Zim Independent
Shakeman
Mugari
GOVERNMENT plans to introduce a new form of tax through
NSSA's
proposed national health insurance scheme for all workers in what is
seen as
a desperate bid to help it fund the collapsing health
sector.
The all-encompassing insurance scheme covering all
categories of
workers, observers say, is meant to boost government's
revenues which have
been badly depleted by company closures, the
brain-drain, unemployment and
galloping inflation.
Contribution
to the scheme is compulsory whether one uses government
health facilities or
not. Contributors benefit from the supposed national
insurance scheme only
when they are gainfully employed.
Observers have said this negates
the whole idea of a national
insurance scheme as pensioners, the aged and
the legion of the unemployed
will not benefit.
The scheme was
recommended to NSSA by government late last year and
will be introduced in
July. Workers will from July contribute to the fund
for three months before
they can start accessing services from government
hospitals.
The plan is designed to augment the funding of public hospitals as
normal
financing from the fiscus is inadequate.
The money will be used to
buy medication and fund the operations of
all government hospitals, NSSA
acting general manager Amod Takawira
confirmed yesterday.
He
said the plan was to "ensure that in time government concentrates
on
salaries and conditions of service for health personnel while NSSA deals
with the procurement of drugs using money from taxpayers'
contributions".
Preliminary calculations seen by the Zimbabwe
Independent show that
from July 1, every worker will be taxed 5% of their
salary - capped at $130
000 - as their contribution to the health insurance
scheme. Employers will
match it with another 5%. This is in addition to the
3% that workers are
already paying towards NSSA's pension scheme which is
also compulsory.
NSSA will be responsible for vetting and
registering government
hospitals that can provide service under the scheme.
It will then give the
hospitals money for operations and medication in
advance.
The new tax is an additional burden on workers and their
employers who
are already heavily taxed even though they get very little in
return for
their money.
Government this year narrowed the PAYE
tax bracket in order to squeeze
more money from the taxpayer. For instance,
the highest tax bracket which
was 35% last year has been hiked to 47,5% of
income.
All workers including those who have their own medical
insurance with
companies such as Masca, Cimas and PSMAS will be forced to
become members of
NSSA's scheme to be introduced through a statutory
instrument which
government is already working on.
This means
that all workers including those who earn less than the tax
threshold of
$100 000 will be forced to pay the 5% tax.
The statutory
instrument, which will be presented to cabinet in early
April, will require
farm workers who earn $8 000 per month to become
members.
"There is no choice, everyone has to pay even if you are on other
medical
schemes. It's national," said Takawira.
The medical cover will
however apply only at government hospitals,
although those who are
privately-insured are compelled to contribute,which
indicates that it is a
fund-raising project for collapsing public health
institutions.
Government hospitals are perennially short of drugs, skilled personnel
and
doctors.
"It will not cover private hospitals. The aim is to cater
for your
expenses when you visit say Parirenyatwa and Harare hospital," said
Takawira.
The scheme, according to NSSA, will cover an employee
and four
dependants. It has no grading system to differentiate between
service that
can be received by members according to levels of
contributions.
That means a farm worker who contributes $400 a
month will enjoy the
same benefits as a high earner who contributes say $6
500 to the scheme. The
$400 is expected to cover the worker and his four
dependants.
"Yes, that's the international trend, you take from the
rich to give
to the poor. There is nothing shocking about that," said
Takawira, who has
been in an acting capacity at Nssa for the past five
years.
Takawira said the scheme will not cover workers after they
retire
while those who are retrenched or fired will only be covered for
three
months before they are struck off the scheme.
It does not
cover thousands of pensioners who are getting a pittance
from NSSA as
monthly payouts because - according to Takawira - "they did not
contribute
to the scheme".
Significantly, the timing of the scheme coincides
with the
establishment of the Health Services Board which government said
was meant
to improve salaries and working conditions of health
workers.
The striking junior doctors have questioned where the
board would get
the money when it did not get an allocation from the
national budget for
this year. Some companies and individuals have however
vowed to challenge
the scheme in court because of its compulsory
nature.
Zim Independent
GOVERNMENT says it
has fired striking doctors who failed to heed an
ultimatum for them to
return to work by close of day on Wednesday.
This came as
government increased their salaries accompanied by an
ultimatum to return to
work by Wednesday morning.
The doctors however did not heed the
ultimatum. The striking doctors
are demanding that their salaries be
increased from $56 000 per month to
between $4 million and $5
million.
Deputy Health Minister Edwin Muguti, in an interview
yesterday,
confirmed the firing of the doctors.
"Those who did
not heed the ultimatum to return to work on Wednesday
are considered to have
resigned and they should vacate government
accommodation," Muguti
said.
However, Health Services Board chairman Lovemore Mbengeranwa
yesterday
said he was not aware of the ministry's ultimatum. Last month
Health
minister, David Parirenyatwa announced the formation of a board to
improve
the health workers' conditions of service and salaries.
A spokesman for the junior doctors yesterday said they were still on
strike
and no one had been given a formal letter of dismissal.
Muguti, in
the interview, said government had substantially increased
salaries for
doctors but refused to say how much the doctors will get.
"There is
a good package that we put up for the doctors and there is
no reason for
them to remain away from work. The package is good and they
have to wait to
see when their payslips come. For now they should go back to
work," he
said.
"We have come up with a policy that we will not publicise
doctors'
salaries and that is what we effected and the doctors are saying
they will
not go back to work because of that."
Medical sources
said the striking doctors and Ministry of Health
officials met on Tuesday
where the doctors were told their salaries had been
increased
"substantially" without being given figures.
The doctors however
insisted on knowing the new salaries but ministry
officials refused to
reveal the figures.
The government during Tuesday's negotiations
ordered that all senior
doctors who had downed stethoscopes in solidarity
with their juniors should
resume duties yesterday or face
dismissal.
Hospital Doctors Association representatives who did not
want to be
named said doctors
would not resume duties until the
government met their demands.
"The government claims that it has
increased our salaries but they are
refusing to give us the figures. How do
we know and negotiate if we are kept
in the dark? We have resolved that we
would not go back to work until
government meets our demands," said doctors'
representatives.
Muguti however said all striking doctors who did
not respond to the
Wednesday's ultimatum should consider themselves
dismissed.
The government last week increased car loans for the
doctors from $700
000 to $4 million.
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe will not sign any Exclusive
Prospecting Orders
(EPOs) this year despite knowing his consent is vital to
allowing mining
companies to explore new mineral bodies to replace what is
currently being
mined.
Correspondence made available to this
paper shows that Mugabe, who
last signed Exclusive Prospecting Orders four
years ago for the 2003/4
mining calendar, has withheld his signature on the
document despite its
approval by the Mining Affairs Board.
Mines ministry officials have advised the mining industry that the
president
will not sign any new EPOs until new mining legislation
incorporating
indigenisation policies is in place.
Government last February
proposed to grant itself a 51% stake in all
foreign-owned mines, with 25%
being expropriated for free.
The Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines and
other stakeholders have said the
policy proposals will damage mining, one of
the few performing sectors of
the economy.
"This is perplexing
when one considers that an EPO allows a mining
company to undertake
exploration for new mineral ore bodies to replace
whatever is being mined
now," reads the correspondence.
The mining sector accounts for 4%
of the country's gross domestic
product.
Mining companies have
not been doing much exploration since the last
EPO was signed four years
ago, compromising the future expansion and
development of mining in the
country. Analysts questioned why government was
preventing mining companies
from spending their money in discovering new
mineral resources.
"What is not appreciated is that the time between exploration and
actual
investment take anything between five to ten years," reads the
correspondence.
Zim Independent
Shakeman
Mugari
GOVERNMENT has been forced to increase civil servants'
salaries by
about 400% to ensure that their wages remain
taxable.
Government had initially budgeted a salary increase of
300% but
reviewed the figure earlier this month after realising that most
civil
servants would fall below the tax-free threshold of $100 000 a
month.
Teachers will now get a basic salary of $126 000, up from
$31 000 last
year. Their housing and transport allowances which were
increased by 140%
and 100% respectively are still higher than their basic
salaries.
Government has been on a desperate drive to shore-up its
tax earnings
in the wake of massive retrenchments, brain drain and company
closures which
have affected its revenue.
Some of the measures
include the proposed introduction of a compulsory
national medical aid
insurance scheme under NSSA and the widening of tax
brackets to net as many
taxpayers as possible.
Apart from widening the bands, the
government has also increased the
tax that will be paid by top earners.
According to a Zimra schedule, the
highest taxed worker will pay 47,5% ($5
million and above) while the lowest
pays 25% ($100 000-$200
000).
Last year the lowest taxed person was paying 20% while the
highest was
paying 35%. Those getting $200 000-$300 000 will pay 30%, up
from 25% last
year.
Tax bands have also been increased from
four to six to squeeze as much
money as possible from the taxpayer.
Government has also brought forward the
due date for VAT submission from
companies from the 30th to the 20th of
every month.
The new tax
bands make Zimbabweans some of the most heavily taxed
people in the world.
Apart from the PAYE, Zimbabweans are also subjected to
an avalanche of taxes
that affect every facet of their lives.
They pay an Aids levy (3%)
-- which rarely benefits them when they are
sick - and a NSSA pension (3%)
whose payouts can only be described as a
pittance.
They are
forced to pay VAT (15%) on almost every product they buy and
carbon tax for
their cars which goes anywhere except the road system.
If they
invest on the money market, the taxman will chop 20% of their
profit. And if
a listed company pays out their dividend, government wants
20% of the
cheque. If the dividend is from a private company investors are
required to
surrender 10% to the state.
Property sellers must remit 20% of
revenue to the taxman. On buying
diesel and petrol they pay $60 per every
litre towards the Noczim debt
amortisation levy.
For every
cheque they write, government wants $100 for stamp duty. On
retirement their
benefits are also taxed.
The dead do not escape taxation because a
chunk of their estate is
also deducted. The tax burden on the companies is
also huge. They have to
pay 30,9% of their net profit to
government.
Then there is 15% VAT, Aids levy 3%, Zimdef which takes
1% of the wage
bill and the Standards Levy. They also have to match their
workers' NSSA
contributions and other pensions and medical aid
schemes.
Zim Independent
Ray
Matikinye
ECONOMISTS have predicted it will take 23 years for
Zimbabwe's
battered economy to recover to pre-1996 levels without external
assistance.
But reversing the legacy of destruction wrought by Zanu
PF will need a
complete restructuring of the state with better forms of
governance.
It will, however, take 14 years, if Zimbabwe worked to
restore
international confidence that would attract external
assistance.
Speaking on the subject, The Zimbabwean Economy in 10
Years of
Regression at the inaugural meeting of the Zimbabwe Lecture Series
in Harare
on Tuesday, economist Dr Peter Robinson said to get sustained
growth,
Zimbabwe needed proper governance buttressed by the rule of law, a
people-driven constitution and a just and lawful resolution of the land
issue.
It had to move away from self-imposed isolation as no
one wants to be
associated with a government that acts so irresponsibly,
Robinson added.
Robinson said Zimbabwe faced enormous constraints
from the legacy of
Zanu PF rule which has spawned moral decadence manifested
in corruption,
lack of investor confidence and structural retrogression as
well as loss of
physical and human capital.
"Our current
position is like falling into the bottom of a well and
trying to get out
with little prospects of success because we keep falling
back," Robinson
said.
"Politics and governance are our major problems not technical
economics," he said, attributing the economic decline to bad governance,
entrenchment of a patronage system that spawned massive corruption and asset
striping in parastatals.
Robinson said there was a need for a
complete restructuring of the
state to a government appropriate for national
economic recovery.
Recovery would not be achieved by a government
unwilling and incapable
of formulating policies and programmes that address
issues of building
confidence in the people.
"The more we talk
of sovereignty, the more the economy collapses and
the more dependent we are
on donors," he said.
He said Zimbabwe needed a leadership with a
vision and the ability to
formulate policies and programmes that inspire
public confidence rather than
"irresponsible self-serving policies which
have unleashed poverty on the
people".
Speaking at the same
occasion, economist John Robertson decried
government's Look East policy,
which he said posed a grave danger to local
industry.
He said
Zimbabwe should realise that the China of the 1980s is very
different from
the China we see in 2007.
China, unlike Zimbabwe, now upheld
property rights which he said were
fundamental to economic
recovery.
Robertson said Zimbabwe courted the Chinese claiming to
be socialist.
"I don't believe we are socialist. We have a leadership who
are more
dishonest fascists than socialists - a ruling class which wants to
remain in
power forever," Robertson said.
He said the Chinese
are hoping to exploit us as a market for goods
that they cannot get rid
of.
"We are in grave danger of destruction of our manufacturing
industry
and being used as a conduit for Chinese goods into the Sadc
region," he
added.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
AIR Zimbabwe missed most of
its targets last year largely due to
foreign currency shortages as 90% of
the national airline's expenses are
paid in hard currency against earnings
of 30%.
Information to hand shows that Air Zimbabwe failed to grow
its
business because of foreign currency shortages, a weak marketing
programme,
delays in the recapitalisation of the airline, and
restructuring.
Acting CEO, Captain Oscar Madombwe, said the
national carrier's
strategy to generate foreign currency - following the
withdrawal last year
of a lifeline from the central bank - was to become
more active in foreign
markets.
"We obviously have a foreign
currency financing gap and this
constitutes one of our major challenges. We
note that our needs for foreign
currency are burdensome to the Reserve
Bank," Madombwe said.
"This means we must somehow make our own
money. Our strategy to
generate the essential foreign currency is to become
more active in foreign
markets," he said.
Madombwe said Air
Zimbabwe's partnership with regional airlines should
boost its foreign
currency reserves.
"This is obviously a strategy to make more
money. We are also looking
for charter work to use up idle capacity that we
have now and again," he
said.
Air Zimbabwe had set out to grow
business by increasing its market
share regionally by 30% and
internationally by 52% by end of last year.
The national airline
had also planned to carry 134 454 passengers in
the country during the
year.
It however managed to grow regionally by 29%, internationally
by 50%
and managed to move only 67 349 passengers during the 12
months.
Madombwe said the airline came short of the intended
targets mainly
because it was unable to expand the national route network as
planned.
"Despite missing our targets, 2006 saw the airline lay a
very strong
foundation for growth by entering into strategic relations with
regional
airlines such as Zambia Skyways, Air Malawi and Air Tanzania. This
year will
see us benefiting from these relationships," Madombwe
said.
He said Air Zimbabwe's dispatch reliability and schedule
integrity was
better last year compared to previous years.
"We
recorded on-time departures of up to 95%. The most disappointing
was 60%. To
dispatch a flight on time, the aircraft must be serviced
technically,
fuelled up and loaded on time," said Madombwe.
Madombwe said
personnel servicing the aircraft must be positioned at
their various work
places on time and passengers themselves must check-in on
time and board the
aircraft when asked to do so.
Air Zimbabwe's target for on-time
departure this year is 95%
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
THE Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) says
government should
disband Zanu PF youth militias who continue to be used for
partisan policing
and to undermine the rights of critics of government
policies.
The human rights body urged government to ensure that the
actions of
the police force are not defined and controlled by illegitimate
and partisan
institutions such as a ruling party's youths.
ZLHR
was condemning Wednesday's attack by police on two members of the
Combined
Harare Residents Association (CHRA) who were advertising a
residents'
meeting to discuss the recent budget by the Harare Commission.
Zanu
PF militia attacked Ishmael Mayabo and Cleopas Gwatirisa at the
Fourth
Street bus terminus while they were distributing fliers advertising a
CHRA
public meeting.
The youths took them into a hall and assaulted them
using broomsticks,
clenched fists, and boots for over an hour. After this,
the youths called
the police.
ZLHR said a member of the Police
Internal Security Intelligence took
the victims to Harare Central police
station where he viciously assaulted
them. He ordered them to take off their
shirts before making them pay
admission of guilt fines for the alleged
violation of Section 46 of the
Criminal Law (Codification and Reform)
Act.
"In spite of the assaults being pointed out to him at the
point when
he took them to the police station, the PISI detail took no
action against
the Zanu PF youth militia and instead chose to add his
portion of assault to
the victims and take spurious extortive action against
them," ZLHR
complained.
"Such a situation reduces Zimbabwe into
an anarchical state where the
law does not apply equally. It makes a mockery
of all democratic pretensions
that the state of Zimbabwe might purport to
harbour."
Zim Independent
Itai
Mushekwe
THE Zimbabwe Mirror Newspaper Group, publishers of the
Daily Mirror
and The Sunday Mirror, faces an uncertain future owing to
succession
politics.
The company's precarious bank overdraft
has compounded the crisis that
has cast its future business operations in
doubt.
Zanu PF hawks said to be aligned to contenders locked in a
power
tussle to succeed President Robert Mugabe are making frantic efforts
to
stifle government funding of the two titles now owned by the Central
Intelligence Organisation (CIO), sources have said.
This comes
as the paper has been hit by a spate of resignations,
internal fights and
huge funding deficits from its intelligence financiers.
To compound the
publishing company's woes, former owner Ibbo Mandaza has
resolved to
instigate a fresh legal suit next week to retain control of the
newspapers
following the collapse of talks with lawyers representing the
CIO.
The collapsed talks were aimed at searching for an out of
court
settlement with Mandaza. Mandaza's legal representative, Joseph
Mandizha of
Mandizha & Associates, told the Zimbabwe Independent this
week that his
client was going ahead with the lawsuit against the state
intelligence
service.
"There are three dimensions concerning
the legal issues and disputes
between the Mirror and Mandaza," Mandizha
said.
"The first constituency of that dimension centres on
ownership issues,
while the second centres on several newspaper reports that
were carried by
the Mirror which my client finds defamatory of his
character. The third
concerns labour issues in general and this is to do
with money owing to my
client from the date of his unlawful suspension and
dismissal."
Mandaza was forced to quit his publishing empire two
years ago after
being told by Intelligence minister Didymus Mutasa and CIO
boss Happison
Bonyongwe that Mugabe wanted him to leave, sources
say.
The publisher agreed on condition that he was paid all money
owing to
him - an obligation the CIO has failed to fulfill.
The
papers have widely been seen as aligned to a faction supporting
Vice-President Joice Mujuru. The paper, sources said, was a crucial
instrument in campaigning for the elevation of Mujuru to the post of
vice-president in 2004.
Zanu PF politicians opposed to Mujuru
are reportedly calling for the
injection of financial resources into the
party's official mouthpiece, The
Voice, instead of the Mirror which they say
must generate its own revenue.
Insiders at the Mirror contend that
the papers have a bank overdraft
amounting to $200 million, although other
sources place the figure at $500
million.
"Those papers are no
longer viable and have become a heavy liability
for those running them,"
sources said.
"There is an urgent need for recapitalisation at the
Mirror because
the centre can no longer hold."
Last year the
newspaper group received an "anonymous" $150 million
lifeline, which it has
since exhausted and has been struggling to meet its
operational requirements
including paying workers' salaries.
Last week's resignation of
three senior managers and the suspension of
the papers' group
editor-in-chief showed symptoms of looming collapse at the
Mirror.
The four left after refusing to sign new contracts
obliging them to
implement an unrealistic turnaround target that would see
the papers
generating $200 million a week, while ensuring that returns are
kept below
the 5% mark.
The sales and marketing manager, Wilson
Chivaura, together with his
deputy Evans Sagonda, tendered their
resignations last week charging that
the new revenue targets were
unrealistic because the company was selling
damaged goods and needed to
"deal with its image".
Tawanda Majoni, the editor of the Daily
Mirror, has also resigned,
while group editor Joseph Kurebwa was suspended
after refusing to sign the
contract. Kurebwa is said to have taken with him
a company vehicle that he
was using.
Zim Independent
Shame
Makoshori
GOVERNMENT has transformed the Privatisation Agency
of Zimbabwe (Paz)
into the State Enterprises Restructuring Agency (Sera)
whose duties have
been expanded to include the reform of
parastatals.
Analysts this week said the establishment of Sera was
a clear sign
that government had decided to restructure rather than
privatise debt-ridden
state enterprises as originally claimed.
Paz was established in 1999 with the mandate of assisting, supporting
and
accelerating the privatisation process, working closely with the public
enterprises concerned and with line ministries.
Senior
officials at Sera told businessdigest this week that government
had not
disbanded Paz but had "broadened" its scope of activities to keep
pace with
the restructuring programmes that are currently underway in most
of its
ailing parastatals.
"Nothing much has changed but what has happened
is that the role of
Paz has been expanded to include restructuring of
parastatals," said an
official with Sera on Wednesday.
"Government said it was necessary that the widening of Paz's scope
should be
followed by the change of the organisation's name," he said,
referring
further questions to accountant-general Judith Madzorera who is
acting as
permanent secretary for the Ministry of Finance.
Sources this week
said the new entity would work towards dilution of
government shareholding
in large corporates while trying to rehabilitate
limping parastatals and
state enterprises. There are no immediate plans to
privatise, a source
said.
But an analyst told businessdigest that the Paz's revamping
was a
strong indication of government's attitude towards the privatisation
of its
struggling companies.
Most of them have perennially
depended on the taxpayer's money.
Zimbabwe reluctantly privatised
some of its parastatals on the advice
of multilateral lending organisations
like the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund that privatisation
would turn the companies into
more efficient and profitable
outfits.
"The question of privatisation is out, and I do not think
Sera will
have a bigger role to play except helping in drawing up turnaround
plans for
parastatals and restructuring boards. But this is what line
ministries were
already doing," the source said.
Zim Independent
By
Gugulethu Moyo
WHEN it comes to questions of money, everybody
is of the same
religion, so said Voltaire, the 18th century neoclassical
French
philosopher. Indeed, it is difficult not to agree with Judge
President Rita
Makarau's assertion that justice in Zimbabwe is imperilled
because the
country's judicial institutions are inadequately
funded.
In a speech to mark the start of the legal calendar,
Justice Makarau
made a forceful case for the government to increase funding
to the
judiciary: last year, the High Court failed to go to circuit in the
province
of Masvingo. As a consequence, 104 murder trials did not take
place.
Criminal suspects are being held in what she describes as
"inhuman,
degrading" conditions at police stations. Witnesses in criminal
cases are
paid $5 a day for their attendance in court, an amount which she
considers
to be "an insult".
The courts operate without
computers or adequate stationery, and she
adds that the court libraries have
been "aptly described" by the chief
magistrate as "varying in their degrees
of uselessness".
The damning piece of evidence: "Reports have
reached my office and the
office of the chief justice that support staff are
engaging in corrupt
practices," she told her audience.
Who
could have disagreed with the judge's statement that: "Judging
from the
paltry funds that are allocated," as she states, "the place and
role of the
judiciary in this country is under-appreciated"?
The hard fact is
that: "For justice delivery, we cannot escape the
local system no matter how
rich or influential we are. We cannot escape the
inefficiencies created by
lack of adequate funding.
"It is wrong by any measure to make the
judiciary beg for its
sustenance. It is wrong to make the judiciary beg for
resources from central
government," she said, closing her case.
She is right, of course. And there must have been many converts among
her
audience.
As with all other crumbling institutions of government,
money is
needed. It is needed now in order to prevent total
collapse.
But throwing money at the problems of Zimbabwe's judicial
institutions
will not solve them all. The shortage of funds is not the whole
problem.
Other derelictions of the executive arm of government
equally
undermine the delivery of justice. Hundreds of court judgements
remain
unenforced, ostensibly because the government does not agree with the
orders
of the court and, unlike in this particular instance where Justice
Makarau
has decided to put her head above the parapet in order to draw
public
attention to a financial crisis, judges need not break taboos in
order to
hold those responsible for defying the law in contempt of court.
But, they
have yet to do so.
In the hands of judges, scores of
cases remain undecided in instances
where it appears that the political, not
the monetary, costs would be too
high.
These days, Justice
Makarau and Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku may
be receiving reports of
corruption among their staff, but the corruption of
judges has long been the
subject of debate about justice in Zimbabwe.
The actions of some
judges who, years ago, accepted land from the
government under legally
questionable arrangements created the perception
that those judges were
willing to subordinate their obligations to justice
in order to amass
wealth.
Some would say that this is the cause of the judiciary's
present
predicament and that it should not come as a surprise that justice
itself is
not valued because certain judges have done much to devalue its
ideals.
And, arguably, the palpable failure of the higher courts to
uphold
fundamental rights - freedom of expression, freedom of association,
the
right of citizens to elect their government - and the absurd departure,
in
numerous cases, from established legal principles in order to legitimate
executive action have done more to harm the administration of justice in the
country than any shortage of funds, no matter how serious, could ever
do.
Justice Makarau may be pleading on behalf of the judiciary now,
but
when those who were more free to speak - in this case ordinary members
of
the legal profession - marched last year to protest the encroachment of
the
government on judicial independence, her colleagues in the Supreme Court
bolted the door and refused to hear them.
And just last year
speakers at the opening of the courts used the
podium to issue thinly veiled
threats to lawyers who dared to speak out in
defence of the integrity of
judicial institutions.
It makes you wonder just how bad things must
be.
* Moyo is a Zimbabwean lawyer who works for the International
Bar
Association.
Zim Independent
By David
Coltart
JUDGE President, Justice Rita Makarau, in her address
to the opening
of the High Court on January 15, correctly stated that
normally judges
should not complain publicly regarding their conditions of
service, but that
she has to because their conditions, and the conditions of
all those
involved in the justice system, are now dire.
The MDC
is in principle sympathetic towards judges and all those
affected by the
fact that the government has not allocated sufficient
resources to the
Ministry of Justice.
However, the reason this deleterious situation
has been allowed to
arise is because the Zanu PF regime does not care about
justice and only
tolerates the judiciary in so far as it serves its
purposes.
Since 2000, law and the justice system in general, has
been used as a
weapon against legitimate democratic opposition. Spurious
charges have been
brought against opposition leaders, activists and
supporters. Equally
spurious trials have been held.
Judges have
delayed politically-sensitive matters such as electoral
petitions and
applications for the release of activists, including MPs,
causing serious
miscarriages of justice.
Many judges have seriously compromised
their independence by taking
and occupying farms often unlawfully seized
from commercial farmers. Many
judges have since 2000 severely retarded the
positive strides made by the
judiciary since 1980 in expanding the rights of
Zimbabweans through positive
interpretations of Zimbabwe's Declaration of
Rights, by handing down a
string of judgments inimical to universal human
rights norms. Other judges
who have chosen to act professionally have been
hounded out of office while
some have gone into exile.
During
the same period the Zanu PF regime has ensured that vast
amounts of money
are spent on the CIO. That shows exactly where its
priorities
lie.
Accordingly, it is clear that judges have simply been used and
exploited by the regime to further its political purposes. The truth is that
the judiciary will always be seen by Zanu PF as some cumbersome appendix
which is necessary to maintain the façade of democracy and which on
occasions can be useful in furthering a political goal. But the judiciary
will never be an institution which is revered by Zanu PF as an indispensable
part of a Zimbabwean democracy.
It is in light of this that we
fear that the Judge President will not
be listened to by this regime and to
that extent her statement is futile. It
may be that some individual judges
will have their conditions addressed but
in the prevailing environment there
is not the slightest chance that
sufficient resources will be applied to
address Judge Makarau's legitimate
concerns.
The MDC believes
that in order for the judiciary to become strong and
independent, there
needs to be more than just changes to the constitution.
In addition,
sufficient resources must be made available to the judiciary
through the
national budget.
In the interim we urge the judiciary to change its
ways and to turn
over a new leaf this year. It has a role to play in fairly
applying the law
and by doing all it can to strike down laws which clearly
violate our
constitution and offend international laws, norms and
morality.
* Coltart is MDC justice spokesman.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube in Nyamandlovu
AS Zimbabweans woke up to a fine
morning to celebrate Independence Day
on April 18 2000, Martin Olds (43) was
woken by a commotion at his farm
gate. When he went out to investigate what
was happening, he was confronted
by more than a hundred war veterans and
government supporter demanding that
he surrenders his farm.
As
he retreated from the gate, he was shot in the leg and limped back
to his
farmhouse and armed himself with an assortment of weapons.
He
radioed Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) colleagues to tell them that
he had
been injured and needed an ambulance. He phoned Nyamandlovu police
station,
17 kilometres away from his Compensation Farm and made a report
that he was
under attack.
Three hours later, after a long shoot-out with the
war veterans, Olds
was lying dead in a pool of blood after his attackers,
appreciating his
marksmanship with a rifle, had set the farmhouse on fire,
forcing him out.
Out of ammunition and cornered, Olds jumped out of
the bathroom window
where he had sought refuge and was battered with iron
rods and shot in the
face twice at point blank range.
Nyamandlovu police did not respond to his pleas for help. Instead,
they set
up a road block and stopped white commercial farmers who had
responded to
his SOS messages from reaching him.
The truckloads of armed war
veterans that killed Olds passed through
the same road block and were waved
through by the police as they entered and
later left the area.
This episode occurred seven years ago in the prime Nyamandlovu farming
area
at the height of the chaotic government-sponsored land reform
exercise.
To date none of the people who murdered Olds have been
arrested or
prosecuted for the crime.
Two years later,
72-year-old Gloria Olds' bullet-riddled body was
discovered at her Silver
Streams Farm, just 10 kilometers from where her son
Martin was murdered,
with 18 AK-47 bullets still lodged in her body.
The church minister
who presided over her funeral, Paul Andrianatos,
said of her killers: "It is
a sad day when men need semi-automatic weapons
to murder a 72-year-old
woman, they are not men, they are scum, they are
cowards."
Andrianatos was deported the following day.
This week the Zimbabwe
Independent visited Compensation and Silver
Streams Farms to see
developments taking place on the two properties since
the
killings.
Compensation Farm was a thriving safari, animal and
nature
conservation farm before the land invasions while Silver Streams was
a
thriving cattle ranch that supplied meat to several butcheries in
Nyamandlovu and Bulawayo, 77 kilometres away.
The burnt down
farmhouse and burnt-out shells of cars that the war
veterans set on fire on
their way out of the farm tell a sad story of what
happened here seven years
ago.
Driving into Compensation Farm one is met with pole and dagga
huts
that indicate that the farm has been parcelled out to subsistence
farmers.
Despite the fact that the two farms are in regions four
and five which
are not suitable for crop farming and have low rainfall, the
government
settled families on the two properties.
Thulani
Mupande, a middle-aged man, says he moved onto Compensation
Farm from nearby
Tsholotsho district at the height of the land-grab but
explains that things
are not so rosy for the resettle1d farmers.
"After the farm was
acquired by the government, we moved in here
together with other families,"
said Mupande.
"We are facing serious problems as the government has
not drilled
boreholes for us and the crop has not been very good since we
arrived. But
we are still soldiering on," Mupande said.
A large
number of those allocated land have disappeared leaving behind
crumbling
structures.
Mupande however says the main problem the settlers are
facing are
water shortages as the farm engines that used to pump water
disappeared when
new settlers moved in.
As has happened on many
acquired farms, borehole equipment and pumping
engines at Compensation Farm
were stolen or vandalised when the new settlers
moved in.
"Water is a big problem here," Mupande said, looking up to the skies.
"We
travel 14 kilometres to get water from the Gwayi River and the
Nyamandlovu
aquifer. The water reservoirs that were put up by the former
white farmer
were vandalised and the engines that were pumping water from
Gwayi River
stolen, so we are in crisis.
"We are all praying that it rains, but
the skies are not opening up.
We are going to starve again this year if it
does not rain."
As we drove deep into the farm we came across
abandoned structures
which settlers built when they moved onto the farm with
the encouragement of
the government.
"Most people left a long
time ago because there is no hospital or
clinic around and the only school
is several kilometers away," explains
Mupande.
At Silver
Streams Farm the situation is no different. Children of the
newly-resettled
farmers travel 20 kilometres every day to and from George
Silundika primary
school as there is no school on the farm or in nearby
areas.
The nearest hospital and clinic, Nyamandlovu Health Centre, is 12
kilometres
away.
A war veteran identified as Melusi Moyo has moved into the
farmhouse
together with his family.
The farmhouse is
disintegrating while the number of people we observed
milling around
indicated that there could be over 20 people occupying the
farmhouse.
There are about 100 families now settled at Silver
Streams Farm and
all of them are subsistence farmers whose wilting maize
crop is all there is
to show for their frenzied occupation of the farm in
2000.
Chris Jarrett, the former chairman of the Nyamandlovu Farmers
Association,had no kind words for the newly-resettled farmers.
"When Martin Olds was murdered the people who settled on his farm
stole a
lot of his cattle and sold them," said Jarrett.
"Martin had over 1
000 cattle but all of them have gone, either sold
or stolen. His family
managed to retrieve a few of the beasts from the
farm," Jarrett
said.
Olds' wife Cathy applied for and was granted asylum in
Britain a few
months after her husband's gruesome murder.
Jarrett said most of the people who built structures at Compensation
Farm
were only interested in hunting animals that were on the farm.
He
said when the animal population decreased on the farm most of the
settlers
also packed their bags and left.
Compensation Farm had a variety of
wildlife that included water buck,
sable, impala, kudu and zebra among
others. However, all the animals have
disappeared as settlers hunted them
for the pot.
"Olds had a striving safari business that had a
variety of animals;
there were thousands of sable and impala on the farm but
all were hunted by
the war veterans when they moved into Compensation. Now
there is absolutely
nothing," Jarrett says.
Before the
controversial land reform exercise began, commercial
farmers in the
Nyamandlovu area were among the most productive and fed a
large part of the
country with produce from the area.
Farms along the
Bulawayo-Nyamandlovu highway have few crops growing
now as most of the farms
do not have irrigation equipment and are relying on
the rains.
The area has however not received substantial rains and the maize that
is
below knee level is already wilting.
"The situation is sad.
Commercial farmers in Nyamandlovu were
supplying the whole country with
butternuts, tomatoes, beetroot, maize,
tobacco, paprika, onions and cabbages
but now what you get from these
farmers is a few buckets of maize," says
Jarrett, adding that it will take
the country a long time to recover and
return to pre-2000 output levels.
Zim Independent
A
SENIOR High Court Judge, Maphios Cheda, has accused the country's
magistrates and police officers of corruption in the execution of their
duty.
Cheda's sentiments echo those expressed by Judge
President Rita
Makarau in her maiden speech to mark the official opening of
the 2007 legal
year in Harare on Monday.
Cheda was speaking at
the opening of the first term of the Bulawayo
High Court, also on
Monday.
While acknowledging that the police and magistrates have
been working
under difficult conditions, Cheda said corruption by those
entrusted to
deliver justice was unacceptable.
"While the
majority of police officers have done a commendable job,"
Cheda said, "there
are still pockets of some of them who in my view should
not be in the police
force at all.
"It seems some of them have completely forgotten that
the offenders
whom they arrest, and in particular the traffic offenders whom
they invite
to pay fines, such fines should go to the state coffers and not
to their
pockets."
He added: "There are some police officers
who openly consort with
criminals, not for the purpose of obtaining
strategic information required
in the prevention of commission of crimes or
apprehension of criminals but
for the sole purposes of sharing the loot or
profits which flow from such
criminal activities," Cheda said. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
THE foreign exchange market was having
uncharacteristically low
inflows as foreign currency owners remained
tight-fisted in anticipation of
devaluation by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
governor Gideon Gono, dealers said
this week.
Gono is expected
to deliver his monetary policy, which had ealier been
booked for December 7,
before month-end.
But strong fears emerged as reports began
swirling in the market this
week that Gono, who returned from a sabbatical
on Monday, could postpone the
monetary policy presentation to February, a
move that could force foreign
currency holders to dispose of their foreign
currency to meet commitments
earlier suspended in anticipation of a January
presentation.
Holders of foreign cash were "only liquidating to the
extent of their
immediate needs", a treasurer with a commercial bank told
businessdigest,
saying non-governmental organisations and diplomatic
missions, the biggest
foreign currency traders on the strapped foreign
currency market, had taken
a no-sell position until Gono's monetary policy
presentation.
There was strong sentiment on the market that Gono
could devalue the
local unit to between $750 and $1 000 to the greenback,
from the current
rate of $250 to the US unit.
Zimbabwe is going
through its worst economic crisis in history,
characterised by acute foreign
currency shortages which have hampered import
of critical national
requirements like fuel as well as raw materials and
capital equipment for
industrial operations.
"There is a very strong feeling that the
Zimbabwe dollar will be
devalued to $750 to the US dollar," a bank executive
said. "It could go up
to $1 000 to the US dollar - I don't think the
governor will allow it
further than that."
Gono last devalued
the local currency on the official interbank market
to $250 against the
greenback in July from $101 to the US unit.
While the official rate
is pegged at $250 to the greenback, the US
dollar has been fetching over $3
000 on a thriving parallel market, believed
to be the major recipient of
inflows from Zimbabweans in the diaspora as
well as exporters trying to
increase margins on their earnings.
The parallel foreign currency
market has been declared illegal and
several companies and individuals have
in the past two years been hauled
before the courts for trading foreign
currency on the unofficial market.
Economic consultancy firm,
Techfin Research, last year forecast
Zimbabwe's embattled domestic
currency's fair value to reach $1 058,39 to
the US unit by this January, 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.
While government has given conservative inflation forecasts
of below
500% by year-end, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said
inflation
will this year average 4 278,8%, with real gross domestic product
(GDP)
contracting by 4,7% in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
Year-on-year inflation as measured by the all items Consumer Price
Index
reached an all-time high of 1 281,3% in December.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
GOVERNMENT'S plans to raise $160 billion
suffered miserably after the
tender was grossly undersubscribed despite
initial projections it could win
support from insurance and pension funds
under pressure to fill their
portfolios with prescribed assets.
Figures obtained from the central bank indicate that the bills, which
had
been earmarked for listing on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, were
undersubscribed by 94,2%, raising only $9,3 billion of the $160 billion
required.
The bills were meant to raise cash for the funding of
government's
capital projects.
"There was no appetite for the
bonds - for long-term investments
generally," a market dealer said this
week.
An equity analyst said the current uncertain economic
environment had
combined with poor timing to result in the under
subscription, adding that
huge sums were locked up in other assets such as
CPI-linked and
Stabilisation Bonds.
Market watchers indicated
that the majority of investors who had taken
up the bills were insurance
companies and pension funds but noted that
take-up by these two financial
sector players were unlikely to move
subscriptions to required
levels.
Pension funds and insurance companies are compelled by law
to have a
determined percentage of their portfolios in prescribed assets and
central
bank governor Gideon Gono last year called on the sector's
regulatory
authorities to compel these institutions to meet prescribed asset
levels.
Insurance sector players said they were currently loaded
with
portfolios bearing below-inflation returns and were therefore unwilling
to
commit themselves to the bills in a significant way.
The
bills, three-year government of Zimbabwe local registered stock,
will be
listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), with interest being
charged on
the general revenue account and assets of the country, are meant
to raise
funds to finance government capital projects.
One analyst had
indicated poor take-up last week, saying: "We do not
think the paper will
garner enough market support to negatively affect money
market
liquidity."
In the analyst's view, rates on the bills were too low
to attract
investors.
The coupon rate for the bills, which had
a prescribed and liquid asset
status, was fixed at 350%, 250% and 100% over
2007, 2008 and 2009
respectively.
The bills are acceptable as
collateral for repo and overnight
accommodation by the central bank and are
redeemable at the Reserve bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ) on maturity.
Interest on the bills will be paid half-yearly on dates to be
indicated on
the stock certificates by remittances to the credit of the
investor's bank
accounts.
The bills are redeemable at par in the currency of
Zimbabwe.
Zim Independent
Pindai
Dube
A STAFF exodus has hit the farming sector, with reports
obtained by
businessdigest this week indicating that poor remuneration was
at the core
of the latest crisis to hit the faltering sector.
Sources in the sector said commercial farming operations, mainly those
run
by a new breed of under-funded black farmers, were losing skilled and
semi-skilled workers and also failing to attract unskilled employee due to
poor working conditions and remuneration.
Commercial farm
workers are understood to be earning between $5 000
and $15 000 per month.
The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe's low income
consumer basket for a family
of six is at over $350 000 per month.
The average family for most
farm workers consists of six members.
Businessdigest is informed
that current negotiations between
commercial farm workers and employers had
collapsed, with employers refusing
to listen to workers demands for better
pay.
Farm workers are represented by the General Agricultural and
Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) while employers' unions are
represented by the Agricultural Labour Bureau (ALB), an arm of the
Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) and Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union
(ZCFU).
Vice secretary-general of GAPWUZ, Gift Muti, confirmed the
exodus of
farm workers to other sectors of the economy due to the paltry
salaries.
"There is a massive exodus of farm workers from the
agricultural
sector due to paltry salaries they are getting from employers.
With the rate
of inflation at over 1 200%, salaries which we are being
offered are not
justified," said Muti.
Tongai Marodze, the head
of ALB, refused to comment on allegations of
unfair pay to farm workers,
instead lashing out at the workers for
"tarnishing the image of the
employers by rushing to the press".
"The workers should stop going
to the press if they want their
grievances to be looked (into)," Marodze
said.
The ZCFU president, Wilson Nyabonda, acknowledged problems in
the
sector, saying this was mainly due to commercial farmers failing to give
employees attractive contracts.
"The shortage of labour in the
agricultural sector is caused by
commercial farmers who are engaging them on
a contract basis instead of
employing them on a full time basis. Contract
employees can leave at any
time if offered better salaries elsewhere,"
Nyabonda said.
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
THE Southern African Power Pool (Sapp) has
warned that electricity
transmission bottlenecks in Zimbabwe's power
infrastructure are affecting
power transmission between utilities in the
region.
The warning highlights increasing concern within the region
over
Zimbabwe's escalating economic crisis, blamed on President Robert
Mugabe's
government accused of mismanaging one of Africa's once most
promising
economies.
Sapp is a group of 12 power companies in
the Southern African
Development Community (Sadc) which was established to
coordinate the
planning and operations of electric power systems in the
countries, which
are facing the threat of electricity shortfalls this
year.
In its 2006 annual report, Sapp said while major steps
towards
regional power integration were taken in the period, the group was
worried
about transmission congestion in Zimbabwe.
Power
infrastructure in Zimbabwe had not been replaced for decades and
desperate
efforts are underway to refurbish major power stations.
"Transmission congestion has been noted on some points in the system
especially the transmission bottlenecks within the Zesa (Holdings) system in
Zimbabwe, which geographically lies at the centre of Sapp," the report
said.
"This bottleneck is hindering the electricity trade between
northern
and southern countries," Sapp said.
Sapp's concerns
came as other Sadc economies had previously warned
that the deteriorating
economic situation in Zimbabwe could have negative
consequences on regional
economic performance if urgent steps were not taken
to address the
decline.
They warned that Zimbabwe, with four digit inflation
figures, could
become the stumbling block to the region's economic
integration.
Zimbabwe's high interest and exchange rates are also
not conducive for
regional integration and this was seen as the reason
behind the decline in
trade between Zimbabwe and most Sadc
states.
There were plans to build a bridge linking southern African
states at
Kazungula near Namibia's Caprivi Strip to evade Zimbabwe because
of its
mounting economic woes.
Economic analysts were worried
that this could slam the door on Sadc's
trade links with Zimbabwe as most
traffic could be routed through that
strip.
In 2002, Zambian
companies vigorously campaigned to block cheap
commodities like sugar, tea
and cement from Zimbabwe into that market
arguing that they were a threat to
local industries.
In 2003, Malawi made frantic efforts to halt
Zimbabwean exports into
that country and raised excise duties from 15% to
20%.
Mineral-rich Botswana has been hostile to cross border trade
with
Zimbabwe.
The Sadc countries' actions were seen as signals
that Zimbabwe's
isolation, which started with the European Union and the
United States, was
quietly spreading into Sadc.
Most members of
Sapp, including Zambia, Botswana, Malawi and the
Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC), concluded detailed studies for
interstate power transfers in
2006, according to the Sapp report.
But there were no details of
significant projects entered into between
Zimbabwe and other members except
for the installation of telecommunications
equipment to link member
countries.
The DRC and Zambia carried out extensive studies to
evaluate the
maximum transfer limit on the existing Zambia-DRC 22kV
line.
Mozambique and Malawi finalised negotiations for a power
purchase
agreement while Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya secured a US$1,2 million
grant
from the World Bank to finance their projects.
Zambia and
Namibia completed 60% of their project works on the Zambian
side including
substation works in Victoria Falls.
Power utilities making up Sapp
include the Botswana Power Corporation,
Eskom of South Africa, Nampower of
Namibia, the Tanzania Electricity Supply
Company, Zesa, the Lesotho
Electricity Corporation, the Swaziland
Electricity Board,the Electricity
Supply Corporation of Malawi, Zambia's
Zesco and others.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube
INDUSTRY has been hit by renewed coal shortages,
threatening
industrial operations already ailing from acute foreign currency
and other
raw material shortages, businessdigest established this
week.
The coal shortages have prompted a rush for foreign currency
on the
parallel market by desperate firms trying to avert closure by
importing the
mineral from neighbouring countries.
Those that
had their own foreign currency reserved for the import of
critical capital
equipment and spares have been forced to divert the foreign
cash towards the
import of coal, sources indicated.
Local industries are grappling
with runaway inflation at 1 281%, the
highest in the world, and shortages of
foreign currency to import raw
materials. This has resulted in most of them
laying off staff or downsizing
operations or closing shop
altogether.
National Blankets managing director, Jeremy Musgrave,
said the coal
shortages had affected their operations and were now busy
trying to find a
solution to the supply problem.
"The shortage
of coal has affected us but we are trying to find a
solution to the
problem," said Musgrave.
George Mutendadzamera, the corporate
affairs manager for Zimbabwe
Stock Exchange-listed beverages group, Delta
Corporation, said they had
already started importing coal to meet their
production requirements.
"We are receiving inadequate supplies of
coal locally and import to
augment supplies. The operating environment
continues to be challenging for
all businesses in the country," said
Mutendadzamera.
A senior official with the steel makers Ziscosteel
said production
levels had gone down drastically as a result of acute coal
shortages.
Dwindling supplies from Hwange Colliery Company (HCC)
have therefore
added to a myriad of mounting problems faced by industrial
operations.
Marketing and public relations manager, Clifford Nkomo,
confirmed HCC
had been hit by machine breakdowns, resulting in the company's
failure to
meet coal demand.
"Coal shortages are a result of
major breakdowns which occurred on the
secondary crushing plant and conveyor
belting systems," Nkomo said.
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
FOREIGN sales on the interbank rate declined by 51%
in December due to
reduced supplies from key players on the market following
companies' annual
closure for the festive season.
Figures made
available this week revealed that a total of US$7 155 713
and US$7 230 447
was bought and sold respectively on the interbank foreign
currency market in
December, compared to total purchase and sales of US$14
607 430 and US$14
786 235 respectively, recorded in November.
The highest daily
purchases and sales of US$1 211 964 and US$1 212 000
were recorded on
December 11.
The lowest daily purchases and sales of US$166 477 and
US$233 317
respectively, were recorded on December 28.
A peak
surplus of US$75 735 was recorded on December 11 against a peak
deficit of
US$104 018 on December 7.
ZB Bank group economist, Best Doroh, said
demand was expected to
rebound this month.
"Interbank foreign
currency trade will increase as companies resume
operations. However, in the
absence of significant supplies, the Zimbabwe
dollar is expected to
depreciate against major currencies on the interbank
foreign currency
market," Doroh said.
Analysts said it was highly unlikely that the
demand for foreign
currency could be met on the official foreign currency
market, battling to
attract supplies from Zimbabweans in the diaspora, who
have been sending
foreign currency to relatives through the parallel
market.
Doroh said the local currency was highly overvalued on the
official
market.
"Due to the weakening inflation differentials
between Zimbabwe and its
major trading partners, the Zimbabwe dollar is
expected to remain
overvalued, until such a time the Reserve Bank devalued
the local currency
or the domestic inflation rate is reduced significantly,"
Doroh said.
Speculation is high that Gono will devalue the local
currency when he
announces his monetary policy before
month-end.
ZB Bank said the recent re-licensing of several money
transfer
agencies (MTAs) should prop up inflows in the coming
months.
The surprise closure of MTAs by the Reserve Bank in October
saw hard
currency supplies falling 15% in that month.
Zim Independent
By Jonathan Moyo
IF there's anyone who still needed evidence
that the world of power is
finally collapsing around President Robert Mugabe
whose tenure expires in
the next 14 months that promise to be very short,
nasty and brutish for him
and his hangers on, it is the paranoid reaction of
his propagandists to
Edgar Tekere's autobiography, A Lifetime of Struggle,
published by Sapes
Books in Harare last week.
Although it fails
to provide new insights into vexing issues such as
the deaths of Herbert
Chitepo and Josiah Tongogara, the creation of the
Fifth Brigade and its
Gukurahundi carnage and the Unity Accord negotiations,
and while the book
does not flow well and fails to fully develop a number of
its riveting
anecdotes about happenings in the corridors of power during and
after the
liberation struggle, Tekere's autobiography makes three
history-marking
disclosures about how Mugabe rose into and remained in power
to the point of
becoming a terrible liability to Zimbabwe today.
Using - many would
say abusing - the public media, Mugabe's
propagandists have turned the
typically dull month of January into one
filled with astonishing political
drama through their frenzied media defence
of their embattled
boss.
Yet one does not need to hold a brief for Tekere to
appreciate first
that he is without doubt one of Zimbabwe's leading freedom
fighters to whom
we owe our national Independence, and second that he has
written an
informative and useful personal account of his life which was all
in the
struggle as captured by the title of his autobiography.
Equally important to appreciate is that Tekere is entitled to narrate
the
story of his lifetime of struggle in his own words through his own
memory,
not least because we know from the public record that his
involvement in the
liberation struggle was not ordinary but pivotal for
better or
worse.
Those who have read the autobiography are aware that it is
not about
Mugabe who is but one out of many individuals, some famous others
not, whose
lives crossed paths with Tekere during Zimbabwe's defining
moments in
history. But the hysterical media reaction of Mugabe's
propagandists to
Tekere's autobiography would have those who have not read
the book think
that it is all about Mugabe.
Apparently Mugabe's
propagandists are furious on behalf of their
thin-skinned boss that Tekere's
autobiography makes three telling
disclosures that they see as fatal to
whatever is left of Mugabe's
reputation and legacy. As a result, Mugabe's
propagandists have decided to
raise foolish dust everywhere oblivious of the
fact that raising dust in the
rainy season does not work especially when the
rain is on you and is pouring
heavily.
The first disclosure
that has annoyed Mugabe's cronies is that Tekere
says he played a leading
role in paving the way for Mugabe's rise to the
leadership of Zanu
PF.
Imagining itself to be correcting this disclosure, the Sunday
Mail
(January 14) wrote that: "Mr Tekere is . reported to have claimed that
he
was instrumental in catapulting President Mugabe to the helm of Zanu PF,
yet
the party's wartime supreme council, the Dare reChimurenga, popularly
endorsed his ascension to the party's top post." To buttress its inane claim
that goes against the grain of truth, the Sunday Mail sought the laughable
rant of a hopeless polygamist clad in shabby youth service camouflage called
George Rutanhire, who was exhumed from his political grave in rural
Mashonaland Central and suddenly and very conveniently remembered as a
veteran nationalist, former government minister and war veteran who was one
of the authors of the famed Mgagao Declaration.
Betraying the
ignorance of Mugabe's propagandists who deep-throat it
with defamatory
nonsense, the Sunday Mail confidently but falsely reported
that: "According
to the war veteran (George Rutanhire), President Mugabe's
road to power
began following the Mgagao Declaration which Zimbabwe's
freedom fighters
wrote, denouncing the leadership of the then Zanu president
the late
Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole."
In the ensuing childish excitement
over the political resurrection of
Rutanhire, the Sunday Mail went overboard
and allowed their newly found
Mgagao hero to gratuitously insult and defame
Tekere by alleging that he
"went mad and formed his own party (Zum) in the
past". How Tekere's exercise
of his protected constitutional right to form
or join a political party of
his choice could be said to be evidence of
mental disability was of course
not explained because it cannot
be.
Given that the Mgagao Declaration was made in October 1975,
anyone who
believes that Mugabe's road to power started then, or who
believes that
Sithole was deposed from the leadership of Zanu as a result of
the Mgagao
Declaration, is a dangerous ignoramus.
Tekere
recalls in his autobiography that Mugabe's road to power
started after his
return to Zimbabwe from Ghana, when he was approached and
incorporated into
the nationalist leadership under the NDP. To attract his
incorporation,
Mugabe had not demonstrated any notable leadership qualities
besides his
impressive proficiency in pronouncing English words with an
acquired if not
exaggerated accent that leaves the uncanny impression that
he is a highly
learned person when he is not.
As to how and when Mugabe came to
head Zanu, Tekere's autobiography
recalls a fact, which has been
corroborated by various independent sources,
that he was elevated after the
Kwekwe prison sacking of Sithole by his
fellow leaders in mid-1974 in a vote
spiritedly moved by Tekere and
supported by Enos Nkala and Maurice Nyagumbo
but opposed by Sithole himself
with a cowardly abstention from Mugabe while
Moton Malianga did not vote as
he chaired the meeting to sack Sithole from
the leadership of Zanu.
About this Tekere recalls that "the votes
were cast with three in
favour of the sacking, one against (Sithole), and
one abstention - Mugabe.
Once more Mugabe did not want to "break" with his
leader. His abstention was
total. He sat silently in the meeting and did not
raise a finger. This is
when he was appointed to head the party. For the
structure was clear on
this. Since the Vice-President, Leopard Takawira, had
died, Mugabe, as
secretary-general of the party, was the next in
line."
Sithole's dismissal from the presidency of Zanu by his
colleagues in
prison was communicated to all party structures, especially
guerilla
fighters, within and outside the country. Therefore subsequent
seemingly
landmark events, including the December 1974 "Nhari Rebellion",
Chitepo's
assassination in March 1975, the crossing into Mozambique by
Tekere and
Mugabe in April 1975, the October 1975 Mgagao Declaration and the
letter of
January 24, 1976 from the Dare reChimurenga signed by Josiah
Tongogara,
Kumbirai Kangai and Rugare Gumbo, were footnotes to the sacking
of Sithole
and his replacement by Mugabe through an indubitably courageous
motion that
was moved by Tekere in the presence of both Sithole and
Mugabe.
As such, only those who have been blinded by the whims and
caprices of
Mugabe's personality cult and who because of that have become
either
malicious or sycophantic can deny that Tekere "was instrumental in
catapulting Mugabe to the helm of Zanu-PF". The supporting evidence is
unimpeachable.
In any event, it is clear from the public record
that the October 1975
Mgagao Declaration sought to make Mugabe, who had
already crossed into
Mozambique with Tekere, only a spokesman and caretaker
leader pending the
release from prison in Zambia of Dare reChimurenga
members who had been
accused of murdering Chitepo and who were seen by the
comrades in Mgagao as
the real true leaders of the armed struggle who had
inspired their
declaration. That is why the Mgagao Declaration referred to
Mugabe as the
".only person who can act as a middleman". The difference
between a
middleman and a leader is like that of night and day.
The second disclosure of Tekere's autobiography that has sent Mugabe's
propagandists running in all directions while making fools out of themselves
is that, because Mugabe is basically an insecure heartless person given to
brutal vengeance, he has over the years used the political power he got with
a whole lot of help from his senior nationalist colleagues to marginalise
and ostracise those very same colleagues who helped him rise to the helm of
Zanu PF in the first place. This is what accounts for the political
misfortunes of the likes of Zanu stalwarts such as Nkala, Nyagumbo, Eddison
Zvobgo and Tekere himself not to mention similar misfortunes of many others
in Zapu including the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo who was humiliated by
Mugabe into submitting to a treacherous unity accord.
In the
circumstances, Mugabe has come to be surrounded by dodgy
political
characters along with other bureaucratic and media sycophants who
are known
for their malice and incompetence.
The third disclosure from
Tekere's autobiography that has particularly
rocked Mugabe and his
propagandists beyond belief is the book's conclusion
that the blame for 90%
of Zimbabwe's ills should go to Mugabe, not the much
touted economic
sanctions, and that there is now a critical and urgent need
for bold
leadership within Zanu PF with courage to tell Mugabe that he is
now a
liability to Zimbabwe and that he should retire and pass the baton to
a
younger and more imaginative leader.
* Moyo is independent MP
for Tsholotsho.
Zim Independent
Ray
Matikinye
JUST over a month since civic groups and opposition
parties met under
the auspices of the Save Zimbabwe Campaign (SZC) and
undertook to confront
Zanu PF head-on over its proposed postponement of
presidential elections to
2010, there is no clear picture emerging of how
the broad coalition is going
to go about its mission.
Some
members of the coalition advocate petitioning President Mugabe,
while others
prefer using all means permissible in a democratic society to
pressure
Mugabe to abandon the plan.
Whatever those democratic means are, no
one is yet certain. All are
however agreed that any future elections should
be held under a new
constitution.
SZC called for the holding of
elections in 2008 as scheduled under the
current constitutional
provisions.
But the broad movement said the 2008 elections should
be held within
the framework of a new people-driven
constitution.
The electorate is still waiting for the clouds to
clear before it can
see the sky.
"We are drafting a petition
and we will try to gather more than a
million signatures which we will
present to President Mugabe," Pius Wakatama
of the Christian Alliance said
on Tuesday.
Wakatama felt this should prod Mugabe into action.
"Within Zanu PF,
the majority of the members want Mugabe to go. We hope Zanu
PF members who
have expressed this view in private will come out in support
of the
petition," Wakatama said.
He said the Christian Alliance
hoped President Mugabe would see sense
and exit in a dignified
manner.
If elections are to be held next year in March, as is the
tradition,
that leaves precious little time for an all-inclusive
constitution that
would entail balloting the electorate to judge its
acceptability in a
referendum.
"It's not impossible as long as
there is goodwill and intention," says
Lovemore Madhuku of the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA). "There are
several drafts floating around
from which we can draw such as the rejected
draft (of February 2000), the
Women's Charter and our own draft as the NCA,"
Madhuku said.
He
said although it appeared time was running out for drafting the
constitution, holding a plebiscite in time from 2008 could lead to an agreed
postponement of the election date.
"Once we have an
irreversible process in place, it is possible for
people to agree on an
election date within reasonable time beyond 2008," he
said.
But
gremlins seem to have found their way into the Save Zimbabwe
Campaign
already.
At the inaugural meeting to chart the way forward, the
Mutambara-led
formation of the MDC was absent.
"That is
immaterial," explained Morgan Tsvangirai. "They were part of
the
launch."
Madhuku saw it differently. "They lost an opportunity to
show unity of
purpose," he said.
While the Christian Alliance
has invested in gathering millions of
signatures "even from Zanu PF members
who are portending to succeed Mugabe",
the NCA reposes faith in street
parades to force Mugabe to accept a new
constitution.
"Mugabe
will not flinch or move an inch unless we push hard enough and
demonstrate
massive support demanding a new constitution," Madhuku said.
Madhuku's views resonated with those of Paul Siwela of Zapu, who said
nothing short of a protracted push at President Mugabe to force him to
negotiate with the opposition and civic groups would bring about political
change in Zimbabwe.
"Anything short of this will be a waste of
time. The push must be able
to restrict those in power from their ill-gotten
wealth and privileges,"
Siwela said, adding that it was unthinkable to find
democratic ways of
fighting an undemocratic institution.
Siwela
said his party would contribute ideas and energy to get the
process of
confronting Mugabe going, but warned that this was not going to
be an easy
task to accomplish.
SZC has said it will do all that is permissible
in a democratic
society to challenge Zanu PF's intention "to deny the people
of Zimbabwe the
right to select leaders of their own choice under a
democratic
constitutional dispensation".
Dr Reginald
Matchaba-Hove of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network
(Zesn) said
harmonisation of elections is a noble idea and should be
undertaken in a
manner which exacts the least cost on democracy.
But the civic
society body, which is also part of SZC, says the
presidential election due
in 2008 must go ahead in order to seek a fresh
mandate from the people, who
should determine the socio-economic and
political path of the
nation.
In a statement last week, Zesn proposes a comprehensive
approach to
harmonisation, which should encompass all presidential, House of
Assembly
and senatorial elections.
"It would also be ideal to
merge the urban council with the rural
district council elections. The
harmonisation process further needs to be
accompanied by reforms such as
constitutional reform, changes to the
electoral system from the current
first past the post to a more proportional
system of representation,"
Matchaba-Hove said.
He also said Zesn advocated a fresh voter
registration exercise
resulting in new voters' roll and rational
delimitation of both constituency
and ward boundaries.
None of
the organisations that form the SZC appears to be prepared to
put their
heads on the block in dragging Mugabe to the negotiating table.
Tsvangirai says the onus to bring about change is not on the
leadership but
a collective effort by all Zimbabweans who are keen to
resolve the national
crisis.
"This is not a leadership challenge. Change will not come
on a silver
platter," Tsvangirai said on Wednesday.
The
campaign to confront Mugabe, he said, demanded a united and
popular front
for its successful implementation.
Tsvangirai said Zimbabweans have
painfully avoided resorting to
mayhem, chaos and arms of war to resolve the
national crisis. This
demonstrated their faith in an orderly political
transition and a sovereign
right to change.
Zim Independent
By
Prosper Chitambara
THE Zimbabwean economy continues to be
trapped in a vicious cycle of
sustained decline with no relief on the
horizon.
While 2006 was undoubtedly the most challenging year to
date,
Zimbabweans should brace themselves for a tougher 2007 unless radical
reforms and not piecemeal measures are urgently implemented.
The rapidly deteriorating socio-economic milieu is characterised by
runaway
inflation (1 281% as at December 2006), chronic shortages of foreign
currency and fuel, very low levels of capacity utilisation, increasing
incidence of poverty in excess of 80% of the total population and its
glaring income inequalities.
The economy is riddled with
distortions and encumbrances which provide
a fertile breeding ground for
corruption of variegated manifestations.
Ultimately all these inauspicious
developments have conspired to make
Zimbabwe an uncompetitive investment
destination to many an international
investor.
With the
shrinking formal economy, it is the informal economy that has
taken over as
the mainstream economy. Jobs in this economy are insecure,
unrepresented,
unregulated and generally suffer from decent work deficits.
Increasingly, formal sector workers are employed on a casual basis,
creating
insecurity of tenure. Those fortunate enough to remain in formal
employment
are increasingly being casualised.
Hordes of workers can no longer
afford even transport to work, being
reduced to walking to work everyday
over long distances. So far efforts by
the government to resolve the crises
have been a zero sum game as they have
not yielded much.
More
worrying is the fact that the government continues to extend its
tentacles
and encroach into areas that can best be served by markets
disenfranchising
investors in the process.
While the "Look East" policy has received
much hype there are few
tangible benefits on the ground to justify this
hype. The government should
realise that opportunities arise from all
geographic positions and hence
focusing on one regional location is
ill-advised and short-sighted in a
globalising world.
The East
is actually "Looking West, South and North" - in fact in
every direction for
strategic partnerships and opportunities.
The days of splendid
isolation and autarchy are long gone and
countries that go that route do so
at their own peril. While the
international community can go without
Zimbabwe, the country cannot go it
alone and hence the need to swallow our
pride and normalise our
international relations as a basis for a sustainable
turnaround.
The challenges facing the economy are indeed gargantuan
and therefore
transcend the monetary policy and/or the fiscal policy alone.
The monetary
policy can only influence economic considerations to a limited
extent but it
cannot influence the politics.
In essence the
degrees of policy freedom and manoeuvre of the governor
of the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe or the Minister of Finance are very limited
as they have no
power to influence the political environment.
An accurate and
correct diagnosis of a crisis is a prerequisite for
the resolution of that
crisis lest a wrong prescription be administered,
creating serious
complications in the process. This, however, should not be
seen as a way of
indulging in finger-pointing and the blame game but rather
as a way of
trying to self-correct.
Past governmental policies have always been
predicated on flawed
assumptions and incorrect causal factors.
While the government continues to blame everyone else except itself, a
closer historical analysis of the origins of the crises indicates otherwise.
The government through its own acts of commission and omission has been the
major instigator and architect of the crises.
Political
convenience has continued to override economic rationale.
Events that
immediately spring to mind include: the haphazard land reform
exercise and
subsequent disturbances on farms, unbudgeted compensation to
war veterans,
the Congo war, the muzzling of the independent press and the
harassment of
trade unions and the opposition among others.
Experiences from a
number of countries have shown that there is a
positive correlation between
bad politics and economic decline. Bad politics
defeats good
economics.
Our situation has taught us that economic prescriptions
can only work
up to a certain threshold beyond which they are rendered
ineffectual unless
they are complemented by political reforms.
While a lot has been said about "sanctions", paradoxically trade
statistics
actually indicate that the trade balance between Zimbabwe and the
West is
favourable.
In any event, the withdrawal of balance-of-payments
support, lines of
credit, foreign direct investment and the so-called
deliberate efforts to
undermine our economic turnaround initiatives is a
direct response to the
implementation of wrong-headed policies on the part
of the government and
the deteriorating internal governance, and in
particular the lack of respect
for human and trade union rights,
international norms and standards.
Government officials also
continue to scorn and deride international
leaders at every international
gathering. In a way, Zimbabwe invited such
measures due to its obstinacy,
which in fact led to the country opting out
of the Commonwealth. In this
regard, it is the country that must reform, and
not the other way
round.
To add insult to injury the government continues to view
other
stakeholders in the economy with disdain and suspicion believing that
it has
a monopoly of solutions to the problems afflicting the
country.
A case in point is the NEDPP which was implemented in
April 2006.
This ill-fated programme was crafted without an iota of
input from a
number of stakeholders such as labour and other non-state
actors save for a
few elite business people.
Business has now,
however, learnt the hard way that the government was
never really sincere as
some of their members were recently brought before
the courts for flouting
price controls.
Institutions established to promote social dialogue
such as the
Tripartite Negotiating Forum remain largely marginalised and
ineffective.
Therefore NEDPP was doomed right from the onset. Indications by
the
government that most if not all of the NEDPP objectives were not met
therefore do not come as a major surprise.
However, it also has
to be made clear that even if there had been
stakeholder consultations there
has been a dearth of firm political will and
commitment to resolve the
crises besides the usual rhetorical statements by
government
officials.
The prospects for the Zimbabwean economy going forward
do not look
bright at all as the government seems to be lacking the
necessary political
will to resolve the crises. The International Monetary
Fund in its World
Economic Outlook report forecast that inflation will reach
an average of 4
279% in 2007 unless there are fundamental political and
economic reforms.
This leaves the position of the ordinary person more
precarious and tenuous.
However, on a brighter note the situation
though dire is not a lost
cause. The starting point for any sustainable
turnaround ought to be the
resolution of the "political risk factor" as
identified in the Kadoma
Declaration.
The Kadoma Declaration
deals with the political issues such as the
restoration of good governance,
restoration of normalcy and in particular
relations with development
partners.
The declaration spells out in detail what has to be done
to deal with
the "political risk factor". This includes, among others, the
restoration of
the rule of law and good governance and the de-politicisation
of public
institutions and the restoration of relations with development
partners.
* Prosper Chitambara is an economist with the Labour and
Economic
Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe.
Zim Independent
ZIMBABWE'S electricity regulator this week dispelled fears of
catastrophic power deficits during the year, saying the impact of a regional
power shortfall would be mitigated by refurbishments at Hwange Power
Station. Steps had also been taken to mitigate the impact of the shortfalls
through imports, Zimbabwe Electricity Regulatory Authority director-general,
Mavis Chidzonga, told businessdigest this week.
"Steps have
already been taken to secure electricity imports from
Zambia, South Africa,
Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC)," Chidzonga said,
responding to written questions from businessdigest.
It was not
immediately clear how regional countries, also battling
shortfalls due to
growing domestic demand, would manage to spare enough for
exports to
Zimbabwe.
South Africa was yesterday reported to be facing
nation-wide power
cuts due to an unexpected surge in demand, leaving the
country with a 2 000
megawatt power deficit.
"The situation is
critical," reports quoted South Africa's power
utility Eskom's spokesman,
Fani Zulu, saying.
"We expect about two hours of shortages a day.
We will tap reserve
resources. Hopefully we will resolve the problem early
next week," Zulu
said. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Comment
JUDGE President Justice Rita Makarau this week led the
judiciary in a rare
charge to press for more funding for the legal
system.
Opening the first term of the judicial year in Harare this week,
Justice
Makarau drew up an inventory of problems being faced by the
judiciary in the
performance of its duty saying judges were working in
"hellish conditions".
The judge said courts were running out of basics
and the constant response
from the Ministry of Justice which is responsible
for financing the courts
was that it had no funds. She lamented the
underfunding of prisons which had
resulted in dreadful conditions in state
jails. The judiciary was operating
without computers and adequate
stationery. The library available for use has
been described "as varying
only in their degrees of uselessness". The
country's economic crisis has now
caught up with the judiciary.
"I wonder how many of us here present have
really given thought to the
importance of an efficient and impartial justice
delivery system. When
shortages of certain grocery items manifest in the
local supermarkets, we
shop in neighbouring countries. We have managed to
avoid what we perceive as
shortcomings in the local educational system by
sending our children to
schools in South Africa, the United States of
America, Australia and the
United Kingdom.
"When we need complex
medical procedures and attention that the local
hospitals cannot provide, we
fly mainly to South Africa but sometimes to the
United Kingdom or the United
States. Yet when we have to sue for wrongs done
to us, we cannot do so in
Australia or South Africa and have to contend with
the inadequately funded
justice system in this country."
Justice Makarau also said that "the
place and role of the judiciary in this
country is
under-appreciated".
The Judge President is right in saying that the
judiciary should not be
reduced to begging the state for sustenance. A
self-respecting judiciary
cherishes its independence from state intervention
and intrusion and also
from the general public. In its discharge of duty the
judiciary should never
be seen to be beholden to the state lest it becomes
an extension of the
executive. The current Judicial Services Commission
offers a wafer-thin
buffer to judicial independence. If anything, judges are
no different from
our poorly equipped ordinary civil servants.
The
political establishment in Zimbabwe would very much love to have a
suborned
judiciary which comes to politicians begging bowl in hand. A
weakened
judiciary is an essential ingredient for a government on a mission
to
subvert human rights. The breakdown of systems at the courts makes them
less
attractive as institutions where people go to seek justice. There are
lengthy delays in the conclusion of both civil and criminal cases. Justice
Makarau - on a visit to the Remand Prison in Harare Central last year -
discovered hundreds of inmates festering in filthy cells without
trial.
Her exercise of judicial activism by clearing the overcrowded
cells was
immediately attacked by Home Affairs minister Kembo Mohadi who
accused the
judiciary of abetting criminal activity in the country. The
absence of a
response from the judiciary following these slanderous
executive
pronouncements is emblematic of the government's perception of the
Bench.
Judges should partner with the executive in the assault on human
liberties,
Mohadi's statement seemed to suggest. This explains why the
police - in
cases challenging the land reform - stubbornly refused to
enforce orders
from the courts on the pretext that the issues at stake were
political.
The purge of the judiciary and the execution of the land
reform was
therefore no coincidence. The government wanted a pliant Bench
that would
not erect a legal blockade to its designs. And it was prepared to
pay for
acquiescence with land grants. Even today, the Zanu PF government is
keen to
have a judiciary that serves its narrow political interests rather
than
upholding the rights of Zimbabweans as set out in the constitution's
Declaration of Rights.
Upon his resignation from the Bench, Justice
Michael Gillespie in 2001 aptly
captured the state of affairs in the
judiciary.
"I cannot sit as an effective and independent member of this
Bench," he
said. "The executive has contrived to politicise the Bench. A
judge . . .
who finds himself in the position where he is called upon to
administer the
law only as against political opponents of the government and
not against
government supporters, faces the challenge to his
conscience."
It is clear money alone is not the problem. There is a need
for principled
leadership and independent judgements in our courts if
Zimbabwe is to
recover its respect for the rule of law.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
I DIDN'T know how to
describe the guy temporarily in charge of the
National Social Security
Authority (NSSA): haughty, self-important,
conceited or ignorant. That is
the acting general manager, Amod Takawira.
It's enough that he has
been acting in that capacity for five years
for one to understand the danger
that he poses to the image of his employer.
In an interview with
The Standard last week, Takawira allegedly said
the $12 900 paid to
pensioners a month was a lot of money. He said people
who earn up to $130
000 contribute too little at 3%, which translates to
about $3 900 per month
matched by the employer's contribution. He insisted
this amount was
insignificant to his organisation. He didn't say which
sources provide him
with "significant" incomes and what they use it for.
The gentleman
was responding to complaints that senior managers at
NSSA virtually live in
what President Robert Mugabe once described as the
"sphere of angels",
referring to our diplomats abroad. For instance, senior
managers are
entitled to vehicle loans after three months of probation. A
year down the
line they graduate to housing loans. These attract a
breathtaking annual
interest of 5% at a time when the rest of us accursed
Zimbabweans cannot
expect interest payments of less than 400% from
commercial
banks.
Takawira said NSSA needed the "best brains" in the country
to manage
its investments hence the need to give the managers incentives. To
this end,
NSSA had bought 70 vehicles for its workers. The managers also buy
at book
value the vehicle they use after every five years. Most companies do
the
same, he said. Which is probably true.
He then wondered
aloud whether The Standard didn't have a similar
scheme for its employees. I
indeed wish we had, but that is besides the
point.
My quarrel
with Takawira is over his pretentious attitude that he
doesn't know that we
contribute to NSSA against our will and we have no say
in how the
organisation spends our money.
The issue is not about the amount,
which Takawira calls "too little"
but that that amount is literally extorted
from taxpayers who would rather
make their own choice about where to put
their money. It is about
accountability in the way NSSA spends that money
and parasitic parastatals
as a species.
Takawira talks the same
way Harare Commission chair Sekesai
Makwavarara does, that the measure of
her performance at Town House is
whether or not she is able to pay the
workers and not service delivery to
ratepayers. What is the benefit to
pensioners of NSSA getting the best
brains on the market yet they can't
survive for a day on the paltry $12 900
it pays them? That amounts to 15
loaves of bread of the cheapest quality.
But that is immaterial to the
illustrious guy who heads NSSA who appears to
believe his mandate is to
ensure his managers have vehicles and houses, and
is not concerned about the
welfare of those who make such luxuries possible.
I said I wished
Zimind Publishers P/L could offer similar facilities
to its workers. But we
are not so blessed like NSSA which doesn't have to
sell any service to earn
those monthly contributions - it is a parasite
feeding on our sweat.
Privately-owned media have to operate under the most
iniquitous conditions
to earn every penny. That is a tall order in a country
where unemployment is
nearly 80%, inflation is over 1 200%, the breadbasket
for a family of six is
above $351 000 yet an average worker earns around $60
000 a
month.
Takawira can check with Nathaniel Manheru who knows that we
don't make
$1 million a week. Yet we must still contribute to NSSA to make
sure its
managers live in the sphere of angels.
The issue goes
beyond a pecuniary debate when one considers that what
NSSA pays out to
pensioners is not enough to feed one person per day. It
assumes both an
ethical and moral dimension.
While the average worker in Zimbabwe
doesn't earn enough to feed
himself, he is compelled by law to contribute to
an institution that
promises to take care of his needs in old age when in
reality it cannot. The
institution benefits only those it
employs.
By the time the average worker has paid his rent of $30
000 per room,
set aside a few dollars for food, transport for himself and
the kids and a
huge amount for water and refuse charges and electricity
bills, he literally
has nothing left for medical expenses, let alone
investment in anything
profitable to help him in old age.
I
could therefore not stomach it when NSSA's boss boasted that their
policies
are "replicas" of government policies - which to me reeks of
unaccountable
expenditure and upside-down priorities where those in power
think of buying
fighter jets and other military paraphernalia while
foreigners feed the
starving masses.
I am told somewhere in Murehwa they have built a
beautiful mortuary
while local hospitals have no drugs. One minister
proposed recently that
they needed more jails to ease prisoner congestion,
instead of creating jobs
to reduce unemployment which is largely blamed for
rising criminal
activities.
Parliament needs to review NSSA's
mandate as a national institution
and ensure it serves its purpose in the
long-term. Meanwhile, I have come to
the conclusion that the guy at NSSA is
a disgrace to his principals and the
institution he purports to
serve.
Zim Independent
Business Editor's Memo
THE past few days have been anxious moments for Zimbabweans,
not least
because of uncertainty over a year already blighted by
accelerating price
increases. Adding to their worries will be Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
governor Gideon Gono's plans to rescue the country from a
worsening economic
crisis.
Commodity prices, both basic and
non-basic, have been soaring unabated
over the past three months, despite a
pledge by captains of industry to
contain the increases.
This
has left many Zimbabweans increasingly despondent.
Gono is expected
to present his monetary policy statement before
month-end.
For
36 months the nation had hoped that the Gono magic - that touch
which
wrought his reputation as a turnaround expert after transforming the
collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce into a money-minting financial
behemoth that has become CBZ Holdings today - would halt an economic crisis
going into its seventh year.
With less than 24 months of his
five-year term remaining, Gono is this
month expected to make one last push
to victory. If he succeeds in turning
around the country's frail economy,
his mandate when he took over control at
the magnificent central bank
building in November 2003, he is likely to
serve the remainder of his term
towards consolidation.
In his maiden monetary policy, Gono said his
12-month vision was "to
see the implementation of policies that seriously
arrest and reverse our
inflation from the expected initial peak of 700% in
early 2004 to below the
170-200% levels". Inflation currently stands at over
1 200%.
The two-year plan was to consolidate gains from the
previous year
which Gono indicated would "express themselves through reduced
inflation
levels, from three digits to a two-digit figure".
The
first two years were to be an integral anchor to later economic
revival
measures but, as it were, the targets were not achieved during the
first two
years.
The central bank's five-year monetary policy vision was to
attain a
"healthy economy" in which inflation and currency stability became
entrenched.
There is no doubting the earnestness of Gono in his
energetic campaign
to turn around the country's economy for, after the
success that followed
him as a banker, he would be worried about a legacy of
failure at the
central bank.
But Gono might have failed to
locate the real risk to his turnaround
efforts - colleagues in the ruling
party and in business pretending to be
running with him in the race when
they are chasing him.
The cue might have been given by former
Finance minister Simba Makoni,
when he charged at businessmen and political
colleagues that they had "run
with the hare and hunted with the hounds",
alleging frustration of his
policies from both business and
politics.
Gono is a hostage of the same quandary that hounded
Makoni, except
that he has exceptional opportunities denied Makoni during
his time to take
radical measures.
In a convoluted succession
battle in which he is seen to have
political ambitions or to be sympathetic
to a group opposed to another,
there are detractors likely to ensure his
policies fail the same way they
hounded Makoni to ensure he did not succeed
in his own campaign. The feeling
is that if he succeeds, he would stake his
political credentials and
possibly challenge for the highest
office.
But the truth is even among a coterie of his associates, in
both
business and political circles, many are wont to maintain the economic
crisis because they have themselves become major beneficiaries of
it.
And Gono has abetted them, allocating so much money to their
projects
in the vain belief that they were in the same battle against the
economic
monster called inflation.
Little wonder that despite
personally expending so much effort and
labour and coming up with an
abundance of economic edicts to deal with the
economic catastrophe, it
persists.
Productivity levels remain low and sinking despite the
central bank
dishing out huge amounts of concessionary funds to industry to
boost
production, foreign currency remains scarce, and despite several
measures
aimed at boosting exports, the local currency remains perilously
weak.
Efforts to defend it have proved futile.
By Gono's own
admission, those that accessed cheap foreign currency
for fuel imports
abused the facility by selling the foreign currency on the
parallel market,
while those that continue to receive large amounts of
diesel for farming
activities have also diverted it to the parallel market.
Cheap
concessionary funding for productive purposes was also diverted
to
quick-cash earning investments like the equities market.
Sadly, the
bulk of the abusers have been politically-connected and
influential people,
and these have, not inadvertently, poured fuel on the
inflationary
fires.
Gono has to deal with that past and his seeming inability to
contain
the inflationary impulses generated by his principals.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
EDGAR Tekere has set the cat among the pigeons with his
autobiography,
A Lifetime of Struggle, released last week. State publicists
have been
falling over themselves to rebut allegations - by both Tekere and
Enos
Nkala - that Robert Mugabe was a reluctant recruit to the nationalist
cause.
Tekere and Nkala, quoted in this newspaper last week, said
they
regretted persuading Mugabe to join the struggle and not being more
vigilant. In the absence of institutional safeguards a dictatorship has been
spawned, the two veterans pointed out.
"In the absence of such
institutional safeguards," Tekere said, "any
one of us and not just Mugabe,
could have lost the course and degenerated
into a virtual dictatorship,
buttressed by the combination of political
patronage and the threat of state
brutality if one dared to defy the
powers-that-be."
It is
becoming increasingly difficult not to believe that Mugabe was
at the centre
of the nation's problems, Tekere said in his book.
Nkala echoed
this view saying "we produced a creature that has
destroyed this country".
But it was the suggestion that Mugabe had to be
persuaded to come on board
when the National Democratic Party, the precursor
of Zapu and Zanu, was
formed in 1960, that appears to have stung Mugabe's
supporters. He joined in
1961.
George Rutanhire, a former deputy Minister of Youth,
Sport and
Recreation and, we are told, "one of the most influential figures
in the
armed struggle for Independence", was wheeled out by the Sunday Mail
to tell
us the president had ably executed the mandate for which he was
elected.
Rutanhire ventured the view that some people could be
using Tekere to
secure the presidency.
"There is no way he can
criticise the president," Rutanhire
admonished. "He went mad and formed his
own party in the past."
This reflects Zanu PF's view that anybody
forming another party must
be mad and that criticism of the president is
heresy!
Rutanhire didn't tell us why he is no longer serving in
government. We
would have thought the Sunday Mail might have found somebody
a tad more
inspiring than a former deputy Minister of Sport to put the
record straight.
But then again who is there? Nathan Shamuyarira is not
well-placed to
lecture us on the events of the 1970s. And he has been
inexcusably slow in
producing his own biography of the great
helmsman.
Alexander Kanengoni has chronicled the Mozambique
sojourn in some
detail but this has raised more questions than
answers.
Mugabe, we understand, crossed into Mozambique in March
1975, three
months after his release. He was accompanied by Tekere. But the
much-touted
Mgagao Declaration, in which the freedom fighters accepted
Mugabe as their
"middleman" in talks with the recently-restructured ANC
leadership, only
came eight months later. This stance was followed by the
Dare reChimurenga
letter of January 24, 1976 recognising Mugabe's
provisional leadership of
Zanu.
The Herald on Monday made much
of this correspondence. But it failed
to point out that the letter endorsing
Mugabe's provisional leadership came
10 months after he arrived in
Mozambique - during which time he was made to
cool his heels as sceptical
guerilla commanders scrutinised his
blandishments - and anyway had nothing
to do with Tekere's and Nkala's
evidence that Mugabe was a reluctant recruit
to the nationalist cause 15
years earlier. How can a letter of endorsement
written in 1976 controvert
something that took place in
1961?
Nkala goes further in making his case and says when Zapu
split in
August 1963, Mugabe had to be persuaded to abandon the Nkomo
loyalists.
In the circumstances, the Herald's "analysis",
attempting to shore up
Mugabe's revolutionary credentials, looks more
pathetic than persuasive. Is
this what it has come to? Puff pieces in the
Herald written by individuals
who have no real knowledge of the events under
review and write what they
are told?
Nowhere do any of these
shrill rebuttals deal with Tekere's central
claim that Mugabe is at the
centre of the nation's problems.
That will have scuppered his
chances of a reunion with his former
comrades. But it is useful to have all
this on the record as it reflects a
growing national consensus. And at last
we can understand the anguished
remarks of Vice-President Joseph Msika who
told the Sunday News in October
that time was running out for him to tell
"the true story of the liberation
struggle". He claimed that currently it
was being distorted.
He said: "The history of the struggle should
be told. I feel I have a
duty to correct this blatant lie before I go but
time is running out. The
struggle to liberate Zimbabwe started in Bulawayo
at Stanley Hall when we
formed the African Youth Congress."
He
added that at one of the meetings he chaired they decided "to
invite people
from Mashonaland". Joshua Nkomo, who was then based there,
came into the
fold but others refused.
Msika was also quoted as saying some of
the people they had invited
later on became "vultures feeding on what they
had not killed". But he did
not mention names.
It's time now
for him to open up. The sound of vultures eating noisily
permeates the land.
And do we really need to have the testimony of police
chiefs whose partisan
credentials are already well understood? On Tuesday we
had Augustine Chihuri
commenting on a criminal case in order to rubbish the
historical record of a
fellow party member. Chihuri called Tekere an
alcoholic who was emotional
and unstable and had "anger bouts".
Did this involve waving his
fists in the air and threatening his
political opponents, we
wonder?
Before we leave the realm of facile claims by state
apologists, let's
just raise one point with Tafataona Mahoso's latest
long-winded piece in the
Sunday Mail. He states, in his obsessive attack on
the Law Society of
Zimbabwe, that "the sanctions law called the Zimbabwe
Democracy and Economic
Recovery Act was drafted by lawyers in Zimbabwe and
sent to the US to
implement".
This is not the first time he has
made this claim. It would be helpful
therefore if Mahoso could for the
record provide us with the details of this
transaction. Not only does it
advertise his ignorance on how US legislation
is drawn up but it credits
Zimbabwean lawyers with an authority they would
be only too happy to possess
were it true!
Anyway, it would be useful if the claim could be
substantiated in some
way so it doesn't look, like the Swedish/Aippa claim,
to be bereft of truth
when put to the test!
Apart from that, if
Mahoso wants us to believe that there is rule of
law in Zimbabwe and that
the LSZ's "attack on the state" is part of a
conspiracy against Zimbabwe
devoid of evidential merit, then perhaps he can
explain how Joseph Mwale has
been able to roam free for the past seven
years.
'I have
often heard it said Madam President that the worst evil that
wise men can do
is to sit back and not speak out on public affairs and
politics and let
fools run their affairs, more often with disastrous
consequences."
Reading the above statement in Hansard,
Zimbabweans would be forgiven
for thinking that it had been made by an
opposition politician or a civil
society activist. Wrong.
It
was in fact Senator Aguy Georgios attacking fellow senators and MPs
for a
conspiracy of silence on the "illegal economic sanctions" imposed on
Zimbabwe by the European Union and the United States.
He
accused the two houses of being "guilty and blameworthy for sitting
idle in
the face of such a vicious and ferocious attack on our economy by
Western
powers".
Muckraker reckons the senator is doing Zimbabweans a huge
disservice
by refusing to acknowledge our own culpability in the destruction
of our
economy and instead opting to play innocent victims of evil Western
powers.
Where does Georgios put the chaotic land reform in all
this, greedy
party supporters who sell fuel meant for farming on the black
market or
senior politicians who allegedly sell foreign currency on the
illegal
parallel market?
It would be interesting to find out
from the senator who the "wise
men" are and the "fools" who run our public
affairs.
If by speaking out Senator Georgios means telling lies,
then he had
better keep quiet.
Part of his problem is also that
he appears unaware that the IMF and
World Bank that he accuses of denying
Zimbabwe loans and balance of payments
support have been told by President
Mugabe to "go to hell". Foreign
investors have all but been handed the same
epithet. It's a "Made in
Zimbabwe" crisis that Georgios is trying to
export.
Muckraker was intrigued by a report in the online
ZimDaily.com that
State Security minister Didymus Mutasa is being sued by a
traditional healer
who claims that he has not paid her fees.
Sarudzai Isaya told a court that Mutasa had asked her to give him
charms, so
that President Mugabe "could love him".
The 39-year-old traditional
healer, or n'anga, also claims to have
used her mystical powers to help
Mutasa obtain bail two years ago, when he
was facing charges of ordering an
attack on a rival ruling party member
ahead of primary elections held prior
to the March 2005 poll, ZimDaily.com
reports.
Isaya went to
court claiming that Mutasa never paid her the $6 million
(old currency) fee
they had
agreed.
Mutasa denies ever requesting any
services from the n'anga and says
she's trying to extort money from him.
However, he did admit that she had
once sprinkled water at his house and
performed a ceremony which he says he
did not understand.
Mutasa has complained to the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers'
Association about Isaya, which has expelled her for charging exorbitant
fees, ZimDaily.com reports.
Isaya claims that Mutasa gave her a
grinding mill as part of the fee,
but Mutasa says that he only gave it to
her for safe-keeping.
She told the court that when he asked for his
grinding mill back, she
threatened to send hares, fish and baboons to
bewitch him.
Mutasa even issued a challenge to the n'anga, saying
that if she was
the one who had got him off the hook during his 2005 court
ordeal,she should
get him back in the dock.
Riveting stuff. We
now understand the abundance of dead fish in Lake
Chivero. But they are not
the only thing that stinks around here!
By the way, could this be
the source of President Mugabe's irritation
with his ministers consulting
witches in a bid to succeed him?
Zanu PF's semi-literate rag,
The Voice, should try and wake up to the
new year. Although its masthead
claims the current edition is for the period
January 14-20 2007, it contains
large advertisements for Unity Day on
December 22. These were placed by the
POSB, Zupco, Zinwa, the GMB, NRZ, the
Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe,
and Zesa.
The Chairperson of the Commission running the affairs of
Harare,
Sekesai Makwavarara and the commissioners also joined
in.
What can we say of these organisations spending our money
without our
approval? Do the public associate them with sound management
values? Are
they well run? Are they free from corruption?
Nothing could be more symptomatic of the nation's demise than these
parasitic bodies lining up to commemorate an event that the voting public
rejected as a false dawn years ago. And we would love to know the process
whereby somebody quietly advises them that it would be in their best
interests to take out advertising in the party's sterile newspaper - nearly
one month after the day they are supposed to be
commemorating.
Finally, we were interested to note that in
order to prove it was a
good custodian of public funds, the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe on Tuesday took
out three full page advertisements in the Herald
costing $1 953 000 each to
shoot down a story appearing in another newspaper
about a Mercedes Benz. It
this value for money?
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
MUCH has been and is being said
of the cataclysmic state of Zimbabwe's
infrastructure as well as the pace at
which it is worsening.
Over the last six to 12 months energy
supplies have become
increasingly erratic, not only because of recurrent
scarcities of foreign
currency to fund electricity imports, but also because
of ageing,
inadequate, ill-maintained equipment, lack of spares and
insufficiency of
technically skilled personnel to maintain and repair the
electricity-generating and distribution resources.
The negative
economic impacts have been immense, affecting production
volumes and
productivity efficiencies of the manufacturing, mining,
agricultural and
other economic sectors, and demoralising many of the
populace.
The problems have not been restricted only to the energy
infrastructure.
Water management, availability and distribution have been
adversely
affected, in both urban and rural areas.
The major cities and towns
have not been able to expand their water
accumulation and storage resources,
with minimum dam development accessing
and utilisation of ground water, and
recourse to water recycling, needed to
secure the needs of their residents,
and of the underlying industries. They
have been unable to maintain - let
alone enhance - their pumping and water
purification and distribution
facilities, and the underground pipes that
traverse the urban
metropolis.
The results include intensive water usage restrictions,
supply
interruptions, potential health risks in residential areas, and
constraints
upon effective industrial operations. Rural water utilisation is
also
gravely inadequately addressed.
Mining, agriculture, the
manufacturing sector and the generation of
electricity have been
horrendously affected by gross inadequacies of coal
supplies due to the
inadequate infrastructural and operational facilities
that apparently
characterised much of the operations at the collieries in
Hwange in recent
years, compounded by various occasions when National
Railways of Zimbabwe
(NRZ) lacked the capacity to transport some of the coal
that was
produced.
Declining line of rail maintenance, ageing signalling
equipment,
constraints upon maintenance of locomotives and rolling stock,
loss to
neighbouring territories of skilled personnel, all impacted
negatively upon
NRZ service delivery, despite valiant recent endeavours to
rise above the
constraints to improve that delivery.
For a
lengthy period, very similar allegations could justifiably be
made against
Air Zimbabwe, with aircraft repeatedly grounded, flights
endlessly delayed,
and its customer-base becoming progressively more and
more wary as to safety
considerations.
In the last 11 months there has (since the
appointment of acting CEO
Captain Oscar Madombwe) been a dynamic
improvement. Internal flights have
developed timetable adherence levels of
which any airline would be proud,
and personnel are extremely customer-care
conscious and attentive.
But the airline still has massive
operational constraints. It has only
two aircraft to operate its
international routes to Europe, the Far East and
elsewhere, only two
operational Boeing 737s to serve some of its regional
routes and only three
Chinese MA-60s to meet all domestic routing needs as
well as much of the
regional operations.
All too often Air Zimbabwe is deprived of one
of its two international
aircraft, either because it is hired for
presidential usage, or because of
maintenance and service needs. Those needs
also apply to the smaller
aircraft, and attending to them is often very
prolonged, for the airline
does not have the foreign currency resources to
stock all required spares
and is also repeatedly afflicted by losses of
technical staff.
The airline is under-capitalised, the victim of
continuing personnel
losses, constrained by the foreign currency
environment, afflicted by
excessive governmental interventions and much
else. In the circumstances, it
is remarkable that it has achieved such a
great turnaround in the last 11
months, but it still is severely hampered in
meeting national needs in
general, and those of the economy in
particular.
Zimbabwe's infrastructural deficiencies extend over
numerous other
areas, including its national road network, border posts,
municipal roads
and lighting resources, airports and much else.
But, in recent times, the most pronounced infrastructural decline has
been
in the entire sector of telecommunications and electronic
communication,
which have become an overwhelming disaster. The economic
repercussions are
formidable.
The worst factor of all is that the communications'
services are not
selectively bad, but are all catastrophically poor, and
becoming a
gargantuan hindrance to effective economic
operations.
The nation's landline services suffer the normal
consequences of
almost all parastatal operations, worldwide - too many
chiefs, not enough
Indians, insufficient capital, inadequate motivation, and
monopolistic
production. Of course (and thank heavens!), there are some very
attentive
and caring personnel who strive to meet consumer needs, but that
does not
suffice.
When it can take 30 to 40 attempts to affect
a Subscriber Trunk
Dialling (STD) intercity call before any connection (even
to an engaged
signal) can be obtained, and after attainment the call
terminates before
completion, it is extremely difficult to carry out normal
economic and
commercial transactions, to complete business timeously, and to
attend to
enterprises' operational needs.
(And, this is even
more so if the caller adheres to the old
"politeness school" of dialling
his/her own calls, instead of having a
secretary or telephonist do so, with
the arrogant expectation that the call's
recipient should then await the
caller, at the caller's convenience and
behest!)
The
catastrophically difficult STD services, presumably jeopardised by
over-congestion of aged, ill-maintained, equipment, are even more horrendous
when resorted to for international calls. It is generally now impossible to
complete a reasonably-lengthed business call without at least two
terminations and consequential redialling, and with concomitant greater
costs. This applies not only to the outgoing calls, but also to those
emanating from afar.
As appalling as are the landline services,
those of the mobile network
providers are even worse. Repeatedly they
announce, with great heraldry,
pride and glee, that their systems are being
substantively upgraded in order
to resolve over-congestion problems. But,
each time they effect such
upgrades, they immediately embark upon massive
campaigns to sign-up tens of
thousands of new subscribers, with resultant
over-congestion problems.
On the two larger networks, it can now
take over two hours (as
recently recurrently experienced by this columnist )
to achieve a call
connection, instead of endlessly repetitive signals of
"Network busy", or
spurious, provenly unfounded signals of "user busy",
"user not presently in
service", or "call diverted".
And when,
almost miraculously, connection is eventually achieved, the
caller and
recipient can rest assured that they have only minimal prospects
of
completing the call before it peremptorily terminates.
The economic
costs are apocalyptic. The first costs are, of course,
the multiplicity of
the network charges for the conduct of one transaction,
due to the necessary
several calls before completion can be achieved. The
second, of greater
magnitude, are the vast man-hours that are unnecessarily
lost, exacerbated
by demoralisation, frustration and demotivation.
The greatest
costs, however, are the numerous losses of business
orders, delays in
concluding time-critical business issues, and the
alienation of customer and
supplier goodwill (when they believe, although
erroneously, that they are
being ignored). This is especially so when the
third parties are external to
Zimbabwe, and unconversant with Zimbabwe's
telecommunication
deficiencies.
More recently, communication circumstances have
deteriorated even
further, with a massive deterioration in electronic mail
services. Ever more
frequent difficulties in accessing Internet have
markedly constrained the
transmission of e-mails, as have recurrent
equipment faults of many of the
Internet service providers. Whereas,
internationally, e-mails are normally
receive almost instantaneously, in
Zimbabwe they can be delayed not for
hours but for days.
E-mail
has progressively been eliminating usage of postal and other
delivery
services which, world-wide, have become known as "snail mail" but,
by now in
Zimbabwe, snail mail is becoming a faster delivery, and a more
reliable one,
then e-mail.
In order, to keep the economic wheels turning,
Zimbabwean business
will soon have to turn to pigeon post or runners with
cleft sticks.
In the meanwhile, and until something constructive is
done about it,
communication difficulties are yet another contributant to
the declining
economy.