The Insider

Prime Minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai refused to go along with the Southern African Development Community’s decision that his party share the Ministry of Home Affairs with President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front saying no deal was better than a bad deal.

(53 VIEWS)

Botswana President Ian Khama said he believed that he was being isolated within the Southern African Development Community because of his outspokenness.

(69 VIEWS)

Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa’s budget for 2003 was laden with inconsistencies and was likely to destroy its exporters, one of the only remaining sources of forex, the United States embassy said.

(50 VIEWS)

The heads of eight large business corporations launched the Business Initiative in Zimbabwe to build dialogue with President Robert Mugabe’s government hoping to win the President’s trust by underwriting projects that he approved of.

(53 VIEWS)

The government which had previously rejected genetically modified food is reported to have accepted the food aid in 2002 but on condition that it would be quarantined to allow Zimbabwe’s agricultural scientists to closely monitor its shipment, milling and distribution in the country.

(91 VIEWS)

The United States embassy which had described Herbert Murerwa as a decent but ineffective minister when he was removed from Finance to Higher Education, published a short biography of Murerwa when he was reappointed Finance Minister after the sacking of Simba Makoni.

(618 VIEWS)

United States ambassador to Zimbabwe James McGhee said there was so much bad blood between the two secretaries of the Movement for Democratic Change Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube that they presented their positions as contradictory even when both were saying the same thing.

(198 VIEWS)

Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba is reported to have told Prime Minister designate Morgan Tsvangirai that his government wanted a lasting solution to the Zimbabwe crisis so a government of national unity must be established.

(63 VIEWS)

Botswana’s Foreign Minister Phandu Skelemani told United States diplomats that the power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe was dead and Movement for Democratic Change leader and Prime Minister designate Morgan Tsvangirai might announce the withdrawal of the MDC from outside Zimbabwe to avoid being arrested.

(59 VIEWS)

African Union Commission deputy chairperson Erastus Mwencha told United States diplomats that it was important to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis before the January 2009 AU summit in Addis Ababa because it would dominate the event and some AU leaders would tear President Robert Mugabe apart.

(70 VIEWS)