News Roundup by Gift Phiri

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Mangwana blames journos

HARARE - Zimbabwe’s acting information minister Paul Mangwana has complained that government is getting too much bad press both locally and abroad because journalists were unpatriotic and were selling out the country for donor trinkets.
Mangwana loudly protested in the Quill Club last week that the media was obsessed with reporting negatively about Zimbabwe.
He warned the small group of journalists drawn mainly from the private press that turned up for the meeting against “endangering national interests”.
“Journalists should not be misled by rich media houses that are financed from abroad within the context of neo-colonialism and contribute to the destruction of the economy for the sake of money,” he said.
Journalists told Mangwana that no news organisation or reporter would manufacture false reports about anyone and get away with it. They reminded the minister that penalties under the laws of libel and defamation have always seen to it that perpetrators of such injudicious acts are punished.
The truth, said one journalist, was that the Mugabe regime invited bad publicity upon itself through flagrant abuse of human and property rights.
“In fact, it could be strongly argued that the Zanu (PF) government often goes out of its way to ensure it acts in ways which guarantee something negative is said or reported about it on almost a daily basis,” he said.
Mangwana defended State-regulation of the press saying, “We had to come up with the Media and Information Commission because journalism, as powerful as it is as the Fourth Estate, cannot operate in a vacuum.”
MIC chairman Tafataona Mahoso, who also attended the meeting, was challenged to explain why he shut down four newspapers. He stormed out of the meeting.


Defence chief praises China

HARARE - Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi last week said Zimbabwe wishes to further strengthen already excellent and solid relations with China, revealing that the army was relying more and more on Beijing for essential supplies.
Sekeramayi made the remarks here on the occasion of the presentation of heavy plant equipment worth US$1 million “donated” to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
Sekeramayi said since independence, China had steadfastly assisted Zimbabwe in variety of ways in realizing the objectives of liberation and nation’s building.
The donation includes a grader, bulldozer, front-end loader, two tipping trucks and a tool box.
Sekeramayi.
Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Zhang Xianyi said China always regards Zimbabwe as her reliable “all weather” friend.


Tobacco bartered for fuel

HARARE - The government is believed to have lost foreign currency running into
millions of dollars through transactions where some tobacco buyers were
exchanging the crop for fuel.
It is understood that a number of transactions went through during the previous tobacco-marketing season where tobacco merchants sourced fuel from South Africa in exchange for tobacco.
Herbert Murerwa, Finance Minister said no such transactions would be allowed this tobacco season: “All purchases by A class buyers will be settled in United States dollars and those who fail to raise US dollars will be assisted through a Memorandum of Deposit facility. Barter deals will not be allowed this year.”
He was speaking to guests attending the review of the tobacco-marketing season last week.
Government had allowed barter deals in a bid to avert the shortages of fuel, but had been prejudiced in the process because of the lack of tight monitoring.
John Chiweshe, chairman of the Tobacco Merchants Association, said none of his members were involved in barter deals.
Sources in the tobacco industry said top government officials were among buyers who benefited from the tobacco barter deals.


Zim crisis costs SA R9 billion

JOHANNESBURG - The South African Communist Party, alliance partner of the ruling African National Congress, has condemned Zimbabwe’s “low-intensity democracy” saying it will seek to engage the opposition and the ruling party in Zimbabwe to resolve the deepening crisis.
After its recent central committee meeting, the SACP stopped just short of naming the ruling Zanu (PF) regime. It “condemned authoritarianism, torture of political opponents of the regime and gross violations of human rights in Zimbabwe”.
Spokesperson Nkosiphendule Kolisile also announced that the party would send its own “fact-finding” mission to Zimbabwe in the next three months.
This is the party’s strongest statement yet on the situation in South Africa’s northern neighbour and the only strongly worded condemnation of the Zimbabwean regime to emerge from the alliance.
There has been concern within the SACP that not enough is being done to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis. The party now says it will seek engagement with the Zanu (PF) and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in a “complementary and not parallel process” with those of the South African government and the ANC.
The IMF has predicted that inflation in Zimbabwe was expected to exceed 4000 percent next year. It also reported that the Zimbabwean crisis had cost South Africa’s “real economy” more than R9-billion last year.
“The SACP stands firmly for the promotion of an environment in which free
political activity can take place without fear of intimidation,” Kolisile said.
The SACP already has ties with other socialist political organisations, such
as Frelimo in Mozambique and the Communist Party of Lesotho.
Last month the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) condemned the arrests of Zimbabwean trade unionists for protesting against poor salaries and the poor provision of AIDS drugs.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions is expected to picket at the Zimbabwean border “soon” in solidarity with persecuted trade union leaders in Zimbabwe.
Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said the labour federation would “support our fellow trade unionists in their struggle for basic human rights and against poverty in Zimbabwe”.


Children starving, warns UN

HARARE - Children are dying of hunger in Zimbabwe and many others will die if emergency action is not taken soon, UN officials said last Friday.
A survey children under six years old by the United Nations agency for children, UNICEF, found high levels of severe malnutrition in several areas, especially in larger cities.
“Children are dying and if we don’t ratchet up our response many more children will become malnourished, and many of those who are already malnourished will die,” said Gerry Dyer, the head of UNICEF’s regional office in Johannesburg.
The survey, which studied 50,000 children, was the largest of its kind in Zimbabwe. UNICEF declined to give any precise figures for the number of children who have died or who are severely malnourished.
Zimbabwe’s agricultural production once helped feed all of southern Africa. But food production has been wrecked by erratic rains and the state’s often violent seizure of most white-owned commercial farms. Vast tracts of farmland either lie fallow or have been carved into subsistence plots.
The region has faced a food crisis in the past year but while the situation in most neighboring countries is stabilizing, in Zimbabwe, the crisis remains acute.
Opposition groups and human rights activists say that the government of embattled President Robert Mugabe is using food as a political weapon in a country where over a quarter of the people are at risk of starvation.


Zinwa needs Z$60 billion

HARARE – The Zimbabwe National Water Authority urgently requires about Z$60 billion to meet cash shortfalls caused by escalating prices of commodities and materials required by the water utility, and the high cost of foreign currency required to pay foreign suppliers of water reticulation chemicals.
Zinwa board chairman Willie Muringani said ZINWA had set aside $33 billion for expenditure this year but escalating costs had left it needing an extra $59,5 billion which residents must provide.
Inflation which which is hovering around 1,000 percent had eaten into ZINWA coffers while the Zimbabwe dollar’s dramatic fall against major currencies such as the United States of America dollar had not helped matters for the council treasury.
Muringani said ZINWA had not yet made a final decision on how to raise the additional money because it was still to consult residents and other stakeholders.
He said ZINWA had for the time being resolved to implement a number of cost-cutting measures including tightening allocations of fuel to staff, recycling of paper and forging of partnerships as well as out-sourcing non-core business and activities.
ZINWA will also step up efforts to collect all outstanding rates, rent and other charges from residents with plans to enforce payment through litigation.
Combined Harare Residents Association spokesman Precious Shumba said ZINWA had failed to provide water to the city and should simply cede the responsibility to people with the capacity to do so.


Desperate Zims flood Mozambique

MUTARE - Scores of Zimbabweans facing serious commodity shortages at home have been streaming into neighbouring Mozambique to buy fuel and other provisions, according to press reports from Maputo.
Zimbabwe has been experiencing severe economic hardships and political tensions. There are shortages of fuel and basic commodities, as well as foreign currency.
“We have seen many Zimbabweans coming to buy fuel and other supplies in our province in recent weeks given the deteriorating situation in that neighbouring state,” the governor of Mozambique’s Manica province, Soares Nhaca was quoted.
He said the extra demand for fuel by Zimbabweans had caused a shortage in Manica province, but the problem would be resolved.
Mozambique, which is a coastal country, imports its fuel supplies from the Middle East. Unlike Zimbabwe it has the hard cash to pay its bills. Mozambique’s state daily Noticias last week quoted a local government official as saying Zimbabweans were looting fuel in Manica province, but this was dismissed by Nhaca.
“The Zimbabweans have made normal purchases that any driver would make and there has not been anything extraordinary,” he said.