Financial Gazette

23 December 2015

HARARE-ZIMBABWE’S government is looking at ways of easing the country’s cash crunch, President Robert Mugabe has said, as the central bank chief denied rumours that the Zimbabwe dollar was about to be reintroduced.
Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe chief John Mangudya were “looking at… strategies of reforming the banking sector and injecting liquidity in the market”, Mugabe told mourners at a state funeral on Tuesday.

He singled out a decision to encourage the use of the Chinese yuan in Zimbabwe, announced at the weekend, as a “new possibility for us”.Authorities announced they would accept the yuan as legal tender in January last year. It was however almost never seen in shops or on the streets.

Messages circulating on social media platforms said Mugabe’s cabinet had approved the return of the Zimbabwe dollar in the form of “bond notes” and “bond coins.”

Mangudya told a local daily newspaper that the claims were unfounded and that the reintroduction of the local unit would cause panic. He refuted claims that pension payments would be made in never-before-seen “bond notes” on Wednesday.

“In fact pensioners received their payments in US dollars yesterday,” he said.

The fear was that “bond notes”, if introduced, would resemble Zimbabwe’s much-maligned “bearer cheques”, printed in denominations of millions, billions, and trillions during the economic crisis.
“Bond coins”, all with a value of less than US1, were introduced last year in a bid to ease shortages of small change.

Former education minister David Coltart tweeted Tuesday: “As destructive as many of Zanu-PF’s polices are, even they know how catastrophic any attempt to introduce a worthless currency would be.”
Zimbabwean consumers and retailers used to favour rand coins over bond coins. Following the fall in the value of the rand this year, many shops reject them and individuals do not want them either.

IOL – Independent Foreign Service

By Peta Thornycroft

17th December 2015

Bulawayo – Thousands of old people are sleeping outside banks in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, hoping they will be paid their November pension cheques this week.

Many of them say they remember the hyperinflationery period in 2008 when banks had no money before the government abandoned the Zimbabwe dollar.

But this time it is different.

The government has no US dollars, which it has used since it abandoned the domestic currency, to deposit in banks to pay pensions.

It cannot pay civil servants their 13th cheque and some teachers say they fear they will not get their December salary until after Christmas.

Even the security forces have not yet received their annual bonus, according to public service minister Prisca Mupfumira, who told the Daily News in Harare this week that the uniformed services were supposed to receive their bonus’s last month, but had not been paid because of a lack of funds.

“So far we have not received information from Treasury that cash inflows have improved,” she said.

The government wage bill eats up about 82% of revenue, according to official statistics.

Some of the pensioners sleeping in the streets, many of them former teachers, say they now have no money to go home.

“We are sleeping in queues like refugees,” Khalani Moyo told The Chronicle newspaper this week. “Now I am stuck in town with no money to get home.”

David Coltart, former education minister in the inclusive government which ended two years ago, said: “How does (finance minister Patrick) Chinamasa and the entire Zanu-PF cabinet think pensioners will survive if they don’t receive their miserly pensions?”

Referring to last week’s Zanu-PF conference at Victoria Falls, Coltart tweeted: “Only an utterly callous government would hold a lavish conference in Victoria Falls and yet not pay its pensioners their due.”

Some teachers in Harare said they didn’t expect they would be paid their salaries, let alone bonuses, before Christmas.

“We don’t know officially, but we hear from people in the salaries department that we are only going to get paid our salaries after Christmas. And we now believe we will never get the bonus,” said a primary school teacher from a poor Harare suburb, which has been without water for the past week.

Radio VOP

By Sij Ncube

17th December 2015

HARARE, December 17, 2015 – President Robert Mugabe’s administration has literally stolen Christmas from pensioners amid revelations the government has no cash for pensions and promised bonuses for all servants less than two weeks to Xmas.

Reports have been awash this week pensioners have been spending sleepless nights in banking queues in desperate attempts to withdraw their monthly pay-outs some as little as $60. The failure to pay the pensioners, and to a larger extent civil servants bonuses, is largely blamed on a severe liquidity crunch as the administration is technically broke.

While pensioners have been singing the blues for the past few months, the situation is different with public servants whose leaders accuse Mugabe of failing to deliver on his promise.

Mid this year Mugabe promised to pay the civil servants the 13th cheque despite indications by finance minister Patrick Chinamasa that the Zanu PF administration had no financial wherewithal to make the payments. But less than a week to Christmas Day, pensioners and civil servants are singing the blues. Critics note that it is painful for senior citizens some who have to travel several kilometres to withdraw the meagre pay-outs.

Maxwell Saungweme, a development expert, says it is a tragedy pensioners and the generality of the civil service are staring a bleak Christmas due to the failings of Mugabe’s Zanu PF administration.

“We have a government that cares less for the people. Any descent country would care for its elderly, the pensioners who gave their all for their nation. Civil servants are patriotic Zimbabweans who should be paid their dues first before we talk of chef’s foreign trips and Zanu PF congress. We have skewed priorities,” said Saungweme.

David Coltart, a former cabinet minister, lawyer and opposition politicians, believes Zanu PF’s calculation in not paying pensioners is that they are old, dispensable and unlikely to rise up and protest. “Only an utterly callous government would hold a lavish conference in Victoria Falls and yet not pay its pensioners their due. Zimbabweans deserve a better government than the chaotic Zanu PF sham,” said Coltart.

Jacob Mafume, the spokesperson for the Democratic People’s Party, weighed in, saying his party has maintained that Mugabe only cares for his wife and family.

“They used state resources to meet in Victoria Falls and obviously wiped put the pensions. They want to donate clothes to the elderly at rallies after denying them their dues. The money is going to buying donations for the first lady. It is not only callous but criminal robbing people who have worked for years,” said Mafume.

Bhekithemba Mhlanga, a political analyst based in the United Kingdom, however feels while the pensioners and civil servants are being short-changed, they are not publicly voicing their discontent because they are aware the government is broke .

“Secondly they know that their actions will not make a difference. Thirdly, most of them stopped relying on the government long back just like all other Zimbabweans. Lastly they could well be afraid but most likely they just cannot be bothered,” said Mhlanga.

Newsday

By Everson Mushava

15th December 2015

A FEMALE students’ lobby group, Female Students Network Trust (FSNT), has launched a campaign to push the government to enact a sexual harassment policy to curb incidences of sexual harassment at tertiary institutions.

Speaking after winning the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) Outstanding Standing Civil Society Fighting for Human Rights Award in Bulawayo over the weekend, FSNT director Evernice Munando said her association would continue to push the government to ensure that the policy was enacted next year.

Munando said many female students were sexually harassed by their lecturers and often chose to keep quiet for fear of further victimisation.

“We are currently engaging government so that we have a sexual harassment policy before the end of 2016. We met government officials at the national policy legislative conference in September and made our demands known,” Munando said. “We are pushing the government because female students are being sexually harassed by lecturers and non-academic staff. Most students do not report because they fear victimisation, such as being made to fail.”

Munando said a baseline research conducted by her organisation between June and August this year on sexual harassment in tertiary institutions showed that 94% female students were experiencing various forms of sexual harassment and abuse in exchange for favours such as high grades, money, accommodation and food.

At the same event, former Education minister David Coltart, who won the Male Education Rights Activist of the Year Award, urged Zimbabweans to protest against tax levied on imported text books, saying this would have devastating consequences on the education of future generations.

“This will destroy the reading culture of the country. Already, the country has a shortage of textbooks and the new tax will be very dangerous to our education,” Coltart said.

Zimbabwe Independent

Candid Comment by Stewart Chabwinja

11th December 2015

ZIMBABWEANS must be casting envious glances at Tanzania where, like a breath of fresh air, President John Magufuli has broken from the African leader mould to win the hearts of many on the continent and beyond.

The hashtag #WhatWouldMagufuliDo has been trending on Twitter.

Hitting the ground running after a low-profile inauguration — on his insistence — last November, Magufuli has shown that he is prepared to roll his sleeves high up and get his hands dirty in an effort to usher a new era of hands-on and progressive leadership.

This has seen him tackle issues head-on from day one through strategies that include the unconventional, as he thinks outside the box to improve the living standards of one of the poorest countries in the world where economic gains have failed to trickle down to the majority.

This has seen him introduce a swathe of austerity cuts and crackdowns on public corruption, as he battles profligacy, graft and inefficiency — Zimbabwe’s nemeses.

Among his interventions has been cutting the budget for celebrating his inauguration and opening of parliament from US$100 000 US$7 000 so that the difference goes towards health delivery; banning public officials from unnecessary foreign travel; cancelling Independence day celebrations and instead ordering a clean-up campaign, which he led, to fight the spread of cholera.

Some of these actions would be unimaginable in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe is a not-so-hands-on leader who cuts an aloof figure. He spent much of the year on costly foreign junkets, accompanied by bloated delegations at an unsustainable cost to a bankrupt Treasury.

Certainly, the political elite that revels in a life of entitlement mostly due to liberation war credentials while the majority wallow in poverty, would be apoplectic at such measures. Of course, the likes of Elton Mangoma, David Coltart and Kwekwe mayor Matenda Madzoke are notable exceptions as they have resisted the trappings of public office.

Magufuli looks set to transform Tanzania much in the same way leadership in the likes of Rwanda, Ghana, the Ivory Coast and neighbouring Botswana and Mozambique, has lent credence to the Africa Rising narrative.

Yet in poverty-stricken Zimbabwe we had over US$1,2 million splurged on Mugabe’s birthday bash, with eight cakes baked for the function and many beasts killed. There will be similar festivities for about 4 500 delegates at the US$3 million Zanu PF conference — read talk fest — starting today, under the patently deceitful theme “Consolidating People’s Power Through ZimAsset”.

After the orgy of food and drink, sloganeering, solidarity messages, singing and dancing, and Mugabe deification, the majority of party cadres will return to the real world of joblessness and the daily grind of ekeing out a living in an imploding economy, while Mugabe and his ministers live large.

The chefs will return to a surreal world of mansions and ostentatious government vehicles that are the envy of even CEOs in the private sector.

Daily News

By Jeffrey Muvundusi

13th December 2015

Missing human rights activist Itai Dzamara was voted the Overall Human Rights Defender of the Year during the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (Zimrights) annual awards ceremony held at a local hotel in Bulawayo on Friday.

Dzamara was allegedly abducted by suspected State agents in March this year and his whereabouts are not yet known. Opposition political parties, civil society and individuals have to no avail pressured the government to take action on the activist’s disappearance.

On Friday, a sombre atmosphere engulfed the auditorium when Dzamara was announced the winner ahead of former deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe and Rashid Mahiya.
His brother Paddy Dzamara received the award which had a holiday voucher on Itai’s behalf.

“We are not giving up, we are still hopeful that those who abducted him will release him,” Paddy said.

“We are not wavering on that and we hold government responsible for Itai’s disappearance. We need to condemn that because if it happened to him then it can happen to you as well,” he said.

Harare West MP Jessie Majome was the toast of the day after she bagged two crucial awards. Majome won the People’s Choice award and was also voted the Outstanding Female Human Rights Defender of the Year.

In the People’s Choice award category, Majome was battling it out with Itai, David Coltart and Hope Sadza.

Coltart won the male education activist award of the year for 2015.

Terry Mutsvanga, who last year won the Male Journalist Human Rights Defender of the Year award through his touching documentary on people that were affected by floods in Chingwizi, Masvingo, scooped the same award this year.

Deputy chief justice Luke Malaba, who was the guest of honour at the event urged the government to prioritise human rights issues.

Radio VOP

By Sij Ncube

9th December 2015

HARARE,- PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe’s administration has failed to pay lecturers and other support staff at state universities for the past five months in what analysts say is a firm confirmation the Zanu PF government is insensitive to the plight of its public workers at a time Zanu PF has budgeted at least $3 million for its annual talk-shop presently going on in Victoria Falls.

The Zanu PF 15th annual conference opened on Monday until Sunday next week where nearly 7 000 cherry-picked delegates are expected to be feted, eating and sinking their teeth to the choicest of meats.

Expensive wines and whiskies, among other “eats” usually associated with the opulent lifestyle of its leadership, are part of the menu and so is beer for the party faithful.

Several cows, sheep, goats, wildlife and chickens have been donated for the week-long political jamboree as bootlickers fall over each other to appease Mugabe and his inner circle of the ruling party.

But critics note that while Zanu PF feasts, public workers at the state universities are wallowing in poverty due to non-payment of their monthly salaries.

Information at hand indicates lecturers and support staff at the country’s 13 university, including the former prestigious and oldest University of Zimbabwe, were last paid half salaries in August this year amid growing discontent among staff. They have not been paid for September, October, November and December, with Christmas less than two weeks away.

In an attempt to placate livid lecturers in the midst of marking end of year examinations, Jonathan Moyo, the minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Development, said in a statement Wednesday said his ministry has engaged the Finance and Economic Development ministry in desperate attempts to address the issue “as failure to pay university staff threatens Zim-Asset success.”

But critics point out at the lavish Zanu PF annual chin-gig at the hot resort town of Victoria Falls as a clear sign Mugabe’s party and administration has its priorities upside down. Instead of channelling the funds towards paying the university lecturers, Mugabe and Zanu PF, are content with winning and dinning while public workers at state universities faced a bleak festive season.

Ironically, Moyo and coterie of Mugabe’s cabinet ministers are enrolled at the University of Zimbabwe where they are doing law degrees.

“The government is well-nigh broke,” former sports and education minister, David Coltart told Radio VOP. “Hang in there for a rollercoaster.”

Maxwell Saungweme, a development analyst, said while there is no doubt that non-payment of salaries demoralises staff it would have the adverse effect of compromising the quality of education they provide.

“That they (Mugabe administration) hold a conference when the lecturers are not paid is a clear manifestation of how Zanu PF priorities are misplaced just as the misplaced as priorities of the government,” said Saungweme.

The government has also fired to pay civil servants their bonuses as promised by Mugabe in February this year amid revelations 80 % percent of the budget is gobbled by salaries at the expense of service delivery.

Soldiers were due to be the first batch of public servants to get their bonuses in November but they are still waiting as the government battles low revenue collections and a dip in pay as your earn due to job losses in the private sector.

“They focus on such issues as conferences bent to deal with issues of their party’s power matrix and they don’t focus on service delivery. They have money but can’t put it on service delivery and paying staff such as lecturers providing an important service education,”added Saungweme.

Jacob Mafume, the spokesperson for Tendai Biti’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP), said the Zanu PF government was heartless as it prefers wining and dining while the generality of the population is estimated to be surviving with less than $2 a day.

“When we grew up government was this big thing with answers to the people’s problems but now the government is a poor caricature of what it should be. It is a pale ghost drowning in the chaos brought by Mugabe and his family.

“The incompetence of Zanu PF has become an art form -no one celebrates emptiness and futility quite like Zanu PF. Their conference will be historic in its non-achievement of addressing people’s issues. It is just a holiday jig for them to enjoy the fruits of uselessness,” said Mafume.

“They have missed the point as government by a wide margin. They will rather spend government money on Zanu PF conferences and themselves than the citizens of Zimbabwe. After this meeting they will be planning another, the voter has to wise up and realise that nothing good can come of the house that Mugabe has built. It is a long period of lamentations for the people of Zimbabwe .they are not even planning to buy food in the wake of the up-coming drought.”

More than two million people, mostly in rural areas are reportedly in urgent need of food relief due to serious food shortages blamed on poor rains.

Obert Gutu, the MDC-T spokesperson, added his party’s voice on the Zanu PF prioritisation of its annual conference instead of dealing with the outstanding issue of people’s daily toils such as failure to pay salaries of public workers.

“The Zanu PF annual conference in Victoria Falls this week as usual is an occasion to feast, drink and dance. It’s just another jamboree of obscene extravagance for the ruling elite amidst a sea of grinding poverty for the majority of Zimbabweans,” said Gutu.

“The economy will continue to implode in the coming year because the Zanu PF regime is utterly clueless regarding what precisely should be done to arrest the economic haemorrhage. Zanu PF is now irreparably damaged because of endless and mindless factionalism. That party now belongs to the archives of history; it is yesterday’s party. The only solution to the deepening political and socio – economic crisis in Zimbabwe is to have Zanu PF out of power. Nothing short of this will do.”

South African-based human rights activist, Thamsanqa Mlilo, added his voice on the issue, saying failure to pay lecturers and support staff on time reduced them to beggars.

“It can’t be a norm. This is very abnormal and unacceptable. Job security without financial reward amounts to slavery. It is in the best interest of the country to handsomely and consistently pay lecturers timeously. Let us protect the dignity and stature of our hard working professionals lest they become laughing stock of the society. The Minister must do something now to avert mass exodus which will greatly compromise quality of Zimbabwe education. This is not the time for “vanity” conferences or prestigious events. Such things are in bad taste and insensitive,” said Mlilo.

News 24

7th December 2015

Harare – Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has praised China, saying the Asian country has done more for Africa than its former colonisers.

Speaking during the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation (FOCAC) in Johannesburg on Friday, Mugabe, who is also the current chairperson of the African Union (AU), blasted as distorted claims that China is a neo-colonialist that is draining Africa of its natural resources.

“Once again our detractors have sought to portray and reduce our relations to purely commercial ties driven, as they say, by China’s appetite for and desire to extract raw materials from our continent. That’s what they say.

“On contrary, reality fortunately does not conform to such distorted, imaginative creations. Our relations go much deeper than the extraction of resources. We are committed to strengthening the current and multi-facetted and multi-dimensional relations between African countries and China.

Reports indicated that China was a shrewd investor and that its investment focus in Africa was guided by resource exploitation opportunities.

China’s president Xi Jinping was in Zimbabwe last week where he signed 10 investment deals and pledged to continue co-operating with the investment-hungry southern African country as it attempts to reverse a prolonged economic meltdown, according to Fin24.

Jinping signed deals worth more than $4 billion with Harare, according to state media.

The state-run Herald newspaper said the deals, which include the building of a new parliament building outside Harare and the expansion of Hwange power station, would “usher in a new era of technical and economic co-operation between the two countries”.

Zimbabwe has over the years been shunned by most international investors for uncertainly of property rights. The country has looked to China for investment in key infrastructure projects such as power, telecommunications and construction.

Mugabe on Friday said Jinping was a “God-sent person”.

Second colonisation

“Here is a man representing a country once called poor, a country which was never our coloniser. He is doing to us what we expected those who colonised us yesterday to do… We will say he is a God-sent person.”

Back home, however, Mugabe’s rivals criticised China’s investment in Zimbabwe, saying it was akin to second colonisation.

Former finance minister, Tendai Biti, who also leads the opposition Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), said Jinping’s visit was not different from the 1890’s Pioneer Column’s invasion of Zimbabwe, New Zimbabwe.com reported.

The visit by “Chinese President Xi Jinping and other Chinese top leaders is no different from Cecil John Rhodes-led Pioneer column which effected the colonisation of our country and put it through almost 100 years of bondage,” Biti was quoted as saying.

Another senior opposition official, former education minister David Coltart of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), criticised the so called mega-deals signed between China and Zimbabwe, saying they will “employ very few Zimbabweans and involve very few companies”, reported News24.

Writing on Twitter , Coltart said: “We desperately need construction deals which will involve our architects, our engineers, our builders, our workers, our companies not Chinese.”

News24

3rd December 2015

Harare – So-called mega-deals signed between China and Zimbabwe this week will “employ very few Zimbabweans and involve very few companies,” a senior opposition official has warned.

Writing on Twitter, former education minister David Coltart of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said: “We desperately need construction deals which will involve our architects, our engineers, our builders, our workers, our companies not Chinese.”

In a visit heralded with much excitement by Zimbabwean state media, Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited the country for just over 24 hours before flying to South Africa on Wednesday. It was the first visit of a Chinese head of state to the southern African country in 19 years.

During his brief stopover in Harare, Xi’s delegation, which included government and business officials reportedly signed 12 deals with President Robert Mugabe, including a loan worth more than $1bn to refurbish the Hwange Power Station.

The state-run Herald newspaper said on Wednesday that the deals, which include the building of a new parliament building outside Harare, would “usher in a new era of technical and economic cooperation between the two countries”.

Teetering on the brink of economic crisis, Zimbabwe desperately needs foreign help, and Mugabe’s government appeared keen to portray the Chinese visit as, in part at least, the turnaround the country has been waiting for.

Coltart’s note of caution was echoed by others on social media, with Twitter user Suzgo Chingati saying: “The problem with Chinese loans [is that] such terms and conditions are not negotiable [and] they bring their own manpower and 50% of materials.”

Journalist Zenzele Ndebele wrote: “My question is how many years will it take to have these deals implemented?”

However, Harare-based blogger Ranga Mberi said Zimbabweans should rethink their views on China. “Some of our people still think, that it’s not ‘investment’ if it’s not from Europe or Washington.

“China is just doing what China does; putting its wares on the table. What we get depends on what we bring to the table, and how well we bargain.”

The finer points of Zimbabwe’s side of the agreements haven’t been made public. But independent business news wire, The Source, said most of the loan for the power station will be repaid at an interest rate of just 2%.

Shunned by the West over its poor human rights and democratic record since 2000, Mugabe’s government has been pursuing a “Look East” policy since 2000 to try to lure much-needed foreign capital.

Eyewitness News

Edited by Winnie Theletsane

2nd December 2015

HARARE – Zimbabweans have been reacting to news of 12 deals signed between President Robert Mugabe’s government and a delegation led by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The Chinese leader touched down in Zimbabwe yesterday on a visit many hope will be a major boost for the country’s economy.

An editorial in today’s main state-run Herald newspaper says a new era of economic co-operation between Harare and Beijing has been ushered in.

The most significant deal signed at State House yesterday was a loan of around $1,2 billion for the desperately-needed refurbishment of the Hwange Power Station, in the west of the country.

Another deal is for the construction of a new Parliament building outside Harare.

But Some Zimbabweans are sceptical.

Opposition official David Coltart says these deals are likely to employ few Zimbabweans and involve few local companies.