Tsvangirai reshuffles MDC-T Ministers in the Coalition government

MDC-T President and Zimbabwe Premier Morgan Tsvangirai reshuffles his party's Cabinet Ministers to re-energise the party in the coalition goverment

Prime Minister and MDC-T President announced a reshuffle that a leader under siege would not naturally contemplate.

"Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, I am here today to announce a ministerial reshuffle. This reshuffle is about the MDC delivering to the people of Zimbabwe what they are looking for – real change.

Saviour Kasukuwere a slow learner

Minister Kasukuwere a a dangerous slow learner wallowing in past Zanu PF glory

Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere is a slow leaner or more derisively a retard.

The joy he reportedly derives from spiting Premier Minister Morgan Tsvangirai over the gazetting of the controversial Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment (General) Regulations (IEER), shortly after the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act was signed off by President Mugabe is a case in point.

When in 1980 President Mugabe announced the reconciliation policies that his government would pursue, he averted the catastrophe of retributive violence and an exodus of skills that manned the public service and private sector institutions with a magnificent pay-back to his leadership and the populace at large.

The economy grew faster than any other in Africa as productivity soared and national unity and consensus gelled resulting in improved quality of life for the hitherto disadvantaged Black majority of the populace without dispossessing the privileged White minorities of their extravagant lifestyles.

Minister Kasukuwere may have been too young to understand why Mugabe’s popularity was so instantaneous and how he managed to get the entire nation behind his Party and how that support enabled him to enjoy the best times of his leadership of the country.

Then as Premier Mugabe not only managed to capture national imagination and promised a country flowing of milk and honey for its entire populace but he lived his word by restraining his retributive inner self and that of his top aides and thereby confounded his detractors at the same time he retained the faith of his grassroots support.

When he turned against Ian Smith after the first elections under his rule and went after UANC leader Bishop Abel Muzorewa via the retrogressive PERM initiative to eliminate political competition the skeptics ent on the offensive and started demonizing Mugabe for what he truly has lived up to be – An intolerant and ruthless political dictator.

Still the critical mass he had pulled onto his side among the populace defended him vigorously notwithstanding the obvious start of departure from the enunciated reconciliation policies he had lived with throughout his first term of office.

When towards the end of his first decade in power Premier Mugabe, as he then was, publicly and unambiguously revoked the reconciliation policies by decimating PF ZAPU and declaring the One Party State dogma in place of national reconciliation he courted unforgiving hatred and instilled fear and mistrust from and in the people of Matabeleland and the Midlands most of whom were at the receiving end of the ruthlessness with which Zanu PF was gunning for monolithic political supremacy.

Minister Kasukuwere who by this time was in his late teens and an overzealous Johnny-come-by-lately defender of Zanu PF and member of the secretive and notorious CIO jovially participated in the vicious campaigns and tasted the virtues of bloody riches that has formulated his adult conduct.

He learned nothing from the vicious murders other than that survival hinges on impunity and suppression and is living by that early experience in his stewardship of a critical government function.

The violence he participated in had as had happened in 1980 re-asserted Zanu PF political supremacy as it swallowed PF ZAPU leaving political opponents of the party in total disarray as they hoped from insignificant opposition political formations such as ZUM ZUD and Forum party in a vain search for counterstrategies to halt the Zanu PF juggernaut that was moving uncontrollably towards a crash landing for the country while Zanu PF zealots cheered on.

The formation of the more formidable MDC opposition from the ashes of the disjointed opposition formations re-captured the imagination of a populace under siege and the protest vote in the 2000 Constitutional referendum galvanized the new party and propelled it to dizzy heights hitherto never witnessed when it narrowly failed to topple Zanu PF because of systematic vote rigging that was to form the hallmark of Zanu PF political survival in every election thereafter.

By now Minister Kasukuwere had become so blinded and indoctrinated by Zanu PF that he could not see life outside the party and thus he learned nothing from the 2000 landmark electoral results.

If anything he became resolute that survival hinged on violent and or treacherous conquest. Impunity became the foundation of his survival instincts notwithstanding negative consequences that befell his victims.

When after the Zanu PF 2000 elections Houdini Act it unleashed an orgy of violence in the name of correcting Land distribution distortions of our Colonial past Kasukuwere was there at the forefront of dispossessing titled land owners in a haphazard and vicious revolution that disrupted a highly organised and efficient Agricultural sector and reduced it to disorganized and redundant sector with disastrous consequences on food security for the nation that had been used to surpluses.

The poverty the unplanned Land Invasions induced on the larger populace was inconsequential to Minister Kasukuwere who in the melee gained immensely from the spoils of the chaos on the farms.

He not only expropriated land but being closely linked to the top of government he secured lucrative business pickings from shortages that ensued to built a vast empire in the oil and petroleum industry that suffered from shortages of foreign earnings as a result of critical agricultural productivity collapse.

The collapse of the economy opened doors for the connected Minister who had unlimited access to scarce trickles of foreign earnings at preferential sub economic exchange rates that were later to be perfected into Forex-for-printed-valueless Zimbabwe currency that was not worth the paper it was printed on.

Using this method, loathed Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, and reduced all life savers who had banked in liquid securities to paupers while he transferred their savings to privileged Zanu PF zealots like Kasukuwere in stable hard currencies for a song.

By this time Minister Kasukuwere had matured enough to enjoy his cheap pickings silently and stable enough to distance himself from Phillip Chiyangwa who had introduced him to vociferous Indigenisation Empowerment by impunity.

That Zanu PF was too weak and tired to win elections was evident to all in the party not least of them Party leader Robert Mugabe who after facing stiff resistance to the intention he held to defer Presidential elections to 2010 and harmonize them with Parliamentary and Local Authority elections to ensure he would not fight a losing battle alone he dissolved a Parliament in the third year of its term and ordered fresh elections harmonised to his Constitutionally mandatory 2008 term renewal.

The obvious reason for that stroke of political ingenuity failure by the unpopular Zanu PF President was to ensure his disenchanted supporters would rally behind him and the Party to retain Government positions that had guaranteed a life of extravagance and splendor in a country where the rest of the populace was writhing in abject poverty.

Unfortunately it did not work as planned and for the first ever time in its history Zanu PF lost Local Authority and Parliamentary elections to the opposition and worse its leader was soundly defeated in the Presidential elections of March 2008.

Only the ruthless and vicious intervention of a Zanu PF compromised Military
Command averted the imminent dislodgement of the party from government and all hell broke loose as the Military fought the unarmed civilian populace to retain the defeated dictator in power.

During campaigning for the Presidency, Commander of the Defence Forces’ wife Jocelyn Chiwenga-herself a retard of the worst order had displayed the same symptoms of disdain towards Premier Tsvangirai in a Price Wars chance altercation at Makro.

She charged at the Premier seeking to taste his manhood but was left stranded and livid when the decorous Premier who was sure to win the election simply turned his back on her only to hit back by defeating the candidate the General’s wife was rooting for.

But the important lesson appears to have been missed by slow learner Minister Kasukuwere who gazetted controversial Indigenization and Empowerment regulations without consulting the Premier tasked with formulating and implementing the government in which he is a Minister.

The defiant act by the Minister, who is at the center of controversy in the role he played in irregularly recruiting Border Gezi graduates as Youth Officers in his Ministry without seeking approval for the establishment of the positions appears to have been motivated by an obnoxious directive sent to Ministers by Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck Sibanda.

The circular purportedly ordered Ministers to sidestep the Premier and report to the President via the Vice Presidents in contravention of Constitution Amendment No 19.

It now turns out that the directive was set aside by the coalition government principals on account of its unconstitutionality and yet Kasukuwere hand pounced on it to promulgate regulations that are not supported by the Premier overally responsible for formulating and implementing such regulations.

Now that the basis upon which the regulations were gazette has been annulled the next obvious thing should be the Minister apologizing to the Premier and taking appropriate steps to regularize the regulations whose operation the Premier has Constitutional powers to veto.

But no the slow learning Minister remains adamant he has followed procedures and will push through implementation of the regulations with or without the Premier’s support.

Obviously Minister Kasukuwere believes he can use the compromised AG’s office to implement the regulations oblivious of the backlash of political sanctions attendant in taking that misguided route from the coalition government partners opposed to the impunity inherent in the regulations.

The obvious blemish and spite to the goodwill that the coalition government is desperately clamouring for is to the daft and tactless Minister nigh.
He will only learn the ramifications when he is fatally hurt as happened to the Minister who steered the controversial Act through fast track methods to beat elections deadline Paul Mangwana who was dropped from Cabinet after outliving his usefulness to Zanu PF following the party’s defeat at the March 2008 harmonised elections.

The same fate awaits Kasukuwere but before that he will have to overcome vigorous opposition to his ill advised regulations not just from the Premier he despises but the business community he intends to dispossess of their investment and the backlash of discontent with Zanu PF as jobs in the expropriated companies are lost in like manner to the backlash Zanu PF suffered from farm workers it deprived of jobs and places of residence during the chaotic land reforms.

For his part the Premier must simply refuse the implementation of the rules in the Council of ministers and continue to oppose them at Cabinet level until such time they are made compliant with the national desire to revive the economy through attracting foreign direct investment.

No sane foreign investor other than a charitable organization would opt to invest in a country where indigenous people will claim rights to 51% of his capital injection when in the region other countries are offering tax relief incentives to attract such investors regardless of how poor the neighbourly countries may be natural resources wise.

As for Minister Kasukuwere’s failure to learn from past mistakes all we can do is remind him that the people of Zimbabwe will have their day to pass judgement on him and his party in elections looming as the coalition teeters on collapse.

It will not be a pleasing verdict for his efforts we can assure him of that.

Sanctions or Tsvanctions which is Zanu PF quacking about

Mugabe's ZANU PF threats to abandon the GPA implementation until such time as Tsvangirai's MDC party causes the lifting of imposed on Zanu PF leadership are ill advised political hot air that will spell doom for Zanu PF if the MDC partners declare a deadlock and SADC and the AU are forced to intervene and force the parties to hold internationally supervised elections to resolve the deadlock.

The Sadc mediated GPA that imposed the current Zimbabwe government was from the outset agreed to be an imperfect solution to a political situation that was threatening not just Zimbabweans but also regional economies and security.

Subdued and battle weary Zimbabweans were disillusioned by the outcomes of GPA negotiations.

But in their weak physical and spiritual positions they resigned themselves to fate and hoped they could salvage something from the flawed agreement.

To a large extent they were right because they indeed benefited immensely when politically motivated violence by Zanu PF subsided drastically and economic stability resulted in unexpected reprieve from the ravages of Zanu PF scripted hyperinflation that pauperised the entire nation.

The re-energised nation increased lifted their bar of expectations from inclusivity higher with each improvement to their quality of life that accrued from the coalition government economic and social interventions.

The rise in expectations was faster than the moribund and rusted brains in Zanu PF leadership could cope with and the exodus of supporters from the Party of geriatrics to the vibrant MDT-T threatened Zanu PF to its foundations.

The change had to be slowed down somehow if the former invincible vanguard party had to remain politically relevant and the only way to do that was to renege on GPA provisions that had the greatest potential to show the ordinary populace how well and quickly the MDC-T was equipped and capable of turning around the rot that Zanu PF had nurtured over the past three decades it had exercised unquestioned political power.

But the more the Zanu PF leadership attempted to derail benefits devolving to the ordinary populace the more supporters it lost to the MDC-T.

Arguments that Zanu PF had relied on to retain support such as land ownership and empowerment suddenly lost value as people realised that they were better economically empowered not through land ownership but rather through freedom from politically motivated violence and impunity and space to freely engage in an economic environment underpinned by price stability and controlled inflation.

Zanu PF which had hitherto blamed runaway commodity prices, inflation and commodity shortages on sanctions was left severely exposed by the coalition government’s fiscal policies that not only arrested inflation but also restocked the retail outlets the Zanu PF government had pillaged and plundered bare through price controls, militia interventions and corrupt racketeering.

Ordinary people who hitherto had believed Zanu PF explanations that sanctions were responsible for their economic dire straits increasingly started questioning party leadership over the veracity of their previous assertions given that the situation had turned around for the better yet the said sanctions had not been officially announced to have been lifted.

Zanu PF’s attempt to claim credit for crafting the multi-currency intervention that stabilised prices and arrested inflation did not help the party much as it left the people questioning why the party did not do so earlier before they had been turned destitute and even more distrustful of the party.

But the Zanu PF reeling from effects of frozen assets and lack of the loophole to sustain high quality life through unrestrained money printing by the Reserve Bank continued preaching the lies that the sanctions were retarding the country’s recovery prospects.

The truth is that Zanu PF leaders are failing to sustain living standards they had become accustomed to because of stringent economic controls exercised by the Finance Minister that have drastically minimised corruption and impunity as well as patronage rewards.

They want access to funds they had ferreted and stashed in offshore accounts that were frozen by the EU and US sanctions on Zanu PF leadership.

They are aware that they have no chance in hell of retaining power after the GPA and in the likely event the MDC-T takes over government reigns before their frozen loot is made accessible to them they may never realise the stashed funds which they have no explanation for how they were acquired.

That is why from its Congress late last year the Party of geriatrics resolved that it was no longer interested in adhering to the GPA unless the MDC-T petitioned the US and EU to lift the sanctions preventing them from accessing their looted stashes abroad.

The MDC-T has consistently argued that it has no powers to lift the restrictions imposed on Zanu PF leadership with the MDC-T’s tacit approval as they were in support of its claims for democratic space which has now been largely realised.

Because of that realisation the MDC-T is not entirely averse to relaxation of restrictive measures imposed on Zimbabwean companies that were hitherto under exclusive control of Zanu PF but now are superintended by the MDC-T appointed Finance Minister and other Ministers from the party.

The most popular party has however been cautious not to be at the forefront of the advocacy for the lifting of the restrictive measures against individual and powerful Zanu PF zealots before securing irreversibility of the democratisation process.

When the British Foreign Secretary David Milliband accurately responded to a question on the Zanu PF sanctions and disclosed that his country’s government would be guided by the MDC in determining whether or not to retain restrictions on Zanu PF leaders the out of sorts Zanu PF leadership capitalised.

They had finally got something on which to crucify the MDC-T as the source of the sanctions they are reeling under and they now think they have concrete grounds upon which to refuse to adhere by the terms of the GPA which they in party parlance refer to as concessions.

They are in for a rude awakening from their stupor of political amnesia if they believe they have found an unassailable basis for abandoning the GPA.

First there is absolutely nothing wrong in the international community or the United Kingdom listening to the most representative party in the country to get guidance and shape appropriate its foreign policy on that basis.

Second the GPA is not an agreement between the UK and Zanu PF but rather an African inspired agreement to resolve an African problem as Zanu PF has always insisted and reneging on it will not fail Western leadership in the UK but African leadership in Zimbabwe first Sadc next and finally the AU who demanded and got their way in claiming responsibility for resolving the Zimbabwe political impasse that followed the 2008 harmonised elections.

Without the GPA the cherished claim by Zanu PF that its First Secretary and Party President is the country’s President, Head of State and Government as well as Commander in Chief of the Defence forces is null and void.

The coalition government must be dissolved within 90 days and elections to choose the new legitimate Government and President must be staged.

The sanctions they are intending to be removed will be tightened to ensure they stage violence free and credible elections which the party will not win.

After losing the elections the frozen assets they intend to recover from the lifting of sanctions will only be accessed by those that will prove they acquired them legitimately and there is none among them who can do so meaning they will be impounded by the state.

Sadly the dissolution of the coalition government after a deadlock in its continuation is not within the exclusive control of Zanu PF but rather that of SADC and the AU and their hands will be tied even if they want to defend the continuation of the government in instances where Zanu PPF refuses to live by the terms it agreed in mediated talks by the two bodies that had the tacit approval of the UN.

The entire nation other than the moribund and blindfolded Zanu PF leadership knows that Zanu PF stands to lose more from the dissolution of the coalition government than its other two partners combined and more so the MDC-T.

The populace at large also knows that Zanu PF has nothing to offer than the vicious dosage of unbridled violence and corruption it has dished in the past three decades it has ruled the country and will go all out to vote against the party reclaiming political dominance it used to have in those three decades.

The electorate knows that the sanctions argument is a ruse that will not benefit them in any way if they are lifted or negatively affect them if they are retained.

The Zimbabwe electorate is alert to the reason why Zanu PF leadership is keen to have sanctions imposed against their travel and that froze their looted assets relaxed including why the Party is associating the sanctions to Tsvangirai to the extent of renaming the restrictions Tsvanctions of late.

The Zanu PF political nightmare is not the hindrances of the sanctions on national recovery but the prospect of competing for political office in a credible environment against MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

That is why they are concentrating on discrediting him for the sanctions whose effects only those with frozen assets and travel bans abroad are languishing from.

An announcement of early elections is what most people are waiting for if SADC and the international community can guarantee freedom from violence during those elections.

The MDC-T knows that the SADC and international community has limitations in guaranteeing violence free elections in the country based on its past experiences.

That is why it is not losing sleep over threats from Zanu PF about the granting of concessions as the MDC-T wants the Constitution revision process to be successfully completed and then go to elections on the provisions of that new Constitution which they will ensure will close loopholes Zanu PF has previously used to rig itself into power.

Forget the sanctions being the reason why Zanu PF is afraid to abide by the GPA it is the fear of competing against Tsvangirai for political office that is driving the party crazy and they have every reason to be wary of him.
He is riding on the crest of popular support which will be difficult to overhaul in any free election.

Zanu PF can take whatever stance it feels comfortable with in its interaction with coalition government partners of convenience but if it dares take untenable positions the partners will hit back with dire consequences on Zanu PF whose political relevance and current political lifeline is the coalition partners.

The politics of outstanding GPA issues

President Mugabe and Premier Tsvangirai now actively addressing issues threatening the coalition government

Before the SADC troika met on 5 November and resolved that the subscribers to the Zimbabwe Global Political Agreement must forthwith apply themselves to resolving the outstanding issues that had resulted in the MDC-T resorting to a partial pullout to emphasise the importance of it attached to the resolution of the issues we had been fed a nauseating overdose of Zanu PF mantra to the effect that there are no more outstanding issues to talk about from the implementation of the GPA.
But in a short 45 day period after the Mozambique meeting of the SADC Troika...

we now have the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet announcing the appointment of three critical Commissions whose interviews had been concluded in September but outcomes had been kept under wraps in the office of the octogenarian Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.

The GPA principals have agreed on the names of Commissioners to serve on the Human Rights, Media and Independent Electoral Commissions and announced them as follows;
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission [ZEC] 8 Members: Daniel Chigaru, Geoff Feltoe, Theophilus Gambe, Joyce Kazembe, Petty Makoni, Sibongile Ndhlovu, Bessie Nhandara, Mukuni Nyathi

Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission [ZHRC] 8 Members: Kwanele Jirira, Carol Khombe, Joseph Kurebwa, Jacob Mudenda, Elasto Mugwadi, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, Neseni Nomathemba, Ellen Sithole.

Zimbabwe Media Commission [ZMC] Chairperson Godfrey Majonga, Deputy Chairperson Nqubile Nyathi and 7 other members: Lawton Hikwa, Miriam Madziwa, Chris Mhike, Millicent Mombeshora, Henry Muradzikwa, Chris Mutsvangwa, Matthew Takaona.

Even then the appointments were incomplete as the Electoral and Human rights Commissions were announced without disclosure on the names of the persons who will chair them as was agreed in the GPA that the Parliament’s Standing Rules and Orders would make recommendations to the President on who to appoint in the Commissions and the President would in turn and in consultation with the Premier appoint the incumbents and designate one among them as chairperson of the respective Commission.

But perhaps as MDC-T’s Elton Mangoma sheepishly told the nation in justifying the ongoing negotiating process this is because during the initial negotiations that led to the GPA there was agreement in principle on what the coalition government had to achieve but not on the how it will do so which is now what justifies the ongoing negotiations.

We can only hope that as the negotiators deal with the how part of the GPA they will also not forget to address the when, why, where and by who aspect so critical in holding performers accountable for successful performance.

But then lest we get carried away was this announcement not an outstanding announcement from the GPA when Zanu PF was dishing out the lies that President Mugabe had lived by his part in the agreement and it was now left to the MDC-T to fulfill its obligations to have sanctions lifted, dismantle pirate radio stations and as an offshoot dismantle parallel government structures in the Premier’s office?
And for it to happen so soon as the blind folded Zanu PF Congress had just resolved that;
“On the GPA and the Inclusive Government
Congress has noted that the Inclusive Government brings the Party into partnership with ideologically incompatible MDC Formations from which it must extricate itself in order to retain its mantle as the only dominant and ascendant political party that is truly representative and determined to safeguard the aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe.

Congress, therefore:

Castigates the continuance of the illegal declared and undeclared Western sanctions which remain a paramount and decisive outstanding issue in the Inter-Party dialogue on which the nation must speak with one voice and challenges the MDC Formations to undergo fundamental mind frame change (KUCHINJA PFUNGWA) in calling for their immediate and unconditional removal.

Expresses confidence that the new Facilitation Team will continue with the same diligence, patience and understanding that the Zimbabwe issue has delicate, sensitive and fundamental concerns on both sides that cannot be resolved overnight.
Instructs Mugabe and negotiators to ensure that all outstanding issues, once agreed, must be implemented concurrently.

This means there should be no movement on the concerns of the MDC Formations without corresponding and simultaneous redress of Zanu PF’s concerns such as the illegal Western sanctions, Western Funded pirate radio broadcasts and Western interference in Zimbabwe’s internal politics through the funding of parallel government structures and the sponsoring of political activities of NGOs as a force multiplier for the MDC Formations.

Negotiators should not countenance introduction or inclusion of provisions or agreements which seek to reverse or undermine the gains of the Liberation Struggle.
Congress instructs the party to signals that it will reject any outcome of the Constitution-making process that is not home grown.

An acceptable outcome would be a Constitution made by Zimbabweans for Zimbabwe, which entrenches the ethos and gains of the Liberation Struggle and is not the product of any external interference.

No foreigners, individual, corporate or national in whatever capacity they may from time to time find themselves involved in aspects of Zimbabwe’s bilateral dispute with Britain, have the right to dictate or impose a Constitutional order on Zimbabwe.

Declares that Security Forces an inalienable right of every sovereign state, and more so Zimbabwe’s

Security Forces are a product of the National Liberation Struggle, and therefore belong to the people and are mandated to defend the country’s territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty. Zanu PF, as the Party of revolution and the people’s vanguard, shall not allow the Security Forces of Zimbabwe to be the subject of any negotiation for a so called ‘security sector reform’ that is based on patent misrepresentations of Zimbabwe’s heroic history and for the mere purpose of weakening the state so that it can be easily overthrown.

Directs all Party members and organs to fully participate in the constitution making process in order to prevent it from being hijacked by those who wish to effect regime change or to undermine the gains of the Liberation Struggle,” shows how critical the Zanu PF Congress is in directing party policies and programmes.

This bunch of beneficiaries of Mugabe’s largesse with little or no influence whatsoever on the direction of the party which resides with security forces they purport to own and control was never consulted when Mugabe was forced to negotiate the GPA and will not be of material consequence in directing the party when it comes to the GPA and the coalition government.

The good thing about is they know how ineffective they are in matters related to the GPA because their President reminded them that they are a disjointed lot on factional lines and are only kept together by his largesse.

That is why he has scoffed their GPA resolutions and announced a new Electoral Commission to replace the one he arm twisted to declare a Presidential runoff election after his routing at the hands of Morgan Tsvangirai in the initial March 29 segment of the harmonized election.

The parasites attending the Zanu PF Congress blindly ordered their President and
Negotiators to extricate their party from its relationship with the MDC formations in the coalition government and Mugabe stoked their pleasure by announcing he is ready for fresh elections because the coalition government had outlived its usefulness.

He did not tell his captive fools that he will not commit any such foolishness of extricating himself from the political arrangement that legitimizes his tenure of office and condemn his party into political oblivion.

Because of their advanced ages the Zanu PF Congress delegates can be pardoned for exhibiting bouts of amnesia commensurate with their ages.

They have not only forgotten that Mugabe is only a President of the coalition government and the minute he dismantles that government he will revert to the illegitimacy that haunted him over the period April 2008 to 12 February 2009.

But Mugabe has not forgotten the pain of illegitimacy and is aware where his problems in the coalition government are being coordinated from.

Sadly his blind followers missed his hint when he went on the offensive against
MDC-T Secretary General and Finance Minister Tendai Biti who vowed when he took appointment that he would be no one’s junior partner in the coalition government.
Mugabe has had long enough to realize that Finance Minister Biti is a sore in the Zanu PF politics of patronage and corruption.

He accused the Minister of scuttling the Party’s renowned inputs for political allegiance programmes by refusing to release the IMF drawing rights for the party functionaries he has allocated farms to squander on luxurious lifestyles they had become accustomed to.

The few who got his message are now pushing that the finance Minister is responsible for cash shortages in Banks forgetting that they have hitherto insisted that the Governor of the Reserve Bank whom they endorse is responsible for fiscal management and has been caught napping.

The same congress resolved that the disputed appointments of Provincial Governors, the Reserve Bank Governor and Attorney General were historically justified and should not be revisited by the Party negotiators and in any event whatever will be agreed upon which they obviously had no clue they directed that implementation be done simultaneously when all the party wishes were attained.

They will be disappointed with the appointment of Commissioners ahead of their wishes of the shutting down of pirate radio stations, the lifting of sanctions and the dismantling of so called parallel government structures in the Premier’s office if at all they will realize that it has happened in utter disregard of their resolutions.

And it appears they are in for more surprises after the same people they barred from negotiating further concessions have agreed to meet again and thrash out the remaining outstanding issues that had hitherto been dismissed as non issues.

Despite prolonged delays in posting the MDC nominated Ambassadors to their work stations it appears the game is up as the Registrar General has confirmed issuing the Diplomatic Passports for the designate Ambassadors and it can only be a matter of weeks before they are dispatched to their stations.

The real work that remains is for Legislators to work on giving the appointed commissions real teeth to deal with political misdemeanors.

Apart from the Electoral Commission that is regulated by the Electoral Act the other two Commissions have no legal framework in which to operate and enforce compliance and this must be addressed with speed before they are manipulated and abused.

It is not enough that they are established in terms of Constitutional Amendment No 19 because there is need to give them an enabling Act which will guide their operations and close loopholes that can be exploited to mislead them politically.

Even the electoral Act needs to be tightened up to close the loose language that allowed the previous Commission to delay announcement of results in order to find means and ways to manipulate them.

Equally important is the need to set specific deadlines on when after receipt of returns from polling stations the Chief elections Officer must announce the results as given and leave contestants to resort to the Electoral Courts to dispute figures returned from constituency registrars.

Parliament must never allow the situation where Patrick Chinamasa usurped its power to amend the Act through a statutory instrument to recur.

While we welcome the appointment of the Commissions we implore Legislators to be alert to these loopholes and close them well in advance of the conclusion of the constitution making process such that by the time elections are staged there will be no room for Commissioners to be abused by the President, Justice Minister and or the Military Commanders as happened after the March 2008 elections.

Demystifying the SADC mediation process in Zimbabwe

They can't agree on critical issues these coalition government principals in zimbabwe now they have to appear before a reinforced SADC Troika for panelbeating


There is apparent confusion and or genuine misunderstanding in Zimbabwe in respect of the role the regional bloc should execute its influence in Zimbabwe.

Basically Sadc is a political and economic cooperation union of Southern African countries that aims at promoting Social, political and economic cooperation in the region.

To do so Sadc uses persuasion and conciliation as opposed to physical cohesion to ensure its members live within acceptable norms.

The Sadc Supreme Council which equates to the Non Executive Board of Directors in a company comprises of Heads of State of member States and like in companies its sole responsibility is to give directions on any areas of interest between member states.

The day to day execution of the policies and procedures of the SADC are the responsibility of the Secretariat headed by Dr Tomaz Augusto Salomão which is the current Secretary General a position with similar powers to those carried by the position of Chief Executive in a company.

The Chairmanship of the SADC supreme council rotates among the various Heads of State every six months.

The Chairman has no extraordinary executive powers to compel any member state to behave as he deems fit from his interpretation of Sadc protocols but he holds immense powers of persuasion in that he uses the grouping to threaten punitive measures against errand member states.

That is why Sadc guaranteed the Zimbabwe GPA. It relies on power of the consensus in the grouping to bear on any errand member state and modify behaviours.

Sadc like any other company is divided into strategic business units the most commonly known of which is the organ on politics, Defence and Politics which is commonly referred to as the Sadc Troika.

The dispute in Zimbabwe has been escalated to the SADC executive for mediation. It is a reference of the dispute to Dr Tomaz Augusto Salomão’s team and he has decided that the best way to deal with the grievances before him is to table them before the Troika.

Zambia Mozambique and Swaziland are the current members of the Troika and have been invited to deal with the Zimbabwe disputes in Maputo starting Friday 6 November 2009.

Since Sadc has no military unit to force its members to comply with agreements when disputes arise in member States in areas where Sadc is directly involved as is the case with the Zimbabwe GPA, the grouping taps into its strategic business units to cobble out an acceptable resolution for the challenges brought before it.

Zimbabweans expect SADC to decree certain courses of action to resolve the Zimbabwe impasse but if that was to happen, it would need a force to enforce compliance which SADC does not have at present.

At best what can be expected from the planned Sadc Troika meeting in Maputo is persuasion of President Mugabe to implement forthwith the agreements so far reached by the coalition government principals and that includes the swearing in of Roy Bennett, The appointment of Provincial Governors in the ratio MDC-T 5 Zanu PF 4 and MDC-MM 1, The appointment of recommended Human Rights, Media and Electoral commissioners, the reversal of Dr Gono and Johannes Tomana’s appointments and or the renegotiation of their appointment to find a consensus.

The MDC-T in particular will most likely be compelled to take a leading role in campaigning for the lifting of travel bans imposed on Zanu PF members of the coalition government.

The MDC-T has no problem with doing that if Zanu PF shows total commitment to the GPA by reining in its errant hardliners and it ceases all forms of hostilities they are currently directing towards MDC members and sympathizers alike.

Because of the seriousness of the threat to the continuation of the Zimbabwe coalition government the SADC secretary general has considered it expedient at this juncture to bolster the Troika with the inclusion of the current Sadc Chairman DRC President Joseph Kabila and immediate past chairman South Africa President Jacob Zuma.

Dr Tomaz Augusto Salomão appears to have received intelligence that this meeting will be no stroll in the park for the Troika and wants to ensure success at the first attempt by bringing in top guns Zuma and Kabila whom both President Mugabe and Premier Tsvangirai know they must respect if they are to get their way in Sadc should the issues remain unresolved and are to be escalated to the SADC supreme body.

What this means is that the long awaited mediation of the Zimbabwe GPA problems by Sadc as guarantour of first instance, has started in earnest following the threat posed by the MDC-T disengagement that has been in force over the past 3 weeks.

This preliminary stage will be crucial in managing tension and conflict within the tottering Zimbabwe government and who knows with the inclusion of the top guns invited to the Troika may surprise the nation by finding an amicable resolution of the thorny issues that have dragged for 9 months after the consummation of the government.

Shoddy service a Zanu PF misrule legacy

Municipal workers dig trenches like these to replace rotten water pipework neglected by Zanu PF for decades but pose a danger to motorists and pedestrians alike by not barricading or signposting the works areas and leaving the trenches open for weeks. That is how tatty Zimbabwe service providers have become.

The culture of entitlement and impunity that became entrenched in Zimbabweans over decades of being subjected to Zanu PF misrule is turning out to be a serious threat to ethical business practice that will cost the country heavily as it struggles to move out of the economic stabilization phase to economic growth.

There has developed over the years a pervasive unhealthy culture that the service provider and not the customer is the king.

The culture stems from the days when shortages were the order of the day and black racketeering was the accepted norm of doing business.

The service provider was placed in an advantageous position to profiteer and middlemen that sourced scarce commodities made a killing out of adding little if any value to a service or product.

Here are a few classical examples that I have experienced recently.


My vehicle windscreen had been smashed in one corner by a falling object and required replacement,

I had entrusted a close confidante to source quotations of how much it would cost to get the repairs done and was quoted a whopping $250.00.

On arrival I went to PG Auto glass in the Graniteside industrial are and was quoted $130.00 for the supply and fix job – a variance of $120.00 from what I would have forked out to my confidante had I accepted his quotation.

This translates into an entitlement mark up of 90.31% that would have accrued to my confidante for the trust I had placed in him to arrange for the repairs.

On driving the vehicle to the repair workshop I discovered that repairs would not be undertaken unless I had paid cash up front as per the quotation and since I had not carried enough cash I decided to drive off and return the following day for repairs to be done.

At that point the technician who was supposed to fit the new windscreen on my car came closer and advised me that the reason was that the replacement windscreens are never kept in stock but are sourced from the main dealers from the cash that customers pay for the quotations.

This amused me and I asked where they sourced the windscreens and at what cost to which the technician refused to disclose unless I guaranteed that he would have the fitting job after work for $80.00.

I agreed and he gave me a runner to go and buy the windscreen and requisite adhesive.
We drove to the Zimbabwe Glass Warehouse some 3kilometers away from the PG Auto glass workshop where I was told to wait a moment while my escort sourced the windscreen.

The waiting was prolonged as my escort approached several dealers and or workers to get the cheapest price as the lowest price of $55.00 he had been charged would have meant a balance of $25.00 for the adhesive and fitting job which requires at least two people to complete.

I lost my patience with him and entered the warehouse where I was told they only sell to dealers with VAT registration certificates which my escort and I did not have.

Undaunted I asked further and discovered that staff working for the Zimbabwe Glass Warehouse could equally purchase the windscreen for a fee and these were what my escort was targeting but their charges for the corrupt service had been raised from the usual $5.00 to $10.00 per purchase thus increasing the actual cost from the usual $50.00 to the $55.00 that my escort was having problems with.

Having secured the information I wanted I then pressured my escort to finalise the purchase protesting the time it was taking, He attempted to negotiate the price up to $90.00 to cover the unexpected underhand charge and make his own $5.00 profit to which I refused to accede and demanded that we go back to PG so he could appraise his principal -the technician-as to why he had failed to purchase the screen.

We did and the contract was cancelled when we could not agree on the price increase to $90.00 as I was now aware that this involved an extra $40.00 on the cost price of the screen and should the fitting not meet my expectations I had no recourse to recovery action against the technician that I would have if he fitted the screen under PG Auto Glass.

I had also discovered that the screen that was being sold to staff at cost of $50.00 was sold to VAT registered dealers for $80.00 and adding VAT to that would retail at $92.00 plus costs of adhesives estimated at $8.00 meaning PG was charging 30% for labour in their quoted price.

For me therefore paying $130.00 to PG was preferable than paying $90.00 to the PG technician to work on my car privately as his mark up of $40.00 was in real terms $10.00 more than the PG markup of $30.00 yet Pg adds value by employing the technician and paying Vat which the technician did not do in his private capacity.

The following day I drove my car into PG and it was fitted to my satisfaction.
Then I had the problem with water charges from the city Council which needed to be sorted out.

The water meter had not been working so I was being charged for an estimated 40 cubic meters per month notwithstanding that there are only two of my children living on the property.

Water meters are Council property but these days they no longer supply or replace them although they continue to charge for them in the water bill.

I had to source my own meter from a hardware shop in town who kindly advised me to take it to the Local Municipal area offices for calibration before I could get it fitted.

I drove to the Waterfalls Municipal offices where unfortunately I was told I had been wrongly directed by the retailer as I was supposed to take the meter to the Bishop Gaul Municipal Offices in Workington for calibration.

It was nearing 16.30 an I decided it was time wasting visiting the Bishop Gaul offices so close to the end of the normal working day because of experiences I had when I visited the organisation’s Rowan martin Offices the previous week to pay for the water and rates.

The estimated water bill of $85.00 turned up to be more than the average $30.00 that low density residence were advised to pay so I pulled out my cheque book to settle the bill.

“We do not accept foreign account cheques here and in any event we are about to close,” I was politely dismissed by the cashier.

Fortunately the supervisor was on the next service counter so I sought his intervention as I could not understand why in the multi currency financial order a Municipality would refuse to accept a cheque from a foreign account whose currency was in daily use in the country.

The supervisor explained that they did not accept cheques because they had not received deposit slips from their foreign currency transaction banker Kingdom bank.

I promptly asked for the account number so that I could go and do the transaction in the banking hall the following day if the deposit slip was really the issue and was given the account details.

The following day I was at the bank and deposited the cheque and suffered an additional $5.00 bank charge for the favour of accepting my deposit which charges should really be levied against the Account holder and not its clients if at all the charge is justified.

But then this is Zimbabwe where the supplier calls the shots and not the customers.

I was supposed to then take a copy of the deposit slip to the Municipality as evidence that I had indeed cleared the account but I did not and will not do that until they come to turn off supplies where I will show them the copy as evidence that I had paid the account.

Back to the water meter so it was that I was at the Bishop Gaul Offices with the meter to have it calibrated so I could take it back and fit it.

To my surprise I was asked if I had already been to the Zinwa Offices at the corner of Second Street and Speke Avenue to have the meter recorded and issued with a calibration certificate which the Waterfalls Area Office made no mention of the previous day.

Obviously I had not done that and was promptly advised to do so if I wanted the Municipality to have anything to do with my gadget.

It was too late for me to go there and come back in time for them to calibrate the meter and in any event I had not carried the purchase receipt which was required in the registration process at Zinwa.

As if that was not enough burden passed onto the customer, the calibration would not be done instantly while you wait but you had to leave the meter behind and collect after 3 hours.

I negotiated to leave the meter behind while they did the calibration and asked if I could given the receipt to take to ZINWA the following day together with the proof of purchase of the meter numbered in the Bishop Gaul Street Offices receipt.

The next day I paid the Zinwa Offices a visit equipped with the two documents and was given the calibration clearance certificate to take back to Bishop Gaul offices and redeem my calibrated meter which I grudgingly obliged to.

Before leaving Zinwa I took the certifying officer and her engineer to task as to the logic of having offices whose work is complimentary situated 3 kilometers apart and was given some lame excuse about the shortage of appropriately qualified Zinwa staff to Station at Bishop Gaul and the Speke avenue offices and the need to minimize fraudulent activities in the registration of the meters in the calibration offices.

I asked why the burden had to be placed with the consumer to commute between the two offices and not the Local Authority that is so diligent in trying to protect its consumers against fraudsters and did not get a satisfactory answer.

But the obvious answer is that the Municipality is expropriating consumers’ meters by registering them as its assets and exploiting them to run its administrative errands because it is a monopoly in the supply of water and if the customer does not oblige they will be charged exorbitantly for estimated water consumption that they hardly ever receive and consume.

Equipped with the calibration certificate I headed for the Bishop Gaul offices to collect the meter and finally fit it but there were more surprises in store for me.

I was given the now green painted meter alright and told it to take it to my local area office to have it fitted.

I went straight to the waterfalls Area office where to my surprise I was referred to another Waterworks department which is some 5 kilometers away from the Area Office.

I had had enough and lost it completely. Here I was at my area office which had failed me in the first instance by not replacing the broken meter and thereafter overcharging me for water that was ever a trickle and when I bought them the meter they did not advise me properly when they sent me to Bishop Gaul offices instead of the Zinwa offices first.

After doing all the work they are supposed to and for which I pay for in rates and water charges they were contend to send me anywhere and everywhere instead of them servicing me as their customer.

I told the cashier I had had enough of their inefficient service and would not go anywhere else other than the Area offices where I was from advice I had been given at Bishop Gaul Offices and if the plumbers were located elsewhere it was up to the office to let them attend to the job at my residence.

“We have no means to contact them as they have the only vehicle for the district and their landline is down,” they informed me.

It only added to my fury and I threatened the supervisor who was making this lame execuse with the sack as I was going to take the meter to Townhouse and leave it there if he was not willing to perform his duties.

It is only then I learned the plumbers had a business mobile which the area office was prohibited to phone from the landline and they had run out of credit in their mobile.

I offered them mine and was soon talking to the Plumber who insisted I had to drop the meter at his workshop.

I reminded him that his job was to serve customers and not the other way round and told him that I was leaving the meter with the supervisor at the area office and expect it to be fitted before the close of business the same day failure of which I was going to come and collect the meter and take it to the Director of Works’ Office and narrate my ordeal at the hands of the service providers in his frontline offices.

I terminated the conversation and drove off leaving the meter there with the supervisor cashier. Within 30 minutes the Plumber was on the line seeking directions to my residence claiming he had collected the meter and wanted to fit it which I gladly gave to him and he was there within ten minutes.

The meter was finally fitted much to my relief. The plumber attempted to squeeze a bribe from me to attend to a leak on the stop valve after the meter but I gave him an eye that told him he was treading on dangerous territory and he fixed the leak with thread tape that I provided when he complained he had not brought his full tools because of the ultimatum I had given him.

That is the sad service culture Zanu PF misrule has bequeathed the country.

The banks in Zimbabwe accept payments from foreign account holders and transfers from those accounts through MONEYGRAM. Western Union and or Telegraphic bank to Bank transfers.

They until last week refuse to dispense cash to such account holders citing the effects of forex transactions restrictions they were operating under Gideon Gono’s tenure as the Zanu PF economic turnaround point man.

While giving these excuses they were already accepting the same cards to be swiped at their point of sale terminals in supermarkets but refusing the outlets permission to even allow limited cash back facilities as is the case where point of sale terminals are in use globally.

Under these circumstances and needing substantial cash to pay contractors I had engaged to renovate the house I made arrangements to be sent the money via Western Union.

I went to collect the cash from the Standard Bank Africa Union Square Western Union Officers where the woman officer at the reception counter would not allow me to fill the collection form on a disused counter in the hall but outside the banking hall.

After complying and submitting my claim form to her she would not allow me to stand in the banking hall waiting for my turn ordering me to sit on the hard benches provided for waiting customers.

When my turn to be served finally came around the cahier dispensed the notes and retained 55 cents without so much mentioning that she had done so and her reasons for doing that.

I would have not bothered but the control freak at the reception had started my adrenalin running long before I got served so I questioned the shortage whereupon the cashier explained that she had no coins and they routinely left any coins unpaid for that reason.

I quickly counted that there were about 10 people served ahead of me in a space of one hour and at that rate the facility was capable of serving 80 people in the 8 hours they worked and if each was to be docked 50cents the cashiers will have $40.00 in unclaimed funds which they could share between themselves and resolved I was not going to be swindled like that.

I offered the cashier 35 pence and requested that she give me a dollar but she refused and said she was not authorized to accept the coins by her management.

I was livid and went to the manager’s office to demand my 50 cents. The duty manager was at first surprised to see a customer making such a frivolous demand but when she realised how angry and serious I was she struck a conciliatory note and explained that the matter could have been resolved by the cashier accepting the pence I had tendered.

She asked me to return to the counter and wait for her. When I arrived the control freak receptionist would not allow me to stand in the hall to which I told her to go to hell as it was not an offence anywhere in the country to wait for a service while standing.

The waiting customers she had rudely instructed to sit down before me were automatically turned on my side as they felt the offensive receptionist had met her match.

She would have none of that and went to call a security guard to ensure that I was seated or removed from the banking hall.

A dreadful miscalculation as she later realised when I told the security guard of and as I was giving the guard the lecture of his rights and mine the manager arrived and told him and the receptionist to leave me alone as I was under her care.

I was told to go back to the same cashier who had served me and declined as she was serving another customer much to the surprise of the manager who had to wait until she was through with that customer.

She was promptly instructed to accept the pence I had tendered and pay me out a dollar which I gratefully accepted and left with an air of triumph.

It was a victory worth celebrating after the banks had seemed impervious to my other suggestions as to how they could overcome the setback of severed relations with VISA.

These examples of the service culture prevailing in Zimbabwe serve to highlight the problem that is faced in doing business in the country and the gap between international customer expectations and the local customer expectations that have to be harmonized.

Fortunately consumer resistance to the culture is increasing and customers are beginning to demand value for money through demonstrations such as the one against the City Council over charges for no services staged recently.

The unfortunate part of it is that Zanu PF will cease the opportunity to turn the demonstrations into mayhem to further the resistance agenda against the coalition government but the government will have none other than itself to blame if the situation goes out of hand.

Zesa no longer replaces stolen armoured electricity supply cables and electricity meters while Municipalities no longer replace broken water meters they use to bill customers and demand that customers supply their own hardware which they will fit.

In the case of Zesa they demand that customers provide them with pickup transportation if they want the faults to their premises attended to timeously.

They are extorting residences’ property and recording them as their assets and further charging for them for utilities they have fully paid for.
That must be stopped and wherever customers have supplied hardware the Councils and

ZESA are not in a position to supply they must be credited back the costs on their bills if the Parastatals are to legally claim the hardware as their assets.
The service culture in public institutions has a contagious effect on service culture in private enterprises

The world belongs to Mugabe?

Zimbabwe President has illusions about owning the world like Adolf Hitler


Whatever it is President Mugabe relies on it sure has convinced him that he owns the world. For how else would the octogenarian Zimbabwe leader think and act as he does?

After losing in a presidential election he not only staged in defiance of a public internal and regional outcry for a new constitution to be in place before the election, but also under his terms and conditionality as well as unsupervised direction and control, he simply refused to accept the outcome.

He roped in Military commanders- all of them renowned deviants who pride in disobeying legal instruments hardened by Liberation War participation a defeated former Justice Minister, an unethical Central bank Governor, a compromised Judiciary, and an Electoral Commission headed by an unethical former Judge elevated from within military ranks to conspire with Zanu PF hardliners to deny the people their vote.

For 35 days after the electorate had voted President Mugabe and his coterie of electoral fraudsters held onto the results that showed their hitherto invincible master had been convincingly walloped by the man he used to taunt as a fat chicks puppet of the West and ignoramus tea boy.

For all his craving for publicity, the humiliated Zanu PF leader stayed out of the public arena for the entire 35 days while his underlings crafted a political escape route for him and when it became evident there was none other than military defiance he instructed George Chiweshe the Electoral Commission Chairman to announce a watered down defeat at the hands of Tsvangirai that justified a runoff between him and the MDC leader.

All standing laws were bent backwards to accommodate President Mugabe’s out of time and unjustified demand for a second round of votes between him and victor Morgan Tsvangirai.

A 21 day prescription of maximum time in which such a demand could be legally entertained in terms of the Electoral act was extended to 90 days by a former Justice Minister plucked out of a dissolved cabinet to vitiate the law and supplant a dissolved Parliament which the defeated Mugabe did not find proper to revive at the time he realised he had to revive the former Cabinet he had dissolved.

Such impunity can only be the preserve of a mex owners and President Mugabe has never minced his words about his proprietorship of Zimbabwe.

Using those self acclaimed proprietary rights President Mugabe decreed a 27 June 2008runoff of the Presidential election he had resoundingly lost on 29 March 2008.

The victorious Tsvangirai appealed to regional and international political bodies for assistance to ascend to the thrown but got a cold shoulder from the then South Africa President Thabo Mbeki who sided with Mugabe and sold the illegal runoff alternative to the SADC, AU and UN with the vigour of a man possessed with demons.

Having won the illegal request President Mugabe unleashed a nightmarish electoral campaign that saw no less than 300 MDC activists massacred by his Zanu PF party militia under the command of commissioned National Military and Security officers.

Morgan Tsvangirai was denied any campaign space in which to operate. His campaign vehicles, materials, and agents and supporters alike were impounded, persecuted, murdered, denied food, tortured, raped, detained, displaced and generally abused in the name of Mugabe.

The regional political forces that had coerced Tsvangirai to contest an illegal runoff on promises of a violence free contest went into hibernation as soon as Mugabe rolled out his vicious campaign and a distraught MDC party that was sponsoring him was left with no option but to pull him out of the facade that was passing on as a runoff presidential contest between him and Mugabe.

And when he did Justice Chiweshe on whom rested the national responsibility to conduct elections within minimum acceptable conditions for elections that would be passed as credible but had remained mute about the obvious violations suddenly came out of his shell.

He convened his Electoral Commission as an Electoral Court to preside over the pullout from the runoff by Tsvangirai and declared it null and void. But hitherto the same commission had received several written complaints from the same candidate with evidence of unbridled violence but had simply ignored them.

Mugabe indeed owns Zimbabwe and everything in its borders for how else could anyone be allowed the level of impunity and not be brought to book?

After completing the runoff as a solo contestant following Tsvangirai’s last minute withdrawal from the sham contest, Mugabe’s surrogates managed to count the same number of votes that took them 35 days to count after the 29 March election within 48hours of the close of ballots and within that period announce Mugabe the “winner” with a landslide 85% up from the paltry 43% he allegedly garnered in March.

Having proved that he owns Zimbabwe it was his next mission to show that he equally owned Africa as well. Within hours of his inauguration he was off to Egypt’s Sharm El Sheik venue for the Africa Union ordinary session as its latest elected Head of a member state.

He was well received only to be told that his claim to Presidency and Head of State of Zimbabwe would not be recognised on the strength of his proclaimed victory in the 27 June 2008 election runoff.

A resolution was passed there at demanding that the despotic leader who had defiantly announced he was going to meet any detractors at the AU summit head on to go back and negotiate his legitimacy with the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

He returned home with his tail between his legs. But because he was sure he owned Africa he pleaded with loyal African subject and then South Africa President Thabo Mbeki whom he had ditched with the Kariba draft Constitution preferring to run elections under his Zanu PF party proposed Constitutional Amendment No 18 to persuade Tsvangirai to revive the Sadc mediated talks that had been going on for nearly a year without any tangible results prior to the March elections.

Mbeki obliged and proceeded to defend the despot’s claim to Zimbabwe presidency at the G8 summit in Japan and again with the aid of combined China and Russia veto at the United Nations where a British sponsored international embargo resolution that but for the veto would have carried and pushed Mugabe to the political dustbin where he truly belongs.

With Mbeki on his side Mugabe survived and not only did he regularise his disputed incumbency of the Presidential office but he also carved political relevance for his party that had been scattered by shocking electoral defeats for its bigwigs.

Mugabe had once again proved that he owns Africa for how else would African leaders accept him into their meetings and even allow him the leeway to set aside an election result they had witnessed and declared credible after he lost?

How else would anyone explain why the SADC heads of State made frantic efforts to
regularise Mugabe’s stolen victory and yet are now conspicuous by their silence as he breaches the very agreement they use to legitimise him at will?

Having proved that he not only owns Zimbabwe and Africa the buoyant octogenarian leader is now on a mission to prove that he owns the world.

He has the reputation of the using the most uncomplimentary language when dealing with Western Nations leadership from the days he led the liberation struggle against British colonisation of the country.

Recently he has labelled British Premier Gordon Brown a tiny dot, US Diplomat Mr Johnnie Carson, US assistant secretary of state for African affairs an idiot, Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan a little lady who behaves as if she is bewitched and former US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Fraser a little American girl trotting around the globe like a prostitute.

His tirades against former British Premier Tony Blair are legendary and need no repetition here.

But perhaps the most telling revelation about President Mugabe’s inflated ego that informs him that he has claim to world proprietorship is his revelation that his country has a Constitution that places obligation to compensate those his government dispossess of property rights on third parties.

“The responsibility of compensation rests on the shoulders of the British Government and its allies. It is enshrined in our constitution that we will only pay for improvements and we have honoured that," he declared recently in front of international investors the government was trying to lure to the country.

The constitutional clause he avers to was passed by the Zimbabwe parliament without a single British government or its proxies contributing its views to the formulation of the clause.

President Mugabe believes that the British government must compensate the Zimbabwean farmers he violently dispossessed of farms and parcelled them to his supporters to but votes because the same government had illegally acquired the same farms violently when its nationals colonised the country.

British imperialism that resulted in the colonisation of our country was wrong and immoral. It does not deserve anyone’s support as it is no different to enslavement of a whole nation.

However it was none other than President Mugabe who on becoming Prime Minister and Head of the Republic of Zimbabwe in 1980 assimilated the descendants of the colonists as his subjects and free citizens of the country with equal rights to all others.

Not only did his government discourage the descendants immigrating to their home of descent but he also legislated against them acquiring any other citizenship than Zimbabwean.

Many of the farmers he violently chased off the farms bought the farms after 1980 with the tacit and written approval of the Zimbabwe governments that he has headed since becoming the prime Minister in 1980 and later President.
The title deeds held are not from the British government but the Zimbabwe governments he presided over.

It borders on insanity for a president to sign into law a clause that requires other sovereign states to compensate Zimbabweans for losses they incur as a result of deliberate action on the part of their government.

And the clause sounds that much more bizarre if the Head of State seeking foreign investor confidence in his country declares that whatever they find in place and buy they will not be able to seek compensation for if the government decides to expropriate it.

It can only be right in the world owned by a president who believes he owns it like Mugabe. Yet in reality he owns nothing but owes plenty to the very world he thinks he owns.

MKD spokesman forced to eat humble pie by Tsvangirai

Senior premiership appointee Ghandhi Mudzingwa has been under legal persecution for the better part of his political career

Motor-mouth MKD spokesman Denford Magora must be wondering why it is he ever gets it so wrong when it comes to predicting the fate of Morgan Tsvangirai in the coalition government.

The problem dates back to the date when he teamed up with Dr Simba Makoni with the hope of promoting the Zanu PF long serving Politburo member into the President of Zimbabwe with just 58 days remaining for the harmonised election in March 2008 remaining for the campaign.

Dr Makoni was trounced into a distant 3rd place behind Tsvangirai and Mugabe in that order much to Magora’s dismay and chagrin.


Ever since that embarrassing loss Magora has embarked on a personal vendetta to discredit Tsvangirai at every turn possible with numerous predictions of the end of the Premier’s political career and relevance.

Most of his predictions have failed to materialise and he has been forced to revise them and revise them without getting anywhere nearer the outcome.

Lately he has been keeping a scoreboard of Mugabe’s triumph on Tsvangirai over contentious issues within the coalition government and by last night his scoreboard was reading 3:0 in favour of Mugabe.

The first score line in favour of Mugabe was in respect of the disputed appointment of Gideon Gono and Johannes Tomana as RBZ governor and Attorney General respectively which Magora awarded to Mugabe stating that the octogenarian Zanu PF leader had read the Riot Act to Finance Minister Tendai Biti and forced him to publicly declare friendship with Gono.

Magora said even Tsvangirai would not support his nominee for Finance Minister in a Cabinet meeting when the Minister raised the Reserve Bank reform agenda in Cabinet because the Premier had been cut to size and knew the appointment of Dr Gono was beyond his capability to reverse.

But as he maintains the score at 3:0 in Mugabe’s favour he admits that the coalition principals have declared a deadlock on the Gono Tomana appointments and they have been referred to SADC for arbitration meaning there is no winner as of now on this one at least.

But that would be a dramatic admission that the MKD spokesman got it wrong when he initially awarded the result to Mugabe so he now says he predicted that the matter would only be referred to SADC with approval of the three principals yet only a day before he declared that outstanding issues will remain outstanding sine die.

The next score line he awarded Mugabe was over disputed reconfiguration of the ICT Ministry which he termed the “disembowelment of Nelson Chamisa”- the MDC nominated Minister as if he was the Ministry.

“There really is no other way to put it: Robert Mugabe today essentially, gutting his ministry into a shell and hiving off Telephone and cellphone companies and their regulatory bodies to a ZANU PF heavyweight minister.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is being systematically cut down to size by President Robert Mugabe,” the MKD spokesman wrote with cynical glee on 10 April 2009.

“He himself (Mugabe) decided to take the Department of Communications away from Nelson Chamisa, the MDC minister of Information and Communication Technology.

In essence, by taking this bit away from him, Mugabe has taken TelOne, the phone company, Netone, the cellphone company and the regulating bodies for the communication industry out of the ambit of the MDC.

Which means that Nelson Chamisa is now a minister in charge of shops that sell cellphones, phone shops and computer shops. Even the matter of the Internet has now been taken out of his hands,” he further declared.

So it was now 2:0 in favour of Mugabe in terms of the crucial disputes in the coalition government.

At that point I took it upon myself to remind Magora not to celebrate crossing the river before getting to it and reminded him the matter was very much being debated by the coalition principals.

Barely a month later embarrassed Magora admits;

“Nelson Chamisa has been given back control over the cellphone companies and ZIMPOST, but ZANU PF has retained control of the Interception of Communications mandate, which leaves them free to spy on everyone from the Prime Minister downwards. Interception of Communications was the real reason Mugabe grabbed the ministry from Chamisa, which means he has got what he wanted, after all.”

Don’t say we did not tell you that he who laughs last will have the longest and more lasting pleasure over this matter Mr Magora and indeed as we promised we are rubbing it in your pained conscience.

If anything at this point the score line is revised to 1:0 in favour of Tsvangirai and a stalemate on the first issue.

The score line was upped to 3:0 in favour of Mugabe when it was announced the unilateral appointments of Permanent Secretaries of Ministries have been adopted without variation.

Indeed that has been the case but it is not Mugabe that has won but rather Tsvangirai.

The fact that the appointments are now in terms of Constitutional amendment number 19 and have been approved by the principals of the coalition government is a big plus for all the principals as now the Secretaries are aware that they are not accountable to Mugabe alone for the continued subsistence of their tenures of office but to all the principals.

An additional plus to Tsvangirai is that it has been agreed that the confirmed secretaries will be apolitical in their execution of duties in tandem with their qualifications as professionals worthy of the jobs they hold.

It is a weapon Tsvangirai will use against them when they are tempted to fall back into the unprofessional zone of partisan politicking in decision making.

Even with those advantages and the appointment of Principal Directors and Directors in the Premier’s office we will give the score line to Mugabe and now please Magora by saying it is 1:1 and a stalemate in favour of Mugabe and Tsvangirai.

But there is more to Tsvangirai’s favour that we must credit him with.

Mugabe is now left with 4 Provincial Governors from the 10 he had which Magora had declared would remain an outstanding contentious issue but has now modified to say swearing in will take until kingdom come to be done by Mugabe. Score 2:1 and a stalemate for Tsvangirai.

Roy Bennett will take up his appointment as Deputy Agriculture Minister notwithstanding that Magora had declared that he would never be sworn into office by Mugabe who had already declared that the MDC nominee was facing serious criminal charges for which he will never be acquitted by his courts. Score line 3:1and a stalemate for Tsvangirai.

Foreign reporters are now free to practice journalism in Zimbabwe without harassment from the disbanded Media Information Commission which has been made redundant from January 2009. Score sheet now reads 4:1 and a stalemate for Tsvangirai.

Mugabe has lost grip on 5 Ambassadorial positions forthwith and more nominees by the MDC are to be trained and posted as and when vacancies arise. Score sheet reads 5:1 and a stalemate for Tsvangirai.

Clearly the Premier has momentum going in his favour in the contentious issues and will emerge more influential than MKD would like to accept.

Prime Minister Tsvangirai's Statement on Outstanding GPA Issues

Zimbabwe Premier Morgan Tsvangirai


Members of the Press, Ladies and Gentlemen;

Since the formation of the inclusive government on the 13th of February 2009, the Principals of the three political parties have met on several occasions in an attempt to resolve the implementation of the outstanding issues that were agreed in the Global Political Agreement and during the SADC mediated negotiations. This has been a slow and frustrating process, however, we have been able to reach an understanding on a number of issues, which are:

Provincial Governors
In accordance with the formula agreed between the negotiators for the respective parties, namely, 5 for MDC-T, 4 for ZANU PF and 1 for MDC-M, the Provincial Governors will be sworn in at the soonest opportunity.

In addition, the Principals decided that the six governors whose tenure is to be terminated as a result of this agreement will be paid an agreed compensation. The nominees for Governors for the MDC-T will be distributed at the end of this press conference.

Permanent Secretaries
The six-member Cabinet Executive Committee, consisting of the President and his two deputies, the Prime Minister and his two deputies, convened to consider the appointment of Permanent Secretaries. This was in fulfillment of Article 21.7 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, Amendment No. 19.

I am pleased to announce that we have reached agreement on these appointments. We went through each one of the persons proposed and satisfied ourselves that they were suitable in terms of experience and qualifications.

We do not believe that civil servants should be appointed on a partisan basis, so there will be no civil servant from the MDC or ZANU-PF. Any civil servant who participates in partisan politics will have no place in our public service, and I urge the Minister of Public Service to ensure that appropriate measures are put in place to that effect.
Ambassadors
It was agreed that the MDC will submit names of individuals to be trained for Ambassadorial appointments. At the same time, an audit will be conducted to identify potential openings for new Ambassadors.

These new appointments will be filled using a formula to be agreed upon. In the meantime, there are five Ambassadorial posts vacant which will be filled by the two MDC formations in the following ration, MDC-T, 4, MDC-M, 1.

Ministerial Mandates

The Principals agreed that the functions of the communications portfolio will be shared among the three Ministries: the Ministry of Information Communication Technology, the Ministry of Media Information and Publicity and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development.

Specifically, The Ministry of Information Communication Technology will retain its responsibility over the Posts and Telecommunications Act, Potraz, Telone, Netone and ZimPost;

The Ministry of Media Information and Publicity will oversee the Broadcasting Act and Transmedia; and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development will be responsible for the Interception of Communications Act.

Roy Bennett

The three principals have agreed that Roy Bennett will be sworn in as Deputy Minister of Agriculture before or on the day of swearing in of the Provincial Governors.

Deadlock

Ladies and Gentlemen, there are two key issues on which the Principals failed to reach agreement.

These are the appointments of the Governor of the Reserve Bank and the Attorney General. The Global Political Agreement, which was signed on September 15th 2008, states in section 20.1.7 that:

The parties agree that with respect to occupants of senior Government positions, such as Permanent Secretaries and Ambassadors, the leadership of Government, comprising the President, the Vice-Presidents, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Ministers, will consult and agree on such prior to their appointment.

The Reserve Bank Governor and the Attorney General are senior government appointments and yet, in breach of the Memorandum of Understanding, the GPA and the Reserve Bank Act, Gideon Gono was reappointed on 26th November 2008.

The Attorney General, Johannes Tomana was appointed by President Mugabe on 17th December 2008, again in breach of the MOU and the GPA. In light of this, and the fact that there is a deadlock on the status of the two individuals in question, the Principals, with the support of our parties, will now refer this matter to SADC as the guarantors of the GPA.

We trust that SADC will deal with this matter with the urgency that it requires.
In addition, we remain concerned about the continued violations of the rule of law, in particular, some of our citizens taking the law into their own hands with respect to the land reform programme.

While the above issues represent obstacles to the full implementation of the GPA, I think that it is also important that we recognize that progress has been made and continues to be made with respect to rebuilding Zimbabwe and having a positive impact on the lives of the people.

Constitution making process

In particular, I am pleased to announce that the constitutional process is gathering momentum and that we are seeing significant improvements in media freedoms in the country.

Media reforms

The recent media conference recommended that AIPPA be repealed and that the ZBC and Zimpapers be transformed into genuine public media as opposed to state media.

In light of this, it should also be noted that as of January 11th, 2008, as a result of Amendments to AIPPA, the Media and Information Commission ceased to exist.

Therefore, there is presently no legal obligation for foreign or local journalists, media houses or news agencies to apply for accreditation until the Media Commission is established and a new framework put in place.

The Standing Rules and Orders Committee of parliament is in the process of ensuring that the media commission is put in place as soon as possible to facilitate the opening up of the media space.

Ladies and Gentlemen, in conclusion, I would like to emphasise that we remain committed to ensure the success of the inclusive Government and call on all parties to demonstrate their commitment to the same by abiding by the letter and spirit of the Global Political Agreement for the good of Zimbabwe and all its citizens.

Source: http://www.zimbabweprimeminister.org/newsroom/statements/statements/126-prime-minister-tsvangirais-statement-on-outstanding-gpa-issues.html
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MDC resolves to escalate disputed issues to SADC

Frustrated by the intransigence of Zanu PF the MDC National Council has resolved to escalate the dispute raging in the coalition government to SADC for arbitration.

The coalition government principals have been deliberating on outstanding issues since the government was formed on 13 February 2009 without reaching a substantive
At the centre of the dispute are issues concerning;
 The reversal of unilateral appointments of Provincial Governors by President Mugabe
 The reversal of the unprocedural appointment of Dr Gideon Gono as RBZ Governor for a 2nd term
 The reversal of the unilateral appointment of Johannes Tomana as Attorney General
 The refusal by President Mugabe to swear in Roy Bennett from MDC-T as Deputy Agriculture Minister
 The reversal of unilateral and unprocedural appointments of Permanent Secretaries
 The stalled appointment of Zimbabwe’s Ambassadors to its foreign missions
 Delayed appointments of inclusive heads of Statutory commissions
 Continued systematic persecution of MDC-T activists by the Judiciary and law enforcement system
 Continued fresh commercial farm invasions.

The dispute over unilateral reconfiguration of the ICT Ministry headed by MDC-T’s Nelson Chamisa appears to have been amicably resolved as it is no longer subject of reference to SADC arbitration.

In terms of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) that ushered the coalition government following the failed March 2008 electoral process all senior appointments in government must be made after consultation has taken place between the coalition government principals and more specifically between the President and the Premier.

Such appointments were hitherto the prerogative of the President in consultation with various statutory constitutions established for each strategic segment of governance.

After signing the agreement President Mugabe however reneged on the obligation to consult with the Premier designate as he then was and hurriedly appointed 10 provincial governors as well as extending Dr Gono’s tenure of office as Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor and promoting Johannes Tomana as the Attorney General a position that had been vacant for nearly a year since the former incumbent Sobuzah Gula Ndebele was muzzled out after falling out with Zanu PF politicians.

After the Premier was sworn in the President went ahead to unilaterally announce 34 Permanent secretaries of the ministries shared by coalesce appointees prompting the premier to annul the appointments and seek that they be made substantive after consultations between him and the President to establish consensus.

At the same time President Mugabe was unilaterally effecting these unprocedural appointments he was reneging on a mandatory requirement for him to swear in nominees for political office in the coalition government without preconditions.

Instead of swearing in Roy Bennett nominated by MDC-T as the Deputy Agriculture Minister, President Mugabe conceded to a plan for the arrest of Mr Bennett and is now refusing to swear him into office on the pretext that the MDC-T nominee is facing serious allegations of insurgency and banditry which he will not be exonerated of by the courts.

But in so saying President Mugabe has not only reneged on mandatory responsibility to swear in the MDC-T nominee but has seriously flouted due process and convicted Bennett ahead of the courts and even if the courts should convict him on the merits of the case the hand of the president in influencing the conviction will be impossible to hide.

The outstanding disputes are widely considered to be stumbling blocks in efforts to reintegrate Zimbabwe into the family of global nations and attraction of foreign direct investment and or aid desperately needed to revive the country’s battered economy.

The decision by the MDC-T National Council meeting in Masvingo to refer the issues to SADC arbitration is in line with the GPA clauses that require disputes to be resolved through the Joint Implementation and Monitoring Committee (JOMIC) in the first instance failure of which they must be referred to SADC which is the guarantor of the GPA.

While it is the appropriate course to take SADC cannot be relied upon or trusted to abide by the GPA clauses judging by its past determination on the allotment of Ministries dispute where it deliberately breached the GPA by ordering co-ministering of the Home Affairs Ministry and refused to entertain any other suggested power sharing alternatives other than those submitted by Zanu PF.

Now that the party’s supreme decision making organ has resolved to refer the matter to SADC for arbitration it must prepare its structures for any disappointments likely to come from SADC determination.

Whatever the outcome if it is not favourable to the party’s desires as measured against provisions of the GPA the MDC-T must be prepared to accept the verdict and move on or lodge an appeal to the AU as stipulated in the agreement with coalition partners.
The appeal to Sadc is due to be handed in tomorrow according to MDC-T National spokesman and ICT Minister Hon Nelson Chamisa.

The decision is welcome in so far as it moves the stalled resolution of the unwarranted haggling by principals forward but must embarrass the three leaders as they are going to be portrayed as incompetents without national interest at heart.

For how else can leaders who argue over what they agreed in writing and signed up to when it comes to implementing same?

Decisive and democratic leaders vote on contentious issues and follow the outcome of the vote. This is obviously too much to expect from the unelected leaders in Zimbabwe.