FinGaz
Nelson Banya
ZIMBABWE'S Supreme
Court has ruled that the appointment of judges by the
Chief Justice to the
electoral court, which was established last year as
part of a series of
electoral reforms, was inconsistent with the
constitution and is, thus,
void.
The landmark unanimous ruling, which has significant implications
for the
electoral process in this country, was made on Tuesday by Supreme
Court
Justices Cheda, Malaba, Sandura, Gwaunza and Ziyambi. It renders all
rulings
made by the court null and void.
As a consequence, legal experts
told The Financial Gazette, that all the 16
election petitions filed by
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidates
following the March 2005
elections are still actionble, as is former
Chimanimani legislator Roy
Bennet's challenge against his disqualification
from contesting in the
election.
The ruling, written by Justice Malaba and delivered by Justice
Cheda, also
effectively strikes down section 162(1) of the Electoral Act,
which
empowered the Chief Justice to appoint judges to the special Electoral
Court.
The opposition MDC and its candidate for Goromonzi constituency in
the March
2005 elections, Claudious Marimo, had made an application to have
the
Electoral Court declared improperly constituted. Justice Minister
Patrick
Chinamasa, the Attorney-General Sobusa Gula-Ndebele, Chief Justice
Godfrey
Chidyausiku and ZANU PF's winning candidate for the Goromonzi
constituency,
Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa were cited as respondents.
The opposition
party's candidates in 16 constituencies, who had filed
petitions challenging
the results of the March 31 2005 election, applied for
the withdrawal of
their petitions before the Electoral Court, pending the
Supreme Court
determination on the legality of the special court. However,
the Electoral
Court judges declined to grant their requests. The Supreme
Court found that
they had erred in this regard..
The Minister of Justice
and the Attorney-General are now jointly and
severally liable to pay the
costs of the application. The Chief Justice, who
did not oppose the
application, was absolved.
"Under section 162(1) of the (Electoral) Act,
Parliament empowers the Chief
Justice to appoint a sitting judge of the High
Court to preside over the
Electoral Court which is a special court after
consulting the Judge
President. It transferred the right to be consulted on
the appointment of
judges of the High Court to exercise judicial power
vested in a special
court from the Judicial Services Commission to the Judge
President.
"Parliament had no power to do that. It was under a duty to
provide that the
judges of the High Court were to be appointed to preside
over the Electoral
Court in the manner prescribed under section 92(1) of the
Constitution.
Failure to so provide means that section 162(1) of the Act is
inconsistent
with section 92(1) of the Constitution," the Supreme Court
ruled.
Section 92(1) of the Constitution vests the power to appoint judges in
the
President and makes consultation with the Judicial Services Commission a
mandatory requirement for a valid appointment.
Chief Justice Chidyausiku
appeared to accept the validity of the applicants'
contention on the
appointment of judges to the special court and revoked the
appointment of
the judges, only to reinstate them in the same letter, saying
the fresh
appointment was now in accordance with the law.
"It has been brought to my
attention that some of the litigants in the
electoral petition are unhappy
about your previous appointment as a judge of
the Electoral Court because
the Judicial Service Commission was not
consulted in terms of section 92(1)
of the Constitution. In the event of my
appointment of you as a judge of the
Electoral Court on 5 May 2005 not being
in accordance with the law it is
hereby revoked.
"Please be advised that I, in my capacity as Chief Justice of
Zimbabwe and
after consultation with the Judge President and the Judicial
Service
Commission, have appointed you as a judge of the Electoral Court
with effect
from this day the 1st June of 2005," Chidyausiku wrote to each
of the
judges.
However, the fresh appointments were also deemed illegal
as no Act of
Parliament authorised the Chief Justice to appoint the judges
of the High
Court to the special court.
Chris Mhike of Atherston and Cook
who, together with Sheila Jarvis
instructed Advocate Eric Matinenga and
Edith Mushore, yesterday said all
decisions made by the Electoral Court had
been rendered useless.
"The dismissals, rejections and verdicts that had been
passed by any of the
Electoral Court judges have become meaningless," Mhike
said. He, however,
conceded that the the stipulated six-month window for
petitioners had
elapsed.
"The difficulty for the petitioners is that the
six-month period, in which
election petitions had to be determined, has now
lapsed while government
refused to correct the law, and electoral court
judges refused to refer the
question of their appointment.
"There must
be, at law, some solution or remedy to the petitioners to cure
this
injustice, since the Supreme Court specifically recognised that they
were
denied a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a properly
constituted
court."
Mhike said he was still awaiting further instructions from the
clients on
the matter.
FinGaz
THE Supreme
Court reached the conclusion that the Electoral Court was
improperly
constituted. It follows therefore, that all the decisions made by
the
Electoral Court of 2005 are null and void.
Some of the factual findings
made by the Electoral Court are nevertheless
considered sound. For instance,
it was found in the Makoni North Election
Petition of 2005 that, among
numerous misdeeds committed in the run-up to
the March 2005 elections:
a)
acts of physical violence were inflicted upon the voters of Makoni North
b)
food distribution was politicised by the ruling ZANU PF
c) resettled farmers
were threatened with the repossession of their land if
they voted for the
MDC
Justice Rita Makarau, who was then with the Electoral Court, found that
the
people of the constituency were robbed of a free election but
nevertheless
the Act precluded her from offering any remedy for the
situation. In the
other test trials, all the judges reached similar
conclusions.
Although these and other findings are useful in judicial
precedent and the
political history of the country, the determinations of
the revoked
Electoral Court are not legally binding, nor of any force or
effect.
The challenges on the 16 constituencies over which petitions were
filed, and
the complaint by Roy Bennett about his disqualification as a
candidate in
the Chimanimani constituency, therefore remain
actionable.
The dismissals, rejections and verdicts that had been pronounced
by any of
the Electoral Court judges have become meaningless.
The
six-month period, in which election petitions had to be determined,
lapsed
while government refused to correct the law and electoral court
judges
refused to refer the question of their appointment.
Lawyers representing the
MDC contend there must be, at law, a solution or
remedy for the petitioners
to cure this injustice, since the Supreme Court
specifically recognised that
they were denied a fair hearing within a
reasonable time by a properly
constituted court. This was in violation of
the Declaration of Rights, as
enshrined in the constitution of Zimbabwe and
in other relevant
international legal instruments.
FinGaz
Njabulo
Ncube
PROSPECTS of building bridges between Zimbabwe and its former
colonial
master Britain are becoming increasingly gloomy as the gap between
the two
countries seems to be widening.
Although diplomatic ties have
not irretrievably broken down, the gap between
the Zimbabwe and its former
colonial master could actually prove impossible
to narrow, if their bitter
exchanges this week are anything to go by.
President Robert Mugabe said his
government has defeated Britain's political
machinations to destroy the
country's economy and effect regime change.
Officially opening the Second
Session of the Sixth Parliament of Zimbabwe on
Tuesday, the Zimbabwean
leader, accused of spurning international calls for
political reforms, added
that the continued imposition of "illegal"
sanctions against Zimbabwe by the
European Union and the United States was
at the behest of the country's
erstwhile colonisers.
"It is however refreshing that the world has now become
fully aware of the
dishonest and hypocritical anti-Zimbabwe strategy of the
current British
government," said President Mugabe. "We feel proud that we
have defeated
that strategy which was aimed at the collapse of the
Zimbabwean economy and
an envisaged regime change. Zimbabwe will never be a
colony again," he
added.
Over the years, President Mugabe, who for the
first time came close to
admitting that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe, has
maintained that Britain
and its allies wanted to topple his government which
they oppose not because
of his undemocratic election, but as punishment for
the country's widely
condemned land reform exercise. His government has
maintained that Britain,
which in the early 1980s provided 47 million pounds
for land reform under
the doomed willing-seller-willing-buyer scheme, has
changed its political
tune because it now wants "its man" in.
Britain,
President Mugabe's favourite scapegoat for the country's myriad
economic
problems and political crisis - yesterday said Harare should change
its
ppractice of continuously blaming London for its woes and instead
concentrate on finding a permanent solution to its nagging
problems.
Warning that Zimbabwe risked putting itself beyond rescue, the
British
embassy in Harare told The Financial Gazette that President Mugabe
and his
government needed to embrace acceptable economic and political
policies that
would benefit impoverished Zimbabweans, an estimated four
million of whom
are believed to have fled the country to the diaspora,
including the UK and
South Africa.
Embassy spokesperson Gillian Dare -
disputing the charge that her country
had an agenda to destabilise Zimbabwe,
said the ball was in President Mugabe's
court to change the fortunes of the
country and its people.
"There is real work to be done, if Zimbabwe is to
fulfil its true potential.
Most of this needs to be done by Zimbabweans and
their government," said
Dare in a press statement to The Financial Gazette
in response to President
Mugabe's accusations on Tuesday.
She denied that
her country harbored motives to re-colonise or effect regime
change in
Zimbabwe as has been the government's mantra in the past six
years.
"The
country is at a crossroads. If it continues to take its current course,
it
will put itself beyond rescue. But Zimbabwe has a choice. It can change
track, change policies and give its people the life, the prospects and
future they deserve. This is a choice only the government of Zimbabwe can
make. Policy in Zimbabwe needs to evolve in a new direction, not because
Britain, the international community or anyone else tells them to do it, but
because it is the right thing to do for the people and future of Zimbabwe,"
she said.
Other African countries, she said, were demonstrating that it
was possible
to have economically sustainable, market friendly policies, and
to work in
close and fruitful cooperation with international donors, while
those
policies remained wholly-owned and driven by African governments and
their
people. Sovereignty and cooperation were not mutually
exclusive.
President Mugabe has appointed former Tanzanian president Benjamin
Mkapa to
act as mediator in the alleged bilateral dispute critics last week
said was
doomed due to failure by Harare to recognise that it was part of
the
political and economic problems bedeviling the country. Britain has also
flatly denied there is a bilateral dispute between it and Zimbabwe.
Said
Dare: "Britain and its EU partners have not imposed economic sanctions
against Zimbabwe or its people. What all members states of the European
Union have agreed are targeted measures against limited number of named
individuals. Only those individuals are affected."
FinGaz
Charles
Rukuni
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has fired warning shots at one of his most
trusted
lieutenants - John Nkomo.
Though political observers say
Mugabe's sentiments at the 66th ordinary
session of his party's central
committee at which he blasted senior
officials in the party for abusing
their authority to amass wealth and
property were general and directed at
the entire party leadership, those in
Bulawayo believe they were directed at
Speaker of Parliament and party
chairman John Nkomo.
Nkomo has been
involved in a wrangle with local businessman and farmer
Langton Masunda over
a farm in Gwayi which includes Jijima Lodge. Masunda
was allocated the
611-hectare farm in 2002 but the offer letter was
withdrawn by Lands
Minister Didymus Mutasa last month. High Court Judge
Francis Bere, however,
set aside the minister's decision on July 7. Mutasa
conceded on July 13 that
he had wrongfully withdrawn Masunda's offer letter
because he had not
followed the proper procedure.
Nkomo had been trying to muscle his way in
using his political rank, but
Masunda stood his ground. Sources say Masunda
was backed by Nkomo's
political opponents who were also benefiting from the
thriving safari
industry in the area.
Nkomo is the fourth highest ranking
official in ZANU-PF after President
Mugabe and his two deputies, Joseph
Msika and Joice Mujuru. Nkomo has been
accused of using his political
position to intimidate opponents and to
acquire some running business
concerns. He, however, seemed to have hit a
brick wall when his path crossed
that of his juniors who are jostling for
the succession of Joseph Msika as
vice-president. Msika has been ill for
some time and under the unity accord
of 1987, one of the posts of
vice-president must go to a former PF-ZAPU
official, should he step down.
Nkomo was at one time the frontrunner, with
Dumiso Dabengwa earmarked for
the post of national chairman. But this plan
was later scuttled after Msika
allegedly changed his mind saying Dabengwa
should become vice-president as
Nkomo was too close to Mugabe.
Nkomo and
Midlands governor Cephas Msipa were the only two PF-ZAPU ministers
retained
in Mugabe's government in the early 1980s when PF-ZAPU officials
were kicked
out of the government of national unity following the alleged
discovery of
arms caches at farms that belonged to PF-ZAPU.
Masunda's neighbours were
allegedly opposed to Nkomo's entry because they
were afraid he would not
pass on business to them as Masunda was allegedly
doing at the
moment.
The battle to succeed Msika is understood to now include Industry and
International Trade Minister Obert Mpofu. Msika says his post is not yet up
for grabs.
Political observers said it was too early to rule Nkomo out
because Mugabe's
sentiments were general.
"I did not follow the debate
closely but I believe the President's
sentiments were aimed at the general
leadership," political commentator
Lawton Hikwa said.
John Makumbe said
though Nkomo was one of the targets, Mugabe could have
also been addressing
people like Joseph Made and Didymus Mutasa because they
were also involved,
especially in the Kondozi saga. The government took over
Kondozi farm, a
leading horticultural project, from TZI, a listed company,
and the farm has
since been looted of vital equipment.
"Nkomo is too close to Mugabe. So I
don't think this will spoil his chances
of rising to vice-president,"
Makumbe said. "Besides, Mugabe's bark does not
have bite anymore. He just
talks but does nothing."
FinGaz
Kumbirai
Mafunda
ZIMBABWE'S troubled bakers appeared defiant to a government
crackdown on
high priced bread by effecting yet another price hike hardly
two months
after another price jack up.
Last month President Robert
Mugabe's government reacted to a bread price
increase by arresting 300
bakers and shopkeepers charging them for illegally
pricing bread above the
gazetted $85 000 per loaf.
But defiant bakers at the weekend still effected a
61.5 percent increase on
the price of bread pegging it at $210 000 per loaf
from $130 000.
Although they have been absorbing the increases in the prices
of most raw
materials over the past month, bakers told The Financial Gazette
that they
had reached a stage where the gazetted price is completely
unsustainable.
Bakers attributed the latest bread price adjustment to an
increase in the
retail price of flour.
They said millers had raised the
price of flour from $3.5 million per 50kg
to between $4 million and $6
million per 50kg.
The disgruntled bakers said since millers were not getting
their weekly
allocations from the state-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB),
they were now
being forced to import additional flour in the absence of
local wheat
supplies to meet demand and hence had to sell the product at a
premium.
Zimbabwe is grappling with a serious shortage of wheat, which was
spawned by
the seizure of white owned farms to resettle veterans of the
liberation
struggle in 2000.
Since the land grab exercise, the country
has been recording a decline in
wheat production causing a countrywide
shortage of bread while bakers have
in turn charged high prices for the
commodity.
Other bakers claimed that vegetable oil processors had doubled the
price of
fat and margarine while wages and salaries had also been increased
during
the traditional July salary reviews.
Faced with erratic supplies
of fuel on the official market, bakers are
sourcing diesel, which is used to
fire their ovens, on the black market
where a litre costs $500 000.
"The
bakers are reacting to rising input costs," said one of the bakers.
The price
of bread, which is the second staple food after maize in this
country, has
been increasing dramatically worsening hardships for most
households.
While the government continues to set the price of bread at
unrealistic
levels, bakers say producing at the current retail prices is
unviable and
would threaten the sectors' 20 000 jobs.
Since 2000 when the
government backed a wholesale seizure of white-owned
productive farmland,
Zimbabwe has been experiencing serious food shortages.
Faced with the
highest inflation rate in the world of 1 184.6 percent, the
country is in
the throes of an agonising economic crisis where prices of
commodities are
escalating everyday.
Other struggling manufacturers in the country blame
shortages of inputs and
foreign currency for most of the price
increases.
FinGaz
Kumbirai
Mafunda
SOME police trainees failed to execute some of their shooting
drills at a
training camp located just outside Harare last month because the
Zimbabwe
Republic Police (ZRP) had run out of bullets, The Financial Gazette
has
learnt.
Sources said police recruits who spent one week
undergoing what the police
term 'coin' training at Lowdale Farm in Mazowe,
in June did not carry out
shooting exercises with the FN rifle. The
week-long training began on June
19 and ended on June 26.
Some of the
trainers said they only used Kalashnikov 47 assault rifles
popularly known
as (AK47)s and a few pistols for their drills.
"There were no bullets for the
FN rifles so we were just shown how to handle
the firearm," said the
sources.
Under standard training exercises the recruits are supposed to
accustom
themselves with any form of firearm. Police spokesperson Wayne
Bvudzijena
could neither deny nor confirm the shortage of bullets at
training camps.
"We can't discuss security issues with the media," he said in
a terse
comment.
But Zimbabwe's ability to beef up its weaponry was dealt
a blow by western
countries after they imposed an arms ban on Harare in 2000
in protest
against alleged human rights abuses and economic mismanagement.
Zimbabwe's
former colonial master Britain has also turned down all new
applications for
arms and military equipment to be exported to Zimbabwe as
part of its
reaction to political violence in the country. The supply of
Land Rovers to
the Zimbabwean police together with all licences for spare
parts for Hawk
aircraft has also been put on hold in protests against what
the critics call
a democracy deficit.
The arms embargo has forced
Zimbabwe to turn to Israel and China as
alternative sources.
FinGaz
Rangarirai
Mberi
WATCH out for those earthquakes, President Robert Mugabe warned on
Tuesday.
The recent quakes that hit Zimbabwe "call on us to abandon our
previous
laissez faire approach and become more pro-active", he
said.
Later today, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa could do just that
and try to
"be pro-active" - but the markets are praying that his statement
will not
set off the same earthquakes and tremors that his half-year review
caused
last year.
Then, Murerwa introduced withholding taxes on
marketable securities and
regulations compelling pension funds to have their
prescribed asset ratios
calculated at market value.
What ensued were 17
straight days of no trade on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange
(ZSE), and
bitterness all round.
This year, government remains as hungry for revenue as
it was when those new
taxes were introduced.
Thankfully for Murerwa, the
stage is relatively calmer this time.
At the time of last year's review,
Murambatsvina's flames were still
smouldering and government wanted him to
spend $3 trillion on
reconstruction, an IMF team was in town nagging him to
pay up Zimbabwe's IMF
arrears, he needed to raise money to fund nine new
pointless ministries, and
an even more pointless senate, while also having
to earmark money for
critical grain imports.
Critics said this forced
Murerwa's hand on taxation. He could not raise
personal taxes for already
overtaxed workers, leaving the investment
community a sitting
duck.
Although the climate is different this year, government officials admit
ministries ran down their budget allocations months ago, most of their funds
going into wages after civil servants got salary hikes as high as 300
percent in April.
Murerwa also needs to urgently raise money to fund
wheat imports, which have
been put at 164 000 tonnes by Economic Development
Minister Rugare Gumbo.
Despite claims of a bumper maize crop this year, maize
imports continue. The
country's tax base has been shrinking while the
government's need for cash
has been rising, so this could again tempt
Murerwa to slap new taxes on
business.
"That could happen, but it has
been proven elsewhere that tax revenues can
actually rise if taxation rates
are cut," one economist said.
Murerwa is also seen granting new tax
concessions for the poor. But critics
say such tax cuts, if not backed by
more solid policy, only give workers
short term relief.
"He will just
tinker with a few variables in order to give the government
some breathing
space but he will fall far short of addressing the
deep-rooted causes of the
economic problems," said economist James Jowa.
A "state of malaise" is how
President Mugabe described the condition of
Zimbabwe's economy on Tuesday,
the closest he ever came in his speech to
acknowledging how far down the
hole his administration has driven the
economy.
But yet again in denial
mode, Mugabe blamed the usual suspects: "the
dishonest and hypocritical anti
Zimbabwe strategy of the current British
Government" and "reactionary
elements amongst us".
Murerwa will perhaps mention "illegal sanctions" in his
speech - compulsory
rhetoric for any minister who wants to keep his or her
job - but analysts
believe the minister, long seen as a reformist, will
paint a less fuzzy
picture of where the economy really stands.
Still, he
is expected to stick to his 2006 growth forecasts of 2-3.5
percent, and will
play up the prospects of recovery under NEDPP.
Murerwa has forecast inflation
to end 2006 at 80 percent, another forecast
that might well be
revised.
With the financial markets apparently more fixated with Monday's
monetary
policy statement by Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono than they are
with
today's fiscal review, how Murerwa will play on taxation which will
determine whether or not investors will, as they did last year, be caught
out when the earth starts to shake.
FinGaz
Rangarirai Mberi
THE
Zimbabwe dollar came under renewed pressure this week from excess
liquidity
on the market and buying pressure from speculators taking bets on
an
imminent devaluation.
CFX Bank reported that the Zimdollar had traded as
low as $520 000 on the US
dollar, down from $450 000 last week, while other
dealers quoted
Rand/Zimdollar at R1:$70 000.
Dealers and analysts see
central bank governor Gideon Gono removing some of
the controls that have
put a lid on the exchange rate since January when he
makes his statemen on
Monday.
"The upward movement in the parallel rate was as a result of excess
liquidity on the money market during the period and the buying pressure that
is in the market in anticipation on devaluation of the currency soon," CFX
Bank said in a commentary.
Any change in policy that allows the official
exchange rate to move would
likely add momentum to the parallel market, at
least in the short term, say
analysts. The exchange rate has moved only one
percent - once on April 26 -
since Gono introduced measures that strictly
tie the rate's movement to
actual volumes traded on a day. The gap between
the official and parallel
markets, which had narrowed prior to the January
announcement, has widened
since, raising calls for a new policy that
accounts for the movement in
inflation in the last six months.
"There is
need to come up with a workable exchange rate policy which
recognises market
forces and at the same time to engage international
financial institutions
for balance-of-payments support if we are to witness
the divergence of the
rates. Currently many, if not all, transactions are
priced using the
parallel rate and the removal of price distortions will
help to reduce
arbitrage activities and possibly reducing the parallel
premium," CFX
said.
Gono, analysts say, could incorporate recent proposals from the
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) for an interim two-tier exchange
rate system.
Another key measure expected to come out of Gono's statement
is a repeal of
US-dollar linked capital requirements for banks, which face
trouble should
there be a devaluation under current rules.
Also under
close watch on Monday will be Gono's interest rate policy, which
has been
aggressive over the past year.
Gono last week announced a further cut in
statutory reserve requirements at
a meeting with bankers, somewhat softening
his policy stance but dropping
real hints on rates.
Encouraged by the
June inflation numbers and forecasts of a further slowdown
for this month,
Gono is also seen sticking to his forecast that inflation
will peak at 1200
percent. But although inflation is seen slower in July,
many say the long
term outlook remains poor.
FinGaz
Nkululeko Sibanda
THE
Zimbabwe Mining and Smelting Company (Zimasco) has lost over US$1,1
million
in potential revenue due to a fire that destroyed its furnaces at
Kwekwe
last week.
A source at the ferro-chrome smelter said on Tuesday that the
figure could
have been higher had the company failed to urgently bring some
of the
furnaces back on line. The source said the losses are much higher
than the
earlier reported US$900 000.
"On average, we lost more than
US$1,1 million in revenue because our
production was stopped for three full
days and over half of the fourth day.
On average, Zimasco rakes in US$300
000 a day and these four days really
cost us a fortune," said the
source.
The company is still bleeding losses as full scale operations are yet
to be
restored at the company.
Zimasco produces an average of 220 000
tonnes of ferrochrome products that
it sells to Europe, USA, Asia, Italy,
Spain, France and Germany, Zimasco's
largest market.
Refurbishment costs
have also been put higher than the reported US$1,3
million, the same sources
said and that amount will only cover replacement
of the affected transformer
as well as the charge car which were both
destroyed in the
inferno.
"There are a lot of things that still need to be fixed. One can talk
of
conveyor belts, power cables, insulation material, the fire-proof wall,
as
well as other components that we will have to purchase so that all things
can get back to normal," the company source said.
The ferro-chrome
producer is reported to have raked in US $150 million from
the sale of the
ferro-chrome products last year alone.
FinGaz
Nkululeko
Sibanda
THE feud over Harare's Town House has taken a new twist with the
ZANU PF
Harare province accusing Local Government, Public Works and National
Housing
minister, Ignatius Chombo of foisting members of the party from his
Mashonaland West province onto the commission running the affairs of the
city of Harare.
ZANU PF's Harare province secretary for information
and Publicity, William
Nhara, said there was concern among party members
over Chombo's continued
appointment of people from Mashonaland West to the
commission running the
affairs of the city of Harare.
Only Tendai
Savanhu, a Zanu PF politburo member comes from Harare, Nhara
said.
This,
he said, was a mockery as it suggested there were no competent people
from
the party's structures in the capital.
"One of the things that has created
this feud is that party members in
Harare are angry over Chombo's continued
clandestine appointments of people
who are supposed to be commissioners of
Harare. If one is to take a closer
look at the current commissioners, all of
them, except Tendai Savanhu, come
from Mashonaland West. Party members are
asking therefore, whether our own
members are failures to the extent that
they cannot serve on that commission
as commissioners.
"We believe as a
province, that we have better and brighter brains than
Makwavarara and her
entire commission. The way we look at it is that we will
watch helplessly as
our city's service delivery collapses because the person
who is there is
very incapable of coming up with any plans that can turn
around the city's
fortunes," Nhara said.
Nhara said that party members, even those from
Mashonaland West where
Makwavarara is said to come from, were not sure of
her position in the
party.
"Everyone knows that Makwavarara was a member
of the MDC. Being a political
turncoat enabled her to rise to the helm of
Harare because she told Chombo
she came from Mashonaland West.
"What we
know is that the card that she has was acquired for her just for
expedience.
Otherwise her credentials as a member of the party are
questionable and we
will definitely fight to have her out of that seat
because as far as we are
concerned, she does not represent our interests,
even those of the party,
but interests of an individual who in this case is
none other than Chombo
himself," Nhara added.
The provincial spokesperson also questioned why Chombo
was continuously
imposing people on the Harare commission without any
consultation with party
members in Harare.
This, Nhara said, proved that
he (Chombo) did not value the presence of the
party members from Harare,
their input into the governance of their city and
province, as well as
belittling them and their intelligence.
"Although he has not publicly said
that he does not value us, his actions
show that he is a man who is only
interested about his welfare. He has shown
us that he does not value us
because if he did value our contribution to the
well being of ZANU PF as a
party, he should consult us on the manner in
which we want our city and
province to be governed," Nhara added.
He added: "As far as we, the Harare
province, are concerned, the future of
Harare is a gloomy one because we
believe that Makwavarara does not have the
capacity to turn around the
fortunes of this city. What is needed is someone
with the brightest of
brains who can put in place systems that would enable
her to come up with
decisions that can make Harare a better city. To us,
Makwavarara does not
possess those qualities and she has to go now," Nhara
said.
The past
month has seen an unprecedented outburst from the ZANU PF executive
in the
capital, condemning Makwavarara's administration at Town House. ZANU
PF
central committee members in Harare have publicly given Makwavarara a
vote
of no confidence, but further action against her has been forestalled
by
Chombo's dogged defence of her and the party's concerns over an all-out
war
for control of the seat forcibly wrested from the MDC's Elias Mudzuri
barely
a year after he was overwhelmingly elected Harare's first opposition
mayor
in 2002.
FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube
THE
political joke doing the rounds in Harare this week is that suspended
ZANU
PF Hurungwe West legislator Cecilia Dausi Gwachiwa has taken
inter-party
dialogue to a new plane by - according to incensed party
officials in the
Mashonaland West province - cohabiting with a suspected
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) sympathiser. But details emerged
yesterday of a
serious tribal turf war within the ruling party's provincial
executive. ZANU
PF insiders in the faction-prone Mashonaland West province
alleged in
interviews with The Financial Gazette that tribalism and
regionalism were
behind Gwachiwa's latest ordeal in which the provincial
executive, led by
John Mafa, is seeking her ouster from the ruling party.
The Hurungwe
legislator is allegedly facing charges of "sleeping with the
enemy", Henry
Juru, who is believed to live with Gwachiwa at a farm about 35
kilometres
from Karoi. Sources said Juru is the manager at the said farm.
Other charges
cited by Mafa on state television this week were that
"Gwachiwa was moving
around the constituency with her MDC lover, benefited
from MDC money made
available to her allegedly through Juru, having access
to five guns given to
Juru by white farmers and going out with Juru fully
knowing that he was a
married man."
Mafa's executive met in the Mashonaland West provincial
capital, Chinhoyi,
last Sunday and recommended that she be dismissed from
the party because of
her association with Juru.
The executive has since
written to ZANU PF chairman and Speaker of
Parliament John Nkomo, informing
him of Gwachiwa's suspension from
Mashonaland West and recommending her
dismissal from the party.
The sources said the political developments in
Mashonaland West had nothing
to do with Gwachiwa's private life but all to
do with the fact that she was
viewed as an outsider as she is originally
from Manicaland.
Gwachiwa trounced suspended ZANU PF Hurungwe-Kariba senator
Phone Madiro to
win the ticket to represent the ruling party in the March
2005 parliamentary
polls after a violent primary election campaign, which
resulted in the death
of one man.
Madiro has since been convicted for
public violence stemming from the
clashes. He was fined $10 million and
faced six months' imprisonment after a
Karoi magistrate found him guilty of
inciting a group of 18 youths to attack
Gwachiwa's supporters. Although
Madiro, who later became a senator after the
November 2005 polls, is
appealing against the sentence, he is currently
suspended from
Parliament.
Gwachiwa on Tuesday shrugged off her suspension and the resulting
media
spotlight to attend the official opening of the second session of the
Sixth
Parliament by President Robert Mugabe. She told The Financial Gazette
yesterday: "I suspect it's a smear campaign but I can't comment any further
because I have not spoken to the people that are peddling those allegations.
Maybe talking to the people would help," she said. "I might be in a position
to comment later when I have spoken to those people."
FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube & Tawanda
Karombo
MORE than 300 companies have applied to access part of the $5
trillion
Distressed Companies Fund, but industrialists warn that saving the
country's
tottering economy will need a lot more than doling out cash to
failed firms.
Industry and International Trade Minister Obert Mpofu told
The Financial
Gazette that only 15 applications had been approved so far and
these would
gobble up a total of $900 billion.
"We are going through
additional companies. We have 300 that need help at
this moment," said
Mpofu. The government set up the fund recently in which
it set aside Z$5
trillion under the facility. Most of the companies that
have applied for
assistance under the fund are in the manufacturing
industry.
However,
industrialists worry that the fund could be used to fund
under-performing
state-controlled companies.
Commentator Jonathan Kadzura welcomed the fund,
saying it showed that
government realised that the economic environment was
no longer viable for
several companies. Kadzura added that the fund, if
properly used, would help
cushion distressed companies. He however suggested
that a longer term
solution to helping industry would be a policy to
stabilise the economy.
"It is commendable that the government sees that the
operating environment
is increasingly becoming difficult. (However) It is
important to stabilise
the operating environment when such steps are taken,"
Kadzura warned.
Other analysts that spoke to this paper said care should be
taken in
determining which companies receive what funding.
Industrialists
say much of industry is operating well below capacity - with
many companies
below 30 percent capacity - due to a combination of shortages
of foreign
currency to acquire raw materials and the worsening power cuts.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda
THE
agricultural taskforce established under the National Economic Recovery
Council (NERC) has recommended the scrapping of the Grain Marketing Board
(GMB) monopoly on the marketing and distribution of grain to facilitate the
recovery of the decimated agricultural sector.
In a document entitled
Summary of Issues; Agricultural Coordination, Input
Supply and Food Security
presented to the chairperson of the NERC, Vice
President Joice Mujuru, the
taskforce proposed an end to the GMB's monopoly
in the grain market.
It
said the monopoly must be replaced by the liberalisation of the internal
marketing of grains through the establishment of the Agricultural Marketing
Authority (AMA), which has been on the cards for a long time, and the
resuscitation of the disbanded Zimbabwe Agricultural Commodity Exchange
(ZIMACE), which was scrapped when Zimbabwe introduced price controls on
agricultural products.
"There is need to liberalise the internal
marketing of grains and remove the
GMB monopoly in the internal market,"
read part of the recommendations send
to Mujuru recently. "The AMA must be
geared towards establishing an orderly
marketing system for agricultural
produce, building of cost models and the
sourcing of external funding for
agriculture."
The GMB, which recently diversified into the milling and baking
industry,
has since 2001 been the country's sole importer and exporter of
grain and it
is a criminal offence for anyone to trade in the commodity. But
critics say
the parastatal has failed to source enough supplies of grain to
feed
millions of starving Zimbabweans.
The committee recommended the
decontrol of prices of agricultural inputs
such as fertiliser and seed and
the timeous availing of enough foreign
currency to procure these inputs,
which have been under a price control
regime since 2001. The imposition of
price dictates and low inflows of
foreign currency has resulted in massive
shortages of these crucial inputs
as manufacturers cite
unprofitability.
International crop forecasters say the input shortages are
largely to blame
for Zimbabwe's poor grain harvest this season, estimated at
between 900 000
and 1.1 million tonnes.
The committee also took a swipe
at farm invasions which are continuing
despite a government guarantee to put
a stop to disruptions on the farms.
Zimbabwe, which is in its sixth straight
year of food shortages, is
projected to record another food deficit in the
just-ended agricultural
season. Prior to its decimation, the agricultural
sector accounted for about
16.5 percent of gross domestic product, 33
percent of foreign exchange
earnings and 26 percent of
employment.
Critics say the grain deficit is largely a result of President
Robert Mugabe's
controversial land redistribution programme under which he
seized productive
land from whites and handed it over to landless black
peasant farmers who
lack the necessary expertise and financial resources.
The Zimbabwean
government flatly denies the charge.
FinGaz
Kumbirai
Mafunda
ZIMBABWE'S beverages manufacturers will have to import 80 percent
of their
orange juice requirements as the country's prime supplier Mazowe
Citrus
Estates (MCE) will only meet 20 percent of their needs this year, it
emerged
this week.
A spokesman for Schweppes Zimbabwe Limited (SZL),
the country's largest
cordials manufacturer and marketer told The Financial
Gazette that MCE,
which in June increased the price of orange juice by more
than 1 000 percent
had indicated to them that it won't be able to satisfy
their juice
concentrates requirements.
"MCE is our local supplier and has
the task of securing the orange crop
required for production of juice. The
only indication that has been given to
SZL is that MCE is only meeting 20
percent of our juice requirements for the
year," said Unaiswi Nleya, SZL's
marketing services manager.
As a result of a poor orange season at MCE and
Citri-fruit, another juice
supplier, Nleya said SZL is being forced to
import juice concentrates from
Letaba Citrus Processors, South Africa's
second largest citrus processor.
MCE's orange production has been hit by the
occupation of a fifth of its
land by new farmers under the government-backed
land reform programme.
SZL has been hiking the retail price of Mazoe Orange
Crush, a popular drink
enjoyed by almost every household in Zimbabwe almost
on a monthly basis. In
June SZL effected a price increase ranging from 33.60
percent across the
product portfolio. SZL says the price reviews are
necessary to continue in
business.
The company attributes the price
increases to high import content of inputs
and high interest rates financial
institutions are quoting on borrowings.
"SZL pays upfront for all key inputs
and raw materials which is financed
mainly from borrowings at an average
interest rate of 350 percent," said
Nleya.
Besides juice, SZL also
imports coal, concentrates and resin, which is used
in the manufacture of
bottles.
"Resin is the only material required for bottle production with the
additional conversion cost constituting the full cost of manufacturing a
bottle. Packaging accounts for a significant share of the cost of production
due to the fact that resin is imported," said Nleya.
In June the
government sparked an outcry from the Beverage Manufacturers
Association
after hiking duty on imported orange juice by 40 percent, up
from five
percent.
Besides SZL, softdrinks manufacturer Delta Beverages is also
importing
concentrates from Swaziland. At one time the company had to
suspend
production due to the failure to import concentrates.
FinGaz
Rangarirai
Mberi
A NEW cut on statutory reserves and a promise to "look into"
unpopular US
dollar-linked capital requirements are central bank governor
Gideon Gono's
bait for banks to take up his plea to boost farm lending, but
analysts doubt
advances to agriculture will see an immediate and significant
rise.
Business Editor
At a meeting with bank CEOs last
Wednesday, Gono told bankers that he wanted
to see them "playing a bigger"
role in the financing of agriculture in the
coming season, clearly hoping
that their increased involvement can
compensate for weak state support for
thousands of poor resettled farmers.
Blessing Sakupwanya, economist at CFX
Bank, says there are two factors that
will determine future bank support for
agriculture. First, security of
tenure will have to return to agriculture.
Secondly, agriculture lending
must make business sense for banks. This means
banks should not be driven
into giving concessionary loans to farmers, while
their own cost of funding
is high.
"Any additional participation of banks
(in agriculture) will have to be
viable. Banks will be ready to support
agriculture provided that the cost of
funds is low enough to match the rates
at which banks are expected to avail
credit to farmers," said
Sakupwanya.
This means farmers would not get credit at concessionary rates,
contrary to
government pleas that banks provide cheap lending for farmers.
The Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has itself, ironically, withdrawn a range
of farm
subsidies and cheap funds for farmers.
The risk of default is
high, so provisioning has to match that risk - and
this can come at the
expense of profit. Agribank, the state-controlled
agriculture lending bank,
provides the starkest evidence of just how risky
farm lending can
be.
Agribank had $519 billion in non-performing loans in December. Bad and
doubtful debts rose from $31 billion in 2004 to $401 billion in 2005, blamed
on crop failure and input shortages. The bank made a provision for doubtful
debts of $434 billion, up from $36 billion in 2004. Loans and advances to
farmers stood at $1.53 trillion, with the bulk of that loan book in 91-day
to 180-day maturing loans. Tellingly, Agribank had no 365-day loans on its
books. The bank wrote off $3 billion in bad debts in 2005, up from $415
million. The heavy provisioning hit profits, which came in at $77.4 billion,
up from $16.3 billion.
However, this has not stopped larger banks from
lending into farms, although
using completely different lending practices
and being more surgical
choosing whom to lend to. At CBZ, the largest listed
bank and the second
largest retail bank overall, agriculture accounted for
35.8 percent of
advances in 2005, up from 17.6 percent in 2004. However, at
the bank's
earnings presentation in April, group CEO Nyasha Makuvise made it
a point to
stress that the bank had strict security in place over its farm
loans.
An RBZ official, declining to be named, told The Financial Gazette
earlier
this week that the central bank wants to see financial institutions
involved
on "many levels; not only via direct lending". According to the
official,
banks must look to arrange lines-of-credit for inputs and to
support farm
infrastructure. However, given that Zimbabwean agriculture has
not exactly
come out of the swashbuckling style of land reform smelling of
roses, it has
become increasingly tough for local banks to arrange any
lines-of-credit at
all, not least those specifically targeting
agriculture.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda
ZIMBABWE'S
main trade union body, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU), has
raised the prospect of pulling out of the Tripartite Negotiating
Forum (TNF)
over the tabling of a report by the government recommending the
prosecution
of its leaders over alleged financial irregularities.
In a new assault on
the powerful umbrella labour body, Public Service,
Labour and Social Welfare
Minister Nicholas Goche, who barred journalists
from the private media from
last Wednesday's press briefing, said the probe
into the affairs of the ZCTU
had concluded that the labour body had flouted
exchange control regulations
and violated provisions of its constitution by
operating a two-tier
financial reporting structure and maintaining bank
accounts run by
unauthorised signatories.
Goche reportedly told state media journalists that
he will personally deal
with charges of an administrative kind while charges
of a criminal nature
would be referred to the police for possible
prosecution.
"In view of the foregoing, I wish to advise that after further
consultations
appropriate action will be taken in accordance with the
recommendations of
the investigation report," said Goche.
But leaders of
the militant labour federation this week told The Financial
Gazette that the
government's resolution infringes on the tenets of social
dialogue.
"When
you have these things they tend to scupper the whole process of social
dialogue," said ZCTU president Lovemore Matombo. "We just have to review the
whole process," he added.
The government appointed Tendai Chatsauka,
chief internal auditor at the
Mines Ministry, to investigate alleged
corruption, breaches of the
constitution and financial irregularities at the
ZCTU's head office in
Harare in December 2005. The probe into the financial
affairs of the labour
body came about after several ZCTU affiliates, which
the labour union's
leadership believes to be under the sponsorship of the
government, raised
charges of financial impropriety against the union's
executive and the
general council.
ZCTU secretary general Wellington
Chibebe this week accused the government
of attempting to neutralise the
union's influence among workers by levelling
the allegations on the eve of
planned mass protests.
"We are not surprised and we are not worried as our
financial report and the
General Council report were approved by the
congress. So which congress
constitution was violated?" questioned Chibebe,
whose organisation
previously pulled out of the TNF in 2003 after the
government unilaterally
hiked the retail price of fuel without the consent
of the other partners.
Matombo said the allegations which were raised by the
probe report had been
dealt with at the labour body's congress in
May.
"Those issues were raised and debated exhaustively at our congress by
the
union's governing council which has the legal right to question anything
considered abnormal," he said. "So Goche's action is tantamount to direct
interference which violates convention 87 of the International Labour
Organisation (ILO), which stipulates freedom of association and the right to
organise," added Matombo.
The threat to pull out of the TNF comes barely
a week after two United
Nations bodies, the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) and ILO
moved last week to thaw out frozen relations among
the social partners in a
fresh bid to speed up the crafting of a lasting
remedy to Zimbabwe's
festering economic crisis.
FinGaz
Asher
Tarivona-Mutsengi
A REPORT in The Financial Gazette of July 20 2006
titled Zim's zeros baffle
computers, further shows how fraught the
Zimbabwean economy has become. In
the report it is said that computers are
having trouble making sense of all
those zeros and staff in various banks
are having a sweltering time and the
banks were contemplating a number of
strategies, all of which have dire
implications. This underscores the
seriousness of the situation in a country
formerly referred to as the
breadbasket of Africa. A solution must be found
quickly. In my opinion,
changing the currency given the highly unstable
circumstances is least
advisable.
The currency has lost so much value and the government
has responded by
printing more notes each time a higher denomination bearer
cheque is
introduced to keep up with the ever rising prices.
I am equally
sure the price of printing those notes has far surpassed their
value and the
burden on the consumer of carrying bags of notes is
overwhelming. Until a
lasting solution is found, consumers will continue to
suffer and therefore
the central bank must adopt measures to cushion
consumers. I suggest that
the central bank adopts and encourages the use of
plastic money which
includes credit and debit cards, as an alternative for a
number of
reasons.
Before I delve deeper into the nitty-gritties it is important to
note that
bearer cheques wear out quickly. They are also fairly easy to
counterfeit -
despite the security features such as the watermark and the
metallic thread.
The emergence of high resolution colour photocopiers and
scanners has made
it easier to reproduce them. I wouldn't be surprised to
discover that a
substantial number of those notes are fake.
Plastic money
or credit cards are the most popular mode of payment in the US
today and in
other parts of the world. The use of notes is fast becoming
not-so-common
and it is quite possible that someone might survive with no
note in their
wallet. So what is it that makes credit cards so indispensable
for all and
sundry in the US? Let me examine a few factors here:
lA matter of
convenience. This is the most important factor. Imagine
stashing cash in all
your pockets as against just a small piece of plastic.
If you don't have a
credit card, you have to dress up for shopping in a way
that maximises the
pockets in which you can carry cash. With all that cash
stashed everywhere
on you, even your body movements are restricted, thus
causing even more
inconvenience.
lSafety as they say. Carrying a lot of cash is never safe.
This becomes even
more important when traveling. Bearer cheques are not only
easily visible
from the bulge in your pockets but also the most liquid form
of money i.e.
stolen cash can be easily used without detection. Contrary to
this, credit
card transactions are detectable and traceable. Moreover, each
transaction
is authenticated for the user who is carrying out the
transaction. More so,
cash carrying cash can invite trouble in the form of
muggers and leads to
physical harm as well. So it's more prudent to avoid
the display of cash and
instead use plastic as a substitute.
lBuild
credit rating. Credit cards are a good way to establish
creditworthiness in
the market. Based on whether you make timely payments or
default on them,
the credit card companies maintain your history and build
your credit rating
over a period of time. This can be shared with other
financial institutions
who want to check your creditworthiness before
conducting financial
transactions with you. This rating can also become
handy when you are
applying for loans or mortgages.
lSaves time. No need to worry about whether
you have enough cash on hand or
not. No need to spend time withdrawing cash
from the ATM. Just carry your
credit card with you and all is taken care
of.
lFall back option when overseas. I have tried without success to change
Zimbabwean dollars. I guess people are afraid to take them because they lose
value the moment they exchange hands. Plastic money, if internationally
recognised like the Visa and Master card, are treated as money when
overseas. When one runs out of traveller's cheques they can rely on their
credit card as a fallback option.
With so many benefits, credit cards can
no longer be avoided. Above all,
besides being convenient, plastic money
will save expenditure on printing
new notes on a daily basis. I am
challenging the Reserve Bank to consider
this alternative if they share the
agony of most Zimbabweans and serious
about the economic and social well
being of the Zimbabwean folk.
lAsher Tarivona-Mutsengi is a research scholar
at the University of Texas at
Austin, College of Natural Sciences. He can be
contacted through
email:ashermutsengi@yahoo.com
FinGaz
Gondo Gushungo
NO HOLDS
BARRED
ZIMBABWE, the once great African country, is in difficulty and
uncertainty.
Some would say great danger. Resources and goods have become
hard to come
by. An estimated 80 percent of the population is in a poverty
trap - living
below the breadline.
The mounting problems are
insuperable. And that is what I call a crisis.
Yet the country's ostrich
government, known for turning logic on its head,
continues to deny that
there is a crisis in Zimbabwe. This is even more
extraordinary in light of
revelations by a South African weekly that close
to 300 Zimbabweans are
being deported from that country on a daily basis.
The Sunday Times this week
carried the heart-rending story about scores of
Zimbabweans being deported
by South Africa which, with the influx of
Zimbabwean economic refugees, is
bursting at the seams. In a lead article
that obviously left a painful
impression, the paper called these Zimbabweans
who have been stripped of
every human being's most cherished possession -
dignity - illegal
immigrants.
For the six months up to June more than 50 000 Zimbabweans
fleeing from the
socio-economic difficulties spawned and aggravated by the
ruling ZANU PF
government's mistakes had been deported from South Africa
whose authorities
seem not ready to receive economic refugees from Zimbabwe,
let alone
acknowledge the existence of a deepening crisis in their northern
neighbour.
This has given me food for thought. For crying out loud! How does
the ruling
ZANU PF political leadership, the author of this crisis, live
with itself in
the face of this crying shame? Doesn't it have a conscience
that can prick
it? Last year alone an estimated 100 000 Zimbabweans were
deported from
South Africa, 30 000 more than the preceding year. And the
numbers are
soaring from Botswana and the United Kingdom as well.
That
over three million Zimbabweans - the largest refugee statistic from a
country not at war, itself a bizarre phenomenon - are living with the
indignity of being refugees throughout the world means that something has
gone terribly wrong despite official government assertions to the
contrary.
Not without reason, Zimbabweans have been leaving in their droves.
They are
running away from ZANU PF's terrible legacy - obsolete
socio-political and
economic structures, acute shortages of food and fuel,
the disastrous state
of the health delivery system, the absence of basic
rights and freedoms,
joblessness, rising inflation and falling industrial
production. In short,
they are running away from the resultant dehumanising
effects of grinding
poverty and squalor.
The severe socio-economic
hardships are largely a direct result of the
ruling ZANU PF government's
destructive policies such as the land reform
exercise, which has touched off
an unprecedented economic meltdown, policy
reversals as seen in the stop-go
sell-off of state-owned assets or where
Bilateral Investment Protection
Agreements (BIPAS) are not worth the paper
they are written on, policy
uncertainty where government continuously
threatens to nationalise
privately-owned investments such as is happening in
the mining sector at the
moment and outright policy contradictions, among
others.
In a nutshell,
this is what has condemned the Zimbabwean economy into
historic contraction
and seen millions living in the diaspora. It should not
be forgotten that
business perceptions of the political process have a
significant impact on
business confidence and long-term investments in the
private sector. Thus a
growing economy and political reform are
interdependent.
In Zimbabwe,
where political measures are continuously suggested as a remedy
for the
economic woes and national disintegration, foreign investors
critical to
infrastructural development do no see a political dispensation
that upholds
certain key values to business and to society as a whole. This
explains the
stampede for the exits by foreign investors seen over the years
and their
current wait-and-see attitude.
It is instructive to note that the South
African Chamber of Business
(SACOB), at the dawn of a new political era in
the country in 1994, spelt
out their vision for a new constitution in South
Africa. Among others, they
pointed out that while an economic system or
policy cannot necessarily be
entrenched in a constitution, certain concepts
fundamental to a market
economy and to business confidence need to be
safeguarded.
They placed special emphasis on the law of persons, the law of
property and
the law of contract. SACOB did not end there. It also stated
that the
entrenchment of the independence of the judiciary, the principle of
equality
before the law and the principle of non-discrimination were also
essential.
Unfortunately all of this seems to be lost on Zimbabwe hence the
tragic
consequences the country finds itself in where the economic problem
is now
something akin to a crossword puzzle with only half the clues and no
black
squares. And yet it needs not be that complex.
Thus millions of
Zimba-bweans have either been condemned to abject poverty
or reduced to
economic refugees due to the depressingly lengthy economic
crisis whose
prospects for a quick turnaround remain grim. Their leaving for
countries
where they have accepted the most odd and mundane jobs just to eke
out a
living should be seen for what it is - a general disillusionment of a
people
frustrated by social depravation. Thus, this dispersion, though not a
result
of deliberate governmemt policy but a forced one due to the untenable
economic meltdown at home, is acting as a safety net for what could be a
very dangerous situation.
Yes, the enterprising Zimbabweans that have
decided to do something about
their lives have provoked political ridicule
and scorn whereby ZANU PF
politicians, the very architects of the economic
refugees' terrible
predicament, poke fun at them for demeaning themselves by
cleaning
geriatrics where the sun never shines. But were it not for their
never-say-die attitude, the millions of Zimbabweans scattered around the
world could have, just like those suffering back home, thrown their hands up
and wondered why - that is to say stand on the sidelines and passively
accept their fate. An alarming thought because that would mean their lives
crumbling to pieces and starving their families, given the stagnation and
misery characterising Zimbabwe today where doing without the creature
comforts is now considered the norm rather than the exception.
So they
decided to flee and face the humiliating prospect of being refugees
in
countries which, in some instances, have turned their backs on them. It
must
be a most humiliating experience for anyone to be turned into
second-class
citizens the way those being deported from South Africa or
elsewhere are. I
can only imagine the psychological crises and horror of
such an experience
to these multitudes of disenfranchised Zimbabweans. Not
to talk of the
gradual disintegration of the Zimbabwean society's
traditional values which
threatens the very fabric of society as families
live apart for years on end
and wives are turned into bed-sheet adornments
for some lecherous men or
downright sex slaves.
Whichever way one looks at it, most of the Zimbabweans
cannot stand on their
dignity in the foreign lands. Sometimes it is
difficult to preserve a sense
of your own importance and value when you have
no job and no home, even in
your own country. What's more in a country where
you are considered an
illegal alien?
And all this should be blamed on no
one but the ruling ZANU PF government,
which the international community
has, to all intents and purposes, left to
its devices. Whatever spin the
government, which is always looking for
someone to blame, will try to put to
this is neither here nor there. The
bottom line is that it is its policies
that have caused the severe economic
and social dislocation. And it should
take full responsibility.
- email: gg@fingaz.co.zw
FinGaz
Ken Mufuka
LETTER FROM
AMERICA
MY long time friend, Fabian Mabaya explained a new Zimbabwean
economic
terminology. It was called "shrinking." He introduced me to two
Roman
Catholic sisters of Don Bosco in Masvingo. The sisters worked with
Zimcare
Trust to take care of 135 disabled kids at Ratidzo School. Sisters
Manyawi
and Charuma had not expected ever to be called upon to feed 135
children
with five loaves and two fishes.
The Board conversation went
something like this. Long time trustee Mr. John
Cumming was in the chair and
Mabaya was the treasurer. Apparently they had
heard these stories before,
and there was an air of desperation. Something
must give. The sisters had
been allocated $168 million three months
previously, and they had 135 kids
to feed and clean up. The five loaves from
Lobels were shrinking and fluffy
instead of expanding as they were supposed
to. The two fishes had done a
disappearing act.
The sisters recounted with an air of quiet desperation how
they were short
of soap, detergents and disinfectants. Some children wet
their blankets.
Most children have one pair of clothes. These they must wash
and dry
overnight (chiomandikupfeke). They had been to see the Dutch Aid
people for
porridge, but they had been rebuffed. Mealie meal was running
short. Their
desperate voices were strengthened by faith, though sometimes
they wiped
tears from their eyes. Now their treasury was virtually empty and
they did
not know where to turn. BEAM (a government agency that supplements
fees for
poor children) owed them $380 million.
"Ken, we are going
through a shrink-down," Mabaya schooled me like a
schoolboy. The lights of
the schoolroom blinked and there was a slight air
of discomfort. In today's
Zimbabwe, lights go on and off at odd times. I was
to see this more often at
my mother's house. Lights went off when she was
cooking sadza but the clever
woman had a pot full of coals ready (mbaula) to
take up the slack.
More
importantly, Mabaya explained his fears as treasurer. Money owed for
six
months shrinks and is unable to buy goods that it could have bought six
months ago. Prices for building materials are only good when they are
printed. A week later prices have changed.
I went to Harare to do more
research about Zimbabwean charities. I met a
lovely Swedish family and their
pretty nine-year-old daughter. They had
returned to Zimbabwe after a period
of four years absence. They were going
to work in Zone 72 in Chiredzi on a
programme to empower cotton farmers and
a support system for AIDS networks.
They needed an office and were actually
beginning from scratch. They had
left Zimbabwe in 2002. The Swedish
government's spokesperson, Pekka
Johansson, explained in 2001 "only a
restoration of the rule of law and full
democracy could reclaim for Zimbabwe
the support of donors and development
partners." This was a reaction to the
farm invasions of the previous two
years and the reaction by the government
to register only friendly
non-governmental organisations.
The significance was that non-governmental
foreign aid, which was used to
support the majority of Zimbabwean charities,
began to shrink. After that
statement, there was a 45 percent drop in
foreign aid. The Germans alone
redirected U$400 million to other avenues. It
was the Germans who had built
Masvingo Technical College as well as Ratidzo
School for the Disabled. The
Swedish SIDA (development agency) was one of
the most generous agencies with
an estimated input of over one billion US
dollars over the previous 10
years.
"Could the Zimbabwe organisations
fill in the gap?" I asked. Dedicated men
like John Cumming and Zimbabwean
chambers of commerce were working valiantly
to keep such houses like Ratidzo
open. But the Zim dollar was shrinking, and
joblessness had reached 80
percent. As their pockets shrank, and their
dollar shrank, they had very
little to give. Mr Cumming had travelled eight
kilometres for the meeting.
His car was disabled by lack of petrol. The
petrol, if available, cost $450
000 a litre. I drove him home. I had filled
my Corolla with petrol in Harare
for $30 million, a teacher's wage for one
month.
I kept on hearing this
word, "shrink" and I began to figure out that it
brought insane fear into
the people. An agro trader explained it to me.
"Sooner or later," he said,
"even when you are doing well, the shrink will
catch up with you and you are
done for." He had bought fertiliser bags at $7
million a ton the previous
year and sold it at an insane price, quadrupling
his price. He had called
his friends to rejoice at this windfall blessing.
Then two months later, he
was shocked when the suppliers announced a new
price for fertiliser at $45
million a ton. He was practically out of
business, broke.
A ZANU PF
patriot was sending his son to a private college. First term he
paid
something like $120 million. I used the words "something like" because
he
was asked to pay a "top up fee" of some $50 million. Then the great
shrink
came. The college announced its coming semester fees, $275 million.
He was
wiped out. Many parents were ruined and in tears.
The circle of our friends
is shrinking, our money is shrinking, our
electricity is shrinking, our
capability to source petrol, a vital resource
is shrinking, and the people's
waistlines are shrinking. Only the sisters'
faith was as steady as a
rock.
FinGaz
Mavis Makuni
PERSONAL GLIMPSES
AT about this time last year, Anna
Tibaijuka, a United Nations Special Envoy
who was assigned by UN boss, Kofi
Annan, to assess the impact of the
government's controversial clean-up
exercise, Oper-ation Murambatsvina,
became a household name in Zimbabwe when
her visit was the dominant story in
the media for months.
There was
intense interest in the Tanzanian-born technocrat's visit because
both the
implementers and victims of the demolition spree that left almost a
million
people without shelter and another two million without means to earn
a
livelihood, pinned their hopes on her to vindicate their positions.
Tibaijuka's subsequent scathing report declaring that Murambatsvina was
"indiscriminate and unjustified, conducted with indifference to human
suffering, illegal under domestic and international law and had caused a
humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions" gave its victims hope that
their plight would be addressed and alleviated. Little did they know the
state would thwart all attempts by well-wishers to ease their
suffering.
Tibaijuka's determination to "tell it as it was" enraged the
establishment.
The government, which had initially swooned over and feted
the executive
director of UN-Habitat in the hope that it would successfully
hoodwink her
to believe the tale that Murambatsvina was undertaken so that a
massive
reconstruction exercise would be implemented, now turned against
her.
She was denounced in the official press as an agent or puppet of the
British
and their allies who were accused of orchestrating an international
outcry
over the demolition orgy because they wanted Zimbabweans to remain in
"squalor and shanties". This was after the authorities, as a damage
limitation move, had hastily embarked upon Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle -
which civic groups and commentators described as a big hoax at the time - to
build houses for more than a million victims of the crackdown within a
month.
Tibaijuka's damning report caused such tumult in official circles
that she
and another UN envoy, Jan Egeland, who reached the same conclusions
on the
humanitarian crisis after a visit to Zimbabwe, were denounced at the
ZANU PF
National People's Conference held in Esigodini in December last
year. A
resolution was passed, stating the conference "Is convinced that the
Tibaijuka report was a direct product of some anti-government
non-governmental organisations operating in Zimbabwe, but the UN envoy
ignored the government's protestations on the report and maintained the UN
accepts the Tibaijuka report."
But after a year of rhetoric and spinning,
even the most devoted government
propagandist would have to admit that
Tibaijuka and all those who were
branded detractors of the Zimbabwean
government were right about
Murambatsvina and Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle. After
all the hullabaloo, there is
very little on the ground to justify the
stealth, suddenness and
vindictiveness with which the programme was embarked
upon. The government
has not met the reconstruction deadlines and targets it
announced initially
and the victims of Operation Murambatsvina are likely to
become just another
statistic rather than beneficiaries.
At his
controversial meeting with some heads of churches last month,
President
Robert Mugabe admitted that the way the demolition of dwellings
and other
structures deemed illegal under Operation Murambatsvina was
carried out was
wrong. What he did not say is that after the insensitive and
vindictive
operation, it is inexcusable for his government to try to spin
its way out
of its responsibility to ease the plight of the victims of its
actions. The
attempt to wiggle out of a mess of the government's own making
began when
the Esigodini ZANU PF People's Conference was reported to have
"underscored
the fact that the UN seems to overlook the fact that there are
various
safety nets in Zimbabwe and that most of those affected by the
clean-up
exercise have rural homes and farms they can return to . . . "
The
authorities must be reminded that when they destroyed abodes and market
stalls, their explanation was that the government wanted to build better
houses and facilities for its people. Now that it has failed to do so, it
should not resort to deception and subterfuge but allow those who can assist
to come in. There is no point in pretending that Operation Garikai/Hlalani
Kuhle has benefited the millions who were rendered homeless and destitute by
the clean-up exercise when it has been a spectacular failure.
From the
word go, the scheme was mired in corruption, duplicity and was
hamstrung by
a lack of commitment and seriousness on the part of government,
giving
credence to observers' characterisation of Murambatsvina as a
retributive
strike against urban voters for spurning the ruling party. As if
this was
not bad enough, greedy officials in President Mugabe's government
have
sought to benefit from the misery and suffering of fellow citizens by
hijacking the scheme to make a quick buck or to allocate houses and stands
to their relatives and friends. When is President Mugabe, who has been
breathing fire over official avarice and greed of late, going to discipline
his errant lieutenants?
There have been so many irregularities and shady
dealings with regard to
this exercise that instead of being called Operation
Garikai/ Hlalani Kuhle,
it would be more appropriate to rename it "Operation
Deceive the People for
Personal Gain". It was reported only on Monday that
government was
intensifying investigations into allegations of graft and
impropriety after
receiving reports of nationwide abuse of the housing
scheme by greedy
government and ruling party officials. Funds that should be
channelled
towards reconstruction now have to be diverted to pay the
salaries and
allowances of Anti-Corruption commissioners deployed to various
parts of the
country. In a way, over-burdened taxpayers are being forced to
fund
corruption.
The housing scheme joins farming as another haphazardly
implemented
programme characterised more by abuse of the facility by those
in high
places than by pursuit and achievement of its declared goals. In a
bid to
deflect international and domestic condemnation of the callousness of
Murambatsvina, the government has claimed ad nauseam that both the clean-up
exercise and the subsequent reconstruction phase were well thought out and
planned in advance. As things stand today however, no amount of rhetoric and
downright fabrication can mask the government's spectacular failure to
deliver on its pledges.
The snags and setbacks that have beset the
exercise such as rampant
corruption and non-allocation of adequate funding
and building materials
confirm charges that there were never any noble
intentions when the army and
police were deployed to demolish abodes in
urban areas in the middle of
winter last year. Tibaijuka, who wept when she
first came face to face with
the handiwork of the people's government in
July last year, has been
vindicated. So have the human rights groups,
analysts and sceptics who saw
through the smokescreen the government tried
so hard to put up.
FinGaz
Geoff
Nyarota
THE GEOFF NYAROTA COLUMN
THE media fraternity of Zimbabwe is
afflicted with what the Germans call
schadenfreude; to derive dubious
pleasure in the misfortune of others.
A soul-burning jealousy flows
through the arteries of Zimbabwe's beleaguered
media when any of its players
seem to be surging ahead professionally. For
more than three months, going
back to the launch of my now regular column in
The Financial Gazette, I have
suffered in silence from constant persecution
by fellow
journalists.
While delinquent politicians are the regular targets of my
acerbic pen, the
most vitriolic reaction to my articles has come from
esteemed colleagues in
the media fraternity. I am fully aware that the
potential threat to life and
limb is an occupational hazard of journalism
and I would not raise this
issue publicly, unless I was convinced it had
become a matter of public
concern.
In articles appearing in the
Zimbabwean press and on the internet I have
been ruthlessly attacked,
persecuted, humiliated, defamed and falsely
accused of a thousand and one
misdemeanours. The most heinous offence I am
alleged to have committed is
that, as editor of The Chronicle in Bulawayo, I
mortally sinned against the
people of Matabeleland during the Gukurahundi
atrocities of the 1980s.
Accusations and threats have also reached me via my
email address. I have
been accused of urging Five Brigade to slaughter
innocent Ndebele peasants.
I have been accused of transforming The Chronicle
into a Shona stronghold
where Ndebele people were effectively excluded. For
good measure, I am also
accused of stealing the story of an enterprising
reporter and winning
international acclaim and glory through the celebrated
Willowgate
Scandal.
A cyber-based kangaroo court has been convened. It has prosecuted
and found
me guilty. I have not been offered any opportunity to defend
myself. Now
they bay for my blood in articles disseminated on the
Internet.
"Geoffrey Nyarota is hereby kindly asked by all progressive
Zimbabweans to
please apologise for his sins in Matebeleland and the
Midlands during his
editorship of the Chronicle," a thread posted on New
Zimbabwe.com demanded
unequivocally last week.
"The fact of the matter is
this that Nyarota is a tried and tested
tribalist. He is a tribalist in fact
and in appearance. He is not only a
noted tribalist, but is seen to be so by
progressive Zimbabweans."
No shred of evidence is offered to corroborate
these scurrilous allegations.
Presumably all the allegedly progressive
Zimbabweans already know.
This vicious campaign was initiated on New
Zimbabwe.com, a largely
Ndebele-based news and information website. The
editor, Mduduzi Mathuthu,
was a rookie reporter on The Daily News in 2002
when the recently appointed
Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ)
executive chairman, Sam Sipepa
Nkomo, dispatched him to the United Kingdom
to further his studies in
journalism. This arrangement was made without the
knowledge or sanction of
myself as the editor-in-chief, Davison Maruziva,
the deputy editor or
William Bango, the then training editor of the Daily
News. On any
professionally run newspaper, such as The Daily News was, the
training of
journalists is normally the primary responsibility of the
editorial
department.
It is pertinent to point out that Nkomo and
Mathuthu both belong to the
Ndebele ethnic group. Nkomo was recently elbowed
out of ANZ after he stood
for election to Parliament and to the Senate. He
failed on each occasion. He
is currently on trial for multiple counts of
fraud allegedly committed when
he was the Chief Executive Officer of the
Mining Industry Pension Fund. The
alleged fraud was exposed by my editorial
team in The Daily News in 1999,
three years before Nkomo miraculously became
Executive Chairman of ANZ in
2002. He never challenged the Daily News
story.
Subsequently, it was my own turn to be unceremoniously dispatched from
The
Daily News by the same Nkomo, but into what, presumably, was expected to
be
professional oblivion. In 2004 I circulated a document in which I stated
that the then MDC secretary general, Professor Welshman Ncube, and the then
information and publicity secretary, Paul Themba Nyathi, were plotting to
overthrow the party's president, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Official reaction
appeared in the columns of New Zimbabwe.com. For the first
time I heard
myself being accused of collaboration with Gukurahundi.Mathuthu
then invited
me to defend myself. In the absence of any specific charges I
declined his
kind invitation and requested him to come up with specific
instances of my
alleged complicity.
Three years later, not a single shred of evidence has
been published to
sustain the allegation that The Chronicle urged Fife
Brigade and celebrated
when innocent Ndebele peasants were massacred during
that horrendous
campaign. The onslaught against me intensified early this
year after The
Financial Gazette introduced a regular column under my name.
Articles which
were not exactly complimentary were published on New
Zimbabwe.com and in The
Zimbabwe Independent. The ferocious intervention of
one mysterious
Johannesburg-based correspondent, Herbert Mtungwa, was the
most notable.
The campaign intensified after I exposed in the column details
of the
campaign to establish the breakaway Republic of Mthwakazi in
Matabeleland,
and when I exposed the duplicity of Professor Ncube in
shedding crocodile
tears in public over the Gukurahundi campaign after he
had cast Five Brigade
in a somewhat positive light in a book published in
1988. I had stirred the
veritable hornet's nest. I was vilified on New
Zimbabwe.com, while hate mail
was posted to me through my email address. A
substantial reward was offered
on a New Zimbabwe.com forum for "Nyarota dead
or alive".
The question that has baffled many is why an aggrieved Ndebele
person, who
lost loved ones during the Gukurahundi atrocities, would
suddenly vent his
or her spleen on the erstwhile editor of The Chronicle,
while virtually
exonerating the known perpetrators of Gukurahundi. These are
Five Brigade
commander, Air Marshall Perrence Shiri, President Robert
Mugabe, the then
Prime Minister, to whom Shiri reported directly, Ndebele
politician, Enos
Nkala, who openly incited Gukurahundi against the Ndebele
people, and
Emmerson Mnangagwa, the then minister of State Security. In this
new
campaign for justice these names are, surprisingly, never
mentioned.
Last week, after he published a scathing article in The
Mthwakazian a new
internet-based newspaper, I pleaded with the writer to
produce evidence that
I incited Five Brigade to commit atrocities against
the Ndebele. He
immediately responded. He submitted an article apparently
earlier published
on New Zimbabwe.com under the name Brilliant Mhlanga. I
will quote verbatim
from the article:
"The people of Matabeleland are
aware of his active role, in complicity, by
clearly stating in his editorial
comments in The Chronicle during the
Gukurahundi era that, '. . Hit them
hard', referring to the innocent
civilians who were being butchered by the
Fifth Brigade (Gukurahundi), at
the behest of Zanu-PF, the
party Geoff
Nyarota belonged to at the time. "It is worth noting that
Nyarota's response
then was a show of solidarity following Robert Mugabe's
speech just before
and at the commissioning of the Fifth Brigade (in
1982/3), when he said,
'.the time has come to show the people of
Matabeleland that we have teeth,
surely we will bite.'"
This is the first time any so-called evidence has been
offered in support of
my alleged complicity with Gukurahundi. For the record
Five Brigade was
commissioned in September 1982.
The headline "Hit them
hard" actually appeared, according to information
posted on another
Mthwakazi.com website, not in The Chronicle, but in The
Herald in 1985. In
any case, in the absence of the actual text of the
editorial, it is not
possible to determine whether the writer was referring
to the Ndebele people
or to the dissidents who were roaming the countryside
and causing havoc in
rural Matabeleland at the time. More importantly, I was
not the editor of
The Herald.
When Mugabe spoke at the commissioning, I was nowhere near the
editorial
offices of The Chronicle. I was then the editor of The Manica Post
in
Mutare. It is, therefore, patently false that I ever expressed any such
solidarity with him.
In my Financial Gazette column I have targeted
politicians from different
parts of Zimbabwe for criticism whenever I
genuinely believed that their
conduct left a lot to be desired. I have
challenged President Mugabe,
Didymus Mutasa, Ignatius Chombo, Joseph Made,
Jonathan Moyo, Emmerson
Mnangagwa, Welshman Ncube, Arthur Mutambara, Morgan
Tsvangirai and Phillip
Chiyangwa, to mention some.
Strangely, when I
criticize politicians from Mashonaland, Zezuru journalists
do not rush to
their defence. Likewise, when I target the politicians of
Manicaland,
Manyika journalists do not cry foul. When I zero in on the
politicians from
Masvingo, Karanga journalists never rally to their support.
But whenever I
challenge Ndebele politicians and those aligned to them, such
as Arthur
Mutambara and David Coltart, all hell literally breaks loose, as
the
journalists of Matabeleland rush to vilify and castigate me, while
accusing
me of being a tribalist and a supporter of Gukurahundi.
An impression is
created that certain sections of Zimbabwe's polarized
media, now seek to
achieve what our authoritarian President has failed to
accomplish - to
censor me. In so doing they seek to elevate the politicians
from the western
regions of Zimbabwe to the status of sacred cows, never
mind how asinine
their utterances or initiative may be.
I have on a previous occasion
effectively squashed the contemptible
allegation that I stole the Willowgate
story from a reporter. When I proved
beyond any shadow of doubt that this
was a patently false and completely
unfounded accusation, my persecutors
merely dropped it and created new
falsehoods. When they discovered I was
working on the manuscript for my
recently published book, Against the Grain,
they went into a frenzy. It must
be one of the few books in the history of
publishing ever to be reviewed and
attacked while still only a
manuscript.
Far from turning The Chronicle into a Shona stronghold, where
Ndebeles were
effectively excluded, the facts point to the contrary. During
my time the
assistant editor of the paper was David Ncube, a naturalised
Ndebele of
Manyika origin. He was the most senior black journalist on the
paper when I
arrived. Jonathan Maphenduka was the business editor. He is a
full-blooded
and proud Ndebele, one of Zimbabwe's most respected
journalists. Nick Landa
and Jameson Ndlovu were branch manager and
accountant, respectively and both
were Ndebele. Other journalists of Ndebele
origin on the editorial staff
were Lincoln Nkala, Lazarus Sibanda, Welcome
Mpofu, Gibbs Dube, Soul Gwakuba
Ndlovu, formely a ZAPU spokesman in Lusaka,
Lewis Sibanda, Luke Mhlaba, who
later worked for the United Nations, Costa
Manzini, Godfrey Moyo and,
briefly, Dr Tota Mpofu,
My excellent personal
assistant was Patience Mzeya Ncube. I persuaded
Mhlaba, a lawyer, to join
The Chronicle. He thus became the first trained
lawyer to work as a
journalist in Zimbabwe.
I remained the editor of The Chronicle for more than
a year after the
signing of the Unity Agreement in 1987. Strangely, during
that period there
was never any protest that I had supported Gukurahundi and
The Chronicle
continued to grow in circulation. During my tenure as editor
the paper grew
from 43 000 to 89 000 copies printed and sold a day. By the
time of the
Willowgate Scandal we were selling 115 000 copies. I understand
that today
The Chronicle struggles to sell about 20 000 copies a
day.
When, as editor-in-chief of ANZ I introduced The Dispatch, a weekly
newspaper for Matabeleland in 1998 the paper was widely accepted and became
very popular. Nobody accused me of having supported Gukurahundi. When I
introduced The Daily News to Matabeleland in 1999 I was not accused of
having expressed solidarity with Mugabe during Gukurahundi. The paper was
very popular, especially in Bulawayo. The editor of New Zimbabwe.com,
Mathuthu was a reporter in the Bulawayo office of The Daily News. Until his
departure for the United Kingdom he never raised any issues about
Gukurahundi.
Mathuthu invited me early in 2006 to contribute to New
Zimbabwe.com. He
expressed no concern about my alleged Gukurahundi links. I
turned down his
magnanimous invitation, opting instead to write for The
Financial Gazette. I
have not had a moment of peace since then.
Saying of
the Week
"I didn't realise that women are also capable managers and I am so
pleased." - Minister of State for National Security, Lands, Land Reform and
Resettlement, Didymus Noel Mutasa, while congratulating Jocelyn Chiwenga
(formerly Jacobsen, nee Mauchaza), the wife of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces
Commander, General Constantine Chiwenga, after she received the Golden
European Award for Quality in Paris. (The Herald, July 17, 2006)
FinGaz
Bornwell
Chakaodza
NATIONAL AGENDA
AS we await Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa's
presentation of his Mid-Term
Fiscal Policy Review Statement today and
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor
Gideon Gono's latest monetary policy
review on Monday, it is important once
again to restate the issues really at
stake in our present situation.
The two gentlemen are facing an economic
climate which has incredibly
deteriorated since their last reviews seven
months ago. All their optimistic
forecast and targets at that time on any
front whether inflation, economic
growth, foreign currency inflows or
reduction of deficits have been
completely off the mark.
For, example the
rate of inflation had been expected to decline to around 80
percent by the
end of this year.
Currently at
1 185 percent officially but much higher
unofficially, one shudders to think
what this rampaging monster will be at
in the months ahead. We all know how
prices of basic commodities, goods and
services are being changed upwards on
a daily basis in shops, supermarkets
and elsewhere.
In his 2006 budget statement, the Minister of Finance had
naively forecast
that the economy would grow by between two percent and 3,5
percent this
current year. But far from growing, the economy is crumbling
and crumbling
all the time. Economics is a study of human action, not of
numbers and
rhetoric. Zimbabweans can see how things are spiraling out of
control and
are daily being weighed down by the problems.
The anticipated
improvements in the foreign currency generation has not
materialized.
Foreign direct investment is dead in the water. Tourism has,
to all intents
and purposes, collapsed. Despite promises to firmly deal with
corruption
regardless of "social status or political affiliation" the
scourge continues
to rear its ugly head among both the lowly and highly-
placed in the
Zimbabwean society. Indiscipline on farms and disruption of
farming
activities continues unabated despite calls to put a stop to them.
In
general, agricultural production has plummeted to unimaginable levels.
All
this and coupled with more than 70 percent unemployment, Zimbabweans
leaving
the country in droves, fuel woes and power cuts for hours on end a
day and
the country's deteriorating health delivery system, is there any
reason to
be optimistic this time round about these fiscal and monetary
policy
reviews? For those of us who have followed the reviews on a
continuing
basis, I think this is the question that naturally comes to mind.
Of course,
it is important to see all these problems as Governor Gideon Gono
does, not
as tragedies but as challenges to be confronted head-on. But in
confronting
these challenges, it is equally important to diagnose their root
causes. A
superficial analysis of the challenges can only lead us to a blind
alley in
the search for solutions. The correct diagnosis will give us the
correct
remedy.
What is the context? The seed of the crisis, whether we like it or
not is
firmly located not in
monetarism or the economy but in the
politics of the country. Period! People
have been saying this for a long
time now; unfortunately it has been falling
on deaf ears. Everybody,
including the energetic central bank Governor knows
what it takes to turn
the tide against this crisis.
Even President Mugabe and those who surround
him know in the heart of their
hearts what needs to be done. They are aware
of this very simple and obvious
fact that the profound crisis that this
country is undergoing at the moment
can not be resolved - not really
resolved - by fiscal adjustments and tight
monetary polices alone. Without
broader political dialogue in the country
and a total buy-in of the result
and political settlement by all Zimbabweans
and the international community,
no full economic recovery will be possible.
In my humble opinion, based on my
reading of the situation and conversations
with concerned and perceptive
Zimbabweans l believe that this is the clear
message that Gono in his quiet
and unassuming way has been sending a warning
to the powers-that-be. The
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor is on record as
having impressed upon the
authorities the need to respect the sanctity of
private property, re-engage
the international community and halt the
seemingly unending farming
invasions in order to restore confidence in the
economy.
But there have
been no takers for such friendly advice because of selfish
interests and the
fear of losing all the privileges and sweetness that go
with political
power. For it is a well known fact that men and women engage
in politics in
order to have life without scarcity. Hence the continued
grabbling with
people's lives in their relentless quest for self-enrichment
Talking about
the economic crisis in the context of the so called bilateral
dispute
between Zimbabwe and Britain is to divert the public's attention
from the
real issue. This is a self-inflicted problem on the part of the
ruling ZANU
PF. It is not as a result of illegal economic sanctions imposed
by the West.
Thankfully, the majority of Zimbabweans have not bought into
this
fundamental fallacy. We have had just about enough of this kind of
reasoning
which is fundamentally flawed.
Combating inflation, yes, but let us do it in
the context of workable
solutions that take in to account a holistic
understanding of the
fundamental interconnectedness of all the things in our
economic crisis.
Politics is at the heart of our predicament and that is
what we have to deal
with first. There should be no pretence about this. If
we cannot get to
grips with the issues so urgently needing to be addressed,
Zimbabwe will
remain lost in the long grass.
The truth of the matter is
that negative publicity and targeted sanctions
(not wholesale sanctions) is
not the main cause of economic meltdown.
Rather, these are symptoms of what
basically has gone wrong with the way we
govern ourselves. This goes beyond
party politics. It affects us all.
Will we therefore acknowledge our
connections to one another or not? Will we
accept responsibility for the
consequences of the choices we make or not?
Can we find ways to work
together as Zimbabweans or will we insist on
selfishly exploring the limits
of human pride and arrogance? How can we come
to see in the faces of others
our own hopes and dreams for the future? Why
is it so hard to recognise that
we are all part of something larger than
ourselves?
These questions have
now assumed a new urgency precisely because Zimbabweans
have lost confidence
in fiscal and monetary polices - polices which have
failed not only to
achieve their targets of economic turnaround and the
bring down of inflation
but have totally failed to make headway in anything
that one cares to think
of. A massive disappointment all round!
Is it not a shame that President
Mugabe and the ruling ZANU PF day in and
day out are engaging in a willful
refusal to take responsibility of the
consequences of the choices they make.
Both the interview he held a
fortnight ago with State Public Relations
Officers masquerading as
journalists and some of the things he said two days
ago when he was
officially opening the Second Session of the Sixth
Parliament of Zimbabwe
testify to this.
Words such as 'We will soldier
on' in the face of such enormous suffering
are not helpful at all. Neither
is the meaningless mantra 'Zimbabwe will
never be a colony again'. I do not
know whether to laugh or cry whenever I
hear or see such things. Worse
still, the relentless applause from the
gromless and sycophantic battalion
of MPs and Senators - really mind
boggling! The message that l want to leave
with these praise singers is that
you will not lose your seats if you decide
to remain a normal human being.
President Mugabe does not have powers to
sack MPs or Senators. In
conclusion, I want to underscore the fact that no
amount of aligning fiscal
and monetary policy reviews to the much - talked
about National Economic
Development Priority Programme (NEDPP) in the
absence of an all inclusive
political solution will do the trick on the
on-going efforts to fully revive
our economy. There is no magic pill or
quick fix for this. The Zimbabwean
economy is not under siege from anywhere
other than from the political
leadership of this country.
Comparisons
with some countries which have experienced the same kind of
problems are a
non-starter. Political environments and root causes of these
cresses are
different in different countries anyway. The point that must be
driven home
to all and sundry is that it is not a question of instilling
discipline in
our economy. Neither is it a question of merely stabilizing
the exchange
rate or tightening the monetary policies. To see our problems
and challenges
in that narrow perspective is to continue to place the
monetary authorities
between a rock and a hard place or to impale them on
the horns of a dilemma.
There is always a division of labour in these
matters and what Gideon Gono
needs is an enabling political environment in
which to situate the monetary
policy.
For what is important in the final analysis is for President Mugabe
and ZANU
PF to make a quantum shift in their thinking and actions and to
seek a
holistic solution to our crisis. Only then can we hope to bring about
the
positive results we urgently need to save this, our once beautiful
country.
E-mail: borncha@mweb.co.zw
FinGaz
Comment
THE increasingly
isolated Zimbabwean government never ceases to amaze. It
continues to do the
very things for which it has come in for a lot of flak
from the press, the
democratic forces and the international community at
large. Suffice to say
that this harms its cause at a time it is seeking
reintegration into the
broader community of nations.
Among these are the restrictions,
limitations, bullying and intimidation of
the private media, particularly
through the provisions of the objectionable
Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). This, the
government whose friends are
few and far in between, does for no other
plausible reason other than the
desire to suppress dissent and stop the free
flow of information. Yet there
is no denying that a free media is a
cornerstone of any democratic
dispensation.
As we have said before, far from glorifying journalists,
especially those in
the private media - for we know only too well that they
are the messengers
and not the message - we have to state that harassing the
media
practitioners touches on the very core of democracy. It is not
possible to
establish a vigorous democracy without two of its cornerstones -
access to
information and the right to free expression. Without these two,
it can be
anything else but democracy.
This is why, as observed by Thomas
Blanton, author of White House E-Mail:
The Top Secret Computer Message the
Reagan-Bush White House Tried to
Destroy, the concept of freedom of
information is changing from the purely
moral stance as an indictment of
secrecy to one with a more wide-ranging
value-neutral meaning, chief of
which is bringing about a more efficient
administration of
government.
This also explains why the world frowns upon those authoritarian
regimes
that pursue media censorship with reckless abandon, holding on to
the
chain-laws that reinforce it. AIPPA, which the government has
selectively
used to target journalists it considers to be politically
dangerous, is a
case in point. That is why the closure of the Daily News,
The Daily News On
Sunday and The Tribune as well as the persecution of
journalists under AIPPA
has provoked severe criticism.
Yet the government
was at it again last week when it arrested two
journalists who were covering
a demonstration against the extension of the
term of office of the
incompetent government-appointed commission running
the City of Harare whose
ineptitude has become legend in the corridors of
power. If this is not
tantamount to shooting itself in the foot, then we do
not know what is,
especially coming as it does at a time when government's
relentless efforts
to muzzle the media are widely seen as an assault on
democracy - which is
what it is.
The question is, if the punitive media laws have been one of the
major
points of bitter attacks against Zimbabwe by the international
community,
why then does government which claims to be seeking a deeper
rapprochement
with the same international community continue on this
destructive path
where it treats journalists going about their legitimate
business of
exposing government failures, corruption, greed, crime and
dishonesty in
high places, as "dangerous criminals against the state?" And
then the
government officials wake up the following morning and cry wolf
over what
they claim to be bad publicity. Please!
This madness heightened
during the tenure of the litigious Jonathan Moyo as
the country's chief
censor and propagandist. This was the darkest of
Zimbabwe's historical
periods during which crusading journalists exposing
corruption and other
forms of wrongdoing in the political sphere were
stigmatised as willing
tools in the government's imaginary Tony Blair/George
Bush regime change
grand plan. Just what calling a spade a spade has to do
with regime change
befuddles us.
Thus this arbitrary attack on the private media and the laws
that it gave
rise to such as AIPPA had, contrary to what the government
said, nothing to
do with hatred for falsehoods. It had everything to with
hatred for freedom
of the press, free speech and free spirit of the
people.
It was hoped against hope, that with the inglorious exit of Jonathan
Moyo
from the government, the situation as regards the media operating
environment would improve. But nope! Nothing of that sort happened. If
anything, the government seems hell bent on tightening the noose on the
media - not only underlying Jonathan Moyo's baleful influence in government
but also the ZANU PF government's long-standing obsession with curtailing
people's right to express their feelings, fears and dreams at a time when
the country's misery index tells a very sad story. What an own goal!
Remove deadweight of zeros from our currency
Livison Kahondo,
Australia
EDITOR - Local currency to lose three digits was a headline
story in a
newspaper last week. I am amazed that the authorities and the
Press have
only awaked to this proposal now when last year I put forward the
same
proposal and invited comments from finance gurus and the regulators,
but
none came forward or I was dismissed as they may have noticed I am not
an
economist.
I highlighted the same arguments that these numerous
zeros are a deadweight
which gives unneccessary headaches and accounting
challenges to firms and
individuals when we could easily do away with them
as the Zim dollar is only
used in Zimbabwe and nowhere else.
I engaged
other diasporans in this argument but all they could spout were
bookish
economic theories which did not bear any resemblance to reality on
the
ground. Surely if we are to account for the fraud and mistakes made when
one
deals with these chains of zeros, its a serious matter and a big loss to
businesses and individuals. I recall the CABS managing director commenting
on the same issue last year after the case of one Ndlovu who is alleged to
have defrauded CABS. There are many cases which have gone unreported because
of these zeros. And it won't surprise me if one day, when these zeros are
removed, some companies will realise the were making losses instead of
profits as the chain of zeros conceals a lot of fraud and mistakes.
I
hope the relevant authorites shall take urgent steps to resolve this
problem. I am not advocating for a revaluation of our dollar but simply
stating that this currency is meant for our internal trading and exchanges
so there is no splitting of hairs whether I am given a chain of zeros when
the value is the same. What I mean is that if the zeroes are slashed, the
number of notes to be used which are expensive to print, is greatly reduced,
risks of mistakes are reduced, so will some common thefts/robbery as people
will not have to carry wads of cash which are open targets for thieves. In
addition to what captains of industries have mentioned, challenges of
accounting software and all that is involved. This is an extraordinary
situation which calls for extraordinary measures.
-----------
Good
article on fraud but . . .
Nhamo Nyakambangwe, Harare
EDITOR - I have
just read Ernst & Young's article headlined Fraud: Six myths
that hold
companies back (final part) and I should say it was a very good
article from
a fraud persective.
However I think it can be a bit misleading when you
consider what IT audit
is. There is a general misconception that having ACL
gives you comfort or is
some form of IT audit. ACL is a tool used in the
process of IT audit as most
people who have the skills in ACL are usually
programmers who have minimum
appreciation of business objectives and the
control environment. IT audit
however is the process of identifying
IT-related business risks and devising
controls to mitigate those risks
while building shareholder value. It is sad
that most of the experienced IT
auditors have left or are leaving the
country but it is still pertinent that
all the companies who have
computerised operations invest in the education
of their IT auditors.
---------
Nyarota sulking like a spoilt
child
George, United Kingdom
EDITOR - Geoff Nyarota's article
"Encounter with Mutambara in the Rockies"
refers. Nyarota is aware that his
is a man of considerable national
influence with the ability to influence
national opinion.
It therefore surprises me that he does not careful
weigh his public
statements before making them. I was very disappointed to
read the piece in
question and get to the end without finding any point to
it other than to
let the reader know that he recently travelled to the US
and to make a
personal attack on Arthur Mutambara.
The article also
smacks of wounded pride after Mutambara failed to praise
Nyarota's book. The
tone of the letter was such that it could have passed
for Nathaniel
Manheru's column. I fail to grasp why a national leader of
Nyarota's stature
would dedicate an entire article to letting the nation
know that Mutambara
failed to greet him. It is, after all, common cause that
no love is lost
between the two and I do not believe that anyone would be
surprised that one
failed to greet the other. It is shameful that our
so-called luminaries are
descending to the same levels of pettiness as the
oppressive and intolerant
leaders in government today.
---------
Police brutality
disgusting
Madock Chivasa, NCA spokesperson
EDITOR - The behaviour
that was portrayed by police at Harare Central police
station when they
arrested National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) members
should be condemned
in the strongest terms. NCA members were arrested on
Wednesday last week and
were illegally detained by the police who released
them to go to court on
Sartuday.
During this illegal detention the police brutalised and
tortured them. A
senior police officer in the PISI department gave
instructions to the junior
police officers to beat the NCA members and he
was also personally involved
by beating the arrested.
It's unfortunate
for senior police officers to behave like they are in a
military state. As a
civic body we also question a system that ends produces
such kind of people
in the police force. What justification is there for
police to put in
custody mothers with babies who are less than 12 months
old? The government
has failed to feed people in police custody and yet they
continue to use
flawed laws to mismanage the economy. At Harare Central
police station, an
NCA member, Evidence Johns, collapsed due to deplorable
conditions in the
cells. NCA lawyers were denied access to her to take her
to a private doctor
after the police decided to take her to Parirenyatwa
where she could not get
treatment because doctors were on strike.
In Mutare police behaved as if
human rights do not exist and subjected NCA
members to inhumane and brutal
treatment. One of the NCA members in Mutare
is battling for his life after
he was assaulted by the police. They accused
them of compromising the gains
of independence and selling out Zimbabwe to
the West. Who is selling to the
West - the NCA members who are rejecting the
use of a constitution that was
crafted in the West and the police who beat
these people for rejecting the
continuous use of a flawed document?
The police are some the most poorly paid
civil servants and it's pathetic
that they defend and protect a collapsed
system of governance. Police should
not vent their frustrations on ordinary
Zimbabweans.
It's shocking that the police were still battling to find a
charge for NCA
members two days after they had arrested them. The police are
now charging
them under the new Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act.
The specific
section which they are being charged with prevents people from
blocking
roads or pavements. This kind of laws are only constitutional but
they are
very undemocratic and .As NCA we condemn the use of police
brutality and we
will take suitable legal action to deal with the police
officers who were
involved in this barbaric act.
-----------
Adopt the
rand
RTD, South Africa
EDITOR - We need to do away with our worthless
currency if we are serious
about getting a grip on inflation. The most
obvious currency to temporarily
adopt is the rand and its use will
immediately stabilise government
expenditure, interest rates and inflation.
We will not be the first country
to do this.
Mozambique, Argentina,
Namibia, Botswana etc have gone down this road and
they have a lot to show
for it. We do not eat sovereignty and if we can't
handle it, then we don't
deserve it! Time to swallow our pride and get this
country back on
track.
------------
Men of the cloth lose plot
Busani Moyo,
Bulawayo
EDITOR - Your correspondent Mavis Mukuni wrote about men of the
cloth who
have hatched a plan to bear false witness against the suffering
people of
Zimbabwe. I found that article quite inspiring.
It is true
that these so-called men of the cloth have decided to dump the
long
suffering people of Zimbawe in exchange for the privilege of dining at
the
country's highest tables. They have chosen to support a government that
has
been accused of gross human rights abuses. They smile all the way to
State
House yet the people of Zimbawe suffer every day.
They endorse the lie that
Zimbawe is under sanctions yet they know clearly
well that the problem in
Zimbabwe is a problem of poor governance and a
leadership that has decided
that it and it alone shall rule Zimbabwe untill
the cows come home.
One
thing l have realised about the church in Zimbabwe is that it belongs to
two
broad camps. The first camp consists of chancers like the ones who went
to
State House. The likes of Bishop Trevor Manhanga and Rev Peter Nhemapare.
This camp comprises men who preach for the sake of fortune and fame. Men who
have become super-rich and own the fastest cars and the best villas in the
country. These are men who have lost touch with the people as they bask in
the glory of being worshipped themselves.
These men and women's main
brief is to become popular.They say things that
will make the ruling elite
look at them more favourably and they usually end
up in politics themselves.
Statements like: ''We know we have a government
we can support'' come from
these leaders. These church leaders will not only
be judged by the court of
history but also by God.
I wish to celebrate the brave men of God among us
like Archbishop Pius
Ncube. Men who have secrifised their lives for the sake
of the greater
majority. Men who walk in the footsteps of great leaders like
Desmond Tutu
and even Jesus himself.
The church should begin to play its
role. Playing this role is not simple
especially in a country where
repression is the order of the day. But in a
situation like this, the men
will be seperated from the boys.