Amnesty International (AI)
Date: 08 Sep 2006
AI Index: AFR 46/015/2006
(Public)
News Service No: 226
Amnesty International today condemned
the Zimbabwean government's much
publicised housing programme set up
ostensibly to help the victims of
Operation Murambatsvina, a programme of
mass forced evictions which left
hundreds of thousands
homeless.
Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle (Better Life) was launched in
June 2005,
with the government claiming that it would provide better housing
to those
who lost homes during Operation Murambatsvina.
One year
after the mass forced evictions, Amnesty International returned to
Zimbabwe
to investigate what, if any, action had been taken by the
Zimbabwean
government to restore the human rights of the hundreds of
thousands of
victims of Operation Murambatsvina.
The findings, contained in two
reports released today, reveal that contrary
to government statements almost
none of the victims of Operation
Murambatsvina have benefited from the
rebuilding, with only some 3,325
houses constructed -- compared to the
92,460 homes destroyed during
Operation Murambatsvina -- and construction
has ground to a halt in many
areas.
Moreover, although the government
has presented Operation Garikai/Hlalani
Kuhle as a programme under which
houses are built by government for victims
of Operation Murambatsvina, in
reality many people are being allocated small
bare plots of land, often
without access to water and sanitation, on which
they have to build their
own homes with no assistance.
Satellite images of just four sites in
Zimbabwe show more than 5,000 houses
destroyed -- demonstrating that the
government's much-publicised rebuilding
programme has produced fewer houses
nationwide than were destroyed in just a
fraction of the
country.
"Operation Garikai is a wholly inadequate response to the mass
violations of
2005, and in reality has achieved very little," said Kolawole
Olaniyan,
Amnesty International's Africa Programme Director. "Hundreds of
thousands of
people evicted during Operation Murambatsvina have been left to
find their
own solutions to their homelessness. Very few houses have been
constructed.
The majority of those designated as 'built' are incomplete --
lacking doors,
windows, floors and even roofs. They also do not have access
to adequate
water or sanitation facilities."
"Many of the few houses
that have been built are not only uninhabited, but
uninhabitable."
Furthermore, in most sites visited by Amnesty
International researchers,
houses and land plots were allocated to people
who had not been forcibly
evicted during Operation Murambatsvina.
Researchers found that in most parts
of the country, no assessment has ever
been carried out to identify the
victims of Operation Murambatsvina or to
establish where they are now. In
addition, government officials have made it
clear that at least 20 percent
of the housing will go to civil servants,
police officers and soldiers --
rather than those whose homes were
demolished in Operation Murambatsvina.
Tens of thousands of people --
mainly poor women -- lost their livelihoods
as informal traders and vendors
during Operation Murambatsvina, as well as
their homes. Despite having
destroyed their only source of income, the
government expects the few
victims of the mass evictions to whom houses or
unserviced land plots are
"available" to pay for them.
"The Zimbabwean government has attempted to
cover up mass human rights
violations with a public relations exercise,"
said Kolawole Olaniyan. "The
victims of Operation Murambatsvina were amongst
the poorest people in
Zimbabwe. The evictions and demolition of their homes
drove them into even
deeper poverty -- losing what little they had, such as
clothes, furniture
and even food. Now the Zimbabwean government is
unabashedly asking them to
pay for incomplete and sub-standard structures --
or for the stands on which
to build a home -- at prices that would have been
well beyond their reach
even before their homes and livelihoods were
destroyed last year."
A widow whose rental accommodation was destroyed
described to Amnesty
International how she and her son now live in a
bathroom in a house shared
by three families. In Victoria Falls, researchers
found a man living in a
room intended to be a toilet; his rental cottage was
destroyed last year.
Several thousand people remain living in the open,
under makeshift shelters.
Currently, 83 percent of the population of
Zimbabwe survives on less than
the UN income poverty line of US $2 dollars a
day. The unemployment rate
stands at about 80 percent.
Amnesty
International called for Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle to be
subjected to
an urgent and comprehensive review to bring it in line with the
Zimbabwean
government's human rights obligations. It also called on the
government of
Zimbabwe to seek international assistance to address the
immediate housing
and humanitarian needs of its population if it cannot do
so
itself.
"Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle is a total failure as a remedy,"
said
Kolawole Olaniyan. "Moreover, in its execution it has resulted not in
remedies but in further violations of human rights."
Public
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rights news view http://news.amnesty.org
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
NATIONAL Security minister Didymus Mutasa
was last week charged
by the police over the assault on war veteran James
Kaunye in 2004 - an
incident that resulted in 16 of his supporters being
jailed for three years
earlier this year.
Sources said
police recorded a warned and cautioned statement
from Mutasa last week. This
came shortly before Justice minister Patrick
Chinamasa was acquitted on
related charges.
Chinamasa faced allegations of pressuring
Kaunye to drop charges
against Mutasa's supporters, among them the
minister's campaign manager and
Makoni North chairman, Albert Nyakuedzwa,
who is currently serving a
three-year sentence.
Sources
said witnesses had also made statements to the police
and what remained was
a trial date for the case.
Kaunye was attacked and left
unconscious and had title deeds to
his house in Vengere township, Rusape,
seized after declaring his intention
to challenge Mutasa in Zanu PF primary
elections in 2004.
In an interview on Tuesday, Police
Commissioner Augustine
Chihuri said he could not comment on the issue but
said any lawbreaker would
answer for his deeds regardless of his status in
society. In 2004 police
said Mutasa had a case to answer.
Chihuri added that he wanted more time to check on the latest
development,
but efforts to reach him later were fruitless as he was said to
be in
meetings.
No official could confirm the latest
developments.
Police spokesman, Assistant Commissioner Wayne
Bvudzijena,
yesterday said: "I have found nothing."
On
Wednesday Mutasa said: "What is Chihuri saying on the issue?
I will not
comment if you do not tell me the name of the policeman who told
you that. I
will only comment if they arrest me."
His lawyer, Gerald
Mlotshwa, yesterday said: "I do not know
anything."
During Chinamasa's trial Manicaland prosecutor Levison Chikafu
said the fact
that Mutasa had not been taken to court "does not mean that he
is not
coming". Chikafu also said the Zanu PF secretary for administration's
wings
"must be clipped to the greatest extent" leading to Mutasa threatening
to
sue.
During the trial of Mutasa's supporters in January,
prominent
Mutare lawyer Amon Toto made an application for the court to
indict the
minister after accusing the state of selective prosecution by
leaving out
Mutasa whom he termed the main perpetrator.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
A MAJOR shake-up is
looming in the state security agency, the
Central Intelligence Organisation
(CIO), amid revelations that the
organisation's powerful Director-Internal
was recently forced out under
controversial
circumstances.
Intelligence sources said there could be an
overhaul of the CIO
after the departure two weeks ago of one of its veteran
officers, Sydney
Nyanungo, amid claims of corruption in his department and a
polarised
political context.
It is understood Nyanungo
has since been replaced by former
Counter-Intelligence head Andrew
Muzonzini, who is a younger brother of
ex-CIO Director-General, retired
Brigadier Elisha Muzonzini. Sources said
there could also be changes in
positions of CIO deputy Director-General
Mernard Muzariri and administration
director Victor Mlambo.
Muzariri and Mlambo are also very
experienced senior
intelligence officers.
Sources said
Nyanungo left the CIO in the last week of August in
a manner that raised
more questions than answers with allegations of graft
in his department
flying around. The allegations ranged from blackmail to
extortion in the
department that is widely seen as the most crucial in terms
of operations in
the organisation.
Former CIO deputy Director-General Lovemore
Mukandi and several
other officers were seven years ago accused of
defrauding the spy agency of
millions of dollars through a scam involving
the construction of five safe
houses.
Mukandi and his
boss, Shadreck Chipanga, now Zanu PF MP for
Makoni East, were dismissed in
1999 after repeated clashes at work.
Sources say the CIO -
publicly funded through taxpayers' money -
has rival camps divided along
political lines in the fractured Zanu PF. It
is generally acknowledged there
are CIO officers aligned to Zanu PF factions
led by retired army commander
Solomon General Solomon Mujuru and party
bigwig Emmerson
Mnangagwa.
Nyanungo was not able to comment yesterday, saying
he was in a
meeting. "I'm in a meeting at work at the moment," Nyanungo said
before his
cellular phone went off. Telephoned again, he said: "I'm in a
meeting my
friend, you are now disturbing me."
State
Security minister Didymus Mutasa was also unable to shed
light on the
matter. "I don't know anything about that," he said. Mutasa was
unable to
discuss the issue further, saying he was also in a meeting.
Nyanungo became the Director-Internal in 2002 when the last
major reshuffle
was made. Prior to that he was counter-intelligence head.
The
CIO internal department gathers, evaluates and analyses
domestic
intelligence, while counter-intelligence prevents rival spy
agencies from
obtaining classified information and spreading disinformation.
Zim Independent
IN a major climbdown, the government has withdrawn the first
version of the
repressive Suppression of Foreign and International Terrorism
Bill after
conceding that some of its clauses are unconstitutional.
A
revised version has since been sent to the printers, the
Zimbabwe
Independent gathered this week.
The about-turn followed a
meeting the Parliamentary Legal
Committee (PLC) held with Attorney-General
Sobusa Gula-Ndebele and Minister
of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi, who was
sponsoring the Bill.
Critics said the Bill was aimed at
cracking down on government's
opponents using the spurious excuse of
fighting terrorism.
On Wednesday the chairman of the
Parliamentary Legal Committee
Welshman Ncube confirmed the
development.
"The committee held a meeting with the Minister
of Home Affairs
and the Attorney-General," Ncube said.
"We discussed our objections in terms of clauses that were
unconstitutional.
They conceded that there were some problems.
"There was an
agreement that they were going to make certain
amendments to the extent that
it was unconstitutional," Ncube, a lawyer,
said.
Ncube
said he had not yet seen the new version of the proposed
legislation. He
said a new version would either be gazetted or introduced in
parliament at
the stage the old version had reached.
The Bill was gazetted
on March 24 and subsequently tabled in
parliament where it was referred to
the PLC on May 9.
The PLC had intended to pass an adverse
report saying the
proposed law violated the right to freedom of assembly and
association as
well as the right to protection before the
law.
The committee found clauses 8 (2) (b) and 10(a) (3) to
be ultra
vires sections 18 and 21 of the Constitution.
The committee said Section 18 provided that every person who is
charged with
a criminal offence shall be presumed to be innocent until
proven guilty but
clause 8 (2) (b) of the Terrorism Bill violated that. -
Staff
Writer.
Zim Independent
AS the agricultural sector continues to be
rocked by
lawlessness, evictions and uncertainty, the Zimbabwe
Independent's
political reporter Augustine Mukaro (AM) spoke to Commercial
Farmers Union
(CFU) president Doug Taylor-Freeme (DTF) about the prospects
of normalising
the sector and improving productivity.
AM:
What is the current membership of the CFU?
DTF: We have a
broad base of membership, both black and white
farmers. Amongst the white
farmers, we have a non-farming group interested
in getting compensation and
others seeking an opportunity to go back to the
farms and start afresh once
the fundamentals are addressed. We also have
large, medium and small-scale
farmers as
well as those farming out of the
country.
AM: Does government and farmers, especially the
dispossessed,
have confidence in the CFU as the body necessary in resolving
the land issue
and leading the recovery of agriculture?
DTF: It's very unfortunate that Zimbabwean authorities don't
want to
recognise the vast potential and capacity we have to turn around the
fortunes of this country. But confidence in our skills and potential is
tremendous in Sadc and the international community. I have been elected as
the vice-president of the Southern African Confederation of Agricultural
Unions which represents several Sadc countries. I was also seconded to sit
on the board of International Federation of Agriculture Producers as the
African representative.
The organisation represents over
six million farmers throughout
the world. These appointments show that the
world is confident that
Zimbabwean farmers have the capacity to add value to
agriculture. We have
the capacity to turn around agriculture in this country
within six months.
AM: How many farmers have been compensated
and are they happy
with the amounts offered?
DTF:
Compensation is ongoing and to date around 300 farmers have
been
compensated. The money being offered ranges between 3 to 10% of the
value of
the improvements on a farm resulting in farmers turning the offers
down.
Elderly and frail farmers are accepting the compensation since it is
their
only source of income and government appears to be targeting those
soft
spots.
AM: Have you tabled any proposals before government on
how to
resolve the land issue?
DTF: There have been many
proposals including the Zimbabwe Joint
Resettlement Initiative of 2001, but
for any proposal to work, government
has to put in place sound policies that
create a balance between large-scale
commercial agriculture and small-scale
(including) fundamentals such as rule
of law, security of tenure that
guarantees protection of property and a
climate friendly to
investment.
For example, equipment in the country no longer
has the capacity
to till the expected hectarage because it is old and
dilapidated, but there
is no one prepared to invest in new equipment because
of the prohibitive
equipment law which bars farmers from moving their
equipment once the farm
is acquired.
AM. You have been
advising your members to apply for land to
government. Are they going to
accept any farm or do they target specific
farms? How many have been given
offer letters?
DTF: In our many meetings with (Lands)
minister (Didymus)
Mutasa, we were advised that if we wanted to farm, we had
to apply for land.
As such, we recommended to our farmers to apply. Our
farmers are applying to
have their farms back. This strategy would reduce
compensation on the part
of government, take away conflict with the former
owners and even quicken
the recovery processes since the farmer would have
an understanding of his
farm, soils and environment he previously worked
in.
Our problem as a sector is access to land, so by applying
for
land we are trying to legitimise and promote agriculture within the
frameworks of the land reform programme which CFU has always
supported.
AM: Some of your members and the top CFU
leadership have been
accused of getting into deals with powerful politicians
to retain their
farms. What's your comment?
DTF: There
may be 1% of such deals happening but the majority of
the farmers still on
the land have offered one farm to keep another. In most
cases these
arrangements were done through courts but government is often
reneging on
the matter and farmers are being evicted every day. CFU
leadership are no
exception to the harassment, threats of eviction or even
losing land. I have
already lost 70% of my land holding and for the past
four years have been
going through courts to get the right to continue
farming. My other
vice-president Trevor Gifford has been reduced to a mere
seven hectares.
What we are doing is to try and manage the situation and
keep skills on the
farms, giving people hope for better times.
AM: Does
government listen to your proposals and do you foresee
a resolution anytime
soon?
DTF: There are two groups of people in the government:
the
economically minded group wants the land issue resolved yesterday but
they
are drawn back by the political radicals. For as long as we are not
pulling
in one direction, disruptions and uncertainty will prevail, eroding
investor
confidence and undermining potential to produce. Banks continue to
be
twitchy because of lack of security and disruptions. In fact agriculture
is
not legitimate anymore.
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube/Ray Matikinye
THE
Morgan Tsvangirai faction of the Movement for Democratic
Change will not
join the mass action planned by the Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions (ZCTU)
because the workers' programme is different from the
opposition party's
aspirations, it has been learnt.
Both the MDC and the ZCTU
have warned of nationwide
demonstrations against President Robert Mugabe's
government.
The ZCTU says it will stage protests to demand
better wages for
workers while the MDC wants an end to the national
crisis.
MDC spokesperson, Nelson Chamisa, however said the
programme the
workers were embarking on was different to that of the
MDC.
Chamisa told the Zimbabwe Independent that the planned
demonstrations by the workers were in response to problems afflicting
workers in Zimbabwe while the MDC was responding to a national
crisis.
When questioned on why the two groups could not join
hands and
stage a combined demonstration, Chamisa said the workers had a
right to
express themselves without being influenced by
politicians.
"We respect the response taken by the workers
but the planned
stayaway by the workers is not the same programme that the
MDC would embark
on. The workers should express themselves without
interference from
politicians even though the reasons for the demonstrations
are similar,"
Chamisa said.
He said while the MDC
sympathised with the ZCTU, the party has
its own programme of
action.
"We do support and understand the ZCTU's position,
the ZCTU
represents the majority of people, as we have many workers in the
country.
But we have a broader programme that we are pursuing and we cannot
at this
time stage combined demonstrations with the ZCTU," Chamisa
said.
Last week Tsvangirai, accompanied by about a hundred
party
supporters, led a march to parliament.
ZCTU
president Lovemore Matombo said the ZCTU demonstrations
were a labour issue
and that it was important to differentiate who was doing
what on the
ground.
"The planned demonstration is purely a labour issue,
the MDC is
seeking power while the ZCTU is looking after the survival and
welfare of
the worker," Matombo said.
"The workers will
be protesting solely on labour issues but the
issues are not different from
issues being raised by the MDC and other civic
groups.
Zim Independent
Clemence Manyukwe
LEADER of the
fractured Movement for Democratic Change (MDC),
Morgan Tsvangirai, has
abandoned his 2002 presidential poll petition
prompting President Robert
Mugabe's lawyer to urge him to push on until the
case is
finalised.
In a letter dated September 1 written by Mugabe's
lawyer
Terrence Hussein and addressed to the opposition leader's attorney
Bryant
Elliot, Mugabe enquired when Tsvangirai would resume the inspection
of
ballot boxes his party suspended in December last
year.
When the exercise was suspended the then MDC's
secretary for
legal affairs David Coltart said the legal teams were breaking
for Christmas
and would resume in January, but the matter was not
pursued.
The letter written to Tsvangirai's lawyer reads:
"You will
recall that you filed a notice of appeal against the decision of
Justice
Hlatshwayo, dismissing the legal challenge to the
election.
"We note that you have not paid any security costs,
nor taken
steps to prepare the record of appeal. Please take the necessary
steps to
ensure that the appeal is heard so that the petition, which your
client
filed, is finalised."
Hussein wrote that he wanted
to place it on record that the
stalled verification exercise and
Tsvangirai's failure to follow up the
appeal were causing delays in
finalising the matter.
"You will recall that you initially
indicated that you would
continue the (inspection) exercise in January 2006.
This date was then moved
to February 2006 by yourselves. In February 2006,
you then indicated that
you (had) stopped the exercise
indefinitely.
"So that the matter may progress, please
indicate to us and the
Registrar (of the High Court) whether you intend to
proceed with the
verification exercise which you suspended," the letter
added.
On Wednesday the Tsvangirai faction's legal affairs
secretary
Innocent Gonese said: "The matter was in the hands of our lawyer
Bryant
Elliot."
Zim Independent
Lesley Moyo
THE ownership wrangle of
the lucrative Matetsi Unit 3 Concession
in Matabeleland North has taken
another twist following the failure by the
highest bidder of last month's
auction to honour his $710 million bid.
Klaudius Hove, the
proprietor of Kanetuta Safaris, failed to pay
the $710 million for his
winning bid within the stipulated seven days. He
also lost $20 million
non-refundable deposit he had paid to the National
Parks and Wildlife
Authority.
The concession, formerly run by Jacob Mudenda for
a decade, went
under the hammer in August after the expiry of his lease
agreement with the
National Parks.
Mudenda, chairman of
the Safari Operators Association of
Zimbabwe, had launched an appeal with
the Supreme Court to block the
auctioning of the concession pending the
outcome of a High Court ruling on
an ownership wrangle of the property.
However, the auction went ahead
resulting in Hove outclassing the other
bidders.
Parks public relations manager, Retired Major Edward
Mbewe,
confirmed the latest developments, saying the concession was to be
offered
to the second highest bidder.
"I can confirm that
Klaudius Hove failed to pay the money within
the stipulated seven days but
at the moment I am not in a position to
disclose the name of the second
highest bidder who has since been awarded
the tender," confirmed
Mbewe.
Mudenda's lawyer, Fanuel Piki of IEG Musimbe &
Partners,
expressed confidence in the outcome of the court
ruling.
"We have just finished putting together our record of
appeal and
we have since received the management authority's plea and we are
waiting
for the minister's plea. I can say boldly that we are confident of
winning
the case.
"The management authority is saying
that it did not concur with
the minister when they auctioned the concession.
The Act clearly stipulates
that there must be concurrence with the minister
in every case handled. That
is an in-house problem; it must not affect my
client. We therefore expect
the Supreme Court to grant us the concession,"
said Piki. However, Mbewe
de-fended the authority using the same Act
referred to by Piki.
"The former lease-holder made an appeal
to the court but
unfortunately an appeal cannot change the ruling of the
court. We cannot
stop conducting our business because of the appeal."
Zim Independent
Loughty Dube
THE Bulawayo City Council's bid to raise $4,8
billion and US$3,4
million to finance various water projects has flopped as
last week's donors
conference managed to raise only $96
000.
The money raised is not enough to sink a single
borehole. The
city fathers however spent $634 000 hosting the donors
conference.
The council has resolved to hold more donor
conferences in
Harare and beyond the country's borders to raise the funds
for the water
projects.
The city needs the cash to sink
and rehabilitate boreholes at
the Nyamandlovu aquifer, link up two supply
dams, set up a booster station
and to commence work on the long awaited
Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project.
As if to spite the
council, a day after the failed water
conference, the government through the
Reserve Bank, released $890 million
towards the Zambezi water
project.
The Bulawayo executive mayor, Japhet Ndabeni Ncube,
this week
told the Zimbabwe Independent that the council will hold more
donor
conferences in a bid to raise more funds.
"We will
hold more donor conferences in Harare and other
centres. Currently we are
reconciling what the donors gave us and more are
still coming forward with
pledges," Ncube said.
Bulawayo faces serious water shortages
and the city has
announced that if the situation continues to deteriorate,
it would recycle
water for domestic use.
The European
Union (EU) together with the South African and
Kuwait embassies have
promised unspecified aid towards the project.
Among some of
the projects the city intends to embark on is the
linking up of Mtshabezi
Dam to other supply dams and the rehabilitation of
boreholes at Epping
Forest.
The council in a report on deliberations of the
Future Water
Supplies and Water Action Committee said the supply dams were
only 41,56 %
full, with a total of 150 720 million cubic metres of
water.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Muleya
CONTROVERSY over former Tanzanian president
Benjamin Mkapa's
purported role as a mediator in Zimbabwe deepened this week
after it emerged
Southern African Development Community (Sadc) leaders were
misled by Harare
into endorsing his mission during their recent summit in
Lesotho.
Sources said President Robert Mugabe and his
delegation to the
summit in Maseru, carried the same message which they fed
to delegates on
the sidelines of the African Union meeting in July that
Mkapa was now the
intermediary between Zimbabwe and Britain over a claimed
bilateral dispute
dividing the two countries.
The sources
said the Harare mantra that Mkapa was now the
mediator was hawked to Sadc
leaders behind the scenes in Maseru who then
bought into it, leading to the
group's acknowledgement of the initiative.
As a result on
August 22 after the Sadc summit, Lesotho Prime
Minister Pakalitha Mosisili,
the new Sadc chairman, announced Mkapa had been
appointed mediator on
Zimbabwe.
South African Deputy Foreign minister Aziz Pahad
confirmed this
at a press briefing in Pretoria a week
later.
Last week Sadc executive secretary Tomaz Augusto
Salomao was
quoted as saying through his spokesperson Leefa Martin, that
Mkapa was still
Sadc mediator.
However, further
information gleaned from Harare-based diplomats'
confidential briefing notes
shows Mkapa is not a mediator at all between
Zimbabwe and Britain. The notes
suggest Mkapa is actually becoming
increasingly irritated by the
claim.
Although efforts to contact Mkapa were unsuccessful,
information
to hand indicates that he has made his position clear on the
issue to
several interested parties in recent weeks.
Diplomatic notes show Mkapa was approached to mediate but
declined, saying
he was busy with party business and other engagements.
Mkapa
was first brought into the Zimbabwe issue by former
Tanzanian ambassador to
Harare, Brigadier-General Hashim Mbita, and the late
Information minister
Tichaona Jokonya. He was later approached by United
Nations officials on the
matter but turned down the offer to intervene.
Sources said
Tanzania allowed Sadc leaders in Lesotho to
acknowledge Mkapa as mediator
when it knew the correct position because the
issue was never formalised
between Dar-es-Salaam and Harare. It had largely
remained an informal matter
driven by Mbita and Jokonya.
The adoption of Mkapa as
mediator by United Nations
secretary-general Kofi Annan and Sadc, sources
said, may well mean they have
misled the world on the issue and continue to
do so.
After the AU summit in Banjul, the Gambia, in July,
Annan said
he had met with Mugabe who had told him that Mkapa had been
appointed as a
mediator.
Mugabe was cited by Annan as the
source of the claim in Banjul
that Mkapa is now the mediator and sources say
Zimbabwean officials repeated
the same line in Maseru. This means Annan and
Sadc leaders were misled in
view of Mkapa's position - at least as of early
this month - that he was not
a mediator between Zimbabwe and
Britain.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
THE International
Monetary Fund (IMF) has postponed to a later
date a scheduled board meeting
to discuss Zimbabwe's overdue financial
obligations after failing to secure
a date for its fact-finding mission to
Harare this month, sources said this
week.
Central bank sources told businessdigest last week that
an IMF
mission was coming to the country mid month, but investigations this
week
revealed that a conflict over policy issues between the Reserve Bank
governor Gideon Gono and Finance minister Herbert Murerwa had scuttled
prospects of an early visit.
Businessdigest reported
earlier that the Bretton Woods
institution was expected to schedule its
meeting to Zimbabwe to September, a
move that was expected to open another
anxious chapter in Zimbabwe's
relationship with the IMF after the country
survived expulsion from the
Bretton Woods institution when it settled its
overdue financial obligations
to the IMF's General Resources Account (GRA)
in February.
Government and central bank authorities had been
informed of the
pending review, initially expected to take place exactly six
months after an
IMF board meeting that maintained censure on the country
after payment of
arrears to the GRA.
Speculation deepened
in the market that Murerwa was making
frenetic moves to block an IMF team
into the country around the same month
for a routine Article IV
consultation.
There were indications that Murerwa was,
however, willing to
have the team in the country in September, but Gono, who
is leading the
economic reforms, had preferred a later date and had
overruled Murerwa.
Gono and Murerwa have clashed over policy
issues, with Gono at
one time writing to Murerwa that he did not know
"whether we are working for
the same government".
The
sharp differences between the two were further highlighted
by Murerwa's
attack on Gono's monetary policy during a politfolio committee
meeting at
which he alleged he had not been consulted when Gono introduced a
new
currency system slashing three zeros from the country's
currency.
The mission's findings, together with any attempts
by the
country to clear outstanding arrears, are meant to establish
Zimbabwe's
cooperation with the Bretton Woods institution's demands for an
overhaul of
economic and structural policies.
However,
sources indicated that the board meeting was unlikely
to take place this
month in the absence of an Article 1V consultative
meeting report from an
IMF mission into the country.
Consequently, the IMF had
moved a scheduled board meeting on
Zimbabwe to a date yet to be announced
at the end of the year.
The mission had also now been
scheduled to make its visit for
the article IV consultations, which are
routine for all IMF members, in
November.
An IMF
spokesperson told businessdigest from Washington: "The
Article IV mission is
expected to take place towards the end of the year.
The next board review is
expected to take place in early November."
She said "no
precise dates" had been agreed between the IMF and
authorities in
Harare.
The IMF, which upheld a decision to keep Zimbabwe's
voting
rights suspended during its board meeting in March, had said it would
meet
again in September to review the country's outstanding
arrears.
There were indications that recent economic policies
had failed
to win the support of the IMF, suggesting that fresh measures
could be taken
against Zimbabwe for non-cooperation with the multilateral
institution's
demands for broader market-related reforms to take the country
out of its
economic morass. Article IV consultations are routinely conducted
on IMF
members, but Zimbabwe had been understood to be digging in its heels
on the
planned visit, insisting its membership to the fund is only
nominal.
Zimbabwe cleared its overdue financial obligations
to the IMF's
GRA but still remained with substantial arrears amounting to
US$119 million
under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility
(PRGF)-Exogenous Shocks
Facility Trust (ESF).
Zim Independent
Itai Mushekwe
ZIMBABWE'S currency
reforms have failed to win the backing of
the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), further deepening anxiety over the
country's fate when the Bretton
Woods institution's board meets to review
the country's membership in
November.
An IMF spokesperson told businessdigest from
Washington that
Zimbabwe's currency reforms, undertaken as part of
broad-based measures to
curb hyperinflation, fell far short of addressing
fundamental causes of the
country's economic woes.
"The
fund has repeatedly urged the Zimbabwean authorities to
urgently adopt a
comprehensive policy package to address Zimbabwe's economic
crisis," said an
IMF spokesperson.
"The introduction of a new currency in
itself does not address
the underlying problem. The fund has also called on
the government to
provide adequate social safety nets and food security to
vulnerable groups,"
she maintained.
The unfavourable view
of the currency reforms by the IMF
underline government and the central
bank's apprehension over a planned
mission to the country by an IMF team,
whose visit was scheduled for early
September before a board meeting to
review Zimbabwe's compliance with the
institution's recommendations over the
comprehensive policy package to
kick-start the economy's
revival.
Both the board meeting and the IMF mission have been
moved to
November.
Independent economic analyst, John
Robertson, said the IMF
response to the currency reforms was an indictment
of half-hearted
government and central bank policies on economic
reforms.
"Policy choices made by government have damaged the
economy and
we can't ask for assistance in our current economic state," said
Robertson.
"We won't be deserving support until we change
policies
affecting us. It's easy to focus on land and agriculture but every
sector
has suffered," Robertson said.
Robertson said the
IMF "is not going to take us seriously until
we deal with our bad economic
policies".
The IMF has had a cat-and-mouse relationship with
Zimbabwe's
government, which has failed to adopt comprehensive economic
policies to
take the country out of a seven-year economic recession.
Zim Independent
By Admire Mavolwane
POLITICIANS and
economists both within and outside government
circles of whatever form or
shape agree on one basic tenet; agriculture is
central to the Zimbabwean
economy. It is thus obvious that the smooth
functioning of major
institutions - both private and public - in this sector
is of critical
importance.
The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) is one such
institution which
has the legislated and sole mandate of ensuring that the
country has
sufficient stocks of its staple diet. Furthermore, following the
move to
government funded agriculture the parastatal has the responsibility
of
distributing inputs to farmers. With such an important role to play the
lead
story of Wednesday's Herald reads like fiction - for lack of a better
word.
It is said that the GMB has, since 2004, been operating without a
functional
board and that the title "acting" is as ubiquitous as air at the
company's
head office. Seventeen top managers, including the chief
executive,
financial director, and operations director, are all in an acting
capacity.
Not only is everyone "acting", but the books have not undergone
any recent
scrutiny. Out of the 83 depots, only 10 are reported to have
been audited
and at one depot the computer system has not been functioning
for over a
year. These insights into the operation of the GMB somehow
intuitively
explain the lack of accurate maize and wheat production
figures.
After reading the story, we could not wait for
yesterday's
edition of the paper as we, perhaps naively, expected an erratum
message and
apology tucked somewhere in a corner retracting the story or
correcting some
of the contents. Many were also expecting at least a
statement from GMB's
"acting" spokesperson explaining the true state of
affairs at Dura House, or
at least a damage-limitation exercise from some of
the stakeholders closer
to the scene. The waiting has turned from hours to
days, which leads many to
grudgingly reach some sort of conclusion.
Thereafter, the question that is
asked is whether these revelations are not
just the tip of the iceberg.
We now turn to some lighter
stuff focusing on the interim
results from the short-term insurance sector.
The sector is uniquely
composed of two short-term insurance companies both
with double-barrelled
names Nicozdiamond and Zimnat Lion. Both companies
were borne out of the
merger of two previously separate companies each going
by the fore and
surname of the new entities. Prior to the merger of Zimnat
Lion with AIG
Zimbabwe last year, some suggested tongue in cheek that the
new entity
should be called Zimnat Lion AIG.
The overall
insurance sector, including the life assurance
companies First Mutual and
Fidelity as well as ZHL, has for a long time now
struggled to convince the
market that it is as glitzy as its cousin, the
banking sector. The market is
still to be convinced with three out of four
players being both in the penny
stock and speculators' havens territory much
to the disenchantment of
management.
The fact that the counters have for a long time
failed to
attract the attention of "serious" investors, that is excluding
obviously
the major shareholders, has been a bitter pill to swallow. It
pains the CEOs
in the sector that they have to compete for the loose change
from an
investor's pocket as it were. Having been unsuccessful in the quest
to
change sentiment towards the sector, attention has now turned towards
convincing the market that for those seeking an exposure to investment
income based earnings, one company is better than the
other.
First Mutual has moved out of the penny stock range
largely as a
result of its "stature" and presumed underlying potential which
many feel
has not been fully exploited. Now that the dust seems to have
settled as far
as shareholder issues are concerned it remains to be seen
whether the entity
can live up to expectations. The counter in a way runs
the danger of being
another value trap after ZHL, which shed the penny stock
cloak a few years
back, but is still to actively compete with the rest of
the market for the
investor's dollar.
We digress. Back to
the financials, Nicoz's gross written
premium grew by 891% to $1, 9 trillion
with the growth driven by the
inflationary revaluation of assets. Outflows
in the form of administration
expenses and claims' costs grew at a slower
pace of 827% to $1,1 trillion,
which after accounting for re-assurance costs
of $685 billion ensured that
an underwriting profit of $73,1 billion as
compared to a loss of $1,9
billion was recorded.
Zimnat,
on the other hand, managed to grow the gross premiums
written by 1 085%, to
$1,2 trillion, after adopting a "deliberate strategy
to retain and attract
only the profitable business". As has become the norm,
outflows of
administration, reassurance and claim costs exceeded revenues
and
consequently a $38 billion underwriting loss was recorded.
On
the basis of gross written premium, Nicoz is the bigger of
the two, whilst
at core business level of underwriting risks, Nicoz again
gets the better of
Zimnat. The new man directing operations at Zimnat's
parent company, TA, has
been at pains to explain how the insurer always
manages to lose money at
this level. He has, if we remember correctly,
promised to rectify the
situation by the end of this year. As such the
market cannot wait for March
2007.
For investment income, Nicoz booked in $1,4 trillion,
of which
$1 trillion was in the form of property revaluations, whilst
Zimnat only
chalked in $554,2 billion, mainly from the gains in equities.
The latter
does not revalue properties at half year. Stripping off the
properties, then
the investment incomes look almost identical, with Zimnat
appearing to have
scored better.
Because of the different
treatment of investment properties by
the two rivals, the bottom lines are
poles apart, with Nicoz showing
attributable earnings of $1,1 trillion
compared with Zimnat's $338,9
billion.
Lastly for those
who follow both the stock market and local
football, the blue and green
corporate colours of the two companies easily
bring to mind the two
Harare-based soccer clubs Dynamos and Caps United. At
this stage, however,
we are not sure whether the analysis can be taken any
further than
that.
Zim Independent
RESERVE Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon
Gono says his
quasi-fiscal operations have been made "to defend the
country's
infrastructure networks".
In a letter to David
Butau, the chairman of the parliamentary
portfolio committee on Budget,
Finance and Economic Development, Gono said
his quasi-fiscal interventions
had saved the country's infrastructure
networks "from total collapse due to
inadequacy of traditional fiscal
revenue streams".
In his
letter to Butau, sent a day after his presentation to the
committee on
Monday, Gono said he had fully discussed "the growing incidence
of some
parastatals, such as Zesa and Air Zimbabwe, claiming for foreign
currency
and getting allocations from the Reserve Bank without paying the
corresponding local currency".
Gono has come under fire
from certain quarters of government who
allege his quasi-fiscal operations
have encroached into ministerial
territory, undermining the powers of
cabinet ministers and often turning
ministries into Reserve Bank
subsidiaries.
In his reflections on the country's
relationship with the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) in May, Gono said
the Reserve Bank Act
mandated the central bank to undertake quasi-fiscal
interventions, saying
these had the tacit approval of the Ministry of
Finance.
The central bank this year came under fire from the
IMF which
took Gono to task over quasi-fiscal operations on projects they
said should
have been funded by the Ministry of Finance through the
budget.
The central bank had provided resources for dam
construction,
irrigation systems and infrastructure development, among
others.
In his submissions to parliament, Gono said
infrastructure
network saved from collapse through his interventions
included the railways
network, power generation plants, water reticulations
and irrigation
systems, coal mines, telecommunication networks, iron and
steel production
plants as well as others related to the health delivery
system and Air
Zimbabwe. - Staff Writer.
Zim Independent
Shakeman Mugari
THE Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) this week ordered Time Bank
to stop repayments to
depositors, threatening to unleash the police on the
bank's directors if
they continue the exercise.
The directive and threats came
soon after Time Bank started
repaying depositors whose money locked in the
bank when it was placed under
curatorship by the RBZ two years
ago.
Sources this week told businessdigest that the RBZ's
Registrar
of Banks, Norman Mataruka, wrote to the directors of the bank
instructing
them to stop the repayments which started at Hellenic Sports
Club on
Wednesday.
Mataruka demanded that the directors
also stop placing
advertisements in the media using the name Time Bank
because the institution's
licence had been cancelled. The letter, sources
said, also warned that the
central bank would seek legal intervention if
they continued using the name
Time Bank.
The letter has
set the stage for what might be a protracted
legal battle, with revelations
yesterday that Time directors had since
appealed against the directive and
wowed to continue with the repayments as
scheduled in public notices to
depositors.
The shareholders said the RBZ no longer had the
power to make
decisions about Time Bank after the purported cancellation of
its licence.
Time has since appointed a company called
Chadford Investments
to make the repayments on its
behalf.
"We got the letter but we have appealed against the
directive.
In the meantime we will continue to repay our depositors as
planed," said
one director who requested anonymity.
"It's
a shocking threat. We believe they want to disrupt our
repayment plan and
then push the institution into liquidation where
depositors and creditors
will be paid far less than what they deserve."
Zim Independent
Paul Nyakazeya
THE Eastern and
Southern African Trade and Development Bank (PTA
Bank) has earmarked more
than US$30 million for Zimbabwe, the bank's
president revealed to
businessdigest this week.
The money will be targeted at
projects and trade facilities.
The money will be availed to
local banking institutions in the
form of a credit line, Michael Gondwe, the
PTA Bank president, said.
"Last year, the bank provided US$30
million for projects and
trade facilities in this country. We expect this
figure to go up further
this year, as we enhance our support for the local
business community," said
Gondwe.
He refused to say
exactly how much the bank was committing to
the country this year, but
indicated arrangements had already been made to
extend the credit lines
under the facility to local banks.
This week Gondwe presented
a US$5 million short-term line of
credit to the Zimbabwe Allied Banking
Group, for use by exporters in
financially viable post-shipment transactions
in the agro-processing,
manufacturing, mining and other export-oriented
transactions.
"We fully support business growth in Zimbabwe
and want to
surpass what we did last year. I cannot say which banks we will
be working
with but we are doing our best not only in Zimbabwe but in the
eastern and
southern African sub-region," Gondwe told
businessdigest.
PTA Bank is a developmental institution whose
role is to
financing development projects in east and southern
Africa.
"This post-shipment facility basically caters for the
export
sector taking into account the need to grow foreign exchange
generation
capability," said Gondwe.
Zimbabwe has over
the past five years been experiencing acute
foreign currency
shortages.
During the year to December 2005, foreign exchange
inflows into
the formal market amounted to US$1,70 billion, compared to
US$1,71 billion
in 2004, representing a decline of 0,46%.
Underperformance in export was compensated for by increased
short-term
facilities. Total export shipments last year amounted to US$1,43
billion, a
decline of 9,04% from US$1,58 achieved the same period in 2004.
Zim Independent
Dumisani Ndlela
ZIMBABWE'S foreign currency market remained
strapped for cash a
month after the central bank introduced a semi-liberal
regime allowing
exporters to retain a huge chunk of their export receipts in
foreign
currency accounts (FCAs), dealers said this week.
Dealers said exporters were holding on to hard currency under
the new
system, and were even unwilling to enter into twin arrangements with
importers as provided for under the new exchange control
regime.
"We're still to see the fruition of the refined
system as it has
so far failed to induce inflows into the system," a dealer
told
businessdigest.
"The only money coming in is from
NGOs (non-governmental
organisations) but they are now complaining about the
exchange rate," said
the dealer.
The central bank, which
devalued the local currency to $250 to
the greenback, allowed gold miners
and exporters to retain 70% of their
foreign currency earnings in foreign
currency for an indefinite period.
Exporters were previously
only allowed to retain 70% of export
receipts in FCAs for up to 30 days,
after which they were obliged to
liquidate any unused balances into the
interbank market.
Gold producers retained about 40% of their
earnings in FCAs. The
central bank, through subsidiary Fidelity Printers, is
the sole buyer of
gold in the country.
RBZ governor
Gideon Gono said the exporters, who include
horticultural producers, would
"keep their FCA balances without fear of
forced liquidation by either the
central bank or the authorised dealers".
In a later notice
sent to authorised dealers, the central bank
said exporters could trade
funds in their FCAs to importers on a
willing-seller, willing-buyer basis
for the purposes of financing exchange
control approved
transactions.
But dealers said both exporters and importers
were unwilling to
trade under these measures, described as twinning
arrangements, because of
the disclosure requirements under the
system.
"Both exporters and importers are also unwilling to
get into the
twinning arrangements because they fear the requirement to
declare their
relationships could open them up to scrutiny for any previous
deals," the
dealer said.
Under the twinning arrangement,
an importer identifies an
exporter with excess FCA balances. The exporter
declares excess funds to an
authorised dealer, upon which both exporter and
importer are compelled to
provide certain declarations to the central
bank.
Dealers said there was still huge demand for foreign
currency on
the market, hinting that the bulk of foreign currency
transactions ware
still taking place on the parallel market where the
greenback was selling
for a higher rate than that on the official
market.
"The rate for the greenback is between $700 and $800
for volume
movers. Cash transactions are going for between $600 and $650 for
the
greenback," a dealer said.
Gono said in his monetary
policy statement in July that the new
measures would enable exporters "to
smoothly plan their cashflows, build up
resources for larger requirements in
future as well as create the necessary
conditions for a vibrant interbank
foreign exchange trading market".
"We now call upon exporters
to now play a more prominent role in
building this economy and to stop being
cry-babies anymore..it is time to
get on with your core business of
exporting," Gono said.
Zim Independent
By Rashweat Mukundu
THE latest
legislative offering by the government, the
Interception of Communications
Bill, should be seen in its wider context as
yet another assault on the
rights of the people of Zimbabwe.
The Bill, whose movers have
so far failed to justify beyond
mumbles of protecting national sovereignty
and clamping down on criminal
activity, is part of a grand and long-term
strategy to silence citizens and
extend the shadow of fear to the very heart
of our lives.
This is so because personal communication - be
it via mobile,
the Internet or post - is still personal communication and
such
communication is the most important and fundamental of all forms of
freedom
of expression. It is this form of communication that archaic and
repressive
laws such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy
Act and the
Public Order and Security Act have so far failed to
stop.
The people of Zimbabwe continue to talk either through
word of
mouth, the Internet, mobile and wireless telephony or indeed through
the
remaining independent newspapers.
Far from
appreciating the need to encourage and promote social
discussion, the latest
proposed law is a sign of growing paranoia within the
higher echelons of
power. This paranoia borders on wanting to know exactly
what the people are
saying because this is a government which knows very
well that it has done
nothing for its own people except bringing and
presiding over misery in its
abundance.
All this government can do is hang on to power for
self-aggrandisement and the people have become its enemy hence this proposed
law.
Submissions to parliament by state organs of
repression -
including the Posts and Telecommunications Authority of
Zimbabwe (Potraz),
the Media and Information Commission (MIC) as well as the
army - say they
are all for the snooping on people's communications. So far
no convincing
arguments have been proffered on how this snooping is to
benefit society.
The army talks of protecting national
sovereignty and security
and that there are threats to the sovereignty of
Zimbabwe from all over.
This military argument, as would be expected of any
military which ventures
into public and civilian matters, lacks any
substantiation apart from
raising fear as a means of justifying further
repression.
The army so far knows the enemy who threatens
Zimbabwe: MIC
chairman Tafataona Mahoso and Potraz as well as their handlers
alone.
This is an army well-known for beating civilians at
bus stations
and in beerhalls and is under orders from its
commander-in-chief to shoot
citizens who dare demonstrate peacefully against
bad governance, now
championing the protection of sovereignty and national
interests.
It is clear that in the eyes of this army the
sovereign is Zanu
PF and its leadership, and when this elite feels
threatened by the rightful,
genuine and well-meaning talk of citizens that
their lives are more than
miserable, the army indeed has to move in to
protect the "sovereign".
This is an army led by farmers,
businesspersons and politicians
whose hold on us is simply because they hold
the gun in their hands and are
more than ready to use it. Indeed this is an
army whose fate lies square
with that of its handlers.
Should the reason for the new Bill be to protect national
interest and
security, the law then cannot, in all fairness, target all
citizens in a
random and indiscriminate manner as is provided so far. Any
well-meaning law
should be very clear in its objectives and be clear on how
it relates to
citizens so that ordinary people can know how to regulate
their own
conduct.
As things stand the police chief can simply ask by
word of mouth
that he desires to snoop on this and that person and the
minister
responsible for this law can by word of mouth give his/her consent.
Those
who have snatched girlfriends from the police chief, intelligence and
military gurus and indeed those who challenge the political dominance of
this government are hereby warned.
Sovereignty in Zanu PF
jargon means quite a lot indeed.
Other arguments for this
Bill were provided by Mahoso.
Mahoso is well-known for his
failure to talk about anything
without displaying his ever-present colonial
hangover that anything about
Zimbabwe has to be seen in relation to the
West. Far from preaching a gospel
of moving Zimbabwe away from what he calls
the neo-colons, Mahoso cannot
survive without talking of the West. He has
nothing to say besides
criticising the West which gave him an
education.
Mahoso talks of the West as monitoring and
watching Zimbabwe
through the Internet and so forth and, to him, Zimbabwe
has to hit back by
watching the West. How? We are not
told.
This Bill, Mahoso should be told, is not about watching
the West
but watching ordinary Zimbabweans in their day-to-day activities,
and indeed
about watching which faction in Zanu PF does Mahoso belong
to.
Mahoso and Potraz argue further that other countries have
similar laws - the United States, Britain and Canada, among others. And in
typical Mahoso confused thinking, if the West is monitoring its people's
communications that should be good for Zimbabwe - all this from a man who
purports to have a radical thinking from the West.
The
fact that the US government or any other government for that
matter monitors
its citizens legally or illegally is inconsequential to the
citizens of
Zimbabwe, because the argument against this Bill remains that
such
monitoring is a violation of our rights.
Indeed the courts in
the US have in the past few weeks ruled
such activities illegal. At least in
that part of the word, the "sovereigns"
can be reined in. In our part of the
world, the word of the "sovereign" and
their wishes are indeed the command
of "our" judiciary.
Mahoso argues further that the Internet
originated from the
military, hence its intention must be sinister and
Zimbabwe, if he has his
way, should just ban the Internet for, in his
thinking, a missile aimed at
Harare might just be fired from the
Internet.
The Internet might have originated in the military,
yes, as
Mahoso told parliamentarians, but like anything that originated in
the
military - from medical research to many other inventions - the Internet
has
since moved to civilian use and it has made more impact in civilian life
that Mahoso and team are only happy to see regress in
Zimbabwe.
Should this law be about monitoring criminal
activities, then it
cannot have a blanket and open-ended berth to monitor
all citizens in what
amounts to a fishing expedition by the army, the
police, intelligence and
the minister responsible.
Far
from protecting the rights of the people of Zimbabwe, this
law in fact
creates a cyber fascist concentration camp for all citizens of
Zimbabwe. All
in the name of protecting the sovereign Zanu PF leadership.
Where Ian Smith created mini-concentration camps in Rhodesia,
where rural
people were herded like cattle, Zanu PF has simply perfected the
art and is
creating a virtual concentration camp where we are all stripped
naked, and
all our communications snooped on by the military, intelligence
and the
police.
The message is very clear: the "sovereign" is
watching you and
be very afraid, very afraid.
* Rashweat
Mukundu is Misa-Zimbabwe director.
Zim Independent
By Bill Saidi
IN the Middle
East, in Europe, the United States and even in
Africa, suicide bombers have
blown up buses, cars, trains, holiday resorts
and even flown aircraft into
skyscrapers, killing thousands of people.
The body count in
Zimbabwe comes nowhere near that. Yet our
record of the carnage in road and
train accidents has reached alarming
proportions.
If you
add the number of people killed by the police, in the
pursuit of criminals
or innocent by-standers, then you may wonder what kind
of "monster" is
stalking the people.
The tendency is to conclude that it is
the consequence of an
economy on its last legs, or a political system so
steeped in duplicity and
mendacity that most people are not sure where they
are going from one moment
to the next.
Yet, in the midst
of all this carnage, there are government
officials who seem to be genuinely
disturbed by the possibility of this
country as the target of
terrorism.
This is not terrorism confined to the occasional
bank robbery in
the middle of First Street in Harare or Fort Street in
Bulawayo. This is a
full-scale terrorist attack by suicide bombers, such as
we have seen in
countries perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be aiding and
abetting the
"enemies of Islam".
These government
officials seem to spend sleepless nights
worrying, not about the rising
death toll on our roads, railway network or
at the hands of trigger-happy
police officers. Instead, they are busy
studying huge volumes on how to
protect the country against an invasion by
terrorists of one kind or
another.
Ideologically, Zimbabwe's foreign policy is now
dictated by what
one might call unenlightened self-interest. In essence,
this is a policy
anchored on a wishy-washy anti-Western stance, laced
liberally with the
accusation that this bloc has imposed "illegal" sanctions
on the country to
avenge the murderous seizure by the government of
President Robert Mugabe of
huge commercial farms formerly owned by a few
hundred white farmers.
The accusations are becoming more
strident and more frequent as
the land reform programme seems to be plagued
by corruption in high places
and the clueless bungling of the "new farmers",
on whose shoulders the food
security of the country now
rests.
Once in a while, a government official makes a public
pronouncement that debunks this official line. Last week, Health and Child
Welfare deputy minister Edwin Muguti was reported by the Herald, the
government's loudest official mouthpiece, as having "denied that the problem
of radiotherapy machines was a result of illegal sanctions imposed on
Zimbabwe".
Typically, there was no attempt to elaborate
on his statement.
Had someone - the reporter, perhaps - tried to tempt him
into blaming the
problem on the "usual suspects", the Western
countries?
Muguti is one member of the government whose
refreshing candour
on such ticklish issues must be giving someone higher up
a few sleepless
nights.
Another one is the governor for
Mashonaland East, Ray Kaukonde,
who continues to berate both political and
government leaders in his area of
jurisdiction over their incompetence and
laziness.
The same could be said of Tinaye Chigudu, the
Manicaland
governor. He too has refused to throw around meaningless
platitudes which
tend to give civil servants and politicians the impression
that whatever it
is they are doing - for most of them this amounts to little
more than
sleeping on the job - is fine with him.
One man
who sees his job as being that of protecting the country
against foreign
ideologies and even foreign enemies is Tafataona Mahoso. He
is the chairman
of the Media and Information Commission, the enforcer of the
notorious
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Aippa).
His forte is, it now turns out, not the media and information
sector, but
security. At the first hearing of the Interception of
Communications Bill in
Harare last week, he held forth for a long time on
the perils Zimbabwe faced
if it did not pass this law.
Mahoso has studied his subject
closely. You had the impression
he really loves the subject, perhaps more
than he loves any idea that
without freedom of expression, no country is
secure, that people will defend
their country with their lives if its
freedom is threatened by an alien
force.
Mahoso spoke
with a chilling self-assurance, as if he was
convinced that this country is
headed for apocalypse if it doesn't pass into
law the Interception of
Communications Bill.
As I listened to him, I gained the
distinct impression that, for
Mahoso and people of his ideological ilk,
freedom of expression, the
liberalisation of the economy, openness in
government, and handling people
with dignity and respect were not
priorities.
The No l priority was the security of the
government, not even
necessarily that of the country. Mahoso reminded me of
an old film called Dr
Strangelove, which starred Peter Sellers as this mad
scientist who loved the
atomic bomb.
The calmness and the
deadly seriousness with which he spoke made
me wonder if this man would ever
be in the proper frame of mind to embrace
the concept of freedom of
expression as understood in the Bill of Rights of
our Constitution or in
Article 19 of the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human
Rights.
I was chilled by his seemingly unshakeable conviction
that
freedom of expression, as understood throughout the free world, was
totally
anathema to the security of all nations.
If you
juxtapose this position with the consequences of the
economic meltdown
brought about by the decline in agricultural productivity
since 2000, you
begin to wonder if this government is ready to sacrifice
many innocent lives
until the West comes to Harare on bended knees to seek
Mugabe's
forgiveness.
Mugabe has said publicly that "Zimbabwe will
soldier on" in
spite of the crisis it is facing. This could translate into
letting the
economy sink as long as the West does not confess that it is to
blame for
everything and seeks his forgiveness.
A group
of Christians from the United Kingdom did exactly that
last week. They asked
for forgiveness on behalf of their ancestors who
plundered Africa after they
decided to share its spoils.
There were pertinent questions
after these confessions: Chief
Fortune Charumbira, a deputy minister of the
government, asked if the
Christians would return to Britain to ask their
government to drop the
sanctions because the land reform programme had been
implemented to right
the wrongs of the past.
A number of
African countries have had their huge debts
cancelled by the West with
little to show for it. Zimbabwe has not been one
of them. Although it has
virtually begged the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) to revise its status
with the financial institution,there are still
nagging questions to be
resolved.
By and large, the IMF would like to be assured that
Zimbabwe
will respect private property and assure foreign investors that if
they sink
their money into the country, they can be guaranteed security of
tenure.
There is very little chance that the people of
Europe, in
general, would agree to a blanket programme of compensation for
Africa for
the exploitation of its natural resources and the enslavement of
its people.
Yet there is a measure of merit in the African
case. What may be
problematical is this: if everything, including debt, is
forgiven, what
guarantee can there be that the African people themselves,
not just their
leaders, will enjoy the fruits of that grand
gesture?
* Bill Saidi is editor of the banned Daily News
on Sunday
Zim Independent
News Analysis with Dumisani Ndlela
THE situation is disheartening. Just days after the old family
of bearer
cheques was phased out from the market under Project Sunrise - a
Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe initiative heralding the dawn of a new era -
inflationary
pressures remain relentlessly entrenched in the country's
beleaguered
economy.
Central bank governor Gideon Gono in July launched
currency
reforms aimed at discontinuing speculative activities which he
blames as the
major cause of the country's inflationary
woes.
But while the new bearer cheque system has brought
convenience
to business transactions, it has done little to stop the sharp
hikes in
prices and create stability in the crisis-sapped
economy.
Inflation touched an all-time high of close to 1
200% in May
although it subsided slightly over the past two months to 993,6%
year-on-year for July.
But analysts predict a resurgence
to about 1 200% before the
year is out. Commodity prices have increased
significantly over the past two
months, putting pressure on
incomes.
The currency reforms entailed the replacement of old
bearer
cheques, an equivalent of bank notes, with new bearer cheques with
three
zeros removed.
Gono set a three-week transition
period from August 1 to 21 for
the phasing out of the old bearer cheques,
setting out tough conditions for
deposits that were aimed at flushing out
speculators.
He warned that the central bank would soon
introduce a new
currency and little notice would be given in phasing out
bearer cheques in
circulation.
Consumers who went
shopping after their month-end salaries would
have bought a five-litre jug
of cooking oil for $3 500 during the five days
to August
31.
This week, the price for the same product went up 36% to
$4 750.
This rate of price increases for basic food commodities has,
regrettably,
become the norm since Gono announced the package of currency
reforms aimed
at rescuing the country from
hyperinflation.
"We will persuade the various arms of
government to pursue those
who cheat consumers," Gono threatened this
week.
For those that will go back to the supermarkets to
restock
groceries at the end of this month, the bad news is that prices
might have
trebled. And a weekly visit to the shops might be helpful to keep
track of
the price changes to avoid the proverbial shock of a
lifetime.
Industrialists said a foreign currency crunch was
driving prices
up. The devaluation of the local unit on the foreign exchange
market meant
that the import costs for inputs had increased, and this had
consequently
led to price increases since Gono's new measures were
announced.
For example, they said, the soya beans in the
cooking oil, as
well as material used in the production of the plastic
containers, were
being imported.
"If an industry is
buying its foreign currency from the official
market, then they have to
factor in the devaluation effected by Gono. If
they are sourcing the foreign
currency from the parallel market, they have
to factor in the daily movement
of the currency on the parallel market,
which might mean daily or weekly
reviews on pricing," an industry player
told the Zimbabwe
Independent.
Gono declared that August 1 marked the dawn of a
new era in the
fight against inflation, launching currency reforms he said
would inhibit
speculation and bring the country "some stability and
convenience".
"All of us would like the sun to set on the
dark, speculative
world of trading; cash hoarding and skyrocketing inflation
so many of us
have been conditioned to," Gono said during his monetary
policy review on
July 31.
Analysts said Gono's policy
measures had failed to receive
backing from business, resulting in continued
price hikes that were
militating against his efforts.
However, business was not increasing prices to frustrate Gono's
policies;
they were doing so to remain in business and avoid job losses
because of
company closures, they said.
But a sizeable number of cabinet
ministers, sources said, had
raised muffled disapproval of the governor's
measures and were not
supportive of his policies despite public
pronouncements of support.
More significantly, most of the
government ministers and ruling
party elites were the major beneficiaries of
the crisis but Gono had
unwittingly aided them through cheap funds and
subsidised fuel for their
projects, analyst said.
Demand
for cash has escalated, not abated, and analysts said the
same old problem
faced under the old currency system - people and corporate
institutions not
re-depositing cash back into the banks - was likely to
become more
pronounced because of the rate at which commodity prices were
increasing.
"He did not address the issues that were
causing people not to
deposit their money in the banks," said economic
analyst John Robertson.
Gono, currently on a whirlwind tour
of the country's remote
areas where the majority of people remain stuck with
the old notes due to
inaccessibility of banking facilities, said he would
introduce new forms of
bearer cheques for big "cash
movers".
"To ensure that GMB, Cottco and other buyers of
agricultural
products do not continue to flood the market with cash, I have
proposed that
a special, transferable bearer instrument be designed for use
by these large
cash movers in the economy," Gono said.
Robertson said the cost of Gono's venture was huge, and the
governor could
have recognised that he could not continue to bear the burden
of printing
huge volumes of bearer cheques to meet increasing demand.
The
move to allow the GMB and other large cash movers was
therefore a way of
evading "the enormous costs of printing" bearer cheques,
said Robertson.
Zim Independent
By Renson Gasela
THE decision
by government to collect undelivered maize cannot
be allowed to go
unchallenged.
The Herald, on September 4, reports secretary
for Lands and
Agriculture Simon Pazvakavambwa as having told the
parliamentary portfolio
committee on Lands, Agriculture, Resettlement and
Rural Resources and Water
that there was a lot of maize that was still to be
collected.
He is said to have told the committee that the
Grain Marketing
Board (GMB)'s intelligence section had been dispatched to
establish the
actual situation on the ground.
"What we
are simply trying to avoid is the situation like what
happened last year in
which we sent trucks but some of them came back
empty," he was quoted as
saying.
There are several issues that arise from this very
bad
government action.
Firstly, there is clear
contradiction in Pazvakavambwa's
evidence to the committee. He says there
was a lot of maize but then says
they are sending intelligence teams to
ostensibly ascertain that there is,
in fact, a lot of maize. Who told the
GMB that there was a lot of maize?
The second point is the
term "collect undelivered maize". Whose
maize is it?
Farmers surely grow maize for their own use and sell surplus.
How does
government simply collect somebody's maize because it has not been
delivered?
I buy my own inputs, grow maize and government
decides to
"collect" it?
There is a shortage of
mealie-meal as reported by the Herald on
September 5. Why not allow Blue
Ribbon Foods and other millers to go and
buy maize directly from the
farmers?
The GMB has no money to pay the farmers; so
government decides
to "collect". Such callous behaviour can only be done by
a government that
is completely uncaring.
Thirdly, all
this confirms what we have said all along - that
only about 800 000 tonnes
of maize was produced this year and that the GMB
will not buy more than 300
000 tonnes.
We have been told that production this year is
1,8 million
tonnes. If that kind of maize had been produced there would be
queues and
queues of trucks delivering to GMB depots.
*
Renson Gasela is MDC secretary for lands and agriculture.
Zim Independent
Comment
PRESIDENT Festus Mogae's spokesman Jeff
Ramsay in his weekly
bulletin on Monday said the recent visit by the
Batswana leader to Zimbabwe,
at the invitation of President Mugabe, was an
opportunity for the two
leaders to reaffirm their commitment to build upon
longstanding fraternal
relations.
The two leaders,
together with their Zambian counterpart Levy
Mwanawasa, signed a memorandum
of understanding to construct a bridge across
the Zambezi River at
Kazungula. Ramsay said when completed the bridge would
benefit not only the
three countries, but the entire Sadc region and beyond.
Of
most significance in the presidential spokesman's bulletin
was this
statement: "It is for this reason that the initiative has also been
listed
as a priority project of the New Partnership for Africa's Development
(Nepad)."
That the Kazungula bridge undertaking is a
priority project
under Nepad was conveniently omitted in official
announcements during Mogae's
visit here. This is not surprising given
President Mugabe's views that Nepad
is a front for Western imperialism and
his refusal to subject himself to its
peer review
mechanism.
"Our position is that this is a voluntary and
individual choice
by some African countries," said Herbert Murerwa in an
interview with this
paper in 2003. "And we have chosen not to be reviewed.
We are not prepared.
It will be a government decision. When the government
decides the time is
ripe we will volunteer for review."
We have no record of a revision of this position. If anything
the government
is more ardent than before to keep the door shut on anyone
trying to pry
into its affairs. Yet President Mugabe's government has of
late participated
in Nepad projects in the name of pan-Africanism and to
advertise to the
world that he is not as isolated as the world would like to
believe.
President Mugabe's government would like to have
it both ways.
It is basking in the glow of Nepad projects but has failed to
adhere to
principles of the plan. Worse still, fellow African countries that
have
embraced the Nepad guidelines and principles pretend that the situation
in
Zimbabwe is normal hence there is no need for censure.
This blindness remains the biggest threat to Nepad.
It should
be noted that the first blow to Nepad came with
Zimbabwe's rigged elections
in 2000. Africa's leading democracy, South
Africa, failed to condemn the
Zimbabwe poll. The only African leader to do
so was Senegal's Abdoulaye
Wade, obviously in an attempt to save Nepad.
Western leaders'
interest in Nepad dropped significantly as the
upcoming "new partnership"
had demonstrated it would not move against
undemocratic leaders. One pillar
was lost.
Despite clear evidence of failure, African leaders
will talk
endlessly about review mechanisms, regional infrastructure
development and
the link between poverty and democracy. These are the
statesmen who will
damn any western leader who criticises African despotism,
yet demand a share
of the developed world's tax revenues.
They have backed Mugabe all the way along his six-year tramp
into the heart
of political darkness.
These are the same countries that are
reaping a grim feast from
Zimbabwe's demise. Zimbabwe's participation in
regional infrastructure
development under the current environment is most
likely to benefit its
neighbours and not necessarily us.
If we are to ask, do Zimbabweans today need a bridge across the
Zambezi in
the remote corner of Kazungula or investment in power generation?
But in the
quest for camaraderie, rational thinking has been replaced by
self-fulfilling antics which have nothing to do with national
development.
It is also important to note that the Sadc
Protocol on Finance
and Investment - which Zimbabwe is yet to sign - has a
clause which provides
for the setting up of a peer review panel, which will
act as a regional
macroeconomic monitoring and surveillance body. The panel
will comprise the
ministers of finance from member states as well as all
governors of central
banks from the region.
This is a
good initiative which is bound to be sabotaged in its
infancy by countries
which systematically subvert the rule of law and show
no respect for
property rights. We do not see Sadc states standing up to
challenge
President Mugabe's failed policies as long as they regard
fraternal bonds as
more important than good governance. And so long as that
remains the case
Nepad is bound to fail.
Zim Independent
Candid Comment
Joram Nyathi
THERE
are times when one is tempted to believe perhaps violence
and force is the
only language that Zimbabweans understand. I am talking
about Zimbabwean
drivers. I hate violence and there is no contradiction in
what I have just
said. Just wait.
In the past we used to worry about kombi
drivers. They were
virtually a law unto themselves on the country's roads.
People complained
about how they all seemed to behave the same. The kombis
posed the most
serious threat to other drivers.
You had
to be very vigilant if you were driving close to one.
All the kombi driver
needed to cut into your lane was an indication using an
extended arm or by
simply poking his head out of the window.
Your response was
not important to him. His wish was your
command if you wanted to avoid an
incident and did not want to spend hours
in an altercation as you waited for
a police officer to come and record a
statement.
The
mottos on the backs of most kombis said it all: "No Fear",
"Not Guilty",
"It's My Life" or "Keep Clear, I Can Stop Anytime". Often they
did, with
nasty consequences.
However, the Zanu PF government's
staggering ineptitude has
taken care of that unruly breed. Few of those
kombis remain on the roads to
cause a menace. There is either no fuel or no
spare parts. The majority of
them can be seen parked at empty service
stations at High Glen, Houghton
Park and other designated places where they
get subsidised fuel.
While this is a relief to road users, I
sometimes wonder how we
hope to achieve an economic turnaround when so many
people spend so many
man-hours sitting idle in empty kombis while workers
are stranded by the
roadside because there is no
transport.
But the kombi drivers have been replaced by
another breed
consisting of ordinary drivers.
I have not
read the Highway Code, Zimbabwe's premier manual on
road driving, in a long
time, but I doubt that it could have been affected
by our agrarian
revolution. Back then, the Code was explicit on a number of
road
rules.
You had to be cautious when passing near a school
because of
children. On the road a vehicle was supposed to be parked 7,5m
from a corner
and you had to maintain a distance of at least five cars
between yourself
and the vehicle in front of you if you were travelling at
75km/h, etc.
Most of these rules don't seem to apply anymore.
It is not
uncommon to see a driver breathing down your boot at 80 km/h at
night while
his lights are on full beam. It is a very serious risk to try
and warn him
about this dangerous behaviour.
But back to
the Highway Code and the drivers who drive me mad.
It was mandatory back
then that you give way to a fire tender or an
ambulance sounding its siren.
It was equally mandatory to give way when the
presidential motorcade was
coming.
In Zimbabwe drivers now respond only to the
presidential
motorcade.
An ambulance and a fire tender
are emergency vehicles whether
they are sounding their sirens or merely
flashing their revolving lights.
Property might be on fire and human life in
danger. There might be a road
accident with people trapped in a burning
vehicle or a house on fire.
From our offices in town I have
the privilege of watching fire
tenders and Mars ambulances blaring their
sirens up and down Rotten Row on a
daily basis. I have watched in horror as
drivers race these essential
service vehicles to the traffic lights on
Samora Machel and make every
effort to block their path.
Others are not so callous, but their behaviour is no better.
They will
simply stop in the path of the ambulance or the fire tender and
hope that
the driver will see what he can do.
But the time wasted while
the ambulance driver tries to see what
he can do could cost lives. It is the
most selfish kind of behaviour one can
think of.
So far
as I have observed, the presidential motorcade appears to
have the best
magic to unscramble the most intractable traffic snarl-up
imaginable. It
doesn't matter what time of the day it is or the amount of
traffic at the
robot or that the traffic signals are not functioning.
The
moment drivers observe those epithet-spitting,
vicious-looking,
finger-wagging presidential outriders they all want to
scurry for safety. I
have observed drivers driving the wrong way up a
one-way or driving over the
kerb to safety. In a matter of seconds the
normally clogged intersection of
Samora Machel and Rotten Row becomes a
thoroughfare for the president's
motorcade with its stacato of blazing amber
and blue
lights.
What worries me is the lack of sense of civic duty on
the part
of our drivers. They will scramble out of the road out of fear when
they see
the presidential motorcade but race an ambulance to the
robot.
There is the real possibility of being shot dead not
just for
racing the presidential motorcade but for failing to stop or clear
the way.
In other words we respond better to bullying and fear than to our
conscience.
Few ever imagine that the SOS could save
their child or their
house. This says a lot about the bad driving standards
on Zimbabwe's roads
and the carnage too. It is not the rules and good
manners that matter but
the fear of immediate consequences that will induce
people to observe road
rules.
So far it is only the
president who reminds people of the
Highway Code because you ignore the
motorcade at your own peril. Zimbabwean
drivers can understand only the
language of force and violence.
And, as if to prove the point
that we have become a nation of
heartless brutes, yesterday morning somebody
laid a mat of gravel stones
over 200m along Samora Machel in the city centre
without a care about the
danger the loose stones posed to fellow
drivers.
Zim Independent
Muckraker
MOST Zimbabweans would have been
profoundly unimpressed by the
theatrical performance of a group of Christian
ministers apologising for
crimes committed during the slave trade. They
should apologise for their
gullibility and playing into the partisan hands
of their hosts.
Why did they not apologise for the role of
West African warlords
who sold their captives into slavery? And what of Arab
slave traders who
depopulated the East African coast including
Mozambique?
Luckily former President Joaquim Chissano picked
up on these
obvious omissions when he said: "I wish I had the mandate to ask
for
forgiveness as well because most of the sins committed by Europeans were
not
committed by them alone."
None of the European
Christian "leaders" who took part in this
charade are household names which
suggests their mandate was less than
comprehensive. Who exactly are Roger
Mitchell and Chris Seaton? Had anybody
heard of them before last
week?
While Chissano complained that Africa's critics were
pointing to
bad governance and corruption as the reasons for the continent's
backwardness, there will understandably be doubts about a movement that
seeks to sweep these things under the carpet while focusing our attention on
something that happened in 1884. Britons did indeed cheat King Lobengula
then, but who is cheating Zimbabweans now?
Mitchell and
Seaton fall into the same category as Obi Egbuna
whose copy looks exactly as
if it had been written in the President's
Office. Having run out of local
propagandists, Zanu PF is now importing
them. Our question is: Who is paying
"pan-Africanists" like Egbuna to tell
Zimbabweans what to think about events
in their own country?
In this same context state
propagandists, having received their
marching orders for the week, persist
with the now threadbare claim that
Kofi Annan said he wants to see sanctions
against Zimbabwe scrapped.
This is one of several fictions
being propagated in the state
media surrounding Annan's talks with President
Mugabe in Banjul. Why doesn't
somebody at the Herald call Annan's office in
New York and ask him whether
he said that? It could be
enlightening.
We were interested to see Didymus Mutasa's
comments on the
presidential succession debate. Contrary to reports that the
ruling party
was reluctant to discuss the issue, they were in fact talking
about it, but
only in places "where the press will not be". The debate was
"hot, hot,
hot", Mutasa confessed. And in a particularly revealing remark he
said that
while some saw Joice Mujuru as the successor, others were
proposing
different names.
"I am not necessarily saying
the position of those who think
Amai Mujuru is the successor is the correct
one, or that is what will
happen, but that is how the discussion is taking
place," he said.
We think he may have said too
much!
Meanwhile, we have our own question for Mutasa: As you
aspire to
high office yourself, how could you be so ignorant as to suppose
you can sue
a public prosecutor for remarks made in court and a newspaper
for publishing
those remarks? But you were dead right in predicting that no
prosecution
against Patrick Chinamasa would ever stick. How did you
know?
We would have loved the state media to say it. They
didn't, so
we will have to say that Zimbabwe scored another first last week
when it
elevated its traditional healers to the level of professional
medical
doctors.
From the little knowledge we have of
these people, they operate
from their homes, are very poor and claim to be
guided by their ancestors on
what leaves or roots cure what ailment. They
have no formal training of any
sort except their own personal claims to what
they know.
Last week Deputy Health minister Edwin Muguti
announced that
these traditional medical practitioners would now be allowed
to prescribe
off days for their patients.
Even stranger
than fiction, Dr Muguti said a patient could tell
his medical doctor that he
wanted to consult a traditional healer if there
was no improvement in his
condition.
"The medical doctor should even be in a position
to refer their
patients to the n'anga and muporofita (faith healer) when
they realise that
there is nothing new they can offer them," Muguti
advised.
He gave Aids, BP and asthma, which he said had no
cure, as
examples of why medical doctors were no better equipped than
witchdoctors
whose arcane practices can only be revealed to a select few by
benevolent
dead ancestors.
This in a way endorses
dangerous claims by a lot of mountebanks
who say they can cure Aids. Some
have told their patients to rape infants as
a prescription to cure Aids
while a couple of faith healers are serving time
in prison after they raped
their patients as a form of treatment for various
ailments.
It really doesn't matter that the so-called
traditional medical
practitioners are registered or not, this is a clear
admission of
institutional failure by a government that has forced most of
the skilled
workers and professionals into the diaspora. Desperate poor
people who can't
afford private doctors are therefore being given false hope
that they can
have their problems solved by hungry crooks with no
certificate of
competence in any known field of human endeavour. Is there no
end to this
government's bag of tricks?
Curiously, will
these voodoo medical practitioners accept our
medical aid society cards as
payment or do we need a new family of cards
administered by a new council?
We shudder to think of ambulances rushing to
vleis and kopjes to deposit
patients at open air "surgeries".
We thought there was enough
circus coming out of South Africa
with Health minister Manto
Tshabalala-Msimang vending her garlic and
beetroot as Aids cures. She
evidently has her admirers in Zimbabwe.
With the shambles at
the Ministry of Health, it is not
surprising that ambulances have been
turned into kombis. Could Muguti tell
Muckraker why the driver of ambulance
GHCW 0642 was collecting money from
about a dozen "patients" emerging from
the critical care vehicle at Mbare
Musika on
Wednesday.
Muckraker would like to apologise for getting
Muguti's name
wrong last week. A typographical error crept in and we ended
up with Muvuti.
Which is definitely not healthy!
A
sign spotted outside a Moscow bar recently: "All day happy
hour. Pay two,
get one."
We can't help but feel these Russkies still haven't
quite
grasped the rudiments of capitalism!
Meanwhile,
is it true Zanu PF has a secret committee with the
mandate to cause maximum
disruption to people's lives? You can imagine the
scene: "Comrades, what can
we do this week to keep the nation on its toes?
Why don't we change the
number plates again so everybody will be thoroughly
inconvenienced? And
let's make sure our own companies benefit with exclusive
contracts."
"What about the new bearer cheques. Can't we
phase them out with
only 24 hours notice and bring in new notes? That should
see the populace
jumping. Christmas would be a good
time."
"And what about Operation Murambatsvina? Isn't it time
we
conducted another sweep through the MDC townships? There are reports
people
are returning to their old sites."
"Newspaper
vendors must definitely be taxed. That will hurt our
enemies in the press.
And provide new revenue flows."
If anybody had any
remaining doubts about the bona fides of the
Human Rights Commission the
government proposes to set up, those doubts will
have been confirmed by an
article in the Herald of August 4 by Susan
Chipanga. She makes it abundantly
clear that the task of this new body will
be to "rein in" NGOs. These
organisations have been falsifying Zimbabwe's
human rights record, Chipanga
claims, drawing on statements by Patrick
Chinamasa.
"The
damage inflicted by such fabricated reports has been
immeasurable," she
says. Investors and tourists might think there was
anarchy in the
country.
And what of the cases that the state has not
contested such as
those involving Gabriel Shumba and Tonderayi Macharidza?
Were they
fabricated? What of Joseph Mwale's record? What can Chipanga tell
us about
his whereabouts?
Nothing could be more damaging
to a country's reputation than
the impression that law enforcement agencies
literally get away with murder.
As bad as this is the view that gullible
journalists betray their profession
and serve the state by masking its
record of misrule.
Something that fascinates us about
government newspapers is that
one of them will state something as fact and
the rest will blindly follow.
Last week there was a reference
in the Herald to Bilateral
Investment Protection Agreements which it called
Bipas. The rest of the pack
followed without looking to see whether these
were not in fact Bippas,
Bilateral Protection and Promotion Agreements. Will
somebody please clarify.
We were interested to read about
Zanu PF's Information secretary
Nathan Shamuyarira urging journalists to
have a "clear ideological position"
for them to be consistent on matters of
principle. He said lack of an
ideological position was responsible for a lot
of confusion among reporters.
Zanu PF, he told a publicity
workshop in Kadoma, had won the war
against colonialism because of a clear
ideology among cadres.
We understand that ideology to have
been informed by
Marxism-Leninism but wonder if his party is still keen on
the spirit of
selflessness and personal sacrifice for one's
country.
Going by the charges of corruption and malfeasance
in the
political leadership, we doubt if that is what the party's ideology
was
about.
We also liked Shamuyarira's observation that
the nation could
"only benefit and develop in the right direction" if
journalists discharged
their duty with "honesty and
integrity".
That should include telling each other the truth
about the
causes of our national malaise instead of trying to find
non-existent
scapegoats in foreign lands as practised in the official media.
Telling lies
about Tony Blair or what Annan pledged to do for Zimbabwe is
unlikely to
lead the nation in the right direction. We are busy fooling
ourselves and
hoping that by some quirk of nature our problems will vanish
just because we
choose to call them challenges.
It is
interesting that only mandarins obsessed with thought
control found any
merit in the Interception of Communications Bill. During a
public hearing
last week, a fervent supporter of the Bill was Tafataona
Mahoso who said the
law was necessary to counter espionage and terrorism in
the global village
"because we are under surveillance all the time".
He didn't
say who had put him under surveillance and how that
necessitated putting
every Zimbabwean under the daily observation of the
nation's securocrats.
The Bill was attacked for vesting too much power in
the minister who is
given carte blanche to decide who to put under
surveillance without any
legal oversight by the courts.
It's patently ridiculous that
an aggrieved party can only seek
redress from the same minister who is
persecuting him. It replicates the
same totalitarian Big Brother mentality
in Aippa where an aggrieved party
can only appeal to the same minister who
has denied him information in the
first place. Why does a mere minister need
to exercise so much power over
the daily lives of ordinary citizens?
Zim Independent
By Eric Bloch
IN the days of
carnivals and funfairs, an extremely popular
sideshow was one where a pretty
girl, and an angelically-looking young man,
a clown, or some other
individual, would be seated on a plank a metre or
more above a large tank of
water. The public would be invited to pay an
amount which would accord them
the right to throw three balls at a target
mounted above the person seated
on the plank and, if the thrower could
successfully hit the target's
bulls-eye, the plank would automatically tilt,
thrusting its occupant into a
forceful plunge into the tank of water.
It was
incomprehensible to many that so very many of the
carnival visitors would
gleefully part with their monies in order to try to
inflict discomfort and
embarrassment upon the plank-seated victim, but those
willing to spend in
order to have the dubious pleasure of forcing a
drenching upon another, who
had done them no ill, far outnumbered those who
pondered the motivation for
doing so.
The same holds good in Zimbabwe when it comes to
economic
issues, and the handling of those issues by the authorities.
Whilst,
admittedly, more often than not, the authorities have demonstrated a
gross
lack of will, and/or an immense inability, to address Zimbabwean
economic
ills and needs effectively, nevertheless, there are occasions when
they do
so.
Moreover, there are instances when their
motivations and
intentions are well-founded, but the results of their
actions fail to meet
expectations, either because they were ill-advised, and
were not aware
thereof, or because the efficacy of their actions was
undermined and
counteracted by ill-considered, destructive actions by others
in authority.
However, as with the carnival and fun fair
patrons, many in
Zimbabwe gain so much Machiavellian glee and
self-satisfaction from casting
scathing criticism at the authorities, that
they do so even when the
measures taken were economically beneficial (even
if only in certain
targeted respects and not pertaining to the economy as a
whole), and also
when the measures are unsuccessful, or only partially
successful, contrary
to the expectations of the
authorities.
They are vociferous in their castigation of
those who promote or
initiate the economic measures of which they
disapprove, irrespective of the
underlying reasons for those measures, and
irrespective of the actual
outcome of the implementation of those
measures.
Of course, those outspoken critics do not only vent
their ire
against the authorities, but also against any who have the
temerity to have
views at variance to those of the critics or, even worse,
who see fit to
speak favourably of such authorities. They are dubbed to be
duped
praise-singers, or are alleged to be pursuing a self-centred hidden
agenda
(and that notwithstanding the number of times that they have been
equally
critical of, and outspoken against, the same authorities that they,
on a
particular occasion, commend. That such commentators may be striving to
be
balanced and equitable in their judgements, praising that which they
perceive to be good, and condemning that which, in their view, is bad, is
wholly disregarded).
This columnist has oft been the
recipient of such allegations,
and of pronounced condemnation, and will
undoubtedly continue to be so. But
that shall not deter me from criticising
government, the Reserve Bank, or
others, when such criticism appears to me
to be merited, or from commenting
favourably when, for right or for wrong,
policies or actions appearing to be
deserving thereof. As Zimbabwe now
rarely has carnivals or funfairs whereat
those who wish to can vent their
spleen, recourse to letters to the editor
remains available to
them.
One of the greatest recipients of floods of criticism,
since
shortly after his appointment, is governor of the Reserve Bank, Gideon
Gono.
When he was appointed, government created an
overwhelming crisis
of expectation, using its very extensive
state-controlled media to herald
him as the economic saviour, as the
miracle-worker who would, almost
single-handedly, reverse the economic
devastation which, although not
acknowledged, had been inflicted upon
Zimbabwe by its government. The
propaganda machine, and its intense
trumpet-blowing, intentionally
disregarded the incontrovertible fact that no
central bank, and no governor
of a central bank, can wholly assure a
country's economic wellbeing unless
the state's policies in general, and its
fiscal policies in particular, are
aligned with the monetary policies of the
central bank.
Thus, there was no possibility that the RBZ, or
its governor,
could achieve an economic turnaround, unless contemporaneously
with its
policies and actions government would pursue compatible, effective
policies
(which, to date, has not been the case). Until government does so,
at best
the RBZ and its governor can strive to minimise and counter economic
ills,
endeavour to create an enabling environment, and to such extent as
permitted
to do so, to advise government, notwithstanding that, all too
often, such
advice goes unheeded.
The recent
redenomination of Zimbabwe's currrency was a case in
point. Thanks to the
cataclysmic governmental mismanagement of the economy
since 1997,
hyperinflation became endemic in Zimbabwe. The magnitude of that
hyperinflation rendered the structure of Zimbabwe's currency wholly unsuited
to the economic environment.
Very few computer programmes
in use in Zimbabwe could process
transactions quantified in hundreds of
millions, billions, or trillions, of
dollars. The information technology
(IT) environment was increasingly
becoming operationally hampered and
incapable of coping. In like manner, the
cash registers in supermarkets
could not process a normal trolley-load of
groceries and household
requirements, and no petrol pump metre could reflect
the sale price of a
tank-full of petrol (even when such petrol was rarely
available). Desk
calculators with capacities of less than 12 to 16 digits
became virtually
useless. In like manner, the handling of currency became
almost
unmanageable. A shopper undertaking a weekly visit to a supermarket,
if not
possessed of a high-value credit or cheque card, had to carry a sack
full of
bearer cheques and bank notes to be able to pay for the contents of
a
routine shopping list.
In turn, the supermarket either had to
expend considerable
amounts on note-counters, or allow an intense
accumulation of customers in
queues, whilst cashiers laboriously counted
hundreds of notes tendered in
payment by each customer. Security hazards
intensified for shoppers carrying
bags of money, for shopkeepers who had to
hold in their premises, and
transport to their banks, vast volumes of
currency. Similarly, businesses
and individuals faced intensified security
hazards in withdrawing funds from
banks and building
societies.
All these, and other circumstances, stimulated
commerce and
industry in general, the IT industry and the finance sector in
particular,
and many of the populace, to urge RBZ to address the problems.
That resulted
in a decision to slash three zeros from Zimbabwe's currency,
as had been
successfully done, in like circumstances, by Mocambique, Italy,
Turkey,
Bolivia, Serbia, Brazil, Argentina, Israel, and many others. The
redenomination of currency became effective on August 1.
Inevitably, despite very intensive efforts to anticipate any and
all
problems, and to apply measures to prevent or minimise such problems,
some
would occur, and did occur, and especially so in rural areas and for
those
not active in the formalised financial sector.
But, a little
more than a month later, commerce and industry is
functioning with the
newly-denominated currency far more effectively than it
was able at the end
of the life of the former currency. Most IT problems
have been overcome,
security problems have markedly reduced, and almost all
the targeted
objectives of the currency redenomination have been achieved.
However, with the exception of the commendations of the banking,
IT, and
commercial sectors, the RBZ and its governor have been widely and
loudly
criticised and condemned. Focus has been upon the transition
difficulties,
instead of upon needs and results, and in the case of those
seeking to gain
political mileage, upon the fact that the currency
redenomination has done
naught to stem inflation, create employment,
stimulate investment, and to
address a myriad other economic issues. That
the redenomination was neither
intended, or designed, to address such
issues, and that other measures are
needed to deal with them (and especially
so of government), has been
ignored, and the unjustified criticisms loudly
voiced.
The RBZ and its governor do not, and cannot, do everything
right, and Gono
has demonstrated a ready and commendable willingness to
acknowledge error,
when error occurs but, were it not for the vigorous
efforts driven by him to
address those economic issues as he is able and
empowered to do, the
appalling state of the Zimbabwean economy would be even
more
abysmal.
The outcome of the currency redenomination exercise
proves that
the results justified the means, no matter what the critics may
say.
Zim Independent
Editor's Memo
Vincent Kahiya
LAST
week's edition of The Economist magazine carried a special
report that
should have stirred awe and horror in the minds of print media
entrepreneurs
and newspaper journalists.
The report said in the rich world,
"newspapers are now an
endangered species" due to the advent of the
Internet. The report quotes
Philip Meyers' book The Vanishing Newspaper as
predicting that at the
current rate of decline "the first quarter of 2043
will be the moment when
newsprint dies in America as the last exhausted
reader tosses aside the last
crumpled edition".
To
buttress this point The Economist included in the article
statistics of
falling readership of newspapers, an 18% decline in the number
of people
employed in the industry in America between 1990 and 2004 and
tumbling share
prices of listed newspaper publishing houses.
It also
reported that Britons aged 15 to 24 now spend 30% less
time reading
newspapers as they are hooked on the Internet which expanded
the oversight
role of the media through news aggregation sites such as
Google news, Yahoo
news and so on. There is also a new genre of e-news in
the form of blog
spots which has opened journalism to anyone with Internet
connectivity.
The article pointed out that the print
media would lose a
quarter of their share of advertising revenue to
Internet-based publications
in the next 10 years. Newspaper organisations
that will survive, the report
says, are those that will reinvent themselves
and migrate onto new media
platforms such as mobile phones and portable
electronic devices.
The tragedy of the print industry has
been that huge profits
achieved during the fat years have not been invested
in research and
development. The print media is now trying to play catch-up
to counter the
advancing Internet wave. The article is however clear that
this is the state
of affairs in the developed world and those of us in the
third world, where
the print media is actually growing, can feel safe, at
least for now.
A 2005 report by the World Association of
Newspapers (WAN) says
circulation sales were up 1,7% in Asia over the
previous year, 3,7% in South
America, 0,2% in Africa, but down 0,24% in
Europe and 2,5% in North America.
Other studies have shown
that newspapers in Africa are safe from
Internet intrusion because of poor
telephone connectivity on the continent.
There is also a large rural
population - a potential new market -- which is
yet to be introduced to more
basic media such as newspapers and radio. Then
there is hunger for news by
communities demanding greater accountability
from corrupt and inefficient
rulers. Papers in the third world, including
Zimbabwe, appear to have time
on their side largely due to the enveloping
underdevelopment.
Media magnate Rupert Murdoch last year
described this slothful
grasp of changes in the industry as "remarkably,
unaccountably complacent".
The same complacency was evident when cellphone
technology started to make
inroads on the continent. The little gadget was
regarded as a preserve of
the rich and the largely rural communities had
nothing to do with it. Just
10 years since its introduction, there are four
times more cellphone users
in rural areas in Zimbabwe than those connected
to fixed lines and the
demand is growing.
In our
preoccupation with survival in an environment dominated
by egregious media
legislation and a government that does not believe in
press freedom, we have
become servants of convention. Media owners have been
slow to invest in
research and development to prepare for an eventual
makeover of
the
industry.
We do not expect Dr Tafataona
Mahoso's Media and Information
Commission to lead the charge in ensuring
local media evolves in tandem with
the rest of the world. The MIC has become
a key appendage of the government
machinery to hamstring technological
advancement - a prerequisite for the
growth of new media - in the name of
sovereignty and patriotism.
Can the MIC do something positive
for once - like initiating
research in e-newspapers and other forms of new
media? The findings of the
research unfortunately will most likely be that
Zimbabweans don't need this
globalisation "evil". Not surprising, since
Mahoso believes Zimbabweans said
they wanted government to enact
Aippa!
Politicians must give others chances in civil society
REGARDING the two responses to my recent article on politics and
civil
society from Pedzisai Ruhanya and Frank Matandirotya, I am pleased
that the
expression "political incest" attracted the outrage of both
writers. This
makes for healthy debate, so sadly lacking in Zimbabwe today.
It is sad, however, that both responses come from the
comparative comfort
and safety of the UK and South Africa. I suggest that
both writers come home
and re-join the struggle. They may even be elected
to a post in one of the
civil society organisations, if current incumbents
are gracious enough to
give way and open the field to others.
For the record, I
resigned from the National Constitutional
Assembly National Task Force on
election to the MDC national executive in
February 2000, and I have never
represented CHRA at any major forum since my
election to Parliament,
remaining (at their request) simply chairperson of
the legal committee until
early this year.
My court case against the Chanakira
Commission was most famous
for my "wearing too many hats", according to
Justice Hlatshwayo, as
Matandirotya will surely remember. That was that I
was a resident of Harare,
a member of CHRA and a Harare MP. The Supreme
Court (where my appeal was
successful) ruled that I had sufficient locus
standi as an individual
resident, and did not need to stand on th