The Times
September 12, 2008
Martin Fletcher
President Mugabe of Zimbabwe and his bitter
enemy Morgan Tsvangirai agreed a
deal last night that looks likely to end
the octogenarian leader's 28-year
monopoly on power in his shattered
country.
The potentially historic agreement to set up a government of
national unity
was announced by Thabo Mbeki, the South African President,
who has spent
weeks seeking to resolve the crisis caused by this year's
highly contentious
presidential election.
"An agreement has been
reached on all items on the agenda," he told a press
conference in Harare.
"All of them endorsed the document tonight. I am
absolutely certain that the
leadership of Zimbabwe is committed to
implementing these
agreements."
He gave no details ahead of a formal signing ceremony to be
attended by
regional leaders in Harare on Monday.
Western officials
hesitated to declare that Zimbabwe's long period of
oppression and misrule
was over. One European Union diplomat said: "The
devil is in the details. We
will see on Monday how the power is shared and
if the opposition has more
than a symbolic role."
Peter Hain, the former Africa Minister, said:
"Tsvangirai quite rightly held
out as the winner of a relatively free and
fair election. He has held out
for power and for Mugabe to be a ceremonial
president. If Mugabe has
accepted that and we are in that kind of territory
then it has now provided
for a peaceful way out."
Martin Rupiyah,
director of African research at Cranfield University, said:
"The
infrastructure for state-spon-sored violence is still in place."
Mr
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), won March's
presidential election but was denied an outright victory by the Mugabe
regime's blatant vote-rigging. He withdrew just days before the June 27
run-off following a sustained campaign of violence and intimidation by the
regime's militiamen.
Mr Mbeki has spent two months seeking to
establish a government of national
unity, but Mr Tsvangirai and Mr Mugabe
have been unable to agree who should
wield executive power.
Mr
Tsvangirai was willing to let Mr Mugabe remain ceremonial president, with
immunity from prosecution, provided that he himself became prime minister
with full executive powers.
He said that he was also willing to work
with moderate members of Mr Mugabe's
Zanu-PF party.
But while Mr
Mugabe was prepared to see Mr Tsvangirai become prime minister,
he was not
prepared to surrender power, and it remains unclear whether he
has agreed to
do so. The 84-year-old dictator is a master tactician who has
repeatedly
outwitted his younger opponent.
The two men were also unable to agree
which party should control the
security forces, and how long the
transitional government should rule before
fresh elections are
held.
Western powers would withhold the aid needed to rebuild Zimbabwe's
shattered
economy if Mr Mugabe did not cede real power.
The country's
official inflation rate is 11.2 million per cent. A third of
its 12 million
citizens have fled. Most of those who remain survive on
barely a bowl of
sadza - mealie-meal porridge - a day. Services such as
health, education and
transport have all but collapsed, Aids is rampant and
Zimbabwe has the
world's lowest life expectancy.
Comments
Its good news to the
Zimbabweans. I agree with Luigi that its a less
embarassing exit for Mugabe
but disagree that he doesnt see it benefiting
common people.This whole deal
is meant for people i think and there will be
scrutiny and accountability
which is what is lacking right now.
mark, london, uk
Finally! Now
the old man could finally retire.
Luigi, Brooklyn, NY, USA
I dont
see any benefits accruing to the common people as long as Mugabe is
in
power.Noone in their right mind can trully believe Mugabe can cede
meaningful power to anyone as long as he is part of the government,in any
capacity.Perhaps its only a way to make his exit less embarrising
.
Adhazhi, hitchin, uk
The devil will be in the
detail when Zimbabwe's historic deal is signed
Chris McGreal, Africa
correspondent
The Guardian,
Friday September 12 2008
Robert Mugabe
expended a lot of energy on denouncing the leader of the
Movement for
Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, as nothing more than a
"British
puppet" who only wanted to return the land to white farmers. The
only leader
the country has known in its 28 years of independence said he
would rather
go back to the bush and fight another liberation war than hand
over Zimbabwe
to Tsvangirai.
But yesterday, Mugabe was apparently persuaded to face
reality under the
unrelenting pressure of economic collapse and a desperate
and hungry
population, agreeing to cede most of his powers to
Tsvangirai.
The MDC leader's refusal to buckle and recognise Mugabe's
flawed claim to
power under pressure from some African leaders, and the
continued assault on
his party's MPs and activists, had meant there was no
prospect of Zimbabwe
getting the foreign aid it needs to rebuild the
economy.
Mugabe had retained power through a bloody campaign against the
voters,
overturning Tsvangirai's victory in the first round of the
presidential
election in March and claiming 90% of the vote in a second
round three
months later. But it did not confer legitimacy on Mugabe's claim
to be
president and he had no solutions to the deepening crisis, as
inflation
surged to about 20m percent.
Tsvangirai will now become
prime minister at the head of a council of
ministers. There are likely to be
more than 30 of them, which could prove
unwieldy. But the council will be
the principal organ of government, while
Mugabe chairs a less powerful
cabinet.
The council of ministers is to be divided between the MDC and
Zanu-PF, and
the division of the portfolios has yet to be agreed, which has
the potential
for further disagreement.
Mugabe wants Zanu-PF to keep
control of the military through the defence
ministry. The MDC can live with
that, provided it has authority over the
police, which will prove crucial in
ensuring the fairness of future
elections. But it is unclear if Zanu-PF will
agree.
There may also be fundamental disagreement over land policy and
the future
of the formerly white-owned farms whose seizure helped to bring
down the
economy.
The opposition remained cautious last night, saying
it believed Mugabe could
yet back away before the signing of the agreement
on Monday.
There is also concern among some of Mugabe's critics who say
he is skilled
at outmanoeuvring his opponents and could still wield
considerable
influence.
Nonetheless, one MDC official said that it
was not in Tsvangirai's interests
to reach an agreement that did not give
him real power, because if he was
unable to dramatically improve the lives
of Zimbabweans he would be
finished.
Foreign donors, including
Britain and the US, said there would be no aid if
Mugabe retained power - a
trump card in Tsvangirai's negotiations.
The price of change has been
high. About 4 million Zimbabweans - one quarter
of the population - have
left the country in recent years in search of work
to feed their families.
Hundreds have been murdered, thousands beaten and
tortured, and tens of
thousands driven from their homes in the regime's
desperate efforts to cling
to power.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=3926
September 12, 2008
By Raymond
Maingire
HARARE - South African President Thabo Mbeki has defended his
quiet
diplomacy approach to Zimbabwe's political situation which has finally
clinched him a power-sharing deal between Zimbabwe's feuding political
parties that remained elusive for so long.
Mbeki is the SADC
appointed negotiator to Zimbabwe's power-sharing deal.
The South African
leader on Thursday made history by brokering the power
sharing agreement
that is set to end nearly 10 years of political feud and
economic
recession.
Mbeki insists his quiet diplomacy was the correct approach to
Zimbabwe's
political crisis.
"All diplomacy is quiet. If it is not
quiet then it's not diplomacy," Mbeki
said to journalists at the Rainbow
Towers in Harare when he formally
announced the fruition of the
negotiations.
"We have never paid any particular attention to the
criticism of quiet
diplomacy," Mbeki said.
Mbeki says he has used the
same approach in other countries within Africa
which have never questioned
his approach to their politics.
"We have been involved in other political
negotiations as well so on and
handled those negotiations in exactly the
same way.
"Nobody ever protested that there was quiet diplomacy in our
negotiations
about DRC, quiet diplomacy in Cote d' Voire, Burundi , or
Lesotho or
whatever and so on.
"There seems to be a particular
concern about Zimbabwe. The same processes
that in other countries were
perfectly acceptable seem to be unacceptable
with regard to Zimbabwe for
some reason that we don't understand."
Mbeki's critics say he was too
much in awe of President Mugabe that he could
not criticize him publicly for
anything.
The apparent admiration Mbeki has for Mugabe was seen at
something that
compromised impartiality in his efforts to broker a deal
between the ruling
Zanu-PF and the opposition MDC.
Meanwhile, the
South African leader has dismissed rumours that his eagerness
to secure a
power -sharing deal in Zimbabwe was a direct response to threats
by the
world's soccer governing body FIFA.
He denies he was pressurized by FIFA
to find a quick solution to the
Zimbabwean crisis as a condition for the
forthcoming sports extravaganza to
remain committed to South
Africa.
"There is nobody anywhere in the world who has ever suggested
that it was
important to find the solution to the problems here in Zimbabwe
in the
context of the 2010 FIFA world cup."
"Last year, 2007, SADC
formally asked South Africa to act as facilitator and
this year the African
Union did the same thing. None of it bore any
relationship to
2010."
Mbeki denied recent press reports that say that he came to
Zimbabwe Monday
armed with a document that spelt out how he should break the
impasse in
Zimbabwe's power sharing talks.
"We have never received
any proposal from the African Union about these
negotiations of any kind,'
he said, "That report is false, entirely false.
There has never been any
such thing."
The historical settlement between the parties is widely
viewed as the
panacea to resolving Zimbabwe's economic woes that have seen
nearly a
quarter of the population leaving the country for economic havens
abroad.
Inflation is pegged at an official 11 million percent and more
than 80 per
cent of the adult population is out of formal
employment.
The South African leader denied he has had any frustrating
moments when he
took the parties through acrimonious
deliberations.
Mbeki has come under strong criticism for soft peddling
the Zimbabwean
problem.
africasia
HARARE, Sept 12 (AFP)
Zimbabwe's political rivals clinched a powersharing agreement late
Thursday
ending an ongoing political crisis in the southern African
country.
Here are some key dates since the first round of the election
plunged
Zimbabwe into crisis:
- March 29: Zimbabweans vote in
first round parliamentary and presidential
elections.
- April
2: Results released by Zimbabwe's electoral commission show
President Robert
Mugabe's ZANU-PF party losing its majority in parliament
for the first time
since independence, though there is still no word on the
presidential
results.
- May 2: After an extended delay amid mounting
international concern,
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is finally
declared the winner of the
presidential election with 47.9 percent of the
vote against 43.2 percent for
Mugabe -- just short of an outright majority
that would avoid a second
round.
- May 16: Two weeks after
the opposition's majority is announced, the
electoral commission officially
sets a run-off presidential election for
June 27 in a notice placed in an
extraordinary government gazette.
- June 22: Tsvangirai, leader
of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
announces his withdrawal from
the run-off election. He denounces an "orgy of
violence". The MDC says that
over 200 of its supporters have been killed.
- June 23: The UN
Security Council unanimously condemns the violence and
intimidation against
the opposition, saying they made it impossible to hold
a free and fair
presidential run-off vote.
- June 27: Zimbabweans cast ballots in
a one-candidate presidential run-off
election, with widespread claims of
voters being forced to polling stations
to support Mugabe.
-
June 29: Mugabe declared the winner by a landslide and again sworn in as
president at State House.
- July 1: African Union leaders at
a summit in Egypt, attended by Mugabe,
call for the formation of a
government of national unity.
- July 4: Mugabe rules out talks
with the opposition unless it acknowledges
his presidential election
victory.
- July 10: Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the MDC begin
first round of
preliminary talks in Pretoria.
- July 11:
China and Russia veto a draft UN resolution drawn up by the
United States
which would have imposed sanctions against the Mugabe regime.
-
July 21: The authorities and the political opposition sign a deal that
paves
the way for detailed talks on resolving the country's crisis.
-
July 22: The European Union strengthens its sanctions against the Zimbabwe
regime.
- July 24: Talks between the authorities and the
opposition start on
Zimbabwe's political future.
- July 25:
The United States extends its sanctions.
- Aug 10-12: Marathon
negotiations in Harare on a power sharing deal.
- Aug 17: A
summit of Southern African leaders in Johannesburg fails to
secure an accord
on a government of national unity but says Zimbabwe's
parliament may need to
be convened while talks continue.
- Aug 25: The new parliament is
sworn in. The main MDC national chairman
Lovemore Moyo - nominated by
Tsvangirai's faction - is elected by 110 votes
to the key post of speaker of
parliament with no candidate put forward by
the ruling
ZANU-PF.
- Aug 26: Parliament is officially opened by Mugabe who
is met with jeers
from the MDC MPs.
- Aug 27: The state daily
the Herald reports that Mugabe will form a new
government soon despite the
fact that the talks with the opposition are
stalled.
- Aug
29: Mediator Thabo Mbeki launches a last-ditch attempt to get the
powersharing talks back on track and the parties go to South Africa for
negotiations.
- Aug 31: The parties return home to Zimbabwe
with no sign of breaking the
impasse.
- Sept 4: Mugabe
threatens to go ahead and form a government if a deal is
not signed that
day.
- Sept 5: The MDC calls for the stalled talks to be
unlocked.
- Sept 7: Tsvangirai tells a massive MDC rally that he
will not sign a deal
that does not give him "sufficient powers". He also
calls for a new vote if
a powersharing agreement cannot be
reached.
- Sept 8: Mediator Mbeki flies to Harare to resume
powersharing
negotiations.
- Sept 10: After a marathon
12-hour meeting both Mugabe and Tsvangirai hint
that a deal is
close.
- Sept 11: Mbeki announces that the parties have reached a
powersharing
agreement and will form an inclusive government. Details of the
deal will be
made public next Monday after a formal signing ceremony.
United Nations Secretary-General
Date: 11 Sep
2008
SG/SM/11787
AFR/1743
The following
statement was issued today by the Spokesperson for UN
Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon:
The Secretary-General welcomes the agreement reached today in
Harare between
the Government and the opposition on a Government of national
unity.
He hopes that this agreement will pave the way for a durable peace
and
recovery in the country and contribute to rapid improvement in the
welfare
and human rights of the people of Zimbabwe, who have suffered for
long.
He congratulates the parties for reaching agreement and commends
the
mediator, President Thabo Mbeki, for his tireless efforts to help them
reach
it.
The United Nations has been supporting the mediation
process through the
role of the Secretary-General's envoy, Haile Menkerios,
in the Reference
Group.
SABC
September 12, 2008,
06:45
South African analysts say news of a political settlement in
Zimbabwe and
higher precious metal prices have buoyed the rand. Wall Street
posted solid
gains last night which could boost investor
confidence.
The local currency has recovered by almost 2% against the US
dollar in after
hours trade.
On the capital market, the yield on the
R153 government bond ended yesterday
at 9.94%.
US and European
markets
US stocks rose yesterday as a report that major US investment bank
Lehman
Brothers is shopping itself to possible suitors, including Bank of
America,
drove a last-minute rebound in financial shares. A two dollar fall
oil
prices also boosted the market, easing concern about consumer and
business
spending.
The Dow Jones rallied 165 points, or 1.5% to 11
434. The Nasdaq Composite
rose 30 points, or 1.3% to 2 258. The S & P
500 ended 17 points up at 1 249.
Financial stocks weighed on Europe's
major markets. London's FTSE 100
retreated 48 points to 5 318. In Paris the
CAC 40 gave up 35 points to 4
249, while Frankfurt's DAX shaved off 31
points to 6 179.
Asian markets
Markets in the Asia-Pacific region are
mixed this morning. In Tokyo the
Nikkei slipped three points to 120 99. In
Hong Kong, the Hang Seng dipped 31
points to 19 358, while Sydney's ASX
climbed 21 points to 4 836.
Platinum is trading at $1174/oz and the spot
price for Brent crude oil is
softer at $95.98 a barrel.
See the
latest indicators at the bottom of the front page.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008
22:11
INDEPENDENT Member of Parliament for Tsholotsho North Jonathan
Moyo
yesterday said that he intends to challenge in the High Court the
election
of MDC-T's Lovemore Moyo as speaker of the house of assembly on the
bases
that the elections were not free and fair.
Moyo, who
nominated Paul Themba Nyathi for Speaker from the smaller
formation of the
MDC led by Arthur Mutambara, said it was his duty to make
sure that the new
Zimbabwe was not built on a "platform of fraud" and said
he was consulting
his lawyers on the course of action to take. He said the
elections were a
circus.
However, Morgan Tsvangirai's camp in a statement this week,
claimed
that Moyo and Zanu PF were plotting to reverse the results "to
prevent a
robust and vibrant parliament".
It said: "The MDC would
like to make it clear that the MPs' vote for
Lovemore Moyo was a true
reflection of the will of the people of Zimbabwe.
It represents a triumph
for democracy, which has shocked the deadwood in
Zanu PF. The election of
Moyo as Speaker of Parliament remains a historic
occasion, which cannot be
reversed by losers, regardless of whatever
machinations they can concoct to
reverse the people's will."
The former Minister of Information and
publicity described the claims
of a plot as "a jumpy and jittery reaction of
poor folks who are guilty".
"This is a classical example that the
guilty are always afraid because
they know only too well the gravity of
their speaker's electoral fraud. That
is why they are running scared and
throwing mud all over the place. Everyone
saw what the MDC MP's were doing
-showing their ballot papers to (deputy
president Thokozani) Khupe and
(party chief whip Innocent) Goneso.
"Somebody must tell them that their
claim of plot against their
embattled speaker is preposterous because an
open court application cannot
be a plot. It is a simple and straightforward
legal matter which they should
handle legally unless they know they have
something to hide from the court."
He disputed allegations that the
challenge was brought about at a
strategy workshop held by MDC Mutambara
faction in Kadoma last weekend which
he Moyo attended.
"As for
those who are manufacturing idiotic stories about what they
imagine or wish
I said at the MDC-Mutambara workshop in Kadoma last weekend,
I challenge
them to have the courage of their idiocy and submit affidavits
with their
Kadoma allegations to the court in support of their speaker's
indefensible
electoral fraud that was committed in broad daylight with
breath-taking
arrogance.
"As one of Paul Themba Nyathi's election agents on the day I
have
legal and ethical obligation to bring the matter to justice without any
fear
or favour whatsoever," Moyo said.
Lovemore Moyo was elected
Speaker of Parliament after he garnered 110
votes against former MP Nyathi
who received 98 votes.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008 22:10
TWO
MDC MPs who were still in police custody after the state appealed
against
their release were yesterday freed on bail by the High Court.
The MPs,
Pearson Mungofa of Highfield and Bednock Nyaude of Bindura
South, were
granted bail last week but were not released after the state
appealed
against the move.
The state had evoked provisions of the Criminal
Procedure and Evidence
Act which allow it to file an appeal for up to seven
days while the suspect
is in remand.
Mungofa is accused of teaming
up with Tichaona Mudzingwa and spreading
lies that Morgan Tsvangirai had won
the March 29 harmonised elections while
Nyaude was arrested on attempted
murder charges and contravening the
Firearms Act.
MDC lawyer Alec
Muchadehama said the High Court yesterday morning
granted bail to the
MPs.
"The High Court issued a desist order against the state appeal and
the
MPs were granted bail," he said.
However, Muchadehama expressed
concern over the delays in trials of
more than 80 MDC supporters around the
country who were arrested on charges
of either inciting violence, causing
malicious damage to property or
attempted murder.
"A lot of MDC
supporters are having their liberty being constrained.
Their matters stretch
as far as March 29 but it's now six months and they
still have not set trial
dates."
The highest number of the MDC activists in remand prison are
from
Mashonaland Central, especially areas like Bindura and Chiweshe, and
from
Manicaland.
Meanwhile Epworth MP Eliah Jembere who was further
remanded out of
custody to October 20, had his wife Judith detained and
interrogated for
seven hours on Monday. She was later released after the
intervention of
Muchadehama.
MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said
the continued harassment of MDC
legislators by the state security agents was
a direct affront to the will of
the people who voted for change on March
29.
Two other legislators who have since been released on bail facing
different charges are Mathias Mlambo of Chipinge East and Trevor Saruwaka of
Mutasa
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008
22:06
RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono this week dropped a
brazen challenge to Zanu PF and the MDC formations currently involved in
interparty talks by introducing a raft of new policy measures which appear
unpalatable to the two main political parties.
The governor
introduced measures which analysts say amounted to
dollarising the economy
through the back door while at the same time
claiming a stake in the
country's power distribution matrix, whatever the
outcome of talks.
Gono on Wednesday introduced measures to license selected wholesalers,
retailers, fuel importers and fuels retailers to transact in foreign
currency. He also re-affirmed the central bank's commitment to continue with
quasi-fiscal measures in the form of Bacossi to the people programme, the
Medical and Health Sector Support Programme and the Medical and Health
Profession Skills Retention Programme. The QFAs have been frowned upon by
the opposition which has regarded these as fueling inflation and causing
arbitrage in the economy.
On the other hand, the Zanu PF government
has resisted attempts to
dollarise the economy largely for the sake of
protecting its nationalistic
dogma.
Ordinarily one would have
expected Gono to tread with caution on
policy issues especially at this
critical point in the talks when his
adversary Morgan Tsvangirai is likely
to be handed the reins to steer the
economy. But notwithstanding the
seemingly apparent pitfalls of introducing
fresh policy, Gono this week
chose to dare both parties in a business as
usual approach.
So
audacious was RBZ governor that in introducing the new measures, he
invited
the nation to steam ahead with him instead of being bogged down by
politicians from the MDC formations and Zanu PF whom he implored to "use
their talents (of talking) wisely and for the benefit of every loyal but
suffering subjects they are supposed to be representing".
Gono's
impatience with politicians has resonated in his past policy
statements with
the last jab coming from his half term policy statement in
July when he
urged the parties to "conclude their ongoing strategic
deliberations in a
constructive manner which puts Zimbabwe first".
This week, he raised
the ante by suggesting that the politicians were
"busy ignoring" key
issues. In the absence of crucial political
intervention Gono has moved in
to fill the power vacuum and he chose to
invite the public and not
politicians to the crusade.
"We must do whatever it takes to improve
our economy, boost productive
capacity of our industries, our mines and
agriculture."
He added: "Let us get on with it - politicians will join
us later when
they have exhausted their talking talents."
This is
not the first time though that Gono has invited the nation to
rally behind
his projects.
What is of significance this time however is the timing
of this latest
call to arms. It is coming at a time when opposition
supporters and their
leaders - who have dismissed his turnaround plans as
ineffectual - are
looking to chart a new path for the economy by removing
Gono from the pilot's
seat.
In Masvingo a week before the March
presidential polls, MDC
secretary-general Tendai Biti fired expletives at
Gono whom he branded "the
Taliban" and "Al Qaeda". There has not been any
public rebuttal of that
statement by the party.
The challenge
facing Gono - whose tenure expires in two months time -
is what to do with
his basket of plans and projects in the event that
Tsvangirai comes into the
fray to implement his party's economic policies.
There are two clear
options; to cede control and allow a successor
administration to tear down
his power edifice or to stand firm to influence
measures that would ensure
that MDC plans fit into his template.
The first option entails that he
leaves after supervising the
dismembering of institutions he has constructed
to support QFAs. At the
moment he still holds the national cheque book and
is sending a loud message
that in the absence of parliament, he can take
charge to determine policy
and run government.
He has in past said
he is ready to leave if told that his services are
no longer desired. But
over years the governor has built a strong power base
which encompasses
politicians from the political divide, security forces,
the academia and
private sector. Is he going to be tempted by this power
base to hang on? -
Own Correspondent.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008
22:04
HARARE is sitting on a cholera time bomb that may detonate
anytime
after the failure by the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa)
to repair
burst sewer pipes and restore normal water supplies, the Combined
Harare
Residents Association (CHRA) and the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors
for
Human Rights (ZADHR) have said.
The warning came following last
week's death of 11 people in
Chitungwiza from cholera while 35 others were
admitted at the dormitory city's
government hospital.
Justice
Mavedzenge, CHRA information officer, told the Zimbabwe
Independent that
while the cholera outbreak was scientifically proven in
Chitungwiza, a
number of residential areas in Harare were under threat of
the water-borne
disease.
He said preventive measures by the government and other
responsible
organisations were needed in the capital.
Mavedzenge
said: "Our findings reveal that serious cases of the
disease can be noted in
other residential places like Msasa, Letombo,
Mabvuku, Tafara, Warren Park
especially Warren Park 1, Mufakose,
Dzivarasekwa, and Glen View, among
others. We are trying to investigate
whether these cases are just diarrhoea
or cholera. We haven't heard much in
the low density suburbs."
Mavedzenge said the shortage of clean water supply, exposure to raw
sewage
and uncollected garbage were causing the disease.
"In Mabvuku many
residents are drilling wells at their homes, some of
them are drilled by
inexperienced people who do not have knowledge on how
the sewer underground
pipes were laid. They might think they have reached
the water table while
they have reached the sewer table," he said.
Mavedzenge blasted Zinwa
for incompetence.
"Zinwa is just defunct, it has no adequate technology
and other
resources and it lacks innovation. I don't know why the government
continues
to defend it. My recent visit to Zinwa showed that some of the
workers were
ignorant of the problems while it is their duty to report to
the people," he
said.
He condemned the government's approach of
taking action when a crisis
has occurred, saying preventive measures should
always be in place.
"The government has to wait for people to die and
then they appear
like they are concerned but when residents speak out
raising their problems
they ignore them," said Mavedzenge.
He said
CHRA was organising a "massive" protest against the cholera
crisis and the
incompetence of Zinwa as well as boycotting payment of water
bills.
ZADHR chairman, Douglas Gwatidzo, expressed disappointment at the
government's failure to address sanitation problems and provide clean
water.
He said: "We are sitting on a time bomb that can explode anytime
as a
result of the unavailability of a reliable source of water, the flow of
raw
sewage in residential areas and piling of uncollected garbage around
Harare
and surrounding areas."
Gwatidzo said raw sewage was flowing
freely into Harare's main source
of water - Lake Chivero - and Zinwa has
been failing to treat the water
adequately, endangering the lives of
residents.
Health minister David Parirenyatwa said the government had
dealt with
the Chitungwiza cholera outbreak.
"The situation is well
controlled and cases have come down. The
medication and everything else is
there to ensure the proper treatment of
patients. However, there is need to
monitor the constant supply of clean
water and improvement on sanitation so
as to totally control the disease,"
he said.
Efforts to get a
comment from Minister of State Water Resources and
Infrastructural
Development, Munacho Mutezo, were fruitless at the time of
going to
print.
A snap survey by the Independent revealed that residents in
Harare in
both high and low density areas were exposed to raw
sewage.
In St Mary's, Chitungwiza, children could be seen playing
barefooted
in sewage streams in the streets while in areas like Zengeza 3
Extension,
Chigovanyika and Unit O, raw sewage was gushing out and flowing
in rivulets.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11
September 2008 22:00
THE Arthur Mutambara-led MDC has accused the
faction headed by Morgan
Tsvangirai and Zanu PF of undermining the party and
attempting to divide it.
In a statement denying that its 10 House of
Assembly members voted
alongside Tsvangirai parliamentarians to elect
Lovemore Moyo as speaker, the
MDC-Mutambara camp said it would resist
attempts to cause divisions in the
party.
Moyo is the national
chairperson of the MDC-Tsvangirai and was elected
speaker of the House of
Assembly on August 20 after he defeated the
Mutambara faction candidate Paul
Themba Nyathi by garnering 110 votes
against 98.
His election took
place amid allegations that nine MPs from the
Mutambara formation had
recently met Tsvangirai, his deputy Thokozani Khupe
and Moyo in Botswana and
agreed to support Moyo ahead of Nyathi in exchange
for positions and
unrevealed incentives.
"It was also noted that there was a concerted
effort being made by
both Zanu PF and MDC-Tsvangirai to undermine the MDC
and that the party
should not fall prey to these machinations by allowing
these parties to sow
division in our ranks," read the statement issued after
the party met at the
weekend in Kadoma.
During the meeting, the MPs
who were reported to have gone to Botswana
confirmed meeting Moyo, but
denied that he asked them to back him.
The nine legislators implicated
were Edward Mkhosi (Mangwe West),
Abednico Bhebhe (Nkayi South), Njabuliso
Mguni (Lupane), Nomalanga Mzilikazi
Khumalo (Mzingwane), Siyabonga Malandu
Ncube (Insiza North), Norman Mpofu
(Mangwe East), Maxwell Dube (Tsholotsho
South), Patrick Dube (Gwanda North)
and Thandeko Mkandla (Gwanda
South).
"In the circumstances it was unanimously resolved that the
Botswana/speaker issue would be closed and that the MDC would move ahead
with its parliamentary agenda," the party said. "In this regard it was
agreed that the MDC would be aligned to democracy and to the principles of
freedom, tolerance, transparency and respect for the rule of law rather than
any political party in the pursuit of its parliamentary agenda."
The party's 16 MPs - 10 in the House of Assembly and six in Senate,
assured
the meeting of their support of the MDC and Mutambara's leadership.
"These assurances were accepted by the meeting," the statement read.
The Mutambara faction also re-affirmed its neutral position regarding
the
tripartite negotiations aimed at resolving Zimbabwe's decade-long
crisis,
stressing that there would be no bilateral agreement would signed
with Zanu
PF in breach of the July memorandum of understanding between the
three
parties. - Staff Writers.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008
21:56
MKOBA Stadium in Gweru was on Sunday turned into a sea of red,
black
and white colours as MDC celebrated its ninth anniversary with leader
Morgan
Tsvangirai vowing to "deliver freedom" to Zimbabwe by unshackling it
from
President Robert Mugabe's chains of "misrule".
The 15 000-plus
party supporters, who braved the spring sun, waved
placards, most of them
hailing Tsvangirai's courage in tackling Mugabe, a
former guerilla leader
who has been in power since 1980.
"Morgan is more", "Your Excellency,
President Tsvangirai" and "Morgan
ndizvo", read some of the
placards.
Apart from the placards, the party's supporters and the
leadership
donned MDC regalia and intermittently broke into song and dance,
poking
funny at Mugabe and Zanu PF.
Among the leadership were
national chairman Lovemore Matombo, deputy
president Thokhozani Khupe,
secretary-general Tendai Biti, deputy
treasurer-general Elton Mangoma,
national organising secretary Ellias
Mudzuri and spokesperson Nelson
Chamisa.
As time ticked away before Tsvangirai took to the podium, the
supporters became weary and instead of chanting the party slogans started
complaining of hunger.
The supporters drowned the voice of Mudzuri
who tried in vain to calm
them, but normalcy returned when Chamisa took to
the podium and started
ridiculing Zanu PF and government
departments.
Chamisa said: "I am happy that we have members of the CIO
(Central
Intelligence Organisation) here today. We welcome their presence at
this
celebration. One thing that they are also realising is that the
direction in
which the wind is blowing has since changed.
"The
people of Zimbabwe want change and they want it now. Let us hope
that the
CIO guys who are here will go back and report what they saw here
and not
exaggerate the details and sentiments passed by the people of
Zimbabwe."
Biti, clad in flowing robes normally worn by West
Africans, told the
supporters that the MDC was demanding power-transfer from
Mugabe to
Tsvangirai in the Sadc-initiated negotiations being facilitated by
South
African President Thabo Mbeki.
"The MDC is advocating
power-transfer as compared to the proposal for
a transitional government. We
have negotiated on a lot of things but I would
like to point out that the
principle of democracy is a non-negotiable
principle," Biti said amid
clapping and ululation.
"The people of Zimbabwe spoke on March 29 and
clearly stated that you
were giving us the mandate to provide food, jobs,
and many other things. You
also gave us the authority and we will not let go
of that which you gave us
when you went and voted on March 29."
He
added that the crisis in the country was a result of a defective
constitution that gives the president "too much" power.
"This
constitution makes it a monarch to be a president. It gives the
president
excessive powers and we are saying it is an imperialistic
constitution that
needs to be overhauled," said Biti. After Biti's
curtain-raiser, Tsvangirai
was given the floor and was quick to say he would
not sign an inclusive deal
that does not recognise the "will of the people".
Tsvangirai said the
MDC had survived the past nine years despite
several attempts by Zanu PF to
destroy it.
"We are where we are today because of the resoluteness that
Zimbabweans have shown in the fight against the dictatorship of Robert
Mugabe and his Zanu PF members," he said. "It is unprecedented in the
history of Zimbabwe that a party survives infiltration and destruction and
manages to survive for nine years."
The former Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions president said the MDC
had scored a number of successes, among
them transforming from an opposition
"to become the ruling party".
"We are now able to set the agenda for the full freedom of the people
of
Zimbabwe. We said it in 1999 and 2000 that we will bring Zanu PF to the
negotiating table and they thought we were joking. Where is Mugabe today?"
Tsvangirai questioned.
The MDC leader said there was only one
solution to the Zimbabwe
crisis - dialogue - but insisted he would not sign
a "bad deal" with Mugabe
and the president of the smaller faction of the
MDC, Arthur Mutambara.
"Tsvangirai's signature belongs to the people of
Zimbabwe. I cannot
betray you by signing a deal that is not reflective of
what you want. I am
not blind to differentiate between a good and a bad
deal," Tsvangirai said.
"On March 29, you declared that you wanted change
and not cosmetic change.
We are going to deliver that change to
you."
He criticised Mugabe for having opted to give him a prime
ministerial
post in which he did not have powers to hire and fire cabinet
ministers.
"You cannot mess yourself and ask me to clean you up and
then you want
to dismiss me afterwards. In the same vein, if Mugabe wants me
to clean up
the mess, then he has to give me the power," Tsvangirai told
ecstatic
supporters. "We have the keys to the resources. We have the people
on our
side, and time is also on our side. If he (Mugabe) does not want to
cede
power, he should stay there and we see where it will take us."
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday,
11 September 2008 21:54
IN a clear sign that monetary authorities are
losing the battle
against the parallel market where the US dollar can be
exchanged for $2 700
compared to the official rate of $60, the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe has
introduced Foreign Exchange Licensed warehouses and
shops.
The shops will be introduced for an initial period of 18 months
up to
March 31 2010.
"As monetary authorities, we will remain
steadfast in our efforts to
innovate and find practical solutions to the
challenges we see on the
ground", governor Gideon Gono told reporters on
Wednesday.
Up to 1 000 retailers and 250 wholesalers would now be able
to take
payment in foreign currency.
Payments for fuel would also
be permitted in foreign exchange, Gono
said.
"It is imperative to
note that the current measures are neither a
condonation nor a direct
introduction of the dollarisation of the economy,"
Gono said.
The
move comes at a time when there are three prices for goods and
services in
Zimbabwe the cash price, cheque and Real Time Gross Settlement
(RTGS).
At a local shop in Harare a kilogramme of beef was on
Wednesday being
sold for $3 000 for cash. The same quantity was being sold
for $32 000 with
RTGS while it cost $6 500 by cheque. A 12 litre carton of
Mazoe orange was
being sold for $15 000 cash, $175 000 RTGS, and $30 000 by
cheque. The same
commodities could be bought in either US dollars or South
African rands.
Genesis Bank group economist Brains Muchemwa said the
price
differentials between cash and RTGS' for the same commodities was
reflecting
the huge premium attached to the scarcity of cash on the
market.
"It stems largely from the shallow penetration of plastic money
in the
transaction process in the economy, as well as the availability of
commodities on the informal markets that unfortunately cannot offer the
transacting public the convenience of plastic money," Muchemwa
said.
"The direction of the gap between cash and RTGS values for the
same
commodities will depend largely on the rate of injection of cash into
the
system versus the rate of inflation," he said.
Commenting on
the different prices for the same product, Harambe
Holdings' Group Treasury
and Investment manager Lovemore Mapanda said
shortages of cash because of
the withdrawal limits -- which was not enough
to buy two loaves of bread --
was causing a lot of distortions on the
market.
"It (Zimbabwe) is
now an import economy. We are not producing
anything, as such retailers are
factoring in the cost of bringing the goods
which will need to be charged in
US dollars using transfer rates as cash is
not readily available," said
Mapanda.
Mapanda said the economy was "overheated and a realistic cash
withdrawal system was now needed".
"All these price distortions
will end once the country starts
producing and foreign currency is readily
available on the market together
with our local currency," he said.
Analysts said the move by Gono was also an attempt to bring more
foreign
currency into government's own depleted coffers.
By legalising the
trade, government hopes to move business from the
parallel market to
official channels, where it will collect 25% of private
companies' export
earnings and 15% from domestic traders.
Traders in Zimbabwe have over
the past two years been charging for
their goods in US dollars or the South
African rand.
Most of these goods are brought in from neighbouring
South Africa,
Botswana and Zambia because local industries have either
stopped production
or do not produce enough to satisfy demand.
Gono
on Wednesday said that the "bold measures" taken by the bank
would "if
embraced in full and with positivity, enhance our preparations for
the 2010
World Cup in South Africa".
Gono said there would be "perpetual critics
who would be quick to
condemn the intervention as unsustainable".
In order to be considered for licensing as a registered foreign
currency
denominated shop, applicants had to submit an application to the
Reserve
Bank, supported by a statement indicating the nature of trade, IT
systems
used, capacity to handle foreign exchange including the availability
of
counterfeit detectors and estimates of sales volumes.
A refundable
security deposit had to be made to the bank -- $20 000
for single floor
retail outlets and $100 000 for wholesalers.
He added that the reforms
were "a pragmatic response to the realities
obtaining in the
economy".
While foreign currency has remained elusive for the
cash-strapped
government and in all other official channels, the dollar and
the rand are
readily available on the country's parallel markets.
Zimbabwe's approval for companies and businesses to charge in foreign
currency comes on the back of a severe economic stagnation that has seen
locally produced goods disappearing from shop shelves while foreign brands
like tinned foods, beer, canned drinks, and rice are readily
available.
Last month, President Robert Mugabe banned the export of
basic goods
and commodities and waived import duty for such goods in a move
that was
aimed at making them readily available.
Basic goods are
scarce and the Reserve Bank has repeatedly
re-denominated the Zimbabwe
dollar to try keep up with inflation.
Analysts say the economy is
unlikely to rebound until a post-election
crisis is resolved. President
Mugabe and the two factions of the opposition
MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai
and Arthur Mutambara are in talks to forge a
new all-inclusive government
after a disputed election.
Gono said manufacturers could sell to the
licensed shops in foreign
currency, and that both Zimbabweans and foreigners
would be allowed to run
the stores.
He however stressed the
Zimbabwe dollar remained the official
currency.
Zanu PF and by
extension Gono have in the past refused to "dollarise"
the economy.
The Reserve Bank said it will also sell a bond to raise foreign
exchange
funds to pay for imports of food, fuel, machinery and medicines.
The
bond will have a maturity of 180 days and pay an interest of 15%
in US
dollar terms.
Other efforts by the Reserve Bank to boost
foreign-currency earnings
include paying gold producers at the interbank
exchange rate, now 62,47 to
the US dollar and giving them a 150% delivery
bonus.
The Reserve Bank also increased the corn seed price to $20
000 a
metric tonne from $13 500.
"These reforms are essentially a
pragmatic response to the realities
in the economy. The move is in the
interest of increasing the availability
of foreign exchange in the formal
market, as well as in the interest of
promoting the general availability of
basic commodities," said Gono
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008
21:51
THE Reserve Bank has failed to pay US$25 million to gold
producers for
deliveries made in June this year prompting miners to seek
intervention from
the president's office, businessdigest can
reveal.
In a correspondence written to Misheck Sibanda-chief secretary
to the
president and cabinet two weeks ago, disgruntled gold producers
appealed for
an urgent intervention from government to speed up payments by
Fidelity
Printers and Refiners dating back to March.
Fidelity
Printers, a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank buys the precious
metal from 354
registered gold workings that include 21 primary producers,
252 small-scale
miners and 81 custom millers under a government support
price facility,
which is below world market prices.
Under this facility, producers are
paid 55% of the deliveries in
foreign currency with the remaining 45% being
paid in local currency.
"We respectfully write this letter to humbly
seek your intervention on
behalf of the gold producers in Zimbabwe as we
have exhausted all other
avenues, in an attempt to receive payment due to
them for gold bullion
delivered to Fidelity Printers and Refiners from as
far back as March of
this year," read the letter.
Continued efforts
to engage the Reserve Bank, the finance and mines
ministries through the
Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe, the letter read were
not fruitful resulting in
gold miners seeking immediate assistance from the
president's office to
avoid a "grind to a halt" in the troubled sector.
The gold producers
also blamed delays by the Reserve Bank for
"reversing the trend" of gold
production, which at peak, surged to a post
independence record of 27 metric
tonnes in 1999. Apart from the lethargic
foreign currency payment
arrangement, gold producers
To Page 5
From Page 3
warned that recent delays in effecting payments in local currency
could stir
labour relations problems at mines.
"In recent months gold producers
have experienced delays in the
payment of the Zim dollar component of
revenue from gold delivered to
Fidelity Printers and Refiners. This
situation has the potential to cause
severe labour relations problems as
gold producers face challenges in paying
salaries and wages."
Efforts to get comment from Sibanda and the Reserve Bank governor
Gideon
Gono were in vain. Meanwhile, the central bank this week awarded a
150%
bonus in local currency for the gold sector in an effort to "give
impetus"
to the miners.
Mining experts expect gold extractions to decline
sharply to 4,5
metric tonnes owing to lack of timely payments by the central
bank, power
and a host of viability problems affecting the sector.
Turning to accusations of "glaring discrepancies and financial
prejudices"
leveled on the sector by the central bank, gold producers
refuted the claims
saying monitoring and supervising teams comprising of
ministry of mines
officials, the police minerals unit, the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe and
forensic audit firm Alex Stewart International failed to
substantiate
reports of any "underhand dealings".
A leading gold producer last month
blamed declining gold deliveries to
an "artificial exchange rate", delays by
the central bank in effecting
payments and bureaucracy resulting from
numerous regulatory authorities.
Last year gold accounted for 10% of
the country's foreign currency
earnings generating US$150 million.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September
2008 21:50
THE Reserve Bank bowed to financial reality on Wednesday and
legalised
the use of foreign currency in a bid to preserve real value of the
recently
introduced local currency.
The move was the final
humiliation for Zimbabwe's defenseless dollar,
which was worth more than the
United States dollar when the country attained
independence in
1980.
Even after two revaluations in two years, the lopping off 13
zeros,
the dollar has not stopped its unprecedented depreciation against
major
trading currencies.
The de facto "dollarisation" which was
'formally announced' this week
had been thriving for nearly two years. With
an insufficient daily
withdrawal of $500, the transacting public had
resorted to the South African
and US dollar to purchase some consumer
goods.
Events on the economy had shown that Zimbabweans had lost faith
on the
local currency despite statutory requirements, which continue to deem
the
currency as a legal tender.
The problem with the cosmetic
'dollarisation' by the Reserve Bank
however, is that it adds to distortions
in the economy in the sense that
other sections of the economy which are not
dollarised will strive to
dollarise illegally fueling the parallel
market.
"Without restoring viability to agriculture, boosting
productivity in
all major sectors of the economy and adopting policies
that reduce
inflation dollarisation will not be the answer," said an
economist with a
commercial bank yesterday.
With the lowest note
denomination of a dollar and a myriad of coins,
carrying huge bundles of
increasingly worthless Zimbabwe dollar notes was
fast becoming the
norm.
The Reserve Bank's reported participation in the parallel foreign
currency markets bears evidence on how close the country was close were to
dollarisation.
This strategy by the Reserve Bank was a case of
"actions speak louder
than words".
Since the expulsion of Zimbabwe
from critical International Monetary
Fund (IMF) balance-of-payments support
programmes in 1999, the government
has employed a cocktail of economic
recovery programmes most of which have
been unsuccessful.
Seasoned
economic analysts have suggested that the continued
deterioration of the
economy is largely a product of policy inconsistencies
and incoherencies
within government decision-making structures. Economic
analysts said the
desired course of action would be to officially dollarise
the whole economy
and automatically eliminate the management of interest
rates, exchange
rates, and money supply of which our failure to manage these
factors has
been the primary precipitator of the economic recession.
Zimbabweans
appear willing to accept the loss of monetary policy
control associated with
official dollarisation in order to bring normality
to the
proceedings.
When inflation is running at 11,2 million percent anything
is worth a
try.
It is cheaper to buy goods and services in US
dollars than in local
currency.
This is because the Zimbabwe dollar
prices are inflated to account for
inflationary pressure and the price of
obtaining the US dollar.
If the economy is completely dollarised, then
government cannot print
money anymore.
Government would have to
review services and charge market prices --
most likely regional prices --
for goods and services.
Industry and commerce would have to start doing
work to earn foreign
currency, not the current speculative tendencies rife
on the parallel and
stock market.
Dollarisation has considerable
merit in restoring economic stability
and a sound national financial system
and has been successfully pursued over
the last century by more than 30
countries.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008 21:49
THE country's perennial power outages could further worsen following
disconnection of the Zambia-Zimbabwe interconnector on Tuesday by Zambia
Electricity Supply Corporation (Zesco) of Zambia.
Zesco's acting
director for generation and transmission told Zambian
media that the
utility had switched off Zimbabwe from the interconnector to
protect local
power systems from "external disturbances".
This week most parts of the
country faced increased hours of power
outages despite a decline in power
consumption characteristic in summer.
The local power utility however,
maintains that energy transmission
and generation could soon
improve.
Zesa group spokesperson Fullard Gwasira yesterday declined to
comment
on the external disturbances which prompted the disconnection adding
that
power generation could improve due to a US$40 million energy deal with
Namibia.
He added that the disconnection had no "material impact"
to the
current electricity supply.
"Zesa Holdings is not in a
position to comment on the responses from
another utility although technical
faults are not a unique phenomenon in the
electricity industry, not only
locally but internationally as well," said
Gwasira.
The country's
five power stations- Hwange (Thermal), Kariba (Hydro),
Harare (Small
Thermal), Munyati (Small Thermal) and Bulawayo (Small Thermal)
are
generating below capacity owing to viability problems.
Zimbabwe which
shares the northern border with Zambia imports energy
from Democratic
Republic of Congo-based SNEL in order to meet a peak demand
of 1950
megawatts. The country's power stations can at full capacity
generate 1050
megawatts.
This means at any given time of the day almost half of the
country
will be in darkness.
"It is important to realise that Zesa
Holdings is fully realising the
benefits of the US$40 million from Namibia
in a win-win government to
government agreement, as it is anticipated that
by the end of 2008
electricity generation from the rehabilitated units reach
480MW by the end
of the year and eventually notch maximum generation of
9500MW when stage 2
units have been rehabilitated. Plans for stage 2
refurbishment are well
under way."
Earlier this year Zesco
disconnected Zesa from the interconnector
following several days of
blackouts in Zambia.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008 21:58
RECENT media reports in Zimbabwe show that primitive consumption by
Zimbabwe's political elite has reached unacceptable levels that reflect not
only seriously misguided policy, but also the unscrupulous and insensitive
nature of our government.
Like political violence, this
cancerous evil of conspicuous
consumption has slowly eaten into the heart
and soul of our national
politics which has increasingly become bereft of
morality, conscience,
focus, purpose, and hope for the millions of
impoverished and starving
citizens.
In the first week of August,
the Herald reported that the RBZ had
pampered judges with 16 brand new top
of the range Mercedes Benz E280, 42
inch plasma screen TV sets and satellite
dishes, and generators. It stated
that apart from these classy Mercs, the
judges also already had one more
generous donation of utility trucks such as
Toyota IMV and Isuzus and that
all these benefits are provided after every
five years.
By end of that week, the Zimbabwe Independent exposed that
RBZ was
also allocating Westgate houses, built from the Homelink scheme, to
the High
Court and Supreme Court judges. Barely, a fortnight later, the same
newspaper uncovered another shocker of a whopping government expenditure of
US$9 million to be spent on legislators' so called all-terrain
vehicles.
Add to that the unsustainable allowances that the MPs are
expected to
get, then you will know that we are not only faced with a
morally bankrupt
political system, but also a leadership that is completely
out of touch with
the dire state of the economy and the poverty that is
gripping nation.
The irony of policy failure and misplaced priorities
in a government
that provides its elite classes with plasma screens to be
run on generators
and latest models of Mercedes Benz to be run on potholed
streets is
breathtaking. This spectacular but inexcusable ineptitude that is
taking
place right before the gaping wounds of economic ruin the nation
incurred in
the past 10 years, shows how greedy and dehumanised our
leadership has
become.
This is certainly jungle politics run by
jungle politicians churning
out jungle policies characteristic of the
dog-eat-dog world that has become
of our nation. How on earth does it happen
that a country with four million
people living on donor aid, with a growth
rate of -6%, unemployment rate of
80%, life expectancy of less than 34
years, and with 80% of its people
living on less than US$1 a day, afford
such expensive and luxurious life
styles for its judiciary and
politicians?
How can government negate the development and poverty
alleviation
agenda bequeathed on it by the electorate only yesterday in the
harmonised
presidential and parliamentary elections, to concentrate on the
leisure
life-styles of its political elite?
These experiences show
that, even after the installation of the GNU,
civil society must get ready
to fight to put a stop to this soap opera of
"eatertainment", consumerism,
and excessive self-indulgence by our
politicians who are clearly living in
Cloud cuckoo land. Zimbabweans must
not make the mistake of thinking that
the presence of both formations of the
MDC in the GNU will naturally yield a
new politics that is people-centred
and development-oriented.
Politicians the world over have a penchant for not only stealing from
the
poor and the suffering, but also for doing so with brazen impunity where
civic activism on public policy has died. The proposed US$9 million
expenditure on MPs cars - if indeed it will be effected by government - must
therefore come as a wake-up call to ZCTU, Zimta, PTUZ, ISO and other related
civic groups to reclaim their space in the political landscape of the
country to advocate for the rights of the poor workers and others to a
dignified life.
In fact, the spirit of the talks must have long
breathed life into
civil society to remobilise and organise in anticipation
of the immediate
and long-term challenges that will be occasioned by the
GNU. Without a
strong civil society to play the role of a watchdog on the
rebellious and
insatiable appetite of politicians for wealth, Zimbabweans
are likely to
drown in the disillusionment akin to that faced by the
Zambians under
Fredrick Chiluba who wedded the state and the market forces
in an
all-weather union of consumption and self-enrichment by the political
and
business elite.
Development and poverty alleviation programmes
must not be left only
to the NGOs because the acute state of
underdevelopment and economic
collapse in Zimbabwe demands of the government
to bear greater
responsibility not only in accountability and transparency,
but also in
giving its politicians modest packages that are in line with the
economics
of the day.
Across Africa, there is an emerging
consciousness especially in
governments that have been through the ravaging
experience of conflict to
reduce expenditure on trifles and misplaced
priorities of appeasing the
elite. Countries such as Kenya, Tanzania,
Rwanda, DRC and even Nigeria have
consistently focused on Small to Medium
Scale Enterprises (SMEs) as a way of
empowering their people. These small
businesses, which would benefit
immensely from an amount like US$9 million,
are certainly not the panacea to
poverty eradication, but do create
employment, income and reduced dependence
for citizens.
If the GNU
becomes a success, civil society must use the proposed
extravagant
parliamentary expenditure as a litmus test of the sincerity and
integrity of
Tsvangirai and Mutambara's brand of politics. We must refuse
and denounce
more of the same junk politics where politicians outspend
celebrities in
ephemeral personal needs that are clearly beyond our national
economic
capacity.
For every child that dies of malnutrition in Zimbabwe, for
every woman
that dies while giving birth, and for every patient that dies
from
preventable diseases, their life will be a big question mark on what
Tsvangirai and Mutambara's politics brought for Zimbabwe's long forgotten
underdogs. The MDC must avoid the risk of jumping into the bandwagon of
splendour, consumption and self-enrichment by forcing government into a
u-turn to focus on rebuilding public infrastructure such as roads, schools,
and hospitals.
Moyo writes from Wales, UK. He can be contacted on
email:
lastmoyo@yahoo.com
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September
2008 20:02
NONE can credibly condemn the imposition of sanctions
targetted
against those who resort to evil, dictatorial domination of
others.
None can plausibly argue against sanctions which
are designed to
impact upon those devoid of respect for human and property
rights, those who
perpetrate or condone genocidal actions, those who abuse
positions of power
to pursue self-advantage in blatant disregard for the
well-being of those
they are intended to serve.
None can
persuasively contend that those who have blatant contempt for
the
fundamental precepts of justice, and of law and order, should not be
subjected to appropriately punitive sanctions. None can rationally challenge
the withholding of rights, and the imposition of restrictions by the
international community, upon those who see fit to disregard norms of
international relationships and to abuse fundamental principles of
interaction between the independent states that comprise that international
community.
Thus, the actions by many countries of barring
travel to their
countries by Zimbabwean politicians who have seen fit to
ignore,
contemptuously, human and property rights, justice, law and order,
the
principles of good governance and of genuine democracy, and resort to
naught
but endless vituperative, vitriolic outpourings against those that do
not
meekly accept those politicians' belief in an omnipotent right to
entrench
themselves in near perpetuity, to exercise excessive power over the
peoples
that they dominate, cannot reasonably be contested.
There are no sound arguments to support claims that such travel bans
are
unjust and "illegal". In like manner, it cannot be rationally claimed
that
it is unjust and unlawful for any countries to impose against such
politicians other sanctions, such as barriers upon conduct of economic
transactions in those countries, the operation of banking accounts,
acquisition of properties and other assets, and the like.
However, as justifiable as such targetted sanctions are, sanctions
which
afflict the innocent are not only unjustified, but also are often
inhumane
and an intensification of the hardships and suffering of the
innocent, being
the very people that the sanctions seek to protect.
The first of
such inequitable sanctions was limited in extent, being a
bar upon the
children of the rightfully targetted from pursuing their
education in the
countries wielding such targetted sanctions. In most, if
not all, instances
of such children, the affected children were blameless,
their sole
connection with perpetration of deeds justifying sanctions being
the
accident of birth as descendents of such perpetrators.
And yet,
their future, their lives, were unhesitatingly placed in
jeopardy, without
consideration, and with blatant disregard for the
longstanding international
justice principle of innocent until proven
guilty.
In like
manner, some Zimbabweans were subjected to targetted sanctions
solely on the
strength of their direct or indirect association with the
deservedly
sanctioned, disregarding that some of those so associated were
innocent of
the evil machinations of their associates, and often sought
vigorously to
dissuade those associates from continuing their unjust
oppression of others,
their unlawful retentions and abuse of power, and
their other diabolical
misdeeds. Subjecting them to such targetted sanctions
was as unjust as were
the acts of those deservedly sanctioned.
Save for the targetted
sanctions, Zimbabwe as a whole was not
subjected to international sanctions
until recently, even though its
government continuously alleged to the
contrary. The only sanctions which
applied to all Zimbabwe, and not only to
those deserving to be sanctioned,
were applied by USA, to the extent of its
Zimbabwe Democracy Act which,
amongst other provisions, prescribed a veto of
any International Monetary
Fund support for Zimbabwe, and of its Africa
Growth and Opportunity Act,
Zimbabwe being precluded from access to the
favoured nation trade benefits
of that act.
But that is now
rapidly changing. Suddenly many of the countries of
the European Union (EU),
and some Commonwealth countries, and US, are
resorting to broadbased
economic sanctions.
Bank accounts are being frozen, businesses are
discontinuing the
supply to, and purchase of goods from, Zimbabwe,
international financial
institutions are imposing barriers to transfers of
funds to and from
Zimbabwe, including withdrawal of letter of credit,
travellers' cheques, and
other facilities and financial instruments, and
businesses are being pressed
to disinvest from Zimbabwe.
The
tragedy is that these sanctions are not harmful to Zimbabwe's
rulers. These
sanctions do not impact significantly upon the political
hierarchy who
brazenly tyrannise the Zimbabwean people, in pursuit of their
craving for
retention of power and, in some instances, of continuance of
self-enrichment.
They have sufficient friends in those
countries (usually also
dictorships) as align themselves with them,
reinforced in certain cases by
accumulated resources externally of Zimbabwe,
and deviously well-concealed,
to circumvent the impact of sanctions upon
themselves.
And, in the rare instances where they are in need of
foreign currency
beyond their own massively acquired wealth, they ensure
that what little
foreign currency as Zimbabwe still generates is prioritised
towards them,
instead of towards meeting essential economic
needs.
Instead, those who suffer the consequences of the sanctions
are the
very people that the international community wishes to help, being
the
general population. The sanctions imposed have lessened the availability
of
foreign currency essential for importation of basic commodities, of fuel,
electricity, medication and other healthcare requisites.
As a
result, the population suffers the direct consequences of immense
scarcities, which is a major fuellant of inflation (now exceeding 1 200 per
month, and rising). Moreover, the lack of foreign currency is the major
driver of exchange rates within the black market, further intensifying
inflation.
Concurrently, the sanctions are directly and
indirectly a further
massive burden upon the survival of businesses and, as
a result,
unemployment is intensifying daily.
By now, almost
90% of Zimbabwe's employable population is without
formal sector gainful
employment, and over 80% of the population is
struggling to survive on
incomes vastly below the poverty datum line.
The majority of the
population is undernourished and suffering
pronounced malnutrition,
thousands are dying due to that malnutrition,
compounded by an inability to
access healthcare, and tens of thousands, if
not more, are homeless. NGOs
and humanitarian aid agency food and healthcare
distribution programmes are
hindered by their inability to access their own
foreign exchange, which sits
in frozen international bank accounts.
The sanctions are
counter-productive in the extreme. They do not hurt
the political hierarchy
which justly is the target of international
condemnation and ire. They hurt
only the innocent populace, while giving
that political hierarchy a
fictitious explanation for Zimbabwe's ailing
state, thereby deflecting
recognition of their own culpability. The world
needs to find a more
constructive way of achieving a just Zimbabwean
governance
transformation.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008
19:58
AN evil spirit has possessed Zimbabwe's retail sector. Consumers
have
become its biggest victims of late. Only very tough measures can
exorcise
it.
There are so many outrageous prices
charged for the same commodity by
different retail outlets that it's hard
for the consumer to know what to
pay. And the same item in the same shop can
have at least three prices.
Retailers now say they have a "cash"
price, a "swipe" price and a
"cheque" price for the same item. Consumers
have been phoning with harrowing
tales.
One irate guy says he
went into a supermarket where he was told a kg
of chicken cost $1 080. After
it was weighed on the scale and found to be
slightly over a kg, the price
shot to $1 500.
Fair, so thought the guy. He told them he wanted to
use his ATM card,
and he was told he was most welcome. Then the price leaped
to $21 500.
Another victim of this extortion wanted to purchase
medication for an
ailing mother. He went to a pharmacy and was told he would
need to part with
$50 000 for cash. When he said he could not raise that
kind of money, he was
offered an alternative. He could "swipe", where upon
the price ballooned to
a staggering $200 000.
What exactly are
consumers expected to do with daily cash withdrawal
limits set at $500? We
know raising this on its own won't help because the
same unscrupulous
retailers will just peg their cheapest item on the next
withdrawal limit the
following day. Where is the Consumer Council of
Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions or the National Incomes and
Pricing
Commission?
It is an understatement to say this is daylight
robbery. Tough action
is needed yesterday to deal with these robber
barons.
Recently Dusty Miller, who covers food, drink and
travel for us, wrote
about the upcoming ZTA Travel Expo, mentioning, in
passing, he hoped
sponsored buyers and journalists, this time, didn't all
come from
Azerbaijan, Armenia, Albania or Anatolia: an alliterative
aspiration,
hinting the tourism body seems to spend an awful lot of time and
money
attracting, well..not exactly world class players here.
Lo and behold in Monday's Herald of Total Honesty, we see ZTA bossman
Karikoga Kaseke beaming on the front page, welcoming travel writers,
described as "influential media personalities".
Turn to page 2
and read some of them are from Latvia and Lieutva!
Where?
All can be revealed by stamp-collector Muckraker: Lieutva is
what
Lithuanians call Lithuania!
Muckraker somehow doubts
Zimbabwe will be inundated with travellers
from Lithuania, Latvia or fellow
Baltic statelet, Estonia, all fairly
recently freed from the yoke of Soviet
communism, after previously being
Nazi puppet states.and communist before
that.
Meanwhile The Herald's Saturday city.com issue tells us
that Akon
(named by Kaseke as a Zimbabwe tourism ambassador) faces trial in
Fishkill,
New York, charged with second degree harassment and endangering
the welfare
of a child!
Some ambassador!
Can we
expect to see page one pictures of influential media
personalities "jetting
in" from Shqiperia as the controversial tourism shop
window in Bulawayo
draws closer?
Where?
Shqiperia is what Albanians call
Albania!
The special guests from Lieutva, Lithuania and Estonia
have been
brought to Zimbabwe courtesy of Kaseke's tourism "post-election
perception
management programme". The boss man must however make sure that
visitors can
go through immigration at Harare International Airport first
before flying
in the holiday-making journos.
On Sunday
afternoon travellers from South Africa and Singapore were
treated to a
spirited exhibition of inefficiency and sloppiness by airport
staff. For a
good 15 minutes passengers shifted from one foot to the other
as they waited
for the officers to man their desks and stamp passports.
Eventually
two officers started stamping passports but it took more
than an hour to
clear passengers from South Africa. Then it took forever for
the baggage
claim machine to disgorge bags. This is the picture of Zimbabwe
a number of
elderly tourists got on Sunday.
As if aware of Zimbabwe's
inadequacies, Kaseke, in a show of bravado,
told the visiting journalists to
report truthfully on the situation in the
country. He said he did not expect
the reporters to be the country's
"solidarity messengers" when they return
to their countries.
"If you see people being strangled to death in
the streets of Harare,
or someone being thrown in a crocodile dam in
Victoria Falls, please I beg
you to report that without fear because we want
the world to know the truth
of the situation here in Zimbabwe," exhorted
Kaseke. What hints and news
leads was he sharing with the foreign
scribes?
Quite convenient for him to say so now that the bloody
elections are
over. But we hope the journalists will take him at his word
and report that
inflation is more than 10 million% , the shops are stocked
with imported
goods the poor cannot afford, that everyday you run the risk
of being
stranded because the country has no fuel and that without foreign
currency,
it is nearly impossible to purchase anything on both the formal
and informal
market. Thank you Kaseke.
The journalists can
also report that it is an offence to go to an
Internet café with foreign
currency. The Herald of Monday had a story about
eight Internet foreign
currency dealers who had appeared in court charged
with flouting Exchange
Control regulations. They were arrested at an
Internet café in the Harare
central business district after police were
tipped off about their
dealings.
All of them were searched and found in possession of
various amounts
of foreign currency. Is it a crime against the law to be
found in possession
of foreign currency? In which case every Zimbabwean
would almost certainly
be arrested at some point because the rand and the US
dollar have become the
most reliable store of value. Who wants to keep
Zimbabwe dollars with
inflation at more than 10 million % yet honest
citizens can access only $500
a day -- not enough to buy a loaf of
bread.
You need four trips to the bank to be able to buy a 1kg of
beef at the
cheapest price of $2 000. Let's get serious please. This will
definitely
attract visitors from the East.
Not quite as
sweet as it sounds. Opposite Kaseke's exhortation was a
sabre-rattling
Information permanent secretary George Charamba threatening
to kick
International Federation of Journalists secretary-general Aiden
White for
interfering in Zimbabwe's domestic affairs. White had attempted,
reports the
Herald, to present to government "a draft model law on media
regulation".
Charamba accused White of prejudice because he had
met MDC-T
spokesperson and not Tafataona Mahoso of the Media and Information
Commission or officials from the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe.
Charamba felt slighted and flew into a royal rage.
"I also told
him he was taking a political position and that I was
ready to kick him out
of my office."
That should be wonderful copy for the visiting
journalists and a major
drawcard for tourists.
There was
good news on agriculture front. The forthcoming season had
"received a
double boost", said the Herald, after the meteorological
department
"predicted" a normal rainy season and government said it had
acquired
adequate inputs for maize production this year. Who wouldn't want
something
positive out of this House of Hunger?
But in Zimbabwe you are safe
to suspend belief after a bitter
experience with former Agriculture Joseph
Made and last year's predicted
"Mother of all Agricultural Seasons". It
turned to be a Harvest of Thorns.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
has warned he will not be hurried into
signing a bad deal. He told his
supporters at a function to mark his party's
9th anniversary in Gweru that
they were the "winners" and would rather "not
have a deal than to have a bad
deal".
In a reference to the inter-party talks and the unity
government,
Tsvangirai complained about being given "responsibility without
authority".
He went on: "In any case, the whole issue is not about
the signature
of Morgan Tsvangirai, it is about the signature of the people
of Zimbabwe
who want food, jobs, better health care and
education."
He ended with an enigmatic statement on his signature
and why he was
withholding it: "As long as that signature does not unlock
the crisis and to
resolve people's expectations, there will not be any
deal." Is that what he
really said or was something lost in translation? We
don't get it.
The circus around ANC president Jacob Zuma's
trial for fraud,
racketeering and corruption is fast getting out of hand,
especially since it
was joined by the party's youth militia led by one
Julius Malema. The youth
have vowed to "kill for Zuma".
They
want all the charges against him dropped; they want him as the
next
president, otherwise they will kill someone for it, including
judges.
But the madness to subvert justice has also infected the
nation's
elders. The Sunday Times reports that the South African Congress of
Trade
Unions (Cosatu) has threatened a two-day job stay-away if corruption
charges
against Zuma are not dropped today.
Cosatu
general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said if the charges are not
dropped they
will picket National Prosecution Authority offices throughout
the country
because they believe their hero will not receive a fair trial.
"We
fear what could happen should something happen to him (Zuma),"
Vavi told the
Sunday Times. "The belief among workers and South Africans
that the ANC
president is a target of machinations runs deep," he said,
without
explaining ANC leaders' role in trying to use mob rule to influence
the
justice system.
We thought our own Joseph Chinotimba and his gang
of thugs had
performed the worst stunts when they invaded the Supreme Court
at the height
of land invasions. They have envious admirers across the
border.
On the other hand there is growing uneasiness in South
Africa about
Zuma's ability to control his gang of often violent supporters.
They have
turned into a Frankenstein monster threatening to visit anarchy on
the
nation. Even those who chanted his slogans and were ready to give him
his
machine gun on the march to Polokwane are now having second thoughts
about
the country's president in the making.
We can only say
it's been a pretty short honeymoon. As for the ANC
youth league, we need not
be surprised by their wayward behaviour. The
second name of its leader sums
up everything in Zulu -- idiots.
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008
19:54
OF late we have been flooded by complaints on our coverage of the
current power-sharing talks.
We have always got
criticism and protests almost every Friday over
this issue, but the
frequency is rising at an alarming rate.
Last week we got a candid
and compelling complaint from a
knowledgeable and honest political player
who was not pleased with our lead
story.
His charge was simple
and straightforward. Paraphrased, it amounted to
saying the way we are
covering talks is tantamount to aiding and abetting a
blatant political
deception of a gargantuan magnitude by Morgan Tsvangirai.
He felt truth has
become the first casualty in these talks. The politician
did not use
malicious labels or fume menacingly as some always do. He was
frank and
polite.
However, we differed with him. We simply pointed out it's
not true we
are by design reporting the talks in aid of a political
deception to
conveniently explain away why Tsvangirai had not signed the
power-sharing
agreement as his complaint seemed to suggest.
We
disagreed on this point because we feel we have been trying hard -
even
though it's very difficult in such a politically-polarised society - to
reflect all sides of a convoluted running story.
Complaints
always rain on us from Zanu PF, the MDC led by Tsvangirai
and the other
faction headed by Arthur Mutambara. The Zanu PF refrain is
that we support
the MDC, which is false. Tsvangirai's camp claims we are
sympathetic to
Mutambara's faction, also blatantly wrong and the Mutambara
faction alleges
we support Tsvangirai's party, which is untrue. Others say
we support Simba
Makoni. This is also untruthful.
For the record, the Zimbabwe
Independent does not support any
political party. Individuals, including the
publisher may, but the newspaper
as an institution does not -- end of
story.
In all these assumptions, twisted interpretations or
irrational
consistency by some of the complainants, are usually the basis of
such
disingenuous conclusions. The under-developed logic applied here
especially
by Zanu PF mandarins is that "an enemy of my friend is also my
enemy or a
friend of my friend is also my friend".
In Zimbabwe
if you criticise Mugabe you are necessarily supposed to be
pro-Tsvangirai,
if you criticise Tsvangirai you are pro-Mugabe or
pro-Mutambara and if you
criticise Mutambara you are pro-Tsvangirai.
By this warped logic if
you are opposed to Mugabe's regime, it means
you are automatically
democratic. This is plain nonsense. And most honest
readers would
acknowledge as much. In the real world it doesn't work like
that.
For all we care to know, Tsvangirai might turn out to be
a dictator
just like Mutambara could be one.
The signs are
clear. Unless contained, the MDC factions and their
leaders could easily
become authoritarian. Their behaviour and deeds from
time to time suggest
this. Apart from that, there are precedents from all
over Africa including
here.
Who would have thought in 1980 that Mugabe would end up
presiding over
such a repressive corrupt and incompetent regime except those
close or
clued-up enough to make an honest and informed
assessment?
Despite early signs of autocracy, most people,
including the media,
were unwilling or unable to subject Mugabe to
elementary democratic scrutiny
and containment. In fact, the media and the
population were complicit. He
was given a blank cheque and there we have it
now -- reaping what we sowed!
Parties, leaders and their policies
must always be put under the
spotlight to ensure accountability and
transparency. No leader should be
allowed a free rein or appear to be above
criticism.
Our job is to provide the platform for different views.
We always want
to ensure that our paper is a market place of ideas, not a
propaganda stand
for any party or anyone. We play a watchdog role on
society, apart from the
banal function of informing, educating and
entertaining.
In the process of doing this, we want to write
stories which are
accurate, balanced and truthful. We would love to be
objective, but we know
that is largely a myth. Studies have shown
this.
Instead of indulging in romantic pursuits, we seek to achieve
a
variety of journalism based on fact, fairness, and accuracy to arrive at
the
truth.
This is our business. It's an entangling enterprise,
but certainly we
do try to stick to our watchdog mandate in a professional
and ethical way.
No doubt we have had our own vicissitudes, just
like any other media
house. We have made mistakes -- in fact so many of them
during the last 12
years of our existence -- but that's part of the learning
curve. No matter
what mistakes we make, we however remain committed to
professional and
ethical journalism. We will not waver on that.
As such we will not package propaganda as news. We may be found to be
practising political or advocacy journalism in some or most cases.
Fair-minded critics say our coverage slant is more towards advocacy
journalism.
Of course, malicious detractors say we are partisan
or we have become
an opposition press. Fair and fine, but we are not and
won't be a propaganda
sheet or mouthpiece for anyone.
By
Dumisani Muleya
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September
2008 19:16
LAST week I was critical of those who say Zimbabweans
accused of human
rights violations should be taken to The
Hague.
I used The Hague in a literal and in a symbolic
sense to support my
abiding belief that we are masters of our own
destiny.
What other civilised nation sends its citizens to be tried
at The
Hague for domestic crimes? How come Pik Botha and Ian Smith, for all
their
arrogance in the courts and outside, were never taken to The Hague for
their
political crimes?
My position against The Hague is a
matter of principle, the same way I
have rejected over-reliance on
foreigners to resolve our problems.
Outsourcing solutions to our problems to
foreigners leaves us less
empowered. The failure of a political settlement
between Zanu PF and the MDC
reflects poorly on us as Zimbabweans, not on
Thabo Mbeki, who is a mere
facilitator.
It is us who have to
live with the consequences of our political
decisions, not Mbeki or South
Africans, much less those further afield who
have the insolence to set
preconditions on the outcome of the talks. To me a
facilitator is not a
magician to "find" a solution. His function should be
to take us out of the
box, to expose us to different perspectives of viewing
the same problem. We
must find the solution or fail.
The Hague in other words is invoked
to foster and nurture in us a
spirit of contempt and distrust for local
initiatives the same way we are
being persuaded that only foreigners know
better what is good for our
country. The farther away they are, the better.
How can someone who doesn't
understand my language, let alone my culture,
resolve my family dispute?
It is in this context that I can't
understand how President Mugabe and
Morgan Tsvangirai failed to build on
their first one-hour meeting over
dinner after the signing of the MoU in
July. In an interview later,
Tsvangirai remarked of Mugabe that "he is a
human being after all".
For real statesmen that was the farthest
Mbeki could go in getting
these mortal rivals to reassess and re-evaluate
each other and decide what
is best for their nation. It was an opportunity
to build on, to separate
myth from reality, propaganda from fact and a time
to find each other away
from the madding crowds.
Nobody besides
the two knows exactly what they discussed in that one
hour meeting in which
Tsvangirai says it felt like "a father and son"
reunion. But since then they
appear to have drifted further and further
apart, all to the detriment of
ordinary Zimbabweans.
I have no doubt that there are many foreign
leaders who know more
about what was discussed in that meeting than we do.
Political leaders can
go to Sadc, the African Union or the United Nations;
there is a limit to
what foreigners can do.
We have washed our
dirty linen for so long in public no detergent can
wring any more dirt from
it. It's not just about listener fatigue; there are
new problems cropping up
around the globe everyday, like in Georgia. Which
means Russia's veto stays
and so is China's. Soon we might find ourselves on
the backburner just like
the deadly conflict in Iraq or waved off as a lost
cause as has happened
with Somalia. The world does not owe us anything to
listen to our tales of
woe and disaster forever.
Which is why I believe our political
leaders should be reaching out
more towards the "human being-ness" of each
other, bridging the divides
among themselves and trying to forge a common
national vision. MDC and Zanu
PF supporters are Zimbabwean; which party one
wants to belong to is a matter
of envisaged opportunities. It is above all a
matter of personal choice. It
doesn't confer on anyone more
humaneness.
Instead of which everyday we are told of "hyenas",
"vultures",
"vampires", "puppets" and "sellouts". Hate speech directed at
political
opponents is seen as virtue. Those who try to see the humanity in
their
political opponents are viewed with suspicion as wavering in the faith
or
outright sellouts who should be attacked or vilified in turn. We need a
better sense of common purpose, and that we cannot achieve so long as one
half of our people believe the other half belongs to The Hague. We do not
have a political party made up of saints despite all the rhetoric about
people -- it's all about opportunity and self-interest.
lTo
those who have been sending me e-mails, let me assure you that I
have been
warned by many well-meaning Zimbabweans, some now MDC MPs and
councillors,
of the dangers of writing what I write. My riposte is simple: I
write to
please neither Zanu PF nor the MDC. I write to please my
conscience; I take
full responsibility for all the erroneous judgements I
pass on both. In good
conscience, I can state that our people have more in
common and are more
united than politicians want us to believe. It is the
politicians who are
divided over power.
The main purpose of my writings is that we
should instill in our
people the attitude that political rivalry is not
about enemies to be
crushed, which often leads to violence. It is about
selecting national
leaders. People are killed because of the selfishness and
avarice of
politicians.
Let me end with a quotation from Alai
Ewing Stevenson who said: "A
free society is one where it is safe to be
unpopular."
By Joram Nyathi
http://www.thezimbabweindependent.com
Thursday, 11 September 2008 19:01
AT
the time of the rise in the price of oil early this year, US
President Bush
in a Rose Garden session with the media admitted in a rather
disingenuous
way that he had no immediate solution to the cost of fuel at
the
pump.
"If there was a magic wand to wave, I'd be waving it,
of course," he
said. "I think that if there was a magic wand, and say, okay,
drop price, I'd
do that. But there is no magic wand to wave right
now."
Those looking for immediate answers to the oil price crisis
were quick
to pounce on the "no solution" response and pilloried the Bush
administration's energy policy. But the strength of the no solution answer
lay in the honesty of the US government at the time that the issue at stake
was beyond its capacity because of many exogenous factors.
Those entrusted to lead this country out of the current low, including
RBZ
governor Gideon Gono would wish that they could wave a magic wand to
deal
with multitude of problems plaguing our economy; from hyperinflation,
food
shortages, joblessness, corruption and to low productivity.
Unfortunately he
can't wave the magic wand to bring change or better still
to just make the
last four years of his reign as governor to disappear.
On Wednesday
Gono launched three products to allow wholesalers,
retailers and fuel
importers to charge in foreign currency. He said the
products were set to
enhance foreign currency generation and increase
capacity utilisation on
farms and in industry. While the measures evoke the
wow factor, they have no
semblance of Houdini's exploits.
To his credit though, the governor
has remained consistent in terms of
the basics required to initiate the
revival process; increasing the
availability of foreign currency in the
formal sector; supply of basic goods
and services and promoting production
of commodities through enhanced
capacity utilisation. This seemingly small
package of reforms is generally
accepted as the panacea to fighting
inflation and reduce poverty. But this
is no walk in the park.
Amid one of the worst economic declines ever recorded in living
memory,
policy analysts looking at the situation in this country have oft
promoted a
pedantic notion that our problems can be fixed by allowing market
forces to
take the place of government controls. Gono responded to calls to
float the
currency by liberalising the foreign currency market, which did
not pass for
a magical moment. The parallel market is still alive and
thriving.
The semi-dollarisation of the economy announced this
week is also a
pressured response to legitimise the use of foreign currency
in local
transactions. But this could still be very inadequate; which brings
us to
the challenge facing MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in his proposed
capacity
as the handyman to fix this economy and bring about a
turnaround.
There is danger in positioning Tsvangirai as the silver
bullet to sort
out our problems because he is not, neither can he wave a
magic wand.
In his armour though are promises of rescue packages
which would start
heading this way once he is given control of government.
The novelty he
brings on board also makes him a more trusted change agent
than President
Mugabe.
During his campaign for the March polls,
he announced a $10 billion
package waiting to be poured into this economy.
Recently donors have
advertised various other amounts which they are
prepared to release once an
internal settlement has been
secured.
Balance-of-payment support is badly needed to give the
economy room to
breathe and the funds promised us provide the right
tonic.
But the money is not coming immediately. On the day
Tsvangirai gets
into office, he will be confronted with the same economic
problems which
Gono and successive Finance ministers have laboured to deal
with in the past
decade; including the breakdown in amenities and social
services. Not only
that; those who have made dishonesty, truancy and
corruption a career will
not suddenly repent and follow Tsvangirai. They
will put up a fight as they
have done every time new measures have been
introduced to fight illegality.
Tsvangirai is well aware of the
challenge to hand as he articulated it
Gweru at the weekend.
"You cannot mess yourself and ask me to clean you up and then you want
to
dismiss me afterwards. In the same vein, if Mugabe wants me to clean up
the
mess, then he has to give me the power," he said.
Unfortunately,
Tsvangirai once in office will not be judged by
demonstrating ability to
identify and dissect the mess that has been created
by the Zanu PF
government. We are going to judge him by his ability to roll
up his sleeves
and scrub the floors. The Zanu PF government has failed to do
this; that's
why he is needed for the job. He has to achieve it with or
without the
billions promised by well-wishers. Failure is not an option.