VOA
26 December 2007
The Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe has estimated that inflation over the past 12
months has totaled
24,000%, compared with its last estimated of 14,000% in
October, this in a
circular sent to financial institutions to help them
close their 2007
books.
Zimbabwe's Central Statistical Office stopped providing data on
inflation in
September saying it could not find prices for key goods because
they were
not on store shelves. But the Reserve bank came up with the
estimate for the
use of financial institutions and publicly trade companies
in drawing up
their financial accounts for the year.
A memo leaked
from the central bank told institutions and companies that
"you are hereby
advised to use the 24,059 percent year-on-year inflation
figure for November
in the compilation of financial results for the period
ending December
2007."
Recent estimates of Zimbabwean inflation by independent economists
have
tended to run quite a bit higher, ranging from 50,000% to
100,000%.
Economist Prosper Chitambara told reporter Blessing Zulu of
VOA’s Studio 7
for Zimbabwe that the central bank estimate of 24,000% is
"conservative."
But economist Eric Bloch, who has been a consultant to
the central bank,
said he reckons the 12-month inflation rate to be around
25,000%.
An IMF official recently said Zimbabwe was heading down the same
path as
Weimar Germany, though if the more pessimistic current estimates are
correct, the country has already exceeded the Weimar peak of 32,400%
attained in 1923. However, it has a ways yet to go to match Yugoslavia's
1994 rate of 313 million percent (both figures cited by monetary expert
Steve Hanke in Forbes in June 2007).
VOA
By Patience Rusere
Washington
26 December
2007
The cash crisis in Zimbabwe continued on Tuesday as most
banks again defied
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe by keeping their doors
closed on Boxing day as
they did on Christmas, leaving automated tellers to
dispense bills to
desperate consumers.
ZimBank and CABS building
society were among the few banks open in Harare,
while sources in Bulawayo
said Stanbic had just one ATM operating. Business
sources said banks
remained closed on Christmas because they had no cash to
dispense.
There were conflicting reports as to how much the bank
teller machines were
allowing consumers to withdraw; some said Z$5 million,
others said up to
Z$20 million.
Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono
announced Dec. 19 the issue of a new
family of bearer cheques - central bank
promissory notes - in denominations
of Z$250,000, Z$500,000 and Z$750,000 to
relieve chronic and worsening cash
shortages.
But the new notes did
not appear until Dec. 21 and reports said banks
complained they had not
received enough new notes to meet demand, and were
obliged to maintain
limits on how much consumers and business could
withdraw.
Some
economists said the central bank should have issued larger
denominations, at
a minimum a note for Z$1 million, enough to buy a loaf of
bread. Others say
the central bank does not understand or is unwilling to
recognize most
economic activity is now taking place outside the official
financial system,
thus the bank cash shortage.
RBZ Governor Gono has taken aim at what he
calls the "cash barons" of the
parallel currency and goods markets who he
says are hoarding cash. In an
effort to penalize black market dealers he has
set a Dec. 31 deadline for
Zimbabweans to turn in all Z$200,000 notes, until
last week the largest
denomination in circulation.
Gono has dubbed
this "Operation Sunrise II," following his "Operation
Sunrise" of mid-2006
in which many Zimbabweans suffered severe financial
losses in the obligatory
exchange of notes, at times through confiscation by
police and other
agents.
Zim Online
by Thulani Munda Tuesday 25 December
2007
HARARE – Zimbabwe’s central bank has offered to reward
whistleblowers for
information that could lead to the arrest of illegal cash
barons and retail
operators charging premiums on customers wishing to pay by
cheque.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), which has accused top
officials of
President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party and government
of hoarding
cash, did not say how much informers would be paid.
The
latest offer to informants comes in the wake of cash shortages that have
hit
the country despite the RBZ printing new higher denominated banknotes
and
banks remaining open over last weekend.
"The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is
calling on all patriotic Zimbabweans who
have been made to pay a premium by
retailers and other cash barons for
encashing cheques or for Real Time Gross
Settlement(RTGS) transfers to bring
forward such information to the
whistleblower center," the RBZ said on
Monday.
"The Reserve Bank
undertakes to refund the innocent victims the premium
charged under such
transactions upon submission of acceptable evidence and
successful
conviction of the offender."
The RBZ, which said it was working with the
state Anti-Corruption
Commission, the national tax agency and law
enforcement agencies to
crackdown on cash barons, said whistleblowers should
submit information to
the bank by the end of day on January 21.
The
latest appeal by the central bank comes in the wake of the arrest of a
Harare woman found in possession of Z$10 billion of the new notes, barely
four days after they were distributed.
RBZ governor Gideon Gono, who
urged Zimbabweans to unite in the war against
cash barons, also said banks
would remain open over the Christmas and Boxing
days to dispense cash to
clients in an attempt to end shortages.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of a
debilitating political and economic crisis that
is marked by hyperinflation,
a rapidly contracting GDP, the fastest for a
country not at war according to
the World Bank and shortages of foreign
currency, food and fuel.
The
southern African nation has in recent months faced an acute shortage of
its
own currency, forcing Gono to intervene by introducing higher
denominated
notes with the highest for Z$750 000.
However, economic analysts say
changing Zimbabwe’s currency without fixing
the root causes of the country’s
unprecedented economic meltdown would do
little to stabilise a Zimbabwe
dollar that continues shedding value faster
than any other currency in the
world. - ZimOnline
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
26
December 2007
Anglican parishioners in Marlborough,
Harare, had to abandon their Christmas
church service on Tuesday when a row
erupted between supporters of the
former bishop of Harare diocese, Nolbert
Kunonga. and its interim head,
Bishop Sebastian Bakare.
Eyewitnesses
said a priest suspected of being an agent of the government's
Central
Intelligence Organization beat up a parishioner who was praying for
the
well-being of Bishop Bakare, and the service was abandoned after police
were
called in.
Some congregation members said they have resolved to stop
collecting
offerings.
The Borrowdale, Harare, Anglican church was
also said to have been in an
uproar on Sunday when the head of the parish
barred Bishop Bakare from
leading mass, resulting in intervention by the
police..
Kunonga, considered close to the ruling ZANU-PF party, is under
pressure to
give up possession of Harare diocese assets following his
withdrawal of the
diocese from the Province of Central Africa over the
question of the
ordination of homosexual priests and homosexuality in
general which has
rocked Anglicanism worldwide.
Anglican Church
member John Masuku told reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA's
Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe that parishioners of Saint Peter’s Church in
Mabelreign walked out
of church Tuesday as the Kunonga controversy flared in
that
congregation.
VOA
By Jonga Kandemiiri
Washington
26 December
2007
Zimbabwe's Public Service Association, which represents
the country's
non-teacher public employees, has informed the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade
Unions that it wants to become an affiliate of the
country's main labor
confederation.
Labor sources said the PSA
communicated its intentions to the Zimbabwe
Teachers Association and the
Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, fellow
members on the APEX Council
which negotiates with the government on behalf
of civil servants.
VOA
could not reach senior PSA or ZCTU officials to directly confirm the
move.
Labor expert and consultant Davies Ndumiso Sibanda told
reporter Jonga
Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that although the
PSA enjoys
freedom of association in theory, the government could
potentially block the
move as some members of the army and the police could
not belong to a ZCTU
affiliate for security reasons.
International Herald Tribune
Letter
It would
appear the very same blind faith in fellow corrupt African leaders
that is
so prevalent among African heads of state has afflicted Abdoulaye
Wade, the
president of Senegal ("Sanctions are not helpful," Views, Dec 22).
The
sanctions against Zimbabwe that he calls to be lifted are not economic
sanctions. They are targeted sanctions against overseas travel of Robert
Mugabe and his corrupt cronies and the sale or export of military hardware,
spares or training. How can such sanctions possibly harm the country's
economy?
Wade laughably suggests an empowering of African nations to
"deal" with the
Mugabe issue. While thousands of Zimbabweans (I am a former
resident) have
been starved or murdered by the Mugabe regime, African
leaders have stood
united behind Mugabe.
Until African leaders can
show that they can criticize one of their own
instead of blaming the West
for Africa's ills, I am afraid the continent
will continue down this road to
ruin.
D. Turner, Colchester, England
The Telegraph
By Kate
Hoey, former sports minister
Last Updated: 8:49pm GMT
25/12/2007
The period between Christmas and New Year is when
most of us will reflect on
the past 12 months before turning our attention
to 2008. For me one of the
joys of writing for the sports pages of The Daily
Telegraph is the feedback
I get from you, the readers.
It is totally
unlike the kind of response politicians generally receive from
the public.
Instead of one line emails, or a two-sentence letter of abuse,
my
correspondents have written in long hand and with perfect spelling and
punctuation. It is clear that they have properly read what I have written
and in the most polite way possible will chastise me if I have got the
slightest fact wrong.
Telegraph readers are hugely knowledgeable
about sport and show a keen
interest in those minority sports which struggle
for media coverage.
Whenever I have written about pistol shooting, for
example, I am amazed at
the volume of mail I receive. So it was good news
that the campaign to allow
our Olympic pistol shooters access to training in
the UK has finally been
accepted by the Government. Although the details of
the Ministry of Defence
establishments to be used have not yet been
finalised nor the number of
athletes to be granted exemption decided, it is
still a chink in that unfair
legislation which destroyed the sport of
thousands and yet made not a single
person safer in the UK.
A theme
running through the correspondence I received during the year was
that of
bureaucracy. Much of it concerned government quangos like UK Sport
and Sport
England, but governing bodies also came in for criticism.
Following on from
a column I did on the state of athletics and the
overstaffing of the
governing body, UK Athletics, I was inundated with
examples from the
grassroots of the hoops that many of the smaller clubs had
to go through to
get even a small amount of money.
UK Athletics became very defensive and
accused me of exaggeration. However,
not long afterwards, Niels de Vos,
their chief executive, announced that a
third of the staff at the Solihull
headquarters would be going. He said that
he had been concerned at the sheer
scale of the UK Athletics operation and
added that "we simply cannot justify
the current levels of HQ expenditure
given UKA's primary purpose as a
strategic body". Hopefully this means the
'top down' approach which was so
denigrated by the clubs will be abandoned
as well as an end to the
'consultant appointments' syndrome so loved by
quangos.
Another
U-turn will be of interest to all of the correspondents about drugs
and
sport. At last UK Sport and the Government have recognised that they
were
wrong in their opposition to those of us who have called for years for
an
independent statutory anti-doping agency to be created. The conflicts of
interest for UK Sport of being both a lottery distributor and a drug-testing
agency were just irreconcilable. Back in 2001, one of the last things I did
as sports minister was to agree that we needed this independent unit. Sadly,
my replacement disagreed. It is encouraging to know that six years on, the
present sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, has backed this common-sense
move.
Of all the issues I have written about in 2007 the question of
cricket and
Zimbabwe elicited the most responses from you. This controversy
has not been
resolved and will loom over the England and Wales Cricket Board
throughout
the coming year. The news that the ECB's new chairman, Giles
Clarke, met
recently with Peter Chingoka, the chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket,
in
Johannesburg was not something announced to the press by the ECB.
It
was only because of reports in a Zimbabwean newspaper, followed by
Cricinfo
reporting the story, that we discovered that Clarke had made an
offer of
about £200,000 to persuade Zimbabwe to withdraw from touring
England in
2009. They are scheduled to play two Test matches and three
one-day
internationals here. But the World Twenty20 tournament is in England
in the
same year and Clarke has realised that Zimbabwe taking part will not
be
something either the Government or cricket lovers will want to
encourage.
The solution is not to pay corrupt Zimbabwean cricket
officials, but for the
ECB to work with the Government and for the
Government to announce in clear,
direct language that the Zimbabwean cricket
team will not be allowed to tour
England. In that way we show moral
leadership and the England team are not
subject to financial penalties from
the International Cricket Council.
Chingoka was refused a visa to visit
London in October and he should not be
allowed to attend the ICC meeting at
Lord's next June. We need a sporting
boycott of Zimbabwe and we should
support the Australian government's
actions on this.
In 2008 the
Government must spell out more clearly what genuine legacy to
sport there
will be from the 2012 Olympics. As the costs of the Games rise,
openness and
transparency has to be the rule.
The Government also need to answer the
question asked of me more often than
any other in the past 12 months. Why
are so many publicly-owned swimming
facilities being forced to shut as
obesity increases? Now that is a question
we will all want an answer to.
http://www.marrily.co.uk/
Merry Christmas to the People of
Zimbabwe
Those living in and outside Zimbabwe
Those buried within and
beyond the borders of Zimbabwe
Dear Zimbabweans, a Merry Christmas to you
all!
Let's celebrate Christmas from all corners of the world
At home,
in exile, on the streets, in churches, in prisons,
Under the trees, above
the clouds, over the seas - wherever we are!
We are one nation - let's
celebrate Christmas!
Christmas is a time of love, joy, peace and harmony
among men.
It's time to celebrate, acknowledge and welcome the Son of Man
among men.
It's a time to forgive, make friends with enemies and live as
neighbours.
Let's forgive all the wrong done and let only God be the
judge.
Let's welcome and receive the Lord Jesus Christ into our
lives.
Let's listen to Him and believe in none other than The One sent from
above.
Let's take all our burdens and worries to Him for
This nation he
loves and surely will never fail!
It is by the will of God that Zimbabwe
was liberated from Rhodesia
Again, by His and only His Will, Zimbabwe will be
liberated
From the selfish grasp and the ruthless claws of greedy
politicians
For the benefit of all the people of this nation.
"United
we stand, divided we fall." The saying goes.
Let's rise, join hands and
liberate Zimbabwe
Not for ZANU PF, not for MDC - but for the people of this
nation.
Black, white or coloured - We are all Zimbabweans.
Dear
Zimbabweans, Merry Christmas to you all.
At home and in exile, Zimbabwe
remains our country
It is our home, where all our hearts lie.
Black,
white or coloured. We are all Zimbabweans.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!