http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
19:05
Dumisani Muleya
CHINA, slowly but surely invading
Zimbabwe’s economic landscape despite
viewing it as a disaster zone, has
come up with a controversial US$3 billion
offer for vast local platinum
reserves in a move which has stirred a fresh
political storm in government
circles.
The offer, likely to be rejected as it mortgages the
country’s platinum
resources and crucial streams of revenue, could stir
political tensions
between the two countries which conveniently claim to be
close allies
whenever it suits their interests.
The deal
with China, through the Export-Import bank of China (China
Eximbank), gives
Zimbabwe US$3 billion to resuscitate its economy wrecked by
extended years
of bad policies and mismanagement. The US$3 billion offer is
described in
official documents, seen by the Zimbabwe Independent, as a
“master-loan-facility”.
In return China gets platinum deposits in
the Selous and Northfields
concession covering 110 square kilometers. The
concession has 30 million
ounces of platinum, meaning it is worth between
US$30-US$40 billion. China
has been pursuing the coveted reserves since
2006.
The Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation (ZMDC) and a
Chinese company,
Wanbao Mining, once entered into an agreement over the
deposits but the deal
collapsed after it was realised that a concession was
used as collateral
when Zimbabwe got a US$200 million facility from China
Eximbank. The
concession was encumbered and therefore the deal could not
proceed. Zimbabwe
has since 2009 been repaying the US$200 million loan to
free the platinum
reserves.
Sources said the new deal has been
received with scepticism in government
circles because it has stringent
conditions. The three most critical
conditions in the current financial
package include mortgaging platinum
reserves and ceding Chiadzwa diamond
revenues and tollgate fees.
“China Eximbank, an institutional bank in
that country, has offered the
Zimbabwe government US$3 billion in exchange
for platinum deposits in the
Chegutu area,” a senior Asian diplomat
confirmed this week. “The deal, which
is still under discussion, has caused
serious political problems because of
its flawed structure and strict
conditions. To get the money, Zimbabwe has
mortgaged platinum reserves worth
up to US$40 billion and gives up revenues
from Chiadzwa diamond mining
activities and tollgate fees.”
Finance minister Tendai Biti yesterday
confirmed “talks are on” but refused
to shed light. “We are communicating
with the
Chinese, but I’m not at liberty to discuss the issue with the
media,” Biti
said. “The issue is under discussion.”
Efforts to get
comment from the Chinese embassy were unsuccessful this week.
Sources
said China wants most of the US$3 billion invested in agriculture,
fertiliser manufacturing and drugs.
China Eximbank’s main focus is on
international loans and export credit, and
is the only Chinese bank
authorised to distribute concessional loans. The
bank has
issued
loans to a wide range of African countries. Although Angola,
Ethiopia,
Nigeria and Sudan have been the traditional major recipients,
recent
projects announced last year show a more diverse group of countries
are
benefiting.
Last year China Eximbank agreed to support an airport
upgrade in Mozambique
and assist in revamping Zimbabwe’s water supply works,
among various other
projects in the country.
China and Africa
have become increasingly linked economically, particularly
over the last
decade. As a whole, Africa has become China’s fifth largest
trade partner —
behind only the United States, Japan, South Korea and
Germany.
However, China is now zeroing in on Zimbabwe’s huge
mineral reserves.
Zimbabwe has vast mineral deposits, including platinum.
South Africa is
currently the leading world platinum producer, followed by
Russia.
The Sino-Zimbabwe platinum deal was first mooted in 2006. It
was revisited
vigorously in 2009 but stalled due to loan repayment issues
and valuation of
the mineral deposits.
Although the platinum
concession the Chinese want is estimated to be worth
US$40 billion, sources
say Beijing only wants to pay US$3 billion. This
riled government officials
who think the Chinese want to grab the country’s
minerals for a song.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011 19:02
Faith
Zaba
PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday confronted
President Robert
Mugabe over politically-motivated violence and intimidation
allegedly being
perpetrated by Zanu PF and other issues affecting the shaky
inclusive
government.
The issue of intimidation and violence that
has flared up in Harare’s high
density suburbs since Zanu PF launched its
2011 election campaign across the
country code-named “Operation ngatizivane”
took centre stage when the two
met at Zimbabwe
House.
Other issues discussed included the unresolved civil
servants’ salaries,
diamond sales and the controversy surrounding the
swearing-in of Professor
Welshman Ncube as the new deputy prime
minister.
Tsvangirai’s spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka yesterday
confirmed to the
Zimbabwe Independent that the two principals
met.
“Indeed, the meeting took place at Zimbabwe House and the issue
of violence
took centre stage,” Tamborinyoka said without giving more
details on what
the two agreed on concerning the various issues
raised.
“The Prime Minister is seriously concerned with the violence
that is taking
place,” he said.
However, sources close to the two
principals told the Independent yesterday
that Mugabe and Tsvangirai agreed
to task the two co-Home Affairs ministers,
Theresa Makone and Kembo Mohadi,
to come up with a report with full details
on the violence which broke out
in Mbare, Budiriro, Chitungwiza and Epworth
two weeks ago.
“The
co-Home Affairs ministers have been told to come up with proper details
that
show what exactly is happening on the ground to give to the
principals,”
said one top government official.
In Mbare, Zanu PF and MDC-T youths
have been fighting each other for two
weeks now and this has resulted in the
destruction of offices belonging to
Tsvangirai’s party and a house belonging
to MDC-T councillor Paul Gorekore.
A number of people have been
injured, while property and houses have been
destroyed.
What has
irked the MDC-T the most is the alleged selective application of
the law by
the police. While MDC-T youths have been arrested, suspected Zanu
PF
supporters have gone scot free.
On Monday a mob of Zanu PF supporters
chanting party slogans, flying the
party flag and singing revolutionary
songs attacked MDC-T supporters in
Mbare and on Wednesday another group
tried to besiege Town House, but they
were stopped by anti-riot police. In
Epworth, suspected Zanu PF war veterans
and youths have threatened to evict
residents suspected of being MDC
supporters this
month.
Government sources said Tsvangirai on Wednesday sought more
information from
Mugabe on the third sale of Chiadzwa diamonds
which
the president said was done recently.
Mugabe told Zimbabweans living
in Addis Ababa at the weekend that civil
servants would soon get a salary
increase after Mbada Diamonds said it would
pay a large dividend to
government, part of which should go towards
improving their
salaries.
“The Minister of Mines (Obert Mpofu) was telling me four
days ago that there
had been a third sale of diamonds and they are going to
give … I think it’s
Mbada, a large sum to Treasury,” he
said.
Mugabe also revealed that three other companies, in addition to
the two
already on the ground, would be licensed to mine diamonds in
Chiadzwa and
government would evaluate their performance.
A top
government official said: “The Prime Minister took Mugabe to task on
the
recent diamond sale and his statement that salaries would be increased
despite Finance minister Tendai Biti’s assertions that government had no
money and not enough money from the diamond sales was going to the
fiscus.
“Tsvangirai wanted to know when the third sale of diamonds was done
and
where and how much was raised. He also wanted to know why the sale was
done
privately without the knowledge of treasury.”
The official
said the issue was not resolved and it was agreed that the
matter be brought
before Cabinet at its first meeting on Tuesday next week
for further
debate.
“Debate will take place at cabinet and the Finance minister
has a few
questions of his own. The whole thing is murky and opaque. Now we
don’t even
know which companies, who, where and when the concessions for the
companies
to mine at Chiadzwa were done,” he said.
Civil servants
threatened to go on strike after receiving their January
payslips showing
minimal salary increases of as low as US$10 to an average
US$168 monthly
salary. Civil servants wanted a US$500 basic salary, but
negotiations for a
further increment stalled after they were told that there
won’t be further
movements as the government was cash-strapped.
The sources said the
two principals touched on the Ncube and deputy premier
Arthur Mutambara
saga.
The newly elected MDC president, Ncube, who is supposed to take
over from
Mutambara who was re-assigned to the Ministry of Regional
Integration, wants
to be sworn-in as deputy premier.
However,
Mugabe is insisting that the issue had legal problems and he could
only
swear-in Ncube as deputy premier after Mutambara resigns of his own
accord.
An MDC standing committee meeting last month resolved to
appoint Ncube as
the new DPM, Mutambara to be re-assigned as the minister of
regional
integration and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga as the Minister of
Industry
and Commerce.
Mutambara’s supporters are currently
challenging Ncube’s election as the
president of the party at the High
Court.
Mugabe’s spokesperson George Charamba has indicated Mugabe
cannot swear-in
Ncube because his election was being disputed.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011 18:57
Brian
Chitemba
DEPUTY Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara risks losing both his
current post
and the Regional Integration portfolio if he does not resign
and take up his
new appointment, top officials in the smaller MDC party said
yesterday.
Authoritative MDC sources told the Zimbabwe Independent
this week that
attempts by President Robert Mugabe to shelter Mutambara
saying he could not
swear-in newly elected MDC president Welshman Ncube
would force the party to
recall the DPM from parliament.
They said Ncube
would have informed Mugabe, who has been out of the country,
by next week of
the proposed reshuffle. The DPM has already been formally
informed of the
re-assignment.
“If Mutambara refuses to go or rather take up
a ministerial post, then the
party’s national council will meet and formally
inform the speaker of
parliament that Mutambara no longer represents the
interests of MDC,” said a
top official in Ncube’s faction. “In simple terms,
we will be forced to fire
Mutambara if he tries to resist the people’s will
expressed at the congress.
He can’t subvert a template of the will of the
people.”
Only members of parliament are allowed to assume positions
in government,
therefore if Mutambara loses his seat, it means he can no
longer be holding
the deputy premier’s post.
The MDC official
said once Mutambara is kicked out of parliament Mugabe
could not protect him
because it would be a clear case of the executive
interfering with the
legislature, thereby infringing on the separation of
powers.
Mutambara, who is still to speak out publicly about his
future plans, has
been one of the principals since the inception of the
inclusive government
two years ago until last month when Ncube outmanoeuvred
him.
After the MDC’s standing committee, which met after the January
congress,
the party resolved to appoint Ncube as the new DPM, replacing
Mutambara who
was then assigned to the Regional Integration ministry, which
was occupied
by Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, who is now set to take over
from Ncube —
the current minister of Industry and
Commerce.
Mugabe announced that he could not swear-in Ncube unless
Mutambara resigns
of his own accord as deputy premier.
But top MDC
insiders said Mutambara indicated to his confidants that he
would not step
down because the Global Political Agreement (GPA) is silent
on how deputy
prime ministers are appointed or fired from office.
The September 15
2008 GPA only mentions that ministers can be reshuffled at
the behest of
their respective political parties.
MDC officials said a DPM was merely a
senior minister who falls into the
category of cabinet ministers and was not
immune to reshuffle.
MDC officials said if Mugabe and his Zanu PF henchmen
want to protect the
DPM against the will of his party where he is an
ordinary member, then the
former ruling party should rope him into its
structures.
The source said top MDC members were now convinced that
Mugabe’s utterances
in support of Mutambara and what the DPM has been quoted
as saying in
sympathy with Zanu PF was a clear indication that the DPM was
“a surrogate
of Zanu PF”.
“The cat is now out of the bag. Efforts
by Mugabe to protect him show that
he is their man. Therefore Zanu PF can’t
have two principals in government,”
said the source.
The MDC
official added that Mugabe who accepted MDC-T’s reshuffle last year
should
also accept the changes to be implemented by Ncube’s party, unless
the
ageing leader’s resistance has tribal undertones of keeping Ncube and
other
Ndebeles as underlings.
“As underpinned by the GPA, the deployment of
cadres is the sole prerogative
of the party; no party can veto another’s
decisions. Mugabe can’t determine
what happens in the MDC,” said the source.
“If Mugabe accepted MDC-T’s
reshuffle last year, why can’t he also accept
our proposals.
“People in Matabeleland also view Mugabe’s attempts to bar
Ncube from
assuming a top office as continued segregation against the
Ndebeles. Zanu PF
is trying to bar Ndebeles from enjoying mainstream
government positions;
that may raise tribal tensions.”
However,
presidential spokesperson George Charamba has refuted allegations
that
Mugabe was sheltering Mutambara, saying there were legal issues that
made it
difficult for the president to swear Ncube into office as deputy
prime
minister.
“It is not the business of the president to use his powers
as an appointing
authority to resolve the problems of a political party,” he
said adding
that: “The congress yielded a contested leadership and that is
not President
Mugabe’s problem.”
The deposed MDC leader was
reportedly offered a soft landing by
Misihairabwi-Mushonga in June last year
to become deputy president of the
party and remain as deputy prime minister
in the inclusive government but he
declined insisting that the party must
not “subvert democracy”.
MDC spokesman Nhlanhla Dube said the party
had not yet come up with an
official position regarding the debate around
the future of Mutambara
“We will know the way forward after president Ncube
has met Mugabe. For now
people are just speculating,” he said.
Efforts to
get a comment from Mutambara were fruitless as his mobile numbers
were not
reachable.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
18:55
Paidamoyo Muzulu
MDC-T leaders’ lack of strategy and
political skill to package their
programmes has made them play second fiddle
to Zanu PF in the inclusive
government for the last two years, political
analysts said this week.
The analysts said although MDC-T has
been working quietly behind the scenes,
this has created an image of
non-action in addressing core national problems
like electoral reforms,
intermittent fuel shortages and the progress in
civil servants’ wage
negotiations, among a host of other issues.
Crisis Coalition programmes
manager and political analyst Pedzisai Ruhanya
said: “MDC leaders are doing
well but have failed to score the political
points to their credit. They are
acting more professionally, forgetting that
they have a political role to
play too.
“They (MDC-T) should develop the political skin to confront
their colleagues
in government and parliament on handling issues such as the
civil servants’
wages. “The minister of Finance (Tendai Biti) should be able
to put it to
the nation where Mugabe is getting the money from diamonds to
pay the civil
servants and where the money was all along?”
Media
Resource Centre director Ernest Mudzengi believes the MDC-T is trying
its
best under very difficult circumstances in the inclusive
government.
“Although it has its weaknesses, MDC has tried,” Mudzengi said,
“It’s Zanu
PF machinations that create the image of MDC-T appearing as if
they are
doing nothing.”
University of Zimbabwe Constitutional
Law Lecturer, Greg Linnington said the
MDC-T had only nominal power in the
inclusive government, which made it
difficult for them to implement
things.
“Is the MDC enjoying the trappings of power? Do they have the
power itself?”
questions Linnington, “I don’t think so.”
Prime
Minister and MDC-T president Morgan Tsvangirai’s Government Work Plan
Programme for 2010 is gathering dust with nothing being implemented. This is
despite the fact that he is the leader of government business in
parliament.
The country has been operating on autopilot since
mid-December last year
when cabinet last met after Mugabe went on his annual
leave.
Linnington said the office of the prime minister has been reduced to
an
ornament just to give a rosy picture of power sharing.
Sction
20.1.4 (f) of the GPA says the Prime Minister “shall ensure that the
legislation necessary to enable the government to carry out its functions is
in place: in this regard, he/she shall have the responsibility to discharge
the functions of the Leader of Government Business in
Parliament.”
Tsvangirai and his party have failed to push hard for the
implementation of
the Global Political Agreement so that he could
effectively lead government
business in the House.
Two years down
the line, after the formation of the inclusive government,
Parliament’s
Standing Orders and Regulations Committee (SORC) is yet to meet
and agree on
when Tsvangirai should come to the House and answer questions
as the leader
of government business.
Many analysts have tried to examine the skewed power
dynamics in the
inclusive government to see what each political party can
deliver within the
coalition arrangement constructed after the signing of
the Global Political
Agreement two years ago.
“The inclusive
government has exposed the MDC-T’s weaknesses. Local
authorities headed by
the party have been proved to be corrupt,” Charles
Mangongera said, “This
has been compounded by the WikiLeaks cables that
exposed MDC leadership as
weak and indecisive.”
The MDC-T has continued to whine about Zanu PF and
Mugabe’s intransigence as
if they are an opposition party and not part of
the coalition government.
Ministers from the MDC-T have been isolated
by the government’s bureaucratic
system which takes instructions from the
other arm of government run by Zanu
PF.
MDC’s impotence was
further exposed in November last year when it was
whipped into submission by
Zanu PF to amend Finance Bill No.2 that had
already passed through the House
of Assembly. It did not try to put the
matter to the vote and use its
numerical advantage in the lower House but
conceded without a
fight.
Tshwane University of Technology lecturer Ricky Mukonza argues
that the
MDC-T leadership is failing to read the political terrain as
dictated by
Zanu PF and is in for a rude awakening.
“I think Zanu
PF is taking its campaign to the urban areas if you consider
the
intensification of its media propaganda whose main consumers are
urbanites,”
Mukonza said. “Also look at the emphasis on the takeover of
foreign-owned
companies, all this is meant to entice the more literate urban
population.
MDC-T needs to be on guard, instead of thinking that the urban
population
will automatically vote for the party.”
The MDC-T’s lack of strategy was also
shown in Addis Ababa, where a team of
junior officers was sent to lobby the
African Union Commission to keep
Zimbabwe on its radar.
The team,
headed by Kambuzuma MP and deputy International Affairs secretary
Willis
Madzimure arrived in Addis Ababa three days after the summit had
started and
analysts say an effective lobby of the continental body, which
is composed
of different states with different biases and alliances, should
have started
months before the conference.
According to sources at the commission,
the presentation was not impressive
and showed political
immaturity.
MDC-T spokesman Nelson Chamisa acknowledges the
difficulty his party has
been facing in working with Zanu PF in the
inclusive government.
“We are working with difficult partners. The government
is saddled with a
highly politicised and partisan civil service,” Chamisa
said, “We are
engaged in a process that should produce national civil
service which serve
the interests of all Zimbabweans. We are still limping
in terms of
democratisation”.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
18:50
Nqobile Bhebhe
THE MDC-T elections directorate has sent out
a document to all its
structures countrywide with guidelines of selecting
candidates from local
government to legislators and a raft of proposals to
amend the constitution
during its elective congress in
May.
According to the document obtained from MDC-T members, a
prospective
candidate for any post would have to be a member of the party
for at least
five years instead of the current two.
“The
prospective candidate should meet the following, 1.2 (f) in the case of
contestation consideration will be given to seniority and service to the
party within the party structures, 1.2 (g) have been in the structures of
the party for at least five years at any level and being a card holder and
fully paid up member and 1.2 (h) be able to read and write so that they
understand relevant legislative laws and have been democratically elected
and nominated through party processes”, reads the document.
MDC-T
sources say the seniority proposal has vast potential of dividing the
party
claiming that “junior but popular candidates would be sidelined and
further
escalate tension within structures”.
Another proposal says in the
event of unseen circumstances, the directorate
of elections can delegate
some of its duties and functions to the provincial
leadership of the
party.
Under the current arrangement the elections directorate
presides over the
selection of all candidates.
MDC-T sources say
if the proposal sails through it would further intensify
squabbles and
factionalism at provincial level.
“For instance, Bulawayo province is
divided into two camps now and if the
proposal is adopted it would be
worse,” said the source. “The proposal would
give way for a faction led by
incumbent chairpersons to fill post from his
or her
faction.”
Party national spokesperson Nelson Chamisa and his deputy
Thabitha Khumalo
were not reachable for comments.
The former
opposition party also seeks to push up the bar for prospective
mayors and
councilors. Prospective candidates must own a property in the
municipality
or be paying rates to the municipality.
“Mayors and chairpersons must
be having at least five years of MDC
membership, fully paid up card carrying
members and be of good political
standing in the party,” the document
reads.
Mayoral candidates should have management skills and
experience at senior
management level and “must accept to be bound by the
caucus and most
importantly must recognise the right and supremacy of the
party in offering
policy direction”.
Councillors should be able
to “read and write”.
MDC-T structures have been gripped by intense
jockeying for positions ahead
of the party’s congress with ministers and
senior politicians setting base
and holding several meetings ahead of
congress.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
18:33
WHILE politics remain the most obvious threat to Zimbabwe’s
economic
recovery, wage pressure is emerging as the most formidable menace
to an
economy that looks on the mend but remains very
fragile.
With public servants threatening to shut down
schools, hospitals and the
state bureaucracy unless given more, Zimbabwe’s
fragile coalition government
faces its first real test from a restive
populace unhappy about unfulfilled
promises.
Long used to
incessant feuding and pointing fingers at each other, the
coalition partners
now have to put up a united front against a whole new
common enemy in the
form of higher wage demands.
The International Monetary Fund said
last week that containing government
spending, particularly public sector
wages, would remain the main challenge
for Zimbabwe going
forward.
“This is a longstanding issue in Zimbabwe and it continues
to be a challenge
to get the consensus to hold back public wage increases,”
observed Sharmini
Coorey, Deputy Director of the African
Department.
Civil servants are demanding a minimum wage of US$500,
more than double the
average US$200 which most government workers earn and
have threatened to
strike to force the government to accede to their
demands.
Finance minister Tendai Biti has said the government does
not have the money
and already spends 60% of its revenues on salaries for
civil servants.
Consultant economist John Robertson said funds to meet the
civil servants’
demands were not provided for in the 2011 budget, causing a
dilemma for Biti
and Public Service minister Eliphas
Mukonoweshuro.
“The January salaries paid to the military and civil
servants reflect my
concern, and we now hear of plans for strikes and other
protests. As about
one third of Zimbabwe’s working population draws a
government salary, this
disappointment is affecting the business sector
too,” Robertson said in a
commentary last week.
Analysts warned
last week that the handling of the civil service wage
dispute could
ultimately be the turning point for the coalition government.
“The
looming civil service strike could prove costly for both Mugabe and
Tsvangirai. The Prime Minister will have to prove to those who voted him in
that he is still together with them while the strike action will hand Mugabe
a long rope with which to hang himself,” analyst Donald Porusingazi
said.
Zanu PF is believed to be the force behind the strike action,
clandestinely
urging the government workers to down tools in order to
portray the MDC-T as
an uncaring party that does not keep its
promises.
But Porusingazi said the invisible Zanu PF nudge on the
civil servants could
backfire for Mugabe’s party, which has been in power
since independence in
1980.
“Zanu PF must be careful not to
create conditions of open confrontation
between civil servants because it
could end up being engulfed by a fire it
would have started itself. I am
sure the party’s strategists are aware of
the perils of such a confrontation
spilling into the street,” he said.
The analysts also noted that
ongoing talk of elections later this year or in
early 2012 could pile
additional pressure on both Mugabe and Tsvangirai to
support increasing
civil service salaries –– even beyond government means.
None of the
coalition parties wants to be seen to be the one against giving
more pay to
public servants ahead of polls. –– Zimonline.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
18:19
Craige E Turner
VISITORS to southern Africa and in
particular Zimbabwe are often concerned
as regards the standards of health
care and emergency services available to
assist them in the event they are
taken seriously ill or injured while
working or on holiday in the
region.
Zimbabwe, despite several difficult years in so far
as the economic downturn
is concerned, is fortunate to have one of the most
efficient, best developed
private emergency medical service systems on the
continent outside South
Africa.
This availability of air and road
evacuation capabilities has for many years
provided peace of mind to
tourists and professionals visiting or working in
Zimbabwe.
However even the best systems worldwide have
limitations and it is important
to be aware of these when visiting or
travelling in the region.
Private Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in
Zimbabwe is provided primarily
by two services, Emergency Medical Rescue
Ambulance Services (Emras) a part
of the Premier Service Medical
Investments health care group and Medical Air
Rescue Service (Mars).
Both
have been in existence for many years and therefore have a wealth of
knowledge and experience in the area of aero-medical evacuation in Zimbabwe
and the region.
While both are headquartered in Harare, they run
bases in all major centres
of Zimbabwe: specifically Bulawayo Zimbabwe’s
second largest city, Gweru,
Mutare, Kwekwe , Masvingo and in the case of
Mars, Victoria Falls. Services
provided are very similar in that both
services have ground ambulances
available to respond in urban centres and
both conduct long range road
ambulance transfers.
Ambulances are
fully equipped with oxygen airway management equipment, IV
fluids, emergency
drugs, full spinal immobilisation equipment, splints,
patient monitors,
defibrillators and, where needed, transport ventilators:
thereby providing
advanced life support care when necessary.
Staffing again is similar
in that both services employ registered ambulance
technicians, emergency
medical technicians, registered general nurses, many
of whom have Advanced
Cardiac Life Support and they have doctors on call to
effect air evacuations
or assist on long range calls.
Both Emras and Mars have a fixed wing
aeromedical capability with aircraft
and pilots on standby to effect
evacuations. A range of aircraft are
available with Emras currently
utilising a King Air 90 while it has access
to a Cessna 402 Navajos and
Cessna Caravan all ideally suited to accessing
short bush strips. Mars
likewise has aircraft on standby.
Aircraft are configured as air
ambulances and provide high levels of care.
The normal crew comprises a
doctor and flight nurse both ACLS or ICU
trained. Aircraft are based in
Harare but most destinations in the country
can be accessed within 45
minutes to an hour of takeoff.
To access either of these services it
is vital for visitors to have a good
international health assistance scheme
which includes evacuation cover and
hospitalisation in
emergencies.
Normally, private services will need this information
and are usually
required, in terms of the policies to seek authorisation
from the insurer
prior to effecting an evacuation.
This can
create a delay.
It is therefore advisable, particularily if visiting
more remote areas, to
carry a well-stocked first-aid kit.
Other
factors which may delay air evacuation are time of day and weather.
During
the rainy season some smaller dirt strips may be inaccessible. Also
pilots
may be reluctant to fly into strips at night if they are unfamiliar
with the
strip and it is not adequately lit.
Immediate and effective first-aid
is therefore vital. Where possible it is
advisable to transport a casualty,
depending on injuries, to the nearest
medical facility. Even a rural
hospital or health centre, while basic, may
be able to provide assistance
while awaiting evacuation. Movement of
suspected spinal injury patients,
however, is not advisable without adequate
immobilisation.
In an
emergency, be guided by teams coordinating the evacuation. They will
do all
they can to assist and advise you and they know local conditions,
constraints and facilities better than you.
Remember they’re
there to assist you but they themselves may be facing
challenges if weather
conditions, for example, preclude air evacuation.
Assist them by providing
as much information regarding the nature of injury
or illness to enable them
to make informed decisions regarding evacuation
and further
management.
Most casualties will be initially evacuated to Harare.
There are several
reasonably good private hospitals in the capital but good
international
insurance is vital to gain admission. If the patient’s state
is such that
further intervention, not available locally, is needed
Johannesburg, South
Africa, is only an hour and half away by air and both
Emras and Mars will
coordinate and effect these transfers where
necessary.
While parts of Africa can be remote and potentially
dangerous if acute
illness or injury occurs with infrastructure available in
Zimbabwe in terms
of private EMS response a lot can done to mitigate against
such dangers.
Limitations however do exist and prior planning and
preparations on the part
of visitors is therefore essential if tragedies are
to be avoided.
lCraige E Turner is divisional head of PSMI EMRAS. He
is a registered
general nurse with a Diploma in Health Teaching and a
traumatologist. He
has over 30 years’ experience in pre-hospital care in
Zimbabwe and the
region.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011 17:59
Kumbirai
Makwembere
THE NEW YEAR has begun on a positive note with the mainstream
and resource
index gaining 6,5% and 8,19% respectively. Activity picked up
after
government officials indicated that the constitution-making process
will
only be complete in the third quarter implying that presidential
elections
may only be held in the coming year. This resulted in buyers,
especially
foreign buyers returning to the market. Foreign investors were
taking
positions for 2011 evidenced by the strong movements on the heavy
weight
counters.
Simply put, the past month saw some sense of
optimism returning to the
market. These sentiments were echoed by various
captains of industry at the
recently held Mandel Economic Symposium. The
minister of Economic Planning
and Investment Promotion, Tapiwa Mashakada,
disclosed that government is
projecting GDP growth of above 10% from the
initial estimate of 9,3%. Mining
and agriculture are expected to continue
spearheading this economic growth
with further expansions of 44% and 19,3%
expected in the current year.
Traditionally, the foursome of mining,
agriculture, manufacturing and
tourism anchor the performance of the
economy. Hence if the economy is to
fully recover to levels prevailing in
the 1990’s, the latter two sectors
must recover as well.
Tourism
is showing some signs of recovery evidenced by a 47% jump in tourist
arrivals announced in the Monetary Policy Statement for the nine months to
September 30 2010. Though city hotels, through conferences and workshops,
are currently accounting for the greater proportion of these numbers,
occupancies and room rates have generally improved. African Sun reporting
results for the full year to September 30 2010 disclosed that occupancies
improved by 41% to 45% while Average Daily Rates (ADR) stood at US$79
representing a growth of 8%.
Worrisome though, is the slow pace
of reform in the manufacturing sector. In
2010, the sector is believed to
have grown by a modest 2,7% with a further
growth of 5,3% projected for the
current year. This is too little
considering that production is coming off a
low base. Most companies scaled
down operations or closed when
hyperinflation intensified in 2008 and also
due to the infamous June 18
price blitz. A growth of at least 10% would be
reasonable given the
impressive performance in agriculture and mining
sectors.
Though
capacity utilisation improved to 43,7% from the 32,3% recorded in
2009,
however it remains below the 60% target set by the government in its
inaugural fiscal policy statement post the adoption of multiple currencies.
It would appear that this depressed scenario is likely to continue in the
sector as there are a host of challenges hindering growth. These factors are
also weighing negatively on the competitive edge of both the companies and
the country as an attractive investment destination.
The greatest
challenge is that of utilities. Provision of electricity and
water supply in
the country is unreliable. Furthermore the pricing of these
utilities is
steep. Companies have been forced to put in place back up plans
which
obviously come at a cost. Use of generators to power operations as
well as
installation of water purification units are few examples of these
measures.
This however is both expensive and unsustainable. Government
should
therefore liberalise the energy sector through allowing corporates to
import
power individually so that they have uninterrupted power supply which
helps
them to plan ahead.
The high cost structure particularly wages is
another factor weighing down
on productivity of local companies. It is
difficult on the part of companies
to pay high salaries at a time when
production remains low. Firms should be
allowed to match remuneration with
level of production taking place. Labour
should move from the practice of
negotiating wage increments on a quarterly
basis as this was necessitated by
hyper-inflation. Use of multiple
currencies has brought about stability
making it suitable to undertake this
process on an annual
basis.
Local companies are also suffering from shortages of capital
to revive their
operations. Some companies continue to record losses
regardless of the good
business models they employ. Cairns Holdings for
instance remains in the
doldrums despite the fact that demand for groceries
and beverages remains
strong. The solution is to inject cheaper funding to
be used for working
capital as well as retooling of
machinery.
Companies should therefore be allowed to explore all
possible financing
avenues. In this regard, the authorities should be
flexible on issues
relating to ownership of companies. Indigenisation and
economic empowerment
regulations should be applied on a case by case basis.
If a company secures
capital from an offshore investor in exchange for
equity, then 51% ownership
requirement in the companies should be waived.
Allowing Ecobank to acquire a
70% stake in Premier Banking Corporation as
well as the sale of a 54% stake
in Zisco Steel to Essar are steps in the
right direction.
The inefficiencies in the local companies have
availed opportunities to
foreign firms that are flooding the market with
products. While this has
helped improve product availability there is risk
of rand induced inflation.
To counter the influx of imports,
management within companies should move
away from the cost plus pricing
approach as they will not be able to compete
with foreign products. Rather
companies should assess their manufacturing
processes, refine them to
eliminate unnecessary costs which will help them
produce products at prices
lower than those of foreign companies.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
17:47
Bernard Mpofu
GOVERNMENT’S failure to revise controversial
indigenisation regulations last
December has raised anxiety among business
as Zimbabwe faces a possible
election later this
year.
Indigenisation regulations compelling foreign-owned
companies with a net
asset value of US$500 000 or more to dispose 51%
shareholding to black
Zimbabweans took centre stage at an economic outlook
symposium amid business
leaders fears the new law could retard economic
growth.
Last August Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment
minister
Saviour Kasukuwere commissioned several sector-specific committees
to advise
government on the regulations following a furore over the
policy.
He promised to announce new regulations after taking on board
various
submissions from committees but barely a month after the proposals,
Kasukuwere has remained mum on which way to go.
But Zanu PF, one
of the partners in the coalition government formed two
years ago, is on a
campaign trail selling possible takeover of foreign-owned
companies as an
election trump card.
Mining and the financial services sectors have
criticised the disposal of
the mandatory 51% shareholding owned by foreign
investors saying the move
could result in divestment of Zimbabwe’s capital
starved economy.
Stanbic Bank chairman and renowned corporate lawyer,
Sternford Moyo told
delegates at the Mandel Economic Outlook Symposium on
Monday that
empowerment regulations could trigger expropriation of
properties, a
development that could result in massive capital
flight.
“It has raised the ugly possibility of violation of property
rights,” said
Moyo.
“It has been received with such a strong
mixture of emotion, suspicion and
fear that it has been very difficult for
rational discussion on the way
forward to take place. Very little attention
has been given to possible
ways in which to respond to and mitigate the
negative effects of the
legislation.”
University of Zimbabwe
School of Business professor Tony Hawkins said a
policy discord within
government would derail economic recovery.
“The mixed message policy
environment of the past two years is not conducive
to sustained recovery,”
he said. “All the evidence tells us that policy
uncertainty –– such as over
indigenisation –– is bad for investment and
growth.
“This economy
emerging from not one but three decades of underinvestment
cannot afford a
period of protracted policy and political uncertainty. Nor
should business
be as complacent as it is about the build-up of an
additional US$750 million
of debt annually.”
Zimbabwe’s is saddled with a US$6,9 billion debt
and government is
struggling to attract lines of credit and foreign direct
investment ––
currently standing at 5% of the Gross Domestic Product from a
high of 25%.
“Because there can be no sustained growth without
investment and because
policy uncertainty and instability and policy
paralysis inhibit investment
decision-making. Government should be talking
to the International Monetary
Fund about a Staff Monitored Programme, as a
prelude to debt relief,”
Hawkins said.
Economic Planning minister
Tapiwa Mashakada, representing the Morgan
Tsvangirai-led MDC in the unity
government, accused unnamed people of
intending to arbitrarily take over
companies under the guise of empowerment
warning the plan could paralyse the
economy. He downplayed the possibility
of a general election this year, a
process business fears would plunge the
country into economic
turmoil.
“There are some unscrupulous elements in society who have
taken it upon
themselves to interpret indigenisation as seizure and
invasion,” he said.
“The year opened with an election mantra which is slowly
dying down as it
appears parties are now committed to the completion of the
constitution-making process, and organise elections after
referendum.”
Imara Asset Management CEO John Legat said government
can achieve
empowerment objectives and stimulate the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange
–– lowly
ranked in the region in terms of market capitalisation –– by
listing
targeted foreign-owned companies.
He said foreign-owned
mining companies are considering going public once
there is clarity on the
empowerment regulations.
The ZSE is targeting platinum giant
Zimplats, which is trading on the ASX,
Aqaurius platinum (ASX, JSE, LSE),
Anglo American owned Unki mine, and ACR
(LSE).
The Chamber of
Mines of Zimbabwe says the mining industry requires up to
US$5 billion to
recapitalise after years of hyperinflation, limited capital
inflows, foreign
exchange controls, hamstrung operations.
“There is no shortage of
capital in the world, there is plenty of it,” Legat
said. “But it wants to
go where it can achieve the highest returns for the
level of risk that is
taken. I think indigenisation is one major area that
is restricting the
availability of capital”.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
17:39
BAKERS Inn MD Marcus Athitakis (MA) believes the economy should
remain
liberalised. Businessdigest’s chief business reporter Paul Nyakazeya
(PN)
spoke to Athitakis about the price of bread, bakers and millers worst
fears
and how the industry could be sustained to ensure that the price of
bread
does not go above US$1.
PN: Bakers and millers are accused
of being quick to review their prices
upwards when there is a movement of
wheat price on the international market,
but adopt a “see no evil or hear no
evil” when the opposite happens. What do
you say to this?
MA: The price
of a superior loaf has dropped from US$1,30 to US$1 since
dollarisation.
During the same period, the costs of producing a loaf
increased by 24% due
to increased world wheat price, and the strengthening
of the rand. Despite
both these factors getting worse, we dropped our
wholesale prices in
November last year to 90 cents (US$1 retail), but this
was after we managed
to increase factory and distribution efficiencies.
Apart from those two
months when the price of bread increased last year,
prices have been on a
downward trend.
PN: How would you view the current obtaining
market price of bread?
MA: The market price is extremely competitive, and the
single biggest factor
driving this is the issue of (small) change. In
Zimbabwe once prices go
above US$1, there are huge difficulties with change
and will be a disaster.
A 700g superior loaf (square loaf) costs R8,50
(US$1,21) in South Africa,
despite the fact that their raw materials cost
about 20% less. A 650-700
gramme standard loaf that costs 85 cents in
Zimbabwe, sells for 90 cents -
US$1,00 (6 pula) in Botswana; and $1 (5 000
kwacha) in Zambia; and $1
(R7,20) in South Africa. This is in spite of them
landing all key raw
materials at much lower prices than us.
PN:
You have an acceptable brand, but the market says you have not really
gone
above Proton in terms of your bread market share. How far true is it?
MA:
This is completely true for Mashonaland East. But nationwide, between
three
and four Bakers Inn loaves are sold for every Proton loaf.
PN: Are you
looking into other ventures besides bread?
MA: There are two ventures that we
hope will contribute 10-15% of turnover
by end of the year. We commissioned
a premix plant in 2010, which currently
supplies 250 tonnes per month of
bakery premixes to in store bakeries. We
hope to double this by December
2011. There is also mass production of
quality confectionery for supply to
retailers. The lack of consistent
electricity supplies has severely affected
major retailers, and they are
looking to supplement what they produce on
site.
PN: Word on the market is you want to take over the Lobels
brand. How far
true is this?
MA: We still have so much work to do to
ensure we make Bakers Inn a
world-class bakery brand. We are not looking at
any other brands right now.
PN: Do you have any synergies with
other corporates outside your own?
MA: We work closely with most Zimbabwean
companies –– either as suppliers or
customers. We supply all the major
retailers with bread. We procure 85% of
our raw materials locally and work
with our suppliers to ensure they always
provide according to detailed
specs, and that they are competitive with
world-class markets. Last year, we
bought world-class flour and signed
contracts with National Foods, Muga
Foods and Manyame. After investing
recently in plants, Tregers is now
producing and supplying excellent
packaging. It is a cliché but we need
win-win relationships with our
customers and suppliers.
PN: What
capacity are you currently operating at?
MA: Currently, our three lines
in Harare are at 89% and our two lines in
Bulawayo are operating at
74%.
PN: How much wheat is Zimbabwe expecting this year and what
is the national
requirement monthly?
MA: We speak with no authority here,
but we have heard that the last local
crop harvested in October to December
2010 was about 20 000 tonnes, of which
only 10 000 tonnes was suitable for
bakers flour (high protein). We would
estimate that Zimbabwe uses 20 000
tonnes of flour a month (27 000 tonnes of
wheat).
PN: Bakers and
millers are said to be importing more than 50% of their flour
requirements
until the next wheat harvest, a bill which could raise
production costs, the
price of bread and other flour products. What do you
say to this and by what
margins could prices of bread increase by?
MA: I can only speak for ourselves
here. We procure more than 85% of our
flour through local millers. Because
of the lack of local wheat, local
millers have already been importing wheat
since dollarisation, and therefore
this “import” factor is already priced
into local flour prices. The bigger
concern is international wheat prices.
Since June 2010, Chicago Board of
Trade (CBOT) wheat prices have gone from
US$160 to US$345 per tonne before
transport and finance, and analysts are
forecasting this trend will continue
this year. Should this CBOT price go up
to US$370/380 per tonne, millers and
bakers will be under immense pressure
to increase prices by 10 – 20%.
PN: What do you think should be done
to ensure that the bakery industry
remains viable?
MA:There are five main
issues. Maintaining a liberalised economy where the
open market sets
competitive prices and bakers have the ability to source
and/or import raw
materials duty free.
There should be consistent electricity supplies, which
affect the entire
production chain. Farmers are scared to plant wheat which
they may not be
able to irrigate. We thus import more expensive
wheat.
The millers cannot plan their production and have to rework their
product;
this affects their yields and efficiencies, as well as their
quality, which
drives up their costs.
Similar obstacles affect all our
suppliers, and drive up their costs. Bakers
face same problems too, but have
one more significant cost. Due to the fact
that it takes two hours from the
time you mix dough, until you get a
finished loaf of bread –– a power cut
can result in a loss of 10–20% of a
baker’s production.
Flour prices need
to remain between US$650–700 per tonne for high protein
bakers’ flour to
maintain a retail price of US$1.The other issue is of
reasonably priced
finance to fund working capital and recapitalise the
industry paying more
than 20% interest a year is crippling all businesses.
We need to lift our
game and compare ourselves to international benchmarks.
We are now part of a
global village.
PN: What do you think are bakers and millers’
worst fears or threat to the
industry?
MA: I would say the biggest threat
is the increase in the price of
international wheat, which will trigger
other prices increases.
PN: What do you say to people who say Bakers
Inn was “unnecessarily and
overzealously” targeted by the National Incomes
and Pricing Commission
(NIPC) during the Zimbabwe dollar era so that they
could be seen to be doing
something because you were an easy target?
MA:
The NIPC was just doing their job, and all bakers in the industry were
affected. We have always engaged the NIPC constructively and openly to
ensure survival of the baking industry.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011 17:43
Paul
Nyakazeya
THE average loan-to-deposit ratio for Zimbabwean banks last
year was 65, 01%
as banks slowed down on lending following the dollarisation
of the economy
in January 2009 and persistent liquidity
crisis.
The levels are remarkably low compared to a regional
average of about 75%
recorded during the same period. In his monetary policy
statement presented
last Friday, Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono said
commercial banks’
loan-to-deposit ratio during the period under review was
61,97%, merchant
banks 91,36%, building societies 60,89% and savings banks
61,20%.
“Lending rates remained prohibitive to the productive
sectors,” said Gono.
Gono said lending rates ranged between 12% and
18% annually, relatively much
higher than the prime lending rate of about 9%
prevailing in Southern
Africa.
“As liquidity improves, banks are
expected to increase long-term lending to
the productive sectors of the
economy. Such long-term financing is critical
to the revival of domestic
industries which need to re-equip, refurbish as
well as replace obsolete
machinery,” said Gono.
MBCA has however been the emblem for an
industry being blamed for closing
lending taps.
The Charity
Jinya-led bank had the most attractive loan-to-deposit ratio of
126,72%. The
other commercial banks were Agribank (122,39%), Kingdom
(91,36%), CBZ (75%,)
ZB Bank (71,20%), NMB (70,55%), TN (68,14%),
Metropolitan (66,19%), BancABC
(61,02%), FBC (54,45%), Standard Chartered
(50,72%), Stanbic (33,90%),
Barclays (25,23%) and ZABG 10,63%.
Banks are unique businesses, not
only as guarantors of deposits, but also as
suppliers of capital without
which an economy cannot function, analysts
said.
This balancing act is
reflected in the value of a bank’s lending as a
proportion of the money it
has in deposits.
For Merchant banks, Genesis lent more with 109,32%,
Interfin (104,32%0,
ReNaissance (104,07%), Premier (89,23%) and Premier
(38,18%). For Building
societies CBZ Buildings’ loan-to-deposit ratio was
181,25%, FBC Building
society (103,030, CABS (48,97%) and ZB Bank (43,80%.)
POSB the only savings
bank in the country closed the year at
61,20%.
“The Reserve Bank has noted with serious concern the
continued aloof
attitude by some multinational banks towards the need to
actively support
the domestic economy,” Gono said.
However, the
quests for more profits by banks has often been undertaken at
the expense of
sound lending practices.
Since the economy was dollarsised, the pendulum
swung too far forcing the
Reserve Bank to attack foreign banks for not
lending.
Gono accused internationally owned banks of “paralysing the money
and
capital markets by sterilising huge domestic deposits which funds they
were
not passing on to the productive sectors of the economy through
lending”.
“The low levels of overall loans to deposit ratios at these
banks are a
development which is constraining the economy’s recovery,” he
said.
The money market remained generally inactive last year, largely due to
low
liquidity levels.
In the absence of Treasury bills, the only
instruments which dominate the
local money market are short-term bankers’
acceptances.
Activity in the inter-bank market was also, severely curtailed
by the
unavailability of Treasury bills, which are regarded as a risk-free
instrument for collateral purposes.
The resumption of the lender
of last resort function of the Reserve Bank is
expected to instill
confidence in the money and credit markets.
The Reserve Bank said banking
institutions should balance the need for sound
risk management and financial
intermediation in order to boosts confidence
in the financial sector and
spur the economic recovery process.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011 18:43
By
Bornwell Chakaodza
WHAT a high price people pay for change! Looters
running riot, political
paralysis, destruction of people’s livelihoods and
anarchy as police abandon
their posts and their role as the custodians of
law and order — in short,
complete mayhem.
More than 200 people
in Tunisia died in the uprising that toppled President
Zine al-Abidine Ben
Ali. In nine days of unprecedented protests that have
rocked the Arab world
and continued as I write, about 300 people have been
killed in Egypt as it
becomes increasingly apparent that it is a matter of
days, perhaps weeks,
before President Hosni Mubarak goes. Clearly, it’s over
for Mubarak and his
regime in Egypt.
Although there may be no close parallels
with Zimbabwe, nevertheless we must
examine and learn from the experiences
of other countries in crisis and
turmoil. It does no harm anyway. If
anything, it could be a blessing in
disguise in terms of avoiding a
contagion and domino effect — remote though
it is here, it is something that
no Zimbabwean desires. However, what
Zimbabweans want is for their country
to return to normality and for the
political leaders to be symbols of
reconciliation, magnanimity and hope for
the sake of Zimbabwe and not these
unending GNU squabbles that are of no
help.
The protests in Egypt
and Tunisia against those countries’ veteran rulers do
provide salutary
lessons for us in this part of the world. So let us avoid
streets
determining the fate of our country.
The unrest that ended Ben Ali’s
23 years of iron-fisted rule in Tunisia and
the massive demonstrations
against Mubarak’s 30 years in power clearly show
that poverty, hunger,
unemployment and corruption are in the long run a
major threat to peace and
political stability. I want to point out that the
capacity of ordinary
people to inflict damage on the business and political
elite of any country
if they are driven to do so by frustration and
hopelessness should not be
underestimated.
For that capacity is a function not only of power
measured in conventional
terms, but of desperation and despair and a
willingness to resort to extreme
measures even at great cost to themselves.
The revolutions in Tunisia and
Egypt — for that is what they are — clearly
testify to this important fact.
People whose voices had been silenced for
decades are suddenly finding them
all over the place. A cliché indeed but
what a difference a week makes in
people’s lives!
Edward Burke
once warned that there are critical moments in the fortunes of
all nations,
when they who are unable to contribute to your prosperity maybe
strong
enough to complete your ruin. It is a warning worth pondering as we
examine
and reflect on the momentous events that are unfolding in the Arab
World —
Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen and indeed in many other parts of the
world.
The main message to political leaderships in this world is
that you will
never be secure politically as long as you line your pockets
and enrich
yourselves at the expense of your poverty — stricken people.
Tunisians,
Egyptians and the Jordanians were and are protesting against
poverty,
unemployment, rising food prices and corruption. This is what the
revolutions are all about. They are settling accounts with their
long-serving dictators, period.
When will politicians in this
world grasp one quite simple fact that a
corrupt and dictatorial regime will
not last forever. Indeed, God in his own
wisdom and in his own time will
make sure that in the end tyrants fall.
Alas, when the day of reckoning
(January 14 2011) came, as it surely will
come for all of us, Ben Ali of
Tunisia fell. And the same fate awaits
Mubarak of Egypt. Change is the only
constant in this life.
One cannot fight against the tide of democracy
and hope to win. With God’s
help, you will be swept aside. This is the
lesson of Tunisia and Egypt and
of course the other dominos in the
chain.
Let us take a false issue off the table. Dictators and
autocratic rulers are
by no means all powerful. There are limits to their
power and wealth. What
Mubarak is doing talking about not standing in
elections scheduled for
September this year is just shadow boxing and is
really an act of sheer
desperation when all else has failed. It is a case of
too little too late.
In a way, it is an act not of confidence but of defeat
hence the non- stop
calls by the protesters for Mubarak to call it a day,
not in September, but
now!
Let us not forget also that violence
has a momentum of its own. In Egypt, we
are now witnessing violence with its
own dynamic. It becomes unstoppable.
Most unfortunate indeed. All point,
however, to the fact that Mubarak’s
30-year rule has been a wasteful and
costly ambition. His regime has had its
day.
I think that we
should never forget the important fact that when discontent
reaches a
certain point, opposition will effectively assert itself. No
African leader
and indeed no political leader the world over should forget
that in the end
he would be swept aside by the change of opinion when the
people reach a
point of disaffection where the bad outweighs the good.
If public
opinion ever reached the point where it was no longer willing to
put up with
the existing authority, no bullets or police could stop them.
Witness what
is taking place right now in Egypt and what took place in
Tunisia three
weeks ago. The nationwide protests in Tunisia that led to the
fleeing of Ben
Ali to Saudi Arabia were triggered by the suicide of a street
vendor in the
southern city of Sidi Bauzid who set himself on fire after his
unlicensed
fruit cart was confiscated by the police. Just a spark you might
say.
I want to conclude by pointing out a self — evident truth.
Whether you are
in the Arab world, African, the West or indeed any other
world there is no
alternative to “rule by consent”. Truth is truth whether
you are in Egypt,
Yemen, the United States, Britain or Zimbabwe. There is
nothing European
about the values of freedom, democracy and dignity. These
are universal
values which must be upheld and respected
everywhere
The real question for me is at what point that consent is
withdrawn. For it
must be said that at a certain moment, the people will
decide they have had
enough, and when they reach this point the groundswell
of discontent will
remove the political leadership. In mature Western
democracies, that process
is known as an “election landslide”. But in much
of Africa it is not being
done through democratic elections. It is coming as
it is in Tunisia and
Egypt because people would have become ungovernable.
They resort therefore
to voting with their feet and as a result the streets
rather than the
polling booths become the deciding factor. What a
tragedy!
I hope for all our sakes that our political leaders on the
African continent
and elsewhere realise and convince themselves that the
only real security
they can ever have is more freedom for their people, more
justice, more jobs
and vast improvement in the welfare of all people not
just the fat cats,
and, of course, knowing when to let go — of power that
is!
lBornwell Chakaodza is a veteran journalist and former Editor of
the Herald
and the Standard. email: borncha@gmail.com
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011 18:31
WE were
appalled by the attempt by the state media and their usual talking
heads to
turn Morgan Tsvangirai’s remarks in Davos in support of democratic
demonstrations in Egypt into something completely different. Tsvangirai’s
remarks were translated as “there being nothing wrong with Zimbabweans
revolting violently against their government”.
Of course
he said no such thing and it goes to show the depths of dishonesty
the state
press will descend to in order to besmirch Tsvangirai and the
MDC.
For the record, this is what he did say in his FoxNews interview
in Davos.
“There are two issues. One is the general resentment of
autocratic regimes,
the manner in which these governments have stayed in
power forever and ever.
But there is another aspect which I have pointed out
…the aspect of
incumbents leaving power to their children.”
“I
think what we are witnessing here,” he said, “is a general suppression of
the people. People are demanding more freedoms and there is nothing wrong
with that.”
Having twisted Tsvangirai’s remarks, the state press
tried to distort events
in Egypt to make a genuine democratic movement look
like a struggle against
“imperialism”.
“Is Mr Tsvangirai aware,”
the Sunday Mail commented, “that the Arab people
are in fact denouncing and
rejecting Western manipulation? Where does that
leave (Tsvangirai’s)
Western-inspired regime change agenda?”
The people of Egypt appear in
fact to have a very clear regime-change
agenda. They want to rid themselves
of a corrupt dictatorship. We didn’t see
any US flags being burnt or their
embassy attacked. What we did see were
repeated demands for Hosni Mubarak to
go.
“Governments in Africa should be responsive to the needs of young
people,”
the Sunday Mail pontificated. “Failure to do so will reduce
youngsters into
a captive audience that can be hijacked by sinister forces
with catastrophic
consequences for national sovereignty, freedom and
democracy.”
So the young people of Egypt we see demonstrating every
day in their tens of
thousands have been “hijacked by sinister forces” have
they? We thought they
were demanding democratic governance and an end to
tyranny –– just what the
young people of Zimbabwe are demanding.
It
is fascinating to watch the state press trying to explain away the
political
earthquake in North Africa. And the daft suggestion that this has
no lessons
for Zimbabwe when just about every Zimbabwean understands
perfectly the
connection.
It was as bad as Tafataona Mahoso suggesting on Sunday:
“Since when did
stepping down become the answer to conflict over a dubious
and contested
election result?”
For once we agree. Winners should
be recognised and not harnessed to losers
which places them in an ideal
situation to claw back the power voters
deprived them of on the grounds of
misrule.
Alissane Ouattara wants to negotiate his way into office,
Mahoso says,
“because a popular audit might show that his claim to popular
electoral
victory is hollow.”
Indeed, why confine himself to
Ivory Coast? Where else are audits being
resisted?
If ever proof was
needed that Zanu PF is a dysfunctional party, it was there
for all to see in
the Standard last weekend. Just after Vice-President Joice
Mujuru had
apologised to the boat owners and property owners for the
disturbances that
took place recently along the Chivero lakeshore, the
president’s nephew
Partick Zhuwao promised a repeat performance.
This comes in the wake
of expressions of regret and promises that such an
episode would not happen
again by leading figures in the former ruling party
contained in letters
addressed to the property owners. Saviour Kasukuwere,
Karikoga Kaseke, and
Ignatious Chombo all disowned the hoodlums from Zhuwao’s
Zvimba
constituency.
Chombo said the invaders were just criminals who were
not connected to the
party.
But Zhuwao, who obviously has little
respect for VP Mujuru has threatened
that “we are going to do it again”.
Only this time, he says, he will get the
procedure right.
They
have their sights set on the facilities surrounding the lake. And
whereas
the senior party members understand only too well the damage to
investment
and tourism, Zhuwao obviously doesn’t give a damn.
He is a veteran
invader. He occupies one of the finest farm houses in
Zimbabwe and the
equipment that goes with it.
Regular readers of this column will recall
our claim that once sensible Zanu
PF luminaries are given an injection at
election time it leads them to say
the most outrageous things that inspires
laughter rather than respect.
Stan Mudenge is the latest victim of
the party jab.
“We are coming with much more determination and
resolve,” he said recently
on the issue of indigenisation. “The year 2011
will not be business as
usual. The train is unstoppable. Anybody who thinks
he can stand in our way
is a fool.
“We are not begging anyone.
The resources are ours. It is time to assert
control.
“After all,
what is a conservancy?” Mudenge said. “Just a hut built with
pole and
dagga.
“Are we not able to erect ours? We can go and erect parallel
structures and
kill all the animals and eat the meat.” Kasukuwere echoed
these sentiments.
The irony of this outburst is that Mudenge was
trying to impress a Chinese
cotton grower who would plant his crop in the
conservancy. The Chinese are
apparently not foreigners!
“It will not take
us three months to destroy the conservancies, Mudenge
boasted at a meeting
of the party faithful in Masvingo.
On the subject of foreigners, can Mudenge
comment on whether he still has a
Lesotho passport? We know he needed one to
become pro-vice-chancellor of the
Roma campus of UBLS. And can you imagine
the field day the foreign press
will have with a story about a minister who
is a distinguished academic,
threatening to eat animals placed in
conservancies designed to protect them?
President Mugabe told an audience
in Addis Ababa that the press should not
accentuate the negative. It should
stop promoting false conflicts, he said.
The three principals met regularly
to review progress in the implementation
of the GPA, he said, and Tsvangirai
is on record as having lauded the
camaraderie at their weekly meetings.
“Despite this some sections of the
media always
report on the
alleged tension and differences in the inclusive government.”
Indeed
they do. And they are taking their cue from the president!
Don’t we
recall him denouncing the GPA last month as an obstacle to
progress? Don’t
we recall a whole conference devoted to its demolition? It
is extraordinary
that all is now harmony and light.
Here’s the deal Mr President. If
you agree to stop denouncing the GPA we
will do the same.
Who is Dr
Paul Chimedza? He is we understand a prominent physician who is
chairman of
Zimpapers. At the launch of the B-Metro in Bulawayo he said the
new tabloid
“will add to the ever-increasing number of quality newspapers in
the
group”.
Quality newspapers? He must be joking. Does that include
H-Metro? And the
Herald took the liberty of translating its “Super Brand of
the Year” tag to
mean “best paper in the country”.
Not really the
same thing is it? And what is a doctor doing chairing the
board of a group
of newspapers which refuses to allow any diversity of
voices and, as we have
seen above, doesn’t hesitate to distort news in order
to advance the
interests of one party?
We wouldn’t want to accuse Ambassador Chris
Mutsvangwa of insincerity but
his diatribe on ZTV’s Media Watch on Monday
was nothing short of dishonest.
Mutsvangwa, who apart from being a Zanu PF
politician, doubles as an
“analyst” on ZTV.
He did not surprise
us with his tacit support for losing Ivory Coast ruler
Laurent Gbagbo citing
religious and ethnic technicalities. That should be
expected given that his
boss clung on to power despite the electorate
showing him the door. He went
on to gloat about how President Mugabe was
qualified to mediate in the Ivory
Coast since “he had done it all before”.
Fortunately President Mugabe
— we later discovered — was not on the panel of
heads of state mandated to
intervene in the crisis. Mutsvangwa should be
reminded that the will of the
people as expressed through a free and fair
poll should be the only way to
attain power.
Meanwhile, on a related note, we couldn’t help but laugh at
the comments
Iranian Foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi made on the Egypt
crisis.
Salehi, who was officially endorsed by the Iranian parliament on
Sunday as
foreign minister, said the uprising in Egypt “showed the need for
a change
in the region and the end of unpopular regimes.”
This is
rich coming from a nation that — not too long ago — brutally
suppressed a
peaceful protest against electoral fraud.
Iran, China, Libya, and Cuba: What
have they got in common? Cruel repressive
states. All friends of Zanu
PF!
It is difficult to believe that UZ’s economic history department
managed in
its report on Air Zimbabwe to get the name of the airline’s
precursor wrong
throughout. It was Air Rhodesia, not “Rhodesia Airways” as
the Sunday Times
reported based on the report. It was briefly Air
Zimbabwe-Rhodesia from
1979-80.
Whatever the name, it was reduced
to a skeleton when Zanu PF got their hands
on it. We recall Herbert
Ushewokunze designing the livery himself.
And finally, on the subject of
quality newspapers, Isdore Guvamombe at the
Herald struggles on despite an
embarrassing shortage of writing skills.
Let’s just help a bit: Ambit and
armpit are not the same place. And there is
a difference between quaking in
one’s boots and quacking like a duck.
Quality newspapers my foot! Quack
quack.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011 18:29
A
MAJOR contributor to the economic ills which continue to confront Zimbabwe
is the magnitude of governmental policies pursued solely for their perceived
objectives, with total disregard for the negative
consequences.
Recurrently, in pursuit of policies which are generally —
but not always —
of good and sound national intent, government demonstrates
total oblivion to
many adverse repercussions of its policies. The
prejudices of such adverse
repercussions are of such magnitude as to negate
objectives.
Examples government’s one-track thinking are so
innumerable that they could
fill not only this column, but a very
comprehensive book. Thus only a few
examples can be cited here, but
indisputably most of commerce and industry,
other economic sectors and the
populace at large could cite many more. To
emphasise the immense harm
inflicted by government on Zimbabwe and its
people by its myopic failure to
consider associated consequences of policies
are the following
examples:
Justly determined to enforce tax compliance and contain
pronounced tax
evasion, government legislated that all enterprises as are
Vat registered,
and having sales revenues of US$240 000 or more per annum,
must operate
fiscalised electronic registers or memory devices which would
have direct
data feed to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra). A similar
statutory
requirement exists in many developed economies, and recently in
several of
Africa’s developing economies.
From the points of
view of private enterprise probity, and enhancement of
greatly needed
governmental revenues, the requirement of modern electronic
technology
cannot be faulted. However, to impose such obligation upon
business
enterprises when the economy is yet to recover meaningfully from
its
prolonged moribund state is incomprehensible and economically
counter-productive.
The harsh fact is that most of Zimbabwe’s
financially and operationally
distressed enterprises do not have the
resources to fund installation of the
statutorily required electronic
devices. They are devoid of the funding
required to purchase, install and
operate the fiscalised registers, and are
therefore forced into
discontinuance of operations. Concomitant consequences
are greater
unemployment, reduced downstream economic activity, and lesser
inflows to
the impoverished Fiscus.
Admittedly, the legislation does empower
Zimra to grant extensions of time
for compliance, but the period of such
extensions — 30 days — is a miniscule
and meaningless. Moreover, only two
suppliers of the fiscalised registers
and devices have to date been approved
by Zimra, resulting in the absence of
price competitiveness, and an
insufficiency of supplies to service the needs
of the whole economy even if
enterprises did have the requisite financial
resources to purchase the
equipment.
If government, in general, and the Minister of Finance
Tendai Biti, have any
real concern for the country’s economic recovery and
growth, they would
suspend the legislation to a more propitious and
realistic date (probably in
2012).
There is thoughtlessness
applied to the legislative requirements for
re-registration of all motor
vehicles, including issuance of new number
plates. On the one hand, a
charge of US$160 for the re-registration and
number plates is
incomprehensibly excessive and, on the other hand, many did
not (and do not)
have the funds necessary to comply, notwithstanding their
ownership of
vehicles.
Such ownership does not necessarily evidence wealth and
cash liquidity,
particularly so in the case of enterprises with large
operational fleets,
and of pensioners and others with aged vehicles. They
are dependant upon
those aged vehicles, but do not have the wherewithal to
fund the exorbitant
charge. The probable real cost of the plates cannot
exceed a maximum of
US$40, unless suppliers or government is guilty of gross
profiteering.
Allowing for a governmental administration cost of, say, US$10
per vehicle,
the maximum justifiable charge for the reregistration of
vehicles and issue
of new plates should have been US$50.
Yet
another example of destructive thoughtlessness was the reduction, in the
2011 Budget, of the rates of customs duties on clothing and footwear. A
significant element of Zimbabwe’s economy has, for many decades, been the
manufacture of such products. The textile, clothing and footwear
manufacturing sector has been one of the biggest employers of Zimbabweans,
has contributed substantially to the country’s economy, has been a major
source of direct and indirect tax revenues for government and been a key
economic foundation.
However, in recent years, the sector has
been critically affected by
Zimbabwe’s very negative economic circumstances,
and the hardships faced by
it were intensely compounded by the magnitude of
competition from imported
products which have been smuggled into Zimbabwe
without payment of duty, and
by many such products having gained from
excessive export subsidisation by
exporter countries, and by disguised
origin in order to attain preferential
duty-free
importation.
Instead of addressing the survival needs of this key
manufacturing sector,
government has seen fit to worsen its lot, and
jeopardise its survival, by
lowering the rates of customs duty. How
thoughtless and foolhardy can a
government be? Yet another example of
governmental policies anathema to
economic wellbeing is the continued
alienation of foreign investment.
Government has repeatedly, and
voiciferously, acknowledged the need for such
investment as a prerequisite
to economic development and growth.
But, concurrently with doing
so, it not only legislates for 50% Zimbabwean
control over all enterprises,
but also threatens expropriation of 90% of
equity in all foreign-owned
businesses that do not publicly condemn the
allegedly “illegal”
international economic sanctions (which do not exist,
being only certain
restrictions upon specified governmental individuals,
government itself, and
its underlying entities). At the same time, it fails
to comply with the
Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements
into which it has
entered, whilst concurrently concluding new such
agreements. Steadfastly,
despite its protestations to the contrary,
government alienates investment,
instead of motivating and attracting it.
It is long overdue that
government gives substantive and constructive
fore-thought to its policies.
government needs to learn that it must “look
before it leaps”!
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
18:27
Leonard Makombe
WITH eyes focused on yet another election,
Zanu PF is once again trying to
woo urban voters who have spurned the party
since 2000.
Zanu PF leaders –– President Robert Mugabe, his deputies Joice
Mujuru and
John Nkomo and chairman Simon Khaya Moyo –– have openly told
party
supporters that they regretted being part of the inclusive government.
They
have also said it was no longer working and would inevitably
collapse.
A collapse of the inclusive government, which Zanu
PF is pushing for despite
the expressions to the contrary at international
forums, would presage
another election for which the party has been
preparing since mid last year.
The party’s appetite for
elections was whetted by its presumed successful
mobilisation of the people
during the constitutional outreach programme,
though it was laced with
intimidation and violence as reports by civic
society organisations which
shadowed the exercise showed.
Riding on the wave of this transient
success, which Zanu PF strategists and
sympathisers acknowledge should not
be used as a dipstick to measure levels
of support, the party has turned
focus on the urbanites, the traditional
base for opposition
parties.
Zanu PF continues to build its election campaign around the
removal of
sanctions and the party has crafted a petition to attract two
million
signatures against the embargoes they argue were responsible for the
economic downturn that almost caused an implosion two years
ago.
The mobilisation of the signatories, reminiscent of the
“million-man march”
organised by war veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda on the
eve of the 2008
elections confirming Mugabe as the party’s presidential
candidate, could be
a ruse as the intention is to corner the opposition
which has been quiet on
the removal of the measures.
Apart from
the removal of sanctions, land continues to be the centre of
gravity for the
party and like almost a decade ago when the campaign was
hinged on the catch
phrase “The land is the economy, the economy is the
land” Zanu PF has
claimed the success in agriculture was a result of the
agrarian
reforms.
Another mantra that the Zanu PF campaign appears to sing is
indigenisation
of the economy and empowerment which, though supported by an
Act of
parliament passed five years ago, had been shelved only to be dusted
down by
the gazetting of regulations almost a year ago.
While the
move towards causing a total breakdown of the Global Political
Agreement
started as a shrill voice last year becoming bolder after the
constitutional
outreach programme, it is the move towards the urban areas
which has
surprised many.
Zanu PF used the outreach as a crowbar to prize open
the urban territory and
using the leverage they had gained, they primed
their campaign on a
propaganda campaign with songs aimed at the youths in
the urban areas.
This strategy has significantly changed as Zanu PF
is now mobilising urban
dwellers to stand up against the Harare City Council
dominated by MDC
councillors.
The Harare City Council’s sin was
to slash the maize crop in high density
suburbs, something that has always
been done over the years.
Graciano Mkodzongi, an analyst at the Southern
Africa Political and Economic
Series (Sapes), said these were indications
that Zanu PF was going for broke
preparing for elections.
“They
want to force an election,” Mkodzongi said. “They are in full gear
preparing
for the elections and they are saying the chances of them winning
so far are
high. This has been made worse by the fact that there has not
been a
strategy to combat this by the MDC.”
Mkodzongi said Zanu PF has also
been using the presidential input scheme and
the constituency development
fund (introduced last year) to campaign.
University of Zimbabwe (UZ)
political science lecturer Charity Manyeruke
said all parties were preparing
for the next elections and their responses
to issues such as sanctions were
aimed at making an impact on the people’s
lives.
“Every party has
to ensure that it has supporters and what we are seeing (in
Zanu PF) is
appealing with the urbanites and trying to be relevant,” said
Manyeruke.
By mobilising people to demonstrate against the
slashing of maize, Manyeruke
said, Zanu PF was seen as supporting the
people’s cause.
“Food security is a critical issue,” Manyeruke, who is a
lecturer in the
Department of Political and Administrative Studies said. “It
thus raises
questions why the maize was slashed and this is all about the
politics of
hunger.”
It was unprecedented that urban dwellers can
stand against a city council as
in most cases, as was the case with
Operation Murambatsvina when thousands
of houses were destroyed as they were
seen as illegal structures — the
people are cowed.
Another
analyst, Eldred Masunungure, who is also a lecturer in the same
department
at the UZ, said there was nothing wrong in political parties
trying to
garner support but it was the methods employed by Zanu PF which
raised
eyebrows.
“The methods are unacceptable in a normal political
situation; for example
the demonstration against the city council was
violent,” said Masunungure
who is also a professor of political science.
“Any observer would think that
Zanu PF had planned the demonstration to be a
violent one.”
Masunungure, who is also the chairman of the Mass
Public Opinion Institute,
said the violence witnessed during the
demonstrations could signify a
violent campaign even though no elections
date was announced.
Mkodzongi said Zanu PF wanted the elections even
if the constitution-making
process failed as they could still go to the old
one or use a presidential
declaration to call for a plebiscite.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
18:25
By Bruce Oudes
“WE Americans know and we observe the
difference between world leadership
and imperialism,” former US President
Dwight Eisenhower said in his 1953
inaugural address. It was a logical
remark for the new leader of a nation
that had unilaterally declared its own
independence in 1776 and which had
assumed in the 1940s the mantle of world
leadership.
In defining a key distinction between the US and
its Western European
allies, as well as the communist world, Eisenhower was
articulating the way
forward for American foreign
policy.
In southern Africa today, pessimism about Zimbabwe’s
future is to a
significant degree marked by a failure to understand the
importance of the
orientation of American policy in the region, particularly
in the years
following the assassination of US President John
Kennedy.
All that has flowed under the bridge in the past half
century is best
understood by first analysing and comparing the major
currents of domestic
policy with those of foreign policy, civil rights and
self-determination.
Civil liberties
Late in 1955 residents of
Birmingham, Alabama, of African descent began a
boycott of public
transportation because of the city’s systematic racial
discrimination.
That December the New York Times reported for the
first time the words of a
young Protestant minister from Africa critical of
colonialism. Reverend
Ndabaningi Sithole was quoted as saying in an address
at a university in
Ohio that “the church must never make the mistake of
trying to reconcile the
Africans to foreign domination”.
Two
months later the Times cited for the first time the name of Rev Martin
Luther King Jr, the young minister leading the Montgomery bus boycott.
By
1963 Rev Sithole had immersed himself in founding the Zimbabwe African
National Union (Zanu), a non-violent political movement with the aim of
bringing self-determination to what then was called Southern
Rhodesia.
On the day before Kennedy left for Texas in November that
year, a memorandum
informed staffers of his intention to convene a White
House meeting on
November 23, on future American policy towards European
colonialism, a
question especially pertinent to American policy in
Africa.
In 1960 Kennedy had selected former Michigan Governor Mennen Williams
to
direct the Africa bureau at the State Department weeks before he chose
Dean
Rusk, a Georgia native, to be his secretary of state. Williams, known
for
his interest in civil rights, had supported Kennedy in 1960 after
concluding
his own brief bid for the presidency.
As Kennedy and
his brother Robert, the attorney general, discussed how to
hold the “solid”
south in 1964 they realised the need to combine support of
self-determination in Africa with their domestic civil rights
agenda.
In 1963 the Kennedys began providing covert financial support
to the nascent
non-violent political movement in Portuguese Mozambique
headed by Dr Eduardo
C Mondlane, a sociologist educated in the US Mozambique
shared a long common
border with landlocked Rhodesia.
Had Kennedy
completed the term for which he had been elected, it is likely
the British
government would have remained under continuing American
pressure for
democratic change in Southern Rhodesia.
In 1961 the Zimbabwe African
Peoples Union (Zapu) in Southern Rhodesia
headed by Nkomo agreed to
participate in a referendum on a new constitution
in which the black
majority would have achieved enough power in the
Rhodesian parliament to be
able to block legislation not to its liking.
However, Nkomo failed to
pursuade black Rhodesian voters to participate, and
they boycotted the
referendum, a step that upset British Foreign Secretary
Alec Douglas-Home
who had negotiated the arrangement with Nkomo.
In November 1963,
Kennedy’s foreign policy agenda also included his first
bilateral meeting
with Britain’s new prime minister, former foreign
secretary Douglas-Home.
When Kennedy lived in London in the 1930s as the son
of the first American
ambassador of Irish descent, Alec’s brother William, a
budding playwright,
reportedly was Kennedy’s best friend.
Britain had been decolonising
in West Africa since 1957 and in East Africa
since 1961. In fact, the other
major Western European colonial powers,
except for Portugal, had also begun
decolonising in Africa. Southern Africa,
therefore, would have been an
appropriate agenda item for Kennedy and
Douglas-Home.
Paradigm
shift
On November 22, however, everything changed with Kennedy’s
assassination.
The accession of Lyndon Johnson — a southerner and former
Senate majority
leader — to the presidency altered the trajectory of
domestic policy just
enough to enable Congress to pass the long overdue
civil rights legislation.
At the same time, however, the Kennedy
assassination reversed the trajectory
of American foreign policy in many
ways poorly understood to this day. In
addition to escalating American
involvement in Southeast Asia Johnson
mindlessly muddled America’s
leadership in southern Africa.
Rusk became a much more important
influence on Johnson’s foreign policy than
he had been on Kennedy’s. Three
weeks after Kennedy’s assassination Rusk
lunched with Prime Minister
Douglas-Home in London. Rusk had been a Rhodes
scholar at Oxford in the
early 1930s along with Hilgard Muller of South
Africa. Muller had become
South Africa’s foreign minister shortly before
Kennedy was
murdered.
Rusk quietly worried that the State Department’s Mennen
Williams and his
Africa bureau did not sufficiently understand South
Africa’s pigmentocracy.
Instead of America being a progressive influence on
British policy in
southern Africa during the Johnson administration, Britain
defined American
policy in southern Africa to the point that, for example,
white
minority-ruled Southern Rhodesia unilaterally declared itself
independent of
Britain in 1965, which would not have been supported under
Kennedy.
Rather than putting down this white minority rebellion the
new British
government headed by Harold Wilson chose to involve the United
Nations
mechanism. In 1966 the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on
Southern
Rhodesia as it posed a “threat to international peace”, thus
invoking for
the first time the gravest provisions possible under the UN
Charter.
Archibald “Archie” Roosevelt Jr, Theodore Roosevelt’s
grandson, the Central
Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) London station chief,
returned to Washington as
the assistant director of the CIA for covert
operations in Africa. That
meant he directly supervised the CIA station in
Southern Rhodesia.
Archie clashed repeatedly with Joseph Palmer, his
counterpart for Africa at
the State Department who had known and thought
well of both Sithole and
Mondlane.
Short-term memory
In 1968
voters for the first and thus far only time in American history
elected a
president previously elected vice-president who did not assume the
presidency immediately following his tenure as vice president. Richard
Nixon, therefore, had a far longer institutional recollection than the press
or his political opponents.
Nixon, for example, had represented
the US at Ghana’s independence
ceremonies in 1957 where he first met
Douglas-Home as well as Martin Luther
King Jr. Palmer had accompanied Nixon
on his three-week safari during which
he visited all of the then-independent
African states except for Egypt and
South Africa.
The destination
of his 1967 Africa trip as a private citizen was Zambia,
which until 1964
had been the British colony of Northern Rhodesia. Zambia
was his window on
southern Africa analogous to Hong Kong as his window on
China.
Thirteen
days after Nixon was sworn into office Mondlane was assassinated by
an
improvised explosive device allegedly sent through international mail by
Portuguese intelligence.
In 1970 the US began violating the
mandatory UN sanctions on Southern
Rhodesia by covertly allowing Southern
Rhodesia to import American aircraft.
Archie Roosevelt became the de facto
American ambassador to Rhodesia,
according to Ian Smith, leader of the white
minority rebel Rhodesian regime.
Smith also said in an interview that
Sithole had lost control of Zanu in
1970 to Robert Mugabe.
This
new American opposition to decolonisation was sufficiently obvious to
Zhou
Enlai, China’s foreign minister, that he asked Nixon about it in 1972.
The
coup that overthrew the Portuguese oligarchs
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011 18:23
By
Dumisani O Nkomo
THE revival of Zapu has aroused much interest in
diplomatic circles
regionally and internationally, especially with
Zimbabweans in the diaspora
who originate from Matabeleland. The big
question is whether Zapu has a
significant impact, if any at all, on the
country’s electoral landscape
especially the rocky political terrain of
Matabeleland which has become
handy in deciding electoral
outcomes.
The MDC led by Professor Welshman Ncube (MDC-N) has
a huge say in the
inclusive government because of the seats it garnered in
Matabeleland. Will
the emergence of this oxymoronically “new” but old party
upstage the MDC-T
vote in Matabeleland, or will the party obliterate the
MDC-N from the
political scene? Is Zapu just a noisy, nostalgic blast from
the past or a
formidable political formation that will play a critical role
in the
transfer of power?
Critics and cynics argue that Zapu is an
extension of Zanu PF and some
conspiracy enthusiasts opine that the party is
an extension of the Mujuru
faction in Zanu PF. Others feel that the party
offers a refreshing
alternative to the MDC formations and Zanu
PF.
First and foremost I would like to concur with other
political analysts that
the re-emergence of Zapu is good for democracy
especially in this
transitional period when there is no robust opposition
party to hold the
Global Political Agreement partners to account. Secondly I
would also like
to dismiss those who say Zapu is a tribal formation merely
because it was
started or is it restarted in Matabeleland. The notion that
anything that
starts in Matabeleland is tribal merely because it originates
from there
should be dismissed with the contempt that it deserves. The
reality is that
ethnicity continues to play a major part in the politics of
the country.
Zanu PF extension?
The biggest challenge
facing Zapu is to prove that it is not an extension of
Zanu PF or a Zanu PF
project. People want political formations and leaders
that they can trust
and trust is gained over a long period of time. Some
senior Zapu leaders
were key figures in Zanu PF and a number of them were
fingered in political
violence perpetrated by Zanu PF from 2000 to 2008.
This is regardless of the
fact that many of them were victims of the
Gukurahundi massacres who were
converted to Zanuism and became the prophets
and high priests of the Zanu
order or is it disorder, in the process
sacrificing the freedom of their
countrymen at the altar of political
expedience.
The belief that
Zapu is Zanu in disguise has been unfortunately enforced by
the party’s
thrust of seeming to be more against MDC rather than Zanu PF.
This is not to
say that the MDC formations are paragons of virtue from whom
all good things
emanate, but to many people the MDC appears to be the only
political
movement capable of removing Zanu PF. Whether or not they have the
slightest
clue how to govern the country once they have wrested it from Zanu
PF is the
subject of another article altogether.
There are also a sizable
number of people who rightly or wrongly believe
that Zapu is an extension of
the Mujuru faction in Zanu PF. Though the
authenticity of this belief is
dubious it is however a real perception that
is held by many which Zapu will
have to deal with if it entertains any
chances of surviving Zimbabwe’s rocky
political terrain. Issues of
perception and trust play a major role in
politics and the sooner Zimbabwean
opposition parties understand this the
better they will perform.
The second challenge that the party faces
is that of showing that it is a
party of the present and the future because
Zimbabweans are tired of
liberation movements which have no relevance to
their post-independence
aspirations and the democratic dispensation that we
all yearn for so much.
The party will have to prove that it has a vision and
programme for the
future, and it is not a Matabeleland version of Zanu PF
couched in the
glorious history of the past.
A big bonus for the
party is that it enjoys a huge following in South Africa
and it is a known
fact that Zimbabweans in South Africa have a huge
influence on the political
opinions of people in Matobo, Mangwe, Bulilima,
Beitbridge, Gwanda,
Tsholotsho and Insiza. It remains to be seen whether
this can translate to
electoral success in Matabeleland. Zimbabwe’s economic
dynamics are such
that “injivas” are no longer able to come home as often as
possible and many
are now unable to support families back home.
Critically however Zapu
could prey on the weaknesses of the two MDC factions
to launch a massive
political counter attack in Matabeleland. The big
question is whether Zapu
will split the votes of the MDC formations or the
Zanu PF vote as it is
unlikely to attract a considerable mass of “new”
voters in the event of an
election. Zapu has apparently shown that it can
also throw a few punches
here and there and a few of their cadres have been
involved in efforts to
resist land invasions.
It is also likely that Zapu will dislodge Zanu
PF from some of its
strongholds in Matabeleland. The party also has the
support of a number of
former military leaders as well as a few serving
soldiers which could make
the party strategic in the event of the need to
transfer power. MDC is
currently unable to unlock the logjam of transfer of
power even if it wins
convincingly in an election.
South Africa
and a few Southern African statesmen may be more comfortable
with a former
liberation movement having political power than
post-independent,
labour-based political formations and would rather endorse
the so-called
liberation movements.
The following factors heavily militate against Zapu
though:
Lack of a charismatic leader who is able to match Robert Mugabe
or Morgan
Tsvangirai.
Lack of national appeal even though they have
leaders from all over the
country in the national executive. The reality of
tribal politics could
cause its premature demise.
The relative
inexperience of the current leadership. Most of the top
leadership of Zapu
is relatively unknown and at least two of its top leaders
have been resident
outside Zimbabwe for a long time. The dexterities,
complexities and
gymnastics of Zimbabwean politics could be too much for
them. The perception
that Zapu is a party of the past and not the future.
The perception that
Zapu is a Zanu PF project.
People are looking for a movement that has
the capacity of removing Zanu PF
and they may weigh their options and opt
for MDC-T. The resurgence of the
MDC under Ncube has pulled from under the
rug the feet of Zapu and has taken
the momentum from the party. Zapu appears
to be hopelessly disconnected with
the broader democracy movement and agenda
in Zimbabwe.
For the above reasons I believe that though the
emergence of Zapu is healthy
for democracy, the party is unlikely to make a
significant impact on the
political landscape. If the party deals with these
factors then the MDC
formations could be in for a rude awakening as Zapu
could spring a surprise
in Matabeleland and parts of the
Midlands.
Dumisani Nkomo is the chief executive officer of Habakkuk
Trust and the
spokesman of the Matabeleland Civil Society Consortium. Here
he writes in
his personal capacity. dumisani.nkomo@gmail.com
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
18:41
THE world has been watching and reading about the protests in Egypt
with
great awe and admiration of the calm bravery and resilience of the
ordinary
people in their determined fight against
tyranny.
Although the Hosni Mubarak dictatorship has not yet
collapsed, it has
definitely stumbled and is now limping after being
crippled by a defiant
mass movement. Hitherto seen as firmly entrenched and
impregnable, the
Mubarak regime’s foundation is clearly sinking in the
sand.
Unable to resist the overwhelming tide of the angry masses,
Mubarak (82) has
yielded and agreed to step down in September, offering a
mixture of panicky
concessions and reforms after Egyptians marched a million
strong to demand
that his 30-year-rule end immediately.
The
watershed riots in Egypt were triggered by demonstrations in Tunisia,
themselves sparked off by an act of self-immolation against an entrenched
dictator, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, who was eventually swept out of power by
the irresistible wave of popular protests. In Yemen President Ali Abdullah
Saleh, who has ruled for nearly 32 years, is battling against
Tunisian-inspired demonstrations. The same is happening in Jordan. King
Abdullah replaced his prime minister on Tuesday after protests. Algeria and
Sudan are also simmering with civil unrest.
The Middle East, a
region of vast oil reserves and thus strategic in global
geo-politics, is
resultantly now in turmoil. Violence and confusion reign
supreme. There
nations, cultures, religions, history and politics collide
and the clashes
reverberate around the world.
Egypt, which has 80 million people, is
a very strategic country. Mubarak’s
departure would reconfigure the politics
of the Middle East, with
geo-political implications for the United States,
European countries and
Israel. Egyptians are also demanding an end to
foreign interference in their
country although this is not an
anti-imperialist movement as our shackled
state media would like to
suggest.
Oil giant Saudi Arabia would also be affected and
consequently global
economies.
The Maghreb uprisings have left
dictators in the Middle East — and
elsewhere - quaking in their boots. But
what lessons and reflections can
Africa south of the Sahara draw from the
neighbouring Maghreb and Middle
East regions? What lessons can Zimbabweans
glean from the Egyptian
situation?
Although Egypt and Zimbabwe are
different in terms of history, culture,
religion and even politics,
important lessons can be drawn from the
unfolding Egyptian
crisis.
The first lesson is that leaders must not overstay in power.
People resent
leaders who overstay their welcome no matter how popular they
may be.
President Robert Mugabe has simply overstayed his welcome. What
makes it
worse is that he wants another five-year-term at the age of
87!
People have a strong revulsion for leaders who privatise the state, treat
it
like their own farms, loot and engage in primitive accumulation, and rule
with fascist instincts.
They hate leaders who amass and flaunt
wealth in the face of a sea of
poverty. They dislike people who steal from
them, impoverish the nation and
then talk nonsense
afterwards.
The other thing is the desire of people to be free. No
matter how lethargic
or docile, people will always demand democracy, civil
and political
liberties, and social justice. Economic and social problems,
including
unemployment and poverty, cannot be ignored forever. People,
particularly
the technology savvy youth, quickly lose patience with corrupt
and
incompetent systems which can’t deliver.
Further, people have
smouldering resentment for political repression, terror
and human rights
abuses. They hate leaders who use security forces,
particularly the army,
with impunity to crush dissent and hang onto power
against their will. They
don’t want to live caged like rats.
People want freedom and
prosperity, not terror, corruption and lies. This is
what Egyptians are
rioting against. President Mugabe and his cronies must
wise up and learn
from that. They can only take people and their simmering
anger for granted
at their own risk.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 03 February 2011
18:38
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is at it again! He has once again dabbled
in
doublespeak, leaving both his opponents and supporters wondering whether
old
age and reported infirmity are taking their toll on him — or is there
method
in his madness?
Addressing Zimbabweans at a luncheon in
Addis Ababa where he was attending
the African Union summit, Mugabe
surprisingly waxed lyrical about the
inclusive government which he — since
last year — has called all sorts of
names, among them puppets, stupid and
semi-legal. Above all he has
characterised it as an obstacle to Zanu PF’s
ambitions.
Why Mugabe thinks that Zimbabweans can be taken
for a ride naturally boggles
the mind. Was it not him who told his Zanu PF’s
national youth assembly in
October last year that there was discord in the
unity government and that
its life span should not be extended, as if it had
one?
“Some will say let us negotiate and give it (inclusive
government) another
life. I am reluctant because part of the things that are
happening (in the
inclusive government) are absolutely foolish and stupid,”
Mugabe said amid
ululation, clapping and foot stomping.
He
followed this up spiritedly at Zanu PF’s national conference in Mutare in
December by reiterating his position that the unity government was not
working properly because of principles and ideological differences between
his party and the two MDC formations and insisted polls should be held this
year to end the marriage of inconvenience.
Two days after the
conference, Mugabe held a press conference with his other
principals Morgan
Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara and
hailed the
inclusive government.
Upon his return from his annual leave last
month, Mugabe was speaking
another language. He threatened to dissolve
parliament — using powers he
doesn’t have — if certain GPA positions are not
fulfilled.
He somersaulted in Ethiopia: “The Global Agreement is an
agreement that
required us to work well, and we are working
well.”
This leaves us wondering what Mugabe is trying to achieve with
this kind of
deception. Such flip-flopping within a short period — five
months — only
serves to reinforce the Banana republic tag given to us since
it is not
clear whether we are coming or going.
What has become
patently clear is that Mugabe paints a different picture of
the GNU outside
the country to ensure that Zimbabwe is not on the agenda at
such fora as the
African Union.
He succeeded despite signs that we are slowly creeping
back to the dark days
of 2008. The violence in Mbare between Zanu PF and
MDC-T supporters and the
invasion of resort lodges by Zanu PF thugs under
the guise of indigenisation
are examples of this. The recent attack of the
MDC-T-dominated Harare City
Council and the intimidation of the electorate
through the countrywide
deployment of soldiers are just some of the ominous
signs that should have
spurred the AU into action and put the country on the
agenda at its summit.
Alas it was not to be! This has been aggravated
by the MDC-T’s silence.
Instead of leading the way in calling for problems
in Zimbabwe to be
addressed at the summit, it was left to civil society to
fill the gap.
The MDC-T seems to have entered a comfort zone within
the inclusive
government. The low level representation of the party at such
a crucial high
level continental meeting signifies the weakening of the
party.
For the party to lie low at a time when Zanu PF has launched a
vicious
campaign to attack and denigrate them, especially in the public
media, is
nothing short of political suicide.
This is why Mugabe
can get away with making conflicting statements and
violating the GPA as and
when he pleases. The MDC-T should pull up its socks
before they find
themselves swept aside and made redundant by Zanu PF’s
agenda of dishonesty
and violence.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 27 January 2011 19:49
THERE
exists a madcap state of affairs in the governance of Zimbabwe: when
president Robert Mugabe is on leave, there is no government business to talk
of as the entire administration is forced into recess leaving the country to
run on autopilot.
This may sound like hyperbole but that is exactly what
is happening. When
the president goes on leave, the man takes all the keys
with him and
ministers are left twiddling their thumbs. In fact many of them
also take
their leave as well because the cabinet will be closed,
literally.
Cabinet last met on December 18 and shortly thereafter
Mugabe took his
annual leave. While at any one time in Zimbabwe there is an
acting president
in Mugabe’ absence, it appears that he has no confidence in
his lieutenants
to chair cabinet while he is away.
MDC-T leader
and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is the nominal deputy
chair of the
cabinet but as it stands he is only a distant number four in
the hierarchy
of the so-called government of national unity (GNU).
Mugabe’s way of
doing business as the chairman of cabinet has shown an
archaic approach to
governance and policy-making which has no place in a
modern
state.
Cabinet is an important organ in modern government administration
and this
explains why in Zimbabwe as well as many other states it sits
weekly to
implement policies.
However, while on paper the
Zimbabwe cabinet sits weekly and mostly on
Tuesdays, this rule only applies
when Mugabe is present.
When he is not present and an acting president
appointed, the weekly meeting
is rescheduled or not held at all. When Mugabe
went on his annual leave,
John Nkomo was appointed acting president only to
be replaced by Joice
Mujuru at the beginning of the New Year.
Neither
of the two was trusted to chair the weekly meetings and the
government went
on autopilot. There has been no cabinet meeting in more than
a
month.
At a time like this, it is incumbent upon the other partners in
the GNU to
show leadership and insist on a meeting so crucial to the
governance of the
country.
Instead, Tsvangirai also took a break,
only returning to his office a few
days before Mugabe. The other MDC faction
was preoccupied with leadership
jostling, with Welshman Ncube eventually
taking over the reins from Deputy
Prime Minister Arthur
Mutambara.
So who then was making the crucial decisions on the sale
of diamonds,
indigenisation legislation, the pending civil servants strike
and the sudden
shortage of fuel which required the attention of
Cabinet?
There were attempts by responsible ministers to address the
issues but any
serious analyst would have seen the half-heartedness and
hesitancy shown
when their decisions need cabinet
ratification.
It is interesting to note that Mugabe, who literally
holds the cabinet
hostage and only convenes it at his whim, chose to chair a
Zanu PF
politiburo meeting on Wednesday, confirming a long-held belief that
his
party takes precedence over government. I
t is presumed that he
wanted to get his party’s position on various issues
to be discussed at the
African Union Summit in Ethiopia, most likely on the
Ivory Coast standoff,
the inevitable breakup of Sudan and the revolts
engulfing the Arab nations
of Tunisia and Egypt.
It is clear that Mugabe, who is accustomed to
substituting government with
the party which he controls, would set out Zanu
PF’s position which would
become the country’s position on such critical
issues.
This is one of the tragedies of the type of government that
has been
adopted. While Mugabe, who has been at the apex of the party since
1976 and
government for 31 years, may be impervious to changes occasioned by
the
unity government, the MDC has shown serious administrative failure at a
time
when Zimbabwe is rudderless.
People are asking, where is the
MDC? That is a legitimate question.
They are virtually invisible. Is it
not time for the MDC leadership to show
decisiveness and aptitude, providing
policy direction at a time when the
country has run out of fuel which saw a
100% hike in fares? The MDC, it
appears, has been afflicted by Zanu PF’s
delinquency and does not take its
role in government seriously.