, 10th Road, 3rd Street, outside
Warren Park
Clinic, outside Magamba Hall, at the shopping centre, just
outside Warren
Park Police Station, at the bus termini and at all major
business centres.
Because of the above, Harare is a time bomb
for cholera and
dysentery outbreaks.
There has been no
significant or qualitative improvement in the
conditions of the city's
roads. The failure of the City to maintain roads
increases not only damage
to motor vehicles and risk to life but also opens
the City to lawsuits by
aggrieved motorists seeking compensation. Recently,
the life of a child was
lost in Waterfalls as the driver swerved off the
road in an attempt to avoid
a pothole.
Many intersections are now black spots due to
overgrown and
uncut grass. The risks to motorists and pedestrians are too
ghastly to
contemplate.
The quality of Harare water has
been condemned on a number of
occasions though there has been denial from
some quarters. Many areas have
gone for weeks without water. Priority must
take effect to ensure that
residents have safe water supplies instead of
unprotected wells or rivers.
Mabvuku and Tafara are clear cases in
point.
The situation leaves a lot to be desired especially
after
"Operation Murambatsvina".
Not only has it become
expensive to access medical care, service
at municipal clinics has gone down
and no drugs are obtainable from such
institutions.
The
Association also notes that input from other sectors is
vital and only then
can a holistic approach be implemented in addressing the
challenges to local
government.
Substantive or meaningful participation by the
residents is
vital and not the mere rubber stamping of legislation to
safeguard
short-term political gains. Local government is the cradle for
good national
governance and should be accorded its status in the national
constitution.
As for Harare, Commissions are not a panacea to
efficient and
effective service delivery but municipal elections and a clear
strategic
direction that has buy-in from both state and non-state
actors.
A broader policy and operational framework based on
inclusivity
and accountability should be established to ensure that the
residents derive
greater benefit from their city and have value for their
hard-earned and
fast "losing value" cash.
It is our
belief that such levels of commitment to patriotism
shall be met with equal
political will and adequate resources in the hope of
having, not piecemeal
solutions, but comprehensive local government reforms
that will go beyond
political faces.
Farai Barnabas Mangodza
CHRA
Chief Executive Officer
-----------------
Is
Makwavarara and co blind to the collapsing Harare infrastructure?
WHILE the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority is busy trying to promote
tourism in
this country, they could do well to persuade big-spending Sekesai
Makwavarara to do something about the image of the capital city, when she
can find time between thinking up where to spend what on
herself.
The one thing that tourists driving in from the
airport
encounter before the junction of Joshua Nkomo Way and St Patrick's
Road is
the smell of overflowing sewage from the stream that courses its way
through
the Falcon Golf club. As if that is not enough, when they reach the
perimeter fence to 1 Commando barracks in Cranborne they meet the same
stench.
I seem to have seen Makwavarara at Harare
International Airport
on Sunday, so she must have encountered what I am
writing about on her way
to and from the airport and therefore can relate to
my concerns.
I am amazed at the number of times city
officials pass by such
things or burst water pipes and they do not alert
their counterparts in the
Department of Works or
Amenities.
For example a drive along Harare Drive between
Sunridge and
Mabelreign, southwards just before the former Mabelreign
Drive-in Cinema one
encounters the stench that must be following the stream
that flows under
Harare Drive in the area I mentioned. The stench has been
there for months.
I do not believe that even if residents are
tired of reporting
and seeing no action being taken, that not a single
official from the
Commission running Harare has passed through this
route.
The same applies to Prince Edward Road just before
Kensington
Shopping centre. Treated water has been gushing (yes, that is
exactly what
is happening) along the road after a burst water pipe but there
has been not
action to repair the damaged pipe. It must be hundreds of
thousands of
litres that are being lost. Yet many city officials drive along
this route
on their way to and from Rowan Martin.
We
obviously have the wrong people in charge of the city. The
opposition does
nothing about this and sadly no one will take notice of the
concerns this
letter raises even if the officials at both Town House and
Rowan Martin read
it.
If we are serious about empowering women to run Harare
then
Margaret Dongo, I am sure, would have done a good job at the helm of
the
capital city.
She can certainly order the men off
their butts and get the job
done and she can also stand her ground and
what's more uses her medulla
oblongata for the greater good of Harare and
its residents.
Tirivanhu Mhofu
Emerald
Hill
Harare
-----------
Employers should get
real and appreciate workers' predicament
AS we near International
Workers' Day 1 May, we must pray for
workers whose employers are failing to
recognise the realities facing their
employees.
The
majority of the workers are getting wages that are far from
being realistic.
Workers' unions should come up with new and better
strategies in order to
rescue these workers from abject poverty.
There are workers
who are getting $6,5 million or less making
basic things such as food and
services such as health and education
inaccessible to the majority of
workers. What workers will afford is to
watch themselves and their
dependants dying of hunger, ignorance and
diseases. What else can they
afford if their salaries are far below the
Poverty Datum
Line?
Imagine a worker getting $1 532 197 in the form of
transport
allowance a month, when the worker uses more than four times that
amount on
transport. In fact, this allowance is only enough for one
week.
I doubt if the employers will understand it if the
worker only
reports for work for one week in a month. The cost of travelling
to and from
work is now much higher and employers need to review their
allowances.
Employees are also getting $1 881 000 in housing
allowance a
month when the lowest rent for one room is $1 million. Most of
the workers
are family people who need at least three rooms. How can they
afford three
rooms on an allowance that is below $2
million?
These employers act as if they live on a different
planet where
they do not see everyday problems and hardships experienced by
most
Zimbabweans.
While we listen and smile, inside we
are hurting from the
poverty we are subjected to. But one day we will
explode.
Sylvanos Mutsindikwa
Chikonohono
Chinhoyi
---------
Mutambara
should be wary of Zanu PF's propaganda tactics
THE problem with
MDC at the moment is not that its leaders are
opposed to land redistribution
or that the party will surrender the country
back to the former colonial
master as soon as it assumes power. These are
fictitious stories peddled by
the Zanu PF government to justify its
ill-conceived policies and to
de-legitimise the MDC.
By attacking the US, Britain and the
European Union, Professor
Arthur Mutambara must be careful not to play to
the gallery.
Because of the humanitarian crisis that
confronts us as a nation
we need friends, not only in Africa but even
beyond.
Zimbabweans do not eat the empty rhetoric of
Pan-Africanism and
will not accept proposals to de-link with most of the
industrialised world
which currently is doing so much to ameliorate their
humanitarian concerns
such as the provision of Anti-Retroviral drugs, food
and medicaments.
In Morgan Tsvangirai, Professor Welshman
Ncube or any other MDC
leader, I see a nationalistic and sincere leadership
of the opposition that
is only being vilified and denigrated daily by a
hostile, partisan and
apartheid media, a media that is hell-bent on
portraying the opposition as a
bunch of puppets.
In fact,
it is part of unwritten government policy and the
editorial policy at all
public media outlets to attack the leadership of the
MDC and always portray
it in negative light. The call for sanctions that
Mutambara and Paul Themba-
Nyathi want to disassociate themselves from does
not make the MDC a puppet
party.
The sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe are a legitimate
tool in
international law that can at any time be invoked to deal with
errant
members of the international community such as the government of
President
Robert Mugabe. Sanctions are one of the arsenals at the disposal
of the
international community, invoked to force compliance or effect
behaviour
change.
The sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe are
smart sanctions which are
meant to hurt a certain group of people - in this
case the ruling elite and
in the case of Zimbabwe the reprisal includes a
travel ban on members of the
Zanu PF inner circle and freezing their assets
abroad. It is unfortunate
that these sanctions are now affecting the masses
that are obviously not the
targets. The fact that the sanctions are
affecting the public does not in
any way make Zanu PF reformed or create the
need for those sanctions to be
removed.
It is wrong for
members of the pro-Senate faction to continue
appearing in the news and
mislead the nation that the call for sanctions was
Tsvangirai's and that the
MDC never had it as their policy. The call for
targeted sanctions is a
legitimate one because the Zanu PF government has
continuously stolen the
ballot and committed serious atrocities such as the
Gukurahundi massacres,
perpetrated on a defenceless citizenry whose sin was
to have voted for the
late veteran nationalist Joshua Nkomo.
Mutambara must not
work on the assumption that the people of
Zimbabwe regard the MDC as a
puppet of the whites and a bunch of
neo-colonials. The fact that something
has been continuously said and
repeated by our perverted radio and
television does not sanitise it.
Mutambara must realise that
the same media is the one that has
started portraying him as a violent
person who led violent demonstrations at
the University of Zimbabwe and that
he is "American" because of his US
permanent residence status. The media in
Zimbabwe, especially radio plays a
fundamental role in shaping political
opinion.
If Mutambara is lucky to appear in the news in
Zimbabwe, he is
going to be portrayed continuously as an American stooge and
a violent
former student leader. Should we then believe this because it has
been
beamed by ZBH when we know that it is no more than just
propaganda?
Zimbabweans must not expect miracles to happen
even with the
entry into politics of one of Zimbabwe's most gifted academics
because of
the inherently iniquitous system that is protected by an
"unconstitutional"
document - the Zimbabwe constitution.
There is need to mount pressure on the government to agree to
constitutional
reform so that any future contestation for political office,
including the
one that both Tsvangirai and Mutambara are eyeing is carried
out in a manner
that gives fairness to all players. Without a new
constitution and a
complete overhaul of the media laws that give an unfair
advantage to Zanu PF
over other political contestants, the opposition will
not make any
meaningful impact in Zimbabwe at the moment.
Phillip
Pasirayi
Lancaster
United
Kingdom
---------
NEDPP shames govt's critics
I would like to register my appreciation of government's efforts
in trying
to turn around the country's economy.
The recent launch of
the National Economic Development Priority
Programme (NEDPP) has shamed
those who have been saying that the government
has run out of ideas to turn
around the economy.
The fact that captains of industry were
consulted in drafting
the programme and were also present at its launch is a
clear demonstration
that all the stakeholders realise that now is the time
to act to save the
economy.
The realisation that the
solution to the country's economic
decline can only come from Zimbabweans is
an important development because
all along some within us have been folding
their arms thinking somebody from
Mars was going to come down and solve the
problems for us.
If implemented NEDPP could be the missing
link in efforts to
jump-start our economy. Zimbabweans are sick and tired of
witnessing
brilliant ideas contained in various programmes going to waste
because of
poor or non- implementation. Every Zimbabwean should therefore
play his/her
part in ensuring that NEDPP is a success.
Those within the MDC should come out in full support of NEDPP if
they have
the nation's interests at heart.
However, I doubt whether
they will ever do that because for
them, the continued economic decline
works to their advantage.
That is why, at a time others are
busy brainstorming on how best
to turn around the economy Morgan Tsvangirai
and his colleagues are busy
trying to mobilise the people to engage in the
so-called "peaceful
democratic resistance" to achieve
what?
Albert Muchena
Highfield
Harare
-------
Shumba's double speak
I write to comment on
your story about Daniel Shumba and his United People's
Party, which was
published last Sunday, 23 April.
The man is full of doublespeak. He talks
of eradication of poverty but just
come to his company, TeleAccess, and see
how he has impoverished his
workers.
Workers have not been paid
salaries for more than three months and in any
case the salaries have fallen
way below the Poverty Datum Line. Shumba is
just full of hot air and nothing
else.
If a fellow can fail to make just a single phone ring how can he be
entrusted to run a whole country? We, his impoverished workers, know that
the only way he is getting this positive publicity is because he must have
some reporters at his beck and call.
Disgruntled TeleAccess
worker
Harare
-----------------
Chamisa disappoints
I
find organising demonstrations at the expense of development a shameful
thing for Nelson Chamisa, the MP for Kuwadzana.
We had high hopes
that he would make a difference by bringing to the
constituency development
by which we could judge his contributions to
improving the lives of people
in Kuwadzana.
Chamisa promised to complete the library that Zanu PF could
not complete and
continues to lie idle, with some section of the building
almost collapsing.
While Chamisa has a house in Kuwadzana he stays in
Avondale and seems to be
doing well for himself since becoming spokesperson
for our party - the
anti-Senate MDC.
The failure to live up to
election promises makes Chamisa a liability in
Kuwadzana.
Simon
Makumbe
Kuwadzana
Harare
------------------
Zanu PF
medicine
IT is most interesting that for Sekesai Makwavarara, the honey
moon is over
and she is now getting a taste of Zanu PF medicine.
As
a sympathetic long-suffering resident, I just hope she had not cut ties
with
her kith and kin in Mabvuku -what goes up comes down, my dear
lady!
Suffering resident
Harare
--------
Apartheid
rears its ugly head in education system
THE recent increases in
university fees have led to many
students from poor families dropping off.
This leaves only those students
who come from rich families with an unfair
advantage over those of us from
poor families even though we have brilliant
passes at "A" level.
Imagine someone who comes from Hurungwe
after successfully
completing his/her "A" levels being forced to join a
low-paying job despite
all their intelligence only because his/her parents
have a combined salary
of $13 million and can't afford the $35 million fee
for each semester while
someone from a rich background with his/her two
points proceeds to
university simply because he has the money to afford the
fees.
Consider this future scenario where policy makers are
rich but
have limited intelligence, while the poor but of high intelligence
work
under them. Can that be fair? Are we not reversing the gains of
independence
where education was supposed to be for everyone and affordable?
Is this not
another form of educational apartheid?
Where
are the education ministers who are supposed to address
the issue of fees?
The poor will get poorer while the rich get richer. What
effectively this
means is that university education is no longer for
children from poor
backgrounds - exactly something that the colonial
administration sought to
maintain.
Now it is being perpetuated by our own
liberators.
Arthur Zwane
Gunhill
Chinhoyi
---------
No bad blood
between Tsvangirai, Mutambara
THE MDC shall continue to hold
rallies in Harare with or without
Morgan Tsvangirai's
permission.
Utterances by such people as Morgan Femai, Paul
Madzore and
Paurina Mpariwa that the MDC will not be allowed to hold rallies
in Harare
are just hogwash from people whose political survival depends on
bootlicking.
The MDC is a people-driven party whose
programmes are
determined by the people not individuals, There is no bad
blood between
Professor Arthur Mutambara and Tsvangirai as some of the
misguided elements
may want the general public to believe.
We
differed with Tsvangirai on the way the struggle should be
fought but we
still have one common enemy. The goals set out at a national
working
people's convention are now achievable since we now have two groups
fighting
one enemy from two different fronts. The fight for democratic
change is
still on.
Kurauone Chihwayi
Harare
---------
Rains offer temporary relief to
Bulawayo
THE Bulawayo City Council needs to be commended for
having
convened a non-denominational time for thanksgiving for the recent
rains
which gave us a reprieve from looming tragedy.
At
the gathering, held on Saturday early this month at the Large
City Hall,
Pastor D Masuku led us in prayer on the "city's water situation",
a segment
of the programme.
Keeping strictly to the letter, text and
spirit of his mandate
he had to exclude some information, which I
respectfully feel ought to be
divulged. It is listed below as
follows:
It was indeed by the grace of God that the tropical
cum
Equatorial rainfall belt moved southwards and unusually settled over
Zimbabwe for almost four months.
This Equatorial rainfall
pattern continues and perennially
concentrates in the Equatorial belt
throughout any given year.
It is precisely because of this
nature of rainfall perpetuity
that we in Matabeleland and Bulawayo in
particular are compulsively want to
capitalise on the Inter-Tropical
Convergence Zone catchment flow which
inevitably finds its way into the
Zambezi River.
It, therefore further follows that water in
the Zambezi River
becomes the ceaseless source upon which we can
consequently place a
guaranteed water lifeline.
Our need
for recourse to this Zambezi source is accentuated by
the unabated influx of
people from the eastern provinces of Zimbabwe. This
incessant influx is the
one major factor which has been the direct cause of
a dramatic population
increase in Matabeleland. Consequently this further
strains the already
scarce water resources here.
Arnold C Payne
Bulawayo
-------
Age catches up with Mugabe
I
DON'T know whether other readers have noticed what I have seen
and heard at
President Robert Mugabe's rallies of late.
Not only is Mugabe
a dictator or despot, he is also a
commendable comedian, who chooses the
most unusual places to tease his
political opponents - the MDC party and its
leadership.
At the recent burial of Winston Changara, he
could not resist
the temptation to have a go at the opposition again.
Denouncing the MDC's
slogan, "Chinja Maitiro", Mugabe said: "Unonzwa vanhu
kuti chinja, chinja.
Ndopauchachinja kuita chura here?"
It has become typical of him to lambast the MDC at the burial of
national
heroes. Shouldn't his address be an appraisal of the dead hero,
his/her war
credentials and the good things he accomplished which made
her/him eligible
for such status?
His speeches of denunciation should rightly
belong at political
rallies. I recall listening to one of Mugabe's speeches
last year as he
referred to Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC saying: "Mukomana
atakakura naye
tichidya matumbu akamonwa." I am not sure what the relevance
of this was.
It would be unfair for me to end this letter
without saying
something that Mugabe is good at.
I
believe in making every experience educational, although
Mugabe does not
know where and when to make his jokes, he proved that he is
a man who stands
by his word.
He does not like change, something that is
different from what
is happening in the MDC. Mugabe does all sorts of things
to keep himself
looking like a youngster, doing away with the physical
change in him, but he
should consult Michael Jackson, who I am certain will
share with him a
testimony that will make Mugabe realise that God was not
insane when he
created man the way he is.
G C
Machete
Glen View
Harare
Washington Times
April 30,
2006
When the Fourth of July rolls around and you gather with
family and friends
to celebrate Independence Day, take a moment to think of
those of us from
Zimbabwe. Our Independence Day, which took place recently
(April 18), was no
cause for celebration.
Like you, we have heroes.
Thousands fought and died for our freedom.
Like you, we threw off colonial
rule -- first by the Portuguese, then the
Ndebele and, finally, the British.
Even then, our country was not ruled by
native sons but by white settlers.
It was not until a protracted resistance
ended in 1980 that, finally, we
achieved independence.
Alas, it proved a mixed blessing. We wanted social
justice and
democracy. Instead, we've suffered thousands of deaths, often by
horrific
and brutal methods. Today, we wonder if the sacrifice was worth
it.
We won our freedom from Britain in 1965, thanks to the Unilateral
Declaration of Independence. A brutal guerrilla war lasted until 1980, when
a negotiated settlement brought us a constitution, a parliament and a ruler,
Robert Mugabe, who quickly won international praise for his efforts at
reconciliation.
It was not until 1998, when Morgan Tsvangirai
launched the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), that the country took a
turn for the worse. Mr.
Mugabe, threatened by the popularity of the new
movement, surprised even his
supporters with his crude response.
First, he took over the army and police force and converted them to arms
of
his ruling ZANU-PF party. Then, he began to use the country's treasury
for
his own gain and to reward relatives and friends with positions of
power.
Before long, he was publicly threatening anyone who dared organize
against
his rule. Today, Zimbabweans live in fear of his security forces. He
accuses
the opposition of working with the U.S. and Britain to destabilize
the
country and overthrow him.
Thousands languish in prison, accused of
plotting to kill Mr. Mugabe.
Others are simply murdered or flee as refugees.
Migration and high death
rates disrupt communities at unprecedented rates.
This disintegration causes
the disappearance of the very family values and
identity Zimbabweans fought
for.
Mr. Mugabe also has sacrificed the
economy to maintain power. Inflation
now tops 900 percent and continues to
climb. Once known as the breadbasket
of Africa, Zimbabwe now faces mounting
deaths from starvation. Rather than
admit the problem and attempt to solve
it, government ministers claim nobody
has died of starvation in Zimbabwe and
that what problems do exist stem from
shortages of drugs, sabotage from
opposition parties, the United States and
Britain and drought.
Meanwhile, Mugabe cronies plunder not only drugs but any commodities
they
can turn into quick cash. They control the sale of staple food,
fertilizer
and agricultural seeds. They buy whole loads from the
manufacturers ahead of
retailers and sell these goods on black markets. What
is distressing,
however, is the example they set for ordinary people to join
the plunder,
thereby creating a nation of plunderers with no consideration
of social
justice.
Says the "Index of Economic Freedom," the nation-by-nation
guidebook to
economic policy published annually by the Heritage Foundation
and the Wall
Street Journal: "Heavy regulation, price controls,
expropriation of land and
businesses, government spending equal to a quarter
of GDP, inflationary
monetary policy and government-sanctioned violence have
discouraged foreign
investment and hindered economic production.
Unemployment is estimated to be
80 percent, and most economic activity has
been forced into the informal
sector."
At the outset of independence,
Zimbabwe had some of the best hospitals
in southern Africa. The government
spoke of providing health services to all
citizens by 2000. Six years beyond
that goal, corpses overwhelm mortuaries,
coffin production ranks among the
fastest-growing businesses, and Mr.
Mugabe's lieutenants divert vital
donated HIV-AIDS drugs for personal use
and benefit.
Mr. Mugabe has
shown his true colors. His deputies' continued plunder
with impunity and the
West's increased demand for accountability has forced
him to scramble for
new friends. His choices are Libya, Iran, Venezuela,
Cuba and China -- all
diehard dictatorial regimes.
China offered investments in mines,
military, manufacturing industries
and service industries. The
Zimbabwe-China relationship rescued the country
from imminent collapse. In
his desperation, Mr. Mugabe seems to have avoided
asking what China wants in
return.
As we mark another independence day, we would love to have a
country
that respects its own citizens and the rule of law. We would settle
for a
country where people live without fear of murder, forcible expulsion,
rape
or torture. Sad to say, even that seems beyond hope.
DENFORD
MADENYIKA
A recent graduate of North Carolina State and an intern at the
Heritage
Foundation's Center for International Trade and Economics
(heritage.org).
April 30,
2006
By Andnetwork .com
By month-end, Zimbabwe's
year-to-year inflation rate will have topped
1000 percent, according to
calculations by the regionally represented Imara
financial services
group.
Fungai Tarirah, chief investment officer of Harare-based
Imara Asset
Management Zimbabwe, says inflation benchmarking by some of the
country's
larger companies actually puts the rate as high as 1600
percent.
He adds: "A month-on-month increase of only 16.6 percent
will get us
to 1000 percent inflation, though if we maintain the
month-on-month average
of 22 percent seen so far in 2006, the year-on-year
reading will reach
1051.0 percent.
"In-house inflation
computations from some companies canvassed by our
research unit range from
1100 percent to 1600 percent, depending on the
import content of the goods
and services under review."
The effectiveness of management's
response to the hyper-inflation
challenge has become the critical factor
when measuring corporate value and
performance.
Tarirah notes:
"The maxim 'cash is king' tells only part of the story.
Cash generated by
business must hastily find its way into raw materials,
fuel, spares, capital
expenditure or some other tangible asset before it
loses value.
"The value of a Zimbabwean dollar is halving every 29 days, if
official
inflation is to be believed. Only debtor balances that attract at
least 23
percent a month in interest are of any use. Even then, the rate
that has to
be frequently adjusted to try to keep pace with inflation."
As
inflation accelerates, other activities slow down. Tarirah
explains: "Cash
and near-cash assets deliver sub-inflationary returns in the
medium to long
term, forcing business to seek alternatives.
"Increasingly,
companies are reluctant to sell their product, opting
to hold on to stock or
hoard finished goods, selling only what they need to
meet monthly
obligations.
"As all participants along the value chain strive
literally to pass
the buck, management's ability to avoid ungainly cash
positions remains a
key factor when selecting stocks."
As
hyper-inflation continues to erode the value of the local currency,
safety
is sought in real assets by businesses and investors alike.
Exports
provide no escape. Tarirah comments: "Numerous exporters have
been
increasing local market volumes at the expense of exports, largely
because
of the foreign currency remittance regime."
The exchange rate has
stagnated at Z$100 000 to the US dollar for some
time, yet the cost of US
dollars rose 108 percent on the parallel market in
the first quarter of the
year alone. At the same time, the effective rate on
export proceeds rose
only 17 percent, squeezing export profitability.
Tarirah says:
"Inputs that go into export manufacturing are
denominated in Zimbabwe
dollars and have to be paid for, something the
foreign currency
merry-go-round cannot manage.
"It thus makes more sense to sell on
the local market where pricing is
not constrained and companies can factor
in the cost of inputs. This
undoubtedly aggravates the country's
deteriorating foreign currency
situation."
Source : I-Net
Bridge
Lots of past supporters returned
to the Vigil. They were senior members of
the MDC in the UK who had broken
away from the party in support of the
pro-Senate faction in Zimbabwe. They
took the opportunity of the Vigil
publicly to distance themselves from the
splinter group and express full
support for the Vigil's mission to campaign
for free and fair elections.
Silence Chihuri, former MDC UK Treasurer, spoke
on behalf of the group,
which included Givemore Chindawi, former MDC UK
Deputy Organising Secretary.
Silence said it had become clear that the
splinter group was a doomed
project and would only serve to strengthen
Zanu-PF.
We are now sure that winter is over: we saw our first bagpiper
of the year.
Not only saw him but captured him and his playing prompted
Vigil dancers to
do a Zimbabwean version of the Scottish reel. McGabe, as
he was dubbed, was
so enthusiastic that he took a kilt out of his bag and
put it on. Our
ladies were surprised to find that what is said about men
wearing kilts is
true. The dancing was so exuberant that it drew lots of
people passing by
from a rally in nearby Trafalgar Square, "Rock against
Racism". Thanks to
Patric Gore who generously bought soft drinks for the
thirsty Vigil dancers
and we were also delighted to have a large group from
Leicester again after
their unfortunate breakdown on the motorway last time
they tried to come.
We are pleased to let you know that this week's Vigil
photos have been
downloaded onto a web page, check:
http://uk.msnusers.com/ZimbabweVigil/shoebox.msnw
to view them. For
security reasons we haven't posted pictures to the web in
the past but we
have consulted widely and people are in favour of it. If
anyone pictured is
unhappy, please contact us: zimbabwevigil@yahoo.co.uk and we
will remove the
relevant photo immediately.
FOR THE RECORD: 75 signed
the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY: Zimbabwe Forum, Upstairs at the Theodore
Bullfrog pub, 28
John Adam Street, London WC2 (cross the Strand from the
Zimbabwe Embassy, go
down a passageway to John Adam Street, turn right and
you will see the pub).
Monday, 1st May - no forum. Monday, 8th May, 7.30 pm
- The speaker is Tor
Hugne-Olsen of the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO
Forum.
Vigil co-ordinators
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe
Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place
every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00
to protest against gross violations of
human rights by the current regime in
Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will continue until
internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk