Stories

MDC says new maize price is a prescription for disaster- The Movement for Democratic Change today said the new maize and sorghum price set by the government at US$390 a tonne is a prescription for disaster because it will be cheaper for traders to import cheaper grain from the region rather than to buy locally. The party said, besides, Zimbabwe was the only country in the region with a grain deficit. All other states had surpluses with Zambia holding stocks in excess of two years of consumption. Prices in these countries were also way below the new price set by the government, the party said, adding that the government must allow local farmers to use genetically modified seed. “So long as the Zimbabwe government continues to deny Zimbabwean farmers security of tenure acceptable as security for bank financing, and continues to undermine land prices through its arbitrary and politically motivated land invasions, farmers will be unable to finance their activities on a sustainable basis,” the MDC said in a statement.  “These problems are compounded by the continued failure of government to get to grips with the ongoing banking crisis associated with the near total absence of liquidity. These fundamental problems are compounded by the refusal of the State to allow new GMO crop varieties to be provided to Zimbabwean farmers so that they can compete with their regional counterparts.  The consequences of this ill advised action by Government are far reaching – the State does not have the money to buy the crop at these inflated prices and the private sector will not be able to do so without running the risk of buying stocks that are overpriced. This means that the maize that remains on farms will not be sold this winter compounding their difficulties in financing the next crop.” Zimbabwe does not allow genetically modified foods in the country but they have been getting into the country somehow.

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Both houses of Parliament will resume sitting today after a month’s break.  Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda and President of the Senate Edna Madzongwe issued a strong warning against errant ministers when the two houses adjourned on 24 July.

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The closure of SW Radio Africa this month was sad but also revealing. It was sad in the sense that this was the closure of one media outlet that gave alternative views, but revealing in the sense that the station could not sustain itself after 13 years of funding from donors.

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An opposition politician has finally said what people have been waiting to hear. There is too much talk about elections. People need to breathe.  Politicians should focus on fixing the economy.

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Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai today said he had information that President Robert Mugabe was determined to confront the people by bringing back the militias to cow the nation instead of solving the current crisis and warned him that this would not be tolerated.

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A Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front mole told United States ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGee that Mugabe knew he was going to lose the March 2008 elections, five days before the poll, according to a report in BusinessWeek which raises, once again, the issue that a United States hedge fund bankrolled Mugabe’s violent campaign in the presidential elections run-off.

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The Movement for Democratic Change today said the new maize and sorghum price set by the government at US$390 a tonne is a prescription for disaster because it will be cheaper for traders to import cheaper grain from the region rather than to buy locally.

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Mutsvangwa says Mutasa is misleading Mujuru that she will succeed Mugabe- Zimbabwe’s Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Christopher Mutsvangwa, who is also the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front legislator for Norton, says ZANU-PF Secretary for Administration Didymus Mutasa is destroying the party and is misleading Vice-President Joice Mujuru into believing that she will succeed President Robert Mugabe.  In an interview with The Herald, in which the paper said he was speaking as a war veteran, Mutsvangwa also said that Mujuru should not be deceived by post-independence titles of office and she should stop deluding herself because she did not down a Rhodesian helicopter during the liberation war. He said Mutasa, now currently number four in the ZANU-PF hierarchy after Mugabe, Mujuru and Simon Khaya Moyo, was an opportunist who had joined the liberation struggle at the last moment but had been sowing seeds of disunity all along. Mutsvangwa claimed that Mutasa misled Edgar Tekere who was Mugabe’s number two to quit the party and form the Zimbabwe Unity Movement.  That was the end of Tekere’s political career. He also claimed that Mutasa misled Simba Makoni, who was also ranked as one of Mugabe’s potential successors, into quitting the party and later forming the Mavambo-Kusila-Dawn party. Makoni has been languishing in political oblivion since. Mutasa was now misleading Joice Mujuru to think she would take over from Mugabe as she is currently number two but he warned her: “We all know each other as comrades from the shared war effort. She should not be deceived by the post-independence titles of office. She was accorded them much later in our shared lives. “Zvekare hapana comrade akanga akatakura pfuti mbiri mbiri ari mumwe. Taingove mumwe neimwe. Kupedzisa nekukanda pasi manyepo ekudonhedza helicopter yemuvengi akaumbwa naWebster Shamu kumupembedza kuti abviswe kuvamwe macomrades. Ngatisanyengedzwe nePovho nemagwara atavakudyidzana nawo mushure mekupera kwehondo yerusununguko.”

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One puzzle of the world economy is that for 200 years, the world’s rich countries grew faster than poorer countries, a process aptly described by Lant Pritchett as “Divergence, Big Time.” When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776, per capita income in the world’s richest country – probably the Netherlands – was about four times that of the poorest countries. Two centuries later, the Netherlands was 40 times richer than China, 24 times richer than India, and ten times richer than Thailand.

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“Unfounded reports and speculation on the re-introduction of the local currency continue to undermine the government’s effort to restore confidence and macroeconomic stability,” Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said as he tried to reassure his audience that the Zimbabwe dollar was not coming back.

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