| The ZIMBABWE Situation | Our
thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe - may peace, truth and justice prevail. |
ROBBED of most of their pensions by government
policy, and too proud to seek
help, Zimbabwe's elderly whites are a small but
unique dimension of the
catastrophic impoverishment and famine of the past 3½
years brought about by
President Mugabe's corrupt and ruinous rule.
The
estimated 12,000 white pensioners still in Zimbabwe are the
professionals and
administrators who migrated here, mostly from Britain and
South Africa, in
two waves, to escape the Depression of the 1930s and then
the bleakness of
life after the Second World War. They thrived in a
burgeoning
economy.
"They are the generation that built this country into the
best-run country
in Africa, with the highest standard of living anywhere,"
the administrator
of an old age home in Harare said. "They worked hard and
planned
meticulously for their futures. Mugabe has wrecked
everything."
Inflation hit 400 per cent last month and is expected to
reach at least 700
per cent by the year's end. The price of fuel has just
tripled and earlier
this week municipal rates went up 300 per cent. State
policy on pension
funds has also contributed to destitution. By law, pension
funds have to
invest 45 per cent of their funds in near-worthless government
bonds. "The
Government is funding its overspending by confiscating
pensioners' money,"
John Robertson, an economist, said.
One pensioner,
William Sydney Rutherford, 87, his back hunched by age,
jutted out his chin
and managed large strides for his monthly three-mile
hike to collect his
pension from the post office in Harare. The effort was
almost wasted.
Zimbabwe's post office, in common with all the country's
financial
institutions, suffers a chronic shortage of banknotes. "Sorry, no
cash," the
woman behind the counter said. Then, seeing the shock on the
frail Scot's
face, she left her cubicle, returning with next month's means
of survival in
Zim$100, $20 and $10 notes.
"You can't buy anything with that," she said
apologetically, counting out
the pile. His monthly Zimbabwe government
pension of Zim$3,386.25 is worth
40p - enough for three loaves of bread and a
couple of bananas.
In May Mr Rutherford was rescued by a charity from the
servant's quarters of
his suburban Harare home, where he lived alone,
surviving mostly on
porridge. "With all this inflation, I was pretty hard
up," he admitted. He
spends most days in the male ward at the B. S. Leon
Trust, reading books
from the home's library on the Allied campaign in Italy,
where he served
with the British 6th Armoured Division. He gets three meals a
day and money
for pipe tobacco. If it was not for the B. S. Leon's
benefactors, Reg
Griffiths, its administrator, said, Mr Rutherford and the
growing number of
other destitutes there would probably die.
Olga
Cummings, 89, lived comfortably on her pension when her husband, a
permanent
secretary in a Rhodesian government ministry, retired around
independence in
1980.
"Money was money then," she said. Now her monthly Zim$18,000 is
worth £2.
The sudden privation has had tragic consequences. In May, Roy
Males, 78,
shot his almost-blind wife and then himself in their flat when he
could no
longer afford her medication, police confirmed.
An elderly
widower in a south Harare home fixed up a trap with a shotgun
when his money
ran out and killed himself, even though he was getting three
meals a day.
"It's the loss of pride that really gets to them," Ian Helby,
who helps to
run an "adopt-agrandparent" scheme for a Harare Rotary
Club,
said.
Margaret Dawson said: "My money has just run out and I
can't even afford
lavatory paper. If my family weren't helping me out, I
would have cut my
throat."
"I'm fine, and my health's not giving me a
problem, touch wood," said Rachel
Semple, MBE, 93, born in Glasgow and now
living down the corridor from Mr
Rutherford. But her broken leather shoes and
the tattered old strap that
holds her late husband's watch on her wrist tell
a different story. Her
spectacles are scratched, but she cannot afford a new
pair and so she cannot
read or watch television. "I live by my radio, and go
for little walks," she
said.
Mrs Semple draws a pension from the
Federal Rhodesian Government that was
dissolved in 1963, when she worked as a
receptionist for Sir Roy Welensky,
its last Prime Minister. Staff at the B.
S. Leon Trust say that the pension
is worth almost nothing.
Jean, 89,
the widow of a former Royal Air Force officer, refused to give her
full name.
"I don't want anyone to think I need help," she said. She lives
in a central
Harare flat with her 59-year-old mentally handicapped son, who
has a heart
condition. She says that she gets Zim$21,000 (£2.50) for her son
from the RAF
Benevolent Fund. Two Chinese vases are almost all that is left
of her
heirlooms. The rest were sold last year with the furniture,
television and
radio.
She and her son survive on a hamper of food and other basic
commodities
delivered monthly by a charity. "I hate to impose on people," she
said.
IOL
Mugabe to retreat to lavish life on a farm?
August 29
2003 at 09:42PM
By Peta Thornycroft, Independent Foreign
Service
Harare - If President Robert Mugabe does retire, as widely
speculated, when
he hits 80 next year, he will apparently not go into exile
or live in
retirement as a modest pensioner.
Judging by two big
property deals, the octogenarian Mugabe will rather live
as a gentleman
farmer, alternating as a dapper man about town, perhaps
pulling the strings
of his nominated successor in State House.
He is building a fabulous
Chinese-style mansion on about 16 hectares of land
in Harare's poshest
Borrowdale suburb. And he has already bought Zimbabwe's
largest dairy, Foyle
Farm, through a state agency. Lying in the Mazowe
Valley, 30km north-west of
Harare, it was until recently the most productive
dairy in Zimbabwe and among
the top 10 in Africa.
'Ian was forced to sell because thugs made
his life a misery'
But since Mugabe's new management took over fully in May,
production has
dropped by half.
The former owner, Ian Webster, was an
internationally recognised dairyman.
A former neighbour, who asked not to
be named said this week: "Ian was
forced to sell because thugs made his life
a misery. Then he was told the
farm was for someone important, and that that
person was prepared to pay for
it.
"He didn't want to go, but he is
one of less than 10 white farmers who have
been paid."
The Zanu-PF
government has seized more than 6 000 commercial farms since
February 2000,
and has finalised compensation for less than 300.
Webster, who is now
living in Harare waiting for the sale to go through
before moving to
Australia, refused to discuss the sale of his farm.
A well-placed source
in the government's District Development Fund, which
assists new farmers who
cannot afford to plough or drill boreholes on land
seized from white farmers,
said the fund would drill more than 40 new
boreholes on Mugabe's new farm, at
taxpayers' expense.
Grace Mugabe visits Foyle Farm frequently in her 4x4
with darkened windows.
According to former staff at the farm, she plans
to replace the two modest
houses on the farm with a new executive residence
and enormous gardens.
Members of the Dairy Producers Association, who
asked not to be identified,
said Foyle Farm must now be losing money because
of the drop in production.
Department of Agriculture permanent secretary
Norbert Masoka promised
earlier in the week to respond to faxed questions,
but did not do so
ABC Australia
August 30, 2003. 9:44pm (AEST)
Opposition accuses Mugabe of rigging local
elections
The Opposition in Zimbabwe has accused President Robert Mugabe's
party of
rigging local council elections being held on Saturday.
The
BBC reports, the elections are being held in urban areas,
traditional
bastions of Opposition support.
Zimbabwe's Opposition has
alleged massive flaws in these local elections,
allegations that President
Robert Mugabe's Government denies.
The Opposition says the ruling party
has tampered with voters' lists and
intimidated would-be Opposition
candidates in some cases.
These elections will not be policed by any
independent body, the county's
High Court has rejected an Opposition request
to prevent soldiers and
security officials from staffing polling stations
over the weekend.
This opens the door for intimidation of
voters.
Zimbabwe's last national elections, which returned Robert Mugabe
to power,
were internationally condemned as flawed and
undemocratic.
Since then, sanctions have been imposed on the regime but
the Government has
continued to run the country in its own way and blames its
problems on an
antagonistic international community.
MSNBC
Slow turnout for Zimbabwe's urban council polls
By Cris
Chinaka
HARARE, Aug. 30 — Zimbabweans voted in small numbers in urban
council
elections on Saturday in the face of a deep economic crisis which
analysts
say could work against President Robert Mugabe's ruling
party.
Officials said voting had begun peacefully but very slowly in
16
towns where the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and
Mugabe's
ZANU-PF party are contesting some mayoral posts and 130 council
seats.
Analysts said Mugabe's party looked like the underdog because
the MDC
had built a strong support base in major towns over the last three
years,
thriving on an economic crisis blamed by many on government
mismanagement.
The two-day municipal polls are running concurrently
with two
parliamentary by-elections in the capital Harare and in
Zimbabwe's
northwestern rural Makonde district.
The MDC has emerged
as the biggest threat to Mugabe, who has ruled
Zimbabwe since independence
from Britain in 1980, but analysts said a low
voter turnout in the council
elections could favour ZANU-PF.
''The turnout, almost all round,
except in Makonde and in Mutare, has
been very low indeed, and we talking
here at between 10 and 15 percent of
registered voters in some cases,'' said
one voting official.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, free on bail
pending trial on charges
of plotting to assassinate Mugabe, cast his vote at
a Harare school where
fewer than 200 people had voted in the first three
hours of the day.
He told reporters it was clear Zimbabweans were more
concerned with
bread and butter issues than voting.
''This is how
bad things are... but we hope people will still find
time to vote against bad
governance,'' he said.
MDC information secretary Paul Themba-Nyathi
said voting had been
marred by violence in some districts, including the
stoning of a vehicle
driven by an opposition legislator and assault on some
party activists.
Police were not immediately available for
comment.
Electoral Supervisory Commission spokesman Thomas Bvuma said
the
elections had started off largely smoothly and that the commission
would
investigate the complaints.
An opposition victory in the
polls would expand the MDC's symbolic
grip on major towns but the government
has imposed central control of
municipalities through sweeping powers held by
the minister of local
government affairs.
There were hardly any
queues at polling stations and numbers at many
were small, nothing compared
to the pay-day queues at banks in Zimbabwe's
major towns, where cash is in
short supply.
In the run-up to the polls, the MDC accused ZANU-PF of
violence,
intimidation and tampering with the voter register, charges the
ruling party
denied.
Political analysts say ZANU-PF had run a
low-key campaign which
appeared designed to allow the government to play down
any big opposition
victories.
Zimbabwe's major towns have suffered
the brunt of a serious economic
crisis which has brought severe fuel and
banknote shortages and soaring
inflation, now at about 400 percent.
ZANU-PF retains major support in Zimbabwe's rural areas, home to
about 65
percent of the population.
The Herald
Cash shortage sees many change lifestyles
Herald
Reporter
CASH shortages coupled with the ever-rising cost of living have
forced many
people to change their lifestyles with some luxuries having to be
foregone
in place of the basic necessities.
While the shortage of cash
has negatively affected most people, the
imaginative and enterprising have
managed to make the quick switch to the
world of plastic money, cheques and
travellers’ cheques.
"I don’t need to carry cash to survive. My life is
now much simpler and I
only use money when there is something that I really
want to buy," says
22-year-old graphics designer, Lorraine
Madzinga.
She says her spending habits have drastically changed from the
days when she
used to carry cash. "Gone are the impulsive buying tendencies
such as fast
food lunches, snacks and drinks because I now carry a packed
lunch."
However, most Zimbabweans still operate in the environment of a
peasant
economy where cash is king and vital for food, transport, paying
bills and
entertainment.
Most urbanites in the high density suburbs
have to buy their basic
necessities daily such as bread, milk, relish, among
other things using cash
as they cannot afford to buy or store perishables in
bulk.
By contrast, the well-to-do can buy their groceries in bulk and
have
adequate storage facilities for perishables such as meat, milk, bread
and so
on using cheques or plastic money as most of the upmarket supermarkets
have
point of sale swipe machines and readily accept cheques.
Although
most building societies, which handle most low income workers’
banking, now
have plastic money cards, there still is a big mismatch between
facilities
offering payment by card and the amount of plastic cards owned by
these
workers. As a result most of these workers simply use their cards for
cash
withdrawals at Automated Teller Machines instead of point of
sale
transactions.
The plastic card revolution is still to have any
real meaningful effect on
this social sector.
The result of bank notes
shortage has been such that in certain instances
some families have had to
forego things such as little toilet paper,
newspapers and other things that
require cash which they now preserve for
essentials.
"We have to
choose between buying toilet paper or food, the cash we get from
the banks is
not enough for both," said a Highfield woman.
Parents have become strict
with such commodities like toothpaste and lecture
their children on how to
save.
People wait for hours on end at banks and at other cash dispensing
points
and production hours in industries have been cut by almost half as
people
wait for cash.
"But you are not guaranteed to get the cash and
at times you wait for up to
eight hours to get five thousand dollars which is
not enough to cover your
needs," said Mr James Mufore.
A barman with a
city nightclub said clubbing was slowly dying as most people
now kept their
cash for essential things or other emergencies that might
occur in the
home.
"Once in a while, yes, you get crowds in the bar but they start
moving out
at around eight and by 10pm it is just me and the waiters without
any
customers," said the barman.
Many people that had abandoned opaque
beer have now gone back to their roots
and the "cabinets" of yesteryear when
people used to gather around mugs of
beer are around again.
In the
beer-drinking circles, cash shortages have transformed drinking
into
"co-operatives" and sharing of alcoholic beverages is now
common.
People have also changed from beer to spirits in a new drinking
revolution.
The motorists have been the worst hit by the shortage of cash
since most
fuel dealers do not respect travellers’ cheques introduced to
mitigate cash
shortages.
Almost at every service station there are
three or four "dumped" vehicles
whose owners failed to get either cash or
fuel to drive their cars home.
The Freedom Trains that were mostly for
those without cars were reported to
be filling up with motorists that could
no longer get fuel.
And the "typing brigade" — a phrase used for
pedestrians — had increased
owing to cash shortages as many people went to
and from work on foot.
For the young and outgoing, cash shortages have
affected lunch dates that
have become few and far apart.
"My boyfriend
no longer invites me for lunch as frequently as he used to
when cash was
readily available and this has also been compounded by the
fact that food now
has just gone up in take-aways," said a University of
Zimbabwe
student.
Another young woman said her boyfriend was of late pretending to
be busy
when it was about lunch.
A snap survey at the popular food
outlets showed that business was not as
active while those down-town cafes
were beginning to register more clientele
owing to their low pricing of their
food.
But some women smiled as they said the cash shortgae kept their
husbands at
home.
"He comes home early and watches television with the
rest of us. We see him
early these days, its bad there is no cash but it has
its own advantages,"
said a Warren Park woman.
Medical experts said
cash shortages could result in stress especially to
those with sick relatives
who fail to take them to institutions that demand
cash.
The Herald
Tale of widow’s distress over delayed cremation
By
Tawanda Kanhema
THREE months after Alexander Ashmall passed away peacefully
at 83, his
elderly widow, Jean, has been forced to live with the traumatising
memory of
his body bundled and packed away in some local funeral
parlour.
The distraught lady has made numerous attempts to have her
husband's body
cremated and the ash flown back to their home in Scotland, but
all in vain.
First, the delay was due to the shortage of cremation gas
and then it was
the city council putting on hold all cremations until they
have gazetted new
cremation charges.
Alexander died of natural causes
on July 13 this year and two days later his
77-year-old widow, had made all
arrangements and payments for his cremation.
She was then told, after
paying the $11 900 cremation fee, that there was no
petroleum gas used for
cremations.
"It is awful and depressing to think that my husband has been
lying in a
fridge and has been decomposing for the past ten weeks," she said
softly
while wringing her hands.
A devout Christian who is also a
Presbyterian, Jean said she would have
preferred to have Alexander's body
cremated and the ash flown back to
Scotland where it would be strewn at a
local church cemetery.
On Monday this week, she was told that she had to
wait for the new prices
again and she said this had lowered her spirits even
further.
Burying her husband's body, rather than cremating it would have
been her
first option, the elderly lady said, but grass and thicket had
buried their
family vault at Pioneer Cemetery.
"I would have had the
body buried at our family grave at Pioneer Cemetery
but the cemetery is in
such a deplorable state that one cannot decently be
buried in such a place,"
she said.
Pioneer Cemetery is located in Mbare, opposite Rufaro stadium,
and it was
one of the first cemeteries to be established in the late 1800s
after the
establishment of Salisbury.
Settler families bought plots
and family graves there and the cemetery used
to be a well maintained resting
home but standards have fallen, with most of
it turning into
bush.
Rampant thefts of coffins, granite ledgers, headstone caps and
shrouds from
graves in the cemetery have also turned many people away from
burying their
loved ones there.
With a stroke of fading humour, Jean
said the grass at the cemetery had
grown so tall that one would "shoot
elephants" in its thickets.
The two had no children and their families
are in Scotland. Jean had lived
with Alexander since they were young and the
fact that his body still hasn’t
rested haunts her.
Thousands of other
families have had to live with the bodies of their loved
ones for days and in
some cases weeks before burial due to fuel and
cash
shortages.
Cremation has for long been considered as a more
favourable option due to
shortage of space and grave costs at local
cemeteries, but the shortage of
gas has dealt a major blow to communities who
depended on this method of
putting the late to rest.
In Zimbabwe, it
is mostly the white and Asian communities that cremate the
bodies of their
loved ones, usually for family traditions and customs in the
former and
religious reasons in the latter.
Jean has worked for Dr Adrian Lamprecht
at the Medical Centre in the Avenues
area for the past 38 years and the
doctor observed that she had been greatly
devastated by the
situation.
"She is all wound up and has never been like that for the
whole 38 years she
has worked for me."
Dr Lamprecht said, "the thought
of her husband decomposing in a fridge has
devastated her greatly, the
tension has had a bad effect on her."
She tried to liaise with gas
importers and they managed to get the gas, but
the city council has put a
hold on all cremations while waiting for new
charges.
Most people
often find themselves stuck with corpses of their relatives
mainly because of
family disputes, but when an elderly widow tries to put
her husband's body to
rest and fails due to reasons beyond her control, it
is inhumane, the doctor
said.
When contacted for comment on the matter, City of Harare public
relations
officer Mr Cuthbert Rwazemba said he would consult the cremator
for
"worthwhile comment" but later ignored the phone.
The City of
Harare ran out of petroleum gas on June 28 and since then,
bodies have been
piling up in crematoriums and funeral homes around
the
city.
Meanwhile, laying loved ones to rest, a formerly dignified
exercise that has
always been conducted with civility and honour seems to
have degenerated
into an overnight dumping exercise.
Reports have been
made that relatives of the deceased in Kadoma were burying
their loved ones
during the night in prepared council graves to evade
burial
charges.
Even going to the graveyard during the night used to
be taboo, but now,
people brave it due to the shortage of space at
mortuaries, cash and fuel.
In some cases, this is a result of attempts to
evade burial costs.
The customary wailing and singing of traditional
funeral dirges formerly
commonplace at the cemeteries has silently died down,
as most people now try
to make their burials as brief and cheap as
possible.
Daily News
Opposition denied voters’ rolls
THE
Registrar-General (RG)’s Office had by yesterday evening not
provided copies
of voters’ rolls to several opposition party and independent
candidates for
this weekend’s urban council polls and parliamentary
by-elections, a
development the candidates said could facilitate irregular
electoral
practices.
Copies of the voters’ roll had by last night not
been provided to
mayoral and council election candidates in Mutare, Kariba,
Kadoma and
Victoria Falls, with officials of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party
saying
they had already engaged lawyers to challenge this in
court.
Officials of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
said they were
likely to seek an overturn of some of the results of the
elections because
they had not been given a chance to properly audit the
voters’ roll for
possible irregularities.
Several candidates
who are standing as independents in the elections
that begin today said the
problem with the voters’ roll was not affecting
only opposition party
officials.
Independent candidates in Mutare told the Daily News
that the RG’s
Office had also denied them copies of the voters’
roll.
Independent candidate Virginia Pinto, who is seeking
re-election as
councillor for ward 12 in Mutare, said several independent
candidates in the
city had also been denied copies of the voters’
roll.
However, their ruling party counterparts are believed to
have been
given copies of the voters’ roll.
MDC elections
director Remus Makuwaza said: "Where else in the world
have you seen a
candidate going into an election without a copy of the
voters’ roll? It is
like a boxer going into the ring while being
blindfolded.
"We were denied copies of the voters’ rolls because they knew that we
would
unearth the ghost voters that have been planted to enable ZANU PF to
rig the
election."
Comment could not be obtained from Registrar General
Tobaiwa Mudede,
who has in the past denied allegations of election rigging
levelled against
his office.
Manicaland provincial registrar
Joyce Munamati, who was accused by MDC
and independent candidates of
frustrating their efforts to obtain copies of
the voters’ roll, told a Daily
News reporter: "If anyone has a problem, then
that person should come to me
and not to you. Are you their spokesman? They
should come in person to my
office if they have problems."
MDC elections co-ordinator
Nomore Sibanda said his party had
instructed its lawyers over the
matter.
He said the issue was being handled by Ray Moyo, a
lawyer with Gill,
Godlonton and Gerrans, who could not be reached for comment
last night.
Sibanda said: "Mudede’s officers have been using
delaying tactics to
deny our candidates copies of voters’ rolls and then
claimed to be too busy
to issue out the copies this week.
"They are now saying we can only get copies after the election. Our
lawyer,
Ray Moyo, is working on the case."
Meanwhile, opposition party
officials said political violence had
worsened ahead of this weekend’s polls,
accusing ruling ZANU PF activists of
waging a campaign of terror against
their supporters.
The MDC said in Norton, its candidates for
wards four, five, six,
eight and nine were assaulted and their houses stoned
by known ruling party
activists from Norton and Zvimba.
In
Mutare, a group of ZANU PF supporters is alleged to have carried
out a
door-to-door campaign of violence, seriously injuring three
MDC
activists.
In Kariba, Nathan Makwasha, the MDC candidate
for ward four, said he
survived a petrol bomb that was hurled into his house
on Tuesday morning by
known ZANU PF activists driving a vehicle with
government number plates.
However, police spokesman Wayne
Bvudzijena said he had not yet
received reports on the alleged Norton and
Kariba incidents.
He told the Daily News: "Our position is very
clear as the police
force. We will maintain law and order everywhere where
elections will be
held. ‘We know and appreciate that emotions by certain
groups are very high
as we approach these elections, and we appeal to leaders
of political
parties to conduct themselves in a peaceful manner so that they
don’t engage
in violent activities." ZANU PF secretary for information and
publicity
Nathan Shamuyarira denied that ruling party supporters were
involved in
political violence. "I can’t talk of MDC candidates, I will speak
about ZANU
PF candidates only and we are not violent," he said. Staff
Reporters
Daily News
Court dismisses MDC nomination challenge
HIGH Court judge Ben Hlatshwayo yesterday dismissed with costs an
application
by 11 Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidates for
Chegutu urban
council elections for the nullification of the ruling party’s
victory in the
constituency.
ZANU PF candidates for the Chegutu urban council
polls were declared
the winners of the elections after opposition party
candidates failed to
file their papers with the Nomination
Court.
The MDC candidates allege that they were prevented from
presenting
their nomination papers by violent ZANU PF
supporters.
Hlatshwayo indicated that he would give reasons for
his judgment in
due course. However, the ruling means that no elections will
take place in
Chegutu this weekend.
Sheila Jarvis of
Atherstone and Cook, who represented the MDC
candidates, yesterday said she
was not yet in a position to comment on the
judgment.
"I
will have to see the judgment first before I can comment on the
ruling or on
whether we can appeal," she told the Daily News.
However,
Patience Nyabadza of the Attorney-General’s Office said after
the ruling:
"Justice has prevailed."
The 11 MDC candidates had petitioned
the High Court to order Registrar
General Tobaiwa Mudede to consider their
nomination papers.
The candidates said they were not protected
by the police and, as a
result, could not present their papers to the
Nomination Court.
Staff Reporter
Daily News
ZANU PF faces acid test
ZIMBABWE’S ruling
party faces a crucial test in urban council
elections this weekend in the
face of a deepening economic crisis and an
opposition with strong support in
the country’s major towns.
Political analysts say President
Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party goes
into the two-day polls today and tomorrow
as the underdog after losing a
majority of the urban seats to the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) in general parliamentary elections held
three years ago.
Since the June 2000 parliamentary elections,
the two parties have
fought several elections, with the MDC winning most of
the urban contests
while ZANU PF has retained national control with votes
from its traditional
stronghold in the rural areas, home to about 65 percent
of the population.
But the MDC charges that Mugabe and ZANU PF,
in power since
independence from Britain in 1980, have cheated and used
violence to win
elections in the last three years.
MDC
leader Morgan Tsvangirai has a pending court challenge against
Mugabe’s
re-election in presidential elections in March 2002, which many
Western
powers say were rigged.
Opposition victory in the council polls
would expand the MDC’s
symbolic control of major towns – Harare, Bulawayo,
and Masvingo are already
under its wings – but the government has imposed
central control of local
municipalities through sweeping powers held by the
minister of local
government affairs.
Opposition gains would
also be an obvious setback for Mugabe, who
insists he still enjoys majority
support.
The MDC says ZANU PF has been using intimidation to
win some of the
eight mayoral and 130 council seats being contested in 16
towns around the
country. There are also two parliamentary by-elections, one
in the capital
Harare and the other a rural constituency in north-western
Zimbabwe.
Political analysts say ZANU PF has been running a
low-key campaign
which appears designed to allow the government to play down
any big
opposition victories.
"I think ZANU PF knows very
well that the urban council elections are
very difficult for it because of
the economic problems and they will
probably be happy to pick up whatever
they can," said Lovemore Madhuku,
chairman of political pressure group
National Constitutional Assembly.
Zimbabwe’s major towns have
suffered the brunt of a serious economic
crisis which has brought severe fuel
and banknote shortages and soaring
inflation, now at about 400
percent.
"ZANU PF has been using its usual crude tactics,
violence,
intimidation and tampering with vote registers . . . but we are
still
confident of winning these elections," MDC election director Remus
Makuwaza
told Reuters this week.
But ZANU PF spokesman
Nathan Shamuyarira denied charges that the
ruling party was employing
violence and intimidation.
"This is a sickening song that we
are subjected to at every election,
and the song is clearly meant to tarnish
our image.
"The courts are there to sort out any genuine
grievances, but the MDC
must stop making false claims for their failure to
win voters," he said.
By Cris Chinaka
–
Reuter
Daily News
Move to bar MDC candidates thrown out
GWERU – The High Court yesterday dismissed with costs an urgent
application
by the ruling ZANU PF for a provisional order to bar two
candidates of the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from
contesting this
weekend’s urban council elections in Kwekwe.
The matter was
heard in chambers before Bulawayo High Court judge
Justice George Chiweshe.
The ruling party had sought a court order to have
MDC candidates Shadreck
Tobaiwa and Abraham Mtshena disqualified for
allegedly giving false
residential addresses to the Nomination Court, which
sat and accepted
candidates in the city last month.
Kwekwe lawyer Martin
Makonese had filed the urgent application on
behalf of ZANU PF, seeking the
disqualification of the MDC candidates for
alleged electoral fraud. Another
Kwekwe lawyer, Prayers Chitsa, represented
Tobaiwa and Mtshena, the
opposition party’s candidates for Wards 8 and 10 in
Kwekwe.
Justice Chiweshe ruled that there was nothing urgent in the matter
because
the Nomination Court, which accepted the candidates as eligible to
contest
the election, had sat more than a month ago. In dismissing the
petition,
Justice Chiweshe also noted that some of the alleged
irregularities cited by
ZANU PF needed oral evidence, hence the need for the
matter to be treated as
civil.
In its founding affidavit, the ruling party, represented
by Kwekwe
district chairman Justin Mazambani, had alleged that the opposition
party
candidates contravened the Urban Councils Act by giving false
residential
addresses.
Mazambani said: "All the respondents
unlawfully and falsely gave (sic)
falsehoods in violation of the Urban
Councils Act and accordingly should be
disqualified from contesting the
elections and their nomination accordingly
null and void.
"I
submit that this matter is extremely urgent in that the elections
are due to
be held on 30 and 31 August 2003 and the respondents should be
banned from
contesting the elections in the light of the said
election
fraud."
To support its claim, ZANU PF also attached
copies of disclaimer
affidavits allegedly signed by the landlords of the MDC
candidates.
The landlords, who were identified as Pana Chitanda
Mavhunga and Sam
Mzembi, claimed in the affidavits that Mtshena and Tobaiwa
had never lived
at the given addresses.
Own
Correspondent
Daily News
Agriculture hit by natural and man-made disasters:
Chissano
MOZAMBICAN President Joaquim Chissano yesterday said
Zimbabwe’s
agricultural sector had been knocked by natural and man-made
disasters, but
urged President Robert Mugabe to forge ahead with his
government’s
controversial land reform programme.
Officially
opening the Harare Agricultural Show, Chissano said: "The
agriculture sector
has suffered natural and man-made disasters which have
threatened economic
development and poverty reduction.
"Agriculture is of strategic
importance, the largest contributor to
the GDP (gross domestic product), the
main economic factor for growth. It
earns us foreign currency and eradicates
poverty."
He urged the government to continue with its land
reform programme,
under which the state has taken over most white-owned land
in what it says
is part of a plan to address colonial
imbalances.
However, the programme has led to the displacement
of a large number
of black farm workers and is said to have slashed farming
output by more
than half since it began in 2000.
The land
seizures are blamed, together with drought, for severe food
shortages
affecting the country.
Chissano said of the land reform
programme: "If you know where your
ark is going, you will not stop until you
reach your destination."
He said the agricultural show was an
opportunity for Zimbabweans to
strategise ahead of the coming rainy
season.
The Mozambican leader said: "The show came at the right
time. People
can plan for the new season since our region is prone to
unreliable rain.
"Women must have access to land and the
technology to grow cash crops
to improve their lot."
He told
President Robert Mugabe: "Comrade President, Zimbabwe should
remain resolute
and aggressive in the fight for food security."
Food insecurity
in Zimbabwe is expected to continue for the
foreseeable future because of
serious input shortages and lack of financial
and technical resources on the
plots the government has allocated to
subsistence and aspiring commercial
farmers. The country is battling
shortages of fertiliser, seeds and
agricultural chemicals, partly because of
a foreign currency
crisis.
Where the inputs are available, they are too expensive
for most of the
farmers resettled on land taken over by the government. The
resettled
farmers also do not have the financial resources to buy or
lease
agricultural equipment.
Staff Reporter
Daily News
Mnangagwa to summon ministers over
Bennett
SPEAKER of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa has pledged to
summon State
Security Minister Nicholas Goche and his Home Affairs
counterpart Kembo
Mohadi to discuss the continued harassment by state
security agents of
Chimanimani Member of Parliament Roy Bennett, the Daily
News has
established.
The state agents are said to be led by
a Joseph Mwale, a controversial
senior official of Zimbabwe’s main spy
agency, the Central Intelligence
Organisation (CIO).
According to authoritative sources, Mnangagwa on Tuesday undertook to
summon
the two ministers to his offices after Bennett approached him about
his
continued harassment by state security agents based in Chimanimani, of
which
Mwale is the CIO officer in charge.
Mnangagwa, who is also the
ruling ZANU PF secretary for
administration, might summon the two Cabinet
ministers next week, the
sources said.
Bennett, elected on a
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) ticket, has
a farm in Chimanimani that
has been invaded several times by ruling party
activists, who, together with
CIO officials, have barred him from visiting
his
constituency.
The sources said Mnangagwa seemed "shocked" on
Tuesday that Bennett
had been barred from visiting his constituency by state
security agents, and
immediately undertook to summon Goche and Mohadi to his
office so that he
could ask them to instruct their officers to let Bennett
visit his
constituency.
"Mnangagwa is supposed to summon the
two ministers very soon, probably
next week, to discuss how they can stop
their officers from harassing
Bennett. He (Mnangagwa) has not taken kindly to
the fact that an MP has been
forced to abandon his constituency because of
overzealous intelligence and
police officers," one source told the Daily
News.
Mnangagwa yesterday confirmed that he met Bennett on
Tuesday, but
refused to comment further.
"I had a private
meeting with the honourable MP and the discussions I
had with him remain
private. I am not at liberty to discuss the contents of
our discussion," he
said.
Bennett also refused to elaborate on his meeting with
Mnangagwa,
saying: "It’s a process that I don’t want to comment on at the
moment."
But sources told this newspaper that at the Tuesday
meeting, Bennett
indicated that he was unable to attend parliamentary
sessions and portfolio
meetings due to problems involving CIO and police
officers in Chimanimani.
According to the sources, the
complaint was raised at a parliamentary
lands and agriculture portfolio
committee meeting held on Tuesday this week.
Bennett, the sources said,
specifically named Mwale as being mainly
responsible for the problems he was
encountering.
"He told portfolio committee members that he
could not attend meetings
from late last year because of the harassment his
workers and himself were
getting from Mwale and police officers in
Chimanimani," a source said.
The source added: "He explained
how his property was being looted on a
daily basis by security agents and how
his employees were being harassed.
Committee members agreed that his matter
was of concern and should be taken
to the Speaker, who appeared equally
concerned."
Mwale, who is alleged to have been involved in the
murder of MDC
activists Tichaona Chiminya and Talent Mabika in the run-up to
the 2000
parliamentary election, was last year barred by the High Court from
visiting
Bennett’s Charleswood Estate, where he is said to have disrupted
farming
activities.
However, reports indicate that Mwale has
continued to visit the farm,
where he has allegedly led a campaign of
harassment and intimidation against
Bennett’s workers.
The
Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management last month
also asked
the police to arrest Mwale for his alleged role in the poaching
of game at
the farm earlier this year.
By Farai Mutsaka
Chief Reporter
Daily News
Tampering with meters costing ZESA
millions
THE Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) is
losing $50
million every month because of clients who are tampering with the
power
utility’s meters, according to ZESA Harare area manager Stephen
Pieron.
He told the Daily News that ZESA discovered the
prejudice when its
officials undertook door-to-door meter inspections after
receiving reports
of irregular meter readings at some premises in
Harare.
The power utility is visiting all domestic, commercial,
industrial,
mining and agricultural installations.
"We are
doing stand-to-stand checks for every electricity consumer to
make sure the
meter has not been bypassed or tampered with," Pieron said.
"Every single installation will be visited and the sitting tenant or
his
representative will be required to sign an affidavit to state that
the
installation was checked by ZESA personnel and resealed. All our
inspectors
will be carry ing the usual ZESA identity cards.
"These tamperings are caused by poverty and the prevailing
economic
hardships. People are trying to save money through illegal means.
These are
mostly unemployed electricians and probably some of our employees.
Our new
billing system makes it easy to identify sites where consumption
patterns
have changed."
He said ZESA had so far visited 5
580 houses and had discovered that
550 of them were bypassing electricity
meters. About $27 million has been
recovered from the offending customers and
their meters have been resealed,
the ZESA official added.
He
said in order to avoid conniving between the resealing team and
customers, an
independent audit team would follow up to verify the status of
inspected
installations. In cases where it can be proved that a customer has
interfered
with the meter or tampered with wiring in order to bypass the
meter, the
client will be billed for the prejudice suffered by ZESA.
Pieron said the inspection and resealing exercise would be completed
in
November.
"If the installation is found to be tampered with, we
will recover the
lost sales, with the sitting tenant being liable for
prosecution and a
possible two-year imprisonment term for such pilferage
cases," he said.
Staff Reporter
Daily News
Chombo’s interference no excuse for
inefficiency
REPORTS by this newspaper this week that some Harare
families had to
seek shelter elsewhere after raw sewage from blocked
municipal sewer pipes
flooded their homes should be a clear signal to all of
how the once
magnificent city is falling apart while the circus at Town House
continues.
At least two families had to flee their homes while
another 20 told
this newspaper that each morning they must clear their homes
of raw sewage
overflowing from bathrooms and toilets.
That
in the midst of all this, all the government appears preoccupied
with is how
to regain – through the back door – political control of the
capital city is
a clear testament of how the cruel and selfish elite ruling
Zimbabwe is ready
to sacrifice any and everything just to ensure their
political
survival.
Instead of helping the council mobilise the obviously
huge financial
resources required to put Harare back on its feet, Local
Government Minister
Ignatius Chombo has virtually hampered the operations of
council by delaying
granting it permission to borrow money.
Some allege Chombo is deliberately frustrating the Harare City Council
so
that when services and public infrastructure in the city collapse,
the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party-led council can
be
blamed by voters.
That may be so, but that is not the point.
The point is that Town House must just get its act
together. The
council collects billions of dollars in rates and other charges
every month
and that should be enough to enable it to provide some
respectable service
to city residents.
Sitting back, wailing
over alleged interference by Chombo and the
government while the Sunshine
City is being turned into one large sewage
pond is
inexcusable.
The Harare City Council, and this includes former
executive mayor
Solomon Tawengwa’s discredited administration, used to keep
teams of
servicemen on 24-hour notice to respond to emergencies such as the
one in
Dzivaresekwa.
Surely, it was not because of
interference by Chombo, or anyone else
that the municipality’s Department of
Works did not respond to several pleas
by Dzivaresekwa residents to come and
repair blocked and burst pipes in
their suburb.
It is gross ineptitude by any standards!
And just to show the level of
commitment and efficiency at Town House,
Harare spokesman Cuthbert Rwazemba
was not even aware of the situation in
Dzivaresekwa 2 suburb when the Daily
News approached him on Wednesday to
hear what the municipality was doing to
fix the blocked sewer pipes.
And this was several days after
some of the residents had alerted the
municipal office in Dzivaresekwa about
their plight.
The MDC and its councillors must be warned that
they cannot forever
hide their own inefficiency behind the excuse that Chombo
is interfering and
disrupting the proper management of the city. Even if this
was true.
Far too much is wrong in this city. Garbage is not
being collected.
Roads and traffic lights are not being maintained and there
are no medicines
at council clinics. In fact, the list of residents’
grievances is endless.
The MDC councillors must realise that
they were not voted into council
so that they could become cry-babies over
what they say is interference by
the government.
They should
take their presence at Town House as an opportunity to
show Zimbabweans the
good they are capable of achieving, despite all
the
obstacles.
Either they do that or it will be difficult,
if not impossible, for
anyone to distinguish between them and ZANU PF, which
they seek to replace
in national government.
Daily News
ZANU PF’s new slogan: Oh what a tangled web we
weave
TWTWTW – That was the week that was.
ZANU
PF getting itself enmeshed even more than usual in its own
intransigence,
boneheadedness, sheer idiocy and lunacy.
While South African
President Thabo Mbeki is trying to get ZANU
PF-Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) talks on the road so he can point
out to the Commonwealth at its
December Abuja meeting how wonderful
everything is in Zimbabwe and working to
get our country reinstated as a
fully fledged member of that
organisation:
- Talks headed for the rocks; ZANU PF dashes hopes;
Triumph for hawks
(Financial Gazette, 21 August 2003). Nathan Shamuyarira,
ZANU PF’s secretary
for information, told that newspaper: "You are just
bothering us, but the
truth is there are no talks at all."
And ZANU PF chairman, John Nkomo, said the ruling party was not in any
way in
a hurry to engage the opposition.
Great! Very helpful for Mbeki and his Great Plan.
Meanwhile, our Noble Leader gets his wires
crossed in his Heroes’ Acre
speech, blathering that the MDC must "repent" –
perhaps his recent visit to
the Highfields Roman Catholic church left him a
tad confused as to who is
supposed to repent.
And perhaps
more indicative of clouds starting to drift across that
tired old mind,
referring to "Mbuya Kaguvi" when he meant "Sekuru Kaguvi".
What next?
- State hijacks food aid (Daily News, 19 August 2003) –
Social Welfare
Minister July Moyo directs non-governmental organisations that
they will no
longer be able to select beneficiaries of food aid; all such aid
will be
distributed through village headmen at their sole
control.
Since almost all headmen are said to be in ZANU PF’s
pocket, "the idea
is to hijack donor food and use it as a campaign tool for
the council
elections" (Renson Gasela, MDC shadow minister for
agriculture).
"No international donor can tell us that the
government should not be
involved in food distribution when we are the ones
who asked for the food in
the first place." Nice try, Moyo, but won’t
international donors immediately
cut off aid to hungry Zimbabweans? Only ZANU
PF could think they might be
able to get away with that one. Again, very
helpful for Mbeki and Zimbabwe.
- Across the world on the
sidelines of a Pacific leaders’ meeting in
Auckland, Australian Prime
Minister John Howard branded President Robert
Mugabe an "unelected despot"
and said Zimbabwe should not be re-admitted to
the Commonwealth (Daily News,
16 August 2003).
"I don’t think it would be helpful for the
Commonwealth if Mr Mugabe
were to come to Abuja," he said.
And this paper then reported on 18 August: "The 11 South Pacific
members of
the Commonwealth condemned Zimbabwe . . . for continuing human
rights abuses,
saying no progress had been made to end the country’s
suspension from the
grouping."
Doesn’t augur too well for Zimbabwe’s return to
Commonwealth
membership, hey?
- Meanwhile, closer to home,
the African Commission on Human and
People’s Rights has suppressed
publication of the results of its probe on
Zimbabwe to protect Mugabe’s
regime ahead of the Abuja meeting in December.
"Part of a wider
cover-up strategy by the AU (African Union) which is
lobbying the
Commonwealth to re-admit Zimbabwe in the club," diplomats state
(Zimbabwe
Independent).
"Reports . . . from Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch have
been rejected by African states, who accuse the two
of Western bias."
Perhaps the proper action for Commonwealth
seniors to take would be to
insist that the re-admission of Zimbabwe would
not even be considered in
December unless the AU makes available in advance
of the December meeting
unexpurgated copies of the report which they are
keeping under wraps.
- And, of course, the country still has no
cash and Finance Minister
Herbert Murerwa issues local travellers’ cheques,
printed on scarce security
paper for a one-off transaction which could be
used for banknotes with an
indefinite life span. I shakes me head. Inflation
is up to 400 percent, the
US$1 is equals to Z$6 000. I shakes it again. ZANU
PF’s new slogan: "Oh what
a tangled web we weave". What next? PNR Silversides
Harare
Daily News
The least you can do
If you are a
suffering, oppressed Zimbabwean and are tired of your
suffering and
oppression, then for goodness’ sake go and vote.
You may have
been too scared to support the Movement for Democratic
Change’s mass action,
but the least you can do is to go and vote this
weekend.
If
you can’t even be bothered to do that much to help yourself, then
don’t
complain about your suffering.
RES Cook
Harare