Zimbabwe: 2007 till Mugabe resigns

[davidbfpo]

Sad, but true - as this campaigning group shows:http://www.sokwanele.com/zimbabwe-el...dence-of-fraud

Their summary ends, with a forlorn hope IMHO:

We find it astonishing that anyone - let alone leaders of (SADC) States whose role it is is to ensure the will of the people prevails - can turn a blind eye to the array of outrages that have occurred in our country with regards the 2013 polls.

Here is one example of manipulating the electoral roll; yes Zimbabwe should be a beautiful place to live so long:

...350,000 people who are more than 85 years old and 109,000 aged over 100 - including a 135-year-old army officer.

[JMA]

Interesting development:

China planning airbase at Zimbabwe's diamond fields

[davidbfpo]

Rare reporting on Zimbabwe caught my eye. The focus is on the policeem who ran away and came back later with ZANU-PF helpers:

Last Friday the police launched a raid on the shrine of a religious cult, the Johane Masowe weChishanu, in Budiriro, a poor Harare suburb. They had hoped to shut down the church, which is accused of marrying off young girls to church elders and banning children from attending school.

Instead, the police were brutally beaten in a melee that also left a journalist injured. That the incident did not cause outrage at such disregard for the law, instead attracting derision and mockery of the police, says a lot about how the public have come to view the police.


Within hours of the violence, Zimbabwean social media erupted. There was celebration, and the few voices that sought to ask whether this was not another step towards lawlessness were quickly drowned out.

Link:http://mg.co.za/article/2014-06-05-t...first-red-card

[davidbfpo]

Zimbabwe has been arigocracy for awhile now, so the latest political news is not really a surprise, except this time it is ZANU-PF members who have been excluded:http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-1906...ties/news.aspx

Oh yes, in case you don't follow Zimbabwe closely Mugabe's wife appears to be destined to follow him.

[davidbfpo]

A superb explanation of the situation in Zimbabwe, one that few here I expect will dissent from and totally unacceptable to those who see Mugabe and his party as liberators:www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/14772/despite-zimbabwe-purge-mugabe-succession-still-far-from-certain?

A taster:

Zimbabwe may not yet be categorized as an outright failed state akin to Somalia, but it remains a highly dysfunctional one, a victim of decades of misrule by a predatory elite that has plundered the state and drained the term “liberation” of any semblance of meaning.

To hope that ZANU-PF can become a vehicle for change under figures so deeply compromised as Mnangagwa, Grace Mugabe or Mujuru is folly, and only the party’s collapse can rescue Zimbabwe from its current condition as a virtual mafia state.

[davidbfpo]

A short article on Zimbabwe, which opens with:

The Zimbabwean economy is going through structural regression, with rapid deindustrialisation, burgeoning external debt, an over 85% formal unemployment rate and nominal growth due to declining investment and a biting liquidity crunch. Between 2011 and 2015 over 4,610 companies closed their doors leaving over 55 000 workers redundant, putting further pressure on a cash-strapped population. This year’s harvest has failed due to insufficient rain while a regional maize shortage and empty government coffers will leave thousands without sufficient food. Within the ruling ZANU-PF, a battle rages between the emergent successor to President Robert Mugabe and his rival – disgraced former Vice President Joice Mujuru – who holds the latent support of a significant number of the ruling party’s major players. While the country faces a growing crisis and the ruling party turns in on itself, the battle-weary opposition has lost momentum and is facing its own internal crises, leaving fatigued citizens to trudge on with few credible prospects for change.

Going back to 2008 is this startling passage, with my emphasis:

Following the hotly-contested 2008 elections, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission stalled the release of the presidential results for five weeks, ultimately announcing that there had been no clear winner.....In a surprising moment of candour at the ZANU-PF congress in December 2014, President Robert Mugabe accidentally let slip that the opposition had in fact won the contentious 2008 polls by an astounding 73%.

Link:http://africanarguments.org/2015/04/...e-beardsworth/

[Firn]

Mugabe and his cronies had sadly many years to do their deeds, thanks in part to the principled support of thier (South) African neighbours for which only one thing or principle seemed important.

[davidbfpo]

A historian of events in Zimbabwe, using historical documents, has written a short article 'New documents claim to prove Mugabe ordered Gukurahundi killings' wayback in 1983:

The documents point to internal killings neither provoked nor sustained by outsiders, suggesting that the atrocities were driven from the top by Zanu-PF in pursuit of specific political objectives. Viewed across a period of several years, the documents appear to provide evidence that the massacres were but one component of a sustained and strategic effort to remove all political opposition within five years of independence. Zanu-PF leaders were determined to secure a “victory” against a non-existent opposition in elections scheduled for 1985, after which there would be a “mandate” from the people to impose a one-party state.

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...e-matabeleland

[Firn]

Zimbabwe offers new exchange rate: $1 for 35,000,000,000,000,000 old dollars, so far until September.

From Monday, customers who held Zimbabwean dollar accounts before March 2009 can approach their banks to convert their balance into US dollars, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, John Mangudya, said in a statement.

Even if you take into account the six years and the liquidity held in USD or other currency, for example by Mr. Mugabe and company, it is shocking that only $20m have been made available in a country of 13 million...

[davidbfpo]

A short, simple explanation as to why and how Zimbabwe has reached its dire situation today:

The Chief Executive of an organisation made an appointment to see the Vice President, EmmersonMnangagwa this week. He was told to come to the office at 08.30hrs and was there on time. When he got into the office the person through whom he had made the appointment asked him if he had brought"the envelope". The CEO said no and that he was not going to pay to see the Vice President. Hewaited two hours and a Secretary told him to go downstairs and see someone who would get him into the VP - he walked down and when he got there he decided that enough is enough and he just keptgoing.

I told him to tell the VP of this incident and that I was sure that he would be furious that
someone was making money by "facilitating access". I told him that was the right decision, but the
problem is that this sort of "rent seeking" does not stop there.

Another friend, also a very senior executive said to me the other day that the major problem in
Zimbabwe is the direct linkages that exist between business of all kinds and the ruling elite -
nothing happens if it does not benefit key decision makers. Many accept this reality and simply
accommodate the rent seekers and pay what is demanded. In doing so they demean both the beneficiary
and the person making the payments.

I have just finished reading Fay Chung´s new book "The Second Chimurenga Revisited". In this book
she goes through a painful process of reliving the nightmare years in the Zanla Camps and the
liberation war. For the first time I appreciated the background that has dominated the thinking of
the men and women who came to power in 1980. The sense of entitlement and the need to hold onto
power at all costs; the practice of eliminating those who contested them for power and control.

Besides being ill prepared for the responsibilities of government in 1980, they were a confused
mixture of Marxist ideology, tribalism, traditional religion, military training and values and only
the most scanty appreciation of what it took to manage a small, but sophisticated economy and a
democratic system of government. Once they appreciated just what was involved in having control and
access to State resources, they also fully appreciated that if they lost control at any time, the
consequences would be serious for them and their extended families.

With their background training in East Germany, the Soviet Union and China they also came to power
knowing that no aspect of national life could be allowed independence and self management and
control. So once they had settled in a systematic attack was started on all institutions - the
Trade Unions, business Associations, big business. All were deliberately infiltrated and it was
made clear to business that if they wanted to get anywhere they had to have people who were
"acceptable" in charge. Institutions that refused integration or subjugation were destabilized and
eliminated. Every aspect of life was made to serve the State and the direct links between business
and the political elite established.

If you were in the system you benefitted and loyalty was rewarded with patronage and wealth. Any
attempt to break away from the system was met with savage retaliation so that when Amos Midzi found
himself out of the inner circle and was suspended from the Zanu PF Party - he was instantly outside
the golden triangle and could not pay even his children´s school fees. He committed suicide.

More than any other factor it is this link between politics and business that is now inhibiting the
growth and development of the Zimbabwean economy. The fact that this process is then linked to rent
seeking activity just exacerbates the situation. Rent seeking taking many forms from the incident
involving getting an appointment with a Vice President to decision making and taking a cut out of
every business deal.

It is clear here that the secret determination of salaries for senior executives in many spheres of
activities (local authorities, pension funds, state controlled Boards) is directly linked to the
need for control and influence over the individuals concerned and even sharing the proceeds. This
is how the CEO of the Public Service Medical Aid Society came to get a salary of US$600 000 a month
and the top four executives in the Broadcasting Board getting a package well over a million dollars
a year despite the fact that the organisation could not pay staff.

At first the economy was able to carry this burden but as the demands for rentals rose and the
management of the economy deteriorated, the combined effects simply became too much to bear and
economic collapse and decline became endemic.

Big organisations that are State owned and controlled and have a significant cash flow (utilities)
are an obvious target. So in South Africa you have ESKOM, a well managed and funded State owned
company in 1994, able to supply cheap power to a growing economy. In the past 20 years Eskom has
become a shadow of what it once was - aging infrastructure, inadequate maintenance, inept senior
staff and massive rent seeking and corruption. Their latest project, a huge coal fired power
station in the north west of the country, is 150% over budget, 5 years behind schedule and the
Directors say they may not be able to get it operational. Mammoth failures on this scale are now
crippling the South African economy - once the engine of African growth.

Rent seeking can take many forms - in Zimbabwe we have created a number of organisations that have
been given the right to either tax residents for income or charge for their services. The list of
such institutions that are essentially rent seekers and who are not creating any real value in
return is long - the Environmental Management Agency, NOIC, Zinara, Zinwa, NSSA, the National Aids
Council, Zimtrade are all absorbing revenue and delivering very little. Instead they become mainly
concerned with making enough money to meet their inflated salaries and perks and enough surplus to
respond to the political machine when called upon to pay their dues.

Then there is the situation where the Police are being allowed to raise money from their operations
from fines other charges at road blocks. These are so routine, that they are accepted as the norm
here even though such activities are unheard of elsewhere. The cost of such a system must be
doubled or trebled to take account of corrupt activities.

This situation is now so serious that the regime can be described as a parasitic enterprise that is
so demanding that it is paralyzing all forms of economic activity. Decisions are not being taken on
key issues, demands for payments for all sorts of services are a daily occurrence. Can this system
be reformed - I doubt it, it has to be destroyed to bring us freedom and progress.

Written by a Zimbabwean in Harare.

[Firn]

Don’t mess with Grace Mugabe – she could be the next president of Zimbabwe

“I just wanted to ask you if it’s true you might like to be president one day,” I asked.

Her hard features, which can resemble a mask with striking dark eyes and sculpted cheekbones, dissolved into a laugh. She did not deny it. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Just then a band struck up and I beat a retreat, past the glares of South African protocol mandarins, one of whom ordered me to leave, snarling: “I hope we never see you again.”

It is important to keep in mind that one of the reasons behind the economic rise of the Western World was the increasingly powerful repression of rent seeking. Obviously it still exists as it is part of human and social nature.

[davidbfpo]

I wonder if the video (1:45 mins clip) was broadcast live or later in Zimbabwe.

The report starts with:

Robert Mugabe has been heckled in the Zimbabwean Parliament by opposition MPs.The 91-year-old was giving his first state of the nation address in eight years, and opposition MPs took the opportunity to boo and heckle the President.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...arliament.html

Somehow I doubt this will replicate the downfall of a certain Rumanian presidnet many years ago.

[davidbfpo]

I had missed this announcement, as had my usual sources of news on Zimbabwe:

Use of the Zimbabwean dollar as an official currency was effectively abandoned on 12 April 2009. The Zimbabwean dollar is due to be demonetised (no longer legal tender) by the end of 2015

The Zim $ has a really bad record see:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar

For some African farmers their former white owners have the answers :https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...c=nl_headlines

As tourists return to Victoria Falls, after a long absence, the cash registers "ring" and then:

..the government has slapped a 15% tax on accommodation occupied by foreigners..

Link (with nice aerial clip):http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34290827

Elsewhere I have seen reports of a swingeing import 40% tax being imposed on imported educational material, pl;us all books. "Get the cash" again.

The reporter lauds the extended runway and new terminal so enabling long range jets to land. Well in 1985 the runway was quite enough for Boeing 707s to happily land; yes the terminal was small and quaint - I was there.

Then President Robert Mugabe managed, even with his staff being diligent, to:

..read out the wrong speech at the opening of parliament.He gave the same one during his state-of-the-nation address on 25 August, when he was heckled by opposition MPs.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-34256898


Finally from The Zimbabwean Independent's Editor has a short explanation as to what has happened:

Robert Mugabe’s unpleasant experiences of late are increasingly signalling that the end of his imperial rule is nigh; his reign is likely to end in a disgraceful or tragic manner. The imminent endgame is bound to be dramatic.

Link: http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2015/09/18/mugabe-faces-disgraceful-exit/

[davidbfpo]

Via a Zimbabwean emailing:

Nairobi 15 October 2015
The bull in me has taken its leave. The domestic economic situation in Zimbabwe is beyond dire.
Structural unemployment (approx 90%) and non-existent growth (1-2% likely to be revised down) are the consequences of economic mismanagement and lack of policy formation. With 3 cabinet reshuffles
in 9 months, and almost $200mln (of a $3.1bln budget) being spent on the president´s office since the beginning of the year combined with wages at 80% of expenditure, it´s a wonder that there are
some who are looking past the risk and still investing in Zimbabwe.

In my recent trip I even came across samples of illiterate teenagers, these are the reverberations of the `lost decade´ (reference to the years of farm invasions and hyperinflation) whom the government has entirely failed to empower through insufficient educational policy. Gone is the status of highest education standards on the continent; O´ Level and A´ Level pass rates are a mere 20% and 10% respectively (down from 90% in 2000). One NGO doctor told our group that infant
mortality rates in Zimbabwe are the highest "outside a conflict zone", approximated at around 20%.

One in five kids fail to reach the age of one.

So who is to blame for the extended economic trough that Zimbabwe is in? Simply answered, the government. The state treasury issues short term securities, to accommodate its own spending, which sucks out dollars from the economy, this would explain rampant deflation (-3.11%) even the listed beverage blue-chip Delta has had to slash its prices by almost 25% as cash dries up. The funds accrued from taxes are turned over immediately to the civil service leaving little to actually
implement policy initiatives that provide the foundation for growth and employment. The government´s external debt ($9bln) is too high for the country to service especially as dollarisation erodes
competitiveness.

As long as the political power status quo remains, debt forgiveness on the whole is not a fathomable outcome, though it is one of few effective options for ending the rot - rescheduling in my view will do nothing and permit more graft. The country has recently seen some funds from the Eurozone and African Development bank and China keeps making promises, but these won't make a dent on the country´s outstanding liabilities. Zimbabwe has very few exports to speak of except platinum, gold, and tobacco - the diamond opportunity for now is lost, failing to raise the capex needed to dig deeper and extend mine life and production - this means the country´s current account deficit at
23% of GDP cannot be overcome. The country imports most industrial inputs as well consumer staples, erstwhile the land toils through another drought.

To add insult to injury the low levels in the Kariba dam mean electrical production is non-normal and more than half of every week in recent months is spent in darkness, which will likely trigger another downward revision in GDP estimates (Zambia is also suffering from the electrical
under-supply).

Dollarisation as is often argued was a short-term gift and a long-term curse - the short term benefits have been reaped, and now the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is toothless, as pure demand and supply will determine the inflow/outflow of hard currency - with no ability to set recognizable interest rates, recent dollar strength has added to Zimbabwe´s liquidity woes (compounded by falls in commodity prices). But in an effort to survive, either through brilliant delinquency or just a
complete lack of options, the government has found a way to increase the supply of a `money´ they do not own.

In striking similarity to Nigeria´s action in defending its banking industry in 2008/9, the RBZ set up ZAMCO (Zimbabwe Asset Management Company), its purpose to buy the bad loans using T-Bills...these are denominated in US Dollars as opposed Naira! By issuing T-Bills the government has been effectively printing US Dollar money and currently the total value issued sits at around U$1.2bln
(10% of GDP). A perspective is that the government has mortgaged Zimbabwe´s future. Add municipality and parastatal debt mainly owed to banks, that number balloons - anyone will tell you that the
higher the debt to GDP ratio the sharper the fall in output growth...and so perpetuating Zimbabwe´s demise.

The country has no capacity to recover even if it wanted to...the man on the street is over the politics and lives with the corruption and it has tainted the fabric of Zimbabwean society. Worse still, political succession is far from clear, there is no trust and an untarnished outsider may be the only option for a swift, policy driven recovery.

Negotiating terms with the IMF & World Bank in the present economic context is dangerous, because execution will undoubtedly miss its targets as we head toward the next election in 2018 - this will
set those relations backward another five years. I would contend the real change for growth has to be driven by both local and foreign elements, a fresh political policy thrust that builds a competent and actionable government which is actually interested in the welfare of the people it represents is needed - I reiterate that debt forgiveness, an injection of cash through FDI, are the only way Zimbabwe emerges from a dust that has settled and now hardened....but you already know
that.

[Firn]

A great summary, thanks for that email with some fact of which I wasn't aware of. Vastly more insightful then most you can find in articles like the following one.

Zimbabwe has announced that it will make the Chinese yuan legal tender after Beijing confirmed it would cancel $40m in debts.

“They [China] said they are cancelling our debts that are maturing this year and we are in the process of finalising the debt instruments and calculating the debts,” minister Patrick Chinamasa said in a statement.

I limit myself just to observation that $40m is astonishingly little for a country of it's population. Less so those 20, but it gives you
just another of the many way to understand to which tiny size it's economy has collapsed.

[davidbfpo]

Well, well a reformed crocodile:

Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice-president widely viewed as Robert Mugabe’s likely heir, claims to have protected white farmers from eviction

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...e-farmers.html

A reminder Comrade Robert marks his 92nd birthday next month:

Mr Mugabe is currently on holiday with his family in east Asia, his office said.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-35308230

[davidbfpo]

Incredible and not what either Zimbabwe, or Zambia needs now:

...the energy minister of Zambia declared that Kariba Dam, which straddles the border between his country and Zimbabwe, holding back the world’s largest reservoir, was in “dire” condition. An unprecedented drought threatens to shut down the dam’s power production, which supplies nearly half the nation’s electricity.

(Later) Kariba’s difficulties are more complicated. It has been nearly incapacitated by ongoing drought, which has lowered the reservoir’s volume to twelve per cent of its usual capacity. But if the reservoir is refilled, the dam faces the possibility of collapse. It was built in the late nineteen-fifties, and in the years since water flowing through the dam’s six floodgates has carved a three-hundred-foot-deep pit, or plunge pool, at its base. The plunge pool extends to within a hundred and thirty feet of the dam’s foundation; if it reaches the foundation, the dam will collapse.

Link:http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elemen...falling-apart?

A drought emergency in Zimbabwe:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-35500820

[davidbfpo]

Classic, sad report; the title is followed by a sub-title:

Zimbabwean president marks 92nd birthday with $800,000 celebration in area where 75% of staple maize crop failed

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...n-drought-zone

[davidbfpo]

A rather dense article by a Zimbabwe watcher on a previously unknown interview last month of President Robert Mugabe, only partly cited:

So where have our gold or carats been going? – the gems, and there has been quite a lot of secrecy in handling them and we have been blinded ourselves. That is our people who we expected to be our eyes and our ears have not been able to see or hear what was going on and lots of swindling, smuggling has taken place and companies that have been mining virtually I want to say robbed us of our wealth and that is why we have decided that this area should be a monopoly area and only the state should be able to do the mining in that area.

In brief by the author:

If there is ever a scandal that should see Robert Mugabe leave office sooner rather than later, it’s his disclosure that the country was bilked of fifteen billion dollars ($15 billion United States Dollars) over the last seven or so years or so under his watch.

Link to the story published 14th March 2016:http://www.thezimbabwean.co/2016/03/...must-be-fired/

IIRC the cited newspaper is web-based and published outside Zimbabwe.

Who were the "eyes and ears"? Well the robbers include the army, the police, the CIO (intelligence agency), ministers, Chinese friends and more.

[Firn]

Zimbabwe Introduces New Currency, Angering Everyone

“It’s zombie money, made from nothing,” said Fredmore Kupirwa, who sells sodas, canned food and corn meal from his shop in Mvurwi, a town north of the capital, Harare. Kupirwa said he needs to pay some cross-border suppliers in dollars. “I must pay them in dollars, but if my customers are paying me in this stupid currency, how can I re-stock?”

Hard to argue with that good man. Of course the deposits of the common man will be forced to convert in various ways. It is just sad to see blow after blow hammering the almost-dead economy of Zimbabwe.