Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

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 knowled...

Morgan Tsvangirai chats to clients at Stanbic Bank during last year's cash shortages. Stanbic appears now to be one of the worst banks in Zimbabwe, destroying confidence in the banking system by taking more than three days to do an electronic transfer that should be instant, according to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. For three days now, Stanbic Bank in Zimbabwe (part of the Standard Bank of South Africa Group) has been failing to make an electronic transfer of funds from a funded account at their bank to the payee at Barclays Bank. An electronic transfer is supposed to be instant or at worst to be effected overnight. But three days later, Stanbic are still to make the payment. There is no explanation about why this is so. The acount from which they should transfer the money is funded, they accepted the order and stamped it. Which begs the question: What is Stanbic doing with people's money held by them? It also raises other questions. Such as: With a banking system so utterly u...

Deputy PM Arthur Mutambara at the World Economic Forum a couple of weeks back. He is spearheading a doomed drive to "rebrand" Zimbabwe. Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara personally called yesterday to invite us to a "Rebranding Zimbabwe" workshop due to be held here in Harare tomorrow (25 June 2009). Unfortunately, Dr Makoni had a prior engagement and had to send regrets for this event. (Some exciting things are happening here and Zimbabwe will experience a political earthquake in the next few days!) But it all just got me thinking: This is an exercise in futility. Some things will actually need to change before Zimbabwe can spend money on rebranding. Right now, the only thing that has changed is that the two MDCs are now part of ZANU PF. Other than that, repressive laws are still in operation, for example. Journalists are still barred from Zimbabwe, sewage continues to flow in the streets, democracy activists continue to be harassed and arrested, WOZA proteste...