Bulawayo 24 News

By Mandla Ndlovu

17th July 2019

MDC Treasurer General David Coltart has urged Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube to resign from his post before he dents his credibility by implanting policies that he does not believe in.

Coltart was responding to Dr Alex Magaisa who had said, “One day Finance Minister says government was pushed to hastily introduce the ZimDollar. Next he says everything was according to plan. Week later they are flip-flopping, re-dollarising parts of the economy. These chaps don’t have a plan. They are all over the place.”

Responded Coltart, “Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube Ncube and all the sycophants and acolytes backing his policies are truly all over the place. His statement that this was planned is patently false. This was thrust on him and he was too weak to resist. My advice – resign before every last shred of credibility is gone.”

On Tuesday cabinet passed a resolution that Victoria Falls hotels should begin paying their power utility in foreign currency.

Other mining companies were also instructed to start paying in foreign currency also.

Last month Mthuli Ncube passed a statutory instrument banning the use of foreign currency in the country as legal tender.

Professor Jonathan Moyo said the SI 142/2019 was forced on Ncube.

Pindula News

15th July 2019

Former cabinet minister and MDC top official, David Coltart said that he has been told by a “reliable” source that the power situation in the country is extremely dire and may even get worse.

Coltart said that though he can not vouch for the authenticity of this information, the source is usually a reliable one. The source wrote:

“I have just completed an informative meeting with the GM ZETDC Harare. The supply situation is dire. They have only 800MW of capacity available against 1800 MIN demand.

City centres, hospital networks, high rise buildings consume 500, and this leaves 300 to distribute across the rest of the country. Domestic cuts from 0500 to 23.00 will continue. Right now Msasa, Ruwa, Southerton, Granitside, and Workington are all OFF.

There is nothing they can do about this. In addition, they have been consuming 500MW from Kariba against an allocation of 350, meaning they will have to “pay-back” 150MW going forward… this has been because of the huge deficit of power available from other generating sites.

There is only one solution in their minds and that is a realistic tariff that will allow imports and local R&M. In the meantime, I am getting the contacts of engineers responsible for shedding and will be putting them on our group, so that we can at least get up to 30min warning of shedding for continuous manufactures to prepare with Generators etc.

They cannot give more warning than that. When suggesting they switch on only one industrial area for one week, whilst the other 2 stay off and then rotate, they stated they don’t even have power for that, all 5 main industrial sites are off now, and will be tomorrow… and probably going forward until they are able to import.

Unfortunately, things are NOT going to get better anytime soon. We need to motivate for a realistic tariff if we expect continuous supply to industry.

Domestic supply will not be much improved by tariff increases in the short term as much infrastructure needs to be upgraded first. This is just as frustrating for ZETDC and ZESA.. they are doing their best in a crazy situation.”

www.howwemadeitinafrica.com

By Ian Macleod, manager for Special Projects at GIBS and part of the school’s Centre for African Management and Markets (CAMM).

13th July 2019

Is change really taking place in Zimbabwe? Or is it more of the same-old, same-old? At such times, it’s always best to see for yourself and to follow the money.

It felt like a silly question. I had done my reading and was here to write a serious case study about Zimbabwe’s monetary crisis. But I hadn’t found a moment to check for myself, so asked: “When you draw money, what currency is actually in the ATMs?” Tendai [not his real name], my colleague and guide to his home country for this three-day research mission to Harare, made no effort to hide a chuckle. He didn’t have time – it was more a reflex. “Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing in the ATMs!” I smiled at my own naïveté as we continued our dash along Samora Machel Avenue in Tendai’s little Toyota hatchback to our next interview. I had a lot to learn.

If arriving at the airport still named for the decades-long but recently deposed leader who had ruined the country was more annoying than offensive, what greets the eye on the short drive to the city brings home very rapidly the horror of the situation. Dotted alongside the highway are figures spread out for hundreds of metres on each side, hoeing, picking and planting. But they aren’t farmers. They’ve pegged off a patch of earth no bigger than a comfortable lounge to grow crops. Zimbabwe posted a bumper crop in 2017, but not from operations like this.

Business happens

It was partly this backdrop of economic mystery that had brought us to Zimbabwe. The big moves are reported by the media and analysed by conventional economic thinking. We know commodity export figures, official government policy and (often regrettably) what people say on social media. But with not-always-honest administrations and extreme conditions, the best route to quality information is usually speaking to people on the ground who are doing business and adapting in real time as the system shifts.

Additionally, in his work brokering infrastructure deals in Zimbabwe, Tendai had encountered a surprising degree of success. Yes, plenty of failures and enterprises that chug along, surviving on small wins in between spells of paralysis. But also genuine, sustainable success. How had some people and businesses won in this market through land seizures, hyperinflation, deflation, regime change and more while all about them were losing? We prepared a set of questions and lined up half a dozen interviews for our quest.

It was already hot when my transfer dropped me at Monomatapa Hotel in central Harare just before 9am. I was struck by how many hotels and key institutions of state were aggregated along one street. Within a kilometre, along Samora Machel Avenue, were the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority, the country’s highest courts, the Office of the President and Cabinet and almost a dozen banks. The South African in me wondered why Nelson Mandela Street was positioned far less salubriously two roads down. It must also have been my instincts that had me nervously holding my pockets while on a quick walkabout. Over the next 48 hours I would gradually come to feel far safer than I do on the streets of my neighbourhood in Johannesburg – another mystery of this economy.

Tendai arrived and we were buzzing through busy streets to our first interview. The tripling of fuel prices wouldn’t happen for another couple of months, but I had expected quieter roads. Granted, some of the traffic took the form of stationary vehicles queueing for petrol, and a rarity of operational traffic lights didn’t help, but people were out and about, delivering goods, going to work and attending meetings.

The banker

Our first interview was valuable for reasons unanticipated. It uncovered a strange phenomenon of meetings in Chinese restaurants. Zimbabwe hardly strikes one as a hub of Asian culinary sophistication, but two of our meetings were scheduled for what appeared to be Chinese restaurant-cum-casinos. This one appeared to have a hotel segment, although no sign of guests was apparent to justify the ornately set tables and the smell of lunch.

Our meeting was with the former CEO of one of the largest banks that had folded in Zimbabwe. Tendai described him as somewhat of a maverick in his day. “These are the sorts of guys who lived the Wall Street high life in the late 1990s to early 2000s,” he had told me during our planning of the trip. “Back then the banks were trading all sorts of things, including the sophisticated securities that led to the implosion of the sector in 2003.”

Things have changed. We were ushered by an assistant into a small room with a big safe and a rotund man. The brevity of this section indicates its tangential relevance to answering our questions, not that it was boring. It was the story of a banker who had easy lines of credit with his choice of global finance houses, until one by one they severed ties with a country entering pariahdom.

The investor

That afternoon we made our way to the leafy suburb of Alexandra Park, home to the Harare Botanical Gardens and our next interviewee. This revealed another workplace trend. It seems businesses have largely abandoned the city centre and set up shop in what were once quite palatial family homes.

This time we had secured time with the relentlessly sharp mind of Dzika Danha. Born in Zimbabwe, he studied finance and banking at the London School of Economics and the University of London. His beautifully clipped British accent was honed well before that as a public schoolboy in Dorset. Having helped build Renaissance Capital’s Africa business, Danha left in 2010 to co-found IH Group, where he is now managing director.

An hour was not enough. Perhaps most salient to this story was Danha’s take on how we got to where we are. While Zimbabwe has been almost perpetually in crisis for decades, he has no trouble articulating the precise cause of the current monetary milieu. “A lot of people think it was the bond notes,” explains Danha. “If you listen to the Twitter community that’s what you’ll hear. It’s not true…”

“The genesis of the situation we are in today was in 2016 with the recapitalisation of the Reserve Bank. A whole lot of gold exporters were owed outstanding money by the bank. That is, they were owed real [US] dollars from exports. The bank began giving them TBs [Treasury bills], issuing them at parity, 1-to-1 with the dollar. The sum was something like $2 billion.

“Now, let’s say you’re an exporter who can take money out of the country. The Reserve Bank tries to compensate you for dollar-denominated legacy debts with TBs that it has printed. You’re going to discount your TB, sell it for USD and whoosh, all this hard currency leaves the country. Suddenly we have a rate between US dollars and the local money.

“The bond notes were largely irrelevant. In fact, they were quite clever when they were conceived. They were meant to replace USD as a medium of exchange so that government could capture the USD in the system.”

The businessman

In Danha we had found our oracle for economic insights. But his world is analysis, advice and high finance. Tendai and I needed a different sort of operator to explore the wizardry of on-the-ground operational success in Zimbabwe. Someone whose name ended in CA (Z), CA (SA), CFA, with experience in private equity, greenfield and brownfield investment, managing the local dealership for a global brand and chairing the board of a Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed entity would be ideal.

Thomas Chataika CA (Z), CA (SA), CFA is the managing director of asset manager Invesci and chairs Zimplow, a maker and distributor of farming and mining equipment, with a stake in local dealerships for the likes of Caterpillar and Massey Ferguson. His stance: “The monetary madness in Zim represents opportunity to me.” We had found our man.

“I don’t like what it does to the country,” says Chataika, “but as a businessman, I love this current impasse where foreign investors aren’t coming in. You’ve got to use the opportunity.”

Part of the strategy he describes demands a nuanced understanding of the store of value in Zimbabwe and how it changes. “If you’re a local guy, you’ve got to stay on top of pricing on a daily basis,” he continues. “To October [2018] we sold 180 Massey Ferguson tractors. That’s up from 97 last year. The reason is that when the currency started to go up and down, guys panicked and looked for ways to secure their buying power – so they bought things. You’re pulling future demand into today. It’s very profitable if you have stock. So you need to manage your balance sheet. The same principle applies to shares. One of the things we’ve instituted at Zimplow is a share buyback. Shares are currency as long as I’m running a good business. Zim has a shortage of investable assets.”

Industry choice is just as critical. Chataika describes how even through hyperinflation, when everyone else is suffering, there are always people exporting diamonds and platinum, pulling in hard currency. “Even if it’s tough, what matters is that you remain a going concern and make your money in the right currency,” he goes on. “When you come out of a rough time with a going concern, it can be very profitable because you can slap on another 10% to your profit margin because so few people can navigate the terrain.”

It seems instructive that one of Zimplow’s top performers is Mealie Brand, which makes and sells ox-drawn ploughs, seeders and planters – largely museum pieces in advanced economies.

“For now, outside investors haven’t cottoned on,” concludes Chataika. “Just look at the people”. He cites the appointment of Mthuli Ncube, Minister of Finance, in September 2018. Indeed, it’s hard to get more technocratic than a PhD in Mathematical Finance from Cambridge University. “It’s no longer Robert Mugabe. And personality matters in Africa.”

We had found some answers and I left Tendai to finish his work in Zimbabwe. While I hadn’t reached any firm conclusions, one thing seemed obvious. It was no longer Robert Mugabe. So, despite the details being only marginally clearer, the trajectory for Zimbabwe had to slope up.

Echoes from the past

On January 13th this year the Zimbabwe government announced the tripling of fuel prices, sparking widespread protest and violence. Back at home in Johannesburg, I was back to conventional sources of information intel. That is, at least, until a forum on Zimbabwe at GIBS in late February. This time MDC Senator David Coltart was the source of my on-the-ground information scoop. A seasoned politician and human rights lawyer, he described the 2018 elections as “the most illegal election ever conducted in Zimbabwe”. He categorised the military’s reaction to fuel price protests as “a crime against humanity”. And he told us that just days before two colleagues of his were illegally abducted by the military in the eastern city of Mutare. Coltart closed to a soundless audience and a Highveld growling storm overhead. He outlined how in his speech following in the wake of the looting, President Emmerson Mnangagwa used language he hadn’t employed since the Gukurahundi massacres of Ndebele civilians in the early 1980s. On that occasion, then-President Mugabe sent his North Korean-trained 5th Brigade into Matabeleland and the Midlands to quell alleged dissent to Zanu-PF rule. Then-Minister of State Security, with control over the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), Mnangagwa continues to distance himself from the deaths of what the International Association of Genocide Scholars estimates to be some 20,000 people.

This article was originally published in Acumen, the magazine of the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science.

Eyewitness News

12th July 2019

Job Sikhala, who has been charged with treason, has been accused of calling for the overthrow of the government while in the southern Masvingo province.

An arrested Zimbabwean member of parliament who was reported missing in Harare by his lawyers has appeared in court.

Job Sikhala, who has been charged with treason, has been accused of calling for the overthrow of the government while in the southern Masvingo province.

Rights lawyers allege Sikhala was blindfolded by police and driven to the court in Bikita.

The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said this amounted to cruel and inhuman treatment of their client.

Sikhala had been expected to appear in a Harare court on Wednesday, but his lawyers said they were denied access to their client. They only got to see him on Thursday morning.

Sikhala allegedly called for government to be overthrown during a rally over the weekend.

MDC treasurer David Coltart had described the police’s treatment of Sikhala as an outrage. Coltart said this proved that government was taking Zimbabwe back to the dark ages.

The Zimbabwe Mail

26th June 2019

MDC Treasurer General David Coltart says the MDC will not allow a person who stole an election to dictate the terms of the much needed national dialogue.

In a Twitter conversation with Mnangagwa’s advisor Shingi Munyeza and Business Tycoon Mutumwa Mawere he said, “I would just add  we need a dialogue arbitrated by a neutral democratic peer. We cannot have one person, who even on his own figures, in a fraudulent unconstitutional election, won by a tiny margin, dictate the terms, pace, venue and structure of the dialogue.”

Coltart said the gap between legitimacy and illegitimacy of President Emmerson Mnanaggwa’s Presidency needs to be bridged so that the dialogue can be done in good faith.

“The gap has to be bridged or else our nation will continue to plunge. In South Africa in 1990 there was also a large gulf but it was bridged. Good faith can overcome massive obstacles. But we have a serious deficit of good faith.

“Legitimacy is an issue – last year’s elections were illegal, and not free and fair. All reasonable observers concede that.”

The lawyer added that the judiciary system has contributed to the national crisis in the country.

“It is also no use relying on the Constitutional Court judgment because any lawyer worth his or her salt will explain how fundamentally flawed both the procedure and judgment were. So in a dialogue it is unhelpful trying to argue that a discredited process must just be accepted.

“Clearly in the Zimbabwean context the judiciary is part of the problem, particularly since the election and this year when it has acted systematically in a manner which disrespects the rule of law and the Constitution.”

BBC

26th June 2019

Zimbabwe’s government has taken the controversial decision to ban local trading in foreign currencies, including the US dollar, with immediate effect.

It has also reintroduced the Zimbabwe dollar, which was abandoned because of hyperinflation in 2009 when the country mainly adopted the US dollar and the South African rand.

The move has shocked Zimbabweans, who have little faith in a local currency – the exchange rate when the Zimbabwe dollar was scrapped was Z$35 quadrillion to $1.

What has prompted the move?

The economy is a mess. Nearly everything is imported and there is a shortage of physical cash. The cost of living is very expensive. Unemployment is widespread.

Various things have been tried to solve the problem, including the introduction in 2016 of bond notes, a parallel currency that was only accepted in Zimbabwe.

It was officially pegged to the US dollar but in reality was worth much less – so a thriving black market developed and Zimbabwe has become a cashless society, relying on card-based transactions or trading with mobile money.

In February, bond notes and electronic cash were re-branded RTGS dollars and allowed to float to try and crush the black market.

However, workers, who used to get their salaries paid in US dollars, have found that their salaries in RTGS dollars are not able to keep up with inflation – now running at 100%.

People were often expected to pay for goods in shops and services, like doctors’ fees, in US dollars.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the ban was an “important step in restoring normalcy to our economy”.

“While the multi-currency regime helped stabilise the economy, it did not give us control of monetary policy and left us at the mercy of US dollar pricing which has been a root cause of inflation,” he added.

The authorities also say because the US dollar is so strong, producing goods locally is expensive which is why businesses prefer to import goods.

What has been the reaction?

Anger and exasperation.

Most people, who associate the Zimbabwe dollar with food shortages and runaway inflation, have complained about the lack of warning. The RTGS officially became the Zimbabwe dollar on Monday, the only legal tender.

“We should have our own currency. But they shouldn’t have abolished it as if they were swatting a fly. They should have given us notice,” one man told the BBC.

Supermarkets and those in the formal sector responded a day after the announcement by issuing new prices in Zimbabwean dollars – but they were beyond the means of many.

A first-time doctor’s consultation is now Z$1,800 – more than a teacher or nurse earns in a month.

Informal traders, who dominate the economy and need US dollars for imports, have vowed to defy the directive.

A street vendor in the capital, Harare, told the BBC: “How is it possible that the US dollar is no longer accepted? It won’t work. We actually want greater use of it, so that as street vendors we can have them. Scrap the bond note instead.”

Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) lawmaker David Coltart called the move “sheer madness”.

“The market has been re-dollarising because of lack of confidence in the RTGS dollar. You can’t force people to love a currency… This will exacerbate the chaos,” he said on Twitter.

Will these objections make any difference?

The trade unions have threatened “mass action” if the policy is not reversed.

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) wants workers to be paid in US dollars again.

In January, it led nationwide protests against a 150% fuel price increase, triggering a violent crackdown by the army and police that rights groups say left at least 12 people dead.

On the streets of the capital, black market traders are still exchanging and accepting US dollars.

The value on the black market has remained unchanged – one US dollar is worth 11 Zimbabwe dollars, compared with the official rate of 6.2.

Ultimately Zimbabweans have proved good at adapting over the years to one economic crisis after another.

Why do Zimbabweans prefer foreign currencies?

They are scarred by the mismanagement of the economy by the government of then-President Robert Mugabe. The central bank was forced to print banknotes of ever higher values to keep up with surging inflation.

Annual inflation reached 231 million per cent in July 2008. Officials gave up reporting monthly statistics when it peaked at just under 80 billion per cent in mid-November 2008.

The prices of goods multiplied several times a day. Though it was illegal at the time, many people opted to keep US dollars, which they bought on the black market.

Businesses began demanding foreign currency. Eventually authorities were forced to catch up, scrapping the Zimbabwe dollar and sanctioning the use of several currencies, including the Chinese yuan and Indian rupee.

You could purchase something with one currency, and get change in another currency.

But in reality Zimbabwe ran out of all these currencies because it was importing far more than exporting – and has become a cashless society.

NewZimbabwe.com

By Anna Chibamu

25th June 2019

The MDC has slammed the Zanu PF led government for “ambushing” citizens through the shock scrapping of the multi-currency regime on Monday in place of the much resented return to the local currency.

Government, through Statutory Instrument 142 of 2019, announced on Monday only the local currency shall now remain legal tender, making it illegal for businesses and individuals to demand foreign currency for goods and services.

Reacting to the policy shift, MDC deputy spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka launched an attack on the Zanu PF led administration for introducing the use of the local currency when President Emmerson Mnangagwa had initially announced this would be implemented in a space of nine months when all the fundamentals were in place.

“…The regime today (Monday) just ambushed the nation and reintroduced the Zimbabwean dollar as the only legal tender in local transactions,” Tamborinyoka said in a statement.

“This means that the multi-currency regime, which provided some modicum of decency and predictability, has been thrown out of the window in favour of the volatile local currency that is not backed by adequate gold and foreign currency reserves.

“Today’s decision shows the lack of coherent, prudent and predictable policy, which is important to retain trust and confidence in a country’s economy.

“Policy consistency and predictability are key tenets for any economy to succeed.”

Tamborinyoka said the “knee-jerk monetary policy introduced in the dead of the night is reminiscent of the rushed decisions of this regime”.

“With the current madness in government,” he added, “it is important to state that the people reserve their right to express their displeasure at the free-falling economy and the knee-jerk policies that those in authority introduce when they so wish.”

Meanwhile, the decision to scrap the basket of foreign currencies from circulation on the formal market has been met with mixed feelings by locals, businesses and politicians.

MDC Treasurer General, David Coltart warned the move by government will have dire consequences as the formal market will be driven underground causing massive shortages of imported goods.

Coltart said inflation will only be contained if the central bank resisted the temptation to print more notes.

Renowned businessman Shingi Munyeza said on twitter prices will stabilise and later fall while the parallel market will also stabilise or even come down.

Economist Steve Hanke also said the removal of foreign currencies will give President Mnangagwa and his government the green light to turn on the printing presses and run a huge fiscal deficit, driving the country into what led to hyperinflation in 2008 and 2017.

Zimeye

24th June 2019

By Farai Dziva

MDC Treasurer General David Coltart has described the ban on the us of foreign currency as “sheer madness.”

“I am looking into this but my initial view is that the Minister cannot use a Statutory Instrument to change the Finance Act. But that is not the main problem – because they can easily rectify that.”

“The main problem is that this goes against fundamental inviolable economic laws.”

Coltart added: “Such a shame that Minister Ncube didn’t read this sensible advice in just last Friday’s @Zimindependent

“His policy is sheer madness and will cause even greater chaos. Does he not listen.”

“As Treasurer General of the #MDC I have commented in detail. For the avoidance of doubt this is a catastrophically bad policy which will greatly exacerbate the economic crisis in #Zimbabwe.”

“Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws” This was attributed to King Canute and Mnangagwa and Minister Ncube should remember that economic laws are the same. “

Sunday Mail (ZANU PF propaganda)

By Ranga Mataire

2nd June 2019

David Coltart, the self-confessed former British South African Police (BSAP) member, who authored a rehashed moribund autobiography, recently rebounded as treasurer of the MDC at the party’s congress held in Gweru.

It is almost 19 years since Coltart became the founding secretary for legal affairs of the MDC in 2000, then led by the late Morgan Tsvangirai.

While no-one holds any beef with Coltart’s elevation, it is critical for observers to introspect about the psychological malaise that afflicts the MDC inasfar as their attitude towards whites, especially those who served in the Rhodesian police and army.

One quickly recalls the late Roy Leslie Bennet, that boisterous white politician who was the inaugural MDC treasurer at its formation in 1999. Coincidently, just like Coltart, Bennet also served in the notorious BSAP and only emerging as a ‘black messiah’ in the post-independence era. Bennet’s political career as an opposition politician took a nose-dive when he charged and pushed former Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa in Parliament when the latter had said he was an offspring of “thieves and murderers”.

The burly politician had to serve time at Chikurubi and further attempts for a political comeback after his release came to naught when then-President Mugabe refused to recognise him when Tsvangirai had seconded him to the position of Deputy Minister of Agriculture in a coalition government.

Bennet was later charged with treason. The charge was changed to “conspiring to acquire arms with a view to disrupting essential services”.

After his release, Bennet went to live in exile in South Africa. He died with his wife on  January 17 2018 in a helicopter crash in Colfax, New Mexico, USA — assuredly a bitter man to the end. And now enter Coltart.  A man who has enjoyed an unfettered life of privilege both in the colonial and post-colonial era.

We might need to recount his brief history to understand the malaise afflicting the MDC’s thinking that whiteness equals excellence.

We need this brief history to understand why the MDC has come full circle in being a purely ungrounded political organisation obsessed with the idea of white appeasement. Born on October 1957, Coltart grew up in Bulawayo.

No matter how much he tries to sanitise his early life, history records that the young Coltart was an enthusiastic cadre of the colonial system who served the BSAP with diligence and candour.

Attempts by Coltart to sanitise his own devious involvement in the murder of black indigenes in his 2016 book “The Struggle Continues: 550 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe” won’t fool anyone.

Equally, his attempts to disassociate himself from the notorious Selous Scouts won’t stick.

We need to give a deserved account of this Selous Scouts unit for some to appreciate why Coltart is such a sore in our national consciousness. The Selous Scouts was a special forces regiment of the Rhodesian Army that operated from 1973 until the reconstitution of the country as Zimbabwe in 1980.

It committed atrocities against innocent Rhodesian African civilians in Rhodesia and neighbouring countries.

The outfit was named after the British explorer Frederick Courteney Selous (1851- 1971). Its slogan â€˜pamwe chete’ was a Shona phrase meaning “all together”.

Its charter mandated it to undertake “clandestine elimination of so-called ‘terrorists’ within and without the country”.

Created under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daily, it was organised as a mixed race unit comprising of recruits of both African and European descent.

Its primary motive was to operate deep in insurgent-controlled territory and wage war on the hostilities’ rear through irregular warfare, including the use of pseudo-terrorism as a means of penetrating the enemy.

This is the team that both the late Bennet and young Coltart were part of.

A team that resorted to using asymmetric warfare against opponents with actions ranging from the bombing of private houses, abductions, MI8 Claymore mine attacks against military targets, assassinations, intimidation, blackmail and extortion.

The unit was infamous for weakening popular support for guerrillas by employing all sorts of tactics.  In one instance in Madziwa, the group is said to have accused eight enthusiastic guerrilla supporters of being police informers and beat them up before leaving.

This would leave a very sour taste in the area, especially when the accused were known sympathisers of the freedom fighters.

The Scouts’ unusual tactics were the subject of gruesome photographs by one J. Ross Baughaman that won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 1978.

Coltart was a sure member of this unit because many of its members were policemen. The soldiers pretended to be guerrillas by infiltrating guerrilla units and committed many of the gruesome acts that were attributed in the Rhodesian media as having been committed by freedom fighters.

Of interest is the unit’s regimental badge of the osprey — a fish-eating bird found in small numbers in many parts of the world.

Some of the code names for the unit included ‘skuz apo’ — a colloquial Shona term meaning  “Excuse me for being here”, typically used by pickpocket thieves who bump into people and mutter an apology as they take one’s wallet. The other code was ‘Eskimos”, which refers to the unit operating in ‘frozen’ areas that were no-go areas for other units.

By 1974, the Selous Scouts had captured or killed 100 freedom fighters.

At the end of 1976, the unit had killed 1 257 innocent civilians in that year alone. Other Rhodesian combined security forces had killed 400 freedom fighters.

Predictably, most of the white Selous Scouts went in droves down South when Zimbabwe attained independence.

Coltart was one of those who went down South. He attained a law degree from the University of Cape Town and an LLB post-graduate law degree in 1982.

So ironic that a man who was part of a devious apparatus that butchered black people would choose to pursue law.

Unashamedly, the man who should have been pleading for mercy to the new black rulers was so enthusiastic in being an instrument of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in compiling data for alleged misdemeanours of the new government during the Gukurahundi period.

The same man who was part of the apparatchik that wantonly murdered black people suspected of aiding freedom fighters would wake up one day as a human rights champion.

The Selous Scouts were evil creatures of an evil force and it is ironic that Coltart wants to dwell on others’ past as if he has no past.

One can’t help but feel sorry for blind followers of the MDC.  They have no idea of what’s really going on.

Putting a white man as the “moneybag” reflects a serious malaise that needs exorcism.

It reflects the mind-set of a bunch of people who think that white people are incorruptible and can bring the much-needed money through their shadowy connections.

Yes, we live in a reconciled nation where we must let bygones be bygones but this does not mean that the same people who thrived on the murder, subjugation, and humiliation of our forefathers can today be so hallowed as to be put on a high moral pedestal.

For feedback contact ranga.mataire@gmail.com

ZimLive.com

BY SIPHO MABUZA

18th June 2019

 President Emmerson Mnangagwa, battling to end Zimbabwe’s international isolation, has recruited a second public relations firm in the United States at a cost of US$1 million per year.

Documents filed by lobbying firm, Avenue Strategies, show that Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo signed the agreement on behalf of Zimbabwe.

“Registrant (Avenue Strategies) will provide consulting and public relations services on behalf of the foreign principal to foster better relations with the United States government,” Avenue Strategies said in documents filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The contract, signed in April, is the second this year after Ballard Group were recruited in March for US$500,000 per year.

MDC treasurer David Coltart said Mnangagwa’s government had got its priorities wrong.

“This is profoundly shocking when simple radiation equipment at Mpilo Hospital isn’t working for want of a few thousand US$. This regime has got its funding priorities seriously wrong. If it just governed properly, it wouldn’t need expensive lobbyists,” Coltart said.

Jeffrey Smith, a US-based international human rights activist, said on Twitter: “An unsolicited piece of advice to Mnangagwa, Moyo and the government of Zimbabwe: respecting the human rights of your citizens – regardless of political affiliation – and implementing your own constitution and regional conventions costs nothing. It’s free. Try it.”

Mnangagwa came to power on the back of a military coup in 2017 promising to break with years of repressive rule under former President Robert Mugabe. Western countries initially appeared to warm up to Mnangagwa, one of Mugabe’s brutal enforcers over four decades, but withdrew support after he twice deployed the army to shoot at protesters in the streets and cracked down on dissent.

Zimbabwe’s economy has also tanked after Mnangagwa claimed a controversial election victory last July with a thin majority of just over 30,000 votes. The opposition accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission of fiddling numbers to keep Mnangagwa in power.

The ensuing political standoff has spooked international investors, hurting the country’s economy and fuelled growing resentment against Mnangagwa.

Mnangagwa is keen to market himself as a reformer in the United States, but administration officials have called on him to implement reforms he has committed himself to, including scrapping repressive laws.

“The best PR you can invest in is to care for the people. And guess what? It won’t cost you a cent. Just your sincerity. The money you waste on lobbyists and PR firms is better spent on critical drugs, fuel and electricity for the nation. Introspect,” prominent Harare lawyer Fadzayi Mahere said.