An Aggregator for Blogs From All Over Africa

The end of the first three months of dollarisation has comer to a close. Most companies have moved on from the relief of earlier in the year and the reality of lack of liquidity, competitiveness, imports, costly borrowing and punitive utility bills is the preoccupation. Bank deposits continue to grow but there is still sufficient political risk to ensure that money does not stay long with the banks and then they, in turn, often fail to provide the stipulated credit to borrowers. Those with the money are able to achieve around 12% on the USD and this money is then not available to industry. More and more investors are snooping around. There are suggestions that imports have dropped off again as external lines of credit have been temporarily exhausted.

Share This

The High Court in Bulawayo on Friday 29 May 2009 stopped Tel-One from disconnecting its customers as a way of forcing them to pay their bills.

That the bills are unreasonably priced is obvious but it is no secret that the company is broke; having made billions of trillions of worthless Zimbabwean dollars that remain stashed in the banks and cannot be useful to anyone any more, particularly not to Tel-One.

The court’s decision while popular is certainly not a solution. A sound communications facility will be vital in the country’s economic turnaround.

The issue of the company’s capitalization is of national strategic importance. Tel-One must devise strategies for fundraising to get it much needed working capital.

And because its customers knowingly enjoyed a ‘free’ service for a long period when the economy collapsed sometime during the last half of 2008 a compromise has to be reached.

The customers have to pay something to get the company back on its feet. Tel-One might be forced to consider ’switching of’ its clients and charging a reasonable ‘reconnection fee’ before it can be able to start billing its normal rates.

The arguments raised by its clients might appear factual, but are not honest. The parastatal found it broke, even if everyone claims to have paid their dues.

I hope our collective wish is that we get Tel-One and all the other companies, ZESA, ZBC working again so that information, I mean vital information, that will get this country back on its feet again reaches those who need it most.

I’ve just won a prestigious prize - tens of thousands of dollars (US) - thanks to that large, yellow-fleshed Swedish friend of mine, the one who nominated me for the Nobel Prize, which was won, would you believe it, by a racist white Afrikaner whose name I forget.

So, no, I don’t feel bad about winning a prize as a writer in exile.  We black female  writers with peasant backgrounds are the most discriminated against of all when it comes to prizes.  I’ve won only about twenty since I began publishing. The fact is, I can’t write when the mossies bite.  (Ha ha: I’m a poet and I didn’t know it!).   In Bulawayo that means November to March or April, depending on the rains.

Thanks to my Scandinavian, German, and Canadian fans (they have called me the Jane Austen of Africa although I believe I am better than her at marulas and stones), I have no problem with free accommodation at these divine writers’ retreats, which range from medieval castles to five star hotels.  They worship me.  After all, they say I am Zimbabwe’s greatest author. Eat your heart out, Doris Lessing!

I got the idea from these battered old Rhodies who can’t survive on the sort of income that their servants have been surviving on for decades.  They sell what’s left of their worldly possessions in order to buy a return ticket to England.  There they are in great demand as care-givers to the elderly.  After three months they have earned enough forex to live fairly comfortably in Zimbabwe for a year or two. Then they return to England for another stint.  A woman called Mrs Tennyson, who rents one of the servants’ quarters on my property in Kumalo suburb, and who teaches A-level Maths at one of the local private schools, told me her story.

What with spiralling inflation and a plummeting economy, teachers in Zimbabwe can no longer survive on their incomes.  It was only as a last resort that Mrs Tennyson decided to become a nanny in England.  Before that she tried to supplement her income by selling what she called “finger dips”, at church bazaars, flea markets, and school fetes.  She made egg cup sized containers out of tin foil, and then she went round the various hotels and restaurants of Bulawayo importuning the waiters for left over gravy.  The little she received was poured into a large enamelled pot and blended with herbs from her garden and shocking quantities of her home-made, used tea-leaves wine.  If the sucker hadn’t given away most of her dips she might have earned good money from her enterprise; but you know what these people are like?  Giving things away is so patronizing, so condescending, so racist, really, when you come to think of it.

The same thing happened with the used motor car oil (to bring out the glow in paving stones), which she importuned from petrol attendants at garages all over town.  Then it was shopping bags sewn from used plastic litter, tons of which, she informed me, can be gathered from the pathways that make diagonal connections with the road grids of suburban Bulawayo.  What was it after that? Oh yes: insect repellent made from repellent insects, crushed, and mixed in a Vaseline base; sold by the thimbleful.  She had inherited a thousand plastic thimbles in five different colours from her grandfather, Fred, who had been a frequenter of auctions and who could never resist what he considered a bargain.

Anyway, this loser, Mrs Tennyson, and her ilk, gave me an idea.  It’s always pissed me off, somewhat, that the one literary prize I haven’t been able to compete for is that which is awarded to a writer in exile.  I’ve done pretty well with all the other prizes.  One of my books, Called The Scent of Jacaranda, won a poetry prize in Canada, a novel prize in Sweden, and a play prize in Germany - all in the same year.  I used the money to buy this house, my Pajero, and my imported crystal chandelier.  Don’t touch it; it’s fragile; it came all the way from Vienna in Austria.

I said to myself, you can’t claim political exile since you are well up with the ZANU PF élite; and you can’t claim economic exile since royalties and prize money have helped you amass a small fortune;  you can, and will, however, claim exile from these pesky mosquitoes.  They interfere with your creative genius, which is a world heritage.  The rest, my dear, is history. From my place of exile, a five star hotel in Frankfurt, I submitted a piece called Jacaranda O Jacaranda.  The Scandinavian adjudicators (I know them all personally) were unanimous in awarding me the prize.  I intend to go into exile every year from now on, especially when those pesky mossies begin to bite.

My tour guide is Gift, 18 years old, with fiercely red eyes that stared out from a gaunt sallow face. Gift is from Nyanga originally, he left school in Form one, and has never had a job. He “works” the streets, the systems, watches cars, cleans cars, buys and sells commodities - and he lives in a ditch.

I have watched Gift grow up from a skinny little kid into even skinnier adulthood. There is a home for street kids in Bulawayo run by a wonderfully caring church group, but after Gift’s initial stay with them, he ran away, preferring the freedom of the streets. We took a trip to his “Home” which is not far from his main haunt - a suburban shopping centre in what was once an affluent residential suburb. Not any more!

Gift’s home comprises a shallow depression behind a fallen log; dead palm fronds, artfully placed, protect his privacy from passers-by. His worldly possessions include a broken bucket, a tiny wire mesh grate, several ragged blankets and various tin cups and plates.

He bathed every day, he told me, in a bucket of cold water from a tap near a hotel where wealthy tourists and businessmen stay during their visits to Zimbabwe. You can smell alcohol on Gift, but in spite of his horrendous living conditions, he also smelled of cheap soap!

Alcohol is his lifeline, he said - alcohol and dagga (cannabis). With these substances he can cope with “being laughed at” he said me sadly. A twist of dagga is easily and readily available for just one rand. Skokiaan is his preferred drink, costing two rands for a “scud”. (Skokiaan most typically refers to a fast brewed ‘home-brew’. It sometimes contains meths.)

We spoke about the cold at nights - Bulawayo had a black frost this week destroying some farm crops and many urban gardens - but Gift says he actually prefers the cold! He explained that during winter the snakes go underground to sleep. Gift is dreadfully afraid of snakes. He burns plastic bags at night to keep his fire going - he tells me that plastic burns for quite a long time. There is never a shortage of plastic bags flying around Bulawayo in spite of the recent “Keep our City Clean” campaign. He also prefers to sleep alone: I gathered from his conversation that something sad in his youth made him a bit of a loner.

Gift is well spoken despite his lack of formal education and happily took me on a tour of some of the town’s darker side.

“There ” he said, “under the bridge, live some bad criminals”. I could see smoke trickling out: I cross that bridge every day and this was the first time I learned that anyone lived underneath it! He introduced me to his friend Colin who lives nearby in similar lodgings. Colin is disabled both mentally and physically, and just nods slowly, his tiny face moving slowly from side to side: like a captive creature he shifts his weight constantly from one foot to the other.

Axes for sale

We progressed to the Railway Station area where there were groups of men gathered together in the sparse sunlight, garnering what little warmth they could from the suns rays, to prepare for the cold night ahead. There was no one sleeping on the pavements yet (during the day they are moved off) but as night falls, dozens of Bulawayo’s homeless return to what is possibly the only home they have ever known.

Gift prefers his own quarters, he does not partake of the soup kitchen so valiantly run by that amazing man Ben Strydom. “People laugh at me” he says, “they say I am young and I should get a job”. Unemployment runs at 90% in Zimbabwe: where on earth would he get a job he asks?

I wondered about his preoccupation and fear of “being laughed at” …..?

As we tour the city I take cognisance of all the small ways in which the unemployed were eking out a living: there outside the post office is a man who mends shoes. People were sitting on the pavement waiting while he repaired their shoes. A new sole here, a new strap here, a bottle of glue, a strip of leather, a few nails and he has a business! It was ingenious people like him who bore the brunt of Mugabe’s terrible Operation Murambatsvina.

Scanias for hire

There were dozens of scanias (push carts) littering the city, many of the owners lay dozing in the warm sun because their scania rental business has dropped since the initial flurry of forex has been spent. In more profitable times, these scanias would collect your goods from the railway station, move house for you, carry your goods from the market or the shop, all for a small fee.

Corner shop

Almost every street corner has a tiny shop consisiting of a cardboard box on which neat rows of sweets, cigarettes, oranges or tomatoes are arranged.

‘Juice-up’ guy

Every corner and traffic light also features a “Juice Up” man or woman - cards to top-up one’s cell phones can be purchased from the ‘juice-up’ man. For a tiny country we have an inordinate amount of cell phone providers!

We then came across Gift’s friend Cephas who sells apples. Cephas is twelve years old, he goes to school, but his mother is ill and so his afternoons are spent touting his apples around from corner to corner. Cephas does not like to just sit and sell, he likes to actually market his goods.

Cephas

He has a bottle of water with which he washes the apples and keeps them nice and glistening and they look deliciously appealing! The bruised sides are kept facing downwards. Two rand buys you a Granny Smith apple! Cephas tells me he sometimes earns seventy rand a day clear profit !

I took Gift back “Home” as dusk fell; he needed to cook before the sun went down. He promised that if I gave him some money he would not spend it on dagga or skokiaan, but would look for some warm accommodation.

According to the weather-man, the temperature would be reaching three degrees Celsius tonight.

Share This

Our potential to create wealth; the level at which we are operating at present; the reasons how we can get back to full throttle, should make the biggest news.

Is there nothing else that we can do on our own, to lift our selves from this mess before the issue of foreign investment is touted as the only option? It is interesting to note that a nation of more thon 12 million people seems to have one idea of doing things.

The motto of the just ended COMESA meeting was; “Buy African, Buy Africa”, for us in Zimbabwe it should be “Buy Zimbabwean, Buy Zimbabwe”. The first port of call should be local investment, with or without sanctions. Zimbabweans should be the first ones to invest to prove their confidence.

The success of the country’s economic turnaround should be measured by how we use the local investment that is lying idle before using foreign assistance.

A dangerous belief that we have no confidence in our own people is evident and does not bode well for the success of the economy.

In our weekly Kubatana email newsletter we asked our subscribers to tell us what they think of our politicians going on fund raising trips when revenues from our natural resources are corruptly (mis) managed.

We received some interesting response. A subscriber called Miles suggests that we need a complete overhaul of how we do things in Zimbabwe rather than adopting this piecemeal approach we have to fixing our broken country.

Check out some of the response we got . . .

Yes of course our first step should be getting our own house in order first, but that would require brave actions from a lot of Zimbabweans and I’m afraid the will amongst the masses just isn’t there. I worked in the 2002 elections as a security man for Harare Central Constituency. I had flown out from the UK and volunteered to do a job which no one else wanted.There were a lot more Zimbabweans who just put their heads under the covers and hoped the whole awful situation would just disappear, there are, percentage wise, very few people like Jenni Williams and members of WOZA who are prepared to demonstrate with a physical prescence, rather than the masses who just blog sites like the  Zim Times and moan incessantly “why isn’t anyone doing anything”. Mugabe and his gang, which now should probably include many opposition members as well, should be overthrown by the people as soon as possible. Everyday we put off the inevitable showdown is a day which we give to the Chefs to hide their assets and benefit from Marange. Zimbabwe requires a new Leader; a man whose sole remit is to place the needs of the people before anything else. A person who will lead by example. The ZNA needs to be re-entitled the Zimbabwean Army of Reconstruction and all weapons to be replaced by tools to help rebuild the infrastructure. All members of the Youth League to attend re-integration classes and proper counselling before being allowed back into the community. All Foreign Bank Accounts of all citizens to be repatriated to Zimbabwe and a thorough audit of their origins to be determined. A Truth and Reparation Council to be established. Zimbabwe will never take a step forward until reparations are made to those who have suffered by the perpetrators of that suffering. It is shameful that people like the Mujuru family sell ten tons of Congolese gold whilst their bretheren starve. The times of Mammon must cease, Greed cannot continue and Violence cannot prevail. The time for a Massive General Strike must be now .The people must take to the streets and say “Enough and no further. Chinja Maitiro”. But are you brave enough Zimbabwe? Are you brave enough? Somehow I don’t think so and if that is the case you deserve all you get! - Miles

I found the HRW report incisive and your comment important in terms of grounding the discussion in our reality at home and in engaging the rest of the world. I think we should start moving beyond abusing our resources through such privatization of public funds as is shown in the diamonds case. This is a strategy that unaccountable regimes get donor funds and parade it as conditional and meager to address our challenges while robbing the family kitty behind barricaded walls. We need more information on other sectors so that we can strengthen domestic demand for change financed slowly, transparently and incrementally towards a democratically defined and shared future.
- Kudzai

Do you think there are any diamonds left in Marange. I doubt very much. What about gold fields? Do we have any left? How about recovering money already looted by this mining? It does not cost anything only political will. Lets all work together to make this country better for future generations. Remember we  (SIT  UNDER A SHADE TODAY BECAUSE SOMEONE PLANTED A TREE MANY YEARS AGO) so lets stop the rot and all will be fine. All it needs is political will.
- Wellington

at 1 am in the morning Yemmerai asked to be taken to the clinic
she alone was let through locked gates by the security guard
at 5.30 am she had her baby boy - Tinashe (we are blessed by God)
at 2 pm she walked up the drive all smiles
and by 5.30 pm she had done her family’s washing

I remember that September 2008 was a tough month in Harare.  Tough for purchasing food that is.  This was before the selected legalization of US$ sales and before full-on dollarization.  The problem back then was either:  1) shops only had empty shelves or 2) the products were priced in ZWD based on having obtained those ZWD via transfer, meaning if one had obtained ZWD by exchanging cash for cash even a single banana would have cost something like US$10.  That month I was only eating what I had horded away in my cupboards.  I looked in shops every day, but could not afford anything since I was not a swiper.

Things changed in October 2008 when the powers that be dictated that shops could sell exported food in US$.  Thinking this dual currency system might be short lived, I bought loads of food.  Also perhaps I stocked up because, as the expression goes, I was like a kid in a candy store.  Just the sight of food on the shelves made me want one of everything.  I even bought food that I don’t really like, only because it was available.

I’ve returned to Harare after being away for six months.  Now the shelves are full.  Or at least full like they never were in 2008 or even in 2007.  Now everything is in US$.  High priced US$ to be exact.  It’s funny, in that not actually funny way.  Once in the fully shelved shops of Harare 2009, I still want to buy one of everything.  I suppose this is not surprising given that the last six months in the US have been the same thing.  I move down and around the 82-aisled overstocked US grocery stores and want to buy multiples of things.  In case they run out.

But back to what’s not actually funny.  When and how to get rid of Zimbabwean habits.  And not just in relation to purchasing food.  The habit of expecting and accepting corruption among political leaders.  Having to think and carefully strategize how to assert basic human rights.  Assuming the coming week will involve a lack of electricity and/or water.  Thinking vast swathes of fallow land is normal.

While in Harare I will attend a screening of the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell.  The film follows a group of brave and visionary women who fought for peace in Liberia.  As fighting increased in Monrovia, and peace talks faltered, the women of Liberia – Christian and Muslims united - formed a thin but unshakable white line between the opposing forces.  They successfully demanded the fighting end, armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions.  Liberian women called for peace — they prayed for the devil of war to get back to Hell.  At one point, the women barricaded the site of the stalled peace talks in Ghana.   Boldly announced they would remain until a deal was signed.  Faced with eviction, they invoked the most powerful weapon in their arsenal – threatening to remove their clothes.  It worked.  Peace came to Liberia and continues under the leadership of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

When I watch the film I will pray that devilish Zimbabwean habits get back to Hell.

The second report released yesterday by the Solidarity Peace Trust is titled  ‘Gone to Egoli’. Download the full report from the SPT website, or from Sokwanele’s document archive.

Executive Summary

There is not much likelihood that the formal economy in Zimbabwe will recover any time soon. It is likely to take over a decade before industry begins to recover in any meaningful way, and in the interim, Zimbabwe will continue to lose her youth to the diaspora, and those left behind will struggle to survive. Particularly in rural areas, grinding poverty is likely to be a factor for the indefinite future.

Diasporisation is escalating exponentially, with our sample families reporting a one hundred fold increase in the rate at which family members are leaving, between 1990 and 2009. However, there is not proving to be a corresponding return in remittances for rural families in Matabeleland.

While 59% of Zimbabweans in the diaspora are under the age of 30, only 4% of these send goods or money home on a regular basis – three times a year or more. Goods and money sent home do not lift families out of desperate poverty. 76% of families with members in the diaspora received NO money at all in 2008, and many of the remaining 34% received less than R100 a month. Goods sent home could amount to as little as 2 kg of sugar. When asked to describe the impact of having family members abroad, only 20% spoke of remittances. Most people referred to death, disease, criminal habits, broken marriages and diaspora orphans.

Families have been driven to bartering in the almost total absence of foreign exchange and goods for sale in rural areas. This has been ruthlessly exploited by the unscrupulous and at the end of last year, people in some parts of Matabeleland had to barter cows for 50kg maize meal each. Urban families have also resorted to barter as poverty overwhelms them.

The prospects are bleak for Zimbabwe’s poorest citizens, and for the nation’s youth. The next few years are unlikely to see the massive growth nationally that is needed to create the jobs that could change this reality. What is more likely, is that Zimbabweans will continue to stream across the borders – to be confronted in turn with the hardship of life on the streets in South Africa. Zimbabwe’s poor are getting poorer, and the degree to which remittances from abroad can mitigate against this, has been overestimated when judged against the findings of this study.

Share This

Solidarity Peace Trust released two new reports yesterday. Download ‘Walking a thin line’ from the SPT website, or from Sokwanele’s document archive.

Executive Summary

The Global Political Agreement signed on 15th September 2008 was an uneasy compromise between the two MDCs and Zanu PF, and was the result of a combination of factors: the weakening of both Zanu PF and the opposition, together with the social and civic forces that supported the MDCs; the disastrous economic and humanitarian descent in the country; pressure from SADC; and growing international isolation of the Mugabe regime. Moreover while for Zanu PF the GPA was a modality to claw its way out of the economic crisis and to begin a normalistion of international relations, the MDCs accepted the agreement as their only viable route to power, and a vital opportunity to begin a process of national political and economic revival.

The Transitional Government will continue to manifest the challenges of the Zimbabwe crisis, demonstrating the complexity of the national, regional and international dimensions of the situation. The new government has to face the challenges of dealing with overlapping legacies of colonial inequalities and post-colonial authoritarian rule, while attending to the post Cold War demands of North-South relations. In such a context the wrong forms of international interventions could well encourage divisions in the democratic movement, as well as a new convergence around nationalist questions of sovereignty across party lines, in the face of mounting frustrations caused by limited international support. In the absence of sound alternatives to the current political arrangement, the slow international response to the needs of the new government could strengthen the hand of the more regressive elements of the ruling party in the military and security, while frustrating the democratic forces within the transitional state. This risks around limited engagement with the transitional arrangement are much greater that a more substantive engagement by the international community.

A major obstacle to the GPA has been the continued failure of the new government to create a situation in Zimbabwe where there is total respects for human rights and the rule of law, notwithstanding the fact that the scale of harassment of civic and opposition members has been reduced from the extreme repression of 2008. The international community is unlikely to engage with any meaningful financial assistance until there is a clear return to the rule of law, respect for property rights and the genuine opening up of the media. However, the failure of the international community to engage could well threaten the fragile state of the GPA, which if it were to collapse, would lead to another round of violence and repression.

An uneasy calm prevails in some parts of the country, while in others tensions remain high in the wake of the horrific violence of 2008. This serves to underline the need for healing in Zimbabwe and it is commendable that a Ministry of National Healing has been established. There is need for this organ to allow for the encompassing of a variety of approaches. It is unlikely that the compromised space of the GPA will allow for high level prosecutions or for the establishment of an effective truth commission, but debates about the future possibility of such processes should begin. To facilitate such processes and to deepen democratic debate in the country media reform needs to be speeded up.

Access to Humanitarian resources and coping strategies in Matabeleland.

In focusing on the access to humanitarian resources and the coping strategies in one part of the country, Matabeleland, the following major findings were recorded:

• In 2008 families were largely excluded from access to both health and education. While over the last six months there has been some improvement in access to education, and some erratic improvement in rural clinic delivery, the situation in rural Zimbabwe in 2009 remains generally dire.
• The majority of families interviewed (65%) have not harvested more than a few months of grain, and will be in need of donor food relief again by September 2009. This food security is already being undermined by the fact that families in rural Zimbabwe do not have access to foreign exchange, meaning that they are being forced to pay school fees, bus fares and grinding mill fees with their meager harvests. Bartering and the loss of able-bodied people to the Diaspora continue to impoverish rural Zimbabweans, increasing the already heavy burden on female-headed households.
• Because most rural families have little or no access to foreign exchange, it is not financially viable for small business owners in rural business centres to restock, given the limits of the local market.
• Political violence is not apparent in rural Matabeleland. Democratic spaces have opened up and people are able to meet more freely and debate contentious issues without interference. However in Bulawayo itself problems persist, with students and members of WOZA arrested and assaulted this year when conducting peaceful demonstrations.

Recommendations

1. One of the central factors in ensuring the success of the GPA is to put in place economic policies that will provide more security of livelihoods for Zimbabwean citizens. This can only be done though a combination of effective mobilisation of national resources, with support from SADC and the international community.
2. It is vital for the international donor community to carefully calibrate its interventions with the transitional government. The current humanitarian interventions must be complemented by key developmental support in order to assist in developing the material basis for a national reconciliation process in Zimbabwe.
3. Conditions for international support must be based on the benchmarks set by the transitional government itself, which must in turn be based on the central democratic demands of the GPA.
4. There must be a more open debate within the democratic forces in the country over the continued basis for Sanctions in the current context. There are too many mixed messages emerging around this problem.
5. Continued ways must be found to fund the transitional government without at the same time perpetuating the dual authority in the current state structures, which have the potential to provide the more regressive actors in Zanu PF with basis to derail the GPA.
6. Strong steps must be taken by the guarantors of the GPA, SADC and the AU, to ensure that the democratic and human rights reforms of the GPA are implemented with greater speed. The continued abrogation of the elements of the GPA by the ruling party must come under censor.
7. All parties to the agreement must ensure the constitutional review process is not hindered by the obstructive interventions of any party to the agreement, and that, as much as possible within the framework of the GPA, the concerns of civil society are attended to around this process.
8. From the findings of the Diaspora study it is clear that many families in the rural areas are not being sustained by remittances. This adds urgency to the need for sustainable economic reforms that will provide greater security for the livelihoods of the majority of Zimbabweans.

Share This