7 November 2008
opinion
A shocking report appearing in the New York Times on Monday claimed that the government of Zimbabwe spent US$7,3 million donated by a prominent international organisation to fight killer diseases on other things and has failed to honour requests to return the money.
The actions by Zimbabwe have deprived the organisation, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, of resources it needs and damaged efforts to expand life-saving treatment, said its inspector-general, John Parsons. He said Zimbabwe's actions also jeopardised a more ambitious $188 million Global Fund grant to Zimbabwe, due for consideration by the fund's board today.
Parsons said Zimbabwean officials claim they had not repaid the money because they did not have enough foreign currency. But Health minister Dr David Parirenyatwa yesterday promised to clear all outstanding obligations, which he put at around US$6,5 million, over the next seven days. Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono pledged support.
"The breakdown of trust between the Global Fund and Zimbabwe's government comes at a time of widening humanitarian crisis and casts further doubt on the willingness of Western donors to invest heavily in rebuilding the economically broken nation as long as Mugabe is in charge," the New York Times says.
Parsons said in an interview on Sunday that last year the Global Fund deposited $12,3 million in foreign currency into the Reserve Bank. He declined to speculate on how the $7,3 million it was seeking to be returned had been spent, except to say it was not on the intended purpose.
Should any of this come as a surprise? Civil society has repeatedly argued that the Reserve Bank is playing a questionable role in funding President Mugabe's political survival. Now everybody can see how. The victims in this story are the poor and the vulnerable.
Sikanyiso Ndlovu, asked about the missing millions from the Global Fund, accused the organisation of having standards.
"They always want to put certain standards and concoct certain things to make us look bad and horrendous in international eyes," he said.
Parsons pointed out the human dimension of the Reserve Bank's failure to hand over the money for disease fighting.
"The Global Fund has brought in large quantities of medicines that can cure malaria, but has been able to finance the training of only 495 people to distribute them safely instead of the planned 27 000," he told the New York Times.
"There were 2,7 million cases of malaria among Zimbabwe's 12 million people in the World Health Organisation's most recent estimates. The drugs expire by the middle of next year, and it would be criminal if we can't use them because of these problems," Parsons said. "They've got quite a short shelf life."
We only wish the same were true of Ndlovu!
Evidence of just how destructive Zanu PF can be emerged this weekend with the news that one of the country's most productive farms has been seized by allies of President Mugabe.
The Sunday Telegraph reported last weekend that Doug Taylor-Freeme, one of the country's most respected farmers, had his property at Romsey, one of Zimbabwe's few remaining productive farms, invaded by allies of Mugabe last week despite half the country teetering on the brink of starvation.
Romsey, the Sunday Telegraph reports, has the only productive fields for miles around in the once-fertile Makonde South district, 90 miles north of Harare. Now it is under threat from Chief Nemakonde, a strong supporter of Mugabe and his Zanu PF party, whose land grab is being supported by local government officials.
"He has already taken over five formerly white-owned farms in the district, all of which are derelict after his efforts at planting failed," the paper says. "Taylor-Freeme (43) tried to continue his work after the demands started. But on Thursday evening, when he was planting a new crop of maize for the summer season, police arrived at the farm to enforce the wishes of Chief Nemakonde that all work be stopped. With five million people in Zimbabwe currently in need of United Nations food aid, even one of the police force admitted to the Sunday Telegraph that he felt the effort was 'mad'."
'Before he forced his way on to Mr Taylor-Freeme's land last week, Chief Nemakonde, who is in his late 60s and has several wives and scores of children, sent men to torch a field of winter wheat stalks. meaning there will be no hay for cattle.
"Mr Taylor-Freeme, one of just a few surviving white commercial farmers of the 4 000 whose land was targeted for seizure in 2000, said that he had been informed by local officials that a High Court order to evict the chief would be ignored.
"Some local police do not support this," he said. "So they had to send men from Harare, and even they don't like what they have to do, to stop me planting and prevent our community from coming on to chase the chief's people away again. So I am going back to the High Court seeking an order of contempt but this takes time, and meanwhile planting is paralysed."
"The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe failed to pay Mr Taylor-Freeme about £50 000 from his 2007 tobacco and wheat crop, which he was forced to sell through government agencies," the Sunday Telegraph reports. "While he has survived in part due to European Union aid intended to boost regional food production, he is particularly anxious because he has taken out loans of about £250 000 which he has already used to buy seed, fertiliser and fuel for his 800 acres. Even some local Zanu PF activists have sided with the farmer, conscious of how desperate the country now is for food."
"He must be allowed to plant," one said.
We would add that this is an emblematic display of Zanu PF's capacity to damage the economy. Here is a farmer who has done everything to work within the framework of government policies being hounded off his land by Mugabe's supporters acting in contempt of court orders and regardless of agricultural productivity.
Last week we heard Foreign Affairs minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi calling on ambassadors posted here to report "accurately" on local affairs. We suggest they include this episode in their reports as government holds out its begging bowl asking other countries to feed our population because we are no longer able to.
Readers may be interested in remarks on Zimbabwe made by Botswana's President Ian Khama in his state-of-the-nation address to parliament in Gaborone on Monday.
Khama said: "We remain serious-ly concerned about the failure to form a government that is widely accepted by the people of that country. We are of the further view that it is important for all Sadc member states
to uphold the regional standards they have collectively and voluntarily adopted. We strongly believe that the one viable way forward in Zimbabwe is to have a rerun of the presidential election under full international
sponsorship and supervision. That way a repeat of the past runoff presidential election, which was declared by regional and international observers to be neither free nor fair and was characterised by intimidation and violence, can be avoided. It should be unacceptable for ruling parties to seek to manipulate election outcomes to extend their stay in power, as this is bad for democracy on our continent."
Indeed. All he is stating is that Sadc should abide by the principles it has set itself, hardly a revolutionary position but one the Zanu PF regime has difficulty understanding.
Patrick Chinamasa was up in arms this week over Khama's speech, claiming that "evidence" of MDC violence had been passed to the Botswana authorities.
Why should Khama be expected to believe this claim when nobody in Zimbabwe does?
Khama's principled stance on Zimbabwe is like a beacon shining across the muddy waters of fudge and betrayal. The people of Zimbabwe will know who spoke out in defence of the exercise of their rights when the chapter on this sad episode of our history is eventually written.
We have heard much recently about the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority's attempts at changing the way people abroad see Zimbabwe. It is called "image perception management".
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