CABS charges epitomise Zimbabwe’s hostile investment climate

Inflation creator Gideon Gono and buster Hon Tendai Biti must address the theft of depositor funds by uninnovative banks in the country if they want to attract deposists from zimbabwe exiles.

Recently the coalition government hosted an investment conference where it appealed for foreign investors to consider joining it in efforts to resuscitate the country’s ailing economy.

This was immediately preceded by whirlwind mission by the Premier Morgan Tsvangirai wherein he took time off his pressing programme to meet with Zimbabweans in the diaspora and implored them to return back to their home country and join him in tackling the massive reconstruction programme faced by the coalition government.

From an individual point of view the decision to go back to Zimbabwe hinges on several factors not least among them the political climate, the economic environment and the availability of services that would support resettlement and economic welfare of the individual concerned.
A cursory glance of the banking system in the country will surely put off any intending Zimbabwean exile considering immediate return to his/her home country.
CABS is by far the largest building society in the country and enjoys over 60% of the individual savings market.
A visit to its website shows the lack of banking innovativeness exiles will have to put up with on returning to their home country.
Any funds they will repatriate to their home country will not be guaranteed any interest rate.
But what they will surely expect is a shocking array of money fleecing measures put in place by the Zimbabwe banking sector.
Detailed below are some of the charges they will expect from CABS and these mirror what the banking sector in the country has to offer or is it fleece from them.
FCA's - TRANSACTION & SERVICE FEES with effect from 13/05/09 New Rates
Transaction charges at the CABS Banking Halls (Tellers)
Transfers done at the Teller counter $0.15
Cheque Withdrawals $30.00
Cash Withdrawal - Easy Bank, Blue, icabs, $2.00
Cash Withdrawal - Gold $2.00
Cash Withdrawals above the maximum (maximum currently $200 per day) 1%
Minimum amount to open New Account $10.00
Minimum amount to open New Account - EasyBank $10.00
ZETSS or RTGS $0.25
Monthly Service Fee
Platinum $1.00
Gold, Blue, icabs, Easybank Accounts $1.00
Additional Service Charges
Overdrawn Accounts $5.00
Recalled Salaries $1.00
Lost /Faulty/Damanged Cards $2.50
Forgotten Pin $2.50
Returned Cheque/Debit Order TBA
Photocopies (per item) $1.00
Stop Payments TBA
Bill Payments $0.30
Account Statements (historical records max 2 pages) $1.00
Debit Orders TBA
Unpaid Debit Orders TBA
Old Mutual Deposits (per deposit) TBA
Pledges/Cessions TBA
Mis-post/Retrieval of funds $1.00
Paynet per transaction/per debit order TBA
Certificate Of Balance $1.00
Stop Orders TBA
Electronic Transaction charges at CABS Delivery Channels (POS, ATM, Internet Banking, Telebanking)
POS
Any POS purchase (incl. tax) $0.15
POS Cash Back $0.15
CABS EasyBank Clients (incl. tax) $0.15
ATM
ATM Cash Withdrawal (incl. tax) $1.00
CABS EasyBank Clients (incl. tax) $1.00
ATM Cash Withdrawal - Gold Clients (incl. Stamp Duty) $1.00
Buddy Re-charge TBA
CABS Internet Banking
Bill Payments $0.30
Internet RTGS $0.25
Telebanking
Telebanking (per transaction) TBA
Cellphone Services
Balance, Statement enquiry $0.25
Buddy Top-up Re-Charge (paid by Econet) 3%
Our Mortgage Fees with effect from 13/05/09
Arrear Charges
High Density TBA
Low Density TBA
Commercial/Industrial TBA
Other Mortgage Charges
Visits to sites - low density TBA
Visits to sites - high density TBA
Visit for property management TBA
Visit to sites on properties >$25 million TBA
Photocopies (title deeds/mortgage bonds) $1.00
Application Fee TBA
Valuation Fees
Residential Properties - Ordinary 1%
Residential Properties - Building 2%
Non-Residential Properties - Ordinary 2%
Non-Residential Properties - Building 3%
Re-Valuation Fees TBA
Dormant Fee
Service Fees on Collection of Title Deeds $25.00
MINIMUM BALANCES (CABS CARDS)
Gold Card $5.00
Gold Card (Pensioners) $5.00
Blue Card/Easy Bank/icabs $5.00
MINIMUM BALANCE (CABS PRODUCTS)
Interest Plus Account TBA
Term Deposit Account $100.00
Mortgages (Minimum Loan) $10 000.00
Mortgages (Minimum Installment) TBA
MINIMUMS ON CABS SERVICES
Debit Order TBA
Stop Order TBA
Min. Cheque Amount (Banking Halls) TBA
MINIMUM & MAXIMUM WITHDRAWALS
Minimum Withdrawal Amount $10.00
Maximum Withdrawal Amount $200.00

Those coming from the UK will have to forgo the Nationwide Building Society services partially listed here under which Zimbabwean institutions are refusing to adapt to their system.

It is really not worth it after years of losing money to these same institutions through hyper inflation.

Why do Zimbabwe banks find it proper to charge their customers for withdrawing their incomes which would have been deposited after government taxation?

If the withdrawal is made in a banking hall it will attract between US$2.00 and US$30.00 if a cheque withdrawal has to be made.

Assuming one makes 4 cash withdrawals and a cheque withdrawal per month he will be US$38.00 worse off than if he had not banked his wages with CABS.

And that is not all as the bank will still hit him with a US$1.00 monthly service fee. It is not clear what services these will be other than cost of depositing funds with the bank given that all withdrawals and payments through the bank attract separate transaction based instant charges.

But perhaps it is the charge for drawing above the daily maximum limit of US$200 that is nothing less than criminal at 1%of the excess amount.

These amounts will not be an extension of overdraft to the customer but will be out of actual amounts standing to the depositor’s credit at the time of withdrawal and it is beyond imagination why they should attract a mandatory 1% tax.

Take for example a person wishing to purchase a motor vehicle valued at US$2000 where the seller demands payment in cash.

The buyer will have to fork out and additional US$18 to the US$2 that the bank charges per transaction.

ATM charges of US$0.15 per transaction including tax are equally deplorable as the tax is tantamount to double taxation and the machines were bought and paid for by depositor funds to improve services delivery rather than increase depositor liabilities to the bank.

Point of sale charges should not be transferred to the depositors as they should be costs between the bank and its corporate clients that collect funds through this system.

The same argument extends to the use of the RTGS transfer system which should be a bank to bank transaction that does not pass expenses to the depositors.

And I wonder what justifies internet transaction charges as well as direct debits or stop orders, which are arranged between the bank and the corporate clients for a commission to the bank.

Finance Minister and the so called genius RBZ governor Gideon Gono must be taken to task over these unscrupulous charges levied by banks from unsuspecting depositors as they discourage depositors from the banks.

Banks must pay depositors interests not tax them for depositing funds with them.

Investors are attracted by return on investment and not costs of investing.



anyone who withdraws

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No wonder why the exiles in the UK heckled the Premier when he said all was well for their return to the country.

Not that he was politically out of step but he was not aware that the investment climate in the country is far from ideal for the exiles used to benefits from banking as opposed to taxation for banking with an institution.
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Is the current obsession with Constitutional reforms the panacea to our political quagmire?

Who exactly is in charge of the country the top three or the bottom

The disruption of the first Constitution reform all stakeholders conference confirms earlier observations on this portal that Constitutional reform has become the single most critical national agenda on the table of the coalition government.

Saviour Kasukuwere, Patrick Zhuwawo and Joseph Chinotimba led Zanu PF supporters in song and dance meant to provoke chaos and order in the Constitution reform process leading to suspension of the business of the first day of the conference at the Rainbow Towers Hotel Conference Centre on Monday 13 July 2008.

If the disorderly behaviour that ensued had been instigated and led by an MDC politician as the compromised State media would like us to believe, we would be by now reading or hearing that the ring leader has been arrested and brought before the courts for breaching the law codification clause on maintenance of other people’s rights to peace and order.


But I digress. The issue is why are the Zanu PF supporters against the Constitution reform initiative if at all they are? Alternatively why did the Zanu PF protesters disrupt the Conference that their party leader endorsed in the GPA on 15 September 2008 that legitimised his hitherto disputed Presidency of the country?

President Mugabe must bear the brunt of criticism over what happened at the first stakeholders’ conference. His statement that the Parliamentary Select Committee spearheading the constitution reform process must anchor its processes on the Kariba draft sent the wrong cue for his supporters’ behaviour towards the process.

They now believe that the process is not necessary since the Kariba draft is already in existence and what is required is to initiate the process to formalise its adoption as the country’s constitution.

His party structures are mobilising grassroots supporters that the stakeholders’ conferences are joint MDC-T and NGO’s initiatives to oust President Mugabe from power using donor funds with the sole purpose of writing a new constitution that would reverse the land reforms that have seen them access vast swathes of fertile agricultural land that they are unable to economically exploit due to sanctions.

This of course is a total fabrication of the facts as the reason for the new constitutional order has and will always be to prescribe how the nation’s rulers should exercise power on behalf of the people in an accountable manner.

There is no proven scientific formula that can be used to formulate National Constitutions. It was therefore irresponsible of the President to state that Constitution making has never been a mob exercise but rather an exclusive government prerogative when history behind that thinking clearly informs the nation that politicians will manipulate constitution making processes to advance sectarian party political agendas rather than regulate accountable national governance.

But are Zanu PF supporters so ignorant that they would buy into a false fear of their leadership that a Constitution can be used to dethrone Mugabe when it is them that are on record as stating that the ballot cannot prevail over the bullet in matters of determining who rules the country?

How could they suddenly believe that the current Constitution processes will lead to President Mugabe’s ouster from power and a reversal of their ill-gotten farmlands ownership when he will remain Commander in Chief of the bullet wielding security forces?

The Zanu PF grassroots have been really hurt by the current economic policies of the coalition government that have closed many of the avenues they had become accustomed to plunder and pillage the economy while the majority languished in abject poverty and debilitating scarcity of goods and services they used to easily access through their party.

It is that sense of loss that drives them to the edge as they yearn for the glorious days of free everything from their party.

It is beyond their imagination that there is life after Mugabe. They are not stupid.
They are just real. The physical and psychological pain suffered by none Zanu PF adherents in the past decade is what the adherents are experiencing at a time when those that have gone through the worst of Zanu PF misrule are experiencing a change for the better in their economic wellbeing.

The Zanu PF supporters realise that at present they are covered against their criminality which may very well be revisited in the likely event that Zanu PF looses the envisaged elections that must follow the end of the Constitution reform initiative.

But that is only part of the problem. The real fear is how the beneficiaries of the well documented impunity that characterised land reforms will explain away their wealth accumulation in a government environment where laws are applied without reference to political party affiliation.

That is why the Zanu PF supporters are prepared to do anything in the name of President Mugabe for they are under no illusion as to the shielding powers he has over their crimes.

Indeed they like all else crave for a home grown constitution as long as that constitution will not allow any other party than Zanu PF to preside over national affairs.

All the Zanu PF supporters want is a constitution that allows them leeway to keep Mugabe in power through established rigging methods and or violence.

The Kariba draft appears to favour that position in terms of the Presidential powers therein and that office for now is occupied by a Zanu PF nominee who will use the powers to guarantee its retention by the party no matter what the ballots will say.
Why has it been possible for the Zanu PF party to retain power after obvious electoral losses?

During 1999-2000, the Zanu PF dominated government capitulated to national demands for a home grown constitution to replace the politically necessitated 1979 Lancaster House constitution.

The outcome failed the ultimate test when it was put to referendum and the nays exceeded the ayes.

The government was embarrassingly left stuck with a Constitution it had condemned as dysfunctional.

The Zanu PF government refused to revisit the process after it was followed by the “defeat” of Zanu PF in the March 2000 parliamentary elections that came immediately after the referendum.

The assertion that Zanu PF was defeated at the March 2000 Parliamentary polls yet it remained in charge of the governance of the country does not make sense unless one examines how this was achieved.

The country’s constitution allowed overlapping Legislative and Presidential terms such that defeat of a party in Legislative contests did not automatically deprive it of executive authority vested in the Presidency if the Presidency was held by its candidate.

In addition to that the electoral process was managed by the Presidency through an Electoral Commission staffed by his loyal appointees who were widely criticised for rigging the process in favour of the President’s party.

The Presidency wielded draconian powers from a Constitution that allowed him to rule by decree and avoid checks and balances that would normally be expected to come from the Legislature and Judiciary pillars of governance in a Constitutional democracy.

To illustrate the extent of the Constitutional powers bestowed on the President and how they were used to circumvent the electoral processes and outcomes it is pertinent to note that the President;
 had the right to appoint all heads of national commissions tasked with management of national affairs and recommending principal officers to serve in key government positions such as Permanent Secretaries of Ministries, Commanders of Security establishments, Chief Executives of Parastatals, Reserve Bank Governor, Attorney General and Chief Elections officers;
 was the Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces;
 had the power to reject appointments of recommended Judges and Justices, Permanent Secretaries, Ambassadors, Board Members and Chief Executives of National Institutions and Parastatals;
 had powers to make binding decrees through use of emergency powers that would be legally binding for six months without reference to anyone
 had sole powers to appoint and disappoint Cabinet ministers and their deputies as well as Provincial Governors;
 had powers to dissolve Parliament at any time ;
 had sole powers to declare war and peace and
 had powers to elect 30 of the 150 Legislators in Parliament by way of direct appointment of persons of his choice.

These powers devolved from the Lancaster House constitution as amended by successive Zanu Pf governments since 1980.

In addition to their constitutional grounding the powers were backed by a strong armed enforcement backup which the President could fall back on if anyone decided to refuse to abide by the country’s laws and decrees he would have issued.

These are the very powers President Mugabe relied on to deny MDC the 2000 electoral victory it had scored against Zanu PF. That precedent was to be extended to the 2001 Presidential elections and was perfected over the years to deny the MDC electoral space and possible victory in the 2005 Elections whose results were used to re-introduce the discarded Senate.

Attempts by President Mugabe to manipulate the Constitution by amending it to defer Presidential elections due in 2008 to 2010 to harmonise the Presidential term with the legislative term were strongly resisted by the opposition political Parties and within Zanu PF where party leadership succession battles have been raging for nearly a decade following the party’s 2000 constitutional referendum defeat.

Rather than satisfy the national quest for a home grown constitution, the numerous amendments the successive Zanu PF governments made to the Lancaster House constitution only served to increase the appetite for a substitute constitution.

A collapsed economy from mismanagement, impunity and measures taken to bar Zanu PF leadership from enjoying free global travel to mitigate effects of the collapsed economy resulted in Zanu PF’s defeat in the March 2008 elections the president had been forced to stage through internal pressures augmented by SADC intervention in the country’s political impasse emerging from previous disputed elections dating back to 2000.

Again as had been the norm from 2000 Zanu PF refused to be pushed out of the government arguing that the ballot could not prevail over the bullet in determining who should preside over national affairs.

The refusal by Zanu PF to accept the 2008 election results that went against it and its Presidential candidate pushed the Constitutional reform agenda to the forefront of the political dispute in the country leading to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) on 15 September 2008 wherein the two dominant political parties were joined by an insignificant political faction to form a coalition government whose term is hinged on the Constitutional reform initiative.

There is widespread belief in the country and throughout the region that the politics of the country can be sorted out if the feuding parties address the issues they believe are central to the impasse gripping the country and hindering economic progress.

But sadly though events on the ground seem to suggest that unless complimentary reforms are instituted in military operations in the country the Constitution reforms will count for nothing other than international sympathy with the downtrodden Zimbabwe electorate.

The fact that after the disturbances at the all stakeholders’ conference none other than MDC supporters were taken into custody when clearly the rowdy deviants were Zanu PF supporters speaks volumes about what will happen in the event Zanu PF refuses to abide by the new constitution regardless of how well meaning its clauses will be.

Simply put a good constitution without committed political and military enforcement will count for nothing.

If the MDC hopes to topple Mugabe from the presidency through the Constitution it will be surprised when the time comes and the free and fair elections are won but Zanu PF again refuses to vacate government seats of power.

As the constitution reform moves forward the MDC must make some painful decisions about how it will have to deal with such a possibility.

Unless the party can devise means with which to enforce the new constitution the likelihood of a long overdue change in regimes will not materialise in practice.

The MDC can win as many so called free and fair elections as it likes under any constitutional order but it will not dislodge Zanu PF unless the military command is reformed and reoriented to be a national rather than party loyal force.
Such reorientation of necessity demands that current command structures be dismantled and new leadership of the forces be appointed to serve the nation and not Zanu PF alone.

The silence on this issue is not healthy at all. The positions held by Constantine Chiwenga, Perence Shiri, Paradzayi Zimondi, Happyton Bonyongwe and Augustine Chihuri must now be discussed by the government and agreement reached as to how they will be eased out of the government and replaced by other professionals willing to distance themselves from partisan political party dogma in support of national ethos that will be encapsulated in the new constitution order.

By avoiding discussion of these key players in upholding our constitutional democracy, the government is not doing the nation any favours.

It only serves to show the nation that the government does not have control over its law enforcement and security wing which raises fears that the government may actually be a puppet of the military establishment.

In which case the constitution will be not worth the paper on which it will be written.

Professor Arthur Guseni Oliver Mutambara and the American suit conundrum

DPM Arthur Mutambara the egocentric Zimbabwe deputy premier with an unrivalled superiority complex.

'Don't quote me!'
Article By: Maureen Isaacson
Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:20

Arthur Guseni Oliver “Ago” Mutambara, Zimbabwe’s deputy prime minister, fiddles with his Che Guevara-style black Kangol cap, moving it around his head throughout our interview.

“Today I am incognito,” he says. Actually, he is the most conspicuous person in the sizeable Sandton hotel lounge and is, in fact, approached by a young woman who congratulates him on his new position.

“I’ve a country to run,” he says. Two bodyguards wait outside –
at least he says there are only two.
Ten days after the swearing in of the government of national unity, he says that he has no job description yet, nor does he have an idea of the perks of the job. “I don’t need them.”

He is erratic; alternately angry and entertaining, he ticks me off for “being late” although I was dead on time. He thinks on the hoof, changing his mind as he speaks, saying often, “Don’t quote me; don’t quote me!”

Which aspect, I wonder, should I keep under wraps? The previous day, at a seminar on youth, intellectuals and politics at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), students ridiculed him, warning that he may follow in the footsteps of Robert Mugabe.

When I remind him of this, he says, “That is a good point. Yes, I could become a dictator. No one should trust me or take me at my word. We have systems, we have valid institutions and we depend on those. Until 1980, you would be slaughtered for criticising Mugabe before he was crowned. Don’t ever be dependent on personalities!”

Mutambara is a work in progress.

He wants feedback about his on-stage performance at UJ, which was dramatic, in the mould of the holy roller televangelist. Sweeping movements accompanied his political preaching. I tell him he should borrow Kwame Nkrumah’s nickname of “Showboy”.

“I am just a Zimbabwean; I am very passionate about my views; if I come across very strongly, I am someone who is very determined but a strong democrat. I believe in rational disputation. I love a good debate.”

For a rocket scientist ranked among Africa’s top scientists, his approach to politics is curiously unscientific.

“I’m a very different kind of politician. I don’t suffer fools. You understand that? I might have to do so in politics.

I don’t suffer fools

But I don’t suffer fools. I am an independent thinker; I challenge conventional wisdom.
That is why you find me against Morgan [Tsvangirai] on television. You foolish media people think Morgan is a saint. If Morgan makes mistakes, I don’t cover for him.

We are getting on very well. Now is the time to deliver, time to work, we are working very closely together.”

Since creating the breakaway Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), running against Tsvangirai’s MDC, Mutambara has flip-flopped and swerved.

Once, he was against Mugabe, then he was against Tsvangirai, then he supported Simba Makoni when he could have been joining hands with Tsvangirai against Zanu-PF in the March 2008 election.
This obduracy led to the failure of the MDC to win sole control of Parliament. But now Mutambara has said he is for Tsvangirai – although he is widely perceived to be for Mugabe.

He says: “Many people still loved Mugabe in 1988. I hate it when people say I am pro-Mugabe. It is not true. I fought Mugabe! I am for Zimbabwe. It is a very cheap manifestation of intellectual laziness to say that anyone critical of the West is a supporter of Mugabe.”

He stresses the “complementarity” in the government of national unity, implying that both Zanu-PF and the MDC should shoulder equal responsibility for the state of Zimbabwe, but he is unwilling to provide empirical evidence for this.

An ardent anti-imperialist, he quotes Otto von Bismarck, the 19th century imperialist German chancellor and prime minister, who said, “Politics is the art of the possible”. Arthur Mutambara was born on 25 May 1966. His curriculum vitae reveals that he is a high technology expert and leader, a global strategy specialist and an entrepreneur.

He was the author of three engineering books, he is a Rhodes Scholar, with an MSc (computer engineering) and a PhD (robotics and mechatronics) from Oxford University, and a BSc (Hons) (electrical engineering) from the University of Zimbabwe.

He was also a research scientist and professor of robotics and mechatronics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at NASA. He says his parents (Philemon was a Fort Hare graduate and his mother, Effie, a primary schoolteacher) spawned four PhD graduates.

“Whoever came back from school who was not first in class was scorned.”

Che Guevara is the ultimate human being who ever lived."

If you had not kept up the divisions between yourself and Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC would probably have succeeded in ousting Mugabe.

I have no appetite for discussing this now. Everything I have done is consistent. There is a method to the madness.

If you follow my activities from 1989 – on 4 October when I was arrested for the first time and Morgan’s first arrest came on 6 October – you will see that I am part of the foundation of the struggle.

I would say we have worked together for a long time. And make sure you understand that I have been working in the trenches for more than 20 years.
You have said the government of national unity has been a compromise – what would it take for you to opt out?

At this point we are not entertaining any form of defeat. We have spent so much time negotiating and working on this compromise. The agenda is very simple. I think we can achieve it by resolving humanitarian crises in our country, national healing, and economic recovery and transformation.

As a former militant student leader, you spoke at UJ of MIT and Oxford University, not of the conditions faced by Zimbabwean students – why?

I was trying to motivate the students that the sky is the limit. I am not impressed by an activist who fails in an examination.

You go to the streets, you are locked up. I want twinning of academic excellence and social adaptability.

How could the MDC allow Mugabe to have seven extra cabinet members in addition to the 14 agreed on at the swearing-in ceremony?

I go to Parliament where we have 184 MPs – 184 in agreement. In senate, 72 out of 72. I am calling this unprecedented unanimity. There is some clarity on a need for this thing.
As I have said before, it is a compromise document.

It is the only workable arrangement in our country and we know the limitations and flaws and challenges; how do we come up with a mitigation plan?

Your critics are asking how you came into this high position considering the fact that you do not have an electorate.

Why not ask Tsvangirai and Mugabe? Surely they don’t just throw things away.

What is your view of the amnesty Zanu-PF has allegedly requested the MDC to sign?

It will allegedly wipe a clean slate from 1980. It is nonsense. There is no basis for this story. It is fiction created by careless talkers.

Do you think national healing can take place without people confronting their past?

We want restorative justice, we want to break the cycle of impunity. We want accountability. The truth must be known so we can lay a foundation that says never again will Zimbabweans kill each other over political affiliation. Retribution and revenge are not our tactics. We don’t intend revenge, we intend to heal.

Do you intend to remain in Zimbabwe?

I don’t need to leave the country. I have been there, done that. I got a PhD, wrote books and I am a better person because of it. I had exposure and I am not sorry I went away. I can make a better contribution. I am here to stay and to run the country.

Is there any significance in your Che Guevara beret?
Che Guevara and Malcolm X are my heroes. Che Guevara is the ultimate human being who ever lived. He stands for sacrifice, intellectual prowess, dedication to the collective, high morals, high principles, standing up for what is right. And Malcolm – I love Malcolm X!”

What is your relationship with Cuba?

I was talking about people of heroic stature like Guevara. It has nothing to do with Cuba, but what he stood for. We look north, south, east and west for opportunities. North, south, west, China’s best… Not for us; we look everywhere for opportunities. We don’t look at the usual suspects – no, we want to diversify.

Are you a social democrat?

I am for social democratic arrangement underpinned by economic values that leverage the market – enlightened self-interest within the human rights democratic dispensation. We must try to resolve these challenges in a holistic manner, appreciating the interconnectedness of global challenges. We are revolutionaries who understand that Africa cannot survive as a commodity-based economy. We, the Zimbabweans, are not content to survive on economic support. We want to be masters of our own destiny.

Are you an Africanist?

I am a social democrat, a Zimbabwean, an Africanist, a global citizen, that is why I go to Davos.

Are you angry that the Southern African Development Community was unable to steer Zimbabwe out of crisis?

My view about African institutions is that we must support them. If we don’t like their work, we reform them and defend them and this does not mean that they don’t reform. Whatever reservations we have, we must work on improving them.

At the UJ seminar, you said: “I have fought Mugabe for 25 years, as a student leader, and now I am fighting him at close range!” How do you intend to do this? I said it publicly so I cannot take it back. I don’t make up stuff about people. What else do you want to know?

Where did you buy your suit?

In the States. What does it matter?
Well done Maureen, you got him there-Zimsentinel

SADC review after six months due in August will give impetus to implementation of GPA

Coalition Government Principals Morgan Tsvangirai, Robert Mugabe and Arthur Mutambara set to implement smokescreen GPA agreements to hoodwink SADCand the nation into a false sense that all is well in the tumutus government.

Negotiations to form the current coalition government and legitimise Robert Mugabe’s disputed claim to Presidency of Zimbabwe nearly collapsed over allotment of ministries between Zanu PF and MDC-T.

The most contentious ministry was that of Home Affairs which by way of compromise ended up being co-ministered by the two parties in an experimental arrangement that was rammed down the nation by an uncompromising SADC.

There were widespread murmurs of discontent with the arrangement which was clearly in breach of the Cabinet line up agreed and signed for by the parties.


Kembo Mohadi of Zanu PF and Giles Mutseyekwa of MDC-T are the joint ministers assigned to co-manage the ministry.

As feared there has been little if any change in how the ministry has been carrying out its duties in particular those of policing which were at the centre of the two parties demanding sole management of the ministry.

The more experienced former Minister Kembo Mohadi under whose stewardship the police force transformed into a Zanu PF militia as opposed to the national law enforcement agency it was designed to b e has not confirmed any major changes in operational strategies and methods.

Giles Mutseyekwa has however publicly informed the nation that he has experienced no problems in sharing management of the Ministry with his Zanu PF counterpart.

But events show that the only reason why he has not experienced any problems is because he has done absolutely nothing about public concerns with policing practices in the country.

Indeed abductions of political opponents have been halted –for now at least but that has got nothing to do Mutseyekwa’s presence in the ministry but rather the ultimatum by the Premier who had refused to be sworn into office unless the security operatives retribution against his supporters ceased and abductees were brought to court and charged in accordance with the laws.

What is evident is that all the MDC-T supporters and Civic Society activists who had been abducted are still facing the trumped up charges of politically motivated crimes they deny involvement in and that Mutseyekwa knows to be falsified.

The real criminals who plundered and pillaged political opponents property during the mayhem leading up to the sham June 28 Presidential runoff are yet to be brought before the courts even though most are known to the Police and their victims who in some cases have been frustrated enough to attempt personal recovery and ended up being arrested for taking the law into their hands.

Mohadi and Mutseyekwa have not met with the Police Commissioner General and his top officers to agree on changes necessary for fair and equal treatment of crime suspects and formal eticacy that should be accorded Cabinet Ministers and senior government officials by uniformed security personnel of all ranks.

That is why the Military Commanders have refused to salute the Premier and his deputies as well as cabinet Ministers from any other party than Zanu PF but religiously pay such homage to the President, his wife and Vice Presidents including all Zanu PF cabinet Ministers and Provincial Governors.

President Mugabe being Commander in Chief of the defence forces shoulders the bulk of the blame for not disciplining his forces to pay respects to the government but he gets away with it because Mutseyekwa and Mohadi have not made an issue of the indiscipline in Cabinet meetings which they should.

The rowdy people invading farms are getting away with the crimes because Mutseyekwa and Mohadi are not taking the Police Commissioner General to task and whenever they have tried they have been hugely ignored by the command structure now totally taking instructions from the Attorney General.

Mohadi and Mutseyekwa are being paid to do absolutely nothing about policing policies and practices and even in the immigration department they have not said anything about the influx of illegal immigrants most of whom are professional liabilities and criminals from mainly China.

Services from departments of this ministry continue to charge exorbitant and prohibitive fees for essential identity and travel documents that cannot be obtained anywhere else than the Ministry by Zimbabweans.

The compromise to co-minister the Home Affairs Ministry was made provisional and subject to review by SADC on recommendations from the Ministers after six months that are due in August 2009.

The review will be unnecessary where the Ministers have not changed anything for the better and thus have not rocked the boat to see why certain malpractices are perpetuating in the Police force.

Once that review window has been lost and co-ministering is endorsed as the ideal, the likelihood of the police Officers impunity escalating is very real and the moribund JOMIC will be the only recourse for redress which they will not manage.
Because of the August SADC review deadline there will be movement on outstanding GPA issues that have been stalled.

Nominees for Ambassadorial posting from the MDC’s will commence Training on 3 August 2009.

Provincial Governors unilaterally appointed by President Mugabe from among his loyalists will vacate office on 31 July to be replaced by MDC nominees in the six provinces that Zanu PF lost during the March 2008 elections.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Roy Bennett will be sworn into office at the same ceremony where the replacement Provincial Governors will be attested into government service.

The irregular appointment of the Reserve bank Governor and Attorney General will be dealt with by SADC during that review session.

That will be the smokescreen President Mugabe will put up to avoid SADC scrutiny and reprimand for numerous breaches of the GPA agreement.
The Constitution reform agenda will have been moved forward with the staging of the first stakeholders meeting starting on 14 July 2009.

Numerous obstacles will be thrown into the process once the SADC review is concluded as Zanu PF would like to avert the elections that must follow conclusion of the Constitution reform process.

Zanu PF will have a willing partner in Professor Mutambara’s disjointed MDC as both are aware that winning such elections is near impossible.

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.

Zanu PF prepares to fight elections on bread and butter issues

President Mugabe now knows that people do not live on sovereignty alone

The most encouraging signal coming from the coalition government is the fight between the MDC-T and Zanu PF for credit over the sourcing of funding for the country.

After years of plundering and pillaging the economy with impunity, the Zanu PF leadership is now competing with the MDC to charm the electorate with efforts to source funds for the country’s economic reconstruction.

Nothing demonstrates the commitment of both parties to emerge as the champions of the economic turnaround programme than events during and after the Premier’s month long tour of Western nations.

Realising the political momentum that would be gained by the party that managed to project itself as the champion of the economic turnaround, Zanu PF has resolved that it will not play second fiddle to the MDC in the economic stabilisation initiatives.

During the negotiations for equitable sharing of ministerial portfolios in the coalition government there was a strong belief within Zanu PF that the levers of power were entrenched in security and property management ministries as opposed to the social and economic management portfolios other than the justice, local governance and finance ministries.

As a consequence Zanu PF grabbed all the Security Ministries and traded off the party’s interest in the finance ministry with co-ministering of the home affairs ministry.

When the coalition government was consummated Zanu PF was caught unawares when the revival of the finance, education, health and industry ministries bonded the MDC with the electorate while the Home affairs and Justice Ministries that the party had thought would be pivotal in reviving its political fortunes continued to alienate it with the populace.

Elaborate plans to consolidate power by flexing the Zanu PF muscle within the coalition through sporadic farm invasions, unchecked lawlessness and judicial persecution of MDC and Civic Society activists to show that the party had lost none of its marbles by joining the coalition government flourished only to deceive.

Lack of paradigm shifts in the information and media management practices, upholding of the right to equality before the laws and general despondence towards full implementation of the GPA demoralised those that expected not just respite from Zanu PF impunity but also restitution for losses incurred.

But the gains in education, health and the dramatic revival of retail outlets coupled with the introduction of fiscal liberalisation through adoption of a multi-currency economic environment were too good to forgo and the nation remained solidly behind the MDC.

The more intransigent Zanu PF became towards implementation of GPA clauses which the MDC did a good job of highlighting to the nation the more people alienated themselves with the party and drifted towards the MDC.

When the Premier secured Cabinet approval to embark on the tour of Western nations to ground break the thawing of frosty relations between the country and the western countries that had severed relations with the country for over a decade, Zanu PF saw a window of opportunity to recover lost political space.

The Zanu PF policies have always been steeped in radical sovereignty and resource nationalisation under a one political party dispensation.

In 2002 the Zimbabwe Foreign affairs ministry defined the country’s foreign policy as being grounded in the need to counter British imperialism as hereunder defined.

“ Since coming to power in 1997, the UK Government under Anthony Blair has pursued the following policy objectives in its relations with Zimbabwe and the ZANU (PF) Government under President Robert Gabriel Mugabe:
• to destabilize and derail the Government’s land reform programme to give white farmers extended monopoly over Zimbabwe’s most fertile arable land;
• to perpetuate the marginalisation of the black African majority in rural areas to form a huge reserve for cheap agricultural labour;
• to remove ZANU (PF) and President Mugabe from power and replace them with the more pliant and directionless MDC and its president, Morgan Tsvangirai;
• to use coercive diplomacy in the EU, the Commonwealth, and the United States to conscript them to impose declared and undeclared sanctions on the Government and people of Zimbabwe;
• to manipulate the IMF, the World Bank and other financial institutions to withdraw loans and balance of payment support to Zimbabwe to cripple its economy and generate widespread domestic discontent and disillusionment against the ZANU (PF) Government and President Robert Gabriel Mugabe;
• to stunt the growth of genuine democracy, the rule of law and people–empowerment as a means to create a human rights and governance crisis in Zimbabwe and the isolation of the Zimbabwe Government internationally;
• to employ its immense print and electronic media out–reach to lie about and demonise Zimbabwe to incite international hostility against the Government;
and
• to fund non–governmental organisations to arouse and incite internal domestic upheavals to make Zimbabwe ungovernable.”

In essence our foreign policies under successive Zanu PF governments since 1990 has been crafted around land ownership sovereignty, protection of the continued tenure of office of President Mugabe and achievement of total control of media space used to ostracise the Zanu PF governments by foreign media.

The reactionary foreign policy was the manifestation of reactionary internal politics of a political party that presented itself as the vanguard of nationalism and torch bearer of Pan Africanism when all it was doing was to defend its position as the dominant political force derived from military supremacy in the Liberation struggle that elevated it to power.

The dramatic shift from economic plunder and pillaging policies to sourcing
financial support for the country’s economic development is not surprising given the party’s thrashing at the hands of the MDC that campaigned on bread and butter went on to deliver on the promise by ensuring well stocked retail outlets within 90 days of it joining the government superintending the economic ministries.

The retailing sector had gone underground following Zanu PF price wars that emptied shelves and located products in the black market.

Instead of the price controls bonding and endearing Zanu PF with the public they increased alienation of the party as products not only became difficult to source but they also became much more expensive due to artificial shortages induced when goods were ferreted into the black market to evade price controls.

Zanu PF inevitably paid the ultimate political price for its political brinkmanship of starving the majority in its quest for satisfaction of its elite’s higher political needs before satisfying basic needs of the ordinary citizenry when it lost the March 2008 harmonised elections to the MDC.

Only a vicious military campaign by its dependable security ministries commanders saved the party from being dumped to the political dungeon.

Worried SADC and AU members chipped in to help Zanu PF back on its feet by imposing the coalition government now in charge of the country but that has not in any way diminished the alienation between the majority citizens and Zanu PF.

If anything the coalition government has provided the MDC a platform to consolidate its political gains and expose Zanu PF as the sole cause of the economic malaise the people have endured over the past decades.

Zanu PF had used State media and its nationwide structures as well as the Civil service to mislead the populace that illegal Western sanctions imposed by the Western countries were responsible for the economic malaise.

But with the so called illegal sanctions still very much in place, the entry of the MDC into government has resulted in the instant and dramatic improvement of the supply side of basic and luxurious goods the country had last seen on retail shelves as far back as 1985 in some instances.

Not only that, the nominal stipend payment of US$100 per month per Civil servant proved more valuable than the quadrillions of ZW$’s they were being paid and they never bothered to visit their banks for salaries as the currency they were paid in was of no value to anyone after trading in multi-currencies was introduced.

Closed schools and health centres were re-opened to cater for the public and they not only were manned but also were delivering services for which they were intended notwithstanding that Zanu PF had not announced victory over sanctions but was rather crying more loudly about the scourge.

The generality of the populace could not and still is not sympathetic with the whingeing over sanctions coming from Zanu PF but are instead angry that Zanu PF is perpetuating their suffering by failing to adhere to the GPA clauses to allow more inflows of aid and foreign currencies from other countries over the sanctions proved to be of no consequence if Zanu PF and the Reserve Bank is not allowed a free reign on the fiscus.

That is why Zanu PF has been forced to enter the economic political turf with claims it is capable of sourcing more unconditional forex from the Eastern democracies than MDC is or will ever be capable of sourcing from the Western imperialists.

The entry point has been the Premier’s tour of the Western nations that has raised US$500 million in cash and pledges linked to further democratisation of the country.
Zanu PF has taken advantage of its hegemony on State media to misinform the nation that the Premier has failed to raise financial support for the country other than for NGO’s linked to the MDC whereas it has raised US$950 million from China alone.

But the propaganda is not working because even after Publicity Permanent Secretary George Charamba aka Nathaniel Manheru had come out strongly dismissing claims that the facility was not concluded by the current Finance minister from the MDC but rather was the result of friendly ties between Zanu PF and the Chinese government dating back to the Liberation struggle the ordinary people are still questioning why if that was the case China did not extent the facility to the Zanu PF regime.

The truth is that Zanu PF had approached China with a view to mortgage everything it considered of value but China was not convinced that Zanu PF would honour loans extended to its governments when it was raiding and stealing individual and corporate forex deposits and offering restitution in worthless Zimbabwe currency when caught out by account holders.

But the positive aspect of this scramble for credit is that both the MDC and Zanu PF are consciously or subconsciously sending the message that they now want to gain support of the people by delivering the value sought by the majority from its government and in so doing committing themselves to seeking the electorate’s mandate to preside over national affairs.

The populace wants better living standards and those cannot be delivered from valueless patriotic endeavours of the government without the resources to develop local talents to maturity and optimum productivity.

It is a lesson Zanu PF is slowly coming to grips with but it will take much more than claims of having secured Chinese financial support to the tune of US$5 billion before it can regain the lost confidence of the electorate.

A good starting point would be full implementation of the GPA and fostering of a culture of accountability in its ranks.

As long as it mixes cohesion with patronage Zanu Pf will continue to lose political ground to the MDC regardless of the culpability that the MDC may show in its early days in government.

If it was not because Zanu PF is such a soiled political party the premier’s praise singing of Mugabe of late would have wiped out his party’s advantage over Zanu PF by now.

Telling MDC supporters that Permanent secretaries like George Charamba, Dr Misheck Sibanda, David Mangota, Ret Colonel Christian Katsande, Clerk of Parliament Austin Zvoma and Public service commission chairman Mariyawanda Nzuwa and the Military commanders, to name but a few, are in office on merit and merit alone when the entire nation knows otherwise that they are there out of Zanu PF patronage would have cost the MDC Party most of its support if there was another viable alternative political formation with the national character of MDC-T and Zanu PF.

But if the MDC-T messes its reputation by being spoiled with lack of serious political competition currently obtaining it must not cry foul if political opportunists pounce on the laxity and mobilise against it.

It is not beyond possibility given numbers in the diaspora openly expressing disenchantment with the party direction at the moment.

Political temperatures rising as Constitutional reforms get underway

Lone ranger Prof Jonathan Moyo, Dictator President Mugabe and Kariba draft sidekicks Patrick Chinamasa, Prof Welshman Ncube and at the top Premier Tsvangirai together with the People Driven draft proponents Dr Lovemore Madhuku and Adv Eric Matinenga

The Constitution reform objective is emerging as the single most critical national agenda on the table of the coalition government.

Daggers are drawn by various interest groups seeking to assert themselves on the initiative and they will claim casualties.

Emotions are running high as they should in exercises of the importance that a Constitution is in a functioning democracy.

In politics a Constitution is a written statement outlining the basic laws or principles by which a country or organization is governed or alternatively a document or statute outlining the basic laws or principles by which a country or organization is governed.

From the definition above it is evident that the way countries are governed is a function of the manner in which they are constituted.

That is why Constitution making is a highly charged political process. Any entry in the country’s Constitution becomes a final measuring standard of the acceptability or otherwise of a behaviour or action by an individual within the borders of a State.

Because of this supremacy that Constitutional clauses have over any other set of rules, regulations and policies employed in moderating human political, social and economic interaction, anyone who gets caught up in the Constitution making process would want to ensure that the supreme law will guarantee the best of everything for him/herself at the individual and group level.

The reason why there is not scientific model of constitution making process is because the demand for supreme regulation of human conduct is informed by the desire to control unsavoury historical developments in the country by proactively imposing authority limits for the country’s leadership when confronted with similar and or variable challenges threatening the country’s welfare.

Clearly such monumental task cannot be entrusted to an individual or any homogeneous grouping of individuals with sectarian interests to protect without such individuals or groups taking advantage to guarantee protection of their narrow interests against interests of others.

Ownership of the Constitution making process must thus be internalised in individual citizens who must come together around the initiative to input their feelings about how they want the country to be governed.

To do so there is need for a champion to rise up among them and coordinate the
inputs and draft them in legal language that will be useful for the judiciary to determine disputes arising from perceived or real variations on expressed rules governing interaction and transactions between subscribers to the Constitution and their descendants.

In our country the Zanu PF government of 1995-2000 was pushed into leading a Constitutional reform process by demands from within and outside its structures which felt the successive Zanu PF governments had negated their mandates by relying on a 1979 Lancaster House constitution that had been rendered irrelevant by developments in the country’s political-economic and social management after the country attained political independence from the British imperialists.

Sadly Zanu PF used its political muscle to circumvent and suppress national views contrary to those held by the party and invited intense opposition from political competitors and a disenchanted Civil Society which felt Zanu PF had mutilated their submissions in the final draft.

When Zanu PF sought ratification of the draft in a referendum in 2000 the electorate was urged to reject ratification of the draft by the opposition MDC and NCA Civil Society organisation.

The draft failed to gain majority public support and the government was embarrassingly left stuck with a Constitution it had condemned as dysfunctional by crafting and seeking endorsement of the 2000 draft.

It was clear the electorate wanted a replacement Constitution but they did not just want a replacement that the governing elite preferred but one that they personally crafted and submitted to the government for adoption and not vice versa.

The lessons from the rejection of the 2000 daft that appear to have been beyond the comprehension of some politicians in the current government are in a nutshell that;

 Zimbabweans will only ratify a revised constitution that regulates the concerns they want regulated and not what the government wants regulated;
 The Champion of Constitutional reforms must be trustworthy and honest executing his mandate;
 The data collection mechanism must be open and transparent and reach out to as wide a cross section of Zimbabweans to input their ideas without fear or undue influence;
 Any attempts to smuggle power entrenching clauses for specific sectarian groups or powerful individuals will be quickly exposed by voluntary Zimbabwean brains within and outside the country who have keen interest in the process and its outputs;
 Individual political affiliations come a distant second to self preservation concerns in the process and its outputs and unlike in other political initiatives Zimbabweans will ratify the Constitution purely on its outputs and not necessarily on its political correctness to the desires of the government of the day.
 Most Zimbabweans want a Constitution that will be useful for managing expediency as well as the posterity and will reject clauses targeted at managing personalities as opposed to institutional conduct.

The integrity of some people currently slugging it out to emerge as undisputed Constitutional reform champions is so soiled that their interventions cause the greatest apprehension and mistrust in the process.

These include but not exclusively President Mugabe, Dr Lovemore Madhuku (NCA), Senator Patrick Chinamasa (Minister of Justice) Senator Welshman Ncube(Minister of Industry and Commerce) Professor Jonathan Moyo (MP)Dr Olivia Muchena (Minister of Women’s Affairsand Caesar Zvayi (Herald Assistant Editor).

Not that Zimbabweans deny the right of these people or those of their ilk to actively participate in the Constitution reform process but rather that they involve themselves at the same level as other Zimbabweans outside of the officially announced champions of the process.

Dr Madhuku’s demands that the process must be people driven resonates with those of the majority of Zimbabweans conscious about the process and able to project its consequences.

Unfortunately there is approximately 1:10 such people in the country’s populace and no more than 1: 20 willingness among this group of people to slag it out in the political turf of constitution making. Coupled with the crippling financial backing that group can attract to fund efforts to mobilise the populace against a coalition of the three parties holding all but one of legislative seats in the country, it is too much to expect that his position will prevail if push comes to shove with the politicians.

But fortunately for him Dr Madhuku’s position appears to have the sympathy of the most popular of the three political parties in the coalition government and the Parliamentary Constitutional Select Committee which he is publicly undermining by posturing as if his Civic organisation has a special mandate to champion the process.

The country is indebted to Dr Madhuku and his NCA for aligning with the MDC to champion the defeat of the 2000 attempt by Zanu PF to impose a Constitution that was crafted to entrench Zanu PF power as opposed to regulating the exercise of power by elected leaders.

Sadly though, but not anything for him and his organisation to regret, despite evidence that the championship of the process has relocated to Parliament at the expense of the NCA, the process appears to be largely travelling the route he and the NCA would have followed.

Professor Jonathan Moyo who anchored the publicity campaign for the failed 2000 draft would want us to believe that there is a scientific approach to Constitution making which the current process has negated.

He has been at the forefront of slamming the assignment of Parliamentary Select Committee to champion the process and its restricted terms of reference that restrict it to market the Kariba draft and ensure it is adopted as the country’s next substantive constitution without variation.

His gripe with the Parliament facilitation of the process is simply a case of sour grapes as he has not been appointed as one of the 25 members to champion the process.

His concern about the process being narrowed down to adoption of the Kariba draft is widely shared but is baseless as it is motivated by fears that because the view has the President’s support it will prevail against the wishes of the majority.

In the president’s corner is his reliable foot soldiers and hardliners led by Patrick Chinamasa and Dr Olivia Muchena supported by blind Zanu PF followers driven by propagandist Caesar Zvayi at the Herald and many others in State media.

The blind and dangerous Zanu PF foot soldiers are being rallied behind adoption of the Kariba draft on false allegations that the country does not have the funds to carryout extensive outreach programmes to collect input for the new constitution because-you guessed it right- of the illegal sanctions imposed on the country by the Western imperialists.

Industry and Commerce Minister Professor Welshman Ncube widely held as the driver of the MDC-M faction led by Professor Mutambara is at loggerheads with his party President on the process as he has thrown his weight behind President Mugabe’s insistence on the Kariba draft while the party President appears amenable to a wider consultative process.

The real reason behind President Mugabe’s demand that the Kariba draft be the sole reference point for the Parliamentary select committee in crafting the new constitution has nothing to do with sanctions and funding of the process.

It has everything to do with what will happen after the country manages to craft and legislate a new constitution.

Both President Mugabe and Professor Welshman Ncube are fully conscious of the state of affairs in their political formations. They are both in total disarray and cannot win an election that is free of violence and managed by an independent electoral commission.

Yet in terms of the GPA that legitimises the coalition government at the end of the Constitution reform exercise the coalition is constitutionally required to review its legitimacy and seek public endorsement of its continuation in office from the electorate.

Any delays in reaching that point avails time for the two formations to regroup and cease momentum from the runaway lead the MDC-T formation is accumulating from its involvement in the coalition government.

The reality though is that it will need some miraculous intervention for the MDC-T to lose its support as nothing the other two parties has done so far seems to be working in their favour.

That is why it is so important for President Mugabe to team up with Professor Ncube in throwing obstacles into the smooth conclusion of the constitution reform process by making outrageous demands that the process must be limited to adopting a Kariba draft that the electorate has had no direct input into its formulation or crafting.

There are arguments that the reason why President Mugabe prefers the Kariba draft is because it retains a Presidency with unfettered draconian powers that he has abused for the benefit of his party in the past three decades.

While it is true that the Kariba draft creates a utopian Presidency, the point is missed that he is not guaranteed the post if the same draft allows for free and fair elections which it does not.

It fails to do so in that it permits the sitting President to appoint and direct the functions of the electoral Commission and all other National commissions as well as it empowers him to rule by decree.

This is only in issue because President Mugabe is the current occupant of the position and can use it as he has done in the past to entrench the Zanu PF hegemony.

That is why it is imperative that the nation must come together and oppose his attempt to set parameters that restrict the constitutional debate to a draft that the people were not consulted about when it was crafted.

President Mugabe and his supporters must be encouraged to continue relying on the Kariba draft if they believe in it but must be discouraged to force it on everyone else simply because he is the sitting President.

Equally important Professor Ncube must continue supporting the Kariba draft because he was one of the three lawyers that drafted it but he must never be allowed to team up with President Mugabe in selling the falsehood that the Kariba draft was agreed upon by the parties to be the constitution that will end the lifespan of the coalition government.

If indeed that was the case why does he not move a Kariba draft Constitutional bill in Parliament as happened with the agreement on Constitutional Amendment No 19.

The undisputed fact of the matter is that the Parties agreed on the Kariba draft with a view to use it to manage the lopsided March 2008 electoral playing field but ditched it in preference of Constitutional Amendment No 18.

When constitutional amendment No 18 resulted in the unprecedented defeat of
President Mugabe in the crucial presidential segment of the harmonised election, he then invoked his limitless powers to force through a runoff election outside prescribed limits and ordered the military to campaign for him with ruthless violence and impunity.

Now that the situation has not improved his party’s fortunes the President wants to retain the same powers he invoked in 2008 to save him from inglorious exit from power to do more of the same come the envisaged elections to end the coalition union.

Forget the rhetoric coming from the Premier’s office that he will stick with the coalition union even in the face of a threat of going down with the President. All the MDC wants is to ensure that the new constitution is adopted and legislated allowing it to have a say on who will manage the electoral process that has been its Achilles heel in ascending to power in the past.

The moment a constitution that allows the party sway in who will superintend the electoral process and who will monitor it, the coalition union will collapse under the weight of pressure for the holding of elections. Zanu PF will be defeated in such elections without recourse to manipulating the result in its favour through the National Presidency.

Every Zimbabwean has a right to be involved with the Constitution making process regardless of whether the president likes it or don’t.

If the President prefers the Kariba draft clauses he must campaign for it but not decree its adoption as that will be rejected at the referendum which will not help the country or his scattered party in any way.

There was never an agreement that the current Constitutional process would have only the Kariba draft as the source of reference for the nation in crafting their constitution as Professor Ncube, Patrick Chinamasa and President Mugabe would like us to believe.

What is evident from reading the GPA is that the Kariba draft was averred to in Article 6 for the purpose of incorporating contents of its Chapters 4 and 13, and section 121 in Constitutional Amendment No 19.

Chapter 4 of the Kariba deals with the contentious issue of Citizenship in the country and clause 121 created the Parliamentary Committee of Standing rules and orders in its current format while Chapter 13 deals with the setting up of National commissions and the procedures to be followed in manning them.

These are the issues that were agreed upon for the purposes of ensuring smooth functioning of the coalition government which were incorporated into Constitution amendment No 19 from the Kariba draft without them being re-written into the Statute.

Whether or not they will be retained in the new Constitution as they are in CA No19 must be left to the conclusions of the consultative process currently under way and if approved varied or discarded that must be the people’s prerogative.

There is nothing in the GPA binding people to accept those political tradeoffs that were adopted from the Kariba draft or any other political process past or present if they do not resonate with current public thinking and its vision of how a prosperous Zimbabwe can be secured through its constitution.

Finally it is not up to the press to lead public opinion to a position other than that which supports their needs desires and wants for now and in the future.

To suggest that because the Kariba draft retains draconian presidential powers it does not curtail Mugabe’s further attempts to regain Presidency in the envisaged two five year term limits is as bad as Mugabe suggesting that the Kariba draft must be adopted because it was agreed upon by Zanu PF and the two MDCs.

Mugabe has every right to seek re-election to the Presidency if the people accept a Constitution that does not take into account past service in the same capacity. The Kariba draft actually disqualifies those that have held the Presidency for over the envisaged 10 year two term limitation it envisages for the incumbents of the post.

The Kariba draft has this to say about disqualifications from seeking the office of President at section 81(2);

"A person is disqualified for election as President if he or she has already held office as President after the appointed day for two terms as defined in section eighty-four.”

The only question needing clarification is the meaning is the phrase “after the appointed date” which is not defined in section 84 as inferred.

This is not to say I or anyone else for that matter should support any of President Mugabe’s bidding for retention of the position but merely to highlight that it is improper to campaign for the rejection of a proposed Constitutional draft on account it does not bar past Presidents from seeking re-election that will extend their aggregate terms in office beyond the envisaged maximum 10 year period which it clearly does albeit in language needing to be made more unambiguous.

The bottom line is that the constitutional debate must never be allowed to be hijacked and privatised by anyone through reference to previous events and or private treaties between interest groups that purport to have been mandated by the people.

Anyone with such legitimate claims should be prepared to test them in the current debates and if the claim is authentic it will prevail.

That is how democracy must support principles of self governance in practical ways.

But when people like President Mugabe, Patrick Chinamasa and Professor Welshman Ncube team up to support adoption of a draft constitution they know never sought public opinions about its contents and yet their presence in leadership positions is mired in controversy having tested the popularity of their ideas by seeking election and suffered crushing defeats, their support can be reduced to arrogance that they can thumb their noses at the electorate and get away with it.

That has to be stopped and the best way to do so is to reject their call for the Kariba draft to form the exclusive basis of the country’s Constitutional reform agenda and process.

The Parliamentary Select Committee currently spearheading the process must hold steady and proceed by way of the consultation process they are pursuing at present, craft a draft there from and present it for debate to the stakeholder conferences deemed sufficient to endorse its contents as having come from the people and not the President, Government or Parliament.

That done, the draft must then be put to referendum and if passed, referred to Parliament for legislation.

The Zanu PF threat led by the President that the Party has an opportunity to derail the process in parliament will fizzle into thin air as any attempt to block a referendum passed statute will expose the opponent as the real enemy of the state a tag Zanu PF has hitherto attached to all its opponents.

That will be the sad end of a political formation that has won the country its political independence only to supplant itself as a more vicious institution than that it had dethroned.

When a President has nothing left to loot from the country

Political marriage brokered and consumated in hell between President Mugabe and Premier Tsvangiraimust deliver on its key objectives to save its SADC guarantors

Desperate moments call for desperate means to overcome the threats. So it was for the megalomaniac SADC imposed Zimbabwe President Mugabe. Tired from advanced age and battered by unrelenting restrictions on his travel and that of his closest advisors, the octogenarian president had to resort to putting the country he and his party has ravaged over the past 3 decades in the hands of a distrusted Premier whom he believes is a puppet of Western countries.

The compulsion to rely on the Premier was the final act of capitulation by a despotic ruler to the tightening screws of international sanctions on his party leadership that has put his once invincible party in total disarray.

President Mugabe informed his Party’s national Consultative Assembly meeting that he has already finalised the criteria for evaluating the performance of the Premier on his recent trip to the Western nations.

He disclosed that he would sit down and talk to Prime Minister Tsvangirai about the negative attitude of the Western countries that the Premier has been touring as part of a Presidential and Cabinet brief to lobby for the removal of economic sanctions and extension of financial assistance.

President Mugabe disclosed that because Western countries visited by PM Tsvangirai had vowed not to remove the “illegal” sanctions they imposed on Zimbabwe and Zanu PF leadership unless there is regime change if the country- as if the coalition government is not a form of regime change- he would sit down with the Premier and whip him into line.

"They wanted Zanu-PF and Mugabe to be defeated. We will not lift sanctions, they say. We will not give you money except little pieces of silver.

"Urikutoita zvako ushamwari naye kuenda kuinclusive Government? Ndizvozvatakaronga?" he said. (“Why are you befriending Mugabe in this coalition government? Was that what we agreed upon with you in the first place?”) he lamented.

In essence the meeting to review the Premier’s State visit to Western nations will be transformed into a disciplinary hearing for the Premier.

The charges the Premier will face from the President will among other things include;
The Premier’s perceived failure to convince his so called western friends, to bail out the country with uncapped monetary aid.

“Changamire, madziona shamwari dzenyu?”(“Where are your Western friends now sir?)he boasted he will open discussions with the Premier on this note.

This will be a serious allegation because President Mugabe elaborated that he had told the Premier that he had fought for the country’s freedom after coming to the conclusion that only a dead imperialist is a good one but the Premier disputed that.
The President said hitherto he had told the premier that "Colonisers can never be friends, so we turn our back on them and face the East," but the Premier would hear none of that.

By extension the President was telling his captive audience that the Premier’s trip was the litmus test for the Premier’s untested claims that he had friends in the West who could help the country recover from its economic malaise but the trip had disproved that myth.

The Premier’s dysfunctional multi-currency trading fiscal policies.
President Mugabe concocted mischievous lies when he told his audience that the MDC promised billions of dollars if the inclusive Government was formed, but nothing had materialised so far.

The truth is that the MDC said it would attract international interest and confidence in the country by winning the harmonised elections and forming a compact but accountable government that would be accountable to the electorate.

President Mugabe with the support of the military, Sadc and the AU refused to bow down after he was defeated in the critical Presidential segment of the March 2008 harmonised elections and compelled the formation of the current coalition government. The MDC was coerced into this makeshift government to salvage anything it could of its stolen victory.

That is the sole reason why we are languishing under the rule of this coalition government if the President has suffered amnesia of what happened.

"Inclusive Government yedu yakauya tese tine chitarisiro chekuti sezvo tose tichiuya mupartnership, kuchazova nerubatsiro rwunobva kumativi ose.

"Vaye vaiti kana mabatana mari ichazoduruka, asi tiri kuona kuti hapana chaduruka. Kune vanga vakatarisira kumatenzi avo arikuramba," he said.

"Kurikushaikwa mari yekubhadhara vari kusevenza, maministers acho, kana President wacho. Saka zvino inclusive Government yacho, inclusive Government yenzara?

"Ndanga ndisati ndambotambira US$100 asi pagore rino ndakatambiriswa US$100 ini. Hakuna kubuda kana cent rimwe chete."
(“The inclusive government was conceived on the hope that because of the partnership in government we would get aid from both sides (West and East. There were those that claimed that if we unite funds will pour into the country but nothing of the sort has been realised to date. There were those that expected support from their masters who have been rebuffed. There is no money to pay workers, ministers and even the President. This is therefore an inclusive government of poverty. I have never earned US$100 in my life but this is what I am being paid this year. The trip has not yielded a single cent.”)

Strange that the only leader the country has known for 3 decades would have the temerity to spew such garbage.

President Mugabe must know that the reason why he has never earned a pittance US$100 per month was because he was paying most of us no more than 50 cents per month while he paid himself and his Zanu PF cronies tens of thousands of US dollars per month.

If he refunds what he and his cronies siphoned from the country over the past 3 Decades all of us will earn nothing less than the US$500 required to sustain a family of six per month.

No government worth the name can expect its national workforce to be paid from funds donated by nations where its workers are not producing anything of value.
It is hoped the Premier will not waste the opportunity to remind the President of these realities.

As long as the President remains living with the myopic belief that the country is owed aid by the Eastern, Southern, Western and Northern countries jointly or severally the Premier must play the role of reminding that the country is owed nothing by anyone other than its nationals who have allowed him to ruin its once strong economy and accepted destitution under his rule of political repression and patronage handouts.

That the president’s Party should wake up from its deep slumber is not debatable but the fact that the President is sleep talking about it is serious cause for concern.

In his shocking dream the President sees the nation suffering more from the effects of the introduction of the multi-currency system which has helped reduce inflation and re-stocked the retail outlets his Price Wars had completely emptied within 2 months, than they suffered over the past decade with quadrillions of local currency in their satchels and car boots that could not buy them anything anywhere other than
in other neighbouring countries.

That is most alarming because the President wants to drive back the country to that dark period.

The only people realising how hard it has been for the generality of the populace to access forex with which to purchase goods from neighbouring countries are the very same people who used to be pampered with daily survival needs by the RBZ governor after stealing funds from individuals and donor accounts in exchange for their loyalty to Zanu PF.

Now that the RBZ governor he imposed on the Nation cannot buy their loyalty as there is free competition for forex, they want the President to restore worthless money printing powers to the RBZ governor so that the goods that have been bought by real currencies and are stocked in retail outlets can be bought by that trash and donated to them.

The obvious result will be the disappearance of goods from publicly licensed outlets into the private black market where access will not only be difficult but the goods will be more expensive due to scarcity and inflation will once again take root.

The Premier must urge the Nation to rise up against any such premature attempt to correct their current financial constraints and demand that only a government resultant from the electoral process and not some SADC/AU imposed compromise will have mandates to reintroduce a Zimbabwean currency.

The President will accuse the Premier that the fall back on multi currency has caused untold suffering among his rural supporter bases because they were unable to access either the American dollar or South African rand.

He will argue that this had forced rural people to trade their valuable livestock for money to buy other necessities of life as if that is a crime.

The Premier must ask the President why it is unacceptable for rural farmers to part with valuables that they posses like cereals and livestock in exchange for value owned by workers and entrepreneurs like cash and processed consumer goods.

"Hatingaite nyika yakadaro, kwete. Tirikuongorora kuzvichinja todzokera kumari yedu. Mitengo hongu ingadaro yakadzikira, asi vanhu vanosungirwa kuwana mari. Kana vasina, vanozotenga sei? (“We can’t allow the country to run like that. We are in the process of changing that monetary policy to reassert usage of our local currency. Prices of goods may have fallen but people must have money first. For if they do not have money how will they buy the cheap goods?”)

At his age we do not want to assume that the President still has to learn that money does not grow on trees where the willing can go and pick it but has to be worked for and earned.

Likewise cheap goods and services do not rain from heaven like manna did for the Israelites and have to be made, bought or learned before they can be owned.

He must never fool the nation that having local currency will automatically empower them to buy goods imported in the country by forex earners who have exported their labour and or some produce from the country.

Human rights
The President reportedly dismissed the comments of the Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan who was in the country recently to assess progress made by the coalition government to restore vandalised human rights.
"I do not know where she got her information from. She was just being hypocritical," he said.

While belittling her for meddling in the country’s internal affairs to assess its credit worthiness President Mugabe bemoans failed attempts by the state to secure funds from the same "little fellows like Irene Khan".

Why ever he chooses to approach little fellows for help baffles the mind. The President must not expect the premier to secure funds from countries where little fellows hail from and it is expected the Premier will not fail to remind him of that brutal reality.

"Hameno kuti kakabva nekupi iko kamudzimai aka, kupopotapopota ndikati ah, kakaroyiwa here? Iyo nyika yedu yangova nyika yokuti wada anongouya kutaura tsvina yakadaro?(“I do not know where this little lady came from to cause the nuisance she did. I just said to ah maybe she is bewitched? What has become of our country that has now reduced it to a free for all dumping ground for political garbage?)

"Let the people talk about the unjust measures imposed on us," lamented the President.

We can tell him that it is because of his failure to manage the country’s economy over the past 28 years he has been at the helm that the country has slid into a beggar nation and allowed the haves he believes are little meddlers have found inroads into the country’s politics