Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

Tendai Biti is sworn in as Minister of Finance by Mugabe in February this year in this photo. The smiles are long gone now, after Biti went after one of Mugabe's favourite persons, Gideon Gono. Now there is a concerted effort to get rid of him, with Mugabe launching a fresh campaign to first discredit Biti as someone who is working against the economic recovery that he is supposed to spearhead. Mugabe will now ask Tsvangirai (for the second time) to fire Tendai Biti as Minister of Finance and reassign him to another post in a reshuffle. The tactic is to distract the MDC relieving pressure that Mugabe now feels keenly on the "outstanding issues". Harare, Zimbabwe, 28 November 2009 In a move seen and even acknowledged by many in ZANU PF as a diversion tactic, Robert "The Solution" Mugabe has now renewed pressure on Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to fire Tendai Biti and has now started a campaign to "demonstrate that the Minister is working against the inter...

A change in monetary policy by Gideon Gono earlier this year has facilitated the externalisation of nearly US$45 million by mostly ZANU PF chefs and businessman connected to the crumbling party of Robert Mugabe. This rush to extrnalise has taken place in only the last month or so. Sources at teh Reserve Bank suspect that the policy shift that made this possible may have been crafted by Gono specifically to facilitate the externalisation of ill-gotten ZANU PF gains. Gono, in a barely noticed clause in his "dollarisation" monetary policy, liberalised the exchange regime extensively, allowing holders of foreign currency to take out a maximum of $250 000 out of Zimbabwe at a time, with no questions asked. Six former and reappointed ZANU PF ministers, two businessmen and three children of ZANU PF politubro members studying in an Asian country have all taken advantage of this relaxation to spirit out nearlt US$45million since then, according to a source at the Reserve Bank who says...

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...