NewsHawks 15 October 2021

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Friday 15 October 2021

WHAT’S INSIDE PNaEnWicS-stricken BZUamSIbNiaEnSS ‘SIPt OwRasTa quiet
Zanu PF unleashes economist at way of saying
terror on crossroads of goodbye and
Chamisa global business thank you’

Story on Page 11 Story on Page 29 Story on Page 48

Zim bank
CEOs salt
away their
earnings
offshore

ALSO INSIDE Zimdollar plunges into death spiral

Page 2 News NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

DUMISANI NYONI Bank CEOs salt away
their earnings offshore
CHIEF executive officers of Zimbabwe’s banks
are salting away offshore their foreign currency my of Zimbabwe,” Matanda-Moyo said. again you start saying this machinery cost Zacc chairperson Loice Matanda-Moyo
earnings, instead of banking with local financial “Take, for example, tax evasion. Most compa- US$20 000 when it cost US$2 000. When you Statistics Agency had export figures with were far
institutions they head, Zimbabwe Anti-Cor- export you then minimise the prices. Why? Be- lower than the numbers independently obtained
ruption Commission (Zacc) chairperson Loice nies and individuals are not paying taxes. We do cause you do not want to pay the duty associated by Zacc from the country’s trade destinations.
Matanda-Moyo has revealed, citing a survey her have mis-statements at the points of entry. When with that exportation.” Tobacco export figures to the Netherlands, for
organisation conducted. you import your goods you mis-state the values instance, showed that exporters are grossly un-
of those goods. On importation, we have found Matanda-Moyo said they carried out an inves- derstating their numbers in this country, preju-
The Zacc boss said bankers are salting away that you love inflating the figures. Why? Because tigation into the exportation of tobacco to the dicing the tax collector.
money offshore. They only keep local currency you will have externalised most of the money,” Netherlands and found out that tobacco compa-
accounts, yet they are paid substantial amounts she said. nies misstated export figures. “That is corruption from the private sector. So
of hard currency in salaries and perks. you can see the amount of corruption being per-
“That’s why you mis-state and then She said that in 2019 the Zimbabwe National petrated by the private sector,” she said.
This comes as Finance permanent secretary
George Guvamatanga, former managing director Confidence in Zimbabwe’s banking sector is at an all-time low.
of Barclays Bank Zimbabwe, last week told a local
weekly in an interview that he was paid millions
of United States dollars offshore. Guvamatanga
said this in a bid to justify his lavish 50th birth-
day and reckless spending on a razzmatazz party
featuring South African musicians that he paid
five times more than the agreed performance fee.

Many Zimbabwean businesspeople, includ-
ing tycoons like Billy Rautenbach and some un-
known entrepreneurs, mainly of Asian (Indian)
heritage, have bank accounts in Switzerland and
other overseas financial jurisdictions.

A report by Organised Crime and Corruption
Reporting Project on how Zimbabwean tycoon
Kudakwashe Tagwirei made his money through
Trafigura Group says he holds an offshore ac-
count with a Swiss bank.

Rautenbach’s business empire was also revealed
last week in the Pandora Papers, the biggest leak
of secret financial dealings by the global elite.

Although it is not illegal to open an offshore
account, compliance with exchange control and
money laundering regulations is always a moot
point in moving the money.

The NewsHawks — which collaborates with
various international investigative journalism
networks — has seen a long list of 700 names of
Zimbabwean businesspeople with Swiss bank ac-
counts in one massive database yet to be released.

One mysterious local businessperson had
about US$150 million in their Swiss account,
but the money was quickly drawn down to US$7
000 in a space of four years before the account
was closed. The details are given in the data-
base. Some have bank accounts and properties
in Dubai, for instance one socialite operating in
the aviation industry space. She has a property
in Dubai.

Addressing delegates during the Zimbabwe
National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) 2021
congress in Victoria Falls this week, Matan-
da-Moyo said failure by financial institution
CEOs to bank their money with their own banks
as shown by their study further erodes confidence
in the banking sector.

“Trust is very essential and if we are going to
move forward, we really need to build trust. Let’s
look at the banks. The CEOs of banks don’t bank
money with the banks. We carried out that sur-
vey,” she said.

“So, if a CEO of a bank does not have confi-
dence in his or her own institution, who is then
going to bank the money in those banks? No-
body. That’s the highest level of corruption. So,
we want to implore CEOs of banks to start bank-
ing, especially foreign currency, in their banks,
then everybody will start banking their money,”
Matanda-Moyo said.

Zacc’s revelation that Zimbabwe’s bank chief
executives, who are paid in hard currency, do not
bank locally, is a startling development which
speaks to the level of confidence in the local fi-
nancial system and policies.

Research shows that Zimbabweans banking
outside the country prefer Switzerland, Dubai,
Mauritius and the Cayman Islands, a British
overseas territory which encompasses three is-
lands in the western Caribbean Sea.

Confidence in Zimbabwe’s banking sector is at
an all-time low because people and corporates no
longer have any trust in the system. Bank closures
and abuse of depositor funds have been the hall-
marks of factors that have led to erosion of trust
and confidence in the financial system. The Zacc
boss accused the country’s private sector of being
the major driver of corruption in the country.

“I think the private sector, you are the major
culprit of corruption in Zimbabwe. We only
started in government because we realised that if
we started with the private sector there was going
to be an outcry to say why starting with us not
the government? Private sector’s corruption is the
one which is really causing damage to the econo-

NewsHawks News Page 3

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Zimdollar plunges into death spiral

NYASHA CHINGONO dependent on capital inflows which, in turn, need Professor Stephen Hanke. auction rate because that is Zanu PF. They do not
a positivebusiness environment (for inflows of Former Finance minister Tendai Biti predicted disturb their eating line,” Biti said, adding Zim-
ZIMBABWE’s currency is in a death spiral and foreign direct investment) and debt restructuring that the parallel market will spiral out of control babwe was treading a familiar path reminiscent of
headed for a tragic end, two years after it was as Zimbabwe’s debt is unsustainably high,” Kadu- as the year hurtles towards the end. the 2008 era.
re-introduced into circulation, stoking fears of wo said, adding that the central bank’s monetary “It looks like it will hit 200 at the end of Oc-
the 2008 hyperinflationary era where the govern- policies since the adoption of the local currency tober so that means it will hit 400 by December. “The thing is right now, if we hit 400 by De-
ment was forced to demonetise the local unit. had continued to militate against the local unit. Their problem is that they think they can fight it cember then it is a no-go area. If you hit 400 it
physically. You cannot fight the economy physi- means that your month-on-month inflation will
American applied economics Professor Ste- “It is also clear that the central bank’s numer- cally, you cannot fight the black market rate phys- exceed 80% and that is hyperinflation. So we are
phen Hanke says Zimbabwe is in a déjà vu mo- ous changes to monetary policyover the past few ically,” Biti said. heading there slowly and surely. I would urge
ment with the economy pushed to the brink by years indicate its ongoing inability to strength- He urged the government to fully dollarise the anyone sitting on RTGS to dispose of them as a
unrelenting currency problems. Business is now en the localcurrency and reduce hyperinflation. economy to deal with rent-seeking behaviour by matter of urgency,” Biti added, saying the govern-
accessing foreign currency on the black mar- Meanwhile, its targeting of private businesses elements that take advantage of a crisis. ment should admit currency failure.
ket, driving the parallel market rate as the gov- signals that it is seeking to scapegoat external ac- “The only thing they need to fight is to dol-
ernment’s delusionary foreign currency auction tors for the country’s macro-economic challeng- larise, bring back the Zimdollar surrendering re- Economist Eddie Cross said the government's
scheme falters. es. Businesses, however, will face an increasingly quirements, but they cannot do that because they foreign currency auction system had been blight-
hostile environment for their operations amid are making money from the US dollar. So politics ed by shortages in foreign currency, forcing com-
“Zimbabwe’s currency is in a death spiral. Now, growing uncertainty around the security of their of the stomach, politics of arbitrage will guarantee panies to seek forex on the parallel market at a
the corrupt government is threatening to suspend investments.” that we will continue having this distorted rigged premium. He said the demand for foreign cur-
all businesses using black-market exchange rates rency had tripled in the past two years, making it
to price goods. I’ve seen this movie before. It has difficult for the authorities to cope with the surge.
a tragic ending,” Hanke said.
“In the past six months the auction conducted
Hanke has stirred the hornet’s nest among by the Reserve Bank has run into some difficul-
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s loyalists. The ties as a consequence of inadequate funds driven
US economist says the Zimdollar had depreciated by domestic demand. Over the past two years
93% against the US dollar since its re-introduc- demand on the auction has risen from about
tion two years ago. US$15 million a week to the present demand
of well over US$50 million a week. The Reserve
“Corrupt @edmnangagwa brought back the Bank has not been able to procure that amount.
Zimbabwean dollar 2yrs ago. Since then, the Zim As a consequence, people have turned back to the
dollar has depreciated by 93% against the mighty informal sector for the balance of their require-
USD. President Ed is not only corrupt, but, when ments,” Cross said.
it comes to economics, he is totally ignorant,” he
said. “And this together with pressure from a grow-
ing economy has meant that the informal rate has
Mnangagwa’s government has intensified its risen dramatically to about 185 about two weeks
sweeping crackdown on foreign currency traders ago. The reality today is that the informal sector
in the volatile market, amid growing fears of an is now down to about 165, that is a decline of 20
exchange rate-driven economic meltdown. cents in the dollar in the past two or three days
and that is largely because of the steps the gov-
The government has also moved to arrest busi- ernment has taken to try and control runaway
ness leaders buying foreign currency on the par- devaluation of the dollar.”
allel market, a move that has been met with out-
rage from the business community, including the He admitted that the currency market should
Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI). be left to the forces of demand and supply.

“When policies fail we should not arrest peo- “I have discussed with bankers and they say
ple, we should correct the policies for efficacy,” if the currency was traded freely, the currency
the CZI said. would actually strengthen. I must say I share that
view,” Cross said.
Political leaders, particularly Vice-President
Constantino Chiwenga, have been on the of- He, however, said Zimbabwe’s currency situa-
fensive, using the Zimbabwe dollar, which is fast tion would not deteriorate to 2008 levels.
depreciating in relation to base currencies in the
market, to move on business leader. Chiwenga “The circumstances in 2008 were completely
has warned of harsh measures against traders. different in that the Reserve Bank was printing
money to cover a massive domestic shortfall and
Fiscal and monetary authorities, led by the this led to the collapse of the domestic currency in
central bank’s Financial Intelligence Unit and 2009. Today the macro-economic fundamentals
capital market regulators, are currently tighten- are sound, we have a budget surplus and we have
ing forex trading regulations by adopting a tight quite a substantial balance of payments,” he said.
monetary policy in a bid to weed out what they
variously describe as “saboteurs” and “fraudsters”
in the market, who are destroying the economy.

This has however failed to dowse the currency
flames already engulfing a volatile market.

The Zimbabwe dollar continues losing ground
against the US dollar, with the official exchange
rate weakening from US$1:ZW$88.55 to
US$1:ZW$90.07 this week. On the parallel mar-
ket, the rate ranges between US$1:ZW$175 and
US$1:ZW$200.

While the authorities say illegal forex trading
is sabotaging the economy and will trigger infla-
tion, Zimbabweans, still haunted by the 2008 hy-
perinflationary era, already fear the worst.

Analysts say the government is panicking and
arresting forex dealers is just a scapegoat for grand
policy failure. “Blaming businesses for currency
instability and suspending their operations ap-
pear to go beyond the stated aim of economic in-
stability but just finding a scapegoat. To note, the
increasingly repressive stance adopted by the gov-
ernment in recent months reflects the growing
political pressure it is facing in the wake of these
challenges,” economist Tinashe Kaduwo said.

Kaduwo said the government had a checkered
history of dealing with currency policy and can-
not defy the laws of economics.

“From the country experience on currency and
foreign exchange rate, it isclear that there is no
escape from the laws of economics. Large budget
deficits arealways unsustainable, and, if financed
by printing money, will result in inflation and
currency depreciation. Furthermore, if the eco-
nomic fundamentals are wrong, then the choice
of currency regime is irrelevant as both dollari-
sation and a local currency will fail, regardless.
Zimbabwe, just like any developing country, is

Page 4 News NewsHawks

Volatile exchange rate Issue 52, 15 October 2021
symptom of mistrust

DUMISANI NYONI extreme cases were when the supplier or man- (ZCTU) western region chairperson Ambrose “We need to use dual currencies for the next
ufacturer, tuckshop or wholesaler flatly refuses Sibindi said: “As workers we are very much wor- 10 years until such times people are seeing value
THE volatile parallel market exchange rate be- any other payment for goods and services except ried because if the exchange rate is about 160 in our local currency. Not legislating value, no.
ing experienced in the country is a manifestation USD dollars cash, which comes with sweet dis- against the US dollar, it means their income is Until they are experiencing it. That’s how best
of deeprooted mistrust and lack of confidence counts to entice the retailer or wholesaler. eroded.” we can go back to permanent stability.
in the monetary policy, as well as an increase in
money supply through the payment of contrac- Mutashu said unfortunately most formal re- “Most workers don’t own houses, they are “Otherwise anything else we are going to be
tors and farmers, as well as a malfunctioning and tail and wholesale players have seen their US lodgers and we all know that a room in the doing it’s stop gap, it’s gymnastics and we will
rigged forex auction system. dollar cash sales decline to less than 5% of total high-density suburbs costs between US$25 and continue to have cycles of temporary stability
daily or periodic sales. US$30. When you are having a family, you can and inflationary threats. We then lose critical
Analysts are urging the authorities to depoliti- pay between US$50 and US$60 for accommo- mass and time in terms of macro-economic sta-
cise economic decisions. “This creates an unfair advantage as one is dation per month,” he said. bility and timing at the time where we are sup-
forced to compete with those that exclusively sell posed to be benefiting from the global process of
Zimbabwe, which re-introduced the local in US dollars directly to customers. The prefer- He said the majority of workers were earning metals,” he said.
currency in 2019, is experiencing serious vola- ence for US dollars by suppliers is informed by less than ZW$30 000, while the poverty datum
tility in the parallel market exchange rates which the need to augment forex sources after getting line is hovering around ZW$54 000. Dhlamini said Mangudya should tighten
have adversely affected economic growth by cre- an average 30% of foreign currency require- monetary policy, never increase money supply
ating business uncertainty, as well as increasing ments from the auction market,” he said. “It shows that things are not right in Zimba- arbitrarily and also pay bids on time on the auc-
domestic prices. bwe for the worker,” he said. tion system.
“There has been an increase in demand for
There are four exchange rates one meets when US dollar cash payment for goods and services As a way forward, Bimha said the government “I think those would go a long way in improv-
transacting goods and services: the official auc- in the general economy, from rentals, fuel, utili- should depoliticise economic decisions. ing the situation on the ground. This approach
tion exchange rate (ZW$88.55: US$1); swipe ties and salaries,” he said. of arresting people who hoard a lot of money
to US$ (ZW$180 to US$1; mobile money to “So, how do we proceed, how do we rectify using banks is not very effective. Gideon Gono
US$ (ZW$200 to US$$1) and cash to US$ As the economy opened after successive it? Let’s depoliticise economic decisions. Let’s go (former Reserve Bank governor) tried it before
(ZW$165 to US$$1). Covid-19 Level Four lockdowns to the current back to usage of stable currencies until people and we have seen it not being effective,” he said.
Level Two, Mutashu said the demand for for- have forgotten. For it will not be in the next gen-
Economic analysts, labour, industry bodies eign currency has more than doubled. Clothing eration, it will be in the next 10 years,” he said.
and business leaders say the parallel market ex- retailers, hardware outlets and electronics shops
change rate volatility mirrors the lack of trust import more than 80% of the goods they sell.
and confidence in the market.
“The above paints the reality on the ground
To preserve value, Zimbabweans are seeking and should inform authorities on various ap-
to invest in property or buy US dollars, which proaches to be taken to address this elephant in
they keep outside the banking system, because the room. Cost drivers have not been letting up
of lack of confidence in the local currency. and these are huge pricing determinants.”

“It’s a dilemma that Zimbabwe is going Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Economy
through cycles of potential hyperinflation in a Association secretary-general Wisborn Malaya
period of under two decades. Because of the leg- blamed big corporations for driving the parallel
acy issues, there is no sane Zimbabwean who is market rate.
going to trust the Zimbabwe dollar no matter
how much temporary stability we will attain. “They are saying the informal traders and
So there are two things that the Zimbabwe gov- illegal traders inflate the exchange rate. But to
ernment can never buy: confidence and trust,” be frank, how much is being generated by these
CEO Africa Roundtable chairperson Oswell people in the streets such that they inflate the
Bimha said. currency to that level? A lot of money is being
inflated by the big companies,” he said.
“So it means people know that they have lost
value somehow and others are still reeling from “There are big business players that inflate
the effects of that loss of value. So whatever hap- the money. These are the ones that dictate the
pens, somebody tries to get where they will get pace for these figures to start to change in the
the best value saving as far as possible. market.”

“Two, somebody tries to keep their value Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
to themselves. It means you will not take your
money into the bank. Three, that’s why you see Analysts say an increase in money supply through the payment of contractors and farmers is driving market volatility.
this whole accommodation, it’s amazing how
Zimbabwe is investing in housing, 99% of them
fully paid for.

“It means people are trying to lock value.
What does it mean? It means you have no sav-
ings culture in the economy. It means you then
lose, all deposits you get are transitory, they are
transitory deposits. They come and go. That is
a manifestation of a deeprooted confidence and
trust in the monetary system of this country.”

Economic analyst and academic Stevenson
Dhlamini cited an increase in money supply,
payment of farmers and contractors as major
drivers of parallel market rates.

“A lot of money recently was created and
that has increased the money supply. Secondly,
it’s the delay in the disbursement of bids in the
(forex) auction system. Inflation is just going up
and it’s pushing the black market to also increase
their premiums. They take advantage of that,”
he said.

“There is also decreasing faith in the Zimba-
bwe dollar. People are now preferring the US
dollar to the Zimbabwe dollar because of price
instability. The decrease in exports and that’s
why the auction system is not having sufficient
foreign exchange.

“The auction system is not adhering to the
forces of demand and supply. There are some
elements of tampering with the pricing. So the
auction system is compromised in its stability to
find the true value of the currency. That’s also
pushing people to the black market. If only they
can clear that backlog and avail auction forex
on time and stop interfering with the true price
of the US dollar within the auction system, we
might have an element of sanity there.”

Confederation of Zimbabwe Retailers (CZR)
president Denford Mutashu said currency vola-
tility has created confusion on the market and

NewsHawks News Page 5

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

“It is part of the reasons that undermined the RBZ governor John Mangudya said immediate measures were necessary to contain the movement of the parallel exchange rates.
auction system in 2008 when Gideon Gono tried
it. So we have seen the effects of such measures; he said. eign exchange market; and deal with the funding sight on bank overdrafts to ensure that broad
they are know. Why are we repeating them when The RBZ chief said the government affirmed backlog of foreign exchange allotments and take money is kept under check.
we have seen them fail in previous policy endeav- appropriate measures to ensure that the backlog
ours in a hard time inflationary environment?” its commitment to continue supporting the for- does not recur. The retailers’ associations urged the govern-
eign exchange auction as a dependable and trans- ment to ensure a level the playing field in their
Economic analyst Alice Chenjerai said the parent source of foreign currency in the country. The Bankers Association of Zimbabwe com- respective operating environments by attending
government needed to have transparent mone- mitted itself to ensuring that all bids submitted to the menace of foreign currency traders mill-
tary policy and opt for a long-term exchange rate The RBZ, Mangudya said, undertook to con- to the foreign exchange auction are authentic; ing outside and around shops and trading areas;
which will hedge against any risks if there is a tinue tightening money supply under its conser- ensuring continued due diligence on all their identifying and bringing to book funders of for-
fluctuation in the exchange rate. vative monetary targeting framework to ensure customers and applications for foreign exchange; eign currency traders; and dealing with informal
that money supply would not be a source of ex- refraining from facilitating parallel market trans- traders operating without licences and some-
“The government should reduce its public change rate destabilisation. actions through matching. times outside legal or policy parameters.
expenditure. Public expenditure by the govern-
ment mainly affects how exchange rates are fluc- It also promised to accelerate the imple- They also undertook to improving efficiency The manufacturing sector undertook to en-
tuating in the market. Also, the political envi- mentation of special attractive money market in the facilitation of letters of credit; enhancing sure responsible pricing and to comply with the
ronment and economic situation for the country instruments including exchange rate-linked in- reporting of suspicious transactions; promptly three focal areas under Statutory Instrument 127
is also affecting exchange rate fluctuation,” she struments as an alternative investment avenue implementing regulatory directives on freezing of 2020.
said. for local currency to the holding of US dollars; of bank accounts for participants in illicit foreign
review bank policy rates to curb speculative currency transactions; promoting confidence in On their part, the government and the RBZ
Sibindi urged the government to utilise the borrowing; refine and streamline the foreign the banking sector by clearing the foreign cur- pledged to continue supporting the manufactur-
Tripartite Negotiating Forum effectively and exchange auction system to ensure that it con- rency backlog promptly; and improving over- ing sector by levelling the playing field to ensure
abide by its resolutions. tinues to play its price discovery role in the for- that exporters obtain fair value for their exports.

“I think to be honest, when our President The banking sector pledged to promote confidence in the banking sector by clearing the foreign currency backlog promptly.
(Emmerson Mnangagwa) came into office in
2017, he said he is a listening president.

We will expect him to listen to what we are say-
ing. How? Mind you we have that forum called
Tripartite Negotiating Forum which brings in
the government, labour and employers,” he said.

“That forum has proved to be the most useless.
It’s a toothless bulldog. We are expecting that it
should be the forum that should set the pace,
where we dialogue and agree on things. But that
forum has failed to work and we are worried.

“This is why, as informal economy associa-
tions, we have collaborated to say we want fi-
nancial inclusion in the country. Why financial
inclusion? Financial inclusion for the informal
workers and traders promotes them to also have
equal access to financial requirements for their
projects or businesses to say they can go to a
bank and access money,” Malaya said.

Mutashu implored companies and institu-
tions accessing forex from the auction market
to price their goods responsibly and desist from
short-changing consumers and the general pub-
lic. He said the huge demand for foreign curren-
cy has meant players not accessing forex from the
auction use internal sales and source the remain-
der from the parallel market.

“CZR therefore calls upon government and
business to urgently meet and map the way
forward as consumers grapple under the heavy
weight of the exchange rate dilemmas,” he said.

“CZR also implores the government to set up
an inter-ministerial committee to interrogate the
foreign currency exchange rate challenges, abus-
es, manipulation and arbitrage and map the way
towards stability as the parallel market exchange
rate poses a great risk of declining company pro-
jections and bottom lines.”

Malaya, on the other hand, advocated for
financial inclusion, saying through it, informal
traders would not be given complicated collater-
al requirements for them to access money from
the banks. They will also not be given short-term
loans at high interest rates.

“They will be accessing the money just like
any other big companies and they do their busi-
ness and become bankable traders. That will re-
move the issue of saving their little dollar in the
open space where sometimes the black market is
ruling and then being blackmailed,” Malaya said.

He said financial inclusion will encourage
informal traders not to keep money under the
pillow, but bank it in the formal banks.

“When that happens, it closes this gap which
is being used to say informal traders are abusing
the black market rate. The black market is being
influenced by the big companies,” he said.

In a bid to address currency volatility, the Re-
serve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), together with
the ministries of Finance and Economic Devel-
opment and Industry and Commerce, met with
leaders of the business community this week to
deliberate and find solutions to the volatility of
the parallel market exchange rates.

In a statement following the meeting, RBZ
governor John Mangudya said the parties unan-
imously agreed that while macro-economic fun-
damentals were sound to support exchange rate
stability, immediate measures were necessary to
contain the movement of the parallel exchange
rates.

Mangudya said it was noted that the recent
volatility in the parallel exchange rates was due
to behavioural factors. In order to address these
negative behavioural traits, it was agreed that a
holistic and collaborative approach was required,

Page 6 News NewsHawks

Currency crisis: The Issue 52, 15 October 2021
laws of economics
will always apply

TINASHE KADUWO realigned their pricing models to the auction-de- The RBZ has revised the monetary policy framework several times in an attempt to address high inflation
termined exchange rate, other entities were not rate since the reintroduction of Zimbabwe dollar in 2019.
“ZIMBABWE’S currency is in a death spiral. Now, complying and charging for goods and services at
the corrupt government is threatening to suspend rates higher than the auction rate despite accessing mittances, among others. Furthermore, if the economic fundamentals are
all businesses using black market exchange rates foreign currency officially. At the same time, the government has been weak, then the choice of currency regime is irrele-
to price goods. I’ve seen this movie before. It has vant as both dollarisation and a local currency will
a tragic ending.” — American applied economics Such practice, the forward pricing of the ex- running fiscal deficits funded by the creation of fail, regardless.
and currency expert Professor Steve Hanke. change rate, went against the positive outlook on RTGS dollars by the RBZ. With a shortage of US
the exchange rate which the RBZ hoped would dollars, and the creation of RTGS dollars, it was Zimbabwe, just like any developing country, is
Indeed, Zimbabwe’s foreign exchange market lead to convergence as evidenced by the continued inevitable that the RTGS dollar would depreciate dependent on capital inflows which, in turn, need
volatility has intensified with the local currency narrowing of the bands between the highest and faster. The official rate does not tell the true story a positive business environment (for inflows of
now quoted at US$1:ZW$90.07 in the formal lowest foreign currency bids, and the reduction in as it is being managed. Essentially, the government FDI) and debt restructuring as Zimbabwe’s debt
market and over US$1:ZW$170 in the parallel the parallel exchange rate premium to below 15% has never followed the golden rule that money is unsustainably high. Both need positive engage-
market, hence Hanke’s damning remark. at the time. supply must solely be driven by balance-of-pay- ment with the international community. Without
ments. capital inflows or substantial export growth, the
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) has The country had recorded a positive foreign balance-of-payments will be unsustainable. This
been battling currency instability since the reintro- currency net position of US$1.3 billion for the The government should consider ending the will cause either currency weakness or economic
duction of the Zimbabwe dollar on 24 June 2019. six months ending 30 June 2020, compared to a taxation of exporters (through compulsory cur- contraction.
deficit of US$738.7 million for the same period in rency surrender requirements) and gradually re-
Zimbabwe had abandoned its own dollar in 2019. Sustained export performance was therefore duce subsidisation of imports which are essential It is also clear that the central bank’s numerous
2009 after years of hyperinflation had destroyed critical for the steady supply of foreign currency in stabilising the balance-of-payments, hence the changes to monetary policy over the past few years
trust and confidence in the local unit. needed to sustain the economy. exchange rate. Improving transparency in the indicate its ongoing inability to strengthen the lo-
allocation of foreign exchange and unifying the cal currency and reduce hyperinflation.
The United States dominated the market until Closure of the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange foreign exchange market are also critical. The lat-
2016 when bond notes were introduced. Prior to (ZSE) followed on 30 June 2020 with govern- ter would end the distinction between the official Meanwhile, its targeting of private business-
that bond coins had been introduced in 2014 pur- ment shutting down trading on the official stock market and the parallel market, and would so end es signals that it is seeking to scapegoat external
portedly to facilitate change in transactions. exchange with immediate effect. The ban re- the profits that rent-seekers with privileged access actors for macro-economic and policy challenges.
mained in place for over a month, resuming on 3 to foreign exchange can earn through ‘round trip- This was pointed out by business this week.
Since the reintroduction of Zimbabwe dollar in August 2020. ping’.
2019, the RBZ has revised the monetary policy Businesses, however, will face an increasing-
framework several times in an attempt to address Furthermore, three companies were suspended The RBZ must be strengthened by giving it ly hostile environment for their operations amid
the high inflation rate and manage limited curren- from the ZSE in July 2020, namely Old Mutual policy independence, ending “fiscal dominance” growing uncertainty around the security of their
cy reserves, often in a haphazard and unpredict- Ltd, PPC and SeedCo, from trading stocks, ac- (forcing it to lend money to the government to investments.
able manner. cused of distorting the official exchange rate. finance fiscal deficits), improving the quality of
data required for the implementation of monetary The likelihood of sustainable reform, compris-
To date, none of these interventions has been The government stated there was a link between policy, and dramatically enhancing transparency ing an improved macro-economic policy environ-
successful in a sustainable way. Limited reserves the movement in prices of these three dual-listed relating to fiscal, monetary and foreign exchange ment and business climate, proper accountability,
and low confidence in the Zimbabwean unit, stocks and the climbing parallel market rate of the transactions. improved data and greatly increased transparency
alongside the persistent demand for foreign cur- Zimbabwe dollar (estimated at between ZW$75 remain low which is a major concern.
rency by both business and individuals continue and ZW$95 to US$1 then). These companies It is by no means clear that Zimbabwe will be
to fuel growth of the parallel market, resulting in were excluded from trading on the ZSE when it in a position to stabilise the local currency anytime From a political economy perspective, the
the ongoing erosion of the value of the local unit re-opened on 3 August and remain suspended. soon. As such, the dominance of foreign currency absence of these conditions hinders long-term
bordering on a currency crisis. when transacting will remain, but the US dollar is economic growth, but in the short term creates
Currently, the government has launched a probably not the most appropriate foreign curren- incentives and opportunities for rent seeking
Some of the interventions by the RBZ include, crackdown on currency traders and is threaten- cy for Zimbabwe. and corruption. Command economics and con-
firstly the new foreign exchange auction trading ing to revoke licences of businesses that peg their trol policies promote rent-seeking behaviour and
system which was introduced on 23 June 2020 prices to parallel market rates in a desperate bid From the country’s experience on currency and breeds corruption. The current policies being im-
replacing the fixed exchange rate system adopted to control the galloping exchange rate. Blaming foreign exchange rate, it is clear that there is no plemented by the government will not contain the
in March 2020. This resulted in the exchange rate businesses for currency instability and suspending escape from the laws of economics. Large budget parallel market, but make its activities more brisk.
being determined by the average of bids for hard their operations appear to go beyond the stated deficits are always unsustainable, and, if financed Only with a shift from a short-term to a long-term
currency made once a week. Through this inter- aim of restoring economic instability, but finding by printing money, will result in inflation and cur- perspective will the policy environment improve
vention, the official exchange rate initially settled a scapegoat and politics. rency depreciation. and the parallel market subside.
at US$1:ZW$57, higher than the fixed exchange l Kaduwo is a researcher and economist.
rate of US$1:ZW$25 that was obtaining in the To note, the increasingly repressive stance ad-
market since March 2020. opted by the government in recent months reflects
growing political pressure it is facing in the wake
The process leading to the Zimdollar’s reintro- of these challenges and the fear of an exchange
duction dates back to October 2018 through Jan- rate-driven economic meltdown, and political
uary and February 2019 until June the same year. consequences thereof.

Within a few days, after the establishment of This is, however, not new as Zimbabwe has a
the auction system, on 26 June 2020, the govern- chequered history as far as managing the exchange
ment banned all mobile phone-based payments, rate is concerned.
citing the need to address “economic sabotage”.
From Independence in 1980 to date, Zim-
Monetary authorities accused the largest mo- babwe has always attempted to maintain a fixed
bile money platform, EcoCash, of distorting the exchange rate (through the peg to the US dollar)
official exchange rate by creating fictitious balanc- which is inconsistent with its macro-economic
es — printing money effectively — and trading fundamentals. The exchange rate always becomes
in US dollars. increasingly overvalued — relative to Zimbabwe’s
reserves and international competitiveness —
Mobile money payments account for around leading to balance-of-payments problems, short-
84.8% of all transaction volumes in the country, ages of foreign currency, and the emergence of the
according to the RBZ, following long-term cash parallel market.
shortages at banks.
This long-term problem is compounded by the
Thereafter RBZ governor John Mangudya rapid expansion of money supply through fiscal
sounded optimistic about the forex auction even deficits and the RBZ’s quasi-fiscal activities.
though its critics like former Finance minister
Tendai Biti were never convinced. It is clear Zimbabwe’s problem is that it runs a
substantial current account deficit, but does not
“The introduction of the Dutch foreign ex- benefit from inflows of foreign direct investment
change auction system has so far achieved its key (FDI) as that continues to be discouraged by high
objective of price stability and has greatly assist- political and economic risk.
ed in creating transparency in the management
of foreign exchange and in price discovery of the The country does not have access to interna-
market exchange rate. This has restrained the tional capital markets for borrowing mainly due
speculative pass-through effects of the exchange to outstanding arrears on outstanding debt, while
rate on the pricing of goods and services in the official foreign exchange reserves are largely de-
economy,” Mangudya said in his 2020 monetary pleted. Without access to foreign currency from
policy statement. trade or capital inflows, the supply of US dollars
in the economy in general and the banking system
“Sustaining the auction system is therefore cru- in particular is highly constrained.
cial in fostering price stability in the economy.”
Zimbabwe’s major sources of foreign currency
Mangudya, however, acknowledged the limita- are exports, lines of credit, loans and diaspora re-
tions of the auction. He said while the RBZ was
encouraged by the fact that some business entities

NewsHawks News Page 7

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Flashback A brief history of Zimbabwe’s
THIS statement was issued by Finance minis- recent currency reform trials
ter Mthuli Ncube (pictured top right) in June
2019. Initially, Ncube, who had previously ar-
gued that Zimbabwe should adopt the South
African rand before joining government when
he was at the African Development Bank, had
warned that bond notes must go as they repre-
sented “bad money chasing away good mon-
ey”.

THE country has been using the multicur- on-year inflation at 97.85%. At the same time, This effectively means the use of foreign cur- by the review of the overnight accommodation
rency monetary system since 2009, dominated prices in US dollar terms remained flat, or even rency to settle domestic transactions has been window which has been pegged at 50% per an-
by the United States dollar, South African rand. decreased. removed and the basket of multi-currencies, that num.
In its early stages, the multi-currency system is, USD, GBP, ZAR, EUR, BWP, JPY, CNY,
brought some stability in terms of inflation. Further, there were persistent shortages of AU$ and Indian Rupee shall only be used to The Reserve Bank shall sell 50% of the foreign
foreign currency for productive activities, con- settle international payments or those services exchange realised from surrender requirements
However, the multi-currency system stifled straining production and investment, as well as exempt from this requirement as per Section 3 to the interbank market to complement letters of
growth, as the country could not utilise mone- promoting speculative tendencies and capital of Statutory Instrument 142 of 2019. credit for the importation of essential commodi-
tary instruments to influence economic activity, flight. These developments suggested that the ties that include fuel, cooking oil and wheat.
and gradually lost competitiveness compared to monetary arrangements were not sustainable, Similarly, the pricing on all domestic con-
major trading partners. and self-dollarisation was gaining momentum. tracts, including the displaying of prices in all With effect from 25 June 2019, authorised
outlets in Zimbabwe, shall be effected and/ or dealers (banks and bureaux de changes) are per-
The situation was worsened by recurrent un- However, a scenario of formal re-dollarisation displayed in the local unit of account. mitted to buy and sell foreign currency without
favourable weather conditions, low commodity was undesirable for the following reasons: any limit in terms of the amount and margins.
prices and high appetite for importing. This re- l Fiscal constraints: Re-dollarisation requires The operation of Nostro FCAs shall remain
sulted in declining foreign currency inflows, li- the compensation of salaries in US dollars. Giv- in place for purposes of receiving offshore funds This has effectively made our foreign exchange
quidity and cash shortages, as well as confidence en tight fiscal space, nominal salaries had to be and to facilitate foreign payments. market freely floating.
challenges. revised downwards to socially unacceptable lev-
els; In cases where local service providers e.g. The payment arrangements and foreign cur-
The country in response, introduced the bond l Loss of competitiveness: The US dollar was transporters, consulting firms, etc, are paid from rency retention periods for large scale gold pro-
notes as an export incentive to promote exports appreciating against the currencies of Zimba- offshore sources for services rendered locally, ducers shall continue as before.
and substitute imports. However, the initiatives bwe’s major trade partners, which made Zim- such funds shall continue to be deposited into
were not supported by restricted government babwean wages and final products too expensive the Nostro FCAs. However, small-scale gold producers with
expenditure. The resulting fiscal deficits were to compete. This resulted in trade imbalances, nostro FCAs shall not be subjected to the 30 day
financed through Treasury Bills and recourse to which was harmful to local industry; These funds in Nostro FCAs will retain their retention period.
the central bank’s overdraft window. l Liquidity crises: Given the scarcity of US dol- foreign currency status and shall continue to be
lars in the formal market, smooth transacting utilised for the settlement of international trans- Tobacco growers are entitled to receive 50%
The financing of the expanding fiscal deficits could not be guaranteed; actions. In cases where the holder of such an of their sales proceeds in United States dollars (it
combined with widening trade deficit, exerted l Loss of monetary instruments: Monetary pol- account intends to settle domestic transactions, is now 60%), deposited into their nostro FCAs,
pressure on the foreign exchange market. This icy could not effectively manage business cycles they shall be required to liquidate their foreign however, in the event that the tobacco grower in-
resulted in the resurgence of the parallel market and cushion the economy against temporary currency account balances to the interbank on a tends to meet local obligations, the sale proceeds
whose exchange rate become the anchor of pric- shocks, and willing seller willing buyer basis. must first be converted to Zimbabwe dollars
ing of goods and services in the economy and the l Vulnerability to sanctions: Accessibility of US through the interbank foreign exchange market.
attending inflation. dollar is constrained by restrictive measures af- Foreign currency cash withdrawals by corpo-
fecting transactions with international banks. rates have been removed. Where there is need for tobacco merchants to
In view of these economic imbalances, gov- disburse working capital to
ernment in October 2018 introduced the Tran- There was, therefore, an urgent need for Zim- However, on deserving cases such as road toll
sitional Stabilisation Programme (succeeded by babwe to introduce its own fully-fledged cur- fees, corporates may such withdrawal cash sub- contracted farmer, the proceeds shall be de-
National Development Strategy 1), which seeks rency and to formally end the multi-currency ject to Banks applying the Know Your Customer posited into the grower’s nostro FCA (special)
to address major policy reform areas required for regime, through the introduction of SI 142 of (KYC) principles. which can be opened with a bank of their choice.
stabilisation, rebuilding and transforming the 2019, which was further operationalised by the
economy to an upper middle-income status by Exchange Control Directive RU102/2019. Individuals shall continue to hold US dollars The tobacco farmer shall then liquidate the
2030. One of the key pillars being currency re- in their nostro FCAs, as well be able to withdraw proceeds from the nostro FCA (special) to meet
form. The directive was issued in terms of Section cash up to a daily limit of US$1 000, as it was local obligations. The current cotton marketing
35 (1) of the Exchange Control Regulations previously the case. arrangements shall continue to operate.
Currency reform Statutory Instrument 109 of 1996.
Government, through two monetary policy The government through the RBZ has as- Investors who shall purchase dual listed shares
statements of 1 October 2018 and 20 February Local currency sumed all legacy debts arising from the change- on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) shall
2019 set the tone for implementing currency re- Under the new framework, all domestic trans- over from the 1:1 exchange rate between RTGS only sell the shares on the ZSE or on an external
forms necessary for supporting fiscal consolida- actions are now settled in Zimbabwe dollars, the and US dollar as announced through Exchange stock exchange after a vesting period of 90 days
tion and growth promotion. sole legal tender in Zimbabwe that is represented Control Directive RU28 of February 2019. from the date of initial purchase.
In order to reduce the impact of the shocks, by bond notes and coins and electronic currency,
the currency reform took a gradual process. It that is, RTGS dollars. All RTGS dollars representing the legacy debt To encourage and facilitate the flow of foreign
started with the October statement, which sep- shall be moved from commercial banks to the currency, diaspora remittances shall continue to
arated the foreign currency accounts (FCA) and RBZ which will reduce the amount of Zimba- be received in foreign currency. The recipients
RTGS accounts. The purpose was to encourage bwe dollars in circulation by at least US$1.2 bil- shall have the option to receive remittances in
exports, diaspora remittances, banking of foreign lion, thus strengthening the value of the Zimba- cash or sell their remittances on a willing seller
currency and to eliminate the dilution effect of bwe dollar. This is further going to be supported willing buyer basis to bureaux de change and au-
RTGS balances on nostro FCAs. thorised dealers or deposit into individual nostro
This was followed by differential pricing of FCA.
fuel January 2019 and finally liberalisation of the
country’s foreign currency market, through dis-
carding the fixed 1:1 exchange rate peg between
the US$ and the bond note through the 20 Feb-
ruary 2019 monetary policy statement.
Concurrently, a new currency called the
RTGS dollar, made up of electronic balances
in banks and mobile platforms, bond notes and
coins was introduced through Statutory Instru-
ment (SI) 33 of 2019.
The intention was to strip the US dollar as a
medium of exchange and serve more as a reserve
currency. Simultaneously, the RTGS dollar was
expected to assume all other functions of a do-
mestic currency.
However, since its adoption, the RTGS dollar
has continuously lost value against the US dollar
at a pace of, on average, approximately 1% per
day. On 25 February 2019, the official interbank
rate stood at US$/RTGS$ 2.5, and climbed to
US$/RTGS$ 6.28 as at June 21. On the parallel
market, rates climbed from US$/RTGS$3.5 to
US$/RTGS$12 during the same period.
The devaluation has been ac.companied by
rampant inflation in RTGS terms, with many
goods and services now being effectively pegged
to parallel market rates. As at May, month-on-
month inflation stood at 12.54%, and year-

Page 8 News NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

MEMBERS of the public have raised a red flag over An artist’s impression of the Mbudzi Traffic Interchange on Masvingo highway, Harare.
the government’s announcement that the Mbudzi
roundabout traffic interchange on the Masvingo Red flag raised on US$85m
highway in Harare will cost US$85 million, which Mbudzi interchange project
could be reviewed upwards.
Mount Edecombe traffic interchange in Durban, South Africa. The project cost US$77 million. of rock columns at foundation level.
The announcement swiftly triggered a suspi- The construction team had to overcome numerous
cion-laden public reaction as people asked how a on. line and Dema toll gates. We want modern toll gates
smaller project like the Mbudzi one would cost more South Africa’s Mount Edgecombe interchange that will be having an e-tolling system,” Mhona said. challenges throughout the nearly decade-long project.
than the biggest interchange in Africa, Mount Edge- Some of the major design considerations included
combe Interchange in Durban, South Africa, which upgrade, which had many features and sophisticat- The Mt Edgecombe Interchange boasts one of the physical space constraints due to current and future
cost R1.14 billion (US$77 million) before commis- ed designs, is the largest interchange in the southern longest incrementally launched bridges in the south- developments, road reserve boundaries, traffic conges-
sioning in 2018. hemisphere, but cost only US$77 million. ern hemisphere at 947 metres long. tion, future traffic demands, proximity of the Gateway
Theatre of Shopping offramp from the M41, existing
The Durban project, with four levels and Africa’s The Zimbabwean government also said it is finalis- In total there are six new bridges, three existing stormwater attenuation areas, and accommodation of
longest flyover bridge, cost US$8 million less than the ing a funding model for the rehabilitation and recon- bridges widened or lengthened, and a total of 12.4 ki- future development access and future capacity.
Harare one. This shows the Mbudzi project is grossly struction of state-of-the-art toll gates compatible with lometres of ramps on this project. A total of 1.8km of
overpriced. an e-tolling system. mechanically stabilised earth walls, some as high as 17 These constraints were overcome using a four-level
metres, were constructed. The walls required extensive free-flow interchange configuration. This provides for
Transport minister Felix Mhona announced on a “We want to avoid delays at toll gates and we will geotechnical ground improvements by way of a grid full-width free-flow directional ramps in all directions
state television programme on Wednesday that the be reconstructing toll gates such as the Shamva, Sky- while keeping the geographical footprint of the in-
Mbudzi project will cost US$85 million. terchange as small as possible and largely within the
constraints of the road reserve.
“The whole project will cost US$85 million, but
this is subject to review and I can gladly say the fund- The main feature of the project is the two upper
ing is already there. We also invited private players. level ramp viaducts. Bridge B0214 has a deck length
Twenty million dollars will be used on detour roads,” of 443 metres long and Bridge B0215 has a deck
Mhona said. length of 947 metres, which makes it the longest in-
crementally launched bridge in the southern hemi-
Mhona’s proviso that the price is actually subject to sphere, as well as the longest bridge structure to ever
“review” — which going by previous experiences with be built in South Africa.
government projects implies cost escalation or budget
overruns — fuelled worries that the project could end What sets B0215 apart, however, is that the bridge
up scaling US$100 million. is constructed in two decks, which were both incre-
mentally launched, but from opposite sides, and de-
Cabinet on Tuesday received and adopted a report signed to meet in the centre. Ensuring that the two
of the ad-hoc inter-ministerial committee on the decks would meet up within dimension tolerances re-
Elimination of Congestion and Installation of Proper quired innovative design, precision survey work, and
Lighting in the Country’s Urban Areas presented by sound construction management.
Local Government minister July Moyo.
The final position of the decks was seven millime-
It covered infrastructure, public transport and en- tres from the design position transversely and 0mm
forcement matrix. from the design level vertically. Given the size of the
decks and the fact these decks were launched from
The Mbudzi interchange was one of the projects. opposite ends, this accurate final position is a testimo-
Public works in Zimbabwe are often riddled with ny of the workmanship and world-class engineering
corruption, especially bribes and kickbacks. capabilities in South Africa. — STAFF WRITER.
Corruption in the construction of public infra-
structure has particularly serious implications for
countries like Zimbabwe. Inappropriate project
choice, high prices, poor quality, excessive time and
cost overruns, inadequate maintenance, and low re-
turns, among other challenges, impact negatively on
economic growth and poverty alleviation.
Corruption during the early stages of the project
cycle, when projects are appraised, designed and bud-
geted, open the door to additional corruption later

NewsHawks News Page 9

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Faces behind dramatic spectacle unmasked

MORRIS BISHI l Zanu PF’s blocking of Chamisa campaign
boomerangs . . . revives his popularity
WHAT started as a pedestrian civic engagement
for Zimbabwe’s main opposition MDC Alliance Zanu PF activists blocking main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa’s path in Masvingo.
leader Nelson Chamisa to interface with commu-
nities and the grassroots in Masvingo this week tacks were orchestrated by Zanu PF with the sup- forms first, we want a level playing field. We can’t side areas except a few, who include village head
ahead of the 2023 elections ended as a dramatic port of the security sector. She added several party have elections presided over by a compromised Nhamoinesu Nemanwa who was the ring-leader.
spectacle, with far-reaching implications for the members were hospitalised after being injured and and partisan electoral body which acts as a referee,
forthcoming polls. vehicles belonging to Chamisa’s convoy were dam- player and coach at the same time. We want free, On Tuesday, Chamisa visited Chiredzi using
aged. fair and credible elections; if that environment is the Chivi-Ngundu route. At Triangle, Zanu PF
Chamisa has been widely criticised of late for created, we win.” had mounted a roadblock, but sources said police
the MDC Alliance’s internal ructions, with some “It was a well-orchestrated attack meant to frus- refused to put endorse the roadblock, making it
of his colleagues objecting to his leadership style trate our leader’s visit in Masvingo. Several of our Zanu PF Masvingo provincial spokesperson difficult for placard-waving ruling party militants
and accusing him of political lethargy to a point members were injured, but the president is safe. Ophias Murambiwa claimed the raids on Cha- to stop the convoy.
where some were beginning to question his util- This is the true colour of the ruling party, their misa were done by supporters of MDC Alliance
ity while scouting for a new alternative. But his hands are dirty, but we remain resolute in our fight co-deputy leader Tendai Biti’s faction, not mem- Investigations showed Zanu PF youths in
citizens’ engagement tour put paid to his critics’ for change and we will not tire in our bid to dis- bers of the ruling party. But he failed to explain Chiredzi were sponsored by Chiredzi West legisla-
gripes: he remains the leading opposition figure lodge this corrupt government,” Mahere said. the situation after the reporter furnished him with tor Farai Musikavanhu who provided a T35 truck,
in Zimbabwe despite all his flaws and weaknesses. details of ruling party leaders who sponsored the former Chiredzi Town Council chairman Francis
Earlier, Chamisa had told The NewsHawks on attackers with food and vehicles, including their Moyo who slaughtered a beast as well as other rul-
Zanu PF threw everything in his path to block Wednesday that the attacks on him betrayed Pres- own public actions and confessions. ing party councillors for Chiredzi, including Bless-
his civic engagement process. They mobilised their ident Emmerson Mnangagwa’s desperation and ings Mazinyani (Ward 5) and Liberty Macharaga
supporters, rented crowds and hire thugs to stop fear of electoral defeat. “Our party was not involved in the attacks. (Ward 4), who also took part in the violence.
him. They even put physical barriers like cut tree From the information which l have, those who at-
stems and branches on the roads to hinder him “General elections are 18 months away, but we tacked Chamisa are members of his party who are Others involved were businessman Jameson
from interacting with the grassroots. are beginning to see panicky aggressive behaviour aligned to Tendai Biti. On the evidence which you Charumbira who bought fast-food Chicken Inn
and violence by Zanu PF and its supporters,” he are giving me, let me look for more information meals for the youths and Felix Bhangu who was
In this era of social media, the “Stop Chamisa” said. and l will come back to you,” Murambiwa said. driving the truck carrying the youths and their
campaign story was well-captured and document- leaders.
ed through text, photographs and videos. It left “Mnangagwa lost the 2018 polls. What we are Various witnesses interviewed by The New-
him trending for days. seeing now are the last kicks of a dying and going sHawks said they saw vehicles at Pangolin shops Moyo said he sponsored the demonstration in
horse. They are lashing out at us desperately. On in Masvingo getting printed placards from un- a bid to urge Chamisa to remove sanctions which
An investigation by The NewsHawks showed top of losing elections, his new dispensation has marked vehicles. They said the placards were later are affecting the country. He said he would not re-
that the Zanu PF leadership, state security agents, been a huge disaster. It’s a composition of a lie and seen in Charumbira. gret taking part in the protests, which he claimed
including police and the Central Intelligence deception, he sold people a dummy; his new dis- were peaceful.
Organisation (CIO) operatives, were heavily in- pensation has turned out to be a new deception, “It all started in the morning when we saw un-
volved in the campaign and subsequent violence but people won’t buy that this time around. That’s marked vehicles with well-printed placards at Pan- “It is true that I participated in the demonstra-
aimed at stopping Chamisa from meeting his par- why he is scared.” golin shops. A few minutes later, police besieged tion against Chamisa’s visit to Chiredzi on Tues-
ty supporters in Masvingo province. the house of Wilstaf Sitemere in Target Kopje day. What we wanted was to urge the opposition
Chamisa added: “The behaviour of Mnangag- where Chamisa was supposed to address a pro- leader to call for the removal of sanctions which
The campaign against Chamisa was well-or- wa and his Zanu PF supporters is that of losers vincial assembly meeting. We then left for Cha- are affecting the country,” Moyo said.
chestrated. It began in Masvingo city, spread to who are clearly terrified of elections; they are even rumbira, but on our way we found a roadblock
Charumbira area, Chiredzi, Zaka and Bikita dis- afraid of by-elections with their puppets purport- at Stop Over, which is 10 kilometres from town Moyo, who was the lowveld town’s chairperson
tricts, leaving vehicles belonging to the opposition ing to be opposition. He lost in 2018, he is a dying along the Great Zimbabwe road. There were more from 2013 to 2017, courted controversy in 2017
leader damaged and several people seriously in- and going horse lashing out everywhere desperate- than 10 uniformed cops and three plain-clothed after the local authority sold him a Toyota Hilux
jured in the ensuing violence. ly in fear and aggression. men whom we suspected were CIO and PISI twin-cab vehicle for ZW$4 000 in a move which
(police internal security intelligence) operatives. was resisted by residents. The vehicle was involved
The violent events reignited memories of the “The ruling party is afraid of just seeing us go- The roadblock checked our vehicles, but we lat- in a high-speed chase against Chamisa's convoy
June 2008 violence as Masvingo was one of the ing to the people. They want to keep the people er realised that they were obsessed with people’s on Tuesday.
provinces which recorded deaths among oppo- imprisoned by fear so that they don't get to lis- identities,” a senior MDC Alliance official who
sition members after the then president Robert ten to our alternative governance and policy pro- witnessed the events said. On Wednesday, Chamisa visited Zaka where
Mugabe’s defeat by MDC founding leader Mor- posals, and message. Their violence is out of fear, armed police officers besieged the home of
gan Tsvangirai in the general elections. but people are not afraid of supporting their own “At Nemanwa area, we saw a Toyota V6 and Misheck Marava, the opposition party's provincial
choices and their cause. realised its occupants were communicating with chairperson. In 2002, Marava lost more than 10
Mugabe recovered from the first round of poll- attackers ambushing us. This was a well-planned cattle to Zanu PF youths after he ran from home
ing defeat through violence and killings. Bikita, “Mnangagwa knows the truth: We can defeat thing involving various security sector actors and fearing for his life.
Chiredzi and Zaka districts witnessed some of the him in elections anytime anywhere, whether in the ruling party.”
worst cases of violence perpetrated by political Masvingo, across Zimbabwe, on the mountains, While Zanu PF’sponsored mayhem heralded
brutes still walking the streets scot free. over the seas, during the day, night, in space or A resident of Nemanwa said most of the people the looming violence ahead of the 2023 general
on another planet. So long as the elections are free who attacked Chamisa’s convoy were bussed from election, they also betrayed desperation and fu-
In an interview with The NewsHawks last night, and fair, we win big time. He has no chance. Masvingo city, Masvingo West and other out- elled Chamisa’s popularity — the sort of push the
Chamisa said he was shocked by the levels of des- MDC Alliance leader needed after being criticised
peration among Zanu PF leaders and their sup- “That is why we are demanding electoral re- for lethargy.
porters to stop him from undertaking his civic
engagement campaign.

“It was incredible. The desperation, the stam-
pede to stop us and the violence — shocking,”
Chamisa said.

“We had gone on a citizens or community in-
terface campaign to meet ordinary people and talk
to them about their issues; things affecting their
lives directly, the problems they have, their lived
experiences, their initiatives to improve their situ-
ation and the sort of leadership they would want
to change their current misery.

“We met communities and the grassroots, those
on the receiving end of the current failures by
Zanu PF and its government — youths, women,
men, traditional leaders, and community influ-
encers, ordinary people, from various walks of life.

“However, we had to overcome major stum-
bling blocks: Zanu PF supporters who blocked
roads, chanted slogans and shouted, while attack-
ing us, injuring people and damaging property,
including our vehicles. Those protests were too
structured to be spontaneous or haphazard, they
appeared to have some command at high levels
and were calculated to block us from penetrating
the grassroots.

“Unfortunately for them, people came out in
their numbers to meet us. We did not organise ral-
lies, it was civic engagement. Everywhere we went,
people came out, rushed and ran to meet us. It was
amazing. In the end, it showed Zanu PF cannot
stop the people. The party no longer has genuine
and meaningful support in the grassroots. It only
has rented crowds.”

MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzai Mahere
told The NewsHawks Chamisa was ambushed in
different places during his visit. She said the at-

Page 10 News NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

MDC Alliance leader
Nelson Chamisa’s
Masvingo tour in pics

NewsHawks News Page 11
Damaged car that was in main
Issue 52, 15 October 2021 opposition MDC Alliance leader

Nelson Chamisa’s convoy.

Panic-stricken Zanu PF unleashes terror

NYASHA CHINGONO Police in Zaka in Masvingo monitoring MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa's moves. has been a tendency of Zanu PF to use violence
ahead of an election. Before the coup, the military
POLITICAL violence that reared its ugly head want him. He is not allowed to enter Masvingo position from holding meetings under the guise of was used in the rural areas. The question is wheth-
again on Monday in Masvingo against main op- West or the Charumbira area,” a Zanu PF activist enforcing Covid-19 restrictions. er the military is still in the community.”
position MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa said to a cheering mob.
and his entourage could be a precursor to what In familiar fashion, Zanu PF denied responsi- Mandaza said although politically motivated vi-
Zanu PF is prepared to do to stay in power ahead The deliberate ploy to block the opposition bility fir the violence, saying Chamisa wanted to olence was not widespread, Masvingo scenes were
of the 2023 general election, analysts have said. from engaging communities is likely to play out impose himself on an unwilling crowd. an ad hoc response to an opposition largely viewed
when campaigning begins ahead of 2023. as a threat ahead of 2023.
Disturbing video footage of a group of about Zanu PF national acting political commissar
200 Zanu PF placard-wielding supporters de- While this is happening, Zanu PF has unlimit- Patrick Chinamasa said the violent scenes were “Chamisa is still a threat,” Mandaza said, add-
nouncing Chamisa for the sanctions imposed on ed access to the rural areas, with traditional leaders stage managed and meant to tarnish President ing that the MDC Alliance, despite its unforced
the country by the West followed by damaged ve- already on the campaign trail, using food aid as Emmerson Mnangagwa’s image ahead of the Cop errors, had been emboldened by recent assaults
hicles and injured opposition supporters is a wor- bait. Zanu PF has also completed its restructuring Meeting in Glasgow in November. against the party by former party secretary-general
rying sign in a polarised political climate. exercise at grassroots level despite stopping the op- Douglas Mwonzora who ordered wholesale parlia-
But political analyst Ibbo Mandaza said: “This mentary recalls. What has emboldened Chamisa
Zimbabwe has a bloody history of violent elec- is that Mnangagwa is unelectable,” Mandaza said.
tions. Politicsl parties such as PF Zapu and the Ed-
gar Tekere-led Zimbabwe Unity Movement have Mandaza said what happened in Masvingo
borne the brunt of Zanu PF violence, just like could be a reflection of factional fights where,
the MDC which has been on the receiving end of “some factions are out to embarrass Mnangagwa.”
state-sponsored violent since 2000.
“It would be interesting to see what happens in
Monday’s events, while unfortunate, are not other provinces. Depends on how coordinated it is
surprising as Zimbabwe’s political arena has once across the provinces,” he said.
again failed to show tolerance of divergent views.
Chamisa says attacks on his party by Zanu PF
The MDC has been on the receiving end of supporters and activists during his visit to Masv-
brute force from Zanu PF, with 2008 being the ingo province show “the last kicks of a dying and
peak of politically motivated violence in Zim- going horse”, as Mnangagwa faces electoral defeat
babwe where some opposition supporters were in 2023.
killed, maimed, raped and tortured, while others
were abducted after the founding MDC leader “Mnangagwa knows the truth: We can defeat
Morgan Tsvangirai outpolled the then president him in elections anytime anywhere, whether in
Robert Mugabe in the first round of the presiden- Masvingo, across Zimbabwe, on the mountains,
tial elections, but failed to garner enough votes to over the seas, during the day, night, in space or
oust the strongman, amid rigging claims. on another planet. So long as the elections are free
and fair, we win big time. He has no chance,” he
Video footage showing Zanu PF foot soldiers said.
blocking Chamisa and his entourage shows that
the ruling party has gone for broke in its bid to Political analyst Stephen Chan said while it is
prevent the opposition from charming rural vot- too early to predict what could happen in 2023,
ers. Chamisa’s entourage was stoned, resulting in Zanu PF will have to employ other sophisticated
people being injured, while vehicles were dam- tactics to prevent the opposition from mobilising
aged. in the rural areas.

While the MDC Alliance is looking to garner “Nelson Chamisa had targeted the rural areas
six million votes, the bulk of which are rural votes, for a fresh electoral drive and this visit was part of
Zanu PF-contrived tension in rural areas will this. The violence was clearly clumsy and of course
make it difficult for the party to achieve this feat. was filmed — so there is no denying it took place.
It is far too early to predict what tactics Zanu-PF
“The reason why we have blocked the road is might use in 2023, but they will have to be a lot
that we heard about Chamisa’s coming. We do not more sophisticated than what evidently happened
in Masvingo,” he said.

Page 12 News NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

ZIMBABWEAN international human rights Human rights lawyer’s dream
lawyer Siphosami Malunga says when he left his deferred, amid abuse of power
job at the United Nations in New York to work
in Africa, his plan was to retire at 50 on a farm Human rights lawyer Siphosami Malunga.
at home (he turned 50 on Wednesday), but his
dream has been shattered by Zanu PF land grab- Mazithulela, a distinguished scientist, is ac- acterised the battle over the farm. quickly increased that to 30ha and this year they
bers and authorities’ abuse of power. cused of trying to squeeze himself into the Esida- Mpofu, Richard Moyo and Mazithulela re- are going up to 55ha. The total irrigable part of
keni Farm horticultural project and intimidating the 530ha farm is 85ha, which they intend to
Malunga and business colleagues Zephaniah its owners with arrest or seizure if they did not portedly misled the minister, Masuka, into ga- utilise as their business grows.
Dhlamini and Charles Moyo bought a farm in accommodate him to offer them political protec- zetting the farm through falsehoods, including
Nyamandlovu, Matabeleland North province, tion. The farm owners also say they hold Mazith- that the property had previously been acquired Apart from horticultural activities, Malunga,
but it is now being grabbed by Zanu PF leaders, ulela accountable for the disappearance of some by the state, yet it was not and that it was being Dhlamini and Charles Moyo have a commercial
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) officers of their documents at the provincial land offices underutilised, when it is highly productive. beef herd of 150 cattle, 50 goats and 4 000 free
and their cronies, including Bulawayo business- in Bulawayo as at one time he communicated in range Sasso chickens.
man Dumisani Madzivanyati, a National Uni- the middle of the night with one of them while Malunga, Dhlamini and Charles Moyo say
versity of Science and Technology (Nust) lectur- in possession of those missing documents. they bought the farm from its previous owner They are planning to increase those numbers
er. Dhlamini also teaches at Nust. — who has now confirmed that — and own it, significantly.
These details emerged after shareholders of hence they are heavily invested in it. After buy-
The High Court has barred the farm invad- Kershelmar Farms, which legally owns the farm, ing the farm, they invested in infrastructure, The farm employs 45 permanent workers
ers — Madzivanyati specifically —from inter- approached the High Court seeking an order to rehabilitating boreholes, main water reservoir, and 250 seasonal employees.T he farmers have
fering with agricultural operations, but they are stop the government from seizing their land for irrigation system and homestead. invested over US$100 000 this year alone and
fighting on. They have appealed to the Supreme redistribution. planted eight hectares of onions, six hectares of
Court. To do this, the farmers obtained two loans of butternut, six hectares of tomatoes (150 000
Kershelmar is co-owned by Charles Moyo, about US$230 000 for their horticultural proj- plants), yet the invasions are disrupting not only
Besides, the farm grabbers, led by Mazithule- Dhlamini and Malunga.The court action is a ect. Due to their productivity, they have already farming activities, but Malunga’s retirement
la, have roped in Prosecutor-General Kumbirai culmination of a series of recent events that char- repaid US$110 000. plans — deferring his dream of a quiet early re-
Hodzi, who has now ordered police to investi- tirement. — STAFF WRITER.
gate possible violations of exchange control regu- They started working on five hectares, but
lations and tax laws when Malunga and his part-
ners bought the farm from Zimbabwean-born Zanu PF and government bigwigs have now illegally given the Esidakeni Farm to their cronies.
Australian Jeffrey Swindels.

While government initially denied the three
had bought the farm, it is now probing the
transaction which it claimed did not exist. The
barring of farm invaders from interfering with
the property has also given Malunga and others
reprieve even if there is an appeal.

Another court battle over the farm gazetting
is pending in the courts. Although Malunga and
others bought the farm, government has gazett-
ed it. They are challenging the acquisition in a
case that may set a precedent in various ways.

The saga has shattered Malunga’s plans and
dream, which he held when he left the UN to
work closer home in Johannesburg as the retire-
ment clock ticked.

Malunga practiced law in Zimbabwe before
joining the UN. He worked in East Timor, a
southeast Asian nation occupying half the is-
land of Timor ringed by coral reefs teeming with
marine life. He worked there as a senior defence
trial attorney. That was between 2001 and 2003
when the truth and reconciliation commission
opened to try and heal wounds of past.

Between 2003 and 2006, Malunga was work-
ing for the United Nations Development Pro-
gramme (UNDP) in Afghanistan where he was
responsible for rebuilding the justice system.

From there, he went to the UNDP Oslo Gov-
ernance Centre in Norway. After that he became
a regional policy adviser and a democratic prac-
tice team leader before going to back New York
as senior governance adviser.

He then came down to South Africa where he
later quit the job and joined the Open Society
Initiative for Southern Africa as executive direc-
tor in preparation for his retirement.

Reflecting on the plan after his 50th birthday
on Wednesday, Malunga posted this message
on social media: “8 years ago I made a decision
to leave my UN job in New York & come back
home to Africa. The plan was simple but solid:
work for a few more years, invest in a farm in
Zimbabwe & retire by age 50 to farm full-time.
I worked for a few years, invested in a farm &
now aged 50 have ‘lost’ the farm. So much for
the Best Laid Plans. But I’m still standing!”

While the message appeared light, it touched
on his deep frustration over the farm and future
plans.

Malunga and his colleagues, who have in-
vested heavily on the farm, have cited Zanu
PF secretary for administration Obert Mpofu,
Matabeleland North Resident Minister of State
Richard Moyo and CIO Deputy Director-Gen-
eral Gatsha Mazithulela as the movers behind
the farm invasion.

The Zanu PF and government bigwigs have
now illegally given the farm to their cronies,
Madzivanyati and CIO officer Reason Mpofu,
who is the Zanu PF head of administration's
nephew.

They used Agriculture minister Anxious Ma-
suka to execute their mission.

Despite that his father, Sydney Malunga, bur-
ied at Heroes Acre, was one of the leading lib-
eration struggle nationalists, Sipho cannot even
keep a farm that he bought.

This speaks to lack of rule of law, property
rights and a travesty of justice that independent
Zimbabwe has now become.

NewsHawks News Page 13

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Zanu PF Midlands leaders in bruising fistfight

STEPHEN CHADENGA State Security minister Owen Mudha Ncube Daniel Mackenzie Ncube him via WhatsApp, although the messages had
age journalists to take stories from the courts. Contacted for comment, Kwidini confirmed been delivered to his mobile number.
FACTIONAL violence in Zanu PF has turned There will obviously be (new) developments reporting the alleged assault at Gweru Central
physical in the Midlands province, with senior from the time of the reports,” Mahoko said. Police station. But two letters signed by two Milan direc-
officials exchanging blows in public last week- The fist fight occurred at Milan entertain- tors, one Richard Murombedzi and Taleeb
end in President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s trou- Further investigations by this publication ment joint. Mohamed and addressed to provincial par-
bled citadel. however showed that the matter is not yet be- Magura did not respond to questions sent to ty chairperson Mckenzie Ncube and Kwidi-
fore the courts. ni respectively, revealed the banning for three
Preparations for the party’s congress next months of those involved in the scuffle at the
year, which are preceded by restructuring and restaurant.
elections from grassroots level, have been prob-
lematic and marred with intimidation and vio- “l look forward to meeting and demon-
lence as a faction aligned to State Security min- strating actions that took place that night (last
ister Owen “Mudha” Ncube and incumbent weekend) with party officials that were witness
chairman Daniel Mackenzie Ncube battle for to these events. Attached is our official letter
party leadership. barring from entry party cadres (involved in the
scuffle),” part of the letter addressed to Ncube
Both factions claim loyalty to Mnangagwa. read.
Zanu PF Gweru district secretary for admin-
stration Slemani Kwidini was allegedly “heavily Mackenzie Ncube, however, did not respond
assaulted” by central committee member Wel- to enquires sent to him over the matter.
lington Magura at a restaurant in the Midlands
capital on Saturday. A letter sent to Kwidini reads: “This has left
Kwidini is rallying behind Mudha Ncube us with no option but to inform you as an indi-
while Magura is in the faction backing Mack- vidual and your accomplices Mr Dominic and
enzie Ncube. Mr Jassi. We do not condone such behaviour
The matter has since been reported at Gwe- totally and your friends as such are not welcome
ru Central Police station under CR number on these premises for a period of three months.
88/10/2021 although none of the people in- We feel the actions of this group have self-in-
volved are yet to appear in court. terests totally against the HE (Mnangagwa)
Midlands provincial police spokesperson mantra of Vision 2030, which we support,” the
Inspector Emmanuel Mahoko would neither Milan management officials wrote.
deny nor confirm receiving such a report, say-
ing police usually issue Press releases on fresh According to party officials, Mackenzie Ncu-
cases. be has the backing of minister in the President’s
“Usually we issue Press releases when it is office Joram Gumbo while Mudha Ncube’s al-
sought on fresh cases. For old stories we encour- lies include prominent figures like Local Gov-
ernment minister July Moyo.

“These fights are largely sparked by factional
struggles,” a party insider said.

NHAU MANGIRAZI Karoi suspends town secretary named in
corruption, building lodge on illegal site
THE Karoi Town Council has suspended sec- ed by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commis-
retary Wellington Mutikani, a day after the task ing held on 29 October 2020 under resolution Karoi Town Council sion (Zacc) which recommended that she return
of fact-finding team investigating how his lodge number SFC/417/20 council resolved that you officers are abusing public positions for personal to work. She has been on suspension since 2019,
was built on top of a Zimbabwe National Water be appointed in a fact-finding committee to look benefits and this has been going on unchecked at but challenged the sanction in the High Court
Authority (Zinwa) main pipe was tabled at a full into circumstances surrounding the construction the expense of the public good. There is a need which ruled in her favour in June 2021.
council meeting, showing that he also allegedly of property over water mainline at Stand number to have watertight charges to whoever is suspect-
used council funds to build the illegal structure. 7899 Lakeview, where there was a pipe burst.’’ ed of abuse of power and public trust. There are A four-member Zacc team led by Clara Nya-
several cases that have been swept under the car- kotyo made a “recommendation” for Mujuruki
Council chairperson Abel Matsika told The The letter, written by Mutikani then, hinted pet and these must be brought out professionally to resume work after a week-long compliance
NewsHawks council suspended Mutikani to pave the committee would take into consideration the without victimisation,’’ KDA said in a statement. and review meeting with council and residents’
way for further investigations. background of the matter, a perusal of water dis- associations.
tribution in the entire town, ascertaining possible It added that the suspension of Mutikani must
‘‘Yes, it is true that council suspended the town remedial action to the pipe under the property as prove that there is justice in how public funds are Zacc and council have not signed a memoran-
secretary as he did not declare his interest where well ascertaining other properties irregularly built used and accounted for. dum of understanding for implementation as the
public funds were used to buy materials for his on water pipes, and on land meant for Zesa elec- review meetings help in plugging corruption.
lodge. There was no council resolution for the tricity mains and Tel-One cabling. ‘‘We have raised concern on how devolution
release of the funds for water diversion. We are funds were abused through purchasing of sub- The Karoi housing department has been in
waiting for our attorneys to make the charges. For The document added: ‘‘Review of any efforts standard goods and as accounting officer he nev- the spotlight since 2018, when Auditor-General
now, he has been suspended with full benefits,’’ that have been made towards mitigating their ir- er proved that he could stop ongoing scandals at Mildred Chiri exposed the “shambolic housing
Matsika said. regular allocations over water mains and electrical council procurement department that he pre- department”, which lacks proper documentation
power transmission lines. Finally, the committee sides. The investigation must not leave any stone for council property, leaving the local authority
A Karoi councillor said: ‘‘Councillors were must make recommendations.’’ unturned,’’ KDA added. vulnerable to corruption.
shocked after Mutikani pledged to pay back
(RTGS50 000 monthly) the monies used for Tizora chaired the committee which had offi- Mutikani, a former council finance director, The “re-appointment” of Mujuruki who was
his lodge diversion without a council resolution. cials from council’s engineering and audit depart- was appointed substantive secretary in 2017, up- facing allegations of abuse of office has deepened
Furthermore, the probe was never made public ments, as well as Zinwa, among others. staging eight shortlisted candidates out of 59 ap- the confusion at Karoi council at a time the local
to policymakers. plicants. The council has been in the spotlight due authority insists she should be charged.
The report was not made public. to serious financial leakages in the procurement
He was challenged to prove who had approved Karoi Development Agenda (KDA), a coa- department, and is fighting a legal battle with Zacc spokesperson John Makamure justified
the use of public funds for personal property and lition of civil society organisations fighting for Solutions Motors, after paying for a 20-tonne re- his organisation’s move.
was at pains to say how he did it. Councillors feel transparency, social justice and accountability, fuse truck in 2017 that was never delivered.
that officials are undermining policymakers with welcomed the impending investigations at the ‘‘I sought clarification and am sure you are ful-
impunity.’’ council that they say was long overdue. Mutikani’s suspension came a few days after ly aware that Mujuruki is not under investigation
‘‘We have noted with concern where senior housing director Sibongile Mujuruki bounced and was cleared by the courts to return to work.
Contacted for comment, Mutikani confirmed back under controversial circumstances facilitat- Were you expecting Zacc to go against a court
his suspension, but would not discuss the matter. judgment? We respect the rule of law,’’ charged
Makamure.
Council administrator Hastings Makunda,
who was acting housing director, has been ap- ‘‘When it was agreed that she (Mujuruki) be
pointed acting town secretary. allowed to go back to work by courts, the council
wrote that letter to send her on leave, claiming
The Zinwa pipe burst underneath Champion that there is a pending case at the courts. This
Lodge last October, depriving the farming town is the same case that Zimbabwe Republic Po-
of water services for three days, while exposing lice advised them that the same case had been
potential corruption in the allocation of stands. investigated and they could not open the same
case again. She then approached the courts and
Areas and institutions which went without wa- the council lost it again and was advised not to
ter between 23 October and 26 October, include continue placing her on forced leave. I think I
the central business district, low-density suburbs have managed to clarify. I will not take kindly any
of Westview, Jubilee, Crescent Lane, Lakeview, attempts to twist what I have said. Zacc carries
Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services and out above-board systems and compliance reviews
Karoi Hospital. in order to strengthen corporate governance and
plug any loopholes for corruption,’’ Makamure
Mutikani and his wife Kerenia Kanyurira are said.
co-directors of Champion Lodge, which was
built-in 2010. The investigation was instituted
following a full council resolution.

The appointment letter sent to Hurungwe
district development coordinator Andrew Tizora
and dated 2 November 2020 reads: ‘‘Please be ad-
vised that in line with a Special Full council meet-

Page 14 News NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

LIZWE SEBATHA Struggling economy, equipment
breakdowns stifle service delivery
SERVICE delivery in Bulawayo is suffering from
a combination of breakdown of plant and ma- Bulawayo City Council fails to attend to sewer bursts on time due to a lack of vehicles and manpower shortages.
chinery, manpower shortages and a general col-
lapse of the economy, various council departmen- back to service broken down compactors, so as to fact that the plant was being shared between pre- pected to be increased by more than 150% as the
tal reports indicate. improve waste management in the central busi- sale servicing and the general road maintenance local authority seeks to hedge against inflation.
ness district. Landfill operations had not been needs.”
The reports show that pumping capacity at wa- satisfactorily carried out due to lack of machinery According to the proposed figures residents
ter treatment plants, refuse collection and waste which was awaiting mechanical repairs.” A number of heavy duty vehicles such as grad- will pay 155% more for rates and rentals, 170%
management, emergency road works, servicing ers, tipper trucks, excavators and bulldozers re- more for water, 300% more for refuse collection,
of housing stands, among other pressing service Council is also failing to attend to sewer bursts quire engine overhauls or replacement altogether, 160% more for fixed sewerage charges, 170%
delivery issues, are severely affected by vehicle and on time due to a lack of vehicles and manpow- council reports show. more for the pipeline charge, 450% more on li-
machinery breakdowns. er shortages, exposing residents to diarrhoea and cences, 250% more for rents, 450% more for fees
other water-borne diseases. Bulawayo deputy mayor Mlandu Ncube ad- and 109% more for income interest.
Most of the council vehicles and machinery are mitted council faced challenges with ageing plant
aged, with the local authority citing a tight cash Road rehabilitation works and the servicing of and machinery resulting in frequent breakdown Ratepayers will also pay 40% more in grants,
squeeze for failure to replace them. housing stands are not spared the same challenges, and disruption in service provision. 650% more for sales and 687% more in sundry
official reports from the environmental, engineer- income.
City fathers also blame ratepayers for its cash- ing and town lands planning department read. “We are trying to provide services but it is not
flow problems by not settling their bills on time. easy. This is why we are left with no option but to Research conducted in 2017 and titled: Chal-
At present, the council is owed several hundreds “The re-gravelling exercise was still on hold due try and increase rates so that we buy new equip- lenges of Local Authorities Service Delivery: A Case
of millions of dollars in outstanding bill pay- to a breakdown of the grader which was still at ment. Ncube said in a telephone interview on Study of Bulawayo City Council (BCC), argues that
ments. Government departments also owe the the workshops undergoing repairs. Works would Wednesday. service delivery in the country’s second-largest city
council millions of dollars in unpaid bills. resume as soon as the required plant was available. has over the years been affected by the economic
The unavailability of plant was also affected by the Last week, the BCC unveiled a proposed bud- downturn.
According to a report of the council water ser- get of over ZW$24 billion for 2022, with rates ex-
vices department, pumping capacity at Ncema
and Criterion water treatment plants is down by
as much as 40 mega-litres owing to malfunction-
ing filters.

“At present, Ncema waterworks had a capacity
to pump a maximum of 40 Mℓ to 45 Mℓ/day
out of the expected 80 Mℓ/day clear water due
to 60% of the filters not working and to be ad-
dressed through the tender for the rehabilitation
of these. 8 filters out of 20 were operational and
this translated to an operational capacity of 35%,”
the report reads.

“Raw water pumping figures were currently in-
fluenced by the holding capacity of the Criterion
raw.”

At Criterion, 15 out of 16 filters were opera-
tional.

“In summary, the findings from the Tuli in-
vestigations were as follows: Of the 10 district
metered areas (DMAs) in Tuli Reservoir Zone,
six of the zones have non-functional inlet meters.
There were 1 112 properties with meters which
were non-functional.

“Furthermore 80% (6 663) of the water meters
in the zone were more than 15 years old. Accord-
ing to meter degradation of accuracy due to age,
these meters were under-reading by an average of
15%.”

The BCC also faces solid waste management
problems with landfill operations not being sat-
isfactorily carried out due to a lack of machinery,
a report from the health, housing and education
department reads.

“The department (refuse collection) worked
with the Procurement Management Unit to bring

. . . Byo City Council to pipe pre-paid gas to homes

LIZWE SEBATHA Zimbabwe is recording a spike in gas consumption due to intermittent electricity supplies. ZW$320 in local currency at garages in Bula-
wayo. In September, Zera set the LP price for a
BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) will now in- viced, the piping for gas provision also became consumers would have prepaid meters installed kg at US$1.92 up from US$1.185 in August or
stall pre-paid gas meters in new residential areas part of servicing . . . This meant that households at their premises and would be able to access the ZW$164.94 in local currency.
under a piped gas reticulation system, as the lo- would no longer need to have individual gas amount of gas they would have purchased.”
cal authority seeks alternative revenue streams as tanks as the gas would be channelled through the “It was in this light that it was proposed that
demand for liquefied petroleum (LP) gas surges distribution lines from the depot. The individual A kg of LP gas retails for anything between the city of Bulawayo embraced the provision of
in the wake of rolling electricity outages. US$1.90 to US$2.20 or anything above piped gas reticulation within new residential ar-
eas. This would be made economically viable by
Statistics from the Zimbabwe Energy Regu- the fact that the communities were embracing
latory Authority (Zera) show that the country the use of gas, which had seen a dramatic in-
is recording a spike in the consumption of gas, crease in its use.”
owing to intermittent electricity supplies.
According to Zera, which controls the price
In the first quarter of 2021, Zimbabweans of gas under section 54 of the Petroleum Act
used 13 million kilogrammes of LP gas, up from as refined by Statutory Instrument 90 of 2021,
11million kg consumed during the same period LP gas is gaining momentum as an alternative
in 2020, the Zera said. source of energy, as the Zimbabwe Electricity
Supply Authority (Zesa) struggles to meet de-
A report of the BCC land planning depart- mand.
ment reveals that the local authority has been re-
ceiving numerous unsolicited bids from various Zesa tightened the rationing in recent weeks,
firms regarding the provision of pre-paid LP gas resulting in some parts of the country going
at residential homes, proposals that have since without electricity for several hours. The country
been given a nod by city fathers. produces an average of 1 200 megawatts (MW)
against a peak demand of 2 200MW and relies
“With this in mind therefore it was proposed on imports to supplement its production.
that the BCC embrace the provision of piped gas
reticulation which would comprise of a distri- LP gas is widely used by consumers of various
bution depot, a mainline from the distribution backgrounds from industrial, domestic, com-
centre, piping from the mainline to the house- mercial and farmers.
holds and prepaid meters for each consumer
as opposed to the current situation where each “The sector is still regarded as young in terms
individual household had its own gas tank at of uptake, thus presenting opportunities for in-
household level,” the report reads. vestors who may set up various infrastructure as
importers, wholesalers, retailers or manufactur-
“In this instance it would entail that in new ers and revalidation of cylinders,” the Zera says
residential areas, as the stands were being ser- on its website.

NewsHawks News Page 15

Issue 52, 15 October 2021 BANK OF ZI

RESERVE MBABWE

PRESS STATEMENT

OUTCOME OF THE MEETING BETWEEN THE RESERVE BANK OF ZIMBABWE AND CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE ON MEASURES TO ADDRESS
THE VOLATILITY OF THE PARALLEL MARKET EXCHANGE RATES.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (the Bank), together with the Ministries of Finance and Economic Development and Industry and Commerce, met with leaders
of the Zimbabwe business community on 11 October 2021 to deliberate and find solutions to the volatility of the parallel market exchange rates which adversely
affects economic growth by creating business uncertainty as well as increasing domestic prices.

The parties unanimously agreed that whilst macroeconomic fundamentals were sound to support exchange rate stability, immediate measures were necessary
to contain the movement of the parallel exchange rates. It was noted that the recent volatility in the parallel exchange rates was due to behavioural factors.
In order to address these negative behavioural traits, it was agreed that a holistic and collaborative approach was required. In that regard, Government, the
Bank and the business community made firm pledges and commitments as follows:

Government

Government affirmed its commitment to continue supporting the foreign exchange auction as a dependable and transparent source of foreign currency in the
country.

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe

The Bank undertook to:
i. continue tightening money supply under its conservative monetary targeting framework to ensure that money supply would not be a source of exchange
rate destabilisation;
ii. accelerate implementation of special attractive money market instruments including exchange rate linked instruments as an alternative investment
avenue for local currency to the holding of USD;
iii. review bank policy rates to curb speculative borrowing;
iv. refine and streamline the foreign exchange auction system to ensure that it continues to play its price discovery role in the foreign exchange market;
and
v. deal with the funding backlog of foreign exchange allotments and take appropriate measures to ensure that the backlog does not recur.

Bankers Association of Zimbabwe (BAZ)

BAZ committed to: -

i. ensuring that all bids submitted to the foreign exchange auction are authentic;
ii. ensuring continued due diligence on all their customers and applications for foreign exchange;
iii. refraining from facilitating parallel market transactions through matching;
iv. improving efficiency in facilitation of Letters of Credit;
v. enhancing reporting of suspicious transactions;
vi. promptly implementing regulatory directives on freezing of bank accounts for participants in illicit foreign currency transactions;
vii. promoting confidence in the banking sector by clearing the foreign currency backlog promptly; and
viii. improving oversight on bank overdrafts to ensure that broad money is kept under check.

Retailers Associations

The Retailers Associations requested Government to level the playing field in their respective operating environments by attending to: -
i. the menace of foreign currency traders milling outside and around shops and trading areas;
ii. identifying and bringing to book funders of foreign currency traders; and
iii. dealing with informal traders operating without licences and sometimes outside legal or policy parameters.

The retailers noted the need to adhere to expected commitments to implementing provisions of Statutory Instrument 127 of 2021 with emphasis on three focus
areas as follows:

i. Abuse of auction rules and funds from auction allotments;
ii. Exchange rate manipulation or currency attacks; and
iii. Non-compliance with the Bank Use Promotion Act.

The Bank also advised the retailers to take note of the following: -
i. Discounts could be extended to customers in the normal course of business as long as they are reasonable and in line with best practice; and
ii. Entities using the official exchange in their pricing system may apply a tolerance premium of up to 10% in line with the operations of bureaux de
change.

Manufacturing Sector

The manufacturing sector undertook to ensure responsible pricing and to comply with the three focal areas under the SI 127 of 2021 highlighted above.

On their part, Government and the Bank pledged to continue supporting the manufacturing sector by levelling the playing field to ensure that exporters obtain
a fair value of their export earnings.

CONCLUSION
All the parties underscored the need to maintain the macroeconomic stability momentum experienced in the last 12 months.

The Bank, on its part, undertook to continuously monitor monetary and foreign exchange developments to ensure that the exchange rate remained stable.

John P. Mangudya
Governor
11 October 2021

Page 16 News NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

THE Centre for Innovation and Technology Asakhe Film Festival to
(CITE) will hold its Annual Healing and Rec- debate on Gukurahundi
onciliation Film Festival, Asakhe Film Festi-
val, from 25 -30 October 2021. The Theme
for this year is The Power of Memory. The
Matabeleland and Midlands regions suffered
a genocide between 1982 and 1985, leaving
an estimated 20 000 people dead and many
others with physical and physiological inju-
ries. More than three decades later, the legacy
of the conflict continues to impact their daily
life. Asakhe Film Festival intends to highlight
the importance of transitional justice using
film and academic lectures by experts in the
area of history and genocidal studies. The
aim is to contribute to national healing and
reconciliation efforts in Zimbabwe. The New-
sHawks’ Jonathan Mbiriyamveka (JM) speaks
to Asakhe Film Festival director Zenzele Nde-
bele (ZN) on the scope of the fete and some of
the highlights. Read the excerpts:

JM: You are holding your second edition massacred the villagers. And there were occa- people, but now we’re going on Facebook, we’re Asakhe Film Festival director
of Asakhe Film Festival. What do you hope to sions when villagers felt safer under the dissents going on YouTube. Zenzele Ndebele
achieve? than the 5th Brigade.
Instead of reaching 100 people only, we might ny whereby they are commemorating the death
ZN: This is the second edition of what we So, she is going to give the context; who were end up with 50 000 people per night and some of or remembering the life of their parents. I was
call Asakhe Film Festival, which mainly focuses the dissidents and what happened. We are going of them are serious decision makers in interna- talking about the documentary that we are going
on transitional justice and reconciliation with to have someone who was a former dissident, tional bodies. For me it’s an interesting challenge to launch about the 11 Ndebele men from Silo-
a specific theme on Gukurahundi mainly be- Hillary Ndhlovu and he will present his sto- that we have Covid-19 and we have weaponised bela, their families don’t know what happened
cause Zimbabwe as a society has gone through ry. How did he end up being a dissident, what Covid-19 that is stopping people from gather- to these men and they want answers. They want
many stages of violence. Depending on where drove him to do that? He also published a book, ing. We’re not going live, but online. closure, but how do they have closure when they
you come from, for some people the liberation I think it’s called Loyal. So he is going to tell his don’t have their bones? When I talked to some
struggle was violent, for other people pre-colo- story and the whole issue of dissidents was taken JM: What can be done to bring closure to the of the family members, they said “argh . . . may-
nial raids were most violent, other people think out of context. Gukurahundi issue? be they are somewhere alive, maybe the govern-
that the 2008 elections were the most violent ment put them in jail and forget about them in
and where I come from, people think the Guku- We are also going to have a conference on ZN: First of all, if you want closure, people a basement may they go and open for them”.
rahundi was the most violent crime against hu- Gukurahundi and the culture of violence of are supposed to be allowed to talk about what
manity that ever happened. Mainly it was geno- Zimbabwe. Academics from different universi- happened. The government is supposed to take How do you say your relative died when you
cide and mainly because it was done by a black ties here and in South Africa are going to present responsibility and say guys, we are sorry, we were never buried them because even people who
government only two years after Independence papers and one of the interesting topics/papers young, we were a young nation, the command- went to war and were killed in the war they have
and this has always been an issue that has not that are going to be presented is by Dr PJ Ncube er of 5th Brigade Perrance Shiri was around 25 a relative or a friend who says “oh I operated
been resolved and the government has denied from Nust (National University of Science and years old back then and Mnangagwa was round with so and so, I know the day he was killed”.
for a long time that these things happened. So Technology) and he is going to present a paper 30.
the aim of the festival is to highlight some of called Excited About the Role of The Chronicle in If you look at the parade around the 1990s,
these issues but also try and find solutions, that Gukurahundi Genocide. How The Chronicle ul- So they were young people, but even when there was a register of the dead, where Zipra
how do we heal a wounded a nation? ulated and cheered and celebrated the govern- they are older now they seem not to regret what would publish the list of people who died during
ment of the day while it massacred the people of they did when they were young, meaning it was the war and where they died. The aim of do-
How do we bring together people who are so Matabeleland and then a workshop with jour- intentional. Anyway, we know it was intentional ing that was to make sure that everybody gets
angry, people who are divided because of these nalists on transitional justice and closed shows. because in December 1982 the Zanu PF cen- closure, but in this case how do you get closure
issues? And you will agree with me that the Committees will watch documentaries and we tral committee met and they had a resolution to when you don’t know what happened to your
tribal divide in Zimbabwe is so serious you can are going to have a number of activities, small or massacre people from Matabeleland. It was the relative? And how do you get closure when you
feel it on social media, you can feel it whether big, around Matabeleland on the issue of tran- central committee that decided to have the 5th have not been allowed to properly bury your rel-
it is a soccer match or political party and even sitional justice. Brigade and the thing is, the government needs ative?
in church. We have had these issues, mainly be- to take responsibility. They need to acknowl-
cause of unresolved issues like Gukurahundi. So JM: You are holding the festival amid a edge what happened. They need to allow peo- Before we talk about closure, we should talk
the festival will be running for a week from 25th Covid-19 pandemic. How are you going to ad- ple to talk about what happened, truth telling. about what happened and why it happened.
October to 30th. here to the protocols? We cannot move on when you have not talked There was a crime against humanity you know,
about what happened. You know it’s surprising an international crime against humanity. When
JM: What are some of the highlights of the ZM: I think 90% of these activities are online. that 40 years later, there are some people who I say humanity, I am saying it was a crime against
festival? While government has weaponised Covid-19, have not openly discussed about the death of you and I. It is not the issue of the people of
saying you cannot meet, they also allowed us to their parents. Matabeleland. It was a crime against anyone on
ZN: We have five days of activities, so the first take our activities to a global stage. You know this earth.
day, which is the 25th, we are going to launch when you are a film festival and you’re launch- There are some people who have not been
a documentary called A Night In 1985, which ing for 100, your launch will be attend by 100 able to mourn the death their parents because There has to be a process of justice that should
talks about 11 people who disappeared in Si- they are not allowed or they can’t have a ceremo- take place one day. And there should be com-
lobela. One of the least talked about tactics of pensation for people who lost their livelihoods,
Gukurahundi was abductions, where they were we have people who move around with bullets
abducting people and those people disappear-
ing. And in Matabeleland and the Midlands we
have hundreds, if not thousands, of families who
really do not know what happened to their rel-
atives.

So this is a documentary that looks at the is-
sue of abductions and talking to the families that
after so many years they still don’t know what
happened to their relatives and they still can’t
find answers from the government of the day.
Then we are also going to have public lectures.
We’re going to have a public lecture from Profes-
sor Timothy Scarnecchia, based in Kent Univer-
sity. He has done a lot of research on Zimbabwe
and Gukurahundi. He published a paper called
Rationalising Gukurahundi; Looking at Gukura-
hundi and the Cold War. What was the context
regionally and internationally when Gukura-
hundi happened? He recently published a book
on racial relations and diplomacy and he has a
chapter, I think it’s chapter 8 or 9 that focuses
on Gukurahundi.

There is Professor Jocelyn Alexander from
Oxford University. She is going to present a pa-
per on the dissident perspective. Each time I talk
about Gukurahundi, you hear someone saying
“argh, but there was Gwesela, you know they
were dissidents”.

These were excuses used by government to
deploy the 5th Brigade that they were trying to
fight dissidents. But the 5th Brigade killed more
people, I think maybe 10 times more than the
dissidents, so they went there under the pretext
of protecting villagers against the dissidents and

NewsHawks News Page 17

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

in their bodies, we have people who were dis- takes 10 years, 15 years or 20 years or another
abled and the people who didn’t go to school be- 100 years, the people of the region are going to
cause their parents were killed and there was no demand that acknowledgement until it comes.
one to help them pay fees. We can’t just say no Those are some of the basic things that the peo-
it happened, forget about it after all these com- ple want. We cannot talk about justice now
rades who claimed to have liberated compensat- because the perpetrators are in power, they can
ed themselves. Some of them claimed 98% dis- never take themselves to court.
ability but are in government today leading us,
so we are led by people who are 98% disabled. JM: What do you want to achieve with the
Their kids are going to school and getting schol- festival?
arships, but what about the victims of Gukura-
hundi? Who will compensate them? ZN: Five years ago very few people knew
about Gukurahundi. So first and foremost peo-
JM: There is a government-led process going ple need to know what happened. And they
on. Is it the right path towards reconciliation? need to realise that the circle of violence that is
happening now that it didn’t not start now. That
ZN: The idea of a National Peace and Recon- the violence is part of the culture of Zanu PF.
ciliation Commission was a good one, but the And just remember that 2023 there might be
idea failed to fly. The NPRC was never really serious violence, it has already started. You’re are
capacitated to go anywhere. When we started, dealing with people who think that if you don’t
we were told that Gukurahundi was a priority, agree with them you should be beaten up until
we are going to go to communities, hold pub- you agree with them.
lic meeting, go to truth commissions and hear
what happened and all those kinds of things, People need to understand why Zimbabwe-
but they never did. Then enter comrade Obert an politics is so violent, that is one thing, but
Gutu saying Gukurahundi is a tiny bit of their the other thing is that Gukurahundi was a crime
work and we are talking about someone who against humanity. And for you to say it should
was a prosecutor during Gukurahundi and his never happen again, something must be done,
arrogance just killed the NPRC. These days I the government should acknowledge its mistake.
wonder whether they are there, it just doesn’t I was listening to people saying that the govern-
matter. They seem not to be doing anything so ment won’t agree, I mean Zanu PF won’t agree
the NPRC as a concept I think it has failed un- that it was responsible for the violence and they
less something is done. Then enter Charumbira mobilised people in Masvingo.
with the chiefs’ initiative, they are saying now
the chiefs are going to be the ones who are in I said to myself this government killed
charge of healing. It is also a good idea on paper, 20 000 people and they denied that they ever
but some of the chiefs are also victims and some did. They deployed the whole army for sev-
of the chiefs also need healing. And are chiefs en years massacring people in Matabeleland
going to be capacitated to do the work they are almost everyday. People dying in Matabele-
doing? land in their hundreds, but they deny up to
now. They would tell you “argh less than a
You know we’re are dealing with basic things 1 000 people died”. If a government, if a party,
in Matabeleland where you have a whole fam- that committed a genocide cannot admit that
ily, three generations of people who don’t have they committed the genocide, do you think they
IDs because the father didn’t have an ID and his would agree that they threw stones at Nelson
father died and those that followed didn’t have Chamisa’s car or they broke a windscreen when
IDs because of Gukurahundi and the govern- they have a record of killing people? It is also to
ment just needs to go there and register these try and create that awareness to say these people
people. Are the chiefs going to be able to give the are like that, they didn’t start in1980, they even
people birth certificates? We’re also seeing now did it during the war. Look at Mgagao, look
that when the chiefs’ initiative started, there was at what happened in Mozambique, look at the
a bit of hope, the excitement and now we are Nhari rebellion. They have always used violence
not hearing anything about the chiefs’ initiative. as their best tool to discipline. We need to un-
Now my question is: Is government really sin- derstand the kind of animal we are dealing with
cere about this thing? And the whole problem and of course we need the kids to know that vi-
then becomes I don’t remember anywhere in olence doesn’t work and at one point we should
the world where the issue of transitional justice say never again should such a thing happen to
reconciliation was resolved when the perpetrator any Zimbabwean.
was still in power.
JM: What should filmgoers expect at the fes-
It was the government of Zanu PF that was tival?
in charge of the Gukurahundi genocide and
the same comrades are still in power. The com- ZN: Those who are interested in history will
manders who were in the 5th Brigade are the get a lot of information. This is the one area
commanders today. One of the 5th Brigade where people want to talk about in silence.
commanders is the guy who is the permanent People didn’t understand, some are afraid to
secretary for Home Affairs (Aaron) Nhepera, if talk about or debate openly because you can be
I’m not mistaken. And there are many of them accused of this and that if you question things
who were in the 5th Brigade who are senior about Gukuruhundi. We are trying to broaden
government officials today. Do you think they the knowledge. I have always said that Gukura-
care when you talk about Gukurahundi? Do you hundi was not an issue about Shona versus Nde-
think they want the issue resolved? When we’re bele. It was an issue of Zanu PF-led government
taking about people being raped, we’re talking massacring the people of Matabeleland and that
about beasts, chiefs and chefs who are in high of- should be known and understood. It’s not like
fices today, who were in the 5th Brigade, and are Rwanda, where two tribes were fighting each
the ones who raped people we’re talking about. other. It was a state-sanctioned genocide and the
Are they willing to talk about it? You then ask perpetrators are known, some of them are walk-
yourself whether there is any sincerity when we ing free promising heaven and earth, but they
talk about the issue of Gukurahundi. have to apologise first. Those who understand
our history need to follow this film festival.
JM: What do the victims want?
ZN: All the people I’ve talked about I’ve nev-
er heard anyone talking about revenge. People
want documents for those who don’t have IDs,
they want IDs. People want to be compensated
for their loss because the effects of Gukurahundi
can be felt up to now in Matabeleland. Gukura-
hundi caused poverty, Gukurahundi caused mi-
gration. A lot of people moved to South Africa.
The reason why people of Matabeleland are
being insulted as not educated today is because
of 5th Brigade. While the rest of Zimbabwe was
developing and people were happy after Inde-
pendence, there was serious chaos in Matabele-
land. Schools were not being built, actually they
were being destroyed. Teachers were being killed
in Matabeleland for seven years and nothing was
happening. There is need for deliberate compen-
sation for the loss and, of course, people want
acknowledgment. They want the government of
the day to acknowledge that it deliberately mas-
sacred the people of Matabeleland and should
acknowledge that no matter what, whether it

Page 18 News NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Special Covid-19
PANDEMIC coverage

NYASHA CHINGONO Depression a yoke for young
Zimbabweans: Unicef report
WHILE Zimbabwe is fighting the Covid-19
pandemic, 27% of young people between ficulties have resulted in an increase in mental the Covid-19 pandemic. ment’s failure to prioritise mental health sup-
the ages of 15-24 have reported depression, a health problems. With mental health issues escalating, Zimba- port.
Unicef report says.
Experts are concerned that mental illnesses bwe has an acute shortage of psychiatrist with The country also has a few public mental
Zimbabwe is among 21 countries which re- are not getting the attention they deserve, as only 17 psychiatrists to cater for a population health institutions, which do not even provide
ported heightened concerns over mental health communities struggle to cope with the effects of of 15 million people, highlighting the govern- support for conditions like stress.
during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Of the 21 countries, Cameroon recorded
32% cases, where young people either report-
ed feeling depressed or having little interest in
doing things.

Redundant and stuck at home, most young
people were prone to depression, the report,
titled The State of The World’s Children 2021,
notes.

“At a time of great concern over the mental
health of young people during the Covid-19
pandemic, the findings provide an interesting
insight into young people’s own feelings,” part
of the report reads.

Unicef says the numbers represent the per-
ceptions of young people themselves, not diag-
nosis of depression by health officials.

Zimbabwean youths were not spared by the
pandemic as schools and recreational facilities
were shut down month on end.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has raised concerns
about the mental health of a generation of chil-
dren. But the pandemic may represent the tip of
a mental health iceberg — an iceberg we have
ignored for far too long. The State of the World’s
Children 2021 examines child, adolescent and
caregiver mental health. It focuses on risks and
protective factors at critical moments in the
life course and delves into the social determi-
nants that shape mental health and well-being,”
Unicef says.

Unicef has called for a comprehensive ap-
proach to promote good mental health for every
child and protect vulnerable children.

While the country is fighting the pandemic,
children have been the most affected as they feel
the ripple effects of loss of income and econom-
ic depression.

Unicef acknowledges that while mental
health issues were heightened by the pandemic,
lack of data gathering was extremely limited.

“A lack of data gathering and routine moni-
toring means the picture of young people’s men-
tal health status and needs in most countries is
extremely limited,” the UN agency said.

Health experts say the Covid-19 pandem-
ic has aggravated mental health issues and
stress-related illnesses, amid fears that the im-
pact of lockdowns will go beyond mere eco-
nomic disruption.

While the pandemic stretched the country’s
health facilities due to the failure to invest in
the sector, mental health issues have been rel-
egated to the periphery as attention turned to
the pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic and attendant dif-

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NewsHawks News Page 19

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

PEOPLE in Kwekwe have heaved a sigh of re- Relief for Kwekwe as deadly
lief following the containment of the deadly pandemic variant contained
Covid-19 Delta variant which was discovered in
May, resulting in the district being placed under Kwekwe was the first to register the deadly Delta variant in the country.
localised lockdown.
ernment of Zimbabwe using devolution funds. will not only cater for Covid-19 patients, but all Kwekwe to be vaccinated.
Following months of apprehension, people in I would like to commend the able leadership of other infectious diseases that the Kwekwe com- “Areas like Kwekwe, which are not only an
Kwekwe can now breath easy, although officials the Midlands provincial taskforce that saw it fit munity would suffer from,” Chiwenga said be-
insist that the Covid-19 storm is far from over for the Kwekwe community to benefit from the fore adding, “We all have a collective responsi- industrial hub, but also a mining hub, should
and are cautioning against complacency. construction of this infectious diseases hospital, bility to improve the quality of life of our people thrive to get its people vaccinated, so as to attain
the first in Kwekwe city. through infrastructure facilities.” herd immunity, as it goes on to the development,
Statistics from the ministry of Health indicate not only for the area, but the nation at large,” he
that there are currently no active Covid-19 cases “Let me hasten to underscore that the facility Meanwhile, Chiwenga encouraged people in said. — STAFF WRITER.
in Kwekwe district.

Kwekwe was the first to register the deadly
Delta variant in the country, which subsequently
led to the death of businessman Robson Kadenhe
in May this year.

“The Kwekwe Covid-19 situation has since
been contained and the situation is now under
control,” Midlands provincial medical director
Mary Muchekeza said in an interview.

“Midlands currently has a total of 234 active
cases. In Kwekwe there are currently no active
cases.”

However, according to official statistics, Kwe-
kwe district has the second-highest Covid-19 fa-
talities in the Midlands, registering 114 deaths.
The provincial capital, Gweru, has recorded 157
Covid-19 deaths.

“Shurugwi has the biggest number of active
cases in the province, as it has 59 cases, while
Zvishavane has 14, Gokwe North 17, Gweru
27,” statistics from the ministry of Health show.

While the Midlands has recorded a cumulative
total of 10 642 Covid-19 cases, 9 979 have recov-
ered while 429 people have died.

Kwekwe, which was facing a shortage of
Covid-19 isolation health facilities, last week re-
ceived a boost following the commissioning of
the Infectious Diseases Hospital by Vice-Presi-
dent Constantino Chiwenga, who is also Health
minister.

“This is critical infrastructure in the fight
against the Covid-19 pandemic. I am pleased
with this development, which is worth emulat-
ing and replicating in all provinces as we strive
to contain the spread of the pandemic and other
infectious diseases,” Chiwenga said.

“By so doing, I have no doubt that such med-
ical infrastructural developments will contribute
significantly to the attainment of an empowered
upper middle-income society by 2030.”

In 2019, Kwekwe City Council resolved to
convert Garandichauya Beerhall, established in
the 1970s in Mbizo high-density suburb, into an
infectious diseases hospital. The construction of
the hospital was funded by devolution and coun-
cil funds.

Consequently, ZW$16.9 million was spent on
the project.

“This project was wholly funded by the gov-

Covid-19 no longer a threat in Hurungwe: Health official

NHAU MANGIRAZI ward and fewer deaths recorded,” Chidaushe Chidaushe, however, said there was no room ‘‘It was a cause of concern on the high rise
said. for complacency, adding that health officials are cases of flu among the young ones. We are car-
HURUNGWE and Kariba districts, which on high alert for a possible fourth wave. rying out spot checks, but they came out as
were placed under a localised lockdown in June, “These are the facts we have at hand and it’s a Covid-19 negative from the tours we have done
continue making strides in the fight against the positive development for us as a district. It was ‘‘We are on high alert for a possible fourth so far around the district,’’ Chidaushe said.
Covid-19 pandemic, with infections slowing. a bit easier for us to deal with local infections wave, which may attack the district, as all
and it paid off. Localised lockdown helped, as stakeholders are striving for a better district on Kariba district medical officer doctor Gift
Mashonaland West’s second-largest district, we managed to keep the cases low. We have no health matters,’’ he added. Muza was not reachable this week, as he is on
Hurungwe, was in June placed under two-week cases at our isolation, where we are getting zero outreach rural programme.
localised lockdown, together with Kariba, fol- for several days. Covid-19 is no longer a threat However, he revealed that of late, a new chal-
lowing a surge in infections, turning the areas in the district.’’ lenge has emerged by way of flu-like infections However, official daily statistics released on
into “hotspots”. affecting mainly children at primary schools. Wednesday revealed that the resort town no
longer has Covid-19 cases.
At least 26 nurses at Karoi District Hospital
contracted the disease in February, while 29 of- Mashonaland West provincial health promo-
ficials, including tion officer George Kambondo said the entire
province had registered success.
Zimbabwe Republic Police and Zimbabwe
Revenue Authority officers, tested positive ‘‘As it stands, Mashonaland West province
at Chirundu Border Post Clinic in June. The is now safe as we have had few isolated cases
health centre is part of the 32 outlying clinics in Sanyati and Makonde of late, but generally
in the district. the province is safe and with very low infections
around our seven districts,’’ he said in a tele-
Hurungwe district medical officer Mun- phone interview.
yaradzi Chidaushe told The NewsHawks
great strides have been made in the fight on On Tuesday, Zimbabwe registered 141 new
Covid-19, although there is need for vigilance. local cases with two deaths.

‘‘I can safely say that Covid-19 is no longer Out of these, Manicaland had 54 cases, the
a threat in Hurungwe district. We no longer Midlands and Masvingo seven each, Masho-
have any positive cases around the district. As naland West had six cases, while Matabeleland
we speak, the Covid-19 cases and deaths have North had five cases,
declined in the district. There has been a decline
in admissions in the isolation ward. There has There were 87 hospitalised cases in Masho-
been a decline in the admissions in the isolation naland West, with 63 being mild to moderate.
A total of 214 recoveries were recorded under
the day in review.

Page 20 News NewsHawks

Author Imraan Coovadia Issue 52, 15 October 2021
talks about his latest book,
The Poisoners — On South
Africa’s Toxic Past, during an
interview in Cape Town. —
Photograph by Gallo Images/

Jaco Marais

PERCY ZVOMUYA Poison and warfare programme he headed until Basson’s arrest in
with a different cast of characters. trollably out of every hole in their bodies”. Pretoria in January 1997, in a sting operation.
On Monday 10 August 2015, my father sud- It’s roughly the same point American histori- The numbers of those who died in the toxi- He was arrested after handing his business part-
denly died. When I got to my village in rural ner a bag containing 1 040 Ecstasy pills.
Mhondoro — 80 kilometres south of Harare, an Luise White makes in her latest book on Rho- cological warfare were significant and in some
where he had died and would be buried — it desia, Fighting and Writing: The Rhodesian Army months, more guerrillas died from poisoning Within three years of Basson joining the
was to rumours that he had drunk poisoned at War and Postwar, when she writes, “Some of than firefights. In 1977, for instance, poisons South African Defence Force as a 28-year-old
tea prepared by his clanswoman. If true, my fa- the prominent murderers of the South African reportedly killed 800 guerrillas. But it wasn’t medical officer in 1979, he had risen to the rank
ther had suffered the same fate as his maternal state served in Rhodesia and credited their time just guerrillas who were dying, sometimes it was of lieutenant and was a specialist adviser at De-
grandfather, who died after drinking beer laced there with how they learned to fight.” In the civilian women and children. That same year, fence headquarters.
with poison — probably crocodile bile, the poi- region, Rhodesia is the beating heart of white doctors in Salisbury (now Harare) and Bula-
son of choice in domestic settings in Zimbabwe. supremacy’s rogue fightback to hold on to its wayo observed a steep rise in poisonings, with By 1988, he was a brigadier tasked with
privileges. parathion identified as the toxin. medical military research. Because South Africa
It’s rather strange that this happened to my didn’t want to be seen as a rogue state like Rho-
father. When we started drinking together in Poisons as warfare Coovadia doesn’t go into how this was hap- desia, it signed treaties such as the Geneva Pro-
the late 1990s, one of the abiding lessons he In Rhodesian Poison, Coovadia traces the use pening, but White helpfully explains. Accord- tocol and the 1972 Biological Weapons Con-
imparted to me was to always be wary when of poisons as warfare to the years 1973 and ing to a secret inquiry, “the shopkeepers and vention. As such, South African political elites
enjoying a drink with others, and never leave 1976, when Rhodesian scientists, technicians agents on whom Special Branch relied to make preferred not to know exactly what their foot
my drink unattended. If I had to go to the bath- and the military began collaborating to devel- sure the poisoned garments went to guerrillas soldiers were up to. Their hands-off approach al-
room, it was advisable to first finish the drink op secret weapons to use against Zimbabwean and guerrillas alone not only grossly exaggerated lowed Basson to register civilian companies over
and get a fresh one on my return. freedom fighters. guerrillas’ demand for certain items but often which the military high command, let alone
As in the Shona adage about a healer’s alter- had no relationships with guerrillas and simply the political class, had no oversight. He became
It was the comparable fates of my father and nate identity being that of a killer, at the centre took advantage to sell clothes they had not pur- extremely wealthy, as he falsified receipts and
his grandfather that preoccupied me as I read of the Rhodesian programme was Robert Sym- chased”. conducted other accounting chicanery with the
the essay Rhodesian Poison, the first of five in ington, the Edinburgh-born medical doctor, funds he received from the treasury.
The Poisoner: On South Africa’s Toxic Past, 1973- professor of anatomy and head of the Univer- In addition to his work in the production of
2020. sity of Rhodesia’s medical school. Symington parathion and thallium, Symington might also Drugs training
— who reported to PK van der Byl, Rhodesia’s have been involved in the industrial production It would be a gross simplification to say that
The Poisoner is a new work of non-fiction by Cape Town-born minister of defence — was of cholera and possibly anthrax, a bacterial dis- all Project Coast accomplished was Europe-
writer and scholar Imraan Coovadia. He is the able, with a team of about two dozen people, to ease that attacks livestock and is transmissible to an villas, Swiss bank accounts and other perks
director of the writing programme at the Uni- turn agricultural chemicals and insecticides into humans. To this day, outbreaks of cholera and for Basson. His moniker of Dr Death was hard
versity of Cape Town and the author of several weapons such as thallium, parathion, ricin and anthrax in Zimbabwe are common, a situation earned.
novels, including Tales of the Metric System and other poisons. He supplied these to Rhodesia’s exacerbated by former president Robert Mug- Captured guerrillas, no longer of use after
High Low In-Between, the essay collection Trans- army units, especially the Selous Scouts, a coun- abe’s mismanagement of public health institu- having given up information, were sometimes
formations and the monograph Revolution and terinsurgency unit of the Rhodesian security tions, water purification systems and veterinary dropped into the Atlantic Ocean from a heli-
Non-Violence in Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Mandela. forces. The relatively low cost of the programme services. copter.
is why biological and chemical weapons are In one account, military pilot Johan Theron
Anchor essay Rhodesian Poison is followed by sometimes called the poor man’s atomic bomb. South African connection had to strangle a prisoner when a tranquiliser
The Principals, about Wouter Basson and his Liquid parathion was dried, ground into Rhodesia’s other gift to its southern neigh- dart failed to sedate him while another pilot
Project Coast biological and chemical weapons powder and brushed on to shirts, jeans and bour was the export of its expertise and, at the kept the helicopter on course. In another, Ther-
programme. The third essay, Lothar’s Potion, is sometimes snacks such as mopani worms. These end of the Rhodesian era, the emigration of on had to strangle six men to death after poisons
about chemist and senior cop Lothar Neeth- items were then given to obliging shopkeepers some of its top scientists to South Africa. Un- failed to work properly, leaving him “totally
ling, his expertise in poisons and his role in the and other people in contact with guerrillas, who surprisingly, Symington got a job at the Univer- traumatised”.
deaths of South African freedom activists. The would hand them over to the unsuspecting vic- sity of Cape Town in 1981. This is where Basson’s expertise in poisons
essay Africa’s Solution recounts the HIV and tims. As soon as the substances were absorbed If Rhodesia was the biological parent for was required. He flew to then South West Africa
Aids debacle, and the tragedy of the many who into the bloodstream, excruciating deaths took Project Coast, the United States was its caring (Namibia), where he demonstrated the appro-
died, as then president Thabo Mbeki queried place a few days after loss of hair, blindness, sup- foster parent. In 1984, then president Ronald priate use of the drugs. After Basson’s tutorial on
the accepted science. Final essay Radio Potato purating sores and other conditions. Reagan’s administration shipped eight consign- Tubarine and Scoline — two drugs commonly
is concerned with the post-1994 afterlife of the Thallium — a heavy metal toxin with no ments of Ebola, Marburg virus disease and Rift used in surgery that cause suffocation at higher
toxic culture of wariness and mistrust that first colour, taste or smell and therefore preferred Valley fever to Pretoria, biological agents that than recommended doses — Theron was able
grew in the ANC’s guerrilla camps in Angola by poisoners — was injected into tins, bottles, gave the regime, in Coovadia’s words, “a dev- to kill and dispose of the bodies of hundreds of
and Zambia. corned meat, bottles, even toothpaste tubes and astating option, short of nuclear war, against turned guerrillas. “Things went more smoothly .
pills. The initial symptoms were fever, headaches neighbouring states that harboured its enemies”. . . They passed away more peacefully.”
I call Rhodesian Poison the anchor essay not and shakes, before they were “bleeding uncon- Basson was one of Symington’s students at During the transition to democracy, Basson’s
only because in terms of theme and chronolo- the University of Rhodesia. Most South Afri- unit was tasked with making Ecstasy. In theo-
gy it holds the book together, but also because cans didn’t know anything about the secretive ry, it could be used for crowd control in aerosol
Rhodesia is some kind of ancestor to its bigger, form. Neethling, deputy police commissioner
more powerful southern neighbour. Without and a Basson collaborator, told the Truth and
the input of Rhodesian scientists, South Africa’s Reconciliation Commission that “if I could give
biological and chemical weapons programme Ecstasy to every person, he will not make war,
— indeed its whole counterinsurgency war —
would probably have taken another trajectory

NewsHawks News Page 21

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

but love. Then I can, in a matter of 10 minutes, When Zuma was asked who poisoned him,
change his whole spiritual condition.” he pointed at “they”. Once he mused, “I nearly
died because they did poison me. They managed
Neethling’s view did not pan out as the tran- to find someone close to me and I know it. I
sition was particularly bloody, especially in Kwa- was dead.”
Zulu-Natal and Gauteng. And it was this Ecsta-
sy that Dr Death was arrested trying to hawk. “I Another time he said, implausibly, “I was
just can’t believe that he would stoop so low as poisoned and almost died just because South
to sell drugs,” said a former colleague of Basson’s. Africa joined Brics [Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa].” The someone close to him
No small role is his estranged wife, Nompumelelo Ntuli. And
In the popular imagination, Basson has come yet prosecutor Elaine Zungu, in dismissing the
to be the avatar of the state’s biological and case against Ntuli after more than four years,
chemical weapons programme. Yet, some could said: “There is no evidence that Mr Zuma was
argue that Neethling’s role was no small one. poisoned.”
“Lothar’s Poison” tries to situate Neethling in
the architecture of the apartheid regime’s death It wasn’t only Zuma who was allegedly poi-
squads. soned. During his second term as president,
Born Lothar Paul Tietz in Germany, Neeth- Coovadia writes, stories of poisoning “became
ling moved to South Africa after being adopted established in the folk culture of the ruling par-
as a war orphan. ty”. Deputy president David Mabuza is also said
He studied for his chemistry doctorate at the to have been poisoned.
University of California in the US and on his
return was tasked with establishing the national “In almost every case, the politicians who told
forensics laboratory. stories of poisoning, or believed that they had
Five men died in 1981: Lawyer Griffiths Mx- been poisoned, belonged to the faction headed
enge and activists Siphiwo Mthimkhulu, Peter by Zuma and [Ace] Magashule. Their accusa-
Dlamini, Selby Mavuso and Sizwe Kondile. tions seemed to be covert (and at times) overt
These killings and the subsequent deaths of Grif- attacks on the [Cyril] Ramaphosa faction.”
fiths’ wife Victoria Mxenge, also a lawyer, and
attorney Bheki Mlangeni were all connected in Circa 1976: PK van der Byl was a Cape Town-born Rhodesian politician who served as the country’s The poison of choice
one way or another with Neethling. Apartheid minister of defence in Ian Smith’s Cabinet. — Photograph by Paul Harris/ Getty Images In conclusion, Coovadia says that by the met-
enforcer and murderer Captain Dirk Coetzee rics of modern war, the numbers of those killed
would later say of Neethling: “Just as I was the Folk culture in 1969. using poisons made by Symington, Neethling
murderous link, so Neethling was the poisoning The death tolls in the last essay, “Radio Pota- The ANC was vulnerable to penetration by and Basson are moderate, but the paranoia the
link in the whole chain.” to”, are not as heavy as those from the so-called phenomenon sowed in Zimbabwe and South
Before a Vlakplaas police hit squad stabbed African solutions that Mbeki championed. The agents of apartheid and “as is often the case, fear Africa is seen in the conspiratorial culture of Za-
Griffiths to death, they first silenced the Mx- signals beamed from Radio Potato have their of infiltration by the enemy foreclosed the pos- nu-PF and the ANC. I have heard that at the
enge’s dogs by killing them with poison obtained roots in the ANC guerrilla camps in Zambia sibility of internal debate and difference”. The height of the battle to succeed Mugabe, no one
from a unit under Neethling’s control. and Angola. unfortunate consequence was an internal culture dared eat at funerals, rallies or other public gath-
Lothar’s poisons were also used on detainees; “Wage a relentless war against disruptors and in which dissent was considered subversive and erings for fear of being poisoned.
Mthimkhulu was apparently poisoned while in defend the ANC . . . Beware of the wedge driv- in which dissidents were sometimes executed or In Zimbabwe in the 1980s and 1990s, road
police custody. In April 1982, he sued the police er, the man who creeps from ear to ear . . . Be- poisoned. accidents involving opposition political activ-
minister for his poisoning. But he and a friend ware of the wedge driver, comrades, watch his ists were thought of as hits ordered by Mugabe.
were drugged, shot, burned and their remains poisonous tongue,” then ANC president Oliver Although the seeds of the culture are in the But according to an academic paper by Bless-
thrown in the Fish River before the case went Tambo said at the party’s Morogoro Conference guerrilla camps, its reverberations are felt in the ing-Miles Tendi, a Zimbabwean scholar based at
any further. present. Take, for instance, the strange case of the University of Oxford in England, in the late
Thankfully, Lothar’s poisons and Basson’s po- the alleged poisoning of Jacob Zuma. Mugabe era there seemed to have been a move
tions were never used to control the Black pop- away from asphalt, gore and twisted metal and
ulation, which far outnumbering whites was a towards poisoning political opponents. What
scary prospect for the coloniser. “Whilst we have came to be preferred were slow-acting poisons
about 1 400 000 human beings in this colony,” imported from Kazakhstan, “which work on you
Cape Colony prime minister Cecil John Rhodes over two or three years so that it looks like it’s
once darkly mused, “one million of them are some other disease”.
Black and only 400 000 white. It is a very pleas- Mugabe’s successor Emmerson Mnangagwa,
ing amusement to keep on adding to the num- who allegedly ate a poisoned ice cream in 2017,
bers of human beings, but it is a question for you is said to eat only takeaways in public – food he
to consider whether we should increase them orders spontaneously so as not to give his ene-
with those of a Black skin.” mies time to plot.
Masterful connections Tragically, forgotten in the conspiracies of
The genius of Coovadia’s book is that it makes these liberation movements are the ordinary
connections we ordinarily wouldn’t make. people who have died.
Willie Hartzenberg, the judge who eventual- The tens of thousands of Ndebele that Mug-
ly acquitted Basson of the drug-dealing charges, abe killed in the genocide in Matebeleland and
was the same judge involved in the decision to the hundreds of thousands who died needlessly
force the Medicines Control Council to allow of HIV and Aids as Mbeki played at being a sci-
researchers to test the ability of nevirapine to entist. — newframe.com
prevent transmission of HIV through breast
milk. (Coovadia’s father Hoosen, a paediatrician February 1981: The last picture taken of Griffiths and Victoria Mxenge. — Photograph by Gallo Images/ Sunday Times Archive
and breastfeeding specialist, was involved in the
case).
The Medicines Control Council appointed
by the Mbeki administration was stalling, re-
fusing to accept the emerging consensus from
mainstream scientists and a decision by its ap-
peal committee to allow the trials to take place.
It was Hartzenberg, on the right side of history
this time, who ruled against further appeals and
so the nevirapine study was approved on 30 July
2007, after four years of litigation.
The state’s reluctance to give antiretrovirals to
mothers with HIV — a quarter of the pregnant
women turning up at public health facilities
— extended to others with the virus. “A virus
cannot cause a syndrome,” Mbeki declared. But
he didn’t show the same scepticism about po-
tions from the fringes of the medical field that
claimed to cure HIV and Aids.
When Nelson Mandela called for public hos-
pitals to make antiretrovirals available, he was
dismissed out of hand and the toll was a heavy
one.
“In 2004 alone, half a million in South Africa
contracted the disease and 300 000 died, more
than 40% of the total mortality in the country.
Life expectancy in South Africa fell more than in
any other place on Earth that was not engaged in
large-scale combat operations.”

Page 22 Editorial & Opinion NewsHawks

CARTOON Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Chamisa gives
Mnangagwa
sleepless nights

THREE days before the 31 July 2018 general election, Harare Public infrastructure projects:
erupted into a riot of colour as the top contenders brought their Why costing is highly critical
campaigns to a roaring crescendo.
GOVERNMENT should investigate structures can be built to serve the econo- and quality of the infrastructure built.
The capital city was hosting two star rallies on the same day. claims that the Mbudzi roundabout traf- my, people and communities. To show how serious this issue may be,
The mood was electric, the atmosphere charged and the respec- fic interchange project in Harare will cost
tive supporters were decked out in their loud colours. US$85 million when the biggest similar Infrastructure — such as roads, bridges, more recently, the IMF indicated that in-
construction undertaking in Africa — the ports, schools, hospitals and utility struc- efficiency in the sector reaches 53%, and
At the National Sports Stadium, Zanu PF supporters trooped Mount Edgecombe flyover in Durban, tures — are critical, as they allow economic 34% of total expenditure on infrastructure
in, creating a green-and-yellow spectacle as party cadres dished South Africa — cost much less than that. agents and citizens to be productive and in low-income countries and emerging
out free regalia. work efficiently. market economies.
The Edgecombe interchange, which is
At Freedom Square, opposition MDC Alliance supporters cre- the largest is the southern hemisphere, cost As countries try to build new or revamp This tells us why those involved in this
ated a sea of red as they filled every square inch available, amid R1.14 billion (US$77 million), but it is a old infrastructure, global infrastructure out- sector easily make money and become rich.
defeaning roars of “Nero! Nero!” world-class infrastructural development. It put is expected to scale US$17.5 trillion per The sector is opaque and a hotbed for cor-
is futuristic and exudes value for money at annum by 2030, which happens to be Pres- ruption.
It was a remarkable Saturday. Each political party had to dig that cost. Not the Mbudzi project. ident Emmerson Mnangagwa’s economic
deep in its bag of tricks to summon the power of persuasion. plan timeline — Vision 2030. Unless governments, anti-corruption
Nothing beats political diversity. Transport minister Felix Mhona this activists and civil society, as well as media,
week said the Mbudzi construction would If would be such a good coincidence if fight to reverse this situation, trillions more
Think, for a moment, what would have happened on that day cost US$85 million and yet it could actu- will continue be lost annually to corrup-
if the MDC — exploiting the full strength of home advantage in ally be reviewed, already creating or leav- Hawk Eye tion, mismanagement and inefficiency.
its urban stronghold — had violently barricaded the roads and ing room for cost escalation or budget
denied Zanu PF supporters access to the stadium venue. There overruns, which is what this government Dumisani In Zimbabwe, almost all infrastructure
would have been mayhem and bloodshed. usually does when it wants to facilitate cor- Muleya projects are opaque, lack transparency and
ruption. accountability on how they are initiated,
Tolerance is the hallmark of civilised politics. Mnangagwa’s programme had substance. cost and monitored.
This week, Zanu PF displayed the antithesis of tolerance by Such projects are always characterised by But then there is a gap in national bud-
mobilising hoodlums and unleashing violence on main opposi- bribes and kickbacks initiated by officials There is need for oversight to ensure how
tion MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa’s convoy in Masvingo and contractors who know that costing is gets, particularly in low- and middle-in- public money is spent, building trust be-
province. It was ugly, criminal and utterly reprehensible . always a problem. come countries like Zimbabwe, to meet tween citizens and government. Identifying
Every serious watcher of the Zimbabwean polity knows that this. Even prior to the Covid-19 pandem- potential efficiency savings and promoting
the best way of comprehending political violence is to closely The devil lies in the cost. Costing is not ic, research from the Global Infrastructure reforms in the management of public fi-
scrutinise the kneejerk utterances of public officials in the after- entirely scientific, so it leaves room for Hub estimated that US$97.5 trillion in- nances and infrastructure procurement are
math of an incident. guesstimates and corruption. vestment would be needed to meet the Sus- critical.
Their responses are a dead giveaway. tainable Development Goals by 2030.
When the violence is attributed to the opposition, police and The cost of corruption, mismanagement This means that companies bidding for
other security agencies are quick to deploy overwhelming force and inefficiency in public infrastructure However, investments are likely to fall contracts can be confident that the process
against unarmed civilians. They do not hesitate to use teargas and projects is usually high and damaging to short of this amount by as much as US$18 is taking place in a fair, open and competi-
lethal force. vulnerable countries like Zimbabwe. trillion. tive environment.
But when the violence is clearly attributed to Zanu PF sup-
porters, the security agencies take sides — they conveniently see Studies have shown that corruption in In the process, research shows between Communities can access work and mar-
no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. public procurement comes at a huge price 10%-30% of investment in infrastructure kets through better roads, drink safe water,
Secretary for Information Nick Mangwana and Zanu PF’s act- to government, private sector and citizens. could be lost due to mismanagement, inef- be educated in well-built schools and receive
ing commissar Patrick Chinamasa tied themselves up in knots of It leads to large untold costs on the econo- ficiency and corruption. medical treatment in safe hospitals without
contradictory statements. my, jobs and lives. paying exorbitant costs for facilities.
Mangwana emerged as a veritable joker when he claimed, The International Monetary Fund (IMF)
against all evidence, that the violence in Masvingo was stage man- The infrastructure sector is no exception, corroborates this, specifying an average This is precisely the reason the Mbudzi
aged by the MDC Alliance. in fact, it is a haven for this rot — corrup- global efficiency gap of approximately 30% project must be investigated. In fact, there
Chinamasa told a Press conference that Chamisa was repulsed tion, alongside mismanagement and inef- between the money that is spent, the results is need to audit all infrastructure projects.
by the people of Masvingo after foisting himself upon the masses. ficiency have unprecedented ramifications
It was a ridiculous narrative. on the sector’s progress and economy. One would find that Zimbabwe has been
Chinamasa must be told that he cannot play fast and loose prejudiced billions through infrastructure
with facts in such a cavalier manner. Chamisa could have been In countries like Zimbabwe, huge invest- projects alone; money that is far more than
killed in those ambushes; this is a serious issue. Apart from high- ment is needed in the infrastructure sector, what the country is desperately looking for
lighting the limits of unsophisticated propaganda in this digital in fact, around the world, to ensure quality from international financial institutions
age, Chinamasa’s threadbare assertions also conclusively showed and other lenders.
that the violence was orchestrated by Zanu PF.
When it suits them, Zimbabwe’s political overlords dismiss
Chamisa as a political nonentity. The question they will not an-
swer is: If Chamisa is a political midget as you claim, why are you
panicking big time whenever he seeks to interface with citizens?
What exactly are you afraid of?
The violence unleashed by Zanu PF on the opposition in Mas-
vingo this week is a stark reminder that the former liberation
party is long past its shelf life and cannot win an election without
resorting to brutality, coercion, fear and intimidation.

Reaffirming the fundamental impor- The NewsHawks is published on different EDITORIAL STAFF: Marketing Officer: Voluntary Media
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NewsHawks New Perspectives Page 23

Issue 52, 15 October 2021 Microfinance institutions
radical reboot is needed
SINCE the Covid-19 pandemic be- THE capital base of Zimbabwe’s credit-only microfinance institutions reached a record high of $1.4 billion
gan, the microcredit sector was expect- as at June 2021 despite the country battling the Covid-19 global pandemic. Nevertheless, there is still need
ed to play a major role in combating for massive investment in the sector for it to play a meaningful role of financial inclusion and poverty re-
the enormous economic and social duction, the Zimbabwe Association of Microfinance Institutions (Zamfi) noted in its latest report.
damage inflicted by the crisis. The in-
dustry can do this by maintaining the rural financial institutions – a move over the subsequent decades, where od would involve a debt-for-equity accepting their share of the pain at
supply of microcredit to millions of he believed would achieve nothing – they have been a key element of secur- swap, in which shareholders and inves- such a critical period in world history
microenterprises and self-employment Roosevelt enacted a series of far-reach- ing sustainable poverty reduction and tors in formerly highly profitable mi- seems only right and fair.
ventures, thereby ensuring that they ing financial reforms. Beginning with equitable development, particularly in crocredit institutions are persuaded to
can return to full operation. Addition- the Farm Credit Act of 1933, these the wake of economic crises. This is a convert all or part of their equity into If microcredit institutions were to
ally, millions more individuals facing reforms completely transformed the record of success in poverty reduction an agreed amount of debt in a new- undergo this evolution, there is no
severe difficulties can also use micro- country’s rural financial system in just and local eco- shortage of valuable expertise and
credit simply to purchase urgently a few years, reshaping it into a large- nomic develop- resources that Zimbabwe could tap
needed consumer goods, naturally ly cooperatively-owned and managed ment that is far Econometrics into. For instance, knowledge of how
including crucial healthcare items and financial structure serving rural com- better than any- HawksView to build highly effective coopera-
services. Perhaps most importantly, munities across the U.S. This quickly thing achieved tive-based financial institutions can be
some leading microcredit may play a provided these struggling communi- by even the obtained from Germany’s Sparkassen
vital role in contributing to the des- ties with a source of low-cost, long- most effective and the German cooperative move-
perately required post-pandemic eco- term funding suitable to restart agri- microcredit in- ment’s apex organisation DGRV, Ita-
nomic recovery. cultural operations. stitutions.  ly’s LEGA cooperative federation, and
One of the Tinashe Kaduwo the United Kingdom’s Co-operative
Standing in the way of these plans, This crucial step played a key role in keys to the ul- College.
however, is the precipitous collapse securing recovery, and the poverty cri- timate success of these institutions is ly reconstructed community-owned
in economic activity in the informal sis precipitated by the Great Depres- that they exist to reinvest wealth back financial institution. This debt could For obvious reasons, the organi-
sector where these most microcredit sion was soon resolved. Moreover, the into the community, rather than to then be repaid to the now former sations that supported and, in many
providers serve. This has meant that largely farmer-owned financial struc- extract it from poor customers and owners and investors over a limited cases, hugely profited from the dra-
many clients of microcredit institu- tures created by the Roosevelt admin- send it upwards and outwards into the period. This would encourage them to matic rise of commercial microcredit
tions have been unable to make the istration went on to play a decisive role hands of wealthy, often foreign-based manage the transition expeditiously, would almost certainly balk at the rad-
repayments due on their existing mi- in financing the US agricultural sector business owners and investors, as is with a view to being repaid in full in ical changes proposed here. Instead,
croloans, which is inevitably putting in the longer term. clearly an unspoken strategic goal of due course. microcredit institutions in danger of
many of these institutions at risk. This many microcredit institutions today. In addition, many microcredit in- collapse due to the Covid-19 crisis
problem was initially addressed by var- A similar New Deal-style transfor- They also help to embed democracy stitutions have grown rapidly on the will prefer bailouts that come on a
ious repayment moratoria which were mation of local finance in Zimbabwe and participation deeper into the fab- back of loans from banks, investment “no strings attached” basis, just like
extended by some microfinance insti- is desperately needed. As a central ric of the local community, through bodies and self-declared “social im- Wall Street’s failing big banks in 2008
tutions. The hope was that clients in element, this would involve bailout democratic ownership and the mem- pact” investors, which provided funds demanded and were given – even
difficulty could survive the early stages funding going mainly, if not exclu- ber participation in major decisions for on-lending to customers. The bulk though these banks clearly created the
of the crisis, before recommencing re- sively, to those struggling microcredit this entails. of these loans should be written off, very crisis that would have otherwise
payment of their microloans once the institutions willing to convert into Even if imperfect, this is always a to allow the new institution to get the destroyed them. Wholesale reform of
immediate danger had passed. As the community-owned and controlled fi- good thing, but it is especially import- best possible start. The justification for this nature would be one of the very
likely length of the pandemic started nancial institutions that is conversion ant at a time in history when demo- this is that both equity investments best ways of dealing with the enor-
to become clear, however, some stake- into either a credit union, a financial cratic structures and traditions are and loans provided to microcredit mous challenges that lie ahead.
holders are proposing various bailout cooperative or a community develop- being increasingly challenged around industry have all too often generated
programmes to come into effect aim- ment bank. Why these particular fi- the world by populist politicians and spectacular returns for wealthy inves- *About the writer: Kaduwo is a
ing to directly assist struggling micro- nancial institutions? Because they have powerful corporations. tors, banks and a new generation of researcher and economist. He writes
credit institutions as well as help prop a successful anti-poverty track record To achieve this, one obvious meth- microfinance investment vehicles, so in his personal capacity. Contact
up the banks and investors that fund – not just in America as part of the [email protected]: Whatsapp
their lending activities. The hope at- New Deal, but also around the world +263773376128
tached to these bailouts is that the
bulk of the microcredit industry can
be rescued, and that it will continue
to supply the volume of microcredit
needed to facilitate a post-pandemic
recovery.

However, bailing out the exist-
ing microcredit industry is the very
worst way to assist the global poor at
this critical juncture in world history.
This is because it is now increasingly
accepted that the microcredit model
is a problematic intervention. Even
one-time microcredit advocates (now
including

Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo,
the 2019 winners of the Nobel Prize
in Economics) have grudgingly begun
to accept that the microcredit model
has essentially had zero impact on pov-
erty. And some heterodox economists
(myself among them) go even further,
arguing that the microcredit model
has actually seriously undermined the
effort to address poverty in the coun-
try to date. So it makes no sense to use
scarce government and international
development funds to prop up what is
clearly a failed anti-poverty interven-
tion. Such a move would constitute a
textbook example of “throwing good
money after bad.”

What is needed instead is an imme-
diate and intense effort to complete-
ly rebuild local financial systems all
across the country. The over-arching
aim must be to ensure that, in future,
local financial systems will much more
effectively and equitably promote the
real economic and social interests of
the poor, rather than the commercial
interests of a microcredit institution’s
owners and investors. The ideal road-
map as to how we might “build back
better” can be found in the New Deal,
launched in the United States in the
early 1930s by President Franklin
Roosevelt. One crucial driver of the
New Deal’s great overall success was its
effort to radically restructure America’s
rural financial sector. Instead of simply
bailing out a wave of collapsing private

Business

MATTERSNewsHawks

MARKETS CURRENCIES LAST CHANGE %CHANGE COMMODITIES LAST CHANGE %CHANGE
EUR/USD 1.168 +0.001 +0.05 -1.402
USD/JPY 109.75 +0.03 +0.03 *OIL 62.61 -0.89 +0.123
GBP/USD 1.362 -0.002 -0.154 -0.39
USD/CAD 1.29 +0.007 +0.55 *GOLD 1,785.3 +2.2 +0.44
AUD/USD 0.713 -0.001 -0.098 +1.14
*SILVER 23.14 -0.09

*PLATINUM 975.5 +4.3

*COPPER 4.087 +0.046

RONALD MUCHENJE RBZ cornered as troubled
Zimdollar weakens further
THE forex auction rate is now seen devaluing
at an accelerating rate in the coming months, The Zimbabwean dollar is losing ground to the United States dollar.
as the central bank is running out of options
to sustain the system in the midst of alarming determine the exchange rate and for the central forcing businesses to sell their US dollars for other options left to hand,” Imara said.
parallel market rates, high forex backlog against bank to abolish the surrender requirements on Zimbabwe dollars at the free market-deter- Meanwhile, the government is pushing hard
high demand for forex, The NewsHawks can re- export proceeds. The asset management compa- mined exchange rate. That should provide un-
port. ny added this would be a better time to do it derlying support for the Zimbabwe dollars and on its infrastructure programme with a focus on
as the country recently got a US$961 million give the government Zimbabwe dollars for its road rehabilitation and dam building being the
At this week’s official forex auction, the Zim- windfall in additional foreign exchange reserves domestic spending,” Imara added. major projects, where contractors are being paid
babwe dollar lost ground to the United States from the International Monetary Fund. in Zimdollars although they should be given
dollar, weakening from US$1:ZW$88.55 to As the RBZ is clearly worried about the rising priority at the auction to fund their US dollar
US$1:ZW$90.07. A freely determined exchange rate at a time parallel market rate and the backlog following its inputs.
of rising commodity prices would encourage announcement last month that it would “ring-
An asset management company, Imara Capi- higher exports and provide greater amounts of fence” US dollars owed from the forex auction If on the other hand, the required US dol-
tal, in its Zimbabwe investment notes titled The foreign exchange. to importers up to and, including 14 Septem- lar numbers are simply too great for plant and
Auction System: Devalue or Lose Relevance, said ber, Imara said there was no mention of how the equipment, Imara said these contractors, wheth-
the export sector will be in dire straits, having “Instead, and at the moment, exporters have backlog would be cleared or indeed how future er local or foreign, may have no choice, but to
suffered from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe little incentive to invest in new, let alone exist- allotments would now be met timeously. look elsewhere for foreign exchange and index
(RBZ)’s policy to “fix” the auction rate at around ing production, when surrender requirements their Zimbabwe dollar quotes to US dollar.
ZW$87 to the US dollar when companies are on export proceeds remain so high in order to “The IMF SDRs perhaps? Maybe Afrexim-
having to source their input requirements from ‘assist’ the funding of the auction system. That bank is assisting with more US dollar loans? The same could also be said of the forthcom-
suppliers who are pricing at the parallel rate or, policy clearly isn’t working! Maybe too, and as a The latter could be a double-edged sword as ing agricultural season when the RBZ will be
indeed, in US dollars. means to support the Zimbabwe dollar, govern- these loans, as we understand, are collateralised printing Zimdollars to provide to the suppli-
ment should revise its tax payment policy and against future exports proceeds. All in all, we ers of fertilizers and chemicals for the farmers.
With the parallel rate now around twice the insist that all taxes, and, especially for US dollar would expect the auction rate to devalue over These same suppliers will then be looking to
auction rate at a time their suppliers do not earners, are paid in Zimbabwe dollars, thereby time from current levels since the RBZ has few convert that Zimdollars so that they can import
want the Zimdollar that the RBZ has given the products.
the exporters (which is now half the real value),
Imara said low-margin export businesses may
well be the canary in the coalmine.

At this rate, companies will be an early ca-
sualty of the widening gap between the parallel
exchange rate and the auction rate, as lower re-
turns will eat into their margins, forcing them
into care-and-maintenance.

“As the supply of US dollars going into the
auction from our exporters falls short, then the
gap will need to be filled from elsewhere. More
loans from Afreximbank may be the solution
albeit an unsustainable one. We believe that
low-margin export businesses may well be the
canary in the coalmine; such companies will be
an early casualty of the widening gap between
the parallel exchange rate and the auction rate as
lower returns will eat into their margins, forcing
them to move to care-and-maintenance,” Imara
said.

“It would not surprise us if the RBZ reduces
surrender requirements on a sector basis so as
to ease the pressure on such businesses. In the
meantime, such exporters will be using every
tool in their book to avoid surrendering any of
their US dollar revenues. It’s hard not to see the
auction rate devaluing at an accelerating rate
over the coming months; there is little to prop it
up that we can see.”

Imara said the best option is to float the cur-
rency and allow the market, not the RBZ, to

Chengetedzayi Securities Depository records uptick

Chengetedzayi Depository Company (CDC) has were opened on the CSD compared to 667 ac- capitalisation for dematerialised shares, which The average dematerialisation penetration ra-
processed a cumulative 91 396 deposits since go- counts opened in August 2021, bringing the totalled ZW$ 552.206 billion in value as at 30 tio (demat ratio) across all counters remained at
ing live following the processing of 431 deposits cumulative number of accounts opened on the September 2021. 56.30% as at 30 September 2021. Clearing and
on the platform in September 2021, a market CSD as of 30 September 2021 to 36 127. settlement of trades dematerialisation enables the
update for the month shows. “During the month under review, a total of CDC to track shares when an investor approach-
Local investors accounted for 95% of all ac- 431 deposits were processed by CDC compared es it to claim their shares.
Chengetedzayi Securities Depository (CSD), counts opened on the CSD as at 30 September to 275 in the month of July 2021. This brought
which maintains the electronic register of shares 2021. the cumulative number of deposits since going Portfolios that fall under CSD are classified as
on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), was live to 91 396. The cumulative number of trades unclaimed shares on the platform and are regis-
formed in 2010 to establish and operate a central In the September 2021 update, CSD said the processed in 2021 currently stands at 84 669 as tered by Chengetedzai’s Investor Protection Fund
securities depository for the Zimbabwean securi- ZSE equities market capitalisation gained val- shown below: The CSD processed a total of 8 section that is responsible for the safekeeping of
ties industry. It went live in 2014. ue by 30.32% closing the month of September 491 trades valued at ZW$4.74 billion during the unclaimed shares through Transfer Secretaries. —
2021 at ZW$1.032 trillion with registered se- month under review,” the report read.
In the month of September, 594 new accounts curities accounting for 53.48% of total market STAFF WRITER.

NewsHawks Companies & Markets Page 25

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Slash taxes on exporters — CZI

BERNARD MPOFU

ZIMBABWE’S manufacturing sector representa- Most Zimbabwean companies are operating below optimal capacity due to limited access to long-term financing to re-tool.
tive body is lobbying the government to slash tax-
es levied on exporters, among other tax reforms, as “Industry needs a spending population to Transfer Tax) is not an income tax but is actually tion for increasing the tax base,” the CZI said.
industry continues to face stiff competition from thrive; hence the 2022 National Budget should a transaction tax. Since it is now applied to all “More incentives for ensuring that business
regional peers due to multiple layers of statutory prioritise increasing the spending power of the transactions, even on formal businesses that also
obligations, The NewsHawks has established. population. In addition to the general need to pay corporate tax, the 2022 budget should make opportunities emerge which informal sector and
review upwards civil servants’ salaries, widening the IMTT tax deductible just like other transac- SMEs can exploit but with formalisation being
Local firms are currently operating below op- the PAYE (Pay As You Earn) tax bands and in- tion taxes.” the condition can see the expansion of the tax
timal capacity due to limited access to long-term creasing the tax-free threshold will help create base. Zimbabwe tax statues are old and have
financing to re-tool, as well as tariff and non-tariff more disposable income for the workers. Priori- The CZI warned that more companies would evolved over the years into a very complex and
barriers stifling them from penetrating new mar- tising social safety nets will also help ensure that start defaulting or avoiding their tax obligations at times contradictory tax code. This makes tax
kets. the vulnerable population can at least afford some as long the Treasury continues to pronounce compliance difficult and complex for business. A
basic needs, which industry would help meet,” more belt-tightening measures. friendly and conducive tax regime will ensure that
Ahead of the National Budget presentation the CZI said. all entities operating outside the tax system and
which is traditionally presented before Parliament “Increasing taxes can actually reduce tax reve- the informal sector become part of the country’s
in November, the Confederation of Zimbabwe “The 2% IMTT (Intermediated Money nue due to reduction in compliance. The 2022 tax system.”
Industries (CZI) has drafted several tax-related National Budget should start laying the founda-
reforms to improve the ease of doing business,
especially for exporters. The southern African na-
tion mainly exports primary goods and has been
for years at the tail end of the World Bank Ease of
Doing Business rankings.

“The 2022 budget should begin to commit
resources to industrialisation, specifically by com-
ing up with a resource envelope which value chain
players can tap into to pursue industrialisation.
Mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that
the resources are accessible only for ring-fenced
uses, with limited possibilities of diversion,” reads
the draft submissions which are currently being
reviewed by players.

“Export receipts are now playing a central
role in the economy. Efforts should be more on
export promotion by minimising taxation of
exports. The current export tax regime needs to
be reviewed with a view to eliminating and re-
ducing export taxes. For example, exporters pay
up to 45% cumulatively in taxes. While the tax
incentives that have been introduced are wel-
come, the export surrender requirements need to
be reviewed downwards, especially in the face of
exchange rate distortions, which are threatening
the viability of exporting manufacturing firms.”

The CZI said the government should, among
other measures, widen taxable income to 35% to
stimulate domestic savings and consumption.

Experts say the country’s income tax threshold
has triggered skills flight over the past few years.

THE soon-to-relaunch Time Bank of Zimbabwe Time Bank unveils products ahead of relaunch
Limited is seeking regulatory approval, as it seeks
to bring to the market four types of loan facilities, Time Bank announced a comeback for December this year. people would be entitled to compensation, this
which will include compensation of white former could assist other deserving cases.
commercial farmers who lost farms during the the US$3.5 billion, with Treasury indicating in Time Bank’s other three facilities are meant to
country’s land reform programme. June this year that only ZW$53 million has so far finance small- and medium-scale exporters, pro- With regards the exporters’ facility, the loan
been paid to 737 PFOs. vide mortgages to those with access to foreign cur- amount has been capped at US$10 000, at an in-
Time Bank, which became one of the first rency, as well as enabling the government to pay terest rate to be negotiated.
black-owned commercial banks in Zimbabwe be- Time Bank’s facility, touted as a unique form of compensation to other groups of Zimbabweans
fore its closure after the turn of the millennium, public-private partnership, is therefore seen easing who deserve such. “Loan amount can be increased on subsequent
has already announced a comeback for December pressure on the government by providing a solu- export loans, depending on performance. The
this year. tion that would see the PFOs getting their dues, In terms of the latter, the bank has submitted a purpose of loan is to provide pre and post-export
about 20 years after they were pushed off their proposal to the Ministry of Finance and Econom- trade finance through loans, international debt
In a statement, the bank revealed that it is in the properties as part of the fast-track land redistribu- ic Development for approval. factoring facilities, letters of credit, bills of ex-
process of seeking the requisite approvals before tion programme. change, performance guarantees, and other trade
rolling out some of the facilities, while underlining While it did not highlight which categories of finance facilities,” Time Bank said.
that it will not be taking deposits from the public,
until further notice. At a time when the country is struggling to gen-
erate enough foreign currency receipts to meet its
The bank said out of the four facilities, the ma- import requirements, the facility could assist the
jor one is aimed at providing government with export sector. As for the mortgage loans, these will
a loan facility from which previous farm owners also be available in foreign currency on soft terms
(PFOs) could be paid their compensation. covering both locals who are resident in Zimba-
bwe or in the diasporans, as long as they have law-
“The purpose of the facility is to finance the ful access to foreign currency.
payment of compensations by government to
PFOs who are covered by the Global Compen- The loans, whose interest would be negotiat-
sation Deed. The compensation amount will be ed, will cover the full purchase price for housing
paid through Time Bank by government to the schemes or properties approved by Time Bank.
PFO and Time Bank will pay such compensa-
tion amount in United States dollars, cash or bank “The above-mentioned loan facilities are pilot
transfer,” the bank said in a statement. loan facilities. Thereafter, Time Bank intends to
arrange much bigger loan facilities for export-
“Interested PFOs will be required to submit ap- ers, mortgage loan borrowers and for payment
plication forms to Time Bank for payment. The of compensation to previous farm owners under
maximum payment amount is US$10 000 per the Global Compensation Deed with govern-
PFO, at any given time. Additional amounts will ment. The facilities will be available after the 1st
be given in due course. A letter of confirmation of December 2021 and also after approvals by
from government is required which confirms that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the ministry
the government will repay the loan amount to of Finance and Economic Development. In the
Time Bank.” meantime, Time Bank will seek such approvals.
Please, note that Time Bank — in terms of its
In July 2020, the government committed to business plan — will not be taking deposits from
paying US$3.5 billion in compensation to former the public, until further notice,” the bank said.
commercial farmers, numbering about 4 000,
through the Global Compensation Deed.

The government has, however, struggled to pay

Page 26 Companies & Markets NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

RE-OPENING - PILOT LOAN FACILITIES

Time Bank of Zimbabwe Ltd wishes to advise that it intends to re-open in phases beginning 1 December 2021.

Time Bank is also pleased to advise that it shall be putting in place the following “Pilot” Loan Facilities, with effect from 1 December 2021.

(1) Mortgage Loan Facilities

a) Mortgage loan Facilities will be available in foreign currency on soft terms.
b) The target market are non- Resident Zimbabweans or Zimbabweans wit lawful access to foreign currency.
c) The deposit for the purchase price, the loan amount for the balance of the purchase price, interest rate and the loan repayment

period are negotiable.
d) The mortgage loans are for housing schemes or properties approved by Time Bank.

(2) Exporters’ Loan Facilities

a) The initial target market is small and medium scale exporters including first time exporters.
b) Maximum Loan Facility amount is US$ 10 000
c) Interest rate is negotiable.
d) Loan amount can be increased on subsequent export loans depending on performance.
e) Purpose of loan is to provide pre and post export trade finance through loans, international debt factoring facilities, Letters of

Credit (LCs), bills of exchange, performance guarantees and other trade finance instruments.

(3) Loan Facility for Payment of Compensation to Previous Farm Owners (PFOs)

a) Time Bank intends to provide a loan facility to Government from which Previous Farm Owners can be paid by Government
their compensation amounts.

b) The purpose of the facility is to finance the payment of compensations by Government to Previous Farm Owners (PFOs) who
are covered by the Global Compensation Deed.

c) Time Bank will pay such compensation amounts in US$ cash or bank transfer to Previous Farm Owners and such payment will
be a loan to Government.

d) An initial maximum payment amount of US$ 10 000 per Previous Farm Owner will be paid as a part payment of the
compensation amount. Additional amounts will be given in due course.

e) Government will then repay the loan to Time Bank in terms of the Loan Facility agreement.
f) A letter of confirmation from Government is required which confirms that the Government will repay the loan amount to Time

Bank.
g) Interested Previous Farm Owners will be required to submit application forms to Time Bank for payment.

(4) Loan Facility for Payment of Compensation to Other Groups of Zimbabweans

a) The purpose of the facility is to finance the payment of compensations by Government to other groups of Zimbabweans who
deserve compensation as approved by Government.

b) Time Bank has also submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development for approval on the payment of
compensation to other groups of Zimbabweans who deserve compensation, and Time Bank awaits the necessary approvals.

(5) Pilot Schemes

a) The above-mentioned Loan Facilities are Pilot Loan Schemes. Thereafter Time Bank intends to arrange much bigger loan
facilities for exporters, mortgage loan borrowers and for payment of compensation to previous farm owners under the Global
Compensation Deed with Government.

b) Time Bank also intends to finance the payment of compensation to other deserving groups of Zimbabweans after approval by
the Government.

(6) Regulatory Approvals

The above-mentioned loan facilities will be available after 1 December 2021 and also after approvals by Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. In the meantime Time Bank will seek such approvals.

(7) Deposits

Time Bank in terms of its business plan will not be taking deposits from the Public until further notice.

Our contact details are as follows: Time Bank of Zimbabwe Ltd, Head Office: 12th Floor, Social Security Centre ,
58 Julius Nyerere Way/Sam Nujoma Street, Harare

Telephone: +263 (24)2 708755/6, Email address: [email protected]
www.timebank.co.zw

TIME BANK
STANDING THE TEST OF TIME

NewsHawks Companies & Markets Page 27

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Product of long-term and visionary planning . . . Dubai Airport.

DUMISANI NYONI Five-year plans insufficient
to steer lasting development
ZIMBABWE should plan for the long-term to
avoid being unprepared for eventualities such Stefan Ivanovski, founder of Lifestyle De- what they have learned. Assuming the new gen- nation.
as economic downturns, analysts have said, ar- mocracy, a knowledge platform that empowers eration works another 20 to 30 years, the entire For instance, China in March this year un-
guing that the five-year plans the government is individuals and communities through sharing cycle would take 40 to 60 years to complete for
currently implementing will not help the coun- and teaching how to apply actionable dem- one generation. Hence, countries should vision veiled a draft blueprint for economic and social
try maximise its economic potential. ocratic principles and practices, one day at a for at least the next 50 years.” development over the next five years and clari-
time, wrote on his blog that countries needed fied the long-range objectives through the year
President Emmerson Mnangagwa in No- to plan for the long term because their actions Stevenson Dhlamini, an applied economics 2035, setting policy priorities for a new devel-
vember last year launched a new five-year eco- impact the quality of life of future generations. lecturer at the National University of Science opment stage that is crucial for the country to
nomic blueprint, the National Development and Technology, concurred, adding there is a achieve socialist modernisation.
Strategy One (NDS 1), which focused on in- “Tomorrow, our children will live with the need for a country to have short-, medium- and
clusive economic development between 2021 consequences (or benefits) of our decision and long-term plans. Ivanovsk said the United Arab Emirates
and 2025. actions today. We need to think about the cur- (UAE) is another country that sets ambitious
rent and future well-being of all generations “Ideally, a country should plan long-term. goals. A small, oil-rich country in the Middle
NDS 1 succeeded the Transitional Stabili- who live and will live in the country. The vision It should have both short-term, medium-term East, today, the UAE is most known for the city
sation Programme (TSP) launched in 2018, should be broken down into strategic and ac- and long-term, but we cannot be ignorant of of Dubai, which is a global transportation and
which introduced austerity measures that re- tion plans that measure the immediate (up to a the fact that the office bearers are politicians economic hub.
sulted in the public being heavily taxed, with year), mid-term (up to five years) and long-term and policymakers are politicians, whose term of
the inception of the 2% electronic transaction progress (10 or more years),” he said. office largely stretches for five years, and barely It is home to extravagant projects such as
tax. have an incentive to come up with a plan that Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, the
“Long-term visioning is important because stretches beyond five years because there is no Dubai Mall, one of the world’s largest shopping
NDS 1 expects economic recovery rates of it helps countries avoid being unprepared for certainty of them continuing in office,” he said. centres, and Dubai Airport, the world’s busiest
7.4% next year, 5.5% in 2022, 5.2% in 2023 things that might happen in the future, such as airport (with most passengers). Despite these
and 2024, and 5% in 2025. natural disasters or economic downturns. The “That’s why you find that most of the pro- mega projects, the UAE has very humble begin-
citizens of any country will benefit from having grammes in government tend to be the five-year nings, he said.
However, critics say five-year plans without a stability and predictability that having a clear plan. It’s in tandem with the length of office,
long-term vision are not enough for economic vision and implementation plan can help.” bearing in mind that most of the policymakers During the founding of the UAE in 1971,
development. are constrained by time.” Ivanovsk said the country was known for fishing
Ivanovsk said many of the projects that a and pearling.
“A country’s plan is built on 20, 30, 50 or country undertakes to prepare itself for the Dhlamini said having a long-term plan en-
100 years, but you review it from time to time. future will require strategic infrastructure, in- sures “continuity and attracts longer-term in- “There were no extravagant buildings. The
But we have a document every year — TSP, vestments, and projects. He said the effects of vestors because longer-term investors, especially economy was small, and most people outside
NDS 1, 10-point plan. How can an economy investing in education, science, research, and in terms of infrastructure development, are at- the country had never heard of the UAE, or its
change with a document for a five-year (period) development usually take a generation (20 to tracted by sound and stable predictable mac- most famous city, Dubai. In just a few short de-
for a country? Companies are the ones that have 30 years). ro-economic environment, as well as political cades, the country transformed itself and due to
five-year plans,” Temba Mliswa, an independent environment.” its rapid and intense growth and development,
legislator, said. “For example, if a country introduces a new immigrants flocked. Today, the UAE has about
educational programme, it will take about 20 “If there is a clearcut plan that is articulat- 10 million people and nearly 90% expatriates,
“A country does not have a five-year plan. to 30 years before one generation can feel the ed for long-term growth, it tends to attract it is a country of immigrants,” he said.
The country needs a 100-year plan which full effects of that reform. In 20-30 years’ time, investors that are interested in long-term in-
you review. It’s pretty clear that the President today’s babies will enter the workforce and will vestments, as well as huge infrastructural devel- The transformation started with a vision in
(Mnangagwa) is hunting with the wrong dogs. have gone through the entire cycle of the new opment,” he said. 2010 which says: “The Vision [2021] aims to
He means well, but on the ground there is noth- educational system,” he said. make the United Arab Emirates among the best
ing. People are suffering. Government wants to China is one of the countries that have a countries in the world by the golden jubilee
monopolise everything, yet it has got no capac- “For a society to feel the effects of this edu- long-term vision being complemented by five- [50th anniversary] of the Union.”
ity. They want to monopolise Zupco, but where cational programme, we need to allow time for year plans.
is the capacity?” the new generation of workers to implement Several years later, the UAE has extended its
The five-year plans closely align with that vision to 2071, to mark the centennial (100th
He said there was a need for inclusivity. country’s long-term vision for national rejuve- anniversary) since the founding of the country.
“We need best brains as team Zimbabwe re-
gardless of their political parties. The President
has the prerogative to fire whoever and appoints
who he wants, but all we want is team Zimba-
bwe. You cannot monopolise the revival of the
economy via Zanu PF. It doesn’t work. You need
to bring in many players. Business must be con-
sulted on policies,” he said.

Page 28 Companies & Markets NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Fragmented private sector rattles AfCFTA

THE Africa Continental Free Trade Area (Af- and opportunities presented by the agreement
CFTA) is in a fix over the fragmented nature of and so on,” he said.
private sector business representation on the con-
tinent, prompting the trading bloc to schedule a He, however, maintained that AfCFTA is not
convention for next year to solve the matter. going to create a private sector umbrella body for
the continental bloc, sonce that is the prerogative
Initiated in 2012, AfCFTA is the brainchild of of the private sector.
the African Union, with the objective of estab-
lishing a single trading bloc which enjoys low- “It will be for the private sector to tell us
ered trade barriers across the continent. whether they think there is a need or not. So next
year we will convene all African private sector
It is set to bring together the continent’s 55 commissions and I have since mentioned some
nations, creating over one billion customers for of them. We recognise the importance of work-
Africa’s goods and services through a lucrative ing closely with the private sector in order to
US$3.4 trillion combined gross domestic prod- make sure that there is meaningful participation,
uct. Trading under the new agreement com- meaningful opportunities that the private sector
menced on 1 January 2021, and Zimbabwe has will take advantage of opportunities presented by
since ratified the agreement. the bloc,” Mene added.

But speaking to The NewsHawks on the side- Top economist Prosper Chitambara criticised
lines of a ZimTrade-organised conference recent- the trading bloc for taking off without the buy-in
ly, AfCFTA secretary-general Wamkele Mene of key stakeholders.
revealed that divisions among private sector rep-
resentatives had stalled in efforts to make them “You would realise that it’s not only the pri-
part and parcel of the continent’s success story. vate sector that has been sidelined but other key
stakeholders like the continent’s civil society or-
“The private sector is actually the most im- ganisations. It is therefore going to be very dif-
portant stakeholder. It is the private sector that ficult to implement this agreement. The much-
creates jobs. It is the private sector that exports talked-about integration cannot be necessitated
across the regions. At the moment, private sector by a gathering of heads of states alone. After all, it
in the African region is represented through the is trite to note that trade across the continent has
Pan-African Chamber of Commerce, the African never been set back by the ingredient of coming
Business Council and many others that I am not together, but lack of infrastructure,” he said.
aware of.
The economist said, currently the continent is
“So there is fragmentation of private sector in a deficit of US$100 billion and argued that
business representation and we don’t seek to tell even with lowered trade barriers, it will be, for
anybody, particularly the private sector, on how instance, difficult for a farmer in Mali to move
they should configure themselves in terms of produce to Johannesburg.
business representation.
“In comparison, blocs like the European
“What we are going to do in February next Union have been able to achieve the gains of in-
year is to convene all the representatives under tegration because the economies are at the same
the AfCFTA banner so that we establish a frame- level of infrastructure development. And also,
work for long-term dialogue. This will enable us without any economic incentive to achieve this,
to have a sustained platform for dialogue. We AfCFTA is set for trying times,” Chitambara
will use the platform to identify the constraints added. — STAFF WRITER.

DUMISANI NYONI Blanket Mine gold production surges

CALEDONIA Mining Corporation says gold Blanket Mine is beginning to reap rewards of substantially increased production capacity.
production at its unit in Zimbabwe increased by
14% to 48 872 ounces in the nine months to 30
September 2021, setting a new production record
following the commissioning of a central shaft.

Caledonia operates Blanket Mine near Gwan-
da in Matabeleland South province.

In the corresponding period last year, the min-
ing concern produced 42 887 ounces of gold.

Caledonia chief executive officer Steve Curtis
said in the quarter ended 30 September 2021, the
company also managed to set a new production
record, as Blanket begins to reap the rewards of
the substantially increased production capaci-
ty, following the commissioning of the shaft in
March 2021.

In the third quarter, production stood at 18
965 ounces of gold, up 25% to 15 155 ounces
produced in the corresponding quarter of 2020.

“The ramp-up in production towards our
quarterly target of 20 000 ounces has met our
best estimate and, consequently, we have been
able to narrow our annual production guidance
from 61 000 to 67 000 ounces to 65 000 to
67 000 ounces,” Curtis said.

“When we acquired Blanket from Kinross in
2006, our production in the third quarter of 2006
was 6 475 ounces — the company has come a
long way since then. Central Shaft provides the
infrastructure required to access the deeper re-
sources at Blanket for many years before any new
vertical shaft deepening needs to be considered.
The extra hoisting capacity provided by the shaft
is the foundation to the production build-up to
80 000 ounces from next year onwards,” he said.

Curtis said the completion of the central shaft
and the resultant increase in production also
means the company is able to execute other areas
of growth strategy such as the agreement to ac-
quire the Maligreen gold project in Gweru min-
ing district which was announced last month.

“This is an exciting time for the company and I
look forward to continuing to update sharehold-
ers of our progress,” he said.

Caledonia remains on track to achieving a pro-
duction target of 80 000 ounces in 2022.

NewsHawks Companies & Markets Page 29

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

For policymakers and business leaders seek- Zambian economist Moyo at
ing simple answers to complex problems, crossroads of global business
Dambisa Moyo (DM)is a valuable sound-
ing board. With a PhD in economics from . . . has ear for top leaders, but no simple answer to complex problems
Oxford, a master of public administration
from Harvard and experience serving on the Dambisa Moyo
boards of companies like Chevron, 3M and
Barclays, Moyo has the kind of broad expo-
sure and macro-economic knowledge that is
often lacking in the upper reaches of siloed
organisations. But Moyo recognises the com-
plexity of thorny issues like climate change,
inequality and the erosion of democracy, and
resists the temptation to offer pat solutions.
She is adamant that climate change is an ex-
istential crisis, but wary about rushing to
limit fossil fuel use given the energy needs of
the developing world. She is a champion of
diversity, but worries that focusing on racial
equity distracts from the threat of automa-
tion. She understands that unchecked cap-
italism can create inequality, but is careful
not to dismiss the importance of economic
growth. “I am at the crossroads of many dif-
ferent perspectives,” she said. “I’m on the
board of a large global energy company. I
serve on the board of the Oxford Universi-
ty endowment. I also was born and raised in
Africa, and there’s still 1.5 billion people on
the planet who have no access to cost-effec-
tive energy, including my parents, who still
live in Zambia.” Moyo currently serves on
the Chevron and 3M boards, and this year
published her fifth book, How Boards Work.
This interview with The New York Times’ Da-
vid Gelles (DG) was condensed and edited
for clarity:

DG: When you look at the pace of the global DM: At least three reasons. One, living global picture. It’s sort of every nation for itself, inequality? Yes, I absolutely do. If we had spent
economy’s transition away from fossil fuels, do standards. If governments cannot have enough and that results in a situation where you end that money investing in infrastructure, spent
you believe it’s happening fast enough? money in their coffers from taxation to fund up with public policymakers focusing on short- that money educating people instead of fighting
education, health care, infrastructure and na- term solutions, and a decoupling between long- wars, for example, I think we would have had a
DM: It’s urgent. Climate action is necessary. tional security, you end up with political un- term economic imperatives and policies that different outcome. But is capitalism inherently
What I worry about is that there are so many rest. So to my mind, first and foremost, how do will help win short-term elections. We are too bad? No. I think we probably need some more
different fragmented conversations going on. you improve people’s living standards? You’ve focused on the short term — not just policy- regulation. We probably needed more efficient
There’s no doubt in my mind that to actually got to have growth. makers, businesses, too. government. We didn’t have those things. But I
drive reductions and get to net-zero targets, and think it’s a bit too easy to say, “Oh, capitalism
at the same time create sustainable investment, The second point is around politics. There’s DG: When you think about long-term equals more inequality.” I don’t buy that.
we will need solar, wind, geothermal, battery, a lot of research in what we used to call the po- growth, how important is it for worker wages
nuclear, that whole list. But that is going to litical science area. One of my favorite papers is to rise? DG: What’s the one thing you think the
require policy. It’s going to require technology. on what’s the minimum per capita income in a pandemic has revealed about the economy that
It’s going to require changes in customer pref- country to make sure democracy survives. At DM: It’s easy for me to say, “On a state-by- we didn’t understand 20 months ago?
erences. low levels of per capita incomes, you’re always state basis we should pay a certain minimum
going to have factions. You’re going to have wage.” But that doesn’t address a more fun- DM: Our policymakers and business lead-
And I worry that when we start to go down government bad behavior at certain levels. You damental trend that we all recognise, which ers, and society in general, are less prepared
the policy angle with haste, it can actually en- need a minimum in order for there to be a mid- is automation and robotics. That is a bigger on issues of economics, issues of military, is-
courage misallocation of capital in particular, dle class to hold the government accountable. boogeyman than talking about whether or not sues of logistics than I thought then. Many of
and resources more generally. There is a risk of We see that even in a place like the US. The vot- we should increase the minimum wage. us thought that there was a blueprint, a plan
ignoring second-order knock-on effects. This er participation rates of people who are earning somewhere that could be easily executed based
idea of defunding the energy companies might US$30 000 and less are very low. And diversity is in the same camp. Everybody on the 1918 Spanish flu. That has, to me, prov-
be appealing in the here and now, but it doesn’t is sort of hot and bothered about diversity, es- en not to be the case. And I think what has
adequately reflect the fact that over a billion The third point is just innovation. Look at pecially retailers. They love to show that they’ve happened is that companies and governments
people have no access to energy. The implica- the problems we’re dealing with. It’s not a sur- got lots of diversity. The truth of the matter have basically been running around with less of
tions of that is disorderly migration, geopolit- prise that innovation around Covid and the is if you lift the lid, the diversity is skewed to a compass than I think we thought existed.
ical risk. vaccines came from developed economies. We unskilled workers at the bottom of the stack.
can’t expect poor economies to be thinking They’re exactly the workers that are going to be DG: When you look at the stock market, do
DG: Where is the haste inside the board- about that when they are talking about essen- affected when digitisation really bites. you think valuations are based on fundamentals
room of a company like Chevron? tially survivability in the here and now. It’s not or do you think we’re in a bubble?
going to happen. Innovation and technology We can’t have enormous inequality in society
DM: I do not know any energy company that in education and health care and life sciences and expect things to be stable. I grew up in Af- DM: I worry about a bubble. But let’s sup-
is not taking this seriously and understanding require growth. rica. I understand that you cannot be in the 1% pose that’s right. Where else would you go?
that this is about survival. This an existential and think that everybody else living in poverty Should you invest in something else? Family
crisis. The good news is companies like Chev- DG: Is there a way to still have growth in a doesn’t affect you. It does. offices over time invest in three areas: a third in
ron have been around over 100 years. They’ve way that is equitable and not environmentally equities, a third in property and a third in art.
gone through their own transition. The bad and socially destructive? DG: There’s a body of research that correlates Property doesn’t look very attractive. Art seems
news is that a lot of the science that’s required, high CEO compensation and shareholder capi- way overvalued. So that leaves equities, and the
the innovation that’s required, the innovation DM: Absolutely. I was born and raised in talism with inequality. If we want an innovative U.S., given everything, is still the best in a bad
of business models, is a challenge. one of the poorest countries in the world and society with the breakout success stories, is that neighborhood.
one that unfortunately remains so today. So also one that ultimately leads to inequality?
I do worry that there is this sort of sense that I’m genuinely trying to find out the solution. DG: What do you think is the biggest risk
perhaps the energy companies haven’t been in- Rather than say, “Growth is inherently the DM: The debate on whether inequality is factor facing the US economy over the next 10
vesting in these alternative areas. But if anyone problem,” I actually think the manner in which an artifact of capitalism will reign way past years?
knew how to generate energy in a sustainable, we have created growth has been the problem. our lifetimes. It’s always been an issue. If you’re
cost-effective, scalable way, we would have that The reality is public policymakers have been us- more Republican, you believe there are more DM: Misallocation of capital, both in terms
answer. The fact that we haven’t done that tells ing shortcuts to fuel growth, such as debt, such people who are able-bodied who can work and of climate change, but also more generally
me, and should tell everybody else, that this is a as a society that rewards capital more than it should work. Democrats think that there are around not investing in the future, i.e. divi-
hard problem to crack. does labor, such as a lack of appreciation of the more people who need help. This is an age-old dends and share and stock buybacks instead of
problem. thinking about growth opportunities in inno-
DG: When you look at the disruption being vation.
caused by climate change, do you believe the Do I think that short-termism helped create
effects are unevenly distributed?

DM: Yes. And this gets at one of my bug-
bears, which, for better or worse, is economic
growth. There’s been massive pushback against
growth, against globalisation. And I feel more
and more like a lone voice on the issue of
growth, the importance of growth and not los-
ing sight of the importance of growth. When I
say, “Hey, guys, we really do need growth — if
we’re not going to expand, this leads to con-
siderable problems,” I get comments like “OK,
boomer” on social media.

DG: OK, boomer. Why is growth so import-
ant?

Page 30 Stock Taking NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Price Sheet A MEMBER OF FINSEC & THE ZIMBABWE STOCK EXCHANGE

Thursday, 14 October 2021

Company Sector Bloomberg Previous Last VWAP Total Total Price Price YTD Market
Ticker Price Traded (cents) Traded
AFDIS Consumer Goods (cents) Volume Traded Change Change (%) Cap
African Sun Consumer Services AFDIS: ZH Price 10500.00
ART ASUN: ZH 10500.00 920.00 300 Value ($) (cents) (%) ($m)
Ariston Industrials ARTD: ZH 902.10 10500.00 805.15 200
Axia Consumer Services ARISTON: ZH 805.15 920.00 369.99 31,500 - - 337.50 12,546.92
BNC AXIA: ZH 369.98 3590.54 - 1,840 17.90 1.98 441.18 13,100.17
BAT Consumer Goods BIND: ZH 3127.63 - 529.16 129,400 68.68
CAFCA Basic Materials 561.24 365.00 286560.00 105,700 - - - 176.11 3,518.32
CBZ BAT: ZH 286560.00 3600.00 17000.00 71,500 478,763 0.01 0.00 291.98 6,021.20
CFI Consumer Goods CAFCA: ZH 17000.00 549.00 10024.96 3,795,200 462.91 14.80 39.25 19,825.18
Dairibord Industrials 10024.96 4112.02 - 378,352 -32.08 -5.72 421.02 6,734.79
Delta Banking CBZ: ZH 4112.02 - 4196.85 1,700 89.10 59,127.41
Econet Industrials CFI:ZH 4199.35 17000.00 12688.57 - - - 17.30 1,484.97
Edgars DZL: ZH 12481.37 7000.41 - 289,000 - - 5712.04 52,396.60
FBC Consumer Goods 6997.59 - 422.65 - - - 220.37 4,360.42
Fidelity Consumer Goods DLTA: ZH 425.09 - 3000.00 9,200 - - - 457.72 15,024.76
First Capital Telecommunications ECO: ZH 3000.34 4200.00 740.00 325,200 - -2.50 -0.06 640.78 165,481.24
FML Consumer Services EDGR: ZH 805.91 12700.00 364.01 332,500 386,110 207.20 1.66 252.21 181,351.00
FMP FBC: ZH 344.35 7005.00 2498.34 75,500 41,263,240 2.82 0.04 99.82 2,553.85
GBH Banking FIDL: ZH 2500.00 420.00 1200.00 658,600 23,276,370 -2.44 -0.57 288.04 20,158.50
Getbucks Financial Services FCA: ZH 1200.00 3000.00 270.00 300 319,100 -0.34 -0.01 230.92
Hippo FMHL: ZH 254.20 740.00 791.00 11,000 19,758,000 -65.91 -8.18 137.94 806.03
Innscor Banking FMP: ZH 791.00 371.00 27000.00 24,100 2,220 19.66 5.71 270.37 7,861.94
Lafarge Financial Services GBH: ZH 27000.00 2500.00 15208.29 - 40,041 -1.66 -0.07 1025.00 17,242.12
Mash GBFS: ZH 15204.81 - 9566.67 1,200 602,100 - - 6228.00 14,857.89
Masimba Real Estate HIPO: ZH 9566.67 270.00 440.00 - - 15.80 6.22 200.00 1,448.79
Medtech Industrials INN: ZH 440.00 - 5000.00 5,700 3,240 - - 310.71 9,200.27
Meikles LACZ: ZH 5310.13 27000.00 22.87 7,600 - - - 896.53 52,115.55
Nampak Financial Services MASH: ZH 23.36 15210.00 12958.30 - 1,539,000 3.48 0.02 373.12 86,668.46
NatFoods Consumer Goods MSHL: ZH 12004.93 - 1100.00 15,000 1,155,830 - - 346.43 7,653.34
NTS MMDZ: ZH 1100.00 440.00 149603.98 1,800 - - - 189.49 8,179.93
NMBZ Industrials MEIK: ZH 149600.00 5000.00 850.00 68,000 66,000 -310.13 -5.84 488.89 12,082.69
OK Zim Industrials NPKZ: ZH 800.00 22.50 1342.86 97,100 90,000 -0.49 -2.10 381.93
Proplastics Real Estate NTFD: ZH 1342.86 13000.00 2847.06 80,200 15,549 953.37 7.94 2389.25 695.19
RTG Industrials NTS: ZH 2439.94 1100.00 2798.96 5,900 12,582,510 - - 2996.54 32,738.64
RioZim Healthcare NMB: ZH 2500.00 149605.00 580.00 200 882,200 3.98 0.00 235.67
SeedCo Industrials OKZ: ZH 580.00 850.00 3400.00 - 8,826,635 50.00 6.25 216.34 8,312.13
Simbisa Industrials PROL: ZH 3300.00 - 10705.51 742,100 1,700 - - 225.09 102,329.28
Star Africa Consumer Goods RTG: ZH 10041.54 2850.00 8993.50 192,100 - 407.12 16.69 202.48
Truworths Industrials RIOZ: ZH 8899.81 2800.00 159.99 - 21,128,040 298.96 11.96 127.40 2,157.92
TSL SEED: ZH 160.13 - 229.00 100 5,376,800 - - 365.46 5,427.46
Turnall Banking SIM: ZH 229.00 3400.00 6900.00 87,400 - 100.00 3.03 648.34 36,609.90
Unifreight Consumer Services SACL: ZH 6900.75 10005.00 520.00 14,300 3,400 663.97 6.61 492.56 7,051.58
Willdale TRUW: ZH 520.00 9000.00 3499.00 177,200 9,356,615 93.69 1.05 676.27 14,473.87
ZB Industrials TSL: ZH 3499.00 160.00 391.28 31,600 1,286,070 -0.14 -0.09 300.00 4,149.00
Zeco Consumer Services TURN: ZH 391.28 229.00 8504.67 12,400 283,502 - - 459.14 26,464.30
Zimpapers UNIF: ZH 8504.67 6900.00 0.12 100 72,364 -0.75 -0.01 18711.83 50,560.09
Zimplow Basic Materials WILD: ZH 0.12 520.00 270.00 - 855,600 - - 1122.75 7,543.66
ZHL Consumer Goods ZBFH: ZH 270.06 - 2095.13 - 520 - - 254.36
TOTAL Consumer Goods ZECO: ZH 2100.00 - 351.76 - - - - 500.00 879.51
Consumer Goods ZIMP: ZH 379.03 - - - - - 175.51 24,640.07
Consumer Services ZIMPLOW: ZH - 400 - - - 319.03
Consumer Goods ZHL: ZH 270.00 30,800 - -0.06 -0.02 12.21 2,563.81
2100.00 1,700 1,080 -4.87 -0.23 3,725.53
Industrials 350.00 3,318,100 645,300 -27.27 -7.19 6,956.96
Industrials 5,980 14,899.39
Industrials 154,799,771
0.56
Banking 1,555.20
Industrials 7,219.41
Consumer Services 6,395.77
Industrials 1,149,151.57
Financial Services

ETFs OMTT.zw 403.93 400.00 401.53 14,207 57,046.00 -2.40 -0.59 300.65 321.22

Old Mutual ZSE Top 10 ETF

FINSEC Financial Services OMZIL 7100.00 7100.00 -- - 167.92 5,893.83

Old Mutual Zimbabwe

VFEX (US cents) Consumer Goods PHL:VX 24.50 24.45 50 US$m
Consumer Goods SCIL:VX 28.09 24.45 28.09 12.23 -0.05 -0.20 -32.08 132.42
Padenga - - -- - 56.06 107.15
SeedCo International

Index Close Change (%) Open YTD % Top 5 Risers Price Change % YTD %
ZSE All Share 10,184.95 +1.30 10,054.49 +287.35 OK Zim 2847.06c +407.12c +16.69 +216.34
Top 10 6,142.98 +0.72 +271.29 Axia 3590.54c +462.91c +14.80 +291.98
Top 15 6,929.79 +1.40 6,098.88 +255.73 Proplastics 2798.96c +298.96c +11.96 +225.09
Small Cap -0.14 6,834.08 +2563.87 Meikles 12958.30c +953.37c +7.94 +488.89
Medium Cap 316,365.60 +2.76 316,820.30 +286.90 SeedCo 10705.51c +663.97c +6.61 +365.46
21,528.31 20,949.44

Top 5 Fallers Price Change % YTD %
Fidelity
ZHL 740.00c -65.91c -8.18 +288.04
Masimba 351.76c -27.27c -7.19 +12.21
BNC 5000.00c -310.13c -5.84 +346.43
Medtech 529.16c -32.08c -5.72 +39.25
22.87c -0.49c -2.10 +189.49

SALES & TRADING: Davide Muchengi: [email protected] | Lungani Nyamazana: [email protected] | Tatenda Jasi: [email protected]

RESEARCH: Batanai Matsika: [email protected] | Precious Chagwedera: [email protected] | Tafara Mtutu: [email protected]

Tel: (+263) 08677008101-2 | Email: [email protected] | Address: 1st Floor, Block D, Smatsatsa Office Park, Borrowdale, Harare

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NewsHawks News Analysis Page 31

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Guvamatanga’s
obscene opulence
raises serious
moral, ethical
questions

NYASHA CHINGONO he told a local weekly paper.  Secretary for Finance and Economic Development George Guvamatanga.
Guvamatanga’s statements come
Zimbabwean Finance permanent party amid poverty.  counted for.  In almost all well-developed gov-
secretary George Guvamatanga’s as the government has encouraged “Hypocrisy is an endemic prob- Mnangagwa’s promise to audit ernmental systems throughout the
lavish birthday party and his jibe Zimbabweans to be frugal as unre- world, ministers, members of par-
at members of the public who de- lenting headwinds continue to buf- lem in Zimbabwe.  It also means that and ensure mandatory declaration of liament and senior bureaucrats must
manded accountability for his op- feting the moribund economy.   institutions of accountability should assets rings hollow two years on.  declare their wealth and income,
ulence in a country where millions summon him to answer. Elsewhere particularly income accrued during
of people desperately need food aid Belt-tightening has been the gov- he would have resigned but we know The President had given senior their time in public office. 
has exposed the hypocrisy of public ernment’s motto since 2018 when he will be promoted for what he did. government officials up to February
officials, analysts have said.   the economy plunged into the But this is Zimbabwe,” Masunun- 2018 to declare their assets.  Besides, Guvamatanga also got a
depths of despair amid lack of con- gure added.  controversial present from tycoon
Guvamatanga’s shindig has ex- fidence and Zimbabwe’s currency Misheck Sibanda, chief secretary Kuda Tagwirei: a private chartered
posed top civil servants’ moral bank- failure.  President Emmerson Mnangag- to the president and cabinet, said flight from Harare to London to
ruptcy, their failure to understand wa, since grabbing power from long- it was now mandatory for cabinet watch his favourite English Premier
public accountability, moral sensi- As part of the belt-tightening time strongman, Robert Mugabe in ministers, their deputies, senior gov- League side Arsenal and US$50 000
bility and ethics that should guide mechanisms, the government intro- 2017, has presented himself to the ernment officials and bosses of state- to spend. The total package of the
them as moral interlocutors. duced a 2% tax on mobile money world as a reformist, ready to undo owned businesses to declare their present is well over US$100 000.
transfers and, despite a public out- 37 years of misgovernance and lack assets.
The former Barclays Bank top ex- cry, the government insisted it was of transparency.  Tagwirei, who has been embroiled
ecutive celebrated his 50th birthday the only way the economy would The officials were required to dis- in state capture and his cosy rela-
party amid extravagance, pomp and return to a path of growth and pros- Masunungure said Guvamatanga close details on their real estate, other tions with the presidium, including
fanfare after he had hired promi- perity. These measures ate into dis- should appear before the parliamen- property valued above US$100 000, Mnangagwa himself, is now under
nent South African musicians where posable incomes as Zimbabweans tary portfolio committee on Public and shareholdings in businesses. US sanctions. 
he even promised to pay them five became poor.  Finance and Accounts. He said this
times their requested fee. would instil a sense of accountability “The President expects the full Guvamatanga’s questionable as-
Political analyst Eldred Masunun- in public officials. and urgent cooperation of all the sociation with Tagwirei, the biggest
Guvamatanga, who claims to be gure said Guvamatanga’s responses affected office bearers,” Sibanda said beneficiary of state tenders, is most
worth millions from his 30-year stint to public criticism revealed endemic Nearly four years since Mnan- in 2018.  worrisome. 
in the private sector before joining hypocrisy in the government.  gagwa took over, the government
public service, invited South African continues to be shrouded in secrecy, Mnangagwa has failed to walk the “There are two key questions at
Afro-pop music group Mafikizolo, “That is an entrenched problem with dodgy deals. Ill-gotten riches talk on the declaration of assets and stake here: one is to do with public
songstress Makhadzi and legendary in Zimbabwe which has worsened are celebrated as the trappings of his reformist posturing has been ex- accountability and its transparency;
South African-based Zimbabwean in the recent past. I place this in the success while the public is muzzled posed for its hypocrisy. the other is to do with conflict of
guitarist Louis Mhlanga. context of gross hypocrisy where you whenever it dares to speak on mat- interest. Basically you cannot take
are asking people to tighten their ters of national importance.  “That is something that has de- money from a party whose case you
Initially, Guvamatanga wanted belts yet you are loosening yours. It fined the regime post November are judging or evaluating. Breaking
to hire popular local musician Jah is hypocrisy when someone who is in It is apparent Mnangagwa is not 2017. There is a mismatch between the principles here involved reveals
Prayzah, real name Mukudzeyi Mu- charge of the national purse lavishly ready to walk the talk on account- the words and action. The discrep- either a poorly developed system of
kombe, a contemporary artiste with spends like that even if it is his own ability and Zimbabweans can expect ancy between the words and action public transparency, or a culture of
a huge following who features in big money,” Masunungure said.  to continue to be scorned for ask- is something that goes back to the public impunity. Both are causes for
events. However, he was forced to ing tough questions to officials who Mugabe era,” Masunungure said.  shame,” Chan said.
drop him for political reasons (Zanu The sheer arrogance of telling an flaunt wealth which has not been ac-
PF factionalism) after paying a de- angry public to “go hang”, is part of Political analyst Stephen Chan
posit. The musician recently played the bigger problem Zimbabwe has said it is international best practice
at businessman Adam Molai’s 50th nursed since Independence in 1980, to declare assets and interests.
birthday in Cape Town.  where public officials have bluntly
refused to account for their wealth. 
When asked about his lavish
spending on his birthday, Guva- Guvamatanga ignores his moral
matanga defended the opulence, say- obligation as a civil servant where
ing he was celebrating after surviving competence, accountability and
Covid-19. honesty are the hallmarks of pub-
lic servanthood more than personal
While there is nothing wrong wealth and unmitigated self-glory.
with celebrating one’s achievements
and cheating death, Guvamatanga’s He also forgets that his signature
jibe at members of the public who is appended on government tenders,
demanded accountability exposes including dodgy ones like the con-
the former banker’s arrogance in the troversial US$60 Drax International
face of criticism.  Covid-19 supplies tender. It is with-
in the right of all well-meaning Zim-
“I cannot pretend to be poor to babweans to demand accountability
make people happy. I am not poor,” of the source of funds and to ques-
tion the morality of throwing a huge

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Page 32 The Big Debate NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

How socio-economic conditions shape
renewable energy uptake in Zimbabwe

ELLEN FUNGISAI CHIPANGO

ZIMBABWE considers renewable the views of those who were expected Rural people also want energy that Most local investors were sceptical olistic regimes in the electricity sector.
energy a game changer for rural devel- to benefit from the renewable energy enables them to grow their livelihoods, about renewable energy because the This is not peculiar to Zimbabwe.
opment and sees it as an opportunity technology. not only lighting. The common renew- intended beneficiaries, who are mainly
to increase access to electricity in the able energy technology in rural areas is rural people, are poor and have no fi- A significant proportion of the 36 na-
country’s rural areas. I found that the intended beneficia- solar, mainly in the form of solar lan- nancial security. And even if renewable tional electric utilities surveyed for the
ries were less optimistic about the ben- terns. Beyond a solar lantern most poor energy were to be fed into the grid – the African Development Bank’s Electricity
Currently, 83% of urban households efits of renewable energy technology households do not afford solar home grid itself has been designed mainly to Index Report cited the threat posed to
have  access to electricity, versus 13% compared to the government. Political, systems. This sociological dynamic serve urban areas and large commercial their profitability by the growing use of
of rural households. Overall, more economic and social factors such as in- widens the gap between the rich and farms. Inevitably, the expanded flow of renewable energy technologies.
than  60%  of the population still rely equitable income distribution and gen- the poor. electricity will bypass the rural poor en
on solid biomass fuel for thermal needs der dynamics determined the adoption route to the connected areas. Who should use renewable energy?
and have no access to clean energy of renewable energy. Renewable energy uptake is a class Even the smallest solar home system is
sources. issue. Having light without a livelihood Renewable energy technologies don’t cost prohibitive for the rural poor. They
I found that renewable energy up- makes no difference in the life of the exist in vacuum. They highlight the also need maintenance and technical
About 20% of urban households use take in Zimbabwe was driven by neces- poor. The seemingly illogical rejection factors already at play. Therefore, prof- expertise, which rural communities do
wood as the main cooking fuel because sity, not choice. Key informants in my of a better technology is shaped by con- it-driven market dynamics and inequal- not have. It is the elite in urban areas
of the unreliablilty of electricity supply study said people in urban areas were text. ity inherent in the current processes of (companies, shopping malls) that have
and financial constraints. taking up renewable energy because of electricity distribution will remain. the capacity. Renewable energy there-
recurring electricity cuts. Rural com- This rejection has a gender dimen- fore should not be sold as an alternative
The  2019 National Renewable En- munities, on the other hand, do not sion. In a previous study, I found that I also found that some employees at for the poor. For rural communities, it
ergy Policy identifies renewable energy have access to electricity. So, they turn women were more resentful of solar the power utility considered renewable is only a stopgap until they can access
as a vehicle for providing electricity to to renewables. This isn’t because they than men. Even those with solar home energy a competitor of the convention- the grid.
millions of households. This is akin to see renewable energies as appropriate, systems felt that the technology wasn’t al energy sources. A key informant in
what mobile telephony did for tele- as the government believes. It is their adequate because their heating needs my study, a Zimbabwe Electricity Sup- The use of renewable energy technol-
communications. It enabled millions of only alternative access to energy. were not met. For example, households ply Authority employee said: ogy must be constructed in social pro-
people to access the latest technology, couldn’t use electric kettles, do ironing cesses. Meaning the technology should
bringing about new opportunities for The irony is that government fails to or cook unless there was an additional … I am electricity and I cannot not be seen as coming from elsewhere
development. understand this complexity and prides heat source because one solar panel was promote my competitor [sic]. To a to impact on society. Rather, it should
itself on rolling out decentralised small not enough to meet all these needs. certain extent, renewables are our com- be taken as an internal development
The government of Zimbabwe, for- renewable energy technologies, espe- petitors… If not careful, they will take shaped by its social context because it is
eign donors  and  private  companies cially in rural areas. As a result, women continue to fetch business away from us, unfortunately people who approve or disapprove the
engage enthusiastically with the notion wood and cook over smoky fires even my bread is buttered at electricity [sic] technology.
of renewable energy for rural “develop- Asked how solar energy is helping where there are solar home systems. and not solar…
ment”. them in the face of energy poverty, one This defeats the objective of appropri- *About the writer: Ellen Fungisai
participant said: ate technology. Again, profit comes first before the Chipango is a post-doctoral research
Low-income households are increas- Sceptical investors utility of this technology. Renewable fellow at the University of Johannes-
ingly tapping into new decentralised Solar energy is not electricity… There are other dynamics at play too. energy is not understood in the context burg in South Africa.
technologies, especially solar, to ensure Another one elaborated: of what it successfully achieves, but in
entry level lighting.  Policy elites  (gov- Rather we need the actual electricity how it threatens the traditional monop-
ernment and international develop- from the grid.
ment agencies) consider renewable
energy as an appropriate technology
that could bring desired change, espe-
cially given that they do least damage to
the environment. This line of thought
holds that technology develops auton-
omously and determines an important
degree of social development.

I sought to understand whether the
authorities and the intended beneficia-
ries were on the same page regarding the
so-called appropriateness of renewable
energy as a tool for rural development.
My research found that they were not.
But this reality is often masked, both in
Zimbabwe and other countries.

Similar to previous research, I found
that the top-down approach is limited
because it doesn’t take into account
the views, feelings and context of the
intended beneficiaries. It also does not
help that there is little understanding
by policymakers of what influences the
uptake of technology and the interac-
tion of supply and demand.

I concluded that renewable energy
uptake is socially shaped. It is the be-
haviour of the intended beneficiary,
informed by social context, that shapes
technology. This is informed by how
the technology fits – or not – in sus-
taining their livelihood. Therefore, de-
velopment in the energy sector should
not be reduced to technological sophis-
tication. It should be guided by the im-
provements it makes to the livelihoods
of intended beneficiaries.
Necessity, not choice
I interviewed rural villagers of Buhera
district, Manicaland province,
south-eastern Zimbabwe, NGOs and
key informants for my study. I captured

NewsHawks Critical Thinking Page 33

Issue 52, 15 October 2021 Inside Africa’s biggest pany’s chief operating officer) told
cryptocurrency scams people who invested their money
AFRICA is home to the world’s in the platform that Africrypt’s sys-
smallest cryptocurrency econo- Digital currencies have attracted a lot of adopters—and cons—in the continent. tem has been hacked, and its funds
mies, but is also one of the fast- stolen. Ameer asked them not to
est-growing regions for crypto least US$100 in funds in the form $200 million at the time — and its with its own money while actually report the incident to authorities,
adoption. Because cryptocurren- of bitcoin. It claimed to pool those alleged returns, which “seem far- using funds pooled from clients. saying it may interfere with the
cies promise a swift, convenient, funds into a trading account on a fetched and unrealistic.” It warned FXChoice also said MTI wasn’t recovery of the money. Later that
and efficient means of investment, forex derivative trading platform, the public against trading with using AI for trading; it was execut- month, Raees and Ameer disap-
cross-border payments, and remit- and then conduct high-frequency MTI because it was unlicensed. ing trades manually, and incurring peared.
tances, they  attract many adopt- trading using artificial intelligence “substantial losses.”
ers in the continent. that could allegedly produce aver- MTI’s founder and CEO, Jo- Some investors hired a law firm
age daily returns of 0.5%. hann Steynberg, defended the “Paying out such a consistent to help them find out what hap-
That draw is also proving lucra- company’s operations. “It is no stream of profits, which is nearly a pened to their money, while others
tive ground for scams. Over the The company also offered bo- secret that we are getting pressure 100% return on investment in one started a liquidation process to get
past few years, many cryptocurren- nuses for referring and recruiting from a variety of facets, but I al- year, to investors by trading Forex their funds back. Africrypt employ-
cy swindles have been reported in new members, typical of a multi- ways knew MTI would attract at- is hard to believe,” FXChoice wrote ees had lost access to the compa-
different African countries, lead- level marketing scheme. Through tention,” he  told investors in No- in a statement. ny’s back-end platforms seven days
ing to millions of dollars in losses social media, YouTube, and those vember 2020. “[Our] vision is big, before the reported hack, a lawyer
for investors who were originally referrals, MTI grew to hundreds of and I am confident it scares many MTI later said it had moved for the first group told Bloomberg.
promised high returns. Last year, thousands of users from all over the people.” to a new broker called Trade300. The law firm found that the com-
the global value of illicit crypto- world. But this company’s existence is in pany’s funds were transferred from
currency activity, including scams, A month later, the FSCA opened doubt and the FSCA suggests it is its South African accounts and cli-
was  US$10 billion, according to In 2020, it claimed to have 260 a criminal case with the South Af- actually the property of Steynberg, ent wallets, and the coins went to
Chainalysis, a platform that pro- 000 members globally. rican police against MTI. The MTI’s founder and CEO. other large bitcoin pools to make
vides blockchain data. company was provisionally liq- The Africrypt “hack” them untraceable, Bloomberg re-
Eventually, MTI attracted the uidated in December 2020, and In one of history’s biggest crypto- ported.
As cryptocurrency adoption attention of regulators. In July Steynberg disappeared that same currency heists, two brothers who
gains steam on the continent, it 2020, the Texas State Securities month, reportedly fleeing for Bra- founded a crypto investment plat- The brothers, suspected to have
will be important for potential Board issued a cease and desist or- zil. The company was placed in fi- form vanished with bitcoin valued spent time in Tanzania, the UK, and
investors — and ultimately, regu- der against the company for “ille- nal liquidation in June 2021. Now, at an approximated US$3.6 billion. the UAE, have denied wrongdoing.
lators — to learn from the scams gally soliciting Texans to purchase the FBI is  helping liquidators  to They also dispute the US$3.6 bil-
that have come before. fraudulent investments.”  Cana- recover funds for investors, who South Africa-based Africrypt lion amount; at the height of the
How cryptocurrency scams work da  and  Mauritius  also listed it as come from countries that include was founded in 2019 by brothers market, Africrypt was managing
The anonymous, unregulated na- a fraudulent organization. Soon, Canada, Namibia, South Africa, Raees Cajee (21) and Ameer Cajee just over US$200 million,  Raees
ture of cryptocurrency—often MTI members  started complain- India, Nigeria, Spain, the US, and (18). The company claimed it used told The Wall Street Journal, and
among its selling points—is also ing  that their deposits and with- the UK. a trading platform driven by arti- less than US$5 million is missing.
what makes crypto popular with drawal transactions were not ap- ficial intelligence to invest money Raees said he and his brother are in
scammers. It helps that investor pearing on their accounts. In the end, MTI was not making (sound familiar?) While MTI so- hiding because they received death
education on digital currencies is the returns it claimed. FXChoice, licited bitcoin from clients, Afric- threats.
minimal. In August 2020, South Africa’s a company that MTI mentioned rypt asked users to deposit money,
Financial Sector Conduct Author- as its forex broker in its market- which it then use to buy bitcoins. Africrypt was placed into  pro-
The specifics vary, but most of ity (FSCA) announced that it was ing material, said in August 2020 By early 2021, it had around visional liquidation  in April;
these scams fit familiar tropes: investigating MTI for operating that it had blocked MTI’s account. 69,000 bitcoins, valued at US$3.6 last month, a South African
pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes, a financial service without a li- FXChoice said it discovered MTI billion. court  granted the liquidators  the
and exit scams that capitalize on cense. The regulator also expressed was violating the rules of the plat- authority to trace the missing in-
the “get rich quick” potential of concern about the high amount form by claiming it was trading In April 2021, Ameer (the com- vestor funds and to sell the com-
cryptocurrencies. Others pres- of funds MTI claimed it held — pany’s assets.
ent themselves as cryptocurrency The lesson of crypto scams
membership networks providing As long as cryptocurrencies are un-
high returns: Customers hand over regulated in South Africa and other
money to be “invested” in crypto- African countries, it’s difficult for
currencies, and then the soliciting authorities to rein in rogue actors.
companies shut down, with their But South Africa is starting to take
owners nowhere to be found. regulatory steps. Earlier this year,
South Africa’s Intergovernmental
Some high-profile examples of Fintech Working Group, a team
these scams include Velox 10 Glob- tasked with regulating the coun-
al, a pyramid scheme with roots in try’s cryptocurrency space,  pub-
Brazil, in which Kenyans lost mil- lished  a position paper making
lions of shillings in 2018 and 2019. recommendations for regulation.
Claiming to trade in bitcoins, the They include recognizing crypto-
company charged a membership currency assets as financial prod-
fee of about US$100 and told ucts, therefore putting them under
members they could earn up to the country’s financial laws, and
US$4 000 daily by paying an addi- increasing campaigns on digital fi-
tional upgrade amount of US$200. nancial literacy, including on cryp-
Investors never received those re- tocurrency assets.
turns, and some took the company
to court seeking to have it stopped Investors can also educate them-
from operating in Kenya. selves before putting money into a
crypto platform. For example, they
Also in 2019, Uganda’s Duna- can find out the backgrounds of the
miscoin Resources closed suddenly people behind the platform, where
with US$2.7 million in investor its assets are kept, and whether the
money. In an approach similar to exchange is registered with a regu-
that of Velox 10 Global, Dunamis- lator.
coin Resources had taken mon-
ey from  more than 4 000 people, But until stricter regulatory ini-
promising them returns of 30% tiatives take hold in South Africa
returns in 21 days by investing it and around the world, the very
in bitcoin. nature of cryptocurrencies will
continue to present an opportuni-
But nothing has brought more ty for scammers to take advantage
scrutiny to crypto on the continent of people, says Michael Kimani, a
than two scams out of South Af- Nairobi-based blockchain analyst.
rica. 
MTI, the “investment platform” “These multi-level schemes play
With US$588 million worth of in a gray area that exists because
bitcoin from customers, South Af- the regulators have not stepped in
rica’s Mirror Trading International and clearly defined some rules,” he
(MTI) may have pulled off the big- says. “So these things are happen-
gest crypto scam of 2020, accord- ing and no one can come and tell
ing to a Chainalysis report. you this is clearly a scam or this is
not a scam. There’s no authority to
Launched in 2019, MTI pre- go to.” — Quartz Africa.
sented itself as an investment plat-
form, and asked new users for at

Page 34 Critical Thinking NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

JOHN LEGAT The forex auction system: timeously. The International Mon-
Devalue or lose relevance etary Fund Special Drawing Rights
IN our July Notes, we outlined our perhaps? Maybe Afreximbank is as-
basic assumptions. This will impact private sector and input requirements from their sup- rate and for the RBZ to abolish the sisting with more US dollar loans?
Government-funded programmes pliers who are pricing at the parallel surrender requirements on export The latter could be a double edged
These consisted of a number of rate or indeed in US dollars. With proceeds. What better time to do sword as these loans, as we under-
economic indicators; strong re- and indeed it will put additional the parallel rate now around twice that when you have just been given stand, are collateralised against fu-
bound in the economy as Zimba- pressures on US dollar import re- the auction rate, one wonders how US$1 billion in additional foreign ture exports proceeds. All in all we
bwe emerged from lockdown and quirements. on earth export companies can sur- exchange reserves from the IMF. A would expect the auction rate to de-
supported by a good harvest and vive without having to move to care freely determined exchange rate at value over time from current levels
rising commodity prices; increasing Recent inflation data for Zimba- and maintenance. Their suppliers do a time of rising commodity prices since the RBZ has few other options
dollarisation as corporates “gave up” bwe show the Consumer Price In- not want the Zimbabwe dollar that would encourage higher exports and left to hand.
with the formal auction system due dex (CPI) rising by 4.7% month on the RBZ have given the exporters provide greater amounts of foreign
to unacceptable delays in settlement; month in September suggesting a (which is now half their real value), exchange. Meanwhile, the government is
rising US dollar inflation feeding re-acceleration in month on month they want the US dollar that the pushing hard on its infrastructure
through into Zimbabwe inflation; inflation; recent numbers reached a RBZ has held back. As the supply Instead and at the moment, ex- programme with a focus on road
increased Zimbabwe dollar liquidity low of 2.3% per month in March of US dollars going into the auction porters have little incentive to invest rehabilitation and dam building
as government spending on maize and have been rising since. With the from our exporters falls short, then in new, let alone existing produc- being the major projects. Contrac-
and civil service wages feeds through parallel exchange rate having moved the gap will need to be filled from tion, when surrender requirements tors are being paid in Zimdollars
and finally further strength in the significantly during September, our elsewhere. More loans from Afrex- on export proceeds remain so high although they should be given pri-
Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) as assumption must be that monthly imbank may be the solution albeit in order to ‘assist’ the funding of the ority at the auction to fund their US
surplus Zimbabwe dollar looks for a inflation will rise by more in Octo- an unsustainable one. auction system. That policy clearly dollar inputs. If on the other hand
liquid home in undervalued assets. ber. Now that the favourable base is not working! Maybe too, and as the required US dollar numbers
effects for year-on-year inflation are We believe that low-margin ex- a means to support the Zimbabwe are simply too great for plant and
Our assumptions held true. Re- starting to fall away, we should ex- port businesses may well be the ca- dollar, government should revise its equipment, then these contractors,
cent corporate announcements pect to see higher annual rates going nary in the coalmine; such compa- tax payment policy and insist that whether local or foreign, may have
mostly point to a strong rebound in forwards. If we inflate the CPI in- nies will be an early casualty of the all taxes, and especially for US dol- no choice but to look elsewhere for
volume growth not just year on year dex by 5%between now and the end widening gap between the parallel lar earners, are paid in Zimbabwe foreign exchange and index their
but also year to date in many sectors December, year-on-year inflation exchange rate and the auction rate dollar, thereby forcing businesses to Zimdollar quotes to US dollars.
across the economy, and this despite for 2021 would be around 57%, as lower returns will eat into their sell their US dollars for Zimbabwe The same could also be said about
two lockdowns in 2021. There has being above the upper level of the margins forcing them to move to dollar at the free market determined the forthcoming agricultural sea-
been a good maize harvest (although RBZ’s revised numbers for 2021. care and maintenance. It would not exchange rate. That should provide son where the RBZ will be printing
maybe not the 2.8 million tonnes We further estimate that around surprise us if the RBZ reduces sur- underlying support for the Zimba- Zimdollars to provide to the suppli-
that the government is expecting), 25% of the components of the CPI render requirements on a sector ba- bwe dollar and give the government ers of fertilizers and chemicals for
a better tobacco crop and shortly a index are priced off the auction rate. sis so as to ease the pressure on such Zimdollar its domestic spending. the farmers. These same suppliers
decent wheat harvest. Commodity Should the auction rate devalue at businesses. In the meantime, such will then be looking to convert that
prices have been rising year to date, a faster rate, then monthly increases exporters will be using every tool The RBZ is clearly worried about Zimdollar so that they can import
including gold that has encouraged in the CPI will accelerate. Higher in their book to avoid surrendering the rising parallel rate and the back- the products. Ironically therefore, it
increased production in both the annual any of their US dollar revenues. log. They recently announced that might be that it is the government’s
formal and informal sectors. they would “ring-fence” US dollars infrastructure drive together with
inflation will, of course, have a It is hard not to see the auction owed from the auction to importers the financial support that it is giving
That implies increased disposable bearing on year-end wage negoti- rate devaluing at an accelerating up to and including 14 September. the farming sector that is adding to
incomes for farmers and miners ations for both the private and the rate over the coming months; there the current pressure on the parallel
that then supports strong demand public sectors. is little to prop it up that we can Any allotments after that date rate.
for goods and services. A strong see. As we have written before, the would be honoured within two
rebound in the economy requires The export sector will be in dire best solution would be to float the weeks from the auction date. There The RBZ tried de-dollarisation
growing imports and hence the de- straits having suffered from the currency and allow the market, not was no mention of how the backlog back in June 2019 when the use of
mand for foreign exchange is rising. RBZ policy to “fix” the auction rate the RBZ, to determine the exchange would be cleared or indeed how fu- the US dollar in transactions was
As we speculated, the foreign ex- at around ZW$87 to the US dollar ture allotments would now be met made illegal. Should they try that
change auction system cannot cope when they are having to source their again, there will be immense up-
with the demand and hence delays ward pressure on the parallel rate as
of anything between 11 and 14 companies scramble to convert their
weeks for settlement proceeds in US Zimdollars into US dollars.
dollars are more common place.
The economy would crash as it
As we wrote in July, you cannot did in the second half of 2019. We
run a business on that basis from a doubt therefore that such a policy
working capital perspective. That, in change would occur especially in
turn, encourages businesses to shun the run-up to an election. Allowing
the auction and look elsewhere ei- companies to sell their goods and
ther in the parallel market, or sim- services in US dollars allows them to
ply to charge for goods and services generate their own foreign exchange
in US dollars to boost US dollar rev- necessary to import their inputs.
enues. This boosts dollarisation.
Such a policy therefore takes the
Inflation is also on the increase. pressure off the auction and the par-
As we warned in our April and July allel markets for foreign currency.
Notes, US dollar inflation is gaining
momentum globally. Oil prices re- We have been intrigued to read
cently topped US$80 per barrel with reports from corporate management
Goldman Sachs forecasting US$90 during the year praising the success
by the end of this year. Freight rates of the foreign exchange auction sys-
are up over 400% this year and by tem for bringing about stability and
600% on the Asia/Europe routes as the revival in the economy. For those
supply chains are reactivated. businesses lucky enough to have
been consistently successful on the
Gas prices in Europe are up well auction and to receive the allocated
over 100%. Inflation in the US is up US dollars within a short period of
over 5% but in reality the cost of liv- time, that might be the case. But
ing is up by more, ditto in Europe. for the vast majority of businesses
and especially the larger ones, this
Wages are also rising in the de- has not been so. It is our belief that
veloped world as employers attempt the “stability” that we have seen and
to entice people back to work af- the growth momentum witnessed in
ter a year’s lockdown. This will volumes sold (for those businesses
further drive inflation. Zimbabwe that have been allowed to operate
will therefore also be experiencing during lockdown), has come from
imported inflation and rising fuel the use of the US dollar, that was
prices so far in 2021 illustrate this. permitted at around the same time
It is also hitting food prices both as the auction system was launched
globally and in the region with ris- in June 2020.
ing wheat and soya prices hitting
the bread and stockfeed industries Indeed “stability” is probably the
respectively. The bottom line is that wrong word to use; the auction rate
farmers will require more funds to – which is set by diktat – might have
grow the same amount of crops for been stable but much of the econo-
the forthcoming planting season.

NewsHawks Critical Thinking Page 35

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

my has been growing rapidly thanks of taxation to Zimra as well. We omy three times since March 2020! ly flat oscillating around US$500 sometimes directly to trustees. Get-
to a good agricultural season, grow- commend the Simbisa board for The volume numbers simply point million in the first 18 months after ting PA status is just one side of the
ing mining production, increased thinking outside of the box in order to growth in almost all of Innscor’s the split to March 2020; dragged equation, but an investment still has
private demand for construction to make their accounts more mean- areas of operations, with onaverage down by the ill-fated de-dollarisa- to be scrutinized to ensure that
material and high government ex- ingful to their shareholders. It will at least a 30% increase year on year tion experiment. Since April 2020,
penditure on infrastructure projects! be interesting to see whether other in volumes sold as compared with about the time we had the initial it meets all the risk/return attri-
companies do something similar go- the year to June 2020. We will be tight lockdown, these deposits have butes before pensioners’ money can
Prices are also not stable with of- ing forwards. looking at how other companies grown by close to US$1 billion dol- be deployed. In the same vein, there
ficial year on year inflation of 55% report over the coming weeks to lars. In fact from June 2020 to June is also an inherent conflict in most
which of course is being reflected in The Simbisa results were also in- confirm our thinking but the trend 2021, FCA deposits grew by close instruments being driven by fund
the free-market exchange rate. teresting from the perspective that suggests strong growth. to 73%. It is no coincidence that managers and/or fund consultants.
their operations both in Zimbabwe this phenomenal increase coincided Trustees must make independent
With regard corporate announce- and in Africa were heavily disrupt- Strong volume growth necessari- with the return of the multicurren- and informed decisions before in-
ments and our ongoing manage- ed by the various lockdowns that ly requires greater inputs of which cy regime with businesses able to vesting in unproven, opportunistic,
ment interviews, we have tended to were introduced to stop the spread a proportion will be imported. independently generate their own mostly green-field investments just
focus more on operational perfor- of Covid-19. These impacted upon In short, the demand for foreign US dollar reducing dependency on for the sake of PA compliance.
mance rather than the financial per- their operating hours, their seating currency will rise with economic auction allocated funds or indeed
formance of businesses. All financial capacity and the disposable incomes growth. This will put pressure on on the parallel market. Whilst some might offer more at-
accounts are qualified and have been of their customers. the parallel rate for those companies tractive returns than treasury bills,
for two years following the re-in- that cannot sell their goods or ser- Put another way, it is the rapid we have seen few with returns above
troduction of inflation accounting. Despite that, in Zimbabwe cus- vices in US dollars. As the parallel growth in the US dollar money sup- 40% which implies negative real re-
They will remain so when accounts tomer counts rose 6% allowing them rate devalues, inflationary pressures ply that is fuelling the strong econ- turns. That means that such invest-
are once again prepared on an his- to record organic growth in both will rise and the call for higher wag- omy which is further being assisted ments will lose investors real money.
torical cost basis. their revenues and profitability. A es will become that much louder. by a good agricultural season and
focus on Dial-a-Delivery as well as higher commodity prices. As we wrote back in July, despite
As a result, a board of direc- other promotions proved successful We have been analysing the RBZ the ZSE’s rise over the past eighteen
tors can choose the basis on which and of course they were helped by monthly monetary statistics in more The fact that the ZSE has risen months, it remains inexpensive in
they prepare their accounts with the fact that their competition, in detail to give us a better idea of un- a further 40% odd over the third US dollar terms.
little concern should their auditors the form of seated restaurants, was derlying real money growth. This quarter after a similar gain during
choose to qualify them since they closed for long periods. Further they helps us to better understand the the second quarter implies that This is especially the case when
will already be qualified! In this re- expanded their counters by 13 over growth in the underlying economy. there is plenty of Zimdollar liquidi- underlying volume growth for
gard we were delighted to read the the course of the year. Simbisa will Back in October 2018, the RBZ ty around looking for a home. Local businesses is rising dramatically as
recently published abridged annual therefore be well positioned to take directed banks to separate real nos- pension and insurance companies the economy rebounds. An easing
report for Simbisa for its June year advantage of a re-opening of the tro accounts from the local RTGS are unable to convert their Zim- in lockdowns would suggest this
end. Their auditors gave an adverse economy – we hope on a sustained accounts. This was necessary as the dollar inflows into US dollars for momentum will be sustainable for
opinion on their financial state- basis – for the year ahead. commingling that was happening investments offshore or indeed on the time being. That provides a fa-
ments since the company chose not made it difficult to understand the the VFEX. With interest rates set vourable background for local stock
to use the official foreign exchange A few days after Simbisa, Innscor real value of dollars in the system. at around 20% in Zimdollar money market investors looking ahead.
auction rate to determine their earn- released their June year end num- market assets are not an option with Overseas markets on the other
ings and balance sheet. They chose bers. Innscor confirmed our hunch Post the directive, a separate line inflation now rising again from the hand might be in for a more turbu-
not to for the simple reason that that operationally businesses that to capture foreign currency account August low of 50%. Trustees rightly lent time due to rising inflationary
Simbisa does not access any of its were allowed to trade under lock- (FCA) deposits, in Zimdollars con- have a fiduciary duty to protect the pressures in the developed world.
foreign exchange from the auction down have performed better than verted at the auction rate, has been real value of the assets under their This will likely result in rising bond
system. The Directors point out that might have been expected, reflecting included in the monthly economic control and the ZSE becomes the yields in the US and Europe ending
even if they did, they would not re- not the stability in the foreign ex- bulletins. These have grown sig- only liquid and viable option. a long period of easy money. Inter-
ceive the foreign exchange in suffi- change auction, but the strength in nificantly from US$149 million in est rates are already rising in many
cient amounts to satisfy their needs the underlying US dollar economy. October 2018 to just over US$1.6 With regard to prescribed assets developing countries and it is likely
and in a timely manner. Instead Indeed when reading the Innscor billion in July 2021 which is the lat- (PAs), whilst we applaud the Insur- just a matter of time before we see
under a proposed amendment to results, a financial analyst return- est available bulletin. Compounded ance and Pensions Commission for rates rising in the US and Europe as
International Accounting Standard ing from an eighteen month visit to annually, they have been growing by opening up the space to privately well.
21, which focuses on a lack of “ex- Mars, could be forgiven for not no- an average of 25% per year. developed PA instruments, we are
changeability”between two curren- ticing there had been a global pan- concerned about the quality of some *About the writer: John Legat
cies, they have chosen to estimate demic that had shut down the econ- A closer look at the numbers of the instruments being offered, is chief executive of Imara Asset
the spot rate at the time. reveal that they remained relative- Management (Zimbabwe) Ltd.

In our January 2019 Notes, we
coined the term Simbisa Implied
Rate (SIR) which compared the US
dollar and the Zimdollar prices of a
“two piecer and chips”.

Prior to 2016 Christmas, Sim-
bisa was offering a discount to its
customers if they paid in US dollar
which was a way for the company
to access sufficient foreign exchange
to import their raw materials. Del-
ta tried to do the same thing at the
start of the 2017 but finally agreed
with government to continue pric-
ing in RTGS$ if the RBZ provid-
ed them with sufficient US dollars
(which they did not in the end).

The SIR rate gave us a better re-
flection of what the “street” was
prepared to offer US dollars for
rather than the OMIR which could
be distorted by financial flows and
financial events outside of Zimba-
bwe. The Simbisa directors did not
define in their Press release what
rates they used for their June 2021
accounts and it may well not be the
SIR. Time will tell.

At the moment the SIR is at
ZW$150 to US$1 based on their
two piecer and chips.

The net effect of using their own
spot or “transactions-based” ex-
change rate rather than the official
rate was to inflate their profits and
balance sheet by around 17% on
average. This allowed them to pay a
higher dividend to their sharehold-
ers but we assume a higher amount

Page 36 Reframing Issues NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

WE are awash in spy stories. Everything you think you ty. Bringing alcohol into the
“No Time to Die,” the latest know about CIA is wrong building requires a waiver (con-
James Bond film, landed last fiscations are not uncommon).
week as the 25th installment in is wrong. the Hollywood fare, and in any Because taxpayer dollars cannot
the franchise -- one of the high- In most Hollywood treat- case most offerings are not striv- be used to fund celebrations,
est-grossing film franchises of all ing for authenticity. Much of it CIA holiday parties resemble
time. ments, the CIA’s superhero spies is loads of fun. Some of it may the homespun ambience of a
kill a lot of people, blow things even tap into a vein of truth. church potluck, with volunteers
Two long-running spy up, and often operate without But none of it sheds light on making or buying the food.
thriller series, Brad Thor’s official sanction, perhaps on what it is really like to work in-
Scot Harvath and Daniel Sil- American soil. A random sam- side the CIA. Inside headquarters, mainte-
va’s Gabriel Allon, topped the ple of spy thrillers on Amazon nance workers are minded by
New York Times Bestseller list reveals CIA protagonists with To understand the agency, contractors whose uniform in-
during  back-to-back  weeks in job descriptions that would instead think of it as a uniquely cludes a green suit jacket. I have
August. The second season of puzzle the Langley Human Re- bipolar organisation. The daily visited bathrooms in which, to
the “Jack Ryan” series, tracking source mavens: “black ops offi- work of the CIA is as mundane the untrained eye, it would ap-
the adventures of the epony- cer,” “assassin” and “covert oper- (and far quirkier) than that of pear as though a PGA Master’s
mous CIA analyst,  was report- ative” are all common. In other nearly any business; it is also champion was keenly observing
edly one of Amazon’s most pop- depictions, the CIA is morally far more high-stakes and excep- a plumber unclogging a toilet.
ular shows ever. bankrupt and ineffectual, its of- tional.
ficers cynical liars and bunglers. But if the bureaucracy is
I am an avid consumer of On the mundane side: the mundane and the quirks far
these stories. I have even written There is nothing wrong with agency is a large bureaucracy quirkier, the stakes of the CIA’s
a spy novel. I am also a former beset by many of the same is- mission are also much, much
Central Intelligence Agency sues as Fortune 500 companies. higher. Hollywood’s superhero
(CIA) analyst. And if Holly- Much of a chief of station’s job spies do not exist, but the CIA
wood or spy thrillers are your involves exchanging cable traf- does deal in the exceptional --
primary source on the agency’s fic with Langley, a fancy way of and deadly serious -- business
Langley headquarters, then saying that, like many middle- of convincing agents to betray
chances are that everything you to upper-level managers, they their countries, disrupting ter-
think you know about the CIA send a lot of emails. Officers in rorist networks, and providing
the field call headquarters “The assessments to US policymak-
10 000 Mile Screwdriver” for its ers that shape American foreign
ability to turn the crank on sta- policy.
tions halfway across the globe.
I know of technical and hu-
There are byzantine process- man operations that infiltrat-
es for submitting expenses and ed terrorist cells in the Mid-
booking travel. For example, dle East, preventing attacks. I
flights must exceed 13 hours in have watched drone footage of
duration (excluding layovers) to some of our adversaries’ most
qualify for business class fares. prized — and secretive — facil-
That is, unless you are granted ities from windowless Langley
a height waiver from the agency rooms. I know of operations
doctors, based on a formula that in which CIA officers ventured
includes not just height but also into hard target, denied coun-
the distance from the hip to the tries, under elaborate cover, to
knee and the knee to the ankle. scout potential locations for
Take those measurements, per- agents to drop sensitive docu-
haps swirl them with the en- ments.
trails of a goat, and out pops a
score. I am 6’4” with long legs. I know of officers asked to
Much to my colleagues’ dismay, deploy to Afghanistan and other
I received the waiver. hotspots for yearlong tours on a
week’s notice, putting incredible
There are plenty of other stress and strain on their mar-
quirks. Some of Langley’s tem- riages and families. I say all of
porary offices are infested with this not to paper over the CIA’s
rats. And officers compete sav- real warts and shortcomings,
agely for parking passes to short- but to offer a few examples to
en the trudge through Langley’s demonstrate that while most
Disneyland-style parking lot. corporate jobs have analogues
elsewhere, the CIA does not.
The CIA throws an annual The exceptional nature of what
“Family Day,” on which em- CIA officers simply call “the
ployees may bring a carload of Mission” is the reason they tol-
relatives onto the compound. erate the bureaucracy and the
Agency offices and components quirks of life in the secret world.
set up booths and organize
events. At the booth run by the The strange reality is that,
Office of Security, my teenage for a secretive organisation
sister spectacularly failed her dealing in deception, the moral
first and only polygraph. code developed to achieve this
mission is all about telling the
There is a gift shop that sells truth. This does not mean that
agency-branded swag, includ- the CIA always lives up to this
ing mugs, golf balls, barbecue code — the agency’s history has
sauce, and — my favorite — its share of both intelligence
luggage bearing a CIA mono- and moral failures — but truth
gram, which agency officers is the standard. The search for it
for obvious reasons cannot buy is the soul of the place.
(in fact, any CIA officer under
cover cannot use the gift shop Analysts pride themselves on
at all). “speaking truth to power,” and
are encouraged from their first
There is also a hot dog ma- days on the job to be wary of
chine in the Langley basement, anyone attempting to distort
loaded with Hormel products reality. Newly appointed CIA
in the manner of a belt-fed ma- directors, most of whom arrive
chine gun. I visited it on many from outside Langley, are often
late nights. shocked to observe young ana-
lysts correct their superiors or
The fact that the agency is even the director in briefings.
not just a large organization,
but a highly secretive, govern- CIA case officers — charged
ment organisation, means that with spotting, developing,
CIA officers are subjected to and recruiting human agents —
additional wrinkles of inani- are often portrayed in the media
as professional liars. But the na-
ture of their work demands pre-
cisely the opposite. They must
be able to work independently.
Langley must trust them. And
it is honesty that delivers this
trust. —CNN.

NewsHawks Reframing Issues Page 37

Issue 52, 15 October 2021 Freedom of press is essential
for peace: Nobel committee
ELOISE BARRY
The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov for the fight for freedom of expression in the Philippines and in Russia.
THE 2021 Nobel Peace Prize has
been  awarded  to two fighters for a Rainer Jensen—dpa/Sipa USA; Ander McIntyre—Camera Press/Redux
free press: Maria Ressa of the Philip-
pines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia. Facebook has become the  bat- banned and dissenting journalists are successfully attempted to lobby the page following her Nobel win, Res-
The Norwegian Nobel Committee tleground  for public disinforma- branded “foreign agents.” State-con- social media giant into action to reg- sa repeated her career-long mantra
cited their fight for freedom of ex- tion campaigns. In the Philippines, trolled media feeds propaganda to ulate the content, and herself became for journalists in the Philippines to
pression, stressing that it is vital in Facebook’s “Free Basics” programme Russian civilians and trumped up the victim of a vicious harassment “hold the line.” In another interview,
promoting peace. allows mobile phone users to access charges are used to imprison report- campaign on the platform, with gov- she said that the Committee’s choice
the platform and the internet for free, ers and bloggers. ernment supporting accounts threat- to recognise journalists under siege
“Free, independent and fact-based making the social media giant the go- What to know about Maria Ressa ening violence and spreading the was proof that “a world without facts
journalism serves to protect against to source for news in the country — and Dmitry Muratov hashtag, #UnfollowRappler. means a world without truth and
abuse of power, lies and war propa- 78% of the country’s population use Maria Ressa was named TIME’s Per- without trust”.
ganda,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, Facebook. Duterte’s regime has taken son of the Year 2018 as part of  The The other joint winner of this
chair of the committee. advantage of this, using state-con- Guardians and the War on Truth, a year’s Nobel Peace Prize, Dmitry Du- Muratov dedicated his award to
trolled fake accounts to spread un- group of journalists fighting for press ratov is one of the founders of the in- the six murdered journalists whose
The fact that the Nobel committee truths and harass vocal critics. freedoms around the world. The Fil- dependent Russian newspaper Nova- pictures hang in Novaya Gazeta’s
honoured two journalists — Ressa, ipino-American was a CNN bureau ya Gazeta in 1993. “Novaya Gazeta is Moscow office. “We will use this
the CEO of Filipino news site Rap- Russia ranks even lower down the chief before setting up an online the most independent newspaper in award to fight for Russian journal-
pler, and Muratov, the former editor RSF Index: 150 out of 180 countries. news outlet, Rappler, with three oth- Russia today, with a fundamentally ism, which they’re now trying to
of independent Russian newspaper Over the past decade, the Kremlin has er women in 2012. critical attitude towards power,” the repress,” he  told  Podyom, a Russian
Novaya Gazeta — seems intended to sought to control online information Nobel committee said. news website.
underscore the necessity of freedom by censoring or removing content Rappler became known for accu-
of expression to functioning democ- and blocking mobile Internet access. rate, challenging reporting chron- The newspaper’s critical stance to- Human rights lawyer Amal Cloo-
racies, in a year marked by increased In 2019, Russia introduced  contro- icling Duterte’s “war on drugs” wards the Putin regime has made its ney, a member of Ressa’s legal team,
weaponization of social media and versial technology  to limit traffic to and extrajudicial killings that have reporters targets of the Kremlin — said, “I am so proud of my client and
attacks on journalists pursuing truth. Twitter and a year later passed a law left over 12,000 dead. Duterte’s gov- six of its reporters have been killed in friend. She has sacrificed her own
According to Reporters Without to increase fines on internet platforms ernment refuses to accredit Rappler the paper’s nearly two decade histo- freedom for the rights of journalists
Borders (RSF)  2021 World Press for failing to remove information the to cover it and is attempting to si- ry. One of the assassinated reporters, all over the world. I hope the Philip-
Freedom Index, the situation for state considers unsuitable. lence the platform using what RSF Anna Politkovskaya, was killed 15 pine authorities will now stop perse-
press freedom is “difficult or very se- calls “judicial harassment.” Both the years ago yesterday. She gained inter- cuting her and other journalists, and
rious” in 73% of the 180 countries it Since prominent Kremlin crit- site and its founder face multiple national recognition for her coverage that this prize helps to protect the
evaluates, and “good or satisfactory” ic Alexei Navalny — who was one criminal charges, including cyber li- of Chechnya and the North Cauca- press around the world.”
in only 27%. of oddsmakers’  favorites  to win the bel—if found guilty, Ressa faces up sus.
Peace Prize — was detained by au- to six years in prison. Vincent of RSF hopes that win-
Earlier this year, literary and thorities in January, journalists cov- Muratov is the first Russian to win ning the Nobel Peace Prize will afford
human rights organization PEN ering protests against his arrest have In 2016, after months of study- the Nobel peace prize since Soviet the two journalists some level of pro-
America  warned  that repressive gov- been subjected to harassment, fines ing data and traffic on the platform, leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, tection. “The international commu-
ernments are ramping up efforts and even violence. The Kremlin is Ressa’s team uncovered a network of who himself helped set up Novaya nity is very much watching what’s
to censor, surveil, and punish dis- aiming towards a “sovereign inter- state-controlled fake accounts spread- Gazeta with the prize money. happening, and know there would be
senters under the guise of “digital net,” whereby media or informa- ing fake news on Facebook. She un- How the world reacted to their win consequences if anything happened
sovereignty.” Examples include the tion which challenges the regime is In a  post  on Rappler’s Facebook to these journalists.”
Indian government forcing Twitter
and Facebook in April to remove —Time.
posts critical of its handling of the
Covid-19 pandemic, and the Nige-
rian government banning Twitter
in June after the platform removed
a post from President Muhammadu
Buhari which critics say revived civil
war sentiments.

In a phone interview, director
of international campaigns for Re-
porters Without Borders, Rebecca
Vincent, said she thought the com-
mittee’s decision to award journalists
fighting for press freedoms was “stra-
tegic.”

“The global situation for press
freedom is more challenging than
ever before,” she said. “The Commit-
tee recognised what we at Reporters
Without Borders believe, which is
that safeguarding of free expression
is a precondition for democracy and
lasting peace.”
Press freedom under threat in Phil-
ippines and Russia
The Philippines  ranks  138 out of
180 countries in the RSF’s global
index. Since winning the presidency
in 2016, Rodrigo Duterte has moved
the country further towards author-
itarianism, imposing policies of fear
and repression.

He immediately made known his
intention to stifle free expression in
an open threat to journalists: “Just be-
cause you’re a journalist, you are not
exempted from assassination if you’re
a son of a bitch,” he said. “Freedom
of expression cannot help you if you
have done something wrong.” Four
journalists were killed in 2020, and
reporters critical of Duterte’s blood-
thirsty “war on drugs” have been
pressured, harassed and intimidated.
At the height of the pandemic in
summer 2020, the Philippine Con-
gress  refused  to renew the franchise
of the country’s biggest TV network,
ABS-CBN.

Page 38 Reframing Issues NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Nobel winner Gurnah’s fiction traces
small lives with wit and tenderness
TINA STEINER

FOR those of us who have read and
reread, taught, and written about the
fiction of Abdulrazak Gurnah, the No-
bel Prize in Literature committee has
confirmed what we knew all along.
His superb writing deserves much
wider recognition and readership.

Gurnah was born in  Zanzibar, the
archipelago off the Tanzanian coast,
in 1948. Then still a British Protec-
torate, Zanzibar gained independence
in December 1963, only to be thrown
into the turmoil and violence of the
Zanzibar Revolution of January 1964.
These are historical events to which he
returns in his fiction repeatedly.

He left for the UK in 1967 and
has lived there ever since, except for a
short teaching stint at Bayero Univer-
sity Kano in Nigeria in the 1980s. He
taught in the English department at
the University of Kent in Canterbury
until his recent retirement.

Even though he has lived most of
life in England, all his novels – except
for Dottie (1990), which is set entire-
ly in the UK – are set either fully or
partially on the Eastern African Swa-
hili Coast or in Zanzibar. To date he
has published ten immensely readable
novels and many short stories. These
are written in clean and uncluttered
prose. It makes him a master story-
teller, captivatingly drawing the reader
into the experiences and vivid life-
worlds of the characters depicted.

Connecting people and geographies Abdulrazak Gurnah captivatingly draws readers into the experiences and vivid lifeworlds of his characters. Getty Images
The work of the imagination to fol-
low the storyteller’s attention creates the move and who do not seem to be- in terms of appearance or ancestry, cial connections, however unexpected, line is pivotal, not just in relation to
connections that in their intangibil- long anywhere. Gurnah sets the complexity of cen- that offer reassurance and warmth. this particular novel, but perhaps to
ity might seem elusive. And yet any turies of intermingling along the East Gurnah’s oeuvre as a whole. It makes
reader will know these to be powerful Migration and other forms of dis- African shores of the Indian Ocean. In In this way, his novels also cau- visible the ocean on which so many of
and potentially transformative. As Ben placement, as Gurnah’s stories suggest, this way his stories question ideas of tiously celebrate the polyglot cosmo- his stories float. And I suspect that this
Okri, a Nigerian writer, reminds us, are common occurrences in Africa and purity and difference. They emphasise politanisms and generous forms of teacher’s smile is also the soryteller’s. It
such threads, which interweave stories across the globe. Therefore, it is im- the cultural and linguistic heterogene- accommodation that emerged on the is the subtle humour which suffuses
and life, are deeply significant. This is portant to see others in relation to our- ity of East African coastal regions and Swahili coast within broader structures his writing that give his stories a light-
because stories “can infect a system, or selves, to perceive their right of abode their place within the continent, the of ambivalent encounter in the mon- ness of touch, despite the harrowing
illuminate a world”. The ambiguity in even if they cannot claim national Indian Ocean world, and the globe in soon trade and imperial conquest. In aspects of the narratives. It contributes
Okri’s description of the effect of sto- belonging. However, it is precisely order to stress a common humanity. a passage in By the Sea, Gurnah’s sixth enormously to the pleasure of reading.
ries captures the way in which stories the humanity of the stranger that is at Empathetic storytelling novel, published in 2001, seven-year-
potentially open up the world and stake once the status of citizenship is Across his oeuvre, which traverses set- old Saleh Omar, one of the protago- There is the acerbic sarcasm which
contest narratives that circumscribe in question. Hospitality is revealed as tings in Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Bag- nists and narrators, describes his first exposes racial aggression and renders
and preclude mutuality. It also talks to conditional in the current hostile im- amoyo, Mombasa, Lake Tanganyika, encounter with a map of an Africa it absurd. And there is the self-depre-
the danger of stories when they par- migration climate. The asylum seeker, Nairobi, Muscat, Bahrain and several embedded in the wider world of the cating humour of the migrant in the
ticipate in and serve as justification for the refugee and the migrant are hardly locales in England, Gurnah traces Indian Ocean: face of an immovable and indifferent
structures of domination, exclusion afforded the dignity which the recog- a long history of transnational and environment, which staves off self-pity
and violence. nition of a common humanity would transoceanic movements. His work As [the teacher’s] story developed, and sets in motion processes of disa-
demand. references the Eastern African slave he began to draw a map on the black- lienation.
Gurnah, the storyteller, probes the trade and indenture, German and Brit- board with a piece of white chalk:
efficacy of stories to connect people It is this refusal to recognise the ish colonial oppression and less legible the coast of North Africa which then The dry wit of the narratives allows
and geographies. Yet at the same time humanity of the other and its terrible but equally destructive forms of social bulged out and tucked in and then Gurnah to forge a bond with readers,
he is acutely attentive to the divisive consequences that Gurnah’s stories exclusion to do with economic pre- slid down to the Cape of Good Hope. who come to appreciate it as a mode
nature of stories of certainty: of colo- explore in detail. He crafts careful- carity and migration. While his char- As he drew, he spoke, naming places, of interaction that can liquefy ossified
nial domination, of patriarchal scripts, ly delineated juxtapositions between acters are often caught in violent and sometimes in full sometimes in pass- social categories by opening up spaces
of racism, of xenophobia towards hostile, implacable environments in unequal plots not of their own making ing. Sinuously north to the jut of the of irony and ambiguity and remind us
strangers from elsewhere. His work which his characters find themselves and beyond their control – since Gur- Ruvuma delta, the cusp of our stretch of the fragility of the human condition
points to the way in which such cer- with little room to manoeuvre, and nah’s stories tend to focus on people of coast, the Horn of Africa, then the we all share.
tainties furnish people with a belief pockets of hospitality that gesture to- whose lives are deemed insignificant Red Sea coast to Suez, the Arabian
in the rightness of the violence they wards alternative social imaginaries and small – his empathetic storytelling peninsula, the Persian Gulf, India, —The Conversation.
wreak on others, in the destruction of where kindness and joie de vivre be- subtly points to the importance of so- the Malay peninsula and then all the *About the writer: Tina Steiner
other people’s lives which they deem come possible. way to China. He stopped there and is Associate Professor in the English
to matter less than their own. smiled. Department at Stellenbosch Univer-
In contrast to an essentialist view of sity in South Africa.
Instead, Gurnah’s work asks the a citizen as someone who is described This moment of the unbroken chalk
reader to consider stories as provisional
accounts that cannot claim closure or
complete knowledge. Ambiguity, mul-
tiple viewpoints of the same events,
complex focalisation, self-reflexive iro-
ny and narrative wit are some of the
features of his writing. They make his
writing so incredibly compelling. It
elides narrative certainty. The narra-
tive mode is often oblique. Perhaps we
can imagine it like this, or perhaps it
happened otherwise. This mode is par-
ticularly apt to illuminate the itinerant
lives of people who find themselves on

NewsHawks Reframing Issues Page 39

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Africa’s revolution will be tweeted…if
activists can harness the opportunity
AYO SOGUNRO With the right strategic thinking, social media can help cultivate the kind of
pan-African solidarity that would’ve excited the likes of Nkrumah. 
ON 4 June 2021,  Nigeria’s  gov-
ernment announced the  indefinite Social media was instrumental to the organisation and spread of the #EndSARS protests in Nigeria in October 2020. Credit: Nengi Nelson.
suspension  of Twitter in the coun-
try. Over the following few days, it is, however, it is not enough. If activ- much more than individual nation’s of the wider effect of such a cam- thenticity and legitimacy of online
directed internet service providers to ism across Africa is to result in actual weaknesses and, with the appropri- paign and its chances of success. In activism. However, there is a lot to
block access to the social media site transformation, this nascent solidar- ate theoretical understanding, ac- practice, this might involve targeting be hopeful about. Social media has
and ordered media houses to de-in- ity must evolve into strategic collec- tivists can share similar experiences more democratic governments with created a unique kind of space that
stall their accounts. While many tive action. This process will require in a way that emphasises patterns diplomatic influence, relatively more is not subject to the physical control
Nigerians ignored, protested, and/ activists to increase social conscious- and their common systemic under- socially responsible corporations, in- of the military or police.
or circumvented this arbitrary, and ness, identify continent-wide sys- pinnings. Particularly relevant areas tergovernmental organisations, and
arguably, unconstitutional policy, temic challenges, and locate pressure for collective examination might in- even social media platforms them- This is not to suggest that social
others complied immediately. points. clude things such as the legacy of co- selves. media is a panacea. In many ways, it
Raising social consciousness lonialism in today’s governance and has given rise to more problems and
The incident that triggered the Activism is not merely about ad- authoritarian institutions, the emer- In theory, a movement that en- has facilitated the spread of discrim-
government’s ban was Twitter’s dele- vocating for change but sharing gence and dominance of an elite compasses activists from across Af- ination, misinformation, and intim-
tion of a tweet by Muhammadu Bu- knowledge and appropriate theo- class, and deepening inequalities. rica has a wider range of potential idation. These issues will have to be
hari in which the president cited the retical frameworks for making sense If undertaken as a deliberate social pressure points and greater flexibility addressed.
1967-70 civil war and threatened to of struggles. This process requires a media project by activists across the in choosing its targets. Social media
treat “those misbehaving today” in shared conceptual language — such continent – and a few people have allows people from different con- Yet the fact remains that, in a
“the language they will understand”. as through notions of “constitution- already begun to do this – social texts to share important informa- continent where opportunities for
Twitter deemed this to have violated alism”, “social justice” or “pan-Afri- media platforms such as Twitter can tion and mobilise on behalf of one international engagement between
its policies. However, the Nigerian canism”. Having such a shared lan- be used to share common narratives another. For instance, a pan-Afri- everyday people is severely limited,
government’s grievances with the guage can allow geographically and from can movement recognising that one social media provides a space — for
social media giant go much deeper thematically diverse movements to particular community’s plight was increasingly numbers of Africans
as revealed when the Information identify areas of intersection and rec- different countries. What may inter-connected with many others though far from all — to connect, to
Minister accused Twitter of being a ognise the common factors underly- first seem like peculiar local or na- could stand in solidarity not just by redefine African values, to recognise
threat to Nigeria’s “corporate exis- ing seemingly disparate issues. tional problems can come to be un- amplifying that group’s protests, but shared inequities and ambitions,
tence” and declared its founder Jack derstood as systemic continent-wide also by pressuring neighbouring gov- and to stand up against authoritar-
Dorsey to be liable for damage to Social media offers activists the issues that demand systemic conti- ernments, regional blocs, multina- ianism, racism, patriarchy, injustice,
public property during the October opportunity to not just engage in nent-wide action. tionals and other influential bodies and other daily discriminations. If
2020 #EndSARS protests. this kind of public education at a as well as by sharing relevant lessons, African activists can utilise this space
pan-African level but do so in a way The next step after this would be resources and experiences. effectively, they can play a major part
Clearly, the Nigerian government that fosters a sense of collective Af- to identify pressure points. The pow- Towards the future in shaping African society for the
was concerned by more than the de- rican identity. Done effectively, it is er of movements is still limited by The future of radical activism in Af- next generation.
letion of a single tweet. It was wor- possible to imagine a continent-wide the contexts in which they arise and rica will partly depend on the ability
ried about the opportunities Twitter protest using one hashtag, present- the extent to which the governments of activists to harness and amplify — African Arguments.
presents as a space for organising ing similar but contextual demands, or other organisations they target are solidarity via social media. Many
collective action. It has good rea- in a show of unity that would be im- likely to be responsive. This means it governments will attempt to restrict *About the writer: Ayo Sogun-
son to be worried. The widespread possible for governments to ignore. will be necessary for activists across this same space, and there will al- ro is an author and human rights
#EndSARS protests, which began by Africa to be strategic and work out ways be questions doubting the au- lawyer who contributes to Afri-
demanding the abolition of an abu- Many of Africa’s challenges are where attention and resources would can socio-political commentary
sive police unit but evolved into de- best be concentrated, both in terms through his writings, advocacy and
mands for broader political change, community educational events. 
offered authorities a glimpse into the
future of social movements. In those
protests, #EndSARS organisers
used technologies like Twitter to de-
cide protest locations, share health
and safety tips, raise funds for cater-
ing and transportation, and organise
legal and healthcare volunteers. This
resourceful coordination had dazed
law enforcement authorities and
initially thwarted their usual tactics
used for breaking up protests.

Social media also helped to inter-
nationalise #EndSARS as Twitter,
Instagram and Facebook users far
beyond Nigeria raised awareness of
the movement and the problems it
sought to address. At the same time,
Nigerians eagerly engaged with
trends from other countries such
as #EndAnglophoneCrisis in Cam-
eroon, #AmINext in South Africa,
#FreeSenegal, #ShutItAllDown in
Namibia, and #ZimbabweanLives-
Matter.

These engagements are significant
because, while African leaders have
always had venues for cross-conti-
nental conversations, ordinary Afri-
cans have rarely had such opportu-
nities. Interactions on social media
may yet be unstructured, but the
transnational — almost pan-Afri-
can — solidarity that we saw among
ordinary people around #EndSARS
and other protests would have excit-
ed the likes of Kwame Nkrumah.

Remarkable as this development

Page 40 Africa News NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara:
Who killed ‘Africa’s Che Guevara’?

THIRTY-FOUR years, almost to
the day, since the shocking killing of
Burkina Faso’s then President, Thom-
as Sankara, 14 men are going on trial,
accused of complicity in the murder
of the man known as “Africa’s Che
Guevara”.

The charismatic Pan-Africanist was
shot dead aged 37 by soldiers during
a coup on 15 October 1987, which
saw his close friend, Blaise Com-
paoré, come to power.

Four years previously, the pair had
staged the takeover which saw Sanka-
ra become president.

Compaoré is among the 14 accused
but he is currently in exile in neigh-
bouring Ivory Coast, where he fled
after being forced to resign during
mass protests in 2014. He has repeat-
edly denied involvement in Sankara’s
death and is boycotting the trial.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a
long time,” the former president’s
widow

Mariam Sankara told the BBC. “I
want to know the truth, and who did
what.”

Sankara remains something of an
icon across Africa - stickers embla-
zoned with his face adorn taxis across
West Africa, while across the conti-
nent in South Africa, radical opposi-
tion leader Julius Malema cites him as
one of his inspirations.

Why is Sankara seen as such a hero? Burkina Faso’s then President, Thomas Sankara was shot dead aged 37 by soldiers during a coup on 15 October 1987.
“For us, Sankara was a patriot. He
loved his people. He loved his coun- he did for the population encourag- talk to him and be heard,” said Serge until Mr Compaoré was overthrown absentia is Hyacinthe Kafando, Mr
try. He loved Africa. He gave his life es us young people to do as he did,” Theophile Balima, who served as the in 2014. The following year, remains Compaoré’s former security chief, for
for us,” said Luc Damiba, secretary a student at the Thomas Sankara minister of information in Sankara’s presumed to be his were exhumed whom an international arrest war-
general of the Thomas Sankara Me- University in Ouagadougou told the government. but DNA analysis was unable to con- rant has been issued. He is accused of
morial Committee. BBC. firm they were his. leading the group which carried out
Prof Balima added: “He wanted the killing of Sankara and 12 others.
It was under his rule that the coun- An imposing six-metre high to give power to the people, so he In 2016, the Burkina Faso au- What impact will the trial have?
try was renamed - from Upper Volta bronze statue at the Thomas Sankara delegated power to proletarians who thorities officially asked the French There were fears that the trial could
to Burkina Faso, meaning “Land of Memorial Park in the capital, Ouaga- were heading the Committees for the government to release military doc- further destabilise Burkina Faso,
Upright People”. dougou, was unveiled in 2019,  and Defence of the Revolution [CDRs], uments about Sankara’s assassination. which is already grappling with fre-
then reworked last year following who were recruited to moralise public quent attacks by jihadist groups
Sankara himself led an austere life- complaints about the first version. and private life. In fact, they found Those archives were declassified linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic
style. He reduced his own salary, and themselves committing abuses which and transmitted to Burkina Faso in State group. Compaoré still retains
that of all public servants. He also Mr Damiba says that plans are un- discredited his power.” three stages -- the final one in April considerable influence in the country
banned the use of government chauf- derway to expand the park, including 2021. and some analysts have warned parts
feurs and first-class airline tickets. an 87-metre high tower overlooking In an interview with the Africa Who else is on trial? of the military who remain loyal to
Ouagadougou. There will also be a Report website in 2020, former Pres- Compaoré’s former chief of staff Gen- him could stir up trouble. But there
Education was a key priority - mausoleum for Sankara, a cinema ident Jean-Baptiste Ouédraogo, who eral Gilbert Diendéré and 11 others is little sign of this.
while he was in power, the literacy hall and a media library named after was ousted by Sankara, described him are expected to be in the military tri-
rate increased from 13% in 1983 to him. These facilities are expected to as having “a share of cynicism and po- bunal. They face charges of “attacking On the contrary, President Roch
73% in 1987, and he also oversaw pass on Sankara’s revolutionary ideas litical Machiavellianism”. state security”, “complicity in assassi- Marc Kaboré hopes the trial will ease
a massive national vaccination cam- to future generations. Why has the trial taken so long? nation” and “concealment of bodies”. tensions and boost national reconcil-
paign. What about his critics? His brother, Paul Sankara, said: iation.
Sankara’s radical left-wing policies “We’ve waited a long time, all along Diendéré is already in prison, after
He also redistributed land from lo- have been criticised by human rights the 27 years of Blaise Compaoré’s re- being sentenced to 20 years for his “I do not believe that such a tri-
cal chiefs and gave it directly to poor organisations as draconian. gime. Under his rule we couldn’t even role in a failed coup in 2015. al can foster instability,” Mathieu
farmers, which led to a huge increase dream of the possibility of a trial.” Pellerin, a Sahel analyst at the Inter-
in cotton production. A 1986 report released by Amnes- Among the accused is Diébré Jean national Crisis Group (ICG), told
ty International revealed that alleged His widow filed a criminal com- Christophe, the doctor who signed French magazine Jeune Afrique in
Sankara called for a united Africa political opponents were detained plaint in 1997 over the murder of her the death certificate, saying the for- April 2020.
to stand against what he called the without trial and severely tortured. husband, but it took 15 years for the mer president had died from natural
“neo-colonialism” of institutions such Supreme Court to rule that the inves- causes. He is charged with falsifying a “Reconciliation is rarely achieved
as the International Monetary Fund “I think he was too slow to accept tigation could continue. public document. without justice,” he added.
(IMF) and the World Bank. the idea of pluralistic democracy and
those who opposed him couldn’t However, little progress was made The other man being charged in —BBC.
He was once quoted as saying: “He
who feeds you, controls you.”

He adopted an anti-imperialist
foreign policy which challenged the
dominance of France, which retained
huge influence in many of its former
colonies in Africa, such as Burkina
Faso. His widow Mariam has accused
France of masterminding his assassi-
nation.

“He remains my president. What

NewsHawks World News Page 41

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Pandora Papers: Chilean president
Piñera to be criminally investigated

CHILEAN opposition lawmakers Chilean President Sebastián Piñera held a press conference a day after he was revealed in the leak had been inves- tract, the last installment of US$9.9
have launched impeachment proceedings named in the Pandora Papers media investigation, exposing world leaders’ use tigated by the prosecutor’s office in million would only be paid if there
against President Sebastián Piñera  over of tax havens, at La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, on October 4, 2021. 2017 and that he has been discon- was an absence of regulatory measures
new details about the sale of a mining Piñera denied any wrongdoing. nected from his family’s businesses for that would “irrevocably” prevent a
company revealed in the Pandora Papers more than 12 years. mining project under consideration—
investigation. in the British Virgin Islands was not termining if criminal charges will be for example, the creation of a nature
included in the original investigation filed, investigators will also need to Piñera is facing scrutiny on two preserve. The remaining US$14 mil-
The opposition-controlled Chamber of and we believe it is new evidence in the assess if there is a statute of limitation fronts, with opposition parties also lion was paid in Chile, according to
Deputies will decide whether to approve case,” said Marta Herrera, director of that prevents prosecutors from filing calling for a parliamentary charge that documents obtained by ICIJ partner,
or reject the accusation in a vote to be the Special Anticorruption Unit at the charges. could lead to his impeachment. CIPER.
held the first week of November,  Inter- National Prosecutor’s office.
national Consortium of Investigative Earlier this week, Piñera said in a The Pandora Papers revelations, first The mining project has been in legal
Journalists (ICIJ) partners at EL PAÍS Herrera said that in addition to de- press conference that the information published days ago by ICIJ partners, flux for years: It was rejected by an en-
report. If approved, the case will then go the  Chilean Center for Investigative vironmental commission in 2017. An-
to the Senate. Reporting (CIPER) and Labot, re- des Iron, the company that purchased
vealed that in December 2010, nine the mining project, appealed, and the
Chile’s national prosecutor’s of- months into Piñera’s first term as Supreme Court asked the environ-
fice announced on Friday that it president, a Chilean mining compa- mental tribunal to reexamine their de-
would open a criminal investigation ny, Dominga, partially owned by his cision in 2019.
against President Sebastián Piñera fol- children made a US$152 million deal
lowing revelations concerning his busi- with another company belonging to Opposition leaders said that the fact
ness affairs in the Pandora Papers. one of Piñera’s closest friends, Carlos that Piñera was president at the time
Alberto Délano. the deal was signed presents a conflict
Investigators said the probe would of interest and should be investigated.
focus on the 2010 sale by the Piñera Dominga was exploring a contro-
family of a stake in a Chilean mining versial US$2.5 billion copper and iron “All the opposition benches have
project and, depending upon the find- mining project that would take place agreed to initiate a constitutional in-
ings, could lead to bribery and tax-re- close to the Humboldt Penguin Na- dictment against President Sebastian
lated charges. tional Reserve, a sensitive environmen- Pinera,” Jaime Naranjo, spokesperson
tal area that is habitat for whales, dol- for the Socialist Party, reportedly said
The prosecutor’s office said that a phins, birds and Humboldt penguins. at a press conference earlier this week.
prior investigation related to the busi-
ness deal didn’t include a contract, The first US$138 million of the If the constitutional indictment is
written in English and signed in the deal was made through shell compa- successful, it could lead to the presi-
British Virgin Islands, that was re- nies registered in the British Virgin dent’s removal.
vealed in the Pandora Papers. Islands, and was to be paid in three
installments. According to the con- — International Consortium of
“The contract in English created Investigative Journalists.

There is a future.

ZIMBABWE
CHILDREN’S CANCER RELIEF

EARLY
DETECTION

IS THE BEST PROTECTION!

STAY IF YOU SUSPECT EYE CANCER
ALERT! VISIT YOUR CLINIC TODAY

Porsche just got angrier Being a Fashion Model

&Life Style

STYLE TRAVEL BOOKS ARTS MOTORING

Page 42 Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Adele announces
new album ‘30’

“SOMEONE Like You” hit- in new ones. lection with “narrate” the ef- Adele appears on the No-
maker Adele has confirmed “Discovered genuinely use- forts she’s gone to rebuild her vember covers of Vogue and
her new fourth album “30” “house and [her] heart”. British Vogue, a first for the
will be released next month. ful and wholesome mentalities fashion magazine, with both
to lead with, and I feel like I’ve She continued: “And then editions running separate in-
The 33-year-old star has finally found my feeling again. that friend who no matter terviews.
confirmed her fourth record what, checked in on me even
— the highly anticipated fol- “I’d go so far as to say that though I’d stopped checking “I just felt like I wanted to
low-up to 2015’s “25” - will I’ve never felt more peaceful in in with them because I’d be- explain to him, through this
be released on November 19, my life. come so consumed by my own record, when he’s in his twen-
and she described the LP as grief. ties or thirties, who I am and
her “ride or die throughout “And so, I’m ready to finally why I voluntarily chose to
the most turbulent period” of put this album out.” “I’ve painstakingly rebuilt dismantle his entire life in the
her life. my house and my heart since pursuit of my own happiness,”
Adele — who filed for di- then and this album narrates Adele told British Vogue, re-
In a lengthy statement vorce from Simon Konecki in it. ferring to her nine-year-old
shared on social media, she 2019 having being separated son, Angelo.
said: “I was certainly nowhere for a long time following their “Home is where the heart is
near where I’d hoped to be marriage the previous year, be- x (sic)” “It made him really un-
when I first started it nearly fore her dad Mark Evans lost happy sometimes. And that’s
three years ago. Quite the op- his battle with cancer earlier Adele said she recorded her a real wound for me that I
posite actually. this year — opened up on how upcoming album to explain don’t know if I’ll ever be able
much the album means to her. her divorce to her young son, to heal.”
“And yet there I was know- as the British singer prepares
ingly — willingly, even, She added: “It was my ride to make her musical come- Adele, who has named her
throwing myself into a maze or die throughout the most back. three albums after milestone
of absolute mess and inner turbulent period of my life. ages - “19”, “21” and “25”,
turmoil! In what Vogue magazine has enjoyed stratospheric suc-
“When I was writing it, it said was her first interview in cess with ballads like “Some-
“I’ve learned a lot of blister- was my friend who came over five years, the singer-songwrit- one Like You” and “Hello”, in
ing home truths about myself with a bottle of wine and a er described the record, which which she sings about break-
along the way. I’ve shed many takeaway to cheer me up. My follows her 2015 Grammy ups and regrets. — IOL.
layers but also wrapped myself wise friend who always gives Award-winning “25”, as “sen-
the best advice.” sitive”.

She revealed the new col-

NewsHawks Life & Style Page 43

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

FOR almost 50 years, Sir Paul Mc- Paul McCartney: John Lennon
Cartney has shouldered the blame ‘instigated’ the Beatles’ break-up
for breaking up the Beatles. for a week in Amsterdam for peace. relationship in order to keep their
Paul McCartney shared that The Beatles broke up because of the late John Lennon. You couldn’t argue with that. It was music out of Klein’s hands.
The supposed evidence was the most difficult period of my life.”
a press release for his 1970 solo al- “I had to fight and the only way
bum, McCartney, where he revealed “This was my band, this was my I could fight was in suing the oth-
he was on a “break” from rock’s big- job, this was my life,” he added. “I er Beatles, because they were going
gest band. wanted it to continue. I thought we with Klein,” he told Wilson.
were doing some pretty good stuff
Interviewing himself, Sir Paul — Abbey Road, Let It Be, not bad “And they thanked me for it years
said he could not “foresee a time — and I thought we could continue.” later. But I didn’t instigate the split.”
when Lennon-McCartney becomes
an active songwriting partnership Sir Paul said confusion over The He has previously said that archi-
again”. But in a new BBC interview, Beatles’ break-up festered because val projects like The Beatles Anthol-
he has said the split was prompted the band’s new manager Allen Klein ogy and Peter Jackson’s forthcoming
by John Lennon. -- who he refused to align with -- documentary, Get Back, would nev-
said he needed time to tie up loose er have been possible without his
“I didn’t instigate the split. That ends with their business. legal action.
was our Johnny,” he told interviewer
John Wilson. “I am not the person “So for a few months we had to Sir Paul’s full interview will be
who instigated the split. pretend,” he told Wilson. “It was heard on the new BBC Radio 4 se-
weird because we all knew it was the ries This Cultural Life, which will be
“Oh no, no, no. John walked into end of the Beatles but we couldn’t broadcast on 23 October.
a room one day and said I am leav- just walk away.”
ing the Beatles. And he said, ‘It’s The following Monday, record-
quite thrilling, it’s rather like a di- Sir Paul ended up suing the rest of ings of the musician reading from
vorce.’ And then we were left to pick the band in the high court, seeking his new book, The Lyrics, will also
up the pieces.” the dissolution of their contractual be available on BBC Sounds.

Wilson asked whether the band —BBC.
would have continued if Lennon
hadn’t walked away.

“It could have,” Sir Paul replied.
“The point of it really was that
John was making a new life with
Yoko and he wanted... to lie in bed

Page 44 Life & Style NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

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NewsHawks State of the culture Page 45

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Cultural production in society and companionship

Addy
Kudita

CULTURAL production in any given
society is linked or can be linked to ep-
och defining social movements. This
column has in the past tackled the sub-
ject matter considerably and will con-
tinue to because the overarching thrust
of the installments we churn out week-
ly is look at society through the lens of
culture in its expansive definition.

When life imitates Art bwean society. severance package from Barclays bank mean the Zimbabwean rich folk seem Mafikizolo.
“When anyone asks me how I can best which he said ran into millions. Oth- to wallow in self-aggrandizement and alized by their pay. The loss to Ghana
describe my experience in nearly forty The rich may not pretend ers countered with clippings from past the ‘mbinga’ mentality. They want you was for me already coming. I chuckled
years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Last week the finance minister George news reports indicating that Guva- to know they have money. The ques- when I saw a clip of so called prophet
Of course there have been winter gales, Guvamatanga was able to put togeth- matanga had been awarded around 350 tion is really about the source of their Passion Java offering the team 10 000
and storms and fog and the like. But er a show for his birthday which I will thousand dollars as a goodbye package wealth in the current environment of dollars for a win and 1000 for the scor-
in all my experience, I have never been call a Hollywood wet dream. He liter- from his employers. Moreover, Guva- abject economic suffering of millions. er of the Zimbabwean goal. He made
in any accident… or any sort worth ally airlifted one of Africa’s most bank- matanga in another strategic commu- I mean a whole bureaucrat has such his false prediction with usual aplomb.
speaking about. I have seen but one able musical acts Mafikizolo alongside nication failure has said that he cannot money to throw at an entertainer just His god did not oblige him his proph-
vessel in distress in all my years at sea. Makhadzi who is also a much loved pretend to be poor in order to please for the hell of it. How much more is ecy though. Still, the prophet will live
I never saw a wreck and never have South African musician. In an inspired people or words to that effect. Well, in his kitty if he can dispose with over another day. What’s a failed prophecy
been wrecked nor was I ever in any moment the finance ministry’s perma- how dare the lumpen proletariat ques- a million in hard currency for one ser- when the Warriors lacked faith? Wow,
predicament that threatened to end nent secretary thundered a commit- tion his stunning display of wealth? He vice provider at such a lavish party? this is Zimbabwe. The ones with some
in disaster of any sort.” Those are the ment to quintuple the already humon- knows better than not to hide it from The suburbs of Harare where the elites kind of power lord it over and continue
words reported to have been uttered gous performance fees. The bill came full view. Still, the powers that be now live are really and truly another coun- unscathed by their actions. It is quite
by Captain E.J. Smith, Captain of to a reported whopping 1.3million totally lack moral authority to cry foul try, an alternate universe and a rarified normal for them because they are ev-
the RMS Titanic, a luxury steamship, rands. Such is the way of the political about people dealing in foreign ex- place indeed. These are the folks that erything to themselves and control all
which however sank in the wee hours elites in Zimbabwe. They have money change when they spend it so wildly. It drive the massive cars around on pot the levers of power. What can you do?
of April 15, 1912, off the coast of to splurge like confetti. Others bring in is perfidy of the highest order and they holed roads around the country with Parting shot
Newfoundland in the North Atlantic Bentleys and sear that they are merely should know this. It is fair game to say no compunction and a sense of the iro- The column might read like a disjoint-
when it sideswiped an iceberg during enjoying the fruits of their hard work. that the breathtaking double standard ny of it all. The central bank might ed ramble this week. Frankly I strug-
its maiden voyage. 2,240 passengers It is apparently very hard work to be a has become so imbedded in the social be in some blitz against foreign curren- gled to put it together because I kept
and crew were on board and more than government minister or high ranking fabric of Harare’s elites they no longer cy dealers but they are only according thinking about my own role in the
1,500 perished. The event inspired the bureaucrat with side businesses or hus- see anything out of order. The people to voices I heard on social media, re- Titanic movie. I wondered if I will be
movie Titanic (1997) which featured tles… see what’s happening on Titanic and ally chasing their own tail. The cat is one of those that escape on a lifeboat
Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Bill Legitimate concern they feel despondent because of the cu- among them. because though the music plays and
Paxton, and Billy Zane was based on There was fallout about the incident of mulative brazen acts of waste. There is The show goes on ? fools many, this ship is sinking. That
a screenplay by director James Camer- course and the State media hurriedly no other way to describe the self -sabo- My thoughts are with the Warriors is not a prophecy of doom. The law
on of a fictional love story star crossed put together a feeble rebuttal or apolo- tage and dissonance. right now. That quite a number of them of cycles mandates, that to everything
lovers woven into the chronicle of the gia for the finance ministry boss where Forget propriety are playing for overseas team is a sign of there is a season. Moreover, to borrow
April 1912 Titanic sinking. The ship he insisted that he got rich from a The rich in Zimbabwe are provoca- their capabilities and pedigree but they from nature, no matter how strong the
had been touted as an unsinkable en- tively diffident and haughty it seems. I may just be like everyone else; demor- tendons, muscles atrophy with the pas-
gineering feat by its makers and there sage of time.
was much fanfare about the maiden
voyage. It has been subject of many
conspiracy theories and speculation for
over a century. I remember watching
the movie and being struck by the opu-
lence of the ship’s interior. Wealthy folk
of that era such as the Astors did secure
a place on the ship as would have done
the other monied and connected folk
of that time.
The music played
Personally looking back at that movie
which I watched with the lady who
became my wife, it was a vicarious
experience watching Leo and Kate as
Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukat-
er. But at some point in the movie, I
remember being fascinated and scan-
dalized by the moment in the movie
when it became apparent that the ship
was now sinking and everyone was
scurrying off to escape the impending
doom. The musicians played on duti-
fully! I wanted to invade the film and
slap them all to get the hell off because
artists are my kindred. I felt that they
should have nothing to do with play-
ing music for rich and insolent folk
who did not really care about them
other than for the amusement which
they provided. But looking back it was
a perfect metaphor for life in Zimba-

Page 46 Life & Style NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

NewsHawks Life & Style Page 47

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

Title: We Were Once Brothers Title: Echoes of Muripisa Street Treading a worn-out path,
Poet: Garikai Magaya Poet: Garikai Magaya heading to a known crossroad of jail, hell
and no more Such were the Echoes of
We were once brothers, you and I A simmering calabash of labourers, migrants Muripisa Street.
Juvenile delinquents prowling the streets with in paucity, swirling in a maelstrom of scarcity. Blessed are the meek for theirs is eternal
growling hunger pangs Scouring for an existence at every nook and opulence, our man of the cloth proselytiz-
Merrily dancing and roaming the dusty resi- cranny, the sweeping granny heralds the break es weekly.
dence of paucity in similar days of innocence, of a new day. A well-orchestrated ruse with a choreo-
presaging our dissimilar dates with destiny The office helpers and factory labourers graphed charade to swindle us of our
Fights and flights in unison, a testament of our dash to the daily tussle of standing spaces in sacred savings meekly
camaraderie the overcrowded Zupco. Voluptuous praise and worship song-
We were once brothers, you and I The unemployed cousin, fresh from the im- stresses in an anaesthetic serenade to
Fires of passion in our loins desiring the whis- provised village with hopes of a better life in a numb us from the unfolding heist.
pering eye glittering Utopia. The boisterous businessman- whose trade
The ingenuousness suit of youth replaced by An indistinguishable ant out of luck in an no one can confirm thrusts out wads of
the disingenuous pursuit of success animated, marching army of hobos to lurk in dollars with a thump of the chest. The
What was once an inanimate academic cul- silence like vultures by the factory gate. Pastor, a spirited paramour to many in at-
de-sac; a dungeon Now a buoyant generation- Such were the Echoes of Muripisa Street tendance, showers givers with assurances
al gateway; a pantheon The vending mothers long back from an early of spiritual armour and heavenly reward.
Enticed to promises of splendour and riches Mbare Musika sojourn, Such were the Echoes of Muripisa Street
of privilege being comrades in arms, we urged laying their ware by the dusty roadside so Each night we retired to our reed mats in
each other forward Alas, you excelled; I fell forlorn The streak of scholars beeline to the bothers and surrendered with brothers to
short cathedral of comprehension - a gateway from dreams of taps that never ran dry,
I rejoiced with you - even in my darkest hour I the ubiquitous desolation. voted politicians that kept campaign prom-
summoned a courage I never knew I had A preponderance of the voiceless hopeless ises, fees that were always paid, adorned
For what greater tragedy is there than unful- Vociferously brave the cursed struggle anew in nourished neighbours than never groused
filled potential? In rage, determination and the morning dew and adored cherished nearby mothers that
tack, I rose from the ashes like a Phoenix Such were the Echoes of Muripisa Street never woke up sore or bruised.
We were once brothers, you and I On the fringes of society, we are married to a Such were the Echoes of Muripisa Street
upon the hamster wheel, grateful for the new- barbaric existence,
found freedom All the while alive to the enslav- Far divorced from the Northern Suburbs of ***********************************************
ing inadequacy of our fiefdom You were con- affluence. Each year the budding flowers of
tent with your lot and their mores, I hungered potential wither into nothingness for want of Title: This Poem
for me and their might access or opportunity Poet: Tafadzwa Chiwanza.
The paranoia of poverty in youth taunting my In the mist of poverty from the get-go, we
days and haunting my nights were all too aware, the ghetto is a cemetery of This poem is like chewing an unpeeled
To you I was now a riddle, a stranger in dan- talent. orange.
ger of being destroyed by unbridled ambition From the patriarch slaving away for a pittance, It runs havoc on the tongue like a dosage
I saw the confusion in your eyes, yet I could To the mother bearing his brutal beatings in from a mad doctor:
never return to drunken stupors of rage fatigue. Tastes like soil when the rains are shy to
What was once my station The fair sex, the anvils of the frustrated males, come down.
Were we ever happy in poverty? take in the fiery spear meting out exerting Tastes like drought!
Were we not groomed to normalize mediocrity brutal punishment on their sacred caves for his Rawness! Rawness! Rawness!
through escapism in denialism? humiliating emasculating existence. The poem is spread like virgin legs before
We came from nothing; hence, we wanted Such were the Echoes of Muripisa Street us, With its warm thighs directing us to a
everything; We were once brothers, you and I The local harlot, the latest returnee from a Religious ending.
Now the wealth has broken the bond that tied shattered, early matrimony sits in awe, with an Religious freedom!
us in heavy knots offspring in tow glued to her knees. Many a writers have tried to write this
A torturous chasm turning blood brothers into Now moaning and groaning for a living in dark poem, they dressed it in bomber jackets,
haves and have-nots alleys at the mercy of endless drunkards bru- sweaters and boots and face masks,
Atop an ivory tower of obscene abundance, talizing her nether regions shades, and condoms,
you view me while remonstrating in noisy dis- with a ferocity belying the low token of en- and everything that keeps the poem-
gust; In reflecting silence, I witness your de- trance. The school-drop out now crook, from sounding like this one here!
flecting animated palaver as you self-destruct Hobnobbing with convicted social malcontents
Aloof, I cremate the cadaver of a brotherhood in vain hopes of a big score.
you wish we would resurrect
Alas, it shall never be
For we are no longer brothers, you and I

Page 48 People & Places NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

India woman-led newsroom‘reframes
the conversation’ in new documentary
IN India’s male-dominated media
scene, where caste still matters and Writing With Fire, a documentary film, follows the story of a female-led newsroom in India.
women are afforded few opportuni-
ties, an online photo story about a powerful representative body for over there, except women at Khabar what is considered news and news- and stories.
female-led newsroom staffed by low- journalists in the country, has only Lahariya. worthy or not. But what happens While literacy levels, specifically
er-caste reporters was all it took to one Dalit journalist on the panel Rintu: They started off as a social when you let in people of color into
capture the attention of two movie- and that’s a Khabar Lahariya wom- experiment. An NGO went in and positions of organizational leader- in Uttar Pradesh, are fairly low, inter-
makers and spark an ambitious five- an journalist. Uttar Pradesh, specif- got a bunch of women together and ship? Khabar Lahariya is a unique net penetration is very high. Because
year film project. ically the regions that they work in, said, “If you were to create a newspa- model because it’s entirely led by the method of delivering news has
the profile of journalists is primarily per that you report on, what would women. And these are not just wom- now become digital, there is great-
The resulting documentary, Writ- upper caste men. There are no inde- that look like?” So it was a newsletter en. These are women who are literal- er access to Khabar Lahariya’s own
ing With Fire, follows a group of pendent women journalists working and they called it  “Mahila Dakiya”, ly at the bottom of India’s social pyr- work, which ironically, has led to a
Dalit women, India’s lowest caste, there, except the women at Khabar which is “post-woman.” The women amid. So, what happens when they significant rise in the popularity of
who run a successful news outlet Lahariya. In that sense, that really started telling their own stories in essentially reclaim this position of these women journalists.
called  Khabar Lahariya  in Uttar makes their presence quite prolific their own local dialect and language power and start rewriting the narra- Rintu: Their own level of confidence
Pradesh. In an interview with the because the lens with which they are and that experience was super pow- tive? What does their lens look like? has grown manifold, and we’ve
International Consortium of Investi- viewing stories is very, very different erful for them, so when the NGO That’s what a diversified newsroom watched it from behind the lens.
gative Journalists , filmmakers Rintu from how mainstream media is re- moved out, women wanted to contin- can do. The fact that they’ve grown They would report, produce and
Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh tell how porting it. ue. Some folks from the NGO broke exponentially, since they went digital market all on their own. With the
they experienced the challenges faced away and helped them set up Khabar speaks volumes to the power of their advent of digital people know them
by the women who run Khabar La- [Before the] shift from print to Lahariya which literally translates to, work and their popularity in the re- by their names. They are popular,
hariya as they investigated a range of digital they were printing about five “waves of news.” From there, it grew gion. they do their own shows. Their for-
issues, including patriarchal abuse, thousand papers every two weeks, so out to be a newspaper. It started out The film shows the journalists mats have diversified and that’s led
government corruption, rape culture they calculated their readership to be with one district, expanded out to transitioning from print to digital to a new kind of confidence. Suni-
and Hindu extremism. The film is a roughly fifteen thousand a month. many, and that’s how they’ve really platforms. Can you speak about ta, who is the secondary character
part of the Double Exposure 2021 Now they’re growing exponentially built their credibility and, and very the digital divide there and the role in the film, her own body language
film festival, which features movies in the millions month by month. deep-rooted existence in those parts of technology in Khabar Lahariya’s of how she’s presenting herself, how
at the intersection of investigative [It] speaks for the power of their of Uttar Pradesh, which at that time work? she’s putting herself in the crowd
journalism and film. The festival, journalism and the fact that the de- were actually completely media dark. Sushmit: I think India is one of with a phone camera has dramatical-
which counts ICIJ as one of its mographic has expanded. Now they What is the significance of having those peculiar countries where more ly changed and that was quite special
partners, runs from October 13-17. have women who typically would a media outlet run by Dalit wom- people are aware of cell phones than to witness.
Discount tickets are available using not have access to newspapers who en? they are of books. We have one of How do local communities in Ut-
the code ICIJDX21. are now on their phones absorbing a Rintu: I think the question is about the greatest penetrations of mobile tar Pradesh feel about Khabar La-
How did you first encounter lot of this content that Khabar Laha- the lens. They are questioning what phones in the world right now, af- hariya?
Khabar Lahariya, the reporters you riya is putting out. They’re savvy, just is considered newsworthy? What ter China. Internet and data plans Rintu: It ranges from curiosity to
follow in the film, and why did you like any other news outlet. They’ve is news? Who is counted? Who de- are very cheap. The internet is really mansplaining and derision — as
want to make a film about the news gotten into podcasts [and] they used cides that this story should be told? readily accessible, right from Tik- you see in the film — to respect. It’s
outlet? 2020 as a year where they reinvented And that’s at the forefront of all the Tok to Facebook to Twitter. It is a a wide spectrum because people are
Rintu: We saw a photo story online themselves. reporting that they have done con- social media market. It’s something not used to seeing Dalit women with
that a photographer had done on sistently. The feminist lens is what that the women essentially decided a camera, asking intelligent question,
the work of Khabar Lahariya and A lot of their news reportage is completely distinguishes them from to pivot to six years ago, quite wisely, negotiating smartly, following up on
the idea of Dalit women running a about issues that you wouldn’t typ- the clutter that news is at the mo- in retrospect. It was a global conver- stories and calling out for account-
newsroom sitting in the heart of Ut- ically expect a man from those belts ment. sation. You had the New York Times ability. That’s never happened, and
tar Pradesh was just a phenomenal to be talking about. For instance, Sushmit: Having a diversified news- debating whether or not they should to do it in the most non-violent way,
image of a story that spoke to us. We Covid health care centers-are they room is a global conversation right shut down their hard copy and shift stumps them. That’s the range that
didn’t know about their work which prepared for women? Or the esca- now. In the west you have mid- entirely into digital. Parallelly, you we’ve seen amongst their peers.
is quite surprising to us. They’ve been lating rise in domestic violence that dle-aged white men who are essen- had Dalit women sitting in an at-
around for about 14 years and when was brought on by Covid, which is tially leading all decisions around tic in the back of a village in Uttar Initially, people [would] just be
we met them, they were at this beau- a global phenomenon, but nobody Pradesh having the same sophisticat- like, oh what is she going to do with
tiful cusp of transition. They’re un- was talking about it. So that’s essen- ed debates about readership, volume a phone camera?
fettered rural women who are aware tially their kind of journalism. It’s in-
of the limitations of print and want teresting because when we were there How can a woman be a journalist?
to grow their impact to draw in more for five years in the ground, we didn’t
women. Using digital in a smart way see any women journalists operating
and making it their own felt like just
the right story. Our interest lies in
mostly telling stories about outliers,
people who are outside the system
and chipping away at it on their own
in powerful ways. We love an unlike-
ly protagonist who has something to
offer that the world is not expecting
from them.

So many things spoke to us. And
we realized that this was going to
be a long project because up until
then, Sushmit and I had been mak-
ing films in India, and they’d all been
nonfiction, but this felt like a story
that needed more room to breathe
and [for us to] sink our teeth into. So
we took off on a journey which we
thought would take two years, but it
eventually took five, and that’s how
Writing With Fire was born.
Can you tell us more about the
media landscape in Uttar Pradesh,
and how Khabar Lahariya entered
the scene? What does the outlet do
that is different?
Sushmit: Uttar Pradesh, like much
of the country, is a media landscape
that is male-dominated, typically
upper caste. For context, The Editors
Guild of India, which is the most

NewsHawks People & Places Page 49

Issue 52, 15 October 2021

In the communities that they go out
to report in, there is a very tacit trust
and that really helps. And it’s helped
us in the five long years of filming
because we would just bank on their
credibility and tag along. Whatever
trust was given to them would auto-
matically be offered to us.

The documentary depicts the jour-
nalists’ life at home as well as their
work in the field. Can you talk
about why you decided to focus on
the women’s personal and profes-
sional lives?

Sushmit: I think the newspaper have witnessed from the Philippines, to them in a powerful way. The film that have been disadvantaged and more young women journalists from
was essentially a trojan horse to all the way to the U.S. and Trump. I was born right in the heart of Covid the administration. During Covid across the country. I’d say they total-
talk about the interior lives of these think that it’s a challenge the world and Khabar Lahariya has had its bus- they just intensified that work, ques- ly used Covid in a very constructive
women because whether the news- now faces, the shrinking space for iest two years. They’ve made new col- tioning the administration on access way to expand, to experiment and to
paper was successful or not was in- free press. I think this conversation laborations with organizations that to healthcare. They’ve diversified. Be- express themselves in absolutely new
cidental to us. What we were really [is] around the importance of the want grassroot journalists reporting cause they’re such pros at using the ways.
interested in was the stories of these fourth estate to ensure the vibran- from the ground. They have always digital medium, they’ve now started
outliers, really protagonists. It was a cy of any democracy on this planet. been a link between communities an online course, hiring and training — International Consortium of
David and Goliath story. You would Wherever you have the rise of the Investigative Journalists.
never expect Dalit women living in right, the usual pressure points will
in these parts of Uttar Pradesh to ac- be artists, writers, historians, jour- ADVERT
tually be able to reframe the conver- nalists, people who have historically SPACE
sation because the very fact that you presented their own ideas of what
have women stepping out of their democracy is, upheld the values and To place your booking contact
homes in itself is assigning revolu- the importance of dissent. Dissent Charmaine on 0735 666 122
tion. The fact that these are women is core to the functioning of any de- Email- [email protected]
stepping out to work as journalists is mocracy. One of the core principles Land line- (0242) 721 144/5
something that was unthinkable of, of journalism is to be able to con-
unheard of, and that is what we were stantly question and challenge what The NewsHawks @NewsHawksLive www.newshawks.com [email protected]
interested in. the powers-that-be are doing. So, it
is a challenging time in India and in
I think that the negotiations are any other part of the world to be an
universal; A mother having to leave independent journalist.
her kids behind because she has to
report on a story from the ground. Also, [there’s] this whole idea of
A wife being challenged by a hus- how the media has been monetized,
band because she’s not at home to how big money has been pumped in
cook food because he’s hungry. Or where there is little space for inde-
the dynamics between women with- pendent journalism. So, it’s a chal-
in an organization and how it plays lenge but I think the Khabar Laha-
out. These are visuals that are miss- riya model is interestingly a counter
ing from India’s mainstream narra- position to that. I think the women
tive around the Dalit identity. You at Khabar Lahariya have redefined
don’t see Dalit women in positions of what it means to be a journalist. Do
power and that’s something that we you really need to go to journalism
were drawn to. We felt that it would school to be a journalist? Do you
be one thing filming them as jour- really need to be working in a large
nalists in the field, but what happens journalistic institution to qualify as
when they go back home in the dark, a journalist? Do you really need that
walking through these allies? How kind of technology and equipment
do their families respond to them? to be a journalist? Or do you need
What are these negotiations they to be working with the ethos of what
need to make within the battlefield journalism is to qualify as a journal-
that they call home, whether that be ist? They’ve essentially rewritten the
[refusing] marriage, proposals, or ne- script of what journalism could be in
gotiating with your husband about the future. The collective power of
what your boundaries are, or raising people who’ve never been heard now
two boys, [or being] separated from platform themselves, ironically using
your husband and [thinking] what social media, and are championing
will society think of me now? the voice of the voiceless right now.
What is next for Khabar Lahariya?
Those are the conversations that How are the journalists faring to-
drew us in so the challenge was, how day? What has been the reception
do you stitch their lives inside their to the film locally?
homes and their lives outside into a Rintu: The film has not been shown
narrative that would make sense to in India yet. We’re still forming our
an audience. That fundamentally was India release, but when they them-
something we were resting on right selves saw the film right before the
from the beginning and it went on Sundance World Premiere, they were
to become one of the biggest chal- very emotional. Seeing themselves
lenges to edit. How do you balance through the eyes of somebody else,
out their interior worlds and the very five years of their lives, was very spe-
real physical challenges that they face cial. The film captures a very import-
from a day-to-day basis? ant moment in their personal lives,
Rintu: In a story like this it would be the lives of the newspaper and also of
only half told if you don’t go inside the country. That has been our biggest
because these are women reporting reward, the fact that the film speaks
on communities that they them-
selves are a part of and so they are
[making] visible issues that they are
not only reporting, but that they are
a part of. So the personal was very
political.
The film also focuses on the rise
of Hindu nationalism and Prime
Minister Narendra Modi. Do you
feel that the changing political
atmosphere has had an effect on
press freedom in the country?
Sushmit: It’s a global conversation,
to be honest. It’s something that you

Property
NewsHawks

Issue 52, 15 October 2021 PROPERTY INTERIORS ARCHITECTURE GARDENING Page 50

The home of prime property: [email protected]

African Sun targets to raise
US$4m from Dawn assets

ALEX MHANDU “The worst-case scenario forecasts the group to African swap with former shareholders in exchange for
close 2021 with an occupancy that approximates Sun operates one issued ordinary share of African Sun Limited
DIVERSIFIED hospitality group African Sun the 2020 occupancy, for the property division several hotels in for every 3.98 Dawn issued shares.
Limited expects to raise approximately US$4 mil- management expects minimal effect, as property
lion from the disposal of non-core assets in recent- market fundamentals are largely driven by mac- Zimbabwe. Pursuant to the original offer, shareholders
ly acquired Dawn Properties Limited as part of ro-economic fundamentals,” the group said. company Arden-Capital Limited. This now forms holding 2 240 283 488 ordinary shares in Dawn,
plans to generate liquidity. part of the group’s real estate segment with vast representing 91.17% of the Dawn issued ordinary
African Sun acquired majority shareholding investment in commercial and residential prop- shares accepted the original offer and surrendered
In January 2021, the group acquired Dawn and of Dawn, a company previous owned by parent erties, as well as a vast land bank for development their shares to African Sun on the effective date.
among the assets acquired were those classified as across Zimbabwe, including seven hotel proper-
held for sale. In November 2020, Dawn had re- ties leased to a fellow subsidiary, African Sun Zim- The company had initially offered to acquire
solved to dispose of two investment properties, babwe (Pvt) Ltd. 100% of Dawn issued ordinary shares, but the
namely Brondesbury Park Hotel and a 1.7-hect- shareholders with 216 888 620 ordinary shares,
are piece of land in Harare, within a period of 12 The acquisition was achieved through a share representing 8.83% of the remaining Dawn is-
months. During the half-year to 30 June 2021, sued ordinary shares, did not accept the original
the group decided to dispose of another piece of offer. According to the group, the remaining
land in Harare, stand number 4 276 Glern Lorne, shares will be acquired via a tag along in terms of
measuring 0.5 hactares. section 239 of the Companies and Other Busi-
ness Entities (COBE) or drag along in terms of
This comes as economic uncertainties are likely section 238(2) of the COBE.
to remain in the short to medium term due to the
adverse impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, group chairman Alex Makamure
said its residential development in Harare’s Marl-
In light of this, African Sun came up with borough was expected to contribute significantly
strategies to manage the situation and offset any to unlock liquidity for the business during the sec-
potential threats to the business owing to the un- ond half of the year on strong demand.
certainties.
The Marlborough Sunset Views project was of-
“At corporate level, the group continues with ficially commissioned in August 2019.
the business contingency plans in response to the
ever-evolving situation. In light of the above, the “As regards real estate segment, demand for
group has taken the following actions to signifi- residential stands at Marlborough Sunset Views
cantly reduce expenses and generate and preserve (MSV) is strong, and we anticipate sales will im-
liquidity:- carving out of and deferment of some prove over the remainder of the year and unlock
capital expenditure programmes (and) disposal the much-needed liquidity for the business,” said
of some assets within Dawn that are considered Makamure.
non-core with a potential of raising circa US$4
million,” the group said in their statement accom- The group also leases various office buildings,
panying financial results for the half-year to 30 hotel buildings, golf course, car parks and staff
June 2021. housing with rental contracts typically made for
fixed periods of two years to fifteen years.
Management is upbeat the property market for
the recently acquired Dawn will begin to strength- According to the group, leases for hotel build-
en as the economy recovers from the pandemic. ings have extension options for renewal at the end
of the lease up to five renewals at the option of
the group.