Johannesburg (South Africa) – In the most emphatic recognition yet of the scale of the global economic meltdown on the local economy, ANC president Jacob Zuma has called on business and labour to “make sacrifices” and join hands to weather the gloomy period ahead.

In a wide-ranging interview on Friday, Zuma said SA faced “extraordinary circumstances” and that “sacrifices” would be required to avoid job losses while everything had to be done to prevent businesses from going under. He suggested further cuts in interest rates, curbing executives’ performance bonuses, and that workers donate a day’s pay to a fund to mitigate the effect of retrenchments.

The ANC president said “every suggestion should be thrown into the basket” to shield SA from the ripple of the meltdown. Saving jobs was the paramount challenge of any new administration — which Zuma is likely to head — that takes over after next month’s elections.

“We have to come together and act decisively, so the pace of work in government would have to be changed if the new government wanted to hit the ground running,” Zuma said. “It’s not like the normal establishment of government…. You have this global economic meltdown.”

However, Zuma balked at a push by labour for a change in the mandate of the Reserve Bank. ANC ally the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has called for the Reserve Bank to forgo what it called a narrow approach of focusing on inflation targeting as the Bank’s central aim.

Cosatu wants job creation and economic growth to be included in the bank’s mandate. “That (the Bank mandate) can’t be the starting point of discussions. We cannot put issues on the table now which will divide us. We need to hold hands,” Zuma said.

He also urged the government to “buy local”, a call made by Cosatu last week. “Buying local was raised by Business Unity SA. I think we should procure locally. There is logic in that kind of a proposal. In as much as people speak about globalisation, the effects (of the global financial crisis) are also forcing us to consider national interest,” Zuma said.

He said suggestions by some that workers accept pay cuts instead of lo sing their jobs as companies struggled to make ends meet would not be useful in the long run as it would probably be seen as an attempt to weaken already struggling households in poor communities. Last week, business, labour and the government agreed on a framework to guide SA’s response to the global economic crisis. The plan is a combined effort to mitigate job losses and to cushion the poor from the harshest effects of the economic downturn.

SA’s trade deficit ballooned to a record R17,4bn in January as exports collapsed, signalling that the global recession will hit the domestic economy even harder than anticipated. The framework does, however, call on the National Economic Development and Labour Council to facilitate continuing discussions between all the parties on monetary policy and the mandate of the Reserve Bank.

Zuma echoed Cosatu’s sentiments that the government should add caveats to rescue packages. The federation said some employers were using the global crisis to retrench wholesale, without making any attempt to limit the job losses. Zuma concurred, saying the government “could not just throw money” at struggling sectors and it had to apply due diligence before any rescue package could be decided upon.

Yesterday, the South African Communist Party, often a critic of the government’s economic policy, called for “maximum unity”, saying the global crisis and its effect on SA was the key issue facing South Africans. SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin said the effects on the country forced “government, labour and the private sector” to come up with plans to deal with the economic crisis . “Unless we unite, the social gains that have been made will be eroded.”

source.Business Day (South Africa) – March 2, 2009.

Johannesburg (South Africa)  It is way too early to give Zimbabwe any money. Aid, yes. Zimbabweans are sick and hungry and they need help. If that country’s thuggish president and his party could be persuaded to allow foreign aid agencies in to help feed and treat his citizens that would be wonderful.

In all probability though, he would try to use his people’s plight to blackmail the rest of the world into financing him out of the jam he has created for himself.

A Southern African Development Community (SADC) committee heard at the weekend that Zimbabwe needs $2bn now to stabilise its economy. Details are thin on the ground and “stabilisation” may simply mean paying the salaries of restive soldiers or public servants. It would not be money well spent.

An SADC extraordinary summit is now likely to be held to discuss financing the reconstruction of Zimbabwe ahead of the April 2 G-20 summit in the UK. That’s the meeting SA would hope to use to make a pitch for Zimbabwe but it’s likely any appeal will fall on deaf ears.

And who would be surprised? Robert Mugabe and his cronies are thieves and they would steal as much as they could of any funding that finds its way into the country. Just this weekend Mugabe and friends were celebrating his 85th birthday with a lavish bash that cost more than R1m by reliable estimates. At that party the mad old man repeatedly warned that farm invasions would continue and that Zimbabwe would continue to take majority stakes for locals in all companies operating in the country.

And he wants the world to fund this nonsense? Well, perhaps not. He has grown rich on Zimbabwe’s misery and now, apparently, owns a house in Hong Kong! A real open economy with a central bank he could not control is the last thing he wants. No, the begging bowl is being held out by the South African Foreign Minister, Nkosa zana Dlamini-Zuma, who says she is certain that any money raised would really be spent on what it was intended for. We wish it were so ma’am, but you know and we know there’s no guarantee of that.

And guarantees are the very least funders should ask for now, however patronising that may sound. Zimbabwe is not ruled by a trustworthy person.

This may all sound rather harsh on Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader who is now prime minister, thanks to the Zimbabwe unity deal brokered by Thabo Mbeki on behalf of the SADC. We have real sympathy for Tsvangirai. Having been made PM he is being hung out to dry by the SADC. SA doesn’t rate him and has not much time for him.

But while he has no option but to make an effort to right the ship he has inherited, that doesn’t mean we all shower him with money. First, it isn’t clear he’d get to control it. Second, we’d like to see his plan. What’s it say? Hell, it’s going to be our money Pretoria hands over.

It is very important in all of this that SA’s government keeps taxpayers informed about what it is doing with our money in Zimbabwe. The more we understand, the easier spending there will become.

We need, whatever the G-20 and others might do, to appreciate that SA cannot sit by now that the government it created is in place in Harare. But we cannot simply “give” the government there a billion or two rands. It would be a good thing, for instance, to inject hard currency into that country by encouraging, by way of a modest cash inducement, the many migrants and refugees in this country to go home. The government may also consider exacting some form of ownership of the Zimbabwean assets our rands repair or rebuild.

It is obvious Mugabe should go. He just has to go. Listening to him speak it is hard not to conclude that he is already senile. His fear is that if he stops protecting the senior security officers who surround him, they will kill him. SA’s job should be to reassure him that if he does do the right thing and steps away from active politics, we will protect him.

Something on a large scale will have to be done to loosen the purse strings of the west. They are already battered by their own economic storms. Perhaps a currency reform modelled on the German one after the last world war would do the trick. It would certainly inconvenience the ruling elite. Five-trillion current Zim dollars for one New Dollar would hurt some of the thieves nicely and there’s nothing like real money to get a broken nation fired up and working hard again. Ask the Germans.

It’s crunch time. After all the negotiating, delays and accusations, Zimbabwe now has a government of national unity and just wants the world to cough up a bit and help. But it can’t happen, because the one thing that should have been done was never done, particularly by Mbeki. He didn’t, or couldn’t, get rid of Mugabe. So the stench remains.

source.Business Day (South Africa)- March 2, 2009.

Gaborone (Botswana) – Sceptics were right about the brouhaha that surrounded the Southern African Development Community (SADC)-crafted Government of National Unity in Zimbabwe. From the start it was certain that the arrangement was destined for failure.

For a start, Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF doctored the power-sharing agreement before it was signed. Despite protestations from the opposition parties, particularly Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the SADC appointed facilitator, Thabo Mbeki, and SADC executive secretary, Tomas Salamao ignored them and went ahead with the signing ceremony.

As we write, the arrangement is in tatters. Mugabe is still behaving as if nothing has changed. MDC’s supporters, including a designated minister, Roy Bennett, are still languishing in jail over trumped up charges. Human rights activists are still incarcerated in prisons across Zimbabwe. The very week Tsvangirai was being sworn in as Prime Minister, Mugabe’s goons were raiding and misappropriating white farms. This week Mugabe has been busy appointing his cronies to key public service positions without consulting the Prime Minister contrary to the power-sharing agreement. Ironically, while this scuttling of the spirit of the Government of National Unity is going on, a bunch of SADC ministers meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, are trying to convince the region and the world that all is well in Zimbabwe. South African President, Kgalema Motlanthe, who happens to chair SADC has been at pains to convince the world that all that is needed in Zimbabwe is to give Mugabe more assistance, specifically money. What Motlanthe and SADC should be doing is to hold Mugabe to the spirit and letter of the power-sharing agreement that ushered in the Government of National Unity agreement.

Mugabe cannot expect to be assisted to cling to power while he is not prepared to assist the long-suffering people of Zimbabwe. He should not be allowed to play power politics with the lives of Zimbabweans and the region.

Regional leaders should be firm with Mugabe, at least for the sake of ordinary Zimbabweans. What more should Mugabe subject the Zimbabweans to for regional leaders to realise the Harare despot is a man with a sadistic mind. We still believe the only lasting solution will be the conduct of the presidential election under the supervision and sponsorship of the international community, specifically the African Union and United Nations. The ‘African solution to African problems’ policy has proved to be a failure as evidenced in Kenya and now Zimbabwe.

source.Mmegi (Botswana)- March 2, 2009.

Harare (Zimbabwe) Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, despite being invited, on Saturday did not attend President Robert Mugabe’s lavish 85th birthday celebrations noting that it was a Zanu PF party event.

Instead, Tsvangirai spent the day, hard at work, with Deputy Prime Minister Thokozani Khupe and the Minister of Health, Dr Henry Madzorera exploring ways to raise funds for Harare Central hospital. The Prime Minister was reportedly moved by the dire state of the referral hospital he visited on Friday and pledged to raise US$1.5 million for it to resume normal operations.

Tsvangirai, who had considered attending Mugabe’s celebrations in an effort to show his commitment to the inclusive government, is said to have been alarmed by the programme which showed the event would basically remain a Zanu PF event, though the political landscape in Zimbabwe has changed. The Prime Minister received the official invitation at 3pm but in 90 minutes he had already notified Mugabe that he would not want to be part of it. James Maridadi, the PM’s spokesperson said Saturday: “The PM received the invite, acknowledged it and sent his congratulations. He, however, regretted that he would not attend because he felt it was a Zanu PF function.”

Maridadi said Tsvangirai did not want to intrude at what was clearly a party event. Also, Tsvangirai had serious reservations about the event because he is said to be against turning “individual birthdays” into national events. Tsvangirai turns 57 on March 10 but has told aides he wants a private function at his Strathaven home. A cake bought from a local supermarket and a cup of tea with his wife and children is all he has planned, The Standard was told.

In contrast Mugabe’s birthday celebrations attracted thousands of people and were criticised as a “sheer waste of taxpayers’ money” at a time seven million Zimbabweans required food aid because they face starvation.

Mugabe’s spokesman, George Charamba tried to put a brave face Saturday saying the 21st February Movement celebrations were a party event and “therefore Tsvangirai did not snub them”. The invitation to Mugabe’s lavish birthday came at a time when the shaky political relationship between the two had become increasingly strained following Mugabe’s unilateral appointment of permanent secretaries. Tsvangirai said the appointments were unconstitutional and would not be recognized.

Mugabe also worsened matters by digging in on the issue of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Gideon Gono and Attorney General Johannes Tomana insisting their appointments, which violate the Global Political Agreement (GPA) were legal. Donors have been clear to MDC fundraisers that they cannot be in a position to help as long as Gono is in charge of the central bank.

Mugabe’s behaviour left Tsvangirai facing pressure from members of his formation to be wary of the President’s commitment to the new government. Sources said members of the MDC- T national executive who met on Friday called for the review of the party’s participation in government in view of Zanu PF’s apparent reluctance to see the full implementation of the deal.

The national executive members did not want their leader to have anything to do with Mugabe’s birthday celebrations at a time when deputy minister-designate Roy Bennett, Jestina Mukoko and Gandhi Mudzingwa continued to languish in jail. There were also concerns that Tsvangirai’s attendance would be in bad taste at a time when 3 900 people have succumbed to cholera and the inclusive government was battling to convince donors to fund the country’s reconstruction.

The organisers of the so-called 21st February Movement event had budgeted up to US$250 000 for expensive cuisine and drinks that included imported whiskies.

MDC- T spokesman, Nelson Chamisa said Mugabe’s birthday was a party event and Tsvangirai was not obliged to attend. He would do so at any national events.
But party sources said MDC -T hardliners were growing impatient with Mugabe’s intransigence as shown by the renewed invasion of white owned farms.

source.Zimbabwe Standard (Zimbabwe) – March 2, 2009.

Chinhoyi (Zimbabwe)  Hungry Zanu PF supporters fell over each other as they scrambled for food at President Robert Mugabe’s much hyped 85th birthday celebrations yesterday, where ordinary people were served boiled meat and sadza.

There was pandemonium as elderly people and youths rushed to the serving points soon after a combative Mugabe finished his winding speech. Bouncers worked over time trying to control queues as people fought their way to get their portions of the ordinary meal served on plastic paper plates and old newspapers because of a shortage of plates.

For the people, there was no sign of the classy cuisine and expensive drinks budgeted for by the organisers of the North Korean-style event. Top government officials, including Mugabe, had their lunch at a hotel where entry was restricted.

In his speech, Mugabe vowed the violent land seizures from white commercial farmers would continue despite the inauguration of the unity government. He said there would be no letting up on the land redistribution despite concerns it was poisoning the political environment and worsening the economic collapse.

“Once a farm is designated the original owner must be prepared to vacate that farm within a time frame that is acceptable,” he said.

Mugabe dismissed the ruling by the South African Development Community (Sadc) Tribunal that gave beleaguered farmers a reprieve, describing it as a non-event.

“That’s nonsense, absolutely nonsense,” he said. “We have courts here in the country which can determine the rights of our people.”

He assured his supporters that Zanu PF was still in charge despite losing its parliamentary majority to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formations in last year’s elections.

“In the hierarchy I am on top as the President, followed by Vice- President Joseph Msika and Joyce Mujuru then (Prime Minister Morgan) Tsvangirai and his deputies, it has come to this because we lost the March elections,” he said.

About 4 000 people, including Zanu PF ministers and those who were dropped from the cabinet, attended the event. Ordinary people said they attended because they thought Tsvangirai would be part of the proceedings.

Mugabe’s rectangular cake weighed 85kg and it was written 85 on all sides with different decorative colours.

source.Zimbabwe Standard (Zimbabwe) – March 2, 2009.