Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
FINANCE
minister Herbert Murerwa on Monday launched a
thinly-veiled attack on
Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono when he told
parliament he had not been
consulted on the new currency initiative which
has become a new political
front in the Zanu PF power struggle.
Murerwa, who has crossed
paths with Gono before over policy
issues, told the parliamentary portfolio
committee on Budget and Finance
that he was not consulted by the RBZ
governor before the introduction of the
new bearer
cheques.
He said although three zeros had been knocked off
the old bearer
cheques, there was no guarantee they would not be back on the
new bearer
cheques by December due to low production and
hyperinflation.
Murerwa said besides the currency reforms, a
number of things
such as increasing productivity were imperative to turn
around the economy.
Murerwa's remarks, coming against a
background of fierce clashes
over the printing of money earlier this year,
betray a strain between the
fiscal and monetary policy
authorities.
Murerwa has been trying to stop Gono from
straying into
quasi-fiscal policy matters, although the governor has
ploughed ahead,
saying he has been given the mandate by President Robert
Mugabe to pursue
"development strategies".
During the
committee hearing, Murerwa said he did not know what
Gono meant when he said
during his monetary policy statement last month he
was going to announce
some things that even his bosses were not aware of.
Asked by
committee chairperson and the ruling party's Guruve
North MP, David Butau,
what Gono meant by this, Murerwa said he thought this
meant that he had not
been consulted on the new notes. "I assumed that he
was referring to the
changing of notes. And that is true because he did not
consult me," Murerwa
said.
Murerwa said he was not sure whether the strategy to
remove the
zeros would work. "The problem we have is of under-production. We
have
removed three zeros but that is not a guarantee that come December they
will
not be back," he said.
This was widely interpreted
to mean Murerwa was distancing
himself from the new bearer cheques project,
especially after Mugabe
rejected the minister's attempt to introduce a $250
000 bearer cheque in
June while Gono was away in Russia.
The new family of bearer cheques was hurriedly introduced by
Gono to replace
old ones within 21 days.
The changeover has caused turmoil
among retailers and the public
due to a shortage of smaller denominations.
Most retailers have also taken
advantage of the transition to raise the
prices of basic commodities.
When Gono went to Russia on May
31, Murerwa, together with the
central bank's acting RBZ governor at the
time, Edward Mashiringwani,
approached Mugabe seeking permission to
introduce a $250 000 bearer cheque,
but they were turned down. Mugabe
confirmed on Heroes Day he had turned down
suggestions to introduce a $250
000 bearer cheque.
Zanu PF's Zhombe MP Daniel McKenzie Ncube
also asked Murerwa on
Monday whether in pursuing quasi-fiscal policies Gono
was not acting outside
his mandate. "He was acting in good faith, but it's a
thin line," Murerwa
said without elaborating.
Murerwa
said government had taken measures to address the RBZ's
dishing out of funds
without going through treasury and at the moment that
had been
reduced.
Asked by MDC MP Abdenico Bhebhe why police had
"waylaid people
who wanted to deposit their money" by confiscating it,
Murerwa said that
question could best be answered by Gono but said he
supported the need to
contain the illegal movement of
money.
Murerwa said in carrying out searches for cash police
had caused
"some inconveniencies that were not intended".
Chief Bidi Ndiweni of Matabeleland South told Murerwa that
although August
21 was the deadline for the phasing out of the old bearer
cheques, "there is
a hell lot of money which is still out there".
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
FORMER Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa
turned down a
mediation role to resolve the so-called bilateral dispute
between Britain
and Zimbabwe, contrary to President Robert Mugabe's claims
that he had
agreed to perform the task, it has now
emerged.
Senior diplomats said yesterday this could well mean
Mugabe and
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan misled the world on
the Mkapa
issue, although Annan reportedly relied on Mugabe's
briefing.
However, sources said Mkapa stands ready to bring a
retirement
package to Mugabe now if the international community comes up
with a serious
offer.
Sources said although Mkapa was
approached, he declined the
role. He cited two reasons.
"First, he is too busy with many things, including the
restructuring of his
political party in Tanzania and various other
international commitments," a
senior diplomat said.
"Second, he would not be considered a
neutral facilitator,
especially by the British."
Diplomatic sources said Mkapa told Sadc colleagues that he had
long believed
that the international community, and the British in
particular, had not
played fair with Mugabe because "they talk about
democracy and human rights
in Zimbabwe, but this is just a smokescreen for a
policy of regime
change".
"Mkapa thinks all the international community has
offered Mugabe
so far are sanctions and isolation," a diplomat close to the
talks said. "He
just wants constructive engagement based on a realistic
approach that will
be acceptable to Mugabe, Zimbabweans and the
international community. He
thinks a balance can be achieved."
Zim Independent
THE Zimbabwe Defence Forces is splashing millions of
United
States dollars on 12 fighter jets, 220 luxury vehicles and spare
parts even
though it has been inactive in the first half of the
year.
The latest acquisitions, which include already
delivered six K-8
fighter jets, come against a backdrop of the army battling
to meet its
Chinese contractual obligations. The army also needs nearly $1,2
billion (in
new currency) to fund other operations.
Appearing before the parliamentary committee on Defence and Home
Affairs,
Defence permanent secretary Trust Maphosa, accompanied by Zimbabwe
Defence
Forces commander General Constantine Chiwenga and Airforce chief,
Air
Marshal Perence Shiri, said the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had given the
ministry US$8,6 million to buy jets and cars.
According
to manufacturers of the K-8 fighter - developed by
China and Pakistan - a
new K-8 jet costs US$20 million. A list presented by
Maphosa indicates that
the army intends to purchase 220 vehicles that
include 10 Prados, 65 Mazda
Familia sedans, three Mercedes Benz E200 and two
E 280 saloons, five rigid
buses, and 105 Mazda B1800 pick-up vehicles.
"We have managed
to buy 127 staff cars in the Mazda range with
57 of them having been
delivered. We managed to pay some of the foreign
currency to Willowvale
Mazda Motor Industries," Maphosa said.
Figures supplied by
car dealers put the cost of the vehicles at
above US$3 million. They put the
cost of a single Toyota VX Prado at US$56
000, a Mazda B25 000 twin-cab at
US$17 456, a B25 single cab at US$10 700,
and a Mazda Familia sedan at US$12
000. The RBZ allocated about US$1, 3
million for spare
parts.
Maphosa said the RBZ had released US$4,7 million for
aircraft,
US$2 668 264 for spare parts and US$1,3 million for
vehicles.
"We are grateful to the RBZ governor who provided
US$2 668 264
for the procurement of aircraft spares. Regular maintenance of
weapons
systems is being undertaken," Maphosa said.
Doling out money for these purchases belies the commonplace
shortage of fuel
for commerce and industry due to a foreign currency crunch.
"From January to May nothing was happening. The army was not
active. We had
money for salaries and rations only," Maphosa said. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
NATIONAL Security minister Didymus Mutasa and former army
commander Vitalis
Zvinavashe on Wednesday clashed over compensation for
white farmers
dispossessed during the fast-track land reform programme.
Mutasa, now responsible for land reform, was appearing before
the
parliamentary portfolio committee on Lands and Agriculture of which
Zvinavashe, a Zanu PF Gutu senator, is a member.
Zvinavashe said A2 farmers and not taxpayers should compensate
white farmers
for improvements and movable assets on the farms. Mutasa
rejected the
suggestion, saying the country's laws spelt out that government
should pay
the compensation. He said farmers should concentrate on farming
activities
only.
"The politicians are refusing to pay," he said. "That
land was
simply taken from us through conquest. It belongs to all of us. The
farmers
should concentrate only on farming activities."
Mutasa's response apparently angered Zvinavashe who said A2
farmers should
pay because when they applied for land they indicated that
they had the
financial resources.
"Let's be honest with one another.
Someone was saying I have the
capacity and now we say let government pay for
what he benefited from. It is
not fair," Zvinavashe said.
"There is no need to burden the government, which is the
taxpayer."
After some further altercation, Zvinavashe
told Mutasa: "There
is no answer today. Go and look into
it."
Government three months ago started to compensate
dispossessed
farmers using taxpayers' monies. The farmers have however said
the amounts
being offered by government are insignificant compared to the
losses
suffered.
The issue of compensation also came
under the spotlight on
Monday during a Budget and Finance Portfolio
Committee meeting where Finance
minister Herbert Murerwa
appeared.
The ruling party's Chivi South legislator Charles
Majange told
Murerwa that he felt guilty about taxpayers being made to pay
for
improvements on his farm.
Said Majange: "With regards
to the compensation of the white
farmer the ordinary taxpayer is paying for
my farm. I feel guilty about it.
Do you minister?"
Murerwa said this was going to be rationalised through leases.
He added that
government had taken a position that the issue of payment was
not for the
individual but for the government.
An official from the
Commercial Farmers Union Kudakwashe Ndoro
told the same hearing that failure
by government to pay compensation would
affect investment.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
FIFTY-FIVE law officers with the Attorney-General's office have
sued Justice
minister Patrick Chinamasa seeking the reinstatement of their
transport
allowances which were abruptly terminated last month.
In an
urgent chamber application filed through their lawyers,
Mtetwa &
Nyambirai, the law officers also cited as respondents Justice
ministry
permanent secretary, David Mangota, Labour minister Nicholas Goche,
Public
Service Commission chairperson Mariyawanda Nzuwa, Finance minister
Herbert
Murerwa and manager of the Salary Service Bureau.
The AG
staffers said the allowances were removed from their
salaries without notice
in July and were not included in their August
salaries.
They added that a directive to freeze transport allowances
issued by Nzuwa's
secretary had no legal basis and was based on a false
premise.
The allowances were terminated on the basis that
there was a bus
to ferry the law officers to work and that chief law
officers had been
issued with cars. The applicants dispute
this.
"The correct facts are as follows," they say, "No chief
law
officers have been allocated motor vehicles as claimed by second
respondent
(Mangota)."
"There is no 100-seater bus for
the exclusive use of employees
in the Attorney-General's department," said
one of the officers, Mary
Maunga, in her affidavit.
She
added that there was a 60-seater bus which services
south-western suburbs
only leaving law officers in the eastern and northern
suburbs with no
transport.
"The 60-seater bus is used by all Ministry of
Justice employees
who are on that route, including magistrates and it is
difficult to
understand why only the applicants are being penalised. The bus
is not, in
any event, available on a daily basis," she said.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro/ Bridget
Sibanda
IN a move that exposes shortcomings in Operation
Garikai,
government has accepted a United Nations offer to provide temporary
plastic
shelter and aid to over 300 000 people displaced under the
controversial
Operation Murambatsvina.
Last year
government turned down a US$30 million UN appeal to
provide temporary
shelter to victims worst affected by the slum clearance
blitz. The UN was
forced to shelve the programme after government raised
objections that it
"would not accept its people living in tents".
Government
also rejected the appeal on the basis that the number
of people affected by
its controversial demolition campaign had been
inflated while the
reconstruction phase under Operation Garikai had been
downplayed.
A year down the line, with Operation Garikai
failing to make an
impact on the accommodation of Murambatsvina victims,
government has been
forced to swallow its pride and accept temporary
shelter.
A tour of the holding camps at Hopley and Hatcliffe
in the past
week revealed that temporary shelters had mushroomed where
permanent
government structures should have been.
These
consist of a 12 square-metre room of tarpaulin plastic at
the sides and
metal sheeting at the top anchored on treated gumpoles, 1,5
metres high. The
material is tear-resistant, non-flammable and sky-blue in
colour. Unicef is
providing septic tanks as toilets to the residents.
Justin
MacDermott, a senior programme officer with the UN's
International
Organisation for Migration, said humanitarian organisations
started building
temporary shelters at Hopley Farm and Hatcliffe in March.
The projects would
cost close to US$40 million, he said.
"As a humanitarian
organisation we source funds to assist
wherever people have suffered pain,
poverty, degradation or lost hope by
providing assistance, guidance, comfort
and moral support," MacDermott told
the Zimbabwe Independent in an interview
on Tuesday.
"We do not have to ask for permission from
government to assist
its people who are living in shacks after being
affected by Operation
Murambatsvina because Zimbabwe is a UN member
state."
An impasse developed between government and the UN,
with Harare
insisting that the number of people affected by Operation
Murambatsvina had
been inflated to discredit government.
"We did not sign an agreement with government for us to build
these
temporary shelters because we are providing assistance to those who
are in
need. Besides it's only a temporary measure to help people who are
suffering," MacDermott said.
"About 1 300 families have
already benefited at Hopley and
Hatcliffe camps."
MacDermott said his organisation expected more funding from
donors to cover
about 500 units since many families were still living in
shacks and the
rainy season was fast approaching.
"This is a
beneficiary-driven project under which we provide the
material, while the
beneficiaries build their shelters with the assistance
of our builders," he
said.
In the flash appeal, the UN had estimated that about
700 000
people, roughly 18% of the country's population, was affected by the
evictions and the crackdown on informal businesses in May last
year.
Government claimed that only around 200 000 people were
affected. Action Aid, one of the non-governmental organisations working in
the country, estimated the displaced people to be not less than 1,5
million.
Humanitarian organisations assisting the victims
said although
it was difficult to quantify the damage in monetary terms,
major losses were
incurred across virtually all sectors of the
economy.
Zim Independent
DANDE Capital Holdings, a financial advisory services
company,
has distanced itself from Vice-President Joice Mujuru after its
directors'
controversial trip with a government delegation to China in
June.
This comes after claims that Mujuru - whose daughter
works for
the firm - might have an interest in the diversified company which
signed
several business deals during her official visit to
Beijing.
Sources said Mujuru's visit to China had become part
of the
ruling Zanu PF's intensifying power struggle after a rival camp in
the party
led by bigwig Emmerson Mnangagwa compiled a dossier in a bid to
expose what
it believed was an abuse of office by her to support businesses
she had an
interest in.
The Mujuru camp, led by retired
army commander General Solomon
Mujuru, husband of the vice-president, was
said to be banking on a report on
Zanu PF companies compiled by Kudenga
& Co chartered accountants to fix
Mnangagwa's faction for alleged
corruption.
However, Dande CEO Evison Musanjeya, said this
week Mujuru was
not involved in the company either as a shareholder or in
any other
capacity. Listed as Dande shareholders are David Butau, Zanu PF MP
for
Guruve North, Musanjeya, Wilfred Hlanguyo and Decent
Chitsungo.
Musanjeya said Mujuru's only association with
Dande was through
her proximity of interests as an MP for the area where the
company derived
its name and operates.
He said no one
among the shareholders was related to Mujuru
although Butau shared the same
totem with her.
Musanjeya said Mujuru's daughter was employed
by the company,
not because the vice-president had an interest in it, but as
an
acknowledgement of Mujuru's support for their business
efforts.
"She (Mujuru) has no interest at all in the
company," Musanjeya
said. "But she has acknowledged and appreciated what we
have been doing on
the ground in terms of our businesses. We have only been
working with her as
a senior politician from the area on chicken projects to
help the people."
Dande, which has seven subsidiaries, runs
Tsakare Chickens
involved in poultry production and marketing. It supplies
the local market
but has a long-term plan to supply the export market,
especially South
Africa, when its production reaches 1 200 tonnes of dressed
chickens per
quarter.
Dande also owns Ele Resources,
which focuses on mining,
Cynthesis Agriculture, Cynthesis Cotton, Timbsbury
Timbers, Heldnet
Enterprises, and Telequip.
Musanjeya
said Dande directors went to China with Mujuru on
their own means and had in
any case been there before.
He said they joined the
government delegation to take advantage
of possible business opportunities
that might have arisen during the trip.
During the China
visit, Dande signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with China National
Construction and Agricultural Machinery
Import and Export Co and agreed to
establish a chrome mine in the Dande
area, while Ele Resources signed a deal
to launch coal mining and thermal
power projects in Dande. - Staff
writer.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
THE Media Alliance
of Zimbabwe (MAZ), a group of media
organisations, together with the
Zimbabwe National Editors Forum (Zinef)
have said the Interception of
Communications Bill 2006 is intrusive and has
no place in a democratic
society.
In a submission to the Parliamentary Legal
Committee, the MAZ
and Zinef said the Bill impinges on individual freedoms
and liberties and is
therefore unconstitutional.
"The
Bill seeks to discard the fundamental rights and freedoms
or civil liberties
of ordinary citizens, including the right to free
communication," the media
groups' submission says.
The proposed legislation is seen as
part of a raft of existing
measures that have severely undermined freedom of
expression and information
in Zimbabwe such as Posa and
Aippa.
MAZ comprises the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, the
Media
Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, and the Media Institute of Southern
Africa
(Misa-Zimbabwe), while Zinef groups editors in the independent
media.
In their submission, the media bodies contest the
constitutionality of sections of the Bill saying they replicate provisions
of the Postal and Telecommunications Act that were struck down as
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2003.
"It
follows that this Bill is unconstitutional in as far as it
violates Section
20 of the Constitution (which safeguards) universally
accepted principles of
freedom of expression, freedom of information and
independence of the media
from undue state interference," the MAZ/Zinef
document submitted, to PLC
chair Professor Welshman Ncube this week, says.
The media
groups said the "measures proposed in the legislation
are arbitrary, unfair
and disproportionate to the objective of containing
serious crime". The Bill
claims to be part of measures to combat crime.
"There clearly
is no fresh mischief to be combated in Zimbabwe.
Interference with the
communications of its citizens is, therefore, patently
unnecessary and
unreasonable," they said.
The Bill makes no provision for
judicial supervision and
provides for judicial intervention after the right
has been violated and a
loss has occurred, the submission says. Provisions
allowing the minister to
grant authorisation to intercept information is
tantamount to usurpation of
judicial authority by the executive in violation
of the concept of
separation of powers and the checks and balances which
form part of that
concept, it says.
To compound the
issue, there is no provision for review by any
other democratically
established arm of the state. The traditional
safeguards against the
negative effects of a search and the traditional
protection of privacy have
not been incorporated into the legislation.
The submission
notes that the Bill reincarnates provisions in
the Postal and
Telecommunications Act struck down by the Supreme Court by
merely shifting
responsibility from the President to the Chief of Defence
Intelligence or
his or her nominee; the Director-General of the President's
department
responsible for national security or his or her nominee; the
Commissioner of
the Zimbabwe Republic Police or his or her nominee; and the
Commissioner-General of the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority or his or her
nominee.
The submission says the situation is worsened by
the fact that
there is already in place legislation such as the Public Order
and Security
Act, Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and
others that
severely restrict democratic space.
"Journalists and other human rights defenders have been
arrested, newspapers
have been closed and private property has been acquired
in circumstances
which violate human rights," the submission says.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
THE
Attorney-General (AG)'s office is reeling from a massive
exodus of
experienced prosecutors with the latest to leave being the
Director of
Public Prosecutions, Loice Matanda-Moyo, and four others.
The
Zimbabwe Independent was told that Matanda-Moyo would soon
be appointed
President of the Labour Court.
Sources at the AG's office
said the loss of Matanda-Moyo was
"very sad" as she had rendered invaluable
service in representing government
in civil matters and as head of public
prosecutions.
Her departure follows the appointment of four
senior law
officers as magistrates in the past two
months.
The four are former Chief Law Officers Steven Musona
and Morgan
Nemadire and Law Officers Never Katiyo and Tapuwa
Godzi.
Other prosecutors that are expected to leave the AG's
office are
Chief Law Officer Joseph Jagada, Andrew Kumire, Jonathan
Murombedzi and Mary
Maunga.
Efforts to get comment from
the AG were fruitless as his
secretary repeatedly said he was in a
meeting.
Sources said the departure of experienced staff was
having a
negative effect on the prosecution of high-profile cases where the
backlog
was already huge. Officers who have left the AG's office said
relations
between prosecutors and the AG, Sobusa Gula-Ndebele, had
deteriorated due to
"administrative differences".
"At
this rate, we are likely to see more law officers leaving
the AG's office,"
said one prosecutor.
Meanwhile, National Security minister
Didymus Mutasa has given a
week's notice to sue Rusape magistrate Loice
Mukunyadzi for $100 million for
utterances she made in court concerning his
alleged intimidation of
magistrates.
"Our client advises
that at no time did he ever threaten you or
any other magistrate," said
Mutasa through his lawyers, Magoge & Associates.
Mutasa
has also threatened to sue Manicaland area prosecutor
Levison Chikafu and
the Independent - the former for saying the minister's
wings needed to be
clipped and the latter for reporting the utterances which
were made in
court.
Zim Independent
Lesley Moyo
MATABELELAND South
is facing a critical shortage of doctors that
has forced Gwanda provincial
hospital, servicing a region of four million
people, to operate without a
single doctor.
The medical superintendent for Gwanda
hospital, Dr Gordon Bango,
is having to double up as doctor and
administrator due to a critical staff
shortage.
Bango
performs the duties of 12 doctors who are supposed to
service the whole
province.
Investigations by the Zimbabwe Independent revealed
that the
province needs 12 doctors and nine specialists, but was relying on
Bango.
Critically ill patients needing specialist attention
are
referred to major hospitals in Bulawayo, about 200km from the
Matabeleland
South capital.
Gwanda provincial hospital is
supposed to have a complement of
nine specialist doctors.
The critical manpower shortage has created long queues at the
hospitals as
patients wait to be attended to. Many are turned away as Bango
cannot cope
with the huge number of people seeking treatment.
Health and
Child Welfare deputy minister, Dr Edwin Muguti
confirmed the shortage of
doctors at the hospital when contacted for comment
last
week.
He said the situation at Gwanda provincial hospital
mirrored a
nationwide crisis faced by government health
institutions.
"The shortage of doctors is being felt
countrywide and efforts
are under way to bring in doctors. We recently
signed an agreement with
Korea and they will be providing us with doctors,"
Muguti said.
"We have existing relations with Cuba and the
Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC) who supply us with
doctors."
An expatriate doctor from the DRC who used to
assist Bango left
last month after the expiry of his contract with the
government.
Muguti said his ministry had put in place
measures to alleviate
the massive brain-drain that is affecting service
delivery in the country.
"The ministry has improved
conditions of service for doctors in
the country by giving them housing,
transport and rural allowances," he
said. "We will continue training more
doctors."
The collapsing health delivery sector in Zimbabwe
is
characterised by shortages of almost all essential medicines and flight
of
trained medical staff among other problems.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
GOVERNMENT'S
efforts to boost agricultural production through
Operation Maguta are
failing as the area put under winter wheat over the
past five seasons
continues to shrink.
This has caused serious wheat
shortfalls.
In the current cropping season, only an estimated
50 000
hectares, instead of more than 85 000 hectares that are normally put
under
irrigated winter wheat, were planted due to continued uncertainty in
the
agricultural sector, limited seeds and shortage of
fertilisers.
Information to hand shows that the few remaining
white
commercial farmers have planted around 10 000 hectares,
newly-resettled
farmers 20 000 hectares and the remainder by the army under
Operation
Maguta.
Commercial Farmers Union crops section
spokesman, George
Hutchison, said his members planted between 10 000 and 15
000 hectares, and
an average yield of four tonnes from each hectare were
expected.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) past
president, Thomas
Nherera, said an estimated 60 000 hectares were put under
winter crop this
year and the harvest would be more than 200 000
tonnes.
"Too low temperatures have damaged a crop which was
at
tasselling stage in the Midlands area," Nherera said. "However, the low
temperatures were good for the late planted crop."
Zimbabwe requires 400 000 tonnes of wheat annually plus 80 000
tonnes of
hard wheat to mix with the local product. Grisling wheat has
always been
imported.
Agricultural experts said Zimbabwe would harvest
about 135 000
tonnes of wheat, up from last year's 120 000 tonnes. This was
however still
short as it would only be enough to cover close to 34% of the
country's
national requirement.
They said lack of
irrigation facilities following vandalism and
theft of the equipment over
the past five years of the chaotic land reform
programme had drastically
reduced the area that could be irrigated.
Winter wheat is an
all-out irrigation crop, so under the
prevailing conditions where there is a
critical shortage of equipment,
yields would be reduced, the experts
said.
Under optimum conditions with use of state-of-the-art
irrigation
facilities, six tonnes of wheat can be produced from a
hectare.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
CFX
Financial Services this week pulled a shocker in the banking
sector after it
appointed the Peoples Own Savings Bank (POSB) as the
underwriter to its
rights issue opening early next month.
This comes soon after
businessdigest revealed last week that the
financial institution had revised
upwards the amount it intended to raise
through the rights issue, from $1
billion to $1,8 billion.
The mega-rights issue is likely to
be too expensive for many of
the banking institution's fringe shareholders,
including government.
The move effectively means that the
acquisitive Zimre Holdings,
which had been tipped to underwrite the issue
under an arrangement which
would have given it a foothold in CFX, has fallen
by the wayside.
POSB, itself a cash-rich institution, now
stands a chance to
pick up shares in the bank that would not have been taken
up
by respective shareholders during the rights
issue.
This would be the first time that the 102-year old
POSB, which
is wholly government-owned, has underwritten any rights issue in
the history
of the local bourse.
CFX Bank managing Simon
Monckton yesterday said they had settled
for POSB to fully underwrite the
rights issue after talking to several
potential
underwriters.
"We talked to a lot of people (companies) but
eventually we
settled for POSB," Monckton said.
POSB is
expected to snap up shares not taken up by shareholders
during the rights
issue. Government owns 15,9% in CFX while 39% of the
shareholding in CFX is
in the hands of depositors.
Businessdigest estimates that the
$1,8 billion rights issue
could be undersubscribed by at least
20%.
The cash-strapped government, which holds its stake in
CFX
through Allied Financial Services, seems unlikely to follow its
rights.
Government is battling to raise cash to recapitalise
other
financial institutions in which it has significant
stakes.
However, government is expected to maintain an
overbearing
influence on the group through its ownership of the
POSB.
POSB, formerly the Post Office Savings Bank, was
established in
December 1904 and commenced its operations through the Post
Office
infrastructure network.
Since its creation, the
bank operated as a statutory fund with
no legal entity
status.
In 1965 the Post Office Savings Bank Act (Chapter
249) was
promulgated providing for the administration of the savings bank by
the Post
and Telecommunications Corporation on an agency
basis.
This position remained until April 1 2001, when a new
Act, the
People's Own Savings Bank of Zimbabwe Act (Chapter 24:22), was
promulgated,
establishing the bank as a corporate body thereby effectively
de-linking it
from the Post and Telecommunications Corporation which has
been unbundled
into three commercial operations.
Indications are that the majority of CFX depositors, whose
ownership of CFX
shares was made through a conversion of their deposits into
shares earlier
this year, were also unlikely to follow their rights.
This
means POSB will mop up all CFX shares renounced by
shareholders during the
rights issue, giving it a foothold in the banking
institution.
Zim Independent
By Admire Mavolwane
IT used
to be only death and taxes that were inevitable. Now, of
course, there is
inflation and currency change.
The latest cosmetic surgery
that the economy has gone through is
a liposuction to remove three zeros
from the Zimbabwean currency. This was
achieved through the introduction of
a new "family", or is it "brood", of
bearer cheques.
Apart from the new currency, everything else remains the same
and now that
the 21 days of excitement are over it is back to normal
business. It is
still confusing as one has to constantly qualify whether one
is speaking in
"old", or "new" or "re-stated currency" - terms which, in our
view, are more
appropriate than the official term, "re-valued".
Welcome as
it is, the bad news is that currency reforms are
unfortunately always
symptomatic of the entrenchment of hyperinflationary
conditions.
The economic history of Germany and the
former Yugoslavia, for
example, bears witness to this
assertion.
According to the Reserve Bank's Weekly Economic
Highlights - the
latest one available on the website being as at the of June
30 - the total
amount of currency in circulation amounted to $21,7 trillion,
compared with
$12,8 trillion in January this year.
During
the first four months of the year currency in circulation
had been growing
by approximately $3 trillion a month. Extrapolating that
for the period to
June, we would have expected the currency in circulation
to be around $27
trillion.
However, the numbers $44 trillion or $41 trillion,
have come up
a number of times as being the total amount of currency in
circulation as at
the end of June.
How the total value of
the bearer cheques in circulation could
have doubled in two months remains
something of a mystery that is yet to be
explained.
One
conjecture, though, is that during that period the exchange
rate started to
bolt on the much maligned parallel market, such that the
number of "bearers"
needed to consummate these "foreign" transactions
doubled.
Whether the above explanation is the true value
of "X" in the
equation or not will only be answered in the fullness of time.
Otherwise, it
is for now an assumption that we just have to be satisfied -
or
unsatisfied - with according to our preferences.
The
June reporting season is now in full swing amid the
confusion of whether the
results should be in "new" or "old" currency.
Perhaps the Zimbabwe Stock
Exchange should have come up with a firm position
as to which currency to
use for the publication of results.
In our view all
financials as at June 30 2006 should be in the
"old" currency and the change
over to the 'new' currency should be treated
as a post balance sheet event
as it were.
TA Holdings was quick to embrace the change and
produced its
results for the six months to June 2006 in the new currency.
The numbers
more than underlined the fact that the investment holding
company is now
basically an investment income play.
Revenue inflows, consisting of premiums from the short term
insurance
interests and income from the hotels, grew by 1 025% to $2,5
billion, with
$1,2 billion being the contribution of the foreign insurance
interests.
At trading levels, the insurance concerns
continue to
disappoint, chalking up underwriting losses of $105 million
locally and $24
million in the foreign operations. As at year end the
foreign insurance
business, mainly Botswana Insurance Company Limited,
realised underwriting
profits while Zimnat Lion has continued its
perennially disappointing
performance in this respect.
After the merger with AIG Zimbabwe, an entity renowned for its
profitability
at this level, it had been hoped that the latter's skills
would rub off on
Zimnat Lion, but this was not to be. The hotels continue to
do well,
possibly under even more difficult conditions, maintaining
occupancy levels
at 40% and achieving a trading profit of $73 million.
Investment income, the mainstay of the group, increased by 1
919% to $1,3
billion thus ensuring that after inflows from associates of
$188 million and
finance income of $9 million a respectable twenty two fold
increase in
profits before tax ($1,4 million) was achieved.
Attributable
earnings of $945 million were realised after taking
out the provisions for
tax and outside shareholders' interests. This equates
to a return of 2 788%
over the comparative period.
Turnall's results (in old
currency) for the same period show
that the forecast real economic growth
will not be on the back of the
manufacturing sector. Volume sales declined
by 46% when compared with the
prior period of 2005 and capacity utilisation
stood at 55%.
Against this background turnover growth at 703%
to $1,3 trillion
was understandably sluggish. Export volumes, however, grew
by 13%, mainly to
South Africa and Botswana and their contribution to sales
increased to 10%,
up from 4% in the previous period.
An
improvement in operating margins from 39% to 54% saw the
corresponding
profits increasing by 1 149% to $737 billion. Cash flows
remained positive
with inflows from operations amounting to $738 billion.
This is
notwithstanding the tightening of credit terms by suppliers.
As a result of the investment of surplus cash, net interest
income worth $66
billion was achieved which went a long way to boosting the
bottom line. In
the final analysis attributable earnings of $578 billion
were realised, up 1
212% on the prior period.
We expect all the manufacturers
still to release their results
to be singing from the same hymn book in
terms of volumes and capacity
utilisation. At the end of it all, one is
forced to ask where the economic
growth of between 0,5% and 2% officially
expected this year will finally
emanate from.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
TALKS between government and
representatives of Indian firm
Global Steel Holdings failed to make a
breakthrough last week, with sources
indicating that the Indian firm had
decided to terminate a deal with the
Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company
(Zisco).
Official media reports suggested this week that the
deal between
Zisco and Global steel was still alive, dismissing
businessdigest's report
last week that the deal had
collapsed.
However, sources indicated that Lalit Kumar
Sehgal, who had been
seconded by Global Steel to run Zisco as its CEO, left
the country last
Friday after government failed to table an acceptable
proposal for the
Indian firm to convince it to remain at Zisco under a
US$400 million deal to
revive the ailing steel maker.
Sources this week said Sehgal and other officials from Global
Steel left the
country on Friday for New Delhi, India, in frustration after
their plans to
revive the loss-making parastatal had been thwarted by
government
bureaucracy and interference.
Some government officials had
reportedly solicited for a share
of the US$400 million Global Steel wanted
to inject into Zisco.
Permanent secretary for Industry and
International Trade,
Retired Colonel Christian Katsande, could however not
be reached for
comment.
Sehgal was seconded by his
company to become CEO of Zisco in
April under a management contract that
went with the US$400 million cash
injection.
He was
replaced by Alois Gowo two weeks ago.
Prior to his
appointment Gowo was Zisco's projects and
development
manager.
Businessdigest understands that Sehgal and other
senior
officials from Global Steel informed the ministry of their desire to
terminate the contract during the first week of August.
The Zisco board met on Thursday last week to discuss the
collapsed deal with
Global Steel and the parastatal's turnaround strategy.
It was
not immediately clear what the board had resolved to do
following the
collapse of the deal. Zisco representatives are expected to
meet government
officials to determine the course of action required to
salvage the company
from a deepening crisis.
Global Steel had entered into a deal
with the Zimbabwe
government to take over management of Zisco for 20
years.
The company was in turn expected to inject US$400
million into
Zisco.
Global Steel manages more than 14
metric tonnes of steel-making
capacities in five countries in Europe, Africa
and the Asia-Pacific.
The Indian company was roped in by
government after previous
negotiations between Zisco and Shougang
International Trade and Engineering
Corporation of China over a possible
US$200 million deal collapsed because
government declined to cede a
controlling share of the company to the
Chinese firm.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
TOBACCO
production is expected to decline because of a drastic
reduction in
hectarage by farmers fleeing high costs associated with growing
the crop,
the Zimbabwe Association of Tobacco Growers (ZATG) president,
Julius
Ngorima, said this week.
Ngorima told businessdigest that
while firm prices had seen the
country's foreign currency earnings from
tobacco surpass last year's
earnings by 21,98% despite a decline in crop
deliveries, a further decline
this year was likely to hurt
receipts.
"Production is likely to decline next year as most
farmers have
reduced their hectarage due to the continuous rise of input
prices," Ngorima
said.
He said farmers who had already
started preparations for next
year's crop had indicated to the association
that they were contemplating
trying other crops as it was no longer viable
to concentrate on tobacco
alone.
Statistics released by
the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board
(TIMB) show that a total of 46,4
million kg of tobacco worth US$93,8 million
had been sold by Friday last
week, compared with 49,4 million kg worth
US$76,9 million sold during the
same period last year.
About 9,3 million kg was sold at the
Tobacco Sales Floor, six
million at Burley Marketers Zimbabwe and 4,9
million at the Zimbabwe Tobacco
Auction Centre.
About
29,2 million kg was sold through the contract system while
farmers were paid
$11,2 billion under the early delivery bonus scheme
TIMB said
the selling season would end on August 30.
"While as an
association we are delighted that foreign currency
earnings increased this
year, we are worried by the decline in production
which is projected to
continue next year," said Ngorima.
Ngorima attributed the
increase in earnings to firming prices
which characterised the auction flow
since July.
The golden leaf fetched an average price of
US$2,01 cents per kg
this year compared to US$1,55 cents last
year.
An estimated crop of 50 million kg is expected to go
under the
hammer this year, compared with 70 million kg sold last
year.
Out of the 46,4 million kg sold so far, 20,8 million kg
were
sold through the auction system while 25,6 million kg were sold through
the
contract system.
"The golden leaf sold through the
auction fetched an average
price of US$1,91 cents per kg, less than US$2,10
cents that prevailed for
sales done through the contract system," TIMB
said.
The wastage rate for auction sales at 12,05% was said
to be much
higher than 3,53% for contract sales.
Tobacco
sales have so far recorded an 8,23% wastage rate for
2006 compared to 8,46%
last year.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
DAIRIBORD Holdings registered a turnover of $7,5
billion in the
half year ended June 2006, down 5% from turnover achieved in
the comparable
period previous year.
Out of the $7,5
billion turnover, $374,4 million came from
exports, whose sales volume
surged 42% during the period under review.
However, operating
profit increased by 9% to $849,4 million
while attributable earnings, after
monetary losses, decreased to a loss of
$18,3 million.
Total sales volumes slumped by 24% compared to the same period
last year.
Volume of raw milk supply went down 13% despite an increase in
producer
prices by more than the inflation rate.
"The group's
financial results were satisfactory under a very
difficult economic and
business environment characterised by shortages of
inputs as well as very
much subdued demand," the group's board said in a
statement accompanying
financial results.
The board said the cost of raw materials,
utilities and spares
increased at a rate far higher than that of
inflation.
"The contribution of the subsidiary Lyons was
significantly
reduced as it was the worst affected by depressed demand," the
board added.
Dairibord is the holding company of Lyons and
NFB Logistics.
Lyons' turnover increased by 928% to $4,9 billion while
profit from
operations increased by 1 445% to $1,1
billion.
"The exacerbating hyperinflationary and monetary
environment
imposed an increased demand on working capital requirements
which resulted
in difficulties being faced with trade
debtors."
Dairibord was incorporated in July 1994 following
the legal
status change under the government's Economic Structural
Adjustment
Programme of the Dairy Marketing Board from a parastatal to a
commercial
company.
It became the first state-owned
company to privatise in July
1997.
Under its strategic
expansion programme, Dairibord acquired 60%
equity in Dairibord Malawi in
January 1998 and acquired Lyons Zimbabwe in
April 2001.
In December 2002, Dairibord acquired 40% shareholding in
Charhons. Lyons
continues to operate as an independent subsidiary of
Dairibord.
Dairibord is a major player on the Sadc and
Comesa markets with
exports making up approximately 8% of the company's
total sales revenue.
Its major export markets include
Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania and
Malawi.
Zim Independent
By Alex Magaisa
RECENT events in the
Middle East have been horrendous. With
global attention currently focused on
the Middle East one would hope that
the major political actors in countries
such as Zimbabwe would take time to
pause and consider their own place in
the hierarchy of priorities of the
so-called "international
community".
Throughout the on-going crisis in Zimbabwe,
political actors,
particularly in the opposition, have often referred to the
"international
community", without actually ever defining the nature and
character of this
community.
That the so-called
international community has failed so far to
take any specific decisive
action in resolving the Zimbabwe question must
point some harsh truths to
the main political actors and possibly force them
to appreciate that,
ultimately, only Zimbabweans have the responsibility and
indeed the capacity
to resolve their differences and get on with business.
There is never a
perfect solution, only one that allows the political,
social and economic
wheels to start moving again with minimum resistance.
What
exactly do they mean when they speak of the "international
community"?
In truth what is often referred to as the
international
community is an amorphous body of nations, often divided and
operating
without a single specific voice at all times. Within the
Zimbabwean
political context, as in most others, the international community
means
different things to different people depending on the platform of each
individual or political actor.
Taking a rather more
simplistic categorisation often used in
Zimbabwe, the world is still seen
through a pair of lens - one lens
identifying the West and the other
focusing on the East.
Going by the alliances and the image
that has been built over
the years, it would appear that with slight
variations between factions, to
the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and
other opposition movements in
civil society the "international community"
consists predominantly of the
West.
On the other hand,
feeling ostracised by the West, Zanu PF has
deliberately constructed its
world-view through the lens of the East.
When the MDC says
the "international community" castigates what
is going on in Zimbabwe, Zanu
PF finds solace in the silent and occasionally
influential support of its
Eastern friends such as China. Archaic as it
might seem, that distinction
between East and West in the post-Cold War
global environment remains
fundamental, at least to the extent that
Zimbabwean expectations of the
international community are concerned.
Zanu PF can always
rely on the likes of China to block attempts
to bring the Zimbabwe issue
within the context of the UN Security Council.
The sad fact
is that Zimbabwean political actors do not seem to
realise that they are
mere pawns in a game of the big boys. If there is one
thing that unites the
divided community of nations, it is that each nation's
attitude, position
and action in relation to any issue are motivated by
self-interest. It is
not necessarily the interest of the people affected by
any specific
situation that determines other nations' behaviour.
The
Chinas of this world have a voracious appetite for resources
as do the West.
It happens that they do not have all the resources.
Sometimes they are found
in other countries. Some benefit from the stability
of those countries
whilst others reap benefits from the chaos.
What is it then
that we Zimbabweans do not see, that makes
almost all of us have so much
faith in the goodwill and support of this
undefined body that we call the
international community?
There are at least two possible
factors that influence
Zimbabweans' attitude to what we call the
"international community": either
we have a very high opinion of ourselves
(superiority complex) or a serious
inferiority complex. Either way we have a
serious problem that causes us, in
all sectors of the political divide, to
be so gullible and expect to be
treated by others in some special
way.
First, the superiority complex: for many years after
Independence Zimbabwe appeared to hold a lofty position at least among the
largely deteriorating nations of Africa. It is the same position that South
Africa holds today with great pride but events in Zimbabwe should be
educative.
Zimbabweans felt special almost to the point
of looking down
upon neighbours that appeared to have got it wrong
politically and
economically such as Zambia and
Mozambique.
Zimbabweans felt and thought they were different,
and worryingly
echoes of which I hear from some sections in South Africa.
They even
wondered how other countries in Africa could let one man rule the
country
for more that two decades. It was almost
unimaginable.
This superiority complex may have remained with
Zimbabweans, so
that when problems began to show, they turned largely to the
international
community to assist in resolving the crisis. Zimbabwe
attracted a large
amount of attention from other countries, especially in
the West feeding
into the belief that Zimbabwe was special and different
from other African
countries whose troubles may have been grave but received
less coverage and
attention.
The media focus on Zimbabwe
post-2000 was almost unprecedented,
more so than during the 1980s when the
wanton and brutal massacre of people
in the provinces of Matabeleland and
the Midlands had warranted such
coverage. Indeed, post-2000 even those
Zimbabweans who had been largely
silent during those massacres became
overnight converts to the cause of
human rights.
The
differential treatment of the two episodes (the massacres of
the 1980s and
the crisis of post-2000) by the so-called international
community tells its
own story in relation to the primacy of interests in
determining its
behaviour and reaction to issues.
In the case of the possible
inferiority complex, there is a
school of thought which states that a person
who habours an inferiority
complex is more likely to rest on his laurels and
expect others to take the
lead. Such a person feels powerless and refuses to
take responsibility for
his own fate. Instead, he leaves it to others whom
he expects to feel sorry
for him.
The inferiority complex
actually gives him comfort because he
doesn't have to take any
responsibility and therefore takes no crucial
decisions. Applying this
theory on a wider scale, one suspects that
Zimbabweans have developed a
collective inferiority complex - that we are
victims, powerless and expect
others to feel sorry for us and therefore to
take decisions and action on
our behalf.
In terms of seeking attention and feeling special
it makes
little difference, if any, whether a person has an inferiority or
superiority complex. Either way, there is a case of feeling special and
important - of refusing to take responsibility and appealing for
attention.
Central to these dynamics of
superiority/inferiority is an
inward-looking approach to the crisis
affecting Zimbabwe which makes it
appear as if what is happening in Zimbabwe
is unique and deserving of
special attention from every other nation that
cares to listen.
There appears to be a gap in knowledge and
awareness that what
Zimbabwe is going through is to many people outside
Zimbabwe nothing out of
the ordinary within the African
context.
There are some harsh truths that Zimbabweans will
have to
acknowledge. Indeed, it seems that to many people across the world,
the
behaviour of the Zimbabwe government is nothing out of the ordinary
considering the history of poor governance, oppression and abuse of power in
Africa.
The mention of Africa conjures images of
fly-infested, naked
children surrounded by poverty and gun-toting youths
used by corrupt
officials. Zimbabwe is simply travelling a well-trodden
path. Not much
attention was paid to the decline in those other countries
and not much was
done to halt it.
In each of those cases
the people probably appealed to the
amorphous international community, with
minimal results in the few cases
where perhaps there was full-blown war and
interests of the "international
community" needed safeguarding. Why then do
Zimbabweans seem to feel that
ours is a special case?
It
is the same with Zimbabweans who are now in the diaspora. The
image of
Zimbabwe that they have and want to preserve is the Zimbabwe they
left years
ago, one that is long gone and distant. Even when they dream of
one day
returning home, they never pause to consider that they are just
another
instalment of Africans who have left the continent for good - a
similar
instalment to those that have been leaving for decades from other
African
countries.
They too haboured lofty dreams of returning home
but they are
now great-grandparents in the diaspora. They too expected
something to be
done for them by someone to enable them to return home one
day.
Likewise the diaspora asks the familiar question: "Why
can't
they do something for us?" - taking themselves out of the equation and
without accepting that it is in fact their own
responsibility.
There is no doubt that there are human rights
concerns in
Zimbabwe. This has been the central rallying point for
international
sympathy and condemnation.
But sadly, even
those working in this field seem oblivious to
the fact that the violation of
human rights alone (without affecting the
interests of whoever is considered
the "international community") is not
sufficient to push them to take any
decisive action on their behalf.
The UN for example
acknowledged the tragedy of Operation
Murambatsvina in 2005, but besides the
occasional noises and condemnation,
nothing of substance has been done to
address the problems. Again awareness
of events elsewhere and how nations
react would help to focus attention on
the immediate and more sustainable
strategies in Zimbabwe.
* Dr Alex Magaisa is a UK-based
lawyer.
Zim Independent
By Pedzisai Ruhanya
OPPOSITION
MP Trudy Stevenson's views on what she calls
political incest among civil
society organisations fail to appreciate the
role of civil society
organisations, opposition political parties and other
pro-democracy forces
in forcing a norm-violating government to abide by the
international regime
of human rights and civilised state behaviour in a
crisis situation such as
Zimbabwe.
In her contribution, "Civil society threatened by
political
incest" (Zimbabwe Independent, August 18), I got the impression
that
Stevenson was not happy with the cordial relations between most civil
society organisations with the main Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai. This seems so because it took Stevenson
five years to realise that opposition forces and civil society organisations
in Zimbabwe have been working together in a bid to foster democratic
compliance in Zimbabwe.
The issue of "incest" had not
arisen up to now because she was
part of the united MDC but the situation
should be changed according to her
because her faction does not have the
support of critical civil society
partners. If this is not double standards
then the honourable MP should
explain the source of her new-found disgust
with this relationship she has
been party to for a long time before the
October 12 2005 fallout of the MDC.
Moreso, Stevenson did not
tell the reading public that she was
as of last year an active member of the
Combined Harare Residents
Association (CHRA) while she was doubling as the
MP for Harare North. At
some point last year CHRA used to hold its meetings
at the offices of
Transparency International Zimbabwe in Harare which
Stevenson attended
without fail. The problem has now arisen because
according to her, the
structures of CHRA have office-bearers from the main
MDC led by Tsvangirai.
It is therefore clear that Stevenson
is not so much worried
about the so-called incest relationship but is
disgusted by what appears to
be a ubiquitous presence of the other faction
at the expense of the one that
she represents.
Instead of
hiding under the cover of political incest, Stevenson
should legitimately
and openly show her displeasure without misleading the
public into
attempting to be an independent critic when its seems clear that
she is not
happy with the failure of her faction to be recognised by some
critical
civil society organisations and leaders.
However, for her
benefit, there is nothing wrong with political
organisations and civil
society groups working together to force a
dictatorship such as the one in
Zimbabwe to stop abusing human rights and to
follow the democratic route in
its governance of national affairs. Zimbabwe
is a member of various
international treaties such as the International
Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and should abide by those norms
governing state behaviour
towards its citizens.
It is a well-established norm in human
rights discourse that
domestic advocacy networks such as Crisis in Zimbabwe
Coalition, the
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), CHRA, the Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human
Rights and opposition political groups, in what is known
as the "boomerang"
pattern of influence, promote and protect human rights
through internal and
international linkages in order to bring pressure on
the norm-violating
regime to abide by its domestic and international
obligations to respect
human rights and other fundamental civil and
political liberties which
constitute the cornerstone of a democratic
society.
In many troubled societies such as Zimbabwe and even
during the
Rhodesian era, such a situation arises as a result of failure by
the human
rights groups to effectively communicate with the authorities and
then
resort to seeking assistance from their international partners to
assist in
pressurising the norm-violating government to change its human
rights
behaviour.
As Stevenson pointed out in her
article, this scenario is not
new in Zimbabwe because, for instance, the
Catholic Commission of Justice
and Peace in Zimbabwe and other organisations
played this role in the 1970s
by mobilising domestic and international human
rights networks to condemn
the genocidal government of Ian Smith against the
people of Zimbabwe in
search of their independence.
What
is important is to work together and address areas of
differences than
concentrating on which faction of the MDC has the support
or not of civil
society. If the majority of civil society organisations
differ with one
faction, it is incumbent upon the parties concerned to look
at the source of
the differences and clarify them than attempting to posture
while the
country is burning as a result of the political and economic
policies of a
bankrupt and corrupt Zanu PF administration.
National groups,
non-governmental organisations and social
movements should link up with
transnational networks and international
non-governmental organisations when
they lobby and convince international
human rights organisations, regional
and African donor institutions and some
powerful African countries such as
South Africa and others to pressure the
Zimbabwean authorities to stop human
rights abuses and to promote good
governance and democratic practices in the
conduct of state affairs.
In order for these networks such as
the NCA, Crisis Coalition,
the NGO Human Rights Forum and the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions to be
able to sustain their moral authority over
human rights abuses in Zimbabwe
and the observation of international norms,
there is need for them to be
impartial or independent. The networks should
be seen as not
self-interested. It is further suggested that the networks
should not be
seen as interested in acquiring political power or as too
linked to those in
political power.
For the record,
neither of the two MDC feuding groups is in
power and there is no reason why
they should not unite with civil society
partners to confront the Harare
regime. In the event that either faction
assumes power, then the views of
Stevenson should hold. There would be a
need to allow those who want to form
the next government do so and those who
remain in civil society do so and
independently make the government
accountable and destroy their linkages
prior to the formation of the said
government.
Human
rights academics have further suggested that the combined
efforts of
advocacy networks and oppositional pro-democracy forces through
their
activities put norm-violating states on the international agenda in
terms of
moral consciousness awareness. They argue that in doing so, they
remind
liberal states especially in the West of the moral identity as the
promoters
of human rights.
This argument seems plausible to persuade
norm-violating
governments to change their behaviour because in the majority
of cases, the
Western liberal governments that believe in the promotion and
protection of
civil and political liberties are providers of bilateral and
multilateral
aid to some of the norm-violating governments such as
Zimbabwe.
For economic survival especially the receipt of
balance of
payment support, some of those countries responsible for
violating human
rights can be restrained from doing so in order to preserve
their economic
relations with both Western governments and aid
agencies.
Civil society and oppositional pro-democracy forces
in Zimbabwe
should not invest resources to fight each other but instead use
methods that
have been used by other transnational networks to promote human
rights
through such tactics as information politics, symbolic politics and
leverage
and accountability politics.
These methods were
successfully used in the Eastern Europe in
countries such as Poland and
Czechoslovakia and in South American countries
like Chile while at home
Smith can testify to the effectiveness of these
tactics. Across the Limpopo
the former apartheid regime will confess how the
United Democratic Front -
working together with their partners in Zimbabwe,
Zambia, Kenya and the
international community - brought about democratic
rule in South
Africa.
* Pedzisai Ruhanya is a Zimbabwean journalist
studying in the
UK.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
PRESIDENT Robert
Mugabe and his delegation's ill-fated trip to
the Southern African
Development Community (Sadc) summit in Lesotho last
week confirmed Zimbabwe
is now considered a trouble spot in the region, in
the same league as
anachronistic states such as Swaziland.
The summit also
showed clearly that Mugabe has lately lost
credibility and influence, not
just in the eyes of his critics, but also
before those of hitherto
supportive Sadc counterparts whom he always touted
as allies against hostile
Western leaders.
Reports from Maseru, Lesotho's capital where
the summit was
held, said Mugabe left in a huff on Friday after a special
session on
Zimbabwe and Swaziland in which the two countries were described
by Sadc
leaders as barriers to regional economic integration, investment and
progress.
Although Foreign minister Simbarashe
Mumbengegwi and state media
journalists afterwards tried to do some
damage-limitation to obscure Mugabe's
disastrous showing in Lesotho, remarks
by his hosts revealed that Zimbabwe
and Swaziland, Africa's last remaining
absolute monarchy, were viewed as
obstacles to economic progress in the
region.
Despite Mumbengegwi's claims that Zimbabwe was not
discussed,
Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili said it was debated
during a
special session on Friday which Mugabe did not see through to its
conclusion.
"The situation in that country is of concern
to Sadc precisely
because Zimbabwe was the second strongest economy in the
community and for
its economy to have declined to (these) levels is of major
concern to us,"
Mosisili told a press conference at the close of the
summit.
"We have been engaged with the leadership of Zimbabwe
on how
best we can recover the economic viability of that country. There has
been
progress."
Prior to that, Lesotho's Finance minister
Timothy Thahane had
said crisis-ridden Zimbabwe and Swaziland, which are
accused of human rights
abuses, would be discussed at the close of the
summit. This was in view of
the fact that problems in Zimbabwe have forced
millions of locals to flee
across borders, mostly to South Africa, Botswana
and also overseas as
economic refugees.
"There will be a
special session at the close of the summit to
discuss what's going on ...
specifically in Zimbabwe and Swaziland," he
said.
Thahane, who is head of the Sadc Council of Ministers, said the
issue of
former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa's mediation in the
Zimbabwe crisis
was not on the agenda, although it might be tabled in the
closed
session.
Sources in Harare had indicated that Mugabe's
delegation would
be seeking Sadc's support for Mkapa to become the official
envoy of the
regional body on the Zimbabwe issue. This did not
happen.
In view of this, the damage-control efforts and
deafening
silence from the Zimbabwean delegation on the outcome of the
summit reveal
the Lesotho mission was botched. Zimbabwe clearly wanted to
avoid being
tabled as an issue at the summit while pushing through the Mkapa
plan but
failed in both cases.
This - as demonstrated by
Mugabe's unceremonious departure -
made the trip to Maseru a disastrous
diplomatic expedition. This was made
worse by preceding events and Mugabe's
hide-and-seek game with Kofi Annan.
After the African Union
summit in Banjul, Mugabe claimed Mkapa
had agreed to mediate in the local
crisis and was endorsed by the AU and
United Nations secretary-general.
Mugabe also said Annan had agreed with him
in a meeting in Banjul that the
problem was a bilateral dispute over land
reform between Harare and London.
He alleged that Mkapa would now be trying
to resolve this with
Britain.
However, most of Mugabe's claims started collapsing
soon after
the AU summit. Firstly, Britain dismissed Mugabe's remarks about
a bilateral
dispute between London and Harare as a distraction. The British
said the
problem was internal and should be resolved by Zimbabweans. They
said as a
result there would be no meeting between Mugabe and Prime Minister
Tony
Blair to discuss the alleged dispute.
Mugabe has
been campaigning for a meeting with Blair even though
he claimed after last
year's general election that his party's victory was a
defeat for Blair and
Britain because they allegedly wanted to oust his
regime.
British ambassador Andrew Pocock said last week there was no
need for Mkapa
to act as a mediator. "What we need is a change of policies
by government,"
he was quoted as saying.
For Britain, therefore, the Mkapa
initiative was dead in the
water from the start.
Secondly, Annan denied that he had agreed with Mugabe the
problem in
Zimbabwe was a bilateral dispute between the two countries. Annan
also said
he was not aware that Mkapa would be trying to resolve the alleged
problem.
And now it has emerged that Mkapa did not agree
to mediate.
Well-sourced information shows that Mkapa did not
accept the
mediation role and was actually angered by reports that he had
agreed to
play that role.
Diplomats who were present in
Maseru said Sadc leaders were
alarmed to discover that Harare wanted them to
endorse the fiction that
Mkapa was now the mediator between Zimbabwe and
Britain over a bilateral
dispute which only Harare can
see.
While Zimbabwe and Swaziland clearly wanted to avoid
special
attention - for all the wrong reasons - regional leaders put them
under the
spotlight, forcing Mugabe to head home in
frustration.
Official explanations for Mugabe's controversial
departure
ranged from purported concerns about the need to fly out during
daylight
because the Maseru airport was difficult to navigate in darkness to
some
undeclared "compelling reasons".
But observers who
attended the summit said Mugabe's furious
departure - which is unprecedented
since he started attending Sadc meetings
in 1980 - was triggered by
forthright discussions of Zimbabwe and Swaziland.
They said
Mugabe had attended Sadc meetings in Lesotho before
but had not behaved the
same way, showing last week's focus on the
attention-grabbing Zimbabwean
political and economic crisis - widely blamed
on his leadership and policy
failures - had infuriated him.
Mugabe has always sought to
avoid debate on Zimbabwe at such
forums. A senior diplomat said Harare
usually sends an advance team of key
officials on fire-fighting missions
before Sadc summits to ensure that the
country is not on the
agenda.
"When there were still ministers like Jonathan Moyo
what used to
happen was that the government would start well ahead of the
summit to use
the state media to influence public opinion and the agenda of
the meeting,"
a government official said. "Moyo and company would go ahead
to fight to
remove Zimbabwe from the agenda, but now such kind of officials
are no
longer there and as a result Zimbabwe is now a subject of controversy
at
every Sadc meeting."
Zimbabwe has been on the Sadc
agenda as a trouble spot since
2001 when regional leaders agreed in Blantyre
to form a troika comprising
South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique to deal
with its crisis. In 2002
Zimbabwe was denied the opportunity to host the
2003 summit which was
eventually hosted by Tanzania.
In
2004 Zimbabwe was a major issue in Mauritius. Last year there
were attempts
at the summit in Botswana to make former Mozambican president
Joachim
Chissano an AU envoy on the Zimbabwe issue. Mugabe blocked the
move.
Last week Zimbabwe again became a thorny issue in
Maseru. The
same is likely to happen at future summits until the crisis is
resolved.
At the end of the Maseru summit, all but four Sadc
heads of
state signed a Finance and Investment Protocol, which aims to
transform the
region into one that "is able to do business within itself and
with the rest
of the world" through the harmonisation of tax and banking
laws.
Along with leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Botswana
and Angola, Mugabe did not sign the agreement and sources said he
was
angered by the mention of his country as a stumbling block to
investment.
While Zimbabwe continues reeling from an economic
meltdown,
neighbouring states are enjoying significant growth rates and
prosperity.
Zim Independent
By Mike Davies
YOUR correspondent R
Gunner asks for comment from the Combined
Harare Residents Association
regarding the latest antics by the municipality
operating under the illegal
Makwavarara Commission, "Let's unite to oust
this commission", (Zimbabwe
Independent, August 18).
We are not surprised by the attempts
of the cash-strapped
municipality to offload its responsibilities onto
residents. It is incapable
of delivering even a minimum of services to
residents as it is financially,
morally, legally and professionally
bankrupt.
It is led by a politically-appointed commission
that is clearly
illegal and as such has no mandate to make any decisions on
behalf of
residents. Its head is a rapacious turncoat who is frantically
feathering
her nest before she is discarded by her boss who will not
hesitate to
scapegoat her when it becomes expedient to do
so.
As if Operation Murambatsvina was insufficient proof, the
arrogant nature of the letter received by Mr Gunner is ample demonstration
of an administration at war with residents.
This reflects
the contempt that the regime has for urban
residents (who are derided as
totemless) and its rural, peasant powerbase.
Let us not deceive ourselves
about the nature of those who hold power at
Town House and
elsewhere.
CHRA has been at the forefront of efforts to
dislodge the
thieves who occupy Town House. We filed an application with the
High Court
in June 2005 seeking legal recourse from the depredations of
Makwavarara and
her fellow "travellers" but the court in its wisdom denied
the urgency and
merits of our application. The failure of the judiciary to
protect residents
has forced us to call for greater civil disobedience,
primarily in the form
of rates boycott and also in mounting street protests
to demonstrate against
the illegal commission and the continuing theft of
our money.
Hence our call to ratepayers to refuse to pay
rates under the
slogan "Do not fund your oppressors".
We
are obstructed in this effort by those who are motivated by
self-interest
and who bemoan the fact that their water will be cut off by
the municipality
in an attempt to intimidate them.
Our response has always
been that if one's principles do not
cost anything from time-to-time, then
they are not worth very much.
lMike Davies is CHRA
chairperson.
Zim Independent
Comment
THE Sadc heads of state and government summit in
Maseru,
Lesotho, ended inauspiciously for a gathering of this sort. Four
countries,
among them Zimbabwe, did not sign the Finance and Investment
Protocol on the
last day of the meeting on Friday. Normally such functions
end happily with
lots of praise for each other and what has been achieved
during the term of
the outgoing chair, although this is often hard to
demonstrate on the
ground.
President Robert Mugabe
reportedly left prematurely for
technical reasons to do with the airport.
There were other reports that he
was angry that Zimbabwe was put under the
spotlight at a closed session of
the summit for frustrating investment and
stifling regional economic
progress.
Top of the summit
agenda was regional integration.
Outgoing Sadc chair,
President Festus Mogae of Botswana,
lamented lack of commitment by member
states. This was evident in the
absence of funding for regional projects and
over-dependency on donor aid.
He said Sadc members contributed as little as
31% towards regional
programmes while they expected donors to fork out the
balance. This is
unsatisfactory for any bloc that wants to chart an
independent course of
development.
Mogae also set an
idealistic timeline of 2008 for a Free Trade
Area, a Customs Union by 2010,
and a speedy resolution of multiple
membership to Comesa and
Sadc.
Incoming Sadc chair, Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili
of
Lesotho, made clear some of the problems facing the region. He said while
the community had made progress towards political freedom and democratic
governance, lack of peace and stability and rampant poverty rendered rapid
economic and social transformation almost impossible.
The
high mortality rate from the raging Aids pandemic was
reversing all health
gains made in the past three decades. Regional food
security also posed a
big challenge, he said.
These basic issues had already been
resolved among European
Union members before they could talk about economic
integration. Sadc is
trying to model itself on the EU.
The Europeans also set stringent rules on government spending,
interest rate
regimes, and inflation targets for would-be members. Sadc
appears to be
concerned only with symbolic matters and practises little of
the democracy
it preaches.
South Africa has failed to coordinate the
process by reason of
its financial dominance. It is being accused of playing
"Big Brother".
President Thabo Mbeki has watched his African renaissance and
Nepad mothball
because fellow leaders are opposed to its "peer review"
clause which is seen
as a Western impost.
While Sadc GNP
grew by 5% last year, Zimbabwe has been on a
precipitous slide for the past
seven years. The resultant mass dispersal of
its citizens has had a
detrimental impact on regional economies. In fact,
economic refugees from
Zimbabwe are causing social dislocation across the
region while the African
Union and Sadc treat it as an internal affair.
The fallout
from Zimbabwe's land reform programme has
contributed to widespread food
insecurity that now haunts the region. There
are just too many political,
social and economic distortions to make a
mockery of any talk of
integration. Each country is raising its own barriers
on the movement of
either people or goods without regard to calls for
increased intra-regional
trade, itself a prerequisite for economic
integration.
Sadc leaders must agree a set of sanctionable economic and
political
standards of behaviour before they can be taken seriously. The
grouping has
raised the expectations of its people. But these will remain
hollow so long
as there is no convergence of vision, strategies and
programmes towards
their fulfilment among African leaders.
Which makes it the
more ominous that President Mugabe should
leave Maseru without signing the
Finance and Investment Protocol out of
personal vanity that his peers dared
tell him politely in a closed session
that what he is doing is
wrong.
The peoples of the region deserve better.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
THE last time I wrote in this column about what I perceived to
be the
shortcomings of the opposition MDC, the response from the party's
spokesmen
and sympathisers was quick and brutal. "What is the business of
the Zimbabwe
Independent criticising President Morgan Tsvangirai?" they
wanted to
know.
I was pilloried and called names by people who took our
criticism of Tsvangirai as a deliberate ploy to undermine their leader and
prop up a faction led by Arthur Mutambara.
The criticism
however failed to respond to my concerns then:
whether the opposition was
providing any leadership to the people and what
the plan was beyond rhetoric
and sloganeering.
The question remains largely unanswered
today. I believe
politicians in both factions of the MDC still have a lot to
do to remove the
fear I have that there are many among them who do not
understand the
elementary tenet that the opposition is there to hold the
state accountable
for its actions.
The tragedy of
Zimbabwe stems largely from the fact that
political leaders in the ruling
party have failed to provide direction to
the country. In an environment
where a sitting government has become
synonymous with failure - like our own
- it is incumbent on the opposition
to keep a close eye or ear on what the
public is saying, needs and wants.
This is the nourishment an
alert opposition requires for
sustenance because in most instances, problems
are caused by the government
not delivering.
The already
bad situation can degenerate further when an
opposition fails to articulate
national problems and provide alternative
leadership from the elementary
through to national level.
Tendai Biti, secretary-general in
Tsvangirai's faction, captured
this major handicap to the opposition
movement in his interview with SW
Radio earlier this
month.
He spoke frankly about the party's docility when
government
rendered thousands homeless under Operation Murambatsvina in May
last year.
"We failed to provide the leadership to the huge
fear or
frustration that was there and I think that leadership was
critical," he
said. "And, because we failed to provide that leadership, we
began to eat
into ourselves and the 12th October split was the inevitable
result of
that."
His counterpart in the Mutambara faction
weighed in with this
observation: "You cannot participate in a match when in
fact you are
hospitalised and you are sick. And, this is what was happening,
in my view,
to the MDC during the time of Operation
Murambatsvina".
I do not believe that the party has been
discharged from the
infirmary. It is still not ready to participate in the
match despite calls
for civil disobedience to force President Mugabe to the
negotiating table.
The crude central bank Project Sunrise has
once again posed
questions of the opposition's ability to interrogate
government's actions
and hold the state accountable to the
public.
For three weeks the confusion, inconvenience and
misery caused
by the project smacked of a country crying out for leadership
which was not
available from the government which resorted to threats and
coercion to
ensure its plan succeeded. Both factions of the MDC failed to
heed the call
to duty and highlight the human rights abuses by the state in
the execution
of the military-style operation.
Until
Monday when the operation ended, the only really strong
statement against
Project Sunrise had come from the Law Society of Zimbabwe
(LSZ), a
professional body not necessarily seeking political
capital.
The same issues contained in the LSZ statement
could have had
greater impact if they had been carried on a political
omnibus to rural
people who are still stuck with the old notes and who
suffered more abuse
due to ignorance.
The relevance of an
opposition becomes apparent in its ability
to shine the spotlight on serious
political issues and have them resolved
quickly. The opposition was also
found wanting by failing to propose
alternatives to what the state had
proffered so that the public get the
benefit of political
debate.
Tsvangirai was in Matabeleland last weekend to, among
other
issues, discuss the current economic crisis and to assess national
preparedness in the Save Our Country Campaign to push President Mugabe "to
accept the people's demand for a new constitution, free and fair elections,
stabilisation and reconstruction ."
A statement from the
party this week said "the people are raring
to dislodge the
dictatorship".
Let's see leaders rise to the
occasion.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram
Nyathi
LAST week I submitted my passport application form. My
passport
expired in 2003. Since then I have been trying to get a new one. It
is a
taxing process even for the most patient. I am not. I will tell you all
about it once the process is over, that is, when I receive the new passport
from Tobaiwa Mudede's office.
When my passport expired I
tried in vain to get forms from
Makombe Building along Leopold Takawira.
There was always a huge crowd.
Later the distribution system was
decentralised. People could get forms from
their district
offices.
This sounded fine until I tried. I went to the
office at
Kuwadzana one afternoon. I was informed they issue only 60 forms
per day in
the mornings.
Twice in 2004 I got to the
offices at 4am. This wasn't good
enough. Multitudes were already in animated
conversation around bonfires.
There were all the tell-tale signs that they
had slept there. I gave up.
Later a relative offered to help.
He knew a friend or two who
could facilitate the acquisition of the precious
piece of paper -- - the
application form that is. That was around November
last year. It was not
until March this year that he obtained the forms. I
duly filled them in
using the mandatory black ink.
I had
every reason to be excited. I had no idea of what lay
ahead. That was just
the beginning. Submitting the form is itself a test of
patience and a taste
of bureaucratic impudence.
Queues form early near the
entrance to the Passport Office along
Mbuya Nehanda Street. You have to
check which one you are joining. There is
a queue for those who want to
collect passports, another for those who want
to submit application forms,
yet a third for those who, like me, want to be
given a date on which to
submit their forms.
We stood huddled in the queue from 6am
before two brusque
bureaucrats appeared at 8:15 to bark orders at us. Had we
known, we should
not have bothered queuing. We were ordered back near the
fence. The
selection of who went in first was absolutely random. The two
young men
picked any five faces at a time, on a whim. These were lined up to
have
their details taken down and given a date on which to submit their
forms. By
the time good luck came my way I was number 213 and the queue was
snaking
close to Herbert Chitepo Avenue.
When I produced
my driver's licence in lieu of a chitupa I was
sternly warned by the young
lady taking down my details to "bring your
national ID next time" after I
tried to point out that my ID number was
there on the driver's licence. That
was in May.
I was given August 17 as the submission
date.
When I got there at 8:30 on the appointed day the first
batch of
forms had been collected. That meant a long wait in the brown dust.
In
between shuffling about foolishly, we were gulping plumes of dust like
the
snake cursed out of the Garden of Eden.
About 10:20
an affable man came to collect the forms. That is
when time forgot us. When
he returned to call our names to go to Room 87 for
fingerprints we all wore
a thin layer of brown dust while we chewed maputi
like goats in the sun. It
was around 12 noon.
The lady who served me looked fairly
charming were it not for
the noise. She kept calling at "Jamela" about who
was going out first,
presumably to get something to eat. Her noise bore
through my head to reach
Jamela who was serving another client at the other
end of the room.
She asked why I hadn't trimmed my photos to
the required size. I
mumbled something about being told that they do it
themselves as I scrambled
to look for whatever sharp instrument I could find
to perform the surgery.
That was a grave error.
"Do you
want to submit your forms or to cut your photos?" she
snapped at me as if we
had been engaged in an angry mental contest the whole
day. I recoiled into
the hard chair to await the termagant's further wish.
After
my fingerprints were taken she threw a model photo size at
me and luckily a
Samaritan woman nearby handed me a razor blade. I did the
best job possible,
with the aid of my ID.
She stuck the photos in the
appropriate slots on the form and
handed me a black felt pen for the
mandatory two signatures. I was then
ordered to go to Room 3. The process
had taken about five minutes but I was
more than happy to be
out.
At Room 3 I paid $500 000. I was told to go to Room 4. I
eavesdropped from the queue that it was "the usual terrible lot" on duty. A
lady sitting behind a corner table beckoned me in where I ignorantly
surrendered everything I had in my hands. She fumed at seeing the payment
receipt which "should be kept in your pocket".
I withdrew
the offending paper as the executioner thumbed
through the form. "Is your
marriage registered?" she glared at me. "No."
She quietly
placed the form in a pile and waved in the next
person, a double signal that
she was done with me. It was through the lady
serving another client near me
that I presumed I should "check after six
months" too. I couldn't dare
provoke her further by asking. I slunk out,
happy to be free and done
with.
I must nevertheless commend the department for its
grim,
humourless German efficiency once one gets past the first entrance
into the
catacomb of offices. The human traffic is always thick but the
whole process
didn't take me more than 25 minutes. Apparently it's the
getting to the door
that is a nightmare.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
ZIMBABWE is increasingly assuming
the appearance of a police
state, not simply in the literal sense that the
police exercise sweeping
powers of arrest and detention, but also in regard
to state agencies
harassing the populace.
Media workers
are all too familiar with the threats and
harassment from an
unrepresentative and hostile commission appointed by the
state to police
newspapers. The chairman of this commission, Dr Tafataona
Mahoso, has
recently taken it upon himself to launch an assault on the Law
Society of
Zimbabwe (LSZ) for having the presumption to challenge government
legislation in the courts.
He can't understand why law
firms should wish to obstruct the
state in arresting bankers and other
businessmen. He accuses the LSZ of
representing colonial interests and lists
the law firms in the hope that
unsuspecting readers will be unaware of the
fact that most of the firms he
cites long ago passed into the hands of
partners who have no connection to
the colonial era.
Like
his colleague Joseph Chinotimba who tells readers of the
Herald that Ian
Smith is still resident in Zimbabwe, Mahoso thrives on a
climate of public
ignorance. He knows perfectly well that many of the
bankers and businessmen
who fled the country in the past two years did so
either because they faced
lengthy periods of arrest while the police went on
a fishing expedition or
because they could not be guaranteed a fair trial.
These
fears were subsequently borne out when some of the bankers
concerned were
informed by the state that there was no longer a case against
them.
The LSZ has a duty to uphold the rights of
citizens, in
particular the right to be free from arbitrary arrest by a
state intent upon
finding scapegoats for its abysmal economic and governance
record. Childish
charges by Mahoso that the LSZ was pursuing "partisan and
sectarian
politics" as a justification for the 2002 detention of its leaders
simply
illustrate the repressive character of a state that attacks legal
institutions because they get in the way of its
dictatorship.
Mahoso claims the LSZ leadership is
unrepresentative of the
legal fraternity. But, unlike Mahoso who exercises
power by patronage of the
President's Office, LSZ office-bearers are elected
to their positions.
Mahoso is right about one thing
though. Commonwealth lawyers and
those from other states should be given
access to the country so they can
"see the country for what it is for
themselves".
Over the past few weeks reports carried in the
media reveal that
ordinary Zimbabweans travelling from their rural homes to
towns to exchange
old money for new were stopped at roadblocks and had their
money taken off
them. This for many represented a lifetime's savings. It is
significant that
the ruling party's militia, the lawless "Green Bombers",
were cited in
several of these reports. They were also active in Operation
Murambatsvina.
In any society where the state performs an
injustice to its
citizens and judges are hounded out of office for upholding
the rights of
individuals as set out in the constitution, people will draw
logical
conclusions about what is just and what is not. We do not need a
Kenyan
lawyer to tell us. The victims of Zanu PF's "African revolution" have
invariably been poor and helpless citizens while its chief beneficiaries are
to be found among the nomenklatura. Mahoso studiously ignores that salient
point.
We appreciate state apologists are required to
sing for their
supper every week. But claims about "foreign-sponsored regime
change"
directing the legal profession are looking increasingly threadbare
when the
law is so often ignored by those who find it
inconvenient.
Which brings us to President Mugabe's
deplorable remarks at the
Defence Forces Day
commemorations.
"We want to remind those who might harbour
any plans of turning
against the government," he said: "Be warned, we have
armed men and women
who can pull the trigger."
We know
that only too well. Joseph Mwale remains at large. So do
the bombers of the
Daily News offices.
But what sort of demonstration of
statesmanship was this crude
threat? Are people not allowed to "turn
against" their government if it
betrays their trust? Do all protesters
deserve to be shot?
Mugabe's remarks were widely published
around the world. They
were hardly the sentiments of a ruler who feels
confidently ensconced in the
affections of his people. Rather he sounded
like a ruthless despot. People
in democratic societies will be
appalled.
And what will visitors to Zimbabwe make of
this?
The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority is another of those
organisations
appointed to police a given constituency, in this case
hoteliers and
restaurateurs (not restauranteurs as it is commonly
spelt!)
Just when you would have thought the ZTA needed to
provide a
climate of quiet confidence and harmony with the private sector,
the state
body orders the closure of over 100 restaurants countrywide for
"operating
without a licence".
They have evidently been
taking lessons from Mahoso. Last week
ZTA chairman Emmanuel Fundira was
seeking "punitive powers" to deal with
errant operators.
So what explains this sudden assault? Money of course!
The
parasitic and Zanu PF-aligned ZTA feeds on the private
hospitality sector.
It takes their money and then spends it on "promoting"
Zimbabwe. This mostly
involves creating a superfluous bureaucracy and
claiming that all is well in
the country when it manifestly isn't.
As one irate tour
operator put it: "ZTA does not provide us with
any service. They just want
to raise money from our operations."
Sound
familiar?
So what exactly was said about Zimbabwe at the
Sadc conference
in Lesotho last week?
Foreign Affairs
minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi told the Herald's
Caesar Zvayi that Zimbabwe
was not on the agenda and therefore not
discussed. But Lesotho premier
Pakalitha Mosisili told the press: "The
situation in that country is of
concern to Sadc precisely because Zimbabwe
was the second strongest economy
in the community and for its economy to
have declined to levels at which (it
has) is of major concern to us."
The Sunday Times claimed
President Mugabe was angered by the
suggestion that Zimbabwe was an
impediment to regional investment. He
refused to sign a Finance and
Investment protocol and left early, the paper
said.
But
George Charamba said the departure was so timed because the
local airport
required a daylight take-off and the only items left on the
agenda were the
closing ceremony and a press conference.
We are not sure if
that meant the other heads of state had to
wait in Maseru until the next
day!
Charamba referred to other "pressing reasons" for
Mugabe's
departure.
The Sunday Times says Mugabe was
furious at criticism of
Zimbabwe although Mosisili tried to play this down,
saying people shouldn't
read too much into his early departure. Mugabe "is
not a young man, is over
80 and surely the old man is slowing down," he
said.
That's the language that drives Mugabe mad. The truth
is that
our ageless president wants to call himself a "young old man" and
his doctor
recently told him he had the bones of a 28-year
old.
In keeping with this diagnosis he reportedly dyes his
naturally
greying hair to maintain his youthful looks. So who says he is old
and
slowing down?
The Herald has pronounced the
change-over from old bearer
cheques to new ones as "smooth". This was
despite reporting on Tuesday that
people were being forced to "swarm banks"
and to "go on shopping sprees" to
get rid of excess cash which they could
not dispose of in the short period
allowed by the Reserve
Bank.
There were also reports that most retail shops did not
have the
smaller denominations of the new notes. This caused problems with
people who
wanted change. Instead shops were trying to offer the old
bearers, which
would be valueless the following day.
There was also confusion among commuters as transport operators
started
rejecting old bearers over the weekend. A number of people
interviewed by
Newsnet complained that the deadline was too short.
This was
understandable given that the Reserve Bank launched its
publicity campaign
more as an afterthought than part of a planned
transitional
strategy.
It is not clear to us how many real crooks were
caught in the
ambush that Gideon Gono claimed he was staging. What is
evident is that it
was ordinary citizens going about their business who were
inconvenienced by
the numerous roadblocks along the country's highways or
lost their money to
green-clad crooks posing as law
enforcers.
The process was as smooth as only those who play
smoke and
mirrors games could make it. Anybody who cared about the truth
would easily
have seen the chaos at banks and major supermarkets in the city
centre that
there was nothing smooth to talk about. But then what can one
expect from a
paper that reports the fable that $10 trillion in old bearer
cheques can be
"smuggled into the country" in "huge boxes" through Harare
International
Airport.
By Wednesday the paper was in
reverse gear, reporting shops
running out of change and the resultant
"nightmare" for the public. Which is
which Master
Spinner?
Gono's response to this lack of planning has been
typical of the
establishment.
He not only opted to be far
away from the scene on the day of
reckoning, he also issued the usual
threats about businesses trying to
sabotage his project, warning there would
be no extension to his arbitrary
deadline, as if he had just come down from
Mt Sinai. It has a familiar ring
in the failed land reform programme. There
were equally many "backers" and
"detractors" and the nation is still waiting
for the dividend seven years
down the line.
Zim Independent
By Eric
Bloch
IT is said that there are none so dumb as those who
will not
learn. If that is so, the Zimbabwean government must surely be the
dumbest
of the dumb, for it repeatedly evidences a determination and
resoluteness
not to learn from its errors. Instead, it repeats those errors
over and over
again, in the process recurrently undermining an already
exceptionally
unstable, deeply distressed economy and worsening the
hardships of the
populace as a whole.
Government's
recurrent mistakes are manifold, including its
annual inability to ensure
timeous availability of agricultural inputs,
outweighed only by its even
more frequent making of formerly
highly-productive agricultural lands
available to the well-connected and
well-endowed, but ill-disposed to work
the lands, or to those with the will
and ability to use the lands, but
devoid of the necessary resources, albeit
that there are endless promises
that those resources will be forthcoming,
which promises are invariably
unfulfilled.
Equally pronounced and damaging mistakes include
the
never-ending scepticism and suspicions that result in the rejection of
well-intentioned, constructive advice from bodies such as the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and countries as would readily befriend and assist
Zimbabwe, resulting in the alienation of goodwill of many, including in
increasingly great numbers, of Zimbabwe's neighbouring states, as well as
the European Union, the Commonwealth and the USA, in addition to a
progressive weakening in relationships with various North African,
Middle-Eastern and Eastern countries.
In like manner,
government continues its endless overspend upon
defence, a gargantuan
governmental infrastructure massively in excess of
national needs, perceived
symbols of status and prestige (such as un-needed
fighter aircraft to be
used for three ceremonial fly-overs a year, vast
motor cavalcades and the
like) and much else as is of little benefit to
Zimbabwe or its people,
whilst concurrently it does not spend sufficient
upon health, education,
social welfare, economic development and much else
necessary to ensure the
well-being of the populace.
So great are the numbers of
errors which government commits, not
once, but over and over again, that it
is near impossible to list them all.
However, among those
which must inevitably be of very great
concern are many which are
economically related.
Over the last nine years, the economy
has shrunk by more than
40%, resulting in a massive decline in numbers
employed and world-record
levels of hyperinflation. That, in turn, has
transformed most of the
populace into poverty-stricken sufferers, unable to
feed themselves and
their families adequately, let alone house, clothe and
educate them and
attend to their health and other needs.
All of these endlessly repeated errors have contributed to the
economic
morass that is Zimbabwe today. But there are very many others that
are equal
or greater contributants to it.
Foremost among the oft
re-committed mistakes is that, in
consequence of government's deep-seated
belief that it must have absolute
control over all facets of society,
whether political, social, judicial,
economic, or otherwise, it relentlessly
espouses the philosophies of a
command economy, wherein everything is driven
by governmental dictates and
regulation.
The fact that no
economy has ever in history prospered
continuously in such a regime is of no
concern to government, for its
conviction of its own omnipotence and
infallibility is so great that it is
incapable of conceiving a possibility
that an economy driven by its commands
cannot succeed unless collapsed by
the deliberate sabotage of nature and of
Zimbabwe's enemies (actual or
perceived - with such perceptions being very
many, occasioned by the
intensity of government's misplaced persecution
complex).
Therefore, government disregards the decades of failed command
economies of
the former Soviet Union, of China under the draconian rule of
Mao-Tse-Tung,
of Tanzania under Julius Nyerere, Mozambique under Samora
Machel, of Cuba,
Argentina, and many other countries whose governments
destroyed their
economies by excessive state controls).
Among the most
foolhardy of state regulations is the imposition
of price controls. The
motivations for such controls are invariably in order
to prevent
profiteering, contain inflation and protect the majority from
exploitation.
Hence, governments see price controls as pathways to
maximising support from
the populace, made to believe that governments are
caring and attentive to
the needs of the economically oppressed.
Similarly, consumers
are usually imbued with a belief that
prices are determined only by greed
and not need, and must therefore be
controlled. They are supported in such
belief by consumer representative
bodies which in many respects do
outstandingly beneficial work for consumers
but who, nevertheless, with
undoubtedly best intentions, do them a
disservice when they campaign for
price controls and restrictions.
The reality is that price
controls are invariably extremely
prejudicial to consumers and harmful to
economies. More often than not, the
prices are unrealistically determined
without adequate recognition of all
concomitant costs to the acquisition or
production of the relevant products,
the marketing thereof, the unavoidable
diverse attendant direct and indirect
overhead costs, finance expenses,
taxation and a fair return on capital
employed.
Even when
all those factors are correctly taken into account,
prices are virtually
never modified timeously in relation to changes in the
costs, whether driven
by changes in international prices, exchange rates,
domestic inflation,
interest rates, or otherwise.
As a result, businesses can
rapidly not afford to sell the
products, for the controlled prices can then
only result in unsustainable
losses or at best in inadequate, non-risk
related returns.
Thereupon, either the businesses collapse,
with consequential
losses of capital, increased unemployment, lesser
national economic
activity, reduced inflows to the fiscus and numerous other
economic ills.
In other instances, the businesses survive,
thanks to their
trade in other products, commodities, goods or services, but
discontinue
selling the unprofitable, price-controlled items. This results
in
progressively intensifying shortages of the price-controlled products, to
the inconvenience and discomfort of the consumers.
Wheresoever the price-controlled products are of a nature
essential to the
consumers, the increasing non-availability and intensifying
shortages
rapidly fuel black markets operating outside of governmental
control where
the same commodities are available, but always at prices very
considerably
greater than the state-controlled prices.
All too often, the
commodities in the black market are also
substandard (fuel that is
watered-down, foodstuffs that have passed their
safe "use-by" dates and
similar non-compliance with norms).
Shortage-driven
desperation drives the consumers into paying
vastly excessive prices whilst
risking being the victims to fraud. There has
been much evidence of this in
Zimbabwe over the past few years, with
especial reference to petrol and
diesel, maize-meal, sugar, flour, bread,
cooking oil, paraffin and soap,
computer ink cartridges, motor vehicle
spares, tyres and innumerable other
products.
Not only have end-consumers been forced to resort
to the black
market, but so too has commerce and industry, resulting in
immense increases
in operational costs reflecting in prices (save where
controlled!).
In order to survive, many businesses have also
had to circumvent
controls by modifying their products, as was seen - for
example - when
bakers could no longer produce a standard loaf of bread at
the controlled
price and discontinued baking that loaf, but instead produced
"super-loaf",
rolls, confectionery, and novelty breads as were not subject
to price
controls.
Thus, whensoever price controls have
been imposed, either
consumers could not purchase their needs at any price
or had to resort to
substitutory products or the black markets, in either
instance being
confronted by even greater costs than had the prices of their
requirements
not been controlled in the first instance.
Government will never acknowledge it but vehemently and
vigorously deny it.
But the reality is that its price controls are a major
fuellant of inflation
and a great disservice to the populace even though
many of the populace
appealed for them, unaware that the result would not be
an easing of their
distress, but a grievous worsening of their lot.
Last week
government demonstrated, yet again, its total
inability to recognise the
gargantuan economic prejudices of price controls.
The
Minister of Energy and Power Development, Rtd
Lieutenant-General Mike
Nyambuya, announced that the cabinet had, on August
11 approved new fuel
prices of $320 per litre of diesel and $335 per litre
of
petrol.
Such prices were clearly founded upon presently
prevailing world
crude oil prices and the recently established interbank
exchange rate of
US$1:$250, inclusive of procurement costs, Noczim Debt
Redemption Levy,
Carbon Tax, and government's perceptions of the operating
costs of fuel
importers, distributors and retailers.
But
those prices do not recognise that currency available to
Noczim and through
the interbank market does not suffice to fund all
Zimbabwe's fuel import
needs and that, therefore, much fuel can only be
obtained if foreign
currency is sourced at a premium from "free funds",
being funds which do not
mandatorily have to be repatriated to Zimbabwe and
sold through the
interbank market.
Therefore, Zimbabwe is about to be faced,
once more, with
horrendous fuel shortages, which will only partially be
addressed at massive
cost through the black market.
Commuter transport will become grossly inadequately available
and that as
will be available will be at prohibitively high cost (through
price control
circumventions), the operations of industry, commerce, mining,
agriculture
and tourism will all be severely hampered, the future of many
businesses
will once again be endangered and the long-awaited economic
recovery,
supposedly about to commence, will become another mirage.
Government must, one hopes, eventually learn that the only way
to contain
and curb price hikes is by having a virile, thriving economy,
driven by
productivity and competition.
Surpluses breed efficiencies
and cost containment in order that
price competitiveness can
operate.
Price controls breed shortages, inflation and
economic collapse.
But will government ever be mature enough to learn and
heed that, or will
government continue its relentless pursuit of repetitive
error?
Revoke their licences if they're not
building
I HAVE often wondered how Zimbabwe's building
societies came
into the banking business when they are not called "banking
societies".
The label, "building society" gives the
impression that their
core business is building. Nothing could be further
from the truth.
Zimbabwe's housing list continues to grow,
and last year's
Operation Murambatsvina made the homelessness situation
worse, while the
so-called building societies have yet to prove that they
are doing anything
significant on the housing front.
I
haven't heard of many houses being built by building societies
and I dare
say housing cooperatives have done more over the years with the
meager
resources they get from members' contributions.
Why are there
so few houses built by building societies? After
26 years of Independence,
building societies should have built more houses
than any other
organisations.
Perhaps the RBZ could look into this situation
and find out how
many houses have actually been built by these societies,
and how many of
their clients have benefited.
If they
have nothing to show for their "building profiles", they
should have their
banking licences revoked immediately, or have them change
their names to
banking societies.
T Namate,
Harare.
----------
Agro-recovery a mirage
with Made in charge
WHEN the bespectacled,
highly-respectable and learned
spin-professor Jonathan Moyo was shown the
door out of the ruling Zanu PF,
he made a very interesting analysis, as is
his trademark.
It was like the famous Shakespeare's
Hamlet in a dilemma
when he said: "To be or not to be is the
question?"
The professor in his remarks said: "Those
that appoint may
disappoint."
This was in reference
to President Robert Mugabe who had
appointed him. Recently, Mugabe breathed
fire over under-performance by some
of his ministers, specifically singling
out two: the Ministry of Lands and
Agriculture headed by Dr Joseph Made and
the Ministry of Mines headed by
Amos Midzi.
Surprisingly, the two ministers are still holding their
fort. Not that
anything has improved or is improving. If anything, it is a
disaster,
particularly in agriculture.
Made is a disappointment
to the nation. I do not know why
Mugabe leaves him to continue destroying
the nation.
Made has failed the nation. The president
knows it but
Made does not seem ready to pack his bags and leave. Mugabe
does not have
men of integrity who would after being told that they have
failed the
nation, do the honourable thing -
resign.
Made wants to be humiliated, he wants to be
fired!
Since he assumed office through a presidential
appointment
as a technocrat, presumably as one of those who were assumed to
have a spine
(indoda sibili elomgogodla) he has not done the nation any
good.
I am not saying Made should find a strategy to
avert
droughts, floods or any other act of God that impedes the production
of
adequate food security.
Mugabe has bemoaned the
untimely delivery of farming
inputs which characterises poor management. Why
should poor management be
left to prevail without corrective measures being
effected?
A while ago Made boasted having flown around
the country
(burning the tax payer's money both on the ground and in the
air) and
promised the nation a bumper harvest. What do we get today? This is
embarrassing and a shame to our heritage.
We need
to be treated with respect as a nation. Made has
always been warned by the
Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fewsnet)
Zimbabwe Vulnerability
Assessment Committee (Zimvac), Food & Agriculture
Organisation (FAO),
his officers through the Agriculture Research and
Extension Services (Arex),
but he chooses to lie and tell the nation that
there is enough food amidst
overwhelming statistics to the contrary.
Disputing
statistics when there is no food is just like a
woman denying her pregnancy
during its early stages. Unless the woman
undertakes an abortion, the
pregnancy would still protrude and show.
It is
unfortunate that the GMB acting chief executive
officer, retired Colonel
Samuel Muvhuti has allowed himself to be sucked
into the Made-mania of not
being honest. How could he say he is building
national silos when the people
have no food?
It is nonsensical to me. If there is no
food Made should
just be honest and tell the
nation.
Other uninformed sectors of the community were
accusing
the Bulawayo millers of sabotaging the economy by hoarding grain.
We have no
evidence to prove otherwise, but before the rooster had crowed,
the
Chronicle had a headline reading: "Maize stuck at Beitbridge". Suddenly
the
bumper harvest is resurfacing from South Africa. Who is fooling
who?
As if this was not enough, the Sunday News had a
heading:
"GMB fails to collect grain".
Why do we
play games with the politics of food? Augustine
Mukaro wrote a story replete
with statistics on the importation of food in
an article "Imports cushion
food deficit", (Zimbabwe Independent, August
18).
If Mugabe has time to read the Independent, could he
please help us by
putting an end to this circus? I appeal to him because he
is the authority
that appointed these people who have let us down on their
strategic
positions, hence our suffering.
There are farmers who
are into poultry who have lost a lot
of birds because of the lack of
stockfeeds, let alone grain to prepare
chicken
feeds.
Millions of (revalued) dollars put aside for
production
have gone down the drain due to some individuals who fail to
deliver. Made
continues to mess up the turnaround in the farming community
because he
depends upon the president's authority.
Most Arex officials I have interfaced with have lost
respect for Made. They
say he is disrespectful, arrogant and does not have a
teachable spirit. He
left a trail of disaster at Arda.
Made should treat the
nation with respect. There is
nothing unpatriotic in telling the
truth.
Zimbabwe over the years has always needed 1,8
million
metric tonnes of food before the next harvest in order to feed its
people.
The Sunday News issue of August 20 increased it
to two
million metric tonnes. Ever since 2002, Zimvac, FAO and Fewsnet
resports
have been accurately forecasting the prospective food harvests and
needs of
the country while Made has been continuously in
denial.
We are sick and tired of this hypocrisy. Made
should be
man enough and stand up to the challenge. He is the enemy of
agriculture, no
more no less!
As long as Made is
the Minister of Agriculture nothing
will improve. Instead, we will go back
to peasantry farming.
I request those friends of Made
who read this letter to
make a cutting and show it to him. Zimbabwe is a
blessed country endowed
with good agricultural infrastructure to deliver
enough food but falls short
of a minister who has integrity at the
Agriculture ministry.
I beseech President Mugabe, by
the mercies of God that he
shows Made the way out so that our food security
can improve.
TD
WaMzezethure,
Richmond,
Bulawayo.
-----------
Isn't
there a conflict of interest?
"FUEL prices
slashed," blared the Herald's headline
on August
18.
"With immediate effect" the price of diesel
would be
$320 and the price of petrol would be $335," it was
stated.
In recent times we have also been
regularly informed
about Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono's warnings to
retailers not to
increase prices during the currency
switch.
In view of this, could someone explain
why on the
same day, at Country Petroleum Service Station in Mabelreign,
both petrol
and diesel were being sold at $650 per
litre?
And as of August 21, diesel continued to
be sold at
$650 per litre. If it is true, as commonly believed, that this
service
station is part of Gono's business empire, perhaps the someone who
can
explain is Gono himself.
Normally (to the
extent that anything is "normal" in
Zimbabwe) this service station always
has fuel available, but interestingly
since August 19, no petrol has been on
sale.
One would hate to think that Gono is guilty
of the
same business practices that he condemns in others: selling at above
the
controlled price and subsequently withholding products from the market
because of price controls.
And if this
service station is part of Gono's
business empire, is there not a potential
conflict of interest when he is
involved in a business that requires foreign
currency to operate?
Given the centrality of the
anti-corruption drive to
Gono's attempts to revive the economy, surely he
must be seen to be above
reproach.
Everett Scott,
Harare.
-----------
'United Front impossible under
Tsvangirai'
THE much talked about United
Front is a
notable idea if stakeholders engage each other in good
faith.
The Christian Alliance should be
viewed as a
neutral body whose hands are clean but it is saddening to note
that some bad
apples at the level of chairman and women's assembly
chairpersons in the
Morgan Tsvangirai camp claimed to be the architects of
the Christian
Alliance.
Any attempts to
hoodwink church and civic
groups into catapulting Tsvangirai to the
presidency of the proposed United
Front through the back door will be
resisted. The MDC will never allow
dictators and political prostitutes to
abuse the church initiative of
building a Zimbabwe we
want.
The United Front under the leadership
of
Tsvangarai will never take us anywhere. We are very much aware of some
bad
elements who want to use the Christian Alliance to impose Tsvangirai on
the
people.
Zimbabwe needs a leader
with a working game
plan to remove the Zanu PF government from power, not
violent leaders who
have been making empty promises since 1999. Zimbabwe
needs an opposition
leader who can go on a full-scale war with the Zanu PF
regime leader, not
one who is always arraigned because of confusion and lack
of strategies to
achieve set goals.
As
a family we need each other but we are not
desperate for Tsvangirai whose
survival hinges on Zimbabwean politics.
The
man is a tried and tested political
failure with zero capacity to form the
next government after removing
Mugabe.
Kurauone
Chihwayi,
MDC Harare Information &
Publicity secretary.
---------------------
It's more than ICTs
alone
I MAKE reference to an article
in the
YoAfrica column "ICT essential for rural development in Africa",
(Zimbabwe
Independent, August 18).
The article quotes one paper entitled "ICT
in support of grassroots rural
development", presented during the ICT
Conference in Nairobi by Dr Robert
Kozma.
He put across a point that ICTs
are "key to
unlocking rural development and contributing to the Green
Revolution in
Africa".
While I do not
disagree that rural
communities stand to reap some benefits from the use of
ICTs, I would like
to highlight that it is misleading to suggest that the
introduction of ICTs
alone in rural communities will change the lives of
people there overnight
and see what he calls a "Green Revolution" take
place.
There are more underlying problems
in Africa
that, if not changed, rural communities will forever languish in
poverty.
The major issues needing address
are issues
to do with governance, poverty and illiteracy among
others.
These are problems that cannot be
solved
purely by the introduction of ICTs. It is folly for anyone to suggest
that
"ICT and broadband connections can unlock development in the rural
areas".
I do not agree that the first focus
must be
ICTs development. How can one use a computer if they are illiterate
to begin
with?
How can my grandma out
in Nkayi "google
search" and assume all her bread and butter issues are
solved?
This is the problem with our
intellectuals.
Writers must be in touch with poor communities and not write
from high
pedestals.
ICTs cannot be
given priority in African
communities as long as there is no access to basic
services such as running
water, proper health facilities, affordable and
accessible primary and
secondary education, usable roads and fostering of
democratic societies.
TNM
,
Harare.
--------
It's a govt/RBZ
ruse
DID you know that the RBZ and
the government
have the potential of making a fortune from ensuring that a
lot of people
fail to submit their old bearer cheques before the set
deadline?
Let me illustrate: suppose I
have $100
million of the old bearer cheques and I fail to submit the amount
on time;
that would imply that the RBZ has literally taken $100 million from
me
(meaning it has taken the value I have earned) and is thus $100 million
richer.
Think about
it.
But if approximately half of the cash
is not
submitted by the set deadline, how much does the RBZ make? Wouldn't
it be
enough to fund the RBZ's car-buying spree or other
government-sanctioned
lavish
expenditure?
James,
Old
Highfield,
Harare.