News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Restricting imports a ‘setback for trade’

Posted: 06 Jul 2016 10:30 PM PDT

Investment and trade analysts have criticised the Zimbabwean government’s decision to impose restrictions on imports into the country.

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Johannesburg - Investment and trade analysts have criticised the Zimbabwean government’s decision to impose restrictions on imports into the country as a backward step for free trade in southern Africa.

Read also: Zimbabwe businesses closed during stay-away

Sinethemba Zonke, a consultant at Africa Practice, said yesterday that the move was a setback for regional economic integration.

Zonke said Africa was already struggling with barriers against the global trend of reducing or removing restrictions on the movement of goods and people.

He said the ban on items, such as bottled water, milk and canned foods, instead of raising tariffs was an indication of desperation by the authorities.

“These are products that are locally available but Zimbabweans may prefer the quality and competitive prices available outside the country.”

Zonke said the Zimbabwean situation also served as a lesson of the challenges diverse African economies would have in integrating. “An advanced economy like South Africa can simply overwhelm smaller economies and possibly kill local industries by providing local consumers cheaper and better quality products,” Zonke said. “South Africa already knows how this feels in our challenges in the textile industry as a result of cheap imports from China."

The import restrictions have brought into focus the economic relations between South Africa and Zimbabwe.

NKC African Economics economist Cephas Forichi said Zimbabwe was experiencing a liquidity crunch because of current account pressures, with annual imports of about $6 billion (R88bn), compared with exports of about $2.4bn.

“They are literally running out of money, so they want to physically stop people from importing goods from South Africa,” Forichi said.

He said the authorities wanted to ease the cash shortage by reducing demand for foreign currency to boost domestic production and employment. “But that will not necessarily happen in the short term given electricity shortages, capacity constraints, lack of liquidity and credit to support operations.”

Forichi said while the restrictions were damaging, the move was not “a very big issue” for South Africa as the 38 percent of Zimbabwe’s imports from South Africa in 2015 only represented 2.6 percent of South Africa’s exports.

He said the restrictions were likely to affect tourism in South Africa.

BUSINESS REPORT

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Protests deal blow to Zimbabwe’s economy

Posted: 06 Jul 2016 10:30 PM PDT

Civil-service strike action and protests by citizens forced Zimbabwe’s banks and businesses to close shop on Wednesday.

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Harare - Zimbabwe’s economy yesterday ground to a standstill as a civil service strike action and protests by citizens forced banks and other businesses in the country to close shop.

Read also: Zimbabwe businesses closed during stay-away

The strikes crippled public transport, with most schools closed for the day and WhatsApp connectivity only being restored shortly before noon.

The business sector and economic activity suffered the heaviest blow as protests escalated over government corruption, delayed civil servants salaries and police roadblocks.

“The bank did not open for business today. The situation is too risky so the managers deemed it unfit to open,” a guard at a Standard Chartered branch in Harare’s Newlands suburb told Business Report just after 2pm.

Other banks in Harare, such as Stanbic, were also closed. Stanbic said this week that it would start restricting cash withdrawals for individuals at $100 (R1 469) a day while other banks already limit transactions to $200 or $300.

Trade on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) remained lukewarm for the better part of the day with the industrial index adding just about 0.87 points on gains from Delta Corporation and Econet Wireless – the most resilient stocks on the ZSE.

Lukewarm trade

The mining index was unchanged as investors weighed their options, with all counters under the index remaining unchanged.

There was little activity in Harare’s central business district although supermarkets, such as Pick n Pay and OK Zimbabwe, remained open throughout the day.

Some markets and informal trade centres were closed, while others were open as confidence quickly evaporated.

Instant messaging application WhatsApp was terminated from the early hours yesterday with subscribers on the country’s three networks – Telecel, Econet Wireless and NetOne – not able to access the application.

Econet confirmed to its subscribers via Twitter that WhatsApp was down and updated just before noon that it was now accessible.

Experts in the telecoms industry, however, were uncertain as to what had caused the outage.

“Econet would like to confirm that WhatsApp is currently down. We will notify you once it is working again,” Econet tweeted to its subscribers through its customer care department earlier yesterday.

The WhatsApp downtime caused discomfort among Zimbabweans, with some rushing to social media to accuse the government of blocking access to curb the spread of the protests.

“Our members have been affected and the stayaway and strike action has caused disruption to business for our members such as service stations, banks, shops and other traders. There is widespread fear that businesses and infrastructure could be destroyed in the protests,” a business leader told Business Report late yesterday.

Church leaders in Zimbabwe have blamed the government for its heavy-handedness in dealing with protesters and urged the state to lift import restrictions that sparked protests in Beitbridge at the weekend.

The church leaders want corrupt government officials to resign and they have also said funds being spent on officials staying lengthily in hotels should be used to pay teachers and headmasters, who are part of the striking government workers.

“Some of the country’s leaders are known to have stayed at luxurious hotels at… more than $300 000. This amount can pay 300 headmasters countrywide in a month and over 1 000 teachers in a month,” the church leaders – under Habakkuk Trust, Christian Alliance and Southern region Church Leaders – said in a joint release.

Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko and three other senior government officials have been staying in hotels pending the finalisation of their official residences for over a year.

BUSINESS REPORT

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Zimbabwe businesses closed during stay-away

Posted: 06 Jul 2016 07:30 PM PDT

Zimbabweans protest against unemployment and corruption as part of a campaign organised by the #ThisFlag movement.

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Harare - Zimbabweans stayed at home on Wednesday and foreign banks and most businesses in the capital shut down, in one of the biggest protests against high unemployment, an acute cash shortage and corruption for nearly a decade.

Read also: Zimbabwe's doctors and teachers on strike

Evan Mawarire, a pastor whose social media movement #ThisFlag organised the “stay-away”, demanded that President Robert Mugabe fire corrupt cabinet ministers and scrap plans to introduce local bank notes or face a two-day shut-down next week.

Wednesday's protest followed violent clashes between taxi drivers and police on Monday that led to the arrest of 95 people. It also coincided with a strike by doctors, teachers and nurses whose salaries had been delayed.

A devastating drought has compounded economic hardships including high joblessness while an acute cash shortage has angered Zimbabwe's citizens.

In a story quoting John Mangudya, the governor of Zimbabwe's central bank, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday that the African Export-Import Bank was arranging a seven-year loan of $986 million so Zimbabwe could pay back arrears to the World Bank.

The FT quoted Mangudya as saying Zimbabwe hoped to pay off its arrears before the September board meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank, paving the way for IMF assistance to alleviate its cash crunch.

Afreximbank and IMF officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Campaign attracts thousands

The 39-year-old Mawarire started the #ThisFlag campaign in April to protest against corruption, injustice and poverty.

The campaign has attracted thousands of followers who have been speaking out against government excesses. Wednesday's protest was organised via Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp.

Mawarire's campaign includes a series of demands: for Mugabe to fire and prosecute “known” corrupt ministers, for government salaries to be paid on time and for police to remove roadblocks which most people say are posts for bribe taking officers.

“The ball is in your court,” Mawarire said on his Facebook page. We are ready to close down again and this time we will add another day, Wednesday and Thursday. We are not playing and we ask you to take us seriously.”

Mugabe's spokesman, George Charamba, was not available to comment.

State telecoms regulator POTRAZ said in a statement it would arrest people sending “subversive” messages that cause unrest.

Mugabe, who has held power since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980, was attending a scheduled meeting on Wednesday of his party Zanu-PF's politburo, the party's top executive organ. Party spokesman Simon Khaya-Moyo declined to say whether Zanu-PF would discuss the protests.

In the volatile township of Mufakose, to the west of Harare, hundreds of youths barricaded roads to keep people from going to work, Reuters witnesses said.

More than 40 people were arrested across Zimbabwe for blocking roads and disturbing the peace, said Charity Charamba, a police spokeswoman. Among them was a Belgian tourist held in the resort town of Victoria for unlawful protests, she said, correcting her earlier statement that an Australian had been detained.

There was no need to call out the military, Charamba said.

“The military is not there because in our assessment, for now, the situation has not deteriorated (enough) to warrant the presence of the military,” Charamba told reporters.

Local units of Barclays and Standard Chartered shut their branches in central Harare. Clothing retailers Edgars Stores and Truworths closed stores.

Siyaso, one of the biggest and oldest informal markets in Mbare township near central Harare, was also shut down. Few vehicles were on the roads of the capital. Supermarkets like Pick n Pay, OK Zimbabwe and Choppies reported little business. Government departments were open.

Local private media said Zimbabweans in other major cities had also stayed at home, with most businesses closed. Zimbabwe last witnessed such a protest in April 2007.

REUTERS

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Malawi hopes ‘sandbag houses’ will combat deforestation

Posted: 06 Jul 2016 12:06 PM PDT

A Malawian company is working to create sandbag houses to combat the disappearing forests, a result of the country’s booming brick industry.

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Mzuzu - At the local brick kiln, a truck laden with logs pulls up and unloads. Soon smoke is billowing, as a new set of bricks bakes inside.

Malawi's construction industry relies heavily on bricks - and the wood needed to make them is a major reason the country's indigenous forests are fast disappearing.

But an unusual home construction technique - using dirt or sand packed into plastic sacks and stacked - is now being tried out in Rumphi, in the north of the country, as a way to cut back on bricks and save what's left of the region's forests.

As part of the project, carried out by the Roscher Youth Development Centre with German backing, young people are being given technical and financial help to construct the environmentally friendly houses.

“We have lost a lot of trees and we now still continue losing them, at a chilling rate. Our mountains and hills that had thick forests are now bare except for a few trees and shrubs,” said Moir Walita Mkandawire, executive director of the non-profit youth development centre.

That loss of forest has led to more extreme weather and worsening droughts, he said, one reason the remaining trees need to be protected.

“The weather we have now is not the same we used to have decades ago,” he said.

According to statistics from the Department of Forestry, Malawi annually has been losing about 1.6 percent to 2.8 percent of its forests to human activities.

But in February, Ronnnie Chirambo, a tree planting officer with the Department of Forestry, told a local newspaper that the deforestation rate was now down to 1 percent a year, simply because there were too few trees left to cut down.

As the forests have disappeared, natural disasters - including droughts, cyclones, landslides and floods - have become a regular and costly threat in towns such as Rumphi, located 67 kilometres from Mzuzu, the largest city in Malawi's Northern Region.

Heinrich Wegener of Support Malawi Heidelberg, which has provided technical and financial backing for the housing initiative, said he first heard about “earth bag” homes in 2012 while on a visit to South Africa. He felt the homes would be an ideal solution for Malawi.

“I started to research the various ways to build houses with sandbags instead of bricks. My idea was to try a first earthbag house as a prototype”, working with the youth centre in Rumphi, he said.

If such houses catch on, Wegener believes they could become a major contributor to cutting deforestation in Malawi.

“Sandbag houses can help because they are cheap and simple to build,” he said. “Just fill used plastic or other bags with soil, close them, stack them into walls, leave space for windows and doors, put a roof on top, plaster the walls. That's basically it, and it saves a lot of wood and time.”

He said the cost of the houses depends on the size and amenities added, but a small village home without electricity or a toilet should cost around $1 400.

Allan Chitete, a civil engineer and the Rumphi director of public works, said he thinks the homes will ultimately become widely used, and not just because they cut the need for wood for construction and for baking bricks.

“The building blocks (sacks filled with earth or sand) have a lot of advantages,” he said. “They act like cushions or shock absorbers so that in times of earthquake or floods the structure cannot develop cracks or collapse,” he predicted.

The idea of building low-cost structures of sandbags or soil-filled bags has been around for at least a century, and has been used in a range of places, from Africa to South Asia to North America.

Perhaps the toughest barrier to expanding use of the homes in Malawi will be winning over people to a dramatic change in the idea of what a house is made of, Wegener admitted. Most homes today are built of brick.

He said the main disadvantage of the earth houses is that hammering a nail into the wall to hang art or portraits can be hugely difficult.

Their backers hope the homes may find backing from Malawi's government, which is trying to discourage the use of wood-baked bricks in construction in favour of cement blocks and “stabilised soil” blocks.

Chitete said he will try to sell the idea of more earth bag homes to members of Malawi's parliament and ward councillors. The youth centre also plans to train more young people in the district in the building technique, and hopes to roll out the initiative to other disaster-prone areas of the country.

Reuters

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DA urges government to speak out on Zimbabwe

Posted: 06 Jul 2016 08:43 AM PDT

The Democratic Alliance said that the South African government’s silence on the growing crisis in Zimbabwe ‘cannot be ignored’.

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Pretoria - The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on President Jacob Zuma and Department of International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane to act on the unrest neighbouring in Zimbabwe.

Stevens Mokgalapa of the DA said on Wednesday that the South African government’s silence on the growing crisis in Zimbabwe “cannot be ignored”.

Mokgalapa said hundreds of Zimbabweans were protesting over “shortage of resources” in their country which related to food and cash.

The protests, he said, also pointed to a growing dissatisfaction with President Robert Mugabe’s handling of the country’s affairs.

Mokgalapa said Zuma and Nkoana-Mashabane “cannot remain silent if we are to do our part to mitigate the escalating unrest in our neighbouring country”.

He said ‘quiet diplomacy’ of the past cannot be allowed to repeat itself.

“The situation in Zimbabwe should serve as a wake up call for the South African government that without sound economic policies and a caring government, the people will suffer and their dissatisfaction will only be silenced for so long.”

Mokgalapa said Zuma, who is a leader within the Southern African Development Community and Nkoana-Mashabane should “break their silence and condemn the atrocities currently being carried out in Zimbabwe”.

Since Friday there has been unrest at the Beitbridge border town and other areas. Police have been recorded on social media beating up protesters. The unrest in Zimbabwe was sparked by a ban of food stuffs and other commodities from South Africa.

On Wednesday civil servants in Zimbabwe, other workers and informal traders joined the stay away that resulted in the closure of shops and schools in cities and towns. The cash-strapped government has failed to pay civil servants.

Mokgalapa said it was important to speak up for human rights, and this was one area where Zuma should speak out and “give effect to South Africa’s human rights-based foreign policy to ensure that no more human rights abuses occur on our watch”.

He acknowledged that while South Africa’s recent track record on human rights from an international perspective “left a lot to be desired and it is time for us to step up and restore our commitment to human rights.”

Mokgalapa said if the South African government failed to speak out on what was happening in Zimbabwe, “Our government’s silence in this regard will make us complicit in the escalation of the use of force against civilians.”

Mokgalapa urged government to recall how, Zimbabwe, during apartheid, “helped South Africa in its fight for freedom and democracy.”

He added: “We have a duty to ensure that Zimbabwe finds legitimate freedom and democracy.”

African News Agency

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Hacktivists shut down state, ZANU-PF, ZBC websites

Posted: 06 Jul 2016 08:03 AM PDT

Anonymous Africa shut down the Zimbabwean government's website as well as the public broadcaster and ruling party's websites.

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 Cape Town - A group of hacking activists have claimed they are behind the crashing of the Zimbabwean government, the ruling party Zanu PF and the State broadcaster Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation websites.

The websites – www.zim.gov.zw, www.zanupf.co.zw and www.zbc.co.zw – were all not opening as at 5pm on Wednesday.

Anonymous Africa, on their Twitter handle @zim4thewin, said: “In support of #ShutDownZimbabwe we have shut down the ZANU-PF website. http://www.zanupf.org.zw is #TangoDown Bring on the spring!”

The tweets said: “People who can see the zanupf website, try browse it (any page off the front), your browser has cached the website. It is definitely down.”

The group said its move was in support of the ongoing unrest in the country which began on Friday, reportedly due to the shortage of food resources.

Police brutality since the unrest began has been recorded on social media.

On Wednesday, a civil servant stay-away was conducted in the troubled nation while instant messaging service Whatsapp was blocked for some time.

Despite this, #ZimShutDown2016 was trending all day on social media despite the attempts at a media blackout.

Twitter users have also requested that Anonymous target the government mouthpiece, The Herald.

Last month, the hacking group took down the South African Broadcasting Corporation website after the broadcaster said it was not going to show videos of protests in South Africa.

 

African News Agency

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Smuggling surges after Zim ban

Posted: 06 Jul 2016 06:23 AM PDT

Smuggling operations into Zimbabwe from South Africa's border town of Musina have increased following its import ban on basic food stuffs.

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Beitbridge - Smuggling operations into Zimbabwe from South Africa's border town of Musina have increased following that country's import ban on basic food stuffs.

Business formations in Musina said as a result of the Zimbabwe's import ban, which came into effect on 1 July 2016, more cross border traders were relying on smugglers to get their goods across the Limpopo River.

The International Cross-Border Traders Association and Musina Business Forum on Wednesday told reporters at the Beitbridge border post that some frustrated traders were now smuggling goods into Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwean authorities have resorted to confiscating banned goods at the border to enforce the new Statuary No.64 law, which makes it an offence to import basic food stuffs and other commodities. “The importers are already using illegal port of entries [that are] ungazetted to take their goods into Zimbabwe which is not good for the economy of that country, and which is not good also for their safety,” said Dennis Jeru the International Cross-Border Traders Association president.

Jeru's claim was also corroborated by Musina Business Forum's Richard Makwaseni, who also claimed that the situation had become an economic and human catastrophe.

“There is a crisis now, because criminal activities are at play, they opened [their] own border to take goods on the other side because of this issue,” Makwaseni said.

Read also: Zim rolls out cops for strikes

Makwaseni said people had been killed while trying to smuggle goods across the border. He called on the government of Zimbabwe to lift the ban on the importation of goods.

Commenting on the situation at the border, Jeru said: “We are happy that no buses are crossing today, we are sending a clear message to the government of Zimbabwe that we are not happy with the implementation of Statutory Instrument 64 of 2016 which ban importation of goods into Zimbabwe.”

Five years ago, the Limpopo government declared Musina part of its three Special Economic Zones, and lured investors, mainly from China and India, to build shops close to the border. But investors now face a bleak future as shops in Musina remain deserted because fewer Zimbabweans were buying goods since the ban.

Read also: Zimbabwe’s doctors and teachers on strike

Long distance and local taxi operators said they were not spared in the aftermath of the move to ban food imports. The closure of shops since Friday was a clear sign that without Zimbabwe, Musina's dream of becoming a major city was falling apart, observed Makwaseni. “As we speak now, shops are closed and workers were forced return home because of the situation in Zimbabwe and because we were busy building a big mall that was implemented with Zimbabweans in plans,” said Makwaseni.

He said the South African government had to intervene as the decision to ban basic food was also in contravention of the government's bilateral agreement with Zimbabwe. Taxi operators said the number of commuters between Beitbridge and Gauteng has declined drastically. “

We used to release more than six taxis per day, now there are no taxis leaving - it is very bad,” said long distance taxi driver Promise Ndou.

Jeru said his association had written to the South African Development Community pleading for intervention in order to end the developing crisis.

At Beitbridge, normally a hive of activity, no trucks were moving into Zimbabwe. Trucks usually line up for kilometres at the border, but in their place were public order police.

AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY

For more on this issue, pick up a copy of Business Report tomorrow.

 

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Zimbabwe government blocks Whatsapp

Posted: 06 Jul 2016 02:36 AM PDT

The Zimbabwe government has blocked the Whatsapp service to its citizens as the country’s workers heeded calls for a stay away.

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Harare – The Zimbabwe government on Wednesday blocked the Whatsapp service to its citizens as the country’s workers heeded calls for a stay away dubbed the” national shut down” to put pressure on the regime in power in the Southern African country for almost four decades.

By 7am it was no longer possible to send or receive Whatsapp messages on any of the country’s mobile telecommunication networks, in a move subscribers blamed on the government, which in turn blamed the social network for spreading falsehoods and inciting people to protest.

Only those using Wi-Fi had access beyond 7am but they too were shut out by mid-morning.

Minister for Information, Communication Technology and Courier Services Supa Mandiwanzira denied any government interference in the Whatsapp service, saying government had no reason to ban or block the use of the service because of a few individuals who abused the platform.

The youthful minister said it could have been just a network problem as he was communicating on his Whatsapp with his colleagues.

He alleged government was actually resisting demands by the mobile operators to ban the platform and others such as Viber and Skype which they felt were costing them lots of revenue.

“I as minister and on behalf of the government have resisted these demands because we see their value to Zimbabweans. So there is no basis that I as minister or government will work up to ban them when we are on the forefront of denying the request by operators,” he said.

“We know there are elements, very few of them, who abuse the platform but they must not be allowed to spoil its very good use by the majority of citizens,” he said.

However, citizens were sending text messages encouraging each other to download #TunnerBear from tunnerbear.com to be back on line, but the download was also proving to be very difficult for many.

The move by the government also seemed to have come a little too late as most of the people in Harare had decided not to go to work, with those who wanted to report for duty facing serious transport problems as very few public passenger vehicles were on the road.

The few commuter omnibus operators who ignored the call to park their vehicles in solidarity with the protesters were charging fares as high as $2 per single trip instead of the normal 50 cents.

There were very few shops that opened for business in the central business district with TM Supermarkets branch along Harare Street the only open shop in down town Harare.

The main commuter omnibus rank, Copacabana, which is usually congested, was deserted as only a handful of vehicles were seen dropping off and picking up passengers.

African News Agency

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