http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011
16:31
BY PATIENCE NYANGOVE
OVER US$100 million realised from
the auction of the Marange diamonds last
year has allegedly gone missing,
The Standard can reveal.
The offense only came to light after the
Ministry of Finance was given a
schedule from President Robert Mugabe’s
office written by the Minerals
Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe alleging
that it had given US$170 million
to treasury.
According
to impeccable sources within the Ministry of Finance, treasury was
never
given any such amount by MMCZ last year.
Minister of Finance Tendai Biti on
Friday said government only received
US$64 million from MMCZ, which mined
the precious stones through two joint
venture companies.
Biti
said he has since asked the accountant-general to lau-nch an
investigation
to trace the missing cash.
“We got a schedule from the office of the
President written by MMCZ that
claimed treasury had been directly and
indirectly given US$170 million from
the sale of alluvial and kimberlite
diamonds,” he said.
“Treasury only received US$64 million from the
sale of alluvial and
kimberlite diamonds.
“In that schedule MMCZ
claims that treasury used part of the money to pay
tax to
Zimra.
“I have asked the accountant-general to launch an
investigation into the
matter disapproving MMCZ claims.
“The
investigation will show that we did not get the money and my question
is
where did the money go?”
Last week Biti told The Standard that
although diamonds were being sold
there was no
accountability.
There has been speculation that Zanu PF was looting
money from the sale of
diamonds to finance its election campaign among other
things.
Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Mines Gift Chimanikire said he was
not
aware of the transaction adding that all he had in his office was a
summary
of the movement of funds obtained from the sale of diamonds last
year and
January 2011.
Efforts to get a comment from
Chimanikire’s boss Mpofu were fruitless as his
mobile phone was not
reachable.
Permanent Secretary Thankful Musukutwa refused to comment
yesterday saying
he was just arriving from South Africa and he was not aware
of the matter.
Zimbabwe held two diamond auctions last year under the
supervision of the
Kimberly Process.
It has since emerged that a
third auction was held secretly and the matter
only came to light when
Mugabe promised to give US$250 million to civil
servants.
He said
the money was raised from the third auction.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011
15:55
BY PATIENCE NYANGOVE
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe now says
civil servants will only get a salary
review when government gets money in a
surprise U-turn after he promised
them a big windfall last
month.
Mugabe had announced while in Ethiopia that government
employees, whom he
said were paid less than his farm workers, would get an
increment after a
third diamond auction raked in US$250
million.
But the president’s spokesman George Charamba was singing a
different tune
on Friday saying the money was not ready.
“Civil
servants will get their money once the money is there,” he said in an
interview.
“You should understand that we are in a conflict with
the KP (Kimberley
Process) and so we can’t easily sell our diamonds but we
have to find our
own alternative markets.
“There is such a thing
as backdating and once the diamonds have been sold,
civil servants will have
their money backdated and paid to them.”
He said Mugabe’s statements were
merely meant to give direction to ministers
responsible for the welfare of
civil servants.
“What the president said shows the direction
ministers have to follow,”
Charamba said.
Public Service
minister, Elphas Mukonoweshuro said his ministry was still
waiting for
additional funding before it could review the salaries.
Mugabe’s
promise has opened a can of worms as Finance minister Tendai Biti
says
treasury was not aware of the third auction and had not received any
money.
The veteran ruler said Mines and Mining Development
minister Obert Mpofu had
informed him about the auction.
Mpofu
also claimed he had received a letter from Biti acknowledging receipt
of the
money.
Civil servants earn an average of US$200 a month and
government says it does
not have money to improve their working
conditions.
But the long-awaited payroll and skills audit carried out
by Ernst and Young
(India) on behalf of the Ministry of Public Service has
shown that
government has been splashing money on 75 000 ghost workers every
month.
Government has 188 019 workers and critics say if the ghost
workers were
removed from the payroll, civil servants would be paid decent
salaries from
the current budget.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:58
POLICE
Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri, although an avowed Zanu PF
functionary, should rise above party politics because his duties as the top
cop are critical to the country’s wellbeing.
Chihuri was
disingenuous last week in telling the nation that some people
were “stage
managing” political violence to give the impression that there
was anarchy
in Zimbabwe.
While Chihuri did not name the MDC-T
specifically, it was clear he was
referring to that party’s
activists.
Chihuri’s statement came a few days after police
spokesperson Wayne
Bvudzijena produced what read like a catalogue of
criminal acts perpetrated
by MDC-T youths on supposedly innocent Zanu PF
supporters.
What emerges from these pronouncements is that Chihuri is
vainly attempting
to paint the victims of violence as the perpetrators. Some
of the victims
are right now living in MDC-T safe houses after being
displaced from their
homes.
While it is not in dispute that MDC-T
youths have in recent days launched
revenge attacks at Siya So market and
some Mbare flats, Chihuri is ignoring
the plain reality that organised Zanu
PF youths are the instigators of
political violence.
Some of
these youths marched from Zanu PF headquarters before embarking on
an orgy
of looting at the Gulf Complex recently.
Testimonies from victims of
violence in Mbare — which has become a hotspot —
show that the perpetrators
are well known members of an illegal vigilante
militia called
Chipangano.
We find it therefore unwarranted for Chihuri to come up
with all kinds of
strange theories for the violence, whose source everyone
knows and which is
happening in broad daylight.
As the top cop,
Chihuri needs to be reminded that he has a constitutional
duty to be
impartial in his duties. His job is not to protect Zanu PF
hooligans but to
ensure that perpetrators of political violence irrespective
of their
political affiliation are brought to book.
Targeting the victims and
giving the perpetrators a free rein to commit
further acts of violence is a
travesty of justice. Chihuri is regrettably
setting the wrong tone for the
whole police force which needs to be
professional and independent if it is
to command public confidence.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:57
BY INDIANA
CHIRARA
JAPAN has poured in close to US$3 million towards a water and
sanitation
programme that will see the construction of 580 pit latrines and
400
boreholes in five districts.
The project, being jointly
implemented by International Federation of Red
Cross and Red Crescent
Societies, is in response to the 2008 cholera
outbreak that killed over 4
000 people countrywide.
Villagers in the Marange district of
Manicaland said the Blair toilets and
boreholes had changed their lives
after the cholera epidemic left a trail of
deaths in their
area.
“We no longer have cases of cholera in our area,” said Paul
Maponde, a
headman in the Chief Marange area.
“This has brought
relief to us because we lost a lot of lives during the
time when we did not
have boreholes and proper toilets.”
About 10 boreholes and 30 toilets
have been built at Mafararikwa High and
primary schools in the
area.
Albert Mutsutsuru, the Mafararikwa High School headmaster said:
“The
initiative is most welcome as we are now assured that our children are
safe,
because last year we lost some of them to cholera due to lack of
proper
water and sanitation.”
Red Cross Zimbabwe secretary
general Emma Kundishora said districts in
Midlands, Mashonaland East, West
and Matabeleland would benefit.
Yoshiro Doi, the first secretary in
the Japanese Embassy said the project
was one of the many ways his country
was trying to assist disadvantaged
communities in Zimbabwe.
A
major contributing factor to the severity of the 2008 cholera outbreak
was
the collapse of Zimbabwe’s public health system.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:54
BY SHINGAYI
JENA
RUSAPE —Villagers in the Makoni district in Manicaland are
appealing for
help to revive a scheme that assisted them to take care of
orphans in their
area.
“We have lost all hope of feeding or sending our
orphans to school this
year,” said David Gushure who looks after close to
500 orphans in six
villages under the Bethel Foundation
project.
The self-help foundation was established five years
ago in Rusape after a
realisation that thousands of orphans were missing out
on education due to
lack of money.
Under the project,
orphans grew crops and reared chickens to raise school
fees.
But
things have not been rosy for the foundation this farming season as it
failed to buy maize seed and the chicken project also collapsed because of
lack of funds.
“We are now into selling firewood to raise money
for food.
“As for school fees we are at a loss as to what to do next
because farming
was our only source of income,” Gushure
said.
Tears trickled down 15-year-old Charles Abraham’s face as he
narrated his
predicament. Abraham is one of the orphans being looked after
by the
foundation.
He said he had lost all hope for a better life
because of the challenges the
foundation faced.
Scores of
orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) in Rusape failed to attend
school
last year, when food shortages were severe.
And 2011 does not look promising
either.
The Basic Education Assistance Module (Beam), a state-run
scheme currently
financed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef),
has in the past
five years failed to help orphans in the six villages of
Chindukuro,
Gushure, Hera, Gunda, Mashinga and Zweya.
A steaming
pot of despair is now very apparent among the villagers as they
do not know
what to do next.
‘Orphans not protected by law’
Caleb
Mutandwa, the director of Justice for Children Trust Programme said
the
plight of the orphans was made worse by lack
of specific provisions in law
to protect vulnerable children.
Mutandwa said the Education Act was
flawed because it only dealt with
parents who fail to send their children to
school.
“The law does not account or recognise the orphans’ plight,
meaning that in
the event that both parents are dead no one can be held
accountable,” he
said.
“Laws governing social services in
Zimbabwe are weak in that Beam can fail
to deliver or could be removed and
no one would be forced to assist the
orphans.”
Mutandwa said a
survey they carried out in 20 districts showed that even
children whose
parents were still alive failed to raise fees averaging US$14
at primary
school level.
“There is need for an Act of Parliament that deals with
current challenges
concerning social security services and assistance to the
poverty-stricken
Zimbabweans,” he said
He also encouraged
government to introduce social welfare grants for the
under-privileged as
was the case in South Africa.
FACT urges government to
act
Some of the organisations that work with disadvantaged children in
Rusape
include Family Aids Caring Trust (Fact), which assists over
7 500
OVCs.
Portipher Guta, the Fact Rusape executive director said there
was need for
government to address the problems that continue to affect Beam
after NGOs
were directed to channel their assistance through the
programme.
“The transition from direct donor funding for school fees
to central
government is plausible,” Guta said.
“There is need
for government to re-engage the donor organisations that were
active in
these areas as the transition was not as smooth as we had
expected.
“The bottlenecks here are apparent as indicated by the
number of both
orphans and children with parents under Beam who were chased
away from
school for non-payment of fees.”
Despite the
improvements in the economy, most families in Zimbabwe’s rural
areas remain
in dire straits — with few in a position to afford three meals
a day and pay
school fees for their children.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:54
Stallholders at
Mupedzanhamo and Siya-so markets in Mbare were recently
forced to sign the
petition or risk losing their stalls to Zanu PF youths.
Those who sell food
at the popular Mereki Shopping centre in Warren Park D
are in the same
predicament.
They are being forced to attend meetings on Wednesdays
and Saturdays at
Warren Park Primary School where they are told to vote for
Zanu PF in the
next elections.
“Each braai stallholder
sends two people to the meetings and all members
here are supposed to buy a
Zanu PF card which costs US$3,” said one
stand-owner.
“They said
if we resist, unemployed Zanu PF youths will replace us.”
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011
16:52
BY CAIPHAS CHIMHETE
CHIMANIMANI — Zanu PF officials and
traditional leaders here are forcing
villagers to attend rallies and to
append their signatures to a petition
calling for the removal of targeted
sanctions against President Robert
Mugabe and his inner
circle.
The villagers, the majority of whom cannot afford a
decent meal a day, are
also being ordered to fork out between US$3 and US$5
to buy Zanu PF cards.
It is suspected that some of the money
would be channelled towards hosting
Mugabe’s birthday party later this
month.
Mugabe, who has been in power since independence in 1980,
turns 87 years on
February 21.
Those who refuse to sign the
petition are threatened with violence or death
during the forthcoming
referendum on the new constitution and elections
expected later this
year.
“The meetings are held at village level to make sure that the
militia can
monitor all those who refuse to sign the petition,” said one
resident of
Gudyanga Village under Chief Muusha.
“They were
however shocked at one of the meetings when the majority of the
people
refused to sign and left the venue.
“Only a handful of Zanu PF
supporters and those who were too afraid signed
the
petition.”
The petition had no letterhead and did not indicate the
person or
organisation that is behind the sanctions project.
Zanu
PF blames the country’s economic crisis on sanctions imposed on Mugabe,
203
of his cronies and 40 firms linked to the former ruling party by the
West.
MDC-T councillor for Ward 20 in Chimanimani district,
Zekias Nhachi
confirmed that villagers were being threatened with death if
they refused to
sign the Zanu PF-sponsored petition.
“Village
heads here were telling people that soldiers will come and deal
with all
those who had not signed the petition,” he said.
“But we told our
supporters not to sign because we did not impose the
sanctions and have no
powers to remove them.”
At the meetings, terrified villagers were
reminded of the June 2008 violence
during which at least 200 MDC activists
were murdered by suspected state
security agents, Zanu PF militia and war
veterans.
There have been reports of villagers being forced to sign
the petition in
Mashonaland East, West and Central, as well as Masvingo and
Gutu.
In Harare, this is restricted to high-density areas such as Mbare,
Epworth,
Kambuzuma and Warren Park where residents are being forced to
attend Zanu PF
meetings.
Zanu PF youth militia move from house to
house ordering residents to attend
their party meetings.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:52
BY
KUDZAI CHIMHANGWA
THE fight for the control of Boka Tobacco Auction
Floors between the late
tycoon’s family and the Zimbabwe Industry Tobacco
Association Centre (Zitac)
has drawn in Vice-President Joice Mujuru, who has
been asked to intervene.
Zitac, which is fighting Boka Investments
over the ownership of property on
the floors, says it asked Mujuru to
mediate in the matter after disturbances
at the floors last
Thursday.
Boka Investments alleged Zitac sent “thugs” to stop
renovations at the
floors but Zitac has denied the claims.
“We
are seeking intervention so that they don’t touch our property as they
are
disabling everything that is functioning,” said Caleb Dengu, a Zitac
shareholder.
“We have now asked the office of Vice-President
Mujuru to assist us in
coming up with an amicable solution to this
matter.”
He confirmed that they held a meeting at Mujuru’s office on
Friday but said
the outcome of the deliberations was “inconclusive and
ongoing.”
Zitac signed a 15-year lease for the Boka Tobacco Auction Floors in
2001.
However, a legal dispute arose between the property owner, Boka
Investments
and Zitac when the former decided to cancel the lease citing
breach of
contract. Boka Investments won the case after it spilled into the
High
Court.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:46
BY NQOBANI
NDLOVU
BULAWAYO — A group representing victims of political violence
has written to
the Matobo rural council in Matabeleland South seeking
authority to erect a
monument in memory of civilians killed during
Gukurahundi at the once feared
Bhalagwe army camp.
The Zimbabwe
Victims of Organised Violence Trust (Zivovt) plans to erect the
memorial
site “as a remembrance of the thousands of people who either lost
their
lives or were tortured at the concentration camp during the
1980s.”
In a letter addressed to Washy Sibanda, the chairman
of the Matobo Rural
District Council (RDC), dated January 24 2011, Zivovt
said building a
memorial site at Bhalagwe camp was also part of a national
healing process.
“As all will by now know, Bhalagwe
Concentration/Detention Camp was used by
the army at the height of political
disturbances in Matabeleland and
Midlands.
“In that camp many
people were tortured, raped or killed.
“As part of the national
healing process and as a remembrance of the
suffering of the people abused
there and also as a way of keeping history
(whether good or bad) alive, we
propose to erect a memorial site at Bhalagwe
Camp and accordingly apply to
your council to do so,” reads in part the
letter by Zivovt trust secretary,
Bekithemba Nyathi
.
Zivovt, which was formed last year, is chaired by
Patience Nabanyama, wife
of the late Patrick Nabanyama, an MDC activist who
was abducted by war
veterans in the run-up to the 2000 general
elections.
Matobo RDC officials, speaking on condition that they were
not named, told
The Standard that the council was yet to respond to the
letter.
“We are hoping that our request will be granted,” Nyathi
said. “Getting a go
ahead to erect the memorial site will be a welcome move
that will also push
the government to acknowledge that bad part of our
country’s history.”
Repeated efforts to obtain a comment from the
Matobo RDC chairman were
fruitless last week as his mobile phone was
unreachable.
According to activists and survivors of the Matabeleland
disturbances, about
20 000 civilians lost their lives when President Robert
Mugabe sent the
North Korean trained 5th Brigade in the early 1980s to
fight an alleged
insurgency.
In September last year, a
Washington-based group that campaigns against mass
murders, Genocide Watch
called on the United Nations’ High Commissioner for
Human Rights to conduct
a full investigation of the Gukurahundi massacres
with the aim of
establishing a mixed UN-Zimbabwean Tribunal to bring Mugabe
and the
perpetrators to trial.
Genocide Watch said a mixed UN-Zimbabwean
Criminal Tribunal — like the one
established in Cambodia to probe the Khmer
Rouge killings — could also be
created to try Mugabe and other leaders of
the genocide.
Bhalagwe was originally a military camp but was turned
into a concentration
camp in 1982 when the mainly Zipra unit was accused of
being dissident.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13
February 2011 16:43
Reverend Useni Sibanda of the Christian Alliance said
another group of 60,
displaced from Mbare, was raided twice on Thursday at
Silveira House in
Chishawasha.
“The police came in the morning
and interrogated the victims together with
pastors Wilson Mugabe, Josphat
Umali and myself,” Sibanda said.
“They said they were from
Mabvuku Police Station and asked why the displaced
people were at Silveira
House and whether they had come from Epworth.
“We explained everything to
them and they went away, only to return at night
with a ZBC news crew where
they threatened victims and left them very
traumatised.”
Sibanda
said the Christian Alliance was seeking audience with Police
Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri to register their anger over the
police’s failure to protect the victims against violence and the raiding of
private properties offered by well-wishers as temporary
shelter.
“We also want the Southern African Development Community
(Sadc) to come in
and restore sanity in Harare before the ongoing
lawlessness spreads to other
areas,” Sibanda said.
“We have
already met some of the ambassadors from Sadc with this plea that
the
regional bloc should intervene because Zimbabwean authorities have shown
beyond doubt that they lack the capacity to stop this.”
The
police have said both Zanu PF and MDC are equal contributors to both
current
and previous political violence, with spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena
last week
writing a media statement chronicling several incidences of
violence, all of
which he blamed on MDC-T.
But MDC-T responded by chronicling
incidents where its supporters were
attacked by alleged Zanu PF militants
but police have refused to act.
They included the burning down of
Mbare councillor Paul Gorekore’s flat and
the invasion of Town House by Zanu
PF youths.
Police have not made any arrests a month later despite the
fact that The
Herald splashed pictures of the marauding youths on its front
page.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:41
BY
JENNIFER DUBE AND INDIANA CHIRARA
SUPPORTERS of the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) led by Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai, who are
being hounded out of their homes by militia
aligned to Zanu PF, are running
out of places to hide in Harare with police
targeting places where they seek
refugee.
The past week was one never to forget for the over 1
000 victims of the
worsening political violence in the capital’s poor
neighbourhoods who
thought seeking refuge at Silveira House in Chishawasha
would end their
persecution.
The terrified women and children at
a safe house provided by the party no
longer trust anyone even journalists,
after police forced them to flee their
refuge in the middle of the night
last Thursday.
“It has been three weeks now since we started fleeing
and journalists too
are responsible for our plight,” one man
said.
“First it was Zanu PF supporters who pushed us out of our homes
and just
when we thought we were safe, the police raided us at well-wishers’
premises.
“Then some reporters came in the company of the police and
instead of
interviewing us so that we could get help, they started
interrogating us in
the same manner the police had done.”
At a
safe house visited by The Standard yesterday, a crowd including old
women,
pregnant women and children sat aimlessly; ready to sit through
another day
away from their homes.
Others were huddled in a corner where they
were still sleeping around
mid-morning. They refused to talk to the press,
fearing for their own
safety. However, some tried to co-operate but were
blocked by their
colleagues who said they feared continued media spotlight
would alert their
tormentors on their whereabouts.
There are 11
children aged between seven months and 15 years among them.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011
16:38
BY KUDZAI CHIMHANGWA
NEWS of the resignation of Egyptian
president Hosni Mubarak after days of
protests was greeted with excitement
in Harare with daring activists sending
text messages urging change in
Zimbabwe.
Mubarak, in power for over 30 years, threw in the towel after 18
days of
demonstrations by protestors calling for his resignation.
The
army has since taken over power while US President Barak Obama has
called
the uprising an inspiration and expressed hope that the country
returns to a
democratic civilian rule.
Mubarak’s ouster also dominated discussions
on social networks such as
Facebook, as people asked themselves if such
protests can succeed in
Zimbabwe.
The youth assembly of the MDC led by
Welshman Ncube issued a statement
congratulating Egyptian
people.
“The youth assembly believes this is a strong warning to all
the despotic
regimes in Africa and the world that thrive on tyranny and
impunity,” the
assembly’s secretary general Discent Bajila
said.
“We want to clearly point out that what has happened in Egypt
is possible
anywhere in the world where the liberators think they can rule
forever,
rigging the elections, violating property rights, curtailing media
freedom
and suppressing the celebration of political diversity among other
evils.”
Michael Andrew Moyo of Harare said selfishness on the part of
Mubarak’s
government pushed Egyptians to the brink.
“The fact
that the army and other security forces stood and watched things
getting out
of hand shows that they too were fed up with their leader,” Moyo
said.
His sentiments were echoed by Henry Shirichena, a
Harare-based electrician
who said a similar uprising was possible anywhere
in the world where there
was tyranny.
Alice Jeri and Fenny
Warikandwa said Egyptian people had spoken and similar
regimes should take
note that they can not rule for ever.
But Zanu PF sympathisers did
not share the excitement, with the party’s MP
for Muzarabani Edward Raradza
saying it was the United States which pushed
Mubarak out.
Zanu PF
and the police say protests similar to those seen in Tunisia and
Egypt are
not possible in Zimbabwe.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:37
Switzerland has
announced it was freezing assets in the country owned by
newly resigned
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
The announcement, which gave no details as
to what assets Mubarak or his
family might have in the country, will send
shock waves through the
presidential palaces of other Middle Eastern
countries.
“The government wants to avoid any risk of
misappropriation of state-owned
Egyptian assets,” a statement by the Foreign
Ministry said.
Stories of Mubarak’s personal wealth, ranging up to wild
estimates of US$70
billion, long suppressed by state media, began to
circulate among the crowds
from the beginning of protests.
His
family is said to own property around the world, including London,
Paris,
Dubai and the United States.
He is understood to have money in bank
accounts in Britain, the US, and
France as well as other western
countries.
But the control of resources by the regime’s leaders is
mirrored across the
region, whether through military dictatorship, as in
neighbours such as
Libya, or oil-funded feudal rule, as in the Gulf. --
Telegraph
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:34
BY
OUR STAFF
MUNN Marketing, the distributors of three Alpha Media
Holdings’ three
newspapers and several other leading South African
publications, says
attacks against its vendors by Zanu PF supporters and
suspected state agents
have intensified countrywide.
Nick Ncube,
the company’s operations manager said vendors reported that
people who were
seen buying NewsDay, The Standard and the Zimbabwe
Independent were being
harassed.
He said many vendors were now reluctant to sell the
papers fearing for their
lives.
On Friday some of the vendors in
Harare’s Nkwame Nkrumah and Park Street had
their papers torn by the thugs
who told them never to display them again.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 17:08
BY KUDZAI
CHIMHANGWA
ZIMBABWE’S obsession with protecting its “sovereignty” has
hampered the
uptake of private public partnership (PPPs) projects and slowed
down efforts
to privatise loss-making parastatals, Deputy Prime Minister
Arthur Mutambara
(pictured) has said.
Mutambara, whose
brief includes spearheading PPPs, told a productivity
conference organised
by Proficiency Consulting in Harare last week, that
government’s reluctance
to privatise loss-ma-king parastatals was illogical.
“We are
grappling with the ownership doctrine there- fore uptake (of PPPs)
has been
very slow,” Mutambara said.
He said government was more concerned
about the retention of strategic
institutions in the electricity, water and
transport sectors among others
instead of promoting
investment.
The robotics expert said the mindset only served to
stifle productivity in
the economy as key utility services remain in the
hands of government.
“Zesa, NRZ, Air Zimbabwe are all underperforming, how
can that be
sovereignty?”
The country, which needs up to US$10
billion for key infrastructure
development, has been struggling to get
investment due to a protracted
political impasse that forced multilateral
and bilateral agencies to
withdraw aid.
A number of hospitals,
schools, roads, bridges, tunnels, railways, water and
sanitation plants
dotted throughout the country have not been upgraded and
are collapsing
gradually.
Paul Mavima, the principal director, said inland PPP
projects had been more
difficult to undertake compared to those at border
posts.
He said the upgrading of the Beitbridge Border post was being
successfully
undertaken through a concession with a Mauritian
company.
A concession bestows the private operator with some
responsibility for asset
main- tenance and improvement.
“Right
now progress is at an advanced stage with regard to Forbes Border
post,”
Mavima said.
“Feasibility studies have not yet been concluded in some
of the projects. No
investor, for instance would be willing to part with
US$5 billion in a
project that they are not sure of.”
PPPs
generally involve the transfer of risk from the government to the
private
sector.
Mavima said that the launch of a PPP unit in government and
guidelines have
been scheduled for this month adding that the issue of
legislation might
pose as the biggest hurdle.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 17:06
BY KUDZAI
CHIMHANGWA
ZIMBABWE is an emerging market that provides immense
opportunities for
investors across the world but needs to be consistent in
its policies, a
visiting delegation from the London Stock Exchange (LSE) has
observed.
The delegation provided in-depth information on capital
raising
opportunities on the LSE for African and in particular,
Zimbabwean-focused
entities at its first meeting in the country on
Friday.
“Zimbabwe is providing opportunities above other
emerging markets and we are
here to explore the depth of those
opportunities,” said Ibukun Adebayo, the
bourse’s head of business
development for Africa, Middle East and South
Asia.
Local
business people were told that the LSE had the lowest cost of raising
capital in the world thereby creating an efficient pricing
point.
The LSE has value of trade worth US$3 billion on a daily basis
while market
volatility presently stands at less than 30%, making it an
attractive
market.
“Companies that invest on the LSE have a wide
choice of markets, access to a
large pool of investment capital, a
diversified investor base, as well as
short and long-term funds,” Adebayo
said.
He pointed out that LSE investors were interested in debt
or fixed income,
although there was no international benchmark to price the
debt in the case
of Zimbabwe.
He said this made it difficult to
provide an accurate yield curve.
Adebayo said the Alternative
Investment Market (AIM) had proved to be one of
the best investment vehicles
for emerging markets and urged Zimbabwean
companies to take advantage of its
opportunities.
AIM is LSE’s market for innovative, growing companies
from the UK and around
the world, which also helps companies to raise more
capital once listed.
Average market capitalisation on AIM stands at US$104,9
million and is
dubbed the world’s most successful growth
market.
Over 50 African companies are listed on AIM including
Zimbabwean outfit
Masarawa (Plc).
However, a UK-based lawyer who
was also part of the LSE delegation, Bayo
Odubeko, pointed out that AIM,
like any other global market, was susceptible
to market
conditions.
He said company owners lost a certain measure of control
over their
companies and were faced with increased disclosure
obligations.
“The challenges to Zimbabwean companies intending to
list are centred on
international perceptions about the political situation
in Zimbabwe but
there is immense potential,” Odubeko said.
But it
was noted that the economic restrictions imposed by the European
Union and
the United States’ Zimbabwe Economic Democracy Recovery Act
(Zidera) needed
to be carefully considered by companies intending to invest
on the LSE, as
due diligence exercises were in place to ensure
compliance.
Christopher Getley, the CEO of UK-based Westhouse
Securities which acts in
an advisory capacity, applauded Zimbabwe’s
education levels as well as what
he described as vastly different accounting
and legal structures.
“It is a potential hub for regional development
but there are issues of
political stability and land tenure security that
pose as a barrier that
need to be dealt with,” Getley said.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011
17:02
SADC must urgently establish a select committee to replace
Zimbabwe’s
internal Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (Jomic)
which has
dismally failed to discharge its mandate to monitor the effective
execution
of the Global Political Agreement (GPA). The select monitoring
committee
should be based in Zimbabwe on a fulltime basis, traveling the
length and
breadth of Zimbabwe independently gathering information on the
performance
of the inclusive government in fulfilling its
promises.
Zimbabwe’s inclusive government, established in terms of
the GPA, has just
turned two. Its two years of existence have been fraught
with difficulties,
some of which have threatened to rip it asunder. In
addition to the
catalogued 27 outstanding issues which supposedly have an
implementation
matrix, Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara’s refusal to
relinquish his
government post following an ouster at his party deals a
further blow to an
inclusive government tottering on the brink of
collapse.
But the signatories to the GPA had made provisions to
“ensure full and
proper implementation of the letter and spirit” of the GPA
through the
establishment (in terms of article 22 of the GPA) of a Joint
Monitoring and
Implementation Committee (Jomic) to be composed of four
senior members of
Zanu-PF and four senior members of each of the MDC
formations. Most of the
Jomic members also double as government ministers
and negotiators on behalf
of their parties with the effect of further
undermining their ability to
discharge the monitoring
mandate.
The constitution of Jomic from members of the parties who
are subordinate to
party principals was the kiss of death to any
effectiveness that the
monitoring body could have achieved. Jomic members
are expected to monitor
and mediate over the work of their superiors making
it a completely
unworkable arrangement that cannot achieve its intended
purpose.
It is akin to appointing minor children to mediate over
bickering parents
and monitor a plan to make the marriage work. Jomic’s
hands are tied; it
cannot, as was intended as one of its functions, “ensure
the implementation
in letter and spirit of the GPA”. Neither can it “receive
reports and
complaints in respect of any issue related to the
implementation,
enforcement and execution of the GPA”.
No wonder
why clause after clause of the GPA continues to be violated with
impunity
without the slightest protest from Jomic – it is a dog which
neither barks
nor bites. Jomic is a paper tiger; it has no power over the
party
principals, and as such cannot push them to act to fulfill their
obligations
in terms of the GPA.
If Zimbabwe’s political leadership is genuinely
committed to fully implement
all provisions of the GPA in order to put an
end to “the polarisation,
divisions, conflict, violence and the intolerance
that has characterised
Zimbabwean politics and society in recent times” then
it should let Sadc
take over the monitoring of the GPA.
Sadc, as
an external guarantor of the GPA, is best placed to provide
effective
monitoring of the GPA. It has the political clout and credibility
to receive
reports and complaints in respect of any issue related to the
implementation
and enforcement of the GPA. It is logical that respected
neighbours should
take on the task of mediation and monitoring of talks when
parents fight,
and not leave that task to hapless children.
The terms of reference
for the Sadc GPA monitoring committee must clearly
indicate powers to
recommend appropriate action by Sadc in the event of
non-compliance by
Zimbabwe’s political principals in executing GPA
provisions. Monitoring
alone would be useless unless it is backed by
relevant remedial
action.
And so far SADC has been failing to prescribe appropriate
remedial action in
the face of failure to meet set benchmarks.
The
monitoring role that SADC should take on would bolster South Africa’s
mediation and facilitation role, as it would be in a position to regularly
get information on the ground of the various challenges related to the
non-implementation of the GPA. As it is, SADC may well be in the dark about
the suspect deployment of the army across the country, a resurgence in
political violence which now threatens to engulf Zimbabwe once again, or of
the stalled constitutional reform process and threats to go for elections in
the absence of adequate reforms and in the context of a prohibitive
environment of total fear and intimidation.
What is most alarming
about the resurgent violence is not the scale or the
brutality, but the
unwillingness of the police to intervene. But in the
absence of a robust
monitoring mechanism all these pertinent issues remain
concealed from SADC
and the wider international community.
Dewa Mavhinga, Regional
Coordinator, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011 16:59
Is it such a
disrespectful thing for someone who is HIV-negative to declare
that they
never wish to become infected with the virus?
This question might
sound absurd but it has been swirling in my mind for a
while now. And the
reason why I raise it is because I am reminded of a
workshop I attended last
year in which session upon session focused on
stating and restating the fact
that HIV is a manageable condition and that
because HIV medicine is becoming
more affordable and less toxic, it is
encouraging longer
life.
This is all true, mind you, but one man sitting next to
me couldn’t help but
whisper into my ear, “Whatever happened to talking
about prevention too?”
Now, I know that this example may not be
representative of the general
global trend in communication around HIV, but
it’s still well worth stating
that often, in our bid to avoid stigmatising
HIV and discriminating against
people living with the virus, we don’t do any
justice to balancing our
arguments
This workshop was not focused on HIV
treatment as you might now believe it
was. Rather, it was organised as a
learning and sharing event about
different interventions that could help in
the response to HIV and Aids.
And yet primary prevention of HIV
transmission flew out the window as though
it was completely irrelevant to
the discussion.
My worry with this is that if we adopt such
communication approaches, we run
the risk of creating deficient ideas about
HIV in the minds of some. If you
continuously emphasise that HIV is
treatable and manageable, without also
stating that it is PREVENTABLE, you
create a false sense of security among
those who are willing to take risks
and continue to indulge in behaviours
that predispose them to HIV
infection.
For long, behavioural scientists have understood that a
variety of social,
cultural and economic factors influence a person’s
decision to take up, or
consider taking up, a behaviour. And one of these
factors is of course, how
accurately and consistently messages are conveyed
through the media and
other modes of communication.
Yes, HIV is
treatable and manageable. But if you can avoid getting it, then
that is even
better. According to the latest UNAids report, of the
approximately 15
million people living with HIV in developing countries who
need HIV
treatment, only about 5,2 million have access. The situation looks
particularly bleak in countries with severe HIV treatment backlogs and
growing numbers of people becoming newly infected.
But even if
treatment was made available to all people, I still don’t
imagine that
taking pills for life is something anyone would really want to
do,
regardless of whether the medication is treatment for a heart disease,
cancer or HIV. If I counted the number of times I’ve skipped taking pills
for short-term treatment courses, I know I would be found to be a very poor
adherer to medication. And I am sure that that goes for many
people.
Your doctor would never wax lyrical about how great
hypertension medication
would be if you got the condition, would he or she?
No, your doctor would
start at prevention and tell you how to work to avoid
getting hypertension
in the first place. Your doctor would warn you about
the discomforts that
treatment brings and really try to drive home how
important prevention is.
So why should communication on HIV be any
different?
I have often thought that stigma and discrimination swing
both ways. At one
extreme, we shun people living with HIV. And at the other,
we are so
frightened to cause offence that we wrap issues up in so much
cotton wool
that we forget to be objective.
Is it so wrong to say
that HIV is not a pretty disease, that it affects one’s
physical, emotional,
spiritual and social self? Is it stigmatising to say
that it isn’t a disease
one wants to have?
In the 1990s, they tried to shock young people
with gruesome images of
sexually transmitted infections depicting swollen
genitals and ghastly sores
with catchphrases that screamed, “HIV
kills!”
It didn’t work, — Why?
Because shocking people
without giving them practical information doesn’t
encourage follow-through.
Yet on the other hand, being too polite about an
issue doesn’t help
either.
http://www.thestandard.co.zw/
Sunday, 13 February 2011
17:00
Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen! Or, The Fall of the Last Pharaoh!
Take your
pick and write an award-winning
screenplay.
Scene 1: the Ides of February; enter Hosni
Mubarak, looking like a
latter-day King Ramses II but dressed in Julius
Caesar’s toga.
“I am constant as the northern star,
Of
whose true fix’d and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament
I
will not leave until elections in September
I will remain dignified in
this.”
With those words as he addresses the people in Tahrir
(Freedom) Square, he
seals his fate. Egypt erupts in a wave of anger. The
crowd explodes and
begins to throw boots in the air showing their contempt
for the dictator.
A day later the last pharaoh is
gone.
Mubarak had ruled Egypt for 30 years and had accumulated a
personal fortune
of US$70 billion; he had properties in all of the world’s
big capitals: New
York, London, Paris, Dubai, you name it.
He had
anointed his son Gamal to take over when eventually nature took its
course.
(On that score he was okay; there was no debilitating factionalism
in his
party.) He was a pillar in the Arab world and counted the United
States
among his major allies.
Unfortunately unemployment was high, so was
poverty. Only those linked to
his regime were doing well, the rest who did
not constantly sing his jingles
got nothing from the national cake.
Corruption was rampant among the ruling
elite; it was as if these privileged
few were competing to loot the nation’s
riches. His politics of patronage
was driving the people crazy. The
situation on the ground was revolutionary.
The tipping point came when his
neighbour in Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after a
popular revolt that triggered similar
revolts across the Arab world.
Egyptians yearned for what every human
being would yearn for. They wanted
food on their table; they wanted basic
civil liberties such as the freedom
of the press, the freedom of association
and periodic free and fair
elections in which they could choose who they
wanted to be ruled by.
They had been denied these for far too long –
30 years to be precise.
Mubarak had elections rigged each time they were
held, he had political
opponents locked up or exiled and the police were at
his beck and call doing
his bidding in suppressing dissent.
The
army was loyal to him because it was well fed with American money but as
it
turned out, it was never partisan — when the time came it stood with the
people.
There is a superfluity of similarities between the
Egyptian situation of a
few days ago and the Zimbabwean status quo the most
important of which is
that Zimbabwe has also known only one leader for three
decades.
As in Egypt, this situation has created a client state in
which only those
that pander to the whim of the ruling kleptocracy get a
ride on the gravy
train. All policies that have been put in place to
indigenise and empower
the people have benefited the ruler’s cronies. They
got all the fertile
farms and the productive companies. They get all the
tenders and are
benefiting from our precious minerals such as diamonds. It
is now an open
secret that the ruling elite have enriched itself beyond
measure.
Recently, powerful Zanu PF politburo member and Women’s
League chairwoman
Oppah Muchinguri was livid when addressing Zanu PF members
at a memorial.
“Zanu PF is now full of crooks. I will not hesitate to
expose these crooks
who are fattening their pockets and amassing a lot of
wealth at the expense
of true liberators of this country who have nothing to
show for their
sacrifice,” she was quoted as saying. “It is regrettable that
the party is
losing its grip because of these criminals who are dealing in
diamonds and
stealing people’s money.”
To cover up the open
looting, the people are denied a voice on national
radio and television. The
public press is openly partisan giving the people
only one side of the story
— Zanu PF’s. Radio and TV flight openly partisan
propaganda and sickening
jingles that praise the head of state.
The police have abdicated
their duty of protecting the people. Instead,
victims of political violence
are treated as the perpetrators while the
perpetrators are let off the hook
because they support the president’s
party. As we speak hundreds of people
have fled their homes and are living
in safe houses because they have no one
to protect them.
The violence has not spared the children; because
they have been displaced,
they are no longer attending school. Those who are
able to are being forced
to give money towards the president’s
birthday.
People are herded to night meetings where attempts are made
to indoctrinate
them with party propaganda as elections loom. Farming inputs
are distributed
along party lines; those who support other parties are
denied these inputs.
Suppressed anger is palpable among the populace;
it goes without saying one
day it will explode.
But the Egyptian
fiasco can be avoided quite easily — give the people what
they want.
Zimbabweans want a free press; they want different voices to be
heard on the
airwaves. They want more radio and television stations. They
want freedom of
association; they want like-minded people to be able to
gather where they
wish and openly share ideas.
They want a new people-driven
constitution; the current constitution-making
process has been subverted to
reflect narrow political interests. They want
free and fair elections which
are internationally supervised and are without
violence. Where it becomes
necessary they wish for a smooth transfer of
power.
Importantly,
they wish for a functional government that guarantees them
safety and uses
their money to uplift their wellbeing. They want to see a
non-partisan
police force that protects them rather than victimises them.
They
want a government that punishes those who steal from the people.
Corruption
has become so open that it has become a sub-culture in our
society. The
perpetrators get away with it.
It is not beyond those who rule us
today to return our beautiful country to
normality. We have yearned for this
for more than a decade now.