The Sunday Times, UK
December 10, 2006
Christina Lamb
ZIMBABWE
has the highest inflation and lowest life expectancy in
the world, not to
mention the highest percentage of orphans. So desperate is
the shortage of
food that President Robert Mugabe's own guards have been
spotted shooting
squirrels in Harare's Botanical Gardens.
However, Mugabe, 82, may
be rewarded by being made president for
life at his party's annual
conference this week.
Among the main proposals to be
discussed is postponing
presidential elections from 2008 till 2010. But
Didymus Mutasa, the powerful
national security minister and secretary for
administration in the ruling
Zanu-PF party, said last week that Mugabe had
done "so many wonderful
things" for Zimbabwe that it was likely that
delegates to the conference
would appoint him for life.
"There is a realistic chance that someone among the delegates or
one of the
provinces could come up with a proposal that he remains the party's
presidential candidate until Amen," said Mutasa.
"He has
done so many wonderful things for this country and its
majority population
and he is not showing any signs of tiredness. So if it
is raised, as I am
sure it will be, why not?"
Among those "wonderful things" is
turning the country from the
breadbasket of southern Africa to a land so
famished that there are now long
queues at abattoirs to buy waste such as
pigskin marked "not fit for human
consumption".
The last
official figures issued in October put inflation at
1,070%. But the cost of
living shot up by almost 50% last month, according
to the Consumer Council
of Zimbabwe. An urban family of six now requires
Z$209,000 (£442) to meet
its basic food, housing, transport and clothing
needs for a month, way above
the average wage of Z$50,000. So bad is the
economic crisis that while
people around the world are stocking up on treats
for the festive season,
Zimbabweans are staring at empty shelves.
"This will be the
worst Christmas ever," said Joyce Taravinga, a
single mother in Mbare, one
of many who lost their homes in the government's
slum demolition operation.
She now has to live with relatives in an already
overcrowded
shack.
"It's hard to imagine that we used to have meat and
presents.
This year it will be a bowl of sadza [maize porridge] and
leaves."
She is hoping to have saved enough from selling
bananas to be
able to flavour the food with "meat sawdust" - gristle and
bone sold as dog
food by the abattoir. "We are happy if we can afford dog
food," she said.
"We have no dignity left."
Even the
government's own information shows that living
standards have dropped 150%
in the past decade. A survey by the social
welfare ministry revealed that
between 1995 and 2003, more than 63% of rural
people could not afford to
meet basic food requirements, while the figure in
urban areas was 53%. Since
then the situation has got far worse.
The lack of nutrition
is hastening so many Aids-related deaths
that new figures from Unicef reveal
that a quarter of Zimbabwe's children -
1.6m - are now
orphans.
"This number is growing," said Dr Festo Kavishe, the
Unicef
representative in Zimbabwe. "HIV and Aids have dramatically increased
children's vulnerability in recent years to the point where Zimbabwe now has
the highest percentage in the world of children who are
orphans."
Zimbabwe's register office has
suspended issuing
identification cards, passports and other crucial
documents to citizens as a
shortage of foreign currency means that they are
no longer able to import
the necessary ink and
paper.
Anyone who dares to complain about the
situation
risks being beaten or arrested. The government is also attempting
to block
access to outside media by confiscating shortwave radios in rural
areas in a
crackdown that started this month. Wind-up and solar-powered
radios were
distributed by non- governmental organisations to give people
access to
broadcasters such as the
BBC.
According to Nelson Chamisa,
spokesman for one
faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change,
its offices have
been inundated with complaints from people who have had
their radios seized.
Members of so-called
listening clubs, which meet to
listen to news on shared radios, have been
threatened and told they are
"selling out the country" by listening to
"foreign" broadcasts.
"The government is becoming
more and more paranoid,"
said Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions.
"The more desperate they become, the more violent
they get."
However, he vowed: "We won't be
deterred. Everything
is falling apart. The health system has collapsed.
Hospitals have no drugs.
People cannot afford school fees. There are power
cuts all the time. We can
no longer just
wait."
The congress has threatened protests in
the new year
if the government fails to meet demands to raise minimum wage
levels, stop
the arrest of street traders and provide life-prolonging
anti-retroviral
drugs to those living with
HIV.
Despite the increased repression and ever
worsening
situation, there are moves within the European Union to avoid
reimposing
travel sanctions on Mugabe and his cohorts when they expire in
February.
France and Portugal are among the countries that no longer want
sanctions.
Kathryn Llewellyn, campaign director
for the
London-based organisation Action for Southern Africa, which is
lobbying
MEPs, said: "If the EU sanctions drop we will be turning our backs
on the
millions of Zimbabweans suffering
daily."
Our tragedy, by a priest working in the
slums of
Harare
I do not know how people
survive with more than
1,000% inflation. Just last month the mealie meal
that everyone lives on
went up 190% and last week bus fares went up
60%.
Murambatsvina (drive out the filth),
Mugabe's
clean-up operation from last year, continues to take its toll:
there are
still homeless people in the suburb of Harare where I work. You
find 20 or
30 people in a shack because people whose homes were demolished
are
squeezing in with friends and relatives.
Yesterday a widow, mother of five children, came to
ask for help. She used
to stay with her uncle. He has thrown them out onto
the streets because he
is afraid she might die on him, leaving him the five
children. She is
visibly sick with Aids.
No one outside government
can be seen to be doing
anything for the people. Just like food
distribution: government wants to
monopolise it and then give only aid to
its known supporters.
The economic collapse
destroys our culture and our
humanity. It is so bad now that people give
false names when they leave sick
relatives in hospital. This is so they
cannot be traced when the relative
dies, because they cannot pay for the
funeral. Their relatives receive a
pauper's burial in a mass
grave.
Zimbabwe's awful
record
a.. 1.6m orphans - one in four Zimbabwean
children -
the world's highest rate
a..
Average life expectancy: 34 for women, 37 for
men, world's
lowest
a.. Inflation: 1070.2% (October), world's
highest
a.. Minimum monthly budget for a family
of six:
Z$209,000 (£442)
a.. Average salary:
Z$50,000 (£106)
a.. Budget deficit: 43% of
GDP
a.. Unemployment
70%
Sources: Unicef, World Health Organisation,
Zimbabwe
government
Yahoo News
Sat
Dec 9, 5:20 PM ET
HARARE (AFP) - An international human rights group has
expressed shock at
rights abuses by state agents in Zimbabwe and deplored
the failure by
neighbouring countries and international rights groups to
pressure Harare to
stop the violations.
"We are concerned, shocked
and alarmed at the impact of repressive laws and
at the severe human rights
abuses by state agents that have resulted in
deepening poverty, torture and
rape," representatives of the World Alliance
for Citizen Participation, said
in a communique obtained by AFP on Saturday.
The seven representatives of
rights groups from Africa were in Zimbabwe for
a four-day mission last
week.
"Despite the frequent human rights abuses by the government of
Zimbabwe on
its people, there has been insignificant intervention from
governments and
civil society in the region and beyond," the team said in
the two-page
communique.
They called on President Robert Mugabe's
government to repeal repressive
laws including the stiff media and security
laws which critics say have been
invoked to suppress the opposition and
emasculate a once-vibrant private
press.
They deplored the failure by
the authorities to build shelter for victims of
a government crackdown on
slums in May last year and called for an
independent rights commission to
bring perpetrators of human rights abuses
to account.
Zimbabwe has
come under a barrage of criticism for its rights record tainted
by
allegations of attacks and detentions of perceived enemies of the
state.
Last year the Zimbabwe government drew international condemnation
when it
launched an anti-slum drive which left hundreds of thousands
homeless and
others without means of survival.
In September several
trade unionists suffered fractures as riot police
crushed protests against
the skyrocketting cost of living and general
economic
mismanagement.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report in
October the
Zimbabwean government had intensified its use of torture and
arbitrary
arrests to quell opposition to Mugabe's 26-year-rule.
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 8 December
So why do the banks and shops open every day in Zimbabwe?
How does this
creaking country keep going? It's pretty much agreed these
days that it's a
combination of diaspora earnings and of course foreign
currency revenues
from platinum. Zimbabweans in the UK and South Africa,
many of them slaving
away at tough jobs send money or goods home to their
families. Every few
days it seems a new internet site pops up offering fuel
or medical treatment
or funeral costs "at home" in exchange for pounds in
the UK. Nothing illegal
about it either. The diaspora helps keep the lid on
desperation. A woman
told me this week her family got together to make a
plan for survival. They
pooled resources to send the best educated family
member to London, to get a
job. Of course she had a visa. She was going to
stay on after it expired and
work to keep the family at home going. A few
still try to get asylum citing
political persecution. Very, very few are
genuine cases nowadays as there is
hardly any political activity. The
population is too exhausted for that. The
population isn't starving either
according to World Food Programme
definition, but boy, many are really
hungry. There is plenty of food around,
it's just so expensive. Hard earned
British pounds and South African rands
earned by ordinary Zimbabweans far
from home help keep President Robert
Mugabe going. That's the cruel truth,
but families have to stay alive
because nothing lasts for ever, as the woman
who is leaving for London after
Christmas told me.
Dear Family and Friends,
A shameful and very distressing report has just
been released in Zimbabwe.
This time it does not come from the UN or any
other international body, but
from Zimbabwe's own Ministry of Public Service
and Social Welfare. Research
was undertaken and statistics gathered right
across the country and
included 58 rural districts and 27 urban
areas.
The report says that living standards in Zimbabwe have dropped by
150% in
the last ten years. Malnutrition in children under 5 has increased by
35%
and the number of people without access to health care has increased
by
48%.
Seeing the percentages in black and white is bad enough but
when you see
for yourself the evidence of this dramatic decline, it is truly
terrifying.
In the last month the basic cost of living in Zimbabwe went up by
47%
percent. When you go shopping in a supermarket, everywhere you look
people
are carrying almost nothing. Finding sources of affordable protein
is
almost impossible. Meat is a luxury now - out of reach for almost
all
Zimbabweans. Long, long gone are the days when we would buy strips
of
biltong to snack on as we walked or when butchers would break off pieces
of
beer sticks to quieten niggling kids. Now people are buying scraps,
bones
and something called "shavings" which are the white crumbs which
accumulate
under the blade of the saws and butchery knives. Cheese is off the
menu
permanently; eggs and milk are very close behind. This week one single
egg
is selling for 200 dollars and half a litre of milk for 600 dollars (add
3
zeroes for the real cost). A cup of milk or an egg for breakfast is now
the
height of luxury and when you understand that, then you understand
why
malnutrition has increased by 35% in young children. It hardly
bears
thinking how bad nutrition levels must be in the vast majority of our
adult
population. Adults who, when you ask them if they have had breakfast
say
they are not hungry because they have had a "very big drink of water"
to
fill their stomachs - it will see them through till lunch
time.
Outside the supermarkets these days there are the usual swarm of
street
children but if you look a bit harder, in between the hordes, you see
the
really desperate ones. Old men, skin and bone, bare feet, shaking
hands,
sunken eyes and it makes you just weep to see the depths we have
dropped
to. So very many people need help now but so few are able to help
anymore.
I end on a positive note with congratulations for our rugby
team. Its
always very dangerous for me to write about sports because I know
so little
about it - and understand even less, however this is a story as
much about
patriotism as of sports. A friend wrote to say he had just watched
the
Zimbabwean rugby team do a lap of honour in the pouring rain at the end
of
a tournament being played outside the country. He said the team had lost
in
the end but they had done Zimbabwe proud. They were fine, upstanding
men
who had given their all and were so very obviously proud to be
Zimbabweans.
The Zimbabweans in the crowd were equally proud to stand and
cheer the
sportsmen from the country that is in such a mess, but that we all
love so
much. The rugby pitch might be a million miles away from the
"shavings" in
the butchery but all tell the story of the people in this
wonderful
country. As hard as it is, we all try to carry on as normal because
we know
that bad times don't ever last.
Until next week, with love,
cathy Copyright cathy buckle 9 December
2006.
http:/africantears,netfirms.com
Zim Standard
By Foster Dongozi
THE diplomatic
community, the opposition and civic society have
warned of dire consequences
if Zanu PF extends President Robert Mugabe's
term by two years or declares
him life president.
Some warned the worsening economic
meltdown would eventually
lead to an uprising.
They said
Mugabe could only extend his term if he consults the
people in a referendum.
Three Zanu PF provinces, Midlands, Masvingo, and
Bulawayo, have already
resolved at their mini-conferences to back a
resolution extending Mugabe's
term to 2010.
The pretext is to harmonise presidential and
parliamentary
elections.
Manicaland was last night
expected to be whipped into line to
support the
extension.
A European diplomat said: "The extension of
Mugabe's mandate
will only serve to prolong the stand-off with the
international community,
resulting in the further decline of the
economy.
"This will obviously result in the further
impoverishment of the
people of Zimbabwe."
Another
diplomat said the increasing hardships under the Mugabe
regime would drive
Zimbabweans into destitution and desperation.
"My fear is
that as poverty, hunger and disease continue to
bite, this might force
people to rise upand protest against continued
hardships."
Average life expectancy has plummeted to
34 years, from over 60,
as the government failsto dealwith health and food
security.
An African diplomat warned: "Extending
President Mugabe's
mandate will only serve to delay the return of normalcy
to Zimbabwe. It is
Mugabe who has a war with international funding
institutions and not the
people of Zimbabwe. What it likely to happen is
that if Mugabe's term is
extended, many donors, even those funding
humanitarian work, will just give
up on Zimbabwe and pull out with their
money."
Mugabe's current term expires in 2008. He has always
stated he
would retire at the end of his current term. But he now looks set
to cling
to power. By 2010 he will be 86 years old.
The
Standard understands there are Zanu PF extremist elements
who would prefer a
life presidency for Mugabe.
They say this will forestall a
break-up of the party if Mugabe
left office.
ZanuPF's
three-day conference begins on Wednesday in Goromonzi.
Nelson
Chamisa, the spokesman for the anti-Senate Movement for
Democratic Change,
described the attempts to extend Mugabe's tenancy at
State House as a
"constitutional fraud".
"His latest ploy to extend his term
to 2010 must be rejected by
all patriotic Zimbabweans who want a new
Zimbabwe of freedom, prosperity and
democracy."
Chamisasaid Mugabe's term could not be extended as his
legitimacy was being
challenged in the courtsafter the controversial 2002
presidential
poll.
Chamisa accused Zanu PF of treatingZimbabweas its
personal
property.
"Zimbabweans should not allow a
unilateral declaration of a Zanu
PF-imposed coup on the wishes of the
majority," he said.
All political parties, trade unions,
churches, students, civic
groups and the general populace would be mobilised
to oppose the extension
of Mugabe's term, he said.
Gabriel Chaibva, the spokesman for the pro-Senate factionof the
MDC, said he
was outraged at the move to extend Mugabe's term.
"If Zanu PF
is serious about harmonising the presidential and
parliamentary elections,
then why notbring them forward to 2008? We will not
allow them to extend
Mugabe's stay in power because we are actively going to
resist that,
together with other opposition political parties and partners
in the
democratic struggle."
Reginald Matchaba-Hove, the chairman of
the Zimbabwe Election
Support Network said: "This is not an issue for Zanu
PF alone. If he wants
an extension, then he should go back to the Zimbabwean
people and consult
them."
"The proper way of handling
that issue would be to consult
Zimbabweans in a
referendum."
Analysts said holding the presidential elections
in 2010 would
miss out on the benefits from the World Cup windfall as
tourists would avoid
Zimbabwe like the plague because of the inevitable orgy
of violence that
usually takes place before and after elections.
Zim Standard
BY OUR STAFF
EFFORTS to revive
the economy are being hampered by government
officials who are benefiting
from the crisis, a European ambassador said in
Harare last
week.
The Swedish Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Sten Rylander, was
speaking
to journalists after the signing ceremony of a grant advanced to
the Legal
Resources Foundation (LRF).
He said there was
need for fruitful dialogue between key players
on the Zimbabwe political
landscape in order to secure a better future for
Zimbabwe.
"Some of the people in government have been
notorious for
pointing fingers at us (Europeans) for causing the problems,"
he said. "You
can never do it on your own as a country, but of course there
are some
people in government who want the situation to remain as it is
because they
are benefiting."
The envoy said the
government should take good advice from the
visiting International Monetary
Fund (IMF) mission on how to get the country
"out of this
mess".
"As economic hardships worsen, the environment is
getting more
and more difficult and also fertile for corrupt practices. I
believe that
many people in government know that you need international
support to be
able to turn around this economy," said the
Ambassador.
The Swedish government, through its international
development
co-operation agency, Sida, pledged US$680 000 to the LRF as an
ongoing
support for the free legal assistance and human rights programmes
run by the
organisation.
"There is an urgent,
widespread need for the services provided
by the LRF, because of the very
limited legal advice and assistance
available in Zimbabwe," said
Rylander.
He said in Zimbabwe, the legal representation ratio
is
approximately one lawyer for every 14 500 people.
LRF
executive director, Deborah Barron, said their programmes
were aimed at
enhancing the overall human rights environment for grassroots
communities,
focusing on legal services.
Rylander has tried, in vain so
far, to build bridges between
President Mugabe and the European
Union.
Zim Standard
By Nqobani Ndlovu
BULAWAYO -
Jonathan Moyo was a mercenary during his tenure in
government, the Speaker
of the House of Assembly, John Nkomo said on Friday.
Nkomo,
the Zanu PF national chairman, said the way Moyo carried
out his duties left
him in no doubt that the professor of political science
was operating in
government like a mercenary.
"The plaintiff knows that at the
time of his appointment as
government minister (of state for information and
publicity) he was not a
member of Zanu PF," Nkomo told the Bulawayo High
Court hearing Moyo's
defamation suit against himself and another Zanu PF
heavyweight, Dumiso
Dabengwa.
"It therefore follows that
if there was a written or verbal
contract, I can describe that contract or
liken it to that of a mercenary.
"He (Moyo) told the court
that he was paid handsomely and that
can only be likened to a mercenary who
gets paid for his services." Moyo
says the two claimed he was planning a
coup against President Mugabe and he
is seeking $200 million in
damages.
Nkomo, who recently declared he is eyeing the
presidency, told
the court the lawsuit was aimed at hurting his political
career.
He said under cross-examination: "The lawsuit is a
deliberate
aim to politically embarrass me and my co-defendant as senior
Zanu PF
members."
He said, for example, the witnesses
brought to court to testify
against him were disrespectful of his
seniority.
"When one of them was asked by this court who was
chairing the
Tsholotsho meeting she said John. It is wrong to say that. It
would have
been better if she said ubaba uNkomo. It shows that they were
taught how to
embarrass me and call me by my first name."
Moyo claims the defamatory statements were allegedly made by the
two senior
Zanu PF members at a 12 January 2005 District Co-ordination
Committee
meeting in Tsholotsho.
Senior Zanu PF members and cabinet
ministers expected to testify
in the case include the Minister of Justice,
Patrick Chinamasa, the Deputy
Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social
Welfare, Abednico Ncube, the
Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism,
Andrew Langa, and war veterans'
leader, Joseph Chinotimba.
Zim Standard
BY WALTER MARWIZI
AGRICULTURE
Minister Joseph Made on Friday denied knowledge of
the controversial
Operation Maguta/Ukusutha programme but senior officials
in his ministry
were quick to admit its existence.
Made made the denial as it
emerged that Brigadier Douglas
Nyikayaramba was in charge of the expanded
operation that could see peasant
farmers, across the country, toiling in the
fields under the supervision of
soldiers. Other top army officials were
heading the programme in the
provinces.
Made told The
Standard he did not know that his ministry was
enticing peasant farmers to
grow maize and sorghum "for the purposes of
creating a strategic grain
reserve for the 2006/07 season".
The farmers are required to
sign contracts which bind them to
provide free labour as and when it is
needed by soldiers who administer
Operation Maguta. They will not have a say
in the pricing of the produce and
will have to bear the "risk and insurance
of the grain enroute" to the Grain
Marketing Board (GMB).
Also, the peasants would have to pledge all their movable assets
which would
be confiscated by the state if they fail to grow crops
sufficient to cover
the cost of inputs. The programme, whose implications
are not being fully
explained to communal farmers, has been described by
farmers who refused to
sign the contracts as a new form of slavery.
But Made, asked
by The Standard why his ministry had drafted
contracts with a potential to
both enslave and pauperise farmers said:
"It's a lie, I only
know Operation Maguta/Inala, and this one
Ukusutha I am not aware. It is a
figment of the imagination of whoever is
telling you."
However, a call to the Ministry of Agriculture a few minutes
after the
interview revealed that the minister was denying knowledge of a
programme
under his charge.
Newly-appointed permanent secretary for
Agriculture Shadreck
Mlambo confirmed that the ministry had embarked on an
expanded Operation
Maguta/Ukusutha.
"It's a ministry
programme but it is better when you talk to an
official from the Ministry of
Information who has been assigned to the
operation to handle such inquiries.
It would be unfortunate if we started
talking at cross purposes," Mlambo
said.
Mlambo, who replaced Simon Pazvakavambwa two weeks ago,
would
not provide more details about the Operation.
Although the unidentified "Press Officer" could not be reached,
an official
at Maguta section at Ngungunyana Building in Harare confirmed
the programme
had been expanded and was targeting peasant farmers and anyone
who was
prepared to grow maize and sorghum.
"We want farmers to grow
crops all over the country; they can
get contract forms from DA (District
Administrators) and Provincial
Administrators and Governors' offices," said
the official.
He confirmed that soldiers were running the
operation.
"They are supervising the farmers, though officers
from the
police, prisons and Arex (Agricultural and Rural Extension
Services) are
also involved," he said.
Zim Standard
By Nqobani Ndlovu
BULAWAYO -
Regional leaders in Matabeleland have said President
Robert Mugabe was being
"dishonest" when he said recently he was concerned
at the lack of
development in Matabeleland North.
Last Monday, Mugabe
expressed disquiet over the failed projects
during a tour of construction
sites in Lupane, the provincial capital.
The president said
he was "angry" that several projects in the
drought-prone region had been
prematurely abandoned due to inadequate
budgetary provisions by the
government.
These included the Lupane State University (LSU)
and the
Gwayi-Shangani dam.
The site of the LSU remains a
dense bush. In 2004, the
university failed to enrol its first intake of
students, despite the
government having set 1 September 2004 as its opening
day.
"We can't allow work that we have done here so far to
deteriorate and be at a standstill," said Mugabe. "I am not just saying this
to please you. We will adopt an emergency approach to Lupane and treat it
the same way one would handle a patient in hospital who may be on the point
of death."
But Mugabe's comments, aimed at projecting the
idea that the
government was keen to develop the region and coming ahead of
this week's
Zanu PF people's conference, failed to impress key regional
leaders. They
said it was clear the development of the region was not a
priority.
For example, they noted that the government had not
finished
building Elitsheni government complex in Lupane, the provincial
headquarters.
As a result, the province's government
departments remained at
the Mhlahlandlela complex in
Bulawayo.
According to the officials, these were not the only
projects
that had not been given priority by the
government.
The Lupane methane gas project, the Matabeleland
Zambezi Water
Project and the Gwayi-Shangani dam have had their own fair
share of problems
involving funding.
The construction of
the multi- billion dollar dam is seen as a
permanent solution to the
southern region's water problems.
Welshman Mabhena, the
province's former governor, said Mugabe
was not being sincere when he
claimed he was concerned at the lack of
development in the
region.
"Since 1980, the region has only known
marginalisation. There is
discontent among the people in that region because
of underdevelopment,"
Mabhena said.
"The President and
our leaders are deceitful. They are not being
honest."
Pathisa Nyathi, a traditionalist and educationist said: "The
problem we have
is that of people trying to please political opinion for
political gain.
People wanted development since independence and why should
they wait for a
few more years?"
The secretary-general of Zapu, Sikhumbuzo
Dube, said it was
because of the realisation that the government was not
concerned about
developing the region that his party was advocating
federalism.
This would enable people to initiate their own
development
programmes, he said.
"People should be given
authority to initiate and determine
their own development projects in their
respective provinces because without
that, the President, whether lying or
not, would continue to cry over lack
of development."
Zim Standard
BY GODFREY MUTIMBA
MASVINGO -
President Robert Mugabe has refused to cap over 500
Masvingo State
University students until the university is renamed Great
Zimbabwe
University, The Standard was told.
A number of students have
complained this postponement could
delay their entry into the job market as
they have to wait indefinitely for
their certificates.
An
official of the university, declining to be named, said
students had no
option but to wait until next year when a new graduation
date is expected to
be set.
"Students will not graduate this year as it was
communicated to
the University that President Mugabe will not be coming to
cap students
until the college changes its name to Great Zimbabwe
University," said the
official.
Masvingo State University
Vice-Chancellor, Obert Maravanyika,
confirmed the graduation, set for 24
November, had been postponed.
"The graduation has been
postponed but I don't know where the
issue concerning the president came
from. We are meeting very soon with the
Minister of Higher Education and the
permanent secretary to resolve the
issue. I think the permanent secretary,
Dr Washington Mbizvo, will be in a
better position to answer you,"
Maravanyika said.
Mbizvo could not be reached for comment
yesterday.
Sources said Mugabe made his intentions clear in
2003 when he
told an Annual Chief's Assembly held at Great Zimbabwe that he
wanted a
university with a cultural bias in Masvingo named after the
monument.
Later, Higher and Tertiary Education Minister
Mudenge negotiated
with university officials to have the university renamed
GZU.
The minister promised early this year that MASU would
change its
name before the end of the year. He announced this at a workshop
at Great
Zimbabwe hotel.
He also promised that government
would move the university to
the Great Zimbabwe monument.
But by 24 November, the graduation day, MASU, having opened its
doors in
2001, had not yet been renamed or moved from its present
site.
University sources said Mugabe told the authorities he
would not
attend the institution's first graduation ceremony until his
wishes were
fulfilled - hence the cancellation of the
graduation.
A student identifying herself as Tendai said they
were shocked
to be told that their graduation was
postponed.
"Some of us have gone for interviews and were only
waiting for
our certificates to start work and we were told that the
president wants the
name of the institution to be changed," she
said.
Zim Standard
BY
VALENTINE MAPONGA
MINORITIES' representative in the
Senate, Aguy Georgias, has
attacked anonymous Herald columnist Nathaniel
Manheru for fanning "racial
hate and divisiveness".
Moving a motion in the Upper House recently, calling for the
allocation of
land to minority communities, Senator Georgias lashed out at
the columnist
who writes in the government-owned paper on Saturday, saying
Manheru
dedicated acres and acres of national newspaper space to fan racial
hatred.
"Reading the Nathaniel Manheru column in The
Herald the other
day, I felt really frightened, very scared indeed, that we
have among us
some people who in this day and age, still proceed with such a
tunnel
vision," Georgias said.
He said Manheru saw all
things in "black and white and refuses
to see the bigger picture and the
beauty of colour".
"Whatever happened to all that talk of
developing a media and
journalism practice that fosters national integration
and cohesion? Since
when do invective and racially inspired epithets
substitute for
intelligence? Call it opportunism in the most degrading
form!" Georgias
said.
The Senator made the comments as he
moved a motion calling upon
the government to look into the plight of
minorities in Harare's Arcadia,
Braeside, and Bulawayo's Barham Green,
Nashville in Gweru and Florida in
Mutare.
The coloured
community, among other minorities, inhabits these
areas.
Georgias said minorities in these areas were neglected, "leading
to rapid
deterioration of the social well-being of these communities,
worsening the
plight of these people and driving them into abject poverty".
But Georgias was forced to withdraw his motion, which also
called for the
establishment of AIDS centres, after fellow senators strongly
felt that
establishing separate areas for minority groups would be promoting
racial
segregation.
Senator Forbes Magadu for Chitungwiza said the
motion was the
most retrogressive thing that Georgias had ever moved in the
Senate.
"It is unfortunate that the Honourable Senator thinks
that by
getting influence from the so-called minority groups, it might help.
No, it
does not help. A person must progress on his or her own," Magadu
said.
Mutasa-Mutare Senator Mandi Chimene said the manner in
which the
motion was brought up had caused alarm among the members. "He
could have
done more research before bringing the motion. We should not
misunderstand
him. But we would ask him to respectfully withdraw the
motion," Chimene
said.
Georgias is not a member of the
two main parties in Parliament -
Zanu PF and the MDC. He was appointed to
the Senate by President Robert
Mugabe to represent minority
groups.
Zim Standard
By our Staff
BULAWAYO - State security agents recently
raided the Bulawayo
offices of the Christian Alliance in search of
"subversive material likely
to incite people to stage anti-government
protests".
The Christian Alliance is an umbrella body of
church leaders
from all denominations.
The smash-and-grab
raid followed the success of the Christian
Alliance-organised lunch
protests, demanding constitutional reforms.
The protest
caught the police by surprise.
Useni Sibanda, the national
co-ordinator of the Christian
Alliance, confirmed last Friday's raid by the
state security agents and said
the officers took material belonging to the
group.
"The agents claimed they were looking for subversive
material
from the Christian Alliance," said Sibanda yesterday. "They said
they also
wanted to know who printed it and where."
He
said it was not yet possible to say what police had seized as
there was only
one employee to deal with the raiders when they arrived.
"It
is always difficult to account for things when you have been
raided because
there will always be money and our Bibles in the office and
we hope all will
be accounted for." Police were not immediately reachable
for
comment.
Early this year, police detained Christian Alliance
leaders,
Bishop Levee Kadenge and Pius Wakatama and urged them to work with
church
leaders who supported Zanu PF.
Sibanda said the
Christian Alliance was not deterred by the
raid.
Zim Standard
JOHANNESBURG - The South African government has been condemned
for its
"complete silence" over the high level of rape reported by
Zimbabwean women
applying for asylum, at the hands of the security forces in
their
country.
At least 15% of the Zimbabwean women refugees who
visited a
counselling centre run by the Zimbabwe Torture Victims/Survivors
Project
(ZTVP) in Johannesburg over the past 20 months alleged they had been
raped.
"The most frequent perpetrators reported were
supporters of the
ruling party, Zanu PF . . . State agents - police, army
and Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO) - were reported too, with the
police being
the most frequent state agency reported," said the study by the
ZTVP.
The ZTVP is a partner project of the Centre for the
Study of
Violence and Reconciliation, an NGO that helps communities deal
with
violence. The project offers medical assistance, counselling and
limited
social assistance to Zimbabwean survivors of torture now living in
South
Africa.
Ahmed Motala, executive director of the
centre and a human
rights lawyer, lashed out at the South African government
for its alleged
tacit approval of attempts to block moves to censure
Zimbabwe at the United
Nations, the African Union and in the Southern
African Development
Community.
"We urge the South African
government, now that it is also a
member of the UN Security Council, to
become more vocal against Zimbabwe."
it said.
The ZTVP
report, Women on the Run: Female Survivors of Torture
Amongst Zimbabwean
Asylum Seekers and Refugees in South Africa, was released
on Thursday to
coincide with the global campaign, "16 Days of Activism
Against Gender
Violence", which ends on International Human Rights Day today
(10
December).
The report based its findings on interviews
conducted with 102
women assisted at the centre between February 2005 and
September 2006.
Zimbabwe, once a middle-income country, has become the
world's fastest
shrinking economy outside a war zone. An inflation rate of
around 1 200% has
pushed the price of even a basic shopping basket beyond
the reach of many
Zimbabweans, who have sought refuge in neighbouring South
Africa.
An estimated three million Zimbabweans are now live
abroad:
one-quarter of Zimbabwe's domestic population.
About 32% of all alleged torture survivors who were sought out
by the ZTVP
during the 20-month period were women. At least 67% of the women
at the
centre said they had been politically active in some way when they
lived in
Zimbabwe, and 43% described themselves as members of the opposition
party,
the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Last month, a Human
Rights Watch report alleged that the
systematic abuse of rights activists,
including excessive use of force by
police during protests, arbitrary
arrests and detention, had intensified in
Zimbabwe in the past
year.
The ZTVP report contained harrowing accounts of sexual
violence.
The most recent case was a woman, identified as 'X' to protect her
identity,
who claimed she had been raped by the police after she attended an
MDC
meeting in April this year in Harare.
She was
allegedly held in a police station for three days
without food and on her
release was forced into a van and taken to an
isolated area and raped by a
policeman.
"She (X) tried to resist. She was trampled upon,
and burnt with
a cigarette on her thighs and buttocks. The perpetrator
ejaculated inside
her vagina and smeared his semen all over her body. He
also urinated on her.
He did this so that she could not forget the
experience. She was taken back
to Harare police station and instructed to
bathe herself. She was also
threatened with death should she inform anyone,"
said the report.
In a snap survey by ZTVP in 2005, 30% of the
women complained
that they had suffered political violence, and 44% reported
having been
denied access to food because they were opposition
supporters.
Only 36% of the women interviewed for the report
had been given
asylum seeker status, and a mere two percent had been given
refugee seeker
status (an asylum seeker is a person who has applied for
refugee status).
The report commented that these figures should cause the
"South African
authorities serious embarrassment".
Jacob
van Garderen, national co-ordinator of the Refugee and
Migrant Rights
Project at Lawyers for Human Rights, a South African NGO,
said South Africa
was struggling to clear a backlog of 7 000 applications by
Zimbabwean asylum
seekers. "This is besides the 11 000 fresh application
filed since the
beginning of this year (2006) until June."
He described the
process of granting asylum or refugee status as
"difficult" and long. "It
can take a year to get an appointment with the
department of Home Affairs to
fill in the form to apply for asylum or
refugee status." During that period,
many asylum seekers end up being
deported back to the country where they
feared prosecution, which was
against the South African constitution, van
Garderen said.
Vincent Hlongwane, a South African government
spokesman defended
Pretoria's failure to tackle Zimbabwe over its rights
record. He said South
Africa did not "believe in talking down" to Zimbabwe,
which was a "sovereign
state". "It is for the people of Zimbabwe to resolve
their problems
themselves," he said.
"We can only assist
them. Besides, the former Tanzanian
president (Benjamin) Mkapa has been
mandated by the AU to help Zimbabwe, and
we have full confidence in his
abilities."
IRIN was unable to get comment from the
Zimbabwean government,
which has consistently denied claims of torture and
abuse in the country. -
IRIN
Zim Standard
BY
OUR STAFF
BULAWAYO - A Gwanda Provincial Magistrate was
forced to further
remand two senior officials of the pro-Senate Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC) as there was no Attorney-General's authority to
prosecute them.
Paul Themba-Nyathi, the director of
elections, and Sithatshisiwe
Sibanda, the Matabeleland South administrator,
wanted to have their case
referred to the Supreme Court.
They are being accused of distributing subversive material.
But Gwanda Senior Resident Magistrate, Takudzwa Gwazemba, was
forced to
remand Nyathi and Sibanda to 20 December as she had not obtained
authority
from the AG's office to hear the application.
According to
Section 34, Chapter 3 of the Criminal l Law and
Codification Act (Number 23:
2004), in cases against the state, "no
proceedings shall be instituted or
continued against any person in respect
of a crime under this chapter . . .
without authority from the AG".
Thomson Mabhikwa of Mabhikwa,
Likhwa & Nyathi Legal
Practitioners, who is representing the two,
confirmed the case had been
remanded due to lack of written authority from
the AG.
Mabhikwa said: "There was only verbal authority to
prosecute but
the magistrate says she wanted written authority from the AG
before she can
proceed."
The two MDC officials had been
remanded to 6 December to give
them time to file their application
challenging the constitutionality of the
charges against
them.
Nyathi and Sibanda argue that the section they are
charged under
contravenes section 20 of the Constitution.
The State says Nyathi and Sibanda on 15 October induced or
attempted to
induce members of the police and army to withdraw services,
loyalty and
allegiance or to commit breaches of discipline by circulating to
the public
a document.
The document entitled "A message to our armed
forces" reads in
part: "Everybody knows somebody who is in the police force
or army. Our
police force and armed forces are also suffering as a result of
the economic
collapse.
"They are struggling to pay for
food, health and education
because they are poorly paid. Help those people
to help themselves. Help
them to do the right thing. Help them to have
courage to say enough is
enough. Take this message to
them."
It is an offence under the Criminal Law and
Codification Act to
publish or distribute documents said to be prejudicial
to the State or
likely to incite demonstrations.
The two
face a jail term of not less than 20 years if convicted.
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
THE Zanu PF Masvingo provincial executive last week
formally
endorsed the return of acting Minister of Information and
Publicity,
Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana to the province.
Mangwana was accepted at the Masvingo provincial annual
conference where he
was introduced to over 1 000 members from the seven
districts of the
province who attended the meeting.
Mangwana had struggled to
make his way into Masvingo politics
after falling out with Mashonaland West
politicians.
Reports suggest his case was referred to the
Zanu PF secretary
for administration, Didymus Mutasa, who gave the Masvingo
province the go-
ahead to accept him.
A Zanu PF insider
said, as a central committee member, Mangwana
could not move from one
province to the other without the party's clearance.
Mangwana
is eyeing Chivi South constituency and has made his
intentions clear by
frequenting the constituency where he has made donations
to several
schools.
"It was Mutasa who instructed the provincial
leadership here to
accept him otherwise things could have been tough for
him," said an insider
who declined to be named.
Speaking
to journalists at the Masvingo Press club where he was
appointed patron,
Mangwana confirmed the return to his roots.
"I am overjoyed
and happy to inform you that I have joined the
colleagues in the politics of
Masvingo and I have returned home. I have come
to work with them to make
Masvingo a united province, contrary to some
sections of the media who write
negative reports that foment factionalism,
relegating the province to the
peripheries of economic development,"
Mangwana said.
Mangwana, who denied factionalism ever existed in the province,
said he
decided to come back home because other provinces were benefiting
from the
"brains from Masvingo".
"Masvingo has the best brains in the
country but it is lagging
in development because it exports its human
resources to other provinces.
This is why I decided to come back home," he
said.
Zim Standard
By
Foster Dongozi
SENIOR police officers and officials from
the Ministry of Local
Government have reportedly kicked out more than 1 000
families settled at
the Hatcliffe Extension on the outskirts of
Harare.
This is despite the fact that the affected families
have paid
for the housing stands and the area has been serviced by the city
council.
The officials have allegedly parcelled out the
stands among
themselves before evicting the residents to yet another holding
camp under
another planned Operation Murambatsvina.
The
police officers are interested in snatching the stands from
the powerless
civilians because the housing area is located next to a
boarding school for
the children of police officers.
The story was leaked to The
Standard by a police officer who
said he refused to take part in the
"looting and theft" of the housing
stands.
"There are
many senior officers who want to grab the housing
stands at Hatcliffe, so
they will live next to their children's school. It's
really a selfish move
by the police officers and their cronies in the Local
Government ministry
who are getting housing stands as payment for helping to
kick out the
legitimate owners of the stands."
The Standard visited the
Hatcliffe housing scheme and found the
community preparing for their
imminent eviction by senior police officers
and government
officials.
A grandmother who looks after several orphans
wailed in anguish
as she explained how top civil servants, most of them
beneficiaries of Zanu
PF patronage, were about to complicate their
lives.
"An official identifying himself as Mr Mandiwanzira
came to tell
us he had been ordered by his minister (Ignatius) Chombo that
we needed to
make way for the accommodation of senior police officers and
top government
civil servants," the elderly woman said, as she struggled to
fight back
tears. "Mandiwanzira said we should stop any further developments
because we
would soon be evicted."
Most of the people at
the Hatcliffe Extension bought the stands
in 2002 and signed lease
agreements offered by Chombo before the
presidential
elections.
"We have always been on the move at the hands of
this cruel
government," said the old woman. "We used to live at Churu Farm
where we had
been offered accommodation by the late Reverend Ndabaningi
Sithole. But we
were evicted and taken to some holding camps before we used
up all our
savings to buy the stands that we are now being chased away
from."
Police spokesman, Assistant Commissioner Wayne
Bvudzijena said
he could not comment on the developments.
"I am on leave, talk to (Superintendent Oliver) Mandipaka."
Mandipaka referred all questions to the Local Government
ministry where
Chombo himself denied knowledge of the evictions.
"We don't
believe in such inhuman behaviour. The residents
should bring a written
letter evicting them from the area. That way it will
be easy to know who is
doing that. Otherwise they should not listen to
verbal
threats."
Zim Standard
BY
WALTER MARWIZI
FINANCE Minister Herbert Murerwa yesterday
admitted he had
authorised the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to print money
for
"quasi-fiscal operations", which he has publicly blamed for spiralling
inflation.
But he would not comment on widespread calls
for him to resign.
"I actually wrote to (Gideon) Gono on
several occasions, asking
him to pay for certain commitments. These involved
Air Zimbabwe, wheat and
many others. He was able to provide support when we
needed it," Murerwa
said.
Asked why he had criticised the
operations when he presented the
2007 budget last week, Murerwa said he had
not blamed Gono or any other
person.
"All I said was
let's reduce the quasi-fiscal operations because
the source of the money was
not sustainable. This policy was approved by the
Cabinet, and by the
Parliament," Murerwa said, adding that he had no
personal differences with
Gono.
The minister made the admission the day Gono,
criticised for
keeping the Fidelity Printers busy, took an unprecedented
step to prove his
innocence.
Gono released confidential
correspondence that showed it was
Murerwa who instructed him to print money
with the full approval of the
cabinet.
The letters
exposed the government's insatiable appetite for RBZ
money. Without the RBZ
support, the cash-strapped Zanu PF government would
not have been able to
import maize, wheat and a number of other operations
would have ground to a
halt.
The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) would have closed shop
after
failing to pay farmers for their produce, the confidential memos
show.
The letters show it was Murerwa who wrote to Gono
instructing
him to provide funds following "fire fighting" cabinet meetings.
Without any
money in Murerwa's coffers, the government had no option but to
turn to
Gono.
For example, in a Memo dated 24 March 2004
with a reference
"Funding for the 2006 winter wheat programme", Murerwa
said:
"I hereby authorise the Reserve bank of Zimbabwe to
avail
resources amounting to ZW$3,25 trillion though the ASPEC (Agricultural
Sector Production Enhancement Fund) facility, for the 2006 Winter Wheat
Programme."
Murerwa also instructed Gono to release
$836.3 billion under the
government input scheme.
"The
bank should proceed with disbursements in accordance with
section 8 of the
Reserve Bank Act Chapter 22: 15 that mandates the bank to
carry out
transactions in a manner requested by the State or when authorised
by the
Minister," wrote Murerwa.
The Finance minister also turned to
Gono when the Cabinet had
approved on 31 September this year the
implementation of an expanded
Operation Maguta/Inala programme to capacitate
A1 and communal farmers as
well as utilising some dormant Arda
farms.
Gono released $56.2 billion for the
programme.
Even when GMB was broke, Murerwa again wrote to
Gono instructing
him to "provide funding on a weekly basis to enable the GMB
to take delivery
of maize until Cabinet has finalised on the GMB maize
selling price.
Several other officials wrote to Gono
requesting he provides
funds for bridging finance for the construction of
dams such as
Gwayi-Shangani. When government announced that it was paying
contractor
Salin Impreglio, the contractor working on Tokwe Mukorsi $375
billion in
March last year, it had turned to the RBZ for
assistance.
The frequency of the memos suggests the printing
machine was
kept busy since last year.
In his statement,
Gono said he was left with no option but to
make public the correspondence
in order to correct certain
misrepresentations peddled by both public
figures and officials.
"What is disturbing is the silence
from the Ministry of Finance
officials and the inability to tell the
Honourable Minister, Dr H.M Murerwa
that he is the one authorising most of
the quasi fiscal activities," he
said.
Zim Standard
BY OUR STAFF
THE Masvingo
provincial executive has ordered every villager in
the rural areas to
contribute towards the estimated $50 million to be spent
at this week's Zanu
PF conference.
Speaking at the just-ended Zanu PF Masvingo
inter-district
conference held in preparation for the party's annual
conference on 17
December in Goromonzi, the Zanu PF executive ordered
villagers to pay $200
each.
Lovemore Matuke, the Zanu PF
provincial treasurer, ordered
district leaders and party councillors from
the rural areas to collect the
money from villagers by today (10
December).
He said the party's finances were in the red and
without the
contributions by the villagers; they would not meet their $50
million
target.
"I say to all district leaders and
councillors, as well as
chiefs present here, that every villager in the
rural area should pay $200
to the party and we want that money by 10
December. No one should be seen
defying this order, otherwise our province
will not contribute anything to
the national conference," Matuke
said.
Masvingo has an estimated population of 1.5 million.
The
majority of these are villagers who reside in the province's seven
drought-prone districts. They are currently struggling to buy basic
commodities.
A member of the Zanu PF executive said it
was improper to order
struggling villagers to contribute towards a party
conference.
"This sends a terrible message to the rural
areas. Many of these
people can hardly afford a square meal, yet we are
asking them to pay for
our conference. Also, I suspect this money would be
abused since chiefs,
district leaders and councillors are all mandated to
get the money. Who is
going to account for it?"
This is
not the first time that Zanu PF has ordered people to
contribute towards
their meetings. In the past, teachers have been forced to
contribute towards
funds for conferences and annual congresses.
Critics view the
practice as a form of naked extortion.
Have your say: editor@standard.co.zw
Zim Standard
By Nqobani Ndlovu/Pindai Dube
BULAWAYO - The Zimbabwe
Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) is working on
legislation, in consultation with
the Ministry of Finance, to tax farmers
newly-resettled under the land
reform programme who fail to produce, after
receiving free government
agricultural inputs.
In a move likely to deter some resettled
farmers, top among them
government officials accused of obtaining free
inputs for resale, ZIMRA has
set a target of $2 billion of agricultural
produce for all the A1 and 2
farmers for them not to be
taxed.
The $2 billion would be reviewed in line with
inflationary
trends. If farmers fail to produce, ZIMRA plans to force them
to pay 2% tax
on all the free inputs they obtained.
This
new strategy by ZIMRA was announced in Bulawayo on Tuesday
at a post-2007
budget analysis seminar organised by the Zimbabwe Association
of Tax
Consultants.
ZIMRA audit controller, Brighton Rombe, said it
had been noted
that the only way to stop the new farmers from abusing the
free inputs was
to tax them.
"New resettled farmers got
the land for free but they are not
able to produce," said Rombe. "They
receive free agricultural inputs from
the government but the government is
not receiving any meaningful returns.
"As a way of getting
rid of this, ZIMRA has started working with
the Finance Ministry to come up
with a new tax band for the farmers. The
government is importing some of the
inputs and equipment but we continue to
face shortages."
Last week there were reports that President Robert Mugabe
expressed anger
over the abuse of the free government inputs by the new
farmers.
Mugabe, who early this year attacked ministers
and government
officials for turning newly-allocated farms into weekend
braai resorts, said
there should be an audit of the more than 400 tractors
released 18 months
ago to support the agrarian reforms.
Renson Gasela, the secretary for agriculture in the pro-Senate
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), commended the ZIMRA move, noting that
the
government was finally admitting the failure of the whole
exercise.
Gasela said: "It is a wake-up call for the
government. We have
cried out that the manner in which the whole exercise
was done had resulted
in this present state where food shortages are now the
norm. The move will
deter all those that have been abusing the
resources."
Analysts have criticised the land reform
exercise, in which the
government parcelled out large chunks of productive
land to Zanu PF zealots
with little or no farming
expertise.
Some have been accused of selling
government-supplied free
agricultural inputs. Analysts have cited this as
the reason the country has
turned from a net exporter to a net importer of
agricultural produce.
Zim Standard
BY NDAMU SANDU
THE Zimbabwe Tourism
Authority (ZTA) is mulling plans to twin
the Victoria Falls, one of the
seven Wonders of the World with Niagara Falls
in Canada in a bid to woo
tourists from the West.
ZTA chief executive officer, Karikoga
Kaseke told
Standardbusiness, on Friday, the idea was in its infancy and
Zimbabwe
Ambassador to Canada, Florence Chideya would initiate
discussions.
"The preliminary work would be done by the
Ambassador but we are
going to Canada next year on a road show and we will
talk to the people who
manage the Falls," Kaseke said.
"Tourists who visit Niagara Falls will be told there is another
Falls in
Zimbabwe."
The ZTA boss said the tourism promotion body would
"invade"
Canada next year to hold travel shows to market Zimbabwe as one of
the best
tourist destinations.
"Our target for the 2007
Travel Expo is to bring not less than
20 buyers from Canada," said
Kaseke.
This comes after information provided by a Canadian
delegation
that some tour operators in Canada had little knowledge of
Zimbabwe as a
tourist destination.
The delegation was
brought in by Chideya and spent a week in the
country visiting tourist
destinations.
In a no-holds-barred feedback to ZTA, the
delegation said that
Zimbabwe needed to address the exchange rate to make it
attractive to
tourists.
"We were given Z$250 for US$1
when some guys (forex traders on
the parallel market) were whispering that
they would give a rate ten times
higher than the bank rate," said Shekhar
Ramamoothy, the Canadian head of
delegation.
Kaseke said
the industry was working on a mechanism to ensure
tourists were given a
better exchange rate compared with rates offered at
the commercial
banks.
Zim Standard
marketwatch By Deborah-Ndlovu
SHARE prices jumped last week
on the back of speculation that
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was due to
announce a devaluation of the
Zimdollar.
Stock market
investors were ahead of themselves, with most
stumbling over each other last
week to buy mining and exporting counters as
they took
positions.
A stockbroker said he expected the rally to
continue.
"Last week's gains were mostly in mining and
exporting counters.
Speculation is that (RBZ Governor, Gideon Gono) might
announce something on
the exchange rate ahead of the monetary policy next
year," said the
stockbroker.
The industrial index gained
0.10% points to close Wednesday at
547 579.49 points.
Gains were in PPC which upped $5 000 to $155 000. The cement
producer's
share price has been on an upward trend prompted by the growth in
the South
African industry ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup. BAT was $1
700 higher
to $9 500 while Afdis and Circem added $30 each to close
Wednesday at $265
and $330 respectively.
Losses were minimal and confined to
Cottco which eased $30 to
$265. Finhold lost $10 to $130.
The mining index closed Wednesday 13.10% points stronger at 266
435.05
points backed by gains in Rio Zim, Bindura and Hwange. Each of the
counters
added $502 to $5 002, $169 to $1 000 and $20 to $230
respectively
A drop in short term interest rates also helped
the gains on the
equities market. Short-term rates dipped to 50% for 7 to 14
days and 75% for
30 days last week because of CPI coupon payment-induced
surpluses.
Monday and Tuesday were dominated by liquidity
shortages due to
tax payments but by Wednesday the money market had swung
into a surplus
after $16 billion was injected by way of CPI coupon payments
and injection
of funds for Agricultural Sector Productivity Enhancement
Fund.
Zim Standard
budget analysis by John Robertson
AS happened last year and in each of the years since the land
reform
programme was announced, the government has again forecast the return
of
positive economic developments in the year ahead. In his budget speech,
the
Minister of Finance said the 2007 agricultural season was promising, as
government had ensured timely supplies of farm inputs that would result in
better productivity and yields. With assistance from the expected normal
rainfall, a 9.4% growth in agricultural output was
expected.
For the mining sector, the Minister acknowledged
that expansion
had been constrained by a lack of investment, power cuts and
rising costs.
Better mineral prices had improved export revenues, but
illegal exports of
gold and diamonds had undermined these trends, and a
decline of 14.4% was
expected in 2006. However, growth of 4.9% was expected
in 2007.
Manufacturing is thought to have declined by about
7% this year,
partly because of foreign exchange shortages that meant most
companies were
working at 30% below capacity. The hope was expressed that
the various funds
made available to help manufacturers plus initiatives to
make the exchange
rate more supportive would slow the rate of decline to
only 2% in 2007.
Tourist arrivals have picked up well,
according to the Minister's
statistics. These show that 1 596 489 people
visited Zimbabwe in the first
nine months of 2006, compared to 1 101 027 in
the same months of 2005. That
is a 45% rise, but the Minister said that a
23% increase was expected for
the year. The only suggestion offered to
explain the disparity was in the
form of a complaint about foreign exchange
leakages causing a mismatch
between arrivals and
revenues.
A significant revelation in this year's budget
figures is the
extent to which "quasi-fiscal" funding was needed to meet
expenditures that
could not be covered by tax revenues.
As a percentage of GDP, the 2006 combined expenditures of tax
revenues plus
funding raised on the money market or extracted from the banks
by means of
monetary policies came to 76%, but interest payments on the debt
are not
shown. As the interest rates were at times fairly high, the total
spending
and the total deficit as a percentage of GDP will have been
considerably
higher.
The deficit spending contributed a large proportion
of the
impetus behind the rising inflation rate by adding to domestic demand
and
also by adding to the already excessive competition for scarce foreign
exchange.
Inflation is cited as the main reason that the
original
forecasts made for the 2006 fiscal year proved to be too
optimistic.
Expenditure and revenue forecasts for the 2007 fiscal year show
that a very
much higher inflation rate has been provided for and, in line
with the
budget outturn for 2006, the budget deficit is expected to be
larger than
the total revenue collections for the year.
With revenue forecast at Z$3 000 billion and expenditure more
than twice as
much at Z$6 178 billion, the resulting public sector borrowing
requirement
of Z$3 178 billion will amount to almost 35% of the estimated
Z$9 100
billion gross domestic product.
In his speech, the Minister
of Finance revealed that recurrent
funding applications from ministries
totalled Z$24 000 billion, and the
requests for capital expenditures
totalled Z$10 900 billion. The wide gaps
between these numbers and the Z$3
000 billion revenue forecast bring into
perspective the extreme difficulties
being faced by a country that has
experienced shrinkages in gross domestic
product for eight consecutive
years.
Although the
Minister expressed his belief that 2007 would break
this trend and a
marginal growth rate would be achieved, this view is not
yet shared by other
analysts and the IMF's forecast is that a further
decline of 4.7% is likely
in the coming year.
In his forecasts, the Minister's hopes
that growth would be
restored in 2007 rested on the recoveries expected in
agricultural output,
tourist inflows and on a significant increase in
capital investment spending
on housing and on restoring the efficiency of
the infrastructure. A more
modest decline in manufacturing output is
expected to help and it is hoped
that the streamlining of investment and
export promotion agencies will
improve private investment
inflows.
An analysis of the expenditure ratios allocated to
the major
ministries makes apparent a number of important changes in
emphasis. The
proportions of total spending under Vote Appropriations have
been altered
significantly for education at both school and tertiary levels,
and for the
ministries of Agriculture, Defence and Home
Affairs.
The almost twelve-fold increase in dollars allocated
to
Education, Sport and Culture actually amounts to a 17,1% reduction in the
proportion of total Vote Appropriations and the cut for Tertiary Education
is even higher at 42,6%. These figures might suggest that the government is
determined to have the schools and colleges charge their students more, but
for that to become an effective option, the current levels of interference
in the fee structures will have to give way to much more pragmatic
policies.
Agriculture is to be allocated 44.7% less than in
2006, but this
possibly reflects the Minister's belief that the claimed
collateral value of
the 99-year leases will permit the farmers to source
finance from their own
banks.
As very few farmers are
expected to commit themselves to meet
the onerous requirements of the lease
arrangements and as the banks have
shown little enthusiasm for accepting the
leases as collateral, the level of
private sector support for farmers
appears very likely to be of almost no
consequence. Government will
therefore almost certainly have to consider
restoring their former
commitments to fund resettled farmers as the year
progresses.
The reduced proportions of total spending
going to Home Affairs,
which includes the Zimbabwe Republic Police, and
Defence may well reflect
objectives that will not be fulfilled. The most
likely explanation for the
proposals is that any initial expression of
intentions will be easily waived
as and when supplementary budget proposals
are submitted.
For now, the proposed cuts appear to be to
have released funding
for significant increases that had to be allowed for
to meet the urban
investment so frequently promised. This increase is
reflected in the 123,1%
increase to the Ministry of Local Government, Public
Works and Urban
Development. In this allocation, provision is made for a sum
of Z$133
billion that will be lent to local authorities for various urban
infrastructural projects. Other large increases are reflected in the
allocations to the Ministries of Health & Child Welfare, the Ministry of
Transport and the Ministry of Finance.
Regrettably, very
little evidence can be found in any of the
recovery hopes expressed in the
Minister's forecasts. Conditions for
agriculture are much the same as in
December last year and, at best, similar
results might be expected.
Additional uncertainties are being imposed by the
very poor start to the
rains for the coming season. With costs rising
steeply and uncertainties
about whether revenues will be permitted to cover
costs, very few farmers
are making attempts to cultivate and the extension
services are too thin on
the ground to make any useful impression. As
before, most resettlement
farmers seem still to be disinterested in making
use of their allocated
plots, but most want to do enough to qualify for
additional
assistance.
Other observations made at this time last year
remain valid:
foreign currency remains so scarce that manufacturers'
capacity utilisation
has declined further, mining activity remains affected
by disturbing
government attempts to impose revisions on already signed
investment
agreements and to claim 51% of all foreign-owned mines' issued
share capital
and fuel shortages are affecting every industry, particularly
agriculture
and tourism.
The forecast economic
improvement will not be able to start
before some assistance is received
from abroad, and that assistance will
remain beyond reach until fundamental
political policy changes have taken
place.
As inflation
accelerated during 2006, significant adjustments
have had to be made to the
2007 tax threshold levels to again prevent the
lowest paid workers from
being caught in the tax net. These have reduced
government's tax revenue and
further reductions have stemmed from falling
company profits, reduced
inflows of imports on which duties are payable and
falling employment
levels.
As an almost unavoidable consequence of all these
adverse
pressures, inflation can be expected to continue rising through the
coming
six months and this will invalidate most, if not all, the Minister's
budget
estimates. As parallel market foreign exchange dealing rates will
remain
effected by scarcities, the Zimbabwe dollar is set to fall
considerably
further during the coming months and any official moves to gain
more
complete control over foreign exchange inflows at unrealistic exchange
rates
will cause yet more exporters to close down.
Job
losses and increasingly severe social stresses plus mounting
uncertainties
over school fees, food supplies, power and fuel could further
threaten
Zimbabwe's ability to hold onto its already reduced external
markets. No
recognition of these difficulties is reflected in the budget
speech and
government is unlikely to have answers for them if they
arise.
* John Robertson is an independent economic
analyst
Zim Standard
News Analysis By Walter Marwizi
PAUL
Munyaradzi Mangwana is carrying out the mandate he was
appointed to do:
putting up a brave face and telling weary Zimbabweans
everything is fine in
this troubled land.
It is clearly an uphill task, considering
that his predecessor,
a whole Professor of Political Science and
Administration, Jonathan Moyo
failed to accomplish it.
However, Mangwana deserves praise for the short period he has
been in
office. Not many Zimbabweans knew five years ago that there was
"Munyaradzi"
Mangwana. Now, even children in high-density suburbs easily
identify the
familiar face on television - the way they did jingles
introduced by Moyo
two years ago.
And as Mangwana pursues his mission with
evident evangelical
zeal, he is also trying to falsify history in broad
daylight. His intentions
are very clear, though - to project his party as a
united political
organisation, ready to overcome any and all economic
problems facing the
country.
So it wasn't a surprise to
watch Mangwana on television last
week, lying through his teeth, with a
straight face, to boot, that there was
never any factionalism in
Masvingo.
Mangwana, made patron of the Masvingo press club,
sought to
rewrite the province's history when, sadly for him, it still
remains fresh
in people's minds.
The Minister of
Information said all the reports about
factionalism were a creation of
journalists with a habit for "manufacturing
news".
Understandably, Mangwana got away with it because many among his
audience
may not have had the privilege of being there when the factional
fights
broke out over a decade ago.
But to those in the know, or
those who travelled the length and
breadth of the province, covering the
great story about how Simon Muzenda
and Eddison Zvobgo sought to outdo each
other, Mangwana's comments amounted
to an insult to their
intelligence.
It is a matter of record that factionalism has
dominated
Masvingo politics for a long time, with the major players being
the late
Muzenda and Zvobgo, the former Zanu PF legal
guru.
Differences between the two escalated when Muzenda
announced in
1995 he was going back to his roots where he hoped to leave a
few
"landmarks".
Muzenda's real mission remains a subject
of conjecture, with
some maintaining that it was calculated to weaken
Zvobgo's Karanga support
base, and others saying he was assigned to the job
by President Robert
Mugabe, for obvious reasons.
Since
independence, Muzenda's political turf was the Midlands,
which he left in
1995 as rumours flourished that Zvobgo wanted to use the
populous Masvingo
province as a springboard for a presidential bid.
Mangwana's
remarks of factionalism in Masvingo being the figment
of the journalists'
imagination are understandable. He is a relatively
newcomer to Masvingo
politics and is perhaps handicapped by an overzealous
attempt to ingratiate
himself with the power-brokers in the party.
Factionalism
exploded into the open sometime in 1994 when Zanu
PF held provincial
executive elections.
A day before the elections, it was
evident that divisions, which
had been simmering on the surface, were a
reality.
Both the former Masvingo governor, Josiah Hungwe and
Zvobgo
camps brought parallel district executives who could not even be
allowed by
their leaders to intermingle. Determined not to "contaminate"
their
delegates with the Zvobgo rhetoric, the Hungwe faction took thousands
of
their delegates to Victoria Primary School, where they infamously clogged
the sewer system of the small establishment.
Come the day
of the election, the Hungwe faction walked out of
Mucheke Stadium when their
delegates were found to be bogus executive
members.
Having the time of his life, Zvobgo was to remark: "See how they
(Hungwe
faction) have banished themselves to the political wilderness for
the next
five years."
Dzikamai Mavhaire, elected provincial chairman,
was to declare
that he had defeated Stan Mudenge, a stalwart of the Hungwe
faction, in
broad daylight.
But contrary to Zvobgo's
prediction, the faction was to remain
on the political landscape, not
sleeping, but plotting the downfall of its
rival and fuelling Masvingo's
factionalism, which remains alive today.
The issue of
factionalism even had telling blows on the
development of Masvingo and it is
probably only people like Mangwana who don't
see this
reality.
What emerges is that it is not just Mangwana's
remarks that have
to be treated with caution, but the way he has returned to
Masvingo, his
place of birth.
A few years ago when
Masvingo politics were "hot", he chose to
stay away from the province.
Mangwana may have known he was a political
lightweight and the death of the
luminaries and the subsequent absence of a
clear leader in the province
could have presented him with an opportunity to
hog the limelight. And he is
indeed hogging the limelight.
With the lavish television
coverage he is getting these days,
the urge to take over the leadership of
Masvingo may be irresistible to him.
After all, Retired
General Vitalis Zvinavashe, who has been
touted as the most likely leader of
the province, has not convinced his
comrades that he is keen to carry the
mantle. He prefers, it appears, to
take a laid-back role, leaving Masvingo,
as one politician said, "crying out
for a leader".
Sound
advice to Mangwana would be that the Masvingo political
terrain is
extraordinary. Not any political novice can walk in and leave
without egg on
their face. Many have tried that and have many tales to tell.
Zim Standard
Comment
NOTHING demonstrates the state of
trauma afflicting Zimbabweans
and their sense of fatalism more than the
plight of examination markers.
The Zimbabwe Schools
Examination Council (Zimsec) in a brazen
show of contempt has decided to pay
a miserly $70 to examiners for each
script they mark for this year's
November-December Ordinary Level papers.
The markers know
perfectly well that the payment is a pittance
and an insult. They grumble
but then continue marking the examination
papers, even though there is no
coercion. Somehow they expect someone to
bring about the change they desire
but are not prepared to stand up for.
Instead of protesting
that the marking fee is totally
inadequate, the examiners prefer being
apologetic and instead are
comfortable suggesting that this insensitivity on
the part of Zimsec might
compromise the quality of the marking. The markers
are professionally
committed but do not have the courage to say they will
not be party to their
own exploitation.
While the
examiners - who are teachers - know that this is
outright exploitation they
do not seem to realise that if they withdrew
their services until their
demands were met, they would achieve the desired
results. Their sense of
helplessness is worsened by their own absence of
unity, a shared goal and
vision.
While conceding the amounts are less than the
transport costs
incurred, none of them is prepared to say their services are
worth more than
Zimsec thinks and that failure to recognise this point will
result in no one
marking examination scripts. As long as there is a
reservoir of people
willing and able to offer themselves for exploitation
there will be no
pressure on Zimsec to get real and start paying reasonable
amounts for the
services of the markers.
Zimsec does not
provide transport and accommodation for the
examiners.
"Examiners, please note that you can only accept this invitation
on
condition that you have or can find your own accommodation close to the
marking centre. The Council will not be responsible for any accommodation
expenses incurred by examiners who accept this invitation," says Zimsec's
letter to examiners.
In Harare, the marking started on
Friday at Prince Edward High
School and is expected run until 18
December.
Happy Ndanga, the Zimsec director says the
examiners are free to
stop marking if they are unhappy with the
payments.
According to Ndanga, "If they don't want to mark
for us, they
should just do that and stop tarnishing our
image."
With such an approach to handling human resources it
is no
wonder Zimsec is in such an unprecedented mess. Zimsec's record speaks
for
itself. Sadly there are no indicators to an improvement anytime in the
near
future. Their propensity to mess up is legendary.
But it is not only among the examiners that the victim complex
is pervasive.
A fortnight ago, the ruling party signalled its intention to
extend
President Robert Mugabe's term of office from 2008 to 2010. Since
then every
other province has joined in the chorus. Yet according to the
2002
Presidential election not every Zimbabwean shares this view.
No one among those in the ruling party, alarmed by this
development, has the
courage to protest. Not even civil society
organisations and the opposition.
Yet they all agree that it is
inconceivable for Zimbabwe to endure more
years of Mugabe's rule beyond
2008.
Zimbabweans are their
own worst enemies and they should not
complain when the Zanu PF people's
conference due to take place in Goromonzi
this week adopts a resolution that
Mugabe remains in power beyond his
mandate. Their silence aids and abets
their oppression and exacerbates the
country's suffering.
Zim Standard
Sundayopinion By Louise Arbour
POVERTY is frequently both a
cause and a consequence of human
rights violations. And yet the linkage
between extreme deprivation and abuse
remains at the margin of policy
debates and development strategies.
To draw attention to this
crucial, but often neglected
correlation, this year's Human Rights Day,
today, 10 December, is dedicated
to the fight against poverty. This should
represent not only an opportunity
for reflection, but also a call for action
to governments, as well as to the
human rights and development communities,
to ensure a life in dignity for
all.
All human rights -
the right to speak, to vote, but also the
rights to food, to work, to
healthcare and housing - matter to the poor
because destitution and
exclusion are intertwined with discrimination,
unequal access to resources
and opportunities, and social and cultural
stigmatisation. A denial of
rights makes it harder for the poor to
participate in the labour market and
have access to basic services and
resources.
In many
societies, they are prevented from enjoying their rights
to education,
health and housing simply because they cannot afford to do so.
This, in
turn, hampers their participation in public life, their ability to
influence
policies affecting them and to seek redress against
injustice.
In sum, poverty means not just insufficient income
and material
goods, but also a lack of resources, opportunities, and
security which
undermines dignity and exacerbates the poor's vulnerability.
Poverty is also
about power: who wields it, and who does not, in public life
and in the
family. Getting to the heart of complex webs of power relations
in the
political, economic and social spheres is key to understanding and
grappling
more effectively with entrenched patterns of discrimination,
inequality and
exclusion that condemn individuals, communities and peoples
to generations
of poverty.
However, poverty is often
perceived as a regrettable but
accidental condition or as an inevitable
consequence of decisions and events
occurring elsewhere, or even as the sole
responsibility of those who suffer
it.
A comprehensive
human rights approach will not only address
misperceptions and myths
surrounding the poor, it will also and more
importantly help to find
sustainable and equitable pathways out of poverty.
By recognising the
explicit obligations of States to protect their
populations against poverty
and exclusion, this approach underscores
government responsibility towards
creating an environment conducive to
public welfare. It also enables the
poor to help shape policies for the
fulfillment of their rights, and seek
effective redress when abuses occur.
There are strong legal
foundations for such an approach. All
States have ratified at least one of
the core seven international human
rights treaties, and 80% have ratified
four or more. Moreover, the world
community has subscribed to the Millennium
Development Goals which set
concrete targets for joint international efforts
to tackle poverty and
marginalisation. The World Summit in 2005 reiterated
such commitments.
Irrespective of resource constraints,
States can take immediate
measures to fight poverty. Ending discrimination,
for example, will in many
cases remove barriers to labour market
participation and give women and
minorities access to employment. Child
mortality can be reduced through
effective, low-cost, low-technology
interventions. For their part, States in
a position to provide assistance
should come forward and help.
In contrast, indifference and a
narrow calculus of national
interests may hamper both human rights and
development just as damagingly as
discrimination. Last year the World Bank
President Paul Wolfowitz noted that
it is "not morally justifiable for rich
countries to spend $280bn - nearly
the total GDP of Africa and four times
the total amount of foreign aid - on
support for agricultural
producers".
In one of his last speeches as United Nations
Secretary-General,
Kofi Annan, stated that he regarded focusing global
attention on the fight
against poverty as one of the biggest achievements of
his tenure. He had
emphasised the critical vulnerability and the assaults on
human dignity that
accompany poverty. Crucially, the Secretary-General
identified human rights,
security and development as indispensable elements
of a world where all
people could live in larger freedom. As one in every
seven people in the
world goes hungry, that freedom depends on tackling
poverty as one the
gravest human rights challenges of our
time.
*Louise Arbour is the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human
Rights
Zim Standard
Sundayopinion By Alex Magaisa
THE
publication of two articles last week attracted an avalanche
of responses. A
key and one of the more tantalising challenges that came my
way, could be
crystallised in a famous line attributed to Lenin, "What's to
be done?"
which in this context, this must be read in the context of
Zimbabwe.
A mere mortal that I am, I do not claim a
monopoly of ideas nor
do I hold the single key to the resolution of the
Zimbabwe problem. No
single person does. But I also have faith in the power
of ideas and believe
that critical thought provides the invaluable therapy
against the ills of
complacency and taking things for
granted.
The experience of the last five years has taught us
that the
resolution of the problems is not and will not be accomplished in
one event.
Rather, it is a process and like all processes, there are going
to be phases
through which the country must pass and we all need to generate
ideas.
I am particularly concerned with the competition for
political
space between the MDC and the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs),
that claim
to be apolitical, and the resultant shrinkage of space for the
opposition,
among other consequences. There are some who will choose to
interpret this
as an attack on CSOs. It is not. At the basic level, it is a
call on CSOs to
take a critical self-assessment of their role and purpose in
the political
process within the Zimbabwean context. Like the MDC, they too
need to
redefine their perspectives, strategies and purpose in light of past
experience.
Let me hasten to add that there are many
people within the CSOs
who have done great work at very high risk and whose
work deserves
commendation. But too much commendation and less critical
assessment
explains why Zimbabwe is in the state it is today so the better
to leave
praises to a late stage and to others and concentrate on
possibilities for
reform.
It is unfortunate that there is
that view that people can
participate and make an impact on the political
process through vehicles
that do not actually seek political power and that
have no mandate to make
laws but at best, appeal to moral conscience,
pressure, goodwill and support
mostly from external forces. Instead of
strengthening the political process,
the proliferation of CSOs on the
political landscape, has simply highlighted
the problem but not mobilised
enough to effect change.
In fact, while providing people with
a convenient forum for
debate, it may also turn them away from the political
organisations, which
are the key to political change and transformation.
There is no shortage of
opposition forces. The problem is that there is
division within the
opposition forces between those who participate within
the realm of the
political party and another large group that calls itself
CSOs whose
individuals prefer to be known as "activists", at the same time
proclaiming
to be apolitical. For whatever reason, they do not want to be
called
politicians. Unlike the ruling party, those who are in the opposition
are
thus divided into the "political" for MDC and the "apolitical" mainly in
CSOs. As I see it, Africa and in this case, Zimbabwe cannot afford people
who claim to be apolitical.
This pretence that "we are
civil society" and not political
organisations is based on a fallacious
distinction, which fails to take into
account the context within which they
operate. To be sure, to most of the
population in Zimbabwe, there is no
distinction between the MDC and CSOs
that have been fighting for human
rights, etc. To the extent that the CSOs
attempt to portray themselves as
apolitical and impartial advocates for
rights, they only serve to confuse a
population that is already mentally
harassed by the conflict between the two
main protagonists.
The "No" Vote against the proposed 2000
Constitution is the
clearest demonstration that the distinction is known
only to those who lead
and run CSOs but not the masses. It seems widely
accepted that the No Vote
was more an expression of protest against the
ruling party rather than the
Constitution itself, although of course those
in the CSOs that led the "NO
Campaign" would have us believe
otherwise.
We understand them -in order to get more
donor-funds, they need
to "claim" certain victories. So the "No Vote" is
used to state the case for
CSOs relevance rather than the MDC, which
incidentally rose from within the
realm of the so-called apolitical
CSOs.
In addition, it is inconceivable, within the context of
African
politics that CSOs can purport to be fighting for human rights
without at
the same time being engaged in politics. What is it that makes
people
believe that they can simply change the opinion of ruling parties in
Africa,
from self-appointed positions in CSOs without first engaging in the
struggle
for political power? Arguably, it is necessary to change the
political
system in order to achieve the human rights goals. In other words,
the
achievement of human rights is largely dependent on whether one can
transform the political system.
This is what the
liberation movements had to do against the
colonial forces - human rights
did not just come through campaigns run by
"apolitical" CSOs - the goals had
to be achieved through political means and
political parties were
constructed regardless of how often forms of
political organisation were
banned. It is simply a pity that after getting
political power, the
liberation movements cared less about human rights. To
the extent that there
is a crop of CSOs that purport to be apolitical, they
are wasting energy and
resources by failing to take a politically bold
approach. They are competing
for limited space with political parties, which
are better positioned and
oriented towards political transformation. The
same youths who should be
running with and for the political parties are
instead lured by the donor
handouts that come through CSOs.
It is easy to see why people
are easily tempted into believing
that CSOs are key to change of fortunes on
the continent. That may be so
only to the extent that they conscientise the
masses with regards to their
rights and mobilise people to be more vigilant.
Others indeed play crucial
social functions. But let us pause for a moment.
Do CSOs contest elections?
How does political power change? No - CSOs do not
contest elections and they
do not form governments. Yet that is exactly what
Africa needs today - an
active political culture in which every person
realises that they are
political and have a role to play in politics. Yet
this phenomenon of CSOs
appears to be breeding the norm of being apolitical.
As I have stated,
Africa cannot afford to have millions of apolitical people
at this stage.
What then is the point of all this? It is this
that even though
Zimbabwe appears to have one dominant opposition party,
there is in fact a
potentially powerful force represented at present by
so-called apolitical
CSOs. There are too many opposition forces fighting
each other for the same
space, same resources, same limelight and for the
same goal yet some are not
bold enough to stand in the clear. There is
unnecessary and unhelpful
division. The scenario is therefore akin to where
you have different
opposition parties contesting against the ruling party,
which wins not
because it is more popular, but because of split votes in the
opposition.
The key is to unite as political forces from a common political
platform.
* Dr Magaisa is a Zimbabwean lawyer formerly
Lecturer in Law at
the University of Nottingham, UK.
Zim Standard
Sundayview By Cathy Buckle
AS the
Minister of Finance, Dr Herbert Murerwa, presented what
he called a "people
orientated" budget 10 days ago, two senior executives
from the country's
biggest bakery were starting a four-month prison
sentence.
The two men, the Chief Executive Officer and
Operations Manager
were found guilty of putting the price of bread up by 50%
in September
without permission from the government.
The
price of bread is controlled by the government but is set at
sub-economic
levels which has left most bakeries cutting down on their staff
levels,
blending flour with maize meal, switching off slicing machines and
reducing
the number of hours that their ovens work.
Bread has already
become a luxury for most Zimbabweans but none
of this was mentioned as the
propaganda in the State media whipped up the
issue into a frenzied
witch-hunt.
There was talk of "economic saboteurs" and a
State prosecutor
called the men "leaders in a criminal
enterprise".
The sentencing of two men from the biggest
bakery will
undoubtedly have only one result -
shortages.
At first it will be bread and then other goods
whose prices are
controlled by the government - sugar, margarine, cooking
oil, milk, salt,
soap and so the list goes on and on.
One
can only imagine what words a prosecutor would use to
describe the
government officials who two weeks ago approved an increase in
the cost of
water in Harare from $8 to $130 a cubic metre - an increase of
more than 1
600%.
It doesn't take an economist, mathematician or even
primary
school arithmetic to know that this is more than 50%. The double
standards
in Zimbabwe are so staggering that you are left in no doubt that
it is all
about control, plain and simple control.
This
first week of December 2006 also saw control being
exercised in the streets
against the protesting voices of women.
Waving placards and
singing songs, unarmed women belonging to
Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA)
were arrested in Bulawayo, the country's
second largest city. Calling for
affordable housing, education and
healthcare, the women were arrested by
anti-riot police.
Some of the women had babies on their
backs. When ordered to
pick up their placards off the street WOZA said
police beat the women on
their backs and buttocks with
batons.
Can you imagine beating a woman with a baby?
Several people were
hospitalised, including a baby. Sixty-three women, four
men and six babies
were arrested.
Perhaps they will meet
the two bakery officials in prison.
It is hard to see sense
in Zimbabwe this December. In the mayhem
there is almost no sign of the
opposition MDC - both factions seem to have
gone quiet.
The odd individual raises their head and their voice but the
party as a
whole seems rudderless and lost having spent almost the entire
year fighting
themselves rather than the oppression.
Zimbabweans are cowed
and need brave, decisive and united
leadership. People generally are scared
to act, scared to speak out and
scared to protest.
Last
week as people were called on to bang pots every evening
for two minutes at
8PM, to bang for an end to hunger, the night air was
quiet, deathly
quiet.
My pot sounded awfully loud, alone out there every
night.
* Cathy Buckle is a writer based in Marondera town
- ZimOnline.
Intolerance and injustice have become our political culture
POLITICS is a dirty game, I have heard people say. The double
tragedy of
this belief is that clean people allow themselves to be dragged
through the
mud and those who are dirty, make no effort to be clean.
I
have seen many games in my life and none is clean. As a result
of the dirty
tag associated with it, politics has put off some upright
people, thus
opening room for rogue characters and scoundrels who have gone
on to cause
misery to the rest of us.
I take politics as the constant
struggle between the dirty and
the clean, with one getting the transcendence
once in a while but with
neither gaining complete
victory.
Together with religion and other social values,
politics is what
sets us apart from animals. Like all spheres of human
experience, politics
needs an ethos.
We have believed in
the adage "the end justifies the means",
from the time of the armed struggle
to this day; we have religiously stuck
to this ungodly myth. We have bent
straight rules and cut corners to reach
that desired end which has remained
an elusive butterfly.
Why is this so? It is because as
celebrated civil rights leader
Martin Luther King Jr said: "The end does not
justify the means because the
end is enshrined in the means." For indeed one
cannot use an unjust means to
reach a just end. The issue is how much foul
means are enough and necessary
to reach an end and how much of that means
will spill over into the end?
Africa has had more than its
fair share of problems. We changed
colonial regimes first, then we changed
the post-colonial ones like nappies
and today we are still crying. This is
because somewhere along the way
something was compromised and it spilled
over. Our own Zimbabwean scenario
is a case in point. During the long years
leading to our independence, core
values were compromised. Unsavoury and
thuggish characters took advantage of
this and hijacked the armed
struggle.
People like Wilfred Mhanda (Dzinashe Machingura)
and others saw
this and tried to act but were silenced.
True, we attained our independence but intolerance and injustice
had become
our political culture. Matabeleland and the Midlands were
subjected to gross
human rights abuses as the blood of innocent people was
spilled. All this
was committed in the name of sovereignty and national
development.
The second ugliest post-independence
phenomenon was the
so-called land reform programme. A noble cause was
hijacked for political
gain and fear became pervasive. Even today, there are
still no-go areas for
the opposition.
Last year (2005)
the writer was involved in Parliamentary
elections in Mberengwa. Polling
agents refused to go to Chomubhobho, a
polling station in a resettlement
area.
This was the area where Fainos Zhou and his brother,
James, were
tortured, leading to their eventual death because the war
veterans and their
supporters would not tolerate the presence of the MDC in
their midst. This
was a spill over of the means by which the farm was
occupied.
Opposition parties in this country consider
themselves
governments-in-waiting. They should constantly consult their core
values so
that they do not lose track and become like the devil they are
trying to
replace.
Dr Martin Luther (not King) said:
"What I have said and done is
according to my conscience and for a Christian
to go against his conscience
is neither right nor safe. Here I stand! I can
do no more. So help me God."
If you and I say and believe in
the same things, then together
we shall make a
difference.
Nqobizitha Khumalo
Epworth
Harare
-------
Jail
terms for Lobels managers absurd
THE decision to imprison
two officials of the largest
bakers in Zimbabwe for six months and to hold
them in custody while their
appeal hearing was dealt with was a shock to the
entire business community.
Not only was the sentence
totally out of proportion to the
"crime" they had committed, but the fact
that the maximum fine for the same
offence by the company they ran was a
paltry Z$10 000 demonstrates the
absurdity of the
sentence.
Their crime was to sell bread for a price
that was above
the "controlled price".
In fact, the
last time the price of bread was formally
controlled by a Gazette Notice was
many months ago at the level of Z$85 a
loaf. There are, in fact, no
published regulations which say that the price
of bread should be above this
even though price controllers are using Z$295
as the "controlled
price".
There are now over 6 000 outstanding court
cases against
business managers in all fields on price controlled related
issues. This
means that all of them may be subjected to the same treatment.
In fact,
today (5 December) the price control officials raided the largest
food
company in Bulawayo and took a "warned and cautioned" statement from
the
managers.
The issue on this occasion was the
price of cooking oil.
Today the managing director of the largest wholesale
group in the country is
in court on the same
charges.
Companies are responding to this situation by
withdrawing
stock from their shelves and avoiding products subject to the
price
controls. Bakers have either stopped producing bread (which they
cannot
manufacture and make a profit at the controlled price) and switched
to
non-controlled products.
Either that or they
have slashed the product weight of a
loaf of bread by 40% in order to make
it profitable.
It is clear that this stand-off cannot
continue for much
longer without there being serious consequences. Firms are
threatened with
closure by the crisis, managers are refusing to continue
operations if they
threaten their own safety and
security.
It is time for the major firms to either
stand up to
government and demand that this harassment stop, or they should
take the
State to court to establish the grounds for the action to determine
their
own positions. In the event that the courts support the State in its
position then the production and distribution ofcontrolled products through
the formal sector will become impossible. Such a situation is in the
interests of nobody living in Zimbabwe.
By the way,
the price of bread they are trying to enforce
is the equivalent of less than
one Rand or 13 US cents a loaf.
Eddie
Cross
Bulawayo
------------
Unsound decisions
YOUR paper should investigate this becuase it
appears to be the tip of an
iceberg of unsound decisions costing this
country a considerable
lot.
The biggest employer in the country, the
Public
Service Commission (PSC) has dumped 27 graduands from the Judicial
College
of Zimbabwe. Twenty four were supposed to become magistrates and
prosecutors.
During training, the students
are given monthly
allowances, stationery and toiletry by the government. The
affected students
completed the programme in October this year. The excuse
given by the PSC
for not employing the students is that since they are
former civil servants
they must be cleared.
It has taken the PSC more than two months to clear
the students. It is a
requirement that those in any employment resign if
they are to be admitted
to the Judicial College. The irony is that those who
never served in
government were preferred over those who were police
officers, teachers and
officers in various government ministries.
Dumped student
Harare
---------
Baffling ruling on slaughter facilities in Mutare
District
WE have written to your widely
read newspaper
to voice our concern at new regulations that have been
enforced on
butcheries in Mutare District. We do not know the extent to
which this is
widespread.
We were
informed overnight that it has become
illegal to slaughter cattle at the
usual slaughter houses in the district.
These slaughter facilities are legal
and have to meet health requirements
before any butchery is allowed to
open.
It has been the practice that we
relied on the
slaughter facilities but all of a sudden and without due
notification and
attendant reasons, we have been ordered to stop using the
local slaughter
facilities.
We were
told that one of the reasons was to
curb cattle rustling. Now we are
required to have our cattle slaughtered at
a particular abattoir for a fee.
In addition we are required to surrender
the hide and the head of the cattle
at the designated slaughter facility.
A
senior police officer, during an attempt to
explain this development said
recently that the directive was meant to
ensure that butcheries sold meat
that met approved public health standards.
But we know before slaughter
takes place a veterinary officer inspects the
beast to be slaughtered and if
it is to be moved from one area to another, a
movement permit is
issued.
It appears to us that some senior
government
officials are involved in this designated abattoir and are
benefiting from
this new arrangement.
We agree cattle rustling is a cancer that
should be dealt with but not to
our disadvantage. It is the duty of the
police anti-stock theft unit to deal
with cattle rustlers. In our area,
which includes Chishakwe, Chitakatira,
Chigodora, Gombakomba and Burma
Valley no butcher has ever been arrested for
cattle theft because our
business is conducted above board. Our cattle are
cleared by the village
heads, the veterinary officers and the
police.
Our major concern is that the new
regulations
are uneconomic for the butchers. The costs will push us out of
business and
deprive us of our livelihood. The process is long and expensive
because, of
the transport costs involved. The whole process is financially
unsound. It
is costly and burdensome to us. We appeal to the responsible
authorities to
deal with this matter once and for all. We believe there
should have been
consultations between the authorities and our members. We
need to sit down
and discuss the matter in a sensible
manner.
Mutare Rural District
butcheries
Mutare
---------
Mugabe again, God
forbid
I was dismayed and alarmed that the
forthcoming Zanu PF conference is likely to extend President Mugabe's term
of office to 2010. Either Zanu PF members advocating for this are complete
idiots or they are gluttons for punishment - Mugabe is the architect of our
current crisis and we should all be anxious to see him
go.
DK
Harare
--------
Police graft symptomatic of a rotten
State
system
IT has been weeks since I
wrote about my
concern on what is happening within the police force. The
situation in
Masvingo has sadly taken a new dimension for the worse. Some
members of the
force have become daring because of the situation they find
themselves in.
The problems bedevilling
the police are
many. To begin with, the recruitment and training must have
loopholes. How
can a trained, dedicated police officer with the requisite
qualifications,
an honest disposition and love for the profession, revert to
criminal
activities the moment he/she
graduates?
My view is that many of our
hurriedly
trained officers would rather be in other professions instead of
the police.
But some of these officers are born criminals who find it
necessary and
appropriate to pursue their activities as police officers,
because this way
fewer questions are asked when they do something
wrong.
A spokesperson ducked the question
when
asked by the BBC about corruption in the police force. He was rather
unconvincing when he said that police officers found on the wrong side of
the law would be prosecuted. For many Zimbabweans, the statement ranks as
the joke of the year because a considerable number of police officers are on
the wrong side of the law.
How can
they be otherwise when they are
encouraged to break the country's laws by
President Robert Mugabe himself?
"Offenders", who have been let off the hook
for a variety of offences, on
the road, in their work places, at home and in
other places are visited by
off-duty officers who demand their pound of
flesh. Who then is going to
protect law-abiding citizens of the country when
law officers are busy
lining their pockets with ill-gotten
lucre?
Zimbabweans would like to see, for
once, a
list of the names of all the disgraced officers appearing in
newspapers with
their photographs to boot. This way corruption in the force
would be
eradicated completely.
The
government on its part should be seen to
be serious in its fight against
corruption. It should prosecute all its
ministers found on the wrong side of
the law - that would be some task since
the entire government appears to be
on the wrong side of the law. Is there a
single government minister who is
not involved in ransacking and plundering
commercial farms and safari
operations or conservancies? Is there anyone not
tainted with corrupt money
from companies which think that bribing
government ministers will ensure
their safety and continued operation in the
country? Can the government ever
be clean?
Whenever Mugabe and his
government become
serious about corruption, those arrested and convicted of
the offence should
lose everything. Our super-rich government ministers
should be investigated
in order to establish the source of their riches. No
one should be spared.
We should not make being in government a short cut to
riches through corrupt
practices.
Special accommodation for police officers
should be established away from
civilian townships and suburbs to protect
them from undue influence from the
public. And under no circumstances should
officers go out to the public
asking for donations for use during their
pass-out
parades.
A few weeks ago a number of
officers in
Masvingo were going round asking for funds for police events.
This should
not be encouraged because funds for such events should come from
the
government. Officers at road blocks are very vulnerable to food and
drink
enticements.
In conclusion,
police officers should work
with the people and not against them, through
the use of brutal
investigations. Officers should avoid taking part in
politics because their
duty demands that they be
apolitical.
Anti-Corruption
Masvingo
--------------
Zinwa, another ploy by State
to fleece the
public
BAKERIES, a milk
processing concern and
retail shops have been among recent victims of a
government drive to put a
lid on run-away prices of essential
commodities.
Several company executives
have been hauled
before the courts to answer charges of "overpricing", but I
think once again
here is a case of selective application of the law by the
authorities.
The energy sector, a
telecommunications
company and lately the Zimbabwe National Water Authority
(ZINWA) were
allowed increases; in the case of ZINWA of from $8 to $130 a
cubic metre -
an increase of 1 600%.
The only difference between those who are
unfortunately being arrested and
those who aren't is that in the first case
the government decides not to do
anything and if industry withholds
productions they run the risk of being
accused of sabotaging the economy,
and if they go ahead and charge an
economic rate, they risk arrest and
incarceration.
In the second case the
government can decide
on a huge increase and it is lawful, because the
government says so, even if
the margin is so high. Water is a basic
necessity and it should be available
to everyone. In the case of ZINWA, the
water is going up but the
availability and quality of the commodity will
remain questionable.
The government has
increased the water
charges to ensure jobs for its cronies. The water
situation is not going to
improve because the players responsible for the
mess we are in are the same.
At best, what the government has done is to
shield the incompetence of the
Commission running Harare from public
scrutiny. When ZINWA fails we will be
told that they need time to get on top
of the situation and we accept the
explanations without interrogating
them.
Do other countries have such
animals as
ZINWA? If not, why does Zimbabwe need them? If yes, why don't we
learn from
them how to provide water more efficiently without the daily
disruptions we
are accustomed to and the excuses we are
fed?
The government will say it is forced
to take
action against the water authority in the interest of protecting the
consumers - that is very plausible. Now why don't we see them doing the same
to the transport sector where every fortnight or month the fares go
up?
Shouldn't consumers be told how much
they
are paying the ZINWA staff so that we can compare what they are getting
against the level of service they are
providing?
Tirivanhu
Mhofu
Emerald Hill,
Harare
-------------
Denied the right to
vote
PLEASE assist me to convey my
displeasure to
the responsible authorities. I am a resident of Chigodora
area under Chief
Zimunya in Mutare
District.
Recently when we had the rural
district
council elections countrywide, I went to Saburi shopping centre
polling
station to cast my vote. I went there full of expectations and
hoping to
exercise my right to vote.
I left the station exasperated. Having no
national identity card, which I
had forgotten in Harare, but armed with my
Zimbabwean Driver's Licence, I
was denied my right to vote.
The Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission advertises
in both the electronic and print media that
the identity card, Zimbabwe
passport and Zimbabwe driver's licence are
sufficient proof to permit a
Zimbabwean registered voter to vote. I feel
cheated and would want ZEC to
clarify this issue once again for the benefit
of their staff and the general
public.
We don't want to be denied
our right to vote
for the right party and candidate whenever elections are
held.
Chigodora
voter
Zimunya
New Zimbabwe
By
Lebo Nkatazo
Last updated: 12/09/2006 11:24:28
CASH-STRAPPED Zimbabwe has
splashed close to US$1,3 million on new military
vehicles, a parliamentary
committee revealed Thursday.
The shock revelations came as the country's
Registrar General stopped all
passport applications because his office has
no foreign currency to import
the special paper used on passports.
In
its latest report, the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Home Affairs
revealed that the army had spent US$1 296 300,00 on the importation of new
vehicles.
The committee did not state where and when the purchases
were made.
Amazingly, the committee urged the country's monetary
authorities to release
more foreign currency towards the purchase of
"strategic numerically
controlled machines."
It said the machines
"can do multiple functions such as high precision
tools, engine components,
aircraft and vehicle spare parts for industrial
machines, spares for
agricultural machinery, new surgical equipment that has
an existing design
including artillery shells, rockets and missiles".
The committee added
that the machines were expected to cost US$2 million as
of June
2006.
Zimbabwe is going through a severe economic crisis with inflation
topping 1
000 percent. Crippling foreign currency shortages have had a
debilitating
effect on the provision of public services across the
county.
Zimbabwe continues to spend more on the security services despite
the fact
that the country has never gone to war -- save for a couple of
interventions
in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The
country recently acquired eight fighter jets from China at an estimated
cost
of US$200 million.
From The Daily Mirror, 6 December
Daily Mirror reporter
The government intends to
revive the country's only ethanol plant in
Triangle in order to blend 10
percent of the country's petrol requirements
within the next two years. The
move will culminate in Zimbabwe significantly
reducing its fuel import bill.
Speaking at a one-day stakeholders'
consultative workshop in Harare on
Monday, the Minister of Energy and Power
Development Mike Nyambuya urged the
National Oil Company of Zimbabwe
(NOCZIM) to revive the ethanol plant
situated in the sugarcane farming
district of Chiredzi that was closed in
1992 due to a drought. "As a panacea
to the forex challenges that the nation
is facing, the company should embark
on the previously abandoned
petroleum-ethanol blending project," Nyambuya
said. Until the early 1990s,
Zimbabwe relied on blending petrol with
ethanol, which can be produced
through fermentation of various agricultural
crops, including sugarcane.
However, the plant was shut down after a severe
drought resulted in reduced
production of sugar cane. The country requires
an estimated 2, 5 million
litres of diesel and 2 million litres of petrol
daily, but acute foreign
currency shortages over the years have resulted in
moves to find alternative
sources of fuel such as ethanol and bio-diesel
production
intensifying.
"NOCZIM should therefore make the necessary
arrangements with Triangle
Limited to ensure that the necessary
infrastructure is put in place,"
Nyambuya said. Nyambuya said NOCZIM should
also engage other sugarcane
growers in order to secure adequate ingredients
for ethanol production. "In
addition, the company should engage other
sugarcane growers in the country
with the idea of having more ethanol being
blended with petrol." The ethanol
plant is owned by Triangle Limited, an
estate that is part of Tongaat-Hulett
Sugar Limited, a South African
company. The estate consists of over 83 000
hectares of land with over 14
000 hectares under cane. The move to revive
production at the Triangle plant
is part of broader 'down-streaming
activities' aimed at further expanding
the strategic participation of NOCZIM
throughout the country. Other major
activities include the construction or
purchase of more depots in strategic
areas in the country, particularly
Bulawayo, Karoi and Beitbridge to ensure
fuel is made available nation wide.
Another activity is the bio-diesel
programme that aims to have 10 percent of
the country's diesel being
produced through this programme by 2015. "This
amounts to around 100 million
litres of diesel per year," Nyambuya said.
Meanwhile New Ziana
reports that NOCZIM and multinational fuel company,
British Petroleum (BP),
are engaged in talks that are expected to see the
former acquire a
significant number of BP service stations as the government
intensifies
moves to effectively regulate the pricing of fuel. BP supply
manager Don
Nyamando said they would sell those service stations that are
not operating
due to the fuel shortages. "The negotiations with NOCZIM are
at an advanced
stage and we will sell to them service stations that are
being used by the
army and the District Development Fund (DDF)," he said at
the same workshop.
The development comes in the wake of calls by the
Ministry of Energy and
Power Development for NOCZIM to acquire more service
stations in order to
effectively regulate the pricing and distribution of
fuel. NOCZIM currently
owns and operates one service station in Plumtree
while construction of five
others is nearing completion in Rusape, Bulawayo,
Gweru, Kwekwe and
Chinhoyi. The parastatal announced that it had also
entered into
negotiations for the acquisition of 150 other service stations
from
individual owners. "Our vision is to increase the number of
NOCZIM-owned
service stations in all cities and towns to ensure that the
public is
supplied with affordable fuel," NOCZIM chairman Charles Chipato
said. About
40 representatives from the petroleum industry attended the
consultative
workshop, in addition to government ministries and departments,
the entire
NOCZIM board and other corporate bodies such as the Confederation
of
Zimbabwe Industries (CZI). Organised by NOCZIM, the purpose of the
workshop
was to provide an opportunity for dialogue with major stakeholders
to help
the national oil company effectively play its role in national
development.
News24
09/12/2006 15:18 -
(SA)
Mirpur - Bangladesh completed a clean sweep when they
defeated Zimbabwe by
three wickets in the fifth and final one-day
international on Saturday.
The hosts survived a few anxious moments
before passing Zimbabwe's modest
total of 193 for eight with just one over
to spare for their fifth
successive victory in the series.
The
tourists had an opportunity to post a consolation victory when they
reduced
Bangladesh to 141 for six but were thwarted by skipper Habibul
Bashar (32
not out), who kept his cool under pressure to steer his side
home.
The Zimbabwean bowlers also lacked direction as they conceded
30 wides,
which proved crucial in a close match.
Seamer Gary Brent
grabbed a career-best haul of 4-22 to raise Zimbabwe's
hopes of posting a
win before Bashar and wicket-keeper Mushfiqur Rahim put
on 34 vital runs for
the unfinished eighth-wicket stand.
Brent broke an 86-run stand for the
opening wicket between Mehrab Hossain
(45) and Shahriar Nafees (33) and went
on to claim three more victims in his
10 overs.
Zimbabwe earlier
failed to set a stiff target despite a fighting 75 from
Stuart Matsikenyeri.
Put in to bat, they were 138 for three before faltering
against a
disciplined Bangladeshi attack.
Opener Matsikenyeri alone offered lengthy
resistance, hitting seven fours in
his 114-ball knock for his fourth
half-century in one-day internationals. He
put on 63 for the second wicket
with Chamu Chibhabha (27).
Zimbabwe's slide began with the dismissal of
Elton Chigumbura (27), who was
caught behind off spinner Hossain with the
total on 138. They failed to pass
the 200 mark, losing wickets at regular
intervals.
Seamer Mashrafe Mortaza was the most successful bowler,
claiming the last
three wickets to finish with 3-36 off 10 overs. Hossain
took 2-30.
From The Star (SA), 9 December
MacDonald Dzirutwe
It's another busy day at the
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE). The bull run
here is an odd side-effect of an
economic crisis that has seen inflation
spiral to more than 1 000% - the
highest in the world. Unemployment has hit
80% and poverty levels have
soared. President Robert Mugabe's government
denies responsibility, saying
it is a victim of|a Western sabotage campaign
over its controversial and
violent land reform programme. "In a normal
economy, stock market
performance should mirror the economic prospects of
the country but in our
case it is a lot different . I think the good rally
is because there are
very few investment options that can provide real
returns," said Patrick
Saziwa, an analyst with Kingdom Stockbrokers. The
Africa Stock Exchanges
Association (Asea) said the ZSE was among the bourses
that offered investors
the highest returns in Africa last year and for most
of this one, despite
the economic recession. Asea statistics showed the ZSE
recorded a 1 545%
rise last year and shot up by 2 000% between January and
the first week of
last month.
The ZSE has a market capitalisation of around
$20-billion, with 9,6-million
shares valued at $760-million traded in 2005.
Compared to the JSE, which had
a market value of R3,5-trillion ($489
billion) at the end of 2005, this is
tiny. But Zimbabwean investors say
their exchange is one of the few places
in the country to achieve good
investment returns. "People know where the
good returns are. The stock
market is one of the few|[to offer these].
That's why we see it performing
above all markets," said ZSE chief executive
Emmanuel Munyukwi. Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono has said
the ZSE has become a haven for
speculators, where "dirty" money from illegal
foreign currency trading is
used. Some companies have been accused of taking
advantage of special low
interest rates meant for troubled industries to
borrow money cheaply and buy
shares, instead of using the funds to improve
industrial production. The
central bank's recent efforts to mop up excess
liquidity from the market by
hiking bank statutory reserve requirements to
60% from 45% and forcing banks
to invest more funds in long-term bonds|have
failed to halt the bullish
trend.
Shares in Harare can rise by more than 50% in a week,
something not lost on
investors scouting for opportunities to hedge against
inflation of more than
1 000%. Heavily capitalised stocks like Old Mutual
Zimbabwe, Pretoria
Portland Cement,|hotel group Meikles Africa and cellphone
firm Econet
Wireless have largely driven activity at the stock market. "It
is not true
to say dirty money is responsible for the bull run, neither is
the stock
market a haven for speculators," Farayi Dyirakumunda, a research
analyst
with Interfin Securities, said. "It is a case where investors have
limited
legal investment vehicles. There are always speculators and
non-speculators,
but that's the nature of stock markets." The majority of
Zimbabwe's
12-million people have not benefited from the stock rally.
Munyukwi said 90%
of shares on the 80-company bourse were held by large
corporates. "The
biggest impediment to public participation is the erosion
of disposable
income. People have no money, and even if they could afford
the lower
capitalised stocks, the returns are way below the transaction
costs,"
Munyukwi said. The boom has failed to woo foreign investors, who
hold just
2,3% of the shares.