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Sugar industry says price freeze hurting
business
Zim Online
Saturday 20 January 2007
HARARE -
Zimbabwe's sugar industry says the viability of the sector was under serious
threat because of a government ban on price increases imposed last
year.
In a statement to the media yesterday, the Zimbabwe Sugar
Association that represents sugarcane farmers, millers and refineries, said
the government must immediately review the price freeze if they are to avert
imminent collapse.
"The industry has not been cushioned against the
hyperinflationary environment which has resulted in significant cost
increases across the board without corresponding adjustment to selling
price," the statement said.
"(The) viability of the Sugarcane
Farmers, Sugar Millers and Sugar Refiners is therefore under serious threat.
As a result the sugar producers are unable to provide normal services to
their valued customers.
"This issue has been brought to the attention of
the relevant authorities, as is the normal practice, and the sugar industry
hopes that matter will receive urgent attention," it added.
Senior
executives in the sugar industry told ZimOnline yesterday that they were
pushing the government to allow them to hike prices by at least 300 percent
citing the surge in inflation which stands at 1 281 percent.
The
government gazetted price for a 2kg packet of sugar stands at Z$550, a price
the industry says is unviable.
Industry and International Trade Minister
Obert Mpofu said government was aware of the problems in the sugar
industry.
"They are not the only ones seeking a price hike. There are
many other sectors. We are looking into the issue but we don't want people
who just increase prices unilaterally," said Mpofu.
Mpofu has in the
past threatened to crack down on businesses that unilaterally increase
prices without permission from the government.
Last year, several
managers were arrested for allegedly hiking prices without approval from the
government.
President Robert Mugabe's government, battling to keep a lid
on rising prices and runaway inflation, has banned business from hiking
prices of selected basic goods without prior permission from the
state.
Skyrocketing prices are just one on a long list of problems
bedevilling Zimbabwe in its seventh year of an economic meltdown described
by the World Bank as the worst in the world outside a war zone. -
ZimOnline
BULAWAYO - Rates on Zimbabwe's illegal
but thriving foreign currency market shot up by more than 20 percent
yesterday ahead of a key central bank monetary policy review statement next
week.
Banking industry sources say Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
governor Gideon Gono is expected to announce a new long promised currency
for the economically troubled southern African country.
Gono, who was
tasked by President Robert Mugabe to reverse a debilitating seven-year old
economic crisis, last year said he would give Zimbabweans 24 hours' notice
before implementing drastic changes in the country's monetary
policy.
The pending announcement has seen most foreign currency
dealers in Zimbabwe's second biggest city of Bulawayo holding on to their
hard currency as they would not want to be caught unawares with huge amounts
of the near worthless Zimbabwe dollar.
This has however pushed demand
for hard cash resulting in the surge in rates on the parallel
market.
On Thursday, for example, the Botswana Pula was selling for
Z$540, up from $450 the previous day while the South African rand was
trading at $500 up from $400.
The dealers were buying the United
States dollar for $3 700, up from $3 000 and selling the greenback for $4
000, up from $3 200.
"The rates will continue rising until after Gono has
presented his monetary policy. People are not sure what will happen so they
are holding on to their foreign currency," said an illegal foreign currency
trader who only identified himself as Mpofu.
The Zimbabwe dollar,
which was stronger than the British pound at independence from Britain in
1980, is at present shedding value at a rate faster than any other currency
in the world. - ZimOnline
Zimbabwe Labor Minister Goche and Union On Collision
Course
VOA
By Blessing Zulu Washington 19 January
2007
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the country's
main labor federation, has accused Labor Minister Nicholas Goche of blocking
its efforts to be represented on the board of the National Social Security
Authority as it says is its right.
Goche has refused to appoint three
ZCTU nominees, saying the law empowers him to appoint whoever he wants. He
adds that the ZCTU is not Zimbabwe's only union.
The ZCTU in 2004
withdrew its representatives from the NSSA board to protest what it said was
a lack of transparency. The authority had operated for many years without
producing audited financial statements, which prompted the ZCTU to raise its
concerns. But its rank-and-file urged ZCTU leaders to re-engage.
The
ZCTU subsequently nominated board members drawn from the Zimbabwe Urban
Council Workers Union, the Zimbabwe Electricity and Energy Workers Union and
the Civil Service Employees Association.
Goche, in a letter obtained
by VOA, complained that the ZCTU had sent copies of its correspondence with
the minister to the International Labor Organization in
Geneva.
Stated Goche: "I urge you to desist from the practice of copying
to the International Labor Organisation Office matters of national
interest." He said such communications did not raise any legal issues that
were not addressed by Zimbabwean law.
"One would want to enquire as
to what ILO has to do with the composition of NSSA Board when it is clear
that they are not the authority to whom you report," he wrote. "Let us
uphold national pride and interest added to respecting the national law." He
suggested that the union had some "pecuniary interest" in copying to the
ILO.
ZCTU Secretary General Wellington Chibebe hit back, saying that
"copying correspondences to the International Labor Organisation...is a
matter of choice that does not have any pecuniary interest and is not
illegal in terms of our law."
Chibebe further responded that, "any
democratic and transparent government will not be skeptical" of unions which
keep the ILO informed on discussions. However, he acknowledged, it "enhances
the undisputed supervisory role of the ILO."
Commenting, National
Constitutional Assembly Chairman Lovemore Madhuku said Goche seemed to be
more concerned with political expediency than with the respective rights and
duties of trade unions and government agencies.
Ahead Of By-Elections, Zimbabwe Ruling Party Takes Rural Wards By
Default
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba Washington 19
January 2007
One month before a round of 21 rural council
by-elections, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has announced that the
country's ruling party has already locked up 15 rural wards due to the
failure of the political opposition to present candidates.
But a
spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change faction led by Morgan
Tsvangirai said the MDC grouping filed nomination papers in all 21 of the
wards to be contested, but that those nominations were thrown out by
nomination judges in a replay of what happened in the run-up to last
October's rural elections.
The electoral commission said elections
will be held Feb. 17 in just six wards in the Chikomba, Rusape, Umguza,
Bulilima and Redcliffe councils, where the Tsvangirai MDC faction managed to
secure nomination papers for its candidates.
Tsvangirai faction
spokesman Nelson Chamisa told reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7
for Zimbabwe that the news came as a surprise because the faction expected
to contest in all 21 wards where seats were not filled in
October.
The ruling ZANU-PF, whose base of support is heavily rural,
took 1,247 of the 1,340 seats filled then. The MDC only won 89 seats in the
October 28 elections.
Speaking for the rival Arthur Mutambara faction
of the opposition,Gabriel Chaibva said his party did not field candidates
because the wards are ZANU-PF strongholds.
Deductions Devour Wages Of Zimbabwe Phone Company
Workers
VOA
By Jonga Kandemiiri Washington 19 January
2007
Most workers at Zimbabwe's state-controlled fixed-line
telephone monopoly received scant wages or no pay at all for the work they
did in December, due to the doubling in late 2006 of health care charges and
other deductions from their pay.
Labor sources said Tel-One's board
refused to open discussions with the union that represents phone company
workers on the outsized paycheck deductions.
Phone company workers
turned down an offer from management of a Christmas party, saying they did
not want to go home full only to see their families hungry.
Phone
company management invited workers to borrow a month's salary at an interest
rate of 7%. Most of the workers earn some Z$64,000 a month, or about US$18
at the parallel market exchange rate which reflects the cost of food and
other essentials.
One company official confirmed that Tel-One made loans
to its workers, but refused to provide more details.
Some employees
of Zimpapers, publisher of the state-controlled Herald newspaper and other
titles, also saw their paychecks depleted when the company doubled rents for
workers, mostly Herald and Sunday Mail employees, living in company
flats.
The Communications and Allied Services Workers Union, which
represents workers at Tel-One, said making loans to employees doesn't
address the underlying problem.
Union chief Lovemore Matombo, also
president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, told reporter Jonga
Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that from now on the union will
not settle in negotiations for amounts under the poverty line.
The
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe said earlier this month that a family of six
needs more than Z$350,000 a month to purchase food and other essentials.
Zimbabweans regard the financial result of the council's monthly survey as
the national poverty line, but with inflation raging at 1,181% even many
professionals live beneath it.
Striking Zimbabwe doctors reject government pay offer
Yahoo News
Fri
Jan 19, 5:41 AM ET
HARARE (AFP) - Doctors at Zimbabwe's state hospitals
have rejected a government offer to hike their salaries and vowed to press
on with a crippling strike.
"As the situation stands now, we are
still on strike," Kudakwashe Nyamutukwa, president of the Hospital Doctors'
Association told AFP Friday. "Our grievances still stand and waiting for the
government to address them. The minister (for health and child welfare David
Parirenyatwa) met senior doctors and said government had increased doctors'
salaries with effect from this month but he did no say by what
percentage."
Junior doctors stopped work three weeks ago, demanding their
pay be increased from 56,000 Zimbabwean dollars (224 US dollars/172 euros)
to five million Zimbabwean dollars a month, Nyamutukwa said.
They
also want the government to raise a car allowance loan from 700,000
Zimbabwean dollars to 2.5 million dollars.
Zimbabwe is in the throes
of a severe economic recession with four-digit inflation, massive
unemployment and chronic shortages of food and essential goods.
State
health institutions have been hit by an exodus of key staff who have left
for greener pastures abroad. Medicines are in short supply and most of the
equipment is either malfunctioning or obsolete.
Junior Health Minister
Edwin Muguti told AFP government would hike salaries but did not give
figures.
"We are going to meet them half way and give them a salary
increase. All I can say at this stage is that it is a handsome package and
it is for all health workers.
"We are now urging the doctors to
return to work and we will only give salaries to those who return to
work.
The junior doctors first began a work boycott three weeks ago when
they limited the number of patients they would attend but soon stepped up
their protest into an all-out strike.
Patients are bearing the brunt
of the crisis as nurses, senior state health consultants and foreign doctors
grapple to attend to overwhelming numbers of patients.
Government says striking Zimbabwe doctors have
"resigned"
The Raw Story
dpa German Press Agency Published: Friday January 19,
2007
Harare- President Robert Mugabe's government says it would fire
striking junior doctors who did not return to work as ordered this week, it
was reported Friday. In the latest instalment of a bitter battle between
struggling health workers and the cash-strapped Zimbabwe authorities, Deputy
Health Minister Edwin Muguti told the private Independent newspaper that the
doctors had been ordered back to work by Wednesday.
Those who did not
heed the ultimatum to return to work on Wednesday were considered to have
resigned and they should vacate government accommodation, Muguti was quoted
as saying.
Reports say many of the doctors had ignored the ultimatum
because the authorities would not tell them what salary hike they are
prepared to offer.
There are at least 145 junior doctors operating in
Zimbabwe's hospitals. The strike by junior and some senior doctors is now in
its fourth week, crippling the country's main hospitals in Harare and the
second city, Bulawayo. Some nurses have also stopped working.
The
doctors want a near-hundred fold pay increase. They currently earn 56,000
Zimbabwe dollars (224 US dollars at the official exchange rate, less than 20
dollars at the parallel rate).
They are demanding a salary of 5 million
Zimbabwe dollars.
Muguti told the Independent that the doctors had been
offered a good package though he did not say what figure the government was
offering.
It also appeared that the doctors themselves had not been told
what the new pay offer is.
The deputy minister said that it was a
"good package" and that there was no reason for doctors 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 added.
Car
loans for doctors, one of their key demands, were increased last week from
700,000 Zimbabwe dollars to 4 million.
Doctors' unions would not comment
on the reports.
Discontent is rising among professionals in Zimbabwe, who
are getting increasingly frustrated with their lack of buying power as the
local dollar continues to lose value.
Doctors are not the only ones
to strike. Electricity workers in Harare and council workers from the
southern town of Gwanda have also downed tools this month.
Reports
say that eachers from the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) have
also threatened work stoppages in two weeks' time.
January 19,
2007 Posted to the web January 19, 2007
Jeffrey
Gogo Harare
ZIMBABWEANS should brace for the continuance of power cuts
this year as power utility Zesa Holdings Ltd has yet to gain sufficient
investment capital to rapidly expand current power generation capacity
needed most in guarding against the anticipated power crunch in
2007.
Zesa sources said this week although expansion work at Kariba South
Power Station and Hwange Power Station, among others, was ongoing,
essentially "consumers can expect no change from last year's supply
position".
Contracts with external suppliers from the region may be
renewed, meaning the country could still import 35 percent of its
electricity requirements, but nothing concrete has yet come up so
far.
What this means is that unless key capital for the upgrade of
Zimbabwe's power supply lines is made available, load-shedding would
continue, a source said.
This would dim hopes that the expected power
crisis to hit the region this year and beyond would be mitigated any time
soon.
Zesa, however, remained strongly positioned in offsetting the
projected power crunch given the vast coal and methane gas deposits at the
group's disposal, which, if developed sufficiently, would be the kiss of
life for the country's energy sector.
"We have presented a paper to
our parent ministry (Energy and Power Development) updating them on the
current electricity situation," explained the source that cannot be named
for professional reasons. "The paper does not show any much difference from
the 2006 supply situation.
"However, the minister is due to make a public
announcement soon as regards the power situation and we are not going to
pre-empt this."
Secretary for Energy and Power Development Mr Justin
Mupamhanga had by the time of going to print not yet responded to questions
sent to him. No comment could be obtained from Zesa
officials.
Zimbabwe -- which is at the centre of power development within
the Southern Africa Power Pool -- has announced that it requires over US$2
billion to undertake power-generating projects until 2010. SAPP alone has
said US$5,2 billion is needed to avert the 2007 power crunch.
As at
2006, Zesa was pursuing a dedicated refurbishment and upgrading of existing
generators, which were expected to yield an additional 180 megawatts before
the year came to a close.
The utility was also in talks with its foreign
suppliers for the renewal of contracts. With HCB of Mozambique, Zesa had
been negotiating for up to 300MW; a further 300MW between 2006 and 2007 with
Zesco of Zambia; and then for 2008-2009 about 150MW from SNEL of the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Expansion work at Hwange Power Station is
expected to yield a further 600MW by 2009, while undertakings at Kariba
South, also under expansion, should see output up by 300MW, which would be
available by mid-2010.
By 2010, Zesa expects to have expanded energy
supplies to 12 974 gigawatts, up from 10 199 gigawatts two years ago. In
1987, Zesa Holdings supplied 7 932GWh of power.
Recent research
suggests that the ongoing trend towards higher discount rates in electricity
implies that thermal power, be it coal or gas-fired, will probably dominate
future electric power investments here.
Zimbabwe has the largest coal
reserves in Africa outside South Africa and the largest methane gas reserves
in east and southern Africa.
January 19, 2007 Posted to the web January 19,
2007
Peter Matambanadzo Harare
HWANGE Colliery Company Limited
is experiencing viability constraints owing to lack of funds amid
revelations that the coal mining company is owed almost $3 billion by Zesa
Holdings and the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company.
Zesa Holdings and
Ziscosteel owe Hwange $2 billion and $800 million
respectively.
Hwange public relations manager Mr Clifford Nkomo
yesterday confirmed that the power utility and the Redcliff-based steelmaker
had been struggling to settle their debts since October last
year.
"This debt has been accumulating since October last year and as a
result, we have been failing to viably operate owing to intermittent
breakdowns of our machinery and we cannot respond quickly to breakdowns due
to lack of funds," Mr Nkomo said.
The revelations came to light this
week during a tour of Hwange Colliery by the Minister of Mines and Mining
Development, Cde Amos Midzi.
The minister travelled to Hwange to assess
first-hand the situation at the colliery following reports of breakdowns in
the secondary crushing plant and conveyor belting systems.
"It (the
debt) has affected our cash flow. We buy a lot of spares and other various
inputs such as oils and equipment required in mining, some of which we have
to import," said Mr Nkomo.
The debt notwithstanding, Hwange continued to
supply the two parastatals with their coal needs.
"We have not
stopped supplies but there might have been delays in coal deliveries as a
result of the breakdown of our secondary crushing plant and conveyor belting
systems," he said, dispelling fears that business at the two parastatals
might be grounded.
Contacted for comment, Zisco spokesperson Mr Augustine
Timbe said management had barred company officials from issuing statements
to the Press.
"The current corporate arrangement is that management is
not talking to the Press about operational issues," Mr Timbe said.
A
Zesa Holdings official who declined to be named said the debt was under
discussion and a statement would be released in due course.
Zesa
Holdings has in the past attributed its debt problems to inadequate working
capital as a result of "sub-economic tariffs".
In June last year, Hwange
was engaged in a war of words with Zesa Holdings and Zisco over unpaid dues
amounting to $1 trillion.
At the time, Zesa Holdings and Zisco owed
Hwange $500 billion each, forcing Hwange to cut supplies.
Coal
deliveries to Zesa Holdings declined by 40 percent, resulting in three power
generating units at Hwange Power Station suspending operations.
The
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe saved the day by settling the arrears on behalf of
the two loss-making parastatals.
Population explosion in Beitbridge due to border jumpers
By Tichaona
Sibanda 19 January 2007
The border town of Beitbridge faces a massive
population explosion as authorities struggle to relocate border jumpers
deported from South Africa. The high number of people in the town is also
choking and stretching the district council's service delivery to the
limit.
Investigations by Newsreel this week reveal that since the
beginning of the year South African immigration officials have been
deporting at least ten bus-loads of border jumpers to Zimbabwe each
day.
A source at the border town said once immigrants are 'dumped' in the
country, authorities face a daunting task of providing accomodation, food
and transport back to their home areas.
'In many of the cases the
deportees refuse to go back to their hommes in the hope of trying their luck
again to cross the crocodile infested Limpopo river. In the end, they end up
loitering around the town doing all sorts of things in search of food, money
and shelter,' said our source.
This week alone our source said he has
seen a huge influx of deportees from South Africa.
Over a 100
Zimbabweans are illegally crossing into South Africa daily in search of jobs
despite intensified police patrols along the Limpopo River and the dangers
of drowning, possible arrest and deportation. Recently the Ministers of
Labour from Zimbabwe and South Africa, Nicholas Goche and Membathisi
Mdladlana met in Beitbridge over the issue.
South Africa is now deporting
an average of 500 Zimbabweans every day, with about 1000 being sent home
every Thursday when the biggest holding camp Lindela is cleared for new
arrivals.
But it is the number of new deportees who hang around the
border town that is worrying authorities. In recent press articles police in
Beitbridge have accused the deportees of fanning crime in the border
town.
'Cases of robberies, house breaking and violence have risen sharply
in the last six months and we suspect the authorities are failing to cope
because they are overwhelmed by the sheer number of new arrivals in the
town,' said our source.
A serious shortage of sugar and wheat flour for bread has
hit Zimbabwe because the Ministry of Industry and International Trade
continues to ignore new price increases approved by government structures.
Without final approval from the ministry, sugar mills and bakers say they
will not sell any product because they stand to lose money. The same issue
applies to suppliers of cooking oil and other basic commodities.
The
core of the problem is the extremely high inflation rate which recently hit
more than 1200% and the ministry which keeps delaying approvals. When
suppliers apply for increases to make up for inflation they need approvals
within a reasonable time otherwise the new price becomes outdated and profit
margins change. In the past six weeks alone prices have doubled.
To
make the point our correspondent Simon Muchemwa has monitored prices of some
commodities since December. He said there were price increases of between
100% - 400% during this one month period depending on the product. In
December a 2kg bag of rice cost Z$5000. This week it cost Z$11,200. A whole
chicken was also Z$5000 in December. Now it costs Z$14,400. And an orange
drink that was Z$2,800 a month ago now goes for Z$7000.
Muchemwa said
there is no sugar, maize meal and self raising flour in the shops. But on
the black market these products can be found at extremely high prices. As
the mills, refineries and bakers continue to hold on to their supplies while
waiting for government approval on prices, shortages are bound to become
more critical and prices on the black market will soar even
higher.
As it stands the mills and refineries are currently still not
selling sugar. Our sources say they applied to the Ministry of Industry and
International Trade for a price increase back December. Although the price
adjustment was approved by the appropriate structures set up by government,
to date the Minister still refuses to sign the approval and allow price
increases. Bakers requested a price increase in February, 2006. It was
eventually granted 10 months later on December 21, 2006. On the same day,
the government approved a price increase for wheat flour from Z$150 000 a
tonne to Z$610 000 a tonne. This meant the bakers had to go back to the
Ministry to seek a new price. Yeast and salt prices also doubled since the
price adjustment. It is clear to see why this situation is not
sustainable.
Zimbabweans working in South Africa
often use informal haulers to ferry goods and food back
home
Art Galleries JOHANNESBURG has a number of well-established,
world-class art galleries. The city boasts several corporate collections too.
One of these, held by Absa Bank, is said to be the largest such exhibition in
the world. Read
more
A Week in Joburg FOLLOW Lucille Davie's weekly selection of the
most interesting city activities. Read more
Cross-border traders oil the wheels of the informal economy across
southern Africa. Their hard lives are documented in a photo exhibition now on at
the Market Photo Workshop Gallery.
January 19, 2007
By Ndaba Dlamini
TWO men lug a heavy refrigerator to a cross-border bus amid the bustle of a
bus rank in Braamfontein. Focus shifts to a busy border post between Mozambique
and South Africa, with the chaos of travellers jostling for a place in a long,
snaking queue.
These are some of the images of informal cross-border traders taken by
students at the Market Photo Workshop, a training institution for photographers
in Newtown, and commissioned photographers from neighbouring countries.
The exhibition, Back and Forth: Informal Cross-Border Traders in Southern
Africa, is the result of a photo documentary project of the International
Organisation for Migration's Partnership on HIV and Mobility in Southern Africa
(Phamsa) programme and the Market Photo Workshop's year-long photojournalism and
documentary photography programme.
The exhibition is running at the Workshop Gallery and along its outside fence
until 28 February.
"The objective of the project is to highlight the activities of informal
traders in southern Africa, particularly the socio-economic factors that
increase their vulnerability to diseases like HIV," says Kirsten Doermann, the
workshop's project manager.
Sculptures are among the most common
items sold by informal cross-border traders from Zimbabwe
Although informal cross-border traders contribute immensely to the southern
African region, particularly in terms of employment creation, economic
upliftment of women, regional economic trade and social integration, and food
security, they are often invisible - unrecognised at home and harassed in the
host country.
No country has a specific permit or visa for these entrepreneurs, and they do
not benefit from preferential tariffs, according to the International
Organisation for Migration.
The project wanted to capture the plight of cross-border traders, so raising
public awareness of their lives, particularly their vulnerability in terms of
gender inequality, poor living conditions, separation from families,
exploitation and discrimination, and lack of access to health services.
The photographers – six students from the Market Photo Workshop and five
photographers from Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe – spent six months
documenting the lives of informal traders, travelling with them from country to
country.
The project was not only about capturing images, but about getting to know
more about the personal lives of these people, according to Doermann.
In an image by Lerato Maduna, a young girl sits on a bag of supplies; in the
background are buses waiting to ferry her and fellow travellers to Zimbabwe. The
caption reads: "This young girl regularly travels to Johannesburg with her
mother to buy supplies for their small shop in Harare. Here they wait for the
goods to be loaded on to a bus. Waiting is no stranger for traders, since it
happens a lot at bus stations and at the border."
In another image by Moshe Sekete, a woman struggles with her belongings
outside Musina train station. She has just placed her luggage on the ground to
rest when a voice emanating from the platform announces, "Hurry up Mama, the
train is about to leave!" according to the accompanying caption.
The wretched lives of the traders are starkly revealed in an image by Maduna,
taken in Durban. A woman wearily carries aluminium pots strung together to form
a centipede. Metro Rail has just evicted her from where she was selling her
goods.
Studies have shown that contrary to perceptions that migrants, like informal
cross-border traders, carry diseases to places they visit, it is rather the
circumstances and events related to the migration that put them at increased
risk of contracting various infections. In other words, being mobile in itself
is not a risk factor for HIV, it is the situations encountered and the
behaviours possibly engaged in during mobility or migration that increase
vulnerability and risk regarding HIV.
Women constitute about 80 percent of the informal traders, a factor that
brings a sense of empowerment as well as challenges.
"These women are on the road most of the time and some, particularly those
from Zimbabwe, sacrifice sleeping on pavements for 24 hours in order to get a
waiver in paying import and export duties at the border," Doermann says.
A shot by Maduna accentuates this point: two women, exhaustion etched on
their faces, sleep deeply in a bus, oblivious to the commotion around them as
they return home after spending days peddling goods in Johannesburg.
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Foreign powers cannot "impose" political or economic
solutions on Zimbabwe even though the deepening crisis in the African nation
threatens to destabilise its neighbours, a senior Mozambique official said
today. "Each time you try to impose a solution from the outside, the results
most of the time are not what we like," Henrique Banze, the Mozambique's
deputy foreign minister, said.
"We cannot define a plan for them
although we are indirectly affected. They have to design it and come to us."
Banze said Mozambique was frustrated with its inability to get Mugabe's
government to embrace negotiations with political opponents, but he added
that the former Portuguese colony would continue to apply diplomatic
pressure on Harare.
In 2004 Mugabe rejected a United Nations proposal
that would have seen Joaqim Chissano, the ex-Mozambican President, mediate
between Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu (PF) party and the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change. Zimbabwe's economy, once one of the most promising in
Africa, is suffering from a lengthy recession marked by high unemployment,
chronic shortages of fuel and food and an inflation rate of 1 281%, the
world's highest.
Some Zimbabweans moved to SA in search of work The
crisis, which critics blame on mismanagement by government of Robert Mugabe,
the president, has disrupted trade links in southern Africa and led many
Zimbabweans to move to Mozambique, South Africa and other countries in
search of work.
Zimbabwe is Mozambique's second largest trading
partner in Africa after South Africa. - Reuters
Harare - Zimbabwe's refusal to renew a newspaper publisher's
passport is an assault on his freedom of expression and movement, says the
Zimbabwe National Editors' Forum (Zinef).
It said: "The latest move
by the authorities in Harare to restrict Trevor Ncube's capacity to operate
as a newspaper publisher represents a form of punishment that must not be
allowed to escape international notice."
Ncube was born and raised in
Zimbabwe and was the publisher of the privately owned Zimbabwe Independent
and Zimbabwe Standard, as well as South Africa's Mail and
Guardian.
The forum said: "His newspapers in Zimbabwe and South Africa
have taken a lead in exposing corruption and misrule."
According to
Zinef, Ncube was seeking a high court order, compelling registrar-general
Tobaiwa Mudede to renew his passport after his application for Zimbabwean
citizenship.
Zinef had called on colleagues at home and abroad to "make
it clear to the regime that any interference with the freedom of the press
in Zimbabwe is unacceptable".
Ncube was arguing that the withdrawal
of his citizenship was unlawful, as he had never been a citizen of any other
country other than Zimbabwe.
He contended that his father, who was born
in Zambia, was a Zimbabwean citizen. Immigration officials in Bulawayo
seized Ncube's passport on December 08 2005 on his arrival from South
Africa.
Zinef said no reasons were given for "the unlawful action, other
than that Ncube was on a list of citizens whose passports were to be
withdrawn".
His passport was released after the attorney-general's office
conceded that the seizure was unlawful. Mudede's refusal to renew Ncube's
passport came almost a year after the high court ruled that the seizure of
Ncube's travel document in December 2006 was unlawful. - Sapa
The World Diamond
Council (WDC) is worried that gems from Zimbabwe may be finding their way
onto the black market, a violation of rules established to curb the trade in
"conflict diamonds" that fuel civil wars.
The diamond sector is
making extra efforts to police itself amid fears that jewellery sales will
be hit by the release of the film Blood Diamond today.
The film
is set in Sierra Leone's civil war and reflects atrocities financed by blood
diamonds.
Brooks Spector, a former US diplomat and co-author of a
report on the role of diamond mining in southern Africa, warned that the
movie could hit diamond sales as badly as fur sales were hit by a similar
association with blood.
The WDC was still receiving reports
that diamonds in Zimbabwe were being smuggled into South Africa, where they
were being certified as legitimate and exported, council chairperson Eli
Izhakoff said.
Izhakoff said he sent a letter last
month to the incoming chairperson of the Kimberley Process, a watchdog body
set up to stamp out trade in conflict diamonds.
"Such illegal
exportation presents a clear threat to the integrity of the legitimate
export process," Izhakoff said.
The council said that it had
reports that rough diamonds from Zimbabwe's River Ranch mine and from the
Marange district were being smuggled out of the country.
A
legal consultant for River Ranch, which restarted mining in June last year
under new ownership after going into voluntary liquidation in 1999, has
denied this.
Illegal mining is rising in Zimbabwe as people grapple
with an economic crisis that has seen inflation rise to more than 1000
percent, the highest in the world, and poverty levels soar.
A
statement released by Abbey Chikane, founding chairman of the Kimberley
Process and current chairman of the South African Diamond Board, stresses
the importance of the Kimberley Process in reducing illicit diamond
dealing.
"Seventy-one governments have enshrined into their
national law the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme and more than 99,8
percent of the world's supply of diamonds is from sources free of conflict,"
Chikane said.
"Sierra Leone, Angola and the Democratic Republic of
Congo are at peace and are using the revenues from their diamond trade to
reconstruct their economies."
The only diamond-producing
nations in Africa that are not signatories are Ivory Coast, where rebels
control a small portion of the diamond fields, and Liberia, which is under
UN sanctions.
Diamonds are one of Africa's major natural resources.
An estimated $13-billion (R91-billion) worth of rough diamonds are produced
per year, of which about $8,4-billion - about 65 percent - are from Africa.
This global industry employs about 10million people across a wide spectrum
of roles, from mining to retail.
"It is crucial that we
recognise the role diamonds and other mineral resources can play in
addressing the economic ills of Africa.
"This is especially
important in countries that were previously at war. These countries need to
reinvest all revenues generated from the diamond trade in education, health,
water and sanitation and infrastructure development. Only this ... can
guarantee that diamonds are 'Africa's best friend'," Chikane
said.
This article was originally published on page 6 of
Pretoria News on January 19, 2007
