Zimbabwe News Bulletin: Crisis NGOs To Go Bust Amid Unity Government


Crisis NGOs to go bust

CAJ News

JOHANNESBURG--NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS based in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the world at large, which were cashing in on the Zimbabwean crisis are now faced with collapse following MDC-T’s decision to join the inclusive Government this week, a snap survey has revealed.

Several NGOs in Johannesburg and Pretoria said civil society organisations, including churches, refugee organisations and human rights groups, mainly those based in South Africa were upset by MDC-T’s position to join the inclusive Government as they feared that funding would dry up.

Tambanavo Chamanyawi, a human rights activist and political analyst based in Johannesburg, claimed that dozens of NGOs based in that city, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town, which were making a killing out of the Zimbabwean crisis, would soon go bust as funders were likely to channel money to other countries.

"Hundreds of Zimbabweans squatting in churches in Johannesburg became instant statistics for use and abuse during the launch of the Save Zimbabwe campaign by the so-called elders and human rights groups.

"One cannot deny that some of these activists genuinely toil for the people. However, the opulence and gullibility of some of them is not difficult to detect.

"Some have become so affluent over the years beyond the imagination of the struggling Zimbabweans they parade.

"All is bound to come to a sudden end with the coming to life of the inclusive Government in Zimbabwe. The ‘stock’ is going to disappear and business will take a nosedive," said Chamanyawi.

"Human rights project proposals will cease to be keys to any till and thousands of Zimbabwe’s best brains will find themselves passengers of a stationary gravy train," he added.

Because most financial resources were being channelled towards opposition activities, the situation was likely to change when the new Government takes shape.

"Donors would be left with no alternative except to seal their wallets. This is exactly the reason why dominant, eloquent and flamboyant characters in the NGO sector are crying foul over Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to be part of a solution to the problems of Zimbabwe.

"Some are already mouthing out serious assertions of deception on Tsvangirai’s part. They claim the inclusive Government is against the wishes of the electorate and agitate for Tsvangirai’s absolute take over," said Chamanyawi.

Zimbabwe Political Victims Association (Zipova) welfare officer for South Africa Joshua Mambo-Rusere openly opposed the move by Mr Tsvangirai to join the inclusive Government saying his organisation was assessing the possible consequences.

"I am not happy with what the MDC leadership did. Joining the inclusive Government is a disaster for many of us here in exile.

"Well, it could be good for our brothers, sisters and parents back home who are suffering from diseases, food shortages and company closures, but this deal is not favourable to genuine political victims. The deal does not mention our fate," said Mambo-Rusere.

The secretary-general for Zipova, Oliver Kubikwa, said the deal needed some careful scrutiny arguing that both parties needed total commitment to the deal for it to work.

"I am not with the deal, but I do believe that when both parties are fully committed, then Zimbabwe will bounce back to become the breadbasket of southern Africa," said Kubikwa.

Mafias Kayela of a local church that has been giving cash to Zimbabweans desperately looking for shelter and food in Johannesburg and Pretoria said he was upset by Mr Tsvangirai’s move to join the inclusive Government.

"Our NGO has already lost so many field officers from the time Mr Tsvangirai made statements towards joining the new GNU (government of national unity) under President Mugabe. I am not so sure whether by next year our NGO will be still functional or totally collapsed because the sponsors are contemplating pulling out.

"We used to get lots of cash injection from America, Australia and the United Kingdom to provide food, clothes and medication to the Zimbabwe refugees and asylum seekers," said one official from a leading NGO based in Johannesburg. —CAJ News.


Illegal regime change has no room in unity gvt

AFRICAN FOCUS by Tafataona P. Mahoso

THE Press in Zimbabwe has let down the people by failing to expose a glaring paradox whose resolution is critical for the success of the inclusive government process as a process of nation building and consolidation of the people’s interest and national sovereignty.

The paradox is this: Those parties and the media supporting them in the illegal regime change onslaught on Zimbabwe have adopted the rhetoric of power sharing, inclusive governance and even government of national unity, while continuing to pursue the objectives of the original illegal regime-change agenda in practice and in endless negotiations and re-negotiations.

In other words, the Press is failing to explain to the people that there is a stark difference and contradiction between the pursuit of an inclusive government for nation building and national renewal, on one hand, and the pursuit of an inclusive government or power-sharing as merely another means to achieve the regime change agenda which the people of Zimbabwe, Sadc, the AU and NAM have already rejected.

The media must therefore explain not only the language being used to justify certain actions undertaken in the name of inclusive governance and power-sharing. The media must also be able to identify and explain the actions which the language is trying to hide or to justify. For example, any focus on President Robert Mugabe or any attempt to deny or destroy his role is not consistent with the meaning of power-sharing and inclusive governance.

The people elected President Mugabe on June 27 2008. Sadc has no quarrel with President Mugabe. The AU has no quarrel with him. NAM accepts the President. So whose agenda requires questioning the President’s leadership?

Further, any attempt to demand numerical parities between or among all parties involved is not consistent with nation building, power-sharing or inclusive governance because such a demand shifts the focus of the process away from the interests of the people on to the selfish, partisan demands of the political parties and their executives.

The people want one effective government and such a government cannot be bogged down on discussions of parity with itself. To underline what we mean, let us illustrate: it is common cause that the two MDC formations were instigated and funded by foreign powers who not only gave them a regime change agenda but also used the same MDC formations to demand economic sanctions imposed upon the people and the economy.

It would be absurd and criminal for Zanu-PF to make a parity demand which requires inviting more foreign powers to match the role of the UK, the US, the EU and Australia on the side of Zanu-PF just because MDC-T enjoys overwhelming support from these Western powers. Parity between or among the parties is not the same thing as nation building or power-sharing within one sovereign government.

Such a demand could be made but it should never be accepted as consistent with nation building or power-sharing and reconciliation. We do not want to share proxy power because the idea of serving as a proxy of alien interests is the opposite of nation building, power-sharing, sovereignty and reconciliation. But how could the Press assist the people to safeguard their common interest against the possibility of an illegal regime change agenda being smuggled into the inclusive government process?

First, the media can alert citizens to past cases of attempted and fulfilled regime change because such cases help them to know what to expect and what to do when it happens. Second from those cases of externally driven, externally sponsored regime change, it is clear that the regime change agenda seeks foremost to divide the people by creating an unworkable government based on absurd notions of nominal and partisan parity in the name of so-called national unity. The strategy is one of setting up and setting off contradictory and contradicting centres of authority and control within the same government and the same country at the expense of national cohesion or integrity.

Here the regime change media are employed to promote and cultivate a binary frame and logic in which those individuals and institutions associated with the incumbent are presumed guilty until proven innocent and are treated with suspicion and targeted for final liquidation or exclusion. Those associated with the sponsored and illegal regime change on the other hand are presumed to represent the future, democracy, good governance, rule of law and progress regardless of what they actually believe in and what they actually do.

This dichotomy is maintained purely through language manipulations and not through examination of real practice, real events and existing relationships. This binary logic explains why the arrest and detention of people suspected of terrorist activity appears in the regime change Press as "abductions". It explains why there is a loud demand to negotiate the office of the Attorney-General, the Commissioner-General of Police and to score parity points over who is who in the entire Home Affairs Ministry.

Yet, from the point of view of the needs of the people, what is required is efficacious national public service. The attempt to apportion bits of that service and the various offices to Zanu-PF, MDC-T or MDC is contrary to the common national interest in security.

Third, all the cases of illegal regime change, whether fulfilled or attempted, demonstrate that the ultimate goal of the intervening power or powers is the economic stake whose control is to be altered directly or indirectly through illegal regime change.

In 1953, the United States of America through its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) successfully forced a regime change in Iran. According to Professor Noam Chomsky’s book, Imperial Ambitions, the reasons were clear:

"The issue in Iran was that a nationalist parliamentary government was attempting to take back its own oil resources. These had been under the control of a British company — originally Anglo-Persian, later named Anglo-Iranian."

The willingness of the USA to overthrow the government of Iran through foreign-sponsored destabilisation meant that Britain came to play a secondary role after the US in Iran in 1953. Likewise, the regime change agenda in Zimbabwe was originally a British agenda and the more it failed the deeper the US got involved in order to assist and rescue the British government. Most of MDC-T’s demands for parity with Zanu-PF are indeed identical with those of the British and US governments in the Bush era. In the place of Iranian petroleum, what is at stake in Zimbabwe is the land and its extensive mineral and agricultural resources. It is also no coincidence that the control systems which MDC-T and its sponsors would like dismantled and taken over in the name of parity have to do with the commanding heights of the economy, including the Ministry of Finance and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Democracy has nothing to do with this. An inclusive government cannot demand parity with itself.

Fourth, in all the attempted and concluded cases of regime change, law and order and the security arms of the state have been a prime target. Regime change in those cases succeeded to the extent that at some point the regime change proxies made the country ungovernable. Therefore our people must examine our point three together with our point four in the context of the inclusive government agreement. This examination reveals a paradox. From the point of view of the majority of the people at home and abroad, the most pressing action which the three parties and the inclusive government they intend to set up must take should be to fight and defeat the illegal economic sanctions which together with the attendant corruption have created genocide-like living conditions for the people.

The cases of Cuba and Nicaragua help to explain the critical importance of sanctions and economic warfare in regime change.

According to Chomsky: "Destruction of Nicaragua was a task of no slight importance. The country’s progress during the early 1980s was lauded by the World Bank and other international agencies as remarkable and as laying a solid foundation for long-term socio-economic development. In the health sector, the country enjoyed one of the most dramatic improvements in child survival in the developing world, according to Unicef (1986). The real cancer feared by the (US) Reaganites was thus serious: Nicaragua’s remarkable transformation could have metastasised (spread) to a revolution without borders . . . (as an example of alternative development and empowerment) . . . It was therefore logical, from Washington’s point of view, to eradicate the virus before it could infect others, who must in turn be inoculated by imperialist-sponsored terror and repression."

The livelihood of the people had to be destroyed through sanctions, sabotage and terror attacks in order to force regime change. The key reason was that, left to is own devices, Nicaragua like Zimbabwe, would have successfully demonstrated a shining alternative path to development which others would copy against US capitalist interests.

But the Nicaraguan example has one immediate application to Zimbabwe: any nation-building initiative carried out in the name of the people, as our inclusive government initiative claims, must start by recognising and reversing the destructive effects of sanctions upon the people together with the accompanying corruption.

But what do we see? MDC-T, which was in the forefront of inviting the sanctions, is not preoccupied with defeating those sanctions as the top priority of an inclusive government. MDC-T is concerned first about a National Security Bill, about removing incumbent provincial governors and about removing the incumbent Attorney-General in order to score some parity points to achieve the goals of the same illegal regime change which the people rejected.

This takes us to our fifth characteristic demand by forces of regime change over many decades: The demand to destabilise the military command, the judiciary and the law enforcement institutions.

In the case of Zimbabwe, the old conflict between a colonial judiciary and a revolutionary African land reclamation movement had already been resolved through Constitutional Amendment Number 17. The role of the police and the army in relation to the African land reclamation movement had also been clarified. Even further, the British and US sponsors of external regime change had also admitted that the strength of the Zimbabwean security forces was one of the reasons why they failed to stage a military invasion of Zimbabwe to install a stooge government.

In other words, the judicial and security systems of Zimbabwe have served the country and the people well since the onset of the Third Chimurenga. How then should the same people take a political formation, sponsored by the same foreign powers, wanting to tamper with the very same systems in the name of parity? And who is supposed to enjoy this parity? Is it parity between the people of Zimbabwe and the foreign sponsors of the political formations now in our inclusive government or is it our inclusive government which demands parity with itself? The people want one government and one leadership. There is no parity issue here.

The people are not focused on parity. They want an end to hunger, disease, poor sanitation, deteriorating infrastructure and unemployment precipitated by sanctions, which the regime change proxies invited.


‘Zim, it’s time to bury the hatchet’

By Bishop Trevor Manhanga
Zimbabwe Herald

THERE was in years past a song that received considerable airtime on our airwaves that had a line in it that called upon people to, "listen to the voice of reason".

At this critical juncture in the life of our nation, as we prepare for the inception and operation of our inclusive government, it might well be time for all Zimbabweans, regardless of ethnic background, colour, creed, economic status, political or religious affiliation, to heed that call.

Now more than ever before we need level-headedness, patriotism, a spirit of ubuntu and reason to prevail. It is very unfortunate that at the dawn of what could be the rebirth of our nation, once again there is a frenzy of negativism, and pessimism.

Once again the first casualty in this mindless, incessant and unnecessary war of words and actions is the well-being of the people of Zimbabwe.

We cannot talk about seeing the country "crash and burn" when we should instead be calling on all Zimbabweans to unite, arise and build!

We must be very clear as Zimbabweans that if we do not seize the remarkable opportunity that is presently before us, and if we allow this moment to pass us by, future generations may not forgive us, for putting selfish interests before the common good of the people.

Now is the time for us as Zimbabweans to unite, and focus on what we share in common, rather than indulging in the destructive tendencies of the past, when we have talked at each other, about each other and above each other, except talking to and with each other.

Our political leaders and indeed all Zimbabweans must be cognisant of the fact that should we fail to maximise this moment, there will be no winners, only self-destruction and further misery for us all. In this regard we would do well to remember the words of Jesus Christ when he said:

"A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand" Mark 3:24.

With opponents of the inclusive government continuing to pour scorn on what is not a perfect solution but a needed one, it would be prudent to point out that our leaders must not flinch in the face of this onslaught.

What they must remember is that the agreement reached on September 15 2008 between Zanu-PF and the two formations of the MDC, which will culminate in the swearing into office of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister and Ms Thokozani Khupe and Professor Arthur Mutambara as Deputy Prime Ministers respectively, needs the acclaim of the people of Bocha more than that of Brussels, and the support of the people of Lalapansi more than that of London.

That is not to say international support is inconsequential for Zimbabwe, we welcome their support. But we must not allow ourselves to feel that we will not succeed as long as we do not have the validation of outsiders for an agreement arrived at by ourselves, for ourselves, through the facilitation of our brothers in the Sadc region.

When peace reigns in Zimbabwe it will be the people of Mufakose who will prosper not those in Manchester or Madrid.

And when we unlock the tremendous potential that we have, it will be for the benefit of the people of Watsomba not those in Washington. So what we need right now is indigenous ownership and support for the process more than external validation.

This is because it is our (the people of Zimbabwe’s) collective present and future well-being that is at stake not that of citizens of other countries.

It would also be important to point out that while there are some who crave the validation of countries in the northern hemisphere, in reality there is a shift in global power away from the northern hemisphere to places such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. Going forward these countries will expect a greater say in how the world is run.

It is important for us as Zimbabweans to be cognisant of this as we chart this new chapter in our own historical context.

While it is not necessarily wrong to find out what countries in the northern hemisphere feel about our current and future political dispensation, what is worrying is that the opinions of countries from the southern hemisphere are missing from the discourse.

So to all our political leaders who have taken this bold and courageous step I, and I am sure many other Zimbabweans, say thank you and well done. You have not sold out, or given in, on the contrary you have shown much-needed statesmanship and the kind of decisive leadership we expect of you.

You may not have got all the things your individual parties may have wanted, but in agreeing to work together for the betterment of the people of Zimbabwe, you have given the nation an opportunity to rebuild and restore the damage we have suffered over the past couple of years.

We now have a remarkable opportunity to become the nation we all know we can become; a bastion of unity, freedom, development and prosperity at home, on the African continent and indeed the globe. To my entire fellow Zimbabweans I say let us get behind the inclusive government being formed and play our part to make this arrangement succeed. What we must understand is that there is no single model of democracy anywhere in the world.

The one we are attempting to mould here has many imperfections and that is a given, but that should not stop us from trying to emerge from the quagmire of the recent past to forge the Zimbabwe we all want.

It can be done. We can learn from places like India — one of the world’s biggest democratic nations — who hold a general election this year. There is also Indonesia — the world’s most populous Moslem country — where there will be presidential polls.

Closer home we can observe and draw lessons from our neighbours South Africa — who only 15 years ago emerged out of the horrors of the despicable years of racial segregation — where they will hold parliamentary and presidential polls in a few months’ time.

We are not an island unto ourselves and can take the best out of the electoral processes from elsewhere and weave them into the mosaic that is distinctly Zimbabwean with our own nuances and cultural identity.

It is my hope and prayer that we will use the up-coming months and years that the inclusive government will be in place, to create a multi-ethnic, multi-party democracy with consensus-building as the key in this very important formative stage.

Let us therefore work for a broad-based unity among the people from across the political spectrum.

As we unite we will discover that the place of unity is the place of peace, power, possibility and prosperity.

This does not mean we are oblivious to the multi-faceted challenges we face. We must be under no illusions that the formation of an inclusive government will be the panacea for all the hardships that the nation currently faces. The nature of the hardships we face will take nothing less than hard work and a firm resolve not to give up in the face of some painful decisions we will need to make.

The inclusive government will have to make choices that will not please all the people. Many of their own fervent party supporters may be disappointed in the process. We must understand that this government will of necessity not be able to be all things to all people.

There are some key fundamental starting points which must be attended to. The economy being the pivotal one (with the agricultural and manufacturing sectors being key components), followed by the health and education sectors as well as the key issue of constitutional reform should be looked into promptly.

These are not small challenges, with fewer funds to appeal for on the global stage due to the worldwide economic recession, but we can make significant progress, using the ingenuity and creative spirit we have developed over the past difficult years and the correct utilisation of our vast natural resources. In this respect we must banish corruption and corrupt practices from our beloved nation so that our God-given resources are utilised for the benefit of all the people of Zimbabwe.

The progressive budget presented to Parliament by the acting Minister of Finance, Honourable Senator Patrick Chinamasa, coupled with the positive Monetary Policy Statement released by the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Dr Gideon Gono, is a good starting point.

Both the acting minister and the Governor of the Reserve Bank have attempted to begin this road of restoration for the nation. They are in the unenviable position of trying to be the bridge between where we are and where we need to get to as a nation.

As a result they will take a lot of heat from all and sundry. To their credit they have remained resolute in trying to find a way forward, and we all need to help them find this way, which once found could lead us all to the promised land, that is, a stable, prosperous Zimbabwe.

The fact that we have the second highest literacy rate on the African continent must count for something. All that brainpower must be harnessed and synergised to make things work for the better.

Our incoming inclusive government therefore must make every effort to lay the foundations that can be built upon going forward, leading to the reduction of poverty and unemployment and creating a climate in which our business people can thrive, our sportsmen and women can compete and excel, our politicians can enjoy robust debate and deliberations, and our children can grow up to achieve the dreams of their hearts.

All this is possible, but it will need all of us doing what we can, wherever and whenever we can to make our land the Zimbabwe we want.

After the pleasantries and formalities are over this week the hard work begins. Let us arise to the challenge and build our nation, why not?

--Bishop Trevor E. C. Manhanga is the Presiding Bishop of Pentecostal Assemblies of Zimbabwe. He writes in his personal capacity.


Step by step, Gono explains liberalisation

THE decision by Government to liberalise the economy has been met with jubilation by the business community, but the ordinary people are asking: "Has the Government abandoned the poor? Isn’t this liberalisation another ESAP with a different name? Why is the Government going in the opposite direction in terms of its economic policies with other governments that seem to be abandoning liberalisation?"

Our POLITICAL EDITOR MUNYARADZI HUNI speaks about these burning issues with the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Dr Gideon Gono:

MH: Dr Gono, the liberalisation of the economy has been well received by many, especially the business community. Can you briefly explain what it means to liberalise the economy?

DG: Thank you very much for this opportunity. Basically, what the fiscal and monetary policies have done is to put in place a comprehensive and coherent package of measures that activate the productive sectors of the economy, at the same time protecting the interests of the poor and vulnerable groups, particularly those in the rural areas.

The comprehensive policies have removed the various distortions which in the past worked to constrain producers. As you know, price controls, though introduced with good intentions, tend to punish the vulnerable groups either directly through complete disappearance of basic commodities from the shops at the artificial low prices or through exorbitant parallel market prices. The irony, therefore, is that some of the controls we were implementing as a country to protect vulnerable groups were in fact hurting the poor more, as those with the means could afford the punitive parallel market prices, whilst the poor languished watching the commodities drifting out of sight.

The policies we have implemented also encompass empowering the majority of our people, particularly those in the rural areas through allowance of import parity prices for agricultural produce, payable in foreign exchange. There can be no better way of a broad-based focus on the poor and vulnerable groups than ensuring that they get fair value for their efforts, as well as through ensuring that the economy preserves and creates new jobs, out of which support incomes are derived to benefit the poor. To those whose understanding of economics and how sustainable development comes about, they would rather keep controls and distortions that shrink the cake in the name of artificial egalitarianism than liberate the means of production to generate goods and services, as well as tangible incomes to the vulnerable groups, supported by social safety nets.

Under the new measures, therefore, the sky is the limit for our productive sectors, as well as to those who want to come in to invest in our economy and this is what we need to take us forward.

MH: What necessitated this policy shift at this particular time? Does this have anything to do with developments on the political front?

DG: This policy shift was driven not by a leisurely act of passive choice but out of absolute necessity, given the gravity of the economic crisis that was set to ultimately engulf our nation into a near irretrievable state of meltdown. It was very clear, more than at any other point in our economic history that what we needed was a swift radical policy shift that would arrest any further declines in the productive sectors of the economy, taking advantage of the foundation we laid over the past five years.

The positive signals on the political front will complement these fiscal and monetary policy initiatives, rather than them being seen as the trigger for the policy changes.

MH: There is general belief that by liberalising the economy, you have chosen to listen to the voice of business and ignoring the poor. What checks and balances are there to cushion the poor in this liberalised economy where survival of the fittest seems to be the order of the day?

DG: The poor and vulnerable groups are in fact at the heart of these policy measures. It is quite clear that some of those raising this matter are either people who have not seen the full pack of our policy pronouncements or if they have seen them, they have elected to be conveniently illiterate to what is being articulated therein. For instance, the Monetary Policy I unveiled this past Monday had a whole section on Page 124 under the caption "A Focus on the Vulnerable Groups" which went to great lengths explaining the practical interventions, as well as giving pieces of advice on how the welfare of the poor would be safeguarded.

Over and above this, I went further to including a whole 56-page supplement under the theme:

"Surviving the New Economic Environment: Practical Advice and Policy Interventions to Support the Youth, Women Groups and Other Vulnerable Members of Society".

For the benefit of those critics who may not have had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the contents of this self-explanatory publication, I wish to also refer them to The Herald issue of Wednesday, February 4 2009, which fully reproduced the supplements. To those who took time to notice, the Monetary Policy framework goes into the intricacies of how the banking sector will play a pivotal role, supported by tailor-made micro-lending facilities in foreign exchange in support of SMEs and other self-help groups, predominantly in the rural areas. If this is not focusing on the vulnerable and the poor then I don’t know what is.

MH: A culture of greediness had developed in the country’s business community where business ethics had been abandoned in favour of super-profits. Surely why leave the poor at the mercy of such a business sector?

DG: Again, some of your readers will be familiar with the regional and international developments where greater efforts are being put at integrating regional economies into competitive financial and economic blocs. Last year, Sadc assented to the creation of the Free Trade Area which is set to bring about stiff competition to our local producers.

Under these chilly winds of competition, those producers and retailers who elect to continue on the path of overpricing of their commodities will find themselves left out. They will go into extinction. More along the same lines of the proverbial fly that followed the corpse into the grave. The quest for profits must have limits, particularly in an environment characterised by growing competition. We have already seen the positive price reduction benefits of competition arising from the stiff competition that is coming from the Special Foreign Exchange Licensed Shops.

Over the past two months or so, prices have fallen by as much as 44 percent in real foreign currency terms due to competition. This is directly benefiting consumers, including those in the vulnerable category.

Full economic recovery also requires that the business community be responsible through the adoption of explicit codes of ethics that guide and bind their operations and price formation systems.

Business must realise that their existence is grounded in the sustained welfare of the general public as their consumers. Careless and selfish pursuit of profits at the expense of the welfare of consumers is, therefore, the height of social irresponsibility which must be avoided through higher levels of corporate morality and socio-economic patriotism.

MH: To show how dishonest the people we are dealing with are, just a few days after liberalising the economy, you caught red-handed a gang that has been printing fake US dollars, rands, pulas and even the new currency you introduced. Surely this leaves our grandfathers and mothers at high risk, don’t you think?

DG: Indeed the busting of these criminal syndicates goes to prove and show that among us as Zimbabweans we have economic predators and saboteurs who will stop at nothing in their quest to satisfy their selfish ends. I am aware there are some mature men and women who occupy very respectable positions in society who are influencing the young men and women in our nation to seek refuge in crime.

Those we caught printing counterfeits are no better than the arsonists who were burning the economy through the creation of fictitious "wealth" which was causing havoc in the economy.

As Governor, my heart is very heavy that our legislators are not moving fast enough to plug these destructive forces through enactment of deterrent penalties and laws that cause people to be made to count hexillion times before venturing into economic crimes.

The judicial processes must also be adequately capacitated to swiftly deal with economic crimes.

Without this, our economy will continue to be engulfed in perpetual blackmail by these acts of naked economic sabotage, in land piracy that is destroying the livelihoods of the majority if Zimbabweans; and alas, the blame being levelled against Governor Gono and his team. Equally important, I want to also point out that some of those "respectable" and "honourable" perennial critics of our policies are in fact those with whom we have had a brush as we caught them with dripping fingers and smoking guns in the recent fraudulent activities that our rigorous systems unearthed in the banking and stock exchange sectors. They know it. Others are aggrieved by our call for public institutions such as Zinwa to deliver.

Fortunately, however, the literate Zimbabweans can see through some of these Machiavellian attempts.

I am aware that some have gone so far as hatching an ambitious programme to prop themselves into future leadership positions in the country through a scorched earth strategy, riding on destroying good intentions of others.

Our call to all progressive Zimbabweans is to shun these destructive forces and choose to pursue what is good for our economy.

MH: Some people are saying you have gone to the extreme in liberalising the economy and this brings back the sad memories of ESAP that Government later abandoned after it wreaked havoc in the economy. Some people are even saying this liberalisation is nothing but ESAP that has been given another name. What are your comments regarding going to the extreme in terms of policy shift and this being nothing but ESAP?

DG: Let me ask this, is allowing our own farmers in Rushinga, Chitomborwizi, Chiredzi, Gokwe, Mudzi, Buhera, Bikita, Binga, Gwanda, Kariba, etc, to be paid full value for their hard-earned crops and livestock going too far?

Is allowing every farmer to be paid directly in foreign exchange for their produce going too far?

Is allowing parents to pay for external medical expenses and school fees without seeking exchange control approval going too far?

Is allowing the importation of basic goods duty-free to benefit hospitals, clinics and the vulnerable groups going too far?

Is calling upon banks to open rural branch networks and extending foreign exchange loans to SMEs and self-help groups going too far?

Is our call for the removal of sanctions and the call for us as a nation to respect the sanctity of private property rights as a way to attract foreign direct investment inflows going too far?

Is our heeding of the genuine calls to support and revive the gold sector and the export sectors in general going too far?

I will leave the public jury to be the one to answer these back-to-basics questions. What I want to underscore, however, is that as Zimbabweans, we are astonishingly and tragically spinning into the habitual mode of criticising everything and anything that comes from those we might be having personality differences with, no matter how noble their efforts and policies might be. Not so long ago in June 2007, the nation learnt the hard lesson that the only solution to the problem of deteriorating welfare of the majority of the people lies in increasing supply rather than wishes to distribute a small and shrinking cake at muzzled prices that destroy productive viability.

To understand this basic viability-supply linkage, one must view the economy’s productive sectors as the proverbial "blood donors" who must feed the needs of consumers for the latter’s mutual sustenance.

If, out of sheer obtuse thinking or impractical benevolence we drive the productive sectors to bleed out of existence, the devastated victims would be the recipients of the blood who constitute every household in Zimbabwe, more so the vulnerable groups.

ESAP called for job lay-offs in the name of structural reforms. Our home-grown policies now are calling for and promoting job preservations and creation through greater capacity utilisation in industry, in hospitals, in mines, in schools, and on farms, as well as on streets through self-help hawkers licensing frameworks. This is a fundamental departure from the core premise of ESAP.

ESAP was for the complete removal of subsidies, with minimum provisions for social safety nets. The policies we have put in place now clearly state the need for continued Government support through the centralised provision of agricultural inputs such as fertilisers, seeds, chemicals and equipment to communal, A1 and resettled farmers. This is miles away from ESAP.

Please take note that the Fiscal and Monetary Policies have explicitly made provisions for the vulnerable groups in the frameworks for accessing health and educational services, which are in essence public merit goods. ESAP was for universal deregulation of interest rates without any need to restrain the banking sector from overcharging borrowers. In the policies that I unveiled on February 2 2009, I explicitly encouraged banks to refrain from predatory interest rates charges and in fact laid out the maximum permissible benchmarks for foreign exchange loans. This is done to give our policies a human face, itself a virtuous trait that ESAP seriously lacked.

We are all witnesses to the disaster that Zinwa turned out to be. Surely how our call for Zinwa’s operations to be devolved back to local authorities can be labelled "going too far or going back to ESAP" baffles the mind and clearly shows how petty some of our stakeholders can be. Let’s be objective.

The real trouble that I see is that we have allowed corruption and side-dealing to be so engraved in our systems to the point where some among us have developed intractable umbilical cords with public institutions for personal, political and financial gain. Under this unfortunate scenario, any noble policies that disturb the illicit status-quo are then fiercely resisted as "bad economics".

There is, therefore, absolutely nothing ESAP about us rewarding our farmers handsomely with foreign exchange rather than risking to spend even more to pay foreign farmers in food imports.

There is nothing ESAP about encouraging our banks to support rural businesses and SMEs through micro-lending programmes.

It is quite clear to me that whoever is saying the recent policy measures are akin to ESAP is either ignorant about what ESAP itself was in the first place or simply electing to be radiators of gamma rays of despondency and negativity at a time when all signs of macro-economic stability are looking up, under the recent fiscal and monetary policy reforms, and the reported positive developments on the political front.

MH: There are some people who are saying you have dollarised the economy. What is your comment because everywhere one goes now, people are asking for the US dollars for their goods and services?

DG: Dollarisation is a highly technical process and what I can tell you is firstly that what we have done is not it. Because of its intricacies, those spreading the summary conclusion that we have dollarised can be forgiven. In simple terms, a country is said to have dollarised if it officially approaches another foreign country to supply that country’s currency to replace the dollarising economy’s own sovereign currency.

In other words, there ought to be country to country formal arrangements. Under dollarisation, therefore, the foreign currency formerly replaces the sovereign currency of another. This is quite distinct from what we have done here, which is simply that for ease of transactional purposes in the light of sanctions against our cash supply chain, we have allowed the co-circulation of the Zimbabwe dollar along with foreign currencies. The foreign currencies are, therefore, complementing the local currency, rather than replacing it. The Zimbabwe dollar remains the legitimate legal tender for Zimbabwe. We have, therefore, not dollarised.

The materiality of the observed reality where most sellers of goods and services are demanding foreign exchange lies in the fact that locally the availability of those goods and services had seriously deteriorated such that foreign products were coming in to fill the gap. The genesis of the greater appetite for foreign exchange as opposed to the local currency thus, lies on the high propensity to import by the country as a whole, and much less as a result of an act of policy announcement. It is essentially a fundamental issue of our capacity to produce goods and services.

As sure as the sun rises and sets, if we work to increase tangible supply of goods and services through sweat, as opposed to bickering and mud-slinging any policy initiatives meant to make a difference, our inflation would collapse to single digit levels in less than 12 months, and with it will be the departure of the observed market obsession with and affinity for foreign exchange over the local currency.

The strength and value of our currency is as deep as our collective productive capacities. Clearly this is not a Gono issue. The breath and energy we spent in drawing spears against each other should instead be harnessed to go towards producing goods and services to create wealth, which wealth would strengthen the value of our currency. The perpetual acts of the blame-game won’t do.

MH: Governor, you have been telling the nation to "think outside the box" but surely liberalisation is not thinking outside the box because it’s a known economic model. Are we going back to textbook economic models?

DG: What we have done under these recent policy measures is the quintessence of thinking outside the box. The contemporary box of yesterday was that orthodoxy was the ultimate way of central banking. We saw it differently and constructed dams. We erected irrigation systems. We constructed houses. We capacitated our farmers under the Mechanisation Programme. We supported producers of basic commodities under the Basic Commodities Supply Side Intervention Window (BACOSSI). We went a step ahead the green revolution by developing the bio-diesel initiative at the commercial level to create downstream linkages between farmers in harmony with the environment.

All this we did in the midst of loud, and in some cases, very abusive criticism by some self-made local experts and the likes of the IMF and other international commentators who had not seen the light and wisdom in what we were doing.

Alas, five years down the road, the global economy is in real trouble and now universal refuge or the new "box of thought" is to engage in quasi-fiscal operations! Ourselves having capitalised our banks well ahead of time and having laid a solid foundation for our agricultural sector to take off what we now need is simply the productive sectors now rolling their sleeves to produce, using the far-sighted groundwork we have laid via the extraordinary interventions.

It makes sense to now remove all manner of distortions that were necessary as we engaged ourselves in the unconventional phase of our battle.

Now, again is time that we think outside the box and tactfully free our productive sectors to turn the global gloom into opportunities. The strategy, therefore, is to know when to switch tact as to be ahead of the global forces and ward off adverse eventualities in the realm of the 21st century macro-economic and business environment. I am very convinced that the necessary ingredients have been laid out and our businesses and farmers — large, medium, small-scale or subsistence in rural areas — will rise to the occasion and deliver.

So, yes, we are thinking outside the box. Now is the time for the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the Australian Central Bank and the European Central Bank to implement their announced hefty quasi-fiscal operations, whilst it is time for us here at home to now consolidate the gains from such noble interventions. I am very glad that the developed world has finally seen the light of day. We were right in our pioneering work. It is just that very few of our critics would be sincere and honest enough to admit that they are following 100 percent the policies we engineered whilst they condemned us.

MH: Developments on the international scene show that other countries are abandoning liberalisation and opting for controls. Why do we seem to be going in the opposite direction with the rest of the world in terms of our economic policies?

DG: As I said in the previous response, it pays to be ahead of the game, so to speak. Please, get this right, there is currently absolute chaos in the developed world right now. People there are not sleeping due to the unraveling credit crunch and the endemic job losses. Our fellow Zimbabweans need to appreciate that sometimes we are quick to condemn our own initiatives not knowing that down the road the rest of the world will follow our steps.

I can confirm to you that soon, the same world economic centres will be following our latest steps to know when to streamline quasi-fiscal operations once the groundwork and foundation for take-off has been laid out. It is now time that we consolidate our interventions to propel the economy towards full recovery. Even good medicines are not taken blindly forever. One must calibrate the right dosage and also know when to change course and stop when it is necessary.

It is also important to note that our optimism is based on the promised return to smooth functionality in our key public institutions whose under-performance over the past five years had driven us into taking extraordinary steps in defence of our country.

MH: Dr Gono, liberalising the economy is usually advisable when there is a strong government to monitor developments in the market. Do you think liberalisation will work if, for some reason, the all-inclusive government is a weak government?

DG: I am very convinced that our political leaders are working tirelessly and in good faith and with the sincerity necessary to put in place a robust public institutional framework that would play a pivotal supportive role in stabilising the economy. We should not allow negative speculations to deflate our collective capacity to self-correct, plan together and unleash the might of our abundant human and natural resource endowments to make Zimbabwe the jewel that it must be.

MH: In your Monetary Policy Statement last Monday you indicated that it will now be legal for individuals and companies to sell gold to buyers of their choice. Why have you taken such a decision because it looks like you are leaving the country’s precious minerals at the mercy of these dealers who all along have been smuggling these minerals out of the country?

DG: I am sure you recall that as part of the heinous sanctions to penalise our country, Zimbabwe was ejected from the London Bullion Market, which in essence was our primary market for the gold that we produced. The effect of this callous move has been to disrupt the proper flow of our foreign exchange resources, including those flows meant for the social sectors. It is for this reason that I will continue to strongly condemn these illegal sanctions particularly given the direct derivative effects on such social sectors as health, social welfare and education, among many others, including the provision of water treatment chemicals. Very few Zimbabweans knew that the tragedy being faced by our gold producers is partly a result of the blockade, so to speak, on Zimbabwe’s gold, which has frustrated our gold marketing programmes.

As a result, we could not stand by and let our lifeline sub-sector be driven into extinction whilst we watched. Something radical had to be done.

It then became necessary that we kick-start productivity in the gold sector by putting in place necessary conditions that would allow the gold sector to access offshore loans to resuscitate their operations.

The embedded merit in the policy decision to pay gold producers in physical gold was also to kill the parallel market as there is now no more any credible incentive for miners to criminalise themselves through smuggling activities when the policies have been realigned in their favour.

Of course, I need to once again reiterate our plea to the Legislature that they play their part in putting in place statutes and penalties that are stiff enough to deter smuggling and other economic crimes that weigh down recovery efforts. Dr Gono and his team can not be omnipresent to stop these illegalities everywhere and at all times unless if it is done as a collective effort.

MH: When you decided to make this policy shift, did you consult the politicians because reports say there are some who are uncomfortable with the liberalisation of the economy because it leaves the poor vulnerable?

DG: Be rest assured that we consulted widely. I have in my custody written submissions from stakeholders ranging from labour unions, the financial sector, business, politicians and other interested groups who were strongly recommending the measures we took.

Indeed, some of these will be made public so that facts are laid bare that we always consult widely before announcing major policy measures.

I am aware that some opportunistic politicians are already sharpening their spears, with some wanting to move motions in Parliament to stand in the way of some of the policies we recently announced. It is surely their constitutional right to do so.

Our advice is simply that as a people, we must avoid turning legitimate constitutional institutions of democracy into missiles meant to fight personal wars. This will not take us anywhere, as this defeats the tenets of democracy itself.

MH: Finally and in brief, Dr Gono, how much faith do you have in this policy shift? Are we not going to regret this decision in future?

DG: I am very thrilled about the deep congruency that is now there between fiscal and monetary policy frameworks. For any sober-minded person in our midst, even contemplating regret over policies that empower the majority of our farmers through fair pricing systems does constitute the height of judgmental impairment which is hard to explain.

My optimism is, of course, on the premise that the unfolding commonality of purpose on the political front is allowed to take root, grounded on nothing else but the desire to move the Zimbabwean economy forward.