http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Own Correspondent
Tuesday 11 August 2009
HARARE - Zimbabwe's finance ministry
has gazetted a new law to improve
accountability in the use of public
resources in a move meant to promote
good governance in the public
sector.
The Public Finance Management Bill seeks to repeal the Audit and
Exchequer
Act and the State Loans and Guarantees Act, merging them into a
single law.
"The Bill is meant to improve accountability over the use of
public
resources, provide the regulatory framework for the management of
public
finances and promotion of good governance as well as strengthen the
current
accounting system," the ministry said last week.
It invited
comments from the business community and members of the public as
part of
the process of fine-tuning the public finance management
legislation.
The need to improve accountability in public finance
management comes in the
wake of allegations of poor governance during the
past five years when the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe usurped the powers of the
Treasury and started
printing large sums of money which were never accounted
for. - ZimOnline
http://www.voanews.com
By Sandra Nyaira
Washington
10 August
2009
Resident physicians in Zimbabwe's state hospitals are back out
on strike
again, having grown impatient with the rate at which their wages
have risen
under the national unity government installed in February, with
the
situation particularly critical in second-city Bulawayo.
Medical
sources said that just one consulting physician was available in
Bulawayo
with most of the country out for the long Heroes Day weekend. More
were on
hand in Harare, though.
Junior doctors at Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo have
been out for two weeks,
sources said, and their colleagues in the capital
joined them last week. The
so-called junior doctors receive a total of
US$390 a month including a
US$220 stipend from a British relief
organization.
Dr. Kudakwashe Nyamutukwa, a past president of the Hospital
Doctors
Association, told reporter Sandra Nyaira of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that
the unity government, a power-sharing arrangement between the
former ruling
ZANU-PF party of President Robert Mugabe and the two
formations of the
former opposition Movement for Democratic Change, is not
able to properly
support the health care system as donors are chary of Mr.
Mugabe.
Health Minister Henry Madzorera professed ignorance about the
latest
physicians strike but doctors said he told them the government had no
money
to meet their demands, adding that the minister was angered by their
action.
Doctors and other health care workers were out on strike from late
2008
through early 2009 even as a cholera epidemic raged.
http://www.zimnetradio.com
By KING SHANGO
Published on: 10th August,
2009
HARARE - Prss freedom group MISA-Zimbabwe has addressed
a letter to the
Speaker of the House Assembly Lovemore Moyo expressing
concern with
parliament's decision to handpick candidates for the
Broadcasting Authority
of Zimbabwe (BAZ) board from applicants who had
applied for the Zimbabwe
Media Commission.
Parliament took out an
advert in The Herald on June 5 inviting applicants
for the Zimbabwe Media
Commission. Last week 27 applicants were interviewed
by the Standing Rules
and Orders Committee (SROC) for the Zimbabwe Media
Commission.
And as
an after-thought, Parliament handpicked six names from the 27
applicants to
sit on the Broadcasting Authority board.Nominated to join BAZ
were academic
Vimbai Chivaura, publisher Benson Ntini, academic Vimbai
Jirira, former ZBC
executive Susan Makore and former publisher of the banned
The Tribune
newspaper, Kindness Paradza and journalists Douglas Dhliwayo.
In his
letter, MISA Zimbabwe chairman said nothing in the wording of the
advertisement inviting applicants for the ZMC suggested that this would in
any way include interviews for prospective candidates to the Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe.
"Our reasonable assumption was that the call
for applications was largely
for constitutionally established Commissions
and not necessarily statutory
boards," reads part of the letter.
"If
this is truly the case, we respectfully would like to point out to your
good
office that the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe is not a
constitutionally
established Commission neither is it defined as a
Commission in terms of the
Broadcasting Services Act.
In terms of Section 4 of the enabling act (the
Broadcasting Services Act as
amended in 2008); the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe is a board to be
established in terms of the Act and not in terms
of the Constitution of
Zimbabwe."
Dube said parliament should
therefore ensure that the interviewing process
for BAZ is undertaken in
terms of the enabling act as well as through
broader public participation
given the national importance of Zimbabwe's
airwaves.
"This letter
was written in the spirit and letter of ensuring that if the
Parliament of
Zimbabwe is to play its democratically assigned role in
reforming Zimbabwe's
media landscape, it must do so in a participatory,
transparent and
accountable manner," said Dube.
zim NET radio has obtained the full text
of the letter and reproduces it
below.
RE: CONCERN OVER THE DECISION
TO CONSIDER APPLICATIONS FOR THE BROADCASTING
AUTHORITY OF ZIMBABWE BOARD
DURING INTERVIEWS FOR THE ZIMBABWE MEDIA
COMMISSION.
1. The Media
Institute of Southern Africa Zimbabwe Chapter (MISA Zimbabwe),
by copy of
this letter, humbly seeks to draw your respected attention to our
concern on
the above referenced issue. MISA Zimbabwe humbly draws your
attention to the
advertisement placed in The Herald of 5 June 2009 by the
Standing Rules and
Orders Committee (SROC) in terms of section 100N of the
Constitution of
Zimbabwe as amended through Constitutional Amendment No.19.
In the said
advertisement, the SROC called for applications to the Zimbabwe
Media
Commission, as well as the three other commissions, namely the Human
Rights
Commission, Electoral Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commission.
1.1
Nothing in the wording of the advertisement suggested that this would
in any
way include interviews for prospective candidates to the Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe. Our reasonable assumption was that the call for
applications was largely for constitutionally established Commissions and
not necessarily statutory boards.
1.2 In a story carried by the
Sunday Mail of 2 August 2009, it came to
public attention that candidates
scheduled to be interviewed on Monday 3
August 2009 would also be considered
for the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe Board. Subsequent media reports
thereafter indicated that indeed
candidates were considered for the
Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe.
1.3 If this is truly the case, we
respectfully would like to point out to
your good office that the
Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe is not a
constitutionally established
Commission neither is it defined as a
Commission in terms of the
Broadcasting Services Act. In terms of Section 4
of the enabling act (the
Broadcasting Services Act as amended in January
2008); the Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe is a board to be established
in terms of the Act and
not in terms of the constitution of Zimbabwe. For
the purposes of clarity,
we outline the contents of Section 4 of the Act
below:
4 Establishment
and composition of Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe Board
(1) The
operations of the Authority shall, subject to this Act, be
controlled and
managed by a board to be known as the Broadcasting Authority
of Zimbabwe
Board.
(2) Subject to subsection (3), the Board shall consist of twelve
members, of
whom-
(a) the following nine members shall be appointed
by the
President after consultation with the Minister and the Committee on
Standing
Rules and Orders-
(i) two shall be persons chosen for
their
experience or professional qualifications in the field of broadcasting
technology and broadcasting content respectively; and
(ii) one shall
be a Chief as defined in the
Traditional Leaders Act [Chapter 29:17] and
nominated by the Council of
Chiefs referred to in that Act; and
(iii)
one shall be a legal practitioner of not
less than five years' standing
registered in terms of the law in force
relating to the registration of
legal practitioners; and
(iv) one shall be a public accountant of
not
less than five years' standing registered in terms of the law in force
relating to the registration of public accountants; and
(v) one shall
be a representative of churches
or other religious bodies chosen from a list
of nominees submitted by groups
considered by the Minister to be
representative of churches or other
religious bodies; and
(vi) three
other members;
(b) three members shall be appointed by the
President
from a list of six nominees submitted by the Committee on Standing
Rules and
Orders.
(3) At least three of the members referred to in
subsection 2(a) shall be
women and at least one of the members referred to
in subsection 2(b) shall
be a woman.
(4) The Third Schedule shall
apply to the qualifications of members of the
Board, their terms and
conditions of office, vacation of office, suspension
and dismissal, and the
procedure to be followed by the Board at its
meetings.
(5) If any
council or group or the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders
referred to
in subsection (2), fails or refuses to submit any nomination
within thirty
days of being requested to do so by the Minister in writing,
the President
may appoint any person to hold office as a member of the Board
in all
respects as if he or she had been duly nominated and appointed in
terms of
subsection (2).".
1.4 In view of the above, it is trite to note that the
procedures
relating to the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe and those
relating to the
Zimbabwe Media Commission are different primarily because of
the
establishing laws i.e. Broadcasting Services Act and the Constitution of
Zimbabwe respectively.
1.5 While the major similarity is that the
Standing Rules and Orders
Committee has a role to play in the appointment of
both, the criteria for
selection of commissioners and members of the
broadcasting authority differs
significantly.
As outlined in Section
4 of the enabling act, the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe has key
requirements for acceptance into the regulatory board which
include
specifics such as ensuring that persons considered must have
'experience or
professional qualifications in the field of broadcasting
technology and
broadcasting content'. This, among other requirements, was
not cited in the
advertisement placed in the media for applications to the
Zimbabwe Media
Commission.
1.6 Within the context of the contents of this letter to your
good
office, it is MISA Zimbabwe's well considered view that the
Parliamentary
Standing Rules and Orders Committee erred in considering
applications for
the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe.
1.7 It is
also our considered view that Zimbabweans with an interest in
serving on the
Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe would hitherto not have
submitted the
requisite applications as no such specifications for the
particular
regulatory body in question had been indicated in the media
advertisements
for the Zimbabwe Media Commission. We therefore find it
arbitrary and
unfortunate that those who applied to be considered as
commissioners for the
Zimbabwe Media Commission would in the same vein be
considered for purposes
of constituting the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe.
1.8 To
conclude, MISA Zimbabwe is still of the firm view that the
Broadcasting
Services Act should be repealed and replaced by an Independent
Telecommunications Authority Act as well as an Independent Public Service
Broadcasting Act. This letter was written in the spirit and letter of
ensuring that if the Parliament of Zimbabwe is to play its democratically
assigned role in reforming Zimbabwe's media landscape, it must do so in a
participatory, transparent and accountable manner.
1.9 Further, it is
our humble submission that the decision to combine
applications for a
constitutional body such as the Zimbabwe Media Commission
with those for a
statutory body such as the Broadcasting Authority of
Zimbabwe was not
stipulated in the advertisements placed in the media and
was not in terms of
the Broadcasting Services Act. It is our honest view
that the interviewing
process for the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe be
undertaken in terms of
the enabling act as well as with broader public
participation given the
national importance of Zimbabwe's airwaves.
Yours sincerely
Loughty
Dube
National Chairperson: MISA-Zimbabwe
cc. President of the
Senate
cc. Deputy Speaker of Parliament
cc. Clerk of Parliament
cc.
Minister of Media, Information and Publicity
cc Deputy Minister of, Media
Information and Publicity
cc. Minister of Information and Communication
Technologies
http://www.voanews.com/
By Patience Rusere
Washington
10 August
2009
The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian
Assistance says
Zimbabwe's food security outlook remains doubtful with just
45% of
humanitarian funding requirements met or some US$315 million of the
US$718
million sought in a U.N. coordinated appeal.
OCHA said a
recent food assessment by Harare and the World Food Organization
pointed to
a 2009-2010 shortfall of some 900,000 tonnes of cereals, in part
because the
winter wheat harvest is shaping up to be a poor one.
U.N. Information
Officer John Nyaga told reporter Patience Rusere of VOA's
Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that another US$ 400 million dollars is needed to meet
Zimbabwe's
needs.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
10
August 2009
By CHIEF
REPORTER
HARARE - No serious efforts are being made by the new Zimbabwe
government to
reform the partisan security forces. Police
commissioner-general Augustine
Chihuri has recently issued a directive that
no police officer above the
rank of inspector will attend political rallies
except those addressed by
President Robert Mugabe.
In a
notice circulated to police stations across the country, all senior
police
officers have been warned against attending rallies addressed by
Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
"With immediate effect, no officers of or above
the rank of inspector will
attend political rallies. Officers will only
attend those rallies addressed
by his Excellency the State President Cde R.
G. Mugabe," the circular dated
20 July 2009 reads.
Human rights
organizations say there has been no clear indication from the
government as
to whether, how or when institutional reform - particularly of
the police,
army and security forces - will take place.
Rights group Amnesty
International has said that the Global Political
Agreement (GPA) provides a
framework for change, but commitment to its
implementation is not consistent
within government.
"As head of state, commander in chief of the armed
forces and leader of the
country for the last three decades, Mugabe and
those around him have a
special responsibility to rise to the challenge of
delivering on the GPA and
particularly on the hard core human rights
issues," Amnesty
secretary-general Irene Khan said in a recent visit to
Zimbabwe.
"We see no progress on security sector reform," Khan said. "Reform
of the
security sector is urgently needed yet we have got no clear
indication from
the government as to whether, how and when such reform will
happen. This
lack of clarity has led to many human rights activists and
ordinary
Zimbabweans to fear that should violence erupt again, the State
security
apparatus will fail to protect them and might even be used against
them."
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
10
August 2009
By Pindai
Dube
BULAWAYO - The Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, has blasted Hwange
Colliery
Company (HCC) for being incompetent, saying its management should
be fired.
Addressing businesspeople at a Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries (CZI)
meeting here on Friday, Biti accused the country's sole
coal producing
company of causing electricity shortages by failing to supply
enough coal to
Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority
(ZESA)
"Hwange Colliery should be blamed for shortages of
electricity in the
country. They are only producing 50 000 tonnes per month
of coal instead of
the 250 000 tonnes required by ZESA every month. Its
management should be
fired," said Biti.
Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai has set up a committee to investigate HCC
as the government is a
significant shareholder in this public listed
company. Zimbabwe is currently
facing severe power outages as regional
suppliers have reduced power
supplies due to government's failure to pay its
debts.
The regional
power utilities of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
Mozambique and
Zambia had given ZESA up to June 30 to clear a US$57 million
debt for
electricity supplies. Zimbabwe owes $40.3 million to Hydroelectrica
Cahora
Bassa (HCB) of Mozambique, US$9.8 million to Snel of the Democratic
Republic
of Congo and $1.7 million to Zambia (Zambian Electricity Supply
Commission)
ZESCO. A further $5.7 million is owed to Mozambican electricity
distribution
company, EDM Power.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
10
August 2009
By Natasha
Hove
GWANDA - An MDC-Mutambara activist has passed away from injuries
sustained
after heavy beatings by war veterans - a week before a court case
against
his attackers was scheduled to start. Mabangula Ncube, shadow
transport
secretary for Gwanda, died last Monday, a week before his case
against his
attackers led by Sinini Mangena was to
begin.
Ncube sustained internal injuries after heavy beatings by
war veterans
during the run-up to last year's violent June 27 run-off. He
was attacked
together with MDC-M member, Nicko Bhebhe, and Gwanda's Lutheran
Reverend on
charges of turning against Zanu (PF).
The case was
reported to the police and the attackers named but no arrests
were made last
year. However, after the formation of the GNU, the case was
reported again
as the victims sought justice against the attackers.
Ncube and the other
victims threatened to sue the police for not arresting
the thugs who beat
them, leading to the police arresting the attackers.
MDC-M secretary for
Gwanda, Petros Mukwena, said: "That is why we are saying
there should not be
a national healing and reconciliation process without
justice. We want a
transitional justice tribunal to bring all perpetrators
to trial. Only that
can bring an end to this disease of violence that has
been associated with
Zanu (PF) since 1980."
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
10
August 2009
By Toni
Saxon
MUTARE - The inclusive government should introduce the concept of
involving
rural communities in development projects to achieve rapid growth,
an expert
has said.
In an interview with The Zimbabwean last
week, the Director of theRural
Community Working Group, Tennyson
Mutendadzamera, said this would enable the
government to reduce costs of
implementing development projects in rural
areas. "Communities can
contribute immensely to development in their areas
as they can mobilise
resources among themselves," he said.
Mutendadzamera said the government
could attract professionals to work in
rural areas through involving
communities in developing infrastructure such
as accommodation, roads and
bridges. He said communities could contribute
through moulding bricks as
well as providing labour to build infrastructure.
"Though President
Mugabe has got a bad feeling about NGOs, the government
should definitely
involve them. Rural communities cannot develop without
them. Discussing and
planning solutions with communities is critical as it
can propel development
in the country," he said. He said NGOs could assist
the government in
compiling information about challenges in rural areas as
well as crafting
responses.
"The previous involvement of communities enabled the
government to develop
rural areas rapidly soon after independence. But the
government then
abandoned this policy and started to finance capital
projects from the
national budget, a feat that has proved difficult as
hyperinflation saw
costs of materials escalating astronomically," he
said.
A number of NGO's in Manicaland have targeted organic farming and
capacity
building among farmers to improve productivity. Innocent Hodzenge,
the
programmes director for a local NGO, Environment Africa said: "We are
working closely with many NGOs including Practical Action. These projects
are meant to improve the livelihood options. As NGOs we want to build
capacity and enable farmers to increase production."
Local farmers,
who included the Zanu (PF) beneficiaries under the infamous
Land "Reform"
programme, admitted that the NGOs were doing "a good job".
"They have indeed
changed our livelihoods. We are dependent upon them," said
Ngoni Mwashita, a
resettled farmer.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
10
August 2009
By Pindai
Dube
BULAWAYO - Zimbabwe will continue to be banned from the London
Bullion
Market (LBM) as a result of the continued failure of the country to
produce
the required target gold output to be a member.
The
LBM is a wholesale market for the trading of gold and silver. Trading is
overseen by the Bank of England and members are required to produce a
minimum of 10 tons of gold or silver per year.
Last year, Zimbabwe's
Fidelity Printers and Refineries, a subsidiary of the
Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe and sole buyer of gold from miners in the country
was expelled
after failing to hit this target.
"Only one ton has been produced by the
country's miners in the first six
months of 2009, diminishing any hopes of a
quick return to the LBM. There
was little gold mining activity during this
period as most operations were
placed under care and
maintenance.
"But our hope is that production will now increase, as since
mid-July most
gold mining operations were producing," said the Chamber of
Mines in a
statement.
The Chamber called for funding support to
restart operations and raise gold
production capacity to optimum levels.
"The recovery of the sector could be
significantly faster if financial
support could be secured," the statement
said.
http://www.mg.co.za
CHENJERAI HOVE: COMMENT - Aug 11 2009
06:00
As Zimbabwe's unity government inches along in
its painful marriage of
convenience, one cannot but remember Joseph Conrad's
phrase about chaos as a
"tangle of unrelated things". For the new government
seems to be a tangle of
unrelated political views.
So far the new
government has been such a polluted concoction of diverse and
irreconcilable
political agendas that, for it to work, one needs the
intervention of both
Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad.
The political scenario is
pathetic: Robert Mugabe announces three days of
"National Healing and
Reconciliation" and, backstage, his party deploys
multitudes of youth
militia trained to kill, torture and maim innocent
citizens determined to
exercise their political choice of who rules or does
not rule
them.
And in breach of the constitutional provisions which made them what
they
are, the military service chiefs still refuse to salute a legitimate
prime
minister, and the commander-in-chief, Robert Mugabe, looks the other
way.
After all, hypocrisy hangs in the mind of a tyrant as shiny as the
medals he
wears on his shirt to announce his defeat of the whole population.
Mugabe
fears any little discomfort which may follow after giving away even
an inch
of his power to one who fought for more than 10 years to remove him
from his
cherished office.
The president's prefabricated political
plans remain intact and he has a
strong enough team of technocrats to oil
them well to paralyse any new
initiatives.
The nation can collapse in
several ways as long as his massive ego and
personal glory are seen to
remain intact. With its capacity for mischief,
history repeats itself. It
was the same when Mugabe came to power in 1980.
The white service chiefs
refused to salute then-prime minister Robert
Mugabe. Much persuasion by the
British made them do so, after they had
seriously considered a military coup
to bring Ian Smith back to power.
Now it is the black service chiefs who
have taken the colonial mantle: we
salute only the one we want, not anyone
else.
While the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leadership talks of
acknowledging the brutality of the past and compensating the victims, Mugabe
is busy trying to urge them to unite and pretend that nothing serious really
happened. He wants a blanket amnesty for all those he has taught to wield
the flame of violence and brutality over the past 30 years.
Mugabe's
power-crippled imagination is not fertile enough to see the images
of
torture victims in which the local and international media are awash.
Mugabe
is still busy sharpening his tools of violence for the next round
while the
new ministers are made to busy themselves with fighting over the
crumbs of
power that the president selectively allows to fall from his high
table.
I think prison and torture teach different songs to
the different hearts and
minds that go through them. Nelson Mandela came out
of prison a
compassionate man who would not like even his worst enemy
imprisoned or
tortured. He has become the world symbol of human dignity,
love, pride and
respect for others, including minorities. Zimbabwe's Robert
Gabriel Mugabe
came out of prison equipped only with ideas of brutality,
death, torture of
political opponents and an unquenchable thirst for
power.
After almost 30 years of his bitter rule, he is allowing his
political party
to pronounce him "Supreme Leader", on the same level as the
grand ayatollahs
in other parts of the world.
Mugabe cynically laughs
and smiles at the sight of the wounds and corpses of
his torture
victims.
"They brought it upon themselves when they refused to disperse
on the orders
of the police," he said when then-opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, and
many current ministers, were tortured by the
police.
Ministers of the new government fight over everything every day.
Of the two
home affairs ministers, one tells the police to arrest
perpetrators of
political violence while the other deploys more youth
militia to take over
schools in the countryside after making the work of the
teachers impossible.
The police are instructed to look the other way
while men, women and
children are tortured. "The matter is politically
sensitive," the police say
when they see the many victims' disfigured bodies
all over the country. And
once the police decide a crime is "politically
sensitive", that is simply
case closed. The crime victim is on his or her
own, to die or run.
Although Tsvangirai is the head of the government,
Zanu-PF ministers are
loud in telling him they take orders only from the
president. MDC ministers'
public speeches and appearances are blacked out
from all government-owned
media, clearly telling the nation that this animal
called the government of
national unity is as dead as a
dodo.
Zimbabwe has lived under its own form of apartheid for nearly 30
years. Even
in South Africa it became clear that it was not only the colour
of one's
skin that made a person an automatic victim of apartheid laws. It
was the
colour of one's political ideas.
Many white South Africans
had the wrong colour of political ideas and they
suffered for it -- some
dying in prison, others killed by letter bombs or
driven into
exile.
The colour of one's ideas -- that is the Mugabe apartheid. In
Zimbabwe the
apartheid of my cruel, beloved country is based on the colour
of one's
political views and convictions. Any Zimbabwean deemed supportive
of the
hated colours of opposition politics deserves death and exclusion
from all
normal life.
In Zimbabwe the colour of Zanu-PF political
ideas matches well the physical
colour of the apartheid regime that ruined
South Africa for decades. I would
not be surprised if the body count of
political corpses and other victims of
apartheid is outnumbered by Mugabe's
bizarre and painful political projects.
Remember the thousands victimised
in the 1980s in the western and midlands
provinces. In genocide style more
than 20 000 people perished in that sad
chapter of our history. And Mugabe
was not about to give that project up in
2008 as he unleashed the militia
and the army to wreak havoc on his
political opponents. Describing the 1980s
massacres as "a moment of
madness", he never bothered to explain whose
madness it was.
A few years back a Zimbabwean minister and Mugabe
confidant was asked if he
was not worried that Zimbabweans were abandoning
their country to live as
refugees in other countries. The minister, still in
government, was quick to
point out: "They can all go. We want to remain with
only those who support
Zanu-PF."
That is apartheid thinking from a
black minister of a government who claims
to have fought against the same
system in Southern Africa.
The minister once wrote a book titled Black
Behind Bars about his
imprisonment in Rhodesia. I wonder if he still has the
courage to re-read
what he wrote then, because, as the minister of state
security, Dydimus
Mutasa has had Zimbabweans tortured and brutalised in
worse than apartheid
ways.
Apartheid was painful, but when it is
practised by black on black, the pain
is more horrendous and
vulgar.
"Not in a thousand years," Ian Smith once said about black
majority rule --
or simply the democratic rights of blacks. And as history
tends to repeat
itself, one of Mugabe's vice-presidents once proclaimed:
"Tichatonga kusvika
madhongi amera nyanga [We will rule until donkeys grow
horns]."
Eternal rule has been on Mugabe's political agenda since 1980.
The new
government, for the Mugabe clique, is mere window-dressing for
ulterior
motives that have nothing to do with the welfare of our wounded,
crippled
country.
While Tsvangirai travels the world trying to create
goodwill and diplomatic
space for a new vision for the country, Mugabe is
busy shouting obscenities
at the same people he wants to come to our
economic rescue. Their officials
are dubbed "toilets" (Tony Blair), "that
little slave girl" (Condoleezza
Rice), "like a prostitute" (Jendayi Frazer,
former US assistant secretary of
state) and "idiot of that nature" (Johnnie
Carson, Frazer's successor).
Mugabe and his clique take the idea of
eternal rule seriously as much as
they do not take political partners
seriously. After all, Tsvangirai does
not have a single academic degree,
Mugabe tells himself, so he cannot be
taken seriously. Inspired by apartheid
thinking, Mugabe's regime has not
moved an inch from thinking that anyone
who opposes them is inspired by the
imperialists and colonialists bent on
recolonising Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe has become a divided and fragmented
society. The social fabric has
been razed by the political flames lit by
Mugabe and his loyalists. It is
difficult to envision how healing and
reconciliation can grow in political
soil still watered by new political
blood, new political corpses and new
political widows and
orphans.
The Global Political Agreement simply created a political
hotchpotch from
which it is difficult to salvage anything
useful.
Chenjerai Hove is a prize-winning Zimbabwean writer living in
Europe.
http://www.mg.co.za
NICOLE JOHNSTONE - Aug 11 2009
06:00
They get up before dawn every day to cook and clean,
draw water and carry
wood. They till the fields and pull up weeds. When
they're finished, they
care for the sick and attend meetings where they bake
bread, make jam, knit
jerseys, weave baskets and produce everything from
shoe polish to peanut
butter. And still they don't have enough to
survive.
For many women in rural Zimbabwe, Herculean effort and unceasing
toil is no
guarantee that their children will eat tomorrow, or that they
will get an
education or survive an illness.
At a tiny village in the
Gutu district, Florence Manzu (21) doesn't
understand why this should be so.
"I am a hard worker. I get up and plough
the fields and I work all day. All
I need is fairness. I want to buy seeds
at a fair price and I want to sell
my goods at a fair price."
Instead, Rose faces the dilemma many poor
people experience: the less money
you have, the more expensive services are.
The nearest bus stop is a 16km
walk, and bus fare to the small town of Gutu
costs $US5 each way. She can't
afford to go to town, but at shops in the
village she can expect to pay way
over the odds for basic necessities, even
in a country where prices are
already high.
"Things are much more
expensive here. A bar of laundry soap costs US$2,50,
but in town it is 80c.
In town, salt is 50c -- here they charge $1,50. But
what can I do? I don't
have $10 to get to town."
As we speak, a crowd of women gathers round in
immaculately laundered snowy
headscarves and home-sewn outfits, all keen to
make their voices heard.
"We have no water to drink. We can walk 20km
looking for water, and it's a
job for women."
"We have no toilets so
we're very much afraid of cholera."
"The clinics have no water or
medicine and sometimes no qualified staff.
They tell us to bring candles,
but how can we? We have to go the next
province and cross a river to get our
ARVs [antiretrovirals], but we need
enough food so we can take our
pills."
"Schools are deteriorating but we have to pay
more."
"There's no market where we can sell our goods, so we have to
barter on
unfavourable terms."
A lack of access to hard currency
after the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar
and adoption of the US dollar has
meant that most people in the rural areas
are forced to barter livestock and
their meagre harvests to pay for basic
fees and services.
Teachers
now receive a $100 a month "allowance" from the government -- far
more than
the average parent earns -- but children are expected to pay up to
$10 each
a month to their teachers, and many parents tell of an endless
stream of
demands from teachers, from money for food to bus fare.
Some parents sell
livestock to raise the cash, others send a chicken or a
bucket of maize meal
to school. As the saying goes, the biggest religion in
Zimbabwe is education
and parents will starve themselves to ensure children
go to
school.
At the next village Emilia and Eustina Nyamandi are sitting on
sacks of
grain, waiting for their turn at the mill and swiftly rebuking
anyone
foolish enough to try to jump the queue. Eustina (26) is a
subsistence
farmer who grows maize, pearl millet and peanuts.
A third
of her maize harvest will go to the owner of the mill: "It costs $2
to have
your maize milled. If you don't have cash you have to give them
7,5kg of
maize as payment for milling a 20kg bucket."
The milling also costs time
-- a luxury these women don't have. "I have been
here since 10am and now
it's 2.30pm," says Emilia (29) wearily.
"The food from the last harvest
will last until about September, then we'll
have to buy food or barter our
goats and chickens," says Eustina.
"Sometimes you don't get much by
bartering because commodities are scarce
and the price goes up. Last year I
had to sell everything I had to get food,
so I had to get more livestock
this year. If I thatch someone's roof I can
get a chicken."
She also
makes peanut butter and trades it for soap and cooking oil.
Eustina
painstakingly rebuilt her livestock, but will probably have to sell
it all
by the end of the year once the 'hungry season' hits.
"The rain is
getting less and less each year. If we have two bad seasons in
a row, it
will be too difficult for us to live. There is no indication it
will be
better tomorrow."
Emilia and Eustina's families survived last year
because the grain marketing
board sold them maize at a reduced price and
they received food aid from
NGOs for three months.
But neither woman
expects a handout from anyone. "We need projects, like
sewing affordable
school uniforms or knitting jerseys," says Emilia. "We
need to earn money
for our families."
In the neighbouring district of Chirumanzu, an
innovative project run from
the Saint Theresa's mission aims to address many
of these concerns. The
mission hospital not only cares for orphans and
vulnerable children, and
offers voluntary HIV counselling and testing, it
also runs an outreach
project for people living with HIV which provides home
visits, psychosocial
support and income-generating schemes.
Sister
Andrea is deputy matron of the hospital and the coolest nun one could
meet.
She takes us to a village to visit one of the women's support groups
and, as
we arrive, they burst into vigorous song and dance. Without missing
a beat,
Sister Andrea joins in the song and, in her starched white veil,
keeps up
with the most energetic dancers.
Then she sits down on a rock with the
chairperson of the group and admires
the baskets they have woven and gives
advice on pricing, while explaining
how the women extract fibre from sisal
and use tree bark to dye the sisal in
various colours.
Sister Andrea
says that the biggest obstacle the women face is that they
have nowhere to
sell their products and no way to get them to the big
cities, where buyers
with ready cash might be found.
At the Takashinga support group in
Chengwena, Sister Andrea and her
colleague Frank Mafusire are greeted with
affection as the women proudly
display the progress they have made with
their baking project. Sister Andrea
is asked to sample a freshly baked batch
of buns and loaves of bread, still
hot from the ovens dug into the ground,
and served with wild-melon jam.
The women drum and dance joyously around
a small fire. They are making shoe
polish by drying pieces of black rubber
and grinding it into a fine powder.
Paraffin and candle wax was then added
and the mixture is cooked up before
pouring it into old shoe-polish
tins.
The group plans to sell the bread and jam at schools "because it is
hard for
the children to get something to eat at break", and the shoe polish
to
people who can't afford to buy it in town. Mary Ngoya (26) explains that
even if they can't shift all their stock "we sell to each other. It is
cheaper than the shops."
Nicole Johnston is the regional media
coordinator for Oxfam GB
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
10
August 2009
By Eddie Cross
The finances of
central government are recovering steadily - total revenues
to the State
have grown from $4 million in January to $70 million in July.
My guess is
that the theft and plunder of public assets has been reduced
from perhaps
$1,5 billion last year to $250 million. That is partly because
we have
closed down the Reserve Bank and partly because there is not much
left to
steal writes EDDIE CROSS.
At least we are closer to the end than
the start. That just about sums up
where we are right now and the territory
in front of us is as deadly as any
we have traversed so far. As has been the
case so often in the past 30
years, we are dependent in part on what the
region does or does not do to
ensure we can cover the ground that
remains.
I am quite encouraged by the news from South Africa where our
Prime Minister
saw President Zuma last week. It seems clear that the South
African
leadership understands the situation we are in right now, both the
President
and the Minister responsible for Foreign Affairs are savvy, street
wise and
certainly more committed to a democratic outcome than was Thabo
Mbeki. But
the ghosts of the Mbeki administration remain and those in the
region who
want to try and protect Zanu (PF) from its fate are still
actively embedded
in the system.
'Because of the nature of diplomacy
it will be some time before we see the
final outcome of all this diplomatic
manoeuvring'
The visit to South Africa and the discussions held with the
President are in
the same league as the September 1976 visit to Pretoria by
Henry Kissinger
when the Americans delivered the final blow that led to the
demise of the
Rhodesian Front and the eventual transfer of power to Mugabe
in 1980.
Because of the nature of diplomacy it will be some time before we
see the
final outcome of all this diplomatic manoeuvring.
If we look
back over the past six months since MDC entered the transitional
government,
we can point to a number of key achievements: we have stabilised
the economy
and secured a resumption of all basic services - health,
education, water,
sanitation and communications. We have been able to
restore markets and get
the retail and wholesale sectors back into business.
The finances of
central government are recovering steadily - total revenues
to the State
have grown from $4 million in January to $70 million in July.
My guess is
that the theft and plunder of public assets has been reduced
from perhaps
$1,5 billion last year to $250 million. That is partly because
we have
closed down the Reserve Bank and partly because there is not much
left to
steal.
We have been able to partly restore our relations with the
international
community - the World Bank and the IMF are both back in
Zimbabwe with
limited programmes of technical assistance and the Bank is
making its first
forays into local finance since 1997. We have made formal
contact with
virtually all the OECD States as well as the Non Aligned
countries;
international grant aid has reached $100 million a month and
lines of credit
negotiated, although we have yet to see the colour of this
money.
On the downside we have seen little progress in media reform. No
changes in
the attitude or the activities of the security agencies and no
changes to
repressive legislation or improvements in the management system
for
elections. The constitutional reform process has started, but faces a
difficult and tortuous path over the mountains in its way. The judicial
system as a whole is being used as an instrument of oppression and a
political weapon. No progress has been made in agriculture where output and
activity continues to decline.
'We are dependent in part on what the
region does or does not do'
Yesterday the South African Minister responsible
for Foreign Affairs said
that she wanted to see "the acceleration of the
implementation of the Global
Political Agreement". In fact I think she said
the "full implementation" and
that would be even better. More we could not
ask for, as the GPA, even
though it has numerous weaknesses and faults, is
the only way forward.
I attended the annual Congress of the Commercial
Farmers Union this week in
Harare. It was a courageous and well organised
affair and Deon Theron was
elected President. I was glad to see both - it is
vital that while we work
on the solution to our problems and negotiate the
difficult terrain ahead of
us that we keep what is left of our economic
institutions alive and
operational. Deon will make a good President and is
an important player in
this situation.
The keynote address was given
by a farmer from Zambia who is the current
President of the International
Association of Agricultural Unions. It was an
excellent summary of the
global state of agriculture and it was good to see
a farmer from Africa in
such an influential position. Zimbabwe's displaced
farmers are making a huge
impact on agriculture throughout the continent and
are a real testimony to
what we have lost in the way of human capital.
I hear rumbles that JZ may
visit Zimbabwe for talks with Mugabe shortly. The
Vice President of SA was
here for the funeral of our Vice President and no
doubt talks took place on
the sidelines - funerals are great events for this
sort of activity.
Certainly we will have to wait for a couple of weeks to
ascertain what is
going to happen on this front.
If (as usual) we are let down by the
region, we will have to fight our way
through some very tough terrain. There
is no doubt in my mind where the
people are and if we can mobilise the
resources required, we could stun Zanu
(PF) yet again with a significant
electoral victory in the bi elections. I
was listening yesterday to some
music especially written for the MDC and one
song in particular asked "if
you vote for Zanu, where are you going?" That
just about sums things
up.
This is not the time to relax or to abandon the prayer mat - we need
to work
and pray. At its heart this is a spiritual battle and both
activities are
vital to our eventual victory.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
10
August 2009
By Martin
The fallacy
peddled by Zanu(PF) propagandists that the inclusive government
is working
smoothly was debunked when Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai held
talks with
President Zuma in South Africa a week ago. (Pictured: Jacob Zuma
and Morgan
Tsvangirai)
The Mugabe propaganda machine is anxious to portray
the impression that all
is well in a bid to divert attention from what the
still intact and
unrepentant regime is doing to throw spanners in the works
to impede
progress towards a genuinely democratic dispensation.
The
South African weekly, the Sunday Times, reported in its August 2 issue
that
the talks between Tsvangirai and Zuma centred on "widening cracks"
within
the inclusive government. The paper said tensions between the MDC and
Zanu(PF) had reached breaking point over the control of the security forces
and disagreements over the appointments of Attorney-General Johannes Tomana
and Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono on which President Mugabe has refused
to budge.
Crucially, the Zuma-Tsvangirai meeting took place ahead of
the SADC summit
to be held next month. After seeing their country descend
into anarchy and
violence under the watch of former South African president
Thabo Mbeki in
his capacity as the regional and continental trouble-shooter,
all
right-thinking Zimbabweans hope Zuma , the current SADC chair, is a
different kettle of fish.
Encouragingly, after his talks with the
Zimbabwean premier, Zuma told the
South African Broadcasting Corporation
(SABC) that after taking note of the
concerns raised by Tsvangirai, he would
sensitise his peers within the
regional bloc and the African Union (AU)
about the realities in Zimbabwe.
Zuma's response is a far cry from
Mbeki's cloak-and-dagger approach under
"quiet diplomacy", during which he
was accused of colluding with the Mugabe
regime. Throughout his tenure as
president and as the mediator in Zimbabwe,
Mbeki placed more importance on
appeasing and keeping Mugabe happy than on
addressing the humanitarian
crisis which pitted Zimbabweans against the full
might of the state.
In
response last week to a question in parliament posed by a Democratic
Alliance (DA) legislator, Zuma alluded to South Africa's readiness to
intervene in Zimbabwe if the "provisions of democracy are
compromised".
We respectfully submit that this stage has already been
reached - as Zanu
(PF) has continued to poison the atmosphere in which
democratic values are
supposed to take root under the inclusive government.
SADC must realise that
it is dealing with a party that not only believes in
Mugabe's divine right
to remain in power perpetually, but is prepared to go
for broke to prevent
any other group from gaining control.
The Mugabe
regime, which for more than a decade thwarted the MDC at every
turn through
electoral fraud, violence, arbitrary arrest and harassment of
opposition
politicians and activists, continues to do so under the inclusive
government. The most serious threat to the establishment of genuine
democratic and good governance in Zimbabwe is the forcible imposition of
Zanu(PF) as the only legitimate party with the right to rule this
nation.
This is the crux of the matter. The philosophy of clinging to power
at any
cost, also known as the "African disease", influences the party's
every
move. The sooner SADC recognises this and finds ways to confront it,
the
better.