Zimbabwe Weekly Update – week ending 1 March 2010

Posted by ZDN on March 2, 2010

Politics

The MDC is demanding drastic action against Zanu-PF youths who last week threatened Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for not calling for the removal of targeted sanctions. The youths were marching in the capital on Wednesday in protest against the sanctions. They also detained a freelance photojournalist Andrison Manyere for filming the demonstration, but he was later released.

President Robert Mugabe on Saturday defended the new indigenisation law that requires all foreign companies to be 51 percent locally-owned, and he also warned foreign investors to keep away from the country’s mineral wealth. He was speaking at celebrations to mark his 86^th birthday. Tsvangirai and his two deputies did not attend Mugabe’s lavish birthday party which is estimated to have cost up to US$500 000.

China said last Monday its embassy in Zimbabwe had thrown a birthday party for Mugabe on Sunday. Chinese businesses are investing heavily in Zimbabwe.

An MDC rally on Sunday in Epworth just outside Harare was violently disrupted when Zanu-PF supporters in a three-vehicle convoy allegedly drove at the crowd, resulting in a brawl that left many injured. The act was condemned by the MDC who insisted on Tuesday that the Zanu-PF supporters sparked the violence.

US embassy economic advisor James Garry on Wednesday rejected suggestions that Zimbabwe was unable to access loans because of the targeted sanctions against Zanu-PF elite. He said even if Washington were to repeal the sanctions law, Zimbabwe would still not be eligible for financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and other funders because of outstanding arrears. In January, the African Development Bank said Zimbabwe’s debt of close to US$6 billion was too huge to allow the country to access new money.

South African President Jacob Zuma will use his state visit to the UK next week to plead with the British government to remove targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his supporters.

Zimbabwe’s constitutional committee has said it hopes to produce a new draft constitution by next February, which could see fresh elections, initially earmarked for 2011, further delayed.

Governance

Mugabe on Friday said the government is doing its best to increase salaries and improve conditions for civil servants, and asked workers to be patient while the government stabilizes the economy.

The Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) has allegedly recruited hundreds of street vendors and illegal street dealers as informers to monitor the activities of MDC officials and supporters, as well as diplomats and trade unionists. The youths have allegedly received Zanu-PF ideological training and are considered reserve militia.

A new report accuses Zimbabwe Cabinet ministers in the previous regime of plundering state assets prior to the formation of the unity government last year. The special report, compiled by the parliamentary committee on public accounts, also revealed the irregular appointment of more than 10 000 ghost workers, crippling the government’s capacity to pay civil servants.

Zimbabwe Prison Services (ZPS) allegedly does not have vehicles to transport remand and convicted prisoners to jail or to trial. At times, the police are called in to assist ZPS in transporting the prisoners.

State-owned Air Zimbabwe is to retrench a further 468 workers this year after it laid off 700 workers last year. The airline has also had to ground two of its three Chinese aircraft due to a serious shortage of spare parts and debt to the plane’s suppliers.

Zimbabwe and Botswana made peace last week when they met after weeks of tension following the arrest of three Botswana game rangers.

Business

Zimbabwe will impose a levy on foreign firms to compel them to comply with the new empowerment law. Indigenisation Minister Savior Kasukuwere also said the new empowerment law is only the beginning of legal interventions his ministry will undertake as it seeks to further indigenise the economy, 30 years after independence.

Mugabe and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono have reportedly differed on the indigenisation law, with Gono arguing that the act discourages investors. He has also said the law is being created by greedy Zanu-PF officials who want to grab companies for free, in the same way that they appropriated white-owned farms.

South African mining group African Rainbow Minerals is facing resistance from its shareholders to invest in Zimbabwe. Shareholder Anglo-Rand Financial Services (ARFS) is objecting to the initiative to invest in Zimbabwe’s platinum group metals, citing the new indigenisation law as a concern.

About 78 percent of exhibition space for this year’s Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) has been taken up, with seven African and Asian countries having already confirmed their participation.

Nigerian immigrants with businesses in Zimbabwe said they were taking the Affirmative Action Group (AAG) to court over its threats to grab their businesses in the name of black empowerment.

Zimbabwe’s largest auto assembler, Willowvale Motor Industries, is on the verge of collapse due to a US$3.4 million debt to its principal supplier in Japan.

Economy

The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) regulations will be finalized this year to provide the necessary legislation to help grow the sector. The new regulations are a component to the strategic plan launched on Monday designed to create an enabling environment for the growth of the industry.

The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has teamed up with pan-African housing finance company Shelter Afrique to provide funding for the country’s tourism industry.

The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe said prices of basic commodities rose 20.5 percent from January to February, placing pressure on low-income families.

The Zimbabwe government is losing more than 30 percent of its annual revenue to widespread tax evasion due to “trade mispricing”, a new study by a US think-tank revealed last week. The study by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) shows that Zimbabwe tops the list of countries that recorded the largest tax revenue losses as a percentage of total government income between 2002 and 2006, losing US$225 million over the five-year period.

Zimbabwe’s government is earning only US$100 million per month, 65 percent of which goes to wages, Finance Minister Tendai Biti told said on Thursday. He also said Western donors are ready to cancel Zimbabwe’s US$6 billion foreign debt if the country declares itself a heavily indebted country, but Zanu-PF is firmly opposed to the idea.

Zimbabwe is seeking US$135 million from two African financial institutions to deal with the debilitating nationwide power shortages. Zimbabwe’s state power utility ZESA said it would bring all the units of its Hwange power station back into operation by the end of March.

Agriculture

The entire leadership of the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers’ Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) are in hiding after a series of arrests, raids and threats against them by Mugabe’s Joint Operating Command (JOC), lawyers said Sunday. The interrogations and threats followed the release of a documentary, “House of Justice”, that the union produced exposing the lawlessness and violence of Mugabe’s land seizures.

South Africa’s High Court on Thursday upheld a ruling by the SADC Tribunal outlawing Zimbabwe’s land reform programme and paving the way for white commercial farmers who lost property under the chaotic land grab to file for compensation in South African courts. The ruling means that farmers can attach Zimbabwe government-owned property in South Africa as compensation for lost farms. The Zimbabwe High Court in a ruling last month refused to enforce the SADC Tribunal judgement.

Zimbabwe is taking legal action to recover US$3 million owed by Zambia for maize delivered prior to the land invasions a decade ago. Last year, Zambia donated maize to the Zimbabwean government to ease massive food shortages.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has been sued by Seed Co. International of Botswana, one of the largest maize and small grain seed suppliers in the Southern African region, over an outstanding US$3.6 million debt.

Zimbabwe has declared 11 percent of its 2009/10 planted maize crop a failure after it was badly damaged by a dry spell, and has repeated calls for urgent imports, a crop assessment report has shown. There has been widespread theft of irrigation equipment and general vandalism of infrastructure by new farmers and the Mugabe elite.

Law

On Wednesday the Zanu-PF dominated Senate forestalled the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Amendment Bill through proposed amendments apparently meant to weaken it further. Zanu-PF once again adjourned debate on the bill, which aims to limit the Reserve Bank governor’s considerable powers, to March to allow them further time to study it.

The treason trial of Deputy Agriculture Minister (designate) Roy Bennett was adjourned until next Monday after his defence declared the state witness not suitably qualified to assess the authenticity of email evidence against Bennett.

Diamonds

Mines minister Obert Mpofu said Zimbabwe would pull out of the Kimberley Process (KP) if the diamond regulatory body finds the country has failed to comply with its regulations. Mpofu said Zimbabwe would continue to sell its gems to diamond trade markets.

Mpofu has complied with a Supreme Court order instructing him to return diamonds from the Marange field to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, from which he removed the gems last month. The court had ordered the 300,000 carats of diamonds to be held by the central bank pending resolution of a suit against the government by UK-based African Consolidated Resources (ACR) over contested mining rights.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has called for an investigation into mining of diamonds at Chiadzwa, adding that diamonds should be bought and sold in a transparent matter that will benefit the country.

Leaders in the global diamond industry are condemning the KP for allowing Zimbabwe’s diamonds to reach the consumer market. Online American jeweller Brilliant Earth said the KP was misleading consumers when labeling the diamonds as “conflict-free.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said last Friday the KP was failing in its core mission following its failure to ban diamonds mined from Marange.

The Zimbabwe-Russia Mining Protocol has been jeopardized after a Russian company pulled out, citing the controversy surrounding the Marange blood diamonds as its reason.

Health

About 50 percent of children and teenagers admitted to hospitals in Zimbabwe are HIV positive, a new British study has revealed. Conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the study reveals the growing crisis of HIV infection acquired at birth in developing countries.

Aid agencies operating in Zimbabwe have been urged to take antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) directly to people infected with HIV/AIDS amid allegations that some state officials involved in the distribution system were corrupt. The drugs are allegedly being sold on the black market in Mbare, a high-density suburb of Harare.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as well as other organizations in the health sector have embarked on an intensive vaccination programme following a measles outbreak which has hit 28 of Zimbabwe’s 62 districts and is still spreading.

Humanitarian

An ex-UN official, Zimbabwean Dr Georges Tadonki, is due to give evidence against Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, showing that Ki-Moon and other senior officials blocked cholera relief efforts in 2008 that could have stopped the deaths of 4 000 people.

UNICEF’s regional child protection advisor for East and Southern Africa, Cornelius Williams, said between 3 000 and 15 000 Zimbabwean children move into and out of South Africa every month. He said the movement of unaccompanied children was one of the biggest problems confronting humanitarian agencies in the region.

Violence

Human rights group ZimRights said armed Zanu-PF militia have set up torture camps in parts of Mashonaland West, Midlands and Manicaland provinces to threaten villagers if they denounce the Zanu-PF backed Kariba Draft constitution.

The police have been accused of beating to death Wilson Sabun and of attempting to cover up the act by holding onto the postmortem results. Sabun was arrested at his house in Mutare on January 15 on allegations he impersonated a police officer.

Media

Dumisani Sibanda, news editor with the state-owned Sunday News weekly, was elected the new Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) president following a re-election in Bulawayo on Saturday. Sibanda replaces Mathew Takaona, who has headed the union since 1999.

Alpha Media Holdings (AMH), the publishers of the Zimbabwe Independent, the Standard and NewsDay, have appointed new editors for the newspapers in a restructuring exercise to position the company for a more liberal media environment.

Diaspora

Zanu-PF has proposed in its nationality programme that only children born in the Diaspora be allowed dual citizenship. If this regulation is adopted, it could affect Zimbabweans living abroad who have taken up foreign citizenship. This has been interpreted as a method of stripping diasporeans of their nationality and thereby reducing voter numbers.

The Good News

The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) has begun working on a case in which a Zimbabwean exiled lawyer, Gabriel Shumba, wants the Zimbabwean government to be held liable for torture. The government denies the torture ever happened, despite evidence in the form of medical affidavits and records.

The U.S. Embassy on Thursday honoured five Zimbabwean students for essays about their hopes following the election of Barack Obama as US president in 2009. The students received certificates, books, and cash prizes, while their schools will receive reference book collections for their libraries.

Source: Zimbabwe Democracy Now

www.zimbabwedemocracynow.com