Zim Independent
Dumisani
Muleya
SOUTH African president Thabo Mbeki's mediation team on
the Zimbabwe
crisis recently held a crucial meeting with President Robert
Mugabe in a bid
to kick-start multi-party dialogue.
High-level
government sources said Mbeki sent a delegation led by his
Local Government
minister Sydney Mufamadi to meet Mugabe and government
officials to discuss
modalities of the mediation process designed to find a
negotiated settlement
to current political and economic problems.
Mbeki was in March
appointed by an extraordinary Sadc summit to deal
with the Zimbabwe
situation and is expected to report back every three
months. His first
feedback is expected by June 30.
The sources said Mbeki has
appointed Mufamadi, Director-General in the
Presidency Reverend Frank
Chikane, Deputy Foreign Affairs minister Aziz
Pahad, Foreign Affairs
Director-General Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba, and his legal
advisor, Mojanku Gumbi,
to form the Zimbabwe mediation team.
The sources said Mufamadi's
delegation came to Harare during the first
week of May and held secret
meetings with Mugabe and top government
officials to brainstorm on the
talks, now already informally underway.
"Mufamadi and his
delegation came and held secret talks with Mugabe on
a range of issues
relating to the negotiation process and procedures," a
source said. "This
was part of the ongoing consultations on the talks."
Consultations
between Mbeki's team, Zanu PF officials and opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) representatives are gathering momentum
as Sadc races
against time to deal with the hitherto intractable Zimbabwe
crisis.
Recently Mbeki said there was not much time to do
everything necessary
to ensure free and fair elections next
year.
Sadc executive secretary Tomaz Salomao last month came to
Harare to
assess the country's economic situation. Sadc leaders in March
said after
their meeting in Tanzania they would help Zimbabwe to resolve the
current
economic problems by proposing an economic package.
Civil society groups will also be included in the negotiations as
Mbeki
seeks to go for a broad consultative process which addresses a gamut
of
issues confronting the nation.
Mbeki said yesterday in Cape Town
that talks between the ruling party
and the MDC were going on "very
well".
"I can confirm that the discussions are proceeding very
well," Mbeki
told South Africa's parliament. He did not give
details.
However, the Zimbabwe Independent can reveal that Mufamadi
met with
Mugabe and discussed modalities of the negotiations process,
focusing on how
to deal with the main agenda items, constitutional and
electoral law
reforms, and an end to political violence.
The
talks are aimed at ensuring free and fair presidential and
parliamentary
elections next year.
The MDC has said that it will not contest the
elections unless there
are constitutional and electoral law changes. The two
MDC factions appear to
be working together and speaking with one voice on
the issue of
negotiations.
Mbeki's team has also held several
meetings with representatives of
the two MDC factions, who include Professor
Welshman Ncube
(Secretary-General - Arthur Mutambara) and Tendai Biti
(Secretary-General -
Morgan Tsvangirai). The two groups have produced a
joint report on the
agenda, although they are still waiting for their
principals to give them
further instructions on how to proceed.
Zanu PF, sources said, has appointed a four-member team which includes
Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa, to negotiate on its behalf. Chinamasa
and Ncube held informal talks between 2003 and 2004 on behalf of Zanu PF and
the MDC, respectively, in a bid to break the political deadlock which mainly
stems from disputed elections.
The two negotiators produced a
draft constitution - which Mbeki has
publicly confirmed - from the
government-sponsored draft constitution that
was rejected in a referendum in
2000 and the National Constitutional
Assembly document produced around the
same time.
However, the draft by Chinamasa and Ncube was sunk by
factional fights
in the ruling party and opposition. Mugabe and Tsvangirai
had initialled
each page of the draft and were ready to approve it. Mbeki
also had his own
copy. The Independent revealed the secret talks and draft
produced at the
time.
Mbeki, who has successfully mediated in a
number of conflicts on the
African continent, has failed since 2000 to
resolve the Zimbabwe impasse.
Foreign Affairs secretary, Joey Bimha, said
yesterday Harare will back Mbeki
on Sadc's initiative.
Zim Independent
Shakeman
Mugari
THE NMB Bank fraud scandal deepened as further details
on the
off-shore account used to siphon US$4,7 million out of the bank
emerged.
Sources this week said the fraud, which went undetected
for two years,
was discovered in March this year. The sources said the
bank's international
division noticed that its foreign currency deposits
were shrinking at an
alarming rate.
The Zimbabwe Independent
can reveal the fraud involved a
Switzerland-based bank called AKB Private
Bank with its head office in
Zurich.
The central bank and the
police fraud squad believe that the money was
transferred into an AKB
Private Bank account belonging to a Zimbabwean
company called Cardinal
Finance under account number 16701690347.
The money was siphoned
through 65 transactions, all of which were
approved by senior executives in
the treasury department.
Seven senior officials in the treasury
department were suspended last
week to facilitate
investigations.
In 2005 the key suspect in the fraud, Shame
Mandara, made two
transactions amounting to about US$300 000 using the
Cardinal Finance
account. Sources said the other 63 transactions were done
between July 2006
and March this year before the scandal was
unearthed.
These details came as it emerged that NMB chief
executive David
Hatendi rushed to Switzerland on Sunday to try and negotiate
for the early
repatriation of the money, much of which is said to belong to
exporters.
Hatendi is expected back today but the sources said they
did not
expect AKB Private Bank to give him any useful details because of
tight
banking regulations in Switzerland.
The sources said the
fraud centred on the RBZ's foreign currency
remittance system for exporters.
A source said the suspect would claim that
the monies were being transferred
under the RBZ's remittance scheme. He
would claim that the remittance had
been approved by an official from the
RBZ called Zunza. No such person works
at the RBZ.
"He would wait until the bank has remitted the foreign
currency
belonging to exporters to the RBZ, then he would use the same
dealer notes
to make further claims," said an RBZ official who is involved
in the
investigations.
The money would be transferred into
Cardinal Finance's account in
Zurich. NMB would in return get the equivalent
in Zimbabwean dollars from
two local companies called Haus (Pvt) Ltd and
Forthfort Enterprises Ltd. The
bulk of the Zimbabwe dollar component came
from Forthfort Enterprises which
has an account with Standard Chartered
Bank. Haus has an account with
Stanbic Bank.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube
The Australian ambassador to Zimbabwe has defended
his government's
decision to offer financial support to civic groups and
non-governmental
organisations opposed to President Robert Mugabe's despotic
rule saying it
is necessary to put a stop to human rights abuses by the Zanu
PF regime.
On Monday the Australian government announced the
release of about
US$15 million to help those fighting against human rights
violations by
state agents and organs.
The announcement came at
the same time as the cancellation of the
Australian cricket tour of Zimbabwe
in September to protest state-sponsored
violence.
The Zanu PF
government accused Australia's prime minister John Howard
of racism and
politicising sport.
In an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent
on Tuesday in Bulawayo,
the Australian ambassador, Jon Sheppard, said his
government will not cease
funding President Mugabe's critics in the country
until there was an end to
human rights abuses and a return to the rule of
law.
"There is nothing wrong with us funding all civic groups and
NGOs in
their war against human rights abuses as the protests are
legitimate. The
Zimbabwe government might be crying foul but they should
stop harassing
citizens. Even the United Nations is not impressed by the sad
situation
obtaining in this country," Sheppard said.
"The world
cannot continue watching the people of Zimbabwe being
brutalised every week.
As long as there is no stop to human rights abuses by
the Mugabe regime, my
government will continue stretching a helping hand to
those who are fighting
for good governance."
Information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu this
week accused Howard of
using sport to "demonise" the government, while his
deputy Bright Matonga
said Canberra should not be judging this
country.
Ndlovu told ABC Radio that Howard had Gestapo-like
tendencies and was
"the international Gestapo".
"Everybody
knows those kinds of statements are not to be taken
seriously. It is so
obviously not true," Downer told reporters in Adelaide.
"I think
making those kinds of statements, coming from the mouth of a
minister of a
government, tells you a great deal about what sort of
government we are
dealing with here.
"This is a dictatorial regime, which has plunged
its country into
almost total poverty and has abused severely the human
rights of anybody who
dares oppose or criticise the government.
"I think it is a tragedy what has happened in Zimbabwe and I think the
sooner that the regime of President Mugabe comes to an end the
better."
Last week in Harare police assaulted members of the Law
Society
including its president Beatrice Mtetwa. The lawyers said they
intended to
present a petition to the Minister of Justice to protest the
arrest of human
rights lawyers Alec Muchadehama and Andrew
Makoni.
A high powered delegation of the presidents of law
societies in the
region flew into the country last Thursday to call on the
government of
President Mugabe to respect the rule of law.
Zim Independent
By Caio Megale
ZIMBABWE'S current economic
environment bears stark resemblance to the
situation in Brazil 20 years ago.
At the time, Brazil experienced high
levels of inflation significantly above
double-digits per year for
practically the entire second half of the 20th
century.
In the 1960s and 70s, inflation in Brazil was controlled
at relatively
palatable levels of around 20% per year, and economic growth
was
significant, financed by a high degree of indebtedness. Brazilians
generally
accepted this gradual rise in prices because overall economic
growth was
relatively good.
In fact, inflation was seen as the
undesired consequence of economic
development. To protect the salaries of
workers, the government introduced
indexation, whereby wage contracts were
adjusted to match inflation.
However, after the 1970s, economic growth
stalled and inflation skyrocketed
from around 300% to 2 000%. At this point
inflation became a tremendous
problem and economic policy-makers realised
they had to tackle the problem.
There are a number of costs of high
inflation. High inflation
decreases the predictability of economic
variables. With no predictability
you cannot invest and the potential growth
of the country collapses.
Inflation is also a powerful income concentration
instrument. Real wages are
eroded and poor people do not have access to
financial protection. In the
end,their economic situation worsens under
inflation.
Brazil's experience in combating inflation provides us
with important
lessons. First, we have to bear in mind that any disinflation
plan involves
important costs, mainly in terms of social wellbeing. Thus,
the perception
that inflation is a major obstacle to the country's
development must be
accepted by most of society, and all efforts must be
made to overcome this
obstacle.
Another important lesson is
that one should not succumb to the
temptation to carry out social justice
during the implementation of a
stabilisation plan. The stabilisation plan
must be neutral from an income
distribution standpoint. Otherwise, stability
will bring a distortion of
relative prices, and pressure to realign prices
will tend to bring the
inflationary process back.
The common
reaction of authorities is to stabilise prices to protect
the population
from spiraling costs. In Brazil, each new attempt to
stabilise prices was
followed by periods (increasingly shorter) of some
stability, before
inflation returned with even greater vengeance.
Lasting
stabilisation was only achieved with the implementation of the
Real Plan in
1994. A combination of bold measures, well-grounded on economic
theory, with
the lessons learned from a series of ill-fated experiments,
enabled Brazil
to reduce inflation, which, at that moment, exceeded 1 000%
per year. Before
the 1994 Real Plan, the Brazilian government introduced
monetary reform that
established a new currency in February 1986. This
reform was accompanied by
a series of measures such as freezing of prices
and salary
increments.
Between March and June 1986, inflation came down
strongly from over
400% per year to between 10-15% per year. However, two
crucial errors were
made: for all practical purposes, salaries were not
frozen, and the clear
signs of excess aggregate demand in the following
months were not combated.
Bonuses were granted to the lower classes via a
16% hike in the minimum
wage, and the dates of the collective labour
agreements were reestablished.
In addition, salaries were corrected
based on 60% of the accumulated
variation of the cost of living in the 12
previous months, and a trigger was
implemented to automatically correct
salaries whenever accumulated inflation
totalled 20%. This currency reform
failed, prompting government to introduce
other packages in the ensuing
years. They all had similar diagnosis and
consequences.
One
such plan was launched in March 1990 by the economic team of
President
Fernando Collor, the first president elected by popular vote in
Brazil in
almost 30 years. Although it failed, the Collor government
achieved
important steps in the structural reform of the Brazilian economy
that were
crucial to the success of the Real Plan in later years: it
launched the
process to privatise state-owned companies and promoted a broad
opening of
the economy to foreign trade.
Learning from past failures, the Real
Plan embarked on a new
anti-inflation strategy.
While many past
plans started with price and wage freezes that were
announced by surprise,
the Real Plan did not make use of any direct control
of prices or surprise
announcements. In fact, the main innovative
characteristic of the Real Plan
was its transparency following the
catchphrase of the economic team at the
time of the launch of the plan:
"announce only what will be done and do only
what was announced". Also key
to the plan's success was the role of the
Minister of Finance in protecting
the economic team from political
interference, as political pressure had
been the main cause of previous
failures.
The first phase of the Real Plan consisted of controlling
government
spending. The Brazilian leg transfer funds to fulfill the budget.
With the
fiscal side heading towards equilibrium, the next step was to move
towards
the full indexation of the economy. The first step was to create a
unit of
account that would serve as an indexer for all prices in the
economy.
Dollarisation of the economy thus was prevented because agents did
not need
to flee to the dollar to protect their assets given the legal
mechanism of
indexation. The strategy was to create a proto-currency that
would work only
as a unit of account.
The exchange rate of this
proto-currency (called URV, or Real Unit of
Value) in relation to the legal
currency would be calculated as a function
of a basket of general-use price
indexes, in accordance with a previously
announced formula. The conversion
of prices was voluntary and the government
concerned itself only with
establishing clear rules for the conversion of
some services (school
tuitions and rents, for example), the prices of public
tariffs and wages,
which were to be converted from legal currency to URVs
based on the real
average of the four months prior to the implementation of
the
plan.
In other words, the need for the plan to be neutral from the
distributive point of view was maintained. All of these points were
exhaustively presented to the public in a way that there were no surprises
to the stakeholders.
Over the first three months that the URV
was in effect the public
became increasingly used to the new unit of
account, even though to settle
their purchases they used a currency that
lost value on a daily basis. After
three months, economic agents were
required to display the price of their
products in both the legal currency
and URVs.
The economy was then full indexed, on July 1, 1994, the
old currency
ceased to exist and the central bank began to issue a new
currency, called
the real, which was worth exactly one URV. In that instant
inflation fell
from 30% per month to less than 20% per year.
What have we learned from Brazil's anti-inflation plan period?
First, society must be keenly aware of the consequences of high
inflation.
Government, business, and the average person must all agree that
inflation
is an ill that must be tackled and they all must be prepared for
any bumps
along that road in order to succeed.
Secondly, do not attempt to
carry out social justice programs during
an anti-inflation plan. Efforts to
increase wages, for instance, will only
jeopardise the success of the
plan.
Thirdly, taming inflation is not the solution of all
problems. It's
just one but very important step along the economic recovery
path.
Zimbabwe should learn from Brazil.
* Dr Caio
Megale is partner and chief economist at Maua
Investitmentos, Brazil. He is
the 2005 recipient of the Brazil Development
Bank Economy
Award.
Zim Independent
ZIMBABWE currently has the highest rate of inflation in the world at 3
700%.
The high rate of inflation has contributed to the contraction of the
economy, which has declined by about 30% since 1999. This IMF paper by
Sharmini Coorey, Jens R Clausen, Norbert Funke, Sònia Muñoz, and Bakar
Ould-Abdallah examines the stabilisation experience of countries that
experienced similar rates of inflation (above 1 000%) during 1980-2005 and
draws lessons for Zimbabwe.
Hyperinflations are largely
a modern and rare phenomenon generally
associated with printing money to
finance large fiscal deficits due to wars,
revolutions, the end of empires,
and the establishment of new states.
According to Cagan's definition,
hyperinflation begins in the month
inflation first exceeds 50% (per month)
and ends in the month before the
monthly inflation rate drops below 50% for
at least a year. Since monthly
inflation is still officially under 50%,
Zimbabwe currently does not qualify
formally as a hyperinflation case by
Cagan's definition.
It is worth mentioning, however, that the
official CPI in Zimbabwe is
likely to substantially understate inflation
because about a third of the
basket reflects price-controlled items and the
consumption weights are
outdated. Many in the private sector believe that
the true rate of annual
inflation was closer to 3 000% in February 2007.
Monthly inflation rates in
informal private indices - which are more heavily
weighted by food - have
exceeded 50% for several months.
Another distinct feature of Zimbabwe's economy is the sustained
contraction
in output. Real GDP is estimated to have declined by about 30%
since 1999.
While the initial output collapse is widely attributed to the
chaotic
seizure of commercial farms - the backbone of the economy - other
factors
have also contributed in recent years:
* Price distortions due to
extensive controls and regulation,
particularly relating to the exchange
rate which is fixed by the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe at a highly overvalued
rate;
* The collapse of investor confidence due to unpredictable
policies
and lack of respect for property rights, particularly in
agriculture and
mining; and
* Minimal external financing
because of poor relations with creditors
and donors and deteriorating
economic and social conditions.
Without an immediate stabilisation
package and comprehensive
medium-term structural reforms, prospects are for
Zimbabwe's inflation to
continue accelerating and for the economic crisis to
deepen.
Do the countries that have gone through similar episodes of
high
inflation in recent decades have lessons to offer
Zimbabwe?
Using a 12-month inflation rate of 1 000% as the
threshold for
defining a period of high inflation, we identify 30 such
inflation episodes
in 24 countries between 1980 and 2005.
Accelerating inflation in Zimbabwe has been fuelled by high rates of
money
growth reflecting rising fiscal and quasi-fiscal deficits. The
adjusted
overall fiscal deficit or financing requirement, including
government and
RBZ interest payments, is estimated to have amounted to about
80% of GDP in
2006. These large and rising deficits have been partly
financed through
money creation, giving rise to accelerating rates of
inflation. In fact,
money growth and inflation in 2006 would have been even
higher without the
implicit taxation of the banking system via a lengthening
of the maturity of
treasury and RBZ bills and payment of highly negative
real interest rates on
these bills.
The recent announcement by the RBZ that it would
create a fully-owned
subsidiary called Fiscorp to carry out QFAs, possibly
on a transitory basis,
would not address the fundamental issue - the massive
price and exchange
rate distortions and poor governance in the public sector
(including public
enterprises) that place an unsustainable burden on the
public finances.
The international experience suggests that in
countries such as
Zimbabwe, with high inflation and extensive relative price
distortions,
strong upfront adjustment through a broad-based policy package
is needed to
establish credibility and minimise the cost of adjustment. For
Zimbabwe, we
identify five interrelated elements that would be necessary in
an initial
stabilisation package:
* Transparent transfer of
quasi-fiscal activities to the government
budget, as announced by the 2007
budget. No entity outside the budget should
undertake any activity of a
fiscal nature (including interest payments,
subsidised credits etc) without
offsetting transfers transparently provided
for in the budget;
* Substantial fiscal tightening, including the newly-absorbed QFAs of
the
RBZ or any other public entity. This tightening could be achieved by
reduction in the government wage bill - which is large by regional
standards - and capital expenditure - which more than doubled in real terms
in 2006 - as well as from cuts in (former) QFAs, particularly subsidies to
public enterprises.
* Complementary measures, such as price and
exchange rate
liberalisation would be needed to ensure that QFAs are durably
reduced.
* Fiscal expenditure would need to be prioritised (within
a tighter
envelope) to ensure food security rehabilitate the collapsing
health
infrastructure, and provide a targeted social safety net to protect
vulnerable groups, including those affected by HIV/Aids and Operation
Murambatsvina.
* Liberalising the exchange regime by unifying
the exchange rate and
removing restrictions on current international
payments and transfers. The
interbank exchange rate would need to be
substantially devalued promptly and
all multiple exchange rates eliminated.
The interbank rate should then be
depreciated steadily toward the parallel
market rate (which would appreciate
as fiscal and monetary policies are
tightened), and the unified exchange
rate subsequently floated.
* Deregulating prices and imposing a hard budget constraint on public
enterprises.
Establishing a strong money anchor to reduce
inflation and inflation
expectations. Once exchange rates are unified and
the RBZ disengages from
QFAs, a broad money anchor and a flexible exchange
regime could be
established, with reserve money as the operational target.
To ensure that
monetary policy is effective and reduce liquidity risks in
the banking
system, interest rates would need to be gradually moved to
market determined
levels.
Achieving sustained growth in
Zimbabwe will require - in addition to
stabilisation - comprehensive
structural reform and better governance over
the medium term.
Public enterprise and civil service reform, central bank reform, as
well as
public expenditure and tax reform will be important to sustain the
fiscal
adjustment and stimulate output growth. Improving governance,
including by
protecting private property rights and increasing policy
predictability,
will be essential for reinvigorating investor confidence.
Zimbabwe's situation with respect to agriculture - a key sector of the
economy - needs to be resolved. At present, commercial bank lending to the
sector remains limited in part because existing arrangements, including the
recently-introduced 99-year leases, do not provide adequate security of land
tenure. A broad-based agreement among stakeholders on land tenure may be
needed to achieve sustained growth in agriculture and in the
economy.
The lack of external financing is an issue for Zimbabwe,
but
cross-country evidence does not indicate this is a reason by itself to
delay
the implementation of a stabilisation programme. Even with limited
external
support, decisive policy action led to positive stabilisation gains
in
several cases. However, in almost all these cases there was external
support
in the form of close policy advice and technical
assistance.
For Zimbabwe, strengthening relations with donors and
mobilising
external financing would ease the burden of the adjustment needed
for a
strong, upfront reduction in inflation.
If a credible
stabilisation package is implemented upfront and
followed by reforms to
restore investor confidence, Zimbabwe's economy is
sufficiently diversified
and potentially strong enough to recover.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
AS state agents intensify repression of
dissenting voices in Zimbabwe,
government is being grilled for human rights
violations at the 41st Session
of the African Commission on Human and
Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) which opened
in Ghana on Wednesday.
Government is due to present its report responding to allegations of
rampant
human rights violations perpetrated by state agents and
recommendations made
by the 2002 ACHPR fact-finding mission. It will also
have to explain its
failure to prosecute those responsible in accordance
with the Paris
Principles.
Civic groups attending the session said the government
report glosses
over critical issues which plunged the country into the
current economic
crisis. They say it fails to acknowledge that any crisis
exists.
It evades virtually all the negative incidents that the
country went
through including the violence currently taking place and that
characterised
the land invasions and all the three elections held over the
past seven
years.
"The government report is silent on the
widely condemned Operation
Murambatsvina, which left over 700 000 people
homeless," one civic group
said. "The report mentions in passing Operation
Garikai without giving any
background as why they had to embark on the
nationwide house construction
programme."
The groups said
government is denying all the allegations of human
rights abuses and blames
external forces for the deterioration of the
economy.
It is not
taking responsibility for anything, including the
demolitions of
Murambatsvina and the brutal attacks on the opposition.
However, hordes of
local and international civic organisations have thronged
Ghana to present
"shadow" reports that counter the government report.
Civic groups'
reports will expose government's unwillingness to uphold
its primary
responsibility to promote, protect, and fulfil human rights.
They seek to
pin down government as the leading perpetrator of rights
abuses.
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) director Irene
Petras
confirmed that the African NGO Forum adopted a resolution on
Zimbabwe, which
cited numerous ongoing violations. Petras said the ZLHR
would highlight the
recent attacks on lawyers and the opposition. She said
there has been a lot
of solidarity and understanding of the challenges
currently facing
Zimbabweans.
During a forum prior to the ACHPR
session, African NGOs expressed
concern over the situation of journalists
and freedom of expression
activists in Africa, especially in Zimbabwe,
Eritrea, the Gambia, Ethiopia,
Sierra Leone and Somalia and called upon
these and various other African
states to respect provisions in the African
Charter, the Declaration of
Principles on Freedom of Expression in Africa
and their various
constitutions on the right to freedom of
expression.
On Zimbabwe, the Forum also called upon the government
of Zimbabwe to
investigate thoroughly all-outstanding issues. "We call upon
the government
of Zimbabwe to thoroughly investigate all outstanding issues
including the
bombings of the Daily News printing press and offices of Voice
of the People
Trust as well as the abduction and murder of freelance
cameraperson Edward
Chikomba," the resolution said.
There was
also emphasis on the government's urgent need to repeal laws
which hinder
the enjoyment of the right to freedom of expression 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).
MISA-Zimbabwe Legal Officer Wilbert Mandinde is among the various
representatives of NGOs and will present a paper on the state of the
media.
At the opening ceremony on Wednesday, Justice minister
Patrick
Chinamasa made a presentation on behalf of AU member states, urging
them to
ratify the protocol on the rights of women in Africa and another
establishing the African Court.
Civic groups hope Chinamasa
would lead by example and make sure
Zimbabwe ratifies both
protocols.
ACHPR last year adopted a resolution strongly denouncing
Zimbabwe's
human rights practices.
The ACHPR's resolution noted
its concern over the "continuing
deterioration of the human rights
situation" in Zimbabwe, and expressed
alarm at the number of people
displaced by the official clean-up campaign,
Operation Murambatsvina, which
the government said was aimed at clearing
slums and flushing out
criminals.
The resolution said the Zimbabwean government should
"respect
fundamental rights", such as freedom of expression, association and
assembly, and repeal or amend "repressive legislation", including Aippa, the
BSA and Posa.
The resolution further called upon the government
to implement
recommendations of the commission's fact-finding mission of
June 2002, as
well as the recommendations contained in the report by the
United Nations
Special Envoy on Human Settlement Issues of July 2005, and to
repeal or
amend Constitutional Amendment No 17 and provide an environment
conducive to
constitutional reform on the basis of fundamental human
rights.
The 2002 fact-finding mission recommended that the
"activities of
units within the ZRP like the Law and Order (unit) that seems
to operate
under political instructions and without accountability to the
ZRP command
structures, should be disbanded".
However, these
recommendations have not been implemented.
Zim Independent
Kuda
Chikwanda
RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono yesterday
defended the
central bank's quasi-fiscal activities and said he would
continue to print
money despite International Monetary Fund (IMF) protests
that this fuelled
inflation.
Gono's remarks yesterday suggested
that government would continue to
print money to fund its operations. This
comes just over two weeks after the
IMF warned that Zimbabwe's inflation
could hit 6 000% by next year.
Inflation surged to 3 713,9% for
April, raising fears that it might
rise well above the IMF's 6 000%
projection for next year before December.
Gono said he would continue with
quasi-fiscal activities because he was
operating under unique circumstances
such as the current economic crisis and
the land reform exercise. Addressing
MPs in Harare on the role of the RBZ,
Gono said the central bank's
interventionist measures - viewed as damaging
by IMF and local economists -
would continue because government ministries
had failed to carry out their
mandate.
"We offer no apology, we offer no remorse for our
intervention in all
spheres of the economy, when we do the unorthodox," Gono
said. "We have to
do the unorthodox, to go into those areas which
traditional economics
written before World War Two sees as unorthodox," Gono
said.Gono said the
central bank had come under pressure to source funding
for cash-starved
government departments which had been failed by the
budgeting system.
"We say no to tradition and yes to conviction.
People are not
interested in job descriptions. People are interested in
deliverables," Gono
said.
He attacked senior government
officials for incompetence and
corruption, which he said had forced him to
step in through quasi-fiscal
activities.
"Those charged with
doing things are not doing so, and given the bird's
eye view that the
central bank has, your governor has not been wanting to
see people dying of
dysentery," Gono said, referring to the non-availability
of water in some
suburbs.
His comments came on the day government released shocking
figures for
inflation, which rose from 2 200% to 3 713,9% in the space of
one month.
In a working paper released last month and titled
Central bank
quasi-fiscal losses and high inflation in Zimbabwe: A note, the
IMF accused
the RBZ of fuelling the economic crisis through clandestine
quasi-fiscal
activities.
The paper sought to rebut claims by
the RBZ that it had ring-fenced
quasi-fiscal funding under a special purpose
vehicle called Fiscorp, after
stinging IMF criticism that such funding be
accommodated in the budgetary
process.
The working paper said
RBZ's subsidised credit, measures to mop up
excess liquidity, foreign
exchange losses through subsidised exchange rates
and multiple currency
practices had resulted in huge quasi-fiscal losses,
which in turn resulted
in a huge surge in money supply.
"Quasi-fiscal losses of this sort,
rather than conventional monetary
supply or fiscal laxity have mainly been
responsible for the surge in money
supply during 2005-2007," the IMF said in
the paper.
According to the IMF, this helped fuel inflation to
unsustainable
levels as the losses had endangered the control of monetary
targets, leading
to injections of money.
The central bank was
linked to quasi-fiscal losses amounting to 75% of
Zimbabwe's Gross Domestic
Product (GDP). This is far in excess of the global
average of 10% for most
central banks. Zimbabwe's GDP is currently US$3,1
billion, meaning RBZ
induced quasi-fiscal losses are approximately US$2,3
billion.
The IMF paper also attacked sterilization operations by the central
bank,
which started with 2004's 900% per annum Financial Treasury bills,
which
were then replaced by the Open Market Operation (OMO) bills.
Introduced to absorb excess bank liquidity, these bills have managed
to
accumulate "substantial domestic interest-bearing liabilities", with the
net
interest cost of sterilizing operations amounting to 40% of GDP.
It
argued that while the RBZ could postpone the expansionary monetary
effect
created through incurring debt - in the form of issued central bank
bills -
debt issuance combined with valuation losses would lead to a
deterioration
in RBZ's financial position and in turn contribute to future
losses.
Zim Independent
ZIMBABWE Independent
publisher Trevor Ncube has won the 2007 IPA
Freedom Prize in recognition of
his role in the furtherance of freedom of
expression. Ncube will receive the
prize at the opening ceremony of the
second Cape Town Book Fair on June
15.
The board of the International Publishers' Association (IPA)
selected
Ncube from among many highly commendable candidates, nominated by
IPA
members, individual publishers and human rights' organizations, said IPA
president Ana Maria Cabanellas, in the citation.
"Trevor
Ncube's work as a publisher and his wholehearted support of
freedom of
expression have often brought him into conflict with Zimbabwean
authorities
and endangered his personal safety.
"Despite repeated threats of
violence and attempts to strip him of his
Zimbabwean citizenship, Ncube's
newspapers have continued to expose
corruption and human rights abuses in
Zimbabwe, thus encouraging healthy
dissent and criticism both in the public
and private sectors." - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Lucia
Makamure
GOVERNMENT has come under attack from non-governmental
organisations
for failing to live up to its promises to address the
impoverishment of
thousands of urban dwellers by Operation Murambatsvina in
2005.
The criticism comes amid evidence that the slum clearance
operation
was a major cause of urban poverty in the country which has
reached alarming
rates with an estimated two million people requiring food
aid this year.
The National Association of Non-Governmental
Organisations (Nango), in
its statement to mark the second anniversary of
the controversial clean-up
exercise, expressed concern over the rise in
urban poverty.
"Exactly two years after the government initiated
Operation
Murambatsvina, non-governmental organisations have expressed
concern over
the unprecedented levels of urban poverty in Zimbabwe and
renewed calls for
increased action to revamp the country's social service
delivery
capacities," Nango said. "The tragedy is that the state has reneged
on its
progressive commitments to providing health and education for all,"
it said.
Nango said local NGOs were battling to raise resources
from the
international community to assist victims of Operation
Murambatsvina.
"Non-governmental organisations in the country have
been battling to
raise resources from the international community that has
since expressed
reservations with providing support to mitigate a man-made
crisis such as
the post-Murambatsvina urban poverty scenario,"said
Nango.
Nango blamed the government for failure to address urban
poverty and
for destroying the informal sector which used to be the source
of income for
many urbanites.
"Nothing has been done by the
government to effectively address the
impoverishment of thousands of urban
dwellers by Operation Murambatsvina.
The destruction of the informal sector
from which urbanites derived their
livelihoods has the overall effect of
reducing the standard of living in
most households,"said Nango. It
added:
"The terrain of urban poverty in Zimbabwe has many
complexities, with
HIV and Aids and economic recession playing a key role in
pushing more and
more people into the relentless cycle of
poverty."
Operation Garikai which was government's only response to
the gross
human rights violations perpetrated under Operation Murambatsvina
has failed
dismally to reach the majority of the victims.
Under
the operation only 3 325 new houses were built with some having
no access to
adequate safe water and sanitation yet Operation Murambatsvina
left more
than 700 000 people homeless and affected an estimated 2,4 million
people
countrywide.
USAid attributed the increase of urban poverty to high
unemployment
rates, reduced real income and less government services which
have all
contributed to a highly volatile situation, particularly in the
urban areas.
The government described the operation as a crackdown
against illegal
housing and commercial activities and an effort to reduce
the risk of the
spread of infectious diseases in urban areas.
However, in a report written by Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director
of
the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, the operation was a
disastrous venture which violated international law and led to a serious
humanitarian crisis.
The report also described the actions of
the government as
"indiscriminate, unjustified and conducted without regard
for human
suffering".
Zim Independent
POLICE
yesterday turned their attention to press coverage of recent
human rights
abuses by ordering Standard and Zimbabwe Independent
photographer, Boldwill
Hungwe, to report to Harare Central police station.
A police
officer from Harare Central who gave his name as Inspector
Chinembiri said
Hungwe was wanted for questioning in connection with a
Standard front page
photograph on Sunday depicting the battered arm and
thigh of Law Society
president Beatrice Mtetwa.
According to Hungwe, the police officer
demanded that he present
himself at the police station, charging the picture
was a violation of the
Public Order and Security Act (Posa).
"A
police officer from Harare Central who identified himself as
Inspector
Chinembiri called me asking me to come down to the police
station," said
Hungwe. "He said it was in connection with a front-page
photograph in the
Standard."
This is not the first time the paper has been under
threat. Recently,
Bill Saidi, the deputy editor of the Standard, received a
bullet in a
hand-delivered envelope warning him to "watch out" after the
paper published
a cartoon showing baboons poking fun at an army officer's
payslip. - Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
THE Bulawayo High Court has ordered senior police
officers who invaded
a farm owned by one of the few remaining white farmers
in Matabeleland North
two months ago to vacate the property.
The relief order, granted by High Court judge Justice Francis Bere,
says the
first respondent in the matter, Police Commissioner Augustine
Chihuri, the
second respondent, Senior Assistant Commissioner Chivangire,
and Home
Affairs minister Kembo Mohadi, should stop interfering with and
harassing
the farm owner and his workers.
Police invaded Portwe Farm in March
and forcibly took keys to all the
buildings on the farm. The owners of the
property, which includes a safari
concern, J Joubert & Sons (Pvt) Ltd,
were told that the farm was "now a
police state farm".
The
police proceeded to erect tents around the farm where they are now
camped.
Police also raided the gun cabinet and helped
themselves to an array
of rifles used for hunting expeditions by guests at
the safari lodge
situated on the farm.
Justice Bere said police
should immediately vacate the farm, return
keys to the farm and firearms
they unlawfully confiscated when they invaded
the property.
Zim Independent
Itai
Mushekwe
WESTERN governments this week increased financial aid to
Zimbabwe
despite government's claims that European Union sanctions targeted
at
President Robert Mugabe and his officials are responsible for the
economic
decline.
The Swedish government on Tuesday disbursed
almost US$1 million for
food security for HIV and Aids affected households
in Kwekwe rural and Gweru
urban. The lifeline is being channeled through the
Swedish International
Development Agency and will be administered by the
Swedish Cooperative
Centre.
Goran Engstrand, the Swedish
Embassy head of development cooperation,
said the HIV and Aids pandemic,
combined with various other problems
"crippling" Zimbabwe, posed a "major
threat" to the country's development.
Australia also on Tuesday
unveiled a US$900 000 financial package to
the United Nations Children's
Fund (Unicef) to bolster its National Action
Plan for orphaned and
vulnerable children.
Australia has also raised its aid assistance.
Unicef spokesman, James
Elder yesterday confirmed receipt of the financial
boost from the Australian
government, saying it will go a long way in
assisting the United Nations
body in undertaking the programme.
"The US$900 000 will be directed to the national programme for
orphans,"
said Elder. "The money came to us directly from the Australian
government,
and we're going to channel it to the affected communities."
Zim Independent
Shame Makoshori
NMB Bank chief executive, David
Hatendi, flew into Zurich,
Switzerland, on Sunday as the troubled financial
institution intensified the
hunt to recover the US$4,7 million siphoned from
the bank by a syndicate of
treasury staff, businessdigest heard this
week.
Hatendi is expected back in the country this morning and will
brief
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) on his findings. Hatendi, whom
banking
sources say is facing intense pressure from shareholders to quit, is
understood to have visited AKB Private Bank in the Swiss capital which has
been linked to the scam.
A company called Cardinal Finance
which is also at the centre of the
current investigations kept an account
with AKB Private Bank where the
stolen finds were alleged to have been
deposited. The AKB Private Bank
account number is 16701690347.
The alleged ring-leader in the scam, Shame Mandara, has since fled the
country and is believed to be in the United States. NMB Bank sources said
this week that Hatendi's leadership has come under fierce scrutiny from the
central bank that has queried why the bank took so long to detect the porous
configuration of its risk management systems.
The local police
have asked for assistance from Interpol to help track
down the suspects.
Sources said the NMB Bank chief had to seek clearance
from the central bank
before leaving the country.
"He had to seek clearance from the
governor of the Reserve Bank
(Gideon Gono) to go and try to look for leads
that can help the recovery of
the missing money," a senior NMB Bank
executive told businessdigest. The
executive added that officials from the
central bank had camped at NMB Bank
headquarters in Harare going through its
books to find loopholes.
NMB Bank this week suspended officials in
the treasury department to
facilitate the on-going investigations. The RBZ
is concerned that the
transactions were approved by senior managers in the
treasury department.
Businessdigest understands that the RBZ also wanted
officials from risk
management and finance to be included in the
probe.
"Mandara was not a senior bank executive but an assistant
manager
whose duty was to initiate the deals which he forwarded to treasury
managers
for approval. But what the investigations have exposed is that all
of the
managers signed the fraudulent transactions between 10 and 60 times
without
questioning," said a source in the RBZ.
"So there is a
strong reason to believe that they were all part of the
scam." This had
prompted Hatendi's decision to fly to that country.
The central
bank said in a statement this week the police anti-money
laundering and
other international institutions were tracking the
perpetrators of the fraud
and trying to establish the brains behind Cardinal
Finance, the alleged
recipient of the stolen funds.
On Tuesday, the RBZ cancelled NMB's
foreign dealership status for the
second time in four years for the
continued failure to adhere to sound risk
management practices.
The central bank has also demanded an immediate reshuffle of the board
and
management at NMB Bank.
Zim Independent
Pindai Dube
THE deteriorating political
situation in Zimbabwe has forced the
International Finance Corporation (IFC)
to rescind its decision to resume
offshore credit lines support to the
country, officials in the Finance
ministry confirmed.
Businessdigest established from the Ministry of Finance sources that
considerations by IFC to resume funding had taken a beating from the
escalating political situation in the country.
IFC, a private
arm of the World Bank, has snubbed Zimbabwe in its
offshore credit lines for
the past seven years citing the deteriorating
political and economic
environment.
The withdrawal of offshore credit lines was seen as
undermining the
performance of key sectors of the economy.
The
permanent secretary in the finance ministry Willard Manungo
confirmed that
the IFC had turned back its intention to resume funding to
the
country.
"We have been hard done by owing to the rising political
situation in
the country. There is no funding from the IFC again despite
considerations
to resume. We don't know their position regarding to future
funding on
investments," said Manungo.
Confederation of
Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) president Callisto Jokonya
lamented that the
nation's economy had been hit by political crises, saying
there is need for
Zimbabwe 'to put its house in order".
"For us to get access to the
IFC funds, we have to urgently put our
house in order. No finance
institution will like to put funds where there is
no order. We have to be
responsible at all costs and have dialogue," said
Jokonya.
The
IFC had since 1980 availed more than US$600 million to private
sector
investments in the fields of mining, agriculture, tourism, and
manufacturing
among others.
However it disinvested its shares in several local
companies as
tension between Zimbabwe and the Bretton Woods instuition
worsens.
According to the IFC, Zimbabwe which used to account for
huge chunk
from the instuition's financial support in Sub-Saharan African
has been
overtaken by Zambia and Mozambique.
On Monday IFC
announced that it will invest US$1,8 million in Protea
Arcades Ltd, a
subsidiary of Union Gold (Zambia) to help meet the growing
demand for
quality accommodation in that country's capital, Lusaka.
But it was
now cautious on future investment in the country citing
risks such as a four
figure inflation, high unemployment and a volatile
economic
climate.
Zim Independent
Zimbabwe's
government blames private businesses and greed for
galloping inflation.
Price controls and outright threats have been used to
stop businesses from
raising prices, but inflation has not slowed down. This
article looks at
some of the challenges countries face when trying to reduce
inflation.
By David Ranson
INFLATION is
the loss in purchasing power of a currency unit, usually
expressed as a
general rise in the prices of goods and services.
A classic example
is the Great Inflation of the Roman Empire.
Successive emperors replaced a
steadily increasing fraction of the silver in
their ancient currency, the
denarius, with base metals like bronze or
copper. As a result prices rose
inexorably despite repeated attempts to
restrain them through legislation.
Diocletian, rather than taking
responsibility for the debasement, attributed
the rapid inflation of his day
to the avarice of his subjects.
His famous edict of AD 301 threatened with death any vendor who
charged
prices exceeding official limits. But inflation ran along unhindered
for
another century until an alternative currency, an undepreciated gold
coin
known to Shakespeare as the bezant, became the customary unit of
account,
spreading throughout Europe and lasting well into the Middle Ages.
In modern times inflation continues to be blamed on private greed, and
governments still seek to restrain it by decree, sometimes even devaluing
their currencies as they do so.
We have many measures of
inflation, but none provides a truly reliable
gauge of inflation at any
specific time. The most widely watched measure is
the consumer price index
(CPI), published monthly in most countries.
The problem with the
CPI is that the weight attached to each class of
goods and services is held
constant for years at a time. Therefore, when
consumers lower their cost of
living by buying more items whose relative
price has fallen and fewer items
whose relative price has risen, the CPI
will not show a decline in the cost
of living.
Moreover, the difficult problem of allowing for changing
quality has
never been solved. Nor can the government inspectors who collect
the data
from retailers track down all the sales and discounts of which
consumers are
so keenly aware. As a result of these and other factors, the
consumer price
index reflects inflation trends only with a long delay and
portrays an
artificially smooth path for the inflation rate.
Other indicators of inflation include producer prices and unit-value
indexes
for imports and exports. As we move back through the distribution
chain from
the consumer toward the supplier of raw materials, a more jumpy
picture of
inflation is revealed at each step.
In the news media, discussion
of inflation often takes a "bottom up"
view. Each month's change in the CPI
can be, and is, split up into dozens of
components, such as food, energy and
housing. It is tempting to see the
sectors where prices rose the most as
causes of the observed inflation. This
way of looking at inflation is
mistaken. The prices of some items always are
rising or falling relative to
others. Surely inflation is not simply the sum
total of a collection of
independent price changes, as the arithmetic of the
CPI implies. It is the
degree to which all of the prices move in concert.
What does
inflation cost? Economists who view inflation as a very
serious problem
point to what they call the "inflation tax". By this they
mean the reduction
in the purchasing power of the cash balances held by the
private sector -
like a wealth tax. This tax is a drag on the economy - an
"efficiency loss"
- because it induces people and businesses to economise on
cash balances,
making it more difficult to participate in the money economy.
Economic losses associated with the inflation tax and other
distortions are
known as the "welfare cost of inflation." At one extreme of
the debate,
Harvard economist Martin Feldstein has claimed that the present
value of the
losses that result from unending inflation may be infinite! His
argument is
that each year the cost to the economy grows in proportion to
society's
money balances. Because the rate of growth of money balances
exceeds the
interest rate he uses to calculate the present value, the
present value is
unbounded.
The increase in government spending could be claimed as
either a cost
or a benefit to the economy, depending on whether one wants
more or less
government spending. But there is a real cost that is not
ambiguous. High
tax rates on employment, on business investment, and on the
accumulation of
capital deter all these activities in favor of untaxed uses
of the economy's
resources and, therefore, impede output and
growth.
Still more difficult than measuring inflation is the
problem of
identifying its root causes. In spite of its long and rich
history, few
subjects in the field of economics are more confused.
Professional
economists have still not reached broad agreement as to the
origins of the
inflation process.
Two camps dominate the
debate. Some see inflation as a malady of the
currency (as was surely the
case in the Roman Empire). In the words of
Milton Friedman: "Inflation is
always and everywhere a monetary problem."
Others see nonmonetary forces at
work, such as monopolies, union demands for
higher wages, oil politics, or
the "wage-price spiral".
Some nonmonetary ideas are illogical. The
existence of monopoly power
or union power might be argued to raise prices
generally relative to what
they otherwise would be. But a continuing price
rise year-in year-out
requires a continuing increase in the degree of
monopoly or union power in
the economy. This is neither plausible over long
periods of time, nor
consistent with evidence from recent decades for the
United States.
Nonmonetary theories of inflation traditionally
separate "demand-pull"
sources from "cost-push" factors like oil, monopoly
power, or wages. A surge
in the demand for goods and services in general
("aggregate demand") is
thought to "pull" prices up across the board,
especially when "aggregate
supply" is held back by inertia or capacity
limitations. Sceptics rightly
question how demand could constantly outstrip
supply. Surely, demand must
originate from purchasing power, purchasing
power from wealth, wealth from
income, and income from the ability to
produce (and hence supply) goods and
services.
Other logical
objections to the idea of demand-pull inflation center
on the importance of
money. How could prices rise without a commensurate
increase in the quantity
of money in private hands? If such a thing
happened, the purchasing power of
the quantity of money would have declined
involuntarily, and that would not
be consistent with market equilibrium.
Economists of the "monetarist" school
emphasize the power and discretion of
government to vary the money supply,
causing private markets to bring the
economy's price structure into
conformity.
Among those who attribute inflation to monetary causes,
at least two
quite different views exist. The monetarist view is that
increases in the
quantity of money cause inflation. Critics of this view
point out that the
quantity of money is difficult to define, especially when
funds can be
transferred electronically and credit cards can substitute for
cash
balances. It can also be argued that people have freedom to choose the
quantity of money they want to hold rather than merely accept the quantity
the government wishes to impose upon them.
The other monetary
view, held historically by opponents of fiat (ie,
government) paper money,
and by advocates today of restoring the gold
standard, is that the quantity
of money can take care of itself. What really
is needed, according to this
view, is a mechanism for keeping the price of
the currency stable, for
providing an anchor, so to speak.
Governments have been slow to
accept the recommendations of either of
these camps. That probably is
because either a strict monetary rule or
strict adherence to a gold standard
or other price rule would place strict
limits on discretionary government
management of the economy.
* David Ranson is president of HC
Wainwright and Company, Economics,
an investment research firm in Boston. He
was formerly an assistant to the
secretary of the Treasury in
Washington.
Zim Independent
By
Michael K Salemi
INFLATION is a sustained increase in the
aggregate price level.
Hyperinflation is very high inflation. Although the
threshold is arbitrary,
economists generally reserve the term hyperinflation
to describe episodes
where the monthly inflation rate is greater than 50%.
At a monthly rate of
50%, an item that cost $1 on January 1 would cost $130
on January 1 of the
following year.
Hyperinflations are largely
a 20-century phenomenon. The most widely
studied hyperinflation occurred in
Germany after World War I. The ratio of
the German price index in November
1923 to the price index in August 1922 -
just 15 months earlier - was 1.02 ×
1010. This huge number amounts to a
monthly inflation rate of 322%. On
average, prices quadrupled each month
during the 16 months of
hyperinflation.
While the German hyperinflation is better known, a
much larger
hyperinflation occurred in Hungary after World War II. Between
August 1945
and July 1946 the general level of prices rose at the astounding
rate of
over 19 000% per month, or 19% per day.
Even these very
large numbers understate the rates of inflation
experienced during the worst
days of the hyperinflations. In October 1923,
German prices rose at the rate
of 41% per day. And in July 1946, Hungarian
prices more than tripled each
day.
What causes hyperinflations?
No one-time shock,
no matter how severe, can explain sustained (i.e.,
continuously rapid) price
growth. The world wars themselves did not cause
the hyperinflations in
Germany and Hungary. The destruction of resources
during the wars can
explain why prices in Germany and Hungary would be
higher after them than
before. But the wars themselves cannot explain why
prices would continuously
rise at rapid rates during the hyperinflation
periods.
Hyperinflations are caused by extremely rapid growth in the supply of
"paper" money. They occur when the monetary and fiscal authorities of a
nation regularly issue large quantities of money to pay for a large stream
of government expenditures. In effect, inflation is a form of taxation where
the government gains at the expense of those who hold money whose value is
declining. Hyperinflations are, therefore, very large taxation
schemes.
During the German hyperinflation the number of German
marks in
circulation increased by a factor of 7.32 × 109. In Hungary, the
comparable
increase in the money supply was 1.19 × 1025. These numbers are
smaller than
those given earlier for the growth in prices.
In
hyperinflations prices typically grow more rapidly than the money
stock
because people attempt to lower the amount of purchasing power that
they
keep in the form of money. They attempt to avoid the inflation tax by
holding more of their wealth in the form of physical commodities. As they
buy these commodities, prices rise higher and inflation
accelerates.
Hyperinflations tend to be self-perpetuating. Suppose
a government is
committed to financing its expenditures by issuing money and
begins by
raising the money stock by 10% per month. Soon the rate of
inflation will
increase, say, to 10% per month. The government will observe
that it can no
longer buy as much with the money it is issuing and is likely
to respond by
raising money growth even further. The hyperinflation cycle
has begun.
During the hyperinflation there will be a continuing tug-of-war
between the
public and the government. The public is trying to spend the
money it
receives quickly in order to avoid the inflation tax; the
government
responds to higher inflation with even higher rates of money
issue.
How do hyperinflations end?
The standard answer
is that governments have to make a credible
commitment to halting the rapid
growth in the stock of money. Proponents of
this view consider the end of
the German hyperinflation to be a case in
point.
In late 1923,
Germany undertook a monetary reform creating a new unit
of currency called
the rentenmark. The German government promised that the
new currency could
be converted on demand into a bond having a certain value
in gold.
Proponents of the standard answer argue that the guarantee of
convertibility
is properly viewed as a promise to cease the rapid issue of
money.
An alternative view held by some economists is that not
just monetary
reform, but also fiscal reform, is needed to end a
hyperinflation. According
to this view a successful reform entails two
believable commitments on the
part of government.
The first is
a commitment to halt the rapid growth of paper money. The
second is a
commitment to bring the government's budget into balance. This
second
commitment is necessary for a successful reform because it removes,
or at
least lessens, the incentive for the government to resort to
inflationary
taxation.
Thomas Sargent, a proponent of this second view, argues
that the
German reform of 1923 was successful because it created an
independent
central bank that could refuse to monetise the government
deficit and
because it included provisions for higher taxes and lower
government
expenditures.
What effects do hyperinflations
have?
One effect with serious consequences is the reallocation of
wealth.
Hyperinflations transfer wealth from the general public, which holds
money,
to the government, which issues money.
Hyperinflations
also cause borrowers to gain at the expense of lenders
when loan contracts
are signed prior to the worst inflation. Businesses that
hold stores of raw
materials and commodities gain at the expense of the
general
public.
In Germany, renters gained at the expense of property
owners because
rent ceilings did not keep pace with the general level of
prices. Costantino
Bresciani-Turroni has argued that the hyperinflation
destroyed the wealth of
the stable classes in Germany and made it easier for
the National Socialists
(Nazis) to gain power.
Hyperinflation
reduces an economy's efficiency by driving agents away
from monetary
transactions and toward barter. In a normal economy great
efficiency is
gained by using money in exchange.
During hyperinflations people
prefer to be paid in commodities in
order to avoid the inflation tax. If
they are paid in money, they spend that
money as quickly as possible. In
Germany workers were paid twice per day and
would shop at midday to avoid
further depreciation of their earnings.
Hyperinflation is a wasteful game of
"hot potato" where individuals use up
valuable resources trying to avoid
holding on to paper money.
The recent examples of very high
inflation have mostly occurred in
Latin America. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, Peru, and Uruguay together
experienced an average annual inflation
rate of 121% between 1970 and 1987.
One true hyperinflation occurred during
this period. In Bolivia prices
increased by 12 000% in 1985. In Peru in
1988, a near hyperinflation
occurred as prices rose by about 2 000% for the
year, or by 30% per month.
The Latin American countries with high
inflation also experienced a
phenomenon called "dollarisation".
Dollarisation is the use of US dollars by
Latin Americans in place of their
domestic currency. As inflation rises,
people come to believe that their own
currency is not a good way to store
value and they attempt to exchange their
domestic money for dollars.
In 1973, 90% of time deposits in
Bolivia were denominated in Bolivian
pesos. By 1985, the year of the
Bolivian hyperinflation, more than 60% of
time deposit balances were
denominated in dollars.
What caused high inflation in Latin
America? Many Latin American
countries borrowed heavily during the 70s and
agreed to repay their debts in
dollars. As interest rates rose, all of these
countries found it
increasingly difficult to meet their debt-service
obligations. The
high-inflation countries were those that responded to these
higher costs by
printing money.
The Bolivian hyperinflation is
a case in point. Eliana Cardoso
explains that in 1982 Hernan Siles-Suazo
took power as head of a leftist
coalition that wanted to satisfy demands for
more government spending on
domestic programmes but faced growing
debt-service obligations and falling
prices for its tin exports. The
Bolivian government responded to this
situation by printing money. Faced
with a shortage of funds, it chose to
raise revenue through the inflation
tax instead of raising income taxes or
reducing other government
spending.
* Michael K Salemi is an economics professor at the
University of
North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
Zim Independent
By
Michael K Salemi
INFLATION is a sustained increase in the
aggregate price level.
Hyperinflation is very high inflation. Although the
threshold is arbitrary,
economists generally reserve the term hyperinflation
to describe episodes
where the monthly inflation rate is greater than 50%.
At a monthly rate of
50%, an item that cost $1 on January 1 would cost $130
on January 1 of the
following year.
Hyperinflations are largely
a 20-century phenomenon. The most widely
studied hyperinflation occurred in
Germany after World War I. The ratio of
the German price index in November
1923 to the price index in August 1922 -
just 15 months earlier - was 1.02 ×
1010. This huge number amounts to a
monthly inflation rate of 322%. On
average, prices quadrupled each month
during the 16 months of
hyperinflation.
While the German hyperinflation is better known, a
much larger
hyperinflation occurred in Hungary after World War II. Between
August 1945
and July 1946 the general level of prices rose at the astounding
rate of
over 19 000% per month, or 19% per day.
Even these very
large numbers understate the rates of inflation
experienced during the worst
days of the hyperinflations. In October 1923,
German prices rose at the rate
of 41% per day. And in July 1946, Hungarian
prices more than tripled each
day.
What causes hyperinflations?
No one-time shock,
no matter how severe, can explain sustained (i.e.,
continuously rapid) price
growth. The world wars themselves did not cause
the hyperinflations in
Germany and Hungary. The destruction of resources
during the wars can
explain why prices in Germany and Hungary would be
higher after them than
before. But the wars themselves cannot explain why
prices would continuously
rise at rapid rates during the hyperinflation
periods.
Hyperinflations are caused by extremely rapid growth in the supply of
"paper" money. They occur when the monetary and fiscal authorities of a
nation regularly issue large quantities of money to pay for a large stream
of government expenditures. In effect, inflation is a form of taxation where
the government gains at the expense of those who hold money whose value is
declining. Hyperinflations are, therefore, very large taxation
schemes.
During the German hyperinflation the number of German
marks in
circulation increased by a factor of 7.32 × 109. In Hungary, the
comparable
increase in the money supply was 1.19 × 1025. These numbers are
smaller than
those given earlier for the growth in prices.
In
hyperinflations prices typically grow more rapidly than the money
stock
because people attempt to lower the amount of purchasing power that
they
keep in the form of money. They attempt to avoid the inflation tax by
holding more of their wealth in the form of physical commodities. As they
buy these commodities, prices rise higher and inflation
accelerates.
Hyperinflations tend to be self-perpetuating. Suppose
a government is
committed to financing its expenditures by issuing money and
begins by
raising the money stock by 10% per month. Soon the rate of
inflation will
increase, say, to 10% per month. The government will observe
that it can no
longer buy as much with the money it is issuing and is likely
to respond by
raising money growth even further. The hyperinflation cycle
has begun.
During the hyperinflation there will be a continuing tug-of-war
between the
public and the government. The public is trying to spend the
money it
receives quickly in order to avoid the inflation tax; the
government
responds to higher inflation with even higher rates of money
issue.
How do hyperinflations end?
The standard answer
is that governments have to make a credible
commitment to halting the rapid
growth in the stock of money. Proponents of
this view consider the end of
the German hyperinflation to be a case in
point.
In late 1923,
Germany undertook a monetary reform creating a new unit
of currency called
the rentenmark. The German government promised that the
new currency could
be converted on demand into a bond having a certain value
in gold.
Proponents of the standard answer argue that the guarantee of
convertibility
is properly viewed as a promise to cease the rapid issue of
money.
An alternative view held by some economists is that not
just monetary
reform, but also fiscal reform, is needed to end a
hyperinflation. According
to this view a successful reform entails two
believable commitments on the
part of government.
The first is
a commitment to halt the rapid growth of paper money. The
second is a
commitment to bring the government's budget into balance. This
second
commitment is necessary for a successful reform because it removes,
or at
least lessens, the incentive for the government to resort to
inflationary
taxation.
Thomas Sargent, a proponent of this second view, argues
that the
German reform of 1923 was successful because it created an
independent
central bank that could refuse to monetise the government
deficit and
because it included provisions for higher taxes and lower
government
expenditures.
What effects do hyperinflations
have?
One effect with serious consequences is the reallocation of
wealth.
Hyperinflations transfer wealth from the general public, which holds
money,
to the government, which issues money.
Hyperinflations
also cause borrowers to gain at the expense of lenders
when loan contracts
are signed prior to the worst inflation. Businesses that
hold stores of raw
materials and commodities gain at the expense of the
general
public.
In Germany, renters gained at the expense of property
owners because
rent ceilings did not keep pace with the general level of
prices. Costantino
Bresciani-Turroni has argued that the hyperinflation
destroyed the wealth of
the stable classes in Germany and made it easier for
the National Socialists
(Nazis) to gain power.
Hyperinflation
reduces an economy's efficiency by driving agents away
from monetary
transactions and toward barter. In a normal economy great
efficiency is
gained by using money in exchange.
During hyperinflations people
prefer to be paid in commodities in
order to avoid the inflation tax. If
they are paid in money, they spend that
money as quickly as possible. In
Germany workers were paid twice per day and
would shop at midday to avoid
further depreciation of their earnings.
Hyperinflation is a wasteful game of
"hot potato" where individuals use up
valuable resources trying to avoid
holding on to paper money.
The recent examples of very high
inflation have mostly occurred in
Latin America. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, Peru, and Uruguay together
experienced an average annual inflation
rate of 121% between 1970 and 1987.
One true hyperinflation occurred during
this period. In Bolivia prices
increased by 12 000% in 1985. In Peru in
1988, a near hyperinflation
occurred as prices rose by about 2 000% for the
year, or by 30% per month.
The Latin American countries with high
inflation also experienced a
phenomenon called "dollarisation".
Dollarisation is the use of US dollars by
Latin Americans in place of their
domestic currency. As inflation rises,
people come to believe that their own
currency is not a good way to store
value and they attempt to exchange their
domestic money for dollars.
In 1973, 90% of time deposits in
Bolivia were denominated in Bolivian
pesos. By 1985, the year of the
Bolivian hyperinflation, more than 60% of
time deposit balances were
denominated in dollars.
What caused high inflation in Latin
America? Many Latin American
countries borrowed heavily during the 70s and
agreed to repay their debts in
dollars. As interest rates rose, all of these
countries found it
increasingly difficult to meet their debt-service
obligations. The
high-inflation countries were those that responded to these
higher costs by
printing money.
The Bolivian hyperinflation is
a case in point. Eliana Cardoso
explains that in 1982 Hernan Siles-Suazo
took power as head of a leftist
coalition that wanted to satisfy demands for
more government spending on
domestic programmes but faced growing
debt-service obligations and falling
prices for its tin exports. The
Bolivian government responded to this
situation by printing money. Faced
with a shortage of funds, it chose to
raise revenue through the inflation
tax instead of raising income taxes or
reducing other government
spending.
* Michael K Salemi is an economics professor at the
University of
North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has
projected that Zimbabwe's
year-on-year inflation could reach 6 470% by
December 2008 as the country's
economic crisis continues to accelerate at an
unprecedented rate.
The Bretton Woods institution had initially
projected that the country's
inflation would reach 5 000% by
year-end.
In its World Economic Outlook for April 2007, the IMF
said the country's
inflation, currently at 3 714% for April, would reach 6
470,8% by the end of
next year.
According to the IMF, with the
current year-on-year inflation at 3
714%, it means the "realistic" inflation
rate for March is above 7 400%.
IMF's projection of 6 470,8% by
December next year would mean Zimbabwe's
"realistic" inflation rate would be
above 12 500% by the end of next year.
In a working paper titled
Lesson from high inflation episodes for
stabilising the economy in Zimbabwe
released by the IMF last month, Zimbabwe's
inflation was said to be double
the official figures because half the
products in the basket used to measure
the Consumer Price Index (CPI) were
controlled by government.
"Many in the private sector believe that the true rate of annual
inflation
was closer to 3 000% in February 2007," the IMF added.
The IMF said
Zimbabwe's real GDP has declined by about 30% since 1999
due to poor
policies implemented by government.
These include the price
controls which have triggered massive price
distortions. The government had
refused to implement IMF's recommendation to
let the market determine the
exchange rate.
The official value of the dollar has been pegged at
$250 to the
greenback since July last year. On the parallel market the
dollar is trading
above $32 000 to the US unit.
Investor
confidence has collapsed as a result of the unpredictable
policies and lack
of respect for property rights in the mining and
agriculture sectors, and
the minimal external financing emanating from
government's poor relations
with creditors and donors who President Robert
Mugabe has repeatedly told to
back off insisting that Zimbabwe will "go it
alone".
The IMF
also predicted a 5,7% reduction in the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) this
year and a further shrinkage of 3,6% for next year as Zimbabwe's
seven-year
old economic recession continues unabated.
Zim Independent
Shame
Makoshori
A mission statement on NMB Holdings' website says the
financial
institution will be driven by integrity, client satisfaction and
thrive to
increase shareholder value. The situation on the ground however
reveals a
totally different picture. The financial institution's 14 years of
existence
expose a history littered with fraud allegations, alleged poor
corporate
governance practices and perennial clashes with regulators that
have spanned
half a decade.
During the banking crisis of 2003
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)
moved swiftly to cancel the bank's
foreign currency dealership status
arguing depositors' funds were endangered
by the illegal trade by executives
on the parallel market.
Although NMB appealed against the suspension and won the licence back
the
incident marked the beginning of perennial clashes between the embattled
bank and authorities that culminated in fiercely denied rumours that the
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) planned to suspend the financial institution
as news trickled down that top managers had feasted on billions of
depositors' funds.
In March 2004 Eland Park Residents
Association in Harare accused NMB
of conniving with one of the directors of
liquidated ENG Asset Management
Company, Gilbert Muponda, to allegedly
defraud their trust account of $2,5
billion - a huge amount then. Eland Park
chairman Edward Tome argued that
they strongly suspected that ENG was an
extension of the NMB.
Apparently, Muponda who allegedly defrauded
ENG investors of $60
billion in 2004 had a stint with NMB before moving out
to start his asset
management company. The court case on allegations that he
defrauded
depositors of $60 billion has not been finalised.
Just as the dust was settling police reported in September 2004 that
they
were investigating an NMB clerk, Justin Kusaranyare, for a $144 million
fraud. The matter was later brought before the courts.
Then in
a watershed case involving NMB's short but controversially
eventful
corporate life four of its top directors Julius Makoni, Otto
Chekeche, James
Mushore and Francis Zimuto hit headlines when they fled
Zimbabwe after
police launched a manhunt as rumours swelled that they had
allegedly
externalised $30 billion from the bank into UK registered LTB
Money
Transfer. They have lived in the UK since then and denied any
wrongdoing.
The allegation of fraud prompted a massive run on
deposits as
sceptical depositors and investors feared their funds would be
locked up
should the central bank have decided to shut down
NMB.
Trust Bank, Royal Bank, Time Bank and Barbican Bank had
succumbed to
stringent RBZ demands for best corporate practices and
shareholders had to
helplessly watch their investments going down the drain.
NMB shareholders
and depositors breathed a huge sigh of relief when, instead
of applying an
iron hand, the central bank chose a more conciliatory path,
demanding the
complete overhaul of the bank's board and top management and
embark on a
turnaround track that would extinguish the raging
fires.
Top banker David Hatendi was appointed chief executive and a
completely fresh board came in to drive the bank back to stability and win
back market confidence.
It looked stable when the bank reported
that net interest income for
the year ended December 31, 2006 surged
significantly to $8,6 billion from
$285 million in 2005 while post tax
profits were $6,9 billion up from $352
million.
During the
first quarter of 2006 Hatendi told analysts they had made
great strides in
exorcising the bad spirits that had rocked NMB and a
recapitalisation
exercise carried out then was bearing fruit.
"The bank's capital
base has increased well above the new minimum paid
up capital requirement of
$100 billion, it has restructured and has embarked
on a rationalisation
programme, addressing inefficiencies, cost structures
and recapitalisation,"
Hatendi said while presenting the 2005 annual report.
The Global
Credit Rating Company (GCR) also weighed in NMB's favour
giving it a clean
bill of health and projecting a positive rating outlook.
Great news for the
market!
But Hatendi was not aware then that history was repeating
itself. An
assistant manager in the treasury department, Shame Mandara, was
already
illegally gnawing through the financial institution's foreign
currency
coffers which totalled US$4,7 million last week. The money which
belonged to
NGOs, embassies, exporters and individuals was transferred into
numerous
offshore accounts in Swiss banks.
Mandara left his
jacket on the chair and fled the country, leaving NMB
executives globe
trotting looking for possible leads especially in Swiss
banks. Hatendi is
currently in Switzerland investigating the fraud that has
caused upheavals
at the bank.
Zim Independent
Martin Tarusenga
EVERYONE in Zimbabwe now worries about whether
or not the money they
hold will be able to buy the goods they want
tomorrow.
The money could be cash holdings, a bank deposit, an
investment with a
stockbroker, etc, with prices of goods continuously
increasing and in
enormous hikes, we worry about whether or not we will be
able to buy the
same things budgeted for.
There are therefore
continuous searches for methods of converting all
these various types of
money holdings into "something" that can later be
traded back to the
Zimbabwean dollars.
The one now apparently common method used to
protect against inflation
is to convert to the foreign currency. But then
this is illegal - there is a
high risk of being made an
example.
With a little financial innovation and financial
engineering, there's
however a host of possibilities to protect our money
from inflation,
provided, there's available sufficiently responsive and
transparently
managed inflation indices.
Based on these indices
and established financial theory, the past two
decades has, in developed
economies, seen an explosion of ingenious methods
to meet the various
financial needs of consumers including inflation
protection.
To
mention but a few, the UK RPI indexed Index Linked Gilts (ILG's)
are a very
popular investment in periods of high inflation or when high
inflation is
expected. The US has Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities
similarly
indexed.
Indeed the object of the erstwhile RBZ CPI bonds was on
the face of
just that - to protect against inflation.
In our
inflationary economy we would be a step closer towards
accessing these
inflation instruments with available sufficiently responsive
and
transparently managed inflation indices. The established measure of
inflation in Zimbabwe is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) managed by the
Central Statistical Office (CSO).
Questions have recently been
raised on the CPI responsiveness and
management transparency. The Zimbabwe
Independent (May 11) reports some
dissenting opinions regarding the
effectiveness of the CSO CPI in tracking
inflation in Zimbabwe. The delayed
publication of the latest CPI figures
lends good credence to these
suspicions.
There are several simple ways to check the practicality
and hence
efficiency of CPI in tracking the pace and level of increases in
prices of
goods that we purchase and whether in fact it is protecting our
money to the
extent it is used to prove achievement of financial performance
over and
above inflation. Inflation indices must have certain
characteristics and
must be managed very transparently.
For
starters the pace and level with which our CPI progresses must
bear
plausible relationships with both domestic and international prices
including interest rates as the price of money and exchange rates as the
price of other currencies in our currency.
First considering
exchange rate relationships - an exchange rate of
one US$1:$30 000 measures
in part how much of a US good (say one litre of
fuel) is paid in the US
relative to the price paid of the same good in
Zimbabwe - so called
Purchasing Power Parity in economics.
The progression of the Zim
dollar exchange rate is in fact a
reflection of the progression of real
prices on the ground in Zimbabwe
relative to prices of the same good in the
US dollars. It can be observed
that the parallel exchange rate of one US
dollar moved from about $2 900 at
the end of December 2006 to about $30 000
as of to date, ie: the price level
of goods purchased in the US remained at
US$1 end of December 2006 and May
2007, while the price level for the same
goods over the same period in
Zimbabwe moved in relative terms, from $2 900
to $29 000, representing 25
000% inflation per annum.
This does
not compare to the 2 200,2% (3 700% announced yesterday)
inflation per annum
reflected by the CPI. Note here that reference is to
"real prices on the
ground" that real people, regardless, pay in response to
demand supply
fundamentals when contrasted to the more artificial controlled
prices.
Let's however assume the RBZ controlled exchange rates
are in
operation, comparing the previous exchange rate of $250 to the
current
seller exchange rate of $15 000 gives an annual inflation rate of 1
851
567%!
The exchange rate for the others which remained at
$250 says that
there is no inflation in Zimbabwe! The CPI inflation bears no
relationship
to any one of these inflation figures. The sums don't quite add
up here,
with the CPI falling out of reality - to the extent that people are
apparently using the US dollar and other hard currencies to hedge against
inflation.
If next we consider how the speed and level of
prices of goods
commonly purchased progress, it will be observed that they
are higher than
the speed and level of the CPI progression. The table below
shows some
preliminary data on price changes of a selection of goods from a
survey
in-progress between 31 December 2006 and 14 May 2007. This selection
of
goods takes into account the consumption shifts towards essentials in
periods of economic recession.
The table shows goods price
increases reflecting an inflation rate
well over the 2 200,2% estimated by
the CPI. If these prices on the ground
are anything to go by, the CPI is
clearly rendered kaput, having no
relationship whatsoever to the inflation
on the ground. Note that this is
not a rigorous index evaluation but one
does not have to eat the whole ox to
ascertain how tasty the beast
is.
If lastly we take the interest we receive on $100 per year, as
pegged
by the RBZ, to be the price of a holding of $100, the pace and level
at
which the RBZ pegged rates change must reflect inflation in Zimbabwe and
therefore have a reasonable relationship with CPI changes.
The
interest rates as pegged by the RBZ are currently averaging 700%,
that is
the price of $100 is averaging $700 per year, having moved from 600%
that
is, a price of $600 for $100. This represents an inflation rate of 45%.
Again quite different from the CPI inflation of 2 200,2%.
Additionally the nominal interest rates pegged by the RBZ must be the
sum of
the annual inflation reflected by the CPI and the real rate of return
from
government issued debt, assuming this investment is default free. With
interest rates currently pegged at an average rate of 700% and assuming a
CPI inflation rate of 2 200,2%, government issued debt is in real terms
yielding negatively at -1 500,2%, ie for every $100 invested in government
debt one looses $1 500,2 over the year, of the buying power of the initial
$100 investment assuming the 2 200,2%. The purchasing power lost is much
more if inflation is higher than that estimated by CPI as these rough
estimates and checks suggest.
If these manifestations of the
CPI deficiencies are anything to go by,
they lead us to conclude that the
CSO CPI inflation is much lower than
inflation on the ground. What's worse
all the CPI inflation adjusted
financial results recently published by banks
and other corporations are not
a reflection of the real corporate
performance - the corporate performances
could be negative.
*
Martin Tarusenga is Principal Consultant with Systemics Consulting.
email mtarusenga@aol.com
Zim Independent
Paul
Nyakazeya
AT Least 6, 35 million kg of flue-cured tobacco
valued at US$11,7
million (about $2,9 billion at the interbank rate) have
gone under the
hammer at the country's three auction floors since the
beginning of the
selling season on April 24.
Figures obtained
from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB)
yesterday revealed that
the deliveries were 83,25% more than the 3, 46
million which went under the
hammer during the first two weeks of trade last
year.
In
monetary terms last year's sales for the same period were 416,42%
less at
$567,3 million in Zimbabwe dollar terms due to hyperinflation.
Inflation
which is currently at 3 714,2% for April was 1092% during the same
period
last year.
In US dollars terms the value of tobacco sold is US$11,7
million,
102,43% more than US$5,7 million sold during the same period last
year.
A total of 68 371 bails have gone under the hummer so far
from,
88,12%% more than 36 345 which were sold during the corresponding
period
last year, the TIMB said.
Of Zimbabwe's three auction
floors, Burley Marketing Zimbabwe (BMZ)
has sold 979 974 kg worth US$1,9
million ($477,5 million). Tobacco Sales
Floor (TSF) sold 853 200 kg valued
at US$1,7 million ($425,7 million).
Zimbabwe Industry Tobacco Auction Centre
(ZITAC) accounted for 568 484 kg
worth US$1,1 million ($281,7
million).
Contract tobacco farmers accounted for 3,9 million kgs
valued at
US$6,9 million ($1,7 billion).
The current season has
also witnessed an increase in the selling price
that has averaged US$1,78c
compared to US$1,45c which prevailed during the
corresponding period last
year.
The increase in the selling price has been attributed to a
better
quality crop on offer compared to last year and an attractive special
exchange rate.
Last year's crop was affected by low rainfall
and late planting which
resulted to the leaf fetching lower
prices.
The waste percentage during the period under review is
3,98%. It is
44,87% less than 7,23% recorded during the same period last
year.
A total of 80 million kgs of the golden leaf is expected to
gone under
the hammer by the close of the season. A total of 55,5 million kg
was sold
last year.
Over the last few years, production of the
crop has been on the
decline owing to recurrent droughts and unavailability
of essential inputs.
Tobacco production declined by 76% last year
from an all time high of
237 million kg which was sold in 2000.
Year Production (million kgs) Year Production (million kgs)
1980
125 038 1994 182 466
1981 71 812 1995 198
380
1982 90 602 1996 208 716
1983 98
956 1997 215 369
1984 124 872 1998 215
000
1985 107 957 1999 193 183
1986 116
456 2000 236 130
1987 121 320 2001 202
540
1988 114 736 2002 165 842
1989 130
361 2003 81 812
1990 130 394 2004 69
112
1991 178 565 2005 73 392
1992 211
394 2006 55 533
1993 204 790 2007
Projection 80 000
Total production of tobacco since
1980
Zim Independent
THE Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe governor, Gideon Gono, yesterday told
parliamentarians that
government was the biggest beneficiary of foreign
currency generated by the
country over the past three years. He was
responding to parliamentarians who
said government and key parastatals were
not getting currency from the
central bank.
Foreign exchange allocation to priority sectors since
2004 show
government received a total of US$868 million. Noczim was the
second largest
recipient with US$587 million while Zesa got US$249 million.
The Grain
Marketing Board was allocated US$259 million while troubled Air
Zimbabwe got
US95 million.
The figures show government received
US$67,1 million in the first
quarter.
Gono dismissed calls by
some parliamentarians for the government set
up committees to allocate
foreign currency saying this would not help the
situation. "It is therefore,
illogical and misguided for some sections of
the society to recommend to
government the formation of foreign exchange
committees thinking that would
in itself solve the prevailing foreign
currency shortages," Gono said. -
Staff writer.
Zim Independent
Augustine Mukaro
STATE brutality against
human rights defenders, civic groups and
opposition supporters needs to be
checked before the country degenerates
into a military state, observers said
this week.
Analysts said there are prospects of an increase in
human rights
violations and brutality against dissenting voices in Zimbabwe,
especially
in the run-up to the 2008 joint elections if rogue elements in
the security
forces are not stopped right away.
"The continued
repression is shameful and a sad subjugation of
citizens' rights," one
analyst said. "It is a stark representation of the
breakdown of the rule of
law. A serious government respects its citizens and
should not engage in
random acts of thuggery against those who seek to
defend the rights of
individuals."
The analyst said Zimbabweans must be wondering who
will defend them if
the state agencies have become gangsters who subject
members of the public
to routine harassment.
"It is very clear
that state machinery such as the police have become
so politicised to the
extent that all semblance of professionalism is
sacrificed in an attempt to
prop up the Zanu PF government," the analyst
said.
Southern
African Development Community (Sadc) leaders have called on
the Zimbabwean
authorities to stop the abuses. Sadc presidents of law
societies last week
flew into the country to persuade government to stop
rampant human right
abuses by state agents and restore respect for the rule
of law.
The visiting lawyers held meetings with senior police officers, the
Attorney
General, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Chief
Justice
Godfrey Chidyausiku and the Judge President Rita Makarau.
In an
unprecedented move, the Pan African Parliament last Friday
decided to send a
fact-finding mission to investigate allegations of the
abduction or murder
of opposition activists, and detentions of journalists
and violations of
freedom of speech.
Despite lobbying by Zanu PF legislators Rugare
Gumbo, Chief Fortune
Charumbira and Sheila Mahere, the PAP voted
overwhelmingly for the mission
to Zimbabwe with 149 members approving the
motion while 20 opposed it.
Charumbira argued that the decision to send a
mission to Zimbabwe was
misguided, as there were far worse countries on the
continent than Zimbabwe.
"It seems the situation in Zimbabwe is
being exaggerated. There are
other countries where people are being killed
and that is ignored but the
moment someone cries in Zimbabwe, it is made an
issue. We see an external
hand," he said.
The mission to
Zimbabwe, expected in a few weeks, would be the first
fact-finding mission
to investigate human rights in the country since the
United Nations sent a
special envoy in 2005 to assess the destruction caused
by Operation
Murambatsvina.
Analysts said recent events that saw the leader of
the opposition
Morgan Tsvangirai being seriously assaulted by state agents
were a cause for
concern for the continent.
Opposition
activists have remained under siege over the past three
months with the
police arresting and assaulting suspects while in detention.
An estimated
700 opposition activists and supporters have either been
arrested, tortured,
abducted, or hospitalised since February. Three people
have been killed in
the process.
Reports from all provinces show increasing repression
with police on
high alert to thwart any demonstration. Last week five legal
practitioners
were detained and assaulted when police violently broke up a
protest march
by a group of about 50 lawyers.
The lawyers, most
of them in their gowns, were holding a peaceful
demonstration outside the
High Court in Harare to protest the arrest of
their colleagues, Alex
Muchadehama and Andrew Makoni. The protest was also
against defiance of
court orders by the police. Some of the lawyers
including Law Society of
Zimbabwe president, Beatrice Mtetwa, and four
others, were singled out and
badly beaten.
The Law Society of South Africa called on Zimbabwean
authorities to
cease harassment and intimidation of human rights lawyers.
"LSSA expresses
its grave concern at the ongoing harassment of human rights
lawyers in
Zimbabwe by the Zimbabwean authorities," chief executive officer
Raj Daya
said in a statement.
"We urge the Zimbabwean
authorities to safeguard the right of legal
practitioners to practise freely
without fear of intimidation, arrest or
assault. Lawyers must be able to
attend court and to consult freely with
their clients to provide effective
representation and to protect their
clients' rights and freedoms. They must
have proper and unfettered access to
the courts and to their clients, and
the lawyer-client relationship must be
protected."
Daya urged
the Zimbabwean government to respect the rule of law, carry
out the orders
of the courts and uphold the independence of the judiciary
and of legal
practitioners.
"The LSSA also expresses its support to the Law
Society of Zimbabwe,
its President Beatrice Mtetwa, and its members, and for
the work being done
by Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR). The LSSA
joins these legal
organisations in strongly condemning the recent arrest and
detention of
human rights lawyers Alec Muchadehama and Andrew
Makoni.
"Although the two lawyers have been released, we agree with
the ZLHR
that the actions of the Zimbabwean authorities cannot be tolerated
or
condoned in a democratic society," says Daya.
Observers said
the public assault on the legal fraternity was a slap
in the face for Sadc
and Thabo Mbeki's mediation in the political crisis in
Zimbabwe.
Muchadehama and Makoni were arrested last Friday when
they were
defending jailed opposition activists accused of petrol bomb
attacks. They
were on Monday charged with obstructing justice and freed on
bail after
spending the weekend in police cells.
Locally, the
Combined Harare Residents' Association (CHRA) said it was
outraged by the
barbaric attack on lawyers by the police.
"CHRA wishes to reiterate
its commitment to justice, advocates for
equity before the law and
vehemently denounces its selective application,"
it said in a
statement.
"The harassment of people who defend us against
organised violence and
torture is a serious mockery to the pronouncements
that Harare is a
democracy. We urge the international community, especially
the leadership of
the African Union and Sadc, to use their influence with
Harare to end
targeted harassment and the disregard of the rule of
law."
Zim Independent
By Brian
Chikwava
TO a man who has only a hammer, every problem he
encounters looks like
a nail. So said the American psychologist Abraham
Maslow - and, being a
writer, I find myself in a similar position. I happen
to have only a pen,
and every problem that crosses my path resembles a story
in need of fixing.
Because of this, I have come to think that the
art of story writing
has a lot in common with the art of
politics.
A glance at Zimbabwe tells me that this is a bad story.
It needs more
than thorough editing; it needs a complete rewrite. Whether
the script can
be fixed depends not just on its main protagonist, President
Robert Mugabe,
but also on the opposition. Their part is to put new ideas on
the table, to
carry the story in another direction.
Mugabe
believes he is living an epic history, something like War and
Peace. Except
that his story is packed with more heroic exploits than
Tolstoy, and can end
only with the triumph of his will over history. The
opposition, and many
others, thinks it should be shelved under "tragedy".
Mugabe has
scripted himself into a role in which there is no room for
fresh thinking.
If a mhondoro spirit (the mythic lion spirits that are the
custodians of the
people) were to appear before him with an offer to give
the president
anything he desired, but on condition that this wish shall be
given twice to
every citizen, it would not be out of character now for
Mugabe to request
that one of his eyes be gouged out.
This is a failure of the
imagination. But it also reflects a failure
of the opposition to articulate
its vision. Nowhere was this better
illustrated than the week after Morgan
Tsvangirai's brutal assault at the
hands of the police. Tsvangirai's wounds
were paraded on television stations
worldwide - the veritable
victim.
I am not suggesting that Tsvangirai should not be in pain,
or indeed
that he is not a victim. What I seek to understand is how the
people are
supposed to reconcile this sorry spectacle with the inspiration
required of
an indomitable and populist leader?
For his part,
Mugabe probably suffers sleepless nights and fierce
headaches. But we have
yet to hear about that. In an age in which the art of
image-making is
mastered even by teenagers on MySpace, it seems odd that
Tsvangirai has not
grasped this.
Or maybe the problem is deeper than that. Tsvangirai
has two
audiences, after all. One is outside Zimbabwe, to whom he must look
like a
victim. The other is in Zimbabwe, to whom he must at least try to act
the
part of irrepressible opposition leader. He is not sure if he's a victim
or
a fighter.
There is no language to convey an alternative
political project. With
a trade-union background, one would have expected
Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic Change to speak a language that
inspires the common people.
Instead he has flirted with neo-liberal
policies.
The opposition does not know whether they are free
marketeers or a
grassroots movement. Lacking the right words to spell this
out clearly,
Mugabe has been able to pose as a people's leader, monopolising
the idiom of
the left - with all its leftist language.
This may
explain why Tsvangirai, given a chance to script a new plot
for Zimbabwe's
future, is still holding his pen in mid-air. A better story
lies somewhere
inside his head, but he does not have the language for the
task. Staring at
a blank sheet of paper in front of him, Tsvangirai must
confront the first
question of characterisation: is his protagonist hero or
victim? -
Kubatana.net
* Brian Chikwava is a Zimbabwean writer and winner of
the 2004 Caine
Prize for African Writing.
Zim Independent
By Dele
Olojede
THE new president must first curb the newly ascendant
members of the
thieving classes, who must surely have thoughts of dictating
the direction
of things.
The paradox of Nigeria's recently
concluded elections is that the
country got the right man from the wrong
process. The man who emerged from
the shambolic elections as the new
president-elect, Umaru Yar'Adua, is by
most accounts a decent man with a
reputation - unusual in a Nigerian
politician - for honesty, modesty, and an
almost ascetic lack of
self-interest.
Of the three major
candidates - the others were outgoing President
Olusegun Obasanjo's
estranged deputy, Atiku Abubakar, who always seemed to
carry more than a
whiff of scandal about him, and a mean-spirited former
military dictator,
the retired general Muhammadu Buhari - Yar'Adua was
widely seen as the best
of the lot, and also the most likely to win.
Which is why, in
presiding over the worst elections ever conducted in
Nigeria, one marked by
a combination of rigging and incompetence, Obasanjo
has done Yar'Adua no
favours. The new president, scheduled to assume office
on May 29, now has a
more difficult challenge. He will first have to
persuade the public of his
legitimacy before he can gain enough political
authority to embark on the
urgent task of national renewal.
The mild-mannered Yar'Adua takes
over from the mercurial Obasanjo, a
retired general and former military
ruler. In this, his second incarnation
as an elected leader for the past
eight years, Obasanjo racked up an array
of major achievements scarcely
matched by any previous Nigerian leader.
He inherited a country
from which millions of its best and brightest
had fled. The economy was
basically dead. Bloodthirsty General Sani Abacha
had been simply carting
away dollar bills from the treasury when not
casually ordering the
assassination of political opponents, including their
wives and
relatives.
Obasanjo, having wasted his first four-year term, set
about reforming
the system with a zeal.
He brought together a
group of young and idealistic people in his
economic team and they hacked
through the jungle of regulations and
bottlenecks to growth.
They pulled the government back from large sections of the economy -
in
banking, telecommunications, solid minerals - and helped unleash the
great
entrepreneurial drive for which Nigerians are famous.
They got the
country out of a US$35-billion external debt and are
leaving foreign
reserves of about $50 billion for the next government.
Nigeria went
from 400 000 telephone lines to around 40 million in six
years. The
agriculture sector, which employs more Nigerians, has been
growing around
12% a year and the overall economy is expanding at around 7%.
They
instituted financial controls, introduced transparency in
procurement and
kept a tight leash on spending.
Above all, Obasanjo helped create
an anti-corruption agency which, for
the first time, began to call to
account the most powerful members of
Nigeria's rapacious political elite. So
effective was the campaign by the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,
led by a committed lawyer, Nuhu
Ribadu, that a saying soon gained currency
in Nigeria: "The fear of Nuhu is
the beginning of wisdom."
Obasanjo's dedicated band of reformers, in which, by the way, women
were
well represented, began to clear the path for a new Nigeria to emerge
from
the dark ages of congenital misrule. But a funny thing happened on the
way
to the promised land.
Around 18 months ago, Obasanjo allowed
himself to be seduced by the
number of sycophants who tend to hang around
the powerful. Without ever
publicly admitting to harbouring such ambitions,
he allowed his minions to
conduct a destructive campaign to secure him a
third term in office, though
the constitution allows for only two. Fanning
out across the capital Lagos,
with sacks of cash to bribe senators and
members of the House of
Representatives, Obasanjo's "amen corner" worked to
change the constitution
to favour a 70-year-old man's desire to remain in
power.
To improve his chances of success, Obasanjo, of necessity,
got into
bed with many odious characters whom he had previously condemned in
public
as the epitome of corruption. As his desire to hang on to power
increased,
so did the importance of the worst elements of the political
class.
To the eternal credit of the National Assembly - whose
members
previously had given no indication of a capacity for resisting cold
cash -
the move to amend the constitution was defeated. To his credit,
though he
could have so attempted, Obasanjo refrained from seeking
extra-legal means
to perpetuate himself in power.
This was one
of the best illustrations of the mercurial nature of
Nigeria's outgoing
president: he was willing to be tempted to hang onto
office, but he was, in
the end, unwilling to break the law to do it. Of
course, by this time -
April last year - it was too late. The government had
largely shifted its
energy from governing to full-time politics.
The corrupt
politicians - mostly governors, and especially governors
from the oil-rich
and poverty-stricken Niger Delta - who had been in
retreat, roared right
back to the forefront of politics, and Obasanjo could
no longer plausibly
separate himself from them.
The president's worst attributes gained
ascendancy. Of the two dogs
that we all seem to have in us, Obasanjo by now
was mostly feeding the bad
dog.
Desperate to protect himself
after he leaves office, Obasanjo
initiated a scramble to manipulate the
elections in favour of his chosen
successors. He supported the right man to
succeed him, but was determined to
encourage the worst process in aid of
that goal. The end justified the
means, and so it was that the embarrassing
elections confirmed outsiders'
deepest prejudices about Nigeria, and of
Nigerians' basest expectations of
their leaders.
The
deliberately botched elections, which all but the most
self-deluding
concluded did not meet the minimal standards of fairness,
masked other
aspects of democratic rule taking root in Nigeria.
The legislature,
as we have noted, was willing to stand up at a time
of great constitutional
moment, and refused to change the law to favour an
individual. Perhaps more
importantly, the judiciary, notorious for years for
doing the bidding of the
executive, has begun to assert itself.
For example, Obasanjo did
not trust the voters to reject his deputy,
who was seeking the presidency.
Instead he used every means, many skirting
the edges of legality, to try to
prevent Abubakar from getting on the ballot
at all. But the Supreme Court,
in a unanimous decision barely a week before
the election, ruled that the
effort to prevent Abubakar from running was
unconstitutional.
And so, in his final days, we see the general in his labyrinth,
frantically
busy as if he has another four years in the presidency. He is
issuing
instructions and commissioning large projects and generally carrying
on like
a man who can see the end of the road but plunges ahead anyway. He
knows he
is heading back to his farm under a cloud. It was not the final act
he
envisaged, where our hero rides off into a new life as Africa's
pre-eminent
statesman and the spokesman for the renaissance.
But after the
bitter disappointment with his conduct in the waning
months of his
presidency subsides, it will be possible to judge him fairly -
as the man
who revived his country from the dead and set it on a path where
his
successor now has a real chance of turning it into Africa's giant.
Nigerians are relieved that they have at least managed to arrange, for
the
first time, the transition from one (more or less) elected government to
another. Many are exhausted from eight years of Obasanjo and are glad to be
rid of him. What comes after has every chance of being demonstrably better.
But in Nigeria, only the fool will bet the house. - Sunday
Times.
* Olojede, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, runs a media and
consulting
company and commutes between Johannesburg and
Lagos.
Zim Independent
Comment
"THERE can be no normal sporting links with an abnormal
society."
That was the position adopted by the Anti-Apartheid
movement in the
1970s. It is one that our critics abroad will say needs to
be applied to
Zimbabwe today.
Australia's decision to instruct
its cricket players not to proceed
with the One-Day series in Harare and the
support given to that stance by
England's MCC and New Zealand suggest a
hardening of positions as Zimbabwe
sinks into lawlessness. The United States
has issued a new travel advisory
warning its citizens that Zimbabwe is not a
safe destination.
There is of course no threat to the safety of
sportsmen and women
coming here. But it must be borne in mind that one of
the most vicious
attacks on a Zimbabwean citizen took place at Harare
airport in full view of
the travelling public. So when Information minister
Sikhanyiso Ndlovu
fatuously states that the US travel warning was an
infringement of US
citizens' right to visit Zimbabwe, he must explain what
steps the police
have taken to bring to justice those responsible for the
assault on Nelson
Chamisa.
Is it not the duty of governments to
warn their citizens of possible
danger?
And it is not just
prominent politicians who have been attacked.
Lawyers demonstrating against
the arrests of colleagues have been picked up
and taken to an open space in
Eastlea where they were systematically
assaulted by police.
The
president of the Law Society of Zimbabwe was among them.
The Law
Society has been the subject of vitriolic attacks by
government spokesmen in
the state media.
Even commuters waiting to catch taxis at Fourth
Street bus terminus
have been assaulted for no other reason than the
suspicion that because they
were going to Epworth they must be responsible
for political violence!
Can government ministers persist in the
pretence that Zimbabwe is a
normal society when lawyers are arrested for
defending their clients,
opposition supporters are abducted and tortured by
state agents, and
commuters are assaulted on the grounds that they come from
a politically
active community?
Where courts have ordered the
release of detainees, the police have
not immediately complied.
This is the situation which Ndlovu would have us believe is conducive
to the
visits of international sporting teams and tourists. The reality is
Zimbabwe
is a society in turmoil. And it is wholly the product of a
government so
insecure that it is scared of its own shadow.
None of the charges
of terrorism against MDC supporters have been
proved and we can be fairly
certain they will ultimately go the same way as
those brought against MDC
officials in Bulawayo, accused in 2001 of the
murder of war veteran Cain
Nkala. The judge in that case called police
evidence a
fabrication.
President Mugabe and his ministers have invited their
critics to come
to Zimbabwe to see for themselves the "real"
situation.
This week there were reports that winter-wheat farmers
in Chinhoyi and
Karoi have been ordered to vacate their farms. Their sole
offence was to be
white. But it comes just as international agencies report
looming shortages
of winter wheat. And Zesa has warned of power cuts so that
power can be
diverted from cities to irrigation for wheat
production.
This is the "reality" visitors need to see. This is a
nation that used
to feed itself and had an effective electricity supply from
early in the
last century until very recently.
Policies that
sabotage agricultural production now run in tandem with
violence against the
regime's critics. Those who have a contribution to make
in remedying the
on-going political and economic crisis are silenced so
those responsible for
the nation's impoverishment can persist in their
asset-stripping habits. And
then the government reacts with indignation when
foreigners say this is not
a country they can do business with - which
includes playing
sport.
President Mugabe, or his representative, may be able to
attend the
EU-Africa summit in Lisbon at the end of the year. But the
Portuguese will
find their cherished meeting diverted by the Zimbabwe issue.
It won't go
away. And so long as people are being beaten, with the blessing
of the head
of state, nor should it be allowed to.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
By Joram Nyathi
I WISH to
congratulate Environment and Tourism minister Francis Nhema
on being voted
to chair the United Nations Commission on Sustainable
Development (CSD). I
would like to believe those who voted for Zimbabwe
looked beyond the madness
and believe their action will be part of the
antidote.
I didn't
have the time to find out how countries are chosen to chair
the CSD except
that it has to be on a rotational basis. Once it became
Africa's turn, the
lot apparently fell to Zimbabwe. What is not clear is
whether those who vote
for the chairman carry out an assessment of the
country or was it simply a
solidarity, reflexive reaction? Was Zimbabwe
chosen merely to spite Tony
Blair and George Bush or was there an assessment
of Zimbabwe's environmental
policies?
If the former is the case then it reduces the UN agency
to a charade.
If the latter is the case, then I shudder to imagine what the
environmental
situation is like in the rest of the continent! But what we
cannot take away
from Nhema personally is that he has been vocal in his
opposition to
environmental degradation, uncontrolled veldfires and the
destruction of
conservancies in the course of unplanned land
occupations.
Nhema's tenure is unenviable. Media reports say he
will focus on
desertification, agriculture, rural development, land and
drought. All these
are issues which have been intricately linked to
governance issues in
Zimbabwe since government embarked on its land reform
in 2000, a process
which has witnessed unprecedented decline in agricultural
production,
economic performance and food self-sufficiency. It is a process
which has
seen the dislocation of well-integrated industrial sector and its
agricultural base.
Apart from some 350 000 displaced commercial
farm workers, formal
unemployment is reportedly close to 80% and inflation
is over 2 200%.
If there had been an environmental assessment team
visiting Zimbabwe,
it should not have missed the raw sewage flowing into
Harare's sources of
drinking water, the death of fish at Lake Chivero and
the unauthorised
cutting of trees along the country's highways to sell as
firewood. The team
couldn't have missed the mountains of uncollected garbage
in Harare's
residential areas. Add to this the choking plumes of black smoke
as people
daily burn the same garbage and you have a clear picture of what a
clean
environment we live in. But if in the end all this counted in our
favour for
the chair of the CSD, then we don't need worse
enemies.
If once Zimbabwe was a model in food self-sufficiency for
the region
to emulate, we have forfeited that to the most unlikely
competitors - Malawi
and Zambia - to whom we must now go on bended knee to
beg for maize. They
have revolutionised their agricultural production
without pretending to
reinvent the wheel. There is nothing wrong with land
redistribution.
Unfortunately for political reasons, Zimbabwe's approach was
to destroy
everything which looked like the source of power for the white
establishment
when that establishment was no longer of any use to Zanu PF.
While the
set-up had been tolerated since Independence in 1980 because it
gave the
country a semblance of stability, chaos became unavoidable once the
same
source of white power became also the base for black political
resistance to
economic mismanagement.
Rural development will be
hard for Nhema to prove in the past seven
years. What has been most evident
is wanton destruction of the environment,
cutting and burning of forests,
siltation of dams and snaring and slaughter
of wild animals as rural poverty
has settled in. What has been evident is
the gradual severance of familial
links between Zimbabwe's urban poor and
their rural relatives as the cost of
transport has soared.
It is easy to blame our food deficit on
drought, but that is nothing
new. We have had droughts in the past.
Meteorologists forecast that
sub-Sahara will experience more droughts in the
coming years. South Africa
is reportedly experiencing its worst recorded
drought this year. So there is
nothing uniquely Zimbabwean about droughts.
It's something which can be
anticipated and mitigated.
The
excuse about droughts doesn't go beyond its political
convenience - like
Western sanctions which are described as a non-event
today and then as the
major source of the country's problems tomorrow. Or
like praising Africa for
bestowing this honour on Zimbabwe but attacking the
Pan African Parliament
as a "noise-making" body for wanting to send a
fact-finding mission to
Zimbabwe to probe human rights violations. How vain
can we get!
My charitable verdict about Zimbabwe's nomination is that we are seen
as the
errant schoolboy who is appointed prefect to rein him in. We have
become the
spoiler in the neighbourhood. There is precious little to feel
smug about.
It is an honour for which I feel sorry for Nhema because he will
need to
demonstrate to the rest of the world that it is deserved - that we
can
maintain a clean environment, achieve rural development, and are able to
revive agriculture and put productive land to good use, all of which require
a return to the rule of law.
At the personal level, Nhema's
performance at Zimbabwe Building
Society was lacklustre; he has been less
than inspiring as Environment
minister; while as a farmer was is described
as a disaster. Together with
his country, they are a bad advertisement for
donor funding in his new role
at the UN. At the global level, Zimbabwe's
choice feeds the perception,
already well-nourished, that in Africa acts of
infamy like torture, violence
and beating up of political opponents are
rewarded.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
By Dumisani Muleya
CONFIRMATION last week by
British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he
will quit No 10 Downing Street
next month was greeted with misplaced triumph
by Zimbabwe's authorities who
are anxious to push the fiction that our
current problems stem from a
dispute between London and Harare.
The usually less-than-candid -
and every so often delusional -
officials were wheeled out by the state
media to advertise their crass views
on our international relations and give
some bit of comic relief to an
otherwise gloomy population.
We
were told it was "good riddance" that Blair was going; that "Blair
was a
disaster"; "Blair was a failure" and Blair was this and that.
But
look who was talking. There was nothing wrong with government
officials
saying what they thought about Blair and giving their own
assessment of his
legacy. However, they were the least qualified to judge
him on the issue of
leadership and governance.
Starting with the comical part of it, it
was amusing to hear
spokespersons for a bankrupt regime which in 2005
mounted a whole general
election campaign under the banner "Anti-Blair
Election" celebrating the
exit of a man they said was "dead and buried" two
years ago.
It was nearly as funny as President Robert Mugabe
begging to talk to
Blair immediately after "defeating" him in
2005.
Why plead for talks with a man whom you have defeated? And
anyway, how
do you build bridges with a "gay gangster"?
Harare's case is often weakened by official pretence and flights of
fancy.
It would have been better for ministers to make their argument
against Blair
and the West in a rational and compelling manner, firstly to
win hearts and
minds at home, and then to get a grip on international public
opinion.
The real question here is whether Britain's policy
towards Harare will
shift after Blair. Or better still, will the situation
on the ground locally
change?
Frankly speaking, nothing will
change. It won't change anything
because the problem is not between the two
countries as claimed by
government. It's largely a question of leadership
and policy failures in
Zimbabwe. The rest are either aggravating factors or
simply red-herrings.
If government wants to prove this, let Mugabe
announce he is going
soon and see what happens. Only Mugabe's departure -
not Blair's - will
change things in this country.
In terms of
vision, leadership and governance, Mugabe and his cronies
are barely
qualified to review Blair's legacy. In the context of the crisis
of
leadership and governance in this country, they really have no moral high
ground or legitimate basis beyond their democratic right to hold their own
opinions (something they violently deny their fellow citizens) to judge
Blair. This is not to say Blair was infallible, far from it.
Let's compare Blair's and Mugabe's records. When Blair came to power
in May
1997, he had a vision to modernise Britain through the Third Way, a
centrist
philosophy of governance that embraces a mix of market and
interventionist
policies. It requires the abandonment of hard-and-fast
ideological
positions, such as public ownership, which characterised Old
Labour.
Building on Margaret Thatcher's reforms between 1979
and 1990, Blair
modernised his country and notched a record by driving one
of the longest
stretches of economic growth in modern Britain.
Ironically, he did this at a time when Mugabe was setting his own
record in
the opposite direction: presiding over a 10-year economic decline.
Blair rescued a country facing fossilisation of its public instutions,
infrastructure and services and left it enjoying unprecedented prosperity.
Having modernised his sclerotic party he turned Britain into the most
productive economy in Europe. Today thousands are migrating there from
countries such as Poland and even France because of the opportunities it
offers.
He also extended self-government to Scotland and Wales
and oversaw the
Northern Ireland peace process.
Mugabe, by way
of contrast, will certainly leave Zimbabwe in ruins.
His legacy will be a
polarised and pauperised country.
Blair put Africa on the global
development agenda, but Mugabe has put
Africa under the global spotlight for
the wrong reasons.
The catastrophic Iraq war engineered by the US
Neo-Conservatives and
domestic issues such as party funding blighted Blair's
last days. Blair at
least had the decency to admit some of his
mistakes.
By contrast, Mugabe came to power in 1980 offering a
different
package: a one party state, a command economy, and voodoo
socialism as his
vision. His first step was fierce political repression to
establish a
defacto one party state and intervene in the economy with
disastrous
consequences. These sowed the early seeds for the current crisis,
and by
1997 the die was cast.
Although it was good for
government to build schools, clinics and
roads (in fact this is one of its
main obligations) in the early 1980s, this
does not change the fact that
Mugabe's vision, if he had one, was based on a
deeply-flawed philosophy of
entitlement to rule. In the end, by any account,
Mugabe's rule has been a
disaster. Not so with Blair. Yes, he will be judged
to have misled his
country on the Iraq war but he leaves a country at the
top of its league in
terms of economic performance and offering
opportunities that others in
Europe envy. Ask Nicolas Sarkozy.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
THE government media has been triumphant over the
appointment of
Francis Nhema to head the United Nations Commission on
Sustainable
Development. But it has been revealed that his own record of
sustainable
development is less than accomplished.
The owners
of the once-productive farm he took over after it was
seized by war veterans
in 2002 say much of the land is now more like a
desert, according to the
London Telegraph.
"The 800-hectare farm at Nyamanda used to grow 90
hectares of maize
and 80 hectares of tobacco, as well as beef cattle, pigs
and sheep," the
paper said. "But Chris Shepherd (42) who still holds the
farm's title deeds,
said that when he flew low over Nyamanda a few weeks
ago, he was shocked by
its decline.
"There were about 50 acres
of appalling maize, which will produce
nothing. It hasn't been irrigated and
yet the dam was full," he said. "The
place looks dreadful. Two of the
tobacco barns which were burnt down after
Nhema moved in have not been
rebuilt. I could hardly believe my eyes when I
saw the destruction and lack
of crops. I hadn't seen it since I was forced
to leave."
Last
week the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which monitors
food security
in sub-Saharan Africa, issued an alert that Zimbabwe had
produced less than
half the maize it needs to feed its population, the
Telegraph points out.
Not very sustainable is it?
Incidentally, the Sunday Mail claimed
Nhema was "unanimously elected"
while the Zanu PF mouthpiece, The Voice,
published on the same day said
countries "voted 26-21" for Zimbabwe to chair
the CSD. What's going on here?
Muckraker was interested to see
a letter to the editor from DJ
Chigaru, general manager of the Zimbabwe
International Trade Fair Company.
He complained of misrepresentation by our
newspapers regarding the number of
foreign countries exhibiting at this
year's fair.
He understandably took exception to the heading:
"Worst trade fair in
48 years".
But Chigaru must understand
that, unlike the state press, our
newspapers are not in the business of
pretending all is well when it
manifestly isn't. The economy is on the rocks
thanks to Zanu PF and that sad
reality was reflected at ZITF. Where there
used to be tractors and combine
harvesters on display there are now home
remedies for errant husbands.
On April 29 the Sunday News carried a
feature headed "Cellphone herb a
hit at ZITF 2007". This referred to a
traditional medicine, ibaso, used to
"deal with wayward husbands", being
sold at the market hall.
Women waiting up for their husbands to
come home now have a remedy.
"You place ibaso on top of a mirror and then
burn it," we were told. "You
remove all your clothes, including the
undergarments and, with your naked
body reflecting in the mirror, you say
all that you can, calling your
husband to come home. If he is entertaining
another woman, the feelings just
die off and he dashes home."
A
picture accompanying the article shows two ladies selling "African
herbs
which help in boosting the immune system".
That is a very dubious
claim and ranks alongside the Gambian president's
recent quackery. But what
does the marketing of "Cellphone" tell us about
Zimbabwe's industrial
status? Isn't ZITF supposed to be a shop window to
advertise a modern
dynamic economy?
What does Chigaru and his team think they are
doing allowing people to
make claims for "boosting the immune system"
without a shred of scientific
evidence? It sounds as if the ZITF organisers
have been taking umlomo
omnandi (sweet mouth) which was also
available.
"Once you chew it people will like and enjoy all the
words that you
utter. You will actually leave people well
convinced."
We have just one question about "Cellphone". What
happens when after
the performance with the mirror and candle you get
"Sorry, the subscriber
you have dialled is busy."?
Bright
Matonga should learn that it is sometimes better to say nothing
than to say
the first thing that comes into his head. His "Good riddance"
remark on Tony
Blair's departure appeared churlish and immature. So did
comments by Didymus
Mutasa.
Do they want to be taken seriously? If so this is not the
way to go
about it.
Australia's decision to pull out of the
Zimbabwe cricket tour was a
"racist ploy", Matonga declared. And this from a
member of a government that
has confiscated thousands of farms from
productive farmers targeted simply
because they belonged to a minority
race!
And how about this for a contradiction: "This is also a
racist ploy to
kill our local cricket since our cricket team is now
dominated by black
players.But still, we will not lose anything because
cricket is not a major
sport here."
So what's it to be Bright?
Local cricketers will suffer or "good
riddance" because we don't
care?
You can't have it both ways. Sikhanyiso Ndlovu claimed that
the right
to play sport was a human right which must be respected under the
UN
charter. This will come as news to the UN! And this from a member of a
government that assaults lawyers conducting a peaceful protest against the
arrest of their colleagues.
Let's hope the pictures of Beatrice
Mtetwa's injuries are published
far and wide so the world knows what human
rights mean to this regime. And
who has been promoting politics in sport on
a sustained basis since 2000?
Who has been interfering with team selections?
Who has presided over the
collapse of Zimbabwe cricket? Not the
Australians.
It might be worth here quoting John
Howard.
"I have no doubt that if this tour goes ahead it will be an
enormous
boost to this grubby dictator."
As for Matonga's
comments on Blair, it cannot have escaped the public's
notice that the 10
years of unprecedented growth and prosperity Blair
presided over in the UK
coincides exactly with Zimbabwe's economic
contraction.
Blair
came to power in 1997 and immediately let it be known that he
would pursue
tight fiscal policies which became the basis for 10 years of
steady growth.
In the same year President Mugabe authorised the release of
millions of
dollars to propitiate restive war veterans. The economy, further
battered by
land seizures, has never recovered.
Why does Matonga think people
won't notice the contrast? Millions of
Zimbabweans have decided that they
would prefer to live in Britain than
Zimbabwe. What does that tell us about
the regime's sterile claims?
Is NSSA acting general manager
Amod Takawira a Zanu PF activist? We
ask because he has been releasing
confidential documents to the Herald as
ammunition in the state's ongoing
war with the ZCTU.
This concerns the dubious National Health
Insurance Scheme which will
be an additional burden on taxpayers. It will
also of course go to the
upkeep of another top-heavy parasitic parastatal
that provides sheltered
employment to people like Takawira who is now
singing for his supper.
How professional is it to denounce the ZCTU
in the state media? This
is yet another scheme that nobody
wants.
Muckraker is busy collecting evidence of official lies
in the state
media. We spotted one last week. Most journalists working in
this country
and South Africa know that former rebel leader Ian Smith has
been resident
in Cape Town for a number of years. This is so he can be near
his daughter.
But reporters and columnists with state newspapers
are obliged to
state that he lives on his farm in Shurugwi.
This is used to demonstrate President Mugabe's magnanimity.
Another
claim that is often made is that former UN secretary-general
Kofi Annan has
said that sanctions against Zimbabwe were illegal.
He never
actually said that. We know because we checked with his
office. It was a
yarn spun by President Mugabe on his return from a brief
meeting with Annan
in Banjul.
There are numerous other stories peddled by the official
media -
including the funny suggestion that Don McKinnon is
Australian.
There appears to have been some sort of strategy
session after the
Sadc summit in Dar-es-Salaam which requires all those in
any way connected
to the government to say that all the country's problems
stem from
sanctions.
Even Gideon Gono, who has in the past
repeatedly said that most of our
problems are of our own making, has now
been pressed into service to provide
an opposite point of view.
Writing in Baffour Ankomah's New African magazine, a mouthpiece for
President Mugabe, Gono managed to link every single setback including the
withdrawal of donor agencies to sanctions.
But he should be
careful about who he gets his "facts" from. Zimbabwe's
membership of the
Commonwealth was not terminated "in solidarity with the
West". Mugabe pulled
out in a fit of pique when a majority of members,
including those in the
Caribbean, Oceania, and South-East Asia, voted to
maintain Zimbabwe's
suspension because it had not met any of the democratic
conditions
set.
And where did Gono get his extraordinary figures for
Zimbabwe's
population? At Independence in 1980, he said, "non-indigenous
Zimbabweans
totalled 1,6 million.In contrast the indigenous population
totalled around
4,1 million."
Wrong Gideon. The white
population never at any stage exceeded 270
000. That was in 1973. Even
including Indians and Coloureds it wouldn't have
been much more than 300
000. And the indigenous population in 1980 was
nearly seven million. By then
the white population had sunk to about 150
000.
The figure of
4,1 million for the indigenous population was accurate
for 1960, not 1980!
And this is our Reserve Bank governor writing
authoritatively on the land
issue in order to provide assistance to a
propaganda offensive.
Gono didn't say in his New African piece what the inflation rate was
when he
came into office and what it is now.
Muckraker was interested
to read Caesar Zvayi's interview with
Tanzanian ambassador Adadi Rajabu. He
spoke of the mythical economic package
that Sadc would be offering
Zimbabwe.
"The Sadc executive secretary after visiting and having
extensive
consultations with relevant authorities in Zimbabwe will come up
with advice
on how Sadc can come in with assistance," Rajabu
said.
There was something he didn't say here. The executive
secretary, Tomaz
Salamao, had to be acquainted with the latest report of the
IMF team on
Zimbabwe which pointed out what needs to be done before
international donors
can resume assistance.
He didn't appear to
know anything about this.
Rajabu had some advice for us. "All
opposition parties and Zimbabweans
in general should follow the laws and
regulations of the country, failure to
that, the law will take its
course."
He didn't suggest the Zimbabwean authorities should be
party to their
own laws and regulations and international covenants they
have signed. Why
wasn't he asked about beatings in police cells and
detention of lawyers; was
that okay with him and Sadc?
We
thought the decision by the Harare council to ban the use of
hosepipes was
rather pointless. All around the city water flows across roads
from burst
pipes with no sign that the problem is being attended to. Prince
Edward St
opposite Alexandra Sports Club provides a good example.
Then
there's the small matter of the sprinkler going full time at the
entrance to
Heroes Acre!
Zim Independent
by Eric Bloch
THIS column has
previously addressed government's continuous efforts
to delude the
Zimbabwean population, and others, that government is in no
manner
whatsoever responsible for the cataclysmic, continuing decline of the
economy. government's deep-seated conviction of its absolute omnipotence is
so great that it cannot conceive of it in anyway being responsible for the
economic Armageddon that is fast approaching. And government's megalomania
is so intense that it is inevitably accompanied by equally intense
paranoia.
Believing that there is no foundation to any contention
of
governmental culpability for the near-total destruction of what could be
southern Africa's second-most virile and vibrant economy, and being
paranoiac, government is wholly convinced that that destruction has
primarily been caused by others, being of evil-intent, albeit aided and
abetted by allegedly adverse climatic conditions.
With
inflation having soared to over 2 200% (based upon the Consumer
Price Index)
per annum, and in practice exceeding 8 000%, according to
independent
studies, Zimbabwe is sustaining the highest inflation in the
world. The
hyperinflation is so pronounced that an estimated 85%, or more,
of the
population is striving to survive with insignificant incomes, far
below the
Poverty Datum Line (PDL), and more than half of Zimbabwe's people
are
suffering at levels below the Food Datum Line (FDL), being the minimum
resources needed to avoid malnutrition.
The magnitude of the
poverty is so great that, according to UNDP,
UNAids, WHO and other sources,
average life expectancy, at birth, has fallen
from 60 years in 1990 to 37
years in 2004, and some project that by 2007 has
fallen further, to about 34
years. The TB prevalence rate, per 100 000
people has risen from 248 in
1990, to 674 in 2004, whilst maternal mortality
virtually doubled in 10
years, from 570 per 100 000 in 1990, to 110 000 in
2000.
Formal
sector employment now represents less than 15% of the
population, and more
than 20% of the Zimbabwean people (mainly being the
skilled and
semi-skilled) have fled the country to seek income in positive
economies.
Recognising that it could not attribute the
encroaching economic
demise, accompanied by intensifying poverty and misery,
for all but a few
(mainly being the politically well-connected), entirely
upon climatic
conditions, government has endlessly sought others to be the
victims of its
false allegations of triggering economic devastation, thereby
diverting
attention from its own heinous blameworthiness. At different times
it has
blamed the minority white population in general, bankers, traders,
and
numerous others. But, over the last few years, its principal target for
its
deflection of blame has been the international community. It has
especially
focused upon the US, the European Union (EU), some Commonwealth
countries,
such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, but most of all upon
Britain and
its Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Continuously,
government spew-ed forth its vitriol against all these
perceived enemies of
Zimbabwe, contending endlessly that they were trying to
re-colonise Zimbabwe
(which is the last thing any of them would wish for),
were determined to
cower Zimbabwe into unmitigated subjugation, overthrow
its government, and
loot Zimbabwe's wealth. Presumably government espouses
the same beliefs that
Adolf Hitler's chief propagandist had, that constant
repetition will create
ultimate belief of anything, even that which is
devoid of any truth
whatsoever. But Zimbabweans, and the world at large, are
not that gullible.
No matter how recurrently government has striven to
convince the
Zimbabweans, and the world at large, that that is so, most have
not been
duped.
Despite its spin doctors, its newspapers who resolutely
ignore fact in
order to spread deception, and its audio and visual media,
which
predominantly do likewise, few have been effectively deceived into
believing
that all would be well, were it not for the illusory mythical
machinations
of those that government constantly contends are Zimbabwe's
enemies.
Therefore government ultimately concluded that it would
have to find
something, or someone, new to blame, but not as would discredit
its prior
contentions. Such discreditation would demonstrate government's
pronounced
prevarications. So, progressively since 2005, it has recurrently,
and with
increasing intensity (commensurate with the accelerating economic
collapse),
accused its self-declared enemies of diabolically bringing
Zimbabwe's
economy to its knees. The manner of their supposedly achieving
this is
claimed to be the application of evilly-conceived economic
sanctions.
The fact is that the only economic sanction imposed by
any is that, in
terms of US's Zimbabwe Democracy Act, that country cannot
support any
International Monetary Fund (IMF) assistance to Zimbabwe. But no
other
economic sanctions exist, despite the Zimbabwe government's contrary,
repeated contentions. None of the countries that have supposedly imposed
economic sanctions have barred trade with, travel to, or investment in,
Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe exports very extensively to the US and the EU, and buys
essential and other goods from them. Most of the investment in the mining
sector in the last few years, although not all, has come from the US,
Canada, Australia and the EU, as has other investment. Surely that is not
evidence of economic sanctions!
Admittedly, none of those
countries are disposed to provide Zimbabwe
with loan funding and lines of
credit, but none have barred doing so. The
absence of such facilities, from
those countries' public and private
sectors, is not due to sanctions, but
because few are determined to risk
funding those who are undoubtedly poor
credit risks. Zimbabwe is irrefutably
a poor credit risk, with its
continuous adverse balance of payments, its
considerable debt arrears, and
its inability even to pay its gold miners for
their gold. But the Zimbabwe
government contends the withholding of funding
to be "illegal economic
sanctions". Even if such sanctions had been imposed,
which they have not,
they would in no manner be illegal, for any country has
the sovereign right
to determine with whom to deal, and with whom not to
deal.
However, Zimbabwe persists with its unfounded attacks on others, and
with
repudiation of all opportunities of Zimbabwean economic transformation,
and
of opportunities of international reconciliation. As recently as last
week,
when Europe Day was commemorated, the head of the European Commission
in
Zimbabwe, Xavier Marchal, demonstrated yet again the EU's conciliatory
stance, saying that it is very willing to carry out dialogue with Zimbabwe
aimed at achieving prospects of "resumption of full co-operation".
Responding thereto, Zimbabwe's Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador
Joey Bimha resorted, yet again, to the Zimbabwean government falsehood of
the contention that Zimbabwe is the unjust victim of (non-existent)
sanctions.
In contradistinction to his contentions, the EU
states categorically
that: "There are no economic sanctions against
Zimbabwe. Trade relations
have not been the subject of restrictions from the
EU. The EU as a block
continues to be a major trading partner of Zimbabwe
with several EU member
states as Zimbabwe's most important markets..Zimbabwe
has benefited from
preferences under the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement.
Zimbabwe is a Sugar
Protocol Country within the Cotonou Framework". In 2006
the EU was Zimbabwe's
largest donor, with total EU support of 193,3 million
euros. (Developmental
support from the EU since Zimbabwe's Independence has
amounted to over 1, 2
billion euros). But Zimbabwe continues to allege an
imposition of economic
sanctions! It's just not true - the only sanctions
are targeted ones against
Zanu PF hierarchy and its pronounced
supporters.
Ambassador Bimha urged for conciliation - directed
dialogue, without
the parties setting any "benchmarks" as pre-conditions for
such dialogue,
but then called for the EU first to remove its sanctions
against Zimbabwe.
Who is setting pre-condition benchmarks, and they being
impossible of
fulfillment, for one cannot remove that which does not exist?
At the same
time, reacting to the urging by Xavier Marchal for the
establishment of a
violence-free environment in Zimbabwe, in which everybody
is treated
humanely, and "which clearly does not exist today", Ambassador
Bimha said
that his government abhors violence and believes that in a
democratic
society people should pursue their political objectives by
non-violent
means. He continued that, "Violence should therefore be
condemned by all
whenever it rears its ugly head, irrespective of who
perpetrates it", but
implied unreservedly that such violence does not
prevail in Zimbabwe or, if
so, not at the instance of
government.
What has he been smoking? How does he reconcile such
statements with
the unjustified, inhumane, cruel beatings of lawyers only
last week, with
the torture in prison cells of MDC arrestees, with the
beatings of numerous
Woza women engaged in peaceful protests, and much
more.
Hard choices ahead
By Eddie Cross
ZIMBABWE is back at
another crucial junction in its short history. At
home the economic and
political crisis intensifies by the day. Inflation in
April was probably
over 8 000% year-on-year, the currency has slipped to new
lows and is
trading at over US$1:$30 000.
Internationally there is a new global
consensus on the Zimbabwe issue.
The global community is more united on the
way forward than it has ever
been. Regionally there is a shift taking place
as leaders review their
stance on Zimbabwe in the light of new evidence that
the continuing crisis
here is impacting on their own countries.
For South Africa, time is an important element as their own internal
leadership struggles intensify and the flood of economic and political
refugees from Zimbabwe intensifies social pressures. The time bomb of a
possible review of the decision to stage the World Cup in 2010 in South
Africa remains a potential threat.
Internally Zanu PF is
imploding and various factions are engaged in a
struggle for ascendancy that
could lead to real violence and even open
conflict. Mugabe remains an
impediment to progress and a spoiler.
The MDC, still to recover
from the damaging split in its ranks in
2005, remains divided on its own
future and strategies for change. It
remains the only significant opposition
in the political arena but needs to
clear up
the confusion about
its identity and intentions.
For all these players there are hard
choices ahead. The hardest
choices lie with the domestic players: for a
civil society that has
struggled perhaps as hard as any other player to
secure a decent social and
political environment under a sound
constitutional dispensation that
protects human and economic rights and will
provide a foundation for future
development and progress.
As
for the MDC, it has to decide what it wants to do and it must do so
under
considerable pressure from all sides. The MDC must also decide if it
is
prepared to walk onto this particular playing field for a contest that
looks
like a rerun of David and Goliath. A political contest in which
Goliath
chooses both the weapons of combat and the playing field itself.
For Zanu PF the stakes could not be higher. They know that victory
will not
be certain as it was in 2002 and 2005, they know that defeat in
this
particular game will mean utter defeat, obscurity and uncertainty as to
their own future. They despise their opponents but know they cannot avoid a
showdown and that this time the whole world will be watching in the
stands.
Hard choices are only made under pressure. Today we all
being faced
with choices we cannot avoid any longer.
* Cross
writes from Bulawayo.
---------------------
Change World Cup venue
WORLD football controlling body
Fifa should shift the 2010 World
Cp tournament from South Africa to any
other country which is not near us in
solidarity with millions of tortured
and bruised Zimbabweans.
The staging of the 2010 World Cup
tournament in South Africa
will pose a great threat to all those teams
willing to visit or camp in
Zimbabwe.
Truth is, Zimbabwe
is not a safe tourist destination as the Zanu
PF government would want the
world to believe. Any visit by tourists to
Zimbabwe will continue to be
viewed as embracing Mugabe's life threatening
rule.
Home
Affairs minister, Kembo Mohadi, recently issued a
ministerial statement to
stop a Harare magistrate from giving opposition
activists bail. Is this
democracy?
Lawyers including the president of the Law Society
of Zimbabwe,
Beatrice Mtetwa, were recently beaten severely by the
police.
Human rights lawyers Alec Muchadehama and Andrew
Makoni are
facing death threats for representing MDC
activists.
Hundreds are being abducted on a daily basis by
state security
agents.
It is now up to Thabo Mbeki to see
that Mugabe goes before 2008
and a new constitution is in place before the
2008 elections. Human rights
abuses by the Mugabe government have reached
alarming levels that do not
need any sympathy from the international
community.
We shall disrupt the 2010 World Cup if Mugabe
continues with
rights abuses.
Kurauone
Chihwayi,
Harare.
-------------------------
Torture cannot be justified under
any circumstances
THE Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for
Human Rights (ZADHR) is
concerned about the escalating use, by security
forces, of torture, cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment against Zimbabwean
citizens, including
members of civil society, the opposition and
professional associations.
It is also of great concern to us
that the condition of those
affected has become difficult to monitor because
of the practice of beating
people and then holding them in detention without
access to independent
medical attention. Over the last few months medical
treatment has
increasingly been wilfully delayed or denied by the security
forces
resulting in the further deterioration of the condition of injured
persons.
Delaying treatment for blunt trauma and fractures,
particularly
of the head, abdomen and chest can cause significant morbidity
and
mortality.
Noting the continued use of excessive
force by the Zimbabwe
Republic Police, ZADHR condemns the assault on four
senior lawyers by the
police on May 8 following an attempt to present a
petition to the Attorney
General and the Minister of
Justice.
The lawyers concerned sustained severe bruising
confirmed by
medical examination as consistent with beatings by baton
sticks. The police
have brought no charges and have given no report of any
provocation.
ZADHR urges security forces in Zimbabwe to refrain
from the use
of torture and for the government to take any measures
necessary to prevent
further acts of torture taking place and to take
appropriate action against
the perpetrators.
The
prohibition against torture is absolute and cannot be
justified under any
circumstances. As stated in Article 2 of the Convention
Against Torture: "No
exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state
of war or a threat of
war, internal political instability or any other
public emergency, may be
invoked as justification of torture. An order from
a superior officer or a
public authority may not be invoked as a
justification for
torture."
Zimbabwe Association of
Doctors for Human Rights.
------------------
No show at all
The
letter by ZITF general manager DJ Chigaru (Zimbabwe
Independent, May 11)
refers. Apparently after all these years at the helm of
the Independent you
still don't understand that (and I quote from Chigaru's
letter) "publishing
deliberate misre-presentation and sensationalisation of
facts about ZITF
2007" is the sole prerogative of the state media!
Muckraker
mentions that according to the Sunday News "tens of
thousands of people
visited the Trade Fair" on its final day. The figures
were a deliberate
misrepresentation and sensationalisation of facts! And the
true story about
the number of foreign exhibitors we will probably never
know.
I for one hardly saw any at all. The International
Hall was
occupied by all sorts of local ministerial departments that had
very little
to do with trade, let alone with international
trade.
What a waste of time ZITF was - again! Chigaru
mentions in his
final paragraph that "The company does not take kindly to
deliberate
distortions". Well, neither do I, Chigaru! And you apparently do
"look
forward to more professionalism from journalists": well surprise,
surprise:
so do I!
unFair
coverage,
Bulawayo.
-----------------
Daylight robbery
WE
must all protest at the series of thefts now initiated and
enabled by the
Harare City Council.
Firstly, the theft of our hard-earned
money when it compels us
to buy its bins at suspiciously high prices and,
secondly, of the bins
themselves by dishonest passers-by in the streets. Who
will replace the
stolen bins? Who will pay for the replacement bins?
Council? Don't hold your
breath.
M
Wills,
Harare.
---------------
In solidarity with students
THE World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) has received news
from
Zimbabwe that university students were arrested and assaulted in
Harare.
WSCF is deeply concerned about the welfare of
Student Christian
Movement of Zimbabwe leaders Prosper Munatsi and
Munyaradzi Chikorohondo
(subsequently released.) We note with alarm the
unlawful arrest and brutal
treatment of these students.
We urge the Zimbabwean authorities to allow arrested students
access to
lawyers, their family members and food and to treat them with
dignity and
respect.
We strongly denounce the repression of Zimbabwean
students and
condemn the brutality of the police and the security forces and
urge the
authorities to guarantee students and all Zimbabweans the right to
meet
freely and to protest without fear of harassment and
violence.
The students were arrested by security guards on
May 10 at the
University of Zimbabwe, where they had taken part in
organising a peaceful
meeting to address student concerns on deteriorating
facilities and academic
courses. WSCF notes with concern that students
across Zimbabwe are suffering
from conditions which are set to seriously
impede their studies.
Reports from Zimbabwean SCM and other
NGOs show that thousands
of students have lost significant portions of their
course hours due to the
continuing impasse between striking lecturers and
government. At the same
time, students resident on campuses are faced with a
looming health disaster
because of the deteriorating sanitary
facilities.
WSCF hence calls on the Zimbabwean government to
urgently
address the crisis threatening the country's universities. We ask
that the
government in Zimbabwe take action on the national crisis in higher
education. We call on the government to address comprehensively and in good
faith the administration problems at the University of Zimbabwe and the
collapse of living standards of students throughout the
country.
We advocate for active participation of young
Christians in
issues affecting their daily lives, particularly contributing
in resolving
the current crisis bedeviling their country.
Proverbs 29 verse 2 reads: "When the righteous are in authority,
the people
rejoice, but when the wicked rule the people groan."
WSCF,
Geneva.