News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Zimbabweans demand answers at Mujuru rally

Posted: 17 Sep 2016 08:28 AM PDT

SAPS members and the Tshwane metro police rushed to quell tempers at Zimbabwe People First leader Joice Mujuru's rally in Mamelodi.

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Pretoria - Members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Tshwane metro police rushed to quell tempers at Zimbabwe People First (Zim PF) leader Joice Mujuru's rally in Mamelodi in Pretoria on Saturday as activists invaded the pitch, demanding answers over the emotive Gukurahundi massacres which left around 20 000 people dead in the 1980s.

Supporters of Mujuru, Zimbabwe's former vice-president, tackled the two men who were waving placards, demanding answers over the Gukurahundi massacres in Matebeleland province.

The pair was swiftly manhandled by Mujuru's supporters as they fought back. They were taken away and police intervened, escorting them out of the stadium.

Zimbabwe's Gukurahundi massacres saw up to 20 000 villagers and opponents of then prime minister Robert Mugabe killed in the mid-1980s and remains a salient, thorny, and highly controversial political hot potato in Zimbabwe.

Memories of the killings, carried out by the country's elite North Korean-trained fifth brigade army unit in the south of the country, are strong among many in Zimbabwe's Ndebele ethnic group and contribute to their distrust of Mugabe and Mujuru who was a cabinet minister then and wife of the late general Solomon Mujuru who was the country's chief military commander at the time. Mugabe offered a part-apology for the killings in 1999, saying they were “a moment of madness”.

Mujuru, who has since been fired from Zanu PF and the Zimbabwean government and formed her Zim PF party, recently told her supporters she was planning to visit mass graves of Gukurahundi victims, particularly Balagwe in Maphisa, Matabeleland South province.

On Saturday, one Zimbabwean, Vusi Sibanda, said Mujuru had a lot to explain.

“Right now I do not have a father because Joice's husband killed him. She is complicit in those murders of our people. Has she become a saint suddenly because she was fired from Zanu PF. I came here to demand answers,” said Sibanda as he was roughed out of the HM Pitje Stadium in Mamelodi.

Another protester who preferred to be identified only as Sfiso, said Mujuru's remarks about visiting Gukurahundi graves had touched a raw nerve.

“Mujuru can address her rally anywhere but she must not mention Gukurahundi. We will not allow that to happen. She can't turn around and use Gukurahundi to campaign now. She is one of the architects of that massacre,” said Sifiso.

Mujuru was scheduled to address her “star rally” in Mamelodi where numerous Zimbabweans live, but the event was marred by poor organisation and attendance.

The event was scheduled to start after 9am but by 12.30pm only a small crowd of Zimbabweans were in the venue while others were leaving. Mujuru had not yet arrived at the stadium. “Mujuru continues to lie to us. I work in a restaurant and I've got to go before my shift starts.

Their posters have been urging us to be here in the morning,” said Zimbabwean Nyasha Mukoni as she went away with her friends. Scores of Zimbabweans were walking out of the small stadium after midday.

African News Agency

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Tough time for Zim's finance minister

Posted: 17 Sep 2016 03:48 AM PDT

Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa can neither rescue the economy nor stop his boss President Robert Mugabe from interfering in his budget.

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Harare - Zimbabwe’s finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, is having a very tough time. He can neither rescue the economy nor stop his boss, President Robert Mugabe, from interfering in his budget.

Last week, Chinamasa went to parliament and slashed government spending on civil service salaries and, in particular, the annual Christmas bonus in his mid-term budget review.

This was what he tried to do last year as well. But when Mugabe heard the reaction to the bonus cut then, he immediately publicly contradicted Chinamasa and said it must be paid.

The finance ministry then spent the next nine months looking for cash to pay the bonus.

Finding the bonus money caused late payment of civil service salaries, including soldiers’ pay for the last three months.

And poor pensioners are nearly always queuing outside the post office or banks to get their pittance.

So with regular late public pay cheques, lack of cash at the banks and ahead of the issue of a limited amount of a new currency next month, known as bond notes, Chinamasa, tried again.

He told parliament in his review the annual civil service bonus would not happen for two years.

He cut allowances to some senior civil servants and said he had to slash 25 000 government jobs and reduce some salaries by more than 5 percent.

After all, he said, the cost of keeping the government paid eats up to 97 percent of its revenue and he needed to reduce this to about 60 percent in the next few years.

For a few days there was a furious reaction in the media from civil servants. But Mugabe didn’t contradict Chinamasa. He stayed quiet and prepared to depart for Lusaka and New York.

Earlier this week, Chris Mushowe, the junior information minister spoke out as Mugabe left for overseas and said Chinamasa’s proposals were tabled before the cabinet. But they had not been approved.

“It is hoped that this clarification puts to the rest anxieties that may have arisen within civil service, the farming community and public at large,” said Mushohwe.

A well-placed source in Zimbabwe’s official financial sector, and who asked not to be named, said the contradiction of Chinamasa’s latest efforts to ameliorate the worst effects of the economic crisis, was “political”.

The Zanu-PF elite is split into factions over who will succeed Mugabe should he die, or be forced into retirement by the economic catastrophe. Chinamasa, who is an experienced and senior lawyer and has successfully re-engaged with Western diplomats and international funds, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, is seen in some quarters as a supporter on the sidelines of the faction which wants Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed Mugabe.

But others are backed by first lady Grace Mugabe, who is either a contender for the post or looking for a vice president’s position or will back another contender.

With Mugabe away at the UN General Assembly in New York, no one is sure whether Mushowe’s remarks were the real thing and will be confirmed by Mugabe when he returns home. Or whether Chinamasa has had his way and has taken a small, but significant step towards reducing the massive government pay roll by about $150 million by the end of next year.

Many commentators say Chinamasa has been humiliated.

And he is taking strain as he is still looking for $1.8bn loan to pay off the World Bank in particular and the African Development Bank and the IMF so he can borrow for Zimbabwe and refurbish infrastructure to try to reduce imports and better balance Zimbabwe’s books.

Independent Foreign Service

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Buhari admits to stealing line from Obama speech

Posted: 17 Sep 2016 01:20 AM PDT

President Muhammadu Buhari plagiarised quotes from US President Barack Obama in a speech promising change in the West African country.

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Abuja - Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari plagiarised quotes from US President Barack Obama in a speech promising change in the West African country, his office said on Friday.

Last week, Buhari gave a speech to launch a campaign titled “Change Begins With Me,” part of his credo to end graft in Africa's biggest economy which is gripped by mismanagement and poverty despite sitting on vast energy reserves.

But one paragraph in the speech urging Nigerians not to fall back “on the same partisanship, pettiness and immaturity that have poisoned our country so long” was copied from Obama's victory speech after his election in November 2008.

“It was observed that the similarities between a paragraph in President Obama's 2008 victory speech and what President Buhari read in paragraph nine of the 16-paragraph address... are too close to be passed as coincidence,” Buhari's office said in a statement.

“President Buhari urges Nigerians to look beyond this incident and focus on the message of change which the country needs in order to restore our cherished value systems,” the office said after a Twitter user joked about the incident.

“Those responsible” would be punished, the office said, adding that a deputy director in the presidency had admitted the mistake.

Reuters

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