Price US$1 Friday 1 March 2024 NEWS Mnangagwa’s niece legacy woes haunt ZBC Story on Page 7 NEWS Rights watchdogs condemn embarrassment of lawyers WHAT’S Story on Page 18 INSIDE SPORT Meet Trey Nyoni’s hype dad and number one fan Story on Page 50 ALSO INSIDE Chiefs receive vehicles as the third-term bid gathers pace Gloves off: Mnangagwa is corrupt - Washington
Page 2 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 BRENNA MATENDERE ZIMBABWEAN President Emmerson Mnangagwa is involved in corrupt activities, in particular those relating to gold and diamond smuggling networks, United States President Joe Biden and his government say. In an unprecedented move, Washington said on 4 March that in response to new and continuing corruption it is refocusing and intensifying its bid to hold accountable the “individuals and entities that are responsible for this exploitation”. The US said it is unleashing a new set of punitive targeted tools in Zimbabwe, including the flagship Global Magnitsky sanctions programme, to make clear that the egregious behaviour and impunity of some of the most powerful people and companies in Zimbabwe match actions of the worst human rights abusers and corrupt actors globally. “Emmerson Mnangagwa (Mnangagwa) is the President of Zimbabwe and is involved in corrupt activities, in particular those relating to gold and diamond smuggling networks,” the US said. “Mnangagwa provides a protective shield to smugglers to operate in Zimbabwe and has directed Zimbabwean officials to facilitate the sale of gold and diamonds in illicit markets, taking bribes in exchange for his services. Mnangagwa also oversees Zimbabwe’s security services, which have violently repressed political opponents and civil society groups. “Mnangagwa was originally listed in the Annex to E.O. [executive order] 13288 of March 6, 2003 and the Annex to E.O. 13391 of November 22, 2005. Today, he is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being a foreign person who is a current or former government official, or a person acting for or on behalf of such an official, who is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery. “He is also designated for being a foreign person who is or has been a leader or official of an entity, including any government entity, that has engaged in, or whose members have engaged in, serious human rights abuse relating to the leader’s or official’s tenure.” The US also said First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa facilitates her husband’s “corrupt activities”. Auxillia is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being a current or former government official, or a person acting for or on behalf of such an official, who is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery. The US said Mnangagwa is surrounded by a “corrupt business network”. “Mnangagwa has benefited from the corrupt network of Zimbabwean businessman Kudakwashe Regimond Tagwirei, who was designated on August 5, 2020 pursuant to E.O. 13469 for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, the Government of Zimbabwe, any senior official thereof, or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 13288, E.O. 13391, or E.O. 13469,” it said. "Tagwirei is a close ally of Mnangagwa and has a longstanding association with the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu PF). He has provided high-value gifts to senior members of the Government of Zimbabwe to gain access to resources and exerts significant control over major sectors of Zimbabwe’s economy. “Tagwirei is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of corruption, and the transfer or the facilitation of the transfer of proceeds of corruption. “Sandra Mpunga, Tagwirei’s wife, has been instrumental in Tagwirei’s business activities.” The Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) designated Mpunga on 12 December 2022 pursuant to E.O. 13469 for being the spouse of Tagwirei and is designating her pursuant to E.O. 13818 for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of Sakunda Holdings. Tagwirei and Mpunga are the sole beneficial owners of Sakunda Holdings, a Zimbabwean firm that has facilitated state corruption. Sakunda was designated on 5 August 2020 pursuant to E.O. 13469 for being owned or controlled by, or for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of Tagwirei. It was designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of corruption, and for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of Tagwirei. Fossil Agro is a subsidiary of Sakunda Holdings and has provided it with material support. Ofac designated Fossil Agro on December 12, 2022 pursuant to E.O. 13469 for providing material, logistical, or technical support to the Government of Zimbabwe. Fossil Agro is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of Sakunda Holdings. “The director of Fossil Agro and long-time business partner of Tagwirei, Obey Chimuka, sits on the board and serves as director of several Tagwirei-owned companies,” it said. “Chimuka was designated on December 12, 2022 pursuant to E.O. 13469 for acting for or on behalf of Fossil Agro, Fossil Contracting and Tagwirei, and is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, Tagwirei. Chimuka owns Fossil Contracting, which has received Government of Zimbabwe contracts that have facilitated acts of corruption.” Fossil Contracting was designated on December 12, 2022 pursuant to E.O. 13469 for providing material, logistical, or technical support to the Government of Zimbabwe, and is designated pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, Chimuka. Zimbabwe's government has condemned fresh sanctions imposed on Monday. President Mnangagwa on Wednesday said Washington’s accusations were "defamatory" and "gratuitous slander" against Zimbabwe's leaders and people. Harare demanded that Washington promptly lift the "illegal coercive measures". "We condemn these malicious statements as completely uncalled for, defamatory, provocative, and a continuation of wanton hostilities against Zimbabwe by the US government," Mnangagwa’s spokesperson George Charamba said. "We demand that the Biden administration provides evidence in support of these gratuitous accusations, failure to which the administration must, without any further delay, withdraw them unconditionally." Gloves off: Mnangagwa corrupt —Washington President Emmerson Mnangagwa
NewsHawks News Page 3 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 ZIMBABWE recently rounded up United States government officials and some humanitarian workers in Harare, harassing, detaining and deporting them without following proper diplomatic procedures. The deported officials were assessing development and governance issues in Zimbabwe where the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid) funds many humanitarian, civil society, development, democracy, human rights and governance projects. Usaid supports the people of Zimbabwe to strengthen health services, increase food security, support economic resilience, and promote democratic governance. The NewsHawks was informed that the arrests on 17 February, detentions and deportations were happening recently, including invasion of a lodge where they were staying, but confirmations took time. A statement by Usaid says: "The United States is deeply concerned by Zimbabwean authorities’ recent attempts to verbally and physically intimidate several US government officials and contractors — subjecting some of them to overnight detention, transportation in unsafe conditions, prolonged interrogation, seizure of and intrusion into personal electronic equipment, and forced deportation. "This inappropriate and aggressive treatment occurred while the individuals were assessing the development and governance context in Zimbabwe to help inform Usaid’s work to support civic participation, democratic institutions, and human rights. "This is a grave development that follows other serious incidents over the past two years in which US government officials and US citizens experienced harassment and improper treatment from the Zimbabwean authorities. These unjustifiable actions render hollow the Government of Zimbabwe’s claims that it is committed to the reforms necessary for democratic governance and reengagement with the international community. "USAID supports the people of Zimbabwe as they seek to build a more resilient, inclusive, and democratic society — with accountable political leaders and government institutions, active citizen participation, and adherence to the rule of law. We will continue to robustly support civil society, human rights defenders, and independent media and — as seen through our recent targeted sanctions — will not hesitate to take additional measures to hold accountable those who deny Zimbabweans fundamental freedoms and good governance. "The people of Zimbabwe deserve better." The US has imposed new targeted sanctions on President Emmerson Mnangagwa and 10 others, as well as three entities, citing corruption and human rights abuses by them and government institutions. — STAFF WRITER. Zim deports US officials amid sanctions face-off Usaid supports the people of Zimbabwe to strengthen health service.
Page 4 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 BERNARD MPOFU AS prevalence of public sector corruption reaches alarming levels, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has demanded that Zimbabwean authorities ensure the newly-established Mutapa Investment Fund (MIF) — which inexplicably replaced the Sovereign Wealth Fund — plugs potential financial leakages through transparency and accountability systems amid fears that the new scheme is a grand heist. This comes as the United States has imposed a new sanctions regime on President Emmerson Mnangagwa and 10 others, as well as three entities, accusing them of corruption and human rights abuses. The government reacted to US remarks that Mnangagwa and his cronies are corrupt, demanding substantiation or withdrawal of the statements. Zimbabwe is ranked by Transparency International as one of the countries with high levels of corruption in both public and private sectors. Past reports by Zimbabwe’s Auditor-General have also shown that Treasury could be losing significant revenue due to financial mismanagement. Zimbabwe scored 24 points out of 100 on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index as reported by Transparency International. Zimbabwe's Corruption Index ranking averaged 24.58 points from 1998 until 2023, reaching an all-time high of 42.00 points in 1998 and a record low of 18.00 points in 2008. After a recent visit to Zimbabwe on an Article IV mission led by Wojciech Maliszewski — which visited Harare from 31 January 14 February — to discuss the authorities’ request for a Staff-Monitored Programme and commence 2024 Article IV consultations, the IMF demanded reforms and transparency on the dodgy MIF affairs. “Structural reforms aimed at improving the business climate, strengthening economic governance and reducing corruption vulnerabilities are key for promoting sustained and inclusive growth and would bode well for supporting Zimbabwe’s development objectives embodied in the country’s National Development Strategy 1 (2021-2025),” the IMF said. “In this context, the mission encourages the authorities to ensure that the corporate governance arrangement, transparency and financial reporting, and accountability oversight of the recently established Mutapa Fund are in line with international standards and good practices.” On 19 September 2023, Mnangagwa controversially promulgated Statutory Instrument 156 of 2023 (SI 156/2023) which changed the name of the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe to MIF. No official reasons have been given for the renaming of the fund. State enterprises or parastatals now commandeered to be under the dodgy MIF include Defold Mine, Zupco, Kuvimba, Silo Investments (Grain Marketing Board commercial arm), the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, the Cold Storage Commission, Petrotrade, POSB, NetOne Cellular, the National Railways of Zimbabwe Holdings and NRZ Ltd, TelOne, Arda Seeds, Zimbabwe Power Company, Powertel, Allied Timbers, Telecel Zimbabwe, Air Zimbabwe, Industrial Development Corporation, Cottco, AFC Limited and Hwange Colliery. Critics said the effect of putting all the companies under one roof is to create a behemoth whose operations and transactions are not subject to public procurement laws, parliamentary oversight or disclosure to the public. This, they said, undermines constitutional principles of good governance, transparency and accountability. The fund’s managers and employees are “sworn to secrecy”, further making it opaque and vulnerable to corruption, while blocking access to information. The fund will be able to transfer and externalise foreign currency without foreign exchange controls. Lawyer and pposition politician Fadzayi Mahere said granting Mnangagwa carte blanche powers to appoint the sovereign wealth fund’s board of directors would heighten cronyism and nepotism after the Zimbabwean leader recently appointed close family members, allies and clansmen into his executive. Late last year, former Finance minister Tendai Biti said the MIF is unconstitutional, illegal and opaque, as well as murky and muddy to ensure that it is not transparent and accountable to facilitate looting on an industrial scale. “The Mutapa Investment Fund is conceptually flawed; it is like an asset management behemoth created to house state enterprises and related assets illegally, make them fungible and easily transferrable. It’s not a typical sovereign wealth fund as we know it. It’s not like Norway’s US$1.4 trillion Sovereign Wealth Fund, the biggest in the world, for sure,” Biti told The NewsHawks in an interview. “A normal sovereign wealth fund is a stateowned investment fund comprising of money generated by government surplus reserves or its resources to create wealth for current and future generations. It’s a pool of assets owned and managed directly or indirectly by governments and invested in stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, or in alternative investments such as equity funds or hedge funds to achieve national objectives. “For instance, before this Mutapa scam, we had created a proper sovereign wealth fund in 2014 because Zimbabwe has world-class deposits of gold, platinum, diamonds, chrome and now lithium. Yet these are non-renewable natural resources so we need to exploit them for current and future generations. Collect royalties and invest them in a sovereign wealth fund.” Biti says the changing of the SWF to MIF has created a conduit for industrial-scale looting. “Mnangagwa’s opaque structure is a scheme for a grand heist. We will witness unprecedented grand scale looting and industrial-scale corruption under this Mutapa Fund. The structure is flawed conceptually. It is also unconstitutional. It is illegal. It was established through a statutory instrument, a presidential decree, violating the constitution, laws and principles of separation of powers,” he said. Mahere said the entity was unconstitutional. “The most concerning feature of the recent purported amendment to the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe Act by Mnangagwa is that it is unconstitutional in a number of respects,” she said. “As a starting point, the amendment was introduced by way of a statutory instrument, which violates section 134 of the constitution. The said section prohibits the enactment, amendment or repeal of legislation by way of a statutory instrument. Only Parliament can make, change or remove laws. “It is no answer to this charge that the statutory instrument was gazetted purportedly under the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act — this statute itself offends section 134 of the constitution. “In the event of a conflict, the constitution is supreme. It follows that Mnangagwa’s statutory instrument that changed the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe was invalid, ultra vires the constitution and thus illegal as a matter of a law. It additionally breaches the section 68 obligation of all administrative authorities to act lawfully, reasonably and fairly.” Last October, Harare lawyer and businessman Frederick Nyamande took Mnangagwa to court following the promulgation of the controversial MIF which he argues allows the head of state to loot public resources. The matter is still pending. Mutapa Investment Fund mustn't become conduit for looting: IMF
NewsHawks News Page 5 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 BRENNA MATENDERE THE dolling out of top-of-the-range all-terrain vehicles to 100 chiefs from across the country by the government has raised eyebrows amid revelations that the traditional leaders are being rewarded for campaigning for Zanu PF ahead of last year’s general elections while at the same time being conditioned to rally behind President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s third-term bid. Chiefs and other traditional leaders play a crucial role during Zanu PF's election campaigns, including through coercion of villagers and manipulation of food aid distribution. In the August 2023 elections they worked with Zanu PF affiliate Forever Associates of Zimbabwe (Faz) to implement the ruling party’s agenda. Chiefs received cars ahead of last year’s general elections but this did not stop Mnangagwa from handing them 100 brand new vehicles on 29 February on the pretext that are replacing the “old” fleet. In his speech, Mnangagwa said: "Given the role of our traditional leaders as custodians of our culture, traditions, history and heritage, among other responsibilities, it is necessary that their dignity and conditions be of acceptable standards. Besides being traditional leaders, chiefs are also public servants, who are mandated by the constitution of Zimbabwe to preside over their people, promote sound family values, resolve disputes and, more importantly, champion the promotion and preservation of our culture and heritage. They are a critical cog in the national governance architecture." In another move to appease the traditional leaders, in November last year Mnangagwa approved a sliding scale of bonuses for the chiefs, barely two months after he had won a controversial election in which they actively campaigned for him together with Faz in rural areas. The latest bonus payments were paid to the traditional leaders in November and December. In a letter to Public Service Commission (PSC) secretary Tsitsi Choruma dated 7 November 2023, Finance ministry permanent secretary George Guvamatanga said the traditional leaders would get the bonuses both in local currency and United States dollars. He announced that all chiefs would get US$300 and ZW$ 337 256 with headmen getting US$210 and ZW$168 629. Village heads were given US$100 and ZW$84 314. Guvamatanga also announced that messengers of chiefs and headman would also get a windfall. Chiefs’ messengers got bonuses of US$100 and ZW$42 157, while the headmen messengers got the same United States dollar amount and ZW$31 619. Part of Guvamatanga’s letter to PSC boss Choruma reads: “I write with reference to the above subject (Payment of bonuses). As you are aware, Government has traditionally awarded a perfomance reward to public service employees in the form of a thirteenth cheque after the end of the year. “In line with the established tradition and in recognition of the efforts of public service workers, Government has approved a bonus award for public service employees and traditional leaders . . . The approved bonus award is payable in the respective currencies (US$ and ZW$) . . .” Section 281(2) of the constitution states that traditional leaders must not be members of any political party or in any way participate in partisan politics; act in a partisan manner; further the interests of any political party or cause. However, chiefs and headmen were a vital cog in Zanu PF and Mnangagwa’s campaigns in the last election, working with Faz. As he prepares his third term bid, the country’s leader will be hoping to base his campaigns on them. In last year’s elections, the chiefs actively campaigned for Zanu PF, in violation of the law. In Marange, Headman Chiadzwa declared the diamond zone a no-go area for opposition parties. Chief Chireya in Gokwe also campaigned heavily for Zanu PF and even went further to try and influence the villagers to vote for his preferred candidate in the party’s primary polls. In the case which exposed traditional leaders who should be apolitical according to the constitution since they serve people of diverse persuasions, Chief Chireya, born Henry Chidzivo, was supporting Tapiwa Muduvuri during the primary elections and instructed his subjects to vote for Muduvuri as the parliamentary candidate for Gokwe-Chireya. Chiefs receive vehicles as the third-term bid gathers pace President Emmerson Mnangagwa (left) gave chiefs top-of-the-range all-terrain vehicles.
Page 6 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 BULAWAYO High Court judge Christopher Dube-Banda has fined local lithium mining company Silver Bern International (Private) Limited US$10 000 following its conviction for smuggling 96 000 metric tonnes of lithium disguised as manganese ore. In addition, the lithium was forfeited to the state despite protests by the company which was represented by Simon Gamha. Gamha appeared before the High Court in terms of section 385(3) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act [Chapter 9:07], which provides that in any criminal proceedings against a corporate body, a director or employee shall be cited and be dealt with as if he were the person accused of having committed the offence in question. He was charged with the crime of contravening section 3(1) of Statutory Instrument 213/22, the Base Minerals Export Control Act. The court heard during the period extending from 21 December 2022 to 23 December 2022 and at Beitbridge Border Post, the accused, without lawful excuse unlawfully and intentionally exported 96 metric tonnes of lithium-bearing ore to South Africa without a written permit issued by the minister, in violation of the law. The matter was first heard at the magistrates' court where Gamha pleaded guilty to the offence before it was referred to the upper court for sentencing purposes. The magistrate took the view that the circumstances of the case merited a sentence beyond her jurisdiction. In determining an appropriate sentence, the judge took into account the circumstances of the accused, the nature and the gravity of this crime and the interests of the society. The judge said the crime is very serious and a clear message should be sent to society that such offences will not be tolerated. “It is aggravating that the agent who presented the declaration documents to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) falsely indicated that the trucks were carrying manganese ore, hiding the fact that the trucks were loaded with lithium ore. “This was intended to mislead Zimra and in the process export lithium ore under the guise that it was manganese ore. “In this case the quantity of the lithium ore intended to be exported is aggravating, the company intended to export ninety-six (96) metric tonnes of lithium-bearing ore valued at USD$14 880.00. “This is a huge amount of lithium ore. A deterrent sentence is merited in this case,” he said. The court also took into account the legislative penalty provision, section 6 of the Base Minerals Export Control Act. Before the lower court, lawyers representing the company submitted that the accused was a first offender, and that he pleaded guilty. It was submitted that this offence was committed a week after the Statutory Instrument 213 of 2022 came into effect, when arrangements had already been made to export the lithium-bearing ore to South Africa. The lawyers further submitted further that the accused had no knowledge of this Statutory Instrument. Counsel argued that the company suffered financial loss as a result of the commission of this offence in that the trucks that it had hired to transport the ore were detailed at Beitbridge Border Post for more than a month. At the time the trucks were released, the court heard the company had incurred a hire bill of over US$15 000. The lawyers also submitted that the company has ceased to operate and the court should not order the forfeiture of the lithium ore as such an order c lead to the liquidation of the company. They also said the police were ordered to release 66 tonnes of lithium it is holding in connection with another matter. The state argued that the lithium ore subject to this case must be forfeited as a measure of preventing the company from benefiting from an illegality. The court noted that the legislative penalty provision of section 6 of the Base Minerals Export Control Act, which provides that any person who contravenes or fails to comply with any order or with the terms and conditions of any permit issued to him under an order, shall be guilty of an offence and is liable to a fine not exceeding level nine or twice the value of the base minerals in respect of which the offence is committed, whichever is the greater. In cases involving individuals, imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years or to both fine and imprisonment may be considered. “It is important to state that section 6(b) of the penalty provision is not applicable in this case by operation of law. “In terms of section 385(3) of the CP & E Act if a person representing a corporate body is convicted, the court shall not impose upon him in his representative capacity a sentence of imprisonment. “Therefore, the only sentence available to a representative of a company is a fine,” said the judge. The level nine fine is US$600 and the recovered lithium-bearing ore in this case was valued at US$14 880. “Twice the value of the lithium ore is US$29 760. Therefore, in this instance the highest fine permissible by law is US$29 760. “This means this court has a discretion to impose a fine not exceeding USD$29 760. “This court will factor into the sentencing equation the fact the accused is a first-time offender, and he pleaded guilty,” said the judge. Dube-Banda ruled that the argument that the company suffered a financial loss as a result of this case is not mitigating because it is the company that embarked on a criminal enterprise and must live with the consequences of such criminal conduct. “The argument that at the material time the company did not know that its conduct contravened the law is not supported by the facts of this case. “At the port of exit the company disguised lithium ore as manganese ore because it had knowledge of the unlawfulness of its conduct. “In terms of section 62(1) CPEA, the court is given the discretion to order the forfeiture of certain items which have been used in connection with criminal activity therefore, the fact that s 6 of the of the Base Minerals Export Control Act does not provide for forfeiture is inconsequential,” the judge said. Justice Dube-Banda said this is a case where what is subject of forfeiture is the lithium ore through which the offence in question was committed. He said notwithstanding its value, it cannot escape forfeiture. “It is like in a case of armed robbery, the gun used in executing the robbery cannot escape forfeiture because of its value. “So, in this case, the lithium ore subject of this crime cannot escape forfeiture because of its value. “No weight can be attached to the fact that an order of forfeiture will lead to the liquidation of the company. It is the company that embarked on a criminal enterprise and it must live with the consequences of such criminal conduct. “I take the view that the highest fine allowed must obviously be reserved for the most serious examples of the offence. “Although this case cannot be described as the most serious example of a case of contravening the Base Minerals Export Act, it remains a bad case. “The accused intended to export a huge quantity of lithium-bearing ore in contravention of the law. The sentence must reflect this phenomenon, and alert the accused that there can be no benefit from crime. “The sentence must show that such crime committed by corporate bodies will not be tolerated. Companies must act and conduct business within the confines of the law. A deterrent fine will meet the justice of this case. Again, the lithium ore must also be forfeited to show that crime committed by corporates will not be tolerated by the courts,” he ruled. — STAFF WRITER. Local mining company fined for smuggling 96 000 metric tonnes of lithium
NewsHawks News Page 7 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 BRENNA MATENDERE THE Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) is grappling with serious management challenges linked to Helliate Rushwaya — the newly appointed board chair — during her tenure as the acting chief executive officer at the public broadcaster. These range from extensive financial mismanagement, corruption, mismanagement, among other matters which compromised the organisation’s stability and integrity. Rushwaya is President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s niece and is also related to Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Martin Rushwaya. Helliate and Martin’s fathers are brothers. In addition, Helliate is also related to Zimbabwe Miners' Federation president Henrrieta Rushwaya who was convicted of trying to smuggle six kilogrammes of gold at Robert Mugabe International Airport. Henrietta escaped with a slap on the wrist after being given a wholly suspended 18-month jail term after paying a US$5 000 fine. The suspension was on condition that she would not commit a similar offence in three years. Before the conviction, Henrietta featured in the Al Jazeera documentary The Gold Mafia, which identified her as part of a syndicate involved in money laundering and smuggling of the precious mineral. At the ZBC, Helliate Rushwaya served in the previous board chaired by Gweru-based medical doctor Josaya Tai between August 2019 and April 2020. Other members were Ambassador Thomas Bvuma, Tsitsi Dangarembizi, Dorothy Mabika, Devnanda Popatla, Reverend Thompson Dube and Brian Mutangandebvu. Rushwaya was a non-executive director responsible for policy matters such as digitisation at the national broadcaster. The board was fired in January this year (2024) by Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services minister Jenfan Muswere over a number of key performance, oversight and corporate governance issues, as well as tribally divisive remarks by two of its presenters, Farai Juliet Magada and Victoria Manase. The presenters on ZBC’s Good Morning Zimbabwe show, spoke about apartheid in South Africa and said 19th-century Ndebele King Lobengula in the discussion sold the country for sugar. They also said colonialism was good because it brought about modernisation. Rushwaya, who subsequently took over as ZBC chairperson, was appointed acting CEO of the broadcaster in 2020 for eight months. Investigations reveal murky deals Investigations by The NewsHawks in collaboration with Information for Development Trust, a non-profit organisation that supports journalists in southern Africa to report public sector corruption and bad governance, revealed that Rushwaya’s tenure was marked by a number of murky deals which management is still grappling to solve. Some of the deals and partnerships agreed by Rushwaya were questioned by the Information ministry as seen in documents perused by this publication during the investigation. Information secretary Nick Mangwana in 2021 stopped Rushwaya’s push for a US$50 000 payment to a United Kingdom-based company, Media Business Solutions, for the provision of football content after a shady arrangement. In a letter dated 27 May 2021, reference K4/5/1/45, addressed to Rushwaya, Mangwana highlighted a number of opaque issues that shrouded the deal including factors which showed that the company was fake. “Reference is made to your letter dated 24 May 2021 in which you asked the Ministry to authorise the disbursement of US$50K from the Corporation's Nostro account. We are unable to do as requested for the following reasons,” wrote Mangwana. The contract does not provide any security guarantees for Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation in the event that Media Business Solutions fails to deliver the purchased product (football match content). “The above is quite important as a quick check on the Media Business Solution’s profile does not give an assuring digital footprint. They don’t appear even to have a website. Their address, 14 Chertsey Road, working, England GU 21 5AH is a mail box service address which for practical legal reasons can’t be Domicillium citandi et executandi. “The fact that this company uses this address for this contract raises a lot of questions about their bona fides. It is in light of the above that the Ministry is unable to concur to the registration of Media Business Solutions with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.” US$50 000 dodgy deal exposed An email sent to Rushwaya on 19 May 2021 at 10:58am by an agent of the controversial company showed that she communicated directly with the firm in stitching the US$50 000 murky deal. In the email, with subject “long form contract,” the agent says: “Hi Helliate, Please find attached the fully executed version (of contract)”. On 16 June 2021, (1:28pm) an email by a ZBC official to Rushwaya seemed to show that she tried to push for the payment to be done despite the rejection of the deal by the Information Ministry and reservations by management of the national broadcaster. Part of it reads: “Dear Helliate . . . May you kindly forward me the correspondence that came from the permanent secretary over this matter (I understand that he had raised issues to do with jurisdiction etc but cannot find any documentation to the effect.) It is going to be very difficult for us to honour such agreements due to the cash constrained environment that the enterprise finds itself. I also doubt that we are screening these matches due to the cost implications which are of a foreign currency nurture . . . .” In her response the same day at 16:45pm, to her subordinate at ZBC, referenced “UEFA 2021- Payment notification,” she defended the US$50 000 payment despite misgivings by the Information Ministry. Part of it reads: “Hi. I have forwarded the requested correspondence separately. The initial commitment for the rights was made after confirmation from ZBC Marketing that there was a sponsor on board for a total of US$65 000 and therefore a recoupment of the US$50 000 investment. Many thanks. Helliate.” Online checks revealed that the company is indeed questionable as raised by Mangwana. The company’s information is not detailed on a static page that shows when it is searched online. The page claims that the company registered under company number 09092833 in England and began operations on 19 June 2014 but does not provide contact details. The static page also says the company’s business line is provision of “media representation services” but does not specify them or provide any graphic images or details. In addition, there are no icons that lead one to its social media platforms which is normally the case with media companies. Under Rushwaya’s tenure as Acting CEO, ZBC aired the Euro 2020 games, under a murky arrangement with an agent from sportswear company, Optima Sports based in the United Kingdom. Rushwaya, who holds an MSc in international events management with a focus on broadcasting mega events, once worked in the UK at BBC Scotland. She was project manager for the host broadcaster of the Commonwealth Games 2014. The broadcaster received several payment demands of US$20 000 from the agent, Eric Kabalata, after Rushwaya’s departure as CEO. Officials however say the payment details were unknown to them. Management questions US$20k payment Kabalata claimed that he had advanced ZBC US$20 000 during Rushwaya’s time as acting CEO in a deal to screen Euro 2020 games but did not provide proof of request for the money and also proof of the payment to the broadcaster. One of the emails by Kabalata sent in April 2020 stated: “Dear ZBC team. Would you kindly provide response to our emails. There is no reply from you guys till now for us. We need to settle the pending issue asap.” An official at ZBC confirmed the development. “Following Helliate's departure, ZBC started receiving payment demands from Kabalata, who claimed he had advanced ZBC the money for these (Euro 2020 broadcasting) rights, with US$20 000 still owed to him. When the new administration scrutinised the licensing costs, they found significant discrepancies compared to Kabalata's claims. They requested supporting documents from Kabalata to understand the original deal,” said an official. “In a surprising twist, Kabalata withdrew his demand, stating he had pursued other means for compensation. The identity and motives of this mysterious benefactor who seemingly settled ZBC's debt remain unknown.” The payments were supposed to be for the screening of Euro 2020 games on ZTV. When contacted for comment by The NewsHawks, Kabalata refused to shed light on the matter, citing client confidentiality clauses. “MBS does not discuss its dealings with its customers with third parties. I would implore you to get in touch with the ZBC management team to provide you with the information you seek as they are in better position to discuss this with you,” he Helliate Rushwaya Rushwaya’s legacy woes haunt ZBC
Page 8 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 wrote. ZBC’s responce Olinda Mkahlela, the ZBC spokesperson, said she could not comment on the matter because it has been escalated to the courts. “The matter you are raising on Optma Sports is pending in the High Court, thus I cannot comment on a matter that is sub judice,” she said. On the court case, Mkahlela referred additional questions to ZBC corporate secretary Patricia Muchengwa. Contacted for comment, Muchengwa however would not reveal more, saying she was tied up in marathon committee meetings at the national broadcaster. Fredius Dzumbunu, who at the time of investigation was the ZBC's acting chief executive, standing in for Adelaite Chikunguru who was on annual leave, confirmed that the public broadcaster was dealing with some issues highlighted by The NewsHawks. Chikunguru has since been suspended by the Rushwaya-led board. Chikunguru subsequently resigned. “In short, what I can I say is that these are legacy issues we are currently dealing with. I am still new, so I can't enter much into intricacies of the matters,” he said. In suspending Chikunguru, the Rushwaya board did not give reasons, but sources say there has been a fight between the two emanating from the legacy issues cited in this investigation. Chikunguru was investigating Rushwaya over the allegations. Legacy issues haunt ZBC Senior officials at the ZBC revealed the broadcaster was dealing with at least 20 legacy issues left unresolved during Rushwaya’s tenure as chief executive, including lack of records to substantiate creditors’ claims. “While much attention has been paid to her connections with notable figures such as Martin Rushwaya, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, and Henrietta Rushwaya, a figure embroiled in controversy, and the President, there is a deeper and more concerning narrative that demands scrutiny,” an official told this publication. “Beyond the web of relationships lies a pattern of actions and decisions within ZBC that raise serious questions about governance, ethical conduct, and financial management under her leadership.” Reports show that as acting CEO (2020/2021) and a member of the content committee, Rushwaya influenced major content deals, some involving international trips and significant expenses, for example all-expenses-paid trips to resorts and fashion capitals like France, Paris where she secured soccer rights deals which would cost struggling ZBC millions in debt. “During Rushwaya's time as acting CEO and board member, ZBC accumulated substantial debt to international content producers, totalling approximately US$4 313 023. Rushwaya's management led to a significant decline in ZBC's financial health, culminating in insolvency and a negative bank balance. The broadcaster, under her leadership, became heavily reliant on external support, including vehicle donations secured through familial relations and substantial government grants for salary payments. This dependency was further underscored by a ZW$40 million loan obtained from the ministry of Information to sustain operations,” said an inside source at ZBC. Rushwaya also left a legacy of corporate governance abuses where the ZBC was red-flagged by the corporate governance unit. There were issues of hefty loans in which the ZBC borrowed ZW$25 million from the Information ministry, a substantial amount at the time. Procurement manipulation issues also hung over her, amid reports she directly influenced procurement, violating Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe regulations. There was also an accumulated Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) debt in which the ZBC failed to pay Pay As You Earn, Value-Added Tax, and other taxes, leading to a garnishee order from Zimra. A significant National Social Security Authority (Nssa) debt was accrued during her tenure after ZBC neglected Nssa obligations. The ZBC also accrued unpaid utility bills of substantial amounts to TelOne and Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority Holdings, resulting in service shutdowns. Employee welfare neglect was also rife as salaries delayed for up to three months while employees received only basic pay without allowances. The ZBC depleted its fleet under Rushwaya’s tenure, with only six operational vehicles available, but they have now increased to over 60 after her tenure. There was also poor financial management emanating from lack of proper cashflow monitoring. Moreover, there were issues of imbalanced revenue-to-staff costs ratio: At one point, 80% of revenue was consumed by staff costs, leading to operational deficiencies. Absence of efficient asset management was common as no asset register or revaluation of assets was done under Rushwaya’s tenure. Lack of risk management was rampant as no strategies were in place to mitigate organisational risks. There was no retooling of essential equipment and furniture for employees during Rushwaya’s tenure which is an indication of bad corporate governance. The NewsHawks put forward its findings to Rushwaya via email after failing to reach her on voice calls and WhatsApp. Emissary responds on behalf of Rushwaya Former ZBC director of television services, Gilbert Nyambabvu, now based in the United Kingdom, replied, saying he had been asked by Rushwaya to respond on her behalf. “Your questions were forwarded to me because I was Director TV at the time and, therefore, responsible for the content you refer to,” Nyambabvu said. “I will respond only to issues with which I was involved. My recollection is that football rights agent MBS offered the UEFA Euro 2020 Finals. We felt this was good content for our viewers and an advertising sponsorship package was secured to cover the cost of procuring the rights so that there would be no loss to the Corporation. “However, at the time, all foreign currency payments needed to be approved by the central bank as the exchange control authority. We were not granted approval for that foreign payment as a consequence of which the proposed content procurement was not progressed. This means there was no monetary loss to the Corporation. “Regarding MBS ‘looking fake’; I’m aware that MBS were the southern Africa rights distributor for the Afcon Finals in Cote d'Ivoire which the Corporation, I believe, secured for its viewers. So, really why would MBS be a legitimate soccer rights agent this year if they were not legitimate in 2021?” Nyambabvu said in the digital era, physical addresses of companies are immaterial. “The point about the agent’s physical addresses is insignificant, in my view; there is no requirement that every business should have a physical office on Canary Wharf. One can run a multi-million-dollar enterprise from their private home. In any event, we are in the digital era, and the concept of space is not necessarily physical,” he said. Nyambabvu agreed that Rushwaya left a legacy of debts, but said it was not her fault. “The debts are historic. When she came they were already there. On the issue of equipment and retooling, she cannot be blamed because ZBC had no money to buy the equipment,” he said. Nyambabvu said other findings by The NewsHawks are fabrications that could be coming from Rushwaya’s successors at ZBC. “In terms of her failing to buy equipment and retooling, that blame must be placed on government because it is the one that must be funding ZBC since it takes almost 75 percent of its airplay at a time there are no advertisers. “Local drama producers demand US$20 000 for 13-episode series and ZBC struggles to pay that money. What more when we talk of equipment. Where could she have gotten that money?” he asked. “I know she is human and may make mistakes but on these issues you raise which are almost 20, I want to strongly say she is innocent.”
NewsHawks News Page 9 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 THE reasons former Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) chief executive Adelaide Chikunguru was forced out are detailed in her confidential suspension letter from the board which contains a litany of charges including irregularities, malpractices and corruption. In her handwritten resignation letter, dated 1 March, Chikunguru said she was quitting with "satisfaction" that she served the country and President Emmerson Mnangagwa "well". This is contrary to her numerous allegations after leaving ZBC. After her departure, Chikunguru sensationally claimed one of the reasons she was booted out was that she had rejected Information minister Jenfan Muswere's "advances" and "turned him down". The incident allegedly took place about three years ago. She claims to have WhatsApp records proving her allegations. The ex-ZBC boss insinuated Muswere had made some sexual advances on her, but The NewsHawks understands the minister has told his officials that it is false. According to her 28 February 2024 suspension letter, titled Suspension from employment without salary and other benefits, Chikunguru was pressured out through a series of charges that span flawed recruitment practices; flighting an advertorial without board approval; some falsification of records bordering on fraud; buying self-serving awards for a total of US$30 000; breaches of the code of conduct; gross incompetence; illegally subscribing to United States satellite internet service provider Starlink; promoting a senior official illegally, and some administrative and financial malpractices including an accusation that Chikunguru got ZW$227 837.25 in relocation expenses when she was not entitled to and without board approval; incurred a US$6 939.96 bill on roaming charges while in Dubai; and overclaimed money for taxis and allowances while travelling outside the country. Further, Chikunguru was also accused of violating public procurement procedures. After receiving her charge sheet, she was subsequently put on suspension awaiting disciplinary action. She resigned while on suspension. "You caused a requisition for the payment of USD15,000.00 to a company registered in England and Wales called African Leadership (UK) Limited," Chikunguru's suspension letter says. "The alleged purpose for the requisition was advertising for the ZBC in a magazine published by the said company. However, your real intention was to launder an opaque process culminating in the presentation to yourself by the said company of the so-called African Female Leadership Commendation Award. "You wrote to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and copied the Board Chair advising that you would be attending the African Persons of the Year Awards Ceremony in Addis Ababa from 22-23 February 2024. You further advised that the award was merit based in recognition of your 'trail blazing leadership accomplishment and commitment to journalist excellence'. "Further, you advised that the event was fully paid for, without a disclosure that an invoice had been rendered to the corporation for 'advertising' in the said magazine in the sum of USD15 000.00. You further alleged that you had obtained prior clearance from the former board chairperson to attend the award presentation in Addis Ababa. "You failed to provide the invitation letter and alleged approval when asked to do so by the board chairperson. The company involved is registered in England and Wales. It has one (1) officer, a Nigerian born in 1978, and has had a negative balance sheet for two consecutive years. As at the end of 2022 had a balance sheet of 40 000-pound sterling. "This falsification of records had actual potential prejudice to the ZBC of USD15 000.00. There was potential reputational risk to the corporation and potential CV fraud in the so-called African Person of the Year Award. This further speaks to lack of administrative foresight, absence of due diligence and gross incompetence potentially placing the corporation in disrepute." However, Chikunguru pushed back, giving her side of the story. "I was pushed out. My family is concerned by the lies that are being spurned out by the ZBC aimed at ruining my image and my good name. I have not misappropriated any funds if I had would the Finance Director be made Acting CEO? All trips I undertook were approved by my board chairman. ZBC does not have a contract or agreement with Nevile Mutsvangwa’s Starlink and has never done business with him or any of his associates. Jive TV is available on terrestrial TV and AZAM. The Mutsvangwas do not own AZAM neither are they directors of AZAM. ZBC was also in talks with DSTV to have Jive on DSTV bouquet documents are available," she said. "I did not purchase any awards however I have received many awards during my time as recognition to the work we were doing. We did pay for employees to attend dinners and at times ZBC did sponsor congratulations adverts or profile adverts of the ZBC in support of the organisation or employees who would be winning the awards. This is common practice. "I have received on slaught from the day of appointment and the workers' committee were manipulated to push certain agendas. There was also conflict with regards the former CEO (Helliate Rushwaya) being appointed board chairman (chairperson) in under three years and this breaches the corporate governance regulations. "My life is at risk. On 16 June I was involved in an accident with security personnel this was after my appointment. Further, going to the Zanu PF conference in Bindura, my wheels had been tampered with and locknuts removed. There are audios where she is heard that if she can’t remove me then she will have to exterminate me. As she is under instruction from the principal! "On 27 September 2021 at Chimanimani World Radio Day when Minister Muswere was Minister of ICT he made advances to me via WhatsApp which I have, I turned him down! He continued to pester me until he stopped as I was not interested in him!" Sources say Muswere has told officials at the ministry that Chikunguru's claims are false. Ministry officials say Chikunguru may be pursued by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission over these numerous corruption charges. Why Chikunguru was fired: More details emerge Former ZBC chief executive Adelaide Chikunguru. Insert: Chikunguru's resignation letter.
Page 10 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 THE Zimbabwe Media Commission and its unrepresentative journalists' committee have created a controversial code of conduct for reporting on the chiefs' forthcoming Gukurahundi outreach programme amid criticism of the proposed repressive restrictions and censorship, sparking fierce debate, clashes and resistance, The NewsHawks reports . . . BRENNA MATENDERE THE Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) and a few journalists working with it held a meeting in Harare on Monday in a bid to come up with a code of conduct for reporters covering the upcoming traditional chiefs Gukurahundi outreach programme into the 1980s massacres of innocent civilians in Matabeleland and Midlands provinces by the army, amid restrictive proposals that will gag free coverage of the critical process. The event, dubbed "Gukurahundi media sensitisation breakfast meeting", was held at Rainbow Towers Hotel in the capital. At least two meetings have already been held in Bulawayo before the Monday one. Ahead of the meeting, the ZMC and its "technical committee" of selected journalists — which is not representative of the media fraternity — has circulated documents with proposals on how reporters should cover the Gukurahundi investigation by chiefs in Matabeleland first and later in the Midlands. The National Council of Chiefs deputy president Chief Fortune Charumbira has said journalists and security services should be barred from the hearings. The traditional leaders' body is led by Chief Mtshane Khumalo. Journalists say Charumbira's attempt to ban reporters is unconstitutional as it violates the constitutionally entrenched freedoms of media and expression. While it is understandable why security forces — who perpetrated the genocide in the first place — should be barred from the hearings, there is no justification to ban journalists. Other media stakeholders are saying the ZMC and its committee should be demanding full and unfettered access to the hearings and coverage to ensure people get unfiltered news and information instead of kowtowing to chiefs and government officials. Analysts say, after all, chiefs lack the intellectual and technical capacity to deal with this complex, multiplex and interdisciplinary issue. The other key problem is the process itself which forecloses some critical issues, particularly transparency, accountability and justice, as well as individual criminal responsibility due to its attempt to whitewash the role of individuals and prescribe an exculpatory outcome which is the preferred endgame by the authorities. The ZMC and its committee's proposals have subtle, divisive and dangerous detail that would not only restrict media coverage, but also impose punitive sanctions against reporters doing their job in an independent and professional way. The proposals also invite the government, the police and constitutional bodies into the fray of operational news issues — literally inviting authorities into the newsrooms. The "technical committee", constituted without broad consultations with various stakeholders and crudely unrepresentative, includes journalists Victoria Ruzvidzo (Sunday Mail), Nduduzo Tshuma (The Chronicle), Zenzele Ndebele (CITE), Annahstacia Ndlovu (Voice of America), Albert Chekai (ZBC), Cris Chinaka (ZimFact) and Monica Cheru (ZimNow). The committee and ZMC met in Bulawayo on Monday. ZMC, which primarily registers media organisations and accredits journalists, was represented by its executive secretary Godwin Phiri and two commissioners, Aleck Ncube and Tanaka Muganyi. Some of the areas in which the ZMC and its committee seek to restrict journalists is on perpetrators, language and interviews, as well as methods of coverage, including livestreaming. The proposals, for instance, seek to ban journalists from using a term like "genocide", falsely claiming that it is not well-defined. "In transitional justice and peace-building periods, it is important for the media to avoid using words that have no clear definition and are likely to incite high emotions. Words like genocide and massacre should be avoided because they have no clear agreed definitions," a ZMC/journalists committee document, titled The Gukurahundi Outreach Reporting Guide, says. This is viewed as a crude attempt to censor the media. Contrary to what the code’s authors claim, genocide has been well-researched and defined by reputable scholars and organisations like the International Association of Genocide Scholars and Genocide Watch (Alliance Against Genocide). Journalists have no intellectual and technical capacity to dispute established definitions of genocide by specialised scholars and researchers. Besides, there is a United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention), an instrument of international law that codified for the first time the crime of genocide. The Genocide Convention was the first human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948 and signified the international community’s commitment to "never again" after the atrocities committed during the Second World War. Its adoption marked a crucial step towards the development of international human rights and international criminal law as we know it today. According to the Genocide Convention, genocide is a crime that can take place both in time of war as well as peace. The definition contained in Article II of the convention describes genocide as a "crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious Dangerous code of conduct to gag media on massacres
NewsHawks News Page 11 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 group, in whole or in part". It does not include political groups or so called “cultural genocide”. The definition of the crime of genocide, as set out in the convention, has been widely adopted at both national and international levels, including in the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Only recently, South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice over its Gaza siege atrocities against Palestinians. Importantly, the convention imposes on state parties the obligation to take measures to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, including by enacting relevant legislation and punishing perpetrators, “whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals” (Article IV). That obligations, in addition to the prohibition not to commit genocide, have been considered as norms of international customary law and therefore, binding on all states, whether or not they have ratified the Genocide Convention. Besides genocide, the ZMC proposals also want to ban journalists from using words like "massacre", claiming their meanings not clear. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, massacre means "to kill many people in a short period of time". The Oxford Dictionary says massacre means "killing of a large number of people, especially in a cruel way" — for instance "a bloody massacre of innocent civilians". So the meanings of genocide and massacre are very clear and that is precisely what happened during the Gukurahundi genocide. There are many reports, records and books on that, showing beyond reasonable doubt Gukurahundi was a massacre constituting genocide. The other controversial element of the Gukurahundi Code of Conduct is demanding that journalists should "focus on issues not just on personalities". This is seen as an attempt to protect perpetrators who are well-known. In any case, it is not the ZMC and its committee's job to tell reporters what they should do and how they should do their job. The ZMC's arbitrary involvement in this process is problematic as this is an operational matter which should be addressed by media houses and journalists. The proposals also further prescribe: "Fact versus Truth: Media practitioners should be clear on what constitutes truth and what constitutes fact. Statistics should only be used when they have a verifiable pedigree and not be taken as facts just because someone said so". This is seen as calculated and designed to downplay and suppress Gukurahundi statistics like the 20 000 figure of people who were killed that emanated from human rights groups and other sources. The proposals add: "Disinformation through editing: The media should avoid creating potentially volatile situations by taking utterances or events out of context to create the impression of intent to offend or harm. This can be done through clipped audios or images as well as incomplete quotes in writing. When capturing such reports, the full context should be included for a true and factual account." This is clearly meant to prevent journalists from quoting toxic and genocidal statements by Zanu PF leaders, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa, during the Gukurahundi era. Those statements are there as evidence of what happened throughout the 10 stages of the genocide spanning: classification, symbolisation, discrimination, dehumanisation, organisation, polarisation, preparation, persecution, extermination and denial. Gregory H Stanton, President of Genocide Watch, developed 10 the stages of genocide. At each of the earlier stages, there is an opportunity for members of the directly affected community or the international community to halt the stages and stop genocide before it happens. Gukurahundi, like any genocide, happened in stages, starting with the Matabeleland military lockdown in 1982, deployment of the North Korean-trained Five Brigade in early 1983 and its crackdown in Matabeleland North province, the scorched earth policy in Matabeleland South in 1984, the electoral blitz in 1985 and the mop -up exercise, as well as negotiations leading the 1987 Unity Accord between Zapu and Zanu. The ZMC proposals add: "Media Practitioners who intend to livestream proceedings must get written consent from the National Chiefs Council representatives." This is another gatekeeping measure. "Sources of stated facts: Where media states facts, it should cite sources. If unsure of the veracity of facts, avoid publishing," one of the ZMC documents says in a further attempt to censor reporters. In an attempt to intimidate, criminalise and scare away journalists, the document adds: "Potential legal, economic and social repercussions of negligence: Media practitioners who break the Code of Conduct they would have signed on at accreditation face threefold censure: Media practitioners should understand that the law of the land in inviolate and no practitioner can hide behind the right to report when breaking the law. Some laws may entail civil prosecution which will cost the media practitioner in legal fees as well as time spent away from work; Peer accountability means that after determining that an infringement has been committed, the peer review mechanism should fit reaction to action as per agreed parameters through measures like compelling retraction and or apology or withdrawing accreditation; Professional standing can be irredeemably compromised when one is called out as an unethical practitioner." Then there is the strange issue of demanding that journalists should first secure and sign consent forms with victims before they report on their accounts during the hearings. This bureaucratisation of news is another form of censorship. Obligingly, the ZMC and its journalists then promise the authorities and chiefs to: "Challenge and correct statements and claims that have no basis in fact. Avoid highlighting or amplifying falsehoods, hate speech, and incitement to violence". Some of the journalists involved have reacted in an agitated and furious way to The NewsHawks bringing to light these restrictive, intimidatory and dangerous proposals from the ZMC and its committee. For instance, Monica Cheru-Mpambawashe, managing editor of ZimNow and a former Herald reporter, rushed to the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe in a baseless and futile attempt to silence The NewsHawks, which has rejected her grandstanding move to play to the gallery while avoiding serious issues raised. "In the publication cited above which had almost 5 000 views on Twitter at time of complaint, and had been shared on innumerable WhatsApp groups, NewsHawks put my name in an article full of falsehoods and thereby smeared my professional standing," Cheru-Mpambawashe claims. "NewsHawks reported on a meeting to which they sent no representative and reported inaccurately on proceedings of that meeting and an earlier one. The article states that the committee was selected in a dodgy and opaque way, yet minutes of the meeting will show that selection was by nomination and secondment in an open forum. There were objections raised and taken into account and general consensus was reached by those present. "In addition the NewsHawks article states that the committee is attempting to muzzle the media through a specific code of conduct for Gukurahundi hearings. "Again minutes of the meetings will reveal that I was one of the most steadfast voices in advocating and insisting on the freedom of access for media practitioners. Therefore by painting me as an advocate for repression of media freedom, NewHawks deliberately created fake news to taint my professional standing." While the ZMC and its committee are trying to come up with a restrictive and dangerous framework and conditions for reporting the Gukurahundi hearings, they conveniently ignore that some journalists have been reporting on the atrocities for decades now without the need for these repressive conditions that only strengthen the hand of media tyrants instead of broadening and deepening media freedom to cover real issues. For instance, there were recent Gukurahundi hearings by the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission. And besides, there have been many other initiatives on Gukurahundi which were not subject to these repressive and dangerous proposals by a few individuals posturing as representatives of the whole media fraternity and stakeholders. That is why most representative media bodies and stakeholders have rejected this process as toxic and dangerous. National Council deputy president Fortune Charumbira
Page 12 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 THE Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) chairperson, Professor Ruby Magosvongwe, says media houses which refuse to sign the controversial code of conduct produced by the commission and an unrepresentative clique of journalists will not be allowed to cover the upcoming Gukurahundi outreach programme — a major assault on media freedom. Magosvongwe said this at a meeting between ZMC and the committee of journalists it is currently working with in Harare on Monday. The event, dubbed "Gukurahundi media sensitisation breakfast meeting", was held at the Rainbow Towers Hotel. Previous meetings were held in Bulawayo. The ZMC and the committee's process is unrepresentative, does not work through genuine stakeholder consultations and the need to give media open and unfettered access to the Gukurahundi investigation process by traditional chiefs first in Matabeleland and in later the Midlands. Instead, the process imposes a gag on the media — by design or accident — which was muzzled in the 1980s from covering the grisly Gukurahundi massacres and the resultant genocide. The move leaves the ZMC and its small clique of journalists open and vulnerable to litigation for trying to undermine media's constitutionally protected liberties — media freedom and freedom of expression. Forcing journalists to sign a restrictive code is effectively a gagging instrument in itself and constitutes media tyranny. The "Gukurahundi Code of Conduct Pledge" produced by the ZMC and an unrepresentative committee of journalists seeks to control the coverage process, access to information and even the language reporters should use, a gross violation of media freedom. For instance, the code does not want journalists to use words like "genocide" and "massacre" in their coverage, a crude censorship intervention. Gukurahundi massacres constitute a genocide, specialists in the field have said. Journalists have no intellectual and technical capacity to dispute that. National Council of Chiefs deputy president Chief Fortune Charumbira has said journalists and security services should be barred from the hearings. The traditional leaders' body is led by Chief Mtshane Khumalo. Journalists say Charumbira's attempt to ban reporters is unconstitutional as it violates constitutionally entrenched freedoms. The "technical committee", constituted without broad consultations with various stakeholders and crudely unrepresentative, includes journalists Victoria Ruzvidzo (Sunday Mail), Nduduzo Tshuma (The Chronicle), Zenzele Ndebele (CITE), Annahstacia Ndlovu (Voice of America), Albert Chekai (ZBC), Cris Chinaka (ZimFact) and Monica Cheru (ZimNow). Yesterday, Zimbabwe National Editors' Forum (Zinef chair) coordinator Njabulo Ncube and Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe director Loughty Dube attended the meeting. Ruzvidzo is Zinef deputy chair and has the support of her colleagues, except that they feel the process should be more consultative and inclusive. Ncube is trying to get involved to assist the process to take into consideration concerns raised by mainstream media representative bodies that have not been consulted. Asked about the meeting, Ncube said stakeholders are "trying to find each other to resolve areas of difference and cover gaps". The process also invites all sorts of players, including government, police and constitutional bodies, to endorse the code and effectively dabbles into newsroom operational matters, leaving journalists vulnerable to manipulation and gagging. — STAFF WRITER. ZMC threatens to muzzle reporters on Gukurahundi ZMC chairperson Professor Ruby Magosvongwe
NewsHawks News Page 13 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 MORRIS BISHI FORMER Chiredzi Town Council chairperson Francis Moyo was arrested by the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) and appeared before a regional magistrate last Friday on a charge of criminal abuse of office. His personal company allegedly benefitted from 50 commonage stands when he was still the local authority's chairperson between 2014 and 2018. Moyo, who was the Zanu PF candidate for Chiredzi Central in the 2023 general elections, was granted US$500 bail last Saturday. He will appear again before the same court on 8 March. Allegations against Moyo are that Chiredzi Town Council submitted 50 commonage stands to the ministry of Local Government as commonage stands. In May 2013, Inotrade Investments, whose director is Trinity Mutsetse, applied to the ministry and was awarded the stands in Tshovani township. The state further alleges that Moyo, using his position as the council chairperson of Chiredzi Town Council, hatched a plan and corruptly benefitted from the 50 commonage stands reserved for the ministry of Local Government and Public Works. On 17 December 2014, Inotrade Investments and Justin Chauke Housing Cooperative, owned by Moyo, entered into a partnership to develop and construct 50 housing stands. Investigations revealed that Inotrade Investments later handed over the housing scheme to Justin Chauke Housing Cooperative with the accused person being the chairperson of both Justin Chauke Housing Cooperative and Chiredzi Town Council during that time. The ministry of Local Government, then led by Saviour Kasukuwere, launched an investigation into Chiredzi Town Council from March 2016 to April 2016. The investigating team, which was known as the Nhamo Commission as it was led by Alfa Nhamo, established that no land intrinsic value was paid to the ministry of Local Government for the 50 residential stands, therefore prejudicing the ministry of US$60 000. Coincidentally, Moyo was arrested a day after another team of investigators from Zacc pounced on Chiredzi Town Council, searching for documents related to a Toyota GD6 single-cab vehicle which was given to the former Chiredzi town chairperson Gibson Hwende without following proper procedures. The vehicle was acquired in 2021. It was sold to the former council head for only US$2 500. Chiredzi Town Council chairperson Jameson Charumbira confirmed to The NewsHawks that investigators from Zacc were at his local authority, but said he was not aware of what they were looking for. "It’s true. We saw a team from Zacc visiting our offices. I am sure they are looking for something, but at the moment l am not aware of their exact motive. You can talk to the town secretary," said Charumbira. Zacc swoops on Chiredzi, arrests former chairperson Former Chiredzi Town Council chairperson Francis Moyo
Page 14 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 NATHAN GUMA FAMILIES from Manhize’s Mushenjere Village who are settled at Inhoek Farm in Mvuma are facing displacement from land they have occupied for over 40 years, as concerns continue to be raised over weaknesses in the land tenure system that have seen mass evictions. Chivhu and Mvuma communities, particularly those relocated to pave way for the establishment of the Dinson Iron and Steel Company (Disco)'s US$1.5 billion steel plant, say their lives have deteriorated despite the project being hyped up as a game changer in the nation’s economy, raising fears of another resource curse. Disco, a local subsidiary of Chinese firm Tsingshan, has been touted as Africa’s largest integrated steel plant, but displacements have plunged victims into abject poverty, amid indications of serious food insecurity. Since 2021, more than 100 families from Manhize’s Mushenjere Village have lost their land to Disco’s operations, with the villagers, once self-sufficient, are now unable to produce enough food, according to a governance watchdog, the Centre for Research and Development (CRD). Thirty-two families are now facing eviction from Inhoek Farm, where they were allocated land under the initial land reform programme that was intended to lessen overcrowding and poverty in communal areas, according to a report by the CRD on the arrests in Manhize. On 9 February, seven women with infants and one man were whisked away from Mushenjere Village on Inhoek Farm in Manhize by four state security agents and driven to Mvuma Police Station where they were detained for the night. Twelve others were arrested and appeared at the magistrates' court in Mvuma on 14 February. The evictees are children of permit holders who have been living on Manhize’s Inhoek Farm for 40 years. However, the land permits issued by the government have no security of tenure. “The conditions of living on the land outlined in their permits rest solely at the discretion of the minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement,” the CRD said. "Thus the minister ‘may for any public purpose reverse this permit at any time and under such conditions as he thinks fit on payment of the holder of such compensation the minister may decide’.” A day before the arrests, Mvuma district development coordinator (DDC) Jorum Chimedza accompanied by officers from the President’s Office and officials from the ministry of Lands held a meeting with villagers in Mushenjere. Before meeting villagers later in the afternoon, the delegation had earlier spent more than four hours meeting with Dinson. Chimedza is reported to have told farmers that their children had occupied land illegally and must return to the residential site allocated to them in 1984. “Villagers at the meeting said they were taken aback when Andrew Chatindo, a purported headman and aide of Chief Chirumhanzi accused Mushenjere villagers of engaging in opposition political activities for raising their voices through the media on Dinson mining developments affecting them,” the CRD said. “Eyewitness accounts of the meeting reported that Chatindo threatened villagers with a blood bath in the 2028 elections if villagers joined the opposition. Villagers interviewed by CRD after the meeting questioned the motive behind threats of evictions and arrests of occupiers of state land in Mushenjere Village when other occupiers of state land in Kwaedza Village nearby were left unscathed.” The permit holders at Mushenjere’s Inhoek Farm have for the past two months been locked in a wrangle with Dinson to negotiate compensation for the loss of livelihoods and land caused by Disco’s operations. The farmers have also been demanding a monthly food basket of between US$300 to US$500 for each household to sustain their lives whilst awaiting relocation, which the company has not honoured. As reported by The NewsHawks, the company has been insincere in providing food to the villagers as per its promise. On 23 January, Dinson delivered a paltry two kilogrammmes of flour, 10kgs of mealie-meal, two litres of cooking oil, two kilogrammes of laundry soap and 500 grammes of salt worth US$14 in Mushenjere Village, a move seen by villagers as an attempt to test their resolve in demanding compensation. Last week, permit holders were also given US$200 each, but only ahead of a visit by First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa. After Disco commenced operations in 2021, it built houses for 14 families who were relocated to nearby Rusununguko Farm in 2022, leaving more families, including the 32 living on state land. Locals believe the company has been trying to push the villagers away since then. The CRD said the uncertainty has been worsened by the government’s failure to repeal repressive land tenure law. “The government exploited colonial and unjust mining law aided by an unsecured multiple land tenure system to grant Dinson exclusive mining rights over farming land in Manhize. Despite Zimbabwe adopting a progressive constitution in 2013 that recognises fundamental human rights and freedoms of citizens, the government has maintained regressive laws such as the Communal Lands Act 20:04 formerly Tribal Trust Lands and the 1965 Mines and Minerals Act. “These laws do not respect the rights of traditional communities where land has been prospected for mining or set aside for any public purpose. At the same time, the permit and lease land tenure system applicable to agricultural landholders vest all powers in the state.” At least 1 170 hectares of farmland have been taken from plotholders by Disco in Mushenjere Village, leaving farmers without aa source of livelihood since 2021. Disco is already erecting a wall to enclose farmland and grazing pasture, further shutting out families at Mushenjere Village. The loss of grazing land to Dinson has caused despair among farmers and forced them to sell their cattle at giveaway prices. Information coming from the negotiations indicates that Dinson has been reluctant to commit to the farmers’ demands on compensation. A total of 138 families from Kwaedza Village are also facing a similar predicament as Disco has already set land survey pegs in their village. The villagers mainly originated from the poor and densely populated communal areas of Rukovere, Mahusvu, Msasa, Unyetu villages of Chikomba district in Mashonaland East province. In 1984 they were allocated land on purchased farms by the state under the “minda mirefu” land reform programme that was initiated by governmen soon after Independence in 1980. Manhize villagers face displacement Villagers are being displaced to pave way for the establishment of the Dinson Iron and Steel Company's US$1.5 billion steel plant.
NewsHawks News Page 15 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 NATHAN GUMA THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) says it used 88% of its ZW$868 billion gross revenue collection in 2023 on the maintenance of roads, with urban councils using most of their budgets. The gross revenue comprised of 38% contribution from the country’s 29 tolling points, while licensing fees contributed 34%, up from 30% in 2022. According to Zinara’s business overview and disbursements report for 2023 presented by chief executive officer Nkosinathi Ncube, the parastatal disbursed ZW$219 billion to four road authorities, with over 20 road authorities claiming 100% of their allocated funds, while a considerable handful still accessed below 75%. The provinces with the highest uptake were Harare metropolitan and Manicaland, both claiming about 97% of their budgets. Lowest claims were from Bulawayo metropolitan, Masvingo and Matabeleland North provinces, which accessed less than 65% of their budgets. Urban councils in total claimed a combined 81% of their allocated budgets while rural councils accessed 71%. According to the report, in 2023, periodic maintenance projects undertaken accounted for 220 kilometres reconstructed and rehabilitated roads, while 71km were resealed. 633km were re-gravelled and spot re-gravelling was done on 17 633km, while pothole patching accounted for 6 904.69km and gravel patching constituted 2 19755km. “The failure to access full disbursement allocation in some instances is mainly attributed to a handicap in acquitting and submission of Interim Payment Certificates to qualify for the next funds draw down. Road Authorities that have successfully accessed their full budgets have gone on to undertake good work in their respective jurisdiction and they must be applauded for their effectiveness and efficiency in using road user fees to implement tangible programmes,” reads the report. “Meanwhile, it is important to note that the Department of Roads (DOR) and Rural Infrastructural Development Agency (RIDA) disbursements are implemented on roads across all provinces, thereby adding to the total disbursement amount channelled through Road authorities in those areas. For example, road projects amounting to an equivalent of US$- 40million were implemented through DOR in Harare.” According to the report, licensing revenue also grew in the year due to access to licensing services at tollgates for the Central Vehicle Registry (CVR), Zinara and Vehicle Inspection Directorate (VID). “This, complemented by roadside enforcement operations and marketing promotions, has improved licensing gradually and we anticipate continued growth in the current year. Fuel levies, transit fees contributed 15% and 11% respectively. Overall, traffic volumes through the main revenue streams grew by an average of 7% against prior year,” reads the report. While most of the country’s roads have largely been in a shambolic state, Zinara said the parastatal is only mandated with allocating funds for gazetted roads. Most of the roads have been derelict, with a report by the parliamentary committee on Transport and Infrastructure Development presented in December by chairperson Knowledge Kaitano, showing that 90% of the road network is in a shambles. The report says plans to revamp the road network are going to be further blighted by the meagre funding allocated to the parent ministry in the 2024 National Budget. However, Zinara board chairperson George Manyaya said the parastatal is only mandated with disbursing funds to gazetted roads. “Despite efforts that we are making to fund the maintenance of our road infrastructure, we are aware of concerns that roads in some urban settlements have remained in a bad state, and it may appear like Zinara has turned a blind eye on them,” Manyaya said. “Allow me to share with you that Zinara funds are only used on gazetted roads and most roads in new suburbs are not yet gazetted. The responsibility of constructing new roads remains a prerogative of respective road authorities through their internal budgets and other innovative initiatives. “We have also noted that some housing developers are not fully servicing stands to ensure that all amenities such as roads and sewer are in place before people start building their houses. We therefore duly implore our local authorities to strictly supervise the housing developers to ensure that they deliver quality and completed projects to members of the public.” Zinara disburses ZW$219 billion for road maintenance
Page 16 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 RUVIMBO MUCHENJE MAIZE stocks have declined in the nation’s reserves at Grain Marketing Board (GMB) depots dotted across the country, and this may worsen food insecurity situation at a time when inflation and currency volatility have decimated incomes. The development is bad news for most Zimbabweans who are struggling to put food on the table. The El Niñoinduced drought currently ravaging southern Africa is seen worsening hunger, with crop failure being reported in many parts of the country. In his US$58.2 trillion 2024 National Budget presentation to Parliament in November 2023, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube predicted that El Niño would have a devastating effect on the economy. “The domestic economy is now projected to grow by 5.5% in 2023, a slight upward revision from the August projection of 5.3%, on account of better-than-expected output in agriculture, in particular, tobacco, wheat and cotton. “However, economic growth is expected to slow down to 3.5% in 2024, mainly owing to the anticipated impact of the El Niño phenomenon being forecasted for the 2023/24 summer cropping season on agricultural output, as well as declining mineral commodity prices attributable to the global economic slowdown,” Ncube said. An emergency tour of the GMB silos across the country by the parliamentary portfolio committee on Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development showed that the available grain stocks will not take the country to the next harvest. The GMB depot in Norton, which boasts of an annual intake of 30 000 metric tonnes in a good season, only has 1347.15 metric tonnes of white maize in stock. The supply chain manager at Norton depot, Musekiwa Zanza, who was quizzed by members of the parliamentary portfolio committee, said the low numbers may not take the country to the next harvest, given the El Niño effect. “Looking at the weather right now, it becomes very tricky, but what we are holding on to was able to take us through until the next harvest, but then the next harvest appears to be running away from us because the skies are dry. If the situation remains as it is, we can’t say we may be able to feed the nation,” said Zanza. The Chegutu depot general manager, Davy Nyachowe, affirmed Zanza’s assertions, saying the white maize stocks at the depot are insufficient to take the local catchment area to the next season. “I do not have the stats for all the depots, but for Chegutu you can all agree that 200 metric tonnes is insufficient,” he added. Nyachowe cited lack of financial support to white maize farmers as a key cause of low volumes of white maize at the GMB depots. “There is little support towards white maize farmers as compared to other grain farmers such as wheat. In our reserves we have more wheat stock than white maize because firstly there are not as many wheat farmers as there are maize farmers. I do not know how the Pfumvudza programme should be refined, but we could select a few big farmers and they should be given all the support; as more wheat farmers get [support] we will have more maize grain in our reserves,” he told the committee. He added that when farmers tried to seek financial help from banks, they were shortchanged. He said the number of farmers getting help from banks has gradually dwindled. “There is a bank that has been supporting maize farmers for the Command Agriculture programme, but many farmers have opted out of the financing programme because of the high interest rates. So farmers ended up working to return the loan and that was not viable. They initially had a lot of farmers under their loan programme, but now the number has dwindled because farmers are opting for self-financing,” said Nyachowe. Payment is also a concern. “We have farmers who have land dotted all over the catchment area of Norton and they are ready to do agriculture, they are ready to do farming, but their only disadvantage is the last hurdle. They would have grown their crops, but when they deliver to the national grain reserve, which is GMB, they are complaining of their remuneration not being paid on time,” said Zanza. “I think that is the only thing we need to address and you won’t have to come to verify stocks. You would only be hearing reports of spilling silos because we have honest farmers in Zimbabwe and they are good at that, but it is very disheartening that they cultivate and harvest and sell to GMB, but spend three to four months without receiving their money. “The farmers speak of labour that needs to be paid, so failure to pay them they lose labour. What we are seeing here can be resolved by paying the farmers on time.” As a recommendation, Zanza said the committee should push for the review of the liberalisation policy, which could have adversely affected stock levels at the GMB. “I think we need to revisit the policy. We are not against it (liberalisation) but maybe we should at least reach a certain threshold that would carry us to the next harvest season then we can open the door for contractors and private players, but they should first deliver to GMB,” he said. In January 2024, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a contribution of US$11.27 million to the World Food Programme (WFP) in Zimbabwe, ensuring that approximately 230 000 of the most vulnerable people in Mwenezi, Mangwe, Chivi, and Buhera districts will receive critical food assistance during the January to March 2024 lean season. Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) says the nation’s annual inflation surged to 47.6% in February 2024 from 34.8% in January. Consumer prices rose 5.4% in the month from 6.6% in January. The taxes introduced by Finance minister Mthuli Ncube have pushed up the prices of basic foodstuffs. GMB maize stocks fall as hunger takes its toll
NewsHawks News Page 17 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 NATHAN GUMA WOES are continuing to mount for veterans of Zimbabwe's armed liberation struggle, who say their welfare is continually being neglected, with tertiary learning institutions refusing to enroll their children over the government’s failure to pay fees on time, The NewsHawks has learnt. War veterans have been a vital cog in Zanu PF’s election campaigns and have in some cases been accused of using brute force to bolster support for the ruling party, especially in the early 2000s. However, they have constantly been at loggerheads with the government over their welfare, which has been deteriorating following the erosion of their pensions and other benefits due to hyperinflation. The war veterans are entitled by law to pension, basic healthcare and education, according to the Veterans of the Liberation Struggle Act (Chapter 17:12) of 2020. This week, the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA) said fees for children of veterans and collaborators have remained unpaid for the past two semesters or three terms since last year. Some institutions have shut the door on war veterans' children. “Students have been greatly affected. Institutions like the University of Zimbabwe have been having challenges enrolling the children of war veterans. While the university has now started enrolling, accommodation still remains a great challenge. Other institutions like the Great Zimbabwe University are refusing to enroll,” Edward Dube, the war veterans' interim executive committee’s publicity and information secretary, told The NewsHawks. In a statement this week, the ZNLWVA urged the government to take swift action to ensure that learners are not subjected to unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles, ultimately impeding their educational progress. “The ZNLWVA emphasises that this situation constitutes a failure on the part of the government to fulfill its obligations as outlined in the statutory provisions of the Veterans of the Liberation Struggle Act (Chapter 17:12) of 2020,” reads the statement. “The ZNLWVA has made both formal and informal appeals to address this matter, but as of yet, no resolution has been reached. Consequently, students find themselves in a state of dilemma and uncertainty, especially since some universities are scheduled to commence classes this week. Furthermore, the ZNLWVA brings attention to Sustainable Development Goal 4, which calls for the provision of inclusive and equitable quality education while promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. “The association urges the authorities to uphold the principles enshrined in this goal and address the current challenges faced by the students. The ZNLWVA calls upon the concerned authorities to give immediate attention to this matter, recognising the importance of providing equitable access to education for the children of war veterans. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that these students are not deprived of their right to education due to administrative delays.” War veterans’ welfare has raised a stink over the years. For instance, fired War Veterans and Liberation Struggle Affairs minister Chris Mutsvangwa was at loggerheads with war veterans, who believe he did little to improve their welfare and incorporation into the development matrix. In February, President Emmerson Mnangagwa sacked Mutsvangwa, who had been his key ally, but did not give reasons. While Mutsvangwa says he played a key role in Mnangagwa’s ascendency in the 2017 military coup, he had been on collision course with war veterans over the years, having been fired as chairperson of the ZNLWVA in April last year. This followed accusations of unprofessionalism and failure to improve their livelihoods, before dramatically bouncing back as minister after the disputed general elections. The ZNLWVA has been calling on the government to collaborate with them to develop policies that directly address challenges faced by the ex-guerillas. The ZNLWVA has also been urging the government to develop initiatives that promote entrepreneurship, skills development and employment opportunities specifically designed for war veterans to sustain their livelihoods. On social support, the war veterans have been demanding that social support and welfare services be made readily available to them, which includes healthcare, counselling services, housing and other social welfare programmes. The grouping has urged the government to also assist war veterans to access affordable housing loans, subsidies or grants, while establishing partnerships with financial institutions to provide favourable funding terms, which the authorities are yet to fulfill. “The proposed partnership with the ZNLWVA can address the needs of war veterans and ensure their overall well-being through access to farming land,” said the ZNLWVA in its congratulatory letter to fired minister Mutsvangwa in September last year. “Collaborate with the ZNLWVA to facilitate access to farming land for war veterans. Identify suitable agricultural land, provide necessary support in terms of land allocation, secure tenure rights, and assist war veterans with farming inputs, equipment, and training. By ensuring access to farming land, war veterans can engage in agricultural activities, secure a sustainable source of income, and contribute to food security and agricultural development in Zimbabwe,” read the statement. Govt neglect: War vets explode
Page 18 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 NATHAN GUMA GLOBAL legal watchdogs, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) and Lawyers for Lawyers (L4L), have urged the government of Zimbabwe to urgently investigate the abuse of lawyers by police, following the intimidation of lawyer Harrison Nkomo while representing opposition politician Job Sikhala earlier this year. In January, Nkomo, a senior lawyer with the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR), was reportedly denied entry to a courtroom at the Harare magistrates' court by police officers while waiting for the trial of his client, Sikhala, a former Zengeza West legislator. Sikhala, who was accused of inciting public violence and communicating falsehoods has since been sentenced to a two-year non-custodial sentence for the first charge and fined US$500 in addition to a nine-month suspended prison sentence for the second charge. He spent 595 days in pre-trial detention following his arrest in June 2022 on charges of inciting violence at the funeral of slain Citizens' Coalition for Change (CCC) activist Moreblessing Ali. However, police at Harare magistrates' court pointed a firearm at Nkomo despite his having identified himself as a lawyer, leading to protest by Sikhala’s other lawyer, Jeremiah Bamu. Magistrate Tafadzwa Miti ordered the prosecution to investigate the incident and submit a report to the court. Following a lengthy delay, Nkomo was allowed entry into the court to represent Sikhala. IBAHRI said the government should urgently initiate an investigation into the harassment of Nkomo. “The government should promptly and adequately investigate the harassment and hindrance of Mr Nkomo to ensure accountability for police abuses perpetrated against lawyers; immediately take action to ensure the safety and physical integrity of Mr Nkomo, including the provision of effective protection measures to guarantee that lawyers are able to carry their legitimate professional activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions,” IBAHRI said in a statement this week. “The government should refrain from actions that may constitute harassment, persecution, or undue interference in the work of lawyers in Zimbabwe, including their criminal prosecution on improper grounds such as the nature of cases in which the lawyer is involved. “The IBAHRI and L4L reminds the Zimbabwean authorities that independent lawyers have a critical role to play in the protection of the rule of law and human rights in a country and should be able to carry out their professional duties in a free and secure environment.” IBAHRI said the harassment of legal practitioners is against international law. “Notably, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, have expressed ‘alarm’ regarding the pattern of abuses and threats against lawyers and human rights defenders in the context of elections,” reads the statement. “Furthermore, lawyers should not be identified with their clients or their clients’ causes. In this respect, we draw your attention to the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, in particular to Articles 16, 17 and 23, which read: Governments shall ensure that lawyers (a) are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment, or improper interference; […] and (c) shall not suffer, or be threatened with, prosecution or administrative, economic, or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognized professional duties, standards, and ethics.” Harrassment of lawyers has been on the rise since the disputed general elections won by Zanu PF, with an increase in the harassment of human rights attorneys. In November, a civil society organisation, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, updated the 77th African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Session (ACHPR) on the worsening post-election human rights crisis, urging it to exert pressure on the Harare government to investigate post-election violence, including that on legal practitioners. This came after the controversial arrest of ZLHR lawyers Doug Coltart and Tapiwa Muchineripi who were accused of blocking police from questioning their clients, Womberaishe Nhende and Sanele Mkhuhlani, who are members of the Citizens' Coalition for Change. According to the statements of Nhende and Mkhuhlani, they were hospitalised after being abducted and tortured by state agents in the capital Harare. On 26 January 2024, the National Prosecuting Authority withdrew the charges against Coltart and Muchineripi, due to lack of evidence to sustain the prosecution. “Although the ZNPA's decision is welcomed by the IBAHRI and L4L, concern remains about the ongoing pressure on Zimbabwe's legal profession, as evidenced most recently by the intimidation and harassment of human rights lawyer Harrison Nkomo,” IBAHRI said. In July, another human rights lawyer, Obey Shava, was attacked by four identified men ahead of the polls, raising an outcry from human rights organisations. Rights watchdogs condemn embarrassment of lawyers Lawyer Harrison Nkomo
NewsHawks News Page 19 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 NATHAN GUMA A NATURAL resource watchdog, the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) has demanded that Dendairy (Pvt) Ltd publicly renounce its overtures to take over Chilonga Community Lands, while urging the government to respect the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local communities in line with international law. Woes are continuing to mount for the villagers in the Chilonga area od Chiredzi district, who are facing renewed efforts to evict them from their ancestral land, to make way for Dendairy’s controversial irrigation project to cultivate cattle fodder. The land in question has been inhabited by the Hlengwe Xangani (Chilonga) Community since way before 1890, downstream of Tugwi- Mukosi Dam. Due to abundant water, the government has earmarked over 12 000 hectares for an irrigation project. Recently, Agriculture minister Anxious Masuka, minister of State for Masvingo Ezra Chadzamira and minister of Presidential Affairs Lovemore Matuke visited Mutomani Business Centre in Chilonga under heavily armed police guard to push forward the eviction. Villagers protested by refusing to sit on chairs or enter a tent which was set for them. As previously reported by The NewsHawks, the villagers even refused to eat food which was prepared for them as a way of expressing anger about the lucerne programme. Tempers flared when Chadzamira threatened villagers by telling them that female donkeys resist males by kicking but they end up being pregnant, meaning that even if the communities resist, the programme will go ahead. Consultations with community representatives stalled as local people are adamant that the government’s priorities are unclear as they demand assurances that they will not be relocated from their homes. CNRG said the government has to respect the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local communities in line with international law. “Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) says the threat of evictions remains for Chilonga villagers despite the government repealing Statutory Instrument (SI) 50/2021 which had legalised their displacement,” the CNRG said in a statement. “At the height of the dispute when the government backtracked from evicting villagers, CNRG called on the Parliament of Zimbabwe to repeal the Communal Lands Act and introduce a land law that gives Zimbabweans on communal lands security of tenure. “CNRG also calls on government to respect the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local communities in line with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and Dendairy (Pvt) Ltd should publicly renounce its interest in acquiring Chilonga Communal Lands.” The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Right (ACHPR) in 2012 expanded the application of FPIC to cover communities for natural resource governance decision-making on the effects of domestic and foreign direct investment on land, water and related natural resources. The principle of prior informed consent requires that communities affected by a project be adequately informed in a timely manner about development projects that have the potential to affect them. Such communities should be given the opportunity to approve or reject a project prior to the commencement of operations. Government critics see the Chilonga project as retrogressive, favouring Dendairy’s interests while undermining food security as productive land they use for growing food will now be for lucerne production. There have been previous litigation attempts in 2021 to stop the controversial Dendairy-backed project which was dismissed by a High Court judge Joseph Mafusire on the basis that occupation of communal land is at the pleasure of the state. The government in February 2021 planned to evict the villagers after it passed Statutory Instrument (SI) 50 of 2021 to set aside 12 940 hectares of communal land in their area for lucerne project by Dendairy. Between February and March 2021, the government issued a series of Statutory Instruments which it later repealed with the main object of setting aside a tract of Communal land measuring 12940 to establish an irrigation scheme in Chiredzi District. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has been under fire for sporadic, inhumane decisions that affect livelihoods and people’s right to personal security as well as access to land. For instance, this year the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said it is representing 327 villagers from Mahachi area in Chipinge district, Manicaland province, who are facing eviction amid accusations of illegally settling in the area. Hundreds of families could be rendered homeless following the government’s directive to evict people settled on state land in rural, peri-urban and urban areas as mass displacements continue to wreak havoc across the country. Since January this year, the government has been rolling out “Operation No to Land Barons and Illegal Settlements”, which it says is aimed at combating illegal settlements. More families have been displaced in Mutoko, with most families living at the mercy of granite mining companies who have been plundering the resource with government collusion. Dendairy must desist from Chilonga land grab: CNRG Chilonga villagers
Page 20 News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 IT was one of those mysterious dramatic military sabotage stories in which noone ever thought the culprits would ever be named conclusively. The late former president Robert Mugabe’s political ferocity and repression amid brutality and torture of many arrested suspects at the time failed to unravel the mystery. Not even confessions extracted by torture could help to shed any light on the mysterious incident. In fact, that obfuscated the situation, allowing the real culprit to construct an alibi and to get away with it. But 44 years later, former Rhodesian Special Air Services and later Britain's Royal Air Force distinguished pilot Neville Weir — who collaborated with apartheid South Africa on the deadly mission — has been named as the destroyer, finally resolving the historic puzzle. On the night of 25 July 1982, a deadly sabotage attack on Thornhill Airbase in Gweru, Zimbabwe's Midlands city, damaged four Hawks, nine Hunters and a single FTB-337G. One Hawk was written off, another was repaired on site and the other two were returned to BAe in the UK for a rebuild. Aircraft 602 was the airframe that was totally destroyed, while aircraft 601 was damaged but repaired on site. At the time of the incident, all four aircraft were just ten days old, having been delivered to the Zimbabwe Air Force on 15 July 1982. On 31 August 1983, six white Air Force officers were acquitted on charges that they plotted to blow up the 13 Zimbabwean military aircraft, but they were immediately re-arrested and returned to prison. This was to be Mugabe’s modus operandi dealing with Zapu and Zipra erstwhile liberation struggle comrades when he launched a crackdown on them around the same period as he beat the drums of Gukurahundi. The disregard for the rule of law was to haunt Zimbabwe for 37 years of Mugabe’s rule until he was ousted by the army in a military coup in November 2017. Yet nothing has changed even then. Mugabe’s successor President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was in charge of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) amid the torture of accused as State Security minister during the Thornhill Airbase incident, continues from where his mentor left. After years of investigation, research and combing through archives and piles of historical material, Dr Stuart Doran, a historian and executive director of the Institute for Continuing History (http://continuinghistory.org), a research centre that investigates major episodes of state-sponsored violence, provides the answer. Doran is the author of a book on the early years of Zimbabwe’s independence — Kingdom, Power, Glory: Mugabe, Zanu and the quest for supremacy, 1960-87 — which was shortlisted for the Alan Paton Award for Non-Fiction. His book has some of the best insights and explanations on Gukurahundi in a growing repertoire of literature on the massacres now classified as genocide. STUART DORAN A South African government memorandum, squirrelled away by a former apartheid operative, has revealed the answer to a 42-year-old mystery: who was behind the devastating 1982 sabotage of the air force of newly independent Zimbabwe? Much more than just another military episode in an unstable era, its violent after-effects hammered yet another nail into the coffin of the fledgling nation’s multi-ethnic experiment. And the identification of the spy at the centre of it brings with it exquisite ironies for the Zimbabwean government and its critics — as well as uncomfortable questions for the UK military. THERE was an international furore. It was global news for months. And it was a saga that marked the end of the honeymoon between Robert Mugabe’s regime and the West. But the incident that triggered it has remained one of those unsolvable historical mysteries – until now. In July 1982, saboteurs blew up most of Zimbabwe’s fighter aircraft during a nighttime raid on Thornhill, an air force base near the Midlands city of Gweru. Within minutes, the country’s fixed-wing airpower had been reduced to smouldering piles of wreckage. The attackers had done their homework: 10 of the country’s 12 Hunter fighter jets were stationed at Thornhill, and the base had just received a consignment of British Aerospace Hawk fighter-trainers, purchased at enormous cost to the government’s strained fiscus. The destruction was extensive. Most of the Hunters were ruined, as was one of the Hawks, and the rest were severely damaged. Diplomats reported that “the entire operational fighter force” had been removed from service – and although a few aircraft in storage were resuscitated to fill part of the gap, the air force itself noted confidentially that it had “suffered a disaster”. Rubbing salt into the wound, it quickly became clear that security at the base had been atrociously lax. It was evident from footprints and cut wire that a group had merely sliced holes through two fences, entered hangars and planted incendiary devices in the air intakes of the jets. They had even sabotaged two aircraft sitting on the apron in front of Thornhill’s headquarters building. The attackers then left by the same route and jumped into a getaway car. The raid came against the background of recent and major attacks in Zimbabwe by apartheid operatives – among them, the bombing of the ruling party’s headquarters and the sabotage of a military depot during which 70% of the military’s ammunition stocks had been destroyed. The newly independent black government, hot with rage, arrested many white air force officers, some of them British citizens, and held them incommunicado, without access to lawyers. It later emerged that a number had been tortured in order to extract false confessions. The public’s reaction in Britain was violent. So, too, was Mugabe’s response to representations by Her Majesty’s government about due process and the presumption of innocence. The British considered cutting aid to Zimbabwe; the Zimbabweans threatened to throw such assistance back in their faces. When the airmen were eventually brought to court in 1983 after a torrid year for the bilateral relationship, they were acquitted. Justice Enoch Dumbutshena, the first black Zimbabwean high court judge appointed by Mugabe, ruled that the confessions were inadmissible because they were obtained Thornhill bombing mystery resolved Thornhill Airbase in Gweru.
NewsHawks News Page 21 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 under torture. That might have brought the matter to a close and allowed things to simmer down. The British had certainly hoped so – and had said so privately, to Mugabe’s displeasure. They were soon to be reminded of a trait they were only beginning to understand: the more Mugabe was pressured, the further he dug in his heels. Minutes after the airmen had celebrated with their families in the courtroom, they were handcuffed and hauled back to their cells. The government had used emergency powers legislation, crafted during the period of white rule, which allowed it to detain without legal recourse those deemed to pose a threat to national security. ‘The law is a stupid ass’ The already blistering media firestorm in Britain reached yet another level of intensity – and Mugabe dumped a bucket of fuel on it a few days later during a visit to Ireland when he told English journalists: “[T]here is better justice there [in Zimbabwe] than you think you have in Great Britain. Why is there such concern about these men when there are other men detained as well? Is it because they are Mrs Thatcher’s kith and kin? … [T]he law and procedures we have inherited are a stupid ass. It says that it doesn’t matter if a person has committed a crime if there is evidence that the police have assaulted him or used any coercion. He might be a murderer or a rapist. In an African system, that is stupid … It is one of the stupidities of our colonial past.” However, in the background, Mugabe had arranged for two airmen to be released and immediately deported to Britain. Eventually, all followed the same route. He had shown he would not be cajoled and — with other scandals on his hands — now sought to rid himself of an inconvenient diplomatic and ethno-political feud. Yet the Zimbabwean government held to the view that the airmen, or at least some of them, were “guilty as hell”. Mugabe and his ministers remained convinced that officers of the predominantly white air force had connived with apartheid South Africa to destroy the country’s airpower from within. Mugabe conceded that “irregular methods” had been used to extract evidence, resulting in the acquittal of the airmen on “a technicality”, but the government held to its belief that it had culled the air force of a spy ring that had done grievous damage to the nation’s security. Among the white ex-Rhodesian community, outrage focused on the brutalisation of innocent men – and a popular notion was that the sabotage was probably the work of disaffected black “dissidents” loyal to Mugabe’s main political rival, Joshua Nkomo. Others thought the South Africans had flown a special operations team across the border for a lightning strike on the base. Still others advanced the imaginative view that a North Korean army training team stationed in the country had deployed a group of sabotage specialists to do the job. What nearly all ex-Rhodesian commentators agreed on – and repeated ad nauseam – was that it was inconceivable for airmen to connive in the destruction of machines they treasured. Some, living outside the country, and with a devil-may-care attitude towards multi-ethnic harmony, put a racial spin on the pop psychology. Former Rhodesian Air Force chief of staff air vice-marshal Len Pink, accused by the Zimbabweans of being the “mastermind” behind the sabotage, fulminated from the safety of South Africa: “It really highlights the difference between a black man and a white man. A white man does not go around destroying his air force … our integrity is way above that.” But brash confidence and proof are not the same thing. For 42 years, the truth has remained elusive; conclusive evidence about the identity of the culprits has never emerged. Unexpectedly, that has now changed. Newly discovered documents show clearly who was involved, and how the sabotage was executed. Excruciating contradistinction The reality brings with it exquisite ironies for both the Zimbabwean government and its critics. It turns out that there was an insider — operating in cahoots with the South Africans — but only one. For ex-Rhodesian theorists, the most excruciating contradistinction is that he was not only a white air force officer, but a pilot, and one of those acquitted in court. For the regime, the scoresheet is also an embarrassment: its brutal hamfistedness brought only a 17% success rate – generously calculated as the ratio of guilty to prosecuted (one in six); in fact, at least 18 were arrested. In court, that dismal percentage was predictably reduced to zero when the prosecution presented no evidence beyond the confessions and the court was compelled to rule on the question of admissibility. Moreover, the government’s investigators lost interest in the real culprit when, under duress, he provided them with the pre-scripted fiction they had constructed to implicate an elaborate network of traitorous senior officers. Had they conducted a more competent investigation, they might have not only secured a conviction but also uncovered the real espionage ring outside the air force, one that continued its work unmolested for many years afterwards. Meanwhile, the Mugabe regime had briefly provided the world with a small window on its vast and casual disregard for collateral damage and the rule of law. Mugabe was right that there were “other men detained as well” — hundreds of them — innocent black supporters of Nkomo. And thousands of black civilians were being killed by government forces in rural areas a short distance from Thornhill. Mugabe’s indignation was a Freudian moment of perverse self-righteousness. He was incensed by the whiff of racial bias — at the intense scrutiny on his white countrymen by a white audience that had some knowledge of the much greater violence he was wreaking on his black compatriots. Those are but a few of the many contradictions suggested by the Thornhill saga. But who was the mole? Air lieutenant Neville Weir was one of a dwindling number of ex-Rhodesian servicemen who had remained in Zimbabwe, seemingly to help build the new nation. He was also a gifted pilot. Sent by the Zimbabwean government to Britain on a nine-month Hawk fighter training course in 1981, he finished at the top of the class, ahead of the Royal Air Force (RAF) trainees. When he returned, he took on further training so that he could fly Hunters as well as Hawks. That was half of the story. Some of the other, less auspicious half was clear to the air force board of inquiry that was convened in the immediate aftermath of the sabotage. Manned by white officers, the board recalled that Weir had appeared to have become disenchanted with the air force and Zimbabwe after his return from Britain, and had recently been seen in Pretoria at the recruitment office of the South African Air Force (SAAF) while on leave. Those events had prompted the commanding officer at Thornhill, group captain David Jones, to summon Weir and request a commitment from him; he was given two days to affirm his loyalty or hand in his notice. He chose the latter. When the aircraft went up in smoke, he was only six days away from leaving the air force. Weir was also a former member of Rhodesia’s elite Special Air Service (SAS). As such, he was better equipped than most other airmen to participate in an act of sabotage. Obvious suspect He was, then, a bleedingly obvious suspect — and that was why he was the first to be handed over to the police for interrogation. He was arrested on 26 July, the day after the attack. But two days later, the white detectives who questioned him reported that he would probably be released — apparently because he had a solid alibi. Weir’s defence was that he had been at a party on the night of the raid, had consumed at least seven drinks, and was seen by other guests. He said he had then gone home to bed and was woken up by the sound of explosions. In addition, he remarked that he would hardly have remained within the reach of authorities if he had been the saboteur. In the event, he was not released; black officers, with their political masters breathing down their necks, took over the case and told him that all they wanted “is for you to tell us about the small part you played, as you were forced into this from orders and threats from your seniors”. After a series of physical assaults, he duly wrote his almost entirely fictional confession. That was a double irony: his bullheaded interrogators had paid no attention to what was a convincing alibi – but in their obtuseness, they had created another, better one for him. Certainly, for ex-Rhodesian observers, the use of force and the manifest ineptitude of investigators served to undergird his original defence. It helped, too, that the other accused had also cracked under the pressure and signed bogus confessions. He was, to them, just like them — another casualty of a regime that had revealed its true colours. Nothing has changed in the decades since. Weir has continued to be willingly numbered among his innocent and abused colleagues. In the late 1980s, the victims collaborated in an authorised history of the event. Penned by former Rhodesian government writer Barbara Cole, Sabotage and Torture described the inculpatory evidence against Weir and set it against the counterarguments he had given to investigators. For him, it was a reiteration in the retelling, a doubling down, helped along by Cole’s self-assured repetition of old mantras. “Weir’s whole life was flying,” she wrote, “and it was preposterous to think that he would have anything to do with destroying the things he loved.” Indeed, Weir’s account of his assault by the Central Intelligence Organisation, related by Cole, laid it on thick with regard to his patriotism and loyalty: “He was beaten … but the police … did nothing to stop the beatings. Weir was beginning to feel betrayed by his own country … [Further] physical abuse simply hardened his resolve not to cooperate, but the mental pressure was the most difficult of all to endure. He felt he had been betrayed by his country; he was being unjustly accused.” The proof The alibis have now evaporated. A South African government memorandum, squirrelled away by a former apartheid operative, shows unimpeachably that Weir was the insider. Gray Branfield, an ex-Rhodesian policeman and head of urban operations with Project Barnacle, a South African black ops unit, wrote to his superior on 22 June 1982: “A HUNTER pilot who is leaving the ZIMBABWE AIRFORCE on 31/7/82 has been spoken to by my man and is quite prepared to undertake the destruction of HUNTER AIRCRAFT at THORNHILL should this be required. He feels it is quite feasible and should not be too much trouble … He feels that he himself could carry out the task.” A transcript of a confidential interview with Branfield, found in the same collection of papers, provides further confirmation and adds considerable detail: “That [Thornhill] scene is quite delicate. The oke who was directly involved in it is in the RAF … [One of my agents in Zimbabwe] approached me … because he had a mate called Weir who was ex-SAS … He had been sent over on a Hawk course and had passed out top. Neville had approached [my man] — they were big mates … He wanted to get into the SAAF … Planning then started taking place. I got hold of [the agent and he] got hold of Neville. Neville said, ya well, okay … It came to a head in July … Because Neville had come back and only had a month to go before he left and came down to SA.” Branfield also spoke explicitly about how they constructed an alibi for Weir: “He would go to a wedding and pretend to be totally arseholes [drunk] and be dropped off at home … [The agent] would pick him up from there. That was part of his cover that he’d been to this big wedding. In case any shit happened. Pick him up and me[e]t the team. They cut a hole in the [Thornhill perimeter] fence. They went in with Neville.” Weir’s new post-Thornhill, post-Zimbabwean life began with his deportation to Britain in December 1983. A dual British-Zimbabwean citizen, he was employed by the RAF almost immediately, and was appointed to a permanent commission in 1985. He was promoted in 1986 and 1988, and retired in 1996, after 12 years of service. Questions linger over how Weir was able to get a security clearance from the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD). Aside from the initial suspicions raised by the board of inquiry — of which the MOD should have become aware during its due diligence — the British high commissioner in Harare had been told by the airmen’s lawyer towards the end of the trial that he thought Weir might be lying. In a foreign office telex of mid-1983, QC Harry Ognall was reported to have “agreed that there was little doubt that there had to have been some collusion within Thornhill for the attack to have been successful, and who more likely than a former SAS officer …?” Ognall recalled that Weir had not “come over well in court”. He reportedly “came very near to saying that he believed” Weir and one other defendant were “guilty as charged”. The MOD’s security vetting team, and Her Majesty’s intelligence agencies, appear to have been asleep at the wheel. Whether Weir retained or renewed contact with the South Africans is a moot point. Prima facie, it is, perhaps, unlikely, given that he had been recruited by them for a specific task, and was soon incarcerated. Further, his original intermediary died shortly after his release. Yet if his life as a South African agent began and ended with Thornhill, that was as much a product of bureaucratic ineptitude as his commissioning in the RAF – this time on the part of Pretoria’s intelligence services. Hiding a secret that would have destroyed his RAF career, Weir was a prime candidate for blackmail. (Reached on his What’sApp number, Weir refused to reply to a set of detailed questions provided by Daily Maverick. His response: “Your accusations are ridiculous, if you slander me in any way I will take legal action against you.”) Larger questions The larger questions are systemic. The extent to which the British government hired southern African whites in the 1980s with intelligence connections to the apartheid regime — who they were, what secrets they may have stolen and how that was allowed to happen — is one that remains largely unexplored. At the same time, the most important historical questions and impacts are Zimbabwean. Thornhill was both a reed in the wind and another nail in the coffin for the country’s post-independence multi-ethnic experiment. The hope of many of Mugabe’s wartime adversaries and political rivals was that he would do as he promised at the outset and turn “swords into ploughshares”. Eighteen years before the land invasions, Thornhill provided an indicator to the whites that he wouldn’t — and it was whites who didn’t share the same hope who had given him another reason why. For his black opponents, Thornhill’s aftermath was no revelation. It told them what they already knew, and what they were struggling to survive. — Daily Maverick.
Page 22 News ZIMBABWE ranks 146 out of a total of 191 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI), while 61% of children are wallowing in grinding multidimensional poverty, especially worse in rural areas, high-density and peri-urban informal settlements, Unicef Zimbabwe’s 2023 annual report says. The situation is worse for those living with disabilities. Unicef’s evidence-based advocacy in 2023, through budget briefs, quarterly economic bulletins, and two High-Level Policy Dialogues on Education Financing and on HIV Sustainability Financing co-convened with the Zimbabwe Economic Society (ZES), contributed to the increased share of public allocation on health, education, and non-contributory social protection from 29% (2023) to 30.4% (2024) in the national budget. In 2023 health sector allocation was 11.2%, below the 15% Abuja Declaration target. Education allocation was 14.9% compared to 20% Dakar framework for Action target; Water, Hygiene and Sanitation (WASH) received 1.8% and social protection 4.2%. The support to budget transparency in collaboration with Government and other stakeholders during the 2023 Open Budget Survey (OBS) process resulted in improved Open Budget Index (OBI) score target of 61 (out of 100) in the 2023 compared to 59 in the 2021. This demonstrates improved commitment to budget transparency by the government. Unicef in collaboration with the ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion and the German International Cooperation supported Programme-Based Budgeting training of 60 national, provincial and district officials from the ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) and the ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC). The training, together with other institutional support, contributed to improved budget utilisation rate from 52.7% to 100%, and increased the number of local governments with functioning mechanisms for local planning, budgeting and monitoring from 72 in 2022 to 92 in 2023. The Unicef-supported Emergency Social Cash Transfer programme (ESCT) — funded by the German ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation (BMZ) through its financial implementing agency KfW Development Bank — reached 143 000 people, including 73 103 children, in nine districts. The coverage included 81 200 individuals (38 000 children), across 18 173 households in six urban districts who were transitioned to the government's social protection programme, and 18 600 households newly enrolled in five rural districts, amongst whom 61 840 individuals (31103 are children) received cash assistance. The data repository portal developed by the Zimbabwe’s National Statistics Agency (ZimStat) and Unicef has improved public access to 150 child-related indicators and data and influenced secondary analysis, advocacy, and policymaking. Support to ZimStat resulted in the generation of district profiles, analysis of monetary and multidimensional child poverty using the 2022 census data, as evidence to influence the government’s agenda for children. Partnerships with the academia generated new evidence on child rights, instructional learning, and behaviour change. In 2023, Unicef completed nine research studies to advocate for policy changes and programme interventions for children and women, and to guide its work and partners. Unicef’s advocacy efforts led to policy and legislative reforms on child protection with the passage of the amendment to the Children’s Bill and the child justice Bill by the Parliament. Likewise, innovative community-based approaches to civil registration to improve coverage of birth registration were introduced, while national efforts for the identification and reunification of unaccompanied children with their families were supported. — STAFF WRITER. JACQUELINE Mbedzi’s face lights up when she talks about how she built her thriving business from monthly payments under a programme meant to alleviate poverty among Zimbabwe’s vulnerable households. Mbedzi, a single mother of two from Beitbridge’s high-density suburb of Dulivhadzimu, is one of many beneficiaries of the Emergency Social Cash Transfer (ESCT) programme, rolled out by the ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare with Unicef and partners, and funded by Germany through the KfW Development Bank. After enrolling on the programme last year, Mbedzi persuaded two friends to start a savings club from the ESCT monthly payouts to raise capital to start their businesses. “I live with my two children, my brother and my sister as well as my landlord’s child,” Mbedzi said. “I used to survive by helping travellers with their luggage at the border for a small fee until I met a team from Unicef and partners, who registered me for the cash transfer programme. I was getting US$52 a month and I decided to engage my friends on how we could improve our lives. We decided to start a savings club to pool together money to recapitalise our small-scale businesses.” Mbedzi buys and sells basic commodities that she imports from neighbouring South Africa. So successful is her business that she is now building a shop on land that she bought as far back as in 2017 at her rural home in Mzingwane, in Beitbridge district. Mbedzi religiously keeps records of her transactions to monitor the progress of her business and to avoid eating into her capital reserves. “I am so thankful to Unicef and its partners for what they have done for my family,” she said. “They have given me dignity. I want to encourage fellow women to take full advantage of such opportunities and spend the money on things that will benefit them in future instead of focusing on their immediate needs.” Mbedzi said she no longer struggles to put food on the table for her children and can pay their schools fees on time. The other members of the savings club run a truck-shop and a poultry project respectively. — UNICEF. Beitbridge women use poverty relief funds to start businesses Zimbabwe ranks lowly on human development: Unicef At least 61% of children in Zimbabwe are wallowing in grinding multidimensional poverty. NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
NewsHawks News Page 23 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024 NATHAN GUMA ZIMBABWE’S public debt has largely been driven by arrears and penalties on existing debts, amid calls for the country to implement targeted economic, governance, and land-related reforms. The country’s total debt soared to US$18.03 billion as of December 2022 from US$17.2 billion, with external debt constituting 70.9% (US$12.8 billion or ZW$8.78 trillion) while domestic debt constitutes 28.7% (US$5.2 billion or ZW$3.56 trillion). With no budgetary support from traditional lenders such as international financial institutions due to non-payment of arrears, Zimbabwe has been mainly relying on grants, bilateral loans and domestic resources to finance its key capital projects. The country has been failing to access lines of credit from key multilateral development banks, including the African Development Bank (AfDB), the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank. An analysis by a social justice watchdog, the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (Zimcodd), has shown that of Zimbabwe’s US$12.7 billion total external public and publicly guaranteed debt, principal arrears, interest arrears, and penalties alone constitute 54.9% (US$6.98 billion). Creditors have been charging high penalty interest rates on late repayments, further ballooning the country’s debt. Penalty interest on loans, also known as late payment interest or default interest, is an additional charge levied by the lender if a borrower fails to make their loan payments on time. For instance, highest penalty rate for bilateral creditors is 12.2%, while the highest penalty rate for multilateral creditors is 10.5%. According to Zimcodd, the debt default of the early 2000s, coupled with a shrinking economy, has attracted prohibitive penalties and subdued the capacity to service debts, thus trapping Zimbabwe in a debt overhang position. “Also, due to these high debt arrears, access to concessionary loan finance has been blocked. As such, predatory creditors are taking advantage of Zimbabwe’s debt crisis by fueling debt expansion - mortgaging natural resources and mineral revenues,” Zimcodd said. “In addition, the public debt report also shows that debt stock is driven by government debt guarantees, particularly in agriculture. For example, as of the end of September 2023, non-performing guarantees (NPGs) totalled US$198.01 million and ZWL3.1 trillion.” The country’s debt has been highly unsustainable, consuming over 90% of the estimated 2023 national output (GDP), in violation of the Public Debt Management Act, which allows a debt-to-GDP threshold of 70%, lessening the country’s chances of servicing debt. “Since a debt-to-GDP ratio shows a country’s capacity to repay its debts, a high ratio indicates that public debt is growing faster than national income. Thus, the country will have a low capacity to repay accumulated debt, a case for Zimbabwe, where about 74% and 81% of bilateral and multilateral debt are interest and principal arrears and penalties, respectively. “This could indicate increased debt default risk for Zimbabwe — the probability that a borrower will not make the required payments on a debt obligation. In such instances, creditors may be deterred from lending money altogether or are more inclined to seek higher interest rates when lending.” Due to high indebtedness, Zimbabwe has been relying on resource-backed loans – loans where repayment is made directly in natural resources or a resource-related income stream guarantees repayment. For instance, the debt report shows that the government in February 2023 secured a US$400 million loan from Afreximbank for budgetary support and the financing of trade-related infrastructure, which is to be repaid using 35% of Zimplats’ export proceeds of platinum. Zimbabwe, which has been part of the structured debt clearance dialogue facilitated by AfDB president Akinumwi Adesina and former Mozambican president Joachim Chissano, has been urged to implement crucial political and economic reforms, which have cut the country off the international radar. In February last year, President Emmerson Mnangagwa told delegates attending the Zimbabwe Second Structured Dialogue Platform Meeting that the country is upholding tenets of good governance and democracy as part of efforts to resolve the debt crisis, which was largely disputed by opposition players and human rights watchdogs. The country has been locked in a political quagmire since Zanu PF won the disputed 23 August general elections which were rejected by key observer missions, including the Southern African Development Community, over gross irregularities. Electoral reforms are part of the reforms that critics have been calling for. Since then, the country has been in election mode with controversial recalls of elected members of the main opposition Citizens’ Coalition for Change by self-proclaimed secretary-general Sengezo Tshabangu. Reform solution for debt crisis Zimbabwe has been failing to access lines of credit from key multilateral development banks, including the AfDB.
Page 24 News Sponsored by: NYASHA DUBE THE Women's Academy for Leadership and Political Excellence (WALPE) has expressed concern over the low number of young women taking up leadership positions in Zimbabwe, amid revelations that they constitute less than 5% of current legislators. WALPE says this is not only a local challenge but a regional and global one, despite young women comprising the majority of young people's demographic. The African Union describes the young as people below the age of 35. Young women'a participation in politics remains low despite the women's and youth quotas in Zimbabwe. "There are no strategic and intentional safe spaces where young women could effectively take up and occupy leadership positions without the fear of all forms of violence, harassment, threats and intimidation," says WALPE media and publications officer Helen Kadirire. Globally, political leadership and representation remain heavily dominated by men, with only 26% of national parliamentarians being women and only 1% of the women under 30 years of age, according to a 2022 report by Plan International titled "Equal Power Now: Girls, Young Women and Political Participation". The report shows that only 21% of government ministers are women, only 10 countries have a woman head of state and only 13 countries have a woman as a head of government. The gender gap further disadvantages young women who remain less represented than their older counterparts. In the Southern African Development Community, women's representation in Parliament remains below 30%, according to the Sadc Parliamentary Forum. Some countries have as low as 20% women's representation, and the ratio is even lower for young women's parliamentary representation. In Zimbabwe, following the August 2023 general elections, young women's political participation had improved compared to previous years. However, the political instability and party conflicts reversed these gains and many young women lost their political posts during the recall wave. Several women who were elected into Parliament or local authorities under the CCC banner were recalled by self-imposed secretary-general Sengezo Tshabangu. WALPE, which launched a campaign to improve young women's political participation, says there is a need to prepare for the 2028 elections now. "While numbers are important, we are also striving for a quality pool of young women leaders who are confident and can make motions and debate in Parliament and council meetings and debates from informed positions," Kadirire said. WALPE and its partner organisations have committed to identifying, coaching, mentoring and grooming young women interested in taking up leadership positions. "We will be mobilising young women in their various communities to join the campaign. We will also be reaching out through advocacy initiatives to the community gatekeepers and duty bearers such as chiefs, headmen and men to get their buy-in. This is because we understand that women and young women do not live in solitude. We need support and encouragement from men and boys," Kadirire said. Kadirire said other African countries have pledged solidarity to this cause. "We have young women in politics like Namibia's honourable member of Parliament Inna Hengari whom we engaged not only to offer solidarity but also to show young women in Zimbabwe that with adequate support and encouragement from government, political parties and communities they can also take up leadership positions. Hengari also challenged young women not to be confined only in politics but in organisations and boardrooms, so they can make important economic and fiscal decisions that promote national development," Kadirire said. Young women must take leadership roles WALPE media and publications officer Helen Kadirire NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
NewsHawks Women in Politics News Page 25 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 26 News Legal Insights In a landmark ruling, Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court on 22 July 2014 declared unconstitutional a section of the draconian Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act which criminalised defamation. The judgement was in response to a case in which two journalists were charged with criminal defamation after their paper, the Zimbabwe Independent, published a story naming state security agents alleged to have abducted opposition and human rights activists in 2008. The journalists, Constantine Chimakure, a former editor of the Zimbabwe Independent, and Vincent Kahiya, editor-in-chief Alpha Media Holdings, which owns the title together with The NewsDay and The Standard, as well as online broadcasting platform Heart & Soul, challenged the constitutionality of the law, arguing that it was not reasonably justifiable in a democratic society. They took the matter to the Constitutional Court challenging Section 31 (a) (iii) of the Criminal Law Codification Reform Act. Section 31 makes the reporting of false news a crime punishable with a high fine and a prison sentence of up to twenty years. To fall within this provision, the news must be that which would undermine public confidence in the uniformed forces. In October 2013, pursuant to the former Constitution, the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe issued a rule nisi. Specifically, the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe issued a rule nisi that Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act’s Section 31(a)(iii) infringed upon the right to freedom of expression. Under Section 24(5) of the Zimbabwe’s former Constitution, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs (Minister) has the right to persuade the court that Section 31(a)(iii) was justifiable, despite its impact on the right to freedom of expression. If the Minister is able to show cause, the rule will be “declared to be ultra vires § 20(1) of the former Constitution and accordingly invalid.” The Minister did not exercise this right. Rather, the Minister submitted a document arguing that Section 31(a)(iii) did not infringe upon the right to freedom of expression, instead of arguing for and giving reasons why the law should remain despite its infringement upon this right. The Minister did not attempt to argue that Section 31(a)(iii) was justifiable or provide factors for the court to consider. The Court noted, however, that 24(5)’s purpose is not to give the Minister, a non-party, the power to review the court’s decisions. Later, a representative of the Minister informed the Court that the Minister would no longer oppose the rule’s confirmation. Accordingly, the Court ordered that 31(a)(iii) of the Act “was in contravention of §20(1) of the former Constitution and therefore void.” Additionally, the Court ordered that the respondent pay for the application’s costs and costs for the rule’s confirmation. On January 15, 2014 the Minister’s representation indicated that the Minister was no longer wishing to oppose the confirmation of the rule nisi and the order of the court was reversed. The Court ordered that Section 31 (a)(iii) was void since it was in contravention of Section 20(1). Lastly, the Minister was ordered to pay reparations. Despite the provision being struck off – 10 years ago - government has continued to use the non-existent section to prosecute critics, including journalists. Opposition activists Job Sikhala and Fadzayi Mahere, as well as journalist Hopewell Chin’ono were charged in early 2021 under section 31 of the Criminal Law Reform and Codification Act with “publishing or communicating falsehoods” after they posted on Twitter a viral video of a woman tussling with a police officer with a motionless baby in her hands in January 2021. She was arrested and detained for seven days before being granted bail by a Harare magistrate. Mahere was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of US$500 for publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to the state. She was acquitted of the preferred charge brought by the prosecution of “promoting and inciting public violence” and convicted her only of the alternative charge of communicating false statements. Sikhala and Chin’ono were also arrested over the issue. Charges against Chin’ono were quashed by the High Court “because the section under which he was charged is no longer part of our law” in April 2021. Chin’ono wrote on X (Twitter) at the time: “I was charged using a law that doesn’t exist as part of Mnangagwa’s continued political persecution of myself!” Criminal defamation is no longer in the statute books Former editor of The Zimbabwe Independent Constantine Chimakure NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
News Page 27 Sikhala was convicted on charges of “publishing falsehoods” and sentenced to nine months last month. However, the entire sentence was suspended for five years. Additionally, fine US$500, failure to do so will result in two months of actual imprisonment. Sikhala said he was appealing. In the public interest, The NewsHawks publishes the ConCourt judgement. (1) CONSTANTINE MUNYARADZI CHIMAKURE (2) VINCENT KAHIYA (3) ZIMIND PUBLISHERS (PVT) LTD v THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF ZIMBABWE SUPREME COURT OF ZIMBABWE CHIDYAUSIKU CJ, MALABA DCJ, ZIYAMBI JA, GARWE JA & CHEDA AJA HARARE, JUNE 3, 2010 & OCTOBER 30, 2013 I Chagonda, for the applicants T B Zvekare, for the respondent MALABA DCJ:This is a referral for determination of a question of validity of statutory provisions for the restriction of the exercise of freedom of expression brought to the Supreme Court in terms of s 24(2) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe (“the Constitution”). The question is whether or not s 31(a) (iii) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act [Cap. 9:23) (“the Criminal Code”) contravenes the declaration of the fundamental right to freedom of expression under s 20(1) of the Constitution. The section prohibits under threat of punishment the publication or communication to any other person of a false statement with the intention or realising that there is a real risk or possibility of undermining public confidence in the law enforcement agency, the Prison Service or the Defence Forces of Zimbabwe. The relief sought is a declaration to the effect that the section is unconstitutional and therefore null and void. The Court apologises for the delay in giving judgment in this case. The delay has been caused by the fact that reasons for judgment in the case of Jestina Mukoko v The Attorney-General SC-11-12 had to be given first. The facts of that case had a direct bearing on the circumstances in which the statements forming the subject matter of the charges which gave rise to the Constitutional questions for determination in this case were published. The determination of the issues raised in the case of Mukoko v The Attorney-General required time for research and reflection on the interpretation and application of the relevant law. The constitutional question was raised by the applicants in criminal proceedings in the Magistrates Court. They were charged with having committed the crime of publishing or communicating a false statement prejudicial to the State. Following their request the question was referred by the Magistrate to the Supreme Court for determination in terms of s 24(2) of the Constitution. The first and second applicants are the reporter and editor respectively of a weekly newspaper called “The Independent” (“the newspaper”). The newspaper is published by the third applicant, a company incorporated in terms of the laws of Zimbabwe. They were jointly charged with the offence of publishing in the newspaper a false statement to the effect that the law enforcement agency abducted people during the period extending from 25 November to 13 December 2008. The allegation was that they published the statement with the intention or realising that there was a real risk or possibility of undermining public confidence in the security service institution. The period extending from 2 August to 20 November 2008 saw bombs being planted by saboteurs at CID Harare Central Police Station; Manyame River Bridge; Manyame Rail Bridge; CID Headquarters at Morris Depot and Harare Police Station. When the bombs exploded, extensive damage was caused to the bridges and parts of the buildings such as the walls, doors and window panes. From 25 November to 13 December 2008 a few human rights activists and some members of the MDC-T political party employed in the security department were abducted from different places at different times. The identities of the abductors and places where the abductees were taken remained a closely guarded secret. Except for those who were involved in the planning and execution of the abductions no-one knew what had happened to the people abducted. As a result fear for their lives gripped family members and relatives. The cases of abduction were widely reported in the print and electronic media. The question of who had kidnapped the people concerned became a matter of public discussion. The law enforcement agency, that is to say, the police and State security agents said that they had no knowledge of who the abductors were and what their motive was. The police said they were investigating what had happened with the view of apprehending the culprits and accounting for the whereabouts of the victims. As the law enforcement agency denied having the abductees in its custody and without communication from the persons concerned, family members and relatives could not invoke the legal remedy of habeas corpus. On 22 December 2008, after twenty-seven days of forced disappearance, the victims appeared at various police stations in Harare. They had been brought there by State security agents. These people were divided into two groups. The first group was made up of seven people who appeared at the Magistrates Court at Rotten Row on 29 December 2008 in the case of the State v Kisimusi Emmanuel Dhlamini and Six Others. They were charged with the crime of insurgency, banditry, sabotage or terrorism in terms of s 23(1)(i) and (ii) of the Criminal Code. The allegation was that whilst acting in common purpose they planted and ignited the bombs that exploded at the Police Stations, Manyame River Bridge and Manyame Rail Bridge. The second group was made up of nine people who appeared at the Magistrates Court at Rotten Row on 14 January 2009 in the case of State v Manuel Chinanzvavana and Eight Ors. They were charged with the crime of contravening s 24(a) of the Criminal Code. The allegation was that whilst acting in common purpose, in the months of June and July 2008 they recruited or attempted to recruit or assisted in the recruitment of a former member of the Zimbabwe Republic Police to undergo military training in a neighbouring country in order to commit any act of insurgency, banditry, sabotage or terrorism in Zimbabwe. On 31 December 2008 all the accused persons in the first case deposed to affidavits in which they revealed that they had been forcibly abducted by State security agents and members of the police. They alleged in the affidavits that they were taken to Goromonzi Prison where they were held until they were released into the custody of the police. In the affidavits deposed to on 31 December 2008 and 20 June 2009 Kisimusi Emmanuel Dhlamini gave names of the State security agents and members of the police he alleged abducted him from home on 25 November 2008. In the second case only Jestina Mukoko raised the question of the violation of the fundamental right not to be subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment. She requested the magistrate to refer the question to the Supreme Court for determination. Reasons for judgment in Jestina Mukoko v The Attorney-General SC-11-12 have since been given. There is uncontested evidence that Jestina Mukoko was abducted from her home at 4a.m. on 3 December 2008 by State security agents. On 6 April 2009 the respondent served indictments on Kisimusi Emmanuel Dhlamini and Six Others for trial at the High Court on 29 June 2009. The respondent gave notice in terms of s 110(6) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act [Cap. 9:07] that at the trial he intended calling the witnesses whose names he gave. A summary of what each witness would say at the trial was given. The witnesses were members of the law enforcement agency. After perusing the indictment papers, and the notice the first applicant wrote two articles which the second applicant edited and the third applicant published in the edition of the newspaper for the week beginning 8 May 2009. The first article was on the front page. It was titled: “ACTIVISTS’ABDUCTORS NAMED”. The story was that: “The Attorney-General’s Office revealed the names of some members of Central Intelligence Organisation and the police who were allegedly involved in the abduction of human right and MDC activists last November.” At page two of the newspaper there was the second article. It was titled: “CIO POLICE ROLE IN ACTIVISTS’ ABDUCTION REVEALED”. Under the heading the article stated that: “Notices of indictments for some of the activists this week revealed the role the CIO and the Police played when the activists were reported missing last year. A perusal of notices revealed that Assistant Director External in the CIO Retired Brigadier Asher Walter Tapfumanei, Police Superintendent Regis Chitekwe and Joel Tenderere, Detective Inspector Elliot Muchada and Joshua Muzanago, Officer Commanding CID. Homicide Crispen Makendenge, Chief Superintendent Peter Magwenzi and Assistant Commissioner Simon Nyathi were involved in some of the abductees’ cases.” The respondent was of the view that the articles contained false statements about the involvement of the law enforcement agency and its members in the abduction of the human rights activists and members of the MDC-T political party. He concluded that the articles contained statements which were materially false and prejudicial to the State. The respondent authorised the institution of criminal proceedings against the applicants for contravening s 31(a)(iii) of the Criminal Code. Section 31 falls in the category of offences under the heading: “CRIMES AGAINST THE STATE”. Under the heading is found political crimes such as treason, subversion of constitutional government, insurgency, banditry, sabotage or terrorism and recruiting or training insurgents, bandits, saboteurs or terrorists. Section 31(a)(iii) of the Criminal Code deals with consequences of the publication or communication of a false statement which harms or is likely to harm the interests of the State in the performance of its functions. The section reads: “31 Publishing or communicating false statement prejudicial to the State: Any person who, whether inside or outside Zimbabwe – Publishes or communicates to any other person a statement which is wholly or materially false with the intention or realising that there is a real risk or possibility of – inciting or promoting public disorder or public violence or endangering public safety; or adversely affecting the defence or economic interests of Zimbabwe, or undermining public confidence in a law enforcement agency, the Prison Service or the Defence Forces of Zimbabwe orinterfering with or disrupting any essential service; shall whether or not the publication or communication results in a consequence referred to in subparagraph (i), (ii), (iii) or (iv) be guilty of publishing or communicating a false statement prejudicial to the State and liable to a fine up to or exceeding level fourteen or imprisonment for a period not exceeding twenty years or both.” The essential elements of the offence which the State must establish beyond reasonable doubt are: That the accused published or communicated to another a statement; That the statement was wholly or materially false in meaning; That the accused intended to undermine public confidence in a law enforcement agency, the Prison Service or the Defence Forces of Zimbabwe; Or That the accused realised that there was a real risk or possibility of undermining public confidence in a security service institution referred to in para (3). Section 31(a) (iii) of the Criminal Code is also important for what it omits. It does not require proof by the State that the false statement undermined public confidence in the security service institution concerned. The State is not required to prove that the accused had knowledge of the falsity of the statement. Section 34 forbids the institution or continuation of proceedings in respect of the crime against any person without the authority of the Attorney-General except for purposes of remand. The applicants challenged the constitutionality of s 31(a) (iii) of the Criminal Code on the ground that it contravenes s 20(1) of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of expression. The contention is that the provision is not saved by s 20(2). Section 20 of the Constitution provides: “20: Protection of Freedom of Expression Except with his own consent or by way of parental discipline, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of expression, that is to say freedom to hold opinion and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference and freedom from interference with his correspondence. Nothing contained in or done under the authority of any law shall be held to be in contravention of subsection (1) to the extent that the law in question makes provision – In the interests of defence, public safety, public order, the economic interests of the State, public morality or public health. ... ...” except so far as that provision or as the case may be, the thing done under the authority thereof is shown not to be reasonably justifiable in a democratic society.” The applicants do not deny that the right to freedom of expression is not absolute at all times and under all circumstances. They accept that inherent in the exercise of the right to freedom of expression is a duty not to injure the rights of others or the public interests listed in s 20(2) of the Constitution. They argue that the restriction imposed by s 31(a) (iii) of the Criminal Code is an impermissible legislative limitation of the exercise of freedom of expression. The respondent urges the court to uphold the constitutionality of the provision. He argued that should the court find that the provision contravenes s 20(1) of the Constitution it would be bound by the provisions of s 24(5) of the Constitution to issue a rule nisi to the Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs. In that event, the court would call upon the Minister to show cause why the provision should not be declared to be in contravention of s 20(1) of the Constitution and void before making a declaratory order to that effect. See Re Munhumeso & Ors 1994(2) ZLR 49(S); Retrofit (Pvt) Ltd v PTC & Anor 1995(2) ZLR 199(S); S v Tsvangirai 2001(2) ZLR 426(S). There is one indivisible freedom for every individual and that is freedom from unwarranted interference by Government. The fundamental rights protected by the Constitution and exercised by the individual are assertions against the State of different aspects of the freedom inherent in every individual as a human being. Freedom of expression asserts the autonomy of thinking, linguistic and communicative elements of the life of an individual and a thin slice of the universe of communication policy. Section 20(1) of the Constitution defines in broad terms the nature, content and scope of the cluster of rights the enjoyment of which is protected against interference by the Government under the principle of freedom of expression. The respondent does not dispute the fact that liberty of publishing or communicating one’s thoughts, ideas and information expressed in an oral, written or symbolic act to others is essential to the enjoyment of freedom of expression. There are in fact three dimensions to the process of the exercise of the rights guaranteed by s 20(1) of the Constitution. There is an internal dimension (the formation and holding of opinion, ideas and information); a communicative dimension (the expression of opinion, imparting of ideas and information) and an external dimension (the effect of opinions, ideas and information on the addressee or the audience i.e. on the rights of others or public interests listed in s 20(2) (a) of the Constitution). The guarantee of freedom of expression affects the holding sphere, the communicative sphere and the external sphere. The areas constitute an indissoluble unit. Protection of the fundamental right to freedom of expression is based on the belief that man is an autonomous and rational agent capable of acquiring knowledge which he or she uses to distinguish right from wrong. He or she is under a duty to promote the general welfare of the community to the extent that it is not injurious to his or her own lawful interests. Freedom of expression is defined not only in terms of the protection of the right to hold opinions but also to receive and impart ideas and information without interference. What is protected by the right is not only the benefits of the communicative process but also the effects the dissemination of ideas and information has on the audience including public interests. NewsHawks 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 28 “IS this a prank?” Lilit Haroyan, a city council member in the small Armenian town of Charentsavan, was incredulous when a reporter told her she was listed as having made a substantial donation to her political party in 2022. The amount she supposedly gave to Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party, 1 million drams (around $2,500), was particularly striking since she declared having earned no income that year. “I’m hearing about this for the first time,” she said of the donation. She is not alone; an investigation by OCCRP’s Armenian partner Civilnet found that multiple listed donors were party members who said they had never donated at all. Civil Contract swept into power in 2018 with a mandate to root out corruption, following a mass protest movement that toppled Armenia’s former regime. But this and other curious patterns found by reporters in the party’s 2022 financial statement raises questions about its sources of funding. Of the 140 donors the party reported in 2022, all but six were Civil Contract’s own candidates in recent council elections. Half of the 31 donors reached for comment denied making such a donation. Others refused to answer or said they did not remember. Some of the reported donations are striking for other reasons too. In 10 separate towns across Armenia, 10 or more local council candidates sent exactly the same amount of money on the same day. In 26 cases, the donations amounted to at least half of the yearly income and total savings of the donors, based on their asset declarations. Four donations exceeded the legal limit on individual contributions of 2.5 million drams ($6,200) per person. These unusual donation patterns emerged just one year after the government passed anti-corruption reforms barring businesses from donating to political parties, outlawing cash donations, and capping the maximum amount that private individuals could contribute. The bill was framed as a key plank in efforts to root out the influence of the oligarchic elite that had ruled Armenia prior to the protest movement that ushered Civil Contract into office. But experts say the data could suggest an effort to evade the restrictions of the new law. Just two years prior, in 2020, Civil Contract’s reported donations looked very different, with most of the funds arriving in large amounts from companies and individual businessmen. “Basically, in order to raise the necessary funds, political parties might attempt to by-pass the rules and utilize unlawful mechanisms,” said Sona Ayvazyan, from Transparency International Anticorruption Center in Armenia, after reviewing the data. “The findings are very significant and need further elaboration, explanation and action from competent public authorities.” Vardine Grigoryan, a democracy coordinator at the Vanadzor office of Armenia’s branch of the NGO Helsinki Citizens Assembly, agreed the patterns could be evidence of an unlawful effort to hide the origins of the funds taken in by the party. The money could have been “collected in cash from unreported sources and then deposited on behalf of candidates,” she said. International InvestigativeStories Coordinated cash: Donation data from Armenia’s ruling party raises questions about source of funds Nikol Pashinyan, now the prime minister of Armenia, center, joins a march through Yerevan's streets with the Civil Contract party during the 2021 parliamentary election campaign. Credit: Celestino Arce/NurPhoto/Alamy Stock Photo International Investigative Stories NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
International Investigative Stories Or, she continued, individual donations that exceeded the legal limit could have been “broken into legally allowed amounts under the names of candidates or other individuals who may be absolutely unaware of the transaction.” “Both phenomena are not new and could be identified before if we looked at campaign funds from previous years as well,” she said. The Civil Contract party did not answer detailed questions about the data sent by reporters. Civilnet’s investigation focused on data from 2022, but an investigation published in January by the Armenian news outlet Infocom also found suspicious patterns in the party’s 2023 donor report, including similar donations from 88 local council candidates, as well as large sums of money donated by people connected to big businesses. At a question-and-answer session in parliament last month, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan touted the investigation as proof of the party’s transparency. “If we did not ensure transparency, how do you know so much?” the prime minister asked members of parliament. “If you know about it, it means transparency is fully ensured.” Earlier this week, the local branch of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty reported that the Prosecutor General’s Office had investigated the 2023 donations but found no evidence of a crime. Ten at a Time In 2022, Civil Contract reported receiving about 170 million Armenian drams — the equivalent of around $420,000 — in donations, accounting for over a third of the party’s funding for the year. (The rest came from state funding and membership fees. When analyzing the donor list, reporters discovered a number of unusual patterns in addition to the overwhelming share of local party candidates. In 10 cases, the first 10 candidates on local election lists had made donations of the same amount on the same day. (Under Armenia’s electoral system, political parties compile lists of candidates for each election, and the number of candidates who enter office is determined by the share of the vote the party receives). In the small, 1,600-person community of Tsaghkahovit, for instance, Civil Contract reported receiving donations from the first 10 candidates on the local list, each for 1 million drams ($2,500), two days before the town’s September 2022 election of its local council of elders. In Charentsavan, a larger municipality of just over 20,000 people in central Armenia, the first 10 candidates on Civil Contract’s list also donated 1 million drams ($2,500) each, this time one day before the vote. Of the six donors from 2022 who were not municipal election candidates, one is a member of parliament from Civil Contract, and two were municipal employees at the time the donations were made, including Sisak Shahbazyan, a driver for the head of the Avan district administration in Yerevan. According to the report, Shahbazyan made four donations totalling 1.7 million drams ($4,200) between August and November 2022. When contacted by Civilnet, Shahbazyan said that the money was not his. He claimed that he had been asked by party members to transfer it to pay office rent in the district. The journalist asked why they had asked a driver to make the payment, but he could not provide an explanation. “Close friends gave it [the money], I just paid,” Shahbazyan said. “We gave a donation to the party so that the party would pay the rent.” Donations Exceeding Income Reporters also checked the donations against the declared wealth of 69 donors who had submitted asset declarations , and found that 26 of them would have donated over half of their total wealth, which includes yearly income and savings combined. A fifth supposedly gave donations that exceeded their total declared wealth. Meline Sukiasyan, a council member from Tashir, near the border with Georgia, was listed as having made two donations in October and November 2022 totalling 3 million Armenian drams (around $7,500), more than her income and savings combined, according to her declaration. “I didn’t have that kind of money and I couldn’t have transferred it,” Sukiasyan told reporters when reached for comment. “I lost my trust in them [Civil Contract]. If you have in hand such documents, pass them on to me. I will not allow my name to be manipulated.” Only eight of the 31 listed donors reached by reporters confirmed they had made the donations reported by the ruling party. One of them, a candidate for the council in the small town of Vedi, was listed as contributing 1.5 million drams ($3,700) — over seven times her declared income and savings combined. “The donation was not made alone — I made it with my friends,” Anna Movsisyan said when reached for comment. “The money was collected together and it was submitted in my name. I don’t think that’s a crime.” However, when asked how she transferred the money to the party, she claimed to have made the donation in cash, which is not permitted under Armenian law. In response to an inquiry from Civilnet, the acting chairman of Armenia’s Corruption Prevention Commission, Mariam Galstyan, said the committee had not checked the party’s financial report because the audit is still ongoing and would not be completed until February 2024. Sona Ayvazyan, from Transparency International, urged authorities to investigate and further increase transparency around party financing. “The findings imply there is need for institutional reforms and rigorous approach from public authorities towards the compliance to the political party finance rules,” she said. — Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. The lead candidate of the Civil Contract party, Nikol Pashinyan, greets his supporters during a rally in Yerevan, celebrating their victory in the parliamentary elections in Armenia. Credit: Celestino Arce/NurPhoto/Alamy stock photo NewsHawks Page 29 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 30 The NewsHawks is published on different content platforms by the NewsHawks Digital Media which is owned by Centre for Public Interest Journalism No. 100 Nelson Mandela Avenue Beverly Court, 6th floor Harare, Zimbabwe Trustees/Directors: Beatrice Mtetwa, Raphael Khumalo, Professor Wallace Chuma, Teldah Mawarire, Doug Coltart EDITORIAL STAFF: Managing Editor: Dumisani Muleya Assistant Editor: Brezh Malaba News Editor: Owen Gagare Digital Editor: Bernard Mpofu Reporters: Brenna Matendere, Ruvimbo Muchenje, Enock Muchinjo, Jonathan Mbiriyamveka, Nathan Guma Email: [email protected] SUB EDITORS: Mollen Chamisa, Gumisai Nyoni Business Development Officer: Nyasha Kahondo Cell: +263 71 937 1739 [email protected] Subscriptions & Distribution: +263 71 937 1739 Reaffirming the fundamental importance of freedom of expression and me- dia freedom as the cornerstone of democracy and as a means of upholding human rights and liberties in the constitution; our mission is to hold power in its various forms and manifestations to account by exposing abuse of power and office, betrayals of public trust and corruption to ensure good governance and accountability in the public interest. CARTOON Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe The NewsHawks newspaper subscribes to the Code of Conduct that promotes truthful, accurate, fair and balanced news reporting. If we do not meet these standards, register your complaint with the Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe at No.: 34, Colenbrander Rd, Milton Park, Harare. Telephone: 024-2778096 or 024-2778006, 24Hr Complaints Line: 0772 125 659 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] WhatsApp: 0772 125 658, Twitter: @vmcz Website: www.vmcz.co.zw, Facebook: vmcz Zimbabwe Zim glorifies corruption Dumisani Muleya Hawk Eye Editorial & Opinion IN the life of nation states, political events have this uncanny tendency of appearing to unfold at snail's pace for months or even years, only to usher in dramatic change at critical historical moments in the blink of an eye. It was Vladimir Lenin who memorably said: "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen." In the current Zimbabwean polity, there is an overwhelming sense that this country is on the cusp of something utterly unforgettable. The inevitability of the moment cannot be denied. Those who thought they had achieved a masterstroke by hounding and silencing opposition leader Nelson Chamisa are in for a rude awakening. They must budget for non-stop drama. The calculus of political strife has shifted from Zanu PF versus CCC to Zanu PF versus Zanu PF. Elite cohesion within the ruling party is facing an acid test whose outcome may redefine national politics in ways that could yet surprise Zimbabweans. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s third-term bid has focused the spotlight on the thorny succession question. Citizens should fasten their seatbelts; there is massive turbulence ahead. Recently, an epic spectacle stunned onlookers when Zanu PF bigwigs, including Vice-President Kembo Mohadi and Masvingo provincial minister Ezra Chadzamira, publicly chanted the "Mnangagwa 2030" slogan. They are actively campaigning for Mnangagwa to clinch a third term in office. Zanu PF’s Masvingo provincial chairperson Robson Mavhenyengwa and the party's youth league in that province also called for the extension of Mnangagwa’s tenure during a National Youth Day event on 21 February. Clearly, something is brewing. Mnangagwa, who was catapulted to power on the back of a military coup in 2017, has not rebuked those who are campaigning for his third term. It is trite that nobody chants a slogan in Zanu PF without authorisation from higher up. And "wrong" slogans seldom go unpunished. In any case, it would be irresponsible of Mnangagwa to keep quiet when his name is being chanted by men who are intent on brazenly desecrating the constitution. His silence speaks volumes. Seasoned political watchers have noted that Mnangagwa’s manoeuvres since he stepped into State House have pointed to an entrenched power consolidation and retention agenda. The facts are self-evident. The manner in which he singlemindedly (some will say ruthlessly) reconfigured the military command element; the way in which he purged the ranks of those who had placed him at the helm; the appointment of his children, relatives and clansmen to important public posts. Taken cumulatively, these are not the actions of a ruler who is preparing to walk into the sunset; this is the gambit of a man dazzled by the irresistible allure of sweet power. Seeking a third term in office when the national constitution allows only two terms will have serious consequences, not least endangering national survival. By attempting to stay in power beyond the constitutionally mandated term limits, President Mnangagwa risks undermining democratic principles and institutions. This will lead to a concentration of power in the hands of one man, further eroding checks and balances. Since Independence in 1980, the heroic masses of Zimbabwe have fought gallantly against a one-party state; they can never accept one-man rule. Pushing for a third term could destabilise not only Zanu PF but also state institutions, with potentially devastating consequences. Violating term limits to cling to power goes against democratic norms and could lead to Zimbabwe facing international condemnation and isolation. Mnangagwa should not forget that the August 2023 election he thinks conferred him with legitimacy and credibility was openly rubbished by the Southern African Development Community and other notable groupings. Zimbabwe has already suffered immensely as a result of Zanu PF misrule. When you add to the mix the latest third-term madness, the negative consequences for the country's economy, foreign relations and overall standing in the global community would be too ghastly to contemplate. There can be only three reasons why Mnangagwa would seek to cling onto power in a clumsy manner: power and control; personal gain, and; fear of retribution for crimes against the people. But Zimbabweans must draw a line in the sand and resolutely oppose the undemocratic culture of rulers seeking to extend their stay in power beyond constitutional limits. Have we forgotten the lessons of the Robert Mugabe nightmare so soon? Beware the ides of March NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
NewsHawks Animal Kingdom with TN Page 31 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Business MATTERS NewsHawks CURRENCIES LAST CHANGE %CHANGE USD/JPY 109.29 +0.38 +0.35 GBP/USD 1.38 -0.014 -0.997 USD/CAD 1.229 +0.001 +0.07 USD/CHF 0.913 +0.005 +0.53 AUD/USD 0.771 -0.006 -0.76 COMMODITIES LAST CHANGE %CHANGE *OIL 63.47 -1.54 -2.37 *GOLD 1,769.5 +1.2 +0.068 *SILVER 25.94 -0.145 -0.56 *PLATINUM 1,201.6 +4 +0.33 MARKETS *COPPER 4.458 -0.029 -0.65 RUVIMBO MUCHENJE ZIMBABWE’S gross domestic product (GDP) is currently US$47.08 billion — meaning it has more than doubled in the past four years, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) datasets on the country. Real GDP growth rate is forecast at 3.6% and real per capita growth at 1.6%. GDP per capita is US$2 860. Official GDP was US$37 billion at the end of 2023 in purchasing power parity terms. However, the IMF says despite the economy’s resilience, structural reforms aimed at improving the business climate, strengthening economic governance and reducing corruption vulnerabilities are key for promoting sustained and inclusive growth. It says that would bode well for supporting Zimbabwe’s development objectives embodied in the country’s National Development Strategy 1 (2021-2025). World Economics has developed a database presenting GDP in Purchasing Power Parity terms with added estimates for the size of the informal economy and adjustments for out-of-date GDP base year data. Zimbabwe’s GDP was US$28 billion at the end of 2022. In 2021, it was the same as 2022. However, in 2020 it was US$21.51bn. GDP at purchaser's prices is the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. Data is in current US dollars. Dollar figures for GDP are converted from domestic currencies using single year official exchange rates. For a few countries where the official exchange rate does not reflect the rate effectively applied to actual foreign exchange transactions, an alternative conversion factor is used. Since last year, Zimbabwe has implemented the IMF’s Enhanced General Data Dissemination System (e-GDDS). The e-GDDS is an evolutionary system reflecting changing needs of data users over time. The e-GDDS was approved by the IMF's Executive Board on July 1, 2015, following the Ninth Review of the Fund's Data Standards Initiatives. The new e-GDDS Legal Text supersedes the existing rules governing the GDDS. Individual country presentations reflect the current features of the e-GDDS. It is expected that, as individual country presentations are updated (at least annually), any enhancements introduced to the system will be incorporated. With the successful launch of a new data portal, Zimbabwe has implemented a key recommendation of the IMF’s e-GDDS to publish essential macroeconomic and financial data. The e-GDDS is the first tier of the IMF Data Standards Initiatives that promote transparency as a global public good and encourage countries to voluntarily publish timely data that is essential for monitoring and analysing economic performance. The implementation of the e-GDDS recommendation and the launch of the data portal — the National Summary Data Page — are a testament to Zimbabwe’s commitment to data transparency, IMF said. The National Summary Data Page will serve as a one-stop publication for disseminating the data recommended under the e-GDDS, covering national accounts and prices, government operations and debt, the monetary and financial sector, and the external sector. The National Summary Data Page will facilitate access for data users in Zimbabwe and abroad, including policymakers, financial sector, private investors, think tanks, and the media. More broadly, having data in line with the e-GDDS means it should be accessible in a standardised way to facilitate analysis of economic trends across countries and to provide an early detection of risks to help avert economic crises, thus supporting sustainable economic growth and development. Thanks to the National Summary Data Page, Zimbabwe’s information has become easily accessible in both human — and machine — readable formats for users, resulting in greater data transparency. It is hosted on Zimbabwe’s national Open Data Platform (ODP), which is provided by the African Development Bank, and utilises a modern data publication technology. A link to Zimbabwe’s National Summary Data Page is available on the IMF’s Dissemination Standards Bulletin Board . The data is provided by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, the ministry of Finance, and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Bert Kroese, chief statistician and data officer, and director of the IMF’s statistics department, last year welcomed this major milestone in the country’s statistical development. “I am confident that Zimbabwe will benefit from using the e-GDDS as a framework for further development of its statistical system,” Kroese said. The benefits, including better sovereign financing conditions for countries participating in the e-GDDS, have recently been reviewed by the IMF executive board in the context of the Tenth Review of the IMF Data Standards Initiatives. The launch of Zimbabwe’s National Summary Data Page was supported by an IMF technical assistance project financed by the Government of Japan. Zim GDP balloons to US$47bn but then…
Companies & Markets Page 33 JONATHAN MBIRIYAMVEKA EMIRATES — which flies to 133 destinations in 85 countries, including Zimbabwe, across six continents from its hub in Dubai — has successfully wrapped up its participation at ITB Berlin 2024, welcoming close to 6 000 visitors who experienced its latest products and initiatives, while hosting more than 260 meetings across the threeday travel and tourism event. Zimbabwe was represented at ITB Berlin 2024, the world’s largest travel show held in Germany. Its day was celebrated on 2 March at the stand where traditional cuisine was served to the international audience. The event lured around 800 internationals who came to taste Zimbabwean food. Gastronomy tourism is an initiative of First Lady Auxillia Mnangagwa. It is a way of preserving the Zimbabwean tradition and culture, and promotion of healthy living and national identity. The event provided a platform for the exhibitors to make contact with operators around the world. Zimbabwe`s celebration at ITB showcased not only its culinary delights but also its commitment to preserving tradition, culture as a sustainable strategy of the tourism industry. Emirates also sealed deals and collaborations with eight companies including cruise-liner operators, tourism boards and airlines across Europe. The stellar visitor numbers to the airline’s eye-catching stand is a testament to its standout products and onboard experiences, clever use of space, balanced with ample meeting areas ready for doing business. Emirates leveraged its much-awaited return to ITB Berlin by showcasing its latest signature products including the Emirates Premium Economy seat and game-changer First Class suite for the first time in Germany. Visitors flocking to the stand got a close look at Emirates’ other iconic products such as the First Class Shower Spa and the latest version of its A380 Economy Class seats, as well as innovative onboard features including the newest generation A380 Onboard lounge. Emirates’ sustainability initiatives were also on display. Visitors were able to touch and feel the airline’s sustainably sourced onboard amenities and products as well as its sought after ‘air-crafted By Emirates’, a unique capsule collection of luggage, bags and accessories, all sustainably fabricated from upcycled materials from retrofitted aircraft. The new collaborations forged with the Greek National Tourism Organisation, Austrian National Tourist Office and Tourism Ireland build on Emirates’ ongoing commitment to support incoming tourism into the three markets, as well as the wider region, and further strengthen the appeal of these unique destinations to the airline’s customers. In line with Emirates’ continued efforts to expand its network footprint in Europe, the airline signed MoUs including ITA, Icelandair and GO7. The new partnerships, which will be activated over the course of the next few months, provide customers even better connectivity and more travel options across Europe. These agreements will also pave the way for Emirates to help customers wanting to venture beyond its own gateways to exciting leisure and business centres across Europe with easy one stop connections, simplified itineraries, and baggage transfers. Through the renewal of Emirates’ partnerships with TUI and AIDA Cruises, the airline will further help bolster Dubai’s already growing cruise industry in the lead-up to the next two cruise seasons. The city houses some of the most modern maritime infrastructure in the world, with the capacity to handle thousands of cruise passengers at any one time. Emirates was honoured to receive a VIP delegation at its ITB stand on the first day of the show. Sir Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airlines, and Adnan Kazim, Emirates deputy president and Chief Commercial Officer, warmly received Kai Wegner, governing mayor of Berlin; Franziska Giffey, Senator for Economic Affairs, Energy and Public Enterprises and Dieter Janecek, Federal Government coordinator of the Maritime Industry and Tourism, Federal ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and other senior officials. The airline showcased its economy class seat display with its latest amenities as well as the iconic A380 Onboard Lounge to the VIP delegation, demonstrating its signature and industry-leading products during the official opening tour and to the wider public. The Emirates stand with its signature cabins on display was also visited by His Excellency Srettha Thavisin, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand. Volker Greiner, Emirates Vice-president North & Central Europe greeted the Thai Prime Minister and the VIP delegation. ITB Berlin represents Emirates’ largest tradefair presence outside its home market of Dubai. Emirates seals Berlin deals as Zim showcases culinaries NewsHawks 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 34 Companies & Markets BERNARD MPOFU THE private sector arm of the World Bank Group has singled out Zimbabwe’s unpredictable policy environment as a major hurdle in building a strong viable economy and an impediment to foreign direct investment. In a new report, the multilateral lender says Zimbabwe’s opportunities for economic development stand out compared to other African countries, but growth has been wobbling. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) — a member of the World Bank Group — is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. In fiscal year 2023, the IFC committed a record $43.7 billion to private companies and financial institutions in developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity as economies grapple with the impacts of global compounding crises. Official figures show that Zimbabwe used to be one the countries with the highest standards of living in Africa — buttressed by a skilled work force and infrastructure superior to that of most countries on the continent. “Notwithstanding its economic decline since 1995, it continues to boast several sectors that are still competitive or could — in the short to medium term — be competitive regionally and globally,” the IFC in its report titled Country Private Sector Diagnostic: Creating Markets in Zimbabwe says. “The main constraint to unlocking the private sector potential as an engine of economic growth in the country is chronic macroeconomic instability, historically caused by loose monetary and fiscal policy, foreign exchange rationing, and structural challenges — all of which culminated in two major recessions and hyperinflation in 2000–08 and 2019– 20.” The IFC says growth averaged only 1.1% between 2018 and 2022, compared to 4% in Cambodia, 5.4% in in Côte d’Ivoire, 6.4% in Ethiopia, and 4.6% in Kenya — Zimbabwe’s structural peers. “While the country was one of the fastest growing economies in the South African Development Community (Sadc) in 2022 and 2023, with economic growth of 6.5% in 2022 and 4.5% in 2023, sustaining this growth will require Zimbabwe to tackle its macroeconomic and structural challenges,” reads the report. “Limited access to external financing and poor revenue mobilisation, coupled with quasi-fiscal operations of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to service foreign loans and legacy debt and support loss-making state-owned enterprises led to a monetary overhang, a rapidly depreciating exchange rate, and subsequently high inflation. Since 2000, the government of Zimbabwe has stopped servicing debt to international financial institutions (IFIs) and has accumulated arrears on external debt, which shot up from 26% to 52% of GDP between 2018 and 2022. Arrears to IFIs have limited access to concessional financing and increased the cost of private sector borrowing. “Meanwhile, price and exchange rate volatility, and large export surrender requirements have pushed many companies into the informal sector, limiting their ability to obtain financing from the banking system and further reducing the tax base. Also, many foreign exchange transactions take place in the informal sector, further intensifying pressure on the parallel market exchange rate. Inflation has been consistently high (three digits in recent years) and reached more than 314% in 2023, with the local currency weakening at a fast pace.” Zimbabwe’s concentration in three export commodities — gold, platinum, and tobacco — known for their price instability, has increased the unpredictability of export earnings and fiscal revenues and complicated macroeconomic management, the IFC warned. “In addition, recent increases in the global prices of food, energy, and fertilisers due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have significantly reduced the purchasing power of households and elevated the costs of production,” the IFC says. Policy inconsistency Zim major weakness World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Companies & Markets Page 35 ZIMBABWE has reported over 9 000 drought-related cattle deaths, while 1.4 million cattle are at high risk of drought conditions and death due to lack of pasture and water. JONATHAN MBIRIYAMVEKA A Southern African Development Community early warning system on food security says the region is experiencing a prolonged severe dry spell covering nine countries, including Zimbabwe, threatening food security and livestock across most nations. The report also says much of the region has also received below average rainfall, especially in nine countries as well. This comes as Zimbabwe has reported that over 9 000 drought-related cattle deaths, and over 1.4 million cattle were reported as being at high risk of drought conditions and death due to lack of pasture and water. "From 21 January to 20 February 2024, the Sadc region experienced extremely dry, hot conditions in southeastern Angola, eastern Botswana, southern DRC, eastern Lesotho, southern Malawi, Mozambique, southeastern South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe," the early warning system, Agronet Update, says. "Rainfall in these areas is ranked as the lowest on record for this time (21 January–20 February) since 1981. Much of the rest of the region has also recorded below average rainfall, including much of Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, western and eastern Madagascar, northern Malawi, southern Mozambique, northern Namibia, and central South Africa. "Cumulative rainfall from October 2023 to February 2024 has been below average in the central and southern parts of the region, and southern Madagascar, while above-average rain was recorded in western Angola, Tanzania, and northern Zambia." The low seasonal accumulations are primarily due to several factors. Highlights: • A record mid-season dry spell of over 30 days has affected vast parts of the region including, Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. These areas have received the lowest rainfall for the late-January/February timeframe in at least 40 years; • Short-term forecasts indicate continuation dry spell until early March 2024, potentially extending to midMarch in central and southern parts of the region; • The extended dry conditions have severely impacted crops with widespread permanent wilting of crops reported in parts of Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Crop failure in affected parts likely due to forecasted dry conditions with little hope of recovery for crops in many areas; • The ongoing dry spell has also negatively affected vegetation and water availability for livestock, with deteriorating conditions expected to worsen. Over 9 000 drought-related cattle deaths have been reported in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe between October 2023 and February 2024; • Heavy rains in parts of Madagascar, Malawi, and Tanzania cause flooding, displace populations and cause damage to property and infrastructure; • Stakeholders need to urgently coordinate and implement integrated strategies for water resource management, conduct comprehensive assessments of crop and livestock conditions, ensure immediate support to affected communities, and evaluate current and forecast regional cereal staple stock levels until the 2025 harvest. However, October 2023, December 2023, and the first half of January 2024 had well above average rainfall in many areas, which slightly helped to mitigate the impacts of the extremely dry conditions after that. Some heavy rains were reported in Madagascar (6-11 February) affecting six regions of the country and caused loss of life and damage to critical infrastructure. In Tanzania, heavy rains in Manyara and Dar es Salaam regions caused landslides and damage to crops and critical infrastructure. Malawi reported flooding in Nkhotakota district in central region and Karonga district in the north, displacing about 7 000 people and damaging crop fields. "The dry spell in central parts of the region, that has already lasted for over 35 days, is forecast to continue until at least early March in many of the affected areas, bringing the total dry spell period to over 40 days, with little to no rainfall occurring during a critical period of crop growth," the forecast says. "Forecasts from different global climate centres concur that rainfall will likely be very low across central and southern parts of the region from 26 February until around 5 March, with some forecasts suggesting these dry conditions may extend until even mid-March. The dry conditions are forecast to be accompanied by high, above-average temperatures. "In contrast, much of and eastern and northern Madagascar, Malawi, northern Mozambique, Tanzania and northern Zambia, are forecast to receive above-average rainfall through early March, potentially resulting in flooding in some areas. This short-term forecast aligns with the SARCOF 28 for February-March-April 2024 which forecasts normal to below normal-rainfall in central parts of the region over this period." It adds: "The extended dry conditions have had a widespread, severe impact on crops. A crop-specific water balance modelling analysis using rainfall and evapotranspiration throughout the season suggests that as of 20 February, soil moisture was close to the wilting point across the southern half of the region. Furthermore, the water requirements satisfaction index (WRSI) is below normal in the central parts of the region, indicating that these areas have experienced greater water deficits than usual due, a condition that indicates reductions in crop yield. Information in mid-February from several countries, including Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, indicates that maize crops in many areas had reached permanent wilting point, or were under severe moisture stress that could reach permanent wilting point if rainfall does not occur soon. "Given short-term forecasts for low rainfall through early-to-mid March, further crop failures are expected to occur in the affected areas as the dryness intensifies. "In South Africa, rainfall deficits have not been as severe as in central parts of the region, and crop conditions are expected to be fair to good in some of the main maize-producing areas getation, grazing and livestock. Because of the high rainfall experienced across the region in December and the first half of January, vegetation conditions improved considerably in the central and south-eastern areas. "However, the ongoing dry conditions experienced since late January have negatively affected vegetation, and the impacts are expected to become more pronounced as the dry spell continues. The normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) is above average in northern Eswatini, Lesotho, southern Madagascar, central and northern South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. "However, there are localized areas of below-average NDVI within these countries, which will likely expand with the continuing dryness. Due to low rainfall, extremely poor vegetation conditions are present in central Botswana, Namibia, and south-western South Africa. "Pasture and livestock were noted to be in poor condition in Namibia and Zambia due to prolonged dry spells recorded in the previous and the current seasons. "In Zimbabwe, over 9 000 drought-related cattle deaths have been reported, and over 1.4 million cattle were reported as being at high risk of drought conditions and death due to lack of pasture and water. "The dry conditions experienced in the central parts of the Sadc region pose significant challenges to water resources. Given the reduced rainfall and extended dry spells, water levels in reservoirs, rivers, and groundwater sources are likely to diminish, impacting irrigation capacities, hydroelectric power generation, drinking water supplies and ecosystem health." The report also says as the agricultural season nears its end amid severe dry and hot conditions in many central parts of the region, stakeholders, including governments and cooperating partners, need to coordinate and implement adaptive and resilient strategies that will mitigate the impact on livelihoods, crops and livestock. "There is a critical need for an integrated approach to address the immediate impacts of these challenges on agriculture, ensuring food security, and strengthening the foundation for sustainable agricultural development," it says. "There is an urgent need for comprehensive national assessments of crop conditions, livestock health, and overall livelihood impacts of the extended dry conditions. These assessments are crucial for accurately determining the extent of damage and areas requiring immediate intervention and will not only guide targeted relief efforts but also inform policy development and programme implementation aimed at enhancing agricultural resilience. "Further, member states need to start preparing for in-depth assessments that will inform response. Affected member states need to take concerted action to manage water resources efficiently, considering the largely deficit rainfall season. Given the variability in rainfall patterns across the region, there is a need to prioritise the allocation and use of water resources to sustain agricultural activities. "This may involve the enhancement of water harvesting techniques, investment in efficient irrigation systems, and the promotion of practices that reduce water wastage. Member states are encouraged to provide immediate safety nets to support communities and farmers affected by adverse weather conditions. This support could include the provision of emergency water supplies, and other forms of social protection including cash transfers. Additionally, member states need to consider initiatives to support winter cropping in areas where applicable, including provision of appropriate seed varieties. It is also important for governments to work closely with local and international partners to mobiliae resources for emergency response and recovery efforts." The report adds: "onsidering the extensive impact of the current drought conditions, which have not spared traditionally high-producing, maize-exporting countries within the region, there is an urgent need to assess the current and projected regional cereal staple stock levels through to the 2025 harvest. This evaluation should encompass the potential need for cereal imports from outside the region to ensure food security and stabilise markets across affected member states. Such assessments will provide critical insights for strategic planning, enabling timely interventions to address possible shortfalls and mitigate the risk of food insecurity." Drought, food insecurity crisis ravage SADC member states Wilting maize in Mashonaland East. pic: Aaron Ufumeli. NewsHawks 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 36 Companies & Markets BERNARD MPOFU THE Zimbabwe dollar officially lost nearly 60% of its value since the start of the year amid warnings that the current year could be a difficult one for both business and consumers, a new report done by IH Securities has shown. Official figures show that the local currency continued to depreciate in both the official channels and the parallel market. On average in February, the interbank rate moved by 1.94% in nominal terms daily whilst the parallel market trailed behind at 1%. This resulted in the black market premium being reduced from 63% at the beginning of the month down to 22% by the end of February. “Year to date, the interbank rate has depreciated 58.48% whilst the parallel market rate has depreciated 39.56%,” IH Securities says. “The 2024 operating environment will likely continue to be a rough terrain for businesses. Depressed activity in primary sectors as well as increasing cost of living will, in our view, contribute to dampened bottom-of-the-pyramid liquidity leading to slower growth of toplines. Margins will come under pressure in the year due to bubbling inflationary pressures. Exchange rate volatility will remain the key driver of inflation and monetary instability, particularly in the formal sector, posing downside risk to local currency-denominated assets like ZSE [Zimbabwe Stock Exchange] equities and locally priced goods and services. Investor focus is likely to remain currency hedge-driven and we similarly lean towards dollarised assets and/or companies with dollarised earnings.” Economic growth for 2024, IH Securities says, is expected to slow down from 5.5% in 2023 to 3.5% in 2024 on account of the impact of the ElNiño phenomenon on the all-important agricultural sector as well as a forecast decline in hard commodity prices. Inflation figures recently released by the country’s statistics agency show that month-on-month blended inflation decrease from 5.4% to 6.6%. The food and non-alcoholic beverages category saw the greatest change at +9.8% month-on-month, whilst communication posted an 8.4% increase within the month. On an annual basis, the food and non-alcoholic beverages basket cost however grew 84% whilst housing and utilities grew 60% which resulted in February annual inflation registering at 47.6%, up from the January figure of 34.8%. The government has set an inflation target of just above 10% by year-end, but experts warn that without strong economic fundamentals this may be unachievable. BERNARD MPOFU WHILE the government says it is ready to mitigate the effects of the current El Niño-induced drought, a new report by the World Bank reveals that Zimbabweans now mainly depend on humanitarian assistance for relief. The southern African country received lower-than-expected rainfall during the summer cropping season, a development which will result in a sharp decline in grain output. A new World Bank report on climate notes that Zimbabwe is a lower middle-income country with abundant natural capital and growth potential, but is highly exposed to climate crisis, with its immediate ability to address climate challenges severely constrained. The report further shows that while Zimbabwe is rich in natural capital, both mineral and renewable, existing public sector resources to address climate change challenges are limited by weak domestic revenue mobilisation and limited access to development finance due to arrears to multilateral development banks (MDBs). Private sector investment is one of the lowest in the world as a share of GDP, hindered by recurring macroeconomic instability characterised by high inflation, exchange rate distortions, and unsustainable public debt levels with high external arrears. “People in Zimbabwe are increasingly reliant on successive rounds of emergency relief rather than a formal government safety net,” the World Bank says. “The country has experienced at least nine episodes of drought since 1980, interspersed with occasional but severe storms. In 2011, the national food poverty rate was 23% and this more than doubled by the end of the decade. In rural areas over half of the population (55%) was below the national food poverty line, despite the good maize harvest in the 2020/21 season. “Due to the absence of adequate shock-responsive safety nets, over 80% of the food poor are not covered by any social assistance. Responding to Zimbabwe’s cyclical droughts and chronic food insecurity is mainly through humanitarian agencies funded by yearly emergency appeals, as opposed to through a more sustainable government-led safety net. Existing risk financing mechanisms are inadequate to mitigate the impact of disaster and cover potential losses faced by the country.” The World Bank also noted that macroeconomic constraints, de-industrialisation, and land reform have combined to increase dependency on agricultural livelihoods and push up emissions from land use change. “With deindustrialisation depleting opportunities in urban areas and the Fast-Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) opening up opportunities in rural areas, the structure of employment in the first decade of the 2000s shifted toward agriculture. This combination of factors pushed up emissions from Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU),” reads the report. “The macroeconomic constraints pose a double bind in which the inability to finance development, climate adaptation, and mitigation is leading to increased land degradation, higher net emissions, and less resilience.” The World Bank also says Zimbabwe is at a crossroads and the path that it takes will have consequences for both its development and climate action. “Key sovereign decisions on macroeconomic policy, debt, mining sector governance, agricultural policy, and social protection will either keep the country on an LMIC path or open the door to an Upper Middle-Income Country (UMIC) path,” the World Bank says. “The path that the country takes will have very real consequences for development and its resilience to climate variability and climate change, especially for the poor in rural areas. The path that it takes will also influence its carbon footprint, with higher emissions being associated with the LMIC path than its UMIC path. Unlocking the UMIC path would unleash FDI in export sectors and enable investment in human capital, agriculture, infrastructure and land restoration that would set Zimbabwe on a resilient low-carbon development path.” Zimbabweans survive on handouts amid drought Zimdollar crash sends economy reeling NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Companies & Markets Page 37 HIGHLIGHTS • Preliminary compositional analysis of downhole fluid samples confirms rich gas- condensate discovery in Mukuyu; • High quality natural gas with minimal impurities (<2% CO2 and nil H2S) which will require minimal processing for sale to downstream customers; • Condensate gas ratio (CGR) estimated between 14-22 barrels per million standard cubic foot of gas at Mukuyu-2 with 50-60 API gravity condensate • Helium and hydrogen confirmed in gas stream; and • Results consistent with Invictus’ geological modelling showing increasing liquid hydrocarbon content south towards Basin Margin and increasing dry gas contribution from deeper kitchen and higher maturity source rock to north of Mukuyu structure; and • Analysis of multiple additional samples in progress. Invictus Energy Limited ("Invictus" or "the Company"), is pleased to provide an update on its 80% owned and operated Cabora Bassa project in Zimbabwe. Comments from Managing Director, Scott Macmillan: “We are extremely pleased with the early results from the downhole reservoir fluid sample analysis which confirms a large and rich gas-condensate discovery at Mukuyu. “The analysed samples demonstrate a consistent, high-quality natural gas composition, exhibiting low inert content, containing less than 2% CO2 and nil H2S which will require minimal processing. “The results from Mukuyu-2 are consistent with our geological modelling of the Cabora Bassa Basin and the presence of both light oil and gas-condensate provides us with confidence as we prepare for the next phase of our appraisal program and work towards the monetisation of the Mukuyu gas discoveries and further exploration of our exciting portfolio of multiple drill ready prospects which has been substantially enhanced by the positive results from Mukuyu.” Mukuyu-2 downhole sample analysis confirms rich gas-condensate discovery Following the two gas discoveries from the Upper and Lower Angwa reservoirs in recently completed Mukuyu-2 / ST1 drilling campaign (refer ASX announcement 15 December 2023), preliminary compositional analysis from fast-tracked downhole reservoir fluid samples has confirmed a rich gas-condensate discovery in Mukuyu. ABOUT INVICTUS ENERGY Invictus Energy Ltd is an independent oil and gas exploration company focused on high impact energy resources in sub-Saharan Africa. Our asset portfolio consists of a highly prospective 360,000 hectares within the Cabora Bassa Basin in Zimbabwe. SG 4571 and EPOs 1848/49 contain the Mukuyu gas discovery and multiple Basin Margin prospects BOARD & MANAGEMENT John Bentley Non-Executive Chairman Gabriel Chiappini Non-Executive Director & Company Secretary Joe Mutizwa Non-Executive & Deputy Chairman Scott Macmillan Managing Director Robin Sutherland Non-Executive Director The compositional analysis confirms high quality natural gas containing minimal impurities (less than 2% CO2 content and nil H2S) which will require minimal processing to prepare for sale to downstream customers. Condensate gas ratios (CGR) are estimated between 14-22 barrels per million standard cubic foot (bbls/MMscf) of gas from the Mukuyu-2 samples with a condensate API gravity of 50-60 as shown in Figure 1. Mukuyu-1 mudgas analysis results confirmed the presence of light oil and gas condensate yields of 30-135 bbls/ MMscf and high qualtiy natural gas with minimal impurities. Figure 1 - Condensate recovered from flashed downhole reservoir fluid samples from Mukuyu-2 / ST11 well from Upper Angwa (on left) and Lower Angwa formations (on right) with API gravity of 50-60. The preliminary analysis from Mukuyu-2 and results from Mukuyu-1 are consistent with Invictus’ geological modelling which shows increasing liquid hydrocarbon content in the south of Mukuyu towards the Basin Margin (where multiple drill-ready prospects have been mapped), and increasing dry gas contribution from the deeper kitchen and higher maturity source rock to the north of the Mukuyu structure. The preliminary gas isotope analysis from processed downhole reservoir fluid samples in Mukuyu-2 are consistent with mudgas samples from comparable depths which will allow for additional insights to be generated from the extensive suite of samples gathered from the Mukuyu-1 and Mukuyu-2 wells. Consistent with the Mukuyu-1 results, gas samples from Mukuyu-2 show a general increasing dryness (lower liquid hydrocarbon / condensate yield) with depth. — Invictus Energy. The Banker Invictus oil and gas discovery NewsHawks 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 38 Reframing Issues UELI STAEGER/ BABATUNDE FAGBAYIBO THE African Union (AU) comes in for a lot of criticism. Most recently this is from within its own ranks. The AU Commission chairperson, Moussa Faki Mahamat, set out his frustrations after an AU summit in February 2024. The commission is the executive organ which runs the AU’s daily activities. Mahamat accused member states of getting in the way of the commission doing its work, and failing to match rhetoric with action: Over the last three years, 2021, 2022 and 2023, 93% of African Union decisions have not been implemented. We think many of the criticisms of the AU are justified. This is based on more than 15 years of researching its political and legal development. The AU was formed in 2002 to replace the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Its institutions include the AU Commission, the Pan-African Parliament and the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights, but the real power lies in the hands of its assembly, composed of heads of state and government. The assembly has refused to transfer meaningful powers to any of the AU organs. For example, the Pan-African Parliament does not exercise any binding legislative powers. And the AU Commission cannot compel member states to comply with AU rules. Most member states refuse to comply with the decisions of the human rights court. The AU differs in this regard from the European Union (EU), where supranational, binding powers are exercised by organs such as the European Commission and the European Parliament. The AU’s aim of deepening continental integration in Africa is not matched by the powers of its organs. As various AU-mandated reports have shown, the organisation is dysfunctional and not fit for purpose. We have previously argued that the AU has come a long way in its first 20 years. But we believe its long-standing weakness lies with member states, not its executive, the AU Commission. Fixing the problem requires political willingness by member states to gradually sacrifice their sovereignty for the greater good of continental integration. Also, more innovative and creative ways are needed to see how powers can be transferred to weak AU organs. Structural weaknesses Member states have little trust in the AU. Since its creation in 2002, there has been more talk about what is needed to make it effective than actually fixing its many problems. The AU Constitutive Act allows the assembly to transfer some of its functions to organs such as Pan-African Parliament and AU Commission. Very little has been done about this, though. Rather than granting the parliament the ability to make binding laws, the amended PAP Protocol only gave it the powers to make “model laws”. These are no more than recommendations. The same applies to the AU Commission. It can’t compel member states to comply with its decisions. So the AU has no way to exercise supranational powers (binding over its member states). The AU is only as strong as member states allow it to be. African leaders have a worrying track record of putting narrow domestic gains ahead of transferring higher powers to the AU. This is unfortunate because African regional integration does not, as is often assumed, come at the cost of national sovereignty. In 2016, African leaders mandated Rwandan president Paul Kagame to provide a report on how to reform the AU. The report was submitted to the AU Assembly in 2017. It called for better coordination between AU organs and the regional economic communities, and enhancing the capacity of AU organs to achieve continental integration. After eight years, Kagame is frustrated with the lack of results. Though proponents of ambitious AU reforms are disappointed, the reforms suggested by Kagame have produced some tangible progress. They have prompted a welcome rethink of the institutional structures. One example is the decision on self-funding, which has revialised the AU Peace Fund and the UN peacekeeping budget available for requests to support AU peace support operations. However, 61% of the overall AU budget is still financed by the AU’s external partners – including the EU, the US, China, India, Turkey and South Korea. Member states still pay on average only 80%-90% of the contributions they owe. Poor leadership and weak empowerment The AU’s situation is not helped by some aspects of its leadership. Mahamat’s stewardship of a number of key projects and issues has been controversial. Notably, he largely remained silent about atrocities committed by Ethiopian forces in Tigray during the two-year Ethiopia war which broke out in November 2020. More hands-on, principled leadership would have been desirable. At the same time, member states haven’t created an environment in which the chairperson could operate as an effective change-maker. AU member states and international partners have become frustrated with the AU Commission’s performance, often attributing the AU’s problems to Mahamat’s personal leadership. But blaming the chairperson is to ignore the deep-rooted structural deficiencies of the organisation. Without addressing these structural problems, whoever is elected when Mahamat’s term ends in February 2025 will fall into the same inefficiency trap. Pathways to supranationalism The AU’s exercise of binding powers over its member states will require separating personal from institutional politics, ratifying existing legal instruments, and showcasing instances of good pan-African governance. AU member states should commit to coming up with a feasible plan that shows how, in the short to medium term, they intend to transfer meaningful powers to the AU Commission and the Pan-African Parliament. For example, member states that are willing and able to move ahead with endowing the parliament with supranational legislative powers should be encouraged. The amended PAP Protocol does not prevent this as it encourages member states to experiment with direct elections of membership to the parliament. Also, the AU Protocol on Free Movement encourages willing member states and regional economic communities to take action. Nothing prevents such member states from getting into an arrangement with the Pan-African Parliament and AU Commission to provide guidelines and even monitor the way they implement these objectives. Along the example of the African Continental Free Trade Area, national ratifications of AU instruments should be public and transparent to speed up action on agreed decisions. Member states should encourage the inclusion of wider civil society in framing the terms and conditions of moving forward with the AU supranational project. In this way, the sense of popular ownership and legitimacy of the organisation will be guaranteed. — The Conversation. *About the writers: Ueli Staeger is assistant professor of international relations at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Babatunde Fagbayibo is professor of international law at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. African Union is weak because its members want it that way NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 39 VERITAS ZIMBABWE Introduction AS unwelcome as poop in a punchbowl, a new version of the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill was published in the Government Gazette on 1 March, 2024. The first version of the Bill was published as long ago as November 2021. It received its first reading in the National Assembly in February 2022 and proceeded to crawl its way through the parliamentary processes until it was finally passed by the Senate on 1 February 2023. A further lengthy delay ensued after which it was sent to the President for signature on 9 August 2023. The President had reservations about it and sent it back for reconsideration. The National Assembly did not reconsider the Bill before Parliament was dissolved immediately before the 2023 general election, so the Bill lapsed and could not be revived. This new Bill is therefore the government’s second attempt to enact legislation to control private voluntary organisations [PVOs] more stringently. *General Comments* The lapsing of the old Bill gave the government an opportunity to rethink how PVOs should be regulated and to prepare a fresh Bill taking into account criticisms levelled against the old one. Regrettably, the government has not taken the opportunity. The new Bill makes no important changes, and does not even correct all the obvious errors that peppered the old one. For example, it retains the following nonsensical definition of “material change” in clause 6: “material change” in relation to the amendment of the particulars of the original application for registration means — (a) any change in the constitution governing the private voluntary organisation concerned concerning happens upon the termination for any reason of the private voluntary organisation with respect to the disposal of its assets on the date of its termination”. Also like the old Bill, the new one is unconstitutional, inimical to freedom of association, ill-conceived and badly drafted. Contents of the Bill In describing the Bill’s contents we shall necessarily repeat much of what we said in Bill Watches 74/2021 and 26/2022 because the Bill is so similar to the one we were discussing in those bulletins. Broadly, the new Bill will do the following: It will extend the scope of the Act. A new section 22 which will be inserted into the PVO Act [“the Act”] by clause 9 of the Bill will extend the application of the Act to cover persons, legal arrangements, bodies, associations or institutions which the minister declares in regulations to be vulnerable to misuse by terrorist organisations, or at high risk of being misused by terrorist organisations. The persons, legal arrangements, bodies etc covered by a ministerial declaration will have to register as PVOs under the Act and will be subject not only to the requirements and obligation laid down in the Act but also to any additional requirements the minister may specify in regulations. Comment: This is unconstitutional for at least two reasons: 1. The minister will not have to give notice to the persons, legal arrangements etc before declaring them to be vulnerable to terrorist misuse, nor will the minister have to invite them to make representations before making the declaration. This infringes section 68 of the constitution which guarantees everyone the right to administrative conduct that is procedurally fair. 2. A declaration by the minister will extend the Act to cover institutions that are not currently within its ambit, and will impose additional controls over them that are not currently laid down in the Act. A declaration will therefore constitute a major amendment of the Act, which the minister will make by regulations. It will amount to an exercise of Parliament’s primary law-making power which, in terms of section 134 of the constitution, cannot be delegated to a minister. State-sponsored aid agencies will not have to register Although the Bill generally extends the scope of the Act, as we have just outlined, it will limit the Act in one respect by amending the definition of “private voluntary organisation to exclude state-sponsored aid agencies, i.e. charitable organisations that operate in Zimbabwe pursuant to international agreements concluded with the government. Aid agencies such as USAID and DFID will not have to register under the Act, therefore — if indeed they ever had to. This is a new provision which was not in the earlier Bill. Government’s power over trusts and other associations will be increased The Bill will insert a new section 6 in the Act which will: • require any trust or association that collects funds for charitable purposes to register under the Act, • prohibit anyone from collecting funds from the public except in accordance with the Act – which means that only registered PVOs will be allowed to do so, • debar unregistered PVOs from receiving funds from the state, and • permit the tegistrar to require any trust to get itself registered as a PVO, and • make trustees and their trusts jointly liable to criminal penalties for failure to comply with the new section. Comment: The new section is unconstitutional because it unduly limits freedom of association. Section 86(2) of the constitution allows that freedom to be limited, but only if: • the limitation is fair, reasonable, necessary and justifiable in a democratic society, • the limitation does not impose greater restrictions on freedom of association than are necessary to achieve the purpose of the limitation, and • there are no other less restrictive means of achieving the purpose of the limitation. The new section cannot be said to meet these tests. Registration of PVOs When an application is made for the registration of a PVO, the Registrar will be able to demand particulars of persons who are beneficial owners of the PVO or who otherwise control it. Comment: This will enhance transparency, which is needed if PVOs are to avoid the suspicion that they are being used for money laundering or terrorist financing. Prohibition of political activism by PVOs Two provisions of the Bill will prohibit registered PVOs from engaging in political activities: • A new section 20A will state, as a matter of principle, that PVOs are not to conduct themselves in “any politically partisan manner” whether in the use of their resources or in selecting members. There is no express sanction for PVOs that breach this principle, but it could be regarded as a “failure to comply with the provisions of this Act” which would justify the Registrar refusing to register a PVO under the new section 9(5) (b). A new section 23(4) which will make it a criminal offence, punishable by a fine of level 12 (currently US$2 000), for a PVO to support or oppose a political party or candidate in an election, or – in the case of a foreign PVO – to donate funds to a Zimbabwean political party or candidate. New PVO Amendment Bill (Part I) NewsHawks Reframing Issues 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 40 Reframing Issues Comment: Freedom of association under section 58 of the constitution extends to associating for political purposes, and this is reinforced by section 67 which says that every Zimbabwean citizen has the right to form, join and participate in the activities of political organisations. So if an association wants to support or oppose a particular political party or candidate it should be allowed to do so, particularly if its members are Zimbabwean citizens. Some restrictions may be needed, to prevent funds donated for charitable purposes being diverted to politicians and their parties, but otherwise PVOs should be free to engage in legitimate political activities which fall within the objectives for which the organisations were established. It is quite conceivable, for example, that a PVO established to promote animal welfare might want to express support for a political party campaigning for an end to vivisection or cruel methods of livestock farming. Suspension of executive committees of PVOs Clause 9 of the Bill will replace section 21 of the Act with a new section under which the minister will be able to apply to the High Court for an order suspending the committee of a PVO and appointing a trustee to manage its affairs, if it appears to the minister that: • the PVO has ceased to operate in furtherance of its objectives, • maladministration is adversely affecting the PVO’s activities, • the PVO is involved in illegal activities, or • it is necessary or desirable … in the public interest”. Pending the issue of a court order, the minister will be able to appoint a temporary trustee to run the PVO’s affairs, and will not have to consult the PVO before doing so. If a trustee finds that committee members have misappropriated the PVO’s funds or assets, he or she will be able to apply to the High Court for an order directing them to restore the funds or assets by a specified date. If the court grants the order and the committee members do not comply with it, the trustee will: “submit the order for registration to whichever court would have had jurisdiction to make such an order had the matter been determined by it, and thereupon the order shall have effect, for purposes of enforcement, of a judgment of the appropriate court”. This is a nonsensical provision — not the only one in the Bill — because the order which the trustee will register is itself an order of the High Court, a court with plenary jurisdiction throughout Zimbabwe, so why on earth should it be registered with some other court to be enforced? Comment: This provision is probably unconstitutional on at least two grounds: • One of the grounds on which the minister can apply for the suspension of committee members, that “it is necessary or desirable … in the public interest”, is excessively wide in the light of the constitutional protection of freedom of association. It means that members can be suspended even if they have not been guilty of maladministration and have not been involved in illegal activities. What other legitimate grounds for suspension can there be? • The minister’s power to appoint a provisional trustee without affording the PVO concerned a hearing breaches the rules of due process enshrined in section 68 of the constitution. *About the writer: Veritas provides information on the work of the Parliament of Zimbabwe and the laws of Zimbabwe and makes public domain information widely available. Disclaimer: Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied. The new PVO Amendment Bill (Part 2) VERITAS ZIMBABWE Introduction IN Bill Watch 5/2024 we began analysing the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill, which was published in the Government Gazette on 1 March. In this bulletin we continue our analysis. One of the stated objectives of the Bill is to regulate PVOs in line with recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body formed to combat money-laundering, terrorist financing and the illicit proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Clause 9 of the Bill will insert a new section 22 into the Act requiring the minister, at least once every five years and with the co-operation of the Reserve Bank’s Financial Intelligence Unit, to assess the vulnerability of PVOs and other similar organisations to being used for terrorist financing. On the basis of this assessment the minister will be able, so it seems (the provision is incoherent), to do one of two things: • to require any PVO or organisation to take specified measures to mitigate their vulnerability, or • to make regulations prescribing special measures to be taken by PVOs and organisations designated by the minister in regulations as being vulnerable to misuse. Designated PVOs and organisations will have 14 days in which to contest their designation on the ground that it was made in error, or that the measures they are required to take are unreasonable or disproportionate. If a designated PVO or organisation fails to register as a PVO under the Act, it and its office-bearers will be guilty of a criminal offence and liable to a fine of level 14 (currently US$5 000) or 10 years’ imprisonment. In addition the minister will be able to get the registrar to revoke or suspend the organisation’s licence or registration and order the removal of its office-bearers. PVOs and other organisations aggrieved by the minister’s decisions under the new section will have a right to appeal to the High Court, but only on procedural grounds. Comment: there are several problems with the new section 22: • The assessment of PVOs’ vulnerability will be done by the minister and a unit of the Reserve Bank. Individual PVOs will have no say in the matter. This is contrary to what FATF itself says, that countries should work with PVOs and civil society organisations during the risk assessment process. • The penalty for failing to register as a PVO is grossly excessive, completely disproportionate to the offence, and it is not clear how the new offence relates to the offence under the new section 6(5) of the Act, which is essentially the same and for which the penalty is much lower. • There will be no effective appeal against the minister’s decisions under the new section. Civil penalties Clause 12 of the Bill will insert a new schedule providing for the imposition of civil penalties for certain contraventions of the Act, namely: • if a PVO fails to apply for the amendment of its registration after there has been a material change in its original particulars of registration, • if a PVO transferring its certificate of registration to another PVO without permission from the Registrar (section 13A(5)) • if the registrar has information indicating that a PVO has “received any donation from an illegitimate or immoral source,” and • if the registrar has information indicating that a PVO has “not used formal channels (that is to say registered banking institutions or other financial intermediaries regulated in Zimbabwe or in any other State) for the transmission of … funds at every point from source to destination.” In the event of such a contravention, the registrar or a designated member of his or her staff will be entitled to serve a civil penalty order on the offending PVO and any or all of its office-bearers, obliging them jointly and severally to pay a civil penalty of up to US$1 000 unless they can show that: • the civil penalty order was issued in error, or • the contravention was not wilful, or • the contravention was beyond the control of the PVO or its officers. Failure to pay a civil penalty within 90 days of its issue will be a criminal offence for which the PVO concerned and “every one of its officers” will be liable to a fine of level six (currently US$300) or one year’s imprisonment or both. Comment: The constitutionality of civil penalties has not yet been tested in our courts, but these penalties are almost certainly unconstitutional for the following reasons: • There is no provision for a court to confirm the imposition of a civil penalty and its amount, hence the penalty may be imposed arbitrarily and its amount fixed without proper regard to all the circumstances. • No appeal is allowed against a civil penalty order, except to the official who imposed it and on very limited grounds, namely that the order was issued erroneously due to a material dispute of fact; or that the default was not wilful; or that the default was the result of circumstances beyond the defaulter’s control. No other grounds, such as error of law, are allowed. • All the officers of a defaulting PVO can be liable to pay a civil penalty, regardless of their individual fault. They are also all criminally liable if the penalty is not paid. • The provision for a penalty to be imposed on a PVO that receives funds from an “illegitimate or immoral” source is far too vague for a penal provision and offends against the rule which demands that laws, particularly penal ones, must be intelligible, clear and predictable. Inadequate provision for appeals Appeals against the registrar’s refusal to register a PVO or against a decision to cancel the registration of a PVO will be made to the minister under a new section 14. The minister’s powers on appeal will be very limited. Unlike the existing section in the current Act, which allows the minister to confirm the decision appealed against or to give such other decision as he or she considers should have been given, the new section will allow the minister to set aside a decision only on procedural grounds: for example, if the registrar showed bias or malice, or failed to take relevant factors into account, or if the decision was grossly unreasonable. Comment: The new section effectively makes the registrar’s decisions final, immune from appeal except on narrow procedural grounds. It would be far better if the new section gave a genuine right of appeal to a court such as the Administrative Court. Abolition of PVO Board and increase in registrar’s powers The Bill will abolish the PVO Board, a body with some PVO representatives which is responsible for approving the registration and de-registration of PVOs and advising the minister. The board’s functions will be transferred to the registrar, a civil servant in the minister’s ministry. The registrar will be largely under the minister’s control: he or she will have to comply with general policy directives the minister may give in terms of the new section 22D. Comment: Abolition of the PVO Board, which provided some representation for PVOs, is regrettable. Annual PVO forums The Bill will insert a new Part IIA into the Act requiring the registrar to convene annual forums bringing together representatives of PVOs to discuss issues of mutual interest. A pre-forum committee appointed by the registrar will propose a list of participants to attend a forum and an agenda of matters to be discussed at the forum, but the final decision on those matters will rest with the minister. Comment: The forums will be controlled by the registrar and the minister, so they are unlikely to be particularly useful except in ensuring that PVOs adhere to government policy. Conclusion Some effort has been made to remove the more egregious inconsistencies and drafting errors contained in the previous Bill, but the new Bill remains completely unwelcome. Within Zimbabwe its provisions will be used as weapons against civil society, free speech and freedom of association. Internationally it will tarnish Zimbabwe’s image and inhibit the government’s efforts to get debt relief and much-needed foreign investment. Even if it is not enacted the damage will have been done, because many observers will take it as revealing the government’s attitude towards independent civil society organisations in particular and constitutionalism in general. *About the writer: Veritas provides information on the work of the Parliament of Zimbabwe and the laws of the country and makes public domain information widely available. Disclaimer: Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied. NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Reframing Issues Page 41 HIPPOLYTE FOFACK The recent push to reform the global financial architecture creates an opportunity to build a more inclusive system that matches Africa’s aspirations, accelerates the green transition, and advances development objectives. Most importantly, such a system must provide equal access to reliable and affordable capital. LAST June, during French President Emmanuel Macron’s Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris, Kenyan President William Ruto warned that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are “hostage” to the world’s wealthiest countries and unable to meet the development challenges facing the Global South. Echoing United Nations secretary-general António Guterres’s call to reform the “morally bankrupt global financial system” that “perpetuates poverty and inequalities,” Ruto proposed creating a new multilateral institution that is fit for purpose and treats all member countries as equals. More than any other region, Africa has borne the brunt of the dysfunction embedded in the world’s financial architecture. Despite decades of engagement with the Bretton Woods system, the continent suffers stubbornly high unemployment and poverty rates, even as living standards have improved elsewhere in the developing world. The latest reform push for the Bretton Woods institutions creates an opportunity to build a more inclusive global financial system that matches Africa’s aspirations, accelerates the transition to a net-zero world, and advances development objectives more broadly. Such a transformation has become essential as the world economy contends with the mounting effects of climate change, and as major geopolitical shifts threaten to accelerate global fragmentation. On the losing end Africa has long been in a vulnerable position within the multilateral system, owing to a constellation of destabilising forces and policies. The asymmetry of subsidies, which powerful countries with greater fiscal space are more able to deploy, has been a significant constraint on the ability of African countries to diversify sources of growth and competitiveness. The developed world’s recent embrace of industrial policy in response to the escalating climate crisis and volatility of global supply chains is a clear example of this. Moreover, financial repression, in conjunction with a chronic technological deficit, has further curtailed African countries’ economic development and limited their participation in global value chains to providing raw materials. Given the growing role in global trade of intermediate and manufactured goods with higher technological content, the stickiness of the colonial development model of resource extraction has been very costly for Africa, inexorably shrinking its share of global trade and exacerbating its exposure to global volatility and recurring balance-of-payment crises. Multilateralism has thus failed to narrow the prosperity gap between Africa and the rest of the world. Africa’s share of world trade has declined steadily over the last few decades, falling from around 5% in the 1970s to less than 3% in 2022. And even though the continent accounts for around 17% of the global population, it is home to more than 60% of the world’s extreme poor – which could rise to 90% by 2030, according to the World Bank. By contrast, countries in Asia have capitalised on labour-intensive, export-led development models to narrow the income gap with advanced economies and lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. As a result of financial repression, the process of structural transformation has continued to elude Africa, and the region is not well integrated into the current two-tiered global financial system, which privileges wealthy countries in the deployment of capital and the issuance of reserve currencies. This is at the root of the “perception premiums,” the over-inflated risks perennially assigned to Africa, and the default-driven interest rates that have put many African countries into a debt trap. In particular, these rates raise the fiscal cost of servicing sovereign debt – more than 50% of government revenues in the most vulnerable countries, such as Ghana. And yet, the external debt stock of African countries accounts for less than 1% of global sovereign debt. Risk perceptions of Africa have been elevated for decades, with credit-rating agencies assigning sub-investment-grade scores to an overwhelming majority of African countries. With capital scarce, the continent has been unable to invest in other major drivers of economic growth, most notably human resources and physical and digital infrastructure. For example, so acute is the continent’s energy crisis that most African businesses spend a sizable portion of their revenues operating diesel generators, which, aside from exacerbating external imbalances and the cliMaking Bretton Woods work for Africa NewsHawks 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 42 Reframing Issues mate crisis, inhibits investment and undermines growth. Africa’s chronically insufficient infrastructure has also widened the global digital divide, which poses a further impediment to development, because technology has overtaken organisational change as the primary driver of economic growth. In the US, for example, the tech sector contributed nearly US$2 trillion to GDP in 2022, accounting for 9.3% of total output. By contrast, nearly 70% of Africa’s population does not have broadband internet access, and persistent policy constraints, most notably shrinking fiscal space, make it almost impossible to build more robust infrastructure. As a result, African countries have been unable to reap digital dividends in the form of higher productivity, faster growth, and expanded employment opportunities. In much of the world, the private sector is expected to play a central role in driving innovation-led growth. But Africa faces a shortage of entrepreneurs, owing largely to the difficulty of accessing finance. And, faced with massive debt-service costs – projected to have risen 35% in 2023, to US$62 billion, owing to rapid tightening of global financial conditions – African governments lack the capacity to expand productivity-enhancing public investment, crowd in private capital, and attract foreign direct investment. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, FDI flows to Africa were a paltry US$48 billion in 2023, whereas Asia received US$584 billion. At the same time, a series of procyclical downgrades by credit-rating agencies pushed more African countries into junk status and further curtailed their access to global finance. In 2022, only three African countries (Angola, Nigeria, and South Africa) were able to tap capital markets, raising a total of US$6 billion, down from US$19.6 billion in 2021, at default-driven borrowing rates. This led Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, Nigeria’s then-finance minister, to announce in December 2022 that her country would not issue Eurobonds in 2023 unless market conditions improved. Industrialisation interrupted The Bretton Woods institutions further limited Africa’s development options by implementing structural adjustment policies during the post-1990s era of hyper-globalisation. The Washington Consensus – the pro-market policy cocktail of trade liberalization, deregulation, and privatisation espoused by the IMF and the World Bank – gave rise to costly austerity measures, with public investment being among the first casualties. For starters, these structural adjustment policies contributed to the dismantling of Africa’s nascent manufacturing base, which consisted mainly of state-led enterprises that had been established after achieving independence. This put the continent on the path toward premature de-industrialisation, with African countries running out of industrialisation opportunities sooner and at much lower levels of income compared to early industrialisers. The Washington Consensus also undermined investment in human capital. For example, African countries continue to suffer from a serious shortage of skilled engineers and scientists, with a ratio of 198 scientists per million inhabitants, compared to the world average of 1 150 per million. The chronic lack of technical capacity has hindered African governments’ ability to develop the infrastructure needed to attract private capital and expand Africa’s industrial base, and, crucially, to capitalise fully on the continent’s abundant natural resources to develop robust regional value chains and unlock endogenous growth potential. Consider that Africa is home to 60% of the best solar resources globally, but only 1% of installed solar generating capacity. Without the human capital and financial resources to harness its energy resources (renewable or non-renewable), Africa has become the world’s most energy-poor continent. Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) uses less electricity than Spain, and 600 million people on the continent – nearly 43% of the total population – lack access to power. Given that industrialisation is energy-intensive, Africa’s energy poverty has left the continent increasingly dependent on imported manufactured goods. Over the long term, this has undermined the growth of intra-continental trade, which remains dismally low, accounting for around 15% of total African trade, compared to 60% in Asia and 70% in the European Union. Thus, the imported cars clogging city streets in many African countries represent a massive hole in the balance of payments – even though the continent possesses all the raw materials to manufacture automobiles domestically. The enduring colonial development model of resource extraction has only perpetuated the unhealthy correlation between growth and commodity-price cycles, resulting in increased exposure to adverse global shocks and the amplified perception premiums that are behind Africa’s default-driven borrowing rates. This, in turn, constrains refinancing options, turning liquidity challenges into solvency problems and raising the risk of sovereign-debt crises. So far, the only four countries that have applied to the G20’s Common Framework for Debt Treatment are African, even though the continent has the lowest share of global public debt. Spreads on Eurobonds issued by these countries (Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia) were in the double digits, putting them on the path toward failure from the outset and making the perceived high risk of default a self-fulfilling prophecy. In addition to fueling the risk of debt default and undermining the expansion of growth-enhancing public investment, the vicious cycle of recurrent balance-of-payments crises is also keenly felt at the household level. The unemployment rate is at Great Depression-levels – above 30% in Nigeria and South Africa, two of the continent’s largest economies. This fuels migration pressures, as more and more young Africans seek opportunities elsewhere, and exacerbates intergenerational poverty. Bretton Woods to blame? While no single entity is solely responsible for Africa’s dire situation, it is fair to say that the continent’s sustained engagement with the Bretton Woods institutions has narrowed African countries’ economic policymaking capacity to the management of balance-of-payments crises. Africa’s international partners have done nothing to promote industrialisation on the continent. Worse, many wealthy countries have made use of subsidies to bolster their domestic industries and competitiveness, adding to the burden on African entrepreneurs and business leaders, who are already contending with the high costs of financial repression and a chronic infrastructure deficit. This misalignment of development priorities became even more important after the World Bank, at the height of the Washington Consensus, shifted to offering balance-of-payments support. As a result, Africa has been confronting crises with increasing frequency. In addition to security, energy, debt, and migration crises, the continent is currently experiencing the devastating effects of climate change: water stress, food insecurity, extreme weather events, and violent conflict, all of which ultimately lead to lower economic growth. And yet, Africa’s share of global climate financing is currently just 5.5%. It was not supposed to be this way. The continent’s outlook following the wave of decolonisation of the 1960s was bright. In his 1968 book Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, Nobel laureate economist Gunnar Myrdal predicted that Africa would enjoy better growth prospects than Asia. The opposite happened. Asia, unlike Africa, benefited from access to affordable and patient capital, which helped it close its yawning gaps in human and physical capital and led to economic diversification and successful demographic transitions. This has yielded significant dividends in knowledge production, for example, with Asia accounting for 66.8% of the world’s patent applications in 2018 (only 0.5% came from Africa). Bolstered by sustained investment catalysing export diversification and effective integration into the global economy, Asia entered a long and virtuous cycle of robust economic growth, whereas more than four-fifths of African countries remain dependent on commodity exports and therefore highly vulnerable to global volatility and terms-of-trade deterioration. In their rush to promote free markets and trade liberalisation, the Bretton Woods institutions failed to consider African countries’ individual circumstances NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Reframing Issues Page 43 and their positions on the economic-development ladder when prescribing austerity measures. Speaking at a news conference after the opening of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa in February 2023, Guterres remarked that realizing Africa’s potential requires overcoming a series of challenges. Chief among them, he stressed, is the “dysfunctional and unfair global financial system that denies many African countries the debt relief and concessional financing they need.” But to the extent that Africa faces the perpetual threat of debt overhang, owing to the twin problems of financial repression and a chronic technological deficit, reforming this “dysfunctional and unfair” system requires channeling affordable and patient capital toward the continent. Similar to the postwar Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe, this financing would accelerate the structural transformation of African countries and the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Such an approach could reduce the unhealthy correlation between growth and commodity-price cycles and, eventually, mitigate correlation risks (one of the main drivers of perception premiums), which would help to leverage more private capital. AfCFTA is accompanied by robust trade facilitation measures. This is important in a region where the consequences of non-tariff barriers, equivalent to an import tariff of 18%, have been just as costly for trade and endogenous growth as market fragmentation has been. Corporations could take advantage of economies of scale and the gains in productivity and competitiveness associated with investing in smaller markets. The rules of origin underpinning the AfCFTA would stimulate industrialisation, as championed by African leaders, in a region where industrialisation and intra-African trade are mutually reinforcing. Most importantly, trade integration would increase the supply of patient capital and technology transfer to expand manufacturing output and boost resilience to negative global shocks, putting African countries on a path toward fiscal and debt sustainability and reducing the frequency of balance-of-payments crises. Fit for Africa How can we ensure that any reforms to the existing global financial architecture are more than just a facelift of octogenarian institutions? How can we create a new system that has Africa’s best interests at heart and realizes the tremendous growth and development potential that Myrdal recognised nearly six decades ago? Some important proposals have already been advanced. In its “evolution roadmap” released last year, the World Bank outlined a wide range of options to revamp its business model and boost its lending capacity to help its member countries deal with climate change and other global challenges. These include an injection of new capital, changes in the Bank’s capital structure, a higher statutory lending limit, lower equity-to-loan requirements, and deployment of callable capital. They also include innovative financial instruments such as guarantees for private-sector loans, and a new concessional lending trust fund to attract financing from bilateral shareholders and private foundations in support of growth and the green transition in middle-income countries. But for low-income African countries, which have remained highly vulnerable to global volatility and recurrent adverse commodity terms-of-trade shocks, the scale of development challenges calls for a massive injection of patient and affordable capital. In the short term, Guterres has called on the IMF to redirect US$100 billion a year in special drawing rights (SDRs, the Fund’s reserve asset), to pay for investments in sustainable development and climate action. Meanwhile, the Bridgetown Initiative, championed by Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, has proposed measures to channel more credit and investment into strengthening climate resilience. That includes providing debt relief and restructuring to climate-vulnerable countries, increasing official-development assistance to US$500 billion annually, and making international financial institutions more representative, equitable, and inclusive. But any meaningful reform should address the entrenched inequalities that are largely responsible for recurrent debt crises in low-income countries. Policymakers must devise a new and improved credit-rating system to account for countries’ growth prospects and long-term debt sustainability, while remaining consistent with the IMF’s assessment of macroeconomic stability. This would ensure that any improvements in macroeconomic fundamentals are credit positive and would provide equal access to reliable and affordable capital. At the same time, this system should be underpinned by an inter-temporal approach to fiscal deficits that enables countries to mobilise funds for structural transformation – measures that increase deficits in the short and medium term may be necessary to put countries on the road toward long-term fiscal and debt sustainability. It will also be necessary to support the development of Africa’s digital infrastructure, as this would accelerate the transition to a multipolar monetary system and the use of local-currency settlement (LCS) arrangements. In addition to cutting transaction costs and boosting efficiency, the use of LCS for cross-border trade would boost intra-African trade, help ease the balance-of-payments constraints associated with dollar funding, and deepen regional integration. Considering that more than 85% of intraregional trade payments in Africa are rerouted offshore for clearing and settlements, adding an estimated US$5 billion per year to transaction costs, the increased use of LCS would yield significant benefits for the continent. The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, launched in 2022 as a complement to the AfCFTA, could be essential to achieving this goal. At the same time, a multipolar world requires a more democratic system for reserve-currency issuance, drawing on advances in digitalisation. This would make the international monetary system more stable and mitigate the perennial shortage of safe assets, which drives capital outflows from the Global South, often at inopportune times, with significant consequences for macroeconomic stability and growth. Many African countries have recently experienced currency gyrations because of these outflows, with an index combining depreciation against the US dollar and reserve depletion showing that exchange-rate pressures were at a six-year peak in Africa in 2022. To help drive the transition toward a multipolar monetary system, a reformed IMF could strengthen the global financial safety net, which would promote the growth of reserve-sharing arrangements and facilitate the multilateralization of LCS arrangements. Lastly, the new international financial system must support the development of liquid secondary markets for sovereign and corporate bonds, which would provide investors with flexibility, security, and a steady stream of income. Given that African countries’ external debt is largely denominated in dollars or euros (the “original sin” of sovereign-debt markets), such markets could mitigate foreign-exchange risk and help prevent the sudden stops in capital flows that have pushed African countries experiencing liquidity problems into debt distress, which imposes huge welfare costs. According to the World Bank, poverty levels increase by 30%, on average, after a country defaults on its external obligations and remain elevated for a decade. But debt need not be a path to default, persistent inequality, and intergenerational poverty. It can be a blessing, as evidenced by the key role it has played in the reconstruction and development of economies around the world. An oft-cited example is the perpetual bond that the United Kingdom issued in 1932, when the government realised that debt-service payments were reducing fiscal space and undermining postWorld War I reconstruction. The debt was finally redeemed in 2015. To be afforded the same opportunity, African sovereigns and corporate entities must be able to borrow reliably on reasonable terms, leaving behind the costly default-driven interest rates to which they have long been subjected. Any reform of the international financial system that does not provide equal access to capital, especially affordable and patient capital to invest in human resources, infrastructure, and the green transition, would be a facelift unacceptable to Africans. The good news is that Guterres’s call to reform the global financial system is being well received, even by one-time apostles of the Washington Consensus. In fact, many of these former proponents now acknowledge that one-size-fits-all austerity measures are not appropriate if they ever were. In a much-praised Foreign Affairs article, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva deplored the fact that “many countries lack the technology, financial resources, and capacity to successfully contend with economic shocks on their own.” Ongoing efforts by the World Bank to boost its lending, together with the recent decision to increase IMF quotas by 50% are steps in the right direction. But more must be done to create an inclusive global financial system that works for all countries and builds climate resilience. Such a system must address the twin problems that prevent Africa, and the Global South more generally, from devising solutions to new development challenges: financial repression and a chronic technological deficit. In today’s “polycrisis” world, ensuring that all countries have access to green technology and affordable financing will be essential to combating climate change and providing hope to all who aspire to a fair share of global prosperity. — Project Syndicate. *About the writer: Hippolyte Fofack, a former chief economist and director of research at the African Export-Import Bank, is a research associate at the Harvard University Centre for African Studies, a distinguished fellow at the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils, and a fellow at the African Academy of Sciences. NewsHawks 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Page 44 Obituary Ali Hassan Mwinyi transitioned Tanzania to market economy NICODEMUS MINDE ALI Hassan Mwinyi, Tanzania’s second president who has died aged 98, pushed through tough economic and political reforms that transformed the East Africa nation from socialism to an open economy and a multi-party democracy. He was president from 1985 to 1995. He did all of this in the shadow of Julius Nyerere who had led Tanzania since independence in 1961 and turned the country into a one-party socialist state. Tanganyika joined together with Zanzibar in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. Nyerere stepped down in 1985 but remained chairman of the party that had ruled Tanzania since independence. Mwinyi’s presidency was always going to be a test, coming at a difficult period. The country was in a serious economic turmoil. Nyerere had admitted that the Ujamaa policy – Tanzania’s socialist experience – had failed. Nyerere decided it was time the country tried another leader. He stepped aside in 1985. During that period, the country had experienced drought, the impacts of the oil shocks and the Kagera War, which Tanzania fought to oust Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin. As a political science scholar, I have studied the politics, political parties and democratisation of Tanzania and Zanzibar in the last 10 years. It is my view that it took Mwinyi’s careful balancing act to ward off Nyerere’s influence after taking the presidency. He had to take bold decision amid the shadow of Mwalimu Nyerere who remained as the chairperson of the ruling party CCM. Mwinyi will be remembered for steadying the economic ship and setting ground for President William Mkapa to consolidate economic liberalisation. Although there are controversies as to whether he was truly a Zanzibari. This notwithstanding, his elevation as the first Zanzibari Union president somewhat helped to ease the Union tensions. In the postscript of his memoir, Mwinyi reflects on several issues and prided his legacy on the economic reforms he initiated. Early life A trained teacher, Mwinyi was born on 8 May 1925 in Mkuranga, Coast region, Tanzania Mainland. Between 1933 and 1942, he attended primary school at Mangapwani and Dole – Zanzibar. He studied for Diploma in Education from 1954 to 1956 at the University of Adult Education in Dublin, United Kingdom. He specialised in English and Arabic languages. He taught at Mangapwani and Bumbwini schools in Zanzibar. He later served as an ambassador, and minister in various government ministries before becoming president of Zanzibar. A rank outsider, Mwinyi’s elevation to the presidency of Tanzania was rather fortuitous. Nyerere had other preferred successors. Aboud Jumbe, the man who Mwinyi succeeded as president of Zanzibar in 1984 was Nyerere’s preferred successor. Nyerere had always wished a Zanzibari to succeed him as a way of galvanising the Union which was formed in 1964. However, the tense political period between 1983 and 1984 culminated with Jumbe falling out of favour, and being kicked out as the president of Zanzibar and as vice president of the Union government. By virtue of being president of Zanzibar and vice president of the Union, Mwinyi became Nyerere’s compromise successor. Nyerere had described Mwinyi as honest, humble, and a loyal socialist. The reforms Mwinyi was not a socialist. At the time he was taking over as president of Tanzania, Mwinyi compared himself to an anthill, succeeding the colossal socialist ideologue. He carefully negotiated and struck a balance between loyalty to Nyerere and driving the reforms. Chief among his reforms was re-initiating negotiations with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – two institutions Nyerere had fallen out with. These negotiations meant that Tanzania was transitioning to a liberal market-led economy. During Mwinyi’s first term in office, he launched the three-year Economic Recovery Programme in 1986. The aim was to spur positive growth, reduce inflation and restore sustainable balance of payments. With this programme, there was an upturn in the country’s economy with the GDP growing at an average rate of 3.9% compared, to 1% during the 1980-1985 period. There was also a 4.8% increase in agricultural productivity, a 2.7% upsurge in manufacturing as well as a significant growth in external investment. The downside to these reforms was the rise in corruption and misappropriation of public funds. These economic reforms necessitated political reforms. President Mwinyi was able to rally the ruling CCM party, which was reluctant to accept International Monetary Fund and World Bank conditions. In 1992, the Mwinyi administration acceded to constitutional amendments with a return to multiparty politics. Foreign policy Mwinyi also changed Tanzania’s foreign policy. Tanzania had modelled itself as a champion of pan-Africanism and African liberation. This was the key pillar of the country’s post-independent foreign policy. In line with Tanzania’s position regarding apartheid South Africa, Mwinyi called for tough sanctions as a means of defeating white minority rule. The transition from Nyerere to Mwinyi in 1985 heralded a new foreign policy with major conflicts in the Great Lakes Region. As President Mwinyi was settling into his second term, conflicts in the Great Lakes began, with Tanzania feeling the need to act as a mediator. In the 1990s, Tanzania was the key facilitator in the Rwanda domestic crisis. The Rwanda Genocide of 1994 had immediate impact on Tanzania with massive inflows of refugees. President Mwinyi admitted in his autobiography that the Rwanda Genocide was one of his greatest foreign policy challenges. He recalled the circumstances leading to the events of 6 April 1994, the start of the genocide. He had called for the meeting to discuss the peace and security in Burundi and Rwanda in Dar es Salaam. After the meeting ended, Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira and Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana left in one plane which was shot down, sparking off the genocide in Rwanda. Tanzania received many refugees fleeing the killings. In 1995, Tanzania’s city of Arusha became host of the UN backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to investigate those charged with genocide. During Mwinyi’s second term in office, plans to revive the East African Community began with the signing of an agreement to establish the permanent commission for East African Cooperation in 1993. This process culminated with reformalisation of the East African Community in 2000. But it is Mwinyi’s contribution to liberalisation that will be his enduring legacy. — The Conversation. *About the writer: Nicodemus Minde is adjunct lecturer at the United States International University in Kenya. The late Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Tanzania’s second president. NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
Africa News Page 45 PHILIP KOFI ADOM AFRICAN countries will suffer significant economic loss after 2050 if global warming is not limited to below 2°C, a new study by the Center for Global Development has found. Environment and energy economist Philip Kofi Adom is the author of the report. He synchronised many years of research by climate change scientists and researchers and found that west and east Africa will fare worst. We asked him about his findings. You found climate change will reduce Africa’s crop earnings by 30%. How will this affect people? If climate change continues on its current trend, crop production in Africa will decline by 2.9% in 2030 and by 18% by 2050. About 200 million people risk suffering from extreme hunger by 2050. The crop revenue loss of approximately 30% will cause a rise in poverty of between 20% and 30% compared to a no-climate-change scenario. How this will happen is that climate change will drive agricultural production down, so crop sales will suffer although scarcity will raise prices. In Africa, 42.5% of the working class is employed in the agricultural sector. The incomes of those, mostly rural, workers will decline. Already, a higher share of people living in rural areas are poor and most impoverished people in Africa are concentrated in the rural areas. The decline of the agricultural sector is likely to push more people into severe poverty. We will also face food security issues and those who work in the agricultural sector will face the risk of losing jobs. Rural farmers who rely only on rain and have no irrigation systems to grow their crops will suffer the most. You project a long term Africa-wide gross domestic product (GDP) decline of 7.12%. What impact will this have? When we speak of the long term, we are looking at 2050 and beyond. GDP tells us the wealth status of economies at any point in time. Through wealth creation, businesses emerge and jobs are created. Taxes collected pay for infrastructural investment, investment in social services and provision of social support like health insurance and unemployment insurance. With a 7.12% decline in GDP, these wealth creating potentials in the economy are going to be severely affected should climate change continue at the current pace. Country-level projections have suggested much greater economic losses in GDP, ranging from 11.2% to 26.6% in the long term, in the most affected regions of Africa. When economies shrink in size, businesses could close down, certain jobs will be destroyed and new jobs will not be created. For the people of Africa, this is very significant because it is predicted that in the coming years, the continent’s population will reach over 2 billion. The African population is the world’s most youthful. So if African economies shrink, where would those young people find their source of livelihood? That is a great concern. 50 million Africans are likely to be pushed into into water distress. What does this mean? It means severe water shortages in homes and industries. For example, if you used to have access to water all day, you are going to have a much lower supply – a quantity so low that it does not meet your needs. This is a demand and supply issue. There will be higher demand for water resources but because of the short supply, water prices will shoot up. Going into the future, if nothing is done, water across Africa will be very expensive. Can adaptation and mitigation help us avoid this disaster? When we talk about climate change it is community or collective action. Obviously, governments are the big players. The government has to foster the change efforts that are required by supporting private initiatives in climate adaptation and mitigation – either directly or through incentive designs. No attempts at adaptation and mitigation are too small. If these small efforts are coordinated, we can expect to see results. Individual households and individual businesses can do a lot. For example, people can cut down on the amount of meat and dairy eaten or change how transport is used – resorting to cycling, walking or public transport when possible. At home, energy saving practices can be adopted. And green spaces must be respected and protected. People who use banks should ensure they conduct responsible investment. It is always important to know what kind of investment the bank is using money for. If it is not something that is climate friendly, customers and clients can speak about that. Whatever the side effects will be, everyone will be at the receiving end. Everyone has a voice and it is important to use it on climate related issues. What should African leaders be doing? Climate change is an ongoing and impending environmental crisis. Luckily there is the chance to do something about it before the unthinkable happens. I urge African leaders to be very proactive in their climate change and mitigation efforts. The agricultural sector is the economic mainstay for most economies in Africa and climate change poses a grave danger to it. Climate change may create a state of perpetual economic distress if we fail to act now. — The Conversation. *About the interviewee: Philip Kofi Adom is associate professor, School of Economics and Finance, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Climate crisis: alarming Africa-wide report predicts 30% drop in crop revenue, 50 million without water NewsHawks 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
JASON STEARNS/JOSHUA Z. WALKER IN the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), South African, Burundian and Tanzanian troops are fighting against the Rwandan army, which has deployed in support of the rebellion by the March 23 Movement, or M23. Soldiers from South Africa and Burundi, as well as from the United Nations peacekeeping mission, have recently suffered casualties. In the crossfire, civilians have fled: seven million Congolese are now displaced due to this and multiple other crises in the DRC. Diplomats are concerned: the conflict in the eastern DRC was the subject of a special meeting at the United Nations Security Council on 20 February 2024 and a mini-summit on the sidelines of the African Union annual meeting of heads of state on 16 February. Rwanda, which has denied backing M23, says the Rwandan rebel group — Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) — which includes combatants who participated in the 1994 genocide, has been fully integrated into the Congolese army. It also claims that the Congolese government is engaged in “massive combat operations” aimed at expelling Congolese Tutsi civilians. The Congolese government has mounted a campaign against Rwanda. In December, while he campaigned for re-election, President Félix Tshisekedi compared his Rwandan counterpart to Adolf Hitler and accused him of expansionist aims. In January, the Burundian president Évariste Ndayishimiye closed his border with Rwanda and accused the country of backing rebels against him. He stopped just short of calling for Kagame’s ouster. We have been working on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for around 20 years. This wave of violence resembles previous ones, but is also different. At the root of the M23 conflict are countries such as Rwanda and Uganda, intent on projecting power and influence into the eastern DRC, while the Congolese government seems incapable and often unwilling to stabilise its own territory. Donors and United Nations peacekeepers provide humanitarian aid, but do little to transform these dynamics. Resolving this crisis will require less hypocrisy from foreign donors, the end of Rwandan aggression, and a more accountable Congolese government. But the hopes of a grand bargain are far off, for now. The current peace processes – a “Nairobi process” for domestic negotiations and a “Luanda process” for regional talks – are dead or on life support. The upcoming elections in Rwanda (July 2024) and the US (November 2024) will likely not help cool heads or focus minds. But it is clear that ending the violence will require a new approach, one that places the lives of innocent Congolese civilians at its centre. Beginning of regional escalation During the early days of his presidency, Tshisekedi’s army collaborated intensely with the Rwandan army, allowing troops to conduct operations against the FDLR on Congolese territory in 2019 and 2020. In late 2019, his government even recommended dropping charges against the M23 commanders, then in exile. Less than three years after winning power, however, Tshisekedi changed his approach, breaking his coalition with his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, and moving to cement his position in power. He declared a state of siege in two eastern provinces, shuffled generals around in the army, and sidelined key securocrats. He also shifted gears in his regional relations. By mid-2021, Tshisekedi had begun to privilege relations with Uganda, then a bitter rival of Rwanda. Notably, Tshisekedi gave permission to the Ugandan army to deploy somewhere between 2 000 and 4 000 troops to hunt down Allied Democratic Forces rebels, an Islamist Ugandan rebellion based in the eastern DRC. Shortly after that, he did the same for the Burundian army, which had its sights on RED-Tabara, rebels based in the DRC seeking to overthrow the government of Ndayishimiye. Rwanda suddenly felt isolated, even vulnerable, surrounded by hostile neighbours. According to United Nations investigators, it probably resumed throwing its weight behind the M23 in November 2021. It is above all these regional tensions, coupled with its goal of maintaining influence in the Congo, that pushed it to move. Since then, the regional fault lines have shifted. Rwanda has patched up relations with Uganda, and the East African Community intervention force — Kenyan, South Sudanese, Burundian and Ugandan troops — that deployed in 2022 to help quell the violence was asked to leave just a year later. This is because their hosts saw them as dragging their feet, if not complicit with the M23. Tshisekedi, who came into office seeing east African countries as allies, has now turned southwards. Military changes in eastern DRC Beginning in late 2023, a new force from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) began deploying troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi to take the fight to the M23, alongside the Burundian army. Already, these forces have begun to take casualties. Two South African soldiers were killed on 14 February by a mortar strike; two others were injured when their helicopter took fire. Some sources indicate that Burundian soldiers have taken heavy losses. The rising degree of military sophistication also raises eyebrows. The US government has accused Rwanda of deploying surface-to-air missiles, UN officials have reported armed drones striking their bases, while Tanzania has sent Soviet-era BM-21 Grad rocket launchers. The DRC has bought nine Chinese CH-4 combat drones (three of which have reportedly been shot down already). Meanwhile, the Congolese army has partnered with private security contractors as well as with an array of local militia, collectively dubbed Wazalendo (patriots), who are poorly trained and disciplined. There are credible reports from late 2023 that, as in the previous year, they are also partnering with the Rwandan FDLR rebels. And yet, the Congolese government has been unable to make much headway. In early February, M23 forces surrounded the lakeside town of Sake, just 30km west of the provincial capital Goma. This most recent push has displaced another 135,000 people toward Goma; there are around half a million displaced people around the town now. Mixed signals Unlike the previous M23 crisis, influential foreign actors have sent mixed signals. At the UN Security Council on 20 February, the US and France called on Rwanda to withdraw their troops from the DRC. The US has gone the furthest of all of Rwanda’s donors, sanctioning a Rwandan general, suspending all military aid, and attempting to broker a ceasefire in December 2023. And yet, the US remains, by far, the largest donor to Rwanda, which receives the equivalent of around a third of its budget in aid. Other countries have pushed much less or not at all. While the M23 rebellion was going on, the British Commonwealth held its big biannual meeting in Kigali in 2022 and the UK struck a controversial asylum deal with Rwanda. The EU gave US$22 million to support the deployment of the Rwanda Defence Force in Mozambique. On 19 February, the EU announced a deal to boost mineral exports from Rwanda. This last piece of news caused an uproar in the DRC, touching on the popular belief that minerals are the root of the crisis. While the causes of the violence are far more complex than that, they have a point: the largest export from Uganda (56% in 2021), Rwanda (23%), and Burundi (29%) in recent years has been gold, almost all of which is smuggled to their countries from the DRC. In the long term, the DRC government will need to undertake a host of reforms to quell these cycles of conflict. They include reforming the Congolese army, a new demobilisation programme for armed groups, an economic development programme that would allow Congolese to benefit from their resources, a plan for communal reconciliation, and an end to discrimination against Kinyarwanda speakers. But none of that can happen as long as Congo’s neighbours continue to destabilise it. — The Conversation. *About the writers: Jason Stearns is assistant professor at the School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University, Canada. Joshua Z. Walker is director of programmes, Congo Research Group, Centre on International Cooperation, New York University, United States. DRC-Rwanda crisis: What is needed to prevent regional war FARDC forces near Goma. Page 46 Africa News NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
JONATHAN MBIRIYAMVEKA ZIMBABWE’S Afro-fusion boy band Mokoomba are set to perform at the 53rd edition of New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in the US state of Louisiana on 25 April 2024. The award-winning band will then head to the Jazz Café in London, United Kingdom on 21 August 2024 for yet another world-class performance. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, or as the locals call it, Jazz Fest, is the celebration of the unique culture and heritage of New Orleans and Louisiana. Featuring an endless amount of music, succulent local and regional delicacies, one-of-a-kind handmade arts and crafts, second-line parades and so much more — there is something for everyone at the Jazz Fest. According to the official website, over the years the Jazz Fest has received many honours, including being named Festival of the Year four times by Pollstar magazine. “The Wall Street Journal says Jazz Fest ‘showcases a wider, deeper lineup of essential American musical styles than any festival in the nation . . .'." and Life magazine has called the Jazz Fest 'the country's very best music festival'.” With 13 stages of soul-stirring music — jazz, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, blues, R&B, rock, funk, African, Latin, Caribbean, folk, and much more — the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is a singular celebration. The event has showcased most of the great artises of New Orleans and Louisiana of the last half-century: Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, The Neville Brothers, Wynton Marsalis, Dr John, Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr, Ellis Marsalis, The Radiators, Irma Thomas, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Allen Toussaint, Buckwheat Zydeco, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Better Than Ezra, Ernie K-Doe, Vernel Bagneris, The Zion Harmonizers, Beausoleil, and many others. And for those not in the know, Mokoomba is made of high school friends, Mathias Muzaza — lead vocals, percussion, Trustworth Samende — guitar, backing vocals, Abundance Mutori — bass, backing vocals, Donald Moyo — keyboard, backing vocals, Ndaba Coster Moyo — drums, backing vocals and Miti Mugande — percussion, backing vocals. Their music or rather sound is influenced by Zimbabwean traditions and what sets them apart from the rest is the delivery in languages that represent the country’s diverse cultures and people. It could be Tonga, Shona, Luvale, Ndebele and English appealing to a wider crossover audiences. So far the band has toured wide and far, buoyed by their albums Kweseka (Zig Zag World, 2009), Rising Tide (Zig Zag World, 2012), Luyando (Outhere Records, 2017) and the latest Tusona. Mokoomba brings a rich African sound to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage, sharing the stage with some of the greatest music bands, including the likes of The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Chris Stapleton, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, The Killers, Queen Latifah, Widespread Panic, Bonnie Raitt who once did a rendition of Oliver Mtukudzi’s Hear Me Lord, Fantasia, Earth, Wind & Fire, Big Freedia, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue and Juvenile with Mannie Fresh from the old skool hip-hop era. The 53nd edition of what is officially the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell encompasses two four-day weekends at the Fair Grounds, April 25-28 and May 2-5, filling 14 stages each day. This year’s festival spotlights the music and culture of Colombia. Seventeen Colombian bands, as well as Indigenous and Afro-Colombian artisans, will be featured at the festival’s newly rechristened Expedia Cultural Exchange Pavilion and elsewhere. STYLE TRAVEL BOOKS ARTS MOTORING Porsche just got angrier Being a Fashion Model Life&Style Page 47 Issue 168, 1 March 2024 Mokoomba to perform in the US and UK
Page 48 People & Places Media titan Rupert Murdoch (92) is engaged once more Rupert Murdoch and Elena Zhukova. NewsHawks Issue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
A COMBINED 171 international white-ball cricket caps. A two-time Currie Cup winner in consecutive seasons. A long-serving Test rugby captain, one of Africa’s most respected players in the sport. Seasoned Davis Cup tennis campaigners alongside their non-playing captain. An Olympic sprinter, the country’s fastest man. You can go on and add more, if you know the Zimbabwean sporting landscape in-depth. The composition of Zimbabwe’s delegation to the African Games in Ghanaian capital Accra reads like a mini-Olympics touring party, for a continental event that should have been a timely opportunity to start afresh in a nation going through a rough patch on the sporting front. By all means, the African Games must be respected. However, in the same vein, participating nations have a duty to protect the integrity of not only their athletes, but also the standing of the different sporting codes represented. Sending athletes who fit that level of competition cannot therefore be understated in this professional era. Priorities need to be set right and in this regard there will be some questions asked of some members of the different Zimbabwean teams off to Ghana. Zimbabwe, one of the only 12 full members of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in the world, have selected five full international players in their squad for cricket’s African Games debut. They have resisted what looked like the logical thing to do, taking an entirely developmental side to kickstart a painstaking rebuilding process following a string of disastrous results that have left a huge dent on the reputation of Zimbabwean cricket. The 23-year-old national team wicketkeeper Clive Madande captains the side in Accra and is accompanied by four other internationally-capped Zimbabwe players in Tadiwanashe Marumani, Nick Welch, Tony Munyonga and Brian Bennett. Is this a sign of desperation for results? “I beg to differ,” replied renowned development coach Stephen Mangongo when I spoke to him days ago. “We lost to Uganda, and we lost to Namibia (in T20 World Cup qualifiers), with our full national side. So we got to buckle down and work ten-fold to get to the levels desired by a Test nation. We can’t kid ourselves that we are above Uganda until we put them in their place in T20.” Mangongo will be in Accra as technical adviser of the Zimbabwe men's cricket team, coached by former national team captain Elton Chigumbura. “However,” added Mangongo. “We are also cognizant of the building phase which ZC has undertaken by establishing the Under-25 project. Therefore in the squad to the African Games the majority are Under-25 members. We will be assessing their preparedness to leapfrog to international cricket.” The other major team on the Zimbabwe delegation, rugby Sevens, is also not risking it. They have gone with an even stronger international flavour following a horrific chapter in recent years in which the once dangerous underdogs of the world sevens circuit have continued their steady decline. Lifeless and error-ridden performances in September 2022 at the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Cape Town and then at Africa’s Olympics qualification competition in Harare a year later make you forget the last time any Zimbabwean senior national team played some good quality rugby. Now, when you thought the African Games was the perfect platform to hit the reset button, those in control aren’t seeing things that way for now. Here comes again 31-year-old Hilton Mudariki, the experienced captain of Zimbabwe in the premier version of the game, who is back to lead in the shorter format. For entertainment value it’s great, because somebody like Tapiwa Mafura will definitely wow the Accra crowds with his trickery and deceptive play, which a showpiece like the African Games needs. But for a top-class player who has won back-to-back Currie Cup titles in South Africa with two different provinces, he may feel he should have rather been playing somewhere else. In reaction to the make-up of the Accra-bound side, a member of the outstanding Zimbabwe team that took the plate trophy at the 2009 World Cup Sevens simply remarked: “Guys need a win badly.” Again, they are not the only sport that wants it badly, to try and restore battered pride. After heavy defeat in tennis to Hong Kong in early February to be relegated to Africa Group III of the Davis Cup, Zimbabwe is going to Ghana with the ever-presented brothers Benjie and Courtney Lock. But then again, let’s see. It could be another false sense of reality we are having here and the African Games may humble us if we continue to “kid ourselves” like cricket’s Mangongo puts it. ZIMBABWE’S AFRICAN GAMES SQUADS Athletics: Gerren Muwishi (captain) Ashley Kamangira, Rutendo Nyahora, Ngoni Makusha, Simon Artwell Allington, Wellington Varevi, Bradley Makuvire, Kelvin Chiku, Isaac Mpofu, Busani Ndlovu, Dickson Kamungeremu, Leeford Zuze: Faith Dube (coach), Aaron White (manager). Cricket Women: Mary-Anne Musonda (captain), Sharne Mayers, Josephine Nkomo, Kelis Ndhlovu, Loreen Tshuma, Nyasha Gwanzura, Francisca Chipare, Lindokuhle Mabhera, Modester Mupachikwa, Kudzai Chigora, Pellagia Mujaji: Walter Chawaguta (head coach), Keith Kulinga (batting coach), Trevor Garwe (bowling coach), Caroline Nyamande (manager), Farai Mabasa (physiotherapist). Cricket Men: Clive Madande (captain), Tadiwanashe Marumani, Brian Bennett, Alex Falao, Tony Munyonga, Nick Welch, Johnathan Campbell, Owen Muzondo, Takudzwa Chataira, Trevor Gwandu, Wallace Mubaiwa, Tashinga Musekiwa, Kudakwashe Macheka, Rodney Mupfudza: Elton Chigumbura (head coach), Njabulo Ncube (bowling coach), Elvis Sembezeya (manager), Travor Vambe (physiotherapist), Stephen Mangongo (technical advisor). Cycling: Skye Davidson (captain), Stacey Hyslop, Rodreck Shumba: Elton Muchemwa (coach), Albert Kirevha (mechanic). Chess: Linda Shaba, Jemusse Zhemba: James Vhezha (captain/ coach). Judo: Majaji Musariri (captain), Christie-Rose Pretorius: Simbarashe Mashayu (manager). Karate: Tapiwa Nyikadzino (captain), Tanyaradzwa Ziwira: Winston Nyanhete (coach/manager). Rugby, Sevens: Hilton Mudariki, Tapiwa Malenga (co-captains), Vuyani Dhlomo, Tapiwa Mafura, Godfrey Magaramombe, Kudakwashe Nyamakura, Tatenda Matoramusha, Ryan Musumhi, Edward Sigauke, Carlos Matematema, Nigel Tinarwo, Dion Khumalo, Trevor Gurwe, Munyaradzi Ngandu, Shadreck Mandaza: Ricky Chirengende (coach), Tafadzwa Mhende (manager). Swimming: Liam Davis, Paige Van Der Westhuizen (co-captains), Joash Mckonie, Denilson Cyprianos, Benjamin Rorke, Bjorn Mhlanga, Donata Katai, Mikayla Makwabarara, Vhenekai Dhemba, Olivia Accorsi: Kathy Lobb (coach), Shereen Lemon (manager). Tennis: Benjamin Lock, Rufaro Magarira (co-captains), Courtney Lock, Benedict Badza, Takanyi Garanganga, Sasha Chimedza, Tadiwanashe Mauchi, Tanyaradzwa Midzi: Ellen Chifamba (manager). Triathlon: Andie Kuipers (captain), Loma Doorman, Rohnan Nicholson, Callum Smit — Pam Fulton, Martin Mbofana (co-coaches). Sport Page 49 ‘Guys need a win badly’: Bruised Zim desperate for results in Accra fête Zimbabwe's underperforming rugby Sevens team is out to restore some battered pride at the African Games in Accra. Enock Muchinjo HawkZone NewsHawks 1ssue 168, 1 Marxh 2024
ENOCK MUCHINJO JOSEPH Nyoni creates a vibe wherever he goes, whoever he is with. He is a talker, an entertainer, and – more than anything else – an unshakeable optimist. This is how his old friends back home in Mbare remember him. It is also how he is known to the many new friends he has made in Luton, Leicester and now Liverpool – the three “Ls” in England that have been both his workstation and playground since he left the hustle and bustle of Harare’s oldest township two decades ago. To those who know him well, Joseph’s silence has been rather conspicuous since his 16-year-old son Trey Nyoni grabbed global headlines and became the talk of the town in Zimbabwe following his record-breaking FA Cup appearance for Liverpool last week. The Joseph they know – who used to tell everyone who cared to listen that his little Trey was a diamond in the making – wouldn’t have been able to keep calm and hide his joy. That Joseph would have probably also quickly corrected erroneous reports in the Zimbabwean press that young Trey’s father is a certain Mjubheki Nyoni, who is said to have played club football in the southern African country in the mid-1980s. For now, the real father of the Liverpool wonder-kid is sitting back at home in North West England, just soaking up all the attention directed towards his history-making son. Still in his early to mid-40s, perhaps being the father of a teenage prospect in the best football league in the world has tamed Joseph’s youthful enthusiasm a little bit, mindful now of his new status. A Luton resident and old connection of Nyoni from Zimbabwe, who only identifies as Mike, however doesn’t know of any dull moment with his pal Joseph. “Joze lived in Luton when he first came to the UK, he was a whole vibe from day one,” Mike tells The NewsHawks from the UK. “Ever since his boy started kicking a ball around, Joze has always hyped Trey at every opportunity. He just wouldn’t stop. He would be like ‘guys, mupfanha uyu (this kid) is going to be something else, mark my words. He is going to play in the Premier League’. Joze is seldom quiet, and I mean it in a good way. Everybody loves to spend time with him. Slightly misunderstood, yes, but he’s such a hilarious guy. By the time you separate, your ribs are almost cracking from laughter.” From Luton, Joseph and his wife moved to Leicester, where their son was accepted into the youth system of Leicester City Football Club. The family now lives in Liverpool after their son was signed by the Reds in September 2023, following the immensely gifted attacking midfielder’s huge impression with Leicester City’s youth teams. UK-born Trey last week became the youngest player to feature in the FA Cup for Liverpool, in a 3-0 win over Southampton, a few days after he was an unused substitute in the Merseysiders’ Carabao Cup final victory against Chelsea. For Mike, seeing his good friend’s son make this momentous step onto the professional scene brings memories of Joseph’s bold prediction flooding back. “I haven’t seen or spoken to Joze for some time now, but I know he is a very proud man right now,” remarks Mike. “If there is a father who deserves to see the fruition of a dream for his child, it is this guy. He had, or should I say it in the present tense, he has a big dream for his boy. I think it stems from his Mbare upbringing, the ghetto life. Joze was just a guy from Mbare when he came over here. Guys of his generation from the high-density suburbs carried big dreams when they left Zimbabwe. “They wanted to change their lives and the lives of their families in a big way. Joze is a football fan, he was extremely good at it himself growing up, a naturally gifted player. But by the time he came to the UK, football was now just a hobby. He had to work. He has however lived the football dream through his son, since Trey was born. He is Trey’s biggest role model and number one fan. I remember when Trey was little, he used to accompany his dad to our Zimbabwean social football matches. So Trey grew up watching his old man play alongside the likes of other Zim guys here like Bheki Mlotshwa, Morgan Nkatazo, Liberty Masunda, Pope Moyo, Obey Murefu. Good old Joseph: he would be the most vocal of them all! But he knew, we all knew, he was done as a footballer. Yet he was a big dreamer, and his big dream was his son becoming a top professional footballer.” Joseph’s sense of optimism for his son, says Mike, also reflects in his relationships with his friends. “This is just who he is, really,” Mike adds. “Joze is just a good-natured, genuine guy who truly cares about others, especially people from home in Zimbabwe. He’s a fun-loving and outgoing guy, a relatable person. He sees the good in everybody, whether you’re an old friend or a guy he has just met for the first time. He hypes you up as if you’re the best in the world at what you do. When he talks to you, or talks about you, you won’t believe you’re the same person being spoken about (…laughs). To be honest, if it was a different person speaking, you’d definitely feel a bit uncomfortable being flattered like that. But there is an aura about Joze that makes you relax and kind of feel like ‘actually, I think he is right, you know!’ That’s Joze for you.” People of Joseph Nyoni’s character wear their heart on the sleeve and, come to think of it, he is a big Liverpool fan. As a young boy in Zimbabwe, he fell in love with the six-time European champions when the mere thought of siring a Liverpool player would have been something alien. Nyoni loves winners, so in his Leicester days he keenly supported the Leicester Tigers, the Premiership Rugby club that has amassed 21 major titles in its history. Probably because of the Mbare connection, Joseph is also a great admirer of the Zimbabwean-British heavyweight boxer Derek Chisora, who like him has roots in the tough Harare neighbourhood where everyday life is about grit and persistence. But football is the one that runs deep in the family. Kuda Zinhu, Joseph Nyoni’s cousin, used to be a gifted schoolboy footballer back home in Zimbabwe, good enough that the whole school thought he would be one of the best talents to ever come out of the country. Zinhu, who also lives in England, had significant influence on his nephew when little Trey used to play backyard football at home. Years ago at Churchill Boys High School in Harare, Zinhu played alongside some household names in Zimbabwean football – George Mbwando, Elasto Kapowezha, Hope Chihota, Patrick Mandizha, Oscar Molife. So whatever was imparted on Trey by Uncle Kuda, some of it surely had a Zimbabwean flavour. What the Liverpool prodigy can also claim to have acquired is the Mbare DNA of natural athleticism and determination. NEWS $60 Covid tariff for visitors & tourists CULTURE Community radio regulations under review @NewsHawksLive TheNewsHawks www.thenewshawks.com Thursday 1 October 2020 WHAT’S INSIDE ALSO INSIDE Finance Ministy wipes out $3.2 Billion depositors funds Zim's latest land cStory on Page 3 Story on Page 8 Chamisa reacout to Khupe Unofficial president calls for emergeFriday 1 March 2024 Bruised Zim desperate for results in Accra fête ALSO INSIDE Sports Joze a guy from Mbare – meet Trey Nyoni’s hype dad and number one fan Thirteen-year-old Trey Nyoni (middle) pictured in December 2020 with his father Joseph Nyoni (left) and dad's friend Kudakwashe Kanhutu at an Under-7 match between Leicester City and Luton Town in the UK. Inset: A young Trey at home in 2011, showing his adoration for superstar Lionel Messi.