Chikowore asleep on the job — again!

By Muckracker | 7h ago

THE circus came to town again last week. First, we had the hilarious spectacle of Enos Chikowore saying corruption at CMED came “as a complete surprise” to him. This, despite years of press reports and official inquiries revealing that CMED was a vast field of rich pickings which politicians, supervisors and ordinary workers plundered at will.

A day later, we had Joseph Msika saying he would call in the army to evict villagers who settled illegally on commercial farms. Then he said he would confiscate any farm whose owner evicted trespassers.

Ministers cannot be prevented from making fools of themselves however hard we might try. And however daft their public pronouncements we can be sure of one thing: the president will never evict them from their offices, let alone their ill-gotten farms!

Meanwhile, somebody should draw Msika’s attention to what the World Economic Forum had to say about the competitiveness of countries where property rights could not be guaranteed.

Does anybody feel sorry for Laurent Kabila? A few months ago he was telling the South Africans Mugabe-style to mind their own business and go to hell. They were rebel supporters, he fumed. Now he has been cap in hand to Pretoria begging President Mbeki to stop the rebels chasing him around the Congo.

“Please get them to sign the peace accord,” he pleaded. And Mbeki has done his best to oblige.

Kabila arrived in Pretoria with his ministers of finance, economics and mining to resuscitate those deals which the DRC president had said last year would only go to Zimbabwe.

What a reversal of fortune!

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So, who at the Catholic Bishops Conference is trying to do a hatchet job on Mike Auret?. He stands accused of prejudicing victims of Gukurahundi of substantial donor support by publishing the Matabeleland report without the approval of the bishops.

The “premature” publication of the report scuttled plans by the bishops to solicit the support of the president and International donors in getting aid to the affected region, we are told.

You have to be very gullible to buy this one. Firstly, it assumes the bishops were on the verge of some major initiative when we all know they were doing absolutely nothing about the report because it may have jeopardised the cosy relationship some of them had with the first family. Indeed, they resisted repeated entreaties to actually act on the report’s findings.

The Independent published details of their vote in 1997 not to publish the report because they couldn’t agree among themselves.

Then we have to suppose the president would have been prepared to provide government endorsement for a plan of action for Matabeleland. As he has done nothing before or since to show his concern for the victims, why should we assume he was ready to do something at some point in 1997?

Muckraker has a good idea who is leaking this disinformation. The Catholic Bishops Conference and it’s agents need to be warned: You stand complicit in the Matabeleland atrocities because instead of heeding your moral obligation to speak out on the report’s findings you remained silent for political reasons. Don’t now try to redeem yourselves by stabbing Auret in the back. At least he knew the right thing to do!

Media workers were recently treated to a preview of Edwina Spicer’s new film on the role of the press in Zimbabwe over the years Dancing Out of Tune. It contains good interviews with veteran pressmen and women testifying to a history of manipulation and repression under both the Rhodesian Front and Zanu PF. It looks back at the African Daily News and the Central African Examiner as well as the Rhodesia Herald. We hear from Mike Hove, Lawrence Vambe, Bill Saidi and Eileen Haddon, among others.

There is footage of Willie Musarurwa and his staff at the Sunday Mall in 1984. Journalists who worked with Willie tell us exactly why he was so respected as an editor because he told the truth.

Elias Rusike explains how the Mass Media Trust, instead of being a buffer between the government and Zimpapers, became a conduit for ministerial interference.

But where the film’s value really lies is in the way people are allowed to condemn themselves. Here is Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo saying what they really thought of each other, no holds barred and Emmerson Mnangagwa on the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act: “We don’t like the Act, but it comes in handy.”

Then there is Bornwell Chakaodza as Director of Information saying: “The idea is not to tell the truth, but to reflect issues.” The audience roared with laughter.

In response to Chakaodza’s assertion that newspapers should be concerned with the national interest, Morgan Tsvangirai asks: “Are those countries which have freedom of expression without a national interest?”

There is a clip of one of Chakaodza’s predecessors as Information chief, John Tsimba, telling journalists who he took to Matabeleland on a whitewash tour in 1984: “You have found no evidence of atrocities. If you continue to say there have been atrocities, we will say you have a vendetta against the government.”

What do you say now John?

This film needs to be shown on ZTV in the public interest. If it isn’t, the Ministry of Information must be asked what they have to hide.

The public seem to have been taken aback by the speed with which the Attorney-General’s Office rushed to order the granting of bail to Chinhoyi mayor Faber Chidarikire, who is charged with a grisly murder.

How do we explain this sudden burst of activity? This is the same office that wanted to delay the trial of three Americans because the police had not “unearthed” enough evidence against them despite undisputed evidence of torture and inhuman treatment; whose officials go down with malaria when all else fails; who have taken six months to investigate complaints of torture of journalists and who appear to be doing absolutely nothing about evidence of police participation in human rights abuses.

In the Chidarikire case, the AG’s Office ignored police pleas that the accused may attempt to interfere with witnesses. The case brings to mine that of CIO director Eddison Shirihuru, accused of involvement in the abduction and disappearance of Rashiwe Guzha, who the AG’s Office also released after having been warned that he may interfere with witnesses.

What exactly is the procedure here? Who gives the orders? Why did it take the authorities 12 years to catch up with Chidarikire? Why in certain cases is the AG’s Office as slow as a tortoise and in others as rapid as a hare? Are we missing something here?

Constitutional Commission chair Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku was quoted on ZTV’s news last Friday as blaming “some whites” of the commission’s fundraising campaign. White-owned law firms were telling donors not to succumb to the commission’s blandishments, the story said.

Where is this coming from, we wonder? And let’s hope Chidyausiku isn’t attempting to play the race card to throw dust in our eyes, especially when he knows as well as we do which lawyers are working for the NCA.

Once the commission is seen to be mindlessly following the ruling party’s scapegoating tactics it will suffer a fatal blow to its credibility. Ask Chen!

In this connection we had Jonathan Moyo recently saying the president had won a great victory in the Congo.

Last weekend, he was quoted in the South African media as saying the judiciary had “provoked the executive” in seeking to have the three detained according to the law.

“Something is wrong with the Zimbabwean judiciary,” he said.

Doesn’t all this sound suspiciously familiar? We can understand a coincidence of viewpoints here and there. But becoming a presidential cheerleader and having no grasp of the notion that elementary human rights must extend to those we don't like as well as those we do, and that when the executive violates those rights the judiciary has a duty to say so, does invite the question: what’s going on here ?

The commission is particularly upset, it seems, by criticism of its budget. They don’t like the expression “spending spree” and want everybody to know that they haven’t actually started spending money yet. “You ain’t seen nothing yet”, is the message.

We believe it. In particular we would like to see the tab for those expatriate commissioners staying at the Sheraton on a permanent basis!

We were amused to see Tafataona Mahoso using his weekly column to recommend himself for membership of the commission. This is what we call a conflict of interest which needs to be spelt out to a number of people in the media sector: you can’t join the commission and then, in all conscience, pose as a media commentator on the commission’s work . Nobody will take you seriously.

While Zimbabwe’s inexorable slide in the competitiveness rankings seems to have evoked remarkably little interest in official circles, South African economists and government spokespersons have been agonising over their country’s relegation to 47 out of 59 countries assessed.

Factors weighing against South Africa were slow growth, high levels of crime, a poor savings rate, a poor skills and education base and an inflexible labour market.

Government officials have been trying to place a gloss on things suggesting the picture is not as bad as it seems. Their indignation, however, has only compounded fears that, like Zimbabwe, South Africa is spawning an official class that is intolerant of criticism.

Hania Farhan, head of economics and research at FBC Fidelity Investment Bank, is quoted in a recent issue of the Financial underlining a point we all need to understand: “In general,” she says, “governments that are more attuned to the views of their people and business leaders are often more successful than those that believe they know best. One of the lessons from the collapse of the emerging markets in 1997 and 1998 has been a failure of governments that feel they do not need to consult, or worse still, need to consult only with those who agree with them.”

Farhan says it would be good if SA’s leaders could say: “Okay, we clearly do not fulfil the criteria that would attract long-term investment; we do not yet provide a sufficiently enabling and attractive environment for business to sustain but we are working hard towards creating one.”

President Mbeki went some way towards this in his address to African leaders assembled for the recent OAU summit in Algiers. He said that they must adjust to the imperatives of globalisation.

Where is Zimbabwe in all this? How have we adjusted our thinking as a nation?

The president returned from Malaysia advocating new controls. His supporters continue to use the language of economic nationalism as if Zimbabwe is an island. Even those on the constitutional commission continue to speak of indigenous formulations as if we need to reinvent the wheel.

There are societies around the world that function effectively, which grow economically and whose people are benefiting from this growth. Why don’t we find out what works instead of staying with what manifestly doesn’t?