The Telegraph
By Peta
Thornycroft
Last Updated: 2:09am GMT 09/02/2007
The
collapse of Zimbabwe's economy has finally taken its toll on
President
Robert Mugabe's regime. It is facing a disintegrating army and
police, a
wave of strikes, power black-outs and the breakdown of every
essential
service.
With inflation running at 1,281 per cent - the highest
rate in the
world - Mr Mugabe finds himself locked in a vicious
circle.
It takes only a few weeks for the value of every pay rise
given to
civil servants to be wiped out. But the bankrupt regime can only
cover the
cost of further wage rises by printing money - which fuels
inflation still
further and creates pressure for yet more pay
increases.
Tension on the streets of the capital, Harare, was
mounting yesterday
as people scavenged to earn extra money for food and
transport. Some of
those fortunate enough to have jobs cannot even afford
bus fares.
In what was once one of Africa's most prosperous
economies, a
35-year-old primary school teacher with six years' service
earns £13 a
month.
The woman, who wished to remain anonymous,
said: "My take-home pay is
not enough for transport to work, so I am not
going to school this week."
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She is not on
strike, although many of the 110,000 state teachers
started a "go slow" this
week and are absent from classrooms. This has left
parents to fill in as
home-teachers.
Zimbabwe's four largest hospitals are crippled by a
seven-week strike
among junior doctors, who earn only £6 a month after
deductions. All civil
servants received a 300 per cent pay rise in January -
but inflation has
already eroded this gain.
Cholera has broken
out in Harare because the water treatment plants
are collapsing. Power
black-outs are increasing and one town, Chitungwiza,
gets only four days of
electricity a week.
Mr Mugabe responded by saying that any protests
"will not be
tolerated".
But he relies on the army and police
to suppress challenges. Sources
in the army say that soldiers - while far
better paid than teachers or
nurses - are still enduring "desperate"
conditions. Most of those below the
rank of colonel earn less than $1 [51p]
per day - the international measure
for absolute poverty.
"There is plenty of indiscipline because we are hungry," said one
captain.
Mr Mugabe's elite Presidential Guard, which has extra
perks and higher
salaries, is also disgruntled, according to the military
source.
But the economic collapse has created opportunities for the
corrupt
elite around Mr Mugabe, who have already benefited from the seizure
of
white-owned farms.
Senior figures in the ruling Zanu-PF
party can buy US dollars from the
Reserve Bank at the meaningless official
exchange rate - and then sell them
on the parallel market at a 2,000 per
cent profit. They can buy fuel from
the state at one twelfth of the market
price. This gives a powerful core of
Zanu-PF figures a vested interest in
keeping Mr Mugabe in power.
The president, who turns 83 later this
month, gambles that by keeping
this wealthy handful happy, he can survive
the economic collapse and extend
his 27-year rule.
Splits in
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change have made Mr
Mugabe's task
easier. But continuing this balancing act indefinitely may not
be possible,
especially if discontent spreads in the vitally important army
and police
force.
"I have never seen a crisis of this depth before," said John
Robertson, an independent economist in Harare. "There seems to be no
solution in sight." Daniel Ndlela, another economist, said: "This is an
unsaveable situation. It is by far the worst since
independence.
"It will collapse, as the government will talk a lot
but it won't
change its ways. When and how this collapse will happen, that
is the
question."
The Telegraph
Last Updated:
12:01am GMT 09/02/2007
Who will rid Zimbabwe of its aged
tyrant?
In more than a quarter of a century in power, Robert Mugabe
has turned
one of Africa's most promising countries into a basket case. As
Peta
Thornycroft reports today from Harare, inflation has reached such a
pitch
that a school teacher cannot afford the bus fare to and from work. The
black
middle class has fled - the Reserve Bank estimates that one million of
them
might be in Britain - and those Zimbabweans who remain are witnessing
the
disintegration of public services, from hospitals to water-treatment
plants
and power stations.
Yet Mr Mugabe remains in power,
calculating that the privileges
afforded the top echelons of the security
forces and the ruling party,
Zanu-PF, will not only keep him there until his
term ends next year but,
through a constitutional amendment, could extend
his rule to 2010.
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Over the past seven years
of accelerating political oppression and
economic decline, it has become
clear that the deus ex machina will not come
from abroad. Britain, the
former metropolitan power, fears being accused of
neo-colonialism. South
Africa, which could apply powerful leverage,
disguises its revolutionary
sympathy with Mr Mugabe by proclaiming the
(illusory) benefits of "quiet
diplomacy". Saddest of all, the domestic
opposition Movement for Democratic
Change has been weakened by factional
division.
If, then, the
president is to be removed before 2010, it is more
likely to be through a
palace coup than foreign intervention or electoral
defeat. The most obvious
instigator is Emmerson Mnangagwa, a veteran
guerrilla fighter and brutal
former security minister who has fallen out
with the president and opposes
plans to extend his term beyond 2008. The
catalyst for a coup would be his
uniting disaffected elements of Zanu-PF and
mid-ranking members of the
security forces. Given Mr Mnangagwa's fearsome
record, the result would
hardly be sweetness and light.
But it would at least promise less
crazy economic management than that
offered by the octogenarian ogre who
currently occupies State House.
The Telegraph
By David Blair,
Diplomatic Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:22am GMT
09/02/2007
Nothing was more predictable than
Zimbabwe's economic catastrophe.
From the moment that President
Robert Mugabe set about destroying
commercial agriculture - his country's
leading export earner - by seizing
white-owned farms, the consequences of
this policy were blindingly obvious.
Anyone with a basic knowledge
of economics knows that if a country
cripples its principal export industry,
it destroys its ability to earn hard
currency and pay for essential imports
- like fuel.
The value of its currency plunges. Inflation goes up.
Eventually, the
country gets trapped in a vicious circle, with inflationary
pay rises
begetting more inflation.
This, in simple terms, is
what has befallen Zimbabwe. Thanks to Mr
Mugabe, Zimbabwe has lost about 40
per cent of its entire economy since the
land seizures began in
2000.
Given that everyone knew this would happen, why did the
outside world
fail to act? The self-immolation of Zimbabwe's economy is not
a matter of
horrendous statistics. Behind every number lie countless human
tragedies.
Take infant mortality. Five years ago, it stood at 37
per 1,000 live
births. Today, the collapse of Zimbabwe's health service
combined with
malnutrition and deepening poverty has pushed it up to 60 per
1,000 live
births.
Think how many thousands of young lives have
ended as a result.
Imagine the suffering of the children who will never know
that their plight
was completely avoidable and almost entirely caused by one
man. When the
history of Zimbabwe's collapse is written, those guilty of
standing idly by
while this tragedy unfolded will be
identified.
Foremost among them will be President Thabo Mbeki of
South Africa.
Even making every possible allowance for Mr Mbeki - the
leverage he has over
Mr Mugabe is often exaggerated and the Zimbabwean
leader presented him with
a huge political problem owing to his following in
the African National
Congress - it is impossible to exculpate the South
African.
He studiously played down Zimbabwe's crisis and questioned
the motives
of those who pointed out the human cost of Mr Mugabe's
action.
"The reason Zimbabwe is such a preoccupation here, in the
United
Kingdom, the United States and Sweden and everywhere is because a
handful of
white people died and white people were deprived of their
property," said Mr
Mbeki after Zimbabwe's farcical presidential election of
2002.
"All they want to talk about is Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe.
Why?
It's because 12 white people died."
Almost all of those
who have suffered at Mr Mugabe's hands are black.
Caribbean Net News
Friday,
February 9, 2007
by Anthony L. Hall
Even though rank incompetence,
kleptocracy and depraved indifference to
human life characterized the
governments of many post-colonial countries of
the Commonwealth, black
leaders invariably invoked "the legacy of British
colonialism" to
rationalize the growing pains they inflicted on their own
people.
For
example, in the immediate aftermath of independence, almost all of them
established dominion over their countries by executing nationalization
pogroms. And the key feature of these pogroms was the wholesale expulsion
of expatriate professionals - who were typically indispensable employees in
critical sectors of national life, including education and law enforcement -
and awarding their jobs (as patronage) to typically inexperienced,
untrained, unskilled natives.
But throughout the Commonwealth today,
such jingoistic and myopic policies
are little more than dark secrets in the
annals of post-colonial history.
Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to get an
accurate account of the
disastrous legacies they wrought by impeding the
sustainable development of
these newly independent countries.
The
glaring exception, however, is Zimbabwe - where President Robert Mugabe
initiated the belated nationalization of his country's agrarian economy six
years ago. And true to form, the key feature of this initiative was the
expulsion of almost all of the expatriate white farmers who made Zimbabwe's
annual harvest the envy of the entire Commonwealth. But just as it was
decades ago - when other black leaders tried such similar policies and found
them wanton - Mugabe's pogrom has proved disastrous.
But the most
salient difference in this case is that - with Zimbabwe about
to celebrate
its 27th year of independence under his leadership - even the
congenitally
anti-British Mugabe cannot blame the legacy of colonialism for
his country's
demise.
Alas, another more tragic difference is that - unlike his fellow
black
leaders who implemented aggressive measures to redress the failures of
their
pogroms - Mugabe seems determined to continue his "sweeping land
reforms"
come what may. This, even though evidence of the inhumane legacy
his
jingoistic and myopic reforms have wrought is clear for all to
see.
In fact, here is the dire warning his national security minister,
Didymus
Mutasa, issued on Monday to the few remaining white farmers whose
farms had
not yet been seized (and they too expelled):
"Those farmers
who do not comply with the orders to vacate the land will be
dealt with
severely.It's the duty of police to see to it that those who
don't abide by
the laws are incarcerated."
Meanwhile, here is part of the lamentation I
expressed for Zimbabwe in March
2005:
"Five years ago, Zimbabwe was
the breadbasket of sub-Saharan Africa; today,
it is a basket case of
starving people. Five years ago, there were 4,000
white-owned farms in
Zimbabwe; today, there are only 400 - mostly
unproductive - farms
left."
But then, in November 2005, long-suffering Zimbabweans seemed to
have won a
reprieve when the BBC reported that Mugabe had finally agreed to
ease his
iron-fisted rule after realizing that doling out white farms as
patronage to
black cronies - who had no experience (or interest) in farming
- did not
guarantee of his political legacy.or survival. Never mind the
criminally-negligent death by starvation of hundreds of thousands of his
people that resulted from his seizure of white farms; or the rendering
homeless of millions more after he bulldozed their homes pursuant to the
"Operation-wipe-out-the-trash" phase of his land reforms.
However,
notwithstanding that BBC report (which also cited the prospect of
Mugabe
soliciting many of the 3,600 white farmers he evicted to return to
their
farms), I expressed doubts about his conversion as follows:
"...my
serially-vindicated cynicism compels me to suspect that this mea
culpa is
just another amoral ploy by Mugabe to elicit sympathy and extract
financial
aid from Western donors. After all, feigning regret for the
suffering
they've inflicted on their own people has always served Africa's
'big Dadas'
(despotic rulers) well in courting relationships with rich
countries (like
the United States during the Cold War and China today)."
Therefore, I was
not at all surprised when the Washington Post reported this
week that -
despite completely destroying Zimbabwe's economy and presiding
over a
government that is indisputably the most venal, inhumane, corrupt,
dysfunctional and incompetent in Africa - Mugabe remains committed to
keeping his country mired in the death throes of genocidal
starvation.
What I find utterly incomprehensible, however, is that -
given all the
international protests being mounted to stop the genocide
being perpetrated
by Arabs against blacks in Darfur, Sudan - relatively
little protest is
being mounted to stop the genocide being perpetrated by
Mugabe against his
own people. And, in this respect, I am constrained to
indict his fellow
African heads of state especially for being complicit in
his crimes against
humanity by their silence...
Yes, save Darfur!
But what about Zimbabwe - where for years children have
been competing with
dogs in scavenging the streets for food...
NOTE: You can help. Please
register your outrage by contacting your MP or
community leaders and asking
what, if anything, your government is doing to
help save
Zimbabwe.
zimbabwejournalists.com
By Madock Chivasa
THERE is absolutely nothing new to
expect from President Mugabe's newly
appointed cabinet which is comprised of
deadwood handpicked from his endless
list of loyalists.
As NCA we
condemn in strongest terms the continuous abuse of constitutional
provisions
by the president that allows him to single handedly appoint
cabinet
ministers on the basis of patronage and bootlicking.
As NCA we are also
concerned with the president's narrow-minded selection of
cabinet ministers
that excludes the main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change
(MDC).
Irregardless of the fact that the opposition is significantly
represented in
parliament the president continues to turn a blind eye when
it comes to
cabinet appointments and he resorts to recycling of his cronies
to cabinet
posts.
President Mugabe is stretching the patients of
peace loving Zimbabweans and
his newly appointment cabinet is a clear sign
of a regime that is
desperately clinging to power at all costs.
The
government is bankrupt of ideas and its pitiable that the head of state
believes that change can only come through shuffling of old politicians who
lost in elections.
The appointment of people like Sikhanyiso Ndlovu,
someone who was rejected
by the people in parliamentary elections, is a
clear arrogant stance by the
president and its clear that his new
appointments does not consider the
wishes of the people of
Zimbabwe.
NCA believes that the government is desperately trying to
confuse the
populace of Zimbabwe to believe that the problems that we are
facing as a
country can only be solved by appointing new ministers. As far
as the NCA is
concerned the issue is not about the leaders in offices but it
goes back to
the aspect of bad systems and structures that are being used to
govern the
country.
We urge President Mugabe and his government to
seriously consider the issue
of constitutional reform as a way of resolving
the crisis of governance in
the country.
The previously reshuffled
cabinet failed under the supervision of President
Mugabe and its a miracle
to believe that the newly appointed cabinet will
perform well under the same
system and management by the same failed head of
state.
If President
Mugabe believes that changing faces in offices will help to
solve our
problems then the fact that he is still willing to continue as the
president
of this country is a clear contrast to the same initiative. We are
tired of
the continuous experiments by President Mugabe and the only
honorable thing
that we expect from him is to resign and listen to the
plight of ordinary
Zimbabweans who are languishing in dire poverty.
NCA urges all
Zimbabweans to join protests against a government that has
lost its mandate
of protecting the wishes and interest of its own people.
Its now time to
fight for our freedom as we can not continue to observe
President Mugabe
running Zimbabwe like his own personal tuckshop.
Lets join hands and
resist the continuous dictatorship by President Mugabe
and his cronies. The
time for dictatorship is over and the present
government is buying time
refusing to give in to constitutional reforms that
will give birth to a
democratic nation.
The NCA will not rest until it realize a new Zimbabwe
where leaders are
democratically elected and not handpicked like what we
witness in the newly
appointed cabinet.
A new democratic people
driven constitution is the only starting point for
building a foundation for
democracy and good governance in Zimbabwe.
Madock Chivasa is the
NCA's Spokesperson
Organisations like ACTSA and British trade unions are becoming more and more active on behalf of Zimbabwe and we should do everything we can to support them. They can call on a wide range of support and we can really add to the numbers - tell everyone you know to come.
The rally overlaps with the Vigil for two hours. The Vigil will go ahead but with a skeleton crew on a rota of half an hour each.
At the end of the rally let's have a mass toy-toy back to the Vigil.
Vigil co-ordinators
The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rally for Dignity
ACTSA is organising a
major Rally for Dignity on
Two days after
International Women's Day, the day will be a celebration of the role of women in
the global struggle for justice - with particular focus on the struggle for
freedom in
Speakers invited so
far include:
Lovemore Matombo,
President,
Lucia Matibenga,
Baroness Amos, Leader
House of Lords
Frances O'Grady,
Deputy General Secretary, TUC
Ken Livingstone, Mayor
of
Ruqayyah Collector, Black Students
Officer, NUS
Kat Stark, Women’s Officer, NUS
Kate Hoey,
MP
Anna Chancellor,
Actress
Henry Olonga,
Cricketer and Musician
There will also be a
balloon launch to mark the role of women in struggle.
Let us know if you
plan to come along, and please try and get as many people as you can to join you
campaigns@actsa.org
For more information
on ACTSA and our Dignity! Period. Campaign visit www.actsa.org
zimbabwejournalists.com
By a Correspondent
CONTROVERSIAL Conservative MP,
Boris Johnson, on Wednesday led the House of
Commons in debating the issue
of failed asylum seekers from Zimbabwe and the
situation obtaining in the
country. Here is the full text of the debate.
Wednesday 7.02.06. 4.30
pm
Mr. Boris Johnson (Henley) (Con): I am pleased that this topic has
been
selected for debate so soon, because it is of outstanding importance. I
had
better hurry, because I believe that there will be a Division in the
House
at some stage. [Interruption.] In fact, here we go--
Frank
Cook (in the Chair): Order. Indeed, you spotted it before I did. A
Division
has been called, so I shall suspend the sitting for 15 minutes. If
the
Division is immediately followed by others, as I believe is likely, the
suspension will continue for a further 15 minutes for each additional
Division.
4.30 pm
Sitting suspended for a Division in the
House.
4.56 pm
On resuming--
Mr. Johnson: As I was saying, I am
grateful to Mr. Speaker for granting this
debate on a matter that is of
fantastic importance. What seems to have
happened is that a nightmare in
Zimbabwe has produced administrative and
moral chaos in the Home Office.
Letters have been sent to people threatening
them with deportation when they
cannot possibly mean that.
We have in this country hundreds of thousands
of illegal people, about whom
the Government seem to know nothing and can do
nothing. People from Zimbabwe
who should not be here are allowed to stay,
and people who have 100 per
cent. British ancestry are being denied any
right to stay here. They are
being sent back to a country that has descended
into tyranny and
lawlessness, and from which they have severed all
links.
As I hope the Minister knows, this debate arises from a letter
written to me
by one of her colleagues, in which he confirms that the
brother of one of my
constituents, Natasha Samways, of Goring on Thames,
must return to Zimbabwe.
He is called Mark Coleman, he is 28 years old,
able-bodied, law-abiding and
willing to work, but he is prevented from doing
so because he is a failed
asylum seeker. The letter that the Minister's
colleague sent to me
concludes:
"In all circumstances we prefer that
those with no basis to stay leave
voluntarily, but should Mr. Coleman refuse
to do so then his removal may be
enforced."
That seems to be a
threat. We gather from the letter that if Mr. Coleman
fails to leave, the
intention of the British state is that he may be
arrested, taken to an
airport and returned to Zimbabwe by force.
Mr. Coleman is not alone in
receiving that message about what the British
state intends to do to people
in his position. The Home Office has placed
advertisements in The
Zimbabwean, a London newspaper much read by the
expatriate community, saying
exactly this: "If you don't have the right to
stay, then you will be
deported." Before we turn to what the Home Office
might mean by that threat,
let us consider, without being too histrionic or
dramatic, the fate that
awaits people such as Mr. Coleman, and hundreds of
others who find
themselves in positions like his or even worse.
There is nothing left for
Mr. Coleman in Zimbabwe. It is not only a
murderous tyranny where
journalists and opponents of the regime are
arrested, beaten and jailed, as
the Home Office immigration guidelines amply
attest, but an economic
disaster area. Thanks to Mugabe's catastrophic
policies, the Zimbabweans
have inflation running at 1,218 per cent., and
shortages of bread, medicines
and other essentials, not to speak of an AIDS
rate at 25 per cent. of the
population.
It is no wonder that Mr. Coleman's immediate family have been
forced to
abandon their furniture manufacturing business and flee to Costa
Rica. He
had some more distant relatives, cousins who were farmers, but
they, too,
have been forced to flee. Thanks to Mugabe's insane and arguably
racist
policies, they have been deprived of their land, with appalling
consequences
not only for white farmers like them, but for many black
farmers and their
employees.
I remember seeing the devastation in
2004 when I went to Zimbabwe with the
indomitable Peta Thornycroft of The
Daily Telegraph, one of the last foreign
journalists still sending
dispatches from Zimbabwe. I went to a farm outside
Harare, and I remember
interviewing an old couple as they were besieged by
thugs from Zanu
PF.
It was deeply moving talking to that elderly couple and seeing the
old boy
go to his cabinet where he kept treasured family heirlooms and
things that
connected his family with their roots in Essex. He brought out
not just the
medals that his father had won fighting for the British Crown,
but his own
British passport, which he held by virtue of being born in the
British
empire. He was very old by then; he died shortly afterwards and the
farm was
stolen. His children then died in tragic circumstances, too, and I
remember
his bewilderment at Her Majesty's Government doing nothing to
protect Her
Majesty's subjects, of whom he thought himself one.
I
think that the Minister would agree that, when all is said and done, we
stood by when Mugabe launched those pogroms. We did nothing. We allowed him
to take away the livelihoods of thousands of farmers, including many British
subjects and their descendants. Having stood by in such a way, I think it is
extraordinary that we are telling the descendants of people who were driven
out of their farms that they must now go back to Zimbabwe, when those farms
have been ruined and stolen.
It is a complete disgrace, and to use a
phrase that the Prime Minister has
used about our relations with Africa, it
is a scar on the conscience of the
Government. It is an act of apathy and
betrayal that stands in ghastly
contrast to our deluded intervention in
Iraq--a country richly endowed with
oil, although not, of course, with
British farmers and their descendants.
I do not want the Minister or
anybody to run away with the impression that
this is purely about white
farmers. Although they face persecution, all
opponents of the Mugabe regime
have faced persecution. Indeed, it is
possible to argue--I am sure that the
Home Office would make this case--
that a returning white Zimbabwean might
well be in huge danger, but he might
be in less danger than other opponents
of the Mugabe regime returning to
Harare. There is clear evidence, of which
I am sure the Minister is aware,
that when Zimbabweans return to Harare
airport, they face intimidation,
abuse and even torture and jail. Of the 200
failed asylum seekers who were
forcibly returned between November 2004 and
July 2005, we know the identity
and fates of about 20.
In several
cases, there is evidence, which I think the Government accept,
that there
was torture. At least four individuals left Gatwick never to be
heard of
again and several ended up in the notorious and disease-infested
Chikurubi
jail. It is a measure of the seriousness with which the Government
take
human rights problems in Zimbabwe that of the 18,000 people from
Zimbabwe
who have applied for asylum in this country since 2000, between a
third and
a quarter have been accepted. Those who have been rejected have
mainly
vanished into the undergrowth and started to work illegally, but in
pursuance of their targets and their desire to return failed asylum seekers,
the Government have tried to repatriate some by force.
I should
stress at this point that that is not always the wrong thing to do.
I do not
want the Minister to think that I am against repatriating anybody
to
Zimbabwe, because it is right that we should keep out, for instance,
people
from the Zanu PF elite. It is crazy and disgusting that Mugabe can
still go
around the world, have his hand shaken by the now Leader of the
House and go
on shopping trips in western capitals.
Mr. Richard Benyon (Newbury)
(Con): Does my hon. Friend agree that the only
people who can afford to come
to this country legally from Zimbabwe tend to
be people who are linked to
the corrupt regime that runs that country?
Because of the state of the
economy, they tend to be the only people who can
afford, through the strict
rules we apply through our high commission, to
apply for their student visa,
work visa or whatever. The legitimate people
who we want to come here simply
cannot afford to.
Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The
people who are likely
to come here will have access to considerable funds
and are far more likely,
therefore, to be linked to the regime. We have to
do more to keep them out
and discriminate against them. However, there will
be people who face a real
risk of persecution when they get back and it is
quite rightly against
British law to send them back in such circumstances.
The difficulty with
forced deportations to Zimbabwe--it is a very difficult
problem--is that too
often there have been reports of abuse.
On 18
October 2005, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal found that the
procedures
in place for enforced returnees at Harare airport exposed them to
a real
risk of ill-treatment at the hands of the CIO--the Central
Intelligence
Organisation--which is a secret police far more brutal and
corrupt that the
Securitate or the Stasi. The Government stopped forcible
repatriation after
that ruling, but they then contested the ruling and
appealed against it. We
are now awaiting the outcome of the Government's
appeal against the Asylum
and Immigration and Tribunal ruling that asylum
seekers cannot be forcibly
sent back to Zimbabwe.
The AIT ruling still stands, and the Government
have not yet come up with a
better way back into Zimbabwe than via Harare
airport, which is a problem.
What will happen if the CIO spots people
coming in, intercepts them there
and subjects them to abuse? Can the
Minister explain, in the name of all
that is holy, why her colleague is
sending out letters to people saying that
they may be forcibly repatriated
in circumstances in which the AIT has said
that that must not happen? I
would like to know how that is legally
possible. When the Government say
that "his removal may be enforced" in the
letter I have here, dated October
2005, do they mean, "It may be enforced if
we in the Home Office get our way
in the courts"?
Is that what the Minister's colleague means? If so, why
does he not say so
in the letter? Why does he not say to the person who is
the subject of this
deportation order--it seems to be an order--that it may
be enforced subject
to the winning of the case?
Mr. Benyon: Does my
hon. Friend agree that it seems, perversely, that the
Government have it in
for people from Zimbabwe? Last year, we had the
bizarre experience of people
legitimately coming to this country through the
ancestral visa route and
having their papers held up, sometimes for a period
of well over a
year.
They were not able to travel back to Harare to bury dead relatives.
Many of
us in the House came across this unbelievably cruel situation when
people
came to our surgeries saying, "What have we done? We are being
persecuted in
this country. We have come here under an established ancestral
visa route
and the Government are holding us on the basis of some fraud that
was never
proved."
Mr. Johnson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right
again, and I congratulate
him on the work that he has done on behalf of his
constituents in securing
their right to ancestral visas. I shall come to
that point in a moment, but
while the Minister consults her civil
servants--quite rightly, in order that
she may avail herself of the
answer--I want to ram home this question: what
did her colleague mean by his
letter?
If I understand the position--and surely it must be true--the
Government
could well lose the case in the Court of Appeal, in which case,
unless I
miss my guess, a removal from this country might not be enforced.
Or was the
Minister involved saying that a removal could be enforced even if
the
Government lose the case? Is that what the Government are saying? Are
they
going to ride roughshod over the Court of Appeal? I would be very
interested
to know. Would it not be more honest to say that Mr. Coleman's
removal may
or may not be enforced, depending on the outcome of the AA case
before the
Court of Appeal, and to add, "If we lose, we do not have a clue
what we are
going to do"? That would be a more honest approach.
I
cannot remember when I started, Mr. Cook. Did we start at 5 pm?
Frank Cook
(in the Chair): Order. The hon. Member who brings the topic to
the Chamber
may take as long as is necessary to elucidate it, but the
termination time
for this debate--if that is the hon. Gentleman's query--is
5.26
pm.
Mr. Johnson: I am grateful for that, Mr. Cook. I shall rattle through
my
final point in order to give the Minister plenty of time to
reply.
Even if it were right to send Mr. Coleman back--this is the point
on which I
hope to concentrate the Minister's mind--against the clear
finding of the
Asylum and Immigration Tribunal that forcible returnees can
face torture,
abuse and persecution, and to say that no account whatever
should be taken
of his legitimate fears about what would happen to him upon
his return,
there is another reason why we should look with favour on his
case.
That reason is the saddest and most difficult part of his case, but
it could
be easily rectified, because it affects such a tiny number of
people. I know
that hard cases make bad law, but I cannot believe that there
are many
people in exactly the same position as the brother of my
constituent--that
is to say, Mr. Coleman.
I do not know whether the
Minister has had a chance to read some of the
media coverage of the
case.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department
(Joan
Ryan) indicated assent.
Mr. Johnson: It is clear that the
Minister will know what I am about to say.
As has been widely documented,
Mr. Coleman is of British ancestry. He has
four British grandparents, yet he
cannot claim an ancestral visa because all
four grandparents were born in
what was the British empire--three in India
and one in South Africa. To give
a flavour of their contribution to Britain
and the British empire, I shall
read out what Mr. Coleman's sister wrote to
me about her family
history:
"Our father was born in the British Colony of Southern Rhodesia,
while our
paternal grandfather, a British citizen, holding a British
passport, served
the Crown in Southern Rhodesia during the Second World War.
Our paternal
great grandfather was commissioned by Queen Victoria as a
surgeon and
retired as a Lt. Colonel in India....our mother who was an Innes
Pocock can
trace her British ancestry back to 1160. Our mother was born in
India in
1942, after our maternal grandmother was evacuated from Singapore
when the
Japanese landed. Our mother's birth was registered with the British
Consul
in Bangalore. Her father, and our maternal grandfather, Eric Innes
Pocock
was born in British India, and his birth registered with the British
Consul.
His birth certificate clearly states that he was born of British
parents, in
British India and therefore a British subject by
birth."
They were people who served the British empire and the Crown. The
truly
extraordinary feature of Mr. Coleman's antecedents is that all eight
of his
great grandparents were British, yet strangely, he does not qualify
for
British nationality or British citizenship.
As we look at the
sweep of history and what has happened regarding Britain's
relations with
Africa and the people whom we sent out to colonise Africa
over the past 100
years, it should be possible to reflect the extraordinary
circumstances that
have left Mr. Coleman washed up on the beach, as it were,
as the tide of
empire has withdrawn. As the tide of Britain's involvement
with Africa has
gone out, we have ceased to look after such people. We quite
rightly
supported majority rule, but then we did absolutely nothing to
protect
British interests and British farmers and their livelihoods when
they were
taken away by Mugabe.
It seems extraordinary and very hard hearted that
we can do nothing at this
stage to protect someone who must be in a tiny
minority. Mr. Coleman has a
much more organic claim to British citizenship
than many people who are here
legally or illegally. I wonder whether the
Minister can find it in her to
discover some means of granting Mr.
Coleman--through some compassionate
device, which is surely available to
her--the ancestral visa that he surely
deserves, so that he can settle in
this country, work and be a part of the
economy, which is all that he
desires to be.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home
Department (Joan
Ryan): I am grateful for this opportunity to explain the
Government's
position in relation to both the case to which the hon. Member
for Henley
(Mr. Johnson) referred and the situation on returns to Zimbabwe
more
generally. I congratulate him on securing this debate. It is clear from
his
presentation of his case that he feels genuinely and deeply about the
matter. I assure him on behalf of the Government that we feel strongly about
the situation in Zimbabwe, too, as I hope will become clear from my
remarks.
The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it would be
inappropriate for me to
comment on the case to which he referred in this
debate, but the position
was set out in a letter that my hon. Friend the
Minister for Immigration,
Citizenship and Nationality sent to him on 15
November 2006. The hon.
Gentleman's comments on that letter will be a matter
for the record. I
realise that he may be disappointed that I cannot comment
on the individual
case that he has put forward so strongly, but I am sure
that he was aware
that that would be the situation.
With regard to
the question of UK ancestry, one of the aims of the British
Nationality Act
1981 and related legislation is to restrict eligibility for
British
citizenship--and thus for the right of abode in the United
Kingdom--to
persons born in, or otherwise closely connected with, the United
Kingdom or
one of the current British overseas territories. The legislation
therefore
makes a basic distinction between citizens by descent, who cannot
normally
transmit their citizenship to a further generation born outside
British
territory, and other citizens, who can.
We of course recognise that some
families have a tradition of service
overseas that spans several
generations. British citizens who work abroad in
that way make a valued
contribution to the United Kingdom's economy and
international standing. It
would be unfair if the children of one family
member who happened to be born
abroad when his or her parents were
temporarily overseas were permanently
excluded from British citizenship.
The legislation accordingly makes a
number of exceptions to the general rule
that citizenship cannot be
transmitted to a second generation born abroad.
One such exception relates
to British citizens who are in Crown or similar
service that has been
designated as such by the Home Secretary at the time
of their child's birth.
Another exception concerns those in the service of a
European Community
institution at the relevant time.
Where neither of those statutory
exceptions applies, the second generation
born abroad will be entitled to
registration as British citizens if either
the British citizen parent has
previously resided in the United Kingdom for
any continuous period of three
years, or the family returns to the United
Kingdom and remains here for at
least three years after the child's birth.
Registration is subject to an
application being made within certain time
limits. Further provision is made
by the 1981 Act for such issues as the
avoidance of
statelessness.
The immigration rules provide for Zimbabweans with a
UK-born grandparent to
be granted entry clearance under the UK ancestry
route of entry, to which
the hon. Gentleman referred. That allows them to
live and to work in the UK
for five years, after which they can apply for
settlement. However, we do
not allow switching into that category; if
someone wished to make an
application for entry clearance in that category,
he or she would need to
return to Zimbabwe and apply for entry clearance
from there.
On the more general question of enforced removals to Zimbabwe
at present, on
15 and 16 January this year, as hon. Members may be aware,
the Court of
Appeal heard the case of a Zimbabwean failed asylum seeker
known as AA. It
was the latest stage in protracted litigation, at the heart
of which is the
question of whether a Zimbabwean who has claimed asylum in
the UK and whose
claim is refused would, if forcefully returned to Zimbabwe,
be singled out
as a failed asylum seeker and be at real risk of mistreatment
by the
Zimbabwean authorities on those grounds.
In a moment, time
allowing, I will set out some background on the issues in
that particular
case, but first I should like to explain that the
Government's position on
the question of enforcing the return of failed
asylum seekers and other
immigration offenders to Zimbabwe is that it is
solely about operating a
robust and fair immigration system for the UK. It
is a domestic issue. Our
deep concern about the political crisis in
Zimbabwe, and the economic crisis
that it has generated, remains
undiminished.
Mr. Boris Johnson: Will
the Minister give way?
Joan Ryan: I shall in just a second.
The
Zimbabwean economy continues to be grossly mismanaged, leading to
substantial outflows of people seeking opportunities in Britain and
elsewhere. In particular, we categorically condemn the appalling human
rights abuses perpetrated on those who actively oppose the regime. We
continue to work with international partners to press for an end to such
abuses, for the restoration of democracy and the rule of law, and for a full
set of economic and fiscal reforms.
We work closely with our European
Union and other international partners to
address the issues. It is not
correct to say, as the hon. Gentleman did,
that we stand by and do nothing.
I absolutely refute that assertion. We have
taken action through European
Union sanctions, the travel ban and isolating
the Mugabe regime. However, we
want to be careful about sanctions because we
do not want ordinary
Zimbabwean people to suffer any more under the regime
than they are
already.
Mr. Johnson: I ask the Minister two quick questions. Is she in
favour of
having a look at the rules, so that if someone had eight
great-grandparents
who were born in this country, they might be entitled to
an ancestral visa?
A tiny number of people would be caught in that category,
and doing that
would be one way to help people such as Mr.
Coleman.
Secondly, can the Minister explain why, given that the Court of
Appeal has
yet to rule on the question, her Department is sending out
letters saying
that people may be ordered back to Zimbabwe?
Joan
Ryan: No, I am not willing to look at those rules. I looked at them
before I
came to answer this debate; that is why I referred to the 1981 Act.
I am
satisfied that the rules are appropriate and should stand.
On the
background, about which I think the hon. Gentleman is asking, on 18
October
2005 the independent Asylum and Immigration Tribunal held that the
particular way in which we were enforcing returns of unsuccessful Zimbabwean
asylum seekers from the United Kingdom to Harare airport put them at risk of
mistreatment. On 16 November 2005, the AIT issued a further determination in
which it concluded that the effect of the 18 October determination was that
any Zimbabwean citizen who would not return to the country willingly was a
refugee.
We appealed those findings, and the Court of Appeal handed
down its judgment
on our appeal on 12 April 2006. It found that, in the
earlier case, the AIT
had erred in its approach to the evidence before it in
finding that the
particular way we were enforcing returns of failed
Zimbabwean asylum seekers
to Harare airport put them at risk of
mistreatment. The Court of Appeal also
found that a person who can safely
return to their country of origin
voluntarily is not a refugee. The Court of
Appeal therefore set aside the
original determination and asked the AIT to
look at the matter anew.
A panel consisting of the AIT president and two
senior immigration judges
reconsidered the case on 3 to 7 July 2006 and
issued a fresh determination
on 2 August. The AIT found that the evidence
did not establish that failed
asylum seekers would be at real risk of
mistreatment on return simply by
virtue of an unsuccessful asylum
application. That applies to enforced
returnees, as well as to those who
return voluntarily.
AA, in turn, appealed the AIT's August 2006
determination on a number of
grounds, the essence of which was that it has
again misunderstood or
misinterpreted the evidence. The Court of Appeal
heard that appeal on 15 to
16 January, and we await its judgment.
It
would not be appropriate for me to comment on the details at issue in
advance of the Court of Appeal's judgment, but that does not prevent me from
reiterating the Government's commitment to providing protection to those who
genuinely need it. We know that the Zimbabwean authorities are capable of
persecuting those who oppose them or those whom they perceive to be a
threat--
It being twenty-six minutes past Five o'clock, the motion
for the
Adjournment of the sitting lapsed, without Question
put.
Zim Independent
Dumisani
Muleya
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's plan to extend his term of
office which
expires in March next year by another two years to 2010 is in
tatters after
the Zanu PF politburo failed to endorse it last
week.
Resolutions in the politburo are carried by acclamation and
the
discord of the Goromonzi conference was manifest at last week's meeting,
participants said. Consensus is important to avoid dissent in parliament
when constitutional amendments are tabled to facilitate the
plan.
Inside sources said this week the politburo, the ruling
party's
supreme decision-making body, baulked at approving the plan, which
triggered
an unprecedented internal revolt at the party's ill-fated
conference in
Goromonzi in December last year. This put Mugabe's plans in
disarray.
As first reported by the Zimbabwe Independent in
December, Mugabe
wants to move from being executive president to a
ceremonial head of state,
elected by the current Zanu PF-dominated two
houses of parliament in a joint
sitting as an electoral college, after March
2008.
After this he would then appoint a prime minister from the
majority
party in parliament - which is Zanu PF in this case - to form and
lead
either a Zanu PF government or a government of national unity. The
preferred
position, in terms of the plan, is to appoint a government of
national unity
to rally round the new prime minister - possibly Reserve Bank
governor
Gideon Gono - to work without partisan problems
intruding.
Mugabe, who probably wants to remain as the Zanu PF
leader after its
2009 congress, would be a ceremonial head of state on paper
while in
practice continuing to govern as a de facto executive president.
This is
said to be part of his strategy to secure immunity from possible
prosecution
for his excesses in power.
Depending on events,
Mugabe would leave in 2010, but party insiders
say he has resolved to become
life president. Last year Mugabe repeated his
self-serving argument that he
won't quit because his party would
disintegrate.
Delegates to
the Goromonzi watershed conference refused to endorse his
2010 election
proposal which had purportedly been backed by eight Zanu PF
provinces and
the committee on the state of the party at the meeting.
Harare and
Mashonaland East have up to now refused to support the
plan.
Sensing an open rebellion over the conflict-ridden issue during the
conference, the Zanu PF leadership took the safe way out. They suspended the
process of making final resolutions, claiming there was no more time to do
it. Party leaders then tried to mislead their supporters saying the
delegates had upheld the election initiative, although they also admitted
the plan had to be referred back to provinces.
Before last
week's politburo, which was the party's first meeting in
2007 after the
Goromonzi conference, Zanu PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira
claimed the party
was meeting to endorse resolutions of that conference.
However, after that
meeting he said the election harmonisation initiative
had been referred back
to provinces for further consultations, showing the
politburo was still
divided over it and had not made any headway.
This effectively
means Zanu PF has now gone back to the drawing board
to restart the
unpopular process. Shamuyarira and Zanu PF national commissar
Elliot Manyika
are spearheading the campaign.
Their other brief is to re-organise
the provinces to make them
amenable to the 2010 plan. They however face
continued resistance in Harare
and Mashonaland East where senior party
officials have refused to endorse
Mugabe's extended tenure.
Sources said Manyika last year shocked members of the conference
committee
on the state of the party when he, as the committee chair,
demanded they had
to first pledge loyalty to Mugabe before debate on the
issue. Committee
members refused and told him to "stop being ridiculous", a
source
said.
After discussions, committee members said they supported the
idea of
the need to hold the elections simultaneously, but not necessarily
in 2010.
They asked why 2010 and not 2008 because they thought it was a
Machiavellian
way of trying to extend Mugabe's tenure, the sources said.
After the
politburo meeting last week, it was agreed that the party's
central
committee would meet next month to deal with the problematic issue
again.
The politburo first approved the issue amid firm resistance
in
December. But the central committee nodded it through because it was
supported mainly by the Women's League members who appeared choreographed in
their statements. The central committee is likely to endorse it again in
March. However, Zanu PF MPs are mobilising to block the plan in parliament
where only 10 ruling party legislators - already there in the form of
Mashonaland East MPs - need to vote with the opposition MDC to defeat
it.
Zim Independent
Shakeman
Mugari
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) is stuck with piles
of new bank
notes that it cannot introduce because of galloping inflation
and political
bickering among key stakeholders.
The new notes
were printed at huge cost in foreign currency by a
German company, Giesecke
& Devrient (G&D) in July last year.
The Zimbabwe
Independent last week published exclusive specimens of
the new notes which
central bank governor Gideon Gono said would be released
onto the market
soon.
Sources this week however said the central bank could not
introduce
the new notes because of high inflation which has continued to
erode the
value of the local money.
The notes, whose highest
denomination is a $1 000 bill, were designed
on the assumption that
inflation would have come down significantly by
February this year, the
scheduled launch period, so zeros could once again
be slashed. The central
bank instructed G&D to print the notes in the hope
that by December
inflation would be down to two digit figures.
Sources say there are
now slim chances of the notes being introduced
soon despite the approval by
Cabinet last year.
Although Gono told the Independent last week
that the money would be
out "sooner rather than later", sources this week
said there were dissenting
voices in the government who wanted the RBZ to
introduce higher
denominations.
"The biggest problem is that
President Mugabe has always been against
higher denominations," a source
said.
Serious moves to introduce new notes started in 2003 during
the cash
shortages when Mugabe formed a five-member cabinet committee to
deal with
the problem. The committee was made up of Information minister
Jonathan
Moyo, Finance minister Herbert Murerwa, Industry and Trade minister
Samuel
Mumbengegwi, State Security minister Nicholas Goche, and Charles
Chikaura,
who was then acting central bank governor.
The
committee came up with travellers' cheques which were a major flop
because
they required people to have bank accounts in order to use them.
The committee later introduced the bearer cheques which were printed
on
cheap paper. The committee also came up with specimen designs of the $1
000,
$5 000 and $10 000 notes. Mugabe, sources said, however flatly rejected
the
$5 000 and $10 000 notes saying this would send the wrong signals about
inflationary trends.
The sources said new notes can only work
when inflation has been
drastically reduced.
They said
government was at the moment not willing to slash more zeros
from the
bearers' cheques, which would be necessary if a new currency is to
be
introduced.
Contacted for comment yesterday Gono maintained the new
notes would be
introduced soon but he could not say when.
"The
governor is not going to pre-announce," Gono said. "People will
be advised
of the period of notice."
Zim Independent
Itai
Mushekwe
HUNDREDS of University of Zimbabwe students have been
evicted from
campus accommodation, just two weeks before the first semester
begins.
The evictions being carried out under the pretext of
"containing
rampant vandalism and theft of university property by male
students" are
likely to foment unrest and trigger demonstrations at the
Harare campus.
Female students who need accommodation have been asked to
"liaise" with the
accommodation officer to occupy hostels vacated by the
male students.
Dean of students Taka Mduluza, yesterday said the
decision to evict
the male students was prompted by vandalism and theft of
university
property, a phenomenon rare among female students.
Mduluza said the university's executive had decided to take action
although
not every student would be affected by the policy shift.
"We are
aware of a looming student uprising as a result of the
evictions but the law
will meet those who choose to revolt," Mduluza said.
"It's a very
hot issue, and we know these students are likely to stage
an uprising.
However, those who choose to revolt will meet the law."
Student
Representative Council vice-president, Clifford Hlatshwayo
said the student
body has since moved in to reverse the controversial
eviction notice, which
students only learnt of through a press advertisement
on
Sunday.
"We have made an urgent High Court application for an
interdict to
stop the evictions," said Hlatshwayo.
"The
accommodation officer and dean of students are clueless as to
where the
eviction directives are coming from. But as students we only have
three
options to deal with this scenario. If legal or amicable engagement
with the
authorities fail we will devise other means to stop this madness."
Observers
have however interpreted the move as a pre-emptive strike by
government to
arrest potential student activism ahead of the proposed
harmonisation of
parliamentary and presidential elections to 2010.
Zim Independent
Shame
Makoshori
THE Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) has
reacted angrily
to the arrest by police of business executives for hiking
the prices of
basic commodities saying they had had enough of government's
harassment.
In what could be the beginning of serious confrontation
between
government and business, ZNCC president Mara Hativagone told a press
conference in Harare yesterday that the organisation "strongly condemned"
the arrest of its members. She said government's stance indicated continued
suspicion between the two economic partners.
She was responding
to the arrest of two managers from Blue Ribbon
Industries and National Foods
on Tuesday for raising prices without
government approval.
The
two, Ian Kind and Mike Manga, were charged yesterday both in their
personal
capacities and as company representatives. They had not been
released at the
time of going to press last night.
Government has intensified its
clampdown on businesses that raise
prices of basic commodities and has vowed
to continue the arrests.
Hativagone said the arrests had serious
implications for the success
of the social contract proposed by Reserve Bank
governor Gideon Gono in his
monetary policy statement last
week.
Immediate past-president of the ZNCC Luxon Zembe, who also
attended
the press conference, said government was applying double standards
in its
dealings with business by calling for dialogue while arresting
business
executives.
He said the government was not acting in
good faith.
"We have come to a stage where we are saying this
(harassment) has to
stop," said Zembe.
He accused state-run
companies of increasing prices by wide margins
when strict controls were
applied to the private sector. "We cannot have a
social contract when, after
agreeing on certain things, government goes
behind our back and does
something else. It just does not augur well for the
economic recovery,"
Zembe said.
"Events on the ground have indicated that dialogue is
not working. We
cannot continue saying we are friends when government goes
behind our backs
and arrests our members. If we have to continue talking,
government must
stop arresting our members," Zembe told
journalists.
Warning that the ZNCC had decided to seek legal
representation for the
arrested business executives, Hativagone said
government's stance came as a
surprise to business especially after holding
several meetings with Industry
and International Trade minister Obert Mpofu
over the viability of
companies.
The last such meeting was held
on Wednesday this week.
"The chamber fully supports the idea of a
social contract. In fact we
wish to remind the public and all stakeholders
that the chamber has always
advocated a social contract," Hativagone
said.
"We have been in the forefront in calling for the social
contract and
that is why we took a leading role in the Kadoma Declaration
and the
formation of the Tripartite Negotiating Forum."
Zim Independent
Augustine
Mukaro
GOVERNMENT has deployed Central Intelligence
Organisation (CIO)
officers to monitor teachers' activities after they
embarked on a go-slow
demanding higher salaries to improve their living
standards.
Teachers last week started sit-ins in staff rooms after
government
gave in to the demands of a six-week industrial action by junior
doctors and
nurses, promising a review. Government awarded nurses a salary
top-up of
$265 000 over and above the $195 000 given in
January.
President of the Progressive Teachers Association (PTUZ),
Takavafira
Zhou, said teachers began a sit-in last Thursday after realising
from the
actions of doctors and nurses that without a sustained job action
they would
not get anything.
"The sit-in started in Masvingo
and has since spread to all provinces
except Mashonaland Central," Zhou
said.
"The strike has not been very effective in Mashonaland
Central because
of harassment by the state agents," he said.
Zhou said teachers were demanding a starting salary of $400 000, a
housing
allowance of $150 000, transport allowance of $100 000 plus a
retention
allowance of 50% of gross salary.
The teachers are also demanding a
clothing allowance of 25% of gross
pay and an exemption from paying fees for
their dependants. Teachers are
currently on a starting salary of $84
000.
"It's unfortunate that state agents are now targeting the PTUZ
leadership accusing them of working against government when in fact what we
are demanding are survival salaries," Zhou said.
He said the
strike was a struggle to lift the standard of living from
a subsistence
level to a social and economic level.
Intelligence sources said the
CIO was keeping a close eye on the
teachers with the intention of fishing
out trouble-makers who might advocate
taking the strike into the
streets.
The CIO and officials from the Ministry of Education this
week visited
several schools in Harare where they found teachers gathered in
staff rooms.
At some of the schools, the officials asked the teachers to
write letters
answering possible acts of misconduct charges.
On
Monday police picked up Raymond Majongwe, the PTUZ
secretary-general, for
questioning, accusing him of encouraging teachers to
go on an illegal
strike.
A snap survey in Harare's high-density areas shows that
teachers are
spending their time in their staff rooms instead of
teaching.
At Cranbone High School teachers were seen sitting
outside.
In a statement, Crisis Coalition Zimbabwe said the
deployment of state
security agents and harassment of union leadership was
part of government's
broader plan aimed at thwarting all efforts by those in
the civil service to
seek better standards of living.
"It is
deplorable that the government is fast resorting to colonial
strategies of
intimidating democratic forces through extra-legal
mechanisms," the
statement said.
Zim Independent
Augustine
Mukaro
GOVERNMENT has lined up a raft of allowances for
soldiers to boost
disposable income among security forces, especially
non-commissioned
officers whose earnings have been eroded by runaway
inflation.
Over the past few weeks, growing discontent over
salaries has spurred
doctors and nurses to industrial action, with teachers
threatening to join
in. The rank and file in the army and the police appear
to be warming up to
the new militancy.
A highly-placed military
source said government would this month give
the army "an efficiency
allowance" backdated to January.
"An efficiency allowance of
between 20% and 35% backdated to January
will be given this month," the
source said.
"News of the allowances was announced last Friday to
army barracks
throughout the country."
The source said
government would be introducing more allowances for
the army to boost their
salaries and deal with the growing discontent in the
force.
"A
'separation allowance' and two other new allowances will soon be
introduced
to cushion soldiers from the soaring inflation and the
ever-rising cost of
living," the source said.
The separation allowance is given to
soldiers staying in barracks away
from their families.
Zimbabwe
National Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Simon Tsatsi could
not confirm or
deny the issue but referred all questions to the Defence
Services
Commission.
"Salary questions are best answered by the Defence
Services Commission
which is chaired by Mariyawanda Nzuwa," Tsatsi
said.
Nzuwa could not be reached for comment by the time going to
press.
Observers said government had resorted to allowances to
raise the
servicemen's take home incomes. Civil servants' allowances are
exempted from
tax.
Information to hand shows that the lowest
ranked soldier - a private -
currently takes home around $140 000 broken
down as basic salary of $84 000
and the rest as transport and housing
allowances. This is against spiralling
inflation of nearly 1 300% and a
monthly consumer basket of over $450 000.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube
POLICE have started returning
mining equipment and gold ore
confiscated from small-scale miners ahead of a
proposed meeting between the
Zimbabwe Miners' Federation (ZMF) and
Vice-President Joice Mujuru next week,
the Zimbabwe Independent has
established.
Police have arrested 250 registered small-scale miners
and confiscated
or destroyed millions of dollars' worth of mining equipment
under the
ongoing Operation Chikorokoza Chapera.
This week
police around the country started inviting small-scale
miners to go to
police stations to identify and collect their property.
ZMF chief
executive officer, Wellington Takavarasha, confirmed that
police had started
to return the confiscated equipment to registered
small-scale
miners.
"We are having meetings with police taskforces around the
country and
they have agreed to return the equipment and gold ore which was
confiscated
during Operation Chikorokoza Chapera.
"We started
with Matabeleland South where 22 small-scale miners have
already been
allowed to go back to work after their equipment and ore were
returned to
them. We will proceed around the country and hold meetings with
the police
taskforce in the next coming weeks," said Takavarasha.
He confirmed
that Mujuru had invited them to a meeting this week to
hear their grievances
although the meeting has now been postponed to next
week.
When
sought for comment, Home Affairs minister Kembo Mohadi was said
to be in
South Africa while police spokesman, Assistant Commissioner Wayne
Bvudzijena, referred this paper to Assistant Inspector Jessie Banda who is
spokesperson for Operation Chikorokoza Chapera.
Banda confirmed
that meetings between the police taskforce, Ministry
of Finance officials,
Ministry of Mines, Environment ministry and Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe
officials were taking place around the country and that
miners were being
told to register to legalise their operations.
Zim Independent
Loughty
Dube
THE Bulawayo community consisting of political parties,
civic groups
and churches has come together to resist the takeover of the
city's water
supply by the bungling Zimbabwe National Water Authority
(Zinwa).
The issue of the takeover of the city's water supplies by
the
parastatal has created divisions in the politburo of the ruling Zanu PF
with
some backing the takeover while others argue that the Bulawayo City
Council
should be allowed to supply water to city residents.
Just last week, Matabeleland Zambezi Water Trust chairman, Dumiso
Dabengwa,
reportedly told a politburo meeting that the city of Bulawayo
should be
allowed to continue with water provision.
However, another
politburo member from Matabeleland, Naison
Khutshwekhaya Ndlovu, argued that
government had a responsibility to control
all the water in the
country.
Sources said the politburo members were at variance but
the majority
were unanimous that the city of Bulawayo was doing a good job
with water
provision.
It emerged this week that senior citizens
in the city were mobilising
residents to resist the Zinwa takeover while
civic organisations were
engaging the public on the same issue.
It also emerged this week that state intelligence operatives have sent
representations to President Mugabe over the issue with the message that
water provision responsibility should be left with Bulawayo
council.
The Bulawayo City Council has written to government and to
Zinwa to
protest the decision by Zinwa to take over the city's water
supply.
Bulawayo executive mayor, Japhet Ndabeni Ncube, confirmed
that council
had written to government and the relevant ministry to protest
the takeover
of water by Zinwa.
"We are resisting the takeover,
we have written to government to
protest the takeover of water by Zinwa and
we are awaiting their response
but we will resist, and if it fails, then
Zinwa will have to compensate
council for everything including the equipment
that they will take over,"
Ncube said.
He said the city had no
problem with Zinwa but its track record.
Bulawayo Agenda, a
political think-tank, has called a meeting where
residents, councillors,
government officials and representatives of civic
society are expected to
make representations on the takeover issue.
Zimbabwe Liberators
Peace Initiative president, Max Mnkandla, said his
organisation would fight
at all costs to have Zinwa out of Bulawayo.
"Zinwa has failed in
Harare and we say the city of Bulawayo has been
managing well. We will fight
the takeover tooth and nail even if it means
dividing the country. There is
no way we can allow Zinwa to mess us up, they
do not have the capacity and
they only want to plunder Bulawayo council
equipment," Mnkandla
said.
Zimrights chairman Kucaca Phulu said his organisation was
consulting
with its membership on the course of action as Zinwa was a failed
organisation that had nothing new to offer.
"The government
wants to manipulate people through water and this is
the same government
that failed to implement the Matabeleland Zambezi Water
Project. The problem
with government is that they want to fix things that
are working smoothly,"
Phulu said. "We are strategising to help those who
are mobilising against
the takeover."
The (Arthur) Mutambara faction of the opposition MDC
has also come out
in support of Bulawayo City Council on the matter.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe's new cabinet met
yesterday after the
reshuffle on Tuesday under a cloud of worsening economic
problems and
growing social unrest.
The cabinet - described by
critics as transparently mediocre - will
have to confront the aggravating
economic meltdown characterised by record
inflation of 1 281% and rising,
and severe shortages of foreign currency,
food, fuel, electricity and other
basic commodities.
Water cuts and power outages are now
commonplace, while sewerage
facilities are unable to cope. Hospitals,
clinics, schools and roads are all
in an advanced state of
collapse.
These are some of the problems which the new cabinet will
have to
grapple with. Observers say the "new" team, stuffed with the same
old faces
who have presided over a succession of damaging policy failures in
recent
years, is likely to fail dismally in pulling the country out of the
hole
they have dug for it.
Samuel Mumbengegwi as Finance
minister has no known record of fiscal
management and is likely to prove
hostile to re-engagement with the
international community while Joseph Made
has very little mechanised
equipment left at his disposal. Sikhanyiso
Ndlovu, while popular with
journalists, has no public mandate as an
unelected MP and occupies office
despite Mugabe's assurance in 2005 that he
would not appoint
non-constituency MPs to cabinet.
The
worsening economic conditions and poverty have triggered social
unrest on a
wide scale. Zimbabwe, reeling from political and economic
instability for
seven years now, began the year with strikes by doctors and
nurses.
A chain of strikes could be looming as inflation
continues to surge.
Prices are escalating at an alarming pace and there is a
serious likelihood
now of first daily and then hourly price hikes at the
point of sale. Most
ordinary civil servants earn an average of $40 000.
Domestic workers earn
less than $20 000.
Discontented public
sector workers in essential services such as
teachers, doctors and nurses
are currently on strike over low salaries and
poor working conditions.
Government has been struggling to end the strikes
through a mixture of
negotiation and intimidation. Neither seem to be
working.
There
have been reports of unrest at the Zimbabwe Military Academy in
Gweru over
low salaries. The army and police have been hit by a spate of
desertions and
resignations due to poor remuneration.
The groundswell of
discontent poses a serious threat to government if
the reported unrest in
the army, a strike by doctors, nurses, and teachers,
and threats of further
protests by public servants and students erupt into a
nationwide
campaign.
Last week opposition groups staged unexpected marches in
Bulawayo
against Mugabe's attempt to extend his term of office to
2010.
The reality on the ground is that most Zimbabwean workers
have been
reduced to virtual paupers due to economic failure and low
salaries. It is
now common to find people who spend more money going to work
than they earn.
People survive on shady supplementary activities
such as "commodity
broking" - buying and selling of all sorts of products -
and corruption.
Reserve Bank governor Gideon last week acknowledged
the plight of
workers in his monetary policy statement review. He said most
workers could
not afford decent living standards on their current
incomes.
"To illustrate the severity of this distortion, say a
medical doctor
earns a salary of $56 000 gross per month. With the price of
a standard bed
pegged say at $800 000, the medical doctor will have to put
aside his or her
total gross salary for one year and two months to afford
the bed, without
provision for anything else," Gono said.
"The
plight of our doctors, the judiciary, soldiers, prosecutors,
teachers,
nurses, the police, civil servants, farm workers and domestic
workers, among
many other equally deserving constituencies, cannot be
allowed to go
unaddressed."
However, while most Zimbabweans are suffering, the
political elite are
engaged in primitive accumulation of wealth because the
economy is open to
rent-seeking behaviour and massive looting.
Influential members of society, particularly those with political
connections, are amassing wealth on a scale never seen before in the country
as demonstrated by their huge mansions and posh cars. This is the situation
facing Mugabe's new and possibly last cabinet. Given its record of failure
and refusal to face up to the consequences, there is little or no prospect
of it succeeding.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
IT was almost mid-morning on March 12, 2000
when a small crowd started
gathering at George Gwena's homestead in the
Marenga village of Buhera.
They were relatives and neighbours who
had come to mourn him after
getting news that he had been beaten to death by
riot police. Police had
raided Gwena, vice-chairman of the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) for
Buhera, in the early hours of the
morning.
They had pulled him out of the field where he was working
with his
son, beaten him in full view of his wife and two children with
truncheons
before shoving him into a truck for further beating and
interrogation at
Buhera police station.
People who witnessed
his severe beating by the police had brought the
sad news of his supposed
death to the village.
"To us Gwena was no more," said Martin
Hapanyengwi, a neighbour who
was part of the group. "We had come to mourn
Gwena and had no reason to
doubt the news because we knew the political
situation," he said, himself a
victim of police torture.
It was
in the run-up to the 2000 general election and the people of
Buhera knew
that given the poisoned political climate at the time, death of
an
opposition political activist like Gwena was not a wild
impossibility.
Tension was simmering between the MDC and Zanu PF.
People were divided
and hatred among neighbours and even relatives was
manifest. The riot police
sent by government ostensibly to keep peace in
Buhera were really there to
deal with opposition members.
People had barely started mourning when their attention was drawn to
the
whirring sound of an old wheelbarrow coming from the main road. It was a
Good Samaritan bringing a half-dead Gwena. The man had picked Gwena up from
the Murambinda-Chivhu road where he had been dropped by a commuter
omnibus.
He was not dead but those who had spread the word were not
far off the
mark in describing him as such.
He was bleeding
from lacerations all over his body and his legs were
swollen. He had scars
caused by batons on his back and his face looked like
a bull
frog.
His crime, as the police had told him, was that he was a
senior member
of the opposition in the area.
His torturers had
told him without wincing that they were teaching him
the consequences of
leading an opposition party formed "to remove the Zanu
PF government from
power".
Relieved that the worst had not visited one of their own,
the crowd
dispersed but for Gwena it was the beginning of worse things to
come.
When stories of victims of political violence are told,
rarely do
people get to hear the stories of Gwena and thousands of others in
the rural
areas who suffered in silence away from the eyes of the media and
international observers. Their geographical location made them easy prey for
violence. It is in the rural areas that you find the real heroes of that
era.
"I have never been in such pain," said Gwena, whose nose
is constantly
discharging a brown gooey substance, the effects of injuries
to his head
during the beatings.
"They were using everything
from their boots, baton sticks and
clinched fists," he said.
Gwena attended Munyira School with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the
1960s. Like Tsvangirai, Gwena also started his politics in the trade union
movement when he was still with the then Posts and Telecommunications
Corporation.
He left work in 1996 and joined the MDC at its
formation in 1999. He
had dreams that turned into a nightmare when the
retribution started. The
real horror started after his initial beating by
the police on March 12,
2000.
For the next three months Gwena's
life turned into hell at the hands
of Zanu PF members and the police.
Between March and May, Gwena was tortured
three times by the police and Zanu
PF youths stormed his house on more than
five occasions.
On the
day his house was raided by ruling party supporters, Gwena and
his family
slept in the open fearing that the police would come for him
again.
"They told me that they had not finished with me and
that they were
going to beat the MDC out of me," he recalled.
And so for the next three months the police tried to live up to their
promises.
"I went to Harare for treatment for two weeks but as
soon as I came
back they were on my case."
A week after his
return from Harare Zanu PF youths stormed his house
and smashed windows.
They destroyed a French door.
The signs of the damage are still
visible. When the Zimbabwe
Independent visited his homestead last month
there were still smashed window
panes. He could not replace the panes
because of financial problems.
"They came in the afternoon chanting
Zanu PF slogans and started
smashing the windows." Gwena and his wife hid in
the maize field. "If they
had caught me, they were going to kill me," he
said.
But his problems were still far from over. A few hours after
his house
was damaged by the mob, the officer in charge of Murambinda police
station,
one Muyambo, arrived at Gwena's homestead with a truck-full of riot
police.
He took Gwena to the police station saying they wanted him for a
routine
questioning. He however changed his story along the way and started
accusing
Gwena of inciting people to remove the government.
At
the station officers took turns to beat him demanding that he
confess that
he was fuelling violence in the area. A house of an education
officer had
earlier in the day been destroyed at Murambinda growth point.
Gwena was then
accused of organising the violence.
"It was as if they were doing
it for fun. One of them said he also
wanted a chance to beat me because he
had never beaten a leader of an
opposition in his life."
He was
granted his wish and worked on Gwena's bare backside with a
baton.
Satisfied, Muyambo handed Gwena to the Central Intelligence Officers
who did
what they could to inflict pain on him.
He passed out. When he came
to, he was under a running tap and a
policeman was prodding him as if to
check for signs of life. The officer in
charge delivered him home but not
before warning him that they would not
stop beating him until he resigned
from the MDC.
He staggered into his house with a ruptured eardrum,
swollen legs and
a red eye.
"I could not walk for a week," he
said. In the weeks that followed
Gwena and his family slept in the bush. "I
was afraid, Zanu PF people were
looking for me and the police were promising
me hell unless I left the MDC."
He didn't leave the opposition so
the beating and intimidation
continued. His family was denied food aid and
the threats intensified.
In May 2000 police arrested Gwena,
tortured him at Murambinda before
sending him to Rusape where he was
detained for a week on allegations that
he was involved in the burning of
the house of the district education
officer. He was with three other MDC
members and a teacher who had been
arrested on the same allegations in
Dorowa. They stayed in Rusape prison for
a week before being released
without charges.
For five years Gwena has been waiting in vain for
the arm of justice
to catch up with the officers who tortured him and Zanu
PF members who
vandalised his house. Two officers were charged for the crime
but never
convicted.
"I went to Harare in 2004 to testify
against the officers but that was
the last I heard about my
case."
Other police officers in the area have since started
harassing him for
raising a charge against their colleagues. Everyday Gwena
meets the people
who destroyed his house. He is prepared to accept that they
will never be
made to account for the actions under the current government
but says he
will never forgive them.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
has settled part of outstanding payments
for gold deliveries made to
Fidelity Printers and Refiners in September, but
industry experts said this
could have come too late to curtail a haemorrhage
in the
sector.
Fidelity is the sole buyer of gold produced in
Zimbabwe.
Sources indicated that outstanding payments made to the
gold miners
ran into nearly US$10 million.
The Zimbabwe dollar
component of the payments amounted to nearly $650
million.
Businessdigest reported in November last year that the central bank
had
outstanding payments to miners for gold delivered to Fidelity between
September and November.
The central bank is understood to have
given the miners payments for
deliveries up to November and still has
outstanding payments for deliveries
made in December and
January.
Industry sources said the payments had failed to restore
viability in
the gold mining sector as miners had accumulated huge debts to
cover
cash-flow gaps created by the delayed payments.
Already,
several foreign suppliers of mining equipment, spare parts
and other
accessories had stopped supplying them, demanding upfront payments
and
settlement of outstanding debts.
Gold deliveries last year declined
21% due to lack of equipment,
reduced exploration and mine development as
well as illegal trading and
smuggling, RBZ governor Gideon Gono said during
his monetary policy
presentation last week.
But industry
players said the country had to brace for an even sharper
decline in output
this year unless the central bank moved quickly to rectify
problems related
to payment delays.
Chamber of Mines managing director, David
Murangari warned of imminent
mine closures in an interview with
businessdigest last year if payments to
miners remained
erratic.
A letter by the Chamber signed by Murangari said: "A
number of gold
producers have written to the RBZ advising of the
difficulties being
experienced in receiving payment as per the announced
policy."
"The silence that prevails in such difficult times does
nothing to
build confidence in policy announcements and we strongly suggest
that the
authorities provide the industry with some explanation of the
challenges
being faced by the RBZ," the CMZ wrote on November
15.
The delays would "cause some mines to temporarily shut down"
unless
prompt payments were made, Murangari warned.
Zim Independent
MONEY transfer agencies
(MTAs) were this week scrambling for hard
currency to pay recipients of
foreign cash, businessdigest established.
Some foreign currency
recipients said they had up to this week not yet
received cash sent to them
last week as MTAs battled to raise the foreign
currency in a strapped
market.
The hardest-hit clients were those receiving their money
through
transfer agencies without links to formal banking institutions
dealing in
foreign currency.
"We're not making any payments
because we don't have the foreign
currency," a teller at Stanbic's foreign
exchange desk told a reporter
during the week. "We can only pay in foreign
currency if we receive cash
deposits from the public."
Stanbic
has a partnership with international money transfer agency,
MoneyGram.
There were also foreign currency problems at
agencies linked to
Western Union, but one branch along Samora Machel Avenue
had started
disbursing foreign cash to transfer beneficiaries during the
week, although
they were only giving amounts in US$100
denominations.
"We have very little notice to start giving clients
money in foreign
currency so we're still trying to source the money from the
market. It would
have been helpful if the Reserve Bank had given us the
foreign currency for
the disbursements," a dealer with one MTA said. NMB
Bank, which has a
partnership with MoneyGram, was said to be having problems
with foreign
currency payments.
An employee at the bank's
foreign currency section said they were
receiving significant foreign cash
from clients buying bank travellers'
cheques.
"Some of our
clients come with cash to buy travellers' cheques which
we use to give those
who want to receive their money in foreign currency," a
senior official at
NMB Bank said.
Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono said last week
recipients of
transfers from the diaspora could receive their money in
foreign currency
"without limitations", saying this was meant to promote the
free-flow of
foreign currency in the economy.
"This way,
stakeholders with relatives abroad, who to this point were
shunning the
safe, legal, authorised dealers and money transfer avenues of
receiving
funds can now transact through the formal system," Gono said. -
Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
ANALYSTS this week warned exporters risked
closure after the central
bank governor refused to devalue the local
currency, saying an overvalued
Zimbabwe dollar was likely to significantly
erode profitability.
They said the tourism sector, expected to
become the backbone of the
country's economic turnaround programme, could
equally haemorrhage from an
overvalued local unit.
In a joint
statement soon after Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono's
monetary policy,
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) president Mara
Hativagone and
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president Callisto
Jokonya, said
exporters and the tourism sector were the worst affected by
the current
exchange rate regime.
"It goes without saying, however, that the
tourism sector, ahead of
exporters in general, could be the hardest hit by
the non-movement of the
exchange rate. This makes Zimbabwe a very expensive
tourist destination,"
the business leaders said.
"This could
actually reverse the impressive performance of the sector
in 2006 if
measures are not put in place to enclave the tourism sector."
Luxon
Zembe, the past president of the ZNCC and a prominent business
consultant,
said the local dollar had to weaken to restore viability in the
export
sector and boost exports.
"Looking at the purchasing power parity,
it costs (exporters) nearly
$1 000 to (buy) one United States dollar which
they sell at $250," said
Zembe. "It is very expensive and exporters are
operating at a loss; it
explains why the export sector has been
under-performing over the years,"
Zembe said.
Exporters are
compelled to dispose of their foreign currency on the
official market at an
exchange rate of $250 to the greenback.
They, however, source the
bulk of their foreign currency from the
parallel market at a rate between of
$4 000 and $5 000 to the greenback, or
buy raw materials sourced from the
local market valued using the parallel
market exchange rate.
Zembe said while devaluation had inflationary effects, the local
currency
had to be correctly priced as the longer-term benefits flowing from
a
thriving export sector outweighed short-term problems caused by
devaluation.
Zembe said the Zimbabwe dollar should not be
devalued to parallel
market rates but to a realistic exchange rate that took
into account issues
related to the viability of the export
sector.
"I agree with the governor that devaluation alone does not
help. There
is need for a holistic approach to the whole situation," Zembe
said.
Economists said the current foreign exchange regime had
fuelled the
parallel market.
Gono stunned the market when he
spurned industry calls for
devaluation.
There had been strong
market expectation that the local unit could be
devalued to between $750 and
$1 000 to the US dollar when Gono presented the
monetary policy last
week.
The hemorrhage on exporters had been compounded by a tax
regime that
was also making it unviable to export.
In his
monetary policy statement, Gono admitted that tourism had been
"priced out
of the market" due to the ruling exchange rate regime.
He said a
meaningful upturn in the sector had been constrained by
pricing distortions
that were making the country expensive to tourists.
"Using an
example of a 750ml bottle of mineral water, costing $2 800,
conversion of
this at the official exchange rate of $250 per US$1 yields an
effective hard
currency price of US$11,2 which is way too expensive,
compared to the
regional and international price of the same product at
around US$2," Gono
said.
Analysts said Gono's statement was an admission that the
dollar was
overvalued hence the need for an upward adjustment.
"The same extremity of the distortion in tourism is reflected in the
fact
that at a price of $25 000, a plate of sadza and stew in a hotel
translates
to a hard currency price of US$100 per that same plate," Gono
said, adding:
"As a country, therefore, we are overpricing ourselves out of
the tourism
market though our internal price distortions."
ECA International
Resources, a human resources firm, last year ranked
Zimbabwe's capital
Harare as the world's most expensive city for expatriates
out of the 125
cities surveyed.
The ECA International Resources' cost of living
survey takes into
account 125 economic factors such as the cost of luxury
goods, restaurant
meals, movement of prices and grocery costs for items
commonly purchased by
expatriates in over 250 locations worldwide.
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
THE central bank's attempt to defend the frail local
currency will not
succeed in the absence of meaningful foreign currency
inflows into the
country, economic commentators said.
Reserve
Bank governor Gideon Gono last week said the central bank
would vigorously
pursue its core mandate to defend the value of the local
currency, saying a
new Foreign Exchange Contingent Fund would be set up for
that
purpose.
The fund will be supported by savings from export
receipts, negotiated
trade finance facilities, privatisation and joint
venture initiatives,
investment partnership concessions, mineral exports and
an expected upturn
in the tourism sector as well as funds from the
Diaspora.
Economic analysts said an underperformance by key
contributors to the
fund was likely result in poor inflows, resulting in the
failure of the
project to defend the local currency.
ZB Bank
chief economist, Best Doroh said judging by the country's
import bill, the
targeted sources of foreign currency were not sufficient to
support the
Zimbabwean dollar in the short to medium term.
"In the absence of
significant foreign currency inflows especially
from exports, there is still
need for external support for the country to
build enough reserves to defend
the Zimbabwe dollar," Doroh said.
The Zimbabwe dollar remains fixed
at $250 to the greenback.
Economic consultancy firm, Techfin
Research, last year forecast
Zimbabwe's embattled currency's fair value to
reach $1 058,39 to the US unit
by last month, and to end the year at a fair
value rate of $16 588,73 to the
US dollar.
The fair value is
the realistic value of the currency taking in to
account inflation
differentials between Zimbabwe and its trading partner
countries.
It is not necessarily the official exchange
rate.
Techfin Research said in its forecasts, released in August
last year,
that Gono could devalue the local unit to $1 000 against the US
dollar on
the official market and that the official rate could be adjusted
gradually
during the current year to end at $5 200/US$1 by December
2007.
Gono refused to devalue the local currency when he presented
his
monetary policy statement last week, saying devaluation was unlikely to
result in "planeloads" of foreign currency.
Economic consultant
John Robertson said the country needed to
seriously generate foreign
currency and create a friendly environment for
foreign
investors.
"Adequate foreign currency inflows would be the lynchpin
to remedying
the country's economic woes and collapse of the dollar although
pressures
will continue to be felt across the entire economy. This emanates
from the
fact that the economy remains a net user of foreign exchange,"
Robertson
said.
Analysts said the setting up of the fund meant
that the central bank
had abandoned setting up of the much-awaited Exchange
Rate Impact Assessment
Board (ERIAB) which had failed to take off six months
after bank governor
Gideon Gono announced plans to set up the institution on
July 31.
The ERIAB was expected to monitor and review the exchange
rate monthly
and make recommendations to the central bank on the fair value
rate for the
currency on the foreign exchange market.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube
RESERVE Bank governor Gideon Gono says it is important that the
government
engages Western countries and create a conducive environment for
economic
revival.
Responding to questions from stakeholders at a
post-monetary policy
breakfast meeting in Bulawayo last Friday, Gono said
government should
broaden its relationship with the outside
world.
"We should engage the international community to revive the
country's
economy. We must be all-inclusive in our approach. Let's look
west, south,
north and east," Gono said.
President Robert
Mugabe's government adopted a Look East policy after
his regime was isolated
by the West and put under targeted sanctions that
outlawed him and members
of his regime from travelling to Europe, the US and
Australia. His regime
has deliberately avoided engagement with the West
which he accuses of
plotting regime change in the country.
"We should not only support
the government's Look East policy, but let
us engage every part of the
world, let's trade with the whole world
including the wealthy Western
world," Gono said.
He said Eastern countries that Zimbabwe was
looking up to were also
looking to the Western nations.
"The
Chinese themselves are trading with the Western countries,
especially the
United States of America. We must create a conducive
environment for
business to thrive," he said.
Businessman Delma Lupepe said it was
government's responsibility to
create a conducive environment for business
by bringing to an end farm
invasions and other disruptive practices that had
ruined the economy.
"Let's be frank, this is not the time for new
farm invasions, fresh
farm invasions should be stopped immediately as they
are damaging the
country's image," said Lupepe.
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
THE National Bakers Association (NBA) has refused to
give an assurance
that its members will improve the quality of bread, saying
this depended to
a large extent on government allowing bakers to charge
prices that ensure
viability.
The government controls the price
of bread.
NBA senior vice-president, Vincent Mangoma, said while
the association
did not approve the poor quality of the bread on the market,
it was also
impossible for bakers to produce a better standard loaf due to
an unviable
price regime imposed by government.
"We are facing
serious viability problems. One needs to understand our
plight to appreciate
our desire to continue producing bread," said Mangoma.
"The price
of bread is controlled but our inputs are not and are
rising weekly," he
said.
Mangoma, who is also the acting chairman of NBA, said other
industries
were adjusting prices upwards fortnightly due to the current
hyperinflationary environment, but bread was under-priced despite inputs
prices increasing remarkably.
There have been complaints that
the quality of a 700g standard loaf
was weighing between 350 and 400g, while
the quality was deteriorating every
week.
In a statement last
week, the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ)
managing director, Roseline
Siyachitema castigated bakers for charging "poor
quality and below standard
weight" bread at $850.
"The quality of the bread in most outlets is
worth half the cost of a
standard loaf. We feel customers are being
shortchanged by bakers,"
Siyachitema said.
Mangoma said while
NBA agreed with the consumer watchdog's views, the
CCZ was however being
economic with the truth.
"We understand the role of the consumer
watchdog, but they should do
the same survey on other products whose prices
are controlled while their
inputs were not and see how their products are
operating. The quality of
bread would improve if government addressed our
concerns," Mangoma said.
Other products affected by price controls
are sugar, flour, and
mealie-meal. Sugar and flour have been in short supply
due to unviable
prices imposed on producers by government.
Mangoma said bakers were currently in negotiations with the Ministry
of
Industry and International Trade in an attempt to find a lasting solution
to
the problems being faced by bakers.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
ECONOMIC analysts this week
warned that Zimbabwe could experience
hourly price hikes by June unless
drastic economic reforms to end an
accelerating economic crisis were
undertaken.
The warning came as the central bank released to the
media details of
astonishing price increases in the retail sector made a few
days after a
monetary policy statement calling on stakeholders to co-operate
with
government in mapping out a holistic reform package to turn around the
ailing economy.
A wave of price hikes has hit the market since
Wednesday, and was
expected to escalate as speculative tendencies rise on
the back of a surge
in inflation rates to record-high levels.
The RBZ survey established that prices had gone up by an average 500%
since
the monetary policy presentation.
Gono last week warned that
unwarranted price increases undermined
efforts to end a seven-year economic
crisis.
University of Zimbabwe graduate school of management
lecturer Isaac
Kwesu told businessdigest this week that Gono's pleas to
freeze prices were
unlikely to arrest the turbulence in an increasingly
apprehensive market
unless there was drastic improvement in foreign currency
availability on the
official market.
"The velocity of money is
very high; it has been increasing," said
Kwesu.
"The round-trip
pricing, which is currently seven days, will increase
to daily by the end of
March and hourly between May and June unless key
issues are addressed,"
Kwesu maintained.
A consumer analyst who declined to be named for
professional reasons,
agreed.
"If price increases continue,
consumers will not keep money in their
pockets for too long because it will
be losing value and the higher the
frequency of buying, the more the upward
adjustments in prices of goods and
services," the analyst said.
Round-trip pricing measures the time between consumers receiving money
and
spending it and the impact of this on the prices.
"Our research has
indicated that the round-trip is currently taking an
average of seven days
because every delivery made to retailers is coming
with a new price. The
trend will increase to daily by the end of March and
hourly by the end of
the first half of 2007 unless measures are put in place
to deal
with the crisis," Kwesu said.
The IMF has forecast inflation to
average 4 096% this year after
reaching a year-on-year high of 1281,1% last
year.
Kwesu's warnings added to gloomy forecasts by other economic
commentators who fear the worst is yet to come for the beleaguered country,
currently battling acute foreign currency and food shortages and erratic
fuel supplies.
Last month, independent economist John Robertson
warned that Zimbabwe's
fast-shrinking economy could take up to 23 years to
recover.
Robertson this week said he "suspected" that the hourly
price
increases would soon become custom to the crisis-sapped
country.
"This suggestion by economists is what government fears
most and that
is the reason why you have seen them introducing price
freezes," he said.
"Workers could be forced to demand wage payments
every day to buy
commodities before they go up. This has happened in other
countries and we
suspect it (could) happen in Zimbabwe if there are no
policy interventions,"
Robertson said.
Gono, who had adopted a
vindictive policy punishing speculators,
surprised the market when he turned
to moral suasion under a proposed
package aimed at restoring confidence in
the market through a social
contract involving key
stakeholders.
Zimbabwe Institute of Management president Kingfrey
Chizema said
research had indicated that economic turbulence of the levels
projected in
Zimbabwe could result in a massive flight from formal jobs due
to an erosion
of incomes.
Many workers, including
professionals, have abandoned formal jobs to
resort to trading business on
the informal market or fled to other countries
in search of better
opportunities.
Zim Independent
Zanele Moyo
AN influx of cheap Chinese goods that has flooded
the country since
the government's Look East policy five years ago has
distressed local
manufacturing companies, businessdigest established this
week.
Industry players said locally-manufactured products were
being driven
off the market by Chinese products which were cheap but less
durable.
Locally-manufactured products are more highly-priced as a
result of
high production costs.
"The competition faced by
local manufacturers is very tough since they
do not have adequate foreign
currency to buy raw materials, so the
indigenous manufacturers cannot win
the competition against those
substandard goods that are imported into the
country," said Alfred Dube,
chairman of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of
Commerce.
He said the substandard goods were being sold at very low
prices but
warned the practice was akin to "dumping".
The cheap
imports have a crippling effect on the economy, Dube said.
Zim Independent
By Jonathan Moyo
NOW that the Zimbabwean crisis has undeniably
reached its tipping
point with catastrophic failure looming on the horizon
as everything for
everyone everywhere across the country begins to rot or
collapse beyond
repair, it is alarming to observe that President Robert
Mugabe remains
doggedly in hot pursuit of a reckless three-pronged strategy
to keep himself
in power beyond 2008 without having to face the electorate
ever again.
The components of this creepy strategy are the
reshuffled deadwood
cabinet announced this week, the impossible social
contract proposed last
week by the governor of the Reserve Bank and the
sinister proposal to
harmonise presidential and parliamentary elections in
2010 under the
laughable pretext of cutting administrative
costs.
Mugabe's latest futile attempt to impose a sinister
extension of his
now unwanted rule came last week on Wednesday at the first
meeting in 2007
of the Zanu PF politburo. While the meeting reaffirmed the
Goromonzi
position that the 2010 proposal should be sent back to the ruling
party's
provincial structures where it faces certain death, the fact that
Mugabe
continues to single-mindedly push for the widely unpopular proposal
poses a
dangerous threat to national security, political stability and
economic
recovery efforts given that he is now a dangerous dying horse whose
last
kicks could be fatal to the nation if left unchecked.
Ironically, or was it by some kind of fateful coincidence, it was on
the
same Wednesday of the politburo meeting last week when Reserve Bank
governor
Gideon Gono presented his landmark monetary policy statement that
effectively acknowledged failure as the only option under Mugabe's Zanu PF
rule while also proposing as the way forward a non-starter in the form of a
"social contract" between a discredited, aloof and dysfunctional Zanu PF
government led by an unwanted president, a battered and embittered business
community that has grind to a halt and a disempowered and poverty stricken
labour force that is now praying for God's intervention.
Make
no mistake about it, world history does not have even one example
of an
embattled country with such mutually antagonistic would-be partners
who are
breeds apart in every respect ever entering into a social contract
let alone
a successful one. A necessary precondition for a viable social
contract
around the world is a functional and capable constitutional
government that
enjoys national and international goodwill.
That kind of government
is precisely what Zimbabwe does not have today
and cannot hope to have under
Mugabe who this week demonstrated beyond doubt
that he has come to the end
of the road when he announced a practically
useless reshuffled cabinet
packed with deadwood and thus not fit for the
purpose.
For
example, Samuel Mumbengegwi is a jolly good fellow to those who
know him but
he cannot and will not be taken seriously as Minister of
Finance,
particularly in these trying and tragic times of economic turmoil.
His
appointment engenders economic doom and spreads political despair when
it
should be inspiring all-round confidence.
As things now stand
Mugabe's officialdom is offering suffering
Zimbabweans a self-serving
strategy with three mutually supportive but
unworkable deals as the solution
to the unprecedented economic meltdown,
political decay and institutional
collapse gripping the country:
* a do-nothing reshuffled cabinet
full of recycled deadwood;
* a proposed social contract which is
essentially pie in the sky
because there is no capable government on the
ground that is fit for the
purpose with the necessary goodwill to foster
such a contract; and
* a proposed sinister extension of Mugabe's
presidential term by at
least two years under the cover of harmonising
presidential and
parliamentary elections in 2010.
There is no
deal here. Zimbabwe urgently needs a new competent
government with national
and international goodwill under a new leader, not
a reshuffled cabinet led
by a failed and discredited sunset president who
wants to cling onto power
through mendacious means when he should be leaving
office.
Regarding the 2010 proposal, it should be obvious to anyone who cares
to
think honestly about the sad state of our country today that the plan to
harmonise presidential and parliamentary elections merely as a cover for
extending Mugabe's term by at least two years from 2008 - outside a popular
election and outside a comprehensive package of constitutional reforms - is
tantamount to adding fuel to the already raging fires of instability across
the country.
In the same vein, the proposal for a social
contract, however well
meant or intended, is frankly wholly misplaced under
these troubling
national circumstances and is akin to burying one's head in
the sand and
hoping for the best while there is nothing better or good to
justify that
hope.
The time has come for Zimbabweans in crucial
national positions in
government and related state institutions and within
Zanu PF itself to
realise and acknowledge without fear or favour that the
problem is
manifestly Mugabe, stupid.
Given the rot in and
collapse of all things big and small in our
country, Zimbabweans -
especially those in Zanu PF, government and related
public institutions -
now have an inescapable duty to make a clear and
historic choice without
prejudice whether to put Mugabe first or Zimbabwe
first. This means that
everyone regardless of their station in life or
political affiliation must
stand up to Mugabe's triple strategy.
In order to do that well, it
is important to understand that what
Mugabe wants to achieve through his
triple strategy of harmonising
presidential and parliamentary elections in
2010, his reshuffled
deadwood-cabinet and the social contract proposed by
the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe is to circumvent popular elections by
subverting the constitution
for personal purposes of remaining life
president.
Mugabe wants to achieve this by any means necessary or
available to
him with or without executive powers in order to continue
enjoying the
immunity of his office as an incumbent. He simply does not want
to become a
living former president with weakened immunity liable to
prosecution by his
successor or anybody else in or outside Zimbabwe with a
human rights bone to
chew with him.
In particular Mugabe is
hoping to use the 2010 plan, supported by his
new deadwood-cabinet and the
proposed social contract, to move as early as
March 2008 from executive
president to a ceremonial non-executive president
elected by the two houses
of parliament sitting together as an electoral
college.
Under
this sinister scheme which Mugabe's propagandists have poorly
presented as a
"dignified exit" they say is different from the feared
"political
consolidation", Mugabe would appoint a prime minister from the
majority
party in parliament who in theory would form and lead either a Zanu
PF
government or a government of national unity depending on who would be
prime
minister.
There are two major problems with this among many other
worrying
considerations.
In the first place, the plan is not
part of a wide ranging
constitutional reform package which Zimbabwe needs.
It is all and only about
Mugabe's immunity needs as an individual. If Gono's
proposed social contract
was anchored in broad-based constitutional reforms,
then there would be
something important to talk about and support because
that is what the
country needs.
In the second place, the plan
views Mugabe's proposed movement from
executive president with ominous
powers to a ceremonial president presumably
but not certainly without
executive powers as a "dignified exit". Yet this
movement would in fact
neither be an exit nor dignified.
How can Mugabe's proposed
movement, as head of state retaining the
title of president, from one
highest office to another be an exit when it is
clearly a sinister re-entry
through the backdoor?
A backdoor re-entry into power without the
democratic mandate of the
people through the polls is by definition not
dignified.
One does not need to be a rocket scientist to realise
that, because he
would have had unchallenged executive powers for over 27
years and because
he would still be president of the ruling Zanu PF, Mugabe
could in March
2008 become a ceremonial non-executive president in de jure
terms under the
2010 plan while remaining the de facto executive
president.
This would be necessitated by accumulated power and
political realties
within Zanu PF, the military and security organs of the
state whose
superiors remain solidly behind Mugabe.
In any
case, it would be very odd and totally unacceptable to have
Mugabe as a
ceremonial non-executive president while he is also the
president of Zanu PF
who presides over the Zanu PF central committee and
politburo which are said
to be superior to the cabinet and therefore above
government. A ceremonial,
non-executive president must necessarily be above
active party politics as
head of state.
As such, it is imperative that Zimbabweans from
across the political
divide should do everything they can to reject Mugabe's
triple strategy of
seeking to remain president for life outside the
electoral process for
personal reasons of protecting his immunity to the
detriment of the national
interest.
* Professor Moyo is
independent MP for Tsholotsho.
Zim Independent
Ray
Matikinye
IT took nearly four years for Gideon Gono's tenure as
central bank
governor for it to dawn on him that the Frog Prince that is the
Zimbabwean
economy needs more than just a kiss.
All it needs,
say critics, is for Gono to follow Bill Clinton in
declaring: "It's the
politics, stupid!"
On becoming governor, Gono envisaged a Zimbabwe
with a single economy
free of distortions, with matching fiscal discipline
and tight monetary
policy, and enjoying cordial relations with key
international donors and
capital markets.
None of his
projections has come to pass.
Without seeking to upset those of his
principals who despise "bookish
economics", Gono last Wednesday sought an
amenable way of setting a new
economic recovery agenda rooted in political
realities.
He opted for a social contract involving labour,
employers, government
and civic society to lift Zimbabwe out of its
seven-year economic morass.
But an inclusive social contract could
turn out to be the Achilles
heel of his recovery plan.
Different signals emanated from the ruling party itself.
Writing in
the party mouthpiece, The Voice, ruling party national
chairman John Nkomo
seemed to support Gono's social contract initiative.
"These
realities demand therefore the need to work together in a
complementary
fashion to jointly improve the lives of all who make up
Zimbabwe. We have
before called for all partners that constitute the social
contract to have a
shared vision if we are to realise economic prosperity,"
Nkomo
said.
Yet party spokesperson, Nathan Shamuyarira, on Tuesday was
dismissive
of the social contract. "We are not involved in that social
contract. Ask
the Reserve Bank," he said.
Pressed to elaborate
on how so when Gono had said he had the blessing
of his principals,
Shamuyarira interjected: "Aiwa, aiwa." (No, no) We are
not involved, thank
you," before switching off his phone.
The state media quoted Dumiso
Dabengwa as having said the politburo
had put its weight behind Gono's
proposals.
Some of the stakeholders that constitute the social
contract appear to
doubt Gono and his principals' sincerity.
Leader of one of the two opposition MDC formations, Arthur Mutambara,
said:
"A regime that brutalises leaders from labour, civic society, business
and
political parties, has no capacity to facilitate the requisite
discourse.
"The causes of our economic meltdown and hence the
distortions include
political illegitimacy, poor governance, corruption,
global isolation, poor
economic management, and misguided economic
controls."
Mutambara added: "There is also an admission that this
meltdown has
been financially beneficial to Zanu PF leaders and their
surrogates."
He says a social contract depends on solid political
will, total
buy-in, inclusive ownership, acceptance of the problems, honesty
of
participants, and moral suasion.
On Tuesday this week,
Mutambara announced a defiance campaign to
ratchet pressure on Zanu PF for a
new constitution.
His view resonates with the rival formation of
the opposition MDC led
by Morgan Tsvangirai.
"We have always
made it clear that the precondition to Zimbabwe's
economic recovery is a
decisive solution to issues of legitimacy and
governance that have arrested
this country since the stolen parliamentary
election of 2000 and the
presidential election of 2002," said
secretary-general, Tendai Biti in
response to Gono's monetary policy
statement.
Gono realised
that all his earlier monetary policy frameworks had
fallen flat on their
backs for ducking real causes. Allowing political
expediency to override
economic considerations and common sense merely
produced temporary political
gratification at the expense of sustainable
economic
development.
"Politicians need to go out and explain to the people
that this
irrationality cannot be sustained for ever," Gono said, calling
for a return
to a market economy to remove distortions that only serve to
enrich a few
while impoverishing the majority.
"The current
fragmented and seemingly knee-jerk, half-hearted approach
had failed to
deliver economic good," Gono admitted.
"There is no door or window
left open for that luxury anymore," the
central bank boss said, with the
boldness of a Spanish bullfighter.
During one consultation meeting
key to Gono's announcement,
Vice-President Joseph Msika remarked that "the
leadership has overplayed
political expediency to please the nation in a
situation that is volatile".
Time had come, Msika said "to tell the nation
the true nature of the
situation and the remedial actions had to be put in
place".
Probably exasperated by pandering to a fickle and predatory
ruling
elite that believes national assets exist for them to plunder, Gono
threw
the gauntlet down for politicians to drill into their constituents
that time
for vote-seeking populist policies now had little road to
run.
"We have proposed a timetable within which our political
leaders in
parliament, senate and cabinet ought to take this message to the
people,"
Gono said last Wednesday.
He closed space on his
principals for allowing political and
individual, sectoral or regional
interests and differences to hold sway and
for pursuing policies and actions
designed to fulfil those individualistic
and patronising goals at the
expense of national good.
"Whilst it has been fashionable to blame
successive droughts, illegal
sanctions as the main culprits of Zimbabwe's
current hardships," Gono said,
"price distortions invented by government
price controls had become a major
millstone round the economy."
Decades of pursuing populist policies by putting a lid on price
movements
against time tested market forces had constricted economic
performance.
For instance, politically connected people have
abused subsidised
products from government parastatals such as the GMB to
enrich themselves,
encouraging "so-called chefs" to engage in reselling
subsidised grain bought
at $600 per tonne back to the parastatal at $52 500
without breaking a
sweat.
Gono's nerve to flag the red cloth
and goad politicians to tackle the
country's crisis sounded
courageous.
But for the raft of his suggestions to succeed, Gono
needs large doses
of political goodwill.
"...backed by
undivided social, business, labour and political
commitment - from
grassroots politician to the presidium, from the lay
preacher at the village
to the bishops of our churches, from the factory
worker to the chief
executive and leaders of our trade unions".
Mutambara doubts
whether the deeply entrenched interest group who have
benefited from the
status quo will give up easily to a level playing field
in a social
contract, all within one month.
Much as Gono would like labour to
be involved, the Zimbabwe Congress
of Trade Unions (ZCTU) is
sceptical.
For labour, a social contract entails revisiting the
Tripartite
Negotiating Forum (TNF) scuttled by government's mistrust that it
disguised
a "regime change" agenda.
ZCTU president, Lovemore
Matombo doubts whether a social contract
could get off the ground because of
government intransigence.
"Gono is calling from the wilderness
because no one will listen to
him," Matombo says.
"The
government does not believe in social dialogue, neither does it
believe in
consultations." Matombo said the major hurdle in getting the
social contract
on stream is the ruling class who fear being deprived of
their affluent
lifestyle that feeds on corrupt practices.
Zim Independent
Reviewed by RS Roberts
DS Moore - Suffering for Territory:
Race, Place, and Power in Zimbabwe
(Harare, Weaver Press, 2005), xxiii,
399pp.
R Soper - The Terrace Builders of Nyanga (Harare, Weaver
Press, 2006),
vi, 82pp.
THESE two very different books
partly cover the same territory, for
Donald Moore's book is also concerned
with part of Nyanga: Tangwena's area
(Gaeresi Ranch and its surrounds)
eastward and north-eastward to the
Mozambique frontier. But the time-spans
covered are quite different.
For the terraces and associated
structures described in Robert Soper's
booklet were built and exploited
approximately from the 14th to the late
18th century, when they appear to
have been gradually abandoned, perhaps in
consequence of the "Manyika"
dispersal of the Chihota-Bushu-Mujinga and then
the Chirumanzu
groups.
Tangwena's people on the other hand probably came into the
eastern
edges of the area after that abandonment, not all that long before
the
colonial occupation of 1890 and the chief himself not until
1899-1902.
The people of the northern area - earlier inhabitants
such as
Sawunyama and Katerere, and Tangwena later - were probably
Sena-speaking
Tonga by origin with links to the basic population of Barwe
rather than to
the Shona of the plateau.
But in the 19th
century they were acculturated by their Shona
neighbours and integrated to
greater or lesser extent into the local
political structure. This was
dominated by Mutasa expanding from the south
and by Makoni to the west. To
the east, soon to be shut off by the new
colonial frontier with Mozambique,
was Makombe of Shona origin ruling over
the basic Sena-Tonga population of
Barwe.
These three Shona ruling families all claim ancestral links
with the
Mutapa state to the north which, however, appears not to have
impinged on
the Nyanga area any more than the earlier Zimbabwe culture/state
had. Thus
the Nyanga area was relatively isolated and probably never had a
large
population.
Neither of the books under review makes this
essential background very
clear, concentrating as they do on their narrower
focus.
Soper's book is a resumé, for the general reader and visitor
to the
area, of his major work, Nyanga: Ancient Fields, Settlements and
Agricultural History in Zimbabwe, which appeared in 2002.
It is
easy to read and gives an orderly account of the Nyanga sites
that stretch
over some 5 000 square kilometres and represent one of the
largest complexes
of ancient building in Africa: a practical folk
architecture that attests
the energy and ingenuity of its past inhabitants.
No room here for
fanciful and/or exotic theories, little evidence even
of external trade or
gold mining - just the hard work of agricultural
communities making the most
of a difficult terrain.
The most obvious testaments of this are the
stone-faced terraces
covering escarpments and slopes, with their
complementary cultivation ridges
and water furrows; and among them the
habitation sites clustered on hilltops
and stone-built homesteads lower down
such as enclosures and pit structures.
The last mentioned are the
feature that has excited most popular
interest and fanciful interpretations;
but Soper convincingly argues that
they were basically for stock, perhaps
stall fed in the growing season.
Not mentioned by Soper, but
perhaps of interest to those still
sceptical of this interpretation, is an
article of mine nearly 30 years ago,
in NADA, where I tried to show how and
why cattle were bred so small.
Moore's book is very different. It
deals with the small area where
Tangwena's people lived and particularly
with the ex-Gaeresi Ranch where
Rekayi the putative chiefly successor lived
in the mid-1960s with some 150
families, of whom 36 were later to be evicted
by proclamation followed by
force.
Their suffering for
territory is Moore's theme, a pivot of memory and
identification,
particularly when the government bought the Ranch for them
after
Independence but then (through a myriad of officials from Lands,
Agriculture, Local Government and Parks and Wildlife) began to resettle them
in lines (villagisation) in ways which they resisted to the point of renewed
threats of eviction.
Not only, it appears, is the Native Land
Husbandry Act alive and well
but also a new form of Land Apportionment
appeared when an army officer from
outside virtually took over some of their
state land to make it into a
private commercial farm.
These are
but a couple of the numerous intriguing insights into land
in the
post-colony provided by this stimulating book.
But the reader must
be warned that unlike Soper's this is no easy
read. There is no systematic,
certainly no chronological, exposition.
Finding what one wants is not helped
by an indifferent index; and the
chapters, arranged around concepts, have
titles that give little hint of
their contents. The main concepts derive
from Gramsci and Foucault to
demonstrate an entanglement of the
landscape.
And equally entangled is Moore's prose, abounding in
jargon and
strained metaphors. Whole sentences, often tortuously long, are
of numbing
opacity. A short example is his gloss on planting apple trees to
provide
food and cash, and establish some claim to occupation: "Fruits'
organic
facticity made seedlings a consequential actant in assemblages
located in
Nyamutsapa's landscape."
In conclusion it is far
from clear how far one can generalise from
this particular case. Tangwena's
total following was estimated officially at
about 1 500 in the early 1970s,
although Moyana put the figure at twice
that - a mere 0,03 - 0,06% of the
total African population of about five
million; and of that following only a
minority of families were involved in
the Tangwena affair.
And
an untypical if not unique group at that: a post-occupation
immigrant ruler
with much of his following on, or moving onto, land
alienated to Europeans
but recognised as a chief without a real base in the
reserves.
Perhaps this marginality was exacerbated by family rivalries for the
succession to colonial chiefly status (already under threat of abolition
because of its smallness) on the death of Rekayi's predecessor in 1965 - his
defiance of the government a desperate attempt to rally support when the
essential ritual regalia of the chieftainship were hidden away by
rivals?
Was his suffering for 15 years for territory, as in the
book's title,
rather than just for land?
These questions should
make one hesitant to identify his case with
land hunger or the wider
contemporary agricultural-land scene in Zimbabwe,
as the author cautiously
and blurb writers and others incautiously do.
Territory and land
are not the same thing. And Tangwena's followers
are still suffering for
land and development 20 years after the purchase of
Gaeresi
Ranch.
Nevertheless, Moore's book has striking insights that should
encourage
the general reader to persevere.
The impecunious and
book-starved Zimbabwe public should be grateful to
Weaver Press for the
republication of this and other books from abroad and
the publication of
local works such as Soper's at reasonable prices.
And our gratitude
would be even greater if the press could persuade
its authors to provide
decent maps to help the reader understand the
complications of their texts
that are so grounded in the landscape.
Zim Independent
Comment
PRESIDENT Mugabe this week finally announced a
cabinet reshuffle in
which he tried to live the lie that his out-of-sorts
government can actually
reform itself with him as leader, using the same
failed personnel.
Finance minister Herbert Murerwa - for a long
time the target of
Mugabe's vitriol for his employment of "textbook
economics" - was removed
and replaced by educationist Samuel Mumbengegwi
while Joseph Made was
demoted at Agriculture but accommodated in a dubious
creation called the
Agricultural Engineering and Mechanisation department.
Unelected MP
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu is now Information minister while former
deputy ministers
Sylvester Nguni and Samuel Undenge have been elevated to
head State
Enterprises and Economic Development respectively.
In the past when Mugabe reshuffled his cabinet, the general feeling
among
commentators was that the appointments did not meet public
expectations. But
this is no longer the case.
Mugabe's continued occupation of the
political space is now the key
issue here. His blood flows in the veins of
his cabinet ministers and no
amount of re-organisation will bring results.
In fact, those not behaving
like "Presidential Yes-men" have been pushed
out.
Former Industry and Trade minister Nkosana Moyo ran away from
office
in July 2000 citing undue interference by government in business.
Simba
Makoni was evicted from the Ministry of Finance because he had
advocated
devaluation of the currency. Now Murerwa is the fall guy because
he is
bookish.
One constant about these ministers is that each
one of them was made
to preside over economic policies which President
Mugabe's government had
little belief in. There was no attempt to implement
agreed policies to
remove price controls, stem money supply and fight
inflation which were
easily trampled on by Mugabe's populist
cavalry.
If anything, all the ministers left the economy in a worse
off state
than when they assumed office; not a fault of their own but
because they
belonged to a system that is doomed to self-destruct. And
suddenly
Mumbengegwi is expected to bring the Midas touch.
He
enters the fray at a time when government is swaying to central
bank
governor Gideon Gono's social contract, which among other issues calls
for
fiscal restraint in spending on luxuries, and a wages and prices
freeze.
Zanu PF has said it supports Gono's plans. Writing in the
party
newspaper The Voice on Sunday, party chairman John Nkomo espoused the
virtues of the social contract and called for "a shared vision" among
partners. President Mugabe's cabinet reshuffle should have presented him
with an opportunity to demonstrate his party's and government's commitment
to the social contract.
Here was an opportunity to remove
hopeless ministries; notable ones
being Public and Interactive Affairs,
Policy Implementation, and
Indigenisation and Empowerment. Instead the
president created another
portfolio to accommodate the demoted Made. The
minister with a
well-documented history of failure, could have been muscled
out from a
vantage position at the feeding trough but has now been rescued
with a
purpose-built department supervising what is left of
agriculture.
We do not believe that Made is capable of making any
positive
contribution to agriculture which is key to the recovery of this
economy. If
Murerwa was dropped because of failure then the same should have
happened to
Made instead of finding him another job. But Mugabe does not
operate that
way.
President Mugabe has his own weird way of
measuring success among his
ministers. It is not about deliverables like
crop production figures,
planning and the efficacy of extension services -
in the case of
agriculture - neither is it the number of jobs created by the
Industry
minister or mineral production by the Mines ministry. Performance
doesn't
enter into it. It is the minister's willingness to toe the line no
matter
how obtuse the policies.
Munacho Mutezo, who presides
over Zinwa - a state agency credited with
the failing water reticulation
systems countrywide - was elevated to a full
Minister of Water and
Infrastructure Development.
The extent of our crisis is one that
demands fresh ideas from cabinet
which is supposed to represent the cream of
the political establishment. We
do not believe that the current crop
represents that. It is a perpetuation
of past failures which are celebrated
in the corridors of power as success.
Land reform is a case in point. Is it
that President Mugabe in his heart of
hearts believes that his team is
delivering or does he just love being
surrounded by pliant cheer leaders
singing for their supper?
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
ONE of the cardinal
tenets of the journalism practice in addition to
balance and fair reporting
is the confidentiality of sources, what at law is
called lawyer-client
confidentiality. The nearest you get to that in
everyday life is a
banker-client relationship.
It was not always the same with me and
one Nathaniel Manheru who
writes a weekly column in the Saturday Herald. I
didn't know him until two
weeks ago.
On January 27 he took me
down memory lane, every time making sure I
wasn't lost in the course of the
narrative, which is easy with me when
articles that should reflect
intellectual honesty turn out to be treatises
in tribal and racial
bigotry.
In the course of reminding me of who he was, he made
personal
inferences about me that I am going to respond to briefly below.
Manheru
talks of "sworn enemies", "tribes" and "races" in the ownership of
national
resources.
I have no enemies either in private life or
on the "level of ideas".
It would be hard for me to be a sworn enemy of his
ideas because I don't
know what they are. But his fascination with crudity
and the scatological
has been a source of embarrassment for me and many
other readers of his
column. That is on the rare occasion when he is not
engrossed with his
affected writing style which draws the reader's attention
more to the author
than the subject under discussion.
I have
not "developed a bit of irreverence" for the revolution that
brought
Zimbabwe's Independence. On the contrary, I am revolted by the
inheritors of
colonial political power and its institutions who today make
ordinary
Zimbabweans feel that Independence was not worth the sacrifice or
that
things were better under Ian Smith. Railing against those who have
sullied
the noble ideals of the Second Chimurenga is not to deprecate the
revolution
itself.
If Manheru believes that the heroes of Zimbabwe's
Independence war
died so that we can nurture corruption, starve the poor,
become a beggar
state and that our sisters and daughters can survive on
selling their bodies
to foreigners, there is every reason for us to
differ.
If he believes the Independence war was fought so that
millions of
Zimbabweans could escape poverty and political repression in
their country
of birth only by seeking refuge in the arms of our former
colonisers, we
have valid reasons to differ.
If he believes a
"writhing economy" is what land reform and black
empowerment stand for, he
deserves my pity. No sane person today would call
Zimbabwe a "jewel of
Africa".
The crystallisation of "who he is" was our chance meeting
at a
Barclays Bank ATM along Nelson Mandela three years ago. The charitable
reader will not miss the malice when Manheru claims I was "fetching wads of
good money, me (Manheru) a pittance for which my profession is notoriously
renowned".
I don't know what his profession is, but object to
the insinuation
that he is in it out of patriotism while the rest of us do
what we do for
the love of money. I must nevertheless commend him for his
consummate
mastery of Warren Buffet's investment acumen that with his
pittance he
manages to live comfortably in the leafy suburbs of Harare while
I live
among the poor in Kuwadzana.
"Nyathi belonged to that
tribe of doubters, a tribe whose mood was
beginning to shift from active
cynicism and even opposition to land reforms,
to a respectful courting of
all those persons deemed well-placed and thus
could put in a word for 'me'
to get a piece of the land cake," declared
Manheru.
This is
nothing short of a scandal. He would be hard-pressed to point
out one black
Zimbabwean who was opposed to land reform per se instead of
the shamelessly
racial and political opportunism it presented.
I, like most honest
Zimbabweans, want land, but not as a largesse of
political patronage in
which venal individuals "put in a word" for me. No
George!
I
don't have to apologise for wanting land in Zimbabwe because it
doesn't
belong to Zanu PF. In case Manheru still doubts where I stand, I owe
my
total allegiance to the state of Zimbabwe, which means all its patriotic
people, but not to the current grotesquery, the debauchery trying to pass
itself off as a people's government.
Now that I know the
corporeal Manheru, I can't believe that he is the
villager who writes about
the villager, the same scoundrel who was accused
of punishing his wife with
karate punches and kicks over a private dispute.
It was inevitable
that Manheru would end his tirade with a detour into
his favourite pastime -
tribe. I should be happy if Manheru could explain to
me why any political
institution headed by a Khumalo is always tribal and
one headed by a
Chigwedere is invariably national.
In this obsession he has the
unwavering support of one Geoff Nyarota
who never tires of telling the whole
world that the Shona constitute 80% of
the Zimbabwean population, but does
not explain why in their masterly
majority they have failed to free this
country from post-colonial tyranny.
Lastly, Manheru lied that
Zimbabwe Independent publisher Trevor Ncube
is Zimbabwean by dint of Zambian
law. Zimbabwean law on its own adequately
recognises his nationality, as the
court found. Ignorance of such basic law
for somebody in Manheru's position
is inexcusable.
Still on Ncube, Manheru should be reminded that his
ethnic snobbery
gets the better of national policy. Nothing could be as
offensive as calling
Ncube Aphiri. In its original form when we were still
proud of ourselves
soon after Independence, Aphiri equated to nigger,
kaffir, makwerekwere,
Mosken or MaNyasarandi or Madzviti or Masvina. It is a
term of contempt.
But that is how Manheru views Zimbabwe's minority
ethnic groups and it
is with a clear conscience that I pierce the veil of
secrecy to expose him
as the permanent secretary in the Ministry of
Information and personal
spokesperson for the president of the Republic of
Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe,
George Charamba, from Buhera. At least it explains
his political ambivalence
given the person he serves and his main political
rival. In the same vein, I
reveal the name of the white farmer I wrote about
as Bruce Gemmill.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Vincent Kahiya
IF Masvingo governor
Willard Chiwewe wants to be taken seriously by
anyone, he should make an
effort to understand the basic operations of the
civil service or at least
his role in government.
A sabre-rattling Chiwewe last weekend chose
Chikombedzi - one of the
most underdeveloped areas in the country - to set
out the role of a civil
servant and to coin a definition of the term
"apolitical". He said failure
to implement government projects emanated from
clashes between the public
and civil servants. Then came his egregious
definition of a civil servant:
"I must make it clear today that I am
committed to the statement that civil
servants will be said to be apolitical
if they are willing to serve the
interests of Zanu PF and support the
government of the day.
"They will only become political if they
support the opposition party
because by doing so, it automatically means
that they will not be able to
fully implement policies of the existing
government."
How convoluted can the mind of the governor be? Let me
also surmise
that anyone who fails to implement government policy is
political and that
includes Zanu PF civil servants like Chiwewe and his
gang. To test this
theory, he does not need to go far. He can look at the
stalled projects in
his province. Chiwewe should be reminded that
Tokwe-Mukorsi dam remains
incomplete because of "apolitical" politicians
failing to prioritise the
allocation of resources to key capital
projects.
I can also point at the slow speed at which irrigation
projects have
taken off in his province where there is a huge concentration
of large
volume dams. Which "apolitical" civil servant was responsible for
the
incredible winter maize project? Chiwewe can also do well to tell the
nation
which political civil servant urged the Chitsa people to settle in
Gonarezhou National Park and the Save Conservancy.
All this is
the handiwork of senior government officials who are all
Zanu PF officials.
Chiwewe should be reminded that he is a political
appointee wielding immense
influence in the province. Government has worked
to politicise the civil
service by appointing party apparatchiks to all key
positions in government.
I am sure that Chiwewe is aware of a deliberate
policy in government today
to vet staff joining the civil service, all in a
vainglorious bid to weed
out perceived opposition members.
This has nothing to do with
efficiency if we consider the bloated size
of the civil service and its high
levels of inefficiency. The appointees
from this exercise are men and women
whose day to day operations are
inspired by Zanu PF's indolent work ethic
where simple policy issues are
implemented at the speed of a glacier. They
draw their inspiration from
their leaders and Chiwewe is one of them. He
should therefore not be
surprised when policies are not implemented
timeously in his province.
This is the disadvantage that
politicisation brings. Whether we like
it or not, Zimbabwe is a sharply
divided country where party affiliations
are known. But in recent years a
number of senior appointments have been
influenced by political
considerations, including Chiwewe's.
Such appointments have further
undermined the public's confidence in
not just the neutrality and
professionalism of the civil service but also
its ability to
deliver.
System failures in the civil service are as a creation of
the
political bureaucrats who owe their allegiance to their political
masters.
Commenting on the British civil service, General Sir
Walter Walker in
1981 said this: "Britain has invented a new missile. It's
called the civil
servant - it doesn't work and it can't be fired." Rings a
bell, doesn't it
Willy?
Zim Independent
Muckraker
Muckraker was interested to see a statement by
secretary for
Information George Charamba on Saturday dismissing claims by
Standard acting
editor Bill Saidi that he had received a threat in the form
of a bullet over
a cartoon his paper had carried.
Charamba
suggested the story was designed to divert attention from the
Standard's
claim that RBZ governor Gideon Gono had recently bought a
top-class Mercedes
Benz.
It would be difficult to understand why the Standard would be
seeking
to divert attention from that matter when it had already been
settled by an
invitation from Gono to the paper to take a ride in his new
top-class
Mercedes Benz - which turned out to be an S600 and not a Brabus as
reported.
This was the "indefensible falsehood" that the excitable
Charamba
makes a meal of despite Gono's efforts to put it to rest. Indeed,
Charamba
has been doing a lot of speaking on behalf of the governor recently
even
when he has no mandate to do so.
But putting that aside,
how can Charamba "dismiss" something that has
a police crime report number
and whose evidence was widely witnessed in a
busy newsroom? A bullet falling
out of a large brown envelope is rather
difficult to miss!
There is of course a more sinister dimension to this huffing and
puffing. A
week earlier the poisonous Nathaniel Manheru columnist had warned
Trevor
Ncube against employing Saidi.
".This game you play through that
aged vomit of decent journalism you
put temporarily at the Standard will one
day hurt you," Manheru threatened.
Four days later the bullet
arrived at the Standard offices.
It may be worth recalling here the
remarks Jonathan Moyo made just 48
hours ahead of the bombing of the Daily
News offices in 2001. Despite Moyo's
welcome preparedness to spill a number
of beans lately, he has yet to
disclose whether he can enlighten us on that
episode. What we do know is
that six years later the police have made no
arrests or even interviewed
anybody in connection with the Daily News
bombing and the one a year
earlier, apart of course from a hapless
photographer who happened to be
first on the scene.
With the
establishment of the Human Rights Commission we need to start
documenting
this delinquency so we can test the commitment of that body to
full
disclosure and thereby the credibility of what many see as an official
smokescreen.
Commenting on another story by newzimbabwe.com
that there had been a
shootout by soldiers attached to the presidential
guard unit at State House,
Charamba said "it turns out the shootout was only
audible in far-away London
and not in the Avenues area next to State House
where flat owners and
tenants enjoyed undisturbed sleep in a peaceful
environment guaranteed by
our various arms of security".
It
doesn't take too much cynicism to agree that the tenants in nearby
flat
blocks housing state security officers and their families would sleep
peacefully amidst occasional gunfire emanating from outside State House. How
many motorists have been shot at, some fatally, outside State House over the
years? And what steps have been taken to deal with those
responsible?
No wonder flat-owners and tenants sleep peacefully
nearby. What do
they have to worry about in a land of
impunity?
A story in the Standard last weekend caught our
attention. It
concerned former Home Affairs minister Dumiso Dabengwa
defending the
interests of Bulawayo's residents in a politburo debate over
water supplies
to the city.
Government is proposing to take
control of water supplies to Bulawayo
through its incompetent parastatal
Zinwa. Dabengwa understandably pointed
out that the interests of the region
would not be served by the move.
There is a background to this that
didn't emerge in the story. During
the drought of the 1990s, 44 boreholes
were drilled by government in the
Nyamandlovu aquifer. Zinwa was given
management of the boreholes.
When the city authorities sought to
lease 39 of these boreholes it
sent its inspectors out to examine them. They
found that only four remained
in functioning order. Zinwa told the
inspectors that if the city wanted to
use any more boreholes they would have
to make them serviceable. Some had
been rendered useless by gold panners
digging in the area with the
permission of government.
Here we
have a case of a city managing its affairs as best it can
becoming the
victim of a populist regime using a parastatal with a track
record of
inefficiency to prejudice the residents.
There is more to it than
that. Here you have an example of Zimbabwean
leaders from across the
political divide working together for the good of
the city they live
in.
Zanu PF doesn't want that. So it will go to extraordinary
lengths to
ensure Bulawayo doesn't get a reliable water supply. As President
Mugabe was
reported as saying in the politburo debate, the imposition of
Zinwa was "not
negotiable" as the ministry responsible for making decisions
about water
supply was mandated to cover the whole country. In other words,
because
government decreed it, it was cast in stone. The residents of
Bulawayo can
go to hell.
That is misrule writ large and it
should be recorded as such.
Readers may recall Muckraker's
theory that Zanu PF leaders and
government officials meet at regular
intervals to decide "what shall we do
this week to make people's lives
hell". Permanent secretary in the Ministry
of Transport George Mlilo has
ruled that it will soon be mandatory for
drivers to renew their licences
"every five to 10 years".
"Under the new rules," the Sunday Mail
reports, "before drivers can
have their licences renewed they must undergo
clearly stipulated road
competence tests."
You can imagine the
chaos that will result from this arbitrary
decision, not to mention the
scope for corruption. How long ago was it that
we had to obtain A4-size
birth certificates to replace the smaller ones in
circulation? And then
there were the number plates that had to be changed -
more than once for
many in order to get this or that bit in. We would love
to know what
companies benefited from that exercise and who they were
connected
to.
Mlilo claims this is all to satisfy Sadc
harmonisation.
Shouldn't he be asked what is happening to the
carbon tax motorists
have to cough up? Has this tax been put to the use
parliament intended when
passing the legislation? We have the right to
know.
Meanwhile, you can imagine the fun as the Congo, Mozambique
and
Zimbabwe try to devise uniform road signs in line with the Sadc
transport
protocol.
Since RBZ governor Gideon Gono produced
his monetary review statement,
we have seen a spate of "if" stories in the
government media.
No, this has nothing to do with Rudyard Kipling.
But they do start off
on the same note. "If only" this or that were done, we
would be a rich
country, the story goes.
The latest to
subscribe to this Utopian hopefulness is Jimmy Psillos
of Crystal Candy. He
told sweet-toothed delegates to a post-monetary policy
statement breakfast
that if only the right policies were in place inflation
could be brought
down. He gave Bolivia as an example!
This is the tenor of spokesmen
for the CZI and ZNCC as well: If only
the right policies could be put in
place Zimbabwe would achieve a
turnaround. But what they all know but cannot
say, for some strange reason,
is that the right policies are not in place
and never will be. So long as
government spending remains out of control,
resources are devoted to
airforce jets and new parliament buildings, and
parastatals remain
bottomless pits of public funds there is no prospect of
inflation being
tamed.
It is a pity Gono, who understands all
this perfectly, couldn't spell
it out. If he wants Zimbabweans to share his
goals he must bite the bullet
(no, not Bill's) and identify the true
inflationary beasts in our midst.
He likes to cite Weimar Germany
which successfully brought down
inflation in 1924. But he carefully omits
that Gustav Stresseman, the
architect of the Reichsmark's recovery, did so
in the context of
international support. Britain and the US agreed to
suspend reparations and
back a stability plan. In other words there had to
be a political settlement
then just as there does now.
Meanwhile repression in Zimbabwe is reaching preposterous levels. A
story in
this week's Times of London reports that 22 mineworkers' wives in
Shurugwi
went to a police station to seek permission to hold a demonstration
about
their husbands' wages. "No," said the policeman. The women turned
round and
walked back towards the bus stop. Before they had reached it, the
police
chased them, arrested them and held them in the cells overnight.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said that the police had decided
that the
women walking together to the bus stop constituted an illegal
demonstration.
Have the authorities realised how bad this sort
of thing makes them
look? And once again, let's not see any silly reports in
the state media
about the opposition tarnishing the country's image. This
was another own
goal.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is
on the war path. To him US
president George Bush is a war criminal who
should be jailed for the rest of
his days. For his stance against Bush and
American imperialism and other
revolutionary policies, Chavez was last week
given powers by the country's
national assembly to rule by decree for the
next one and a half years.
According to an AFP report, Chavez's
opponents questioned such
concentration of power in the hands of one person
"but have been unable to
block the move since they lack representation in
the national assembly after
boycotting the 2005 elections".
Ring a bell in the neighbourhood?
That Zimbabwe has become a
pariah is the message that seems to be
coming out of Chinese president Hu
Jintao's itinerary on the African
continent. This week he was in Zambia
which he praised for its "all-weather
friendship". More than just a pariah,
China probably sees us as a leper to
be touched with a very long
stick.
Who can blame Hu when everybody in the region is erecting an
iron
curtain around us? Wherever he goes he is told, it seems, that there is
no
road to Zimbabwe. As a result we are the only country he has skirted in
his
recent tours of Africa yet we want to shout the loudest about how close
we
are to China. It's all sounding acutely desperate.
There
was an interesting letter in the Sunday Mail in praise of
Mhondoro MP
Sylvester Nguni. The writer said Nguni had done a lot for his
constituency
"unlike some culprits in our government".
"The MP knows what he is
doing," said the writer. "Keep up the good
work."
The author
was one Victor Munemo. He is a 2004 graduate of Border Gezi
Training Camp.
He writes from the safety of imperialist Australia, the land
of "Howard the
Coward".
It exposes the futility of trying to teach patriotism. The
late
Eddison Zvobgo was right when he said people don't feed on
sovereignty.
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
FOR many weeks,
a crisis of expectations has swept the width and depth
of Zimbabwe. The
combination of a sense of desperation that some dynamic and
radical actions
were needed to save the distraught economy, and of an
anticipation that
those actions would be announced in the monetary policy
statement by the
Governor of the Reserve Bank, Gideon Gono, fuelled that
expectation
crisis.
That that would be so was almost inevitable in the light of
the
prevailing, appallingly distressed economic conditions which were
increasingly reducing hundreds of thousands to instant poverty, placing the
survival of ever more businesses in jeopardy, and exacerbating fears of
imminent total collapse.
But the expectations escalated
exponentially following upon the
Minister of Finance, Herbert Murerwa,
stating in his 2007 budget statement
that the monetary policy statement
would include, among other measures, a
significant exchange adjustment
policy.
This disclosure fuelled the pronounced expectation of a
propelling new
direction of monetary policies, and especially so within the
mining,
manufacturing, tourism and agricultural sectors.
However when, after some prolonged delays, the 2006 year-end monetary
policy
statement was presented to the nation, it was markedly at variance
with the
expectations and the hopes of most, and especially so as it
encompassed no
changes of policy in respect of exchange rates and the
interest rate
regime.
While some, with especial reference to leaders of economic
sectors
representative bodies enthused over the statement, an overwhelming
majority
of the captains of commerce and industry were cast into a state of
extreme
doom and gloom. With near manic depression they perceived the
imminent final
demise of their enterprises, and began contemplating how best
to handle that
demise.
Albeit understandably, this was gross
over-reaction!
Although very little of the statement aligned with
the expectations,
it was remarkable in certain respects, and contained some
very great
substantive, even if only in setting down key principles and
prerequisites
for the greatly-craved-for economic recovery.
In
ascribing the adjective "remarkable" to the statement, any not
blinded by
deep-seated bias against the governor must acknowledge his great
frankness
and, in some respects, courage, in identifying economic ills and
the causes
thereof. Indicatively of that frankness and courage were comments
such
as:
l "The current fragmented and seemingly knee-jerk, half-hearted
approval and lack of total commitment from various social, political and
economic partners in or reconstruction journey is undesirable";
l"We have at times allowed political and individual, sectoral or
regional
interests or differences to get the better of us and pursued
policies and
actions designed to fulfill those individualistic and
patronising goal at
the expense of national goodness";
l"If we continue with this
casual and sometimes selfish approach, we
risk subjecting the majority of
our people to continued suffering under the
inflationary yoke, foreign
currency shortages, transport hardships,
inadequate pay levels, and shortage
of basic commodities, parallel market
operations and negative growth, among
other challenges."; and
lWith reference to diverse corrupt and
unlawful acts: "Until and
unless we realise that such illegal, intimidatory
and mafia-style dealings
are a destructive distortion that blunts the
effectiveness of fiscal and
monetary policy transmission in the economy,
then we might as well kiss
goodbye to any hopes of recovery".
These are but a very few of the governor's many blunt and forthright
comments, several of which were directly targeted at many of the political
hierarchy. He had the courage to confront openly many of the very powerful
who have been foremost at the destruction of the economy, and the
undermining of monetary policies.
The other facet of the
statement of great merit was the governor's
recognition that any meaningful
economic recovery requires a comprehensive,
holistic approach in contrast to
resorting to a few measures focused upon
specific ills, whilst disregarding
many others.
Assertively, the governor said the "resolution of the
current
social-economic crisis will require nothing short of a full package,
made up
of well-sequenced, simultaneous adjustment actions across the board;
in
government; at the central bank; in the financial sector; in the private
sector; by labour, civic society, NGOs, embassies and international
organisations", and he then amplified thereon by presenting a very
comprehensive mainframe of a total economic recovery programme, inclusive of
a guiding implementation timetable.
However, (and inevitably
there is usually a sting in the tail), the
statement did, and does, provoke
some very great concern. Although the
essence of the holistic recovery
programme presented by the governor would
have very great prospects of
success, provided that all stakeholders
"buy-in" (including the many
misguided, self-centred politicians in general,
and those vehemently opposed
to the governor in particular), nevertheless
there is, for one key reason, a
great risk of failure.
The risk is that whilst the patient (the
Zimbabwean economy) is being
prepared for life-saving, health-restoring
surgery, being the governor's
holistic programme, it is not being accorded
essential life-support.
The potential of the patient dying before
reaching the operating table
is enormous, for the statement not only does
not maintain the air supply
necessary for the patient's survival, but to all
intents and purposes cuts
off that air supply.
For weeks ahead
of the delivery of the monetary policy statement, the
state-controlled media
expounded prolifically upon the evils of currency
devaluation, echoing
numerous of the political echelon who have
unhesitatingly castigated the
governor for his previous exchange rate
adjustments.
In their
vigorous endeavours to destroy him, and very often also to
ensure
continuance of an economic environment conducive to their
self-enrichment,
they have repeatedly contended that devaluation worsens the
economy and
that, that has been the consequence of each of the previous
devaluations
initiated by the governor.
However, they very conveniently
disregard why the devaluations have
failed to achieve an economic
turnaround.
First and foremost, because of governmentally imposed
constraints upon
the extent of the devaluations, most of them were
unrealistically
inadequate.
Of greater negative consequence was
that, after each devaluation, the
exchange rates remained static for
prolonged periods of time, whilst
exporters' production costs continued to
soar upwards; so hyperinflation
continued.
Thus it was not
possible for them to export viably, the targeted
increased foreign exchange
inflows did not materialise, and all other
expected benefits of devaluation
were not achieved.
The non-achievement was not because devaluation
had been wrong, but
because each had been hopelessly insufficient, and
devoid of necessary
follow-through.
The vociferous opposition
to devaluation invariably centres upon the
inflationary impacts thereof, due
to increased cost of imports. Normally,
that is of irrefutable substance,
but it is of very greatly reduced
consequence when most imports are funded
through parallel markets, the
inflationary effects already being sustained,
and insufficiency of export
operations results in minimal productivity, also
fuelling inflation.
That grossly misguided, but very loudly and
influentially expressed
resistance to devaluation must, inevitably, have
precluded the governor in
following through on that foreshadowed by the
Minister of Finance two months
ago.
However, since the last
exchange rate adjustment, on July 31 2006,
exporters' costs have risen by at
least 370% and, in many instances by even
more, without any compensatory
increase in their Zimbabwean dollar earnings.
That is a guaranteed path to
bankruptcy, to massively increased
unemployment, to further economic
contraction, and to even greater
inflation.
In his monetary
policy statement, Gono prepared the Zimbabwean economy
for very powerful,
greatly positive, reconstructive surgery, to be commenced
within a month,
and energetically pursued over the remainder of 2007.
However, in
grave doubt is the extent that the economy will be fit for
that surgery, as
more and more enterprises collapse due to political
bigotry, and as many
international bodies relocate to neighbouring
territories for their
air-supply has been cut off.
It is vital, therefore, that to
miminise the risk to the patient, the
first phase of the governor's holistic
recovery programme, being a social
contract, be implemented without delay,
and that thereafter the other
elements of the programme be very intensively
and rapidly implemented. If
not, the patient will die!