Category: zimbabwe

Source: Comment: Zimbabwe at 40 subdued and disappointed – CNBC Africa

“A hungry man is an angry man,” says the former guerrilla fighter with a steely glare followed by a shake of the head as he gleaned the thin pickings of a dry maize field on communal land just outside the capital Harare. As Zimbabwe turned 40 this weekend, I harked back to his soulful, disappointed, eyes on independence day, April 18,back in 1994, a few weeks after I had landed in Africa as a television journalist.

I will never forget Israel Mandere, who must be in his sixties now, yet clearly the internet – if ever it knew his name – has. I can still see him sweating in that field under the bright autumn sunshine as part of a struggling cooperative of war veterans scratching a living in the dust.

“No money, little food, tattered clothes,” says Mandere shaking his head in anger and stuttering with emotion.

“Ï am very embarrassed about that one.”

Two decades earlier, Mandere strapped an AK47 on his back to fight operations in eastern Zimbabwe from guerrilla camps, in the bush, across on the other side of the border in Mozambique as part of the ZANLA guerrilla forces that helped put President Mugabe in power. He joined, as a teenager and trained with thousands of comrades in Ethiopia to fight a small, yet tough, Rhodesian army bristling with modern weapons and vast firepower. The promise from his leaders – many of whom ended up in the cabinet – was a brighter tomorrow for the black majority.

In the early, euphoric, days this seemed so for many black Zimbabweans who found rights in a country where they had grown up feeling like foreigners. Black Zimbabweans took up top jobs in the land the commanding heights of the economy on a  secure bedrock of robust infrastructure. Investment and flowed in the wake of the first elections in and land with universal suffrage.. Politically Zimbabwe campaigned for change in Africa as part of the Non Aligned Movement in the former frontline states.

Yet the economy was mismanaged and struggled to increase the standard of living for the growing population. In the early 80s the government turned on its own people in Matabeleland and more than 20,000 people died – as a journalist, I saw some of the shallow graves with my own eyes. More than a decade on, it choked me that relatives knew where their loved ones were buried but were merely too afraid of authority to go and visit them.

I was so angry that the crew and I went to a church in Bulawayo to question one of the politicians who oversaw the killings, the late Enos Nkala, who has become a pastor.  Seriously, his people said the man himself was praying and couldn’t talk to us right now. We waited and Nkala slipped from the building and his accountability.  One of many examples I saw of how the people of  power in  Zimbabwe often had that air of impunity.

Then there was the ham fisted way productive farm land was taken over and often left in ruins. It is a shame that Mandere’s grandchildren can only hear stories about Zimbabwe being the bread basket of southern Africa. It is a bitter irony also that many children  and grandchildren of those who risked their lives fighting to free Zimbabwe were on the streets to howl President Mugabe out of power in November 2017.

I called one of my old friends and colleagues in Harare on independence day to see how it went. He admitted it hadn’t been a very celebratory 40^th birthday party with the economy down after 20 days of COVID-19 lockdown.

“Zimbabwe at 40?” says he,” It is like you have gone to school, grown up, got married, had children and then you wake up at 40 to find you are undernourished.”

Now, I worked in Zimbabwe, as a journalist, and for years I travelled to almost every corner, small town  and village to report stories and talk to people. I drank masese, danced in shebeens and met tens of thousands of Zimbabweans of all creeds and colours – good and bad,  For every bad person there were a hundred good.

“This one is free,” people used to say in the dance halls late at night when they were asked why I was there.

All I want is the best for Zimbabwe, but I fear how the country will be when it turns 50.

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Source: Zimbabwe’s exclusion from G20 debt relief must not block assistance for Covid-19 response, says Christian Aid – Zimbabwe | ReliefWeb

Following the announcement this week by the G20 of a temporary suspension of debt payments from the poorest countries due from 1 May to 31 December, 2020, Christian Aid is urgently pressing for Zimbabwe to receive the aid it needs to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The debt suspension package is understood to include all 77 countries that are either in the World Bank International Development Association (IDA) programme, or defined as low-income countries – and Zimbabwe is defined as a ‘partially eligible’ IDA country. However, due to technical conditions, Zimbabwe has been excluded from the agreement.

Christian Aid believes that Zimbabwe’s exclusion from an emergency package for the poorest countries is unjust, given the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic and its economic impact to the poorest and most vulnerable people.

In terms of workable solutions, there is in place an ongoing Staff Monitored Programme between Zimbabwe and IMF which is considered currently to be inactive. If the IMF programme can be established again with support of wider stakeholders, then Zimbabwe could also access debt payment cancellation for the World Bank, African Development Bank and European Investment Bank among other multilateral creditors as mentioned in the G20 statement.

The G20 statement makes clear the agreement remains open to changes social and economic conditions. So long as Zimbabwe commits to using the freed budget to increase social, health or economic spending in response to the international crisis, it must be included in the scheme. Zimbabwe as well as its creditors should also commit also to disclose all public sector debt to improve debt transparency.

Nicholas Shamano, Christian Aid’s Zimbabwe country manager, said:

“The lack of an IMF programme with Zimbabwe must not leave ordinary people exposed to further suffering because of the pandemic. There is a humanitarian imperative to ensure that the international community helps Zimbabweans to withstand the worst effects of coronavirus, and the global economic crisis.

Zimbabwe does not have debt with the IMF as it paid off its debt in 2019. However, the country still has debts with the World Bank (US$1.4billion), African Development Bank (US$687Million) and the European Investment Bank (US$322Milion) as well as other bilateral creditors.

“Settling the IMF debts by the Zimbabwe government in the past two years has come at a huge cost to the population through policies such as interfering with exchanges rates, introduction of additional taxes – such as 2% tax on mobile money transactions – along with price distortions, local currency depreciation and an inflationary environment which has eroded basic income and savings for the majority.

“We ask that the UK and other governments now help to fund civil society in partnerships with the private sector, assisting poor people directly when it comes to health infrastructure and services, including – crucially at this time – capacitating health workers, more decentralised and mobile testing and isolation facilities, and protective equipment, alongside social protection for the vulnerable. Some resources can be channelled towards businesses for recovery, but also to directly or indirectly support the Covid-19 response, such as more manufacturing of PPE and ventilators.

“Zimbabwe is still reeling from the effects of Cyclone Idai and a severe drought which will extend into the next year given the erratic rains this season.

“Unless Zimbabwe is also included in the current global UN appeal for Covid-19, once the cases reach a certain threshold, our weak health system will not cope.”

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A 43- year-old pastor told his congregants not be afraid of "lightning" when the police were arresting them for allegedly violating lockdown regulations on Sunday. The police in Bolobedu, Limpopo, pounced on the group while holding a church service in a shack situated in the backyard at Koope village outside Modjadjiskloof. In a video clip captured during the arrest of the Apostolic

A car with children on-board rammed into a Central Business District (CBD) shop while speeding on a one way lane on Independence Day. The accident occurred on Saturday evening at the corner of Chinhoyi Street and Charter Road junction and the family (name withheld) was driving in a Toyota Harrier. Robson Muromba, a witness to the accident, said children were limping out of the car after a

Dear Editor,

Source: If this is true, Ziyambi Ziyambi needs to be fired – The Zimbabwean

I got extremely angry when I came across a story on social media alleging Justice Minister Ziyambi received Coronavirus sanitisation chemicals from Zimplants, and went on to use Constituency Development Funds to brand the containers with his portrait and that of Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Isn’t this the corruption that Emmerson Mnangagwa wants the world to believe his is fighting? I hope it is a false story, but I want to believe that photographic experts can be able to detect whether the photograph is genuine of fake. If fake, and the person who created it can be traced, they should be dealt with accordingly. But if Ziyambi Ziyambi indeed did this, it is time Zimbabweans took the law into their own hands and boot these corrupt politicians.

The Constituency Development Fund is tax payers’ money which should be used constructively, not to prop up anyone’s image. Even if someone uses their personal money to buy chemicals to treat sick people or prevent illness, I think it is unAfrican to want to gain personal mileage out of a disaster of this nature. Let those who are doing it, if any, be ashamed of themselves and resign, or if they do not resign, the appropriate authorities should fire them. This is corruption at its worst.

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