http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Caroline Mvundura Tuesday 27 July
2010
HARARE - Zimbabwe remains in a state of "chronic
vulnerability" and its
humanitarian crisis could worsen despite formation of
a unity government 16
months ago to tackle the country's long running
socio-economic crisis, a UN
agency said at the weekend.
The United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said the myriad problems
confronting
the southern African country's impoverished population -- 70
percent of whom
live below the breadline -- could worsen if the government
and relief
agencies do not act urgently to avert the threat.
The UNDP that has been
at the forefront of efforts to mobilise support for
the 12 million
Zimbabweans said emergency assistance for the country remains
critical even
after recent positive political and economic developments that
have restored
a semblance of stability in the country.
"Despite these positive changes
the humanitarian needs remain acute. The
country is still in a state of
chronic vulnerability and its ongoing
humanitarian crisis could worsen if
support to humanitarian and recovery
actions is not maintained," the UNDP
said in a statement.
"The socio-economic collapse during the past decade
eroded these systems to
a degree at which they are unable at most times to
provide basic services
such as health, water, sanitation and education," it
said.
After a decade of political crisis and economic turmoil in which
inflation
reached more than 200 million percent and the local currency
collapsed,
Zimbabwe's economy appeared to turn a corner last year, shaking
off
recession to register growth after the coalition government implemented
measures, including the adoption of multiple currencies that doused
hyperinflation.
The economy, which the government says will this year
grow by 5.4 percent,
expanded by 5.1 percent last year following the new
measures and policies
introduced by the unity government of President Robert
Mugabe and Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
However, analysts and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) say Zimbabwe's
economic recovery
remains fragile because of the government's heavy
dependence on imports at a
time the country does not have access to
balance-of-payments
support.
The IMF and other multi-lateral lenders have refused to provide
fresh loans
until Harare clears outstanding debts, while rich Western
nations are also
reluctant to fund the administration, insisting it first
steps up the pace
of democratic reforms, do more to uphold human rights and
the rule of law. -
ZimOnline.
http://www1.voanews.com/
A
government audit earlier this year found that the Ministry of Youth
recruited more than 10,000 youthful members of the former ruling ZANU-PF
party and put them on the government payroll as ward youth officers in
2008
Sandra Nyaira | Washington 26 July 2010
An audit of
Zimbabwe's civil service being conducted by the Indian branch of
global
consulting firm Ernst & Young will be concluded by the end of August,
helping officials purge the system of abuses, a minister said
Monday.
Public Service Minister Eliphas Mukonoweshuro said Ernst &
Young are close
to finalizing the audit.
Earlier this year a report
by the comptroller and auditor general revealed
shocking abuses of public
funds and state assets by various ministries. The
report pointed in
particular to the recruitment of more than 10,000 ZANU-PF
youths by the
Ministry of Youth which put them on the government payroll as
ward youth
officers during 2008.
The International Monetary Fund has urged the
Harare government to sweep the
public service system clean of so-called
ghost workers who do not show up to
work or may not even exist.
http://www1.voanews.com/
Indigenization Minister Saviour Kasukuwere told the
state-controlled Sunday
Mail newspaper that only 480 out of some 9,577
foreign-owned firms submitted
plans for indigenization to his ministry by a
June 30 deadline.
Gibbs Dube | Washington 26 July
2010
Zimbabwean Minister of Indigenization Saviour Kasukuwere has
threatened to
close more than 9,000 foreign-owned firms that have failed to
submit plans
for the acquisition of majority stakes by indigenous black
investors.
Kasukuwere was quoted by the state-controlled Sunday Mail
newspaper as
saying that only 480 out of some 9,577 foreign-owned firms had
submitted
such plans to his ministry by a June 30 deadline.
He said
companies facing loss of trading licenses include De Beers Zimbabwe
Prospecting, sugar manufacturer Triangle Private Ltd. and top fast food firm
Innscor Ltd.
The government has revised indigenization regulations
gazetted earlier this
year - but has not changed the requirement for a 51
percent stake to be
acquired by indigenous investors over the next five
years.
Harare economist John Robertson told VOA Studio 7 reporter Gibbs
Dube that
Kasukuwere's threats may lead some of those companies to submit
the required
shareholding proposals to the government.
"We are yet to
see whether all the companies will be intimidated by these
threats or the
government will be taken to court and be challenged over some
of these
indigenization processes," Robertson said.
Meanwhile, the government has
told the top executives of all
state-controlled enterprises to report on
their salaries as it moves to
reduce executive pay amounting in some cases
to US$15,000 a month.
State Enterprises Minister Gorden Moyo said the
Cabinet has resolved that
pay for top parastatal managers is out of line
with economic realities and
must be rationalized to reflect current
conditions. Parastatal executive
salaries range from US$11,000 to US$15,000
a month whereas most civil
servants make no more than US$175 a
month.
Moyo said in an interview that the hefty salaries paid to top
managers must
be cut because most state enterprises are not generating
enough income to
sustain operations.
Economist Godfrey Kanyenze of
the Labor and Economic Development Research
Institute of Zimbabwe said pay
for managers cannot remain at current levels
when state enterprises are
failing to deliver basic services.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Tony Saxon
Sunday, 25
July 2010 17:47
MUTARE - Zanu (PF) is using war veterans to throw
spanners into the works
of the Constitutional Parliamentary Select Committee
(Copac) in its public
consultations on the proposed new constitution in
order to frustrate the
committee's progress, it has emerged. (Pictured: Zanu
(PF) youth militia)
A high placed source in the provincial party structures
informed this paper
that chances of having a people driven constitution
remained a pie in the
sky since the Zanu (PF) party leaders were busy
holding meetings with war
veterans and militia at provincial level to
frustrate the committee's work.
The source said the plan was to convince war
veterans and militia to
mobilise people in their respective districts to
refuse any constitutional
changes by threatening them that any form of
cooperation will jeopardise
their ownership of farms they obtained through
the infamous Robert Mugabe
land grab.
"The party leadership is meeting
with war veterans to mobilise Zanu( PF)
supporters at district level
throughout the country against adapting a new
people driven constitution.
Villagers are also being forced to support the
Zanu (PF) policies and are
told to reject the new constitution.
"People are warned that doing so will
only help them preserve their pieces
of land they were given during the land
reform programme.
"Soldiers have been incorporated in the plan as well," said
the source.
This is one of Zanu (PF)'s many old tactics to gain political
mileage
similar to the 2000 war veterans led white farms invasions. The
deliberate
involvement of war veterans and soldiers speaks volume on the
nature of the
plan and as usual it will involve harassment, intimidation,
misinforming and
propagating information to maintain the political status
quo.
Naively, war veterans have vouched to once again act as a lap dog for
the
party to clean up its political mess. The war veterans have promised to
be
included as a special wing in the party's national political
structures.
At one of the meetings Zanu (PF) party chairman for Manicaland,
Mike Madiro
said: "Let's be ready during this period (outreach meetings).
With the help
of loyal war liberators we can lead the people (Zanu PF
supporters) to take
over the process in order to avoid a counter attack from
the opposition.
"I urge all war veterans to go and defend the constitution.
You should
engage with your counterparts at district level in your
respective areas and
mobilise the people on rejecting the new constitution,"
said Madiro.
Once again Zanu (PF)'s move to attain power through rouge
political tactics
will nullify the inclusive government's effort to draft a
people driven
constitution that will democratize and give voice to the
people of Zimbabwe.
However, the people of Manicaland have openly told the
Zanu (PF) party that
they would not be deterred in changing the
constitution.
"What Zanu (PF) needs to understand is that change is
inevitable and
drafting a new constitution is the only way to evoke change,
guarantee human
rights, freedom of speech and expression thus nothing is
ever going to
distance people from it," said John Dzikiti a human rights
activist.
Political commentators also added that the political masses were
now aware
of the Zanu (PF) old political tactics and they would participate
fully in
changing the constitution.
http://www.businessday.co.za
FOREIGN STAFF
Published: 2010/07/27 07:34:24
AM
A ZIMBABWEAN gay rights activist was found not guilty of pornography
charges
after a police raid in May on his group's offices, his lawyer said
yesterday.
The trial came as President Robert Mugabe has renewed his
fiery tirades,
including against gay rights in Zimbabwe's new constitution,
last week
calling same-sex marriages "dog behaviour".
Ignatius
Muhambi, an accountant for Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, was
arrested with
office administrator Ellen Chademana in the raid.
"The prosecution failed
to establish a case against him at the close of
their submissions on Friday
and the magistrate acquitted him," his lawyer,
Jeremiah Bamu,
said.
The pair were also accused of insulting Mr Mugabe, but that charge
was never
formally filed.
Ms Chademana was expected to appear in
court separately yesterday.
Mr Mugabe has railed against homosexuals for
more than a decade.
SA is the only country in Africa that gives equal
rights to gays. Sapa-AFP
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/
Written by Wallace Mawire
Sunday, 25
July 2010 18:57
HARARE - The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) National
traffic Assistant
Commissioner Boby Murwira has disclosed that the force is
charging a growing
number of officers every week for corruption and
underhand activities
especially under the national traffic
department.
Commissioner Murwira made the remark at a national traffic safety
indaba
conducted by the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe (TSCZ) in Harare
as part
of the global road safety week commemorated worldwide on 16 to 22
July. He
made a presentation on ZRP and its role in traffic safety.
The
issue of corruption within the ZRP national traffic section was
highlighted
by many stakeholders as a major impediment to efforts to reduce
carnage on
Zimbabwe's roads.
Although Murwira had no current statistics on the number of
his officers who
had been dismissed from the force for corruption, he said
his office was
open for the public to report any corrupt activities.
"It
is everyone's mandate to expose corrupt officers," Murwira said.
Due to
police corruption, defective vehicles and incompetent drivers usually
escaped road blocks and speed traps after paying brides, it has been
noted.
The ZRP is mandated under section 93 of the Zimbabwe constitution to
carry
out policing
duties and arrest offenders including violating
motorists.
Murwira remarked that during the last six months of 2010, over 900
lives had
been lost due to tyre burst accidents and over speeding. He said
most of the
vehicles were fitted with defective tyres and it was the police
duty to
arrest such offenders.
Cash-starved ZRP officers were reported to
be accepting bribes on national
roads at the expense of human
life.
Murwira noted that his office will be on full alert to flush out
corrupt
officers to curb further fatalities in the country.
TSCZ board
chairperson, Nyepudzai Nyangulu, remarked that road traffic
accidents in
Zimbabwe could overtake HIV and AIDS deaths if no immediate
action were
taken by all concerned stakeholders.
Almost 20 people died recently in
Zimbabwe when two buses, which were
reported to be over-speeding collided
with a haulage truck along the
Harare-Bulawayo road.
The issue of
policing and enforcement in Zimbabwe had been reported at the
indaba to be
minimal.
John Manjengwa of the Public Against Traffic Accidents Bureau
(PATAB) in
Harare said that most drivers were also being affected by chronic
fatigue
and visual impairment. He encouraged driving personnel to benefit
from
health management courses being offered by his bureau.
http://www.busrep.co.za
July 27, 2010
The Zimbabwean
government approached the High Court in Johannesburg
yesterday afternoon in
a bid to stop the auction of properties it owns in
Cape Town, civil rights
group AfriForum said.
The auction, arranged by German banker KfW
Bankengruppe, is scheduled for
July 27 and August 10. Lawyers for the
Zimbabwean government sought an
urgent intervention over the
weekend.
Earlier this month a group of farmers demanded the sale of
four upscale
properties owned by Zimbabwe's government.
The proceeds
will be used to pay the legal fees of a group of farmers who
contested the
seizure of their Zimbabwean farms. - Sapa
http://www.mg.co.za/
JASON MOYO | HARARE, ZIMBABWE - Jul 23 2010
09:45
Along with thousands of other besieged farmers across
Zimbabwe, Mike Jahme
will be closely watching the trial of a Zanu-PF-linked
businessman accused
of stealing and selling US$50-million of farm
equipment.
Last week, Jahme's tea and avocado farm in eastern Zimbabwe
was overrun by
gangs loyal to a local government official, who carried off
some of his
equipment.
He will be deeply interested in the trial of
Themba Mliswa, a businessman,
former fitness trainer and Zanu-PF enforcer,
on charges of stealing and
selling farm equipment looted from dozens of
farms.
As a consequence of Zimbabwe's "land reform" programme, many
displaced
farmers have been forced to flee with nothing more than the
clothes on their
backs, leaving behind infrastructure accumulated over
generations.
Farmers, hopeful of a change of policy, are hoping the
Mliswa trial will
trigger a wider probe into how thousands of farms were
looted. But the trial
has all the hallmarks of an internal Zanu-PF
dogfight.
Mliswa's troubles began when he tried to grab a controlling
shareholding in
a Harare company under the guise of empowerment laws. But
the country's top
cop, Augustine Chihuri, a powerful Robert Mugabe ally,
reportedly also had
interests in the firm. Days later, Mliswa found himself
facing a litany of
charges, dating back many years, detailing how he had led
the looting of
farms. His trial has become a goldmine of details about how
Zanu-PF
officials, under the cover of land reform, systematically stripped
farms of
assets that they either sold for profit or carried off to their own
farms.
In court, Mliswa revealed he had sold some of the equipment to the
police
commissioner himself, and to other prominent figures, among them army
commander Constantine Chiwenga.
Symbolic victory
The trial
coincides with what many regard as a purely symbolic victory, with
no
practical implications for Zimbabwe, at the Southern African Development
Community Tribunal in Namibia. Last Friday, the tribunal ruled for a third
time that the Zimbabwe government is in defiance of a court order that
protects white farmers.
Zimbabwe's Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa
said this week the court
actions would give the farmers "propaganda"
victories, but would do nothing
to recover their farms.
Charles Taffs
of Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers' Union, which represents
mainly white
farmers, said: "What we have witnessed over the past 10 years
is that
beneficiaries [of land seizures] have come on to farms and
asset-stripped
them, leaving absolutely nothing."
Mugabe has always cloaked land reforms
in struggle dogma, arguing takeovers
were meant to end a century of white
control of the country's best land. But
the exercise has long been taken
over by criminal gangs, many of them tied
to top officials, who move from
farm to farm ransacking houses and looting
equipment.
The latest
victims were the Jahmes, whose Silverstone Estate has 65 hectares
under tea
and 22 000 avocado trees. Youths last week invaded the farm,
assaulted the
owners and made off with equipment. "While we were barricaded
in the main
office we could hear the sounds of breaking wood and glass and
general
vandalism going on around the house and outbuildings," Jahme said
this
week.
He had been due to export 250 tonnes of avocados to South Africa's
Westfalia.
Threats to withdraw aid
Last month, Germany had to
threaten to withdraw aid to force the government
to drive mobs off fruit
estates run by a German national.
The Mliswa trial has shown the contrast
between the dire impact the land
seizures have had on the economy, and the
easy millions made by a select
few.
Farm looting has a long history.
Last year, an official report named five of
Mugabe's ministers as having
looted assets from the Kondozi estate, once one
of Zimbabwe's largest
fresh-produce exporters. No action was taken.
Farmer unions have over the
years accumulated hundreds of police reports on
the looting.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Gift Phiri
Monday, 26 July 2010
16:08
HARARE - Heads of state and government of the African Union have
dashed
hopes that they would take President Robert Mugabe to task for his
contemptuous flouting of the global political agreement that formed the
troubled coalition government.
World attention was focused on the Ugandan
capital, Kampala, as African
leaders opened a three-day summit yesterday,
but they gave little indication
they would even discuss - let alone censure
- Mugabe over his continued
flouting of the terms of the GPA.
Despite
international outrage over last week's unilateral appointment of
ambassadors
by Mugabe, without consultation with Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai, as
the GPA prescribes, Mugabe got a warm welcome in Kampala. He
strutted into
the main conference hall side-by-side with other heads of
state, and Ugandan
president Yoweri Museveni, the host.
Zimbabwe was not even on the agenda at
the summit. In the opening session,
Museveni called for Islamic militants to
be "swept out of Africa", two weeks
after they killed dozens in a bomb
attack in the Ugandan capital. The
exploding Somali crisis has overshadowed
even the AU summit's official
theme, which is "Maternal, Infant and Child
Health and Development".
The AU, along with SADC, are the guarantors of the
power-sharing agreement
between Zanu (PF), and both wings of the
MDC.
Mugabe is accompanied by Health and Child Welfare minister, Dr Henry
Madzorera, Justice and Legal Affairs minister, Patrick Chinamasa, and
Foreign Affairs minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi.
The African leaders are
gathering in Kampala amid tight security and a heavy
military presence.
Mugabe and 30 other African heads of state were booked
into the
intercontinental hotel from where Somalia's al Shabaab rebels
launched their
first attacks - killing 73 people watching the World Cup
final.
The heads
of State on Sunday observed a two-minute silence for the victims
of the 11
July bomb attack.
Critics say it was disheartening that Zimbabwe's
long-running and festering
crisis had slid off the AU agenda, overshadowed
by the more recent Somali
conflict, which features prominently.
Diplomats
say the assembled leaders are under pressure to act now that the
violence
has exploded beyond Somalia's borders. Other entrenched conflicts,
such as
in Sudan's Darfur region and the east of Democratic Republic of the
Congo,
were also dominating the summit.
"As you can see from the agenda, Zimbabwe is
not on it. It is not a subject
that will consume their time," said a senior
West African diplomat in
Harare. The diplomat accused the AU of being "a
club of dictators," and said
Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika's
unrestrained attack on the UN for
indicting Sudan's Omar al-Bashir was
instructive.
Mutharika, the current head of the AU, said the International
Criminal Court
(ICC) arrest warrant for the Sudanese president for war
crimes and genocide
charges was "undermining African solidarity and African
peace and security".
A Canadian NGO has just accused Mugabe in the ICC for
politically motivated
rapes committed by units of the army during the 2008
poll. But analysts say
the action is futile because Zimbabwe is not a
signatory to the Rome
statute.
Zimbabwe remains a divisive issue in the
AU. Some nations support him, while
others think he has mismanaged his
country and should go. Critics say,
however, that it is hypocritical to
side-step the Zimbabwe crisis given the
constant repetition of the AU's
mantra of "finding African solutions to
African problems."
Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition chairman John Makumbe, who is currently in
Uganda to
highlight the gravity of the crisis, said: "The AU needs to do
more about
Zimbabwe's political situation. We have lost hope in SADC because
they have
failed."
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Joel
Mhizha
Sunday, 25 July 2010 18:59
Masvingo - Public service Minister
Eliphas Mukonoweshuro (pictured) said
last week civil servants had a
genuine cause for striking as their
complaint for a salary increase were
realistic.
In an exclusive interview in Masvingo Mukonoweshuro said he was
going to
immediately tell the cabinet that civil servants should get a
salary
increment as their current salaries were ridiculous.
"Civil
servants have a genuine cause and are in a difficulty position at
the
moment.Their salaries and conditions of service are poor and I am doing
everything possible as the responsible minister to ensure these are
improved and are in tandem with the current poverty datum line. This is
going to happen soon after the flow of revenue in government coffers
improves. I have discussed this with my colleagues in cabinet and we are all
in agreement," he said.
Civil servants are paid between US$165 to US$200
per month, way below the
poverty datum line of US$480.
Recently the
country's largest labour representative body, the Zimbabwe
Congress of
Trade Unions warned of a series of strikes if workers were
not given an
minimum tax free wage of US$500.
http://www.chinaknowledge.com
Jul. 27, 2010 (China
Knowledge) - China Development Bank Corp, a
state-controlled bank primarily
responsible for raising funds for large
infrastructure projects in the
country, plans to acquire a majority stake in
Infrastructure Development
Bank of Zimbabwe, the state-owned Xinhua News
Agency reported last week,
citing an executive in charge of public relations
in the Zimbabwean
lender.
The executive said that the two banks are in the process of
negotiations and
the results will be disclosed at the appropriate
time.
However, the executive declined to indicate the specific stake that
CDB
plans to acquire and any details of the negotiation.
According to
the report, Zimbabwean Minister of Foreign Affairs, Simbarashe
Mubengegwi
said early this month that he was very pleased to know the
results of the
negotiations, adding CDB would own a fairly large stake in
IDBZ.
IDBZ, formerly known as Zimbabwe Development Bank, was
established by
Zimbabwean government to boost the country's infrastructure
construction via
capital raising from the domestic and international
markets, and to support
technical supports to the country's public and
private organization.
http://www1.voanews.com/
Sources in Mashonaland West province said uniformed soldiers
attending an
outreach meeting at Gwebi College strongly advocated ZANU-PF
positions on
the constitution, silencing most of the 250 in
attendance
Patience Rusere and Jonga Kandemiiri | Washington 26 July
2010
Zimbabwe's National Constitutional Assembly, a civic advocacy
organization,
said Monday it will step up its campaign against the official
constitutional
revision process with demonstrations and grassroots meetings
nationwide.
The NCA, which has strongly objected to control of the
ongoing
constitutional revision process by a parliamentary select committee
as
opposed to a constitutional commission in which civil society would play
a
leading role, held three days of consultations among its leaders and
members
that ended on Monday.
NCA spokesman Maddock Chivasa said
problems in the public outreach phase of
the revision process show it is
being manipulated by politicians. He told
VOA Studio 7 reporter Patience
Rusere that the NCA leadership has decided
not to rely on international
donors for funding but will raise money from
members through subscription
fees.
In the constitutional outreach process itself, sources in
Mashonaland West
province said uniformed soldiers attending an outreach
meeting at Gwebi
College strongly advocated the position of President Robert
Mugabe's ZANU-PF
party favoring a powerful presidency with no prime
minister, and discouraged
the expression of other views.
Sources said
many of the 250 members of the public attending were silenced
by the
presence of the soldiers and the tenor of their comments. But some
students
took up the opposing stance leading to a robust exchange of
views.
Lawmaker Douglas Mwonzora, co-chairman of the parliamentary select
committee
in charge of constitutional revision, told VOA Studio 7 reporter
Jonga
Kandemiiri there was nothing wrong with soldiers attending a meeting
in
uniform.
Elsewhere, meetings in Shurugwi and Zvishavane districts
of Midlands
province were delayed by several hours after outreach team
members and
drivers at the provincial government complex in Gweru threatened
to strike
over non-payment of wages. Delay in the receipt of fuel coupons
from Harare
also held things up, sources said.
Midlands province
outreach team leader Joram Gumbo, ZANU-PF chief
parliamentary whip, said the
problems were eventually resolved and the teams
proceeded with their
scheduled public consultations.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Tony
Saxon
Sunday, 25 July 2010 17:38
MUTARE - A secret footage of the
constitutional outreach programme violence
and intimidation against Movement
for Democratic (MDC) supporters in
Manicaland and some parts of Zimbabwe
will be shown in a film next month,
according to the film
producers.
There has been a wave of violence perpetrated by some secret
agents and Zanu
(PF) militia in the country during the on-going outreach
exercise.
In most parts of the country members from the notorious CIO and
armed
soldiers are masterminding the intimidations and violence with the
help of
overzealous Zanu (PF) militia and war veterans.
In an interview
with The Zimbabwean, the director of the film who requested
anonymity for
fear of victimisation said: "We have been shooting footages of
the
harassment , intimidation and violence against the MDC supporters in
some
parts of the country and we want to show the whole world the true
picture of
what is happening in this constitution making process. It is
horrible."
"We will show all the evidence of how the Mugabe's regime has
been harassing
the people perceived to be MDC supporters who have the right
to exercise
their views in writing of the new constitution. We will also
show how the
police and judiciary system has been inept. We have harrowing
images of how
some MDC supporters were beaten. I cannot divulge more
information on the
film, but it will be out very soon," he
said.
Meanwhile, top decision making bodies of Zanu (PF) and the two MDC
formations convened a historic meeting in Harare last Wednesday to explore
ways of eradicating the culture of impunity in the country.
The
indaba,which was hosted by the three ministers responsible for national
healing and reconciliation, brought together politburo members from Zanu
(PF) and national executive members from the MDC formations.
The
three-hour meeting, convened by the National Organ on Healing,
Reconciliation and Integration, was aimed at ensuring that the three
political parties adhere to Article Three and Article 18 of the GPA which
urge all parties to shun violence and to promote national healing.
The
consensus at the meeting was that the leadership of the parties, as
represented by the executive organs, must ensure that the environment on the
ground is violence-free and that it is conducive to national
healing.
Delegates agreed that there could be no healing without justice and
compensation and that the police must arrest all perpetrators of violence in
order to kill the festering culture of impunity that has destabilized peace
and compromised security of persons in Zimbabwe.
http://www.herald.co.zw/
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Masvingo Bureau
About 1 000 families from the Chitsa
clan who are staying in Gonarezhou
National Park are reportedly threatening
the self-sustainability of one of
Zimbabwe’s most reputable wildlife
habitats, prompting the National Parks
and Wildlife Management Authority to
make renewed calls for Government to
urgently relocate them.
The
Chitsa families settled in the park around 2000 and are encroaching
deeper
into the territory, in the process threatening the smooth rollout of
the
Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park.
The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park
incorporates Gonarezhou, South Africa’s
Kruger National Park and
Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park in the world's
biggest wildlife
sanctuary.
Parks Authority director-general Mr Vitalis Chadenga on
Saturday appealed to
Government to move the families.
Addressing
journalists during a tour of Gonarezhou, Mr Chadenga said the
present
situation was unsustainable.
"We have recorded increased poaching and
destruction of the environment.
"The high number of cattle threatens the
habitats of our wildlife.
"Our appeal to Government is that these
families be relocated for the sake
of the survival of Gonarezhou National
Park," Mr Chadenga said.
Gonarezhou area manager Mr Norman Honks said the
occupation had resulted in
the Parks Authority impounding nearly 1 500
cattle over the past three
years, a situation he described as "very
disturbing".
He said they had also recovered more than 1 400 snares set
by suspected
poachers to trap wild animals and vast swathes of land had been
destroyed in
veld fires.
The families allegedly start fires to clear
land for ploughing.
Hundreds of people occupied Gonarezhou arguing that
it was their ancestral
land from which they were evicted by the Rhodesian
regime.
http://www.herald.co.zw/
Tuesday,
July 27, 2010
Business Reporter
ZIMBABWE will soon open up its doors to
investors in the energy sector to
invest as independent power producers or
public-private partnership
arrangement in the development of larger power
projects in the country.
The country's energy sector, which produces
about 1 100 megawatts of
electricity on average, with a peak demand of about
2 100 megawatts, and
imports between 300-500 megawatts mostly from
Mozambique and Zambia faces
serious challenges, which have a negative impact
on economic development.
President Robert Mugabe recently said erratic
power supplies were affecting
economic development.
He said
Government is working on a number of initiatives aimed at easing the
situation that has negatively affected capacity utilisation in
industries.
"Persistent erratic power supply remains a potent threat to
the successful
turnaround of the economy.
"However, Government is
working on initiatives which would see a gradual
easing of the situation,"
said the President.
Government is currently working on the refurbishment
of the coal-fired
Hwange Power Station, where five out of the six units are
expected to become
operational by end of this year.
Power generation
at Hwange will be expanded by 600 megawatts and the Kariba
hydropower
station by about 300 megawatts.
However, there is huge further potential
to expand power generation capacity
through hydropower projects, which could
deliver an additional 5 000
megawatts.
Other smaller hydropower
projects that can be constructed near small rivers
and dams could add more
than 200 megawatts to the country's generation
capacity.
Government
had earlier indicated that they are looking for IPPs to help
develop or to
set up these projects, saying that producers did not
necessarily have to
export the power to the national grid.
IPPs would also be allowed to sell
their power to other electricity users in
the country.
Other options
for expanding the power generation capacity of Zimbabwe
included the
country's coal-bed methane reserves of about 1,1 trillion cubic
feet, as
well as its 11,8-billion metric tons of coal.
The Bulawayo Thermal Power
Station, which has not produced electricity for
nearly a decade will soon be
resuscitated in a deal with the Botswana Power
Corporation. BPC has agreed
to inject US$8 million in to the project.
President Mugabe also noted
that the use of renewable energy sources such as
ethanol blending would also
be promoted to ease power demands.
He said these measures need to be
complemented by implementing demand-side
management measures and the
promotion of efficient use of energy.
In line with these measures, the
Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority is
working on the installation of
prepayment metres to help in billing and
revenue collection.
The
Energy Regulatory Bill, which seeks to establish an Energy Regulatory
Authority to regulate the energy supply industry would be tabled in
Parliament during the current session.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Wallace Mawire
Sunday, 25
July 2010 17:26
HARARE - An approximately US$13 million Diamond Technology
Centre is being
established in Harare to enable the country to manage its
diamond resources
profitably.
The centre is a brain child of Canadile
Miners, which said it was doing it
as a corporate social responsibility
programme.
A representative of Canadile Miners,Claude Maredza, said his
company would
work with government in setting up the centre, which will see
miners add
value to their diamonds including marketing of the finished
diamond
products.
"This will have the positive effect of minimising
leakages, centralising
control, enhancing accountability and ensuring
maximum benefits accrue from
natural resources in the country,"Maredza
said.
The centre was being constructed in Mount Hampden and phase one of the
project was expected to be completed in six to 12 months time.
Phase one
will see the establishment of the technology centre, which is the
core
business of the project. Phase two will involve establishment of
amenities,
which will include a hotel.
Maredza said similar centres were found in other
countries such as Holland,
Belgium, Israel, United Arab Emirates, South
Africa and Botswana. The centre
will operate in accordance to international
standards by tapping from the
experience of major diamond players in the
world.
It is estimated that Zimbabwe would produce as much as 1.1 million
carats of
diamonds this year and would fetch an average US$100 per carat.
Diamond
production was expected to more than double in two years' time to
around 2.4
million carats, according to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF).
Meanwhile the Diamond Association of Zimbabwe (DAZ) said it will offer
research and policy advice to government in order to develop the diamond
industry.
According to Jacky Obey of Mavlon Trading (Pvt) Ltd, a company
currently
involved in diamond beneficiation, the diamond association, which
was three
years old, would give a single voice to all key
stakeholders.
Association President Cosmos Kaseke revealed at an inaugural
meeting
recently that the association broadly sought to promote and support
the
beneficiation of precious stones in Zimbabwe.
"It is our view that
the diamond industry will have a massive uptake and it
is vital to have an
organised front that will ensure that the industry
achieves critical
national developmental goals," Kaseke said.
http://www1.voanews.com/
Both President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the main Movement
for Democratic
Change formation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have
signaled recently
that they are ready for elections next
year
Ntungamili Nkomo | Washington 26 July 2010
Zimbabwean
civil society groups are having some trouble gaining traction on
their
issues at the African Union summit in Kampala, Uganda, where they have
been
urging the continental body to press the Zimbabwean government to
implement
major electoral reforms ahead of national elections some see
taking place
next year.
Civic activists have warned the AU that the kind of deadly
violence seen in
2008 elections could recur in a 2011 ballot.
Both
President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the main Movement for Democratic
Change formation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have signaled recently
that they are ready for elections next year.
Groups working under the
umbrella of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
lobbied the AU secretariat last
week to start preparing the ground work for
Zimbabwe's elections to make
sure they are free and fair.
But the summit has been dominated by
security issues, notably civil war-torn
Somalia and Uganda, where 74 people
died in bombings on July 11 for which
the Somali rebel group Al-Shabab has
claimed responsibility.
The Zimbabwean groups say they will deliver the
same message regarding
possible 2011 elections to a Southern African
Development Community meeting
in mid-August in Namibia.
Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition South African Coordinator Dewa Mavhinga told
VOA Studio 7
reporter Ntungamili Nkomo that the AU and SADC, guarantors of
the 2008
Global Political Agreement that provided the basis for the national
unity
government set afoot in Zimbabwe in early 2009, must implement
strategies to
ensure a successful ballot.
http://www.zimtelegraph.com/?p=8084
Published: July 27, 2010
In
this two part series on Behind the Headlines SW Radio Africa journalist
Lance Guma speaks to exiled Zimbabwean cricketer Henry Olonga. In 2003
Olonga and his teammate, Andy Flower, wore a black arm band in a Cricket
World Cup match to protest the death of democracy under Mugabe's regime.
Olonga has now released his autobiography, Blood Sweat and Treason, which
talks about what he went through after that. Lance asks Olonga for his take
on the coalition government and whether he has any plans to go back
home.
Interview broadcast 22 July 2010
Lance Guma: Hello Zimbabwe
and welcome to another edition of Behind the
Headlines. My guest this week
has a special place in Zimbabwean history.
Henry Olonga was the first black
player and youngest ever cricketer to play
for Zimbabwe
internationally.
He also made headlines in 2003 when he along with
team-mate Andy Flower,
wore a black armband in a Cricket World Cup match to
protest the death of
democracy under Robert Mugabe's ZANU PF regime. Now on
the 19th of July
Henry released his autobiography, Blood, Sweat and Treason.
Henry, thank you
for joining us on the programme.
Henry Olonga: Hi
Lance and thanks for giving me this opportunity to speak to
your listeners
and hopefully let them know a little bit more about my life
and hopefully
the book as well.
Guma: Alright Henry, first things first - tell us about
this book - is it
out and where can it be bought?
Olonga: It is
indeed, today it goes on-line all over the world of course,
through the big
on-line retailers, you can get it in the supermarkets,
wherever you can. So
it's really, it's a day we've been looking forward to
with baited breath,
the book has taken about six months to finally produce,
I've proof read it
over a period of two months - my eyes are almost falling
out and I'm just
glad it's finished.
So today just happens to be the day that we launch it
of course but we
released it about a week or so ago for the press and the
media, for people
to get a hold of it and so far we've had some positive
reviews so thankfully
it seems like people like the book. It's not a long
read, it's about three
days worth of reading I think and I think it will
give you a brief outline
on my life and a few things that happened in
Zimbabwe as well.
Guma: Now the title of the book - Blood, Sweat and
Treason - that's a catchy
headline - what's the thinking behind
that?
Olonga: Well I wish I could claim that I came up with that headline
but I
didn't, I didn't come up with the title of the book, it was actually
one of
the people who was in the planning committee who came up with it. We
were
going for something really mundane and drab and boring - something like
Henry Olonga, The Story of my Life - or something and this guy came up with
it saying how about Blood, Sweat and Treason?
I suppose blood, sweat
and tears is a very common phrase that's used in
sport. I believe there was
a band called Blood, Sweat and Tears many years
ago in the 50's or 60's as
well, maybe that was how the phrase was coined, I'm
not sure. But either way
most people who play professional sport understand
that unless you bleed and
you sweat and you cry on the sports field you're
not truly a sportsman so I
think for that reason it obviously has
significance for sports lovers but of
course it's more than just a sports
book.
It talks about my growing
up in Zimbabwe, in Kenya, in Zambia. I talk a
little bit about my family, I
talk about going to school in Zimbabwe in the
early 80's, I talk about the
politics surrounding that time. Of course when
it was quite a turbulent time
in Zimbabwe's history - we had Joshua Nkomo
and Robert Mugabe at each
other's throats, we had the Gukurahundi massacres,
then we fast forward into
my career and finally my retiring at the World Cup
of 2003 after mourning
the death of democracy.
So it's all there, it's about a hundred thousand
words I think, 280 odd
pages and yah, I think it's quite a comprehensive
review of my life although
we cut out a lot because it was going to be too
tedious to read.
Guma: Now Henry, without giving too much away, let's set
the stage for our
listeners, from an early age, what inspired you to take up
cricket as a
sport?
Olonga: Well you know when I was going to school
in the early 80's, Lance,
the Zimbabwe Cricket Union as they were called
back then, was starting to
have this development of the game going on in
schools and they sent some
coaches out to Reps which was my junior school in
Matopos and there was a
guy called Bob Blair who came out in 1984, '85 I
think it was, he was giving
us Bob Blair signed bats and balls, they were
made up of plastic so they
were perfect for kids messing around with them in
the harsh African climate
with the dry heat and the rain that comes
unexpectedly.
So he showed us how to hold a bat, he showed us how to hold
a ball, what off
spin was, leg spin, all these terms that you use in cricket
and I just fell
in love with the sport. I'll say this, it didn't come to the
fore for a long
time - I was actually dreaming of being an athlete
throughout my childhood,
I wanted to go to the Olympics, I was still a
Kenyan at the time because my
dad had given us Kenyan passports or had
obtained Kenyan passports for us
and I wasn't a citizen of Zimbabwe, so for
me, my big dream was to run for
Kenya.
Now I mean - how many Kenyans
do you see losing a race in the Olympics? You
know what I mean so that was
my big dream and then what happened was, when I
was about 16, Lance, my
athletics coach, he's a guy called Atherton Squire,
he was at my high school
called Plumtree which is in Matabeleland as well
near the border with
Botswana and he'd been my mentor for a number of years.
He'd got me
running great times in the 100 metres, 200 metres, I did long
jump and I was
jumping a good distance, I was throwing the javelin 60
metres, so for me, my
dream of becoming a decathlete running for Kenya or
competing for some
country - whether it was Zimbabwe or Kenya, it didn't
matter for me, I was
young then - it was going to be realised. But then he
left, he went to
Harare, he went to a school called St John's, a private
school and they'd
head hunted him so he was gone, so my mentor had left and
I didn't know what
to do with the rest of my life.
It's not like I lost all vision but I
just didn't really know what to do
with myself and then my cricket coach
came and he spoke to me - he's a guy
called Roy Jones, at Plumtree, he's an
old boy of the school and he's back
teaching - and he said to me that he
thought I had the talent to play for
Zimbabwe so with that little chat I had
with him, I had a dream, then I
started to practise, then I started to get
results, then I played for my
province.
I played for Matabeleland
with Heath Streak and a guy called Mark Decker and
Wayne James who was an
old Plumtree boy as well and a guy called Ethan Dube
as well. Ethan Dube was
a guy who should have been the first black player
perhaps to play for
Zimbabwe but for some reason they didn't pick him and
then I obviously
progressed through those teams. I went and played for the
"B" side and
within a few weeks of leaving school, maybe even a month or so,
I was making
my debut against Pakistan in '95.
So everything happened very quickly,
within a two year space of time where
on the one hand I was dreaming of
being an athlete, then my coach left and
all of a sudden I had a different
dream and it was fulfilled.
Guma: It's interesting you talk about being
at Plumtree because I was at
nearby Cyrene Mission and we used to hear a lot
about the Olonga brothers -
you've got a brother that used to play rugby I
take it?
Olonga: That's right, Victor - he's my older brother, he's older
than me by
two years, funnily enough he's always been older than me by two
years and he
loved his rugby, Victor, from a young age he was a tough guy.
I'm not
suggesting that I wasn't a tough guy but I played cricket, I also
played
rugby but I wasn't big and muscular and strong like Victor - he liked
his
body building.
So he went into rugby from the age of about - I
mean he played at junior
school but he became a serious rugby player when he
was about 15, 16 and
then after writing his 'O' levels, he didn't come back
to school, he went
abroad and he actually played a few matches against some
teams.
I think he played against Wales in Harare at the Police Grounds
and he
scored a massive try. I mean everyone just loved it - he ran from the
22,
from his side, all the way through the Welsh defence and scored a try
and I
think that opened the door from him to come and play rugby here in
England
and then he ended up doing very well for himself and he ended up
captaining
Zimbabwe for a number of years.
And then of course he was
banned I think for a protest that they did about
playing conditions on a
rugby practice pitch or something. But either way,
Victor, yah he was very
good, he was a very talented rugby player and very
proud of his achievements
as well as a rugby player.
Guma: Like I said, we're not giving too much
away but you made your
international debut in a test against Pakistan in
Harare in 1995.
Olonga: That's right.
Guma: .and it's documented
aged just 18 years and 212 days becoming the
youngest player ever to
represent Zimbabwe. Just briefly talk us through
that day - that must have
been one hell of a day for you.
Olonga: Well Lance it was massive. It
wasn't massive just for me, it was
massive of course for the country because
of the political significance as
well. But it all happened very quickly for
me, like I said after leaving
school all of a sudden I found myself in the
'B' side which went on tour to
South Africa, I played well against those
South Africans and then we came
back to Zimbabwe and I played in a warm up
match against Pakistan at Harare
South Golf Club.
They've got a
cricket pitch there - and I did alright, I was bowling very
fast and this
was against Wasim Akram, Aamir Sohail, Salim Malik, Saeed
Anwar - the guys
who had just won the World Cup in '92 so it was a pretty
hot team and I did
well against them and so all of a sudden people were
saying - hey you know
this kid might be good enough to make his test debut.
In fact there'd
been whisperings about it for a number of years - in fact I've
heard
subsequently after retiring that they'd wanted to play me even when I
was
still a schoolboy but they felt that I was too young - so I might have
made
my debut at the age of 17 even - I'm not sure. But either way they
picked me
and that day itself was just an extraordinary day.
First of all there was
the amazing honour of walking onto the field to a
standing ovation when all
the white people in the crowd recognised the
significance of the moment so
they were all on their feet, standing up and
clapping and it was a proud
moment for me, receiving my cap from the
captain, I think it was Andy Flower
at the time.
And then we walked out, I was walking out with Heath Streak
and Dave
Houghton, Andy Flower, Grant Flower, Guy Whittal and my first ball
in test
cricket was an anti-climax if I may say that by virtue of the fact
that I
bowled four wides down the leg, Lance. You can imagine - all that
tension
that had built up, the excitement, everyone was building - this is
the first
black player to play for Zimbabwe, this is a moment of history and
Olonga
sends down a wide down the leg.
Mind you, most people who have
watched my career know that I wasn't blessed
with accuracy. I used to think
to myself, if I don't know where the ball is
going, how's the batsman going
to know right? So anyway after that I bowled
a straight ball, the crowd
applauded, it was ironic applause of course
because now they thought OK he
can bowl a straight ball, and then I got a
wicket with my third ball - can
you believe it?
It was down a leg again so it didn't deserve a wicket but
the batsman Saeed
Anwar touched it, he got a little bit of wood on it and
obviously all the
guys behind the wicket appealed and to my surprise, the
umpire gave him
out - I think it was Mervyn Kitchen and so all of a sudden
you think - right
I've gone from hero to zero after my first ball back to
hero after getting a
wicket with my third ball I was to go back to zero
again because in a few
overs I was called for throwing.
Now for those
of you listeners who don't understand what that means - it
means you've got
a technical problem with your action and you are
technically bowling with an
illegal action. So this was now very, very
embarrassing - I mean I've
covered this in the book in a little bit more
detail than we've got time for
but it was just the most awful thing that
could have happened to me on my
debut.
In fact the worst thing that happened to me on that day was an old
boy of
Plumtree, in fact I don't know if he went to Plumtree but I know his
son did
and his son was my captain, he came up to me and he said to me "Mr
Olonga",
I said "Yes sir" - I was down on the boundary and he said "You know
the last
person who got called for chucking 32 years ago, never played for
his
country again."
Guma: And he had to use the word chucking
hey?
Olonga: Yes can you believe it - this was on the day when I've just
made my
debut and then this man comes to tell me he thinks I'm never going
to play
again. I was so mad, I just took that as a challenge and I thought
OK I'll
just show you. And so it took me a long time to sort out my action,
I went
to India, I went to South Africa and I also went to Australia where I
spent
probably three or so weeks respectively in India and Australia but I
spent
six months in South Africa in '97 at the Plascon Cricket Academy and
then
after that I came back and almost pretty much cemented my place in the
side
for three or four years.
Guma: Now when you and Andy Flower made
the black armband protest, you
released a statement of course saying 'in all
the circumstances we have
decided that we will each wear a black armband for
the duration of the World
Cup. In doing so we are mourning the death of
democracy of our beloved
Zimbabwe.' This as I said in my introduction is the
one gesture that got so
many headlines in 2003. Talk us through that, what
was the thinking behind
doing this?
Olonga: Well again Lance, that's
one of those questions which is so general
that the scope of this interview
just won't be able to give us enough time
to cover it but in a nutshell,
myself and Andy Flower had come to the same
place. We had perhaps travelled
different routes to get to that place but we
both came to the place where we
realised that things were so abnormal in
Zimbabwe that they needed to be
challenged.
Now from Andy's perspective, I believe and I don't want to
put words in his
mouth, but I believe he witnessed an old friend of his, the
farm getting
destroyed, this man's livelihood obviously being destroyed and
also the
livelihoods of all his workers because these farm invasions, love
them or
hate them, have affected white and black people and he obviously got
to a
place where he felt this needed to be challenged. There could be other
reasons that Andy decided to do that so maybe perhaps I'll leave him when he
writes his book to explain exactly what got him to that place but from my
perspective - a number of reasons.
First of all Lance, I'm a
Christian, I believe in Godly, biblical values and
I gave my life to God
when I was about 16 years old, I became a Christian
then and ever since then
I've tried to understand what it is to have a
biblical outlook on life and
you know, when you've got an all-powerful
leader who is crushing, oppressing
and making the lives of his own citizens
a misery, then those people have
every right to appeal to a higher power but
what about when you've got
orphans and widows - you know.
The bible is very clear on how we ought to
stand in their stead. We are to
rebuke the oppressor, in fact this is a
scripture in the Book of Isaiah -
rebuke the oppressor and contend for the
widow and the orphan - Isaiah 1
verse 17 and that spoke to me one day when I
was reading it. Another thing
is of course the corruption in Zimbabwe. I
mean that absolutely made me
crazy. We were getting charged 64% or so tax
and we had very little to show
for it.
Here in England you get
charged whatever percentage you get but at least you
get free healthcare and
free education perhaps in most cases and many, many
benefits - public
transport that's reliable etcetera and in Zimbabwe, most
of the time, those
taxes do not go towards making the general population
live lives that are of
a slightly higher standard.
Instead we were seeing politicians enriching
themselves - the Willowgate
scandal where these guys were buying cars and
selling them for profit - I
mean we've had so many corruption scandals in
Zimbabwe I don't need to go
through the list but either way that made me a
little angry and I started to
think geez someone's got to speak out against
this corruption.
And then there was the DRC you know - we got involved in
the war in the
Congo where they were plundering the resources there, sure
they were trying
to ostensibly keep stability in the region at the behest of
Lauren Kabila
who got assassinated later but ultimately, most of the people
who were not
getting enriched in the DRC were not Zimbabweans, the average
Zimbabweans,
it was mainly the people who were connected in high
places.
So there are hundreds of things that got me to that place - so
I'm just
loosely touching on them - my faith, corruption in government,
obviously the
involvement in the DRC but ultimately it was hearing a story
about the
Gukurahundi massacres in the Matabeleland region that I grew up
in. You know
I have memories of our teachers carrying guns.
When I
was about eight or nine years old in my first year of attending Reps,
there
was a guy called Bray Mudavanhu who was one of our teachers there and
he
used to carry a gun after hours and we used to ask him - why are you
carrying a gun? - we used to ask him that, you know all these questions
about guns, it was such a fascinating thing for an eight year old kid with a
teacher who's got an AK47 - he'd say things like - hey you know if you hear
the bullet or you hear the crack of a gun you're not dead because normally
you won't hear it, you'll be dead by the time the sound arrives and he would
tell us fascinating stories about this.
But he would also tell us
about this guy called Richard Gwesela and the
dissidents that were working
in the area - as a nine year old, eight year
old, you don't understand what
the concept of dissidence is or the Fifth
Brigade and what they were doing,
but when I grew up, when I was an old man,
I say old man relatively but I
was 25, 26 I got handed a dossier put
together by the Catholic Commission
for Justice which I'm sure you guys are
familiar with and some of those
stories just made my blood boil.
There was a story of these two girls who
got gang raped by some Zimbabwe
National Army forces for two days or so, it
was a number of days and then
they ended up being pregnant and then many
months later, these soldiers
returned and they just bayoneted these girls
wombs open and the foetuses
which were still moving, fell on the ground. My
Lord - when I heard that I
just thought what kind of country have I grown up
in? What kind of country
have I represented at the highest level?
You
know whenever we used to go on tours, I used to defend Zimbabwe's right
to
be an international Test playing nation. They'd ask us - what about
Mugabe,
what about human rights abuses, what about corruption and I'd say -
ah no,
no, we're just cricketers, we're here to put the best foot forward
that the
country has.
I'd say all those cute little answers that you get groomed
to say by
management, but there was a growing sense that hmm that something
was wrong
here in this country and people don't talk about it and so - I
know this is
a long-winded answer but - ultimately I came to the place where
I decided
someone's got to speak out and ultimately, that's what we
did.
Guma: Well that concludes Part One of this interview with cricketer
Henry
Olonga. In the second part of course we'll be asking him about the
general
cynicism from some quarters that sports and politics should not be
mixed up.
To listen to the audio of the programme click the link
below:
http://swradioafrica.streamuk.com/swradioafrica_archive/bth220710.wma
Feedback
can be sent to lance@swradioafrica.com or
http://twitter.com/lanceguma
SW
Radio Africa is Zimbabwe's Independent Voice and broadcasts on Short Wave
4880 KHz in the 60m band.
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
Written by Gift
Phiri
Sunday, 25 July 2010 19:58
HARARE - Zimbabwe's plan to get its
staggering US$7 billion debt written off
under the Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries (HIPC) initiative, a debt relief
programme managed by the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, has
sharply divided
opinion.
The move, the latest in a series of steps to manage the ballooning
debt by
the one and half year old inclusive government, will enable the
bankrupt and
poor southern African country, isolated from international
capital over the
past decade, to once again tap international capital
markets again.
Zimbabwe's unity government, formed last year by bitter foes
President
Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to end an
economic
crisis, has failed to attract much-needed foreign aid, mainly due
to the
massive debts.
An IMF staff paper published last week detailing
discussions with the
Zimbabwean authorities in March, said neither the right
economic policies
nor the country's mineral wealth could immediately resolve
the country's
huge debt problem. Zimbabwe's bankrupt unity government has an
external debt
of US$7.145 billion and is currently in arrears of US$4.575
billion. The
current arrears are blocking new lines of credit.
But
critics have called for a full public audit of the country's US$7.145
billion debt burden to assess its legitimacy amid concerns this money could
have been plundered from the treasury.
Analysts have described Zimbabwe
as a "Highly Robbed Poor Country" rather
than a "Heavily Indebted Poor
Country" and have called for the restitution
of the country's stolen assets,
accusing the central bank of playing a key
role in the accrual of the
staggering debt.
"There has been much irresponsible lending," said Rutendo
Hadebe of the
Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development.
Added Ingrid
Naess-Holm of African Debt and Development: "Zimbabwe should
find other
solutions before adopting HIPC. Zimbabwe could qualify as a HIPC,
(but)
measures such as mandatory privatisation of state enterprises,
adopting an
economic adjustment programme and other such pre-requisites
could be more
harmful to the economy."
The HIPC Initiative is a long, fraught process which
is tied to a whole
range of sometimes controversial macroeconomic policy
conditionalities,
Naess-Holm warned. The average time for completion of the
programme has been
six to seven years, so debt cancellation takes a long
time.
But Eric Bloch, a prominent economist differs. "What viable option do
they
have for the country to deal with this huge debt?" he asked.
Bloch
said the debt relief should free up resources for Zimbabwe to spend on
rebuilding an economy shattered by a decade of hyperinflation, conflict, and
isolation which left infrastructure in ruin and a nation
traumatized.
HIPC status would give Zimbabwe access to the IMF's Poverty
Reduction and
Growth Facility, which provides loans to low-income countries
at subsidised
rates. Zimbabwe would also be able to access cash from the
World Bank. But
some people did not want Zimbabwe classified as a heavily
indebted poor
country saying the country was rich were it not for
sanctions.
Finance minister Tenda Biti has said the US$7 billion debt was
stifling
economic recovery, and without the debt overhang, Zimbabwe's
economy would
have been growing by 15 percent annually.
Zimbabwe's
economy grew by five percent last year for the first time after a
decade of
debilitating negative economic decline. Senior government
officials say the
IMF had proposed a buyback of outstanding government debt
that had been in
default since the 1990s, with the rest of the remaining
debt set to be
cancelled under HIPC.
Economists acknowledge the divergent views on the debt
clearance strategy,
but said seeking HIPC status - which would require
sweeping reforms and
setting firm performance targets - was the best option
for Zimbabwe.
To qualify for HIPC status, a country's debt has to be
considered to be
beyond its ability to repay from its own resources, and
then commit to sound
economic management and institute broad reforms.
President Mugabe's Zanu
(PF) party does not want Zimbabwe classified as a
heavily indebted poor
country saying the move will facilitate foreign
interference in the country's
economic and political affairs, as well as
project the country as an
economic basket case.
Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions (ZCTU) president Lovemore Matombo, said:
"There is no country
in the world that has developed under IMF and World
Bank programmes." He
highlighted the problems of privatisation,
retrenchments and cutbacks on
social spending which characterised ESAP
(economic structural adjustment
programme) in the 1990s and warned that they
were part of the
conditionalities under HIPC. "There is no difference
between ESAP and HIPC
and inviting HIPC in Zimbabwe is inviting cancer,"
Matombo said.
Chris
Mutsvangwa, Zimbabwe's former ambassador to China said Zimbabwe could
use
its mineral resources to clear its debt, capitalising on the current
international demand for minerals and did not need to be declared a HIPC.
But economists and the IMF say the much vaunted mineral wealth in Zimbabwe
was not much in real terms and could not pay off the country's staggering
debt.
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by PSYCHOLOGY MAZIWISA Tuesday 27 July
2010
The notion that, to qualify as people-driven, the current
constitution
making process must exclude politicians and be spearheaded by
civil society
is as malevolent as it is misleading. Of course, the case is
pushed most
assiduously by various interest groups in a naked and doomed
attempt to
claim relevance without losing the high ground.
It is a
proposition that discloses the cancerous condition within Zimbabwean
society
where some individuals have become desperate to the point of saying
anything, however erroneous or self-serving, solely to raise their own
profile and impress generous donor communities. Nothing could be more
treacherous.
South Africa's wonderful constitution is considered
among the most advanced
in the world with, among numerous other progressive
provisions, an
entrenched, finely crafted and generally respected Bill of
Rights - yet it
is the product not of any consultative process among the
populace but of
discussions and negotiations between political
parties.
Not only were the leadership of the African National Congress
and the then
ruling National Party influential in both setting in motion and
determining
the negotiation process, they were also influential in deciding
its
substantive outcomes.
At the forefront
The point is that,
while the involvement of civil society in a democracy is
fundamental, the
fact that it is not at the forefront of the drafting
process does not render
the resultant constitution any less people-driven.
Objective tests are
more reliable than out-and-out grandstanding - and those
tests can easily be
stated. Were the people's views sought? Were those views
freely provided?
Both must be answered in the affirmative to pass public
scrutiny.
If
there are reservations about the content of the new Zimbabwean
constitution,
it should not be because the ZCTU or, worse still, the NCA and
ZINASU,
elected not to be part of that process or merely because their
'important'
input was disregarded. It will be because the people's views
were not sought
or that their ability to express them was curtailed.
There is a dangerous
absurdity in the argument that, because Dr. Madhuku and
his backslappers
feel they have been sidelined in the crafting of a new
constitution, the
whole country should for that reason alone blindly 'reject'
the outcome.
Such stunts serve no constructive purpose.
In part, this posturing
explains why as Zimbabweans, after so many years of
fighting for
emancipation, we have yet to defeat tyranny. Whereas our enemy
has remained
determined, resolute and united, we have displayed a dangerous
and damaging
inclination to act disjointedly with neither unity of purpose
nor meaningful
coordination.
Self-indulgence cannot be pitted against discipline with
any hope of
obtaining a satisfactory outcome.
Why bother?
At
every moment in the history of our struggle our ability to advance as a
people has been hindered by the discord which has of late found expression
through Madhuku and company.
In truth, if we fail to see the
importance of acting in concert and speaking
with one voice as one people,
one nation, then we are indeed doomed.
If all that should matter is for
Dr. Madhuku, for instance, to be revered
and exalted whenever there is talk
of a constitution just because he is
chairman of an organisation with the
word 'constitutional' in its name...
If all that should count is to
criticise even the most progressive of
initiatives simply in order to save
oneself from the embarrassing prospect
of being irrelevant..
If our
failure to think, speak and act as a people united actually serves to
promote the dictatorship rather than dismantle it.then those seeking a free
and democratic country will ask, 'Why bother?'
Morgan Tsvangirai's
failure to mobilise Zimbabwean people-power makes him
and his MDC just as
culpable as Madhuku and the others, if not more so. At
best it represents a
woeful lack of leadership. At worst it smacks of a
desire to hold on
ferociously to a monopoly of opposition politics in
Zimbabwe.
Unity
of purpose
We need Tsvangirai to encourage and promote unity of purpose
among the many
disparate groups of Zimbabweans committed to restoring and
sustaining
democracy in Zimbabwe.
We need his charisma and
inspiration to rally every progressive individual,
organisation and party
into one united front if we are to win the battle
against
tyranny.
Zimbabweans pay heed: unless and until we speak and act
collectively with
one voice, as one people, one nation, our enemy will
continue to revel in
the status quo and tyranny will still oppress our
society for many more
years to come.
Political posturing,
disorganisation, self-interest and disunity have
nowhere been known to
disturb let alone destroy dictatorships. Far from
posing any threat, they
are the very elements that enable tyrants to divide
and rule. Of all
nations, we should know better. We must act on this
knowledge.
Psychology Maziwisa is a member of the Union for
Sustainable Democracy,
leader@usd.org.zw