Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono (above), is still operating pretty much as though he were the de facto Prime Minister he was before the formation of the coalition Government between Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe. Harare, Zimbabwe, 07 February 2010 Senior staff at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, headed by Mugabe's blue-eyed boy, Gideon Gono, have spent US$215 000 on food in the last month, with the money having been authorised by officials in Tendai Biti's Ministry of Finance. Biti is also the MDC-Tsvangirai Secretary-General. The Minister claims that this expenditure is being made without his knowledge and that he is being "circumvented"! Gono has been emboldened by Biti's failure to have him fired. Mugabe has personally and publicly said "Gono is not going anywhere, show me what wrong he has done." Quite a lot of wrong, he as done, it turns out. Recently, as Tendai Biti toured the world, going to America to lobby Congressmen to rem...

Zimbabwe police appear to have decided that chasing after protesters does not pay but that crime is the route to go. Several have been arrested in the last few months for robberies, mostly armed robberies, in a move that also shows that there are others within the force whose suffering has not blunted that their sense of right and wrong. Still, the underpaid civil servants in Zimbabwe, including policemen and Intelligence agents will continue to engage in these activities until and unless their working and remuneration conditions are improved Harare, Zimbabwe, 24 January 2010 Struggling Zimbabwe police officers have been in the news of late quite a lot for engaging in crime activities and the latest case involves a police officer and a Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operative, together with car dealers. Police in the Matabeleland South Province of Zimbabwe have now arrested four people, including the police officer and CIO operative. They have been charged with armed robbery a...

Buttock-waving Mugabe women supporters and youths disrupted a Constitutional Conference in Harare last July 14 (above), leading to police being called in to restore order and guard the meetings. Now, ZANU PF, Mugabe's party, and MDC-Tsvangirai have joined hands to loots funds allocated to the process by donors. The donors have responded by refusing to pay for lavish bar bills, room service and US$40 daily "allowances"for almost a thousand delegates, including gatecrashers and street kids who were allowed to attend the last workshop earlier this month. The organisers from ZANU PF and MDC responded by looting US$4 million given to them by Finance Minister and Tsvangirai confidante Tendai Biti Harare, Zimbabwe, 24 January 2010 Donors like the United Nations Development Fund have dumped the corruption-ridden Zimbabwe Constitution-making process amid claims by ZANU PF that the move is informed by the failure of Western governments to craft a Constitution on behalf of Zimbabwe....

"God helps those who help themselves to other people's money", appears to be the motto of the MDC-Tsvangirai. The party has admitted that it is investigating its own ministers, MPs and Councillors for corruption, theft and bribery. This is coming only after Simba Makoni of Mavambo Party publicly lambasted the MDC-T for being corrupt. MDC and Tsvangirai supporters, of course, would rather this corruption be swept under the carpet and they do not take kindly to the corruption being exposed. Harare, Zimbabwe, 09 January 2010 Barely a week after Simba Makoni, former presidential candidate and leader of the Mavambo.Kusile.Dawn Party in Zimbabwe, publicly criticised the MDC for corruption, greed and being compromised by ZANU PF, Morgan Tsvangirai's party announces that it is investigating three of its own ministers in the Inclusive Government for corruption and bribery. In a move that has humiliated the MDC-Tsvangirai supporters who have been denying all along that the MDC-...

It was in the Exhibit Room at the Harare Magistrates' Court (above) that two policemen and their civilian accomplices were caught red-handed demolishing a wall with hammers and chisels in a bid to get to US$1.5 million which was being kept there as evidence in a smuggling case. Harare, Zimbabwe, 31 December 2009 Times are still tough for Zimbabwe's underpaid policemen, it seems. Cephas Dumba and Talkmore Manyasha, two Harare-based policemen, tried to break into the Magistrates' Court in Zimbabwe's capital to steal US$1.5 million that was being kept under lock and key as evidence in the trial of that Mozambican who was caught a few days ago trying to smuggle the money out of Zimbabwe. The policemen have since been arrested, together with a University of Zimbabwe Engineering student and two other people, apparently initially attempted  to replace the one and half million US dollars evidence money with fake US dollar notes.A fake note dealer had given them US$400 000 for t...

After addressing a rally like this one in Mucheke last year, Morgan Tsvangirai went to a hotel in Masvingo Province for lunch with his delegation and met with local officials, running up a bill of more than US$2 000. Which he promptly refused to pay and is still refusing to pay because his party now says this is one of the perks of being in the Inclusive Government! Harare, Zimbabwe, 23 December 2009 The MDC-T, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, is refusing to pay for lunch that the Prime Minister and party president had at a Hotel in Masvingo during a rally held in Mucheke in 2008! The MDC-T has told management at the Mandava A1 Hotel that they are now part of the Government and the use of the hotel and the food served is one of the perks of ruling Zimbabwe. And we thought that it was only Mugabe and his crew who are used to taking things by force. MDC-Tsvangirai Provincial Chairperson in the Masvingo Province, where the free lunch was eaten, says the demand for payment from the hotel "ca...

Themba Mliswa (above), a staunch ZANU PF supporter and former sports agent in the UK, now lives on a farm in Karoi in Zimbabwe. The farm was invaded and taken from a white owner during Mugabe's land redistribution exercise. Now it emerges that a tobacco he owns has been fingered by the police for smuggling tobacco worth US$2 million. The company blames an unnamed manager, whom they say they have fired. He has not been named nor arrested for such a huge crime that sabotages efforts to put the country back on the right track economically Harare, Zimbabwe, 06 December 2009 While screaming and shouting about "genuine empowerment" as well as accusing the MDC-T especially, of sabotaging the recovery of Zimbabwe's economy, it now emerges that a company owned by a staunch Mugabe lackey and avid farm invader, Themba Mliswa, has been caught smuggling tobacco to Zambia, prejudicing Zimbabwe of foreign currency. Saltlakes, a company owned by Mliswa, who operates out of Mugabe...

Zimbabwe Finance Minister Tendai Biti has now asked the IMF to urgently release US$50 million to fund requirements for the 2009/2010 agricultural season, basically caving in to pressure from Mugabe's ZANU PF. It is also an indication that Zimbabwe is in big trouble, because the season (which informs the April 2010 harvest) has already advanced so far that the money will not make a difference at all. Biti has also outline how he wants the rest of the US$510 million from the IMF to be used and this is basically the same plan as presented by Gideon Gono, Governor of the Reserve Bank and Biti's nemesis. Harare, Zimbabwe, 27 November 2009 Zimbabwe's Finance Minister has given in to pressure from ZANU PF and instructed the International Monetary Fund to "urgently" release US$50 million of the US$500 million allocated to Zimbabwe a couple of months back to help the country withstand the global economic slump. In addition to the "urgent" disbursement, Biti has a...

Earlier this year, small-scale miners such as these ones mining diamonds in Marange, had to cough up US$20 000 each to be given licences so that they would not be harassed by the police as they panned and dug for gold and diamonds. Now, all those licences have been rescinded and they are not getting a penny of their money back. Politicians who had also paid the money to get claims they could speculate with are livid. And they are now after the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Mines, a former colleague of Gideon Gono at the Reserve Bank. Harare, Zimbabwe, 22 November 2009 The government of Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai has stolen US$800 000 collected as fees from struggling small-scale miners in Zimbabwe, who had to cough it up in order to be given "licences" to continue or commence their backbreaking activities. Instead of giving them the licences, however, the government has simply turned around and "nullified" all licences and applications from the min...

The IMF has called on Tendai Biti to budget for the Reserve Bank after the Bretton Woods Institution uncovered scandalous theft of statutory reserve money by the Central Bank to continue funding quasi-fiscal operations this year. Books at the Central bank have also been cooked to allow for the dispersal of money belonging to banks to fund foreign trips by government officials and certain well-known shoppers at taxpayers' expense. Gono did not seek or get approval from Biti for this shady behaviour. He acted like he was the Finance Minister Harare, Zimbabwe, 30 October 2009 We revealed on this blog a little while back that Mugabe had given Gideon Gono widespread ministerial powers and that the MDC-T were aware of this fact. The IMF, after an audit of the Reserve Bank, has effectively confirmed our story, revealing that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe continues to steal funds its custody and using these to continue quasi-fiscal operations. The Central has been taking money belonging to...

With Zimbabwe's roads still in a deplorable condition, littered with potholes such the one in Harare City above shown in this picture, a senior ZANU PF minister and trusted aide to Mugabe has publicly demanded that Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono return US$7 million that he siphoned from a bank account belonging to Zimbabwe's Roads Agency. He is threatening to let Tendai Biti loose on Gono is the Governor continues to ignore letters sent to him demanding repayment of the misappropriated money. Harare, Zimbabwe, 28 October 2009 A senior ZANU PF minister has turned on Gideon Gono, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in parliament, saying he had stolen money from the bank account of the Zimbabwe National Roads Authority (ZINARA) and was refusing to give it back. Minister of Transport and Communications Nicholas Goche (also a negotiator for Mugabe in the negotiations with the MDC, leading to the formation of the Inclusive Government) told a Parliamentary Committee that Gono ...

Harare, Zimbabwe, 26 October 2009 The highly inefficient and struggling Zimbabwean National Airline, Air Zimbabwe, is set to be privatised, according to the Zimbabwe Inclusive Government (which is still operational, by the way, because the MDC "disengaged" from ZANU PF and NOT Government). Last week, I told you about the airline's failure to pay its workers since February this year, when the Inclusive Government was formed. The airline previously relied on Gideon Gono and the Reserve Bank for funds to pay salaries and operating costs. It emerges now that the airline has a debt totalling US$28 million. They can not retrench staff because they do not the money for the required retrenchment packages. (like other government-owned companies, the airline has an unhealthy and bloated staff complement as a result of ZANU PF patronage). The culture of entitlement at the airline and in ZANU PF generally has seen the workers gang up through their union to resist any move to retrenc...

A Mugabe Minister has been revealed in court to have sent police to confiscate more than 124 000 carats of diamonds from the offices of Africa Consolidated Resources. The police have never issued a receipt for the diamonds, and those diamonds have never been accounted for, either in government or anywhere else. So no one is sure whether it was the Minister who took the diamonds or whether they were confiscated officially by government. Harare, Zimbabwe, 11 October 2009 ZANU PF Mines Minister under the previous ZANU PF-only government stole about 125 000 carats of diamonds from the offices of the company that previously held the licence for the Chiadzwa Diamond Fields. Police sent in to raid the offices of the company took away the diamonds, Africa Consolidated Resources, according to information revealed in court. They did not give receipt for the diamonds and instead said that they had been send by Mines Minister Amos Midzi. The police did not deny the allegations in court, leading th...

BP Shell in Zimbabwe (pictured above), who had concluded a deal to sell their assets and company in Zimbabwe to a South African and Kenyan Oil consortium are now likely to see the deal scuppered by a Zimbabwean minister who actually has a personal interest in the oil business. Harare, Zimbabwe, 02 October 2009 At a time when Zimbabwe is looking for foreign direct investment (FDI), a ZANU PF minister in this so-called Inclusive Government is poised to scupper one of the largest investment deals in Zimbabwe since 1999. Saviour Kasukuwere, the ZANU PF minister in charge of the Youth Development and Indigenisation ministry has confirmed that he is likely to stop the takeover of BP Shell assests in Zimbabwe by a South African company, Engen, which has got together with a West African Oil company to buy up the assets and the company. BP Shell has more than 75 Service Stations (Gas Stations) in the country and it one of the largest oil companies operating in Zimbabwe. Kasukuwere says he will ...

Harare, Zimbabwe, 21 September 2009 Out in Chiredzi, a disturbing thing is happening. Most of the farms in the area, which was established by Ian Smith's Rhodesian Government as the base for Zimbabwe's massive sugar-cane industry, have already been acquired by the government and cut up into pieces to be given to black farmers. Now, these same black farmers are waking up everyday to find their sugar cane fields harvested and the cane is being sold openly to the Sugar factories based in the area. It is understood that a Colonel, a Lieutenant in the Zimbabwe army, together with ZANU PF officials in the area and some as far away as Masvingo, are behind most of these thefts. The reason is that, apart from maintenance, once you have sugar cane, you do not have to do much planting, buying of seeds or even ploughing. You just make sure that your field is kept in good order. These people who are stealing the sugar have been given farms elsewhere, but those farms require some work, as in...