Zim News Blog -NEWS NETWORK

For the past several years, there has been a public outcry over the state of roads in Harare which have been infested by potholes and some that have never been tarred. This is because most of the roads have outlived their supposed normal life-span of 20 years as some were constructed during the colonial era. […]

Source: Op-Ed: Why Zimbabwe is on the path to progress – CNBC Africa

Zimbabwe is on a journey of reform. Nobody ever said it wouldn’t be a bumpy ride; but the most important thing is that the journey has begun, and we are heading in the right direction.

The Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP), the first step of government’s economic reform programme, was launched in October 2018. Its goal was clear: To stabilise the economy, attract investment and lay the foundation for shared and sustained growth.

The overall picture so far is one of cautious optimism, largely based around the effectiveness of our measures to balance the budget.

The key to managing any budget, whether a household or a country, is to not spend more than you have. For years, that is unfortunately exactly what our governments have done, and the first step towards progress is to return the fiscal deficit to sustainable levels; both through cutting unnecessary spending and increasing revenue.

The target for 2019 is ambitious, but attainable: To reduce the budget deficit from about 12% of GDP to 5%.

Over the past four months, we have made significant cuts to expenditure in five main areas: First, we have ended the unsustainable practice of issuing Treasury Bills to finance the deficit, forcing us to spend within our means and within the budget.

Second, we have reduced the public wage bill by cutting salaries of senior government officials by 5% across the board, retiring over 3000 youth officers, and establishing a more modest bonus system for civil servants that saved over US$75 million in 2018 alone.

Third, we have diverted our resources to pressing areas by freezing the hiring of non-critical staff, while hiring 3000 additional staff in the education sector and almost 2000 in the health sector. Finally, we have cut unnecessary expenditure and ‘perks’ for ministers and MPs, most notably by suspending the procurement of vehicles.

These measures have been complemented by a concerted effort to widen our revenue base. One prominent example, the 2% tax on electronic transactions, was hotly disputed when it was announced, but its impact has been significant. US$166 million was raised in the last two months of 2018, and almost US$100 million was raised in January alone. We project that over US$600 million will be raised during 2019.

These measures have combined to have a major impact on our nation’s finances. The monthly budget deficit declined from US$242 million in November to a surplus of US$733 million in December, and a provisional surplus of $113m for January, an impressive turnaround in such a short time.

Of course, as all Zimbabweans know, it has not been all plain sailing. The inflationary pressures we have faced have caused uncertainty and pain, and we have made dealing with this our number one concern. To address this, we have pushed ahead in our efforts to narrow the fiscal deficit and slow down money supply growth, and we project inflation to slow down to below 10% by the end of the year.

The shift in our monetary policy has been well documented, as we seek to remove the distortions which prevented efficient functioning of the foreign exchange market, and the economy as a whole, pushing prices beyond the reach of most Zimbabweans.

In contrast, the new monetary policy – based around the liberalisation of our foreign currency market and discarding of the fixed 1:1 exchange rate peg between the US$ and the Bond note – will promote stability, bring down prices and build confidence.

Its implementation is already underway and government has won praise internationally for truly allowing the market to determine the value of RTGS Dollar. Meanwhile, the RBZ is strengthening this arrangement by focusing on containing money supply growth, while it has also put in place monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the interbank foreign exchange market is not manipulated.

A further area of progress is in the acceleration of the reform of State Owned Enterprises and Parastatals (SOEs). Having approved the implementation framework for 43 SOEs and parastatals in 2018, Government has targeted five public enterprises (Tel-One, Net-One, Telecel, ZIMPOST and POSB) for immediate reforms and work is already underway to identify transaction advisors. Government projects to realise over US$350 million from this initial process.

Other key reforms underway include turning the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) into a strategic reserve entity under government and a commercial arm; improving the governance, leadership and operational efficiency at Allied Timbers; Re-bundling ZESA (Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority) into a single corporate board to improve governance; the rationalization of Industrial Development Corporation units and partial privatization, as well as many more.

We are also accelerating and deepening the ease and cost of doing business reforms to improve competitiveness. This includes the establishment of a One-Stop Shop Investment Centre, and legislation to establish a specific and dedicated institution – the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA) – is now before Parliament. ZIDA is set to be fully operational in the coming months, and will enable the processing of investment approvals within a day, significantly improving the investment climate.

I am aware that there are those who are disappointed by the pace of change, and who expected progress to be faster. Unfortunately, this was never going to be the case. Reforming, restructuring and rebuilding our economy was always going to take time, and attempts to prematurely accelerate the process are liable to cause greater upheaval and suffering. A sober, strategic and step-by-step process remains the best way to achieve our goal.

By the same token, these improvements should not give us reason for back-patting and self-congratulations. They are but one step in a much longer journey, and will mean nothing if we don’t finish the job.

*Mthuli Ncube is Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister and a former Chief Economist at the African Development Bank

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Source: Uproar over ED’s ‘brief’ visit | The Standard (Local News)

By Rex Mphisa

Matabeleland South residents have accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa of ignoring them during his midweek visit to the province.

The residents, his ruling party members and sections of civil servants quickly blamed Mnangagwa’s failure to attend to them on what they called a “weak” provincial party hierarchy and “sleepy” government top executives.

Mnangagwa’s pokesperson George Charamba was not picking his mobile phone yesterday when comment was sought.

Matabeleland South ruling party supporters lashed out at Rabelani Choeni, their provincial head, accusing him of lacking initiatives to move the party into another gear in the face of development challenges in one of Zimbabwe’s least developed provinces.

“President Mnangagwa came and left without talking to us, the people of the province,” a Zanu PF member said.

“We showed faith in him during elections. It can only be a result of our poor provincial representation, how else can we conclude apart from?

“Known tradition is that such visits are used well to endear the president who can go out of his official schedule to address us or even take time to listen to our problems.

“We expect the leadership to highlight to him all this and he should not be divorced from us.”

Mnangagwa was in Beitbridge, Matabeleland South’s biggest and Zimbabwe’s most strategic town and port, to commission a $98 million backbone optic fibre link between the country and the world through South Africa.

He arrived and officiated at a function hosted by TelOne, the country’s fixed telephone network provider, and left minutes later.

Departing from the norm, Mnangagwa, who flew into the border town aboard an Airforce of Zimbabwe helicopter that landed amid thick security, went straight into business.

He did not meet with the local leadership, business community or party representatives for a debrief.

“We felt so abandoned and ignored, it shouldn’t be like this,” said a party supporter speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Ideally, the local leadership is expected to bring him up to speed with local challenges and make him localise his approach. This is to endear him with the constituents.

“Presidential visits are few and far between and prudent leadership capitalises on such days for his ear to get developmental attention,” said a Beitbridge war veteran.

“Our party is rural-based from even during the war and any opportunity for the president to meet the masses must not be missed. Someone is sleeping in the provincial cockpit or even at national level,” the war veteran said.

Matabeleland South province is the most underdeveloped in the country with a poor road network, sparsely distributed schools and a people hard hit by a failing rainfall pattern threatening nutrition.

Some traditional leaders said Mnangagwa should have also attended to the issue where a Beitbridge traditional leader, Chief David Mbedzi, was attacked by soldiers guarding the Beitbridge.

“He should talk about that and (vice-President Kembo) Mohadi and Choeni should have told him it’s something that affects us. The soldiers are not above the law and it is us who vote,” said one traditional leader.

The post Uproar over ED’s ‘brief’ visit appeared first on The Standard.

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The National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO) deplores the suspension of Community Tolerance Reconciliation and Development (Cotrad) and Zimbabwe Association of Churches and Hospitals (ZACH) by Masvingo District Administrator.

Source: NANGO taken aback by COTRAD and ZACH suspension – The Zimbabwean

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Source: A land of squandered potential – The Standard March 17, 2019

Opinion: BY BEN SHEPHERD

I well remember sitting in the AFP bureau in Harare at dusk on November 21, 2017 and hearing the first whoop of delight in the street outside when Robert Mugabe was finally ousted, an extraordinary moment in Africa’s post-colonial history.

Recently, I was back in Zimbabwe to take a 1 000km road trip, travelling from the capital Harare across the agricultural heartland to the second city of Bulawayo and then south, down to the land border at Beitbridge into South Africa.

The trip was to report on the country’s troubled post-Mugabe “reboot” and to seek stories away from the news headlines and outside the political scene of Harare.

Determined to make the best of our unexpected press accreditation, I teamed up with Bulawayo-based photographer Auntony Zinyange and South African AFP video journalist Maryke Vermaak.

We hired a white VW pick-up at Harare airport, collected our media cards, and hit the road heading southwest towards Bulawayo.

Not far outside Harare, the effect of Zimbabwe’s land seizures under Mugabe nearly 20 years ago was clearly evident.

Old, large commercial farms once owned by whites were now often abandoned except for thatched homesteads surrounded by subsistence farming with small fields tilled with ox-drawn ploughs.

The road is Zimbabwe’s major highway and in good condition, but traffic was scarce due to the chronic petrol shortage and a sudden rise in government-set fuel prices that sparked the latest bout of violent protests.

With almost every gas station out of fuel, how we would fill up had been a major concern, but our full tank of diesel would easily get us to Bulawayo and we could refuel there.

We interviewed teenagers beaten up by soldiers and opposition activists, but perhaps the most memorable meeting was with an “insider” — a prison officer.

He walked over and sat in the back of our car, declining to give his name, and describing how civilians picked up by the authorities were being mistreated.

Motivated only by a sense of injustice, he calmly told how detainees — some under-age — were being held with little food or bedding and driven to court in trucks for cursory court hearings before being denied bail.

Of all our conversations in Zimbabwe, it is the quiet voice of a prison officer that sticks with me — one brave man who just wanted the chance to speak out.

Then back on the road, through Gweru, in the middle of Zimbabwe, where the once-grand Midlands Hotel still dominates the city centre but is now crumbling and barely open.

Roadblocks that we thought could be a major obstacle proved to be no problem as bored soldiers from the notorious 5th Brigade stood back and waved vehicles through.

One of the daily complexities of life in Zimbabwe — where the US dollar is the main currency — is the multiple, parallel exchange rates that many people keep running constantly in their heads.

In a fancy Harare restaurant before we set off, I managed to pay $23 for a vegetarian burger. Instead, I could have crossed the street to the ubiquitous money-dealers and spent about $7 buying 23 local “bond note” dollars —and paid with them.

It is illegal but universal, and one symptom of the country’s decades-long economic meltdown.

And don’t even ask me to try to explain about Ecocash rates, RTGS money, “zollars” and nostro accounts — all key subjects to master when negotiating the currency jungle.

When I presented two US dollar notes to pay at a road toll booth, the cashier exclaimed in genuine shock, saying she hadn’t seen a greenback in months.

Bulawayo is itself a city of squandered potential — glorious but decaying colonial and art deco architecture, forlorn industrial estates, an abandoned racecourse, an informal economy of street traders and empty hotels.

At the Bulawayo Club, founded in 1895, we were the only guests night after night, rattling around its library, billiards room, bar and collonaded restaurant.
The club now operates more as a hotel than a gentlemen’s club, with its past on display to shock or amuse.

Just outside the city is one of Africa’s great tourist sights — the Matobo national park with its balancing rocks, bizarre whaleback-shaped hilltops and the panoramic gravesite of British imperial overlord Cecil Rhodes.

One park guide told us foreign visitor numbers had risen sharply as Zimbabwe returned to the world stage after Mugabe’s fall in 2017.

But the tourist boom has evaporated as the country grabbed global attention with its latest bout of violent state repression of dissent, fuel shortages and economic chaos.

As we headed south to the border through the parched and desperately poor Matabeleland South province, the excitement of being on the road in Zimbabwe was tempered by the sense of its decades of wasted potential during the Mugabe years — and a gloomy feeling that the country’s struggles are far from over. —AFP

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