Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
PRESIDENT Robert
Mugabe, who is coming under growing pressure to
resolve the current crisis
or quit, is expected to meet United Nations (UN)
secretary-general Kofi
Annan and South African President Thabo Mbeki in the
Gambia in a
fortnight.
Diplomatic sources said yesterday a meeting has
already been
organised for the three leaders in Banjul on the sidelines of
the African
Union (AU) summit from June 25-July 2. Heads of state usually
meet during
the last two days of the summit.
"The three
leaders are expected to meet in Banjul, the Gambia,
to discuss the Zimbabwe
situation and map the way forward," a source said.
"Relevant officials have
already made preparations for the meeting.
"It will lay the
ground for Annan's expected visit to Harare and
the anticipated Mugabe/Mbeki
meeting over Zimbabwe."
UN spokesperson Yves Sokobi said
Annan had "expressed interest"
in meeting Mugabe in Banjul. He added Annan
had said: "The international
community must not allow Zimbabwe to collapse
and should assist."
Annan will be attending the AU summit for
the last time before
his term of office expires at the end of the year and
sources say he is
determined to sort out the local
crisis.
Sources said Mbeki also wants the situation resolved
before he
goes in 2009. Last week he dispatched his Intelligence minister
Ronnie
Kasrils and top intelligence officials to Harare to arrange a meeting
with
Mugabe.
While South African Deputy Foreign minister
Aziz Pahad this week
said he was not aware Kasrils wanted to lay the ground
for a Mugabe/Mbeki
summit, the sources said there were plans for such a
meeting.
"We are not aware of any attempts by Minister
Kasrils to use his
visit to set up a meeting between our two presidents,"
Pahad told
journalists. He said Kasrils' trip was just a visit to see State
Security
minister Didymus Mutasa.
But Mbeki recently sent
Kasrils to London before his trip there
to meet British Prime Minister Tony
Blair. The two discussed Zimbabwe for
the second time this
year.
Pahad, who again voiced concern about the Zimbabwe
economic
crisis, raising alarm over the 1 193% inflation, suggested a policy
shift in
Pretoria by saying that South Africa and the international
community now
want to "engage with Zimbabwe through the
UN".
Mbeki has for six years pursued a "quiet diplomacy"
policy which
has however failed to resolve the situation. His recent remarks
in London
that everyone hoped that Annan would crack the Zimbabwe problem
revealed a
shift in policy.
Annan's expected visit to
Zimbabwe has been engulfed in
controversy as Mugabe is apparently trying to
block the UN boss from coming
to Harare to prevent putting the Zimbabwe
crisis on the UN Security Council
agenda.
The forthcoming
AU summit will end on the day when the African
Court on Human and Peoples'
Rights holds its first meeting. Zimbabwe is on
the agenda of the AU's
Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights which in 2004
compiled a damning
report on the country's human rights record.
On December 5
last year the commission adopted a resolution
censuring arbitrary arrests,
detention and forced displacement but the
motion was defeated on legal
technicalities at the January AU summit in
Khartoum,
Sudan.
Sources said some African leaders were currently
pushing for an
AU resolution on Zimbabwe in Banjul. The previous AU summits
in South
Africa, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Libya and Sudan failed to
tackle the
Zimbabwe problem.
AU leaders often find
themselves divided over critical issues
such as UN reform and even whether a
leader whose government stands accused
of human rights abuses should be the
chairman of the organisation. There
were deep divisions in the AU before the
Khartoum summit over whether
President Omar al-Bashir should be the chair in
view of the Darfur
atrocities.
A compromise was however
found and President Dennis
Sassou-Nguesso of the Republic of Congo became
chairman. The AU is proving
to be a toothless bulldog on Zimbabwe like its
predecessor, the Organisation
of African Unity. AU chairperson Alpha Konare
last year sent an envoy, Tom
Nyanduga, to Harare to assess
the
effects of Operation Murambatsvina but he was turned away and
the AU did nothing.
Zimbabwe also snubbed former
Mozambican president Joachim
Chissano, who was appointed by the then AU
chairman, Nigeria's President
Olusegun Obasanjo, to facilitate a negotiated
political settlement in
Zimbabwe but he was also rejected and the AU again
failed to act.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
WHILE most resettled
farmers struggle to access tillage
equipment, Agriculture minister Joseph
Made is keeping a fleet of tractors
and an array of farming equipment
stashed at his farm in Headlands,
Manicaland.
Made, who
has been fingered as one of the five ministers who
looted equipment from
Kondozi Estate, has at least five state-of-the-art
glass cab tractors and an
assortment of implements kept at Tara Farm in
Headlands near
Rusape.
The tractors and equipment at Made's farm have raised
suspicion
that ministers could be using their political clout to secure
equipment from
farms acquired by government under the land reform
programme.
Ministers and other top civil servants have been
accused of
seizing trillions of dollars worth of equipment and
cherry-picking exquisite
farmhouses for themselves at the height of the land
grab. Even the First
Lady Grace Mugabe in 2002 acquired a massive 27-roomed,
two-storey mansion
built on a hill at Iron Mask Farm in Mazowe, ostensibly
as a refuge for
homeless kids.
Last year dispossessed
commercial farmers said equipment worth
$36 trillion had been looted or
vandalised in the chaos that gripped the
farming sector. Ministers and other
officials have been at the forefront of
pillaging expropriated
farms.
The Independent crew visited Made's Tara Farm on
Tuesday and saw
an assortment of equipment stored at the workshop, inviting
questions on the
source of the equipment.
Billions of
dollars worth of farming equipment ranging from
tractors, a combine
harvester, planters, disc harrows and a variety of
machinery used on highly
mechanised farms were kept at the farm's workshop
area.
Several of the tractors that are still new and unused occupied
an area of
roughly 500-square metres of the workshop ringed by an electric
fence and
resembling an auction yard.
The most conspicuous pieces of
farm machinery were the several
brand new state-of the art glass-cab
tractors and a new combine harvester
amongst other pristine but idle
equipment.
Overlooking this display is the ultra-modern and
imposing
two-storey mansion built against a hill. The brick-under-tile home
overlooks
the workshop area. Although security guards manning the main gate
leading
into the workshop and the homestead denied the Independent crew
entrance,
arguing that the farm manager was away, the equipment could be
seen as you
drive along the perimeter fence.
The
discovery of the equipment comes amid mounting pressure on
five ministers,
named during a visit by Vice-President Joice Mujuru to
Kondozi Estate, to
return equipment looted from Kondozi following its
expropriation in
2004.
There are also reports that the Attorney General's
office has
given the ministers up to next week to return the farming
equipment
expropriated from the once thriving horticultural concern or face
arrest.
Equipment expropriated includes 48 tractors, four
Scania trucks,
five UD trucks, several T35 trucks and 26 motorbikes. Several
tonnes of
fertilisers and chemicals were also looted from the estate. Highly
placed
sources in Manicaland said Transport and Communications minister
Chris
Mushohwe had returned some of the equipment he took from
Kondozi.
Sources at the estate said the army told a
government committee
tasked with assessing the winter crop in Manicaland
province and the
utilisation of institutional land under Operation Maguta
that Mushohwe
returned a water pump and irrigation pipes to Kondozi last
week but was
still illegally drawing water from the farm.
"Minister Mushohwe returned the irrigation pumps on Saturday,"
Colonel
Ronnie Mutizhe is said to have told Industry and Trade minister
Obert Mpofu,
leader of the committee which toured Manicaland.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
BUSINESS at Town
House has come to a standstill as government
remains mum on the future of
the Sekesai Makwavarara-led commission, forcing
the administration to
suspend all committee meetings.
The commission's tenure
expired on June 9, and government has
not communicated anything, leaving an
administration vacuum at council.
Town clerk Nomutsa Chideya
confirmed that all committee meetings
have been suspended pending a decision
from the central government.
"We have not received any
communication from government,"
Chideya said. "We had no option but to
suspend committee meetings until we
get a directive from our parent
ministry."
Despite the expiry of her tenure, Makwavarara this
week reported
for work. She toured Rowan Martin treasury department on
Wednesday.
Committees are made up of commissioners or
councillors but after
the expiry of their term, they cannot convene any
meetings without a fresh
mandate through appointment or
elections.
Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo could
not be reached
for comment as he was said to be in
Beitbridge.
Government is divided on whether to extend the
commission's term
and face a flurry of legal challenges from civil
organisations calling for
elections in which government is sure to lose its
grip on the capital.
Chombo is understood to have strongly opposed calls for
elections.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission only said it was
still
consulting with local authorities on the prospects of elections in
Harare
but could not give a specific time-frame.
"Councils are the ones that fund elections," ZEC spokesman
Utloile
Silaigwana said this week. "We don't know when the consultations are
going
to finish."
As confusion reigns, residents' associations have
intensified
calls for a rates boycott and legal actions to pressure
government into
calling for mayoral and council elections for
Harare.
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA), an
umbrella body
representing residents, said it has now adopted a
double-pronged approach of
legal action and civil disobedience in their
pursuit of elections.
"We have filed papers in the High
Court," CHRA chairman Mike
Davies said in an interview this week. "Other
than the legal action, we have
intensified calls for a rates boycott under
the banner 'do not fund your own
oppression'.
"We would
also appeal to corporate businesses and other
stakeholders to withdraw their
rates as we lobby for elections. Corporates
contribute 70% of the council
revenue," he said.
Davies said water disconnections were
illegal as water was a
human rights issue. "We will go to court over any
water cut-offs," he said.
In 2002 CHRA obtained a Supreme Court judgement
forcing government to hold
elections which ushered in the now fired Elias
Mudzuri administration.
Zim Independent
Bridget
Sibanda
THE University of Zimbabwe has increased fees by
between
90-100%, pushing up the figure to be paid for next semester
beginning in
August to around $200 million.
The latest
increase means that the fees will jump from the
current $90 million a year
to between $150 million and $200 million per
semester depending on the
degree programme.
State universities throughout the country
are also expected to
increase fees as government is mulling to cede the
paying of lecturers' and
staff salaries to universities and not the
fiscus.
The increment was announced on Tuesday last week, the
same day a
Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport and Culture
chaired by
Fidelis Mhashu, the MDC legislator for Seke, tabled its findings
after
touring Midlands State University, Mkoba and Hillside Teachers
colleges,
Bulawayo Polytechnic and several other higher institutions
nationwide.
The tour was meant to assess the situation on the
campuses and
to get the side of students and the staff on the problems they
are facing.
It was mainly prompted by complaints from students and parents
after the
government raised fees at tertiary institutions by more than 500%
in
February.
"Our findings were that students are
struggling to raise the
required fees and actually many dropped out of
college. We recommend that
government also raise the grants that are given
to students so that they
tally with the fees they are to pay," Mhashu
said.
"State grants to students fall far short of what they
are to pay
as tuition and accommodation fees."
Currently,
students from universities are given $13 million a
semester as grants yet
they are expected to pay between $28 million and $90
million a semester
depending on what degree programme they are studying for.
Zim Independent
Reagan Mashavave
MORE than 90 families have been left in the
open after their
homes and property were demolished by Harare municipal
police early
yesterday morning in a fresh wave of
demolitions.
Loice Toringei, a mother of two, said municipal
police swooped
on Wednesday giving notices to residents of Glen Norah C home
industrial
area to vacate by 10 am yesterday.
"Municipal
police came on Wednesday with notices that we must
vacate this area by 10 am
this morning. They came telling us to go back
where we came from and never
to return again," she said.
"The police swooped on the
settlement early this morning
destroying our homes and property and promised
to come after three hours
threatening to beat anyone they would find
around," Toringei said.
Residents of the area were evicted
last year after government
embarked on the much criticised Operation
Murambatsvina or Restore Order
which left almost a million people homeless
and 2,4 million people without
means of earning a living following the
destruction of informal vending
sites and home
industries.
Another resident of the area who refused to
reveal his name
said: "Government promised to build us homes when they
destroyed our homes
last year but nothing has been done. I do not know if
government officials
have a heart. This is the work of the devil. This is
the second time our
homes have been destroyed."
United
Nations special envoy Anna Tibaijuka produced a damning
report on the
demolitions in June last year after the government embarked on
Operation
Murambatsvina.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) has
condemned the
demolitions saying they are a clear violation of human
rights.
Meanwhile, the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe
(EFZ) has
come in to help families that have been affected by the early
morning
demolitions.
EFZ has dispatched a team to
distribute blankets, soap, plates,
cups and plastic containers for the
affected people
Innocent Chingwaru, Programmes officer of EFZ,
confirmed that
his organisation had dispatched goods to the families that
were affected
yesterday morning saying the organisation always helped
vulnerable groups in
society and would continue to do so.
Crisis Coalition in Zimbabwe says it has been deeply disturbed
by the
government's failure to address the suffering of people and considers
the
demolition to be a war on the poor.
The civic group's
spokesperson Precious Matambanadzo said: "The
demolitions (yesterday)
morning are a complete violation of human rights to
shelter, sanitation and
protection against weather."
Zim Independent
Reagan Mashavave
MORE that
400 retrenchments were officially concluded through
the Retrenchment Board
since the beginning of the year, the Employers
Confederation of Zimbabwe
(Emcoz) has said.
Analysts said the real figure runs into
thousands, as many
retrenchments did not pass through the board as firms
scaled down operations
or closed down due to the harsh economic
environment.
Emcoz, executive director, John Mufukare, told
the Independent
that since January, 408 retrenchments were concluded through
the
retrenchment board with 98 of them being managers.
"The majority of the retrenchment cases recorded were labour
disputes that
went through the retrenchment board, otherwise more cases were
solved on
employee/ employer basis," Mufukare said.
Mufukare said the
figure of retrenchments is higher than 408
because Emcoz does not have
records of cases that were not solved through
the retrenchment
board.
Hundreds of employees are losing jobs every month as
companies
are embarking on retrenchment exercises to cushion themselves
against the
deteriorating macro-economic environment.
There have been massive job losses in the manufacturing sector
where
companies are operation at below 25% of their normal capacity due to
foreign
currency shortages and the high interest rates.
The have been
job losses in the insurance sector where Fidelity
Life Assurance recently
retrenched 56 workers.
The group's managing director, Simon
Chapereka, confirmed the
lay offs saying the decision was taken in
anticipation of a decline in
policies.
"We have
retrenched 56 workers as we are anticipating a
reduction in the number of
policies. As you are aware, the minimum value of
our policy is going to be
costing $1 million," Chapereka said.
The retrenchment
exercise would result in Fidelity Life
Assurance closing three more branches
following the closure of its Kwekwe
branch recently.
Chapereka said that the company anticipates that between 35-40 %
of their
clients would not be able to carry on with their policies.
Total Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd, which recently acquired Mobil
Zimbabwe, retrenched
64 workers citing a decline in business activity, the
need for
rationalisation and duplication of efforts since the two companies
were in
the same line of business.
Total public affairs director,
Stanley Hatendi confirmed the
retrenchments in a letter faxed to the
Independent.
"During the period 2002 to 2005, there has been
a massive drop
in business activity making it difficult to maintain
overheads and keep
business viable. Since the beginning of 2006, this trend
has prevailed," the
statement says.
Zimbabwe National
Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) chief executive
officer, Cain Mpofu, said his
organisation was yet to compile a report on
any retrenchments being
undertaken by different companies but acknowledged
that the were job
losses.
"The economic situation in Zimbabwe has made it
impossible for
companies to operate at 100% capacity. As such retrenchments
have become the
order of the day," Mpofu said.
Oil firm
BP & Shell closed down its lubricants blending plant in
Willowvale due
to foreign currency shortages which resulted in more than 40
workers being
retrenched.
Zesa Holdings is set to retrench workers after
the announcement
of its restructuring exercise while Air Zimbabwe is still
locked in a bitter
dispute on retrenchment packages with its
workers.
Zim Independent
Bridget Sibanda
GOVERNMENT and
the Harare Commission are dragging their feet
over giving the green light
for the completion of Kuwadzana library by
refusing to grant Nelson Chamisa,
MP for Kuwadzana, permission to complete
the project that was started over a
decade ago.
"Since June 2004 I have been holding talks with
the responsible
authorities in connection with the library and they promised
to look into
the issue but now the building is collapsing without being
used," said
Chamisa.
The Zimbabwe Independent gathered
that last year Chamisa sourced
funds amounting to $2 billion from donors to
complete the structure.
"The money I sourced is for the
electrification of the library
and also to redo the ceiling and roofing
which I'm told failed to reach the
council's specifications," said
Chamisa.
"My worry is that the money is losing value every
day without
being used. I have books which were donated by various
organisations for the
library and certain individuals have pledged to donate
computers as soon as
it is officially opened."
According
to documents made available to the Independent,
Chamisa met with Local
Government minister Ignatius Chombo on May 3 to
resolve the
issue.
Harare City Council public relations officer,
Madenyika
Magwenjere, told the Independent that Chombo referred Chamisa to
the
commission since it was a city project.
"Chamisa has
been coming to Town House several times to discuss
his intentions of helping
the council with funds to complete the library but
the issue has not been
discussed by the commission because the MP has not
given us any written
document with his proposals," Mangwenjere said
He also said
the government had other plans for the building.
"Zimpost
approached us with their proposal of buying that
building to use it for
postal services. We still have to look into this
issue," Magwenjere
said
But Magwenjere admitted that Chamisa was the first one
to
approach them before Zimpost and the council is yet to decide on the
issue.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
THE Bulawayo city
council, stung by government's delay in
implementing the Matabeleland
Zambezi Water pipeline, is seeking to raise
more than $3,4 trillion to
access alternative water sources to supply the
city with potable water, the
Zimbabwe Independent has learnt.
The city council last week
tabled before a full council meeting
a report compiled by the Future Water
Supplies and Water Action committee
outlining alternative sources of water
for the city.
The water committee said council needs to
embark on three
projects if it is to contain water shortages that have
persistently dogged
the city.
The three projects that
council need to embark on include
connecting Mtshabezi Dam with Umzingwane
Dam by pipeline, and to sink 20 new
boreholes while rehabilitating a further
44 boreholes at the Nyamandlovu
aquifer.
The report
indicates that council should introduce a water levy
if it is to fund the
three projects.
However, the issue of the water levy has
caused ructions in the
council with half of the councillors arguing the levy
would be another
burden on residents.
The committee
resolved that in the absence of a reliable source
of water and the late
implementation of the Matabeleland Water project,
council should link up
Mtshabezi dam with Umzingwane dam to increase water
capacity.
Mtshabezi dam was constructed by the government
in 1996 and the
council intends to utilise the dam to augment its supply
dams.
The committee estimated that the cost of the 36
kilometre
link-up pipeline would cost $ 3 trillion while the construction
will cost a
further US $3,4 million.
"Recurrent droughts
coupled with ever increasing water demand
has necessitated the linking up of
Mtshabezi with Umzingwane dam," the
report said. "In this regard, Zinwa had
come up with a proposal to link the
dams up with a pipeline that will be
36,6 kilometres long with a discharge
of 34,6 Mega litres a day which is 23%
of the current average water demand
of 145 mega litres a
day.
"The cost of the pipeline is estimated to be $3 trillion
plus US
$3,4 million with construction estimated to take eighteen months,"
reads the
report.
The council also said it intends to
rehabilitate 44 boreholes at
the Nyamandlovu aquifer at an estimated cost of
$80 billion.
The council report says if the Nyamandlovu
boreholes are fully
operational they will supply the city with 16 mega
litres of water a day
which translates to about 11% of
demand.
The council was also wants to drill 10 boreholes in
Epping
Forest at a cost of $ 405 billion. The council report says boreholes
will
give a total anticipated yield of 10 megalitres of water a
day.
The report indicates that the Nyamandlovu and the Epping
Forest
boreholes would meet 20% of the city's water demands.
Zim Independent
JONATHAN Moyo's $2 billion lawsuits against two senior
Zanu PF
politburo members, has been adjourned to November when the two
defendants,
Speaker of the House of Assembly, John Nkomo and Dumiso Dabengwa
are
expected to testify.
The case which opened at the
Bulawayo High Court last month was
adjourned by Justice Francis Bere to
Novemeber 28 when Dabengwa and Nkomo
are expected to testify and call
witnesses.
The second phase of the case will run from
November 28 to
December 8 before a judgement is passed.
In the case, the former information minister is suing the two
senior Zanu PF
members for defamation over statements the two made in
Tsholotsho alleging
that Moyo plotted a coup against President Mugabe.
The lawyer
representing Moyo in the case, Job Sibanda of Job
Sibanda and Associates
this week confirmed the adjournment of the case.
"The case
has been pencilled in for November 28 and will end on
8 December," Sibanda
said.
"We expect that all parties will have presented their
case by
then."
He however said if the case is not
finalised by then, it could
be re-scheduled to a later
date.
The court case has aroused interest in the intricate
succession
issue and confidential party correspondence has been produced in
court as
evidence.
The alleged coup plot refers to a
meeting in Dinyane in
Tsholotsho allegedly organised and convened by Moyo,
together with other
senior Zanu PF leaders, aimed at blocking the
appointment of Joice Mujuru as
second vice-president of Zanu PF. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
THE
Attorney-General's office has threatened to imprison staff
members who
disclose information to the press without authorisation.
Staff members face jail sentences of up to 20 years for the
offence.
In a memo written to members of staff by the
head of
administration in the AG's office, Colonel Matazva, the AG said
culprits
would be charged under the Official Secrets Act enacted during the
colonial
era.
The Act stipulates that leaking information
violates pledges
they took not to divulge information without
permission.
The memo said that the measure had been
necessitated by the
increase in the number of cases leaked to the press in
recent months.
Efforts to reach Matazva were fruitless as he
was said to be out
of his office.
On Monday Director of
Public Prosecutions Loyce Matanda Moyo
could not comment on the grounds that
she was busy.
However, sources said the memos were sent out
after senior
officers in the AG's office lectured staffers against leaking
information to
the media.
The officers said of late the
AG's office has come under
pressure following the publication of stories on
the prosecution of Zanu PF
members, once considered
taboo.
"Every one is now afraid to disclose information even
to his
workmates. You now mind your own business as some ruling party
members think
that this office is fighting them," a source
said.
Party cadres who have been charged include ruling party
central
committee member Esau Mupfumi and Chipinge South MP Paul Porusingazi
who are
facing corruption allegations and Hurungwe senator Phone Madiro and
Makonde
MP Leo Mugabe's two sons who have been charged with
violence.
Minister of Justice Legal and Parliamentary Affairs
Patrick
Chinamasa as well as Minister for National Security, Lands, Land
Reform and
Resettlement Didymus Mutasa are reportedly facing prosecution for
attempting
to defeat the course of justice and violence
respectively.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
ALTHOUGH
major players in the tourism sector recorded profits,
the tourism industry
remains under pressure from a six-year economic crisis
and perception
problems.
Analysts and stakeholders said while domestic
tourism had been
crippled by an erosion of disposable incomes, most players
in the sector,
particularly hoteliers, were no longer making significant
revenues from
tourist visits, but from conferences.
Zimbabwe, once a major tourist destination, has experienced a
more than 50%
decline in tourist arrivals over the past six years.
Contrary
to claims and efforts by government, the country's
tourism industry still
survives on traditional source markets, with arrivals
from Asian countries
making no meaningful contribution.
The government introduced
the "Look East Policy", under which
focus was shifted from traditional
source markets to the Asian countries.
However, players in
the hospitality industry said this dealt a
big blow to the tourism industry,
which reports that tourist arrivals from
the East had not made a big impact
on their revenues.
While the decline in the tourism industry
has continued unabated
over the last five years, neighbouring countries like
Zambia and South
Africa had extensively benefited from Zimbabwe's
loss.
While South Africa is taking advantage by marketing
Victoria
Falls and luring potential tourists to Zimbabwe, Zambia is
experiencing a
boom in its tourism industry.
The number
of tourist arrivals in Zambia has increased
five-fold, boosting revenue
generated by the sector to above US$150 million
annually.
Before Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, Zambia had
tourist arrivals
of around 160 000 compared to the 610 109 visits received
in 2004, and the
figure is expected to increase in response to an aggressive
marketing
campaign by the country.
Farai Mutseyekwa, president of the
Hospitality Association of
Zimbabwe (HAZ) admitted that the negative
publicity was affecting the
tourism industry.
"We need to
counter the negative publicity," he said.
Mutseyekwa
confirmed that most of the tourist arrivals were
still coming from
traditional source markets.
"There is actually a decline in
the number of visits from the
Asian market," he said.
He
said there was potential in the Asian market but there was
need to adopt a
proper marketing strategy to capture the Asian market.
Mutseyekwa added that domestic tourism had been negatively
affected by the
economic crisis.
He admitted that most operators were now
pursuing conferencing
as an avenue to maintain revenue levels as tourist
arrivals continued to
dwindle.
"In this environment, the
tourism cake is too small;
conferencing is contributing significantly to
some organisations," he said.
Shingi Munyeza, CEO of the
Zimsun Leisure Group, a Zimbabwe
Stock Exchange (ZSE) listed hospitality
concern, reported an operating
profit of $203,8 billion in the year ended
March but expressed concern over
the decline in tourist
arrivals.
He said although visits to the group's local hotels
from
international markets increased by 5%, foreign arrivals into the
country as
a whole continued on a downward trend with a 39% decline in
overseas
arrivals and 11% from the African region.
Munyeza said volumes from the domestic market declined by 8% in
the period
under review compared to the prior year.
Chipo Mtasa, CEO of
the ZSE-listed hospitality concern Rainbow
Tourism Group (RTG), admitted as
much, saying that perceptions were
negatively affecting the sector and
required immediate attention.
"Perceptions do worry us,"
Mtasa said in a recent interview with
businessdigest.
In
her financial report for the year ended December 2005, Mtasa
said the
group's hotel occupancies remained depressed at 38% compared to 43%
in the
previous year, but recorded an operating profit of $24 billion from a
$455
million loss incurred during the same period the previous
year.
Besides the negative perception, she also attributed
this to low
domestic demand.
Mtasa added that they were
in the process of introducing an
office in Livingstone, Zambia, a move that
would see the group tapping into
Zambia's tourism boom.
Economic analyst John Robertson said the tourism sector's
contribution to
the economy was now dismal.
"Although the authorities don't
give clear figures, the
contribution by the tourism sector is US$30 million
which is only 15% of the
$200 million it used to contribute," Robertson
said. He said operators in
the tourism sector still relied on visitors from
traditional markets as the
Chinese had made no significant
contributions.
"Most of the Chinese do not spend long in the
country and are
not big spenders. Besides, they now have a lot of relatives
living here,
whom they can visit," Robertson said.
Apart
from the tainted image, Robertson said the fixed exchange
rate coupled with
the acute fuel shortages and high prices had become
disincentives to the
international tourist, who is faced with over 5 000
destinations.
He added that domestic tourism was dying
due to the economic
crisis, particularly high inflation. According to the
Zimbabwe Tourism
Authority, a quasi-state body, tourist arrivals declined by
27% in the last
quarter of 2005.
A total of 336 971
tourists visited Zimbabwe during the period,
compared to 463 471 in the
comparative period in 2004.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
THE government
is planning a massive divesture programme aimed
at giving equity in
state-owned companies to Chinese investors as it battles
to raise US$2,5
billion under its National Economic Development Priority
Programme (NEDPP),
businessdigest established this week.
The move could see the
government hive-off key stakes in
parastatals like Tel*One, Net*One,
National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) and
Zesa's subsidiary companies like the
Zimbabwe Power Company as well as
participation in private companies like
Hwange Colliery in which the
government has controlling
stakes.
Sources indicated that the government, which last
year suffered
a major embarrassment after Beijing snubbed its request for a
$1 billion
loan, had experienced problems getting greenfield projects with
Chinese
participation off the ground because it could not provide requested
guarantees.
For example, the US$600 million Hwange Power
Station expansion
project has been stalled by failure by the government and
the central bank
to provide guarantees on loan from Chinese firm Catic, and
a down payment of
US$90 million for the project, the sources
said.
Now it is hoping that the Chinese, who have poured
billions into
Kenya and Nigeria, are likely to be appeased by stakes in
parastatals and
unlock huge lines of credit to spur a turn-around of
Zimbabwe's faltering
economy.
Zim Independent
THE opposition MDC has dismissed as cheap propaganda
government
attempts to raise US$2,5 billion in three months to revive the
economy,
saying this indicated government authorities lived "in a fantasy
world".
"The assertion that the country needs at least US$2,5
billion to
effect any changes in the collapse of the economy that is taking
place at
present is probably the only element that has any truth in
it.
"What is pure fantasy, however, is the claim that this
enormous
sum will be raised by the state in 'cash and investments' in three
months,"
the MDC said in a statement.
The government
launched an economic blue-print, the National
Economic Development Priority
Programme (NEDPP) two months ago under which
it claimed it would raise
US$2,5 billion in three months to stabilise the
local currency, fight rising
inflation, mobilise savings and ensure food
security.
The
MDC statement, issued by a faction of the opposition party
led by Morgan
Tsvangirai, dismissed the blue-print as "fantasy economics".
Economic Development minister Rugare Gumbo told the state media
last week
that the government had so far raised a paltry US$350 million in
cash under
the NEDPP, admitting: "We have not gone very far,
unfortunately."
He indicated a shift in focus, from raising
cash to securing
investment pledges to make up for the US$2,5 billion the
government intended
to raise. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
GOVERNMENT domestic
debt, which had significantly declined since
the beginning of the year, has
increased to $21 trillion as at June 2006,
statistics from central bank
revealed.
The figure is the highest since January
2003.
This development comes after local economic analysts
had warned
that the debt would increase further, from $15,7 trillion in
March 2006, due
to hefty salary increments awarded to civil servants by
government.
The salary increases were also expected to push
up government's
wage bill to well over 50% of gross domestic
product.
According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
statistics, the total
domestic debt stood at $21,06 trillion on June 2 while
on May 12 it was
$16,4 trillion.
The debt jumped from
$16,4 trillion to $21,45 trillion and
$22,35 trillion on May 19 and May 26
respectively.
On February 24, 2006, the domestic debt was
$14,2 trillion,
dropping marginally to $13,7 trillion on March 3,
2006.
It had reached a high of $15,9 trillion at the end of
last year,
having opened the same year at $3,3 trillion.
Local economists and analysts have always blamed government
borrowing to
finance recurrent expenditure without production.
"The debt
is likely to increase further as the government needs
$15 trillion to double
the police force," economist John Robertson said.
He added
that this will result in a further increase of the debt
because the money is
borrowed to finance recurrent expenditure.
Robertson added
that once government decides to print more
money, as hinted by the
authorities, it would aggravate inflationary
pressures.
The government recently printed $21 trillion to pay up the
International
Monetary Fund debt, a move many observers said had helped
stoke inflation,
which reached 1 193% year-on-year for May.
The government's
domestic debt consists of stocks, treasury
bills and central bank
advances.
Last year the total domestic debt grew by close to
1 000%, which
central bank governor described as unsustainable. The
government has
resorted to the domestic market to finance its budget due to
lack of
financial support from bilateral and multilateral donors. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
GOVERNMENT is
planning to introduce a policy in which new
residential property owners will
not be subject to rent control for the
first 10 years in a bid to lure
investors into the country's dull property
industry.
However, property analysts said rent controls should be phased
out
completely.
They said the policy will not revive the industry
as a decade is
not enough for investors to realise good returns on
investments.
Since 2000, there has been insignificant
investment in the
property market - particularly residential - and the major
obstacle has been
rent control.
Players in the property
industry say they are forced by the Rent
Board to charge rentals that are
not market-related, making it difficult for
them to operate, particularly in
this current volatile inflationary
environment. The Rent Board is a
government-appointed body set up to
regulate the property
industry.
"The policy is not good enough," Abraham Sadomba,
the CB Richard
Ellis managing director, said.
He said
even though the policy is still being circulated to
various stakeholders,
the fact is investors do not want rent controls at
all.
"Investors will still turn to other investment options where
there are
totally no controls," Sadomba said.
He said government should
facilitate the increase in the supply
of residential properties by removing
controls to lure investors. This would
have the effect of stabilising
rentals.
There is a serious shortage of residential
properties in the
capital.
Sadomba said residential
tenants have developed a tendency of
reporting to the Rent Board whenever
rentals are increased.
"We are currently increasing rentals
for the industrial and
commercial tenants by 80% every quarter and there are
no problems," Sadomba
said.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
THE
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) has called for
the devaluation of
the Zimbabwe dollar, saying the current exchange rate had
become
"unrealistic".
"There is an urgent need to review the current
exchange rate,"
CZI president, Patison Sithole said during a press briefing
on Tuesday.
Sithole said there was an urgent need for a
holistic approach to
Zimbabwe's economic crisis to curtail price distortions
and improve
productivity and export growth.
Sithole
criticised the volume-based exchange rate system
introduced in January this
year by the Reserve Bank, saying the system had
become unsustainable,
resulting in the over-valuation of the local currency.
He
said the impact of an overvalued currency had been disastrous
to small scale
companies.
The central bank in January introduced a
volume-based exchange
rate to control the movement of the exchange rate,
which had drastically
moved in line with inflation under market-controlled
exchange rate regime
that had been briefly introduced following an auction
system that had been
widely criticised as ineffective by market
players.
Sithole, who declined to give his own views of the
ideal
exchange rate under prevailing circumstances, said: "What we should
ask
ourselves is: what is the best exchange rate regime under this
environment.
(We want) a whole package and not just the right exchange rate
at a
particular time."
Sithole joined a chorus of calls
for a devaluation of the
Zimbabwe dollar from tobacco growers, gold miners
and exporting companies
who have said the current exchange rate system was
eroding viability and
leaving them in the lurch.
The
current exchange rate, critics said, has not taken into
account Zimbabwe's
rising inflation, which has ballooned significantly when
inflation levels in
major country trading partners has been significantly
low.
Annual inflation is currently at 1 193,5 % year on
year for May,
the highest in the world.
The fixing of the
exchange rate on the official market has
pushed trade in foreign currency to
a thriving parallel market, where the US
dollar is fetching over $320
000.
The rate on the official market is US$1: $101
195.
Many companies have resorted to the parallel market for
foreign
currency because of unavailability on the official
market.
This has resulted in many companies using parallel
market rates
in determining prices.
CZI will hold its
annual congress between 26 and 28 July in
Bulawayo.
Key
issues expected to take centre stage at the congress include
the need for
investor friendly monetary and fiscal policies, issues of toll
manufacturing
to increase industrial productivity, value addition and import
substitution.
Zim Independent
Festo P Kavishe
TANIYA trusted her
uncle. He was, after all, her mother's
brother. Family. Each week he would
take Taniya to his house for a rare
feast of chicken and rice. On her eighth
birthday he even bought her a doll.
Now 13, Taniya's trust -
together with her body and spirit - has
been shattered. For five years, this
little girl was raped by her uncle. "I
couldn't imagine someone could do
this to a little girl," says Taniya's
mother, tears streaming down her face.
"Certainly not my own brother. But
maybe I closed my eyes. Maybe I was happy
Taniya was eating well. Maybe this
is happening
everywhere."
It is.
At a time when
Zimbabweans are making phenomenal efforts to
absorb 1,6 million orphans,
there is a small - but growing - number of
people who prey on the most
vulnerable of children. Violence against
Zimbabwe's children is on the rise.
Sexual abuse of children has reached
terrifying levels. The impact and
incidence of child abuse should shock each
and every one of us to the core,
and demand our action. These, after all,
are our children, our
future.
Today is the Day of the African Child. No child who
has suffered
abuse will celebrate this day. Nor should we.
This year's theme, appropriately, is "Stop Violence against
Children".
Incidents of young children, especially orphans, being raped,
molested or
brutalised are reported every week in Zimbabwe's media. The
perpetrators,
often fathers, uncles, other relatives or neighbours, often go
unpunished.
These children suffer in silence, let down by
people and systems
meant to protect them. Unseen and unheard, they bear the
physical and
emotional scars of lives shattered and dreams lost, a permanent
reminder of
society's failure to offer them a safe environment in which to
grow and
thrive.
It remains necessary in Zimbabwe to
create a culture of
prevention of all forms of child abuse. We must mobilise
public opinion and
action, galvanise government, civil society, chiefs and
communities, parents
and guardians and children themselves to be unequivocal
in their
condemnation of child abuse, and step up work to disseminate
prevention
programmes.
Community leaders must play a
central role. Fears of reprisal
and families' willingness to reach
settlements deepen a culture of silence
and enable the problem to fester
undetected and unreported.
Community leaders need to be
absolutely explicit in their
condemnation of child abuse. These leaders -
with teachers, police, mums and
dads - are the front line in the fight
against child abuse. If perpetrators
are going to be stopped, if children
are going to have the confidence to
speak out against these evils, then
authority figures need to make it
patently clear that child abuse in their
communities will not be stomached.
Silence on this issue
shelters the perpetrators and is a crime.
The Day of the
African Child has its roots in Soweto. Among
Soweto's famous sons are Nelson
Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Orlando Pirates
and Kaizer Chiefs are from there,
as is award-winning musician, Yvonne Chaka
Chaka. "Soweto symbolises
courage," says Chaka Chaka. "And courage is what
Zimbabwean children are
showing every day."
Thirty years ago, on June 16 1976, 10 000
mostly school children
took to Soweto's streets in peaceful demonstrations.
The then-apartheid
authorities responded with force. Armed police lobbed
teargas into the crowd
and the students retaliated with rocks. When the
mayhem was over, 152
children lay dead.
Fifteen years
later, in 1991, the Organisation of African Unity
(the predecessor to the
African Union) immortalised the Soweto Uprising by
declaring June 16 the Day
of the African Child.
When Africa's presidents memorialised
June 16, they were in
effect saying: "Never again will Africa's children be
violated or abused".
This resolve needs to be rediscovered and
enforced.
Government in Zimbabwe needs to take three
important steps.
First, law enforcement and the sentencing of child abusers
must be
appropriately harsh so as to act as the strongest of
deterrents.
Second, they must continue to be vocal and
persistent in their
condemnation of child abuse, particularly at community
level. And finally,
government needs to ensure that Zimbabwe's existing -
and on paper, strong -
child laws are vigorously enforced. Laws that are
not enforced are useless.
Ceremony alone is simply not good
enough.
* Kavishe is the Unicef representative in
Zimbabwe.
Zim Independent
By Magari Mandebvu
THERE is an
ancient story about a frog that jumped into a bucket
of water. The owner of
the bucket immediately put the bucket on to a very
hot
fire.
The frog, feeling uncomfortably hot, jumped up on to
the rim of
the bucket and from there jumped to safety.
A
second frog did the same in a different place (it may have
been in France or
China) and the owner of the bucket put the bucket on to a
very slow fire.
The water warmed up slowly.
Frogs are cold-blooded creatures.
Unlike us, they can't keep
their blood at a comfortable temperature, so they
often welcome a little bit
of warmth more than we do. We just enjoy the
warmth, but they need it.
This frog was happy when he noticed
the water was getting a
little warmer. His blood temperature rose, so he was
able to swim more
vigorously. He couldn't climb the side of the bucket, but
that didn't worry
him. He was enjoying his swim.
The
water got a bit warmer. The frog swam a bit faster and he
was really
enjoying himself.
The water got warmer still and the frog
began to feel drowsy.
Do you remember what it was like when
we had enough water to
enjoy a hot bath after a hard day's work? You know
that when you are sitting
in nice hot water and feeling sleepy, you think
more slowly.
The frog didn't think seriously about his
situation. It was just
so nice and warm and tempting to slow down and let
his eyes close.
The water continued heating up. It boiled for
a while.
The last time the storyteller saw the owner of the
bucket (and
this is why I said it may have happened in France or China), she
was happily
chewing on some very tenderly cooked frog's
legs.
Is that just a funny story?
Doesn't
it suggest something else? Which of these two frogs is
the average citizen
of Zimbabwe today?
The water is already quite hot. They have
gone a long way
towards cooking us, and they have got away with it because
they did it one
step at a time.
Each step was noticeable,
just as the frog could notice the
temperature of the water in the bucket had
been raised a few degrees, but it
didn't seem too threatening. Or at least
not to us.
Other people may have been beaten up, or tortured,
or killed, or
raped, or slammed into stinking overcrowded jails and
forgotten. Other
people may have had their homes destroyed, or been banned
from earning a
living, and maybe had the tools of their trade stolen. A few
even lost big
farms.
But it didn't affect you or me very
much. The water was a bit
warmer, but not too hot for you or me. So we swam
on happily, not thinking
of what the future might hold if things went on
like this.
Now the water is near boiling. Our situation is
grim, as we all
admit.
But, to cheer you up, here is
another ancient story about two
frogs.
They both fell
into a bucket of milk.
Frog No1 was not very adventurous. In
fact, he was very
conservative. He didn't do anything that his grandfather
had not done all
his life - and probably his grandfather's grandfather
before him.
If he had been human, he would have been the sort
of person you
wouldn't dare (in the days when some of us could afford to eat
out
occasionally) to invite to an Indian or Italian restaurant. When he saw
the
menu listing all those delicious curries or all those imaginative ways
of
presenting pasta, he would have just asked for sadza.
But he wasn't human, he was just a frog dropped in a bucket of
milk and he
had never been dropped into a bucket of milk before so he said
to himself:
"What is this strange stuff? I've never seen water like this
before. I can't
swim in this."
So he stopped trying to swim and very quickly
drowned.
Frog No 2 was just as puzzled by this strange white
stuff, but,
being of a more adventurous nature, decided that it didn't
matter what kind
of strange stuff he had fallen into as long as he could
still swim in it. So
he tried to swim.
For a while he swam
quite easily, but you know what happens when
you churn milk up. Soon
swimming became more difficult because the milk was
becoming
thicker.
Still, the persistent frog kept swimming. Now the
milk around
him was so thick that he could hardly move forward, however hard
he swam.
At least he was still afloat, so he kept trying to
swim. Moving
his limbs became more and more difficult.
But he was a really persistent frog, so he didn't give up.
Eventually, he found he could not move his limbs to swim at all.
Surprisingly, he did not sink. Then he discovered that, although he could
not move his arms and legs sideways, he could pull himself up. He did this
and looked around him.
You can imagine his surprise when
he saw that he was floating on
a raft - of butter. His attempts to swim had
made all this butter, enough
for him to float on.
He
slowly realised what had happened. He licked as much of the
butter off his
limbs as he could. He couldn't clean himself up entirely
because frogs are
not as well designed for this job as dogs or cats are.
The
butter tasted strange, but when he swallowed some, it made
him feel stronger
and he realised he was very hungry from all that effort.
This encouraged him
to swallow all the butter he could lick off himself. In
the end he wasn't
perfectly clean, but he had done the best he could. He was
also fully
restored to strength.
He looked around again and decided that
his butter raft was
quite firm enough to enable him to jump to the rim of
the bucket.
He jumped to the rim and from there he jumped
down the other
side. He was free!
Now, when we consider
this second story, it offers us more hope.
You would not still be reading
this, dear readers, nor would I be still
writing it, if we were not, both of
us, more like frog No 2 than frog No1.
Yes, this strange
stuff we are still trying to swim in gets
thicker every day. By now it is
very thick. But remember frog No1 and frog
No2. One of these days we will
find ourselves out of our problems and on a
raft of butter. That will not be
the end of our problems: we will still have
to make the jump to
freedom.
I am sure frog No 2 found other problems outside the
bucket.
There always will be problems in life, but he had solved one very
big
problem and this encouraged him to try harder and think more
intelligently
about these later problems. I am sure it will be the same for
us.
* Magari Mandebvu is a Harare-based writer.
Zim Independent
By Phillip Pasirayi
IN 2004 a
national convention was held under the auspices of the
Crisis Coalition
which among other things sought to reflect on the impact of
economic
sanctions and to make recommendations on the role of the
international
community regarding the Zimbabwean crisis.
The meeting was
attended by members from a diverse cross-section
of Zimbabwean society
including representatives from academia, the
diplomatic community, churches,
students, civic leaders and political party
spokespersons. There was no
representative from government and the ruling
party as they turned down
invitations that had been extended to them.
True of the
mainstream media and the Crisis Coalition meeting
deliberations, there is no
consensus regarding the legality and the impact
of the sanctions and whether
or not the sanctions should be lifted.
Professor Heneri
Dzinotyiwei, who presented a paper titled "The
Impact of Sanctions and Role
of the International Community in the
Zimbabwean Crisis" at the conference,
asserted that sanctions were having an
unintended negative impact as they
were affecting the ordinary Zimbabwean as
much as Zanu PF members who were
the targets.
I believe that the sanctions imposed on
President Robert Mugabe's
government are a legitimate tool that the
international community uses to
rein in errant members in order to effect
policy change.
It is necessary to dispel the myth that has
largely emanated
from government that the sanctions are economic sanctions
and illegal as
they were not discussed by the United
Nations.
We should also locate this debate within the context
of the
latest overtures by members of the clergy who have launched a
campaign
programme meant to have the sanctions lifted.
Contrary to what we have always been told through state
propaganda outlets
that the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe are illegal, these
sanctions have
been imposed on the ruling elite and not the ordinary
Zimbabwean.
It is to the discretion of members of the
European Union or the
countries that have imposed the sanctions such as the
United States to
define their international relations in a manner that does
not seem to
compromise their values or in this case seem to endorse
barbarism,
chicanery, vote-rigging and the atrocities that the Zanu PF
government has
been associated with.
Through sanctions,
the international community defines the
boundaries of that community and the
bounds of what is acceptable behaviour.
The reason it is
wrong to call for the lifting of sanctions
imposed on Zanu PF at this
juncture is that such a move could be
misconstrued to mean that the ruling
party is reforming. As long as human
rights violations continue at such
alarming levels, it does not make sense
to lift sanctions against members of
the ruling elite.
If anything, the sanctions against Zanu PF
must be further
tightened to force the ruling party to embrace democratic
values and respect
the rule of law.
The international
community has sought to assist Zimbabwe
recover from her current crisis
through imposing targeted sanctions which
include a travel ban against the
ruling elite. The idea of smart or targeted
sanctions as argued by
international law expert, Antonio Cassese (2003), is
meant to avoid having
the sanctions affect unintended people as blanket
sanctions would
do.
Smart sanctions are carefully designed and they in most
cases
include a travel ban, a freezing of assets held in foreign land and a
ban or
boycott of selected businesses linked to those that are meant to feel
the
pinch of the sanctions.
On the other hand, economic
sanctions normally entail
restrictions on commercial relations with a target
country such as trade,
investment and other cross-border activities.
Sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe
do not fit this category because they are not
blanket sanctions imposed
against Zimbabweans. Zimbabwe continues to export
its agricultural products
such as beef and tobacco to the EU and the
US.
In order to understand the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe
and
their consequences, it is best to analyse them through an incisive piece
written by Adeno Addis (2003), "Economic Sanctions and the Problem of Evil",
Human Rights Quarterly Volume 25.
Adeno convincingly
argues that sanctions "are a means through
which the international community
or any sanctioning community imagines
itself because they are instruments of
behaviour modification".
Apart from this instrumentalist or
behaviouralist perspective,
sanctions are also imposed in order to define
the boundaries of the
sanctioning community and to disassociate itself with
"the evil other". This
is called the identitarian
perspective.
When the EU slapped the Zimbabwean government
with sanctions,
targeting President Robert Mugabe, the US followed suit and
targeted senior
Zanu PF members "who formulate, implement, or benefit from
policies that
undermine or injure Zimbabwe's democratic institutions or
impede the
transition to a multi-party democracy".
In
other words, the sanctioning community is defining its values
and at the
same time using sanctions as an instrument to effect change in
the
formulation and implementation of policy.
The paradox,
according to the government, is that the smart
sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe
is that instead of hurting Mugabe and his
cronies they are hurting the
ordinary people, the majority now living below
the poverty datum
line.
But the fact that the smart sanctions have not led to
the
anticipated behavioural change on the part of the ruling regime is not
sufficient justification to campaign for the removal of those sanctions. It
is in this light that those people campaigning for the removal of sanctions
against Zanu PF are ill-informed.
Adeno underscores the
same point arguing that it could be a
mistake to assume that sanctions do
not serve any meaningful purpose if they
do not lead to immediate
behavioural change.
Although the international community has
an obligation to
respect, protect and fulfil the rights of the people, the
primary
responsibility lies with the state. So the argument that it is
because of
the smart sanctions that the government cannot meet the human
rights of the
citizenry does not stand in international
law.
Even in times of crisis, man-made or natural, the state
is under
obligation to help people meet their basic
rights.
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights,
through General Comment No 8 (1997), notes that "the imposition of
sanctions
does not in any way nullify or diminish the relevant obligations
of that
state party".
It therefore follows that Zimbabwe
as a state party to the UN
International Convention on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights is still
under an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil
a whole range of
economic, social and cultural rights such as the right to
adequate food, the
right to health, right to housing and to an adequate
standard of living and
civil and political rights.
As
long as the government of Zimbabwe continues on its
self-destructive path,
being the main instigator of human rights abuses and
denying people their
electoral rights, there is no justification to campaign
for the uplifting of
the sanctions.
The sanctions against the rogue Zanu PF regime
should only be
lifted when airwaves have been opened, newspapers that were
shut down are
allowed to operate, electoral rights are respected, opposition
MDC mayors
are unconditionally reinstated and, above all, a new constitution
is put in
place.
* Phillip Pasirayi is a Zimbabwean
academic activist
Zim Independent
By Cde Pfepferere
WHEN we
were young and growing up, going into hospital for
surgery (an operation) no
matter how minor, was always considered a serious
undertaking.
Then, hospitals were places where people
went to be treated and
not to die as is the case these
days.
We were often told that if someone was undergoing an
operation
they had to be put to sleep (anaesthetised) and that waking up was
not
guaranteed.
We were also told that forms had to be
signed by those being
operated on, or their lawful representatives so that
in the event that they
decided to proceed and meet their creator, no fingers
would be pointed. In
short, an operation was a response to a crisis, and
often a last resort
response.
I have been having this
disconcerting sense of déjà vu on the
first anniversary of Operation
Murambatsvina, whether Zimbabwe would wake up
from its political slumber.
Consistent with most responses to the crises
Zimbabwe currently faces, most
government reactions are presented as
militarist.
It is
the military mindset that has seen the implementation of
disastrous
operations such as Murambatsvina, Garikai, Taguta, etc over the
course of
last year. Contrary to what our current political leadership would
like us
to believe, that their politics and ideologies were influenced by
their past
military prowess, only a handful of them were ever involved in
actual
military undertakings, especially the top brass. The tragedy that we
face
today is that we are being served unworkable military solutions to
problems
that are of a socio-economic and political nature by folks who have
never
been to the frontline, and can hardly tell the barrel from the
butt.
The majority of those that have authentic revolutionary
and
military credentials either perished heroically fighting for their
motherland, have been totally marginalised from political decision-making,
or have moved on and are doing something productive in life. What Zimbabwe
has had to go through in the past year is similar to a very sick patient who
has repeatedly come under the surgical knife of the same unqualified doctor.
Not only is the doctor unqualified, but he/she is lying that he/she has the
requisite qualifications to perform such an operation, knowing fully well
that they never as much as seen the door of a medical
school.
* The author is a Johannesburg-based human rights
lawyer and has
used a pseudonym in honour of a freedom fighter killed at St
Augustine's
Mission School in 1979.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
THE issue of legitimacy of governments and their
actions has
preoccupied mankind throughout all its history. And governments
have sought
different ways to justify their legitimacy and their
actions.
Every leader will claim legitimacy to justify their
rule and
define their perception of authority to govern. In modern-day
politics
leaders call for elections and winners immediately proclaim
themselves
legitimate leaders. Or are they?
Whichever way
a person or group of people are brought to power,
they need to legitimise
their actions.
Students of history will remember French
absolutist monarch
Louis XIV who equated his own personality with the state
in his infamous
statement; "L'etat c'est moi" (I am the
state).
That was in the 18th Century but leaders today still
justify
their actions by the strength and passion of their own beliefs even
though
these are personal matters close to their hearts. These personal
feelings
are often construed by demagogues to be a law which is then imposed
on the
rest of the people.
This quest for legitimacy is
oftentimes associated with
institutionalisation of an individual to the
effect that the person holding
office cannot do wrong.
Medieval monarchs - and their subjects - regarded their
anointment by the
church as a carte blanche to do as they wished. To
entrench this belief
system the omnipotent leader would seek ways to justify
attacks on perceived
opponents.
"Off with their heads" was the usual
solution!
The system continues, suitably adapted, today. The
simple way to
deal with dissent is to proclaim their victim an "enemy". Once
the victim is
labelled an enemy any action against him is seen as
legitimate. Anybody
attempting to defend the "enemy" is labelled as an
"enemy" himself.
Drastic measures can be taken in the process
of dealing with the
enemy. "Mistakes" as drastic as genocides - remember our
own Gukurahundi-can
be justified using political convenience as an excuse.
They justify their
actions by saying "we had to do it that way, because it
was politically
convenient". This is quite a common way of justifying
government failures
and abuses of power.
However, having
no practical ways to deal with abuses of power
by government, people just
turn away from the politicians in disgust.
This is called
stonewalling which governments, including our
own, use to ignore complaints
against their actions or raising of
inconvenient issues.
It is a fact that people might not have enough zeal or resources
to go
through all the hassle of fighting the government bureaucracy, which
could
be a very time-consuming and costly business.
Our government
has perfected this art. That is why it has become
normal for residents to
live next to heaps of uncollected garbage, to cross
rivulets of sewerage
water on their way to work or drive on badly-potholed
roads. To avoid the
hassle of fighting such misfeasance by public officials
we pay taxes, rates
and levies without standing up to question how they are
used.
We are afraid of being labelled enemies of the
state by
criticising the state or speaking out on social justice. We have
allowed the
government, parastatals and local authorities to make drastic
decisions
about our lives because they feel that it was politically
convenient to do
so. Britain became our enemy once President Mugabe declared
Tony Blair an
"enemy" and an "unholy man". Zimbabweans were suddenly turned
into
passionate proponents of the land reform programme as government sought
to
justify its actions, notwithstanding the devastation this has caused to
the
economy.
Security laws like Posa and of late the
Suppression of
International Terrorism Bill have been promulgated because
politicians have
told us we are under threat from foreign
aggressors.
The continued subtraction of our sacrosanct
rights has continued
to take place because the government says it has a
legitimate right to
govern by virtue of being elected.
But there is more to legitimacy than just an election victory. A
truly
legitimate government is one that can efficiently fulfill its
obligation to
provide basic social services like affordable health and
education.
A government should ensure there is potable
water for both rural
and urban people. Power supply should be efficient to
drive industry and
commerce. The railways system, roads and air travel are
pre-requisites for
the proper functioning of industry. A legitimate
government works towards
reducing unemployment and not enacting laws to
close companies.
Zimbabweans have submitted themselves to
government and its
orders and laws through fear, necessity, or as a result
of manipulation of
their emotions (hatred or fear of a real or imaginary
enemy, expectation of
a receipt of benefits, ruler deification, etc), or
just because they
consider it a hassle to deal with the incompetence and
abuses of powers by
government officials. That is why we have accepted
Zesa's "advice" that we
have to live with the intermittent power cuts during
this crucial World Cup
period.
That is how we have
legitimised the system. And we have only
ourselves to blame.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
SO, Africa is
drifting dangerously close to Europe, at a rate of
15 millimetres a year,
and the two continents could collide, a visiting
Indian scientific team told
us last week.
President Mugabe appears alarmed by this
development.
The Indian team is exploring the existence of
Gondwanaland, the
continent that once bound present-day Africa and India
together. The
expedition seeks to unite the people of Africa and India who
were separated
by continental drift, the Herald said.
Mugabe saw the expedition as an opportunity for spreading his
solidarity
message.
"If they are known, these historical strands that
bound
continents and people in the past and exposed constantly may help to
build
consciousness of oneness and unity, especially to us who belong to the
Third
World," he was quoted as telling the Indians at Zimbabwe
House.
There's only one thing wrong with this theory. The
continents
drifted apart 265 million years ago. There were no "people" to be
separated
then. Just a few dinosaurs roaming the planet.
Solidarity politics is one thing. Rewriting history to suit the
plot is
another.
But we can understand the president's need to
discover other
dinosaur species that once populated the earth. Given recent
newspaper
reports, it seems our own T-Rex carnivores are intent upon
sticking around
to witness the historic clash with Europe which could throw
up mountain
ranges such as those erupting in northern India 65 million years
ago.
Zimbabwe's scientific community has been ordered to
minimise the
consequences of continental drift. If possible, they have been
told, any
drift towards Europe should be resisted in order to reduce the
prospect of
pre-historic eruptions in the corridors of
power!
Muckraker was interested in a report to parliament
by the
portfolio committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs which
recommended that the judiciary should move expeditiously in dealing with
pending cases. Justice delayed is justice denied was their
message.
The committee's chairman Faber Chidarikire - a
former mayor of
Chinhoyi who it may be recalled kept his head while all
about him were
losing theirs - said it was disturbing that some of those
currently held in
remand prison would eventually be found
innocent.
There is another dimension to this that appears not
to have been
considered. Electoral petitions often suffer the same delays as
criminal
cases meaning Zanu PF MPs whose election was successfully
challenged in the
High Court on grounds of violence or other abuses
continued to occupy seats
while they appealed to the Supreme
Court.
Why has nobody, and here the MDC and the media are
delinquent,
publicised how many cases the opposition won in the High Court
but were
denied the seats because the incumbents appealed and were able to
continue
occupying those seats right up to the 2005 poll? And why hasn't the
MDC made
more of the fact that, given the court verdicts, it probably won a
majority
of the popularly elected seats in the 2000 poll?
The answer must be that instead of performing its duty as a
challenging
opposition, the MDC would rather fight among itself. This is not
all "water
under the bridge" or of only "academic"interest. It is an
important matter
of public record.
David Coltart, who is considered one of the
more level-headed
spokesmen for the party and an expert on electoral
matters, appears to have
been diverted by the internecine warfare in the
party. After his recent
article in this paper and subsequent website forays
attacking the Tsvangirai
faction for indulging violence, he has now got off
the fence, which must
have left him rather sore after such a long sojourn
there, and come down
firmly on the Mutambara side which is where he really
belonged.
Let's hope he will now return to the electoral beat
where his
skills are "sorely" needed. He could perhaps use his parliamentary
privilege
to comment on judges who cannot see that by accepting the lease of
farms
from the government on a basis where the minister is able to withdraw
the
lease at any time, they place themselves in an invidious position and
compromise the integrity of the judicial process.
Why is
this subject not getting more attention from the
opposition? Very simply
they are not doing their job.
Perhaps that explains why
Tsvangirai's press conference last
week failed to "wet" the appetite of the
story-dry Munyaradzi Huni. His
expectations of nuggets from Tsvangirai -
that he would announce his plans
for the planned long winter of discontent -
was "enough to wet my appetite"
wrote Huni. Tsvangirai only spoke for seven
minutes. Huni reports that the
MDC leader told reporters that he was not
planning to overthrow any
government.
What a
disappointment for a reporter whose appetite for humbug
is whetted by his
own fictitious MDC treason plots. What is the use of a wet
Huni in this
wintry whether (sorry weather).
We should also be looking
more closely at whether the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission is fulfilling its
duties. The Economist of April 9 2005
reported that in Manyame, Patrick
Zhuwao won more votes than were actually
cast.
"When the
polls closed officials announced (and state radio
broadcast) that 14 812
people had voted in Manyame. But during the count
more than 9 000 extra
ballots appeared giving Mr Bob's-My-Uncle an
impressive 15 448 votes out of
some 24 000."
We have still not had a satisfactory
explanation from the ZEC as
to why there were so many discrepancies in the
2005 election between the
figures given at the end of polling and those
reflected in the final count.
And why hasn't the ZEC responded to this
paper's questions on preparations
for the Harare mayoral poll? This should
be a straight-forward matter for a
supposedly independent
body.
On the subject of getting things on the record,
Prof Welshman
Ncube gave a very good interview to the Sunday News last
weekend. While the
picture revealed he is still waiting to have the
operation most journalists
must undergo - having the cellphone removed from
the ear - he did manage to
clear up some of the deeply held misconceptions
held by the state media.
For instance, asked about the MDC's
advocacy of sanctions he
described it as one of the "big lies" that is
repeatedly told.
The MDC supported travel bans to protest at
the way elections
were run, not economic sanctions, Ncube pointed
out.
"We do not believe that banning a militia leaders from
visiting
the United States amounts to economic sanctions against
Zimbabweans," he
said.
"Again it is one of those
unfortunate things that you have a
government that has failed to conduct
effective foreign policy blaming
everyone else for its bad relations with
the international community."
Nicely
put.
Still on the subject of foreign policy Muckraker
referred last
week to the very large and hospitable reception hosted by the
Swedes.
Muckraker steered clear of the reindeer meat and the Swedish proof
vodka
(for lying down and enjoying). It is a little-known fact that Sweden
exports
more proof vodka to the US every year than
Volvos!
What wasn't made clear was a wider diplomatic
observation,
brought to Muckraker's attention by another embassy, that if a
mission
wishes to have a Zimbabwean official present at its national day, it
must
first submit its ambassador's speech a week ahead of the occasion and
include in it a toast to President Mugabe.
Several
envoys, we gather, have declined to be treated like
children and are happy
to toast "the people of Zimbabwe" and leave out the
author of their
distress!
By the way, how many people know Dr Sydney
Sekeramayi speaks
fluent Swedish?
The Herald carried
remarks made this week by a visiting American
opponent of sanctions, Obi
Egbuna, programme director of the Pan-African
Liberalisation (sic)
Organisation who said he wants to initiate a "Mugabe
must travel"
campaign.
This is a campaign which many Zimbabweans will
support. The
further the better. But Information minister Tichaona Jokonya
used his
meeting with the visiting British-born campaigner to make a number
of
dubious claims including the suggestion that Aippa enjoyed bipartisan
support and that it was far less draconian than the USA Patriot
Act.
Could he tell us which American journalists have been
arrested
under the Patriot Act? Or which US newspapers have been closed
down? Does
the Patriot Act set up a supervisory board appointed by a
presidential
official and comprising presidential cronies to regulate what
the media can
and can't say?
Perhaps the most
controversial aspect of the Patriot Act is its
provision for wiretaps. But
even there, the administration must show
"probable cause" in approaching a
judge for permission. Can you imagine the
state in Zimbabwe bothering to get
permission for wiretaps?
The next time Jokonya and his
sidekick Bright Matonga entertain
a visiting Coltrane Chimurenga-type
apologist for their regime they should
explain how their chained and
emasculated media interpret patriotism (that
is, Zanu PF can do what it
wants); how the country's interests have been
served by a muzzled media that
isn't even allowed to question the president's
policies let alone suggest
any wrong-doing as US papers do with George Bush
every day of the
week!
Then a visit to Kondozi might enlighten the visitor as
to
"Zimbabwe's principled stand on the land issue". Perhaps Obi meant
principal
looters!
Obi evidently didn't see John Nkomo's
comment in the Herald on
Monday that farmers who were underutilising their
farmers were being
disrespectful to the president. Seeing the number of
derelict farms around,
the president's reverence among his peers - who have
looted farm implements
and run down farms - has plummeted. That's nuff
respect Obi.
Vice President Joice Mujuru has been
enjoying her place in the
sun in China away from her usual rural beat. She
was scouting for investment
opportunities in the East where she told Chinese
business people that
Zimbabwe had put in place incentives to attract and
safeguard investment,
the Herald reported. But everyone appears to be
jittery with property rights
abuse in Zimbabwe and the bad-customer tag the
country has.
On Monday it was reported that Chinese company
CATIC, which we
were told is investing in the country's mining and power
sector, wanted
assurances that mining concessions would be "legally
transferred" to a
mooted joint-venture company. Even the Chinese now know of
Zimbabwe's
penchant to transfer property illegally. They also know that
Zimbabwe does
not pay its debts on time - even to its friends.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Dumisani Muleya
THE
Zimbabwean political situation remains touch-and-go with no
clues of what is
likely to happen in the short-to-medium term, especially
given the current
turmoil within the ruling Zanu PF and the opposition MDC
ranks.
The political crisis, characterised by erosion of
the democratic
culture and institutional collapse, is worsened by the
economic malaise
which is rapidly widening and deepening. This has left the
country in an
undeclared state of emergency.
The
unannounced banning of democratic protests by opposition and
civil society
movements - except those staged by Zanu PF supporters -
provides the
clearest sign yet of a tacit state of emergency.
There are
several untested suppositions about what is likely to
happen after the
departure of President Robert Mugabe by natural causes or
otherwise.
The International Crisis Group, a
Brussels-based think-tank run
by retired statesmen, last week issued a
report on Zimbabwe warning of
possible political instability and violence in
the country.
It said Zimbabwe was almost irretrievably
hurtling towards being
a failed state plagued by insecurity and chaos. It
said the risk of anarchy
was high because of the current political turmoil,
economic emergency,
heightened repression and deepening public
anger.
The group noted Mugabe's regime is increasingly
becoming
"desperate and dangerous" due to its growing paranoia caused by
rising
opposition to its policies and international
isolation.
While chances of Zimbabwe becoming stateless are
very slim,
there are conditions on the ground which provide a hotbed for
political
turbulence.
The country is fractured on many
fronts. Divisions within Zanu
PF and the MDC are now as profound as the
differences between them. The two
parties are reeling from vicious power
struggles.
The Zanu PF situation is more scary because of the
scamble to
succeed Mugabe. It is not clear what is likely to happen after
Mugabe but
there are fears Zanu PF will split into at least two factions
along regional
and ethnic fault lines. If that were to happen, it would
create a breeding
ground for instability and violence.
Zanu PF appears fragile because of its regional and tribal
anatomy. In the
past the party showed signs of volatility and strain,
especially in a state
of political flux where shifts and changes in dynamics
were difficult to
manage.
Zanu PF camps are already wound up for a fight. The
Tsholotsho
episode cast the die. The internal wrangling could yield a
powerful group
which may sort out the situation. The defeated group might
fall in line,
scatter into a toothless rabble or wreak political havoc
unless contained.
In the process, it is possible a new leader
would emerge to
unite the factions. A realignment of forces might take place
and resolve the
situation.
It is however also possible
the army might intervene claiming to
be trying to restore order. The danger
of military intervention now looms
large given the ongoing militarisation of
state institutions.
Napoleonic military leaders invariably
emerge in conditions of
instability, claiming to be re-establishing order.
The crumbling economy has
created conditions for army involvement in
civilian affairs.
As a result, the army and other state
security agencies have of
late been gaining influence in civilian
institutions.
The military's heavy involvement in the state
machinery and
government policy formulation has left it well-placed to seize
power if push
comes to shove. Because of a power vacuum developing in Zanu
PF, the army
generals are said to be waiting in the wings to outflank
politicians in the
ultimate scramble for power likely to break out when
Mugabe leaves, in
particular if his departure is sudden.
But it is also important to look at the structure and internal
dynamics in
the army to assess possibilities of military intervention. The
top brass in
the army - but not everybody - appears involved in Zanu PF
politics and as a
result would want the incumbent regime to survive. They
are also part of the
political elite and have their interests at stake if
the status quo
changes.
However, the middle and lower ranks have not
benefited as much.
In fact, lower ranks have been protesting poor salaries
and working
conditions, meaning their interests are not well served by the
system.
In the event generals want unqualified support to
claim
political power, junior soldiers might baulk at supporting a project
designed to preserve a system that has impoverished them.
Besides, the military culture in Zimbabwe, shaped by British
traditions, and
not the Russians and Chinese who supported the anti-colonial
struggle,
preclude an easy manipulation of the structures to blatantly
support a
political cause. There is also the problem of regional and
international
factors. Southern Africa does not have a history of military
coups and
appears determined to keep that clean sheet. The international
community,
including the African Union, is unlikely to tolerate military
rule in
Zimbabwe.
In the MDC, it appears the current divide will
continue until
the Zanu PF crisis develops enough to shape the direction of
national
politics, and by implication the economy. An inter-party
realignment of
forces could then occur and a clearer picture of the
parameters of party
politics would emerge from the current
jungle.
While it is not known for certain what will happen
after Mugabe,
what is clear is that the situation in Zimbabwe remains up in
the air. A
storm could be brewing on the horizon before the weather
clears!
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
WITHIN
three hours of the news breaking last Friday that the
annualised rate of
inflation to May had soared to a horrendous 1 193%, I
received calls from
seven journalists including from the USA, the United
Kingdom, France and
South Africa all seeking comment.
Each had one main question,
and that was: can the Zimbabwean
economy ever recover?
On
the same day, numerous Zimbabweans were asking the same
question. As they
did so, it was very evident that for almost all of them,
the question was
virtually rhetorical, and that each believed that prospects
of recovery were
non-existent.
It cannot be denied that the Zimbabwean economy
has been
appallingly ravaged. Not only is inflation the highest in the
world, and
continuing to rise almost exponentially, but the country is also
victim to
innumerable other economic plagues, including a monumentally great
adverse
balance of payments, with consequentially very pronounced scarcities
of
imported essentials, inclusive of agricultural, mining and industrial
inputs, fuel and energy supplies, spares required to keeping ageing
infrastructure operational, critically required medications and other
health-care needs, and a great deal more.
Other economic
ills include escalating unemployment, estimated
to exceed 80% of the
employable population, massive fiscal deficits, minimal
investment - which
contrasts with intensifying downsizing of industrial and
other enterprises
and, in a growing number of instances, business closures -
and a vast number
of other major economic ailments.
This tragic state of
affairs commenced over eight years ago,
triggered by government's foolhardy
entry into an immensely unaffordable
commitment of "compensation" for war
veterans, exacerbated thereafter by a
disastrously and unjustly implemented,
if overdue, programme of land reform,
and by a myriad of grossly destructive
policies of a government incapable of
recognising, or admitting to, error,
worsened by an obdurate resistance to
rescind or modify catastrophic
policies.
It is little wonder, therefore, that a majority of
the
economically embattled population have lost all hope, and are rigidly
convinced that the economy has passed the point of redemption being
possible. But that is not the case, as has been evidenced in numerous
instances over history, where countries underwent similar, or even worse,
circumstances, and recovered from them.
The governor of
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Gideon Gono,
succinctly presented this when he
recently delivered an address at the Kyung
Hee University in South
Korea.
He said: "All countries have sought to turn around
their
fortunes, and yet others remain seemingly trapped in the crevices of
poverty
and underdevelopment, then turnarounds are an abstract
concept.
"But nothing could be further from the truth . . .
during the
USA's first war of independence (1775-1783), the then newly
independent
American colonies covered an estimated 80% of their total
expenditures
through specially printed paper called 'Continentals', leading
to 1 000%
increase in prices during 1779-1780.
"The same
USA economy was to endure, yet another epic
confrontation with high
inflation during the 1861 civil war, when monthly
inflation topped 40% in
March, 1864, or an annualised rate of 5 569%.
"Notwithstanding this, today the USA stands firm, with low
levels of
inflation of under 3,5% annually; clearly attesting the vivid
reality that
indeed, economies that face difficulties on the back of wars,
civil strife,
structural revolutions, such as land redistribution, among
other transitory
adversities, can reclaim their glory through implementation
of
well-thought-out turnaround strategies.
"An equally telling
historical perspective is the staggering
hyperinflation that was felt in
Germany soon after World War I, where in a
period of a mere 15 months
between August 1922 and November 1923 prices are
reported to have risen by
about one trillion percent. Again, through the
striking of the right
turnaround chord, today Germany talks of annual
inflation of 1,9% as of
March 2006.
"In the post-World War II era, in 1945 China fell
into a civil
war between the nationalist group under Chiang Kai-shek and the
Communists,
under Mao Tse-Tung, which imposed a heavy strain on the budget.
Resultantly,
between February 1947 and March 1949, documented cost of living
in Shanghai
saw a maximum monthly inflation rate of 919,9%. The China of
today has,
however, deservedly sprung into a force the world has come to
reckon with,
with average real GDP growth rates of 9-10%, and annual
inflation of around
1,9%.
"The developmental and
stabilisation paths which Argentina,
Bolivia and Brazil traversed during the
mid- to late 1980s are also
noteworthy examples of how what may, per se,
seem as intractable
macroeconomic imbalances can be brought in check over
very short spaces of
time.
"Between May 1989 and March
1990, Argentina experienced maximum
monthly inflation rates topping 196,6%,
while in Bolivia monthly inflation
reached a peek of 182,8% between April
1984 and September 1985. In Brazil,
though somewhat more moderate than other
earlier examples, monthly inflation
rose to 81,3% between December 1989 and
March 1990.
"Through the vigorous pursuit of well-thought-out
macroeconomic
programmes, today the annual inflation rates in Bolvia,
Argentina and Brazil
are at low levels of around 5,4%, 11,8% and 6,8%
respectively."
Over and above those examples cited by Gono,
there have been
many other countries which, during the past 30 years, have
successfully
achieved substantive economic turnarounds, including Malaysia,
Italy,
Israel, South Korea and, closer to home, Zambia, to name but a few.
Clearly,
therefore, positive economic transformation is possible, no matter
to what
low levels an economy may have degenerated.
In
addressing how the metamorphosis can be achieved, Gono said:
"Transition-economy turnaround strategies must . . . seek to unleash a
multidimensional engine that brings about major transformation in popular
attitudes towards work, configuration of national institutions, acceleration
of economic productivity, the reduction of inequality, as well as the
general improvement in the majority of people's living conditions so as to
fortify stakeholder buy-in.
"The central characteristics
in transition economies which also
ought to be taken into account when
mapping effective turnarounds are:
* incidence of low levels
of living conditions, particularly in
the basic needs arenas of health, food
and shelter;
* low levels of productivity (productive
ineffiencies) due to
antiquated or a narrow technological
base;
* high rates of population growth which also come with
internal
stresses to the infrastructure networks of the built environment,
such as
water reticulation, health and educational facilities, as well as
may other
social amenities;
* high dependency levels on
agricultural production and over
concentration of the export basket in
primary production;
* revalence of imperfect markets and
information asymmetries due
to strained information and communication
networks; and
* high dependency levels on external support as
well as
vulnerability in international relations."
However, although Zimbabwe's economy can, and will, transform to
one of
substance which can sustain the populace properly, and despite the
valid
recognition by Gono of some of the necessary characteristics, the
transformation will inevitably be a lengthy one, for an instantaneous total
reversal of the economic ills is an impossibility.
Moreover, that transformation cannot begin until government
itself undergoes
a transformation, for without real will on its part,
transformation cannot,
and will not, occur. That governmental will must
comprise an ability to
acknowledge its errors, and a determination to
correct them. It must drive
to real international reconciliation and
collaboration, creation of genuine
democracy, restoration of law and order,
respect for Bilateral Investment
Promotion and Protection Agreements,
vigorous containment of corruption,
investment facilitation and security,
transparency, non-racialism and
non-tribalism, real gender equality, and
much else.
Until
that will becomes a reality, the economic transformation
desperately yearned
for remains a mirage, but ultimately the economy's dire
straits will either
force government to change by developing that will, or
will bring about a
change of government to one with the will.
Zim Independent
Comment
THE government this week announced
plans to set up a
coal-powered electricity generation plant in Dande,
Mashonaland Central. The
project, it has been reported, is a joint venture
initiative between Catic
of China and local investors.
This, coming at a time when Zimbabwe has a huge power deficit,
can easily be
received as good news but in essence it is prudent to put the
champagne on
ice and reflect on our record of implementing projects of this
sort.
The Dande thermal plant project could be joining a
long
inventory of schemes that have remained on the drawing board and never
implemented, or those being implemented half-heartedly.
It is an addition to the plethora of flops in the implementation
of capital
projects in a country where resources are limited, and where
project
management by the state is weak. We are as a nation trying our hand
at too
many expensive projects in an uncoordinated manner.
The Dande
project, it should be noted, is joining at least 10
stalled
capital-intensive projects in the power generation sector.
The government has for over a decade been toying with the idea
of a thermal
plant at Sengwa in Gokwe North and a hydro-electricity plant at
the Batoka
Gorge. The Batoka project, we have been told, will cost the
country US$2,5
billion, twice the total amount of foreign currency generated
by the whole
economy last year.
An investment proposal outline for the
power sector set out by
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono in his
January 2005 Fourth
Quarter (2004) Monetary Policy Review Statement lists at
least half a dozen
capital projects required to revive the sector and cut
back on exports.
Included on the list is the expansion of the Hwange 7 and 8
thermal plants
for US$368 million and the rehabilitation and expansion of
the Kariba
hydro-electric station (US$175 million). These are yet to take
off because
Zimbabwe cannot raise the requisite down payments as set out in
bilateral
agreements.
Gono's plan in January did not
include Batoka and Gokwe largely
because the projects are beyond Zimbabwe's
capacity to raise the requisite
capital.
The Dande
project adds another twist in the tale. The government
has in the last 25
years cherished the belief that rapid infrastructural
development is a
reflection of economic growth. It is not. Infrastructure
growth can only
translate into economic growth if capital projects are
completed on schedule
and then put to good use by communities. That explains
why numerous
large-volume dams were built but never utilised for
irrigation.
Zimbabwe does not need to implement three turnkey
projects at
the same time in the power sector. The country should first
demonstrate an
ability to efficiently run and utilise existing plant. Also
there is a real
need to co-ordinate government's capital projects to avoid
scarring the
landscape with incomplete or abandoned
projects.
The government has to justify the commencement of
the Masvingo
Road dualisation project two years ago when it has in the last
15 years only
managed to widen 30km of the 440km Bulawayo
Road.
Progress on Masvingo Road has been painfully slow with
about two
kilometres completed in two years. We shudder to think how long it
will take
to cover the 600km to Beitbridge!
On the eve of
the 2005 election, excavators and graders went to
work on Mutare Road
between Jaggers and Mabvuku turn-off. The project has
been abandoned. Heaps
of soil and felled trees are a stark demonstration of
haphazard
planning.
But slow-moving capital projects are the stuff
inefficient
politicians feed on. The projects keep communities enthralled
and engaged,
presenting a false picture of activity.
This
explains the announcement in the past of miracle cures like
the Nuanetsi
project in the Lowveld that was expected to produce winter
maize under
irrigation. Under the project, government contracted a Chinese
company -
China International Water and Electric Corporation - to clear 100
000
hectares of virgin forest in a deal it said would lead to Zimbabwe being
restored as southern Africa's breadbasket. A pie in the sky because the
project has been abandoned after government failed to pay the Chinese
contractors! The Dande project falls in the same basket of wonder projects
which will not end our current crisis but only increase state
indebtedness.
Zim Independent
News Analysis
Ray
Matikinye
IF an old gypsy lady gazed into her crystal ball
and proclaimed
to crisis-weary Zimbabweans that the latest in a series of
government
economic initiatives would transform their lives for the better
by December
this year none would believe her.
Even if the
gypsy allowed them to take that rare glimpse into
her crystal ball, and they
saw the slightest of evidence for themselves,
they would still have severe
doubts.
The odds are heavily tilted against any
optimism.
Most Zimbabweans have every reason to doubt the
hardships they
have been enduring for more than half a decade could be
remedied by a crop
of politicians that firmly hug populist, yet calamitous
economic programmes.
They have become used to an
administration with a long history
of maintaining its record of
disappointing deliveries.
Zimbabweans have witnessed the
gradual deterioration of services
in every sphere of their lives to a point
where none of their expectations
have been met, while government harps on
Utopian promises of "better times
ahead".
There is no
better evidence for their pessimism than the
commonplace collapse of the
service delivery system in health, transport and
electricity supply to their
homes and other services that a working
bureaucracy ought to deliver with
minimum hassles.
Frequent nationwide power blackouts, erratic
fuel supplies,
perennial increases in the prices of basic commodities or
intermittent
shortages of the same, failure by local authorities to provide
essential
services and other annoying inconveniences have done little to
reassure
Zimbabweans that things will change for the
better.
Acute shortages of electrical power with cuts
disrupting
business and manufacturing worsen economic woes of a nation
confronted by 1
193% inflation. The unending economic burden has upset
normal life among
Zimbabweans.
It has taxed their
resilience and even thrown residents in
upmarket suburbs like Highlands back
into the Stone Age with chores of
hewing wood and drawing water from the
most unlikely of sources.
Analysts say the failure to provide
basic service is a serious
indictment on the state's capability to
govern.
Crisis Coalition coordinator Jacob Mafume says
Zimbabweans are
being held to ransom by a group of people who have failed to
carry out their
mandate for the past 26 years.
"They have
enriched themselves at the expense of the nation and
now the poor state of
the nation is in direct contrast to the personal
wealth of individuals
amongst the ruling elite," Mafume says.
He says in a normal
situation the central bank governor and the
rest of the ministers would have
long ago resigned as a result of their
failure to carry out a simple
mandate.
Analysts also say all indicators point to a failed
state.
Zimbabwe, others say, is a case study not in state failure, but in
the
failures of a state to acknowledge and remedy the devastation it has
inflicted on its people.
"Zanu PF's policies, corruption
and repressive governance are
directly responsible for the severe economic
slide, growing public
discontent and international isolation, according to a
recent report by the
International Crisis Group - a Brussels-based
think-tank.
"Unemployment has risen over 85%, poverty above
90 % and foreign
reserves are almost depleted. There are severe shortages of
basic consumer
items, and the prices of fuel and food are beyond the reach
of many."
The report says more than two million persons are
in desperate
need of food and malnutrition kills thousands every
month.
Yet in the midst of ubiquitous failure government
ministers,
with tacit connivance of the state media, have taken simple
routine work and
flaunted it as unparalleled achievement that can
anaesthetise a society
fatigued by economic hardships.
Go
into any hospital and witness how a serious shortage of
drugs, obsolete
equipment and an overworked staff has hobbled efficient
service delivery. In
a number of cases high medical fees have consorted to
make treatment
unaffordable to the desperately ill. The urban poor and
middle class have
opted to seek medical attention at rural clinics and
hospitals even though
acute shortages of drugs and material also point to an
irreversible collapse
in that sector as well.
For instance, four of the seven
districts in Masvingo province
with an estimated population of 1,3 million
people are operating without
doctors due to the brain
drain.
Government has been long on promises but short on
delivery to
review working conditions in the medical field to stem the
temptation among
professionals attracted by better opportunities
abroad.
Exasperated officials have tried to appeal to the
Zimbabwean
professionals' sense of patriotism in an effort to induce guilt
in them but
none has paid heed.
The capital Harare, with
its piles of uncollected garbage and
pot-holed roads is a microcosm of the
nationwide collapse that vividly
illustrates central government's inability
to offer solutions.
A state-appointed commission has failed
to imitate even the
basic ruse by tomato vendors where they arrange their
wares in such a way
that the juicy side faces forward while the spongy side
is hidden from
public scrutiny.
"There is need to improve
and mend the pothole-ridden city
roads. Residents pay rates yet there is no
water, the sewerage system has
all but collapsed," says Progressive Harare
Metropolitan Residents and
Ratepayers Association (Phamera) leader,
Munyaradzi Guzha.
"Residents have the right to be furious
when service delivery
system is at a crossroads and in a state of
confounding chaos."
But the Combined Harare Residents
Association (CHRA) has been
more precise in identifying the root cause of
the socio-political distress.
"Let there be no confusion as
to the causes of our situation:
the disintegration of the social, political
and economic fabric of our
society as a result of the policies of the Mugabe
regime," CHRA chairman
Mike Davies says in a document released last
month.
Davies says whatever the shortcomings of our society
that
existed before 1997, the blame for the subsequent devastation lies
squarely
at government's feet and its policies that promote primitive
accumulation by
a parasitical elite that relies entirely upon plunder and
patronage while
impoverishing the vast majority.
While
Harare literally burns, the emperor and his cronies are
fiddling - this time
with their faces directly facing the flames
We're not part of this
apostasy
FOR the last three years, concerned church leaders,
led by
Bishop Sebastian Bakare of the Anglican Church, have been trying to
meet
with President Robert Mugabe to discuss the crisis facing the country,
without success.
Last month, the president finally agreed
to meet with church
leaders of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe and
the Zimbabwe Council
of Churches (ZCC), two major protestant church umbrella
bodies in the
country.
The subsequent visit to State
House by these church leaders came
after the ZCC had published a pastoral
letter to the nation which spelt out
the causes of the crisis and the
people's suffering as "bad governance,
unjust laws, corruption, lack of
integrity and the unfair distribution of
resources".
This
was, therefore, a God-given opportunity for the churches in
Zimbabwe to
speak prophetically as representatives of God and the shepherds
of His
people.
Zimbabweans, who are mostly Christians, eagerly and
hopefully
waited to hear about the result of the meeting. They were deeply
disappointed.
The church leaders somehow lost their
nerve. Instead of
chronicling the obvious evil acts of this government and
pronouncing God's
judgment on it saying: "Thus saith the Lord", as would be
expected of God's
prophets, they allowed President Mugabe to lecture them on
how they should
relate to the state.
He told them that
the church and the government must work
together as partners to build a
legacy of bonding between them.
At the end of the meeting the
head of delegation and president
of the ZCC, Bishop Peter Nemapare, in front
of national television cameras,
said: "We know we have a government that we
must support, interact with and
draw attention to concerns. Those of us who
have different ideas about this
country must know we have a government which
listens."
Densen Mafinyane, general secretary of the ZCC,
also voiced the
same sentiments of support, thus giving comfort to the
president, the
government and the ruling Zanu PF. He added insult to injury
on the
suffering masses of Zimbabwe by saying the church fully supported the
government and its members were also in need of land so that they could
contribute to the building of Zimbabwe.
He concluded by
saying: "Despite the differences the government
and church might have, the
two parties must consult and maintain their
partnership."
We, the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance would like God and the
nation to know
that we categorically disassociate ourselves from this
apostasy.
We totally disagree with the tenor and
substance of the
sentiments voiced by these leaders. In what way do they
support this
government which has shed innocent blood, brutally tortured its
citizens and
destroyed their homes and livelihoods and promoted racial
hatred?
Were they not sincere when, in their pastoral letter
they said
the government was misgoverning? Who has the government listened
to since it
came to power? Do they support the evils of Gukurahundi, the
violent land
reform programme, Operation Murambatsvina, the militarised
Operation Taguta,
Operation Roundup, cronyism, corruption, bribery,
state-sponsored violence
and the setting up of concentration camps to hold
so-called undesirable
elements. They have no regard of the fact that these
are precious souls for
whom Christ died.
As an alliance
of like-minded Christians, who feel called by God
to be united in love and
to work for peace and justice in Zimbabwe, we
boldly condemn every kind of
abuse and every form of keeping the poor in
poverty and creating new poor
people.
We count ourselves among the faithful followers of
Christ who
refuse to be bought or frightened, but to stand for truth,
justice and
righteousness. We, therefore, feel called by God, who is a just
God, to
speak prophetically against this government's unjust laws as well as
engage
in acts of defiant civil disobedience if need be.
We are not fanatical zealots or demagogues seeking fame, wealth
or power,
but patriotic Christians who fear God and love Zimbabwe and her
long
suffering people.
We therefore contend that those who went to
State House have
betrayed the people and the principles which the true
Church of Jesus Christ
stands for. On our part, there can be no partnership
with the Zanu PF
government until and unless there is genuine repentance and
change on its
part. For what relationship can there be between the light of
the gospel and
the darkness which the Zanu PF government stands
for.
Media Committee,
Zimbabwe
Christian Alliance.
-------------
Zanu
PF's attempt at deception
WHAT I love about Zanu PF is
their almost child-like
duplicity. Expect the worst and you will never be
wrong.
The latest attempt to hoodwink their critics is
the move
to "allow community broadcasts". Oh, how bold and noble this
sounds! But
what is the real reason behind it? With Zanu PF there is always
the
propaganda reason which is supposed to hide the real reason for any
action.
The real reason is that they are becoming
increasingly
panicked at the restlessness of the people, and so want to step
up the
deluge of propaganda through these community radio stations which
will
supposedly be "independent".
However, when it
comes to issuing broadcasting licences
these stations will be seen to be
about as independent as The Mirror and
Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings. Does
anyone in their right mind expect that
independent radio stations that
broadcast unbiased and truthful news and
views will be allowed? Of course
not. This is just another rather pathetic
attempt at deception, which I hope
no one will swallow.
Charles
Frizell,
UK.
------------
Merger is the
answer
LAST month I read an article about the
possibility
of an alliance between Zimbabwe's smaller
parties.
It takes a man to accept his
shortcomings and humble
himself.
There were
talks of a possible merger of small
political parties with the MDC which
could make them stand a greater chance
of effecting political change in the
country.
If these parties truly want to achieve
their
objective,they should put aside their differences and unite to form an
even
stronger and bigger MDC led by Morgan
Tsvangirai.
Let's work for a common goal (to
change Zimbabwe's
roadmap) - not personal
gains.
Josephat
Chitete,
Mount Pleasant,
Harare.
----------
Exciting part omitted
YOUR letters
editor made many changes to my
letter "Enlightened on MDC rift, thanks to
Coltart", (Zimbabwe Independent,
June
9).
What he chose to exclude was
interesting. More
disturbing was that the entire final paragraph was
excluded. This could only
lead your readers to believe that I condone MDC
violence. I do not.
Although you chose to
exclude the entire final
paragraph which made some criticism of the
independent press, I would be
obliged if you could restore the last
sentence. It read: "If Morgan
Tsvangirai has finally succumbed and now
chosen to respond to violence with
violence, one cannot wholly blame him
after all that the party has endured.
But he is not the leader we
want."
It is my belief that the majority of
Zimbabweans want a peaceful, democratic society with a government chosen by
them at properly constituted elections.
They do not want to be intimidated by
violence, whoever instigates that
violence. They do not want to be led by
violent people who feel that
coercion is the only way to seize and control
power. And they do not want a
government chosen for them by South Africa or
the European
Union.
LZ,
Harare.
* Editor replies: Letters are
sometimes cut to
fit.
----------
Just a
thought
MANY people rejoiced when
Zimbabwe paid back
part of its debt to the IMF, but my question is how did
we use the millions
of dollars afforded to us in the first
place?
Did we better ourselves as a
nation using
this money in any way? And did we really need the loan back
then? Maybe the
IMF's decision not to grant Zimbabwe another loan is
justifiable. It's just
a thought.
Josephat Chitete,
Mount
Pleasant.
----------
Your source is a bogus
architect
By George
Mthupha
ON April 13 the Zimbabwe
Independent
published an article under the title "Architects forced to
charge below set
fee".
The Architects
Council of Zimbabwe would
like to inform the public that the said article
was very misleading,
inaccurate and mischievous in its whole
content.
Firstly, the Architects Council
is not aware
of such assertions and inquiries amongst member of the
Institute of
Architects is to the
negative.
Secondly, the said Mr Richard
Padzarondora
is not a registered architect. The Architects Council which
registers and
keeps records of architects registration has no record of such
a person. It
therefore stands that Mr Padzorondora is masquerading as an
architect and
should be prosecuted
forthwith.
The firm Empire Architects is
not registered
either and does not exist. If it does, it is existing
illegally. Legal
action is being executed in this
respect.
Architects fees are not set by
the Institute
of Architects, but by the Architects Council through the
Architects Act
which is a public Act.
The statutory fees for architects is not 6%
of the construction cost but are
determined on a sliding fee scale from
12-6% of construction cost depending
on the nature of the works involved.
The
article quotes Harare City Council
building inspectors as being the main
culprits. The public is warned and
advised that these inspectors are not
architects. It is illegal for them to
render architectural services to the
public as individuals.
It is very
mischievous to assert that
builders employ architects. Architects are
employed by developers and they
in turn supervise builders. The public is
hereby informed that it is a
prosecutable offence for any registered
architect to charge fees below
statutory
levels.
It is also an offence for any
persons in
Zimbabwe who are not registered as architects in accordance with
the
provisions of the Architects Act of Zimbabwe to call themselves, or use
the
term architect.
Members of the
public are hereby strongly
advised to seek architectural services from
duly-registered architects by
insisting on being provided with proof of
their registration or seek advice
from the Architects Council of Zimbabwe
and the Institute of Architects of
Zimbabwe at the IAZ/ACZ Secretariat,
Conquener House, 256 Samora Machel
Avenue East, PO Box 3592 Harare, Tel/fax:
746826, e-mail
archzim@africaonline.co.zw.
*MG Mthupha is chairman of the Architects
Council of Zimbabwe.