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Addressing a press conference, the minister acknowledged that de-dollarizing was not an easy task, but vowed that enforcement and compliance will be pursued to ensure no use of the U.S. dollar for unauthorized transactions.

The Zimbabwe government abandoned the hyperinflation-ravaged national currency in 2009 in favor of multiple currencies that included the U.S. dollar, British Pound, Euro, Australian dollar, Chinese Yuan and Japanese Yen.

However, of all the foreign currencies, the U.S. dollar became the dominant currency of trade and transacting in the country.

But in June this year, government suddenly re-introduced the Zimbabwe dollar as part of currency reforms.

The local currency is currently made up of electronic money known as Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), bond notes and coins and new dollar notes that were introduced last week.

But as the new notes remain in short supply and continue to depreciate against the U.S. dollar, most businesses are reportedly continuing to charge their goods and services in the U.S. dollar.

Ncube said Zimbabweans had become used to the green back such that it will not be easy for them to quickly forget it.

“It is not correct that the local currency has been rejected. People are desperately looking for the money. It’s not also easy to de-dollarize. There are too few cases around the world where they have de-dollarized successfully,” Ncube said.

Meanwhile, deputy minister of finance Clemence Chiduwa told the same press conference that the government was considering coming up with tight measures to deal with the thriving black market for foreign currency.

He said one such measure would be designating a few commercial banks that allow depositors to freely withdraw their money from Nostro foreign currency accounts to purchase goods abroad.

But upon return, the individuals would be requested to declare the source of foreign currency and if it’s not from official sources, such goods would be forfeited to the State.

He lamented the current scenario where businesses are now indexing the price of goods and services against movements of the exchange rate on the parallel market.

“Our inflation rate at the moment is now being driven by expected movements in the parallel market rate.

“What is just needed is to ensure that all the laws that are supposed to guide the operations of economic agents are in place. What is needed on our part is compliance and enforcement,” he added.

Post published in: Business

Chiwenga, the 63-year-old former general who led a coup against the late Robert Mugabe two years ago, has spent a large part of the year away from work, also receiving treatment in South Africa and India.

His health is of great interest to Zimbabweans as he is widely seen as the driving force behind the country’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the front-runner to succeed him. His absence from public duties had stoked speculation about the gravity of his illness, which authorities have sought to play down.

The Herald, a government-owned newspaper, showed images of Chiwenga arriving at Harare’s airport in the early hours of Saturday, looking healthier than when he was last seen in public in June. He was welcomed by relatives and China’s deputy ambassador to Zimbabwe Zhao Baogang, the newspaper said.

Local private media have reported that Chiwenga’s health deteriorated in July and that he underwent two operations following a suspected poisoning.

Chiwenga and government officials were not available to comment on Saturday.

Government officials in Zimbabwe routinely seek medical treatment abroad while the country’s public health system has collapsed and hospitals struggle to provide medicines to patients.

Many Zimbabweans are angry that top government officials continue to travel abroad for treatment while state hospitals are turning away patients because doctors have been on a pay strike since September.

The government has so far fired 435 doctors for participating in the strike.

Post published in: Featured

HARARE — The European Union is concerned that the democratic space in Zimbabwe has deteriorated since it opened talks with Harare in June for the first time since 2001 in a bid to turn the page on years of hostile relations.

An EU memo prepared for its diplomats ahead of talks in Harare on Thursday said the arrests and abductions of several political activists had “reinforced the impression that the democratic space is being curtained again”.

The memo, seen by Reuters, also said the EU was worried by Harare’s slow pace of political reforms, including the alignment of laws to the constitution that was adopted in 2013.

The EU withdrew budget support to Zimbabwe in 2002 when it imposed sanctions on the late Robert Mugabe’s government over charges of political violence, human rights abuses, vote rigging and violent seizures of white-owned farms.

Post published in: Featured

China to keep up Africa infrastructure loans despite debt-trap claims

Will China ever tire of Zimbabwe’s corruption and bad debt?

As Zimbabwe remembers the second anniversary of the ‘resignation’ of long-time dictator Robert Gabriel Mugabe on 21 November 2017 – marking the end of his 37 year reign of terror – it is shocking how easily and quickly history has been distorted in order to fit a deceptive narrative that seeks to portray events that captured the entire world for those two weeks, as a result of a mass people’s revolution.

What a blatant lie!

The events of November 2017 in Zimbabwe were nothing in the mould of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ wave that swept through north Africa and parts of the Middle East in 2011 – since these were certainly people-driven revolutions, that led to the removal of iron-fisted despots, which is in stark contrast to the military coup d’etat that was witnessed the southern African country.

History is a critical and pivotal part of any person, family, society, tribe, race, religion, and nation – and as such, is a foundation that should never be tampered with, or altered, to serve a narrow and myopic self-serving agenda. Thus, any history’s authenticity should be guided jealously.

This should also apply to the events that shook the nation of Zimbabwe – and the world – in November 2017, as these were a far cry from the bastardized narrative being peddled by mostly regime agents and, unfortunately, some amongst the ordinary people.

History is usually based on irrefutable facts, and those who deliberately seek to misrepresent such facts are those with a dubious and sinister motive – mostly for self-serving and perverted causes.

Such perfectly applies to Zimbabwean authorities who have over the past two years sought to disguise an unquestionable military coup d’etat as a popular revolution – possibly in an effort to attain both local and international acceptance for something that is generally frowned upon.

For a more precise and logical understanding of what truly transpired in 2017, there is no better and clearer evidence that a timeline of events of those critical two weeks in November.

As is now common knowledge, there had been openly vicious, bruising and even brutal factional fighting within the ruling ZANU PF for several years (all vying to replace the ailing and nonagenarian leader) before the coup d’etat – that witnessed the unceremonious sacking of vice president Joice Teurai Ropa Mujuru on 9 December 2014 (as well as her Gamatox faction allies),  just before the crucial December party congress, which led to the ascendency of Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa as her successor – at the instigation of the then first lady Grace.

Then Grace upped the ante, turning against her former ally, Mnangagwa, culminating in the concerted purging of the vice president’s Lacoste faction allies (who were generally of the Karanga tribe, as well as veterans of the liberation struggle) – the most brazenly crushing events occurring in August 2017, with clashes between the police (believed to be aligned to Grace and her G40 faction) and soldiers (aligned to Mnangagwa) in the capital Harare.

On the 12th of the same month, Mnangagwa was allegedly poisoned during a ZANU PF Presidential Youth Interface Rally in Gwanda, widely suspected to have been the result of the factional fighting – although the whole poisoning claim was later reportedly disproved by a senior intelligence official, who claimed that it had been faked.

Nonetheless, these events only served to intensify the acrimonious relationship between the two factions – characterised by frequent openly-traded insults, albeit, being mainly one-sided (Grace being the perpetrator) – the climax being the popular booing of the former First Lady at another rally in Bulawayo’s White City Stadium on 4 November – something that thoroughly enraged Mugabe leading to his sacking his deputy, and long-time protégé, two days later.

Henceforth, this is where the timeline of events has to be unequivocally comprehended and appreciated – as this is where those who have sought to distort history have trampled with the facts.

On 8 November, the sacked Mnangagwa fled the country into South Africa, after which a statement, allegedly penned by him, was issued to the effect that he would soon return to take over the reigns of power.

A few days later, on 13 November, the then commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) Constatino Guveya Chiwenga – flanked by other military generals – appeared in international media (as the local state broadcaster, true to its nature, serving only those currently in power, had ignored the press briefing) – warning Mugabe to end purges in the ruling ZANU PF, saying that the military could intervene to stop all those bent on hijacking the revolution and causing instability in the party.

At this juncture, it is most important to note that this statement was very telling of the true intentions of the impeding coup d’etat – it had everything to do with ZANU PF internal politics, and absolutely nothing to do with the welfare and wellbeing of the ordinary people of Zimbabwe.

Only 24 hours after issuing that grave statement, on 14 November military tanks were reportedly spotted rolling into the capital Harare – a strangely unusual occurrence, that swiftly raised suspicions that, true to the generals’ warning, a military coup d’etat was underway.

Indeed, this suspicion was confirmed early the following morning, when Zimbabweans, and the world, woke up only to be greeted by images of the state broadcaster under the control of the military – repeatedly beaming a statement to the effect that the military had decided to intervene by “targeting criminals around the then president who were committing crimes that were causing social and economic suffering in the country in order to bring them to justice”.

The military broadcast also sought to assure viewers that the “head of state, and commander-in-chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe and his family were safe”.

Of course, the tone of the military intervention had strangely suddenly changed from only 48 hours earlier, when the stated aim of a possible military intevention had been purely as a result of ‘purging, and instability’ within ZANU PF, by forces ‘bent on hijacking the revolution’ – as witnessed by previous months’ mass sacking of mostly veterans of the liberation struggle.

This also explains the operational name given to the military intervention – ‘Operation Restore Legacy – since the main objective was to resist the purging the veterans of the liberation struggle, and the ‘danger’ of their legacy being wiped away.

As such, in stark contrast to the statement issued on 15 November on the state broadcaster – which suddenly sought to broaden the intevention as a national cause – the real motivate for the coup d’etat was purely internal ZANU PF factional fighting.

On this same day, international media said that the then South African president Jacob Zuma had spoken to Mugabe, who confirmed that he was under house arrest.

Here, another key note needs to be highlighted – the ordinary people of Zimbabwe were not involved at all. They were merely spectators – watching, with uncertainty, mainly via international news, as there was a virtual blackout of these unfolding events in all local state media.

In other words, as the coup d’etat was effectively now well underway, Zimbabwean citizenry had played absolutely no role.

The subsequent events – most notably, the 18 November liberation war veterans’ call for mass marches in Harare to demand for Mugabe’s resignation, had no significant impact on events, as the then president was clearly already under siege, and his future squarely in the military’s hands – despite people heeding the call, and turning out in their thousands.

These mass marches were clearly formulated by those behind the coup d’etat to deceive the international community into believing that the military intervention was solely an answer to the people’s demands – however, the chronology had been thoroughly messed up, as events were now well ahead of the purported ‘voice of the people’.

It was most shameful and unfortunate that so many people – including the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) – agreed to be part of this charade, and manipulated for a ZANU PF factional fighting cause.

Similarly, in spite of a 19 November ZANU PF emergency meeting to discuss demands for Mugabe to resign or face impeachment, this was also merely windowdressing – again, portraying a facade of democratic processes at work – yet, his fate was already as good as sealed, considering that he was in the hands of the military.

Additionally, Mugabe’s 17 November officiating at the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) graduation ceremony was designed for the same purpose of attempting at give an impression that he was a free man, and under no military duress, whatsoever, to step down.

Nonetheless, the coup de gràce came on 21 November, when Mugabe’s resignation was announced to conveniently coincide with a special sitting of the Parliament of Zimbabwe, at the Harare Conference Centre, to impeach him – again, as a portrayal of democratic processes in the works.

No matter what truly transpired behind closed doors between the military and Mugabe, leading to his resignation, the facts still remain that ordinary Zimbabweans’ mass marches on 18 November – five days after military generals issued their warning to him, four days after the military took over the nation and placed him under house arrest, and three days after the military announced their intervention on state media – one thing is unequivocally clear – ordinary Zimbabweans played no role whatsoever in the removal of Mugabe.

Whether people had gone onto the streets en masse, or not – that would have not changed anything, as Mugabe’s fate had already been sealed.

History is stubborn and can never be distorted, as any such malicious attempts will sooner or later be exposed.

This was not, by any stretch of the imagination, ‘the voice of the people’, nor was it a ‘people’s revolution’ – but, purely, unreservedly, and unquestionably a military coup d’etat – that had absolutely nothing to with ordinary Zimbabweans, but power politics within the ruling ZANU PF party.

No one, in both the local and international community should ever be deceived.

Is it then any wonder that the welfare and wellbeing of the people of Zimbabwe has never changed for the better, but has, in fact, drastically deteriorated?

Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice activist, writer, author, and speaker. Please feel free to WhatsApp/call: +263733399640, or + 263715667700, or calls only: +263782283975, or email: [email protected]

Post published in: Featured

We now know that the mess the Mugabe era left us in was much worse than any of us appreciated at the time. When Morgan Tsvangirai was faced with the choice of going into the Government of National Unity in 2009 or staying out, I said to him when we were reviewing the economic plight of the country “do you really want to take responsibility for this mess?” Fortunately for all of us his decision was “yes, for the sake of the people.” It opened up 4 years of relative stability and recovery. We need to remind everyone that over those 4 years the average annual recovery in State income and expenditure was 70 per cent, in hard currency.

Our problem was that the moment Mr Mugabe took over the reins of power in 2013, he immediately reverted to the policies and programmes that had brought Zimbabwe to its knees in 2008. Let’s just remember what it was like in December 2008 – incomes for people in paid employment were down to US$5 per month, 150 000 people in Harare had cholera, 70 per cent were on food aid, schools were closed and hospitals were just glorified mortuaries, except that the bodies rotted because there was no refrigeration. Life expectancy had halved, maternal mortality of women in child birth and infant mortality for children under 5 were the highest in the world. Our population was declining by 5 per cent per annum as people fled the chaos for greener climes.

How did we survive those conditions? But we did! And when we got a half a decent Government, we rebounded and began to show just what we could do if our leaders allowed us to get on with our lives and stopped stealing our future.

No sooner had we just started out on a new road to recovery and growth when once again the political and economic delinquency returned.

When Mr Mugabe was finally forced to resign and hand over to a new leadership, tremendous damage had already been done to the economy – but the true cost was hidden by artificial exchange rates that overvalued our local currencies. When the new President, Mr Mnangagwa appointed a completely new economic team in the Ministry of Finance I do not think he really understood what the consequential clean-up was going to entail.

First the overvalued exchange rate. The new Team recognised that this had to be corrected or else the whole mountain of domestic debt in a false currency would collapse and take the country with it. They announced that the local currency was a thing called the RTGS dollar – an economic and digital animal that had no relationship in any way to the US dollar. We all knew that because we understood that if we took our pieces of Bond paper to the Bank there was no way that they could ever give us real dollars in return.

But it was when they actually said that, that we became painfully aware that we were not rich anymore. The market began to devalue the local currency, a process that has continued throughout 2019. The result is that one US dollar in our accounts in December 2018 is now worth 5,8 US Cents.

Then there was our national debt. Up to 2000 we had multiplied our national debt by ten times since Independence. Increasing our net international liabilities by US$500 million a year or just over 1,4 million US dollars a day. Our intervention in the Congo to support Kabila, doubled that sum for three years and the reparations paid out to our war Veterans doubled the debt expansion for another two years. In the four short years from 2013 to 2018, the Mugabe Government built up domestic liabilities to over US$23 billion. That is US$500 000 per Month. By November 2017 our fiscal deficit was running at 40 cents in the dollar. We were living in a fool’s paradise and way beyond our means.

So the second issue confronting the Finance Team was how to bring us all down to reality and to deal with this completely unsustainable and unserviceable debt. We had to eat the mountain and the only way to do this was to allow inflation to do its merciless work. Today the total value of the debt left behind by Mugabe is probably only US$2 billion, devalued by inflation by over 85 per cent.

The next problem was to stop the bleeding. At the scene of an accident, the key issues are, are the injured breathing and then, are they bleeding? We were breathing as a nation but we were also bleeding. To stop the bleeding, the Team had to raise new revenue and to hold down expenditure. The 2 per cent tax and tough controls on line Ministries did the that but the cost has been that Civil Service salaries have been reduced to levels where the Service can hardly survive. If Mr Mugabe had been in charge he would have simply ordered the Team to increase salaries – after all he was famous for saying in 1997 that “countries do not go broke, print the money needed”.

This time that has not happened and we are now in a situation where these fundamental distortions and problems left behind by the Mugabe era have been dealt with. Just when we think the cleaning up is finished we discover Z$10 billion dollars in unauthorised expenditure between 2015 and 2018. Even though Permanent Secretaries have been threatened if they exceed their budgets, over Z$5 billion in unbudgeted expenditure has been discovered in 2019. This might be even greater once the exchange losses at the Reserve Bank are accounted for. The culture of spending what we do not have goes on and will not be easily uprooted.

But look at the countries balance sheet today compared to last year. We have a fiscal surplus to help meet over expenditure, inflation has dealt with the domestic debt mountain and our balance of payments is almost in surplus. We have started paying back our debts – both internal and external. We have secured a Staff Monitored Program with the IMF and although there are problems and the program will have to be extended to give us more time to get our house in order. Our exports are growing and investment is slowly gathering momentum.

We have taken the harsh medicine of income restraint and are now in a position to start servicing all our other priorities. Fixing our infrastructure, improving power supplies and reducing the cost of doing business. Our economic fundamentals are sound and the way clear to dealing with our international liabilities. I am hoping that by December 2019 Zimbabweans will be able to see the start of a slow, but steady recovery. Next year inflation will come back to low levels by the end of the year, exchange rates will strengthen and start restoring value to earnings and capital. Our farmers will get some security of investment in the form of a negotiable lease over the land and assets they are using and our urban areas will slowly be able to restore service delivery.

2020 will not be easy, but after what we have been through it will be like the morning after the rain. To really succeed we have to work together and have faith in who we are as a nation. If we do those few simple things, the future will look after itself.

Post published in: Featured

Findings from the 12th Annual Law Department Operations Survey

Findings from the 12th Annual Law Department Operations Survey

BLICKSTEIN GROUP & ABOVE THE LAW