FinGaz
Nkululeko Sibanda Own
Correspondent
Minister to be quizzed over corruption case
POLICE have paid
Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo a visit as they
widen
investigations into his suspected links to the Zimbabwe United
Passenger
Company (ZUPCO) bribery scandal that has sent the bus company's
board
chairman, Charles Nherera to prison.
The scam has also landed Deputy
Information and Publicity Minister, Bright
Matonga in court. He and Nherera
have been jointly charged for demanding
bribes from bus supplier, Jayesh
Shah, on different occasions.
Sources said detectives from the Criminal
Investigations Department's Fraud
Squad visited Chombo's offices last
Tuesday intending to quiz him over his
involvement in the ZUPCO bribery
saga.
Chombo confirmed the Fraud Squad's visit to his offices, but said he
was yet
to be formally interviewed as he was away "on party business" when
the
detectives called. He said he was unaware of the purpose of the police
visit.
"I was out of the office for the better part of last week. I was
attending
to some party business outside Harare. My officials told me that
members of
the police investigations team wanted to see me, but I have not
been told
what they wanted from me. I hope that I will be able to know what
they
wanted soon," said Chombo.
This paper's police sources say the CID
move came after the police obtained
new evidence likely to tie the minister
to the scandal.
The ZUPCO saga, one of the worst corruption scandals
involving government
officials in years, relates to bribes allegedly
solicited from bus supplier
Shah. Nherera was jailed for two years after
being convicted of soliciting
US$85 000 in bribes from Shah.
Nherera and
Matonga allegedly acted in cahoots to demand more bribes from
Shah on
different occasions and have been jointly charged on these counts.
After
convicting Nherera of corruption, Harare regional magistrate Lillian
Kudya
ordered police to make further investigations into the case, placing
Chombo
in the spotlight by casting doubt over the minister's court testimony
during
Nherera's trial. The magistrate ordered the police to "delve into"
the
matter.
"The court also observed from the outset when Minister Chombo and
Deputy
Minister Matonga gave their evidence that there were a lot of
unspoken
features about the case, which if they had been clearly laid out
would have
been easy to calculate whether they were in as defence or state
witnesses.
"It was clear that their non-committal evidence spoke volumes of
what was
happening in the instant case, hence without evidence to support
that level
of involvement in the alleged scam, the court also treated their
evidence
with utmost caution, lest it be swayed and make unsound
conclusions. In
essence in particular, the two witness' evidence left a lot
to be desired.
"The court is of the opinion that if the police were to delve
into it, they
would be able to get to the bottom of what exactly was
happening as regards
the purchase of the buses," Kudya said in her ruling,
adding: "As earlier
mentioned, the minister's evidence left a lot of
unanswered questions, which
one hoped can only be cleared with further
investigations into the matter."
Kudya noted that Chombo had tried to bar
Shah from making a report to the
police, citing "bad publicity" as it was
around the time of last year's
March 31 parliamentary elections.
After
the handing down of the judgment, police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena
was
quoted as saying the police would not investigate Chombo as he had been
summoned to court as a witness.
At the time of going to press yesterday,
Bvudzijena said he was still
verifying the latest information The Financial
Gazette had on the matter.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda Senior Business
Reporter
A HIGH court judge has postponed indefinitely a hearing in which
the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) is challenging the deportation
of
Zwelithima Vavi, the outspoken general-secretary of the Confederation of
South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), South Africa's largest labour
federation.
Vavi was in May barred from attending the sixth annual
congress of the ZCTU
by immigration authorities who said he is a prohibited
immigrant.
But the ZCTU filed court papers challenging the deportation as
unlawful and
for Vavi to be allowed entry any time he so wishes to visit
Zimbabwe.
ZCTU lawyer Alec Muchadehama told The Financial Gazette that Judge
Felistas
Chatukuta postponed the hearing into the court challenge yesterday
saying
there was need for more information from the Civil Division of the
Attorney
General's office, which is representing home affairs and
immigration, the
respondents in the case.
"She (Chatukuta) wanted to
enable the respondents's legal representatives to
file supplementary heads
of arguments.
Prior to the expulsion of Vavi in May, government had deported
Cosatu
activists on three separate occasions inside two years barring it
from
holding fraternal discussions with the ZCTU.
Vavi's deportation
ahead of the ZCTU's annual congress in May brought to
three the number of
deported international trade unionists following that of
two Norwegian
unionists Alice Siame and Nina Mjoberg who had been invited to
the ZCTU
congress as observers. Government also recently deported black
American
unionists.
In reaction, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has
censured Harare
alongside Iran, Cambodia and Djibouti for stifling political
dissent and
persecuting trade union leaders.
FinGaz
Nkululeko Sibanda Own
Correspondent
THE Association of Trust Schools (ATS), an umbrella body
grouping private
schools, will today file a fresh application in the High
Court for an order
to have Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere and
officials in his ministry
charged with contempt of court.
Stephen
Mahere, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, one L.C Bowora and
Chigwedere, are listed as the first, second and third respondents in the
application, respectively.
The move follows a ruling by the High Court
that an earlier application
submitted by the association for Chigwedere to
be charged with contempt of
court was not urgent, but would be dealt with as
a normal court application.
Chairman of the association, Jameson Timba told
The Financial Gazette
yesterday that the ATS would approach the court today
with a fresh
application.
"We were told that the urgent application we
filed earlier for the slapping
of Chigwedere and his officials with a
contempt of court charge could not be
dealt with as an urgent matter," Timba
said.
In its initial application the ATS stated that Chigwedere had failed to
show
cause why the court should not have confirmed an order that an increase
in
school fees should have been effected in accordance with the
law.
Chigwedere had instead reacted by stating what decisions he thinks his
ministry should be making and fixing a time frame within which he deemed it
reasonable to make those decisions.
Said ATS in its court papers: "The
(permanent) secretary and the minister
were invited to show cause why the
court should not confirm (this)
provisional order that the secretary should
duly reply to applications as
granted by the court, but the minister has
replied by stating what decisions
he thinks his ministry should be making on
them, and fixing the time in
which he deems it reasonable to make them (the
responses to the
applications.)"
The trust's lawyers said there were
enough grounds for the court to charge
Chigwedere and his officials with
contempt of court as he had decided to
ignore court procedure by defying a
provisional order.
"Until a court order is changed or set aside, it must be
obeyed. It cannot
be ignored. It cannot be disobeyed because the minister
thinks it
unreasonable. However, (in this case) the court's deadline has not
been
met," said the trust's lawyer, Edith Mushore.
Mushore said the
contempt of court charge arises from the fact that there
were a number of
applications to which replies were still outstanding from
the ministry's
permanent secretary, that replies received so far were
unclear and that none
of the replies received by the applicants were in
accordance with the
law.
"It is apparent where the root of the ministry's non-compliance with the
law
is to be found, given the affidavit now from the minister, revealing his
misunderstanding of the proper application of the Consumer Price Index
(CPI)," the trust argues.
FinGaz
Rangarirai Mberi Business
Editor
WITH the September 30 capitalisation deadline behind them, bankers
had hoped
they could now finally get back to business.
But after this
week, it appears that bankers must now get used to always
having some
unknown risk lurking around every corner - and learn to always
keep their
fingers crossed.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono
introduced on Monday a
financial sector stabilisation bond to "ensure that
the financial sector
further strengthens its medium to long term asset
position", laying down
stiffer licensing requirements and raising the
prospects that lending
allocations could in future be decided by the central
bank.
Analysts estimate that the bond - seen as a disguised hike in statutory
reserves which were reduced only recently - will give the central bank well
over $50 billion when take-up begins Monday.
The RBZ apparently hopes the
bond will manage the impact of CPI-linked bonds
issued earlier this year,
and open up deficits that will push rates up and
cut off supply to
speculators.
Commercial banks will be compelled to place 10 percent of their
assets into
the bond at interest rates from 500 percent in the first year to
10 percent
in the final year.
Gono also announced that there would be an
annual review of bank licences,
based on a "score card" of their
disciplinary record.
"Banking institutions are also advised that, with
immediate effect, their
compliance record, discipline and uprightness in
observing the country's
laws and central bank regulations including
anti-money laundering and
anti-terrorism laws will be used as a score card
for the annual reviews of
their banking licences."
Between now and
December, the RBZ will examine over 30 financial
institutions to verify
their declared capital. In addition, each bank is now
required to obtain,
each year by January 31, a compliance clearance
certificate.
"No banking
institution's accounts will be complete or published without
this
certificate which guarantees the institution's continued existence for
business in Zimbabwe."
Gono says he would like to see 30 percent of
lending going into agriculture,
and less to other sectors. Currently,
lending to other sectors accounts for
nearly 60 percent of all
lending.
Obviously alert to the concerns his recommendations might cause,
Gono made
certain to try and soothe such worries by saying it was "not the
intention
of the central bank to go the legislative route to compel banks to
lend to
certain sectors."
While debate rages on whether the bond will
give the central bank the
results it desires, there is less disagreement on
the likely impact on
business confidence that the latest policy turn
brings.
Banks have been praying for a period of calm and certainty since the
crisis
in 2004, and this had appeared close with the quiet passing of the
September
30 capitalisation deadline.
But bankers and analysts say the
latest measures, while part of important
attempts at fighting inflation,
point to yet another period of uncertainty
ahead for the industry.
"We
understand the spirit behind the new measures, but I think it's
important
that whatever decisions we make, we are careful that they do not
make the
outlook any more uncertain than it already is," one banker said
yesterday.
Economist James Jowa said there would be concern over how
banks would fund
the bond.
"At what price are banks getting the funds to
get into the bonds?" he asked.
Other analysts say the bond rate remains well
below inflation, meaning the
bond could come at a huge cost to banks, given
the large chunk of bank
assets it will account for.
However, many say it
is not the bond itself that has caused the most worry,
with one bank CEO
saying that "the most important thing in this business is
to have at least a
good idea about what you are likely to be dealing with
tomorrow".
FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube Chief
Political Reporter
Police have questioned students suspected to be the
ringleaders behind an
hour-long protest march in Harare last week by
university and tertiary
college students which caught the law enforcement
agents off guard.
About 800 students marched from Harare Gardens to
Parliament last Wednesday
demanding the improvement of conditions at the
country's universities and
tertiary colleges as well as an increase in their
payouts. The students also
called on the government to reduce tuition
fees.
The Zimbabwe National Students' Association (ZINASU) organised the
protests.
Sources said yesterday ZINASU leaders, including the president,
Promise
Mkhwananzi, were picked up for questioning last Wednesday and that
some of
them were assaulted and detained overnight at Avondale Police
Station and
Harare Central Police Station.
Mkhwananzi confirmed that he
and other student leaders were taken into
police custody and released after
more than five hours of interrogation
about the unsanctioned demonstration.
Mkhwananzi described the action as
spontaneous due to the appalling
conditions at the University of Zimbabwe
and other state institutions of
higher learning.
"I was released on Thursday morning (last week) together
with eleven other
students, including our treasurer Samuel Mangoma after
Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights had intervened', said Mkhwananzi. "Mangoma
was severely
assaulted and sustained serious injuries. He is being assisted
to get
treatment by Amani Trust as we are speaking right now," the ZINASU
president
said.
Tafadzwa Mugabe, a legal practitioner from Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights
confirmed the arrest of the student leaders.
"Mkhwananzi and others were
later released without charge after we battled
to get them out of custody.
Some of them, I believe, were injured after
being beaten by the police. We
are looking into these allegations.
"
Wayne Bvudzijena, the national police spokesman, said he had not been
briefed about the arrest or questioning of the students.
But Mkhwananzi
insisted: "I was taken from the University of Zimbabwe and
taken to Avondale
Police Station and only released at about 2pm the
following day,
Thursday."
The students' hour-long demonstration in the Harare city centre
followed
hard on the heels of a Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)
protest
march which was scuttled by state security agents last
month.
Leaders of the labour movement arrested for organising the
demonstration
were brutally assaulted while they were in police custody.
Many are still
recovering from their injuries.
FinGaz
Kumbirai
Mafunda Senior Business Reporter
TWO Air Zimbabwe workers who were part
of the crew when the First Family was
handed a menu card with a
stomach-churning typographical error during a
flight to the Far East in
August, have been demoted.
The demotion of the two workers is punishment
for handing out a corrupted
menu to President Robert Mugabe and the First
Family on a
Harare-Singapore-China flight. A menu item that should have read
"Chimukuyu
and Dovi" turned up as something revolting when as a result of a
typographical error, the letter 'd' replaced 'v'.
Insiders at the
national carrier disclosed that Air Zimbabwe's management
came hard on two
of the flight crew who were suspended on account of the
embarrassing boob at
the conclusion of disciplinary hearings conducted
recently.
Victoria
Munzara who was the acting flight services supervisor and Masi
Gambanga, the
cabin services manager, have now been demoted. Munzara now
holds the
position of flight services officer while Gambanga has been
transferred to
the marketing department as a marketing officer.
However, Gambanga is
reportedly challenging her demotion through the
Ministry of Public Service,
Labour and Social Welfare.
The sources said only Chipo Sikireta, the
secretary to the senior flight
operations manager who had been suspended at
the time of the costly
mis-spelling, was not demoted.
The sources also
said Connie Masimbi one of the senior flight attendants at
Air Zimbabwe who
was in charge of the cabin crew during the presidential
flight, faces
unspecified disciplinary action.
"She is due to be called for a hearing and
is not allowed to travel with the
President," said a source.
As a result
of the August menu card debacle, the national airline has
recruited a new
presidential team.
"They (the flight services team) are no longer flying with
the President,"
said the sources. The new team is being picked from the
other crew."
Air Zimbabwe spokesperson David Mwenga confirmed that the
national airline's
disciplinary teams had dealt with the accused workers'
cases.
"There were hearings and findings and recommendations made by the
disciplinary committee. I can confirm that all the people who went for
hearings were all asked to come for work," said Mwenga.
Efforts to reach
Gambanga and Munzara were fruitless yesterday as they were
both said to be
on leave.
FinGaz
Zhean Gwaze Staff
Reporter
THE government has continued to disrupt operations on commercial
farms and
timber plantations despite earlier pledges that land seizures were
now a
thing of the past.
Two prime farms in Manicaland were recently
besieged by groups of people who
claimed to be new beneficiaries, industry
officials said.
A farm owned by David Meikles, a shareholder in the Meikles
Africa hotels
and retail group, and another belonging to an unnamed farmer
are regarded as
success stories in Manicaland.
According to the
Commercial Farmers Union, Meikles was prevented from going
into his house by
the group of settlers. Despite promptly reporting the
matter to the police,
they are yet to offer any feedback.
"As of Friday last week he (Meikles) was
not allowed access to his house,
workshop area and implements but we heard
he was only allowed to harvest his
crop. It is unfortunate that these
disruptions continue because we have
heard of disruptions in Chinhoyi,
Kwekwe and Manicaland," a CFU official
said.
National Security and Land
Resettlement Minister Didymus Mutasa confirmed
the latest evictions of white
farmers, saying the new occupants were vetted
by the Land Review Board. The
eviction of white farmers would continue to
make way for landless black
farmers, he said.
"We have never said the land reform programme has stopped.
The land being
given to A2 farmers is coming from the white farmers. As long
as there are
still people who need land we will continue to allocate them
those farms,"
said Mutasa.
Reports indicate that export timber worth more
than US$22 million was lost
throughout the country last year due to forest
fires caused by the illegal
settlers.
Industry players said a total of 3
233.1 hectares of plantations were
destroyed by forest fires between January
and September, 2005.
The government recently prosecuted two white farmers for
defying orders to
vacate their farms. It ordered another 50 white landowners
across the
country to surrender their properties.
"Many of us are farmers
and we believe we contribute meaningfully to the
country's agrarian process.
Many of the farmers have complied with the
government's requirements for
offer letters but we haven't seen any," the
CFU said.
A new law that
makes it illegal for any farmer who has previously received
an eviction
order to remain on the land could force the remaining white
farmers off the
land.
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda Senior
Business Reporter
UNDP lines up second conference for stakeholders but . .
.
HARDLY a month after some influential civic groups boycotted a United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-brokered conference on the proposed
establishment of a human rights commission, the UNDP has lined up a
follow-up meeting at the end of this month.
Insiders within the
splintered human rights movement disclosed this week
that some rights groups
which threw their weight behind the creation of the
controversial human
rights commission by attending last month's inaugural
consultative meeting
in Kariba were putting final touches to a programme for
a second
consultative meeting.
"We are negotiating on the parameters and the programme
of the meeting such
as identifying who should attend and who should speak on
what," said an
insider who asked not to be named, saying he was not
authorised to speak on
behalf of the rights groups.
Leaders of the
authoritative pro-democracy and rights organisations
including the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA), the Zimbabwe Congress
of Trade Unions (ZCTU),
the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CZC) and the media
reform body, the Media
Institute of Zimbabwe (MISA-Zimbabwe Chapter), the
Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights (ZLHR) among others, protested that there
was no basis for
discussing the setting up of a rights commission when there
was no
slackening in the government's suppression of people's rights. They
took
this stance following last month's brutalisation of labour leaders by
the
police, which was endorsed by some senior government officials.
But despite
these strong sentiments, the UN representative office in Harare,
which is
supporting the initiative by providing financial resources and
other
logistics, says it is pushing ahead with plans for the setting up of
the
contentious rights body.
Fambai Ngirandi, spokesperson for the splintered
National Association of
Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO), confirmed
that preparations for a
second consultative meeting were in full
swing.
"It (the follow-up meeting) was one of the key resolutions from the
Kariba
meeting," said Ngirandi. "It will be much bigger than the first
because we
are targeting the broader civic society. By all means necessary
we must find
a solution because we have a volatile situation that needs
urgent redress,"
added Ngirandi.
Ngirandi charged that organisations that
boycotted last month's meeting had
not suggested suitable alternatives to
the UNDP plan.
"We need to negotiate with the government which is responsible
for most
human rights abuses to allow space for civic organisations such as
the NCA
and CZC to continue with protests."
But Lovemore Madhuku, the
chairman of the NCA, a constitutional reform body
made up of more than 90
organisations, accused NANGO of misrepresenting the
views of rights
groups.
"NANGO must not pretend to be speaking on behalf of civic society.
What does
NANGO know about human rights abuses," asked Madhuku. "As the NCA
we won't
recognise any initiative that seeks to sanitise the deeds of this
government. We need a comprehensive process that brings a new
constitution."
FinGaz
Rangarirai Mberi Business
Editor
SHARES suffered a third day of losses yesterday, falling below the
400 000
point-mark as investors ignored analyst comments that the market had
acted
with undue panic to cause Tuesday's carnage.
The main
industrial index reduced Tuesday's decline to close 4.57 percent
lower at
399 920,42 points in a third straight day of losses, but Rio Zim
led a 4,5
percent recovery in minings.
"Seven counters gained today, different from
yesterday (Tuesday) when we had
no gainers at all. But the mood is still
down. We are getting a lot of
selling coming from individual investors," a
trader said at the close
yesterday.
NMB, the biggest faller on Tuesday,
was the top gainer yesterday, up 33
percent to $12.
Monday's 1,2 percent
dip had snapped an 18-day winning streak on the ZSE,
but what had begun as
profit taking immediately turned into panic selling
after Reserve Bank
governor Gideon Gono cut deep into bank assets, raised
accommodation rates,
and announced new controls on trade in stocks that
brokers say could cause
administration problems.
Renewing his previous criticism of the ZSE as a
haven for speculators, Gono
said the market was due for "reorientation",
announcing changes to payments
systems and plans to force more disclosure of
investors and also to compel
investors to show tax numbers on
purchases.
The market immediately slumped 13 percent on the news, despite
Gono having
given no firm timetable for the new regulations, only saying
that this would
be "soon".
In the aftermath of Tuesday's steep fall,
analysts said investors might have
overreacted, with a leading broker
recommending in a note that investors
immediately buy into the
weakness.
But the harsh tone of Gono's Tuesday remarks has clearly left
investor
nerves frayed.
The RBZ chief's financial sector bond is designed
to prod interest rates
higher and choke the stock market.
However, with
new inflation data released Tuesday showing no signs that
central bank is
any closer to taming inflation, a section of the market
believes negative
real interest rates will remain.
ZSE CEO Emmanuel Munyukwi has told The
Financial Gazette that fund mangers
were holding back as they pored over the
policy statements before they could
make firm decisions.
FinGaz
Njabulo Ncube Chief
Political Reporter
GOVERNMENT would have to fork out 15 billion pounds if
it were to fully
compensate all white farmers dispossessed of their
properties at commercial
rates but it is likely to end up shouldering only a
tiny fraction of the
cost because hard-pressed farmers are having to settle
for much less, a
farmers' group says.
It emerged this week that out
of about 300 white farmers offered
compensation by the government, 99
percent of the takers are elderly people
reeling from the effects of the
harsh economic environment and the reminder
continue to hold out in the hope
that the government will eventually agree
to pay commercial
rates.
Didymus Mutasa, the Minister of National Security, Lands, Land Reform
and
Resettlement, was not immediately available to comment on how much the
government had paid out as compensation so far or how much it had set aside
for the entire process.
Presenting the Gazetted Land (Consequential
Provisions) Bill for its second
reading in the Senate last Wednesday, Mutasa
said a total of 206 farmers had
been compensated for the immovable assets on
their former properties.
Both the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) and Justice
for Agriculture (JAG), a
pressure group catering for white farmers,
yesterday confirmed that the
government had compensated about 300 farmers
since the land reforms started
in 2000. They said those compensated received
between five and 10 percent of
the actual value of their
properties.
Although Kuda Ndoro, a senior economist at the CFU, refused to
say what the
organisation's estimates for full compensation were, JAG said
its valuators
estimate that full compensation for land is in the region of
15 billion
pounds plus between US$8 million and $10 million for
damages.
John Worswic, the chief executive of the Justice for Agriculture
Trust
(JAGT), described the compensation paid to some members of the
organisation
so far as ridiculous.
"Most of the 200 to 300 farmers that
have accepted compensation have been
reduced to destitution. Some of them
could not even pay for their
medication," said Worswic.
"The compensation
offer is ridiculously low. Qualified evaluators put the
bill for the
compensation of all the over 4 200 farmers removed from their
land at 15
billion pounds and then between US$8-10 million for the damages
suffered by
the farmers over the past six years."
The CFU Communications Office however
stressed that the payment of
reasonable and fair compensation to the
dispossessed commercial farmers was
central to ending conflict over the land
issue.
"About 300 farmers have been compensated since 2000 and the
compensation
value represents between three and 10 percent of the revalue of
the
properties. The trend has been that those accepting it have been mainly
the
elderly who have been left destitute," said a CFU Communications Office
spokesperson.
"As a union we are seeking ways to improve compensation
levels by engaging
the different institutions to seek a way forward by
settling the
compensation issue fairly. By allowing farmers to remain
productive, they
can contribute positively to the fiscus which will help
government to meet
its compensation commitments."
FinGaz
Kumbirai Mafunda
Senior Business Reporter
BP&SHELL Marketing Services (BPSMS) has
discontinued sales of fuel to 92
former employees citing constraints in
procurement.
The facility to allow the retrenchees to access fuel from
BPSMS's service
stations was awarded by the Minister of Public Service,
Labour and Social
Welfare Nicholas Goche in March.
Under the facility,
which was agreed as part of the retrenchment package the
workers were
entitled to access fuel at BPSMS's fuel depots until March
2008.
But
BPSMS's human resources manager Samukeliso Ndebele last month cancelled
the
facility charging that the fuel dealer was experiencing difficulties in
sourcing adequate fuel stocks for its own consumption while the stocks it
was receiving from the state-run National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim)
were insufficient.
"Due to the current fuel supply problems where BP
& Shell Marketing Services
are unable to purchase enough quantities of
fuel for their own use, we
regret to advise that with effect from Monday
25th September 2006, we will
suspend selling fuel at our depots to
yourselves," read part of the
memorandum sent to workers and seen by The
Financial Gazette.
"Our fuel stocks dashboard is currently in the red. The
current allocations
from NOCZIM are inadequate and in the absence of any
other source of fuel
this facility will no longer be possible."
Ndebele
said the suspension of the facility will be in place until there are
changes
to the fuel supply situation.
BPSMS retrenched the 92 employees early in the
year barely three years after
sacking 80 others in 2003.
All the
transport and workshops workers were relieved of their jobs as
delivery of
products to customers is now being outsourced to established
transporters.
Its Blending Plant, which used to blend oils for BP Malawi,
and BP Zambia
was also shut down with all lubricants requirements now being
imported from
BP South Africa.
Once one of the leading fuel merchants in
Zimbabwe BPSMS has sold off many
of its service stations owing to the
six-year-old fuel crisis.
Other multinational companies have also disinvested
from the country, which
is battling its worst economic crisis since
independence.
Because of the foreign currency crisis, most private fuel
importers are
battling to access foreign currency to procure fuel.
The
few remaining importers are encountering a government crackdown
compelling
them to sell fuel at between $320 and $335/litre.
But dealers say they need
to sell fuel at above $700/litre to recoup
procurement costs.
FinGaz
Rangarirai Mberi Business
Editor
WITH the third quarter starting off on a bitter note with the
central bank's
policy moves on Monday, investors can only imagine what more
shockers await
them in the last quarter of the year.
The red was all
over the ZSE's board on Tuesday morning after Reserve Bank
governor Gideon
Gono raised rates, introduced a special bond for banks and
wagged a long
finger at the stock market - saying it needed "reorientation"-
sending
shares lower.
But true to form, while a lot of fingers will burn over the
coming weeks,
there are bullish market players refusing to accept defeat,
saying the
bleeding on the ZSE will only last a while.
Inflation
expectations and exchange rate movements will be key, the bulls
say, and the
bulls will be back at the trough - feeding like pigs again.
The ZSE index
shot up nearly 610 percent in the past quarter, as the "bull
market" evolved
into a "pig market", where investors went hog-wild gulping
down any stocks
available, including those previously left alone on the
basis that they had
dodgy assets and short futures.
Bulls had splurged on stocks they would not
have touched in previous times -
those times when spoil-sport market
analysts urged investors to watch for
"fundamentals" before buying into
stock.
Weak interest rates had kept the pigs well fed, and despite this
week's
major setback, there are many that refuse to press the panic
button.
Until Monday, the industrial index had broken records in every
trading
session for weeks, carried by shares representing very different
sectors,
from Powerspeed to First Mutual Limited and Zimpapers, the share
some
investors have previously sworn never to touch "on moral
grounds".
Zimnat, the country's loss-making number two short term insurer,
rose over
300 percent over the past month. Another top gainer over the past
month was
CFI, up 320 percent.
Critics had wondered how long the buying
was to continue with little regard
to "fundamentals". As long as there is
still nowhere else to place your
money once you sell, analysts had said. And
as for the old values of poring
over a company's results with a spyglass
looking for "fundamentals" - that
would have to wait, the bulls
said.
Many had wondered how long this was going to last before somebody
called
time on the binge. It happened on Monday, but the jury is still out
on
whether Gono has finally stolen the march on stock market investors in
his
long, long battle with them.
One report had quoted Alpha Asset
Management analyst Arthur Shangwa as
making a telling remark: "Do you buy
fundamentals or you buy the price
upside potential in the current
environment? I prefer the price with the
current bullish sentiment."
And
King-dom Stockbro-kers, in its last report, had noted how "bulls had
grown
wings".
Earlier, the broker had said: "Going forward, we expect the term of
office
of the bulls to continue to be determined by the need to provide
cheaper
sources of finance to the productive sectors . . . " It would now
appear
Gono has another way to do that.
Imara Stockbrokers had seen the
bull run slowing, but makes the important
note that all eyes will be on Old
Mutual. Any significant upward movement in
the insurer's share price carries
the entire index forward, said Imara. With
the inflation outlook poor, this
is widely expected.
FinGaz
Nyasha
Nyakunu
THE shock and anger was palpable as members of a
parliamentary portfolio
committee came face to face with the shenanigans of
the executive chairman
of the government-controlled Media and Information
Commission (MIC), Dr
Tafataona Mahoso.
This came against the backdrop of
an MIC statement published in The Herald
on September 29 2006 condemning a
two-day workshop with the Parliamentary
Portfolio Committee on Transport and
Communications on media law reforms
organised by the Media Alliance of
Zimbabwe (MAZ).
MIC branded the organisers of the workshop, MISA-Zimbabwe,
the Zimbabwe
Union of Journalists (ZUJ) and Media Monitoring Project of
Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
which constitute MAZ, "regime change activists".
In its
statement the MIC claimed that the workshop which opened in Harare on
September 29 was aimed at creating a "stilted platform from which the
activists may engage in an orgy of anti-Zimbabwe diatribe intended to
coincide with other recently staged events".
As far as members of the
Committee who attended the workshop were concerned,
judging from their
verbal and body language, Dr Mahoso had this time round
crossed the Rubicon
by attacking and condemning a meeting to which they had
agreed to attend as
Representatives of the House of Assembly and Senate.
The Committee comprises
lawmakers drawn from the governing party and two
opposition parties and is
chaired by Leo Mugabe who was elected on a ruling
Zanu PF ticket.
While
the private media and civic society organisations have generally
developed
elephant skins and dismissed Mahoso's recent but relentless
vitriol branding
them agents of imperialism as not worthy of any immediate
response, the
Committee which was led by Mugabe during the workshop, was not
amused by Dr
Mahoso's theatrics and melodramatics.
They saw red and could still be seeing
no other colour unless and until Dr
Mahoso is made to account for his
statements - which they vowed they would
see to it.
Eight members of the
Committee were in attendance and actively participated
in the discussions
which, among other issues, focused on the functions of
the Committee and its
role in protecting freedom of expression, challenges
associated with
accessing public information, the state of the media in
Zimbabwe and the
need for media law reforms.
The MIC chairman was invited to the workshop but
chose to announce his
decline from attending through the newspaper by
launching a massive diatribe
against the organisers much to the chagrin of
the Committee.
In a statement the MIC attacked and condemned MAZ for
misrepresenting to
government the nature and purpose of the
conference.
Conceding that the MIC had been invited to the workshop, the
statutory media
regulatory body proceeded to attack the meeting as a
"foreign-sponsored
exercise" disguised as a Zimbabwean media law reform
workshop.
Assuming the role of government spokesperson and that of the
Ministry of
Information in particular, the MIC claimed that it had been
misled into
believing that MAZ had invited the Acting Minister Munyaradzi
Paul Mangwana
when in fact the Minister and the Secretary George Charamba,
knew nothing
about the meeting.
"The real purpose of the media law reform
workshop is to create a stilted
platform from which the activists (MAZ) may
engage in an orgy of
anti-Zimbabwe diatribe intended to coincide with other
recently staged
events," said MIC in its statement.
It further claimed
that the three media organisations were involved in
convening clandestine
conferences, (ironically to which MIC and Parliament
are invited), under the
guise of media law reforms.
The Acting Minister of Information was in fact
invited to the workshop well
in advance of the meeting.
It can only be
speculated that the MIC's sinister motive was to scuttle the
meeting which
discussed among other contentious laws, the Access to
Information and
Protection of Privacy Act - Dr Mahoso's very lifeblood
without which the
statutory Commission which he chairs, would not have come
into
being.
While members of MAZ can only speculate on the intentions of the
statement,
the same cannot be said about the Parliamentary Portfolio
Committee on
Transport and Communications.
The Committee has the powers
to demand an explanation from Dr Mahoso for
they stand accused of being
lured to a meeting aimed at engaging in an "orgy
of anti-Zimbabwe
diatribe".
The Committee should therefore haul the MIC chairman to appear
before them
as he might have
valuable intelligence on the exact nature
and agenda of the meeting which
was held under the "guise" of discussing
media law reforms.
Nyasha Nyakunu is the Research and Information
Officer MISA-Zimbabwe. He can
be contacted at 84 McChlery Drive Eastlea Box
HR 8113 Harare Zimbabwe Phone
+ 263 4 776165 or 746838 Mobile:
+ 263 (0)
11 602 448
FinGaz
Letter From America with Ken
Mufuka
WHEN my nephew, who was educated abroad, and a Zimbabwean patriot
with a
seemingly flourishing business decided to flee the country, I was
saddened.
However, I realised that perhaps he was right after all. The
events that
afflict our country, taken historically, have affected every
country from
Egypt to South Africa. They all boil down to the value of
money. In 1957 the
Egyptian pound was valued at one English pound. It is now
worth 20 cents,
and so the story goes on and on throughout Africa. If you
must flee, here
are some practical pieces of advice that will be useful for
teachers and
nurses.
The Zimbabwe Teachers Certificate is universally
accepted and was very well
designed for the global market. In developing
countries like the United
Kingdom, the US and Canada, teaching as a
profession has lots its
attractiveness because of spoiled kids and public
schools that have no means
of disciplining reluctant learners. That is where
your opportunity may lie,
if you are prepared to be creative and long
suffering for the next five
years. The Departments of Education in South
Carolina, Florida, Georgia and
New York have been recruiting teachers from
Bulgaria, Poland and the former
Eastern bloc countries. Zimbabwean teachers
are better trained than teachers
from those countries because their first
language is English.
The 50 states in the US have a teacher shortage this
year of 200 000. That
means that small states like South Carolina need more
than 2 000 teachers
while states like New York can do with 30 000 teachers
in the next two years
alone. Florida has pioneered in giving resettlement
packages to teachers
willing to settle there. In some districts there, they
are providing houses
on School Board properties. Some packages are worth $20
000 each. Now you
will say: "Ken, all that is very well, but how can I get
in touch with these
guys?"
It is time consuming because the State
Department of Education facilitates
recruitment but the actual employment is
done by school boards (local
authorities). However, the gateway is
certification, which is done by State
Boards. Zimbabwean teachers have an
advantage over Americans in this
examination because they have a global
education. For instance some of the
questions prove very difficult for
Americans but not for Zimbabweans and
those Kenyans educated in the old
British curriculum. In Florida the
examination is known as Florida Teachers
Certification Examinations.
Here are some of the questions from past social
science examinations. "Give
the name used in Argentina for the prairies?"
Another question was: "Name
two ancient West African kingdoms?" A third
question was: What was the
capital of one these West African kingdoms?" The
answers are pampas, Ghana,
Mali and Kumbi Kumbi. Any African teacher who
studied Common-wealth
geography would have an easy time. Arithmetic is
called calculations, but
these calculations are really commonsensical.
Again, teachers educated in
the British analytical mode would be able to
handle these problems.
In Canada, remote areas like the Yukon and the North
West territories fall
under the Canadian federal government. They too
recruit teachers for Indian
reservations and actually allow "hardship pay"
for newcomers. In Alaska, a
citizen who survives 12 months prior to
Christmas, receives a U$2 000 bonus.
Make an appointment with the Canadian
embassy and say straight out: "I want
to migrate to Canada. I am a
teacher."
Florida has been recruiting health professionals as well from
abroad. Here
again, Zimbabweans with the old fashioned Registered Nurse
Certificate are
very well qualified. However, the examination style is
different from the
English style. The nurse education seems to emphasise
knowledge rather than
analysis. It is important therefore for Zimbabweans
wishing to take these
types of American examinations to go through refresher
courses. An outfit
called Kaplan is found in every state and it specialises
in preparing
students for examinations.
Now, here are some common sense
pieces of advice. If you access to the
Internet, the Florida Division of
Teacher Certification is located at 325
West Gaines Street Tallahassee,
Florida 32399. Two programmes are available
there; one is called Out of
State Certified Teachers Career Changes. The
other is called College
Graduate of Non-Education Programme.
For nurses, a very aggressive programme
accessible through the Internet is
found at Florida College Healthy
Sciences. Certification and Training can be
done through online courses. For
teachers, South Carolina has an information
service. Martha Alewine is the
chief lady there. Her email address is
malewine@edu.ed.sc.gov.us. Ask about
the Teacher Recruitment programme from
overseas. In Canada, one can begin
with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This
is run by the federal government
there. It does recruit teachers and nurses
for the Northwest
Territories.
Remember that if you are received unkindly, it has nothing to do
with your
qualifications. Racial apprehensiveness, on the part of the
recruiters, may
be a factor. I have examined the Zimbabwean qualifications
and compared them
to those offered by Bulgaria. Ours are just as good or
better, because
English is compulsory from the beginning and we have
graduate certified
teachers.
Now here is a last word from me to you. Do
your research quietly. The
Zimbabwean government has become alarmed, at
last, about brain drain and it
is doing everything it can to stop the
outflow. If I were you, I would not
bother to give notice. Any years you
have put into the pension schemes in
Zimbabwe are virtually useless.
Mozambique is thirsting for teachers in
English. One can start there, if one
wants to be nearer home. Good luck.
FinGaz
Personal Glimpses
with Mavis Makuni
ERIC Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google, the
world's most popular
Internet search engine, has predicted the advent in
five years' time of
revolutionary new computer software that will -
hopefully - make politicians
think twice about what they
say.
Schmidt said during a visit to Britain a week ago that within
half a decade
from now "truth predictor" software would "hold politicians to
account."
Once in place, the system would make it possible for the public
"to check
seemingly factual statements against historical data to see if
they were
correct", said Schmidt, who met British Prime Minister, Tony Blair
and
interacted with more people in the category targeted by the new
software,
when he addressed the annual conference of the Conservative
Party.
"One of my messages to them (politicians) is to think about having
everyone
of your voters online all the time, then inputting 'is this true or
false.'
We at Google are not in charge of the truth but we might be able to
give a
probability", said the computer tycoon. The existence of the online
world
had given ordinary people the power to challenge governments, the
media and
business.
My first reaction upon reading about this development
was to feel deprived
because Zimbabwe has neither the infrastructure nor the
requisite levels of
computer literacy to make it feasible for voters in all
parts of the country
to go online.
But then again, I soon realised that
this new software was redundant in this
country. Zimbabwean politicians have
become so brazen about telling what
legendary British statesman and orator,
Winston Churchill, termed
"terminological inexactitudes" that what the
people in this country need is
a device that would help them to recognise
the rare occasions, if there are
still any, when they are not being taken
for a ride.
The nation has been sold dummies so many times that it is no
wonder that
those in authority no longer care whether what they say is
credible or not.
The culture of impunity and lack of accountability is now
so deeply rooted
that it is considered politically incorrect and treasonous,
not to mention
dangerous, to doubt the tall tales churned out by our
politicians. They are
in public life solely to feather their own nests and
they do not give a damn
about the aspirations and welfare of ordinary
people.
As a consequence of politicians speaking with forked tongues, the
people
have been led down the garden path with respect to populist policies
such as
"health for all by the year 2000" on which the government has
disastrously
failed to deliver. The collapse of the health delivery system
means what we
now have is every man and woman for himself and unnecessary
and early death
for all. The only exceptions not condemned to this untenable
reality are the
ruling elites who can afford medical care in other
countries!
When the land reform programme was originally mooted, all right
thinking
Zimbabweans lapped up the rhetoric about decongesting the rural
areas. Who
would have questioned the nobility of an initiative designed to
rescue
peasants from the dust bowls formerly known as the tribal trust lands
to
prime land occupied by white commercial farmers. Who knew at that time
that
the main beneficiaries of the resettlement programme would be
government
ministers, civil servants, judges, magistrates, top police and
army brass
and well connected business people? Zimbabweans do not need
Schmidt's Google
to establish that peasants were never the priority group as
the nation was
originally made to believe.
It would be understandable if
a sprinkling of privileged people had
benefited from the land reform
programme. It is preposterous that almost
every minister, deputy minister,
top civil servant and anyone in the ruling
party's extensive political
patronage network was allocated a farm or farms
ahead of peasants. It is
doubtful that any new computer software would prick
any consciences within
the establishment. The findings of a number of
commissions that have
confirmed that the land redistribution programme has
been massively abused,
have been ignored.
A few weeks ago, Industry and International Trade
Minister, Obert Mpofu made
a statement that was so patently dishonest that
the envisaged "truth
predictor" would crash if it tried synthesise it. I
refer to his "Icala
kaliboli" (literally; 'a criminal case will not decay')
declaration about
official unwillingness to bring to book political bigwigs
accused of plunder
at ZISCO.
Mpofu implied that these culprits, whom he
described as "influential people"
would not be prosecuted for the time being
because it was more important to
"bring in" investment. Court cases would
attract negative publicity, Mpofu
claimed.
Subsequent developments such
as the mysterious disappearance of the report
on the pillaging that went on
at the iron and steel company, however, prove
that the minister was
deliberately speaking with a forked tongue. Instead of
saying icala
kaliboli, he should have told the nation truthfully that the
law was being
applied selectively to protect ruling party bigwigs implicated
in the
racket.
The point is that in those countries where government officials still
accept
that the electorate has the right to scrutinise, question and
challenge
their utterances and actions, a minister would not have the cheek
to invoke
a previously unknown legal dispensation to justify sweeping such a
serious
matter under the carpet. If Mpofu belonged to a government that
still cared
about the rights of the people, he would have known he would be
challenged
to say why the icala kaliboli concept cannot apply to all
Zimbabweans
suspected of breaking the law.
An example that comes to mind
immediately, is the case of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)
officials who sustained serious injuries
while in police custody. They were
arrested for planning a protest march in
the Harare city centre, that was
nevertheless forestalled by the police.
They did not harm anybody and did
not plunder any national wealth as the
ZISCO racketeers did but they are to
be prosecuted under the Criminal Law
(Codification) Reform Act. Why can't
the icala kaliboli dispensation apply
to them?
Government officials in
this country have become so used to riding roughshod
over the suffering
masses that they can lie with the straightest of faces.
Even when caught
peddling the most outlandish falsehoods they remain
perfectly easy in their
own minds. They do not seem to appreciate the
inconsistency of this position
with their over-touted image as members of a
revolutionary government
fighting to improve the lot of the ordinary man and
woman.
Google, as far
as our politicians are concerned, your anticipated "truth
predictor" is old
hat even before it comes on stream. They are already
taunting the electorate
with the most incredible falsehoods and deceptions.
FinGaz
Africa File with Mavis
Makuni
THE headline, "Officials rob the poor to enrich themselves" over a
story in
the October 8 issue of the South African newspaper, the Sunday
Times,
highlights a cancer that is rampant in many parts of
Africa.
The Sunday Times story is about the disappearance of about R30
million
earmarked for poverty alleviation, from the South African
government's
National Development Agency. The funds, availed by donors like
the European
Union, were diverted to what the paper described as "ineligible
expenditures", a euphemism for embezzlement.
An NDA accounts clerk who
helped herself to R3.6 million which she splurged
on luxury vehicles has
been arrested. The auditor-general has unveiled
extensive abuse of donor
funds at the agency which resulted in large sums of
money finding their way
into the pockets of individuals, instead of the
intended beneficiaries. The
agency has been accused of inflating by more
than R20 million the amount it
claimed to have set aside for poverty
alleviation projects.
The South
African case is not an isolated incident, as stories appear in the
press
regularly about officials running non-governmental organisations
funded by
donors devoting the greater proportion of resources to hefty
salaries and
luxury vehicles for themselves. The result is that the intended
beneficiaries of these donor-funded projects remain trapped in abject
poverty while high-sounding rhetoric gives the impression that their plight
is being eased.
The redeeming factor in the South African situation is
that the authorities
are prepared to allow the law to take its course
regardless of who the
culprits are. As things stand now, the NDA is under
pressure to return the
equivalent of the unaccounted for funds to the EU. In
addition, a number of
people involved in the scam have been arrested and
will eventually face the
full wrath of the law. The situation is different
in other countries where
the corrupt enjoy protection.
Zimbabwe's Deputy
Minister of Health, Edwin Muguti, recently ruffled
feathers when he
complained publicly about extravagance and lack of
transparency within the
country's National AIDS Council. What followed
however, shows how difficult
it is to recover resources once they have been
diverted for the benefit of
individuals.
Suggesting behind-the-scenes pressure to gloss over the alleged
financial
mismanagement, Muguti was obliged to change his statement,
claiming he had
been misquoted. The main losers when such abuses are swept
under the carpet
are the poor who are deprived of resources which should
have eased their
suffering.
Freshly re-elected Zambian President, Levy
Mwanawasa has announced his
decision to disband his country's
anti-corruption task force. Mwanawasa said
he was taking the move because of
the body's dismal failure to recover
stolen public funds.
A report
published in the press last week however suggested that instead of
giving up
fighting graft and avarice, African countries should even be more
vigilant
if they are to recover the billions stashed away in foreign
accounts by
corrupt heads of state. The report cited the cases of Nigeria
and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo which have substantial sums of
money tied
up in the Swiss banks accounts of former heads of state.
African countries,
along with other developing nations, however need the
assistance of western
legal experts to trace and recover the billions stolen
by corrupt
leaders.
Former president of Zaire (now DRC), Mobutu sese Seko, who died in
exile in
1997 is said to have stashed away about US$8 million plundered from
his
country's national coffers in a Swiss bank. Former Nigerian dictator,
Sani
Abacha, pillaged a similar amount from his country. The fact that these
abuses are only exposed after a leader's death vindicates those activists
across the continent who are calling for more transparent and accountable
governance.
FinGaz
Comment
IT is inconceivable
that Industry and International Trade Minister Obert
Mpofu could
deliberately lie to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on
Foreign Affairs
and International Trade about deep-seated corruption that is
threatening to
bring ZISCO to its knees.
Although he is one of those government
officials who sometimes lack the
gumption to realise the wider implications
of some of their actions, we
refuse to believe that the minister can lie
through his teeth about
non-existent corruption at ZISCO.
Yet that is
precisely what the government, known for its ever-shrinking
accountability
and transparency, is trying to make us believe. Hence the
hardly convincing
official denial of the existence or knowledge of a damning
corruption report
on the steel manufacturer. The good news though is that
the corruption at
ZISCO was at least investigated and a report compiled. The
bad news is that
the government is reluctant to release or act on it at the
instigation of
those perpetrating corruption which privatises gains and
socialises
losses.
Fearing that just like an oil spill, the stinking ZISCO scandal could
end up
tarring a growing list of prominent and influential politicians as
well as
those who have corruptly bought favour as close to the centre of
power as
possible for purposes of influence-peddling, senior government
officials
are, in what can only be a shameless attempt to cover up,
desperately trying
to convince an increasingly sceptical public that Mpofu
made false
statements to Parliament. They thus have taken a few well-aimed
shots to
pierce the armour of Mpofu's gravitas after probably pushing,
cajoling,
threatening and even begging the minister not to release the
much-sought-after report. And now they are pushing the line that Mpofu
lied.
But we know better. Nothing could be further from the truth. If
anything, it
is this irresponsible cabal of powerful politicians who are
denying the
existence of the report or any knowledge of it that are lying
for very
obvious reasons given the sickening rapacity of Zimbabwean
politicians. The
mystery surrounding the ZISCO report underlines the extent
to which the
country's whole political system is inefficient and corrupt -
rotten to the
core. It also brings to the fore the ever present need to
subject all
politicians, without exception, to an impartial wealth probe.
This is being
done in other countries where governments have mustered the
unshakeable
political will and commitment to up the ante in their fight
against
corruption. Kenya, where President Mwai Kibaki will soon be placed
under
scrutiny, is a perfect example.
For government, the ZISCO case,
just like the multiple farm ownership
scandal, the abuse of the VIP Housing
Scheme and the War Victims
Compensation Fund before it, is too sensitive to
handle in a routine manner.
It is politically sticky. That is why we are now
being told that there is no
such report on ZISCO mostly by those who could
themselves be indirectly or
directly implicated. And soon, just like the
other cases cited above, it
will be treated as water under the
bridge.
The political sensitivity of the issue is beyond argument. Thus,
reports
that the toothless, ineffective but expensive Anti-Corruption
Commission has
its hands tied are not far-fetched. The Anti-Corruption
Commission is
sitting back idly with seeming impotence. If not, why the
paucity in action
when a smoking gun was found in the incriminating ZISCO
report, which has
now conveniently vanished into thin air?
There are as
many of these corruption cases as there are grains of sand in
the ground
where government has been reluctant to act even after relevant
information
has been obtained and presented for fear of dragging big
political names
through the mire. Thus all that rhetoric about there being
no sacred cows in
the government's half-hearted and anticlimactic fight
against corruption in
spite of their social or political standing is mere
bluster.
Many
corruption-accused, politically powerful and influential figures have
always
enjoyed unfettered impunity implying that there is no limit to the
abuse of
political power and that the principle of equality before the law
is badly
compromised. Which is why the general feeling has always been that
insofar
as corruption is concerned, government took aim as a window dressing
for the
public's benefit. But it never intended to pull the trigger in the
first
place, which makes its much-vaunted anti-corruption drive a sheer
waste of
time and resources. There is logic to this sentiment for there has
been no
lurid expose or high profile indictments.
And the handling of the ZISCO
scandal where, instead of trying to ferret out
details on the extent of the
rot, the government seeks to draw the curtain
around the goings-on all
because politicians should escape scrutiny and
jail, has not done much to
change the consensus.
FinGaz
The Geoff
Nyarota Column
TODAY, I am likely to ruffle many feathers in Zimbabwe's
opposition circles
where British parliamentarian, Kate Hoey, seems to have
now acquired the
status of some kind of knight in shining armour.
In
taking what could be a risky move in the circumstances, I am motivated by
my
sincere belief that what I am about to articulate is not only an
observation
in the national interest of Zimbabwe, but that it is also a
sentiment shared
by many who are dedicated to the pursuit of democracy and
genuine freedom in
our country.
As perpetual beggars of our own making, we sometimes find
ourselves,
regrettably, in a situation where we cannot challenge the actions
or
utterances of those whom we perceive to present the prospect, however
remote, of aiding and abetting our ongoing struggle for genuine
emancipation.
When I sounded out the opinion of an informed colleague in
Harare on my
proposal to wax lyrical on the theme of today's column, he said
he agreed
with me entirely. Another colleague, a Zimbabwean living in the
Diaspora,
said while he agreed with my sentiment in principle he was not too
sure
about the wisdom of criticising or challenging the British.
"You
really want to say that in your column?" he asked incredulously,
displaying
that nauseating deference by some Zimbabweans to any foreigners
who present
themselves as friends of the new struggle for the liberation of
Zimbabwe. I
raised the defence that I planned to challenge one Briton, Kate
Hoey, not
the entire British nation and that in any case I would not baulk
at
criticising our former colonisers if I believed I had legitimate cause to
do
so.
Going back to her first undercover visit to Zimbabwe in June 2005 in the
aftermath of Operation Murambatsvina, Hoey has hogged the limelight in the
British and sections of the Zimbabwean media as she took up the cudgels on
behalf ostensibly of the long-suffering and down-trodden people of Zimbabwe.
She has paid two clandestine visits to our country, under a cloak of secrecy
on each occasion, but attracting much media attention nevertheless. To the
acute embarrassment of our supposedly vigilant security agents, not only has
she entered and departed undetected but has apparently been accompanied by a
retinue of journalists on each occasion.
A devoted football fan and a
former high jump champion, Hoey probably relies
on her athletic skills to
jump the border. Hoey was appointed Minister of
Sport in the Labour
government but became a casualty of Tony Blair's
reshuffle after the 2001
election. After she lost her Cabinet position Hoey
became a critic of many
aspects of the British government's policies.
The Irish-born Hoey has long
been known for her lonely fight within the
Labour Party against the Tony
Blair government's plans to ban fox hunting in
the United Kingdom. Hoey, who
is said to wear a fake fur-coat, was elected
last year to the position of
chairman of the Countryside Alliance, the UK's
main pro-fox-hunting
group.
Her involvement with this group has not endeared her to many in and
outside
her inner-city Vauxhall Constituency. A campaign was launched on the
Internet seeking to force her to resign from the Labour Party.
"Kate Hoey
MP, as chair of the so-called Countryside Alliance, a
Tory-dominated
bloodsports organisation, formerly known as the British Field
Sports
Society, has no place in the Labour Party and should be asked for her
resignation," posted one Helen Weeks on the site in April. "The aim of all
bloodsports enthusiasts is to bring down the government and elect a
government pledged to bring back the cruelty of hunting with dogs."
Some
of her constituents have also expressed disquiet that their MP does not
spend enough time attending to local issues in her own constituency.
As
Hoey was being feted in certain sections of the British and Zimbabwean
media
following her most recent clandestine escapade to Harare, a Zimbabwean
exile
living in London drew my attention to a television interview which
featured
the parliamentarian earlier this year. After I clicked on the
supplied link
to the website I was able to watch the interview on the Chat
Show. Show
host, Christopher Wellbeing, asked his guest a question
pertaining to our
beleaguered country.
That pertinent part of the interview went something like
this:
Christopher Wellbeing: So you have been to Zimbabwe?
Kate Hoey: I
went to Zimbabwe last year under cover to find out what was
going on -
shocking, absolutely dreadful. We should not dream of sending our
cricket
team to play there. It's absolutely shocking. (Next question,
please.)
My
heart sank. I felt hurt. This was absolutely dreadful. So Hoey takes
risks
ostensibly on behalf of the suffering masses of Zimbabwe yet all she
can
think of when asked to speak about her Zimbabwe campaign is the prospect
of
the English cricket team ever visiting Zimbabwe. She is obviously
oblivious
of the fact that more than 96 percent of the population of
Zimbabwe cannot
tell the business end of a cricket bat.
It appears Hoey, who heads the
All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe,
has a problem contextualising the
crisis currently facing our country after
all. As MP for Vauxhall the kind
of crises she routinely deals with have to
do with widowed pensioners
complaining about a bathroom that keeps flooding;
old women who haven't had
hot water in their flat for months on end or a
young family trapped in their
tower block because the lifts have given up
the ghost.
In Harare there
are hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken people who
don't have a
bathroom in the first place, and hundreds of thousands more who
never dream,
let alone have in their home, a regular supply of hot water on
tap. The
ranks of those who are wallowing in such abject deprivation swelled
dramatically during Operation Murambatsvina which Hoey, to her eternal
credit, recorded on video during her first visit. For the record, British
journalist, Neil Connery of ITV, won an award for his coverage of the same
Operation Murambatsvina.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe
seeks to "achieve and support
democratic governance in Zimbabwe". Hoey's own
campaign to liberate a
country, aspects of whose dilemma she obviously does
not seem to fully
comprehend is, of course, spurred by sections of
Zimbabwe's own media which
propagate the impression that the citizens of
Zimbabwe will not appreciate
the full impact of their now dysfunctional
democracy, unless the likes of
Hoey come to the rescue.
Statements such
as: "Earlier this year Kate Hoey, MP, visited the country
and saw for
herself, first-hand, the devastation caused by the government's
Operation
Murambatsvina," are certainly self-demeaning. How about the rest
of us, the
victims of Murambatsvina? Had we not seen for ourselves, first
hand, the
devastation caused by our own "revolutionary" government's
Operation
Murambatsvina?
Notwithstanding all this, my favourite Hoey statement was made
by her during
a CNN interview after her June 2005 undercover visit to
Zimbabwe.
"You can't get rid of poverty in Africa until you get rid of
dictators,"
Hoey said in the interview, which also featured Bulawayo
politician David
Coltart, then of the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) but who
has since aligned himself with the Arthur Mutambara
faction of the party,
which also goes by the same name, MDC, causing much
confusion in the minds
of both the public and journalists.
Hoey did not
disclose which opposition leaders or ZCTU officials she
conferred with
during her last week's clandestine visit, as if one needs to
be a rocket
scientist to figure this out. But at about the time of, if not
simultaneously with, her return to London, a delegation comprising Coltart,
Trudy Stevenson and Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, all of the Mutambara
faction of the MDC, flew into London. Coltart appeared on BBC a few nights
after Hoey appeared on the BBC Newsnight programme.
During the programme,
Hoey declared boldly last Wednesday: "We could sort
out Zimbabwe. We are not
going to sort out Afghanistan and Iraq so easily,
but Zimbabwe we
could."
The people of Zimbabwe would be most grateful if this "sorting out"
was
achieved in the not-too-distant future; at least before Hoey's next
under-cover visit.
But, more seriously, while discounting her secret
visit in June 2005, what
exactly does our beleaguered nation benefit from
Hoey's visit last week,
that is apart from the opportunity granted to
Didymus Mutasa, the Minister
of State Security, to hit the headlines once
more and to be correct, for a
refreshing change, in some of his
utterances.
"It's a shame that an MP in the House of Commons comes in like a
thief to
Zimbabwe," Mutasa pontificates and, of course, he is right. What
would Hoey
say if Mutasa paid an under-cover visit to London?
If
smuggling herself into Zimbabwe, with a subsequent blaze of publicity, is
the strategy that Hoey genuinely believes will "sort out Zimbabwe" then our
country is, indeed, doomed. While she rightfully decries the breakdown of
law and order in Zimbabwe, she should be the last person to break the law in
such brazen manner, however much the government of Zimbabwe may be callously
or ruthlessly totalitarian. The end cannot always justify the means.
So
Hoey has proved on two occasions now that our intelligence operatives are
not always as on the ball as they seem to think. But Zimbabweans, including
those of average perspicacity, were already conscious of this sad fact. If
there are any in the outside world who still need the undercover
intervention of Hoey to appreciate that there is, indeed, a crisis of
cataclysmic proportions in Zimbabwe, then God help us all.
Scrutiny of
Hoey's actions reveals that they are those of an obvious
publicity seeker.
Unfortunately, as she seeks publicity for herself she
somehow trivialises
the struggle of the people of Zimbabwe against the
tyranny of a heavy-handed
government.
Saying of the Week:
"We have had some problems with those
tractors and we are currently carrying
out comprehensive tests on them.
Hopefully by next week we would have found
a solution." - Director of Waste
Management, Leslie Gwindi, commenting on
the state of eight tractors
imported from China by the commission running
the City of Harare. The
tractors are now lying idle after they failed to
rise to the challenge of
drawing refuse-ladden trailers. (The Zimbabwe
Standard).
Simple logic
dictates that testing of goods occurs before their importation
from a
distant source.
gnyarota@yahoo.com
FinGaz
National Agenda with Bornwell Chakaodza
. No moral, political will to
tackle corruption in Zim
"I HAVE sent the Zisco Report to Mangwana's office",
says Obert Mpofu. "'I
do not have the report", says the eccentric Paul
Mangwana, adding "ask the
Ministry of Finance who are the official
custodians of that document".
"I have not seen that document", says
Hebert Murerwa.
Oh God, why do you allow such grown up men to behave in such
tragic and
funny ways? How illuminating to see in this battle of he says,
she says,
supposedly mature men ducking and diving a very simple question
from
journalists: Where is the Ziscosteel document?
Here are two easier
questions for this Tomorrow fellow: is there an
Anti-Corruption Ministry
worthy of the name? How is Mangwana of tomorrow
going to feel when he is no
longer minister and looks back on this period
when he was at the helm of the
so called anti-corruption crusade? Honest
answers please Mangwana.
"Very
soon we will take action and police will make arrests of those who
were
involved in corruption at Ziscosteel irrespective of their political
and
social status", said Mangwana three weeks ago. Where is the action Mr
Minister?
In case you think Mangwana's grandstanding and fierce rhetoric
will not get
much worse than that, listen to this:
"It doesn't matter if
there are ministers or MPs. As long as they were
involved they will be
arrested. If we find that a crime was committed by
whoever, we will call in
the police and provide evidence for prosecution".
But crimes were committed
Mangwana and the evidence is there in black and
white: the Zisco document,
the Zisco document! Stop being a laughable
comedian Paul. Ever heard of the
phrase, silence is golden? Zimbaweans will
judge you by what you do and not
by your endless and useless talk. Breathing
fire and brimstone without
delivery on the big issue of corruption is a
complete waste of time.
It
is not only Paul Mangwana who stands accused of outright lying and
back-tracking on the damning Zisco report. Another big comedian is Obert
Mpofu, the Minister of Industry and International Trade.
This is the man
who, three weeks ago, had started it all by saying that
influential people
had milked Zisco dry through underhand dealings but later
balked under
pressure from his chefs.
Mpofu's new take now was that it was not the
ministers and MPs as
individuals who had looted Zisco but their companies
which had benefited
from contracts entered into with the steel-making
concern. How does one
characterise the psychological makeup of such a
person?
The fundamental question however is this: why are these guys so
useless and
such sorry cases when it comes to lack of delivery on the big
issues? The
answer is very simple: lack of moral and political will to
tackle the
problem of corruption, more so when it involves heavyweights in
the ZANU PF
political hierarchy.
Ours is an environment in which most, if
not all, of the so-called chefs are
rotten and are using state resources to
enrich themselves. In such a
climate, where does one begin to fight this
animal called corruption?
Corruption has become endemic everywhere
particularly at the heart of
government. Little wonder therefore that
Mangwana's general confusion and
that of many other ministers show no signs
of abetting.
Instead of contemplating resignations and making a real stand on
this
scourge, ministers are happy to act as clowns and always say 'Yes chef'
even
against their better judgment. Difficulties arise of course when
ministers
like Mangwana, Mpofu and the rest of the pack make public promises
before
they had come to appreciate that real power does not reside in them
but in
President Mugabe and his inner circle of military advisers and two or
three
high-ranking officials of the ruling party.
Where there is real
power, that is where the decisions are made. Mangwana
can bark and bark and
it remains just that: a mere bark and no bite. In
fact, the military factor
is increasingly becoming more important in our
current political environment
where the regime is feeling insecure and
exhibiting signs of becoming afraid
of its own people.
In order to give a veneer of the fight against corruption,
selectivity in
prosecution becomes the norm. Can you imagine ZANU PF
stalwarts of the
calibre of South Africa's Jacob Zuma, Winnie
Madikizela-Mandela and Tony
Yengeni being brought to justice and being held
fully accountable for their
actions or crimes? That will be the day when
this world will come tumbling
down!
In point of fact, getting to grips
with out situation here is largely a
matter of distinguishing between empty
revolutionary rhetoric and the
practical politics of President Mugabe's
administration. It is all talk and
no action. And the number one culprit in
all this is, of course, the dear
leader himself.
How many times has
President Mugabe promised this and that and nothing has
materialised. And I
dare say that one of the most dangerous things in
politics is to encourage a
climate of expectation and then not respond to
it.
President Mugabe has
done that on many fronts, notably the whole vexing
issue of fuel
availability not so long ago and of course on the
anti-corruption fight.
Again it has been promises, promises and more
promises - nothing
else.
But we need to tell our government in no uncertain terms that far from
improving and enhancing its image, its tactics are destroying the country,
leaving Zimbabweans and non-Zimbabweans alike suspicious of every official
statement issued and creating for the country a very bad press both at home
and abroad. It is of course not the local independent media or the
international press which are creating a negative image of our country but
the government itself.
I am aware however, that this regime is now known
for its don't care
attitude and macho image - but at what cost to the people
of Zimbabwe? There
is clearly a need for a rethink by the ruling ZANU PF
party on the
consequences of its hardhearted positions and shutting its ears
to well
meaning advice.
In conclusion, it is important to point out that
for ZANU PF, the Zisco
report is yet another testing moment. Will President
Mugabe and his
administration rise to the occasion and show the country and
the world at
large that they are really serious about the anti-corruption
crusade or will
it be yet another pie in the sky and wishful thinking on the
part of
Zimbabweans who continue to be frustrated and exasperated because of
lack of
action?
Making progress towards ridding ourselves of the cancer
of corruption
requires a strong and robust response from the number one man
himself:
President Mugabe.
Paul Mangwana is a small child in these
matters. What matters is the
political will at the highest level to tackle
graft regardless of 'one's
political or social status', to quote Mangwana's
rhetoric.
My final message to the powers that be is this: Just put the Zisco
story to
bed. Make it public and act on it. And even if it shakes ZANU PF to
its
foundation, then let it be. It will be for the country's
good.
E-mail:
borncha@mweb.co.zw
FinGaz
No Holds Barred with Gondo
Gushungo
ZIMBABWEAN agriculture, the engine that once fired the
storm-tossed economy,
is sick.
It is like a patient on the operating
table with too many teams of surgeons,
if only the analogy once used by Yung
Chul Park, the former president of the
Korean Institute of Finance, can help
me vividly portray the chaos and
confusion in the key sector, which is stuck
in a rut.
"We will have to cut off his arm", one surgeon says. "We will have
to take
out his stomach", says yet another. This kind of disorder in which
people do
not know what action to take is similar to what the agricultural
sector is
stuck in. Thus the back-to-the-land idealism, which saw the launch
of so
many small-scale commercial agricultural schemes, faces the spectre of
failure.
This probably explains why in the debate on the style, form and
approach of
Zimbabwe's chaotic land reform and its far-reaching
consequences, highly
charged rhetoric about the supposed success of the
initiative has been
substituted for informed and reasoned analysis. Through
the official media,
Zimbabwe and the world are served a daily diet of
fawning coverage of
government and ruling ZANU PF officials invariably
engaged in an orgy of
self-congratulation for "the resounding success" of
the land reform
exercise.
But without evidence, the rhetoric has not been
believable. If anything, the
astounding claims of success in the land reform
initiative, which can only
be seen by the ruling ZANU PF government, have
always raised some intriguing
questions. Why has Zimbabwe failed to secure
its water requirements despite
some excellent rainy seasons? Why has it
failed to ensure food security,
which could have translated into low food
import costs? Why has the
erstwhile regional breadbasket-turned-basket case
failed since 2000 to
maintain just about 500 000 tonnes required for the
Strategic Grain Reserve?
Indeed, if the land reform initiative is as
successful as we are being made
to believe, why is there no evidence of
higher agricultural output and
incomes that can be translated into higher
consumer spending and improved
living standards? Why the grinding poverty
when the successful land reform
should have reduced poverty and empowered
the historically marginalised
blacks? In other words why are the people
hungry again?
I ask all these questions particularly the last one in view of
a disturbing
story carried in last week's issue of The Financial Gazette.
The story in
question was based on a World Food Programme (WFP) report which
said the UN
agency has run out of food for vulnerable communities. Thus an
estimated one
million Zimbabweans could face starvation.
The WFP, which
in the past has played an inestimable role in averting human
crises of
catastrophic proportions in Zimbabwe, says it requires US$35
million to
procure 65 000 metric tonnes of food, mostly grain to cover the
deficit up
to March 2007. Unless the WFP quickly overcomes the seemingly
insurmountable
task of mobilising the US$35 million, there is the real
danger that it might
discontinue altogether its food aid programme which
benefits among others
chronically ill orphans and people. In addition to
what the WFP has already
used for food aid since January this year, this
figure will bring the total
amount to US$61 million while the food imported
would be 97 000
tonnes.
Or is the UN agency over-dramatising Zimbabwe's food crisis situation
by
issuing statements about one million people going hungry? That is what
the
government would like to make us believe because the truth is bizarre to
the
ears of government officials.
And the officials will, as surely as
the sun rises from the east and sets in
the west, soon be slinging mud into
the face of the WFP over these facts and
figures on people in need of food
aid. They have done it before to hide a
multitude of sins. The May 2004
incident, which made something of a public
mess of the politics of the
stomach pitting the Zimbabwean government
against international food aid
agencies, is a case in point.
Then, an arrogant Zimbabwean government told
the humanitarian agencies to
take their food elsewhere because the country
had produced enough. The
arrogance proved an expensive strategy because, as
it later turned out, the
supposed bumper harvest of 2.4 million tonnes for
the 2003/2004 season was a
product of the fertile imagination of somebody in
the Ministry of
Agriculture whose data can barely be trusted and to which I
have referred as
guesstimates in my previous instalments. That someone is
the Minister of
Agriculture, Joseph Made who has proved beyond reasonable
doubt that he is
incapable of changing his disappointing and incompetent
self, not in a month
of Sundays.
Inevitably, the humanitarian
organisations, whose crop forecasts for
Zimbabwe have been spot on, found it
extremely difficult to mount a swift
response when it turned out that the
government's preliminary crop
assessments for that season were, as usual,
way off the mark.
What was the upshot of it all? By the end of March 2005
Zimbabwe's grain
stocks stood at a precarious 60 000 tonnes against a
monthly national
requirement of 150 000 tonnes - a critical level by any
standards. If this
is not playing Russian roulette with the people's lives,
then I don't know
what is. The country had to pump out US$420 million to
finance grain imports
at a time when foreign currency is flowing into the
country in dribs and
drabs.
That Zimbabwe, the erstwhile regional
breadbasket, now relies on food
imports and relief from the very same
humanitarian organisations which the
country, in an act of sheer bravado had
only two years ago told in no
uncertain terms, to look for charity cases and
hungrier people elsewhere,
has given the lie to official government claims
that the land reform
exercise has been successful. This has now prompted the
exposed government
to want to keep a self-serving veil of secrecy over the
country's food
security situation.
The cancellation of the United Nations
crop assessment mission in April this
year after a projected grain deficit
by the United States Department of
Agriculture, should be seen as part of
the government's desperate attempt to
keep a deep information void on the
country's food's situation.
Of course the government, which in the past has
unconvincingly tried to
explain the shortages of maize meal in terms of the
bare-faced lie of
"temporary logistical problems of transporting grain"
cited sovereignty for
blocking the Food and Agriculture Organisation from
scrutinising Zimbabwe's
crop situation. Which has left many with the
inevitable question: what has
sovereignty got to do with the price of rice
in China?
New visa system at US embassy
EDITOR -
The US Embassy in Harare has announced an initiative to speed up
and
simplify the visa application process. Beginning November 1, 2006, the
non-immigrant visa application form (DS-156) must be completed online to
produce an electronic visa application form (EVAF) containing a scannable
bar code.
The US Department of State has established this new requirement
on a
worldwide basis to improve efficiency and customer service.
The
Internet-based EVAF allows for quicker and more accurate data entry.
Customers do not have to wait for consular officials to enter the data
manually, and therefore can have their applications processed
faster.
Beginning November 1, hand or type written application forms can no
longer
be accepted. Applicants who arrive for their visa interview without
an EVAF
will be turned away and will have to make a new
appointment.
Applicants do not have to wait until November 1 to begin using
the EVAF and
are encouraged to do so voluntarily immediately.
Filling out
the form online is free and applicants can fill it out from
their home,
office or any public access computer terminal. Select Standard
Chartered
Bank branches that already accept payments for visa processing
fees will be
offering Internet access for EVAF processing.
Further information and
instructions on how to fill out the form are
available at http://evisaforms.state.gov and http://harare.usembassy.gov.
For more
information on how to apply for a visa to visit the United States,
please
visit http://harare.usembassy.gov/ or
call 250-593 x550.
Ana Duque Higgins
Acting Public Affairs
Officer
HararePas@state.gov
---------
Obscene
spenders dig Zim's grave
EDITOR - The benchmark of the
nouveau riche is their acquisition of
possessions which are touted to them
as being the sort of things that rich
people would possess. The holders of
"old money" in traditional European
societies have inherited a large house
filled with well-built furniture
acquired over the centuries.
Their cars
are not necessarily the most expensive and capable, but have a
bit of
restraint, or else they disguise their social position in cars of the
middle
rank. The problem with our dearly beloved Zimbabwe is that it has
become a
nation of nouveau riche briefcase businessmen spending their
rapidly
acquired wealth on non-productive luxury goods.
I find it hard to comprehend
that in a nation with foreign currency
shortages, fuel and food shortages
there are brand new Mercedes Benz, BMWs
and all sorts of luxury cars at
every corner. Taking a drive through our
leafy low-density suburbs, one is
astounded by the tasteless, and
unnecessary erection of over-large mansions.
Who needs a 34-room house in a
country where more than half the population
can not afford three square
meals? How can we be taken seriously by the
world when there are these
amazing contradictions?
A lot of Zimbabwe's
problems can be directly attributed to the Zimbabwean
population at large.
Yes, the government has run the economy to the ground,
the people of
Zimbabwe have dug its grave. These so-called rich people need
to spend their
fast acquired wealth on wealth creation rather than spending
it like there
is no tomorrow.
Tapiwa Nzira
Canada
----------
ZESA has gone too far
this time
EDITOR - For how long shall we allow ZESA to
trample on our rights? The
announcement this week that Zimbabweans will have
to go for up to 10 hours
per day with no electricity as ZESA introduces
massive power cuts smacks of
arrogance, if not downright contempt for the
people.
How can a public utility which shamelessly collects money from the
public be
allowed to take such action with impunity? In any other country,
heads would
just have to roll but not in dear old Zimbabwe where
accountability has been
thrown into the dustbin.
Going for 10 hours
without power -I would like to believe it might be 10
days going by ZESA's
record of being economic with the truth - and just when
the rains are around
the corner is sure to stretch the patience of the
normally docile
Zimbabweans. Can you imagine trying to light a fire in the
middle of a storm
as your children are screaming for their
supper?
Livid
Harare
---------
I don't eat the
vote
EDITOR - Your October 5-11 issue carried what I thought
was a brilliant
letter from A McCormick.
Although well presented, his
submission was only superficial, skirting
around the real issues at
stake.
Mr McCormick, in Rhodesia which I grew up in, we did not have the vote
but
every streetlight in Mbare where I lived then was working. The library
at
Stodart Hall was so well stocked that most of us managed to go through
high
school studying from that library alone. Rubbish bins were collected
every
morning without fail.
I would board a Zupco bus for 3c to go to
town. After work I could afford a
cold beer for 75c.
I was in Mbare a few
days ago and to my utter dismay not a single
streetlight was functional. The
once richly stocked library is in a sorry
state with empty shelves and
broken chairs. No Sir, give me Rhodesia any
time. I don't eat the
vote.
Nostalgia
Harare
-------
Rhodesia is
dead!
EDITOR - I read a letter from A McCormick comparing
Zimbabwe and Rhodesia
and it makes me sick. Rhodesia is dead and will never
rise again, but
Zimbabwe is crawling and there is hope it will rise
up.
Rhodesia was founded by a greedy race who thought they were more special
than others. You cannot compare that madness to Zimbabwe. The current crop
of leaders who are selfish, are the ones you can compare to
Rhodesians.
Rhodesia was evil and will remain evil. Zimbabwe will rise above
the ZANU PF
way of thinking and have a better future. Long live Zimbabweans
of all
races. United Zimbabwe will prevail. There is a better Zimbabwe after
ZANU
PF.
Very Zimbabwean.
United Kingdom
---------
Monkey
business
EDIT0R - With reference to Agriculture Minister
Joseph Made and the monkey:
why do we need an army when one monkey can bring
us to our knees?
P Taylor
United Kingdom
-----------
Mugabe,
Mutambara singing same hymn
EDITOR - I was confused to read
about David Coltart's call to the West to
bring humanitarian assistance to
Zimbabwe. But Mr Coltart, remember that
your leader Prof Arthur Mutambara,
like President Mugabe, spewed anti-West,
anti-imperialist rhetoric in his
acceptance speech.
Specifically, he put America and Britain on notice! And by
the way, who is
he to put the world's super power on notice! Does he not
understand that
there is a world order or does he want to shift it? What a
megalomaniac with
delusions of grandeur and importance.
Mutambara needs
to master the art of diplomacy as well as grasp an
understanding of
realpolitik - politics based on pragmatism or practicality
rather than on
idealism.
When President Mugabe grandstands at the UN by bashing Blair and
Bush, other
heads of state may clap and cheer enthusiastically but they will
never be
the ones to utter those words because they know where their bread
comes
from.
Meanwhile President Mugabe, after grandstanding, heads back
to the world's
fastest shrinking economy. Now Zimbabwe needs assistance and
Mutambara's
people are in the West (Coltart in the UK, Mushonga and
Stevenson in
Germany) begging. But what's to stop the Western governments
from folding
their arms and not helping because they were told to keep out
first by
President Mugabe and then by Mutambara?
Mutambara think before
you speak! Maturity dictates that sometimes some
things are best left
unsaid. Even if you are anti-imperialist, don't state
it because when you
do, it becomes your tag/brand which is difficult to
shake off.
We don't
want an opposition that further plunges the country into the abyss
because
of comments that stem from selfish delusions of power. President
Mugabe and
Prof Mutambara, same fanana!!
T Mavaira
United Kingdom