Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

Finance Minister Tendai Biti (above), has identified civil service reform as a crucial area to be given special attention and Morgan Tsvangirai bemoaned last month the existence of more than 16 000 ghost workers (mostly ZANU PF Youth Militia) on government payroll. One of Mugabe's most senior people, however, has effectively ensured that the audit never takes place, after refusing to cooperate with a World Bank technical team appointed by Tsvangirai. Harare, Zimbabwe, 18 November 2009 One of the men I exposed earlier this year as the three men who actually run Zimbabwe has overruled Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his Minister of Public Service and blocked the World Bank from conducting an audit of the country's civil service. Mariyawanda Nzuwa, the Public Service Commissioner in Zimbabwe, has refused to hand over the list of civil servants requested by the World Bank, which has been appointed by the government to provide technical assistance on a civil service audit exerc...

Smiling at each other while holding knives behind their backs, the parties to the Inclusive Government are engaged in shocking dereliction of duty. While the country is burning, they are piddling. Not everything that must be done requires donor funds and that is where we need to start. Let the new blood show that it is indeed new, instead of giving the same politics as ZANU PF and The Solution. Harare, Zimbabwe, 27 September 2009 It is now apparent to any thinking Zimbabwean that neither Robert Mugabe nor Morgan Tsvangirai are capable or even willing to bring real change to the people of Zimbabwe. There's proof. There is a stalemate as I write, between the two, over the so-called "outstanding issues." They are barely talking to each other now. Mugabe has set up his own guerilla cabinet whose sole purpose is to ensure that ZAU PF retains active control in all ministries and arms of government. Which leaves the MDC ministers mere shadows, puppets on a string, like what is h...

With the failure by the MDC to bring in foreign aid and balance of payment support and the "pesky" demands by the MDC for equitable distribution of government posts, Mugabe and his crew have now decided to keep the MDC in government busy by inciting civil servants labour unions to march and protest against the ministries responsible, all held by Tsvangirai's party. Within a week or two, armed forces may be brought into play, to complain also about their measly salaries. Mugabe feels he no longer needs the MDC in government, since they have proved incapable of loosening the pruse strings of the West and Bretton Wooods. In a move incited by the Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe, Mariyawanda Nzuwa, George Charamba (Mugabe's spokesman) and Misheck Sibanda, the Secretary to the President and Cabinet, civil servants marched to the offices of two MDC-T ministers complaining about their "poor" salaries. The brains behind this scheme are now planning on roping in th...

Not long ago, Dr Simba Makoni spoke about what he called the "classic Yes Minister style" of Zimbabwe's government. For those who do not know, Yes Minister is a British comedy set in Whitehall, the seat of the government of the United Kingdom. In the comedy, people like Sir Humphrey actually run government business, telling a minister what he can and can not do, getting up to all sorts of tricks to ensure that their agenda (which they say is the national agenda), carries the day. Dr Makoni mentioned the issue of speeches, for instance. When he took over at the Ministry of Finance, he found that his speeches were written for him by the civil servants.  Worse, these speeches would not be given to him until just before he got into his car to go to the function where they were to be delivered. To get around this, and being a fully technologically literate person, he asked for a computer to be put into his office. He also demanded that the computer be given Internet and intran...

It turns out Zimbabwe's new prime minister was not catered for in the budget drawn up and announced by Patrick Chinamasa just before the MDC agreed to join government. Because there is no specific budget for his office, I understand Tsvangirai's office is currently living off the budget of the Office of The President. Which means we can say, just as with the Ministers of State in the President's office, the Prime Minister's Office should also be known as the Prime Minister In The President's Office. You will recall that Chinamasa budgeted a blanket US$30 million in salaries for the civil service. In the breakdown of the ministerial allocations, Tsvangirai office is missing. It is unclear why this was so, especially considering the ZANU PF position back then of trying to show SADC that it was bending over backwards to accommodate the MDC and its leader. Still, it all works out fine. I doubt that the US$30million will mean anything at all to this new monstrous behemo...

Zimbabwe's new finance minister, MDC's Tendai Biti, held a press conference today which took me aback a bit. Biti, speaking about the need to pay salaries for civil servants in foreign currency (soldiers have already been given their forex "allowance"),  said "We need to get Zimbabwe working again." He repeated this phrase three times. Most of you will recall that Simba Makoni's campaign line was "Let's Get Zimbabwe Working Again." He uses that still as his signature. So is Biti trying to fulfill Makoni's promises? Of course, the words are apt and applicable right now. But I doubt that Biti understands the depth of the Statement as used by Simba Makoni. It is not just about paying for a bloated civil service, you see. When you imprison innocent people as bargaining chips in a power- game , Zimbabwe is not working. When you arrest a ministerial nominee on shaky charges and to score political points, Zimbabwe is not working. When your cit...