The Lion Holds A Conference for For Its Prey

Dr Evil and Mini-me: Robert "The Solution" Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai at the start of the Investment conference in Harare earlier today. It is a monumental waste of time and energy.

The predatory Inclusive Government duly tropped out of its offices today and gathered for an "Investment Conference" at a Harare hotel.

Don't laugh. They are dead serious about this.

Of course the attendees told them exactly where they could put their investment pleas.

The conference, though, is remarkable for the little-noticed fact that for the first time ever, Mugabe was exposed to the people he governs and they could put their questions directly to him.

Tervor Gifford of the Commercial Farmers Union wanted to know where the Inclusive Government stands on compensation for acquired farms.

Mugabe harangued the hall, insisting that nothing has changed. The dispossesed white farmers must go and get their compensation from Britain (which has denied all responsibility and even knowledge of such an obligation).

Fears around the possible seizure of companies, given impetus by this week's reports of the invasion of a gold mine, will also continue to dominate discussion tomorrow, when the conference resumes.

There is no need for this Investment Conference at all. More so one at which the threat to private property rights is amplified by the Head of State.

The Prime Minister said the Land Reform Programme is done and over with. Next is an audit, he insists and focus on "productivity". As for the farmers? "Losers weepers" appears to be attitude of this Inclusive Government.

On compensation, Prime Minister Mini-me agrees with his boss. In fact the postion that these farmers should get their compensation from Britain is now the official policy of the Inclusive Government.

Tally-ho, then, as the Terrible Twins go forth into the sunset, insisting that it is dawn.

As they say, you do not need to goad a hungry man into eating. If the policy signals being sent by this Inclusive Government were right, investments would come in of their own volition. We are a rich nation (to our eternal shame) and many an international company wants to come and set up shop here.

If the environment is right, everything falls into place.

Instead of inviting their prey into their den, Dr Evil and Mini-me should really be concentrating on putting the correct policy framework in place. A good place to start would be the successful and irreversible privatisation of loss-making government companies.

And then they must start making the right kind of noises to instill confidence in the market.

Overseas, they say "The Market Is A Coward". At the first sign of risk it turns tail and runs.

Which is what's happening in Zimbabwe.

Nothing will come from this Investment Conference primarily because the Inclusive Government has no clue how to go about creating a conducive atmosphere.

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Zimbabwe: Staring Into The Abyss Again

Of course, we can expect that those who have now adopted ZANU PF language although they claim to fight for "change" will label us "saboteurs", "divisive elements" or, if we are lucky, merely "skeptics".

But truth must be told.

And that truth is that, as I predicted to you last month, inflation figures just released show a 15% overall increase and a 24% percent increase in the cost of the standard food basket (I was out by one, at 25%, but close enough).

Civil servants to whom Tendai "Father Christmas" Biti is to give a big salary raise on July 16, are still earning US$100 a month.

It's no better in the private sector, with the RBZ revealing this week that our entire brood of 14 commercial banks hold a paltry US$600 million in their vaults (that is just interest to Bill Gates).

Suffer Continue, then.

Two weeks ago, it was also reported that two villagers had died here after they failed to raise the required US dollars for clinic and hospital fees, medication and so on.

Of course, this may well have been ZANU PF trying, as it always does, to influence the nation in its fight with the MDC-T for the restoration of the Zimbabwe dollar as our No 1 currency.

Still, there is no denying that the people are beginning to feel the pinch. Which is why the MDC-T is now panicking, threatening to pull out, yet getting dragged back in by their all-powerful leader, the Prime Minister.

Keep in mind that these figures just released do not take into account a further hike in the price of fuel in the last couple of weeks to more than a dollar and a half per litre of petrol.

It means 15% ain't nothing.

Next month, the figures will be worse.

Through all this, the Inclusive Government is sitting there, two parties trying to stare each other down while ignoring the raging inferno consuming the country.

Inflation figures such as these in an environment underpinned by the relatively stable US dollar and the strong Rand spell nothing short of disaster. And they expose the complete and utter ineptitude of the Inclusive Government.

The people are complaining but they are told to "listen to me" and do as they are told, swallow whatever tripe they are given. The Inclusive Government is not listening.

Then again, it is difficult to hear when you have your snout deep in the trough.

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Of Masochists and Apologists

Robert "The Solution" Mugabe, the dictator of Zimbabwe, and his wife, Grace, seen here being welcomed by Muamar Gaddafi of Libya to the African Union Summit in Sirte. Nothing has changed for "The Solution", who retains all his powers while the Prime Minister rather pitifully grasps at straws, such claiming credit for the skeletal US$950 million loan from the Chinese. (By the way, a diplomat here in Harare tells us the Chinese do not like giving aid, they prefer to advance "30 year loans", which they never demand back).

The Masochistic MDC-T and Tsvangirai apologists are at it again. They have a knack for painting themselves into a corner, together with their leader.

First it was the saluting thing, when truckloads of MDC-T supporters drove around Harare on February 11, when the Prime Minister was sworn in, singing, "Muchamusaluta chete Morgan". Meaning "You will salute Morgan whether you like it or not."

We know how that turned out.

The National Security Council is still to meet and the service chiefs pointedly tell the Prime Minister that they do not report to a Prime Minister, but to a Commander in Chief, one Robert "The Solution" Mugabe.

The apologists then turn around when this happens and say they do not care about salutes?! So why compose songs about them?

They say they do not care about SADC but at the first sign of an arrest or a refusal to swear one of theirs onto the Gravy Train, they scream that SADC must do something.

When SADC does nothing they say they never expected them to do anything anyway.

I wish they would all make up their minds.

This time, perhaps in desperation at the failure of the MDC-T and MDC-M to make a single policy, they are now frantically trying to claim credit for the skeletal aid coming in from China.

Of course it is ignorance, because even Tendai Biti himself told reporters as recently as last weekend that he had nothing to do with the US$950 million from China. Biti says it was negotiated starting a couple of years back by Gideon Gono and the Look East crowd.

Still, MDC-T apologists insist on waving this about as an MDC- triumph. When it does finally sink in just how utterly ridiculous they look aping a line disowned even by the MDC-T Secretary-General, they will say they do not care about that as well. Of that we can be certain.

They will then almost certainly turn to deriding the very same figure of US$950 million which, while they still think can be credited to the MDC-T, they are praising to high heaven as the Fountain of Zimbabwe's Economic Youth.

We can only look on bemused as they tie themselves into knots.

Perhaps one of these days they will realise that they should not set up their expectations on the basis of their wishes. It is easier and much more lucrative in the long run to instead boast about how the aid, once it arrives, is expertly utilised by the Finance Minister and PM to alleviate the suffering of people and inject policy and capital stimuli into the private sector in order to reignite investments.

But wait.

They can not claim any such credit, because no evidence of it exists. The PM and Finance Minister are instead operating a hunter-gatherer government, where they hunt only to feed their over sized and bloated civil service family.

How anyone can still insist that this Inclusive Impediment to the people's hopes be allowed to stay intact a day longer is beyond the grasp of the sane.

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Mugabe Goes For Broke. Flat Broke

The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai and his Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono, were threatening banks day before yesterday for not giving people such as these "small scale miners" pictured here millions of US dollars in loans. This as Mugabe and ZANU PF have decided they have nothing to lose and are escalating their Third Chimurenga with fresh farm attacks and invasions of mines. The Prime Minister appears content to let them get away with all this.

Robert "The Solution" Mugabe of Zimbabwe has decided he has nothing left to lose. A deliberate escalation of the "Third Chimurenga" has been now been adopted.

With the failure to get any aid from the Western nations whose diplomats he publicly calls "idiots", Mugabe has reverted back to fighting mode. As he has always said, he considers this a war between himself and the West. Imperialists, he calls them. Tsvangirai, he said, was just a proxy.

Now that the proxy has been converted and is now the Chief Public Relations Officer for Mugabe, The Solution is turning his guns back on the "real enemy".

So, the war resumes.

The result of this is that, in the near future, we are going to see Mugabe move in directions none of us ever thought could even be contemplated. Already, mining companies are being targeted as are two companies on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.

The problem is that when sudden shifts in policy like this occur, it always ends up as a free-for-all, with personal agendas and vendettas being pursued under the guise of enforcing the new policy imperative.

As I write, and with the FIFA 2010 World Cup around the corner, the Miekles family remains specified, any prospects of investment to woo 2010 tourists for the Miekles, at least, are in limbo.

And the desperation of this flat-broke Inclusive Thingy saw the Governor and the Prime Minister threaten local banks day before yesterday. The banks are sitting on US$600 million, complained the Governor, and yet they will not lend any of it to gold panners (makorokoza). The Prime Minister weighed in (the two attended a function for gold panners together).

They seem to fail to grasp a simple, elementary concept of commerce: you lend to people who are likely to actually pay back the loan and the interest. There are criteria to be met, such as provision of security or surety.

But no, the Inclusive Government, still pursuing discredited ZANU PF policies in Zimbabwe, wants to lead the solid banking institutions of Zimbabwe into the same bankruptcy that they have taken the economy of the country.

The banks are very sensibly ignoring all these noises. They have shareholders to account to, shareholders whom they can not beat up for asking awkward questions, like what the government of Zimbabwe does to its own shareholders: the voters.

So then, even as the Prime Minister promised that the 51% local shareholding requirement proposed for the mining sector will be revised, Mugabe sends his supporters out to do to mines what they did to farms.

What next?

Manufacturing companies? Supermarkets? Where will it end? Or will it?

And the Prime Minister?

He will continue to sit there watching the economic arsonists in ZANU PF fuel the raging fires? Will he continue to say Mugabe is the solution, "indispensable and irreplaceable"?

And the farmers who are being murdered still in their homes at the age of 80? "Blown out of proportion", as the PM said?

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Mugabe Already Abusing China Loan To Buy Votes/Loyalty

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, seen here a few days ago at a press conference at his Munhumutapa Building offices soon after his return from a begging trip to the US and Europe, is letting Mugabe and ZANU PF get away with buying loyalty and future votes using the aid from China. Rural farmers are already being registered to get fertiliser and other farming aid. The registration is being done through local ZANU PF structures and traditional leaders

ZANU PF has asked its structures in the rural areas to register people who will recieve fertiliser and other incentives, all of which will come out of the US$950 million finance facility that the government is getting from China.

Almost certainly, the condition for being registered to receive this aid will be that one be a member of ZANU PF.

This comes hot on the heels of the revival of ZANU PF "boot camps" for youths, who will continue to be indoctrinated and fed hate speech against the British, Americans and other "imperialists".

Regrettably, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, has agreed to the continuation of the Border Gezi training camps. These camps gave birth to the notorious "Green Bombers" who were used as a paramilitary force by ZANU PF in the urban and rural areas, terrorising opposition activists and ordinary voters into "supporting" ZANU PF.

Tsvangirai agreed to the continuation of Border Gezi training earlier this year, telling news reporters that the youths would be trained in a "non-partisan" manner.

Quite how this will be enforced is anybodys guess. The MDC-T and the MDC-M do not even know what the curricula of the camps is. The Minister in charge of the training of these youths is from ZANU PF. Added to this, military personnel will also "assist" in the training.

The training had been halted because of lack of funds, as the ZANU PF regime was so broke that it was struggling to even pay attention, let alone run indoctrination camps.

With the arrival of Chinese loans and "bridging finance", the training will now resume and the resumption was announced by Saviour Kasukuwere, the ZANU PF minister of all things youth.

It is a tragedy all this.

A tragedy because, yet again, we see the Inclusive Government endorsing the practice of underhand vote and loyalty-buying.

Now, when we are supposed to diverting money to urgent life-saving issues, the Inclusive Government is instead using precious little aid from China to dish out fertiliser and other inputs to rural farmers who are already being told that the President (Robert "The Solution" Mugabe), has sourced money from China wth Gono to give them these goodies because Morgan Tsvangirai has failed to secure assistance for them from the West.

That the MDCs appear comfortable with this status quo is disturbing.

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