http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011 10:30
Dumisani
Muleya
ZANU PF, which has dominated the country’s political landscape
for over
three decades without a break, is now at a crossroads as President
Robert
Mugabe’s health problems, worsened by old age, mount ahead of the
next
crucial elections which could mark the beginning of the
end.
Mugabe this week left for Singapore again — suggesting his
prostate cancer
condition is increasingly critical — for further medical
checks after his
recent visit there which he claimed was on family business,
official sources
said.
Informed reports say Mugabe is
suffering from prostate cancer which
metastasised, spreading to other organs
of the body, while creating tumours.
Doctors have reportedly advised Mugabe
to retire to avoid straining himself
and worsening his condition, mainly
before the 2008 elections.
The situation has now worsened since
then. The story of Mugabe’s health
condition, which those close to him have
tried to hide but failed as
information irretrievably filters out, has
created panic and fuelled
instability in Zanu PF and state structures.
Sources say senior party
officials and state security operators are
scrambling to “interpret, contain
and resolve the situation” which has a
serious bearing on elections and the
future of Zanu PF, as well as on the
fate of influential individuals.
A detailed briefing of the
Zimbabwe Independent this week by various
informed sources showed that due
to health failures and old age, Mugabe is
now facing a turning point ahead
of the party’s annual conference in
Bulawayo in December and elections.
Mugabe himself admits the conference
would be “just as good as congress”,
which usually elects a new party
leadership. He is under growing pressure to
call for a full congress and not
a conference.Zanu PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo
last week told the Independent
Mugabe was likely to be endorsed as candidate
given that he was elected at
the 2009 congress, although the issue could be
discussed in Bulawayo.
However, compared to previous conferences,
there is no stampede in Zanu PF
to give him ringing public endorsements
before the Bulawayo gathering,
signifying the heated debate and reflections
going on in the party To Page
2over the divisive issue.Senior politburo
members have told the Independent
there are divisions over whether to
endorse Mugabe as the candidate or not.
This has further put pressure on the
veteran ruler who is already battling
old complications, ill-health and
debilitating internal strife.“President
Mugabe’s health situation has now
become a major political issue, especially
in the party and within state
security structures,” a senior politburo
member said.“The party is now
definitely at a crossroads due to his old age
and ill-health. He is in
Singapore now for health reasons and this has
created panic and uncertainty
in the party in terms of his availability as a
candidate at the next
elections. This issue will loom large at the
conference/congress in
Bulawayo.”
Another official said the fear is that if Mugabe is
endorsed as candidate in
Bulawayo and elections come further down next year
or in 2013, Zanu PF might
find itself with a candidate who could not sustain
the rigours of hectic and
taxing electioneering or in a fix over that.“Our
fear is that what happens
if he can’t sustain a rigorous campaigning
exercise? General election
campaigns are very demanding, taxing and
exhausting, especially when your
backs are against the wall and contesting
against a party like the MDC-T,
which has strong grassroots, financial and
logistical support,” one official
said. “We have to ask ourselves critical
questions now and prepare for
eventualities.”Sources said Mugabe’s trip to
Singapore this week increased
the awareness in Zanu PF and state security
circles all was not well,
fuelling anxiety and panic. Mugabe went to
Singapore after he cancelled his
trip to the International
Telecommunications Union summit on information
communication technologies
underway in Geneva due to Swiss authorities’
refusal to give visas to senior
members of his delegation, including his
wife Grace.“Mugabe’s health problem
has serious implications on what
decision the party will make at its
conference in December, even though our
room for manoeuvre is very limited,”
a top party official said.
“The party is in a renewed state of
flux because of this situation which we
have never faced before and the
crisis is snowballing.”Sources said state
security chiefs were worried about
Mugabe’s health condition because they
say it has serious ramifications for
the political and security situation in
the country.“There is currently so
much debate, discussions and agonising
goings-on within our structures over
this issue,” a senior intelligence
officer said. “The issue has become even
more critical due to the Zanu PF
conference in Bulawayo and the
elections.”Mugabe’s health has become a big
issue both at home and abroad.
While Zimbabweans are wondering what his real
condition is, foreign
governments have also been scrambling to know what is
going on.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 27 October 2011 18:36
Faith
Zaba
ACCUSATIONS and counter-accusations have been flying between
Zanu PF
Constitution Select Committee (Copac) co-chairperson Munyaradzi Paul
Mangwana and axed chairperson of the stakeholders’ committee Edward
Chindori-Chininga over allegations of leaking a party document to the
MDC-T.Officials at Zanu PF headquarters in Harare said the two senior party
officials were accusing each other of leaking the party’s position paper on
the draft framework of a new constitution in letters to administration
secretary Didymus Mutasa.
Mutasa signed Chindori-Chininga’s
dismissal letter a fortnight ago based on
Mangwana’s allegations that the
former Mines minister and Guruve South MP
had leaked the “sensitive”
document to MDC-T’s co-chairperson of Copac,
Douglas Mwonzora.However,
Chindori-Chininga points to Mangwana as the one
who gave the document to
Mwonzora and his fellow co-chairperson Edward
Mkhosi of the MDC on October 4
at Pandari Lodge in Harare.The rushed
decision to fire Chindori-Chininga
without giving him a hearing to respond
to the allegations and without
following the party’s laid down disciplinary
procedures gives an insight of
fissures presently afflicting Zanu PF.While
Mutasa claims that he consulted
the presidium before firing
Chindori-Chininga, who has been a thorn in Zanu
PF’s side for speaking his
mind, party chairperson Simon Khaya Moyo on
Wednesday expressed ignorance
over the matter saying he was not consulted
when the decision was made.
“It is not true (that the presidium
was consulted). I don’t know anything
about it. It has nothing to do with
Zanu PF. It is a Copac issue and Copac
has its own management structure. It
is a Copac management issue, not a Zanu
PF issue,” said Khaya Moyo.The
dismissal letter, which is dated October 6,
was signed four days before
Mangwana wrote his complaint letter dated
October 10. In his response to
Mutasa, Chindori-Chininga said:
“It came as a surprise and
serious concern to me that my party Zanu PF had
decided to withdraw me based
on one-sided co-chair Mangwana’s allegations
without due process, even
before Mangwana had submitted a written
complaint.”Mutasa told the Zimbabwe
Independent this week that he would
soon announce Chindori-Chininga’s
replacement. It is believed that deputy
Education minister Lazarus Dokora is
the likely replacement. In his letter
to Mutasa, Mangwana said he did not
email the draft framework to
Chindori-Chininga because the former cabinet
minister had allegedly accused
him of excluding MDC in the
process.
“I received a report from my PA that Cde
Chindori-Chininga had refused to
co-operate saying “matanga vanhu veZanu PF
kuita zvinhu mega pasina ve MDC”
(there you go again you Zanu PF people
excluding MDC). I then instructed my
PA not to send the document, which to
me was a very strategic document,”
Mangwana wrote.The document was then
emailed to the party’s secretary for
legal affairs Emmerson Mnangagwa and
five members of the select committee,
excluding Chindori-Chininga.“After the
(caucus) meeting (on October 6) I
tried to investigate if Cde
Chindori-Chininga had laid his hands on this
confidential Zanu PF document
and discovered that he had been given this
document by (Godwill)
Misimirembwa in Mutare on Monday October 3, yet he was
denying ever having
seen this document.”
“I wondered why he had denied seeing the
document which was now in the hands
of the MDC-T. I also could not
understand his fit of anger and the threats
of assault he was directing at
me. I then reported the matter to you for
action,” Mangwana wrote in his
letter to Mutasa.
However, Chindori-Chininga denied leaking the
document to MDC-T saying it
was Mangwana who gave the co-chairpersons of the
two MDC formations.“Zanu PF
co-chairperson Mangwana is unpredictable. I do
not know what state of mind
he was in, but he underestimated the reaction
that was going to come out
after erroneously handing over the Zanu PF draft
constitution framework with
preferred constitutional provisions. MDC-T
co-chairperson Mwonzora and MDC
co-chair Mkhosi started accusing Zanu PF
co-chair Mangwana of writing the
constitution before the drafting stage of
the constitution,” read
Chindori-Chininga’s response to Mangwana’s
allegations.
He also accused Mangwana of negotiating with the
MDC-T co-chairperson and
signing cheques while drunk. This,
Chindori-Chininga said, had resulted in
Zanu PF losing some strategic
arguments during negotiations.“Mangwana errs
in judgment when he meets with
MDC-T’s Mwonzora at important high stakes
meetings to the disadvantage of
Zanu PF due to his early morning and all-day
alcoholic problem. Mwonzora
knows of that weakness and takes advantage of it
to the disadvantage of Zanu
PF,” said Chindori-Chininga.Chindori-Chininga’s
letter further claims:
“Mangwana is an alcoholic.
He has chaired many select committee
meetings when he is drunk and under the
influence of alcohol.”He also
accused Mangwana of lying to the politburo
over pre-drafting preparation
work, drafting dates, the constitutional
framework and identification of
constitutional principles.
“Misleading the Zanu PF leadership,
and particularly the president, who
depends on us to formulate electoral
programmes is discrediting Zanu PF and
the president when dates suddenly
change and we are seriously behind,” read
the letter.Contacted for comment
yesterday, Mangwana refused to speak to the
Zimbabwe Independent.“I don’t
want to speak to you because of the last story
you did,” he
said.
The Independent carried a story two weeks ago on the Zanu
PF preliminary
draft constitution framework, which included the party’s
position on
prohibiting homosexuality and same sex marriage and devolution
of power.
Zanu PF also wants the land issue as well as the indigenisation
and economic
empowerment to stand as chapter headings. Chindori-Chininga and
Mangwana had
a heated debate which almost degenerated into a fistfight two
weeks ago
after the Guruve South MP questioned the latter over what he
described as
false and conflicting statements he allegedly issued to the
media.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 27 October 2011
18:19
Paidamoyo Muzulu
PARLIAMENT has flexed its muscles by
slapping Agriculture minister Joseph
Made with contempt of parliament
charges for deliberately skirting questions
about the creation of the US$600
million Chisumbanje-based Green Fuels
project through a partnership between
the Agricultural Rural Development
Authority (Arda) and
Ratings.
Made told the Agriculture Portfolio Committee earlier
this year that he
could not adequately explain how Ratings and Macdom were
given the green
light to build the ambitious ethanol plant since he was not
the Agriculture
minister at the time the deal was concluded.Committee
chairman Moses Jiri
indicated that they had started the process of charging
Made for contempt
after he displayed “shocking ignorance on crucial issues
under the ambit of
his ministry”.
“We are looking at charging
Minister Made with contempt of parliament for
professing ignorance to
questions about the Arda/Ratings deal,” said Jiri.
“The clerk of parliament
is (set) to listen to the audio recording of the
hearing and give us
directions,” he said.The committee postponed its public
hearings scheduled
for Wednesday and would only resume them after the
conclusion of the
contempt charges against Made.
“We moved this week’s meeting to
devote our attention to make sure that
people called to give evidence should
treat the process with respect. It was
disgusting for a minister to behave
in that manner,” Jiri said.
Parliament is also contemplating to
charge Justice minister Patrick
Chinamasa with contempt of parliament after
he told the Mines Portfolio
Committee that government was in possession of
Shabanie and Mashaba Mine
share warrant certificates, but later failed to
produce them when asked to
avail the certificates to the
committee.
Members of the Agriculture Portfolio Committee were
startled by Made’s
stance that the committee should ask former Agriculture
minister Rugare
Gumbo why the Arda/Ratings deal did not follow the laid down
indigenisation
policy. The policy stipulates that locals should control 51%
of all business
operations in the country.Made said Ratings had proposed a
70-30
shareholding ratio in its proposal to the government on the
project.
However, parliament was furnished with reports which
prove that an
inter-ministerial committee and a Kudenga and Company audit
report were
against the deal in its present structure.Made pleaded ignorance
on the
existence of the two reports prompting the committee to adjourn the
hearing
and consider other ways of obtaining information on the
deal.
“The ministry is not aware of that report,” said Made. “Who
commissioned it?
I would be happy to receive and read that audit report. I
don’t go to the
ministry to read all the documents for the sake of reading
the material,” he
said.
Committee member Edward Raradza came
to the minister’s defence: “Maybe this
is why we have problems in our
ministries because there is no continuity.
Can we give him time to sort out
this?”
Ratings and Macdom were given in excess of 10 000 ha of
prime land to set up
a sugarcane plantation to feed the ethanol plant in
Chisumbanje. The project
is a 20-year Build, Operate and Transfer agreement
with Arda receiving an 8%
fee from the project.Green Fuel is the first
ethanol production and the
company is now awaiting a licence from the
government to start marketing its
product.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011 10:23
By Brian
Chitemba
A WAR of words has erupted between Matabeleland North police
and the MDC-T
over rallies which Prime-Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s party
accuses the
former of disrupting.
Tsvangirai had lined up rallies in
Binga and Lupane before concluding his
Matabeleland North tour on Sunday at
Chinotimba stadium in Victoria
Falls.But police wrote to the MDC-T on
Wednesday informing them that they
did not have enough manpower to deploy to
the party’s rallies owing to other
pressing issues in various
districts.
Police say they must be notified of any meeting or
political rally as
stipulated in the Public Order and Security Act (Posa)
Chapter 11:17. The
MDC-T was granted an order to go ahead with the
Chinotimba rally by the
Victoria Falls magistrates’ courts, but police have
in the past defied
similar court orders and disrupted the party’s
rallies.
Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe (pictured)
yesterday lambasted
Matabeleland North police commander Senior Assistant
Commissioner Edmore
Veterai for being the major stumbling block in holding
MDC-T rallies in the
province. Police were deployed to break up an MDC-T
rally in Nkayi South
last week.
However, Veterai hit back at
Khupe saying:
“She is barking up the wrong tree because I don’t
regulate rallies. I am the
protecting authority. I don’t deal with rallies,
I am above that. If we
allow the country to be run by security guards, then
we have a problem. She
can come and see me anytime and I will explain what
the law says about
rallies.” Khupe said.
Tsvangirai had
executive powers and, therefore, did not have to seek police
permission to
hold meetings.“Have you ever heard that President Robert
Mugabe has applied
to hold rallies?” asked Khupe. “So why should a whole
Prime Minister be
barred from addressing rallies by police officers?”The DPM
said it was
absurd that police were determined to frustrate MDC-T rallies in
Matabeleland North where the party enjoys overwhelming
support.
Tsvangirai has been visiting provinces to drum up
support for his party
ahead of national elections pencilled in for 2012.
Khupe said it was clear
that police were acting on instructions from Zanu PF
to disrupt MDC-T
rallies in an attempt to weaken the party.“Veterai is a
problem because he
is even holding the PM’s car which was impounded three
years ago. Police
should respect all people in government and not apply the
law selectively,”
she said.
MDC-T deputy organising secretary
Abednigo Bhebhe said it was pointless for
his party to even notify the
police about rallies because they “never attend
the meetings to provide
security, but to disrupt”.Bhebhe vowed that the
rallies would go ahead
despite the police threats.“We will just go ahead
with the gatherings as
planned. No one will stop us. Police say there will
be violence but they are
the same people who cause the violence by spraying
teargas at our
supporters,” said Bhebhe.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 27 October 2011 18:22
By Staff
Writer
MEMBERS of the public have called on Registrar-General
Tobaiwa Mudede to be
stripped of powers to oversee production of the voters’
roll and for
election results to be announced within 48 hours of the end of
voting.
They made their submissions during a public hearing on the
contentious
Electoral Act Amendment Bill in parliament on Monday. Members of
the public
also demanded that the secretariat of the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission
(Zec) be reconstituted to weed out officials who botched the last
elections.
There was a tense atmosphere outside parliament
building with noisy Zanu PF
and MDC supporters, separated by riot police,
demanding to be let into the
chamber where the hearings were being held by
the Justice committee chaired
by Mutare Central MP Innocent Gonese. Similar
hearings outside Harare have
been disrupted by political party
hooligans.Changes to the electoral law are
part of a raft of legislative
reforms contained in the 2008 Global Political
Agreement that gave birth to
the present shaky coalition government
following the controversial and
inconclusive presidential elections.
Among the mooted changes
strongly criticised is the suggestion that the
voters’ roll be specific to
individual polling stations. This would force
each polling station to have a
different voters’ roll. Elections in Zimbabwe
have been marred by violence
since 2000.
“The preparation of the voters’ roll should be moved
from the RG’s office to
Zec which is independent from executive directions,
unlike Mudede who
reports to a line minister,” said a member of the public.
“In the same way,
the new Act should call for the announcement of election
results within 48
hours after the polls. The Zec secretariat should be
reconstituted after
they botched the last election. New faces should come
in. How can we trust
those that let us down?”
However,
pro-Zanu PF supporters echoed positions entrenched in their party
opposing
the invitation of the EU and US election observers. They argued
that the
voters’ roll should remain under the RG’s office and there should
be no rush
to announce results.“The country should not invite observers from
the EU and
US because they imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe,” said a Zanu PF
supporter.
“The RG’s office should continue to handle voter
registration, and election
results should be announced within 120 hours
(five days),”.Institutions like
Veritas, the National Constitutional
Assembly (NCA) and Zimbabwe Lawyers for
Human Rights submitted their
recommendations in writing.
However, the Zimbabwe Independent has
it on good authority that
recommendations from these institutions centred on
issues of the voters’
roll, voter education and announcement of
results.
“The institutions suggested preparations of a clean
voters’ roll under Zec
supervision which runs all elections, giving room to
civil society the
opportunity to engage in voter education in addition to
Zec and political
parties and the timely release of results, preferably
provisionally within
48 hours,” a member of the parliamentary committee
said.
Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa is expected to move the
Bill’s second
reading stage soon and allow MPs to make amendments to his
draft. Earlier
there were reports that the executive had tried to block the
public
hearings. — Staff Writer.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011
10:25
By Faith Zaba/Brian Chitemba
ZANU PF spokesman Rugare
Gumbo, a long-serving party member who was a key
official in the Dare
reChimurenga during the liberation struggle, says
President Robert Mugabe’s
succession can only be discussed in the politburo
if party members raise the
issue.
Gumbo told the Zimbabwe Independent that free discussion on
Mugabe’s
successor and leadership renewal was the preserve of the politburo,
but so
far no one had dared to raise the issue in any of their meetings.
However,
he was quick to point out that those wishing to raise the issue
should be
made of “sterner stuff”.
“Leadership renewal issues
are the preserve of the politburo,” said Gumbo.
“However, the politburo has
not discussed that issue so far. If you are a
party member and you want to
raise such issues, you are free to do so in the
politburo, but you should be
made of the sterner stuff,” Gumbo said without
elaborating.
Although Mugabe at one time permitted little
debate on his succession, he
swiftly moved to politically destroy anyone who
declared any personal
ambition to succeed him.In 2003, a Zanu PF succession
committee headed by
Vice-President John Nkomo was disbanded after it fuelled
infighting over who
was the most suitable candidate to take over from
Mugabe.
In May 2009 the politburo set up another succession
committee chaired by
Nkomo and comprising Emmerson Mnangagwa, the late
retired army commander
General Solomon Mujuru, Oppah Muchinguri, Sydney
Sekeramayi and Didymus
Mutasa.This committee never took off and was
dissolved last year without any
seatings to its credit. Some senior party
officials said free debate on the
succession was an impossibility due to
fear of retribution.
Politburo appointments largely depended on
Mugabe, and members were,
therefore, afraid of crossing his path.They said
Mugabe was also surrounded
by people interested in self-preservation and
thereby unwilling to raise the
succession issue.Open and free debate on
succession, they said, was likely
to remain a taboo until Mugabe opened the
discussion himself because should
someone else do it, that would be
misconstrued as an attempt to effect
regime change.
This view
is supported by a recent WikiLeaks cable in which Public Works
deputy
minister Aguy Georgias is quoted saying Mugabe did not trust the
politburo
and his cabinet because they were absorbed with enriching
themselves.Georgias, who is also a renowned Zanu PF financier, told former
US Christopher Dell in 2006 that it was increasingly impossible for Mugabe
to trust his close lieutenants in the politburo and
cabinet.
“Mugabe knew he couldn’t trust his politburo and
cabinet, most of whom
either were so absorbed in economic
self-aggrandisement or too politically
insecure to actively support
meaningful outreach to the West,” Georgias
said.
He said
although Mugabe was isolated by the international community, he
still
wielded power within Zanu PF. Georgias said Mugabe never got good
advice
from Zanu PF because there was little meaningful debate in the party
as a
result of the growing generational gap which hampered communication.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011 10:28
Paul
Nyakazeya
RENAISSANCE Financial Holdings Ltd (RFHL) former executive
chairman
Patterson Timba risks having criminal proceedings instituted
against him if
the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) board of directors upholds
its earlier
resolution to report him to the police, following
recommendations of a
forensic report on the goings on at RFHL’s subsidiary,
ReNaissance Merchant
Bank (RMB), now under curatorship.
Minutes of
two RBZ board meetings, held on June 28 and September 27 this
year, reveal
that the central bank board had resolved to report Timba and
other senior
RMB officials to the police serious fraud squad if the findings
of a
forensic audit report on the bank by BCA Forensic Audit Services deemed
it
so. Timba was also chief executive of RMB, in which he is majority
shareholder. A two-volume, 1015 page-long forensic report on RMB dated
October 11 has since been completed and has been handed over to the RBZ. The
first volume has 706 pages while the second has 709 pages.
A
shorter version of the report, a 49-page summary prepared on August 15,
confirmed what had been suspected earlier that some of Timba’s activities
bordered on the criminal. Referring to one instance where US$2 million was
transferred to capitalise an RFHL Ugandan subsidiary, the condensed report
said: “In our own opinion, the abuse of the depositors’ funds in the
capitalisation of RCL was criminal, amounting to theft and or fraud.”Timba
said this week he was not aware that the forensic report had been
completed.
According to the minutes of the RBZ board meeting of
September 27, Timba was
saved by the bell after board members moved that
police action only be taken
after a comprehensive forensic report was
completed. “Some members (of the
RBZ board), however, expressed their
unhappiness at delays in reporting the
matter to the police since this gave
suspects an opportunity to erase
evidence. It was observed that ordinarily,
a mere suspicion would be
reported to the police,” the minutes
say.
However, after further deliberations, the board resolved to
wait for a more
substantive report from the forensic auditors establishing a
“watertight
case which could help to secure a conviction,” read the minutes.
Asked by
the Independent, this week, as to what action would be taken now
that the
comprehensive report was out, RBZ governor Gideon Gono said the
bank does
not discuss internal board or management discussions with the
press.
“I have advised you before that we are neither in the
habit of sharing our
internal board or management deliberations with the
press nor do we want to
pre-empt our board-approved strategies on the matter
you are referring to or
any other for that matter,” he said.“Go back to
whoever is your mole in the
bank and seek details of the matter you are
enquiring about. If your source
is a banker or one of my team members, then
God help us all. He or she will
need to revisit his/her lecture notes on
banking ethics and confidentiality
of client/bank affairs,” Gono
added.
The RBZ governor said the fact that Timba was freely going
about washing
dirty linen all over as a ploy to court public sympathy does
not make it
correct or desirable for the Reserve Bank “as the apex bank to
follow his
script and we have been consistent so far in refusing to
entertain public
debates on matters before or about to be placed before the
courts or any
other authority for that matter. If you need more, I refer you
to the
Minister of Finance,” Gono said.
Indian businessman
Jayesh Shah, whose loan to Timba is said to have opened a
can of worms at
RMB, reported Timba to the police in June to have him
arrested for breach of
contract. Meanwhile, Timba is being accused of trying
to control activities
at the bank from his Borrowdale home despite having
his contract terminated.
This comes amid allegations that he wanted to make
two senior appointments
to the bank and allegedly influences decisions at
the bank, which is
currently under curatorship.
According to High Court papers, case
number 9989/11 filed by Renaissance
Financial Holdings Ltd Managing
Director, Bartholomew Mswaka on Wednesday,
Timba wanted to make senior
appointments to the bank despite having his
contract cancelled.“Members were
informed that Mr Timba had written to the
curator proposing two senior
appointments, that is, a Managing Director and
a Chief Operating Officer for
the bank, subject to the approval of such
appointments by the regulators. Mr
Timba has also gone further to notify
NSSA about the proposed appointments,”
said Mswaka.Mswaka said board members
discussed the proposed appointments
and it was noted that neither the RFHL
Board nor the chairman had been
involved or formally engaged on the issue.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011 10:32
By Dumisani
Muleya
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe’s health situation has been
attracting the attention
of locals and foreigners alike following another
flight to Singapore this
week. Americans have for a long while been
monitoring his health as they
believe it is critical in assessing the
political and security situation in
the country.
This is revealed by
WikiLeaks in its recent release of United States secret
diplomatic cables
filed from Harare over the past two decades.Zimbabweans
and foreign
governments have been absorbed by Mugabe’s health issue for a
long time,
with different stories of what he is suffering from
circulating.
While Mugabe has maintained that he is only
suffering from cataracts — a
clouding of the crystalline lens of the eye
that obstructs the passage of
light and causes poor eyesight — WikiLeaks
disclosures suggest he has
prostate cancer.The US cables say Mugabe has
prostate cancer that has spread
to other organs of the body and was advised
by his physician to step down in
2008 to avoid endangering his life. Mugabe
was said to have accepted that he
would contest the 2008 elections and
retire afterwards, although the doctor
wanted him to quit before the
polls.
In the cable dated June 2008, written by James McGee, the
US ambassador in
Harare, central bank governor Gideon Gono was cited as
indicating Mugabe had
“prostate cancer which has metastasised”, although
Gono has denied this.In
one of the cables, former US political and economic
officer Glen Warren in
the Harare embassy quotes Zanu PF politburo member
and ex-Information
minister Jonathan Moyo as saying Mugabe was suffering
from “throat cancer”.
Moyo has not denied the cables and urged
his Zanu PF colleagues to own
up.Another US cable dispatched from Harare
also says Mugabe now has
difficulties in standing up from a chair due to old
age and ill-health. Yet
another cable says Mugabe was once spotted at a
cancer treatment centre in
Singapore which he frequents. Mugabe is currently
in Singapore. He has been
frequenting the country since the beginning of the
year.
This is his eighth visit this year.A further cable says
Mugabe consulted a
United Nations specialist on his medical problems. The
dispatch says former
UN resident representative to Zimbabwe Victor Angelo
told ex-US ambassador
to Harare Joseph Sullivan that Mugabe’s ailments
include “periodic
convulsions and stroke-like episodes (perhaps ischemia)
brought about by
diabetes and a lipid disorder which affects the covering of
the brain”.In
another dispatch on September 8 2000, former US ambassador Tom
McDonald says
he had received reports Mugabe had collapsed due to growing
health problems.
“Rumours about Mugabe’s health surface regularly here. We,
however, have
seen or heard nothing to suggest that the 76 year-old
president is suffering
from debilitating health problems or deteriorating in
mental acuity,”
McDonald’s cable says. “He did have surgery for throat
problems in 1996 and
received treatment for a urinary tract disorder in
1994.”
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 27 October 2011
18:31
Vincent Kahiya
SOUTH African Ambassador to Zimbabwe Vusi
Mavimbela (pictured) has sought to
break the mould by speaking out strongly
against the treatment of his
country’s farmers by President Robert Mugabe’s
government.Mavimbela’s candid
approach has, however, only helped to incense
Mugabe’s government which
official sources said had resolved not to budge on
the issue.
In fact Mugabe’s government is likely to react to this public
rebuke by a
foreign diplomat in the usual brutal arrogance which has become
its only
weapon in the face of international censure.In a meeting with Prime
Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai a fortnight ago, Mavimbela registered his
country’s
concern at the invasions which he said had the “possibility of
violating the
(bilateral investment) agreement” between the two
countries.
His approach on the subject –– a major departure from
the stratagem of his
predecessor, Professor Mlungisi Makalima –– appears not
to have gone down
well with Mugabe’s government which discourages any
public censure on the
conduct of the land reform by diplomats. On Saturday
the government of
Zimbabwe gave its most apparent reaction to Mavimbela, who
on the face of
it, was just playing his diplomatic role to speak for his
compatriots who
are victims of expropriation. “Some of the things seem to
be happening not
only to the South African companies, but also to the
farmers and this has
got a possibility of violating the agreement. We raised
that concern,”
Mavimbela said of the meeting with the
PM.
“Some of the clauses in that agreement say that even if
farmers are evicted
they need to be compensated for improvements made on the
farms,” he
added.Mugabe’s information handlers last weekend quickly jumped
on the
diplomat to lay down the law. Through a columnist in the
state-controlled
Herald newspaper, Nathaniel Manheru –– whose weekly
disclosures usually
reflect the thinking of President Mugabe’s inner cabal,
the paper launched a
bare-knuckled attack on Mavimbela. His crime was
calling for the protection
of white farmers which the paper said had the
“effect of compromising the
land question, itself a wartime goal of the
liberation struggle”.
To Mugabe’s government, there is very
little room for negotiation in this
area. Manheru reminded Mavimbela that
the land issue was a major sticking
point in the bilateral investment
promotion and protection agreement signed
by the two countries in 2009 and
that the Zimbabwe government was not going
to relent on its hard line
position. He described Mavimbela’s approach on
the land issue as revealing
“awesome semantic redolence”.
He pressed on the attack: “It is
very hard to imagine that the great envoy
seriously thinks we should stall
or revise our land reforms solely for the
sake of a bunch of whites who are
visiting his embassy for stipends. Or that
such a visit delegitimises our
land reforms.”In other words, the ruling
establishment in Zimbabwe believes
that Mavimbela is punching from the wrong
corner. He has no business rooting
for a “bunch of whites”.
His government has to look at the issue
of land reform through Zanu PF
lenses which only register two colours: black
and white.Mugabe’s handlers
have always been ready to brand as “Uncle Toms”
black leaders seeking to
protect white farmers from expropriation. This
tried and tested strategy is
most likely to be employed on President Jacob
Zuma’s government if it
continues to make public pronouncements in support
of dispossessed white
farmers.
The attack on Mavimbela could
be the beginning of the quest to tell him to
shut up. This is how Zanu PF
has sought to bring closure to the issue; by
just not talking about
it.Mugabe has been at pains to export his brand of
land reform to his
regional colleague using the liberation struggle
camaraderie as the rallying
point. While his project has received no takers,
Zanu PF stalwarts have been
waiting impatiently for South Africa to go the
Zimbabwe route. Mugabe sees
South Africa as an implementing partner in the
land project and Zuma’s
government has therefore no business trying to amend
the
plan.
Analysts in Harare have already started to talk of a major
diplomatic row
between Harare and Pretoria, but the escalation of the
conflict is most
likely going to depend on President Zuma’s willingness to
press on with
demands for dispossessed farmers to get compensation. The two
leaders have
been there before, but the engagements on the issue have not
been
confrontational.Over 200 farmers from South Africa, who were forced to
leave
Zimbabwe, have over the years battled to get their government to
protect
their interests, but without success.
In late 2008,
the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) Tribunal
ruled against
Mugabe’s government, insisting unanimously that a group of 79
farmers had
been denied access to justice in Zimbabwe and further ruling
that they had
been discriminated against because they were white. President
Mugabe has
thumbed his nose at the tribunal ruling, saying it had no
jurisdiction.
In April, South Africa’s Supreme Court of
Appeal ruled that the government
was not liable in cases related to the
unlawful land grab in Zimbabwe. It
ruled that the High Court decision
ordering the government to compensate a
South African farmer for land
invasions in Zimbabwe was wrong in law.The key
issue is, however, that no
Sadc leader has been willing to confront
President Mugabe on the issue and
Zuma has a tough task to make Mugabe
change course. Mavimbela’s comments
have however given impetus to the issue,
perhaps a sign that Zuma wants to
be treated with more respect.l
Vincent Kahiya is the
Editor-In-Chief of Alpha Media Holdings, the
publishers of the Zimbabwe
Independent, The Standard and NewsDay.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 27 October 2011 18:34
By Erich
Bloch
BRENDON Beham said that “Critics are like eunuchs in a
harem; they know how
it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re
unable to do it
themselves.”
This is true of the innumerable critics
of Air Zimbabwe for an extended
period of time, and especially so of many of
the governmental hierarchy,
most of the media, and the majority of
Zimbabwe’s business community, in
general.
It is also true of
those who must travel extensively, domestically,
regionally and
internationally, and many in the travel and tourism
industry.It is
indisputable that, for many years, Air Zimbabwe has been
unable to meet the
needs of travellers, providing an inadequacy of routings,
many flights being
extensively delayed (with flight schedules more often
than not being
hypothetical), and numerous flights being cancelled, often at
very short
notice. It is incontestable that Air Zimbabwe has, for prolonged
periods
(and especially in recent years), failed to meet critical travel
needs, and
that has not only accorded travellers great inconvenience, but
has also
been prejudicial to business in general, to tourism in particular,
and
hence to Zimbabwe’s traumatised economy.
However, endlessly most
of the virulent criticism has been targeted at Air
Zimbabwe’s management,
and at its boards of directors, notwithstanding that
in reality the causes
of the service deficiencies were neither caused by
management or the
directors, nor capable of being addressed and resolved by
them. In fact,
all of Air Zimbabwe’s service ills have been, and continue
to be, a direct
consequence of governmental policies and actions and
failures by government
to resort to appropriate corrective actions.
That fault lies
almost entirely with government which has not only deterred
the state
authorities from denying culpability, and from resorting to
necessary
corrective policies, but has also motivated their repeated
criticism and
castigation of Air Zimbabwe’s management and directors, mainly
in order to
divert attention from causing the airline’s ills, and from its
failure to
address those ills.The reality is that one management after
another has
battled to keep Air Zimbabwe operational despite the endless
hurdles placed
before them. The over-riding hurdle has been that at all
times the airline
has been grievously under-capitalised.
One government after
another has been intractably determined to have
absolute ownership of the
national carrier, but has failed to match that
determination with the
provision of adequate capital. Instead, the
successive governments have
forced the airline to be heavily dependent upon
costly borrowings, and the
capital inadequacies have severely constrained
Air Zimbabwe’s ability to
have a sufficiency of suitable aircraft required
to service diverse routes
which would assure operational viability.
Instead, it has to strive to
operate with few aircraft, most of those being
untenably aged, and not
suited for long-distance routes, and the airline’s
infrastructural
deficiencies and limited routings inevitably resulted in
recurrent
operational losses, with consequential unsustainable
indebtedness.
As the airline’s financial circumstances
progressively intensified and
worsened, it became more constrained in even
fully maintaining at optimum
levels, its limited fleet of aircraft.This
resulted in frequent
non-operationability of much of that fleet, and
therefore frequent flight
delays, or cancellations. It was also unable to
service numerous
international debts, restricting its access to essential
services, and in
recent times could not even pay staff salaries timeously,
resulting in
highly counterproductive strike actions by crews, to the
prejudice of the
airline and its struggle to survive.On the positive side,
the airline and
its personnel, place passenger safety ahead of all else,
that being their
foremost concern. They will not fly if they have even the
very slightest
safety reservations, and when flying give foremost attention
to passenger
safety and compact. Very few airlines have as enviable a
safety record as
does Air Zimbabwe.
Coupled with this
commendable service responsibility, both ground staff, and
cockpit and cabin
crews consistently strive to accord passengers maximised
attentiveness and
comfort, notwithstanding the immense pressures and
stresses that staff and
crews are recurrently subjected to, in consequence
of prolonged delays in
receiving salaries, of frequent passenger
irritability and aggression,
caused by the frequent flight delays and
cancellations.The tragedy is that
not only could Air Zimbabwe have been
highly viable and successful, had past
or present governments provided it
with necessary funding but, in the
absence of their so doing, viability
could nevertheless have been readily
achieved if those governments had not
dogmatically resisted and refused to
privatise the airline, wholly or
partially:
This could easily
have been achieved, for in the past there were numerous
international and
regional airlines who were desirous of acquiring
ownership, wholly or
partially, of Air Zimbabwe. They would have injected
the much needed
capital resources, provided additional and suitable
aircraft, provided
technological inputs, and enabled access to many
remunerative routes. But
the Zimbabwean governments were rigidly determined
to retain sovereign
ownership of their so-called “national carrier”, and
consistently resisted
all privatisation approaches. Concurrently, they
denied any culpability for
the airline’s ills, endlessly attributing blame
wholly to the airline’s
board of directors, its management, and to virtually
non-existent “illegal
international sanctions”.Bearing in mind the
over-traded principle of
“better late than never”, it was a slight ray of
hope of forthcoming
transformation of Air Zimbabwe when, last week, the
Minister of State
Enterprises and Parastatals, Gorden Moyo, informed the
annual general
meeting of the Bulawayo and District Publicity Association
that government
has now resolved to privatise partially the embattled
airline.
He stated that cabinet had agreed upon such long
overdue action. Moreover,
with a recognition of realities generally far
beyond cabinet ability, it was
realised that the objective of partial
privatisation had no prospect of
being achieved if the airline remained
encumbered with its very pronounced
accumulation of debt, which is stated to
exceed US$136 million. None will be
interested to invest in a pronouncedly
insolvent enterprise.
Therefore, cabinet decided that the
airline’s accumulated debts must be
“warehoused” by government which, to all
intents and purposes, means that
the debts will be assumed by the state, and
the airline will be rendered
debt-free to enable its privatisation.Although
this decision by government
is heartening, nevertheless it will be
meaningless, and of no resolution to
the airline’s ills, unless the partial
privatisation is not only rapidly
pursued before new considerable debts
accumulate, but also that the
partiality of the privatisation is at least to
an extent that will vest
control in the hands of the new investors, not
being retained by government,
and that those investors are successful
airline operators. They should
invest requisite capital and resources into
Air Zimbabwe. In that event,
Airzim can, and will fly, beneficiating the
economy, tourism and the
populace in general.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 27 October 2011
18:32
‘COLONEL Muammar Gaddafi’s heroic last stand against Nato hegemony
is a
defining moment in this era of UN-backed imperialism,” the Sunday Mail
told
us. “He could have fled Libya but he did not. Col Gaddafi chose to
fight
alongside the people of Libya to his last breath. He stood his ground
until
the end refusing to flee, choosing to be martyred on Libyan
soil.”
So what was he doing hiding in that
drainpipe?
“Fighting alongside the people of Libya”? And what did
the people of Libya
think of his “last stand” when they caught up with him?
They finished him
off, their ecstatic delight impossible to conceal. Far
from making a stand,
he hid from his people like a sewer rat, his favourite
term of abuse for the
rebel fighters. And when they finally found him he
tried to buy them off
with gold –– a martyr indeed!Far from vindicating him,
as the Sunday Mail
believes, history will remember the graves of the
prisoners executed in the
courtyard of Abu Salim Prison in 1996. Their crime
had been to complain
about appalling prison conditions. But the Sunday Mail
is right to describe
this as a defining moment. The people of Libya, and
indeed of North Africa,
have chosen to abandon the ideological claptrap of
the past and to situate
their revolution in the broader context of freedom
and democracy. It was
first and foremost a fight against Gaddafi’s tyranny
as the multitudes
dancing and singing in the streets demonstrated. British,
French and
American help was important but the revolution was manifestly
home-grown.
The AU heads of state at first refused to identify with
the Libyan uprising.
It didn’t fit their brief of defending incumbents. They
wanted a solution
that incorporated the dictator. But he proved impervious
to Jacob Zuma’s
overtures.In the end they could ignore the popular impulse
no longer. It was
a disaster for African diplomacy as Libya chose its own
path and asked aloud
why African states preferred to side with Libya’s
tyrant when his tanks were
firing on his own people to suppress their quest
for freedom.That freedom
was finally won on Sunday following the demise of
the dictator last week.
What are significant now are the voices of reaction
as Zimbabwe’s political
elite tries to justify its abiding attachment to a
cruel despot and his
blood-soaked legacy. As the Sunday Mail editorial
reveals, Zimbabwe’s rulers
have once again placed themselves on the wrong
side of history.
One by one their vicious allies are going down
to defeat, Ceausescu in 1989,
Mubarak earlier this year and now Gaddafi who
paraded upon the international
stage dressed as a figure from a Gilbert and
Sullivan opera. But he was far
from comic. In 1980 he dispatched hit quads
to eliminate political opponents
abroad.Perhaps the most succinct verdict
came from Egyptian president Anwar
Sadat who declared that Gaddafi was “100%
sick and possessed by the devil”.
Ronald Reagan branded him the “Mad dog of
the Middle East”. The Saudis
openly called him a hypocrite. When he first
received news of the democratic
rising in February he railed at the “rats”
in Benghazi and promised to
exterminate them.In the end it was they who
exterminated him! The Herald
published details from the colonel’s will this
week. It contains the
following declaration: “This is my will, I, Muammar
bin Mohammad, bin
Abdussalam, bin Humayd bin Nayil al Fuhsi Gaddafi…Isn’t
there a “bin”
missing somewhere here, like the “dust bin of
history”?
Jamaican reggae star Cocoa Tea says Zimbabweans should not
despair. “Do not
worry that much about the Western-imposed sanctions and all
the negativity
they bring because in the end you will conquer, no one will
take away what
is yours,” he declared. Cocoa Tea comes in the same music
package as
Luciano, Sizzla, Kalonji, Buju Banton and Beenie Man. Some were
brought here
as part of a programme by the government to win popularity with
the younger
generation. Some of the artistes imported by government are
barred from
appearing at certain venues in Europe because of their
enthusiasm for lyrics
that involve killing people. Few of them know very
much about Zimbabwe and
indeed are prepared to make statements that ignore
the will of the
Zimbabwean people. Instead they sing for their supper by
expressing support
for President Mugabe. It would be useful to know under
whose budget these
musicians fall and how much is spent on bringing them
here.
The Sunday Mail carried a good piece last Sunday on the ordeal
people have
to go through to obtain a passport. The long queues and
overnight stays on
pavements make it a miserable experience. A whistle is
blown at 5am to get
applicants to join the queue. Despite claims from the
government that
conditions had improved, the situation on the ground is
worse, applicants
say.All this despite an increase in passport production.
Zimbabwe is the
only country in the region that fails to avail passports to
its nationals,
the article says. “Despite the high amounts being paid by
passport
applicants the RG’s office has failed to clear the long queues.
Then there
are the unhygienic conditions in the nearby areas. City of Harare
health
director Dr Stanley Mangofa said he was not aware of the health
threats but
promised to investigate.“As people search for answers,” the
article
concludes, “everyone is asking: ‘Why is Zimbabwe failing to furnish
its
citizens with passports?”Muckraker has the answer to that. Because
people
like Tobaiwa Mudede are in charge, that’s why.
The final
“anti-sanctions” report has been compiled, ZBC reports, and will
be
presented to President Robert Mugabe for approval. Over two million
people
have signed against the “illegal embargo” we are told.Zanu PF
spokesman
Rugare Gumbo said following the “overwhelming” response, Zanu PF
will host
an anti-sanctions gala that involves local and international
artistes as
part of efforts to tell the world that the “illegal sanctions”
are “evil and
should be lifted unconditionally”.The EU will now surely be
shaking in their
boots since Attorney-General, Johannes Tomana, has set up a
team of legal
experts to sue the EU. Tomana had said that if the EU failed
to give a
“satisfactory answer” within two weeks he was going to lodge a
lawsuit at
the General Court of European Court of Justice.However, EU
Managing Director
for Africa, Nicholas Westcott, responded to the threats by
saying that the
Western bloc was ready for the legal battle with Harare.“If
anybody
disagrees with that, there is a due legal process which is open to
anyone,”
he said. “If the government of Zimbabwe wishes to avail itself of
that, that
is fine. We are governed by the rule of law. It is a process I
recommend to
all countries to ensure that there is an impartial judicial
system which
will enable anyone to challenge decisions or actions by a
government or in
our case an international organisation and allow a free
judiciary to make
its decision,” he said.It seems that Westcott’s response
was satisfactory
judging by the fact that Tomana is yet to lodge the lawsuit
by the time of
going to press.Speaking of sanctions, George Charamba was
quoted in the
Sunday Mail talking about solidarity between Zimbabwe and
Libya. Charamba
said that when Libya was under sanctions, President Mugabe
was also against
the sanctions imposed on it.“Our President defiantly flew
into Libya soon
after the sanctions were removed,” Charamba said.Muckraker
was left
perplexed by this statement. How can Mugabe “defiantly” fly into
Libya when
the sanctions had been removed? To whom was he being
defiant?
Meanwhile Munyaradzi Huni took hyperbole to dizzying heights
this week in
his account of the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the
death of
Samora Machel.According to Huni, one professor from Eduardo
Mondlane
University asked: “If Samora Machel was here today, what do you
think he
would say about Mozambique in particular and Africa in general?”
Mozambique’s
former president, Joachim Chissano, who –– according to Huni ––
“quickly
went into overdrive” said: “I always answer that question this way.
Samora
is not here.”“If he was alive he would have his brain functioning.
Now he is
not here, so I don’t know what he would say.”Some delegates “were
not happy”,
Huni claims, with Chissano’s somewhat “arrogant” response and so
when
President Mugabe later responded to the above question, he received a
standing ovation. “In Maputo, President Mugabe did not receive a standing
ovation only after speaking about what Cde Machel would say about Mozambique
and Africa if he was alive. Just like in South Africa, the people in
Mozambique just adore President Mugabe,” Huni gushed.“President Mugabe
clearly showed that he is a fountain of knowledge in the mould of people
like Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and Samora Machel because his
contributions at the symposium left political science students from Eduardo
Mondlane University calling for more.”Oh please! If Huni believes that he
will believe anything. The only arrogance we see here is by those who are
hijacking Machel’s legacy for self-serving purposes. Viva Chissano, the only
one who talks sense.
Muckraker was intrigued by the involvement
of the police as well as
Information minister Webster Shamu in the burial
proceedings of Johanne
Masowe WeChishanu apostolic sect leader Madzibaba
Godfrey Pegnick Nzira.The
Herald reported on Wednesday that it was only
after the intervention of the
police and Shamu that Nzira’s family agreed to
bury him in Chitungwiza after
having insisted that he be buried in
Mhondoro.Nzira had, in March 2003, been
slapped with a 42-year prison term
after being convicted of seven counts of
rape and one of indecent assault
involving two women at his shrine.However,
10 years were suspended on
condition of good behaviour before another 12
were slashed by the High Court
on appeal. He was a beneficiary of a
presidential pardon.Shamu said at the
funeral that Nzira remained
“unflinching” in his support for President
Mugabe hence the link between the
party and the church.“Though this often
attracted criticism and vilification
from his detractors, he stood firm and
continued supporting the government,”
he said.His second wife, Sphelile,
described him as “a man of unity”.“He
always wanted to see us happy as a
family and he brought people together,”
she said.“He was not selective and
treated everyone with the respect he or
she deserved.”The women that were
raped and indecently assaulted would beg
to differ, we are
sure.
Finally we were amused to learn from George Charamba that
Switzerland has
“not heard the end of this matter” following its refusal to
issue visas to
the president’s bloated delegation. “We certainly have other
ways of
expressing our displeasure,” he declared. Ooh!What’s he going to do
we
wonder? Refuse to buy Swiss chocolates?
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011 10:06
LAST
week’s edited version of this paper presented by South African
Ambassador to
Zimbabwe, Vusi Mavimbela, discussed democracy making the point
that it is
imperative to appreciate that the quest of the people to deepen
and expand
democracy today goes beyond government, parliament and
party-political
frameworks. In this final instalment Mavimbela argues that
the struggle for
the pursuit of the African agenda needs the people in all
their organised
formations.
In a nutshell, by the African agenda I mean the collective
pursuit of the
people of the continent to deliver themselves from the legacy
of colonialism
and neo-colonialism with the aim of situating themselves on
the global stage
as equal and deserving contributors to, as well as
beneficiaries of, the
achievements of human civilisation.
The
pursuit of an African continent that is collectively constructing an
integrated, growing and sustainable economy, one that can contribute to,
assimilate and take advantage of other world economies. A continent that
forges a united voice and exercises meaningful positive influence in the
realm of international relations, among other things. So in what way do
these two aspects of democracy and globalisation relate to the pursuit of
the African agenda?
We discussed the aspect of democracy to
make the point that it is imperative
to appreciate that the quest of the
people to deepen and expand democracy
today goes beyond government,
parliament and party-political frameworks. We
made the point that the
essence of freedom today entails accepting this
reality and riding the crest
of its positive elements in order to gain
greater freedom. We made the point
that this is an inexorable force which we
can only oppose or ignore at our
own peril.The struggle for the pursuit of
the African agenda needs a motive
force to drive it.
That motive force cannot be limited simply to
governments, parliaments and
party-political frameworks. It needs the people
in all their organised
formations. It needs vibrant and active democracy. It
needs the will of the
people. It needs the leadership that appreciates the
necessity of an active
and vibrant democracy. Those who do not appreciate
this necessity shall
spend a great deal of their limited time on earth and
their people’s
resources opposing and fighting the motive forces needed to
drive the
African agenda, fighting the same people they are supposed to set
free.
That is exactly the drama we have witnessed on our own
continent in Tunisia,
Egypt and Libya. It is a classical case of the regimes
that for decades
refused to appreciate this necessity in their own
countries. They were able
to stall the inexorable desire and will of their
people to be free, but they
could not stop it forever. It just needed a
spark of a frustrated hawker in
Tunisia to ignite a tinderbox that set off
the prairie fire.
The issue of globalisation as encapsulated in
global governance also relates
intrinsically to the capacity of the
continent to pursue the African agenda.
We made the point earlier on that as
we join regional, continental and
global institutions we are also spreading
and deepening global governance.
We are subjecting ourselves to higher
structures of governance for them to
harmonise our relations with other
nations and other institutions.
Sometimes, as governments, we find ourselves
compelled to surrender part of
our authority and sovereignty to higher
institutions in order to seek
assistance to our
challenges.
We can bring the point home by referring to the
authority and sovereignty
that our individual countries have surrendered to
the Southern African
Customs Union (Sacu), the Southern African Development
Community (Sadc) and
the African Union (AU). Indeed, Sadc, the East African
Community and
Economic Community of West African States are currently
forging new forms of
governance to which we are going to subject our
countries and our
people.These are all examples of a centrifugal force, an
inexorable force
pulling outwards driving all of us into an increasingly
shrinking global
village.
As Hegel would counsel us, we are
freer if we appreciate the necessity of
such a force. Sadc is currently
seized with the challenges of peace and
stability in a number of countries
in the region, including Madagascar,
Zimbabwe and until recently Lesotho.
These are examples of countries that
decided to temporarily surrender part
of their authority and sovereignty to
a higher body in order to seek help in
meeting what are largely their
difficult internal challenges. This condition
ought not to be interpreted as
interference in the authority and sovereignty
of a member state.
Rather it should be seen as the effort of the
higher body to employ the
collective political suasion of the higher body to
improve and protect the
health of the member state and the entire region
from the negative
consequences that might result from the internal strife.
It is with this
understanding in mind that President Dos Santos, in assuming
the
chairmanship of Sadc in Luanda recently said:“We have to realise that
peace
and stability are the backbone of our development. Over the past we
have
paid particular attention to the situation in Zimbabwe, Madagascar and
the
DRC.
We have tried to find satisfactory solutions through
dialogue. Sadc has to
ensure that our motto prevails…Countries need to put
in place democratic
mechanisms and understand that power can be held through
free and fair
elections. Resorting to violence and war simply brings
immeasurable damage
to those countries. Political power can be won through
free and fair
elections.”
As the statement by President Dos
Santos above indicates, the final
responsibility for facilitation, whether
in Madagascar, in Zimbabwe, in
Lesotho, in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
or anywhere else where such an
intervention might be required, rests with
Sadc as an entity. The
facilitators in all these instances are simply agents
of Sadc as a
structure. For example, Sadc needs to ask itself the hard
question: have we
pooled all our possible levers and resources in the effort
to resolve the
challenges of peace, security and democracy in the
region?
It might well be that the work of facilitation in the
region can be greatly
enhanced by giving an added consideration to this
question.One attempt at
answering that question is to investigate the role
that civil society and
government institutions across Sadc can play in
forging a more integrated
region. We have to investigate in what way all
these institutions can
exercise their institutional suasion in an effort to
help issues of peace,
security and democracy, not only where Sadc is
facilitating, but in the
entire region.We have to ask the question: what
role can be played by
business organisations, military and intelligence
formations, the police
forces, the education institutions, faith-based
organisations and so forth.
All these formations, in one form or another,
have regional forums that
encompass the whole of Sadc.
There
is a little known fact that the dialogue between the Apartheid regime
and
the ANC leadership that was based in exile was initiated by both the
Afrikaner intellectual and business formations as well as the Apartheid
intelligence community, the very institutions that had served the regime
with distinction for decades and hugely benefited from it. The delegation
that included Afrikaners big business and Afrikaner intellectuals met the
ANC leadership in Dakar in 1987. On the other hand the leadership of the
Apartheid intelligence services secured discreet meetings with ANC
intelligence in different capitals in Europe.For Apartheid big business, the
continued isolation and sanctions against the regime were hurting their
ability to grow, expand and compete internationally.
They
could not realise their global potential and the economy was stagnant.
They
came back from that engagement with the ANC and told Apartheid
political
power that the health and expansion of the South African economy
needed a
democratic dispensation. On the other hand, the intelligence
leadership of
the regime made its own intelligence analysis and estimation
on the
prospects of the regime going forward. They came to a conclusion that
the
regime had reached a crisis and cul-de-sac politically and economically.
Their analysis and estimation had the foresight to see that there was no way
out for the regime except to initiate negotiations with the ANC and help
establish democracy. These two examples go further to show that the
resolution to tough political challenges is not always and entirely the
preserve of political principals.
The other challenge for the
project of the African agenda is that the
institutions of regional,
continental and global governance are a terrain of
contestation and
perpetual struggle. So the surrender of authority and
sovereignty upwards
goes with the responsibility to ensure that the
institutions are so geared
and so transformed as to promote rather than
hamper the project of the
African agenda. Furthermore, the other challenge
is that the project of the
African agenda goes in a series of concentric
circles. As demonstrated
above, it starts with the individual country, its
leadership and the amount
of space given to the people to exercise active
and vibrant
democracy.
It then moves to the regional body; the ability of the
regional body to
ensure that all its member states move in harmony to uphold
its principles
of cultural, economic and political democracy and regional
integration. The
inability of one or several of the member states to uphold
these principles
affects the workings of the entire regional body. It then
moves to the
continental body and the same principles and relations of
accountability
apply. So the health of each concentric circle, in the final
analysis, is
important for the wellbeing of the entire project of the
African agenda. The
success of the project of the African agenda stands on
two legs; deeper and
expanded democracy to the citizenry on one hand and
good and transformed
global governance on the other. This is an edited
version of a paper
presented by South African Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Vusi
Mavimbela, at SAPES
Trust Policy Dialogue Forum on September 22 in
Harare.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011 10:14
By Itai
Zimunya
THE discourse on indigenisation has dominated recent national
policy debates
in Zimbabwe. Amid the plethora of scenarios cast in these
discussions, two
distinct conclusions appear dominant.
On one side,
the Indigenisation and Empowerment minister, Saviour
Kasukuwere, argues that
international capital has to sell 51% of their worth
to locals. On the other
hand, some economic scholars caution that such a
policy risks destroying the
already vanquished industry. But it appears too
simplistic to narrow this
discussion to these two poles. The questions need
to be
recast.
Does the selling of 51% of foreign owned capital mean
development? Who is
this “local” referred to in this discourse? Is there an
alternative? This
article seeks to unscramble the current indigenisation
programme and proffer
policy alternatives for consideration.It is crucial to
firstly set the
groundwork for this discussion by asserting that
indigenisation is
inevitable in any post-colonial state.
The
unjust socio-economic relations created by the colonial state cannot
continue. So the issue of indigenisation is not a Zanu PF, MDC or Zapu
strategy. It is a national programme, way above party politics. Therefore it
deserves a national, supra-party political attention.At this point, it is
key to recast the question. Is the current drive by Kasukuwere good for the
people of Zimbabwe?
Is it development?The current process is
missing the big economic disease of
dualism, and thus is merely replacing a
few white elite with new black
elite. In all this madness, the ordinary
people suffer two big kicks,
falling incomes and lost hopes.Policymakers
need to understand that the
Zimbabwean economy is a two-in-one or dual
economy. A dual economy is a
creation of colonialism which was set to serve
the interests of two
communities, one for the settlers and the rest for the
natives. So, in one
economy, there is the centre and the
periphery.
Post April 18 1980, the Zanu PF government did not
change the frame of our
economy. They maintained this dualism, and instead
substituted the largely
white merchants with themselves. The substitution
took place through land
reform and is now happening through this 51%
indigenisation policy or
programme, whichever it is. Oppression on the basis
of race motivated the
liberation struggle to extricate the majority from the
jaws of the few
powerful elite.
Celebrated liberation war
hero, Josiah Magama Tongogara, clearly understood
that when he said the
liberation struggle was all about bringing equal
opportunities irrespective
of one’s race.That target has been missed since
Independence. A leading
developmental scholar Godfrey Kanyenze describes
this elite class of
socio-economic luxury as an “enclave”. Enclavity is
systematic, legislated
and sadly for Zimbabwe, it is now part of our psych
and is being perpetuated
by sub-conscious actions which also need to be
expunged.With this enclave
frame of the economy I argue that no matter how
he tries, Kasukuwere will
perpetuate locating the masses at the periphery
by keeping the economy in
the hands of a few.
Some critics of land reform assert that the
programme largely failed in that
it replaced a few white land barons by even
fewer black barons. Meaning, the
masses remain worse-off as a new small but
powerful black elite emerges.
That is the similar risk that this 51% drive
suffers.So the lesson for
Kasukuwere is that the struggle for liberation was
not necessarily because
the oppressor was white, but because the masses
wanted an equitable share of
their national heritage.
The
economy is the platform on which governments rise or fall. And the post
indigenisation state of Kasukuwere risks instability that could maul its
henchmen, the new black elite. The current empowerment discussion promises
that the government will create community trusts to benefit the people. It
has to be stated that this community trusts proposal is neither new nor
exciting. The problem is the framework under which these trusts are
formulated, managed and sustained. Using the Communal Areas Management
Programme for Indigenous Resources (Campfire) model, these Campfires worked
to some extent before some corrupt rural district council leaders usurped
them from the people. That is the current threat to this new empowerment
model based on community trusts.
Before I proffer
indigenisation policy alternatives, I wish to restate that
wealth
redistribution is inevitable in any post-colonial state. So from this
perspective, Kasukuwere must be credited for pushing an unsettled national
agenda even though he is knowingly or unknowingly taking the country from
one crisis to another crisis. Zimbabwe needs a policy framework that focuses
on two fronts: framing Zimbabwe as a democratic developmental state, and
placement of citizens at the centre of development. At present Zimbabwe does
not seem to have a coherent and comprehensive developmental paradigm. The
level of confusion and policy inconsistency in this government is legendary.
On one hand, the Ministry of Mines is creating joint ventures with Chinese
companies in the gold and diamond sector whose shareholding and terms are
beyond parliamentary scrutiny. On another side, the Ministry of Youth
Development and Indigenisation is issuing ultimatums and pronouncing an
incoherent 51% equity redistribution policy. In the same government, the
Ministry of Finance and the central bank have their own views and priorities
on indigenisation.
The state security ices the cake by
refusing parliament, a key institution
of government, permission to monitor
progress at the Marange diamond fields.
All this madness displays a
conspiracy against the ordinary citizens who
patiently expect service
delivery from this government. In summary, I will
discuss the policy
package whose combination can set Zimbabwe towards
people-centred
development. Zimbabwe needs to adopt a developmental
framework that brings
government, citizens and the private sector towards
the same vision of
improving the human conditions of all citizens (not the
few elite, as is the
current Kasukuwere drive). This means marshalling
national resources to
focus inwards to support production, education and
accessible quality health
care.
If the government and private sector stop foreign education
and medical care
including the presidential scholarships, Zimbabwe’s
colleges, industries and
hospitals will rise again. Leadership is necessary
to expel the ghost of
dualism. Political leaders are central in this. MPs
must reside in their
areas of representation and avoid the “enclave rush”
towards the leafy
suburbs indirectly suggesting that the rural and/ or high
density areas they
represent are marginal and backward. By staying in their
areas and getting
their children schooled and nursed there will help expunge
the false and
colonial belief of good life in the leafy
suburbs.
Good life must be created in the “ghettos” and in the
villages too. The
voters in the villages and ghettos must also have
manifestos that reject
councillors and MPs who relocate soon after election
— only to return at
the next elections.The private sector, especially the
banking sector must
play its proper role of economic development. The
government must always
regulate this sector — not to squeeze it — but to
facilitate growth. All
revenues realised from the sale of anything
Zimbabwean must be banked in
Zimbabwe to erase this false situation of a dry
market. If international
markets get liquid by platinum, diamond and gold,
why is Zimbabwe dry? The
people of Zimbabwe must not stampede to board
planes to foreign capitals to
borrow their tobacco, gold, platinum and
diamond money on hostile terms.
By the same token, our monetary
management system must allow legitimate
funds outflow since Zimbabwe is part
of a global trade network.National
institutions must be independent and
accountable. The judiciary must work
independently, not in the current
fashion where in reality or perceptively,
it is held up by so many dirty
hands. Corruption and other “isms” in
government and the private sector may
not be checked if the guarantor of
accountability, the judiciary, is itself
vulnerable.The definition of
“locals” needs to be revisited. Citizenship is
vague in Zimbabwe.
Discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity and
politics is wrong and
must not find a place in a developmental state. The
Zanu PF default position
that every problem in Zimbabwe is caused by white
people needs to be
challenged.
The oppressed lot, including
whites and descendants of Malawi and Mozambican
parents are Zimbabwean and
must benefit from national programmes. Kasukuwere
must be aware of the
unhealthy ethnic bitterness in Zimbabwe, especially the
real or perceived
Zezuru hegemony. The assumption that a certain people are
supreme is a
recipe for ethnic rupture. And inclusive developmental policies
can surely
avoid such. I would strongly argue that Kasukuwere is very
correct in
pushing the redistribution agenda but very wrong in his framing
of such. His
current drive offers nothing to celebrate as he is substituting
a crisis of
colonial white minority supremacy by a post colonial crisis of
minority
black supremacy — leaving the masses on the margins. Zimbabwe needs
to move
away from this dual socio-economic state. Government leaders
including Mps,
the president and the prime minister must show leadership by
banking,
shopping, getting health care and educating their children in
Zimbabwe.
Management of our natural resources must be directed towards
national
development, not racial, gender, ethnic or politically based
enclaves.
Another Zimbabwe is possible!Itai Zimunya is a development
consultant
working with OSISA. He writes in his individual capacity.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011 09:57
By Collins
Rudzuna
RENEWED economic growth has been achieved from the time the
country
abandoned the Zimbabwe Dollar in favour of a multi-currency
system.
The formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) also
ushered in a
relatively stable political environment where the parties to
the Global
Political agreement have thus far co-existed in an uneasy, yet
mostly
manageable alliance.
However, as 2012 draws near,
there are certain political realities that we
must now face; the parties to
the alliance are bracing themselves for a
dispensation that does not
envisage the continuation of a marriage of
convenience! Politically-charged
statements from both sides of the
political divide suggest politicians are
already selling their respected
envisaged scenarios to the electorate. Media
reports quote one politician as
having told the BBC that he supported gay
rights. Apparently, his exact
words were “…I hope the constitution will come
out with freedom of sexual
orientation…” In a country that seems to be
determinedly homophobic, such a
controversial statement could be meant to
sell his party as both progressive
and accommodating ahead of a possible
election next year.
On the other hand, the other major rival
political party has been on a
strong indigenisation drive. It is apparent
that politicians are bracing
themselves for an election and electioneering
will start in earnest soon.
Our country is blessed with numerous natural
resources, chief amongst them
prime farmland and mineral deposits. The
potential for economic development
is exciting. But it takes substantial
financial resources and sometimes
specialised technology to unlock the full
potential of these resources.
Zimbabwe’s capacity to meet these financial
and technological needs alone is
very limited and we need to work hand in
hand with foreigners. But
foreigners are a fussy lot when it comes to the
security of their
investments and one way to reassure them is to maintain a
peaceful political
environment.
We have to make sure that if
we hold elections, they are peaceful and
accepted as free and fair by the
international community. The ongoing
constitution- making process and the
ensuing election are therefore an ideal
platform where our ability to place
compromise ahead of emotion and exercise
political maturity to encourage
rather than discourage investment will be
tested. It is rather unfortunate
that the constitution-making process has
been put so close to the election
because this now puts pressure on
politicians to adopt populist policies
that may well scare away investors.
Indigenisation, for example, is one area
where politicians need to tread
carefully and try to attain a balance that
leaves the indigenous electorate
feeling appeased and the investing
foreigners feeling their investment is
safe.
Giving way to
mob rule will be our undoing, as it may lead to highly
polarised and
unbalanced decision-making. Ahead of an election however,
politicians are
likely to play to the emotions of voters rather than submit
to sober
reasoning.This expected growth in politically-motivated populism
will have
important implications for fiscal policy as pressure will mount to
divert
funds to election-linked spending. Aside from the direct cost of
running an
election, we are also likely to see partisan excuses being used
to disburse
funds to voters in order to win their hearts. Given that fiscal
space is
already squeezed, funds are likely to be diverted away from other
areas of
need, particularly much needed capital expenditure, the benefits
from which
take time to show.
The year 2012 may be the most important year
post dollarisation as far as
determining the political future of the country
is concerned. It may be the
year that the marriage of convenience, that is
the Government of National
Unity, ends in an acrimonious divorce. A lot
hinges on whether the “divorce”
will be a legally managed one, if the
parties are willing to compromise or
not. Should we fail to peacefully
regularise the political landscape,
investors may well give up on the
country despite the allure of our natural
resources. So where are the
markets likely to go, given the potential for
politics to be the overriding
theme in next year’s investment environment?
While we hope that
political leaders and their people will approach next
year’s elections
calmly and collectively, we would be engaging in wishful
thinking if we bet
on this happening without clear evidence of it. Based on
recent history, we
fear there will be some form of friction and jostling for
power. Foreign
investors are likely to adopt a “wait and see” approach.
Foreign investors
are the major providers of liquidity, and apathy on their
part will lead to
low trading volumes on the stock market. An even more
important question to
ponder is where the markets, or more importantly the
economy, will go beyond
2012.
This of course hinges on how the political dust settles and
how power is
retained or transferred. Without speculating on which political
party is
likely to emerge as the winner in the event of an election, it is
apparent
that one key issue will be how the election is won. The other
consideration
of course is what policies will be put in place by whoever the
winner is.
Only a free and fair election will give investors confidence to
buy into our
future. And it is up to us the Zimbabwean electorate, and the
politicians to
conduct ourselves with political maturity so as to give
confidence to
potential investors.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011 10:16
Brian
Chitemba
THE bloody end of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was as
brutal and ruthless
as his 42-year iron rule of the oil rich North African
country.
However, Gaddafi is not the only dictator who met a violent end
because
history shows that iron-fisted rulers have met a similar fate, and
in most
cases, with the same brute force they used to assume power.Gaddafi
is the
victim of the Arab Spring, the popular uprisings which swept across
Arab
countries and forced out former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali
and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.
Ben Ali fled the country
while the ailing Mubarak is currently facing trial
on a battery of charges
from embezzlement, and corruption to human rights
violations.Ali Abdullah
Saleh of Yemen, in power since 1978, is also
presently fighting to remain in
power as fierce protests against his rule
continue to sweep across the
country. While he has managed to fend off the
protests, the protesters are
likely to be bolstered by the successful
struggle against Gaddafi to
violently remove him from power.
Some despots in Africa and
Europe have been executed in the past following
popular uprisings by the
masses whose freedoms have been denied through
rampant oppression and gross
human rights violations.Gaddafi seized power in
a coup on September 1 1969
which overthrew King Idris Senussi. He then
scrapped the Libyan constitution
and introduced laws backing his political
ideology he termed the Third
International Theory.
He ruled Libya with an iron fist and in the
process amassed extensive
wealth, making him one of the richest people in
the world.Apart from being
one of the longest ruling dictators in Africa, he
also displayed some
eccentric ambitions, such as establishing a United
States of Africa with him
at the helm.He also referred to himself as the
“Brother Leader or King of
Kings”, and in one of his many bizarre quotes, he
said democracy meant
permanent rule.But despite all the glitz and glamour he
displayed in his
42-year rule, Gaddafi was summarily executed by a teenage
rebel fighter last
week after being flushed out of a drainage pipe he was
found hiding in.
This was in stark contrast to the opulence he
had surrounded himself with
during his four-decade rule.Other well-known
African dictators who suffered
the same fate as the eccentric Gaddafi were
former Burkina Faso president
Thomas Sankara, who was executed by an armed
gang led by his former
associate Blaise Compaore in 1987. Compaore is the
current president of
Burkina Faso. Sankara had been helped to stage a coup
by Gaddafi in 1983.One
of the most notorious and longtime dictators Mobutu
Sese Seko was also
deposed as president of Zaire, now known as the
Democratic Republic of
Congo. Mobutu had come to power after violently
overthrowing Joseph Kasavubu
from power in 1965. Mobutu was driven out of
power by a rebel force led by
Laurent Kabila and suffered a lonely and
miserable death in Morocco in 1997.
Mobutu was thought to have
embezzled over US$5 billion from the DRC, which
he ruled like his personal
company.Interestingly, Kabila was also killed in
cold blood by one of his
bodyguards in 2001.What seems to be a pattern is
that most dictators fail to
interpret the changing sentiments in their
respective countries resulting in
them being overthrown and killed or being
forced into exile.Gaddafi had a
chance to step aside in June following calls
by the African Union, but he
vowed to fight the rebels, describing them as
rats.While it is sad that
dictators’ families disintegrate and die
violently, political pundits say
the autocrats lose it all when they treat
their people inhumanely when they
come to power.With Gaddafi now dead,
Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro
Nguema Mbasogo is now the longest
serving leader in Africa having grabbed
power in a 1979 coup.
Nguema survived a coup attempt in 2004 and
he responded by executing those
he perceived to be behind the move. Nguema
is followed by José Eduardo dos
Santos who also came to power in 1979.
President Robert Mugabe, who has been
in power for 31 years, is third
followed by Cameroon’s President Paul Biya,
who was recently “re-elected”
for a sixth term following 28 years at the
helm. Political analyst
Nyamutatanga Makombe said these long-serving
leaders overstay their welcome
partly because their top aides do not want
them to step down.“These
authoritarians may not know when to leave office
because they don’t realise
they have failed,” said Makombe. “Unlike former
Tanzanian president Julius
Nyerere who gave in after accepting that he had
failed.”
He
said Gaddafi was a victim of the Arab uprisings and it was unfortunate
that
he had failed to read the changing political climate. National
Association
of Non-Governmental Organisations (Nango) secretary-general
Goodwin Phiri
warned that dictators may hold on to power for long, but
eventually people
successfully resist them. He said African leaders should
emulate former
South African president Nelson Mandela who stepped down after
a five-year
term despite having spent 27 years in jail. “The same people who
fought
colonialism can be prepared to fight against their fellow African
leaders
who don’t want to relinquish power,” Phiri said. Phiri said where
there was
no respect for human rights, chances were high that the masses
would rise
against their government. “It’s clear that it is what the
dictators like
Gaddafi do that force people to slaughter their leaders. The
issue is all
about democracy,” he said.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011 10:22
By
Paidamoyo Muzulu
MDC-T MP Eddie Cross (pictured) on Tuesday moved a
motion in parliament
calling on the government to cancel all mining licences
issued to explorers
and nationalise the Marange diamond fields, which
include the controversial
Chiadzwa fields.
Cross claimed that the
Marange diamond fields had deposits worth about US$70
billion and a capacity
to generate over US$4 billion in revenue annually,
which would be enough to
foot the country’s national budget.
The diamond fields had an
output of 8,5 million carats, at a rate of 23 000
carats a day in 2010. This
makes the fields one of the largest in the global
diamond industry.Cross
told the House that his motion was an opportunity for
MPs to intervene for
the benefit of all Zimbabweans in pursuit of economic
recovery and
development. He said it would be criminal for MPs to allow the
present
situation to prevail for another day.
“The solution to all of
this is a proposal made to cabinet last year that
the whole of the Marange
deposits should be nationalised formally and
brought under government
control,” said Cross. “Everyone who is currently on
site extracting diamonds
formally and informally must be removed, the area
fenced and guarded by the
armed forces,” he said.
Cross said the country was being bled of
revenue to the fiscus by the six
licensed operators at the fields who have
only contributed US$200 million to
treasury yet they were making more than
US$4 billion annually.
The operations of the mines remain
shrouded in secrecy without consolidated
production figures being
released.The six companies are Mbada Diamonds,
Anjin/Zimbabwe National Army,
Marange Resources (ZMDC and formerly
Canadile), the Zimbabwe Republic
Police, the Central Intelligence
Organisation and the National Prison
Service.“If this is true then we would
be looking at annual sales from these
three operators of over US$4 billion a
year at present.
Mr.
Speaker Sir, it is clear from these figures that the Minister of Mines
has
misled this House on the issue of the magnitude and value of diamond
sales
from the Marange fields,” Cross added.After the nationalisation of the
diamond fields and revoking of licences the government should put out a
tender for mining companies interested in a partnership to exploit the
resources.“We should go out to the international tender for an
operator.
Such a tender would state the condition of the
resource, the type of
geological formations that are found on site and other
particulars. It
should ask for offers to take over the whole operation in
partnership with
the Government of Zimbabwe and the Marange community,”
Cross suggested.
Botswana has the same model in exploiting its
diamond resources where it
partnered with De Beers in a 50-50 partnership.
Where similar conditions
prevail in the diamond industry, over two thirds of
all revenue from the
sale of raw diamonds accrues to the
State.
Zimbabwean government in 2006 turned down African
Consolidated Resources
(ACR) that could have had the state accruing 70% of
the revenue from
diamonds. This would be equal to $2,8 billion slightly
above the current
revenue to the state from all the other taxes.Zimbabwe
currently is selling
its diamonds outside the Kimberley Process Scheme after
the international
community claimed local diamonds were “blood
diamonds”.
Blood diamonds is a term used to refer to diamonds
used in furthering
conflict and the suppression of human rights.The army
stands accused of
gross human rights abuses when it moved over 40 000
illegal panners from the
Marange fields using brute force. However, the
government is in contact with
KPS to address the concerns.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011
10:19
ALL roads in Zimbabwe lead to Harare. Ironically, it appears these
roads are
only one way and do not simultaneously lead away from
Harare.
Travelling around the country from the capital one notices that
save for the
old cities that were founded as mining towns or agricultural
centres, most
places do not appear to be centred on any major economic
activity. Apart
from the cities that had grown before Independence, there
doesn’t seem to be
any town or city of significance that has emerged since
then.
The major urban centres are still Harare itself, Bulawayo,
Mutare, Gweru and
Masvingo. Ironically, Kwekwe, which contributes most
significantly to GDP is
hardly ever thought of as one of the major cities in
spite of it having more
economic activity than Gweru. Since being the first
location of the Zimbabwe
Stock Exchange, Gweru has refused to give up its
prime position to its
Midlands neighbour. In terms of major industry, Kwekwe
surpasses Gweru,
having been built on gold mining, iron mining in nearby
Redcliff, and chrome
mining from the middle dyke. The industrial minerals
are beneficiated in the
city, while gold has to be sent to
Harare.
So, 30 years after Independence, and we have no new city
to talk about. Some
may mention Chitungwiza, but this was already growing
before Independence,
its industrial claim to fame being the Heinrich Chibuku
company. Harare
meantime, continues to grow, absorbing most of the urban
population in the
country. The first census post-Independence, held in 1982,
put the
population of Harare at around 700 000.
Then, the
overall population of Zimbabwe was at seven million, or 10% of the
total
population. With the overall population of Zimbabwe now estimated at
some 13
million-odd, (interestingly it’s always the same as that of the
geographically much larger Zambia), Harare’s population has variably been
put at two million, or 15,3% of the total population. It then comes as no
wonder why services in the city have become a major challenge, starting from
housing, transport, water, electricity, roads, street lighting, refuse
collection, ambulance and fire services, medical facilities, schools, police
presence etc.
Thanks to mobile telephony, having access to
telephone communication has
improved tremendously.However, like an octopus,
Harare’s belly has long
tentacles that reach out to the furthest corners of
the country and through
those tentacles sucks the economic energies of those
areas. All the other
centres are drying up, if they haven’t already done so.
So what are the
authorities doing about it? Well, if they are, they are
doing so very
silently we can’t even hear about it. At least, in the 1990s
there was much
effort to decentralise economic activity by giving business
incentives to
invest in the outlying areas.
There shouldn’t
be any let up in this effort, lest we end up with the kind
of situations one
witnesses in cities such as Lagos. The decision to move
the administrative
capital to Abuja should have taken place much earlier. An
Angolan friend
tells me that in the capital Luanda it takes on average at
least three hours
for one to move from home to their workplace and vice
versa; six hours of
productive time lost each day!The idea really is not
that we should
concentrate on decongesting Harare, but we should make sure
that employment,
the major incentive for people who migrate to the capital,
should be found
in close proximity to the areas where people live. Take work
to the people!
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Friday, 28 October 2011
10:18
SCEPTICISM is the prevailing attitude on the outcome of the public
hearings
on the application of radio stations. This is because the
Broadcasting
Authority of Zimbabwe (Baz) is chaired by none other than
Tafataona Mahoso,
a Zanu PF apparatchik.
Four out of the 14 aspiring
radio stations were shortlisted for the public
hearings, namely Zimbabwe
Newspapers Talk Radio, AB Communications, KISS FM
and Radio Voice of the
People. Of these only two have been awarded
licences.Mahoso has, over the
years, been dubbed as the media hangman after
he closed down at least five
newspapers and banned several foreign and local
journalists.
Mahoso’s superintending over the registration of
the media casts a dark
shadow over the prospect of the genuine opening of
the airwaves. Added to
this, the constitution of Baz is another point of
concern. Zanu PF
functionaries like Mahoso, Vimbai Chivaura and Goodson
Nguni should be
replaced by apolitical technocrats who will judge the
applicants on merit
and not on party affiliation. NewsDay, this week,
reported that Mahoso had
to restrain Nguni during a public hearing on the
application for a radio
station by journalist-cum-businessman Supa
Mandiwanzira.
Nguni asked whether Mandiwanzira’s AB
Communications would play songs and
jingles composed by the MDC-T which he
alleged denigrated heroes of the
country’s liberation war. This shows that
party loyalists will only be
concerned with their narrow political interests
rather than the technical
and operational considerations. This leads us to
conclude that it is
unlikely that the applicants who do not parrot the Zanu
PF line will be able
to secure licences. This process might see the
extension of Zanu PF
propaganda into the realm of radio, particularly with
elections looming on
the horizon.
We sincerely hope that
Mahoso and Baz prove us wrong on this one.We agree
with Prime Minister
Morgan Tsvangirai’s sentiments regarding Zimpapers’
application.He said: “We
cannot have a situation in which the same people
who are controlling the
print media want again to go into radio.” Whilst
they are legally entitled
to do so, we fear that they are an extension of
Zanu PF hegemony over the
media, judging by their newspaper stable’s
slant.Few will find comfort from
the words Zimpapers Talk Radio Board of
Directors member Tapuwa Mandimutsira
made to the Baz board that they would
remain an autonomous entity that would
“bring a distinct product to the
market”.
He vowed that if
granted a licence, they would break away from the “patent
bias” towards Zanu
PF demonstrated in their papers.Tsvangirai, during the
inaugural session of
Prime Minister’s Question Time, said that the
principals in the inclusive
government had agreed to the reconstitution of
Baz.
“I want
to assure you that myself, his Excellency the President and
Honourable
(Arthur) Mutambara, one of the critical interventions that we are
looking at
and that we have directed the Minister of Information to do
is...that the
broadcasting authority must be rectified, the board must be
reconstituted,”
he said.
We hope that this time around the principals will be
more expeditious, so
that it does not end up in the now cobwebbed
outstanding issues folder.The
opening up of the airwaves can no longer be
negotiable, particularly in the
21st century. It cannot be sacrificed on the
altar of sectional and party
interests.
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/
Thursday, 27 October 2011 18:27
THE
dramatic turn of events in Libya last week in which eccentric dictator
Muammar Gaddafi — whose 42-year brutal reign was a tale of ruthless
repression, murder and looting — would have taken few by
surprise.
His demise was not amazing at all, not only because he was
already cornered
in his home town of Sirte where he died as a tribal
supremacist, not a
national hero, but also due to his poor battle plan and
tactless
intransigence. What would have shocked many, though, was the manner
in which
he was killed. It was vicious, brutal and merciless. Therein lies
lesson
number one for African leaders and people.
Nobody,
even Gaddafi, deserves to die that way. Of course, Gaddafi didn’t
give a
damn how his victims died, but Africans must stop cruelly killing
each other
with impunity. Gaddafi, after being taken captive as a
frightened, wounded
and humiliated tyrant, should not have been killed to
begin with, let alone
that way.The rebels spoiled their own party by
executing a captured dictator
who should have been hauled before the courts
for televised trial for crimes
against humanity and shame. Now Gaddafi has
become an object of pity, mainly
by those who use the rhetoric of
anti-imperialism to hide his atrocities.
People are now debating the way he
was killed instead of the way he
killed.Gaddafi’s tragic fate must teach
African leaders to stop taking their
people for granted.
The Libyan ruler didn’t seem to understand
the depth of discontent simmering
underneath his society and the anger of
his people against him.He certainly
lived in a fool’s paradise. He didn’t
seem to appreciate his own people were
fed up with him and that his
new-found, convenient Western allies would dump
him as soon as they realised
his time was up. Given his appalling record, he
was always going to find it
difficult to have anyone serious defending him,
except his hardcore cronies,
supporters and alarmed apologists for dictators
elsewhere. Gaddafi’s rule
was untenable. A passing check of his reign shows
he treated his own people
like “rats” and “cockroaches”. His rule was
characterised by fear, arrests,
detentions, executions, hit squads and
terror
gangs.
Gaddafi’s regime was also a kleptocracy — rule by thieves.
His family and
close relatives controlled the state, oil wealth and siphoned
off billions
in public funds. Granted, Gaddafi recorded some achievements in
economic
development and social service delivery, as well as supporting
liberations
movements in Africa, but this all pales in comparison to the
damage he
inflicted upon his own people, nation and neighbours. His modest
accomplishments are irredeemable compared to his dreadful rule.Gaddafi lived
and died by the sword. Violence begets violence.
Although his
brutal execution cannot be morally justified, it must be noted
he was the
author of his own demise. He had long committed suicide the day
he believed
in the fantasy of his own infallibility and invincibility. For
the record,
pointing out Gaddafi’s well-documented excesses is not the same
as
justifying foreign intervention. We have consistently said Nato’s
intervention was wrong and unhelpful even though suffering Libyans wanted
it. Foreign interventions usually lead to chaos and instability. Besides,
Nato’s involvement hijacked Libyans’ revolution.
No doubt
Gaddafi would have used deadly force to suppress the revolt if Nato
didn’t
intervene, but Libyans would have eventually won the struggle
anyway.The
trouble with Nato’s UN-approved intervention was that it would
have always
appeared like a script straight from the same old neo-colonial
playbook by
oil-chasing imperialist forces. Nato spoiled the party for
Libyans who
started their own revolution after rioters in neighbouring
Tunisia and Egypt
ousted entrenched dictators demanding democracy, freedom
and prosperity.From
this African leaders must learn to rule democratically
and know when to
leave.
They must also learn how to resolve their own conflicts.
The AU’s
performance on Libya was pathetic. African leaders must further
learn to act
timely and effectively to prevent foreign intervention. They
must know
foreign involvement by powers with vested interests will not help
Africa.
But above all, they must realise the futility of coercive rule.
Nelson
Mandela and others of his ilk taught us this. Let’s hope someone is
reading
the writing on the wall.
