Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
THE financial sector is facing a fresh crisis
amid reports that
the five biggest banks are sitting on costly treasury bill
(TB) portfolios
that could wipe out their accumulated capital, it was
established this week.
While the looming crisis threatens the
entire banking sector,
sources indicated that it was the top five commercial
banks - Standard
Chartered, Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, Barclays Bank,
Stanbic Bank and
Zimbabwe Banking Corporation - which were haemorrhaging
from a raft of RBZ
policies that could precipitate bank
failures.
The five banks control close to 90% of all deposits
in the
financial services sector.
The situation has been
compounded by the high statutory reserve
requirements for commercial banks
which have shifted huge amounts of
deposits from the banking system,
transferring them to the Reserve Bank.
Commercial banks are understood to be
holding large TBs in their portfolios,
most of which have yields of around
200%.
However, the banks are financing their positions at
rates in
excess of 850% through the overnight accommodation facility of the
central
bank, creating big gaps between their financing costs and the cost
of their
TB assets. The TBs are difficult to redeem for cash until maturity,
and this
has forced banks to seek recourse to the central bank through the
overnight
accommodation window to fund short positions.
Under the current regime, banks that have surplus cash are
forced to invest
in two-year tenor bills with interest rates of 120% if they
fail to buy TBs
from daily auctions. This policy has been largely viewed as
punishing banks
that efficiently manage their liquidity positions.
The
Bankers Association of Zimbabwe (BAZ) has written to Reserve
Bank governor
Gideon Gono expressing fears of a major banking crisis unless
urgent action
is taken. One of the BAZ memos to Gono noted that while
smaller banks had
been borrowing smaller amounts, these were nevertheless
higher than before
February.
"Merchant banks and buildings societies have been
borrowing from
their commercial banks but this is unlikely to go on for much
longer in view
of the liquidity strain on their banks," the BAZ memo to
Gono, dated March
28, 2006, said.
It warned that
developments from the RBZ's monetary policies
were "a major concern to the
industry and will, if not addressed urgently,
precipitate bank failures
within three months".
Following a review of statutory reserve
ratios earlier this
year, commercial banks are effectively paying out 58% of
all their deposits
to the RBZ, money that does not earn interest. Of the
balance from the
deposits, 76% has been locked up in TBs.
Bankers said the recent hike in the statutory reserve ratio had
undermined
previous initiatives ensuring viability of banking institutions.
The low
statutory reserve payments had been accompanied by the issuance of
180-day
and 270-day TBs instead of funds being credited to each bank's
position.
However, the recent change in policy has not
provided for the
redemption of the TBs issued under the old facility, or
their liquidation.
The average yield on all TBs has been
diluted by the impact of
728-day, 260-day and 270-day
TBs.
This, at a time when the accommodation rate was very
high, meant
that most banks were carrying TBs, particularly those with tenor
longer than
90 days, at huge cost, documents show.
The
documents, which include correspondence between bankers and
the central
bank, indicate that big financial institutions are each picking
up debts as
high as $1 trillion daily through borrowings from the RBZ, with
daily
interest charges in excess of $500 billion. Some banks have paid up
interest
amounting to $1,5 trillion each between February and last
month.
The Zimbabwe Independent understands that the central
bank is in
a quandary over the issue. While its latest measures have been
aimed at
addressing the concerns of the big banks, these have been rendered
ineffective by its tight monetary policy aimed at reining in inflation,
currently at 913,6% year-on-year for March. It is feared the inflation
figure for April, blocked by government this week, is over 1
000%.
The RBZ, which recently revised upwards to 200%
interest on
current two-year TB stocks banks currently hold after
representations from
bankers, this week restructured its policy framework,
saying it would start
issuing only long-term paper with inflation-indexed
interest rates, based on
the average annual inflation rate, plus a
margin.
Barely two days after the policy, the RBZ reverted to
the
initial policy framework by re-introducing 91-day TBs, but rejected bids
asking for high yields.
But of concern to bankers is how
the RBZ will determine
inflation-indexed interest rates in the absence of
updated inflation data.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
UNITED
Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, who is expected to
visit Harare later
this year, is working on a plan to resolve the Zimbabwe
crisis and provide a
possible exit strategy for President Robert Mugabe,
diplomatic sources said
this week.
The sources said Annan was hoping to make a major
breakthrough
on the Zimbabwe issue before he retires
soon.
He is said to be working with the international
community on the
issue, including South African President Thabo Mbeki who
has been the world's
point-man on Zimbabwe for the past six
years.
Sources said Annan's plan includes offering Mugabe an
internationally-backed plan for Zimbabwe's rehabilitation and economic
recovery, which implies economic aid in the form of balance-of-payments
support, investment and trade finance, on condition that he give a firm
timetable for his departure. If Mugabe agrees to the plan, he will also be
offered amnesty over accusations of human rights abuses.
It is understood the international community also wants a
programme of
political and economic reforms to ensure quick recovery. The
other issues
include transitional arrangements, constitutional reform, free
and fair
elections, culminating in a legitimate regime in Harare.
Sources said the plan includes the need for a comprehensive
package of
reforms that Zimbabwe has been working on of late with the
International
Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF in March refused to lift
sanctions on Zimbabwe
insisting on full payment of arrears and structural
reforms.
Mugabe recently offered to "build bridges" with
Britain and
other countries to end Zimbabwe's isolation. However, the
international
community, including the United States and the European Union,
have
indicated no talks are possible unless a major policy shift and reform
agenda are adopted in Harare.
Last month Finance minister
Herbert Murerwa was given the same
message when he met former Belgian deputy
prime minister and foreign
minister Louis Michel in
Brussels.
Mbeki tried to work through the IMF to resolve the
Zimbabwe
issue by offering a conditional US$1 billion loan which Mugabe
rejected.
Mugabe in February in effect told Mbeki to "keep away" from
Zimbabwe.
Annan last month dispatched Professor Ibrahim
Gambari, the UN
Under-Secretary-General for political affairs, to South
Africa where he held
talks with Mbeki on several issues, including
Zimbabwe.
Sources said Gambari also met Foreign Affairs
minister
Simbarashe Mumbengegwi on April 23 in Pretoria. The sources said
talks
between the two were frosty, putting Annan's visit in
doubt.
A UN official last night confirmed Gambari visited
South Africa
recently and met Mbeki.
Mugabe and Annan
last year clashed over the Anna Tibaijuka
report on Operation
Murambatsvina.
Mugabe's press secretary George Charamba said
in March Annan had
indicated to Mugabe he would visit Zimbabwe when he gets
time. He said UNDP
administrator Mark Malloch-Brown had written to Mugabe on
Annan's proposed
visit.
Charamba also said Mumbengegwi
would be working with Gambari on
the programme for Annan's
trip.
Annan held talks with Mbeki on Zimbabwe on March 14. He
endorsed
Mbeki's quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe, saying: "The situation in
Zimbabwe is
extremely difficult. It's difficult for the Zimbabweans, it's
difficult for
the region and it's difficult for the world."
Zim Independent
A TEAM of Chinese scientists has set up camp in
Makuti in the
Zambezi Valley in what could be the beginning of uranium
exploration in the
country.
Sources in the Makuti area
said an 18-member Chinese delegation
with sophisticated equipment had been
booked into Makuti Hotel for the past
two weeks.
Hotel
owners, Scotlea Holdings, confirmed that they had a
Chinese contingent as
their guests but could not give details as to their
business in the
area.
"We can confirm that we have up to 18 Chinese delegates
at the
hotel," Scotlea spokesman, Costa Pafitis, said. "We can't ask
delegates what
they are up to unless they fail to pay their
bills."
Speculation is rife that the delegation could be
prospecting
following the discovery of uranium deposits on the Zambezi
escarpment.
Contacted for comment, Vicky Fanqi, in charge of
the commercial
section at the Chinese embassy in Harare, said she would need
to check on
what the team was doing in Makuti.
"We don't
have the information on what the delegation could be
doing," Fanqi
said.
The activities of the Chinese have created a lot of
interest
among residents in the small service centre located about 300km
north-west
of Harare on the Chirundu highway.
President
Mugabe last year announced that Zimbabwe had uranium
reserves which the
country wanted to explore.
l Meanwhile, a Russian business
delegation from the country's
State Foreign Trade Company, Tyazhpromexport,
is in the country to explore
business opportunities as government steps up
efforts to raise US$2,5
billion announced in its latest economic revival
programme.
The 12-member team, which arrived on Wednesday,
government
sources say, includes industrialists, miners and politicians. The
team has
held meetings with officials from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the
Ministry
of Finance and the Ministry of Transport and
Communications.
The Russian delegation was also expected to
meet President
Mugabe. The visit to Zimbabwe follows RBZ governor Gideon
Gono's recent
10-day visit to Russia during which he explored the purchase
of Russian
planes by Air Zimbabwe and the possibility of a loan agreement,
sources said
yesterday.
The sources said the reciprocal
visit by the Russian team this
week was an attempt by government to secure
investment in mining, transport
and the construction industry after slow
progress in securing investment
from China. Official sources said the issue
of a loan agreement was however
not on the cards.
The
Russian State Foreign Trade Company was scheduled to sign a
co-operation
agreement and to establish an ad hoc joint group of experts.
Unconfirmed reports also say Russia has expressed interest in
participating
in platinum exploration and mining in Zimbabwe. The group,
sources said, was
also being enticed to invest in railway constructions and
to undertake
capital projects on a Build Operate and Transfer basis.
Zimbabwe is also
interested in purchasing medium and long haul passenger
aircraft from
Russia.
Government sources who spoke to the Zimbabwe
Independent on
Tuesday said the Russian delegation was not only seeking
business
opportunities but was also assessing the quality of guarantees that
Zimbabwe
could provide for possible loan agreements.
The
visit by the Russian business-people has been kept under
wraps by the
government which is keen to strike deals before the team's
departure this
weekend.
Zimbabwe and Russia have a long history of
co-operation although
this appeared to have been eclipsed of late by growing
relations with China.
Zimbabwe has in the
past purchased
military equipment from Russia but the latest
foray is clearly aimed,
sources say, at heading off exclusive Chinese
acquisition of untapped
resources. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
MORE details
about President Robert Mugabe's attempt to postpone
the presidential
election to 2010 for him to secure a two-year extension of
his term of
office emerged this week with indications that he was determined
to avoid
the next election.
Reliable official sources said Mugabe now
wants to continue
because he believes there is no one strong enough in the
ruling Zanu PF to
take over from him and lead the party to an election
victory in just 22
months' time. The scheduled presidential poll is in March
2008.
Sources said Mugabe was not convinced Vice-President
Joice
Mujuru or his former heir apparent Emmerson Mnangagwa were
sufficiently
strong to hold the party together and win the poll in which the
opposition
might field one candidate in a Kenyan-style coalition which
brought
President Mwai Kibaki to power in 2002.
Information to hand shows that Justice minister Patrick
Chinamasa and
Mnangagwa have been given the task to work on proposed
amendments to the
constitution to postpone the election to 2010. Mugabe is
expected to
continue as president elected by parliament between 2008 and
2010 if his
health permits.
Ruling party sources said there were several
reasons why Mugabe
wants to continue in power.
"The
president seems to think that no one in the party at the
moment can unite us
and win the crucial election. He fears a new leader
might not be able to
galvanise the party to victory due to current
divisions," a Zanu PF source
said.
"There is also this concern that beyond him nobody will
be able
to hold the party together, especially after the Tsholotsho saga
which left
us divided into two rival groups."
The sources
said Mugabe was also worried about his fate after
leaving office due to
growing accusations of human rights violations
perpetrated during his
tenure. Local and international human rights groups
have accused Mugabe's
regime of violating people's rights and warned of the
possibility of holding
its members to account.
Mugabe said last weekend in Malawi
"the people" would decide on
who will succeed him.
"Succession is a matter for the people," he said. "The people
decide who
will rule them. We have a party, the party will nominate a
candidate,
otherwise there is no democracy."
His reluctance to clarify
the succession issue and give a firm
timetable for his departure 22 months
before the presidential election seems
to confirm he is not planning to
retire just yet.
An anonymous column in the
government-controlled Herald,
generally believed to be written by Mugabe's
press secretary George Chramba,
two weeks ago seemed to confirm
this.
"There is an assumption that Zanu PF will oblige its
own
destruction through a change of guard which has to come that year (2008)
because Europe expects it, and which has to produce a softer, pro-West
politician because Europe wants one such," the columnist
said.
"It is all staked on some tenuous remarks (in the
press)
attributed to the president that he will not run for another term.
This is
the same man whose word they say cannot be taken (for it), the same
man they
say cannot be trusted with the future of Zimbabwe. They desperately
are
inclined to trust him to leave Zimbabwe House in 2008. Ha, ha,
ha!"
Vice-President Joseph Msika, who is understood to have a
gentleman's agreement with his boss that they will quit at the same time,
was quoted by the state-controlled Sunday Mail saying he was not going
anywhere either.
"I have no intention to retire and I
have never thought of
quitting. I'm still in it.We don't want to leave this
country in the hands
of half-baked revolutionaries and half-baked
nationalists."
Zim Independent
THE Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa)
has taken the
draft Interception of Communications Bill to the African
Commission on Human
and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) meeting running from May
11-25 in The Gambia.
Making a presentation to the 39th
Ordinary Session of the ACHPR,
Banjul, Misa legal officer Wilbert Mandinde
told the commission that the
press freedom situation in Zimbabwe had not
changed.
He urged the commission to continue to put pressure
on the
government to restore the rule of law and respect for human
rights.
"We are concerned that the Zimbabwean government is
coming up
with an Interception of Communications Bill," Mandinde said. "The
Bill will
empower the government to spy into telephone and e-mail messages
in what
will obviously be a blatant and outright invasion of privacy and an
infringement of the right to receive and impart ideas without interference
with one's correspondence."
He told the commission that
the proposed Bill would make it
compulsory for service providers to install
the enabling equipment on behalf
of the state while empowering state
agencies to open mail passing through
the post and through licensed courier
service providers.
"The Bill stipulates that operators of
telecommunications
services will be compelled to install software and
hardware to enable them
to intercept and store information as directed by
the state," Mandinde said.
The ACHPR, during a fact-finding
mission to Harare in 2002,
expressed concern over the suppression of
fundamental rights and liberties
through laws such as the Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act
(Aippa), the Public Order and
Security Act (Posa), and the Broadcasting
Services Act (BSA) and recommended
that the laws be repealed or amended.
"We note with concern
that the legislation has neither been
repealed nor amended," Mandinde said.
"We are further shocked that the Media
and Information Commission
chairperson Tafataona Mahoso has reportedly
submitted to government
proposals to amend Aippa to regulate the entry of
foreign publications into
Zimbabwe.
"Based on our experience with this commission, we
foresee the
banning of foreign publications into the country," Mandinde
said. "The
proposed amendments are therefore jarring as they come in the
wake of
unchallenged reports that the government is reportedly reviewing
Aippa with
a view to removing offending provisions in the
Act."
* Meanwhile, delegates attending an Eastern and
Southern African
Media Councils Conference in Bagamayo in Tanzania have
pledged their support
for the ongoing campaign to establish an independent
media council in
Zimbabwe.
The delegates at the meeting
passed a resolution at the end of
the conference which noted that "under
universally accepted values, freedom
of communication which includes freedom
of expression, media freedom and the
right to information, are fundamental
human rights."
The conference, which was held in the first
week of May, drew
delegates from the Netherlands, Tanzania, Lesotho, Uganda,
Zambia, Kenya and
the World Association of Press Councils among
others.
Zimbabwean journalists are currently involved in a
process that
would see an independent media council being set up to regulate
the
operations of the media in the country.
Currently the
media in the country is controlled by a statutory
body, the Media and
Information Commission (MIC). The delegates stressed
that non-statutory,
voluntary and independent media councils were,
therefore, integral to
effective self-regulation free of government
control. - Staff
Writers.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
FRESH land seizures
have debunked government's claims of having
completed farm acquisitions as
disturbances on the farms continue unabated
with owners still fighting legal
battles or seeking government intervention
to repel the new
invaders.
Commercial Farmers Union vice president, Trevor
Gifford, and
scores of other remaining white farmers from Karoi have become
the latest
victims of the invasions as new allottees move onto properties,
wanting an
immediate takeover.
On the other hand
Information deputy minister Bright Matonga is
being taken to court for
forcibly harvesting billions of dollars worth of
the soya bean crop planted
by a white farmer at Chigwell Estate. The
minister alleges the crop belongs
to him after he obtained an offer letter
allocating him part of the
farm.
In an interview with the Independent, Chigwell Estate
owner,
Thomas Beattie said Matonga forcibly reaped his soya beans and is
threatening to harvest seed maize.
"Matonga has already
cut soya beans valued at not less than $20
billion," Beattie
said.
"He is threatening to harvest a seed maize valued at
$150
billion which we grew under contract with SeedCo. The threats have
forced us
to seek an interdict from the courts."
Beattie's lawyer Ozias Musamirapamwe of Gula-Ndebele &
Associates
confirmed that they were taking Matonga to court over the
unlawful harvests
at the farm but could not give details saying that the
matter was before the
courts.
"We expect a ruling any time this week so to comment
on the
matter would be sub judice," Musamirapamwe said.
Matonga is claiming 793 hectares of Chigwell estate of which 105
hectares is
export citrus fruits, 350 hectares irrigable land and the rest
already
developed arable land.
Beattie said since April last year
when Matonga occupied
Chigwell Estate, his actions have become increasingly
aggressive, often
seizing farming inputs stored in the workshop complex,
blocking the owner
from using his equipment and forcibly moving into his
son's house where he
is living without paying water or electricity
bills.
"We had again to seek courts intervention to be
allowed access
to our equipment and farming inputs," Beattie
said.
A High Court order granted in November last year states
that:
"the applicant (Beattie) is hereby granted full and unfettered use of
farming inputs, farm machinery and equipment stored in the workshop complex
as long as (he) continues its farming operations on Chigwell
Estate."
The order also states that the dispute over the
location of the
workshop complex should be referred to the appropriate
government department
for arbitration.
Chigwell Estate is
a consolidation of five farms producing
citrus fruits exported to the Middle
East, Europe and Russia.
"We are a consolidation of five
farms employing around 1 200
people and have a turnover of $50 billion,"
Beattie said.
"We are exporting about 300 000 cartons of
oranges each year,
fetching between US$7 and US$10 per
carton."
Settling at Chigwell farm would now mean that Matonga
owns two
farms including Mupandaguta Farm in Banket that he violently seized
in 2001.
In a twist of irony during the take-over of the 1
500 hectare
Mupandaguta Farm, Matonga's white wife Anne screamed at the
Schultz family:
"Get off our land; we are taking back what you stole from
our forefathers."
Anne had moved to Zimbabwe only two weeks
before after a
lifetime in Britain.
CFU vice president
Gifford's Wolgerhampton Farm became the
latest victim of government's
indiscriminate land seizures when it was
invaded on
Monday.
Gifford previously attracted serious criticism from
displaced
white farmers after revealing to the media that the CFU was in
collaboration
with the state to bring back displaced farmers. He jointly
issued the
statement of his organisation's collaboration with CFU president
Doug
Taylor-Freeme.
Observers said the CFU's appeasement
policy had spared most of
its top leadership the wrath of the marauding Zanu
PF zealots who had been
invading farms indiscriminately over the past six
years.
In an interview with the Independent on Tuesday,
Gifford said an
alleged new owner of his property, Thomas Mbanje,
accompanied by the local
lands officer and a police officer arrived at the
farm wanting to take it
over.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
THE Harare
Commission has put on hold Vice President Joice
Mujuru's directive to
transfer water billing and collection to the Zimbabwe
National Water
Authority (Zinwa) pending deliberations by commissioners on
the thorny
issue, town clerk Nomutsa Chideya said on Tuesday.
"Every
relevant committee would look at the matter before coming
up with a
resolution," he said.
Chideya was responding to questions by
Harare North MDC
legislator Trudy Stevenson if the transfer was "in the
interests of
residents" during a hearing by the Parliamentary Portfolio
Committee on
Local government.
Cabinet last year resolved
that Zinwa take over the treatment
and transmission of water to reservoirs
only with the city retaining
responsibility for the distribution of the
water to consumers, billing and
collection of revenue.
In
prepared answers to the committee the commission said Zinwa
had provided the
city with a directive from Mujuru for the takeover of the
billing and
collection.
"The compelling assumption is that the takeover
of billing and
revenue constitutes the taking over of the infrastructural
system for
ordinarily it is inconceivable to do
otherwise".
Former Harare mayor and Zanu PF's Highfield- Glen
Norah-Glen
View senator Charles Tawengwa said there was need to proceed with
caution
when dealing with Zinwa because the city could be
prejudiced.
Zim Independent
Ray Matikinye
A STAMPEDE for
instant riches that bears stunning resemblance to
the 1897 Klondike gold
rush has taken on new dimensions as Zanu PF
functionaries and status seekers
abuse their new-found positions to reap
where they did not
sow.
Picture a recently elected legislator leading a
marauding band
of land invaders hurtling to displace a Danish dairy
establishment on the
outskirts of Harare and the similarities become
obvious.
Picture too a deputy minister trying to force out a
successful
citrus grower and exporter at Chigwell Farm near Chegutu after
abandoning
another farm acquired earlier in Banket and marvel at the
avarice.
The Klondike gold rush began when two ships docked
in San
Francisco and Seattle carrying miners returning from the Yukon with
bags of
gold.
Soon, miners of all shapes and sizes were
on their way to the
gold fields. Within six months, an estimated 100 000
gold-seekers set off
for the Yukon but only a third completed the
trip.
Like some of our "new farmers" that are clueless about
commercial agriculture, most of those involved in the gold rush knew little
or nothing about where they were going or what they had to do when they got
there, so pamphlets were made available to help them on their
way.
The brochures contained little or imprecise information
that
exaggerated the amount of wealth to be made by everyone. Adventurers
realised there were no gold coins along the paths.
When
the late Zanu PF luminary, Eddison Zvobgo, told parliament:
"We have turned
what was a noble agrarian revolution into a racist
enterprise," few of his
colleagues quite grasped the import of his remarks.
Even when
Zvobgo's contemporary and Vice-President Joseph Msika
belatedly warned
farmers at a field day in Kadoma recently that government
cannot remove
every white commercial farmer "because it is stupidity", a
good number of
them chuckled up their sleeves.
"When some of you take these
farms, you don't make use of them.
Regai kubvisa anogona kurima nokuti ane
ganda rakasiyana nerako (Don't evict
productive farmers on the basis of the
colour of their skin)" Msika said,
adding that some farmers had been chased
away without state permission.
Some of Zvobgo's headstrong
contemporaries have gone ahead and
made a noble agrarian reform programme an
enterprise tinged with open racism
and theft.
Others have
ventured streets further to taint the agrarian
reform by assuming the role
of serial harvesters or robber barons of farm
equipment and implements
rather than showcase their industry and acumen as
competent
farmers.
Rewind to 2000 and witness erstwhile indigent
peasants suddenly
transfigured from owners of three modest pole and mud huts
to proud owners
of fully furnished multi-billion dollar mansions on
commercial farmland
accommodating large herds.
Six years
down the line, Zimbabwe's agrarian reform has
transformed into much more
than a racist enterprise.
The noble land revolution that a
prescient Zvobgo spoke about
has become an enterprise by cronies of the
ruling elite to reap where they
have not sown out of sheer greed veiled in
dubious radicalism as "remedying
the maladies of colonial land
imbalances".
Fathom the folly and deception of a junior clerk
in the Lands
ministry brandishing an "offer letter" in the face of an
indigenous farmer
bidding to take over well-run livestock rebuilding
initiative at Solario
Estate in Zvimba.
Then you begin to
appreciate the exasperation, frustration and
nightmares central bank
governor, Gideon Gono must endure in attempting to
stop further land
invasions and put back on track an economy flying off the
handle.
When you superimpose a governor in Masvingo
making frantic
efforts to dispossess the widow of a beneficiary of a cattle
ranch while
another legislator in the same province brags about owning 2 500
head of
beef cattle, commandeered from an elderly white widow in Mwenezi, a
broader
picture of the nouveau riche emerges.
Or a
minister tasked with the portfolio to maintain law and
order, consorting
with his spouse in kicking out a citrus grower in order to
harvest 7 000
tonnes of ripe export quality fruit in Matabeleland South.
These are the emerging crops of fortune seekers, scrambling on a
self-aggrandisement mission on the pretext of recovering "land stolen from
our ancestors", for personal enrichment ahead of genuinely land-short, but
competent peasants.
Hapless peasants wallow on the
fringes, patiently waiting for
their turn to move away from barren
soils.
The ruling elite has transformed itself into landed
gentry,
identical in form to the colonial settler they have
displaced.
For instance, when Joseph Christopher Musa was
elected to
represent Mudzi following the elevation of Ray Kaukonde to
governor for
Mashonaland East, he saw an opportunity in his newly-found
political status
to enrich himself.
Musa sought to grab
Zengea Farm a fortnight ago without due
regard to the bilateral agreement
existing between the Danish government and
Zimbabwe.
Neither did deputy Information minister, Bright Matonga pay any
mind to
existing contracts between prime seed producer SeedCo and farmer
John
Beattie when he cherry-picked Chigwell Estate after abandoning
Mupandaguta
Farm in Banket.
Matonga, together with his spouse who had
arrived from the UK
two weeks before, had displaced an elderly white couple.
They baulked on
realising the amount of input needed to maintain viability.
The couple ran
their tongues over their lips for Chigwell
Estate.
It has become extremely difficult to differentiate
between an
emerging acquisitive ethic among the ruling elite and the
colonial settler
who expropriated land over a century ago and banished the
indigenous people
to wasteland.
But some semblance of
sanity occasionally emerges. Two weeks ago
Mutasa told youths in Karoi who
had requested land for income-generating
projects: "When I say go and take
land, I don't mean productive land already
occupied by white farmers. I mean
idle land."
Mutasa had seen vast tracts of formerly
productive farmland
lying desolate and derelict along the Harare-Chirundu
road on his way to the
youth meeting.
Yet conflicting
signals that have been coming from government
officials appear not to deter
the scramble for ready-made riches by those
with newly found political
clout.
The stampede debunks government claims that the land
reform
programme "has been successfully concluded". By the look of it, it
hasn't
even begun!
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
ALL of the
country's more than 10 controversial national youth
service training centres
have been closed due to lack of resources and food,
sources said this
week.
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Youth and
Gender had
intended to visit Border Gezi training camp but failed to do so
since
February as there were no new intakes this year. Sources said after
the last
intake last year, there had been no further
inductions.
In an interview on Wednesday, the chairperson of
the committee
and Zanu PF Gutu South MP Shuvai Mahofa, confirmed that the
camps had been
closed but could not state the reasons. Mahofa said: "We
cancelled our visit
to Border Gezi because it is closed. We will now go to
any other that they
will open first."
Asked when the
camps would be opened, she said: "Why do you want
that information? Ask the
minister."
The Minister of Youth Development and Employment
Creation
Ambrose Mutinhiri was not available for comment.
His deputy, Saviour Kasukuwere, said there were no problems
adding that they
would continue with vigour. But he was unable to give a
date for their
reopening.
"I do not have a date, but do you want to be
enrolled there?" he
asked.
The government created the
national youth camps in 2001 to
"instill a sense of patriotism" in youths as
well as impart skills suitable
for employment. However, the graduates
commonly referred to as "Green
bombers" have been brainwashed with a Zanu PF
view of Zimbabwe's history
that vilifies the MDC and Western
powers.
Military drills are said to constitute part of their
training.
The youths have been accused of being Zanu PF election campaign
tools
becoming one of the most serious violators of human rights. Some of
their
alleged crimes include torture, rape, destruction of property,
mounting
illegal roadblocks and disrupting opposition rallies. National
service in
Zimbabwe is governed by the National Service Act of 1979 first
enacted in
1976 by the Ian Smith regime as a means of providing forced
recruitment for
its war effort.
After Independence the
government abandoned the project only to
resuscitate it after nearly losing
to the MDC in the disputed 2000 election.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
ZANU PF
has barred controversial politician Edgar Tekere (69)
from seeking any
leadership position for the next five years after
readmitting him to the
party.
In a letter to Tekere, the ruling party's national
chairman John
Nkomo said the party was admitting him on two conditions -
that he remains
an ordinary card carrying member until 2011, when he will be
74, and
observes party rules.
Contacted for comment
yesterday, Tekere said: "Naturally, I do
not like it but I am not commenting
now. I will elaborate later."
Nkomo's letter to Tekere dated
April 7 says: "You will not
exercise your right to be elected to any office
in the party for a period of
five years. You will be required to uphold all
the duties of a member listed
in Article 3, Section 18 of the amended Zanu
PF constitution."
Last year the party snubbed Tekere by
omitting him from a list
of candidates who wanted to participate in the
senate elections despite
having made known his wish to contest on its
ticket.
A former Zanu PF secretary-general and cabinet
minister, Tekere
was expelled from the ruling party in October 1988 after
differing with
President Robert Mugabe and other party members whom he
repeatedly attacked
in public accusing them of corruption, among other
issues.
He went on to form the Zimbabwe Unity Movement that
participated
in the 1990 election and lost.
Zim Independent
CHINESE companies assigned to a number of projects
in the
country are abandoning the sites because of non-payment, putting the
"Look
East" policy in doubt.
Among the Six Chinese firms
are China International Water and
Electric Corporation (Ciwec), contracted
to clear and install irrigation
facilities at the vast Nuanetsi ranch;
China's National Aero-Technologies
Import and Export Corporation; and China
North Industries Corporation tasked
to finance multi-billion dollar
renovation projects at Zesa Holdings and
Hwange Colliery
Company.
The other three firms were assigned to undertaking
the
dualisation of the Harare-Bulawayo and Harare-Masvingo highways as well
as
the construction of the Southern Africa Regional Police Chiefs Conference
centre in Harare.
They have now frozen operations at the
sites as they await
payment.
Ciwec, contracted to clear
100 000 hectares of land for
irrigation, has deserted the site after
clearing less than 5 000 hectares.
The company is said to be owed more
than
$59 billion for work already done.
Sources privy to the developments said China's relations with
Zimbabwe,
which include diplomatic support, trade deals and close military
ties, could
be under strain as a result of government's failure to service
its
debts.
"The current economic situation in the country has
made it
impossible for it to honour its debts," a source
said.
"The Chinese have been hit the hardest since they are
carrying
out a number of projects in Zimbabwe.
"Chinese
banks have supported Zimbabwe's small to medium
enterprises," the source
said. Industries that have received funds include
textile, soap, tile and
fibre glass manufacturing. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
THE contentious Kondozi saga has roped
in Vice-President Joice
Mujuru, who has ordered the return of the
horticultural estate to its
original owners, the Zimbabwe Independent heard
this week.
Government sources said following Mujuru's tour of
Kondozi
Estate last month, which exposed gross underutilisation of the once
highly
productive farm and high-level looting, she initiated the process of
returning the farm to its former owners.
Mujuru is
understood to have been incensed by the Agricultural
and Rural Development
Authority (Arda) and the army's failure to utilise the
property.
Government deployed the army under the command
agriculture
programme dubbed Operation Maguta to till the land. Out of the
224 hectares
of prime land, the army has planted a mere 40
hectares.
"A government delegation met former owners and
majority
shareholder, Edwin Moyo, two weeks ago," sources said. "Moyo
demanded a
written undertaking that there wouldn't be any interference with
the
operations if they returned to the farm. He also needed a guarantee that
looted equipment would be returned."
Sources said the
agreement between government and the former
owner was expected to be signed
within two weeks.
Moyo would neither confirm nor deny the
development but referred
all questions to Lands and Land Resettlement
minister Didymus Mutasa. Mutasa's
mobile phone went
unanswered.
Moyo, Adrian Zeederburg and the De Klerk family,
jointly owned
Canvest Farming, a former Export Processing Zone agro-firm
that in turn
owned Kondozi and had secured markets for flowers and
horticultural produce
in the United Kingdom, Canada and Switzerland. Moyo
had a majority 52%
shareholding in the venture.
Kondozi
made news in December 2003 when ministers Joseph Made
and Christopher
Mushowe reportedly invaded the farm on Christmas eve. The
farm was
subsequently taken over in the name of Arda in April 2004, a move
which was
strong opposed by Vce-President Joseph Msika and other Zanu PF
politicians.
Then Information Jonathan Moyo scoffed at
Msika's protestations,
saying there was "no going back on Kondozi". - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
THE government has
defaulted on a scheduled US$12 million ($1,2
trillion) debt repayment to
China's state-owned Aviation Industry
Corporation of China (Avic) which last
year supplied Air Zimbabwe with two
MA60 passenger planes under a credit
arrangement, businessdigest established
this week.
The
government had promised to clear the debt, acquired under a
financing
arrangement with the Chinese for the purchase of the two aircraft
at the end
of last year.
The Chinese had given Zimbabwe a third aircraft
as a token of
appreciation for the purchases.
Sources
said Chinese aviation authorities had expressed
displeasure at Zimbabwe's
failure to undertake its commitments to clear
outstanding debts related to
the acquisitions.
"The government has not paid the Chinese
government as per
agreement. It now appears our government negotiated in bad
faith," an
official said.
The official said at present
the Chinese had stopped some
projects they were planning to undertake with
their Zimbabwean counterparts
due to their "failure to pay debts on an
agreed date".
Air Zimbabwe spokesman, David Mwenga, said he
could not comment
on the issues when contacted for comment, referring all
questions to
government which is the shareholder in Air
Zimbabwe.
"About the procurement of the planes, talk to
government who are
the major shareholder of Air Zimbabwe," Mwenga said,
adding that it was the
government which had acquired the aircraft for the
airline.
He said Air Zimbabwe would make comments over the
aircraft only
if the issues related to operations.
No
comment could be obtained from the Minister of Transport and
Communication,
Chris Mushohwe who brokered the deal on behalf of government.
"Last year the national airline dispatched a team of engineers
to test and
inspect the two MA60 aircrafts before they were bought.
Government agreed to
pay in installments at a subsequent visit which was led
by Mushowe," a
source said.
The two planes service regional routes to Beira,
Lusaka,
Lilongwe and Lubumbashi, and the Bulawayo, Kariba and Victoria Falls
routes
locally.
The third plane (a gift from China) which
is currently grounded
due to lack of spare parts was expected to service
Hwange and the
Transfrontier Parks among other routes in a bid to promote
tourism in the
country.
"The third plane was grounded
just weeks after it was handed
over to the Zimbabwean government in January.
The plane has failed to live
up to its expectations."
Air
Zimbabwe intends to buy two other planes this year.
Presenting evidence to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on
Mines,
Environment and Tourism recently, Air Zimbabwe's acting chief
executive
officer Oscar Madombwe said: "We intend to buy two long haul
aeroplanes
(767) and two 737 (medium haul) and one cargo plane. The funds
would be made
available by the government and Cabinet has already approved
the
proposals."
The airline's boss acknowledged that Air Zimbabwe
was suffering
from a shortage of foreign currency and negative public
perceptions locally
and abroad.
"The airline is suffering
from negative perceptions from the
travelling public, both local and abroad,
on issues to do with safety,
reliability and service delivery," Madombwe
said.
"As a result, there has been a decline in business. In
1999 we
carried one million passengers, but last year (the figure) dropped
to a mere
230 000. We are operating in a difficult environment," he
said.
Zim Independent
By Admire Mavolwane
HOW would you
describe Zimbabwe? This was one of the easier
questions to respond to
honestly during the 1980s and into the 1990s.
The answer has,
since 2000, taken different forms depending on
one's forthrightness or
political correctness. To make matters worse, events
of the past six or so
months have made the question even much harder to
address earnestly without
a sense of nostalgia.
Most, if not all business executives,
though, will respond by
saying that Zimbabwe is a country where strategic
seminars and the
accompanying documents are now just a waste of precious
resources.
The strategic options adopted at such colloquiums
would in most
cases be valid for just a couple of months if not only one. In
the banking
sector the time factor for trading strategies is even shorter,
sometimes
just a few hours.
Stock market investors, on
the other hand, would allude to how
it is easy to make, or lose, money on
the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.
One thing that stands out at the
moment is how frequently the
country's policies change. Moreover, some
official pronouncements can change
depending simply on the audience. Policy
shifts, especially from the central
bank, used to come every three months,
but have now become even more
frequent. So every few weeks, businesses have
to make costly realignments of
strategies. Who would have thought after
October 2005 that the country would
once again have fixed exchange rates?
The introduction of the Tradable
Foreign Currency Balance system was greeted
by many with a lot of optimism
and it did not disappoint. The gap between
the parallel market rate and the
inter-bank rate narrowed significantly.
Come end of January, the exchange
rate was effectively pegged at $100 000 to
the US dollar once again and has
remained so since then. What it means is
that those who had made their
strategic plans and budgets in December 2005
based on the inter-bank rate
needed, all of a sudden, to rethink their
options.
In the past two months, policy volatility has
increased
markedly. On April 7, the Reserve Bank announced what was then
called the
2006 Tobacco Support Framework. This was ahead of the opening of
the tobacco
auction floors on April 25, thus giving farmers roughly 17 days
to plan.
Farmers, presumably, started delivering their crop based on the
April 7
framework. Arguments, against or for, subsidies aside, the
announcement
being official, could be used for planning purposes or so it
would have
seemed at the time. On April 24, just hours before selling
commenced, the
central bank announced a new framework. So the farmer had to
sit down and
re-do his numbers, weigh his options whether to sell or not,
right there at
the auction floor.
On the same Monday that
the new tobacco support arrangements
were announced, the central bank
governor had an indaba with the bank chiefs
wherein it was emphatically and
unequivocally stated that the high interest
regime would continue. To drive
the point home, the overnight accommodation
rate was increased from 750% to
800% for secured lending.
Exactly two weeks later, on May 8,
a new monetary policy stance
was put in place. The central bank would no
longer be issuing 91 treasury
bills, but will borrow longer using CPI
index-linked; one, two or three-year
bonds.
This, by
implication, is an indirect dropping of interest rates.
Good for the banks
as they could now breathe again. But a number of players,
who had drawn
their road maps for the future based on the April 24 statement
were wrong
footed.
The sudden swing in the stock market this week, which
saw the
industrial index gaining 6,5% on Tuesday, and 25,69% on Wednesday,
to 45 556
117,66 points, bears testimony to the fact that the move to
suspend the
91-day treasury bills took both the money and stock markets by
surprise.
Everyone wanted to jump into the stock market at the same
time.
Previously, one could sense that some changes were
about to
occur when the market started firming or weakening slowly as the
"more
informed" quietly took positions or exited the market. Investing on
the
stock market is now a question of taking a bet and sitting it out. In
other
words, those investors who took a bet that the high interest rate
regime
would not be sustained for long and even discounted the contents of
the
governor's statement to bankers had already taken positions and were
just
waiting for the bulls to take off. The sudden 4,92% fall in the
industrial
index yesterday to 43 312 752,15 points came as a result of the
panic was
triggered by the re-introduction of 91-day treasury bills. The
treasury
bills were allotted at an average of 350% per annum, which is some
175
percentage points lower than the previous yield of 525% per annum,
causing
even more confusion.
Policies at the very least
are meant to give direction and
guiding parameters to the business
community, markets and the generality of
the public as to where the economy
and country are headed. Thus in normal
circumstances extensive consultations
and scenario analyses have to be
conducted before the policies are announced
to the public. The announcement
itself, usually explains the background to
the policy and the intended
outcome.
A policy reversal is
not bad per se provided concerned parties
are educated on the rationale of
the shift. This means policies that would
have been discovered to be
unworkable are withdrawn and new ones drafted. As
policy changes are
disruptive, due cognisance should be given to the profits
and losses
resulting with the intention of taxes the profits and
compensation for the
losses. This creates an environment for business and
markets to thrive
having overflowing confidence in policies and thus
effectively perform their
respective roles in the economy.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
AIR Zimbabwe's
unbundling programme could hit a major snag, with
sources indicating this
week that the new Strategic Business Units (SBU)
will require a huge cash
outlay which the airline has not yet secured.
Each of the
four subsidiaries that will become the SBUs under
the new group's unbundling
programme will require fresh capital, sources
revealed.
The unbundling process, announced by Air Zimbabwe board chairman
Mike Bimha
last month, will see the creation of a holding company called Air
Zimbabwe
Holdings, with the flagship passenger company becoming a subsidiary
operating as Air Zimbabwe.
Other subsidiaries will be Air
Zimbabwe Cargo, Air Zimbabwe
Technical Services and National Handling
Services (NHS), which had already
been operating as a subsidiary of Air
Zimbabwe.
Air Zimbabwe Cargo would be responsible for the
group's cargo
business and Air Zimbabwe Technical Services for the
maintenance, repairs
and overhaul of facilities.
NHS will
be responsible for passenger and cargo handling at all
operational airports.
Air Zimbabwe is currently run by acting CEO, Oscar
Madombwe, following the
suspension of Tendai Mahachi last year.
It could not be
immediately established how much the four
companies will require in the form
of new capital, but indications are that
over $1 trillion might have to be
injected to give life to the new
operations.
Air Zimbabwe
has suffered persistent operational problems as a
result of high operational
costs and a grounded fleet.
Bimha confirmed that Air Zimbabwe
had not yet decided on how to
capitalise the unbundled operations, saying
the board had not yet met to
discuss the issue.
"We have
not even met as board," he said, responding to a
question from
businessdigest.
Bimha said they were now looking into the
capitalisation and
operational issues of the restructured company since they
had received
cabinet approval, which he said was
important.
Air Zimbabwe Holdings will become answerable to
the board of
directors and will oversee the overall performance of the
SBUs.
Bimha recently announced that as part of the
restructuring
measures, the company would retrench 360
workers.
He said staffing levels had generally remained the
same over the
years despite a drop in passenger traffic and a decline in the
airline's
fleet size. Air Zimbabwe had also lost its market share over the
years. The
first phase of the retrenchment would be voluntary while the
second phase
would be compulsory.
Bimha admitted that
major challenges facing the passenger
company included regaining the
confidence of the market, getting a strategic
partner, re-establishing
reliability, rebranding and modernising the fleet.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
AN acute economic
crisis in the country was scaring away foreign
investors, a Zimbabwe
Investment Centre (ZIC) executive said this week,
pointing out that projects
approved by the quasi-government institution and
offshore enquiries for
investments had significantly declined since 1999.
Speaking
to a parliamentary committee responsible for investment
in Zimbabwe, the ZIC
acting executive director, Richard Mbaiwa, said the
prevailing economic
situation characterised by high inflation, foreign
currency shortages, high
interest rates, inconsistent fuel supplies and
constant power cuts was
scaring away investors.
"The current economic situation in
does not give them confidence
to invest in Zimbabwe," Mbaiwa
said.
He said investors felt that products produced under
present
economic conditions would not compete favourably on the
international
market.
"Not only have projects gone down,
but the enquiries for
opportunities for investment have also gone down. The
investment status
mirrors the current economic situation in Zimbabwe," said
Mbaiwa.
Economic consultant, John Robertson, told
businessdigest that
Zimbabwe was once a vibrant and diversified economy,
bearing the hope for
Africa's future in the late 1980s and early
90s.
Today, it is a country in deep crisis and the signs of
collapse
are abundant.
"Political troubles and the
abandonment of sensible economic
policy have scared away foreign investment,
closed off aid, and chased much
of the talented workforce away," Robertson
said.
He said the economy had contracted in real terms over
the past
six years, with inflation currently at 913,6% for
March.
Mbaiwa said the constant change of economic polices
over the
past seven years, which in most cases was a reaction to the
situation, was
not convincing to potential foreign
investors.
"Investors are sensitive to proposals by
government, for example
the latest in the mining sector. They would be eager
to know the way forward
and how secure their investment would be," Mbaiwa
said.
"The longer such proposals take to be finalised, the
more
investors' patience runs out. In the end they would opt for other
countries," Mbaiwa said.
Mines minister Amos Midzi in
March announced that government
intended to amend mining laws to indigenise
51% of all foreign-owned
companies.
Midzi said the
amendment to the mining laws would give the
government 51% in mining
companies, including 25% on a non-contributory
basis upon
promulgation.
The government would acquire the 25% shares
without paying for
them.
The ZIC approved a record number
of projects in 1998, just
before the crisis. The centre approved 460
projects valued at a record
US$1,7 billion.
The year 1999
was the turning point in the number of foreign
investors, with 235 projects
recorded.
A total of 150 projects valued at US$50 million
were approved in
2000.
In 2001, 85 projects were
approved, with the same number of
projects being approved the following
year.
From 2003 to 2005, a total number of 76, 87 and 74
projects were
approved respectively.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
ZIMBABWE'S tobacco
sales season, which commenced a fortnight
ago, has failed to inject life
into the interbank foreign exchange market,
which is struggling to get
enough volumes to move the exchange rate,
businessdigest can
reveal.
Sources said while the initial movement had been
prompted by
foreign currency volumes on the official market, a second
adjustment of the
local unit against the greenback had been ordered by the
central bank
governor, Gideon Gono.
Zimbabwe's troubled
currency therefore moved by a cumulative 2%
in the past two
week.
The initial movement, which saw the Zimbabwe dollar
losing
ground to the US dollar by 1%, had been prompted by a three-month
record
US$6 197 727,30 in traded volumes, but sources indicated this was not
from
tobacco receipts.
Sources said Gono had last week
instructed bankers to move the
exchange rate marginally, but the central
bank had not given reasons for the
move.
The rate
recently made its first movement on April 26 when the
Zimbabwe dollar lost
1% from $99 201,58:US$1 to $100 193,60:US$1 after the
market recorded
purchases of US$6 197 727,30 against sales of US$6 142
736,27.
The rate further moved by another 1% on May 2 to
settle at $101
195,54 to the greenback.
The purchases
which affected the May 2 rate adjustments amounted
to US$1 251 676 against
sales amounting to US$1 000 264,86.
The rate had been fixed
at $99 201,58 against the greenback
since January when Gono introduced the
volume-based system.
"It's highly unlikely that we'll see a
movement of the exchange
rate in response to the tobacco sales," a banking
sector analyst told
businessdigest. "Besides that, tobacco farmers are
holding on to their
crop," she said.
She said the amount
of foreign currency generated from the
tobacco sales was too low compared to
the volumes required for the rate to
move.
Another
analyst said the receipts from tobacco sales had not
positively impacted on
the interbank exchange rate.
"The movement of the interbank
rate just coincided with
commencement of the tobacco selling season," he
said.
He said the second movement of the rate was without a
corresponding movement in the volumes.
Since it is
volume-based, exchange rate movements depend on the
amounts traded, which
have to reach US$5 million for the lowest adjustments
to
occur.
Daily volumes below US$5 million trigger no adjustment
to the
day's exchange rate, while trades ranging between US$5 million and
US$10
million will see a +/-1% on the mid-rate.
Between
US$10 million and US$15 million will in turn see an
automatic adjustment to
the exchange rate either side of 1,5% and volumes
exceeding US$15 million
will be rewarded with a 2% adjustment.
Government is under
increasing pressure to devalue the Zimbabwe
dollar despite announcing a 35%
tobacco support framework.
Local economists say the
volume-based system does not work and
there is a need to have the rate
determined by market forces.
However, Gono has defended the
volume-based adjustments to the
exchange rates, saying they had been
necessitated by abuse of the interbank
system, where "even US$10
transactions were seen to be pushing the rate by
inordinate
quantum".
"It has become necessary that the market-determined
exchange
rate fluctuate in line with actual volumes traded in the market.
Occasions
as have been noted over the past quarter where the exchange rate
depreciated, even on days where as little as under a quarter of a million US
dollars was traded, reflecting the need for the foreign exchange market to
be reformed further," Gono said.
On the parallel market,
the Zimbabwe dollar traded weakly at an
average of around $213 000 to the US
dollar. Buyers' rates were quoted at
around $211 000, while sellers' rates
were indicated at around $222 000 to
the US dollar.
Zim Independent
FORMER mogul Mutumwa Mawere (Mawere) has been fighting
the
government since it took over his empire, Shabani Mashava Mine (SMM) two
years ago. He recently told the International Monetary Fund that government
had used foreign currency proceeds from his companies to repay its debt.
Shakeman Mugari (Mugari) spoke to Mawere in South Africa about this and
other issues.
Mugari: People say your fight with the
government to recover SMM
is a futile battle. Why are you still
fighting?
Mawere: I'm fighting because it's important that we
elevate and
expose Zimbabwe's problems outside the racial domain and locate
them
squarely on corruption, bad governance and the hopeless economics of
Mugabe's
regime.
Mugari: That means it's now about
politics, is that what you are
saying?
Mawere: No. I'm
fighting so that future generations will not
live in fear of their own
government. I'm fighting so that this government
does not abuse people. I
want to show the hypocrisy of a government that
blasts the British
government but goes on to buy shares in a British
company. I'm exposing
their sanction-busting tactics. People have to know
this government for what
it is. It is a rogue state that steals from
innocent people to enrich
itself.
Mugari: You have been challenging the takeover of SMM
in the UK
courts. Can you give us an update?
Mawere: The
case is still pending. What is important is that the
injustice of the
takeover of my companies and the appointment of Afaras
Gwaradzimba
(administrator) by government, ostensibly for national interest,
has been
exposed.
Mugari: Are you challenging government's claims that
the
companies were insolvent when they took over?
Mawere:
It's shocking that whereas in Zimbabwe they said my
companies were insolvent
the government went to London to try and pay US$2
million for the same
company. If they were insolvent then why spend that
kind of money in a
country where people are starving?
Mugari: How did the case
get to the UK courts?
Mawere: It's the government of Zimbabwe
because they realised
that because SMM is a UK-registered company, the
takeover cannot be
completed without the assent from the British court. It's
them who are
fighting to be registered as shareholders in SMM through a
nominee company,
AMG Global Nominees - which is actually owned by
Gwaradzimba who is
apparently the administrator of SMM
(Zimbabwe).
Mugari: So you are saying the government's
takeover of your
companies is not complete without assent from the British
courts?
Mawere: Yes, without that assent they will not take
it over. It
shows you that they are really desperate, otherwise why are they
going to
the UK?
Mugari: But why are you fighting
Zimbabwean government in a UK
court and not challenging them in
Zimbabwe?
Mawere: It's ironic that 26 years after
Independence I have more
confidence in the UK judiciary system than I have
in the Zimbabwean system.
The Zimbabwe judiciary has lost
credibility.
Mugari: Who in particular in government
instigated the takeover
of your companies?
Mawere: It was
the Tsholotsho guys who wanted to finance their
rise to power. They wanted
to siphon money out of SMM to fund their
Tsholotsho
project.
Mugari: You wrote to President Mugabe asking him to
intervene to
stop the takeover. Did he respond?
Mawere:
He did not respond. How can he respond when the
Tsholotsho crew fed him
lies? They told him that I was financing the
opposition. They are still
planting stories in the media that I'm
fund-raising for the
MDC.
Mugari: Tell us about your claims that the government
used your
money to pay the IMF.
Mawere: Yes, I told the
IMF that the government of Zimbabwe used
my money to pay the debt and that
is true. I met their IMF officers in
Washington and presented them with
compelling evidence to prove my claims.
Mugari: What is the
evidence to back that allegation?
Mawere: It's clear that the
government is broke. If a broke
government takes over my company and then a
few months down the line they
start paying their debts, I have every reason
to believe that they are using
my money. Money is
fungible.
Mugari: Did you manage to convince the IMF about
the source of
the funds?
Mawere: Yes, the fact that they
refused to restore Zimbabwe's
voting rights shows that they are not
convinced by the government's
explanation about the source of
the
money.
Mugari: Finally, when do you think
you will come back to
Zimbabwe?
Mawere: When there is
order and the rule of law. I will come
when leaders stop imposing sanctions
on their citizens and yet blame the
world for their economic problems. Bad
policies never produce a functional
and progressive society.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
THE country's
money supply (M3) surged to 570,7% for January,
from 520% the previous
month, driven by increased net government domestic
debt.
In its latest monthly economic bulletin, the Reserve Bank said
money supply
increased by 50,7 percentage points from 520% in December to
570,7% in
January this year.
"Annual broad money growth maintained an
upward trend from 520%
in December 2005 to 570,7% in January. Quasi and
narrow money also increased
to 583% from 552,2% and 602,2% from 547,4%
respectively," the Reserve Bank
said.
In January last
year money supply growth was pegged at 177,6%.
"The annual
growth in money supply was anchored on an increase
of $41,9 trillion in net
domestic debt coupled with an improvement of $18
trillion in net foreign
assets," the bank said.
Analysts told businessdigest that the
increase could also have
been helped by the government's printing of $21
trillion used to buy foreign
currency to repay International Monetary Fund
arrears.
"Money supply growth is now too high and is
detrimental to any
prospects of economic stability in the country," an
economic analyst said.
He said government had to abstain from
printing more money and
desist from persistent borrowing from the domestic
sector to reduce the rate
of credit expansion in the ailing
economy.
"The government should concentrate on generating
foreign
currency from exports. The underlying factor is that government has
resorted
to printing money to pay its debts and domestic needs, and this
fuels money
supply growth," said the economic analyst.
He
said money supply would continue to rise because the
government had few
sources of revenue; it is this year expected to print
more money to meet
civil servants salaries and other expenditure
commitments.
Speaking in an interview before his birthday
celebrations in
February, President Mugabe stunned the nation when he
announced that
government would continue printing money.
Zim Independent
Eric Chiriga
GOVERNMENT
domestic debt, which had marginally declined since
the beginning of the
year, increased by more than $2 trillion to settle at
$15,7 trillion in
March, figures from the central bank revealed.
Economists
warned that the debt was likely to increase further
because of the hefty
salary increments which the government recently awarded
to civil
servants.
The salary increases are set to push up
government's wage bill
to well over 50% of gross domestic
product.
According to statistics from the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe (RBZ),
the total domestic debt stood at $15,7 trillion as at March
24, an increase
of $2,49 trillion from $13,23 trillion on March
17.
On February 24, the domestic debt was $14,2 trillion,
dropping
marginally to $13,7 trillion on March 3.
It had
reached a high of $15,9 trillion at the end of last year,
having opened the
same year at $3,3 trillion. Economist John Robertson said
the debt was
likely to balloon since government did not have the resources
to fund the
new salaries.
"Government will be forced to borrow again or
print more money
to pay the salaries," Robertson said.
He
said if government decided to borrow, the debt would
certainly grow while
money printing would aggravate inflationary pressures.
The
government recently printed $21 trillion to pay the
International Monetary
Fund debt, a move many observers said had helped
stoke inflation, which
reached over 900% year-on-year for March.
The government's
domestic debt consists of stocks, treasury
bills and central bank
advances.
Local economists and analysts have blamed
government borrowing
for recurrent expenditure for causing high
inflation.
Central bank governor, Gideon Gono, said last year
that total
government debt had become unsustainable after having grown by
over 1 000%
during the period from January to October.
The government has resorted to the domestic market to finance
its budget due
to lack of financial support from bilateral and multilateral
donors.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari in Durban
A TOURISM Indaba in Durban this
week brought to the fore the
battle between Zimbabwe and Zambia over
Victoria Falls, with each country
claiming to have better packages for
tourists visiting one of the world's 10
natural wonders.
Zambia and Zimbabwe operators were at the show to market their
sides of the
falls, with each claiming that they offer the best view of the
falls.
The Indaba, held in the coastal city of Durban, is
regarded as
the biggest annual tourism event in the
region.
Zimbabwe operators at the function battled to fend
off questions
over the negative perception of the country by international
tourists,
created by the country's worsening economic situation as well as
the
deteriorating political and social environment.
Zimbabwe's tourism sector has slumped 60% over the past six
years, with most
European countries - the main source markets - issuing
strong travel
warnings against their citizens visiting the country.
This
has given the Zambians a major boost to their tourism
industry, with
visitors to the country now turning to Zambia to see the
scenic
wonder.
In Victoria Falls, arrivals have hit a six-year low,
with hotel
bookings reportedly hovering around 38%.
Zimbabwe's woes have triggered an increase in Zambia's arrivals
which last
April increase by about 10%. Tourists now visit the Livingstone
town of
Zambia to view the falls.
Although more than 10 000 companies
exhibited at the Indaba, the
focus was largely on the marketing gimmicks of
the two countries which were
fiercely claiming better stakes in the Victoria
Falls in their marketing
campaigns.
The Zambian
exhibitors were marketing the resort under the theme
"Zambia the home of
Victoria Falls", arguing that Livingstone, their resort
town, offered better
services for tourists wishing to see the falls.
Zimbabwe had
a counter-campaign under the theme "Go to Victoria
Falls.com".
The Zimbabwe delegation was led by the
Zimbabwe Tourism
Authority chief executive Karikoga
Kaseke.
The tourism sector was represented at the exhibition
by
hoteliers, tour operators and travel agencies.
As part
of the marketing campaign, the Zimbabwe team this week
held cocktail parties
to convince reluctant tour operators that Zimbabwe was
still a safe
destination, with enough fuel supplies and security.
Zim Independent
By Bill Saidi
EVERY culture in the
world, since time immemorial, has had
folktales. Invariably, they are
morality tales, featuring a villain and a
victim - tsuro nagudo (The hare
and the baboon) among the Shona, or the wolf
and the lamb, Cinderella and
the cruel stepmother.
Generations hence, when most of us
have, as they used to say,
handed in our dinner pail, our children's
children's children will have
their own folktales.
Is
there any chance, on the evidence to hand, of any other
institution emerging
as the monster, other than Zanu PF?
Zanu PF virtually created
Zimbabwe out of the ruins of Rhodesia,
which had destroyed Southern
Rhodesia, to replace it with the white
supremacist monster that was led by
Ian Smith.
It's difficult to imagine any other monster in a
future
Zimbabwean folktale than Zanu PF, if we are to accept that today
Zimbabwe is
not what we had all hoped it would be when Zanu PF created it in
1980.
Unless I am under a delusion induced by too many
half-meals and
no drugs for a chronic condition, we all hoped for a Zimbabwe
of equals, of
citizens enjoying the absolute freedom to succeed to the best
of their
talents and ability regardless of their political
affiliation.
We did not dream of a classless society, as Karl
Marx
propounded. There would be classes, but these would be determined only
by a
citizen's determination to rise or fall in accordance with their
application
of their abilities.
There would be no free
lunches for anybody. Yet there would be
no action by the government to
create poverty or a voiceless society by
implementing policies which
deprived one entire sector of the population of
opportunities to better
themselves, while piling up wealth on another on the
basis that they agreed
with one party's policies.
In future, descendants of the
small middle class of this country
will bemoan the persecution of their
forebears, how they were hounded out of
their positions, how they were
denied the opportunity to better themselves
through legitimate means because
they would not kneel and pray at the totems
created by Zanu
PF.
There is a middle class in Zimbabwe today, but with 70%
of the
population living below the poverty datum line, it is so
insignificant that
its impact remains wafer-thin.
Study
the attendances at Zanu PF meetings anywhere in the
country - urban or
rural. The only people looking as if they had taken care
with their
wardrobes before coming to the meetings are the main speakers -
the
leaders.
The rest look as if they were either unemployed or
employed as
the most menial workers.
In the communal
areas, the majority look so crestfallen and so
bedraggled in appearance you
wonder if they actually belong to the same
planet as the
speakers.
The gap between the poor and the rich in Zimbabwe
can be
measured by a scrutiny of the attire and demeanor of the people
attending
Zanu PF meetings anywhere in the country.
In
the mid-90s, while editing an independent newspaper in
Harare, we sought to
establish why the middle class was not actively
involved in politics. It
turned out most felt the major political party -
then Zanu PF - did not
really tolerate members who were vocal in their
criticism of the
party.
This was not surprising: Zanu PF was born out of a
Marxist-Leninist ideology: neither Marx nor Lenin preached the ideology of
pluralism.
All who campaigned for the party to discard
this ideology of
praise-worship of the party and its leaders were either
kicked out or so
pilloried and despised they felt alien and decided they
were better off
elsewhere.
Some felt so scared, one of
them compared the party to Mack The
Knife:
Oh, the shark
has pretty teeth, dear
And he shows them a pearly
white.
When the shark bites, with his teeth, dear
Scarlet billows start to spread.
On the sidewalk, Sunday
morning
Lies a body oozing life
Someone sneaking
around the corner
Could that someone be Mack The
Knife.?
Two people interviewed in the survey referred to
earlier
included the late Lupi Mushayakarara and Sam Gozo, an entrepreneur
of
notable success. They said they were both so disenchanted with Zanu PF
and
felt alienated.
I have never myself belonged to a
party, voluntarily. In Zambia,
because the newspaper I worked for nominally
belonged to the government, I
was forced to join Unip, Kenneth Kaunda's
ruling party, until it was toppled
in 1991.
In Zimbabwe,
transferred in 1981 to Bulawayo as editor of the
Sunday News, I was advised
by a senior staff member to join Zanu PF if I
hoped to survive. This was
because I was so Shona-speaking in an area where,
at the time, there was
tension between Zanu PF and PF-Zapu.
My life became
complicated when I was elected an official of my
branch, whose membership
was almost exclusively of domestic workers.
At a meeting with
other branches, I was publicly denounced by
someone who recognised me as the
editor of a newspaper known to be critical
of the party.
I was transferred back to Harare, not specifically because of
that
incident.
The last meeting I attended was addressed by the
late Bernard
Chidzero, who became our MP. I lived then in Belvedere and had
known
Chidzero since he had returned to the country from Canada in the
1960s.
Nobody asked me why I was no longer a member, which I
found
comforting.
My enforced membership did not in any
way alter my attitude
towards political parties. As a journalist I owed it
to my readers not to
belong to any party. There is absolutely no way you can
be objective as a
journalist if your allegiance is to a particular
party.
In 1993, on a visit to the New York Times offices in
The Big
Apple, I saw a notice on their board: reporters were told they
should not
belong to any activist groups.
We were told
that a reporter who belonged to a pro-abortion
group had interviewed a
pro-life leader for the paper. The interview ended
prematurely, with the two
engaging in a finger-pointing, four-letter word
exchange.
Which brings me to the events of May 3 last week.
I would
have preferred for the entire journalism fraternity not
to mark the World
Press Freedom Day in Zimbabwe.
But we know the government
media exists and is active in
promoting, with maniacal keenness, the myth
that Zimbabwe has a free press.
To have expected them to
boycott the celebrations would have
been like asking all Christians to
ignore Christmas.
It is difficult to predict how posterity
will judge us as
journalists when the time comes for us to be assessed for
our activism
against the mandarins of exclusivity and totalitarianism. There
cannot be
the faintest hope that there will be sympathy for us, that we
could get away
with responding that "we were only following
orders".
After World War II, most of the people on trial at
Nuremberg who
made this excuse were still given short shrift. Journalists
who, even
remotely, promoted the idea that Tutsis and moderate Hutus in
Rwanda
deserved to be executed were treated as having taken part in the
genocide in
that country in 1994.
Any folktales involving
the media, for generations to come, will
most obviously feature Zanu PF as
the monster stalking the land, eating
alive all journalists as they sit at
their computers, trying to put together
a story of how Zimbabweans have
allowed themselves to be hounded into
poverty and speechlessness by a cruel,
uncaring party.
Cynics might conclude that Zimbabweans were
their own worst
monsters. Today defenders of the party's record of infamy
and perfidy have
become even more strident, insisting that the country is
under siege because
it took back from the white people the land which their
ancestors had
forcibly taken from them.
Historically,
there is little to fault this assessment.
Politically, there will always be
serious questions. Was the violence
necessary? Was the plunder of the farms,
which continues to this day,
unavoidable?
Are the
consequences of that act of lunacy justified? The food
shortages and the
anemic state of the Zimdollar?
Today, in every high-density
suburb you care to visit, people
have makeshift stalls outside their houses
to sell tomatoes, onions,
cabbages, mufushwa, madora, cigarettes and
sweets.
At Chikwanha shopping centre in Chitungwiza, hundreds
gather
every Saturday morning to sell everything from roasted maize to
second-hand
clothes. The place is so crowded it resembles a "Born-Again"
church rally.
Operation Murambatsvina? They scoff at that bloody
campaign of
May 2005.
"There are still no jobs for us and
the prices are even higher
than they were at that time," the vendors
say.
Inflation is running at nearly 1 000%. The monster may have
to
eat more people before it can pacify them all.
* Bill
Saidi is editor of the banned Daily News On Sunday.
Zim Independent
By Pedzisai Ruhanya
WHEN Arthur
Mutambara, leader of the pro-senate Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
entered Zimbabwe's political powder keg, there was
some sense of optimism
that the robotics professor would champion the
re-unification of the two
feuding sides of Zimbabwe's biggest parliamentary
and local government
opposition party although it was clear to some critics
that he had "tainted"
himself by taking a position and then sought to be the
arbiter in a crisis
in which he was an interested party.
However, Mutambara has
failed to live up to those expectations
because he dismally could not
elucidate to the MDC supporters in particular
and Zimbabweans in general,
the root causes of the crisis obtaining in
Zimbabwe and what needs to be
done.
When Mutambara came from South Africa to lead the
break-away
faction of the MDC he sought to identify what he called
re-branding of the
MDC as his priority. He also argued that the MDC did not
have an ideological
underpinning and needed one and then he started to
preach and coin the
nationalism mantra as his faction's rallying
ideology.
Mutambara missed the point, hence the beginning of
his political
misfortunes. This is so because in my view the MDC is a social
democratic
party which tries to rally the workers, students, peasants and
others to
attain political, economic and social justice in the country after
years of
political and economic plunder associated with President Robert
Mugabe's
administration.
It seems clear what the MDC is
seeking from the people is power
based on the rule of law and the
restoration of the country's international
membership by removing its pariah
status currently haunting the regime in
Harare.
Therefore, I am not persuaded to accept Mutambara's strategy to
rebrand the
party as an issue of substance worth rallying the starving
people who need
the restoration of law and order in the country as a
starting
point.
Further on that issue, I want to posit that Mutambara
is
misleading Zimbabweans into believing that the crisis in Zimbabwe is a
crisis about an opposition party which does not have an ideology. The crisis
in Zimbabwe is a crisis of legitimacy and governance, not an ideological
crisis as Mutambara would want us to believe. It is a crisis of legitimacy
and governance emanating from allegations of election rigging and the use of
violence against political opponents in the 2000 parliamentary election,
2002 presidential election and the 2005 parliamentary
election.
For the record, Mutambara should find time to
peruse some High
Court rulings pertaining to the MDC election petitions in
which more than
six election outcomes including the Buhera North result
where Morgan
Tsvangirai stood against Kenneth Manyonda were nullified by the
High Court
on the basis of violence, arson and in the case of Tsvangirai,
the burning
to death of Talent Mabika and Tichaona Chiminya at Murambinda
growth point
on April 14 2000.
The crisis of legitimacy
of the regime in Zimbabwe has been a
result of the generality of Zimbabweans
and the international community
refusing to accept past election results on
the basis of electoral
manipulation and the use of state-sponsored violence
against political
opponents. This is the reason it has been argued in
academic circles that
the Harare regime is a de facto but not de jure
administration.
Also of note is the creation of an
infrastructure of violence by
the Zanu PF government through the
establishment of youth militia and its
use in political violence against
opponents of Zanu PF.
It should also be noted that coupled to
this was the
militarisation of fundamental state institutions such as the
Electoral
Supervisory Commission whose chief executive officer during the
2002
presidential elections was Brigadier Douglas Nyikayaramba, the current
commander of 2 Brigade.
The government also made it a
point that its wishes would
prevail in the courts by purging the High Court
and Supreme Court of senior
and independent judges while appointing its
allies who were going to deliver
favourable rulings, thereby effectively
compromising the independence of the
judiciary. This could be seen in the
fact that five years after the High
Court made rulings in election petitions
in 2001 and appeals were made to
the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has
not heard those cases and they have
since been overtaken by
events.
This brings me to the next argument where Mutambara
told
journalists in the Midlands that Tsvangirai lost in 2000, 2002 and
2005. It
remains mysterious where he gets such kind of information and the
guts to
tell Zimbabweans some of them victims of violence, abductions and
arson -
that they lost the elections. Most unfortunate for Mutambara, he was
speaking in the Midlands province where one Big Chitoro, the leader of the
war veterans in Mberengwa, created torture camps leading to the brutal
murder of one Fainos Zhou prior to the June 2000 parliamentary
election.
It is mindboggling that Mutambara fails or refuses
to
acknowledge these issues as the reasons behind Zimbabwe's international
pariah status and wants to make unfortunate and misplaced political scores
by saying Tsvangirai lost those elections. Such political naivety will
further alienate Mutambara from the generality of Zimbabweans who have been
victims of state violence each time there is an election in the
country.
It seems clear that given the above, the MDC is not
in power not
because they lacked an ideology but because the incumbent
regime used
extra-legal means to hang on to power. More so, the incumbent
refused to
play by the democratic rules of the game in its conduct of the
electoral
process in the past elections.
It is therefore
critical for Mutambara to appreciate the nature
of the crisis in Zimbabwe
before he starts showing off through parading his
professorship as if he is
the first Zimbabwean to attain that status.
Mutambara could
take time to consult colleagues in his faction
before he makes public
pronouncements that are at variance with the history
of the country during
the years he was out, especially as it relates to how
Zimbabwe is where it
is today.
I would advise him to appreciate the history of the
country from
February 2000, the constitutional referendum month, the farm
invasions and
the murders associated with it and the subsequent electoral
disputes to
date, so that his public outbursts are in line with Zimbabweans'
views on
the electoral history of the country to date.
I am
also astonished by some pronouncements that the robotics
professor has made
so far.
For instance, Mutambara says that if civic
organisations such
the National Constitutional Assembly, the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU), the Zimbabwe National Students Union
(Zinasu) and church
organisations are partisan, he will not hesitate to form
parallel
organisations.
Zimbabweans are well aware that
Zanu PF is the political master
of forming rival unions to those which stand
for the wishes of their
constituencies. For instance, the ruling party
created the Zimbabwe
Federation of Trade Unions led by Alfred Makwarimba and
Joseph Chinotimba to
destabilise the ZCTU, it created the Zimbabwe Teachers
Union to destabilise
legitimate unions such as the Zimbabwe Teachers
Association and the
Progressive Teachers' Union of
Zimbabwe.
Zanu PF went further to come up with the Zimbabwe
Congress of
Students Unions in a bid to destroy Zinasu.
I am
therefore at pains to understand what Mutambara is trying
to do. In this
respect his strategy fits well into the Zanu PF mindset of
forming phantom
unions in order to weaken legitimate ones. To be more crude,
it would not be
unfounded to describe him as Zanu PF's political cousin in
so far as the
history of destabilisation of political opponents are
concerned.
It is clear that from a political science
point of view,
Mutambara has failed to appreciate the issues at hand. I
would recommend him
to seek free lessons from Professor Jonathan Moyo, who I
think despite his
mistakes during his flirtation with the Harare regime, has
the proper
attributes of a political scientist.
It is my
view that instead of spending his time showing
Zimbabweans how educated he
is with ideological posturing, the robotics
professor should address
economic and political issues that resonate with
the struggling majority of
Zimbabweans.
* Pedzisai Ruhanya is former deputy news editor
of the banned
Daily News.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
CONTINUED farm
invasions have further imperilled efforts to
revive the country's
agricultural sector as well as eroded hopes of gaining
investor
confidence.
Analysts this week said government's denial of
claims by the
Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) that it was collaborating with
the state to
bring back displaced farmers coupled with outrage from other
farmers'
organisations, undermine investor confidence and prospects of
bolstering
agricultural production to avert mass
starvation.
Such mixed signals make the economic environment
very
unpredictable. It is difficult for any investor to commit resources
without
guarantees about the future or even recovery of the initial capital
invested.
The CFU had reportedly claimed that it had
changed its stance on
land reform and had submitted up to 200 applications
on behalf of its
members for consideration as A2 farmers.
The CFU's claims attracted a strong rebuttal from the displaced
farmers,
with some saying it was a "great betrayal" of all the people who
had
suffered, died and been murdered over the past six years.
State Security, Lands and Land Resettlement minister Didymus
Mutasa,
although reported at first as enthusiastic about the latest move,
has since
refuted CFU claims, causing confusion that has thrown the whole
sector into
disarray.
Justice for Agriculture (Jag) said rebuilding and
reviving
agriculture could only take place when the relevant fundamentals
such as
rule of law, respect for property rights, compensation and other
basic
rights were restored.
"At the moment not one of
these fundamentals exists," Jag
chairman John Worsley-Worswick
said.
"How could we talk of returning to farms when fresh
evictions
are taking place every day?" he asked. "Remaining farmers are
uncertain of
the future. As we speak, more than 10 farmers are being evicted
in
Manicaland, Masvingo and Midlands."
Worsley-Worswick
said any farmer who considers returning under
the present conditions would
be insensitive to the feelings of all those who
have suffered over the past
six years.
Such farmers would also be betraying the idea of
rebuilding a
stable and secure commercial agriculture as a constituent part
of the
greater ideal of a democratic and prosperous
Zimbabwe.
"The rule of law does not prevail in the commercial
farming
areas," Bruce Gemmill, a Jag trustee and a displaced farmer from
Macheke,
said.
"Only the writ of the land committees and
the war veterans has
force. The green bombers still maintain their menacing
presence and are
answerable only to themselves. The people who murdered my
friend David
Stevens and other murderers like them are still on the prowl,
free to murder
with impunity," said Gemmill.
"To create
something of value in this anarchic environment is
inviting the looters to
take it from you. How can any self-respecting man
take his family back to
the land, put down roots and begin the arduous toil
of building a business
while such threats are present?" he asked.
Gemmill said the
CFU by its complicity had agreed to play the
deceitful role played by the
"Judas goat in a sheep slaughterhouse" by
offering to assist government in
luring farmers back to the land.
"Is the CFU now saying it
exonerates or even endorses the crimes
and cruelties committed against its
former members and their workers?"
Gemmill questioned.
A
fortnight ago, Marc Crawford, president of the Southern Africa
Commercial
Farmers Alliance, lashed out at the CFU, labelling it "Zanu PF
puppets" for
failing to protect the interests of the few remaining
farmers.
A fresh wave of farm invasions has hit the country
over the past
three weeks with Zanu PF young Turks leading the invading
gangsters.
Young Zanu PF MPs appear to be abusing their
newly-found
political muscle to obtain offer letters and claim farms from
the remaining
white commercial farmers.
For instance,
when Joseph Christopher Musa was elected to
represent Mudzi following the
elevation of Ray Kaukonde to governor for
Mashonaland East, he saw an
opportunity in his newly-found political status
to enrich
himself.
Armed with an offer letter recently signed by
Mutasa, Musa
sought to grab Red Dane dairy farm without regard to the
bilateral agreement
existing between the Danish government and
Zimbabwe.
Government's failure to stop the latest invasions
has cast
doubts on its commitment to find a lasting solution to the land
question.
In March, more than 40 of the remaining white
farmers were
issued with fresh 90-day notices to wind up their operations.
The farmers
say the decision throws into disarray any planning for the
future. The
notices are due to expire this month.
Agricultural experts say the uncertainty bedevilling the
economy,
particularly agriculture, has not only adversely affected the
foreign
investment environment, but also virtually thrown all farmers into
anxiety
instead of a productive mood.
An analyst said the major
constraint that impeded productivity
was the uncertainty of tenure in the
agricultural sector where farmers are
evicted on a daily
basis.
"Land is stock in capital and can only be used to
access funds
upon provision of proof that one is indeed the holder of title,
and that
proof takes the form of formal documents," one analyst
said.
He said most new farmers had not yet put permanent
structures on
their properties as evidenced by the prevalence of
pole-and-dagga huts in
resettlement areas. Other beneficiaries are still to
move on to their
properties, as they do not have offer
letters.
Those who have relocated find it hard to embark on
long-term
developments either due to fear that they might be moved out or
lack of
resources as they cannot borrow against their new
holdings.
Analysts said government should formalise the land
allocation
system, give assurance to newly-resettled farmers and dispel
fears among
white commercial farmers who are still producing for the
nation.
"A programme to speed up the drawing up of 99-year
leases and
survey to back up those leases with secondary title deeds should
be
undertaken as complementary to the land reform programme and its full
utilisation," another commercial farmer who refused to be named for fear of
jeopardising operations said.
Agricultural experts said
investment in the agriculture sector
was made impossible by the enactment of
the Constitutional Amendment 17,
which nationalised all land in
Zimbabwe.
All land in Zimbabwe is now state land which
undermines property
rights and discourages any meaningful investment in
agriculture.
One analyst said: "In this age of free market
and open economy,
Zimbabwe is regressing by adopting frightening
characteristics of the
discredited closed economy. We are moving completely
in the opposite
direction. Land the world over is not owned by the state but
by individuals
and companies with leases and title deeds, which gives the
land market
value."
Zim Independent
Comment
THERE is a case for reforming the country's
banking laws,
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono told us last
week.
That the call to reform the banking regulatory regime
came
concurrently with a ruling by the same central bank dismissing an
appeal by
shareholders of closed banks is not only ironic but an admission
by Gono
that he has been presiding over defective banking
laws.
Last week the RBZ determined that Trust and Royal
banks'
shareholders had no rights over their assets sold to the Zimbabwe
Allied
Banking Group (ZABG), after a panel he had appointed to investigate
the
issue said the two banks could "not be traded into a sound financial
position".
ZABG is an RBZ creation from the wreckage of
troubled banks.
The current banking laws allow the central
bank to be the judge
in a dispute in which it is a party. In the Trust and
Royal banks case the
central bank was not only a party to the dispute but
was in the dock for
impropriety in the disposal of assets belonging to the
two banks.
It would be stretching honesty and integrity to
breaking point
to expect an accused - given a chance to leave the accused's
box and join
the jury - to vote for a guilty verdict. This is how defective
the law is.
It allowed the accused to sit with the jury and pronounce the
verdict as
judge.
It is therefore shameful that such a
legal sham is used to solve
disputes in a sensitive sector such as banking.
The adjudicatory authority
vested in the RBZ subtracts aggrieved parties'
rights to a free and fair
hearing by a disinterested body. These powers
vested in the central bank are
patently unconstitutional. Today, a ruling
based on such unconstitutional
powers stands. In fact, the ruling is so
shocking that it appears to nullify
a Supreme Court ruling last year that
the sale and transfer of the two banks'
assets to ZABG was "null and void
and of no force or effect".
Not even the High Court has
powers to make such a ruling. The
Supreme Court has a role here to advise
the nation on whether its ruling
still stands. But in a country where the
rule of law has been subverted by
extrajudicial decisions, we can expect a
loud silence from the bench.
Royal Bank lawyer, Sternford
Moyo's remark at a function to
announce the "verdict" poignantly summed up
what needs to be done.
He said before embarking on the
banking law reform, it was
prudent to resolve the crisis at hand, arising
partly from the defective
laws.
He is
right.
It is not only the judicial powers vested in the RBZ
which are
at variance with basic norms of good governance and the rule of
law but also
the powers given to curators appointed by the RBZ to run
troubled banks. The
Banking Act says banks should have at least five
directors.
It prohibits the directors from sitting on other
boards of
banks. A curator single-handedly has powers equal to those of
directors and
managers put together. Not only that, he can also decide to
dispose of a
bank's assets without the consent of the shareholders or
depositors as was
the case with the disposal of Royal and Trust's
assets.
Worse still, he does not fall under a distinct
regulatory
authority as is the case with liquidators and administrators
whose conduct
is guided by the Master of the High Court and company
law.
It is not surprising therefore to hear the billions the
curators
made in the process of chaperoning to the grave banks they were
expected to
revive.
In South Africa, banking laws
prohibit curators from disposing
of assets during the period of curatorship
- even with the consent of
shareholders.
The sum total of
the weaknesses in the country's banking laws is
that property rights are
sacrificed. Gono has spoken about attracting
investment and reducing
country-risk but the country's banking laws are a
major threat to his
aspirations.
Investor trust has a lot to do with secure
property rights and
that includes guarantees to an investor that there are
mechanisms
facilitating a fair hearing in the event of a dispute. The
banking law
regime here does not offer those safeguards. It is not
surprising therefore
that the World Bank risk premium on investment in
Zimbabwe increased from
3,4% in 2000 to 153% in 2004.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
Vincent Kahiya
THE
Zimbabwean government has mastered the art of coming up with
preposterous
statistics to mask the current crisis.
The latest is the
assertion by the Central Statistical Office
(CSO) that Zimbabwe has only 9%
unemployment. This statistic is another
aberration on Zimbabwe's economic
landscape.
As inflation soars to Weimar proportions, as
companies close
down and those still open are being forced to scale down, we
are told
Zimbabwe's unemployment is 9% and in fact is coming down. (Although
the
figure is for 2004, it hasn't been revised and government is sticking to
it).
This is even more surprising for a country with a
declining GDP
and negatives in all other economic indicators. But there is a
catch to it.
It rests on the definition of unemployment. The
CSO, using a
dubious method, defines the unemployed as those who at the time
of the
survey had for seven days persistently searched for work and failed
to get
employment. This conveniently brings down the rate to
9,3%.
South African labour experts, Geeta Kingdon and John
Knight in
1996 wrote: "When unemployment is very high, its definition
becomes an
issue. If many unemployed people stop actively searching for work
because
they become discouraged, then it may be misleading to measure the
unemployment rate by considering as unemployed only those who actively
looked for work. At high rates, the measure of unemployment is endogenous
because the number actively seeking work itself depends upon the
unemployment rate."
This is an important observation
which is applicable to the
parlous state of the labour market in Zimbabwe.
There are not many people
going to employment agencies today or simply
waiting at the gates in
industrial areas in search of employment because
they know the jobs are not
there. Those in the rural areas do not even have
the money to travel to
urban centres in search of
employment.
The absence of enquiries for employment has -
using the CSO
method of measuring unemployment - been construed by
government to mean that
unemployment has come down.
This
is the sort of self-deception that will not help the
country's cause,
especially when it comes to planning for social services
and formulating
pro-poor policies.
Many dictatorships have tried to insulate
policy failure by
reinventing definitions of poverty. Zimbabwe has fallen
into this practice.
The International Labour Organisation
(ILO) has a more useful
definition of unemployment, albeit complicated. In
summary, the ILO says the
unemployed comprise all persons above a specified
age who during the
reference period were without work, meaning they were not
in paid employment
or self-employment.
The unemployed,
according to the ILO, also include people
currently available for work
during a reference period and those seeking
work or have taken specific
steps in a specified time period to seek paid
employment or
self-employment.
The specific steps may include registration
at a public or
private employment exchange: application to employers;
checking at
worksites, farms, factory gates, markets or other assembly
places; placing
or answering newspaper advertisements; seeking assistance of
friends or
relatives; looking for land, building, machinery or equipment to
establish
own enterprise; arranging for financial resources; applying for
permits and
licences, etc.
In short, the unemployed are
those out of work, available for
work and are seeking
work.
The CSO survey says in 2004, 87% of the employable age
group of
15 years and above was economically active, leaving only 9% without
a job
during the period under review.
It said those aged
15 years and above, considered to be the
working age population, accounted
for 60% of the population. Out of those,
87% was economically active. Using
the CSO definition of unemployment, only
9% of the economically active
people were considered to be unemployed.
The CSO said
unemployment was highest among youths with a
high-school education and
residing in urban areas.
So according to the CSO, street
vendors playing hide and seek
with the police in urban areas can consider
themselves employed. This also
means youths who "look after" parked cars in
the CBD, prostitutes, touts,
those trading fuel and foreign currency on the
black market etc can consider
themselves employed because they are engaged
in commercial activities and
are not actively seeking
employment.
In the rural areas, those eking out a living
tilling the land
are also gainfully employed even if they require
humanitarian assistance
annually? If our employment figures are so good, can
I ask why the
super-effective Gershem Pasi and Zimra have failed to collect
tax from all
these employees?
Zim Independent
Muckraker
THERE has been much hullabaloo
about President Mugabe's recent
visit to Malawi and the decision to name a
road after him. The Malawi
government's refusal to be swayed by the civil
society outcry has been
hailed in our state media as an act of great courage
in the face of threats
to cut aid by the EU which did or didn't fund the
road construction,
depending on what version you read.
In
fact this episode has been subject to the usual
panel-beating. At no stage
did the EU threaten to cut off aid. And the
presence of their ambassadors in
the welcoming line-out at Kamuzu Airport
was in accordance with normal
protocol. Nobody, except Malawi NGOs on the
one hand and the Zimbabwean
official media on the other, wanted to make more
of this episode than it
warranted.
The general view was that the people of Malawi
should not be
punished for the misplacd solidarity of their
rulers.
Of course, some donors spoke out. In Scotland, where
there are
strong historical ties to Malawi, MPs took a robust view: "LibDem
MSP Mike
Pringle said (Bingu wa) Mutharika's decision to honour Mugabe was
'an
absolute disgrace'," the Scottish press reported.
"To
give any credit to that man, who is about 10 feet away from
being Hitler,
and responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Zimbabweans, is
dreadful," he
said. "I'm appalled that the government of Malawi decided to
do
this."
However, he added: "We are not supporting the
government with
our initiatives, we are supporting the ordinary people of
Malawi and I don't
imagine they had a say in whether Mugabe was invited to
their country."
Perhaps what should be noted in all this was
the pathetic relief
in our government press that President Mugabe should be
invited anywhere at
all. When was the last time he went on a state visit?
Compare this with the
glory days of the 1980s when he strutted upon the
world stage, consulted by
all. And what exactly did Mutharika say to the
Malawi NGOs that pacified
them?
With a nod to Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle's famous detective,
Sherlock Holmes, this was a case of the dog
that didn't bark in the night!
Speaking during the visit,
Mugabe chose to make much of his
policy of reconciliation. "We declared a
policy of national reconciliation
to push off colonialism much further," he
told a banquet in his honour in
Lilongwe.
"Many (whites)
are left, including the notorious Ian Smith," he
said.
Does a population of 30 000 constitute "many", from nearly 200
000 in 1980?
Thousands in the farming community who heeded Mugabe's call to
remain on the
land after 1980 and held certificates of "no current interest"
from
government were dispossessed of their homes and businesses because they
dared to exercise their constitutional right to support a party other than
Zanu PF. And doesn't Mugabe know that Smith hasn't lived in this country for
years?
Muckraker suspects he does know but assumed his
Malawian
audience wouldn't. Mugabe said some of those opposing his visit
forgot that
he was "an African who did not desire to live in
Europe".
But that doesn't explain why so many members of his
party and
government choose to educate their children in Europe. And why he
and Grace
relished their stopovers in London and Paris.
He evidently had to be on his best behaviour in Malawi. We didn't
see a
single reference to Tony Blair or George Bush! And it was not lost on
the
international media that Mugabe was denouncing donor-dependency while
his
government had approached the UN to appeal for food aid.
We
liked the piece in the Malawi press about policemen having to
guard the
plaque marking the opening of the road following the departure of
the
dignitaries. Of course, they can't stand there (or reportedly in one
case
hide in a nearby bush) forever!
The road's original name,
Midima, means graveyard in Chichewa,
we gather. Was there some hidden
message here?
The Bulawayo Press Club last week showed us
what they are made
of. It reportedly took a single call from Bright Matonga
to get them to
reverse an invitation to US ambassador Christopher Dell to
speak there.
Matonga was miffed that his own invitation had
been superseded
by that to Dell, we gather. The not-so-robust committee
quickly caved in.
The committee, we hear, with one exception, comprises
state-media
"journalists".
What a brave lot! And what a
wonderful way to celebrate World
Press Freedom Day.
DStv
was not much better. They like to advertise the claim that
they support the
media. They gave practical effect to this by cutting off
transmission to the
homes of several people in the independent press last
week. But, let's be
fair, they had an excuse. Somebody forgot to pay the
bill this month. Normal
service was eventually resumed. And the office
remained
wired.
We can understand why many countries should wish to
blow their
own trumpet on their national day. It is only natural. But they
should at
least be honest about their past.
Marking their
victory over Nazi Germany on May 9, the Russian
embassy this week recalled
the millions lost in German concentration camps
and stone quarries
performing hard labour. The embassy claimed that Russia's
victory brought
freedom to Eastern European neighbours and saved thousands
of British and
American lives by holding down German forces on the eastern
front.
This is thoroughly disingenuous. The Soviet Union
most certainly
did not bring freedom to Eastern Europe. It enslaved the
countries of the
East Bloc and established regimes there almost as brutal
and abhorrent as
the Nazis. Freedom for Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and
Romania only came
in 1989. And while it is true Soviet forces tied down
millions of German
soldiers on the eastern front in 1944, those Soviet
forces were equipped
with British and American weaponry shipped to Russia
through the Baltic at
great cost to the Allies in the winter of
1941/2.
The Russians do themselves no favours by ignoring
these facts.
And let's not forget the millions of Russians consigned to
Stalin's gulags
in the 1930s and 40s, many of them intellectuals and
communists who simply
thought differently from Stalin. What about the hard
labour they were
condemned to?
We enjoyed the story of
the MDC factions in the Herald on
Tuesday in which the rival camps were said
to be at "each other's throats"
ahead of the Budiriro parliamentary
by-election.
The candidate for the Arthur Mutambara camp,
Gabriel Chaibva
accused his former colleagues of intolerance and of
launching "a hate
campaign" against him. They had destroyed 200 of his
posters in Budiriro
valued at $16 million, he said.
"This
is the barbarism of the MDC anti-senate faction," he said.
"It explains why
we have differences. They are not a democracy at all."
One
could not miss the glee in which all this was written as if
to prove that
Zanu PF is not the problem but the MDC factions. Since the
candidate
representing Morgan Tsvangirai's camp's posters were not destroyed
or
defaced, who was at whose throat we wonder?
Nelson Chamisa
allegedly dismissed the "allegations" as
baseless, concluded the Herald
story. Which allegations were those?
The National Aids
Council has made a huge policy shift. Instead
of supplying food packs and
home-based care to people living with Aids and
orphans, they are supplying
farming inputs to chiefs under the so-called
"Zunde Ramambo"
concept.
The executive director of the NAC Tapuwa Magure
reportedly said
the supply of farming inputs such as fertiliser and seed
would enable
Aids-sufferers to produce food for themselves instead of
relying on
handouts.
He also said chiefs were closer to
the people and were aware of
the deserving cases.
"Instead of giving people food packs, which are sometimes not
even adequate
and consistent, we now want people to be empowered enough to
produce their
own food ." he said.
How are people who are already
bed-ridden expected to "produce
food" for themselves when we contribute
money towards the Aids levy so that
such people receive care? And we are not
strangers to the operations of
chiefs under the Zanu PF patronage system.
Soon all the sick and the aged
might have to buy a party card before they
access food. There is no better
sign of the collapse of the national health
sector than this example of
dereliction of duty.
Johannesburg Sunday Times editor Mondli Makanya is a
well-established
observer of the Zimbabwe political scene having spent many
months in the
country as a correspondent for South African papers in the
late 90s and
early years of this decade. As editor of the Mail & Guardian he
continued to follow events closely giving generous space to the Zimbabwe
issue. Which is why his editorial of May 7 is particularly
salutary.
The Sunday Times referred to the recent street
protests in
Kathmandu that obliged Nepal's king to abandon his royal
despotism and allow
the people of Nepal to embark on the road to
democracy.
"The international community owes that country's
people maximum
support in this endeavour," the Sunday Times editorial said
this week, "as
they showed no cowardice during their three-week uprising.
They owned their
revolution and did not just sit around begging for foreign
help. And when
they triumphed over the monarchy they took pride in their
achievement.
'We have forced the king to his knees. It shows
the people are
the actual power,' opposition activist Rajan Sreshta was
quoted as saying.
"Now, is there not a lesson in this for the
people of Swaziland
and Zimbabwe," the Sunday Times asks, "whose only
indication of unhappiness
with the dictatorial regimes running their
respective countries has so far
been lamely appealing to others to free
them?"
Thanks for that reminder, Mondli.
Muckraker is reminded of film footage of Allan Boesak, Desmond
Tutu, civic
leaders and others, locked arm in arm, marching into Cape Town
in the late
1980s. They set an example of bold peaceful protest to their
followers. The
role of marshals was critical in all this.
Can you imagine
Pius, Welshman, Morgan, Moyo and Mutambara doing
the same thing? Hell would
first have to freeze over before our opposition
and civic leaders provided
the nation with an example of solidarity and
courage.
Returning to South Africa, Muckraker is not in the least bit
disappointed
that Jacob Zuma has suffered a terminal reversal in his
presidential
prospects despite a court victory this week. His reputation has
been
indelibly stained by a series of maladroit moves, not least his playing
of
the ethnic card.
Would you want to be governed by a leader
who believes HIV is
prevented by a shower, allows his followers to carry
placards saying
"burn-the-bitch" in reference to his accuser, and can't even
manage his own
bank account?
We liked David Bullard's
reference to the former deputy
president's followers as "Jacob Zuma's Barmy
Half-Wits Band" (sung to the
tune of Sergeant Pepper) and just hope his
acquittal this week won't
persuade him that all is okay now regarding his
prospects for the top job.
South Africa, with its first world
economy, needs to be taken
seriously by the outside world. The politics of
crude ethnicity and casual
abuse of women, however unreliable they may prove
in court, cannot be a part
of that country's "Proudly South African"
profile. Nor can the fact that
Zuma's accuser must now be given a different
identity and a new life abroad
because she is no longer safe in South
Africa.
Did you notice how cleverly the Herald on Wednesday
juxtaposed
its "Plot to kill president exposed" story borrowed from the
Sunday Times
(which bit did the Herald reporter contribute apart from the
prefix "Cde" to
Mugabe?) with its "Mutare arms cache: Trial date for
Hitschmann set" report
anchoring the same page?
The
Herald would not normally dream of publishing anything
coming from Peter
Stiff's stable but this particular piece was grist to its
mill in attempting
to pump up the credibility of the Mutare "plot".
Hitschmann
by the way is invariably referred to as "a former
Rhodesian soldier". But
wasn't he a Zimbabwean police reservist for a much
longer period?
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
THERE is a
longstanding maxim that "the truth hurts", and the
veracity of that maxim
was very apparent from not only the reaction of some
students attending the
School of Journalism at the National University of
Science and Technology
(Nust) when US Ambassador Christopher Dell addressed
them, but also from
gleefully disparaging reports of the state-controlled
press on his
address.
The ambassador, who joined the ranks of those that
government
revels in unjustly castigating a year ago, when he addressed
students at
Africa University near Mutare, was speaking at Nust on the
occasion of
World Press Freedom Day, on May 3.
Some of
the students reportedly took great umbrage at some of
the ambassador's
remarks. In fact, the Chronicle's banner headlines
emblazoned on its
billboards were "Nust students give Dell hell".
Not only
were those students who vitriolically attacked
Ambassador Dell displaying
gross discourtesy to a guest, but they were
also demonstrating how very
markedly the state's propaganda machine has
managed to brainwash them. This
is so because not only did they appear to
misconstrue what the ambassador
said, but they enunciated the same
falsehoods as does government repeatedly
with contentions that
international sanctions, promoted by the USA and the
European Union, are a
major cause of Zimbabwe's economic morass, and that
it is the intent of
many of the Western world to destroy totally Zimbabwe's
economic well-being.
Moreover, in doing so, the students
blinded themselves to an
extraordinarily well-considered, highly-researched,
and convincing
presentation. The theme of the ambassador's address was
that there is a
pronounced relationship between free speech and economic
prosperity. Very
regrettably, space constraints preclude restatement of the
entirety of the
address, but it is incontrovertibly merited that it be cited
as far as space
does permits.
At the outset, the
ambassador focused upon the power and
responsibility of journalists, saying:
"Today's media has command over a
greater breadth and depth of information
than ever. It enjoys
unprecedented levels of technology and capital and
reaches billions of
people. With the ideological wars of the Cold War
behind most of the world,
it is less politically or legally fettered in most
places. If Francis
Bacon's dictum 'knowledge is power' remains true - and
it certainly does -
then the media is surely more powerful than
ever.
"But with Bacon's dictum I would charge the future
journalists
among us here to always keep close a second, more recent
dictum. It is the
lesson of the great American comic book superhero,
Spiderman: "With great
power comes great
responsibility."
"For those not familiar with Peter Parker's
web-slinging alter
ego, Spiderman repeatedly sees his super-powered
attempts to do good
produce unintended, often unhappy consequences.
Disillusioned, he often
tries to walk away from the super-hero business of
trying to help people and
make the world a better place. Each time,
however, Spiderman - whose alter
ego is a photo-journalist - returns to the
inescapable conclusion that those
with power have an obligation to use
it, and to use it responsibly to the
best of their
ability."
He then sought to define the responsibility of
journalists,
suggesting:
"But what exactly is the
journalist's responsibility? There are
no doubt many formulations, but let
me share with you one advanced by
Mahatma Gandhi - a man who very
effectively used newspapers over the span
of his life to improve governance
in his own country, change attitudes
around the globe, and make the world
a better place.
"He cast the journalist's responsibility
as;
* to understand the popular feeling and give expression
to it;
* to arouse among the people certain desirable
sentiments; and
* fearlessly to expose defects. To be sure,
each of these
objectives sometimes conflicts with another, testifying to
the complexity
of the journalist's task. But it is hard to imagine any
proper
journalistic effort that does not draw on one or more of these
objectives."
Thereafter the ambassador, in his address
said: "That freedom of
expression is a fundamental right is axiomatic in the
modern world. Article
19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
declares: 'Everyone has the
right to freedom of opinion and expression;
this right includes freedom to
hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers'."
Unifying diverse, even conflicting
political regimes, the
declaration was ratified in 1948 by proclamation of
the UN General Assembly
with no opposing votes.
He noted
in particular that the Zimbabwean constitution
describes freedom of
expression in some length in its Article 20.
In the case of
In Re Munhumeso in 1992, the Zimbabwean Supreme
Court cast freedom of
expression as a "vitally important right" that lies
"at the foundation of a
democratic society" and is a "basic condition for
the progress of society
and the development of persons".
According to the court,
freedom of expression serves four
broad purposes:
* it
helps an individual to obtain self-fulfilment;
* it assists
in the discovery of truth;
* it strengthens the capacity of
an individual to participate in
decision making; and
* it
provides a mechanism for establishing a reasonable balance
between stability
and social change.
"The relationship between free speech and
economic prosperity.
Indeed, most of the four purposes of free speech
defined by your Supreme
Court apply directly to the foundations of economic
development.
"The logic of the connection is not hard to
understand. In a
society where freedom of expression is tolerated, open
debate can
flourish. In a competitive marketplace of ideas, all ideas -
in large
part by and through an energetic media - can be aired and the best
rise to
the top. Here I'm simply echoing (US Supreme Court) Justice
Holmes'
rationale and the second purpose articulated in the Zimbabwean
Court's
formula.
"For governments, this dynamic process
yields policies that
best account for conflicting variables, policies that
balance the interests
of all groups. Such policies maximise the
effectiveness of economic
players - buyers and sellers, producers and
consumers, regulators and the
regulated, individuals and corporations. The
result instils confidence in
domestic and international investors to act in
such a climate. The whole
open process drives growth, builds prosperity and
- advancing the Zimbabwean
Court's first purpose - fosters individual
self-fulfilment."
He expanded upon his theme with convincing
explanations that
"the logic of free speech's underpinning of economic
prosperity on the
micro-level is not complicated. If producers and
consumers do not operate
in a transparent system with information flowing
freely between and among
them, pricing mechanisms will be "too high",
resulting in consumers spending
more of their disposable income - at the
expense of other consumption - and
getting less. If you have to spend all
your available money to buy petrol
at black market prices, you will have to
forego something else - sadza,
school fees, chibuku, whatever. In some
cases prices will be "too low",
resulting in wide shortages and
disinvestments by producers. When the price
of sugar is frozen by
regulation below its cost to the shopkeeper, for
example, sugar disappears
from the shelves and consumers must do without.
"Innumerable
distortions emerge in this environment: shortages
of basic commodities
such as food, fuel, and foreign exchange; unfair
two-tiered pricing, with
artificially cheap prices for elites and steep
black market prices for those
not politically favoured; diversion of
increasingly scarce private
resources from productive investment to basic
consumption; diversion of
increasingly scarce public and private resources
to import what the economy
can no longer produce; resistance by elites with
a stake in an inefficient
and unfair system to any efforts to change that
system.
"Without a free flow of information, the privileged few who have
access to
and control of information can manipulate information flows to
benefit
themselves at the expense of the majority. While such a system
enriches a
very few, it impoverishes the vast majority and undermines a
society's
overall economic prosperity. In nearly all cases, the system of
restricted
access to information serves as a foundation for corruption on a
massive
scale that misallocates societal resources and widens the gulf
between the
haves and the have-nots.
"In all cases, efficiency and
productivity suffer. While it is
today fashionable in some quarters to
declare that the laws of supply and
demand can be suspended at will, you
don't need a PhD in economics to
understand that this flaunts human nature -
people understand their
interests and act accordingly. Those who pretend
otherwise should remember
King Canute and his doomed effort to tell the tide
it should not rise."
What principally raised the ire of some
students was the
ambassador's contention that Zimbabwe suffers suppression
of freedom of
speech, one of the consequences being a contribution to the
sorry state of
the economy.
The students challenged
this, clearly oblivious to the
constraints Aippa and Posa impose on
freedom of expression. Those
horrendous and draconian laws have prevented
publication of some newspapers
and peaceful gatherings of people not
accorded authorisation by the police.
Zimbabwe does not have
that freedom prescribed in Article 19 of
the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Its absence is a very significant
contributory factor to the sad
state of the economy. The ambassador had the
courage to say so, but some
of his audience found the home-truths
unpalatable, which evidences the
same lack of maturity as that which has
characterised government for all too
long.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
"THE
implementation of the agreement, once concluded," said
United Nations
secretary-general Kofi Annan, "would require that we
immediately begin to
strengthen the African Union force on the ground so
that they can begin
implementation of the critical aspects of the agreement.
We would also need
to intensify our own humanitarian efforts, and we need
the resources . to do
this, and as you know we have so far received only 20%
of the resources
required."
Annan was addressing reporters last Friday
following the signing
of a ceasefire agreement between the Sudanese
government and the main rebel
group in the Darfur conflict, the Sudanese
People's Liberation Army/Movement
in Abuja, Nigeria.
Annan's statement is significant in two respects. It exposes our
lack of
negotiating skills or the contempt in which Africans hold each
other. It
took the intervention of the United States government to hammer
out an
agreement between the Sudanese government and the rebels of the south
who
have been fighting what they perceive as the marginalisation of their
region.
Secondly, it reveals the shortage of resources to
deal with
conflicts on the continent without external assistance. That in
itself has
tended to weaken the hand of the African Union in dealing with
numerous
bloody conflicts. This factor is intimately linked to the first -
in the
absence of agreement between the warring factions, America might be
forced
to take unilateral action to force the Sudanese government to rein in
its
army and its seemingly unruly Arab militia, the
Janjaweed.
The humanitarian crisis in Darfur is not new. What
is relatively
new is the urgency in Annan's voice to have it resolved
quickly. The
conflict started way back in 2003 over the sharing of national
resources. It
has reportedly displaced over 2,3 million people and left over
300 000 dead.
Millions are internally displaced and starving because the
camel-riding
Janjaweed militia, an extension of the government's military,
will not allow
people to farm.
The African Union has
deployed 7 000 peacekeepers in the region
to provide a buffer zone. But this
is not enough to stop the killings. The
resources are limited both for the
peacekeepers and to take care of the
refugees.
I was
saddened the other day watching a Moslem woman on
television protesting
against the involvement of the United Nations in
Darfur. She was furious.
She said something about sovereignty and the threat
of US
hegemony.
I was reminded of similar self-serving posturing in
the state
media by those not physically affected by the conflict - how they
urge
patience by everybody while resources and the right partners are being
consulted to help solve the problem. Meanwhile the killings
continue.
The UN needn't replace nor diminish the role of the
AU. It is a
matter of reinforcements. What Darfur calls for is speed and
massive aid.
Each time such conflicts erupt African leaders gather in some
safe capital
to make expansive speeches that mean absolutely nothing beyond
the sound.
Looking at the latest dithering about Darfur, one would think the
Rwandan
genocide occurred five centuries ago and we have forgotten the 800
000 or so
people who perished while the Organisation of African Unity looked
the way.
One would also imagine that the atrocities committed
by the
likes of Charles Taylor in West Africa belonged to another planet.
The same
goes for the African Union's passive response to the lawlessness in
Somalia
where warlords have taken over the capital Mogadishu and are engaged
in
internecine clashes. It's as if all men of conscience died way back, for
Rwanda and Darfur should have spurred such men to swift action "before it
happens again".
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
said the unfolding
tragedy in Darfur was "a long nightmare" not just for
America but the entire
humanity. It is a metaphor that African leaders can't
grasp. But it is one
that the peoples of Africa live throughout their lives.
They have over the
decades of Independence watched helplessly but in disgust
as liberation war
heroes turn into "long nightmares" of brutality and
poverty.
Asked why he thought this time the Sudanese
government would
respect the paper on which it appended its signature in
Abuja, Annan said:
"I hope all concerned know the implications of
inaction."
That is the key thing. There will be just as much
action as
there is the fear of punitive sanction. Which is where the force
of the UN
and the US becomes paramount. We could wait for a century for
Africa to
muster the will and the resources to end the carnage in
Darfur.
It is one thing to talk about the sovereignty of the
African
people and quite another to be able to defend it. So far African
leaders
have failed their people in this respect. Even in clear instances of
looming
genocide, they have acted with unconscionable tardiness as if our
lives don't
matter and are expendable at the slightest
opportunity.
This explains the many incidents of human rights
abuses and
coups d'etat across the continent since the era of Independence
in the
1960s. It all emanates from an anachronistic doctrine in the AU
Charter that
defines "internal affairs" to mean the caprices of the leader
and nothing to
do with the wishes of the people. In Darfur, Annan has a
chance to set the
right tone for his successors as he serves out his last
term as UN
secretary-general. Africa needs leaders who dream and see beyond
their own
club as the big men of the continent.
Education is out of it Arthur!
ZIMBABWE is faced with an
unprecedented multi-layered crisis
characterised by growing unemployment, a
stratospheric inflation rate, a
dehumanising food crisis, a crippling HIV
and Aids scourge and a collapsed
economy that has become a collective
African shame.
Today, the challenge for all democratic forces
is to harness
their collective efforts and direct them towards this
dictatorship that has
reduced ordinary citizens to paupers in theirs own
motherland.
The challenges are to maintain the radar on Zanu
PF and Robert
Mugabe because they are the authors and instigators of the
national crisis
and to remain focused and not to engage in "robotical"
diversionary tactics
to sway national attention from the real
problems.
Some of us note with concern the fixation that one
Arthur
Mutambara has on Morgan Tsvangirai.
At every
gathering, every hall and in every church where he is
fortunate enough to
address his usual embarassingly small crowds, Mutambara
spares his best
arsenal not for Mugabe and Zanu PF, but for Tsvangirai and
the
MDC.
Mutambara has shown that his biggest nemesis on the
political
turf is not Mugabe, author of the national crisis, but Tsvangirai,
a gallant
son of the soil who built a formidable political movement to put a
dead stop
to Mugabe's dictatorial project.
Mutambara
harps on Tsvangirai's supposed lack of "organisational
capacity" and
"gravitas", whatever that means.
But he is clinging on to the MDC
brand, a party that was built
and woven around the organisational capability
of its leader - Tsvangirai.
It's a contradiction in terms,
which is shocking, coming from
someone who purports to possess leadership
gravitas and intellectual
clarity.
In politics,
intellectual clarity and gravitas are not enough to
guarantee him support
from his own clansmen - including Chief Mutambara.
Being a
robotics professor is no guarantee for grassroots
support from the old woman
in Rugoyi or the Aids orphans in Mukandabhutsu,
as Mutambara himself will
testify.
Politics is about being able to capture the national
pulse as
Tsvangirai has evidently done, judging by the millions across the
country
who continue to see him as their only source of
hope.
Mutambara is a jelly-kneed opportunist who boarded the
MDC train
long after it had left the main station and immediately shouted
himself
hoarse that he was a better driver than the man he found at the
wheel - the
man who had negotiated all the dangerous curves long before he
came on
board.
While I acknowledge that he was an
energetic student leader in
his heyday, Mutambara has started compromising
with the dictatorship.
He should simply know that politics is
not about the educated.
The millions of people who are very crucial on the
political chessboard do
not have degrees but remain a vital cog in the
resolution of the national
crisis.
The robotics professor
is simply arrogant and ideologically
confused. How can he tell his London
audience, where he and his entourage
raised 10 pounds, that he believes in
jambanja and that he is anti-senate -
two main issues that must surely make
everyone wonder why he continues to
hobnob with people like Welshman
Ncube?
Power-hungry political upstarts such as Mutambara will
not
distract the MDC from the people's project.
Light
shall surely strike him on his way to Budiriro, where a
bold statement will
be made that the party remains focused and unshaken. The
MDC juggernaut
shall continue to roll.
Frank Matandirotya,
Harare.
---------
Rally figures conceal
more than they reveal
ARTHUR Mutambara, president of
one faction of the MDC,
addressed a rally at Manchester on April
30.
It is interesting to note that different Zimbabwean
online
newspapers focused on different aspects of the
rally.
Some people chose to focus more on the number of
the
attendees than the issues that were addressed at the rally, while others
preferred to focus on the substance. The readers always have the privilege
of reading and judging for themselves.
It is
worrying to observe that the concern with the number
of people attending
rallies or meetings is becoming an obsession.
My
concern is that some people are becoming more concerned
about counting the
people than focusing on the issues being addressed, which
leaves one
wondering whether the battle in the opposition is about the
quality or
quantity of change.
It is tempting to get the
impression that, instead of
concentrating on the issues being addressed at
these rallies and meetings,
some people are busy counting the people who
attend.
It is important to realise that statistics
often conceal
more than they reveal. For instance, the people who come to
rallies are not
always supporters.
Of the people
who attend rallies, you are never sure how
many will agree with you or
decide to stick with you. But it is important
to be given the chance to
share your views.
In our African tradition, people do
not tell you point
blank, but the truth of the matter is that the majority
of Zimbabweans are
not particularly amused by a fragmented
opposition.
No faction should claim people at a rally
for they attend
for different reasons. Parties should instead be more
concerned about
whether people actually get their
message.
I know the tired argument about democracy
being a game of
numbers, and it is precisely that understanding or
over-emphasis which feeds
into this obsession with
numbers.
Democracy has more ingredients than just
numbers. It is
also a culture of respect and tolerance, equal opportunities,
battle of
ideas and observance of the rules of
engagement.
A report on NewZimbabwe.com put the figure
at the
Mutambara rally at 400 people, with the Zimbabwejournalists.com
website
putting it at 500 people.
Then we had a
report from zimdaily.com claiming that there
were just 35
people.
The dispute about numbers makes a mockery of
what is
important to the people of Zimbabwe: the actual message and ideas of
the
change agenda.
Dr Alex Magaisa rightly argued
that being obsessed with
being in the majority tends to create a problem of
perception or
misconception.
You could be in the
minority on one issue or at some point
without being even aware of it. Being
in the minority does not always mean
being wrong.
In fact, people's views or perceptions do change and we
are all engaged in
the discourse of what is happening in Zimbabwe either
passively or
actively.
It will be interesting to hear Mutambara's
ideas for
Zimbabwe at his rallies. So much has been said about the robotics
professor
and it is time for those in London to meet
him.
One thing is clear about this rally already: it
will be a
two-way meeting, judging by the talk in some parts of
London.
People will not only be listening and asking
questions,
they will also be expressing views from the diaspora, and
hopefully the
organisers will prepare a segment for robust
engagement.
Once again, more important will be the
ideas discussed and
not the number of attendees.
Msekiwa Makwanya,
UK.
----------
Weir's perception of China
tainted
ALEX Weir seems to hate just about everything
which is
Chinese.
His letter "Trade with Chinese
taking Africa backwards",
(Zimbabwe Independent, May 5), contains a lot of
innuendo and is barely
factual.
His tainted
perception of China fails to recognise the
phenomenal economic progress this
country has achieved in a relatively short
period.
The thing which annoys me most is Weir's lie that trade
with the East,
particularly China, is setting African economies
backwards.
He seems to imply the continent would be
better off
trading with the West, whose goods he fails to tell us cost more
than
double.
In the USA, where I now live, just
about everything we buy
is made in China or somewhere in the East. The
American consumer has such a
huge choice - from the cheap to very good
quality goods which are comparable
to the West.
I
feel sorry for Zimbabweans and their worsening plight.
Do they have any alternatives to cheap Chinese imports?
Does Weir seriously believe the West, whose exports are no
longer as
competitive as the East, is able to pacify the Zimbabwean
consumer?
Nazir Lunat,
California,
USA.
----------
Clarify fees structure or else
?
WE, the Zimbabwe National Students Union (Zinasu)
wish to
register our dismay over the insecurity that engulfs students with
respect
to the new fees structure as examinations are pending countrywide at
teachers' and polytechnic colleges.
May the
Minister of Higher Education be informed that
Zinasu resolved at its
congress held from May 3-5 in Harare to reject the
new fees as students feel
they are unjustified and beyond the reach of many.
Zinasu therefore requests that the minister clarify
publicly whether
students will be admitted into examinations and allowed to
access their
results after completing their examinations.
Zinasu
also resolved to boycott lectures after May 22,
should the issue of the fees
structure remain unclear.
Zinasu is disappointed that
police arrested and unlawfully
detained more than 50 student leaders, all of
whom have since been released
without charge. One student leader collapsed
in his cell and had to be
rushed to a clinic where he is currently
admitted.
Whatever happened to the pre-Independence
promise of free
education for all as a fundamental and inalienable human
right?
Promise Mkwananzi,
Zinasu
President.
--------
Could Gata get this
right?
MY latest electricity invoice, for consumption
for the
month to April 6, was billed on April 6 but delivered by Zimpost on
May 2.
Due date? April 24!
I
have no comment I can put in print.
And interest will
be charged on overdue accounts at 41,67%
per month, not per
annum.
I suppose this is Zesa's latest scheme for
increasing
revenue quickly. I await their next invoice with trepidation, if
it ever
reaches me.
But what else, I suppose, can
one expect from the
disorganised rabble that has resulted from their
"unbundling" scheme?
Unbundling? - rather, snarling
up.
The rubbish stops at the top? Or starts at the top?
Whichever, it doesn't say much for Zesa's top
administration.
Could executive chairman, Dr Sidney
Gata, please try to
get at least this one thing right in his cockamamie
organisation.
PNR Silversides,
Harare.
------------
Whose wishes are they
serving?
THE feud in the MDC arose when in typical Zanu
PF style,
sixty-something people voted for the destiny of the
masses.
Apparently, they voted as individuals not
representing
their constituencies because the people themselves have shown
where they
stand irrespective of how their supposed representatives voted on
the
fateful October 12 last year.
The process was
in typical conformity with the Zanu PF
politburo style: a few men chart the
way forward for an entire nation
without, or in disregard of consultations
and give it off as the will of the
masses.
I beg to
ask a question: who are these politicians
representing?
The people have spoken with their
feet.
Museyamwa,
Harare.
-------
Let's all vow, never
again!
I WISH to express my utter shock and disgust at
Geoff
Nyarota´s article "Making political capital out of a national
tragedy",
(Financial Gazette, May 5), attacking Welshman Ncube and the
Standard.
Such tribal sentiments as displayed by
Nyarota will never
take Zimbabwe anywhere.
It is
disheartening to note that people like him are not
proving to be helpful in
solving the Zimbabwean crisis and the ethnic
crisis, whose climax were the
Matabeleland/Midlands atrocities.
I sincerely believe
there was no reason for Nyarota to
attack Ncube for stating clearly how Zanu
PF treated his family.
I am a direct victim too, being
a product of a marriage
between a Ndebele woman and a Shona
man.
I was born and raised in Bulawayo and my mother
comes from
Insuza.
I witnessed those brutal men
killing my uncle,
decapitating him like a goat.
My
uncle, together with all those who were brutally
murdered, did not deserve
to die, and I have since made a vow that, never
again will such a thing
happen.
But with characters like Nyarota claiming to be
all-knowing from the Shona section and dramatising loss of life, Zimbabwe
will not get anywhere.
I propose that we all
embrace the conviction: "never
again!"
Whether
people like it or not, the Gukurahundi issue is a
black spot in the history
of Zimbabwe. It should be accorded enough time to
be seriously
addressed.
Unfortunately, it is these old men and women
- the likes
of Nyarota - who committed the atrocities and still want to
influence our
world view. Never again!
Munashe,
Harare.